Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

Poyly's gaze wandered from them to the three trees in the shade of which they worked. She had never seen trees like them before, and their unusual aspect made her more uneasy.

Standing apart from all other vegetation, the trees bore a resemblance to giant pineapples. A collar of spiny leaves projected outwards direct from the ground, protecting the central fleshy trunk, which in each of the three cases was swollen into a massive knobbly ovoid. From the knobs of the ovoid sprouted long trailers; from the top of the ovoid sprouted more leaves, spiny and sharp, extending some two hundred feet into the air, or hanging stiffly out over Long Water.

'Poyly, let us go and look more closely at those trees,' the morel twanged urgently. 'Gren and Yattmur will wait here and watch us.'

'I do not like these people or this place, morel,' Poyly said. 'And I will not leave Gren here with this woman, do what you will.'

'I shall not touch your mate,' Yattmur said indignantly. 'What makes you think such a silly thing?'

Poyly staggered forward under a sudden compulsion from the morel. She looked appealingly at Gren; but Gren was tired and did not meet her eye. Reluctantly she moved forward and soon was under the bloated trees. They towered above her, casting a spiked shade. Their swollen trunks stuck out like diseased stomachs.

The morel seemed not to feel their menace.

'Just as I had assumed!' it exclaimed after a long inspection. 'Here is where the tails of our Fishers end. They are joined to the trees by their rumps – our simple friends belong to the trees.'

'Humans do not grow from trees, morel. Did you not know -' She paused, for a hand had fallen on her shoulder.

She turned. One of the Fishers confronted her, looking her closely in the face with his blank eyes and puffing out his cheeks.

'You must not come under the trees,' he said. 'Their shade is sacred. We said you must not come under our trees and you did not remember we said it. I will take you back to your friends who have not come with you.'

Poyly's eye travelled down his tail. Even as the morel had claimed, it joined on to the swelling of the nearest spiky tree. She felt a shiver of dread and moved away from him.

'Obey him!' twanged the morel. "There is evil here, Poyly. We must fight it. Let him walk with us back to the others and then we will capture him and ask him a few questions.'

This will cause trouble, she thought, but at once the morel filled her mind saying, 'We need these people and perhaps we need their boat.'

So she yielded to the Fisher and he grasped her arm and walked her slowly back to Gren and Yattmur, who watched this performance intently. As they went, the Fisher solemnly paid out his tail.

'Now!' cried the morel, when they reached the others.

Forced on by his will, Poyly flung herself on the Fisher's back. The move was so sudden that he staggered and fell forward.

'Help me!' Poyly called. Before she had spoken, Gren was springing forward with his knife ready. And at the same moment a cry came from all the other Fishers. They dropped their great net and began in unison to run towards Gren and his party, their feet padding heavily over the ground.

'Quickly, Gren, cut this creature's tail off,' Poyly said, prompted by the morel, as she struggled in the dust to keep her opponent down.

Without questioning her, for the morel's orders were in his mind too, Gren reached forward and slashed once.

The green tail was severed a foot from the Fisher's rump. At once the man ceased struggling. The tail that had been attached to him commenced a writhing motion, lashing the ground like an injured snake, and catching Gren in its coils. He slashed at it again. Leaking sap, it curled and went looping back to the tree. As if this were a signal, the other Fishers came to a standstill en masse; they milled about aimlessly and then turned and went indifferently back to loading their net into the boat.

'Praise the gods for that!' Yattmur exclaimed, brushing her hair back. 'What made you attack this poor fellow, Poyly, jumping on him from behind as you did with me?'

'All these Fishers are not like us, Yattmur. They can't be human at all – their tails attach them to the three trees.' Not meeting the other girl's eyes, Poyly stared down at the stump of tail on the fellow weeping at her feet.

'These fat Fisher people are slaves of the trees,' twanged the morel. 'It is disgusting. The trailers from the trees grow into their backbones and compel the men to guard them. Look at this poor wretch grovelling here – a slave!'

'Is it worse than what you do with us, morel?' Poyly asked, showing signs of tears. 'Is it any different? Why don't you let us go? I had no wish to attack this fellow.'

'I help you – I save your lives. Now, attend to this poor Fisher and let's have no more silly talk from you.'

The poor Fisher was attending to himself, sitting up and examining a knee that had been grazed in his fall on to the rock. He gazed at them with an anxiety that still did not remove the simplicity from his countenance. Huddled there, he looked like a roughly rounded lump of dough.

'You can get up,' Gren told him gently, extending his hand to help the fellow to his feet. 'You're shaking. There's nothing to be afraid of. We won't hurt you if you answer our questions.'

The Fisher broke into a torrent of words, most of it incomprehensible, gesturing with his broad hands as he talked.

'Speak slowly. You're talking about the trees? What are you saying?'

'Please... The tummy-tree, yes. I and them all one part, all tummy or tummy-hands. Tummy-head to think for me where I serve Tummy-trees. You kill my tummy-cord, I feel no good in my veins, no good sap. You wild lost people with no Tummy-tree, not have the sap to see what I say... '

'Stop it! Talk sense, you great tummy! You're human, aren't you? You call those big swollen plants Tummy-trees? And you have to serve them? When did they catch you? How long ago?'

The Fisher put his hand to the height of his knee, rolled his head stupidly and burst into speech again.

'No– high the Tummy-tree take us, cuddle, bed, save snugly like mothers. Babies go in the soft folds, just legs to see, keep on sucking at the tummy, get put on a tummy-cord to walk. Please you let me go back, try find a new tummy-cord or I'm a poor baby too without one.'

Poyly, Gren and Yattmur stared at him as he chattered, not taking in half he said.

'I don't understand,' Yattmur whispered. 'He talked more sense before his tail was cut off.'

'We've set you free – we'll set all your friends free,' Gren said, the morel prompting him. 'We'll take you all away from these filthy Tummy-trees. You'll be free, free to work with us and start a new life, slaves no longer.'

'No, no, please... Tummy-trees grow us like flowers! We have no want to be wild men like you, no lovely Tummy-trees -'

'Shut up about the trees!' Gren raised his hand and at once the other fell silent, biting his lips and scratching his fat thighs in anguish. 'We are your liberators and you should be grateful to us. Now, tell us quickly, what is this fishing we've heard about? When does it start? Soon?'

'Soon now, so soon, please,' the Fisher said, trying to catch Gren's hand in entreaty. 'Most times, no fishy swim in Long Water, cut too sharply on out the hole of Black Mouth, so no fish swim. And if no fish means no fishing, see? Then the Black Mouth sings to all things to be a meal for him in his mouth, and so Tummy-trees make us big mummy noise, cuddle us up, not let us be any meal in his mouth. Then short time Mouth make rest, no sing, no eat, no noise. Then Mouth drop away what he eat not need not eat not have, drop away in Long Water under his self. Then up come big fish big hunger big eat all drop-away pieces, we quick Tummy-men Fishers go out catch big fish big hunger in big net, feed big glad Tummy-tree, feed Tummy-men, all feed -'