Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

He sang with all his voice and all his heart's blood. The song came valiantly out, flinging itself against the might of the Black Mouth's song. It had a power of its own, a power to counteract the evil that would otherwise have drawn all the herders out towards the source of that other melody.

The herders listened with grim intensity to what he sang. Yet they were not idle. Lashed to the tree trunks, they cast their line nets before them, trapping the creatures that poured past them to the undeniable call.

Poyly and Gren could not make out the words of Iccall's song. They had not been trained to it. Its message was overridden by the emanations from the mighty Mouth.

Wildly, they fought against that emanation – wildly but fruitlessly. Despite themselves, they stumbled on. Fluttering things struck them on the cheeks. The whole black and white world heaved and crawled in one direction alone! Only the herders were immune while they listened to Iccall's song.

When Gren stumbled, galloping vegetable creatures hopped over him.

Then the jumpvils poured by, teeming through the jungle. Still desperately listening to Iccall's song, the herders snared them as they flocked past, staying them and slaying them in the middle of the melee.

Poyly and Gren were passing the last of the herders. They were moving faster as the dreadful melody grew stronger. The open lay ahead of them. Framed in a canopy of foreground branches stood the distant Black Mouth! A strangled cry of – what? admiration? horror? – was torn from their lips at that spectacle.

Terror now had forms and legs and feelings, animated by the Black Mouth's song.

Towards it – they saw with their drained eyes – poured a stream of life, answering that accursed call, making as fast as it could go over the lava field, and up the volcanic slopes, and finally throwing itself in triumph over the lip and into that great aperture!

Another chilling detail struck their eyes. Over the edge of the Mouth appeared three great long chitinous fingers which waved and enticed and kept time to the fateful tune.

Both the humans screamed at the sight – yet they redoubled their speed, for the grey fingers beckoned them.

'O Poyly! O Gren! Gren!'

The cry came as a will o' the wisp. They did not pause. Gren managed a quick glance back, towards the jolting blacks and greys of the forest.

The last herder they had passed was Yattmur; regardless of Iccall's song, she threw off the thong that tied her to the tree. Her hair was flying wild, she was plunging knee deep through the tide of life to join them. Her arms stretched out to him like those of a lover in a dream.

In the weird light her face was grey, but bravely she sang as she ran, a song like Iccall's to counteract that other evil melody.

Gren faced ahead again, looking towards the Black Mouth, and instantly forgot about her. The long beckoning fingers beckoned him alone.

He had hold of Poyly's hand, but as they dashed past one of the outcrops of rock, Yattmur snatched his free hand.

For a saving moment they paid her attention. For a saving moment her brave song rose uppermost in their attention. Like a flash the morel seized this chance to break from bondage.

'Swerve aside!' it twanged. 'Swerve aside if you wish to live!'

A peculiar-looking copse of young shoots stood just by their path. Labouring hand in hand, they turned into its doubtful refuge. A jumpvil hurtled in ahead of them, no doubt looking for a short cut in its stampede. They plunged into the grey gloom.

At once the Black Mouth's monstrous tune lost much of its power. Yattmur fell against Gren's breast and sobbed – but all was still far from well.

Poyly touched one of the slender rods near her and screamed. A glutinous mass slid from the rod and over her head. She waved it and clutched it, hardly knowing what she did.

In despair they stared about, realizing they were in some kind of small enclosure. Their faulty vision had deceived them into entering a trap. Already the jumpvil that had entered before them was inextricably caught by the mess extruded from the rods.

Yattmur grasped the truth first.

'A greenguts!' she cried. 'We've been swallowed by a green-guts!'

'Cut our way out, quickly!' twanged the morel. 'Your sword, Gren – fast, fast! It's closing on us.'

The gap had shut behind them. They were totally enclosed. The 'ceiling' started to crumble and come down on them. The illusion of being in a copse faded. They were in a greenguts's stomach.

Wrenching out their swords, they began to defend their lives. As the rods about them – rods growing so cunningly to suggest the trunks of saplings – buckled and telescoped, so the ceiling lowered, its folds oozing a suffocating jelly. Jumping high, Gren slashed mightily with his sword. A great split appeared in the greenguts's envelope.

The two girls helped him to enlarge it. As the bag crumpled down, they managed to get their heads through the rent, thus avoiding certain death.

But now the older menace reasserted itself. Again the death wail from the Mouth seized them by their bloodstreams. They hacked with redoubled energy at the greenguts, to get loose and answer that chilling call.

They were free now but for their feet and ankles, which were stuck in the jelly. The greenguts was firmly anchored to a shoulder of rock so that it could not obey the call of the Black Mouth. It had collapsed entirely now, its solitary eye mournfully, helplessly, regarding their attempts to cut it to pieces.

'We must go!' Poyly cried, and at last managed to drag herself free. With her aid, Gren and Yattmur also broke away from the ruined creature. It closed its eye as they hurried off.

The delay had been longer than they knew. The ooze on their feet impeded them. They made their way over the lava as well as they could, still jostled by other creatures. Yattmur was too exhausted to sing again. Their wills were blotted out by the strength of the Black Mouth's song.

Thev started to scramble up the slopes of the cone, surrounded by a galloping phantasmagoria of life. Above them the three long fingers waved in sinister invitation. A fourth finger appeared, and then a fifth, as if whatever it was in the volcano was working itself up to a climax.

Their eyes saw everything in a fuzz of grey as the melody swelled to an unbearable intensity and their hearts laboured. The jumpvils really showed their paces, their long back legs enabling them to bound up the steeper slopes. They poured by, jumped on to the lip of the crater and then took their final leap to whatever lured them.

The humans were filled with longing to meet the dread singer... Panting, impeded by the mess about their feet, they scrambled across the last few yards that separated them from the Black lip.

The dreadful melody ceased in mid-note. So unexpected was it, they fell flat on their faces. Exhaustion and relief washed over them. They lay with closed eyes, sobbing together. The melody had stopped, had stopped, entirely stopped.

After many pulses of his blood had gone by, Gren opened one eye.

The colours of the world were returning to normal again, white flooding with pink again, grey turning to blue and green and yellow, black dissolving into the sombre hues of the forest. By the same token, the overmastering desire in him turned to a revulsion for what they had been about to do.

The creatures round about that were too late to suffer the privilege of being swallowed by the Black Mouth evidently felt as he did. They turned and limped back towards the shelter of the forest, slowly at first and then faster, until their earlier stampede was reversed.

Soon the landscape was deserted.

Above the humans, five terrible long fingers came to rest precisely together on the lip of the Black Mouth. Then one by one they were withdrawn, leaving Gren with a vision of some unimaginable monster picking its teeth after an obscene repast.