Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

'Leave her alone!' Gren cried savagely, rising to his knees. 'You filthy hairy tummy-tails, if you touch her again I'll throw you down to the rocks!'

Yattmur peered at him with her lips drawn back so that her teeth showed. She said nothing.

Nobody spoke again until at last the stalker began to stir with a purposeful movement.

Gren felt the morel's combination of excitement and triumph as the tall-legged creature took its first step. One by one its six legs moved. It paused, gaining its balance. It moved again. It halted. Then again it moved, this time with less hesitation. Slowly it began to stalk away from the cliff, across the islet, down to the gently shelving beach where its kin had gone, where the ocean current was less strong. Beauty followed, flying overhead.

Without hesitation, it waded into the sea. Soon its legs were almost entirely immersed, and the sea slid by on all sides.

'Wonderful!' Gren exclaimed. 'Free of that hateful island at last.'

'It did us no harm. We had no enemies there,' Yattmur replied. 'You said you wanted to stay there.'

'We couldn't stay there for ever.' Contemptuously, he offered her only what he had said to the tummy-bellies.

'Your magic morel is too glib. He thinks only of how he can make use of things – of the tummies, of you and me, of the stalkers. But the stalkers did not grow for him. They were not on the island for him. They were on the island before we came. They grow for themselves, Gren. Now they do not go ashore for us but for themselves. We ride on one, thinking ourselves clever. How clever are we? These poor fisher-bellies call themselves clever, but we see they are foolish. What if we are also foolish?'

He had not heard her speak like this. He stared at her, not knowing how to answer her until irritation helped him.

'You hate me, Yattmur, or you would not speak like that. Have I hurt you? Don't I protect you and love you? We know the tummy-bellies are stupid, and we are different from them, so we cannot be stupid. You say these things to hurt me.'

Yattmur ignored all these irrelevancies. She said sombrely, as if he had not spoken. 'We ride on this stalker but we do not know where it is going. We muddle its wishes with our own.'

'It is going to the mainland of course,' Gren said angrily.

'Is it? Why don't you look about you?'

She gestured with a hand and he did look.

The mainland was visible. They had started towards it. Then the stalker had entered a current of water and was now moving directly up it, travelling parallel with the coast. For a long while, Gren stared angrily, until it was impossible to doubt what was happening.

'You are pleased!' he hissed.

Yattmur made no reply. She leant over and dabbled her hand in the water, quickly withdrawing it. A warm current had carried them to the island. This was a cold current the stalker waded in, and they moved towards its source. Something of that chill found its way up to her heart.

THE icy water flowed by, bearing icebergs. The stalker kept steadily on its course. Once it became partially submerged and its five passengers were soaked; even then its pace did not alter.

It was not alone. Other stalkers joined it from other islands off the coast, all heading in the same direction. This was their migratory time when they made for unknown seed beds. Some of them were bowled over and broken by icebergs; the others continued.

From time to time the humans were joined on their raft-like perch by crawlpaws similar to the ones they had encountered on the island. Grey with cold, the tuberous hands hauled themselves up out of the water, fumbling about for a warm place, scuttling furtively from one nook to another. One climbed on to Gren's shoulders. He flung it disgustedly far out to sea.

The tummy-bellies complained little about these visitors climbing coldly over them. Gren had rationed their food as soon as he realized they would not be getting ashore so quickly as expected, and they had withdrawn into apathy. Nor did the cold improve matters for them. The sun seemed about to sink into the sea, while a chill wind blew almost continuously. Once hail deluged down on them out of a black sky, almost skinning them as they lay defenceless.

To the least imaginative among them it must have seemed that they were taking a journey into nowhere. The frequent fog banks that rolled up round them increased that impression; and when the fogs lifted they saw on the horizon ahead a line of darkness that threatened and threatened and never blew away. But the time came when at last the stalker swerved from it course.

Huddled together in the centre of the seed cases, Gren and Yattmur were roused from sleep by the chatter of the three tummy-bellies.

'The watery wetness of the watery world leaves us cold tummy-belly men by going dripping down long legs! We sing great happy cries, for we must be dry or die. Nothing is so lovely as to be a warm dry tummy-chummy chap, and the warm dry world is coming to us.'

Irritably, Gren opened his eyes to see what the excitement was about.

Truly enough, the stalker's legs were visible again. It had turned aside from the cold current and was wading ashore, never altering its inflexible pace. The coast, covered thickly with the great forest, was near now.

'Yattmur! We're saved! We're going ashore at last!' It was the first time he had spoken to her in a long while.

She stood up. The tummy-bellies stood. The five of them, for once united, clasped each other in relief. Beauty flew overhead crying, 'Remember what happened to the Dumb Resistance League in '45! Speak out for your rights. Don't listen to what the other side are saying – it's all lies, propaganda. Don't get caught between Delhi bureaucracy and Communist intrigues. Ban Monkey Labour now!'

'Soon we will be dry good chaps!' cried the tummy-bellies.

'We'll start a fire going when we get there,' said Gren.

Yattmur rejoiced to see him in better spirits, yet a sudden wave of misgiving urged her to ask, 'How do we get down off here?'

Anger burnt in his eyes as he stared at her, anger at having his elation punctured. When he did not immediately reply, she guessed he was consulting the morel for an answer.

'The stalker is going to find a place to seed itself,' he said. 'When it finds a place, it will sink to the ground. Then we shall get off. You do not need to worry; I am in command.'

She could not understand the hardness of his tone. 'But you aren't in command, Gren. This thing goes where it will and we are helpless. That is why I worry.'

'You worry because you are stupid,' he said.

Although she was hurt, she determined to find all the possible comfort she could in the circumstances.

'We can all worry less when we get ashore. Then perhaps you will be less unkind to me.'

The shore, however, did not extend them a particularly warm invitation. As they looked towards it hopefully, a pair of large black birds rose from the forest. Spreading their wings, they sailed upwards, hovered, and then began to beat their way heavily through the air towards the stalker.

'Lie flat!' Gren called, drawing his knife.

'Boycott chimp goods!' Beauty cried. 'Don't allow Monkey Labour in your factory. Support Imbroglio's Anti-Tripartite scheme!'

The stalker was trampling through shallow water now.

Black wings flashed low overhead, thundering with a whiff of decay across the stalker. Next moment, Beauty had been snatched from its placid circling and was being carried coastwards in mighty talons. As it was borne off, its cry came back pathetically, 'Fight today to save tomorrow. Make the world safe for democracy!' Then the birds had it down among the branches.