Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

'Make them throw their net over the side and catch fish,' twanged the morel.

'Good!' Gren said. He jumped up, pulling Yattmur with him, and began shouting orders at the Fishers.

Miserably, incompetently, f awningly, they arranged their net and cast it over the side of the vessel. The sea here teemed with life. No sooner was the net down than something big tugged at it – tugged and began unfalteringly to climb it.

The boat listed over to one side. With a cry, the Fishers fell away as a great pair of claws rattled over the gunwhales. Gren was beneath them. Without thought, he pulled out his knife and smote.

A lobster head bigger than his own loomed up before him. An eyestalk went flying – and another, as he smote again.

Soundlessly, the marine monster released its hold and fell back into the depths, leaving a frightened band of Fishers moaning in the scuppers. Almost as frightened himself – for he sensed the morel's fear in his mind – Gren rounded on them, kicking and shouting.

'Get up, you flabby tummy-bellies! Would you lie there and die? Well I won't let you. Get up and haul the net in again before we get any more monsters in on us. Come on, move! Get this net in! Jump to it, you blubbering brutes!'

'O great herder, you may throw us to the wonders of the wet world and we will not complain. We may not complain! You see we praise you even when you fetch up the beasts of the wet world upon us and we are too lowly to complain, so be merciful -'

'Merciful! I'll flay you alive if you don't get that net in at once. Move!' he yelled, and they moved, the hair on their flanks fluttering in the breeze.

The line came over the side laden with creatures that splashed and flapped about their ankles.

'Wonderful!' Yattmur cried, squeezing Gren. 'I am so hungry, my love. Now we shall live! Soon there will be an end to this Long Water, I know.'

But the boat drifted as it would. They went to sleep once more and then a second time, and the weather grew no warmer and then they woke to find the deck motionless beneath them.

Gren opened his eyes. A stretch of sand and bushes met his gaze. He and Yattmur were alone in the boat.

'Morel!' he cried, leaping to his feet. 'You never sleep – why did you not wake me and tell us that the water had stopped? And the flabby-bellies have escaped!'

He looked round at the ocean that had brought them here. Yattmur stood up silently, hugging her breasts and regarding with wonder a great peak that rose sheer from the nearby bushes.

The morel made something like a ghostly chuckle in Gren's mind. "The Fishers will not get far – let them find out the dangers for us first. I let you and Yattmur sleep on so that you would feel fresh. You need all your energies. This may be the place where we build our new kingdom, my friend!'

Gren made a doubtful move. No traversers were visible overhead, and he took it as a bad omen. All there was to be seen, apart from the forbidding island and the wastes of ocean, was a speedseed bird, sailing along under the ceiling of high cloud.

'I suppose we'd better get ashore,' Gren said.

I'd rather stay in the boat,' Yattmur said, eyeing the great cliff of rock with apprehension. But when he put out a hand to her, she took it and climbed over the side without fuss.

He could hear her teeth chattering.

They stood on the unwelcoming beach, testing it for menace.

The speedseed still flew along in the sky. It changed direction by a degree or so without interrupting the pulse of its flight. High over the ocean it soared, its wooden wings creaking like a fully rigged sailing ship.

The two humans heard its noise and looked up. The speed-seed had sighted land. Slowing, it circled and began to lose height.

'Is it after us?' Yattmur asked.

A choice of cover presented itself. They could hide under their boat, or they could dive into the fringe of jungle that curled over the low forehead of the beach. The boat was flimsy shelter from a large bird, should it choose to attack; together, man and woman slid into the foliage.

Now the speedseed was plunging steeply. Its wings did not retract. Stiffly outspread, they jarred and vibrated through the air under increased momentum.

Formidable though it was, the speedseed remained but a crude imitation of the true birds which had once filled the skies of Earth. The last of the true birds had perished many eons ago, when the sun had begun to pour out increased energy as it moved into the last phase of its existence. Speedseeds imitated the form of an extinct avian class with a lordly inefficiency in keeping with the supremacy of the vegetable world. The vibratory racket of its wings filled the heavens.

'Has it seen us, Gren?' Yattmur asked, peering from under the leaves. It was cold in the shadow of the towering cliff.

For answer Gren merely clutched her arm tightly, staring up with slitted eyes. Because he was both frightened and angry, he did not trust himself to speak. The morel offered him no comfort, withdrawing itself to await events.

It now became obvious that the clumsy bird could not straighten out in time to avoid hitting the land. Down it came, its shadow swept black over the bush, the leaves stirred as it shot past behind a nearby tree – and silence fell. No sound of impact reached the humans, though the bird must have hit the ground not more than fifty yards from them.

'Living shades!' Gren exclaimed. 'Did something swallow it?'

His mind backed hurriedly away from trying to visualize something big enough to swallow a speedseed bird.

THEY stood waiting, but nothing interrupted the silence.

'It vanished like a ghost!' Gren said. 'Let's go and see what happened to it.'

She clung to him to hold him back.

'This is an unknown place, full of unknown perils,' she said. 'Let us not seek trouble when trouble is ready enough to seek us. We know nothing of where we are. First we must find what kind of place this is, and if we can live here.'

'I would rather find trouble than let it find me,' Gren said. 'But perhaps you are right, Yattmur. My bones tell me that this is not a good place. What has happened to those stupid tummy-belly men?'

They emerged on to the beach and started to walk slowly along it, the whole time looking watchfully about them, keeping an eye open for signs of their pitiful companions, moving between the flatness of the sea and the steepness of the great cliff.

The signs they looked for were not far to seek.

'They've been here,' said Gren, running along the strand.

Scuffed footprints and droppings marked the place where the tummy-belly men had paddled ashore. Many of the prints were imprecise and pointed this way and that; handprints also were not uncommon, marking where the creatures had stumbled into one another and fallen. The marks clearly betrayed the lumpish and uncertain way in which the tummy-bellies had progressed. After a short distance they led into a narrow belt of trees with leathery and sad leaves that stood between beach and cliff. As Gren and Yattmur followed the prints into the gloom, a low sound made them stop. Moans came from near at hand.

Drawing out his knife, Gren spoke. Looking into the grove that drew nourishment what it could from the sandy soil, he called, 'Whoever you are, come out before I haul you out squealing!'

The moans redoubled, a low threnody in which babbled words were distinguishable.

'It's a tummy-belly!' Yattmur exclaimed. 'Don't be angry with him if he's hurt.' Her eyes had adjusted to the shade, and now she ran forward as she spoke and knelt on the sandy ground among the sharp grasses.

One of the fat Fishers lay there with three of his companions huddled against him. He shuddered violently away, half-rolling over, as Yattmur appeared.