by Brian Aldiss
As the tummy-bellies huddled round Yattmur, she peered over their hairy shoulders at the group of sharp-furs. Momentarily they were almost still, tearing up one of the leatherfeathers and cramming it into their mouths. At the same time, a large leathern flask passed between them; from this, with much squabbling, they gulped in turn. Yattmur observed that even among themselves they spoke a broken version of the tongue the tummy-bellies spoke.
‘How long are they staying here for?’ she asked.
‘In the cave they stay often because they love us in the cave,’ one tummy-belly said, stroking her shoulder.
‘They have visited you before?’
Those fat faces grinned at her.
‘They come to see us before and again and again because they love lovely tummy-belly men. You and the hunter man Gren do not love lovely tummy-belly men, so we weep on the Big Slope. And the sharp-furs soon take us away to find a green mummy-tummy. Yep, yep, sharp-furs take us.’
‘You are leaving us?’
‘We go away from you to leave you on the cold and nasty dark Big Slope, where it is so big and dark, because the sharp gods take us to tiny green place with warm mummy-tummies where slopes cannot live.’
In the heat and stink, and with Laren grizzling, she grew confused. She made them say it all again, which they did volubly, until their meaning was all too clear.
For a long while now, Gren had been unable to conceal his hatred for the tummy-bellies. This dangerous new sharp-snouted race had offered to take them off the mountain and back to one of the fleshy trees which succoured and enslaved tummy-belly men. Yattmur knew instinctively that the long-toothed mountainears were not to be trusted, but it was impossible to make the tummy-bellies feel this. She saw that she and her child were soon to be left alone on the mountain with Gren.
Overcome by several varieties of wretchedness, she began to weep.
They clustered nearer, trying inadequately to comfort her, breathing in her face, patting her breasts, tickling her body, making faces at the baby. She was too miserable to protest.
‘You come with us to the green world, lovely sandwich lady, to be again far from the huge Big Slope with us lovely chaps,’ they murmured. ‘We let you have lovely sleeps in with us.’
Encouraged by her apathy, they began to explore the more intimate parts of her body. Yattmur offered no resistance, and when their simple prurience was satisfied, they left her alone in her corner. One of them returned later, bringing her a portion of scorched leatherfeather, which she ate.
While she chewed, she thought, ‘Gren will kill my baby with that fungus. So I must take a chance for Laren’s sake, and leave when the tummy-bellies leave.’ Once the decision had been made, she felt happier, and sank into a doze.
She was wakened by Laren’s crying. As she attended to him, she peered outside. It was as dark as she had ever known it. The rain had stopped temporarily; now thunder filled the air, as if it rolled between earth and packed cloud seeking escape. The tummy-bellies and sharp-furs slept together in an uncomfortable heap, disturbed by the noise. Yattmur’s head throbbed, and she thought, I’ll never sleep in this rumpus. But a moment later, with Laren cuddled against her, her eyes were closed again.
The next time she was roused, it was by the sharp-furs. They were barking with excitement and scampering out of the cave.
Laren was sleeping. Leaving the child on a pile of dead foliage, Yattmur went to see what was happening. She drew back momentarily on coming face to face with the sharp-furs. To protect their heads from the rain – which was coming down again with full force – they were wearing helmets carved from the same sort of dried gourd that Yattmur used for cooking and washing in.
Holes had been cut in the gourds for their ears, eyes and snouts. But the gourds were too large for the furry heads they covered; they rolled from side to side with every movement, making the sharp-furs look like broken dolls. This, and the fact that the gourds had been clumsily smeared with various colours, gave the sharp-furs a grotesque air, from which the element of fear was not missing.
As Yattmur ran into the pouring rain, one of the creatures jumped forward with its nodding wooden head and barred her way.
‘Yagrapper yow you stay sleeping in the sleeping cave, mother lady. Coming through the rap-yap-rain is coming bad things that we fellows have no like. So we bite and tear and bite. Brrr buff best you stay away yap yay from sight of our teeth.’
