Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

'But for the greenguts we'd be dead by now,' he said. 'Are you all right, Poyly?'

'Let me alone,' she said. Her face remained buried in her hands.

'Are you strong enough to walk? For the gods' sake let's get back to the herders,' he said.

'Wait!' Yattmur exclaimed. 'You deceived Hutweer and the others into thinking you were great spirits. By your running to the Black Mouth, they will know now you are not great spirits. Because you deceived them, they will surely kill you if you return."

Gren and Poyly looked at each other hopelessly. Despite the manoeuvres of the morel, they had been pleased to be with a tribe again; the prospect of having to wander alone once more did not please them.

'Fear not,' twanged the morel, reading their thought. 'There are other tribes! What of these Fishers of which we heard? They sounded a more docile tribe than the herders. Ask Yattmur to lead us there.'

'Are the Fishers far away?' Gren asked the girl herder.

She smiled at him and pressed his hand. 'It will be pleasant to take you to them. You can see where they live from here.'

Yattmur pointed down the flanks of the volcano. In the opposite direction to that from which they had come, an opening was apparent at the base of the Black Mouth. From the opening came a swift broad stream.

'There runs Long Water,' Yattmur said. 'Do you see the strange bulb-shaped trees, three of them in number, growing on the bank? That is where the Fishers live.'

She smiled, looking Gren in the face. The beauty of her stole over his senses like a tangible thing.

'Let's get out of this crater, Poyly,' he said.

'That dreadful singing monster..." she said, stretching out a hand. Taking it, Gren pulled her to her feet.

Yattmur regarded them both without speaking.

'Off we go, then,' she said sharply.

She took the lead and they began sliding down towards the water, ever and anon glancing back fearfully over their shoulders to make sure that nothing came climbing out of the volcano after them.

AT the foot of the Black Mouth they came to the stream called Long Water. Once they had escaped from the shadow of the volcano, they lay in the warmth by the river bank. The waters ran dark and fast and smooth. On the opposite bank, the jungle began again, presenting a colonnade of trunks to the onlookers. On the near bank, lava checked that luxuriant growth for some yards.

Poyly dipped her hand into the water. So fast was it running that a bow wave formed against her palm. She splashed her forehead and rubbed her wet hand over her face.

'I am so tired,' she said, 'tired and sick. I want to go no farther. All these parts here are so strange – not like the happy middle layers of jungle where we lived with Lily-yo. What happens to the world here? Does it go mad here, or fall apart? Does it end here?'

'The world has to end somewhere,' Yattmur said.

'Where it ends may be a good place for us to start it going again,' twanged the morel.

'We shall feel better when we are rested,' Gren said. 'And then you must return to your herders, Yattmur.'

As he looked at her, a movement behind him caught his eye.

He spun round, sword in hand, jumping up to confront three hairy men who seemed to have materialized out of the ground.

The girls jumped up too.

'Don't hurt them, Gren,' Yattmur cried. 'These are Fishers and they will be perfectly harmless.'

And indeed the newcomers looked harmless. At second glance, Gren was less sure that they were human. All three were plump and their flesh beneath the abundant hair was spongy, almost like rotting vegetable matter. Though they wore knives in their belts, they carried no weapon in their hands, and their hands hung aimlessly by their sides. Their belts, plaited out of jungle creepers, were their only adornments. On their three faces, their three expressions of mild stupidity were so simliar as to represent almost a uniform.

Gren took in one other noteworthy fact about them before they spoke: each had a long green tail, even as the herders had said.

'Do you bring us food for eating?' the first of them asked.

'Have you brought us food for our tummies?' asked the second.

'Can we eat any food you have brought?' asked the third.

"They think you are of my tribe, which is the only tribe they know,' Yattmur said. Turning to the Fishers, she replied, 'We have no food for your bellies, O Fishers. We did not come to see you, only to travel.'

'We have no fish for you,' replied the first Fisher, and the three of them added almost in chorus, 'Very soon the time for fishing will be here.'

'We have nothing to exchange for food, but we should be glad of some fish to eat,' Gren said.

'We have no fish for you. We have no fish for us. The time for fishing will soon be here,' the Fishers said.

'Yes. I heard you the first time,' Gren said. 'What I mean is, will you give us fish when you have it?'

'Fish is fine to eat. There is fish for everyone when it comes.'

'Good,' Gren said, adding for the benefit of Poyly, Yattmur and the morel, 'these seem very simple people.'

'Simple or not, they didn't go chasing up the Black Mouth trying to kill themselves," the morel said. 'We must ask them about that. How did they resist its beastly song? Let's go to their place, as they seem harmless enough.'

'We will come with you,' Gren told the Fishers.

'We are going to catch fish when the fish come soon. You people do not know how to catch.'

'Then we will come and watch you catch fish.'

The three Fishers looked at each other, a slight uneasiness ruffling the surface of their stupidity. Without saying a word more, they turned and walked away along the river bank. Given no option, the others followed.

'How much do you know of these people, Yattmur?' Poyly asked.

'Very little. We trade sometimes, as you know, but my people fear the Fishers because they are so strange, as if they were dead. They never leave this little strip of river bank.'

'They can't be complete fools, for they know enough to eat well,' Gren said, regarding the plump flanks of the men ahead.

'Look at the way they carry their tails!' Poyly exclaimed. 'These are curious folk. I never saw the like.'

"They would be simple for me to command,' thought the morel.

As they walked, the Fishers reeled in their tails, holding them in neat coils in their right hands; the action, done so easily, was clearly automatic. For the first time, the others saw that these tails were extraordinarily long; in fact, the ends of them were not visible. Where they joined the Fishers' bodies, a sort of soft green pad formed at the base of their spines.

Suddenly and in unison the Fishers stopped and turned.

'You can come no further now,' they said. 'We are near our trees and you must not come with us. Stop here and soon we will bring you fish.'

'Why can't we come any farther?' Gren asked.

One of the Fishers laughed unexpectedly.

'Because you have no tail! Now wait here and soon we will bring you fish.' And he walked on with his companion, not even bothering to look back and see if his order was being obeyed.

'These are curious folk,' Poyly said again. 'I don't like them, Gren. They are not like people at all. Let us leave them; we can easily find our own food.'

'Nonsense! They may be very useful to us,' twanged the morel. 'You see they have a boat of some kind down there.'

Farther down the bank, several of the people with long green tails were working. They laboured under the trees, dragging what looked like some sort of a net into their boat. This boat, a heavy barge-like craft, rode tight in against the near bank, plunging occasionally in the stiff current of Long Water.

The first three Fishers rejoined the main party and helped them with the net. Their movements were languid, although they appeared to be working with haste.