Brian Aldiss - Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

'Carry us with you or come running gently beside your lovely riding machine!' cried the tummy-bellies, darting distractedly about and even rolling in the mud before their fierce-featured gods. 'Oh please kill us with lovely death only take us with you running and riding away from this Big Slope. Take us away from this Big Slope with the sandwich people and now this big roaring scratchy-carry-kind. Take us, take us, cruel lovely gods of sharp gods!'

'No, no, no. Gup gup go away, sprawly men! Sharpish we go, and come back in a quiet time for you soon!' cried the sharp-furs, bounding about.

All was activity. In no time, despite apparent chaos and indirection, the sharp-furs were moving, running beside and behind their sledge, pushing or braking as was needed, leaping over and on top of it, screaming, chattering, throwing up their gourd helmets and catching them, travelling over the uneven ground at speed, heading towards the glooms of the valley.

Bewailing their fate with gusto, the deserted tummy-bellies slunk back towards their cave, averting their eyes from the newcomers. As the yipping progress of the sharp-furs dwindled, Yattmur heard her baby's cry from the cave. Forgetting everything else, she ran and picked him up, dandled him until he gurgled with joy at her, and then took him outside to speak once more with the bulky figure.

It began to orate directly Yattmur reappeared.

"Those sharp-teeth sharp-fur kind have fled from me. Leaf-brained idiots they are – nothing more, animals with toads in their heads. Though they will not listen to me now, the time will come when they will have to listen. Their kind will be driven like hail on the winds.'

As the creature talked on, Yattmur observed him thoroughly, with growing amazement. She could not understand him properly, for his head, an enormous fish-like affair with a broad lower lip which turned down so far that it nearly concealed his lack of chin, was out of all proportion with the rest of his body. His legs, though bowed, were human in appearance, his arms were wrapped unmoving behind his ears, while from his chest a hairy, head-like growth seemed to emerge. Now and again she caught a glimpse of a large tail hanging behind him.

The pair of tattooed women stood by him, staring blankly ahead without appearing to see or think – or indeed to perform any activity more elaborate than breathing.

Now this strange bulky figure broke off his oration to gaze up at the thick clouds that masked the sun.

'I will sit,' he said. 'Place me on a suitable boulder, women. Soon the sky will clear, and then we shall see what we see.'

The order was not addressed to Yattmur, or the tummy-bellies, who clustered forlornly at their cave mouth, but to the tattooed women. They watched as he moved forward with his dull retinue.

A tumble of boulders lay nearby. One was large and flat-topped. By this the odd trio halted – and the bulky figure split into two as the woman lifted the top part off the bottom! Half of him lay flat and fishy on the boulder, the other half stood bowed nearby.

Comprehension made Yattmur gasp, even as the tummy-bellies behind her wailed in dismay and raced each other into the cave. The bulky creature, the catch-carry-kind as the sharp-furs called him, was two separate creatures! A giant fish shape, much like one of the dolphins she had seen during their voyage over the wastes of the ocean, had been carried by a stooped old human.

'You are two people!' she exclaimed.

'Indeed I am not!' said the dolphin-thing from its slab. 'I am known as the Sodal Ye, greatest of all Sodals of the catch-carry-kind, Prophet of the Nightside Mountains, who brings you the true word. Have you intelligence, woman?'

About the man who had carried him clustered the two tattooed women. They did nothing effectual. They waved their hands at him without speaking. One of them grunted. As for the man, he had obviously been at his carrying for many seasons of fruit. Though the weight had gone from his shoulders, he remained bent as if he bore it yet, standing like a statue of dejection with his withered arms still circling the air above him, his back bowed, his eyes fixed only on the ground. Occasionally he shifted his stance; otherwise he was immobile.

'I asked you if you had intelligence, woman,' said the being who called himself Sodal Ye, his voice as thick as liver. 'Speak, since you can speak.'

Yattmur pulled her eyes away from this horrifying porter and said, 'What do you want here? Have you come to be helpful?'

'Spoken like a human woman!'

'Your women here don't seem to speak much!'

'They're not human! They cannot speak, as you should know. Have you never met any of the Arablers, the tattoo tribe before? Anyhow, why do you ask Sodal Ye for help? I am a prophet, not a servant. Are you in trouble?'

'Grave trouble. I have a mate who -'

Sodal Ye flipped one of his fins.

'Cease. Don't bother me with your tales now. Sodal Ye has more important things to do – such as watching the mighty sky, the sea in which this tiny seed Earth floats. Also, this Sodal is hungry. Feed me and I'll help you if I can. My brain is the mightiest of all things on the planet.'

Ignoring this boast, Yattmur said, indicating his motley retinue, 'What of these companions of yours – aren't they hungry too?'

'They'll be no trouble to you, woman; they eat the bits that Sodal Ye leaves.'

'I'll feed you all if you will truly try to help me.'

She bustled off, ignoring the new speech on which he had launched himself. Already Yattmur felt that this was a creature – unlike the sharp-furs – with which she could deal; a conceited and intelligent being that was nevertheless vulnerable; for she saw clearly that she had only to kill his porter to render the sodal helpless – should that be necessary. Meeting someone with whom she could negotiate from a position of strength was like a tonic; she felt nothing but goodwill towards the sodal.

The tummy-belly men had always been as gentle as mothers with Laren. She handed him to them, seeing that they settled contentedly to amuse him before gathering food for her strange guests. Her hair dripped as she went, her clothes began to dry on her, but she took no notice.

Into a big gourd she crammed the remains of the leather-feather feast and other edibles the tummy-bellies had collected: sprouts from the stalker grove, nuts, smoked mushrooms, berries and the fleshy fruits of the gourd. Another gourd stood full of water that had dripped through the fissured roof of the cave. She carried that out too.

Sodal Ye still lay on his boulder. He was bathed in an eerie cream light and did not move his eyes from the direction of the sun. Setting the food down, Yattmur looked where he did.

The clouds had parted. Over the dark and rugged sea of landscape, low hung the sun. It had changed its shape. Distorted by atmosphere, it was oblate: but no distortion of atmosphere could account for the great red-white wing which it had sprouted, a wing grown almost as large as its parent body.

'Oh! The blessed light takes wing to fly away and leave us!' Yattmur cried.

'You are safe yet, woman,' Sodal Ye declared. 'This I foresaw. Do not worry. To bring me my food would be more useful. When I tell you about the flames that are about to consume our world, you will understand, but I must feed before I preach.'

But she fixed her eyes on the strange sight in the heavens. The storm centre had passed from the twilight zone into the regions of the mighty banyan. Above the forest, the clouds piled cream on purple; lightning flashed almost without cease. And in the centre of it hung that deformed sun.

Uneasily, when the Sodal called again, Yattmur brought the food forward.

At this moment, one of the two wretched women began to vanish from where she stood. Yattmur almost dropped the gourds, staring in fascination. In very little time, the woman existed only as a smudge. Her tattoo lines alone remained, a meaningless scribble in the air. Then they too faded and were gone.