She flinched from its clutch, hearing the drum of rain on its crude helmet mingle with its baffling mixture of growls, yaps and words.
‘Why should I not stay out here?’ she asked. ‘Are you afraid of me? What is happening?’
‘Catch-carry-kind come yum yap and catch you! Grrr, let him catch you!’
It pushed Yattmur and leaped away to join its mates. The helmeted creatures were leaping about over their sledge, quarrelling as they sorted out their bows and arrows. The tummy-belly trio stood close by, cuddling each other and pointing along the slope.
The cause of all the excitement was a group of figures moving slowly towards Yattmur’s party. At first, squinting through the downpour, she thought only two things were approaching; then they separated to reveal themselves as three – and for the life of her she could not make out what, in their oddity, they might be. But the sharp-furs knew.
‘Catchy carry kind, catchy carry kind! Killy catchy carry kind!’ they seemed to be calling, growing frenzied about it. But the trio advancing through the rain, for all their peculiarity, did not look menacing even to Yattmur. The sharp-furs, however, were leaping in the air with lust; one or two were already taking aim with their bows through the wavering curtains of rain.
‘Stop! Don’t hurt them, let them come!’ Yattmur shouted. ‘They can’t harm us.’
‘Catchy carry kind! You you yap you keep quiet, lady, and be not any harm or take harm!’ they called, unintelligble with excitement. One of them charged at her, head first, banging his gourd helmet against her shoulder. In fear of him she turned and ran, blindly at first and then with purpose.
She could not deal with the sharp-furs: but probably Gren and the morel could.
Squelching and splashing, she ran back to her own cave. Unthinkingly, she plunged right in.
Gren stood against the wall by the entrance, half-concealed. She was past him before she realized it, only turning as he began to bear down on her.
Helpless with shock, she screamed and screamed, her mouth sagging toothily wide at the sight of him.
The surface of the morel was black and pustular now – and it had slipped down so that it covered all his face. Only his eyes gleamed sickly in the midst of it as he jumped forward at her.
She sank to her knees. It was all she could manage at the moment in the way of evasive action, so completely had the sight of that huge cancerous growth on Gren’s shoulders unnerved her.
‘Oh Gren!’ she gasped weakly.
He bent and took her roughly by her hair. The physical pain of this cleared her mind; though she trembled like a hill under a landslide of emotion, her wits returned to her.
‘Gren, the morel thing is killing you,’ she whispered.
‘Where’s the baby?’ he demanded. Though his voice was muffled, it had too an additional remoteness, a twanging quality, that gave her one more item for alarm. ‘What have you done with the baby, Yattmur?’
Cringing, she said, ‘You don’t speak like yourself any more, Gren. What’s happening? You know I don’t hate you – tell me what’s happening, so that I can understand.’
‘Why have you not brought the baby?’
‘You’re not like Gren any more. You’re – you’re somehow the morel now, aren’t you? You talk with his voice.’
‘Yattmur – I need the baby.’
Struggling to her feet though he still clasped her hair, she said, as steadily as possible, ‘Tell me what you want Laren for.’
‘The baby is mine and I need him. Where have you put him?’
She pointed to the
gloomy recesses of the cave.
‘Don’t be silly, Gren. He’s lying back there behind you, at the back of the cave, fast asleep.’
Even as he looked, as his attention was diverted, she wrenched herself out of his grip, ducked under his arm, and ran. Squeaking with terror, she burst into the open.
Again the rain soused down on to her face, bringing her back to a world she had left – though that horrifying glimpse of Gren had seemed to last forever – little more than a moment before. From where she stood, the hillside cut off that strange trio the sharp-furs had called the catchy-carry-kind, but the group about the sledge was clearly visible. It stood in a tableau, tummy-bellies and sharp-furs motionless, looking over towards her, diverted from their other business by her screams.
