Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

As compensation, a spring of pure water surged out of the rock, larking among the big tumbled stones which covered much of the islet. First they heard its music, then they saw it. The little stream cascaded down on to a strip of beach and so into the sea. With one rush, they ran along the sand to it, drinking there without waiting to gain a less brackish draught higher up.

Like children, they forgot their cares. When they had drunk too much and belched sufficiently, they plunged into the water to bathe their limbs, although the chill of it did not tempt them to stay there for long. Then they began to make themselves at home.

For a time they lived on the islet and were content. In this realm of eternal sunset, the air was cool. They devised themselves better body covering from leaves or trailing moss, binding the latter tightly round their bodies. Mists and fogs swallowed them from time to time; then the sun would shine again, low over the sea. Sometimes they would sleep, sometimes would lie on the sunward-facing rocks idly eating fruit while listening to the icebergs groan as they sailed by.

The four tummy-belly men built themselves a crude shelter a distance apart from Gren and Yattmur. During one sleep it collapsed on top of them. After that they slept in the open, huddled together under leaves as close to their masters as Gren would allow.

Being happy again was good. When Yattmur and Gren made love together, the tummy-bellies would jump about and hug each other with excitement, praising the agility of their clever clutching master and his sandwich lady.

Huge seed pods grew and clattered overhead. Underfoot ran vegetable equivalents of lizards. In the air fluttered cordate butterflies with wide wings that lived by photosynthesis. Life continued without the punctuation of nightfall or sunrise. Sloth ruled; peace reigned.

The humans would have merged contentedly into this general pattern had it not been for the morel.

'We cannot stay here, Gren,' it said on one occasion, when Gren and Yattmur woke from a comfortable sleep. 'You have rested enough and been well refreshed. Now we must move again, to find more humans and establish our own kingdom.'

'You speak nonsense, morel. Our boat is lost. We must always remain on this island. Chilly it may be, yet we have seen worse places. Let us stay here in content.'

He and the girl were splashing naked through a series of pools which had formed among the big square blocks of stone on the crown of the islet. Life was sweet and idle, Yattmur kicked her pretty legs and sang one of her herder's songs: he was loath to listen to that dreary voice in his head. More and more it came to represent something he disliked.

Their silent conversation was interrupted by a squeal from Yattmur.

Something like a hand with six bloated fingers had seized her ankle. Gren dived for it and pulled it away without difficulty. It struggled in his grasp as he examined it.

'I'm silly to make a noise,' Yattmur said. 'It is just another of those creatures that the tummy-bellies have named crawl-paws. They swim out of the sea on to land. If the tummy-bellies catch them, they split them open and eat them. They are tough but sweet to taste.'

The fingers were grey and bulbous, wrinkled in texture and extremely cold. They flexed slowly as Gren held them. Finally he dropped it on to the bank, where it scuttled off into the grass.

'Crawlpaws swim out of the sea and burrow into the ground. I've watched them,' Yattmur said. Gren made no answer.

'Does anything trouble you?' she asked.

'No,' he said flatly, not wishing to tell her that the morel desired them to move again. He sank stiffly to the ground, almost like an old man. Though she was uneasy, she stifled her apprehensions and returned to the bathing place. Yet from that time on she was aware of Gren drawing away from her and becoming more closed in on himself; and she knew the morel was to blame for it.

Gren woke from their next communal sleep to find the morel already restless in his mind.

'You wallow in sloth. We must do something.'

'We are content here,' replied Gren sulkily. 'Besides, as I have said, we have no boats to get us to the big land.'

'Boats are not the only way of crossing seas,' said the fungus.

'Oh morel, cease being clever before you kill us with it. Leave us in peace. We're happy here.'

'Happy, yes! You would grow roots and leaves if you could. Gren, you do not know what life is for! I tell you that great pleasures and powers await you if you only let me help you stretch out for them.'

'Go away! I don't know what you mean.'

He jumped up as if to run away from the morel. It gripped him tightly, rooting him to the spot. Gathering strength, he concentrated on sending waves of hatred at the morel – uselessly, for its voice continued in his head.

'Since it is impossible for you to be my partner, you must suffer being my slave. The spirit of enquiry is all but dead in you; you will respond to orders but not to observation.'

'I don't know what you are saying!' He cried the words aloud, waking Yattmur, who sat up and gazed mutely at him.

'You neglect so much!' said the morel. 'I can only see things through your senses, yet I take the trouble to analyse and find what is behind them. You can make nothing from your data, whereas I can make a lot. Mine is the way to power. Look about you again! Look at the stones over which you climb so regardlessly.'

'Go away!' Gren cried again. Instantly he doubled up in anguish. Yattmur came running over to him, holding his head and soothing him. She peered into his eyes. The tummy-bellies came up silently to stand behind her.

'It's the magic fungus, isn't it?' she said.

Dumbly he nodded. Phantoms of fire chased themselves over his nerve centres, burning a tune of pain through his body. While the tune continued he could scarcely move. At length it passed. Limply he said, 'We must help the morel. He wishes us to explore these rocks more carefully.'

Trembling in every limb, he rose to do what was commanded of him. Yattmur stood with him, sympathetically touching his arm.

'When we've explored, we will catch fish in the pool and eat them with fruit,' she said, with a woman's talent for producing comfort when it was needed.

He flashed her a humble look of gratitude.

The big stones had long been part of the natural landscape. Where the brook ran among them they were buried in mud and pebbles. Grass and sedge grew on them, deep earth covered them in many places. In particular, here prospered a crop of the flowers that bore their seed pods aloft on tall stalks, which the humans had seen from the iceberg; these Yattmur had casually called Stalkers, without realizing until much later how appropriate the title was.

Over the stones ran the roots of the Stalkers, like so many lengths of petrified snake.

'What a nuisance these roots are,' grumbled Yattmur. "They grow everywhere!'

'The funny thing is the way the roots from one plant grow into another as well as into the ground,' Gren said, answering abstractedly. He was squatting by a branch of two roots, one of which ran back to one plant, one to another. After they had joined, they curled over a block of stone and down into an irregular gap between other stones to the earth.

'You can get down there. You will come to no harm,' said the morel. 'Scramble down between the stones and see what you can see.'

A hint of that painful tune sprang again over Gren's nerves.

He scrambled down between the blocks as he was directed, nimble as a lizard for all his reluctance. Feeling cautiously, he discovered that they rested on other blocks below, and those on other blocks below that. They lay loosely; by twisting his body he was able to slide himself down between their cool planes.