Brian Aldiss: Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

About them the forest throbbed, green creatures sped and snapped through the greenery, as the wiltmilt was devoured.

'The climb is hard. Begin quickly,' Lily-yo said, looking restlessly about her, and laying a particularly severe look on Gren.

'Why climb?' Gren asked rebelliously. 'With dumblers we can fly easily to the Tips and suffer no pain.'

It was too complicated to explain to him that a human drifting in the air was far more vulnerable than a human shielded by a trunk, with the good rough bark nodules to squeeze between in case of attack.

'While I lead, you climb,' Lily-yo said. 'You talk so much you must have a toad in your head.' She could not hit Gren; he was a tabu man child.

They collected their souls from their nuthuts. There was no pomp about saying good-bye to their old home. Their souls went in their belt, their swords – the sharpest, hardest thorns available – went in their hands. They ran along the branch after Lily-yo, away from the disintegrating wiltmilt, away from their past.

Slowed by the younger children, the journey up to the Tips was long. Although the humans fought off the usual hazards, the tiredness growing in small limbs could not be fought. Half way to the Tips, they found a side branch to rest on, for there grew a fuzzypuzzle, and they sheltered in it.

The fuzzypuzzle was a beautiful, disorganized fungus. Although it looked like nettlemoss on a larger scale, it did not harm humans, drawing in its poisoned pistils as if with disgust when they came to it. Ambling in the eternal branches of the tree, fuzzypuzzles desired only vegetable food. So the group climbed into the middle of it and slept. Guarded among the waving viridian and yellow stalks, they were safe from nearly all forms of attack.

Flor and Lily-yo slept most deeply of the adults. They were tired by their previous journey. Haris the man was the first to awake knowing something was wrong. As he roused, he woke up Jury by poking her with his stick. He was lazy; besides, it was his duty to keep out of danger. Jury sat up. She gave a shrill cry of alarm and jumped at once to defend the children.

Four winged things had invaded the fuzzypuzzle. They had seized Veggy, the man child, and Bain, one of the younger girl children, gagging and tying them before the pair could wake properly.

At Jury's cry, the winged ones looked round.

They were flymen!

In some respects they resembled humans. That is to say, they had one head, two long and powerful arms, stubby legs, and strong fingers on hands and feet. But instead of smooth green skin, they were covered in a glittering horny substance, here black, here pink. And large scaly wings resembling those of a vegbird grew from their wrists to their ankles. Their faces were sharp and clever. Their eyes glittered.

When they saw the humans waking, the flymen grabbed up the two captive children. Bursting through the fuzzypuzzle, which did not harm them, they ran towards the edge of the branch to jump off.

Flymen were crafty enemies, seldom seen but much dreaded by the group. They worked by stealth. Though they did not kill unless forced to, they stole children, which was reckoned almost a graver crime. Catching them was hard. Flymen did not fly properly, but the crash glides they fell into carried them swiftly away through the forest, safe from human reprisal.

Jury flung herself forward with all her might, Ivin behind her. She caught one of the flymen's ankles before he could launch himself, seizing part of the leathery tendon of wing where it joined the foot, and clung on. The flyman staggered with her weight and turned to free himself, releasing his hold on Veggy. His companion, taking the full weight of the boy child, paused, dragging out a knife to defend himself.

Ivin flung herself at him with savagery. She had mothered Veggy: he should not be taken away. The flyman's blade came to meet her. She threw herself on it. It ripped her stomach till the brown entrails showed, and she toppled from the branch with no cry. There was a commotion in the foliage below as trappersnappers fought for her as she fell.

Knocked backwards by Ivin's charge, the flyman dropped the bound Veggy and left his friend still struggling with Jury. He spread his wings, taking off heavily after the two who had borne Bain away between them into the green thicket.

All the group were awake now. Lily-yo silently untied Veggy, who did not cry, for he was a man child. Meanwhile Haris knelt by Jury and her winged opponent, who fought without words to get away. Haris raised his knife to settle the struggle.

'Don't kill me. I will go!" cried the flyman. His voice was harsh, his words hardly understandable. The mere strangeness of him filled Haris with savagery, so that his lips curled back and his tongue came quickly between his teeth.

He thrust his knife deep between the flyman's ribs, four times over, till the blood poured across his clenched fist.

Jury stood up gasping and leant against Flor. 'I grow old,' she said. 'Once it was no trouble to kill a flyman.'

She looked at the man Haris with gratitude. He had more than one use.

With one foot she pushed the limp body over the edge of the branch. It rolled messily, then dropped. With its old wizened wings tucked uselessly about its head, the flyman fell to the green.

THEY lay among the sharp leaves of two whistlethistle plants, dazed by the bright sun but still alert for danger. Their climb had been completed. Now the nine children saw the Tips for the first time – and were struck mute by it.

Once more Lily-yo and Flor lay seige to a burnurn, with Daphe helping them to shade it with upheld leaves. As the plant slumped defencelessly, Daphe severed six of the great transparent pods that were to be their coffins. Hy helped her carry them to safety, after which Lily-yo and Flor dropped their leaves and ran for the shelter of the whistlethistles.

A cloud of paperwings drifted by, their colours startling to eyes generally submerged in green: sky blues and yellows and bronzes and a viridian that flashed like water.

One of the paperwings alighted fluttering on a tuft of emerald foliage near the watchers. The foliage was a dripper-lip. Almost at once the paperwing turned grey as its small nourishments content was sucked out. It disintegrated like ash.

Rising cautiously, Lily-yo led the group over to the nearest cable of traverser web. Each adult carried her own urn.

The traversers, largest of all creatures, vegetable or otherwise, could never go into the forest. They spurted out their line among the upper branches, securing it with side strands.

Finding a suitable cable with no traverser in sight, Lily-yo turned, signalling for the urns to be put down. She spoke to Toy, Gren, and the seven other children.

'Now help us climb with our souls into our burnurns. See us tight in. Then carry us to the cable and stick us to it. And then good-bye. We Go Up, and leave the group in your hands. You are the living now!'

Toy momentarily hesitated. She was a slender girl, her breasts like pearfruit.

'Do not go, Lily-yo,' she said. 'We still need you, and you know we need you.'

'It is the way,' Lily-yo said firmly.

Prising open one of the facets of her urn, she slid into her coffin. Helped by the children, the other adults did the same. From habit, Lily-yo glanced to see that Haris the man was safe.

They were all in their transparent prisons at last. A surprising coolness and peace stole over them.

The children carried the coffins between them, glancing nervously up at the sky meanwhile. They were afraid. They felt helpless. Only the bold man child Gren looked as if he was enjoying their new sense of independence. He more than Toy directed the others in the placing of the urns upon the traverser's cable.