She ran over to them, glad for all their irrationality to be with them again. Only then did she look back.
Gren had followed her from the cave mouth and there had stopped. After pausing indecisively, he went back and disappeared. The sharp-furs muttered and chattered to themselves, evidently awed by what they had seen. Taking advantage of the situation, Yattmur pointed back at Gren’s cave and said, ‘Unless you obey me, that terrible mate of mine with the deadly sponge face will come and devour you all. Now, let these other people approach, and don’t harm them until they offer us harm.’
‘Catchy-carry-kind no yap yap good!’ they burst out.
‘Do as I say or the sponge-face will devour you, ears and fur and all!’
The three slowly moving figures were nearer now. Two of them were human in outline, if very thin, though the weird biscuit light pervading everywhere made detail impossible to discern. The figure that most intrigued Yattmur was the one bringing up the rear. Though it walked on two legs, it differed considerably from its companions in being taller and seeming to have an enormous head. At times it appeared to have a second head below the first, to possess a tail, and to be walking with its hands clutched round its upper skull. But the deluge, as well as part-concealing it, gave it a shimmering halo of rebounding rain drops which defied vision.
To add to Yattmur’s impatience, the odd trio now stopped. Although she called to them to come on, they ignored her. They stood perfectly still on the flooded hillside – and gradually one of the human figures blurred round the edges, became translucent, disappeared!
Both tummy-bellies and sharp-furs, obviously impressed by Yattmur’s threat, had fallen silent. At the disappearance, they set up a murmur, although the sharp-furs showed little surprise.
‘What’s going on over there?’ Yattmur asked one of the tummy-bellies.
‘Very much a strange thing to take in the ears, sandwich lady. Several strange things! Through the nasty wet rain come two spiriters and a nasty catchy-carry-kind creature having a nasty carry on a number three spiriter in the wet rain. So the sharp-fur gods are crying with many a bad thought!’
What they said made little sense to Yattmur. Suddenly angered with them, she said, ‘Tell the sharp-furs to keep quiet and get back into the cave. I’m going to meet these new people.’
‘These fine sharp gods do not do what you say with no tail,’ the tummy-belly replied, but Yattmur ignored him.
She began to walk forward with her arms outspread and her hands open to show she intended no harm. As she went, though the thunder still bumped over the nearby hills, the rain petered to a drizzle and stopped. The two creatures ahead became more clearly visible – and suddenly there were three of them again. A blurred outline took on substance, becoming a thin human being who stared ahead at Yattmur with the same watchful gaze as his two companions.
Disturbed by this apparition, Yattmur came to a halt. At this the bulky figure moved forward, calling out as he came, pushing past his companions.
‘Creatures of the evergreen universe, the Sodal Ye of the catchy-carry-kind comes to you with the truth. See you are fit to receive it!’
His voice had a richness and fruitiness, as though it travelled through mighty throats and palates to become sound. Moving under the shelter of its mellowness, the two human figures also advanced. Yattmur could see that they were indeed human – two females in fact of a very primitive order, utterly naked except for elaborate tattoos over their bodies, and expressions of invincible stupidity upon their faces.
Feeling that something was called for by way of reply, Yattmur bowed and said, ‘If you come peacefully, welcome to our mountain.’
The bulky figure gave out a roar of inhuman triumph and disgust.
‘You do not own this mountain! This mountain, this Big Slope, this growth of dirt and stone and boulder, owns you! The Earth is not yours: you are a creature of the Earth.’
‘You take my meaning a long way,’ Yattmur said, irritated. ‘Who are you?’
‘Everything has a long way to be taken!’ was the reply, but Yattmur was no longer listening; the bulky figure’s roar had precipitated activity behind her. She turned to see the sharp-furs preparing to leave, squealing and jostling, pushing each other as they swung their sledge about until it pointed downhill.
‘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 bowe
d 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.’