Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Summer

“These plains belong to the flambreg, the yelk, and the giant yelk,” Dienu Pasharatid said. “And not just the plains, but the whole land.”

“It’s not a place for men and women,” said Io Pasharatid.

“Flambreg and yelk look similar, yet differ anatomically,” said Odi Jeseratabhar. The yelk are necrogenes. Their young are born from their corpses and feed on their carrion instead of milk. Flambreg are viviparous.”

SartoriIrvrash said nothing. He was still shaken from the slaughter on the shore. The guns were still firing. The object of the ships’ putting in to Persecution was precisely to obtain fresh meat.

The four phagors now pulled the four humans along in the sledge. The plain proved to be sodden, pitted with ponds and muskegs. Progress was slow. To the north stretched low mustard-coloured hills, their flanks patched with dwarf spruce and other hardy trees. The trees had less success on the plain, where their branches were weighted down with the clumsy nests of birds, built from sticks and driftwood. The leaves of the trees were fouled with white droppings.

The ships and the sea sank from view. The air was chill, less loaded with sea taint. A stink of rutting animals lay over the ground. The sound of firing died in the distance. They travelled for almost an hour without speaking, relishing the great space about them.

The Priest-Militant Admiral called a halt beside a striated ochre boulder. They climbed from the sledge, marching about separately, swinging their arms. The boulder loomed over them. The only sounds were bird cries and the sough of the wind, until they detected a distant rumbling.

To SartoriIrvrash, the rumble suggested only a distant glacier breaking. He dismissed it in his pleasure at having ground beneath his feet again. The women, however, looked gravely at each other and climbed without speaking to stand on top of the boulder. They scanned the landscape and gave cries of alarm.

“You, brutes, draw the sledge close under the rock,” Odi Jeseratabhar called in Hurdhu to the phagors.

The rumble became a thunder. The thunder rose from the earth, from everywhere. Something was happening to the low slopes to the west. They were in motion. With the terror of someone faced with a natural event beyond the scope of his imagination, SartoriIrvrash ran to the rock and began to climb. Io Pasharatid helped him scramble to a shoulder where there was room for all four of them. The phagors stood against the boulder, milts flickering up their nose slots.

“We’ll be safe here till they pass,” said Odi Jeseratabhar. Her voice shook.

“What is it?” SartoriIrvrash asked.

Through a thin haze, the distance was rolling itself up like a rug and tumbling towards them. They could only watch in silence. The rug resolved itself into an avalanche of flambreg, advancing on a wide front.

SartoriIrvrash tried to count them. Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred—it was impossible. The front of the advance was a mile wide—two, five miles wide, and comprised herd after herd of animals. Endless ranks of yelk and flambreg were converging on the plain where the boulder stood.

The ground, the rock, the very air, vibrated.

Necks extended, eyes glaring, saliva flowing free from open mouths, the herds came on. They wove their living streams about the boulder, joined them at its far side, and passed on. White cowbirds sailed above them, keeping pace with no more than an occasional dip of a wing.

In their excitement, the four humans stretched out their arms, screamed, waved, cheered with exhilaration.

Beneath them was a sea of hoofed life stretching back to and beyond the horizon. Not a single beast looked up at the gesticulating humans; each knew that to miss its footing meant death.

The human exhilaration soon faded. The four sat down, huddling close. They looked about with increasing listlessness. Still the herd passed. Batalix rose, Batalix set in concentric aurioles of light. Still there was no sign of the end of the herd. The animals continued to flow by in their thousands.

Some flambreg detached themselves from the stampede to mill about by the bay. Others plunged straight into the sea. Still others galloped in a trance over the cliffs to their death. The main body of animals thundered down into the dip and up the other side, heading towards the northeast. Hours passed. The animals continued with their monotonous drumbeats of noise.

Overhead, magnificent curtains of light unfolded, and flashed, rising to the zenith. But the humans became despondent: the life which had exhilarated them earlier now depressed them. They huddled together on their ledge. The four phagors stood pressed against the wall of rock, the sledge before them for protection.

Freyr sloped shallowly towards the horizon. Rain began to fall, at first uncertainly. The lights overhead were extinguished as the fall became heavier, soaking the ground and changing the sound of the hoof-beats.

Icy rain fell for hours. Once it had established itself, it prevailed like the herd, with no variation to its monotony.

The darkness and noise isolated SartoriIrvrash and Odi Jeseratabhar slightly from the others. They clung together for protection.

The hammer of animals and elements penetrated him. He crouched with his brow against the rib cage of the admiral, expecting death, reviewing his life.

It was the loneliness that did it, he thought. A deliberate loneliness, lifelong. I allowed myself to drift away from my brothers. I neglected my wife. Because I was so lonely. My learning sprang from that awful sense of loneliness: by my learning I set myself further apart from my fellows. Why? What possessed me?

And why did I tolerate JandolAnganol for so long? Did I recognize a torment in him similar to mine? I admire JandolAnganol—he lets the pain come to the surface. But when he took hold of me, it was like a rape. I can’t forgive that, or the deliberate wanton accursed burning of my books. He burnt my defences. He’d burn the world down if he could…

I’m different now. Severed from my loneliness. I will be different, if we escape. I like this woman Odi. I’ll show it.

And somewhere in this ghastly wilderness of life I will find the means to bring JandolAnganol low. For years, I swallowed insults, ate bitterness. Now—I’m not too old—I’ll see to it for everyone’s sake that he is brought low. He brought me low. I’ll bring him low. It’s not noble, but my nobility has gone. Nobility’s for scum.

He laughed and the cold froze his front teeth.

He discovered that Odi Jeseratabhar was weeping, and possibly had been for some while. Boldly, he clutched her to him, inching his way across their perch until his rough cheek was against hers. Every inch was accompanied by the limitless drumming of hoofs across a dark void.

He whispered almost random words of consolation.

She turned so that their mouths were almost touching. “To me falls blame for this. I should have foreseen it might happen…”

Something else she said, snatched away by the storm. He kissed her. It was almost the last voluntary gesture left him. Warmth lit inside him.

The journey away from JandolAnganol had changed him. He kissed her again. She responded. They tasted a mutual rain on their lips.

Despite their discomfort, the humans slipped into a sort of coma. When they woke, the rain had faded to no more than a drizzle. The herd was still passing the rock. Still it stretched to the far horizon on either side. They were forced to relieve their bladders by crouching at one edge of the boulder. The phagors and the sledge had been swept away while they were asleep. Nothing remained.

What caused them to rouse was an invasion of flies which arrived with the herd. As there was more than one kind of animal in the great stampede, so there was more than one kind of animal among the flying invasion; all kinds were capable of drawing blood. They settled in their thousands on the humans, who were forced to fold themselves into a small huddle and cover themselves with cloaks and keedrants. Any skin exposed was instantly settled on and sucked till it bled.