Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

'When your distant predecessor, man, was ruler of this planet, he had a way with the overcrowded bed in his garden. He transplanted or weeded out. Now, somehow, nature has invented her own gardener. The rocks have shaped themselves into transmitters. Probably there are stations like this all round the coasts... stations where any near-mindless thing can be accepted for onward transmission... stations where plants can be transplanted... '

'Transplanted where!' Gren asked. 'Where was that place?'

Something like a sigh floated down the aisles of his mind.

'Can't you see I'm guessing, Gren? Since I have joined forces with you, I have become part human. Who knows the worlds available to different forms of life? The sun means one thing to you and another to a flower. To us the sea is terrible; to that great creature we saw... There would be neither words nor thought to describe where we went; how could there be, when it was so patently the product of... non-ratiocin-active processes... '

Gren got unsteadily to his feet.

'I want to be sick,' he said.

He staggered out of the cave.

'To conceive of other dimensions, other modes of being -' continued the morel.

'For soul's sake, shut up!' Gren cried. 'What does it matter to me that there are places – states – I can't... can't attain. I can't, and that's that. It was all a beastly mirage, so leave me alone, will you? I want to be sick.'

The rain was abating a little. It pattered lightly on his backbone as he arched it to lean a head forward against a tree. His head throbbed, his eyes watered, his stomach heaved.

They would have to make sails from the big leaves and sail away from here, he and Yattmur and the four surviving tummy-belly men. They must get away. As it had become colder, they might have to make coverings for themselves out of those same leaves. This world was no paradise, but in some respects it was manageable.

He was still throwing up the contents of his stomach when he heard Yattmur calling.

He looked up, grinning feebly. She was coming back to him along the rainy beach.

THEY stood hand in hand, as confusedly he tried to tell her of his experiences in the cave.

'I'm glad you came back,' she said gently.

He shook his guilty head, thinking how beautiful and strange the experience had been. Weariness filled him. He dreaded the thought of their having to put to sea again, yet obviously they could not remain on this island.

'Get moving, then,' said the morel inside his head. 'You're as slow as a tummy-belly.'

Still holding Yattmur's hand, he turned and they trudged slowly back down the beach. A chilly wind blew up, carrying the rain out to sea. The four tummy-belly men stood huddling together where Gren had told them to wait. They fell on the sand in self-abasement as Gren and Yattmur came up.

'You can stop that,' he told them without humour. 'We've all got work to do, and you are going to do your share.

Slapping their fat flanks, he drove them before him towards the boat.

A breeze blew over the ocean as bright and sharp as glass.

To the occasional traversers that soared far overhead, the boat with its six passengers looked like nothing more than a drifting log. It floated now far beyond the island of the tall cliff.

The sail of large and crudely stitched leaves hung from an improvised mast; but adverse winds had long since torn it, robbing it of usefulness. In consequence the boat now moved without control and was carried eastwards on a strong thermal current.

The humans watched with either apathy or anxiety, according to their natures, as they were swept along. They had eaten several times and slept much since sailing away from the island of the tall cliff.

Much lay on either side for them to see when they cared to look. To port ran a long coastline, presenting from this distance an unbroken aspect of forest on its cliffs. Throughout uncounted watches it had remained the same; when hills appeared inland, as they did with increasing frequency, they too were clothed in forest.

Between coast and boat, small islands sometimes interposed themselves. On these grew a variety of foliage the mainland lacked, some being crowned by trees, some being covered in strange blossoms, some remaining mere barren humps of rock. Sometimes it appeared that the boat would be dashed against the shoals that fringed these islands: but so far it had always been carried clear at the last moment.

To starboard stretched the infinite ocean. This was now punctuated by evil-looking shapes of whose nature Gren and Yattmur had as yet no clue.

The helplessness of their position, as well as the mystery of it, bore down on the humans, though they were used to a subordinate place in the world. Now to add to their troubles a mist came up, closing round their boat and hiding all landmarks from them.

'It's the thickest mist I have ever seen,' Yattmur said, as she stood with her mate staring over the side of the boat.

'And the coldest,' Gren said. 'Have you noticed what is happening to the sun?'

In the gathering mist, nothing now could be seen except the sea immediately about the boat and a great red sun which hung low over the water in the direction from which they had come, dangling a sword of light across the waves.

Yattmur pressed more tightly to Gren.

"The sun used to be high above us,' she said. 'Now the watery world threatens to swallow it.'

'Morel, what happens when the sun goes?' Gren asked.

'When the sun goes, there is darkness,' twanged the morel, adding with gentle irony, 'as you might have deduced for yourself. We have entered the realm of eternal sunset and the stream carries us deeper and deeper into it.'

It spoke reservedly, yet a tremor ran through Gren at the fear of the unknown. He held more tightly to Yattmur as they stared fixedly at the sun, dull and huge through the moisture-laden air. As they watched, one of the phantom shapes they had observed to starboard intervened between them and the sun, taking a great jagged bite out of it. Almost at the same time, the mist thickened and the sun was lost to view.

'Ohhh! Ahhh!' At the sun's disappearance, a cry of dismay rose from the tummy-bellies. They had been cuddled together on a pile of dead leaves in the stern. Now they came scampering forward, seizing Gren's and Yattmur's hands.

'O mighty master and sandwich-makers!' they cried. 'All this mighty watery world sailing is too much badness, too much badness, for we have sailed away and lost all the world. The world has gone by bad sailing and we must quickly good-sail to get it back.'

Their long hair glistened with moisture, their eyes were in a fine frenzy rolling. They bounched up and down, crying their woes.

'Some creature has eaten the sun, O great herder!'

'Stop your silly noise,' Yattmur said. 'We are as frightened as you are.'

'No we are not,' Gren exclaimed angrily, dashing their clammy hands from his flesh. 'Nobody could be as frightened as they are, for they are always frightened. Stand back, you blubbering tummy-bellies! The sun will come again when the mist clears.'

'You brave cruel herder,' one of the creatures cried. 'You have hidden the sun to scare us because you love us no more, though we happily enjoy your lovely blows and happy good bad words! You -'

Gren struck out at the man, glad to relieve his tensions in action. The poor fellow reeled backwards squealing. His companions fell on him instantly, cuffing him for not enjoying the mighty hurts with which his master honoured him. Savagely, Gren pulled them away.

As Yattmur came to his aid, a shock sent them all reeling. The deck canted sharply, and they sprawled together, six of them in a heap. Splinters of a jagged transparent stuff showered on to them.