Drowning World

by Alan Dean Foster

  “If we haven't missed it already,” the Sakuntala murmured.

  “We haven't.” Hasa spoke confidently. “If it was somewhere behind us, the rhizomorphs would be pointing back the way we came.”

  He started forward. Jemunu-jah hesitated only briefly before following. That left Masurathoo, for a change, to bring up the rear. Despite the rain, his companions did not have to look back to ensure that the Deyzara was keeping up with the pace. His steady litany of complaint and accusation marked his location and their progress as surely as any of the global positioning devices contained in their emergency kits.

  16

  As they marched on and on through the rain, Jemunu-jah began to wonder if he had finally lost all his mula. Surely if they were on the proper course they should have made contact with the village by now. His reservations were dismissed by the human. It seemed like every time the Sakuntala voiced his uncertainties, they would stumble across another outcrop of pannula. All the same vast organism, Hasa would insist. Another clump of mindless mushrooms, Masurathoo would counter.

  Jemunu-jah was left caught in the middle between his two companions. One insisted that they were being guided, or at least helped, to safety, while the other swore to anyone and anything that would listen that they were only wandering aimlessly through the endless Viisiiviisii until exhaustion and death finally claimed them. For the scion of a warrior clan, the Sakuntala ruminated, he was spending an awful lot of time trying to keep the peace.

  Two more days had passed since Hasa had announced his “discovery” of the existence of consciousness among the pannula. Two more days of traipsing through constant rain, avoiding potential pitfalls and predators, while striving to extend their dwindling supplies by foraging in the forest. Two more days of having to listen to the human extol the virtues of a still hypothetical enormous underground organism that might or might not possess, at best, a rudimentary form of sentience.

  The rain beat down on the outside of the hollow log in which they had taken shelter. It was a fallen sokulaa, one of the forest giants. But even a sokulaa's specialized roots eventually gave way to rot and the effects of having its lower trunk submerged in water for most of the year. When this one had finally toppled, it had landed atop a dense network of decomposing brethren. That was what had kept its hollowed-out interior above water and provided them with one of the drier havens they had found since leaving their skimmers.

  Still, it had proven difficult to go to sleep inside the cylindrical chamber because of the lights. Thousands of them, each one an individual phosphorescent fungus of the kind known to Jemunu-jah as ovatu. Flashing their light in sequence, they formed multiple lines of rainbow luminance all along the interior of the fallen sokulaa. The spectacular streams of color strobed like a giant internal pointer to the far end of the trunk, down where the roots began. There dwelled a single tavawau: a legless, eyeless, antennae-laced carnivore that relied on the ovatu to attract food. Masurathoo was nervous about going to sleep in the same hollow tree as a resident carnivore, but Jemunu-jah had assured him that the tavawau was no threat to them. Even if it could detect their presence, its lumpy body was permanently fixed in place. It was less mobile than a sponge.

  So when they awoke, they had ample light with which to view their surroundings, though it took a while for their eyes to adapt to the sequencing flashes of the ovatu. Visible through the rotting break in the side of the trunk that had admitted them the previous evening, morning rain was falling lazily outside their latest sanctuary.

  As he was eating an inadequate morning meal from their dwindling store of supplies, Jemunu-jah noticed Masurathoo gesturing oddly to him. Both trunks were gesticulating tersely and the Deyzara's right arm coiled repeatedly in the direction of the rear of the trunk. Finishing the last of his food, the Sakuntala moved to see what the two-trunk wanted. While the diameter of the hollow space inside the fallen tree was generous, he still had to bend to keep from bumping his head against the curving ceiling and its ranks of harmless perfectly aligned pulsating ovatu.

  Settling down next to the Deyzara, he spared a sympathetic glance for his companion's badly shredded rain cape and was glad he didn't need one. His fur kept him drier and more comfortable than any garment. The only advantage he saw to the rain capes was that their owners could remove them and clean them separately.

  “I am compelled to point out, my tall friend, that if we do not do something to change the present situation, we are going to die here and be food for the first fungus that decides to invade our bodies.”

  Jemunu-jah started to rise. “If you going to do nothing but complain, I would rather get ready for walking.”

  “No, no, wait and hear me out, please.” Though he was in a position to do so, Masurathoo did not reach out to grab his fellow traveler by the arm. No Deyzara would dare to think of physically trying to restrain a Sakuntala. Instead, Masurathoo used a hand to gesture in Hasa's direction.

  The human was seated with his back against the interior wall of the fallen sokulaa. There would be a dark spot there when he moved away, his weight having crushed dozens of the tiny luminescent ovatu. They would quickly be replaced by the dense network of ovatu hyphae that permeated the decaying wood.

  In front of him, several dozen black rhizomorphs danced and swayed in reaction to the slow weaving of his hand. For the moment, their burly, resilient, unlikable human looked like a child playing with a new toy. Which, in a way, he was. The delight he took in getting the rhizomorphs to respond to his increasingly elaborate gestures was palpable. It was not shared by his companions.

  “Look at him.” Masurathoo could not keep the distaste from his voice. “One might think this was a game. Our lives are at stake and he insists that we should place our hopes for survival in the cryptic actions of a fungus. One whose dimensions are a matter of pure speculation and who he would have us believe is not only intelligent but empathetic. A compassionate fungus!”

  “It may not be matter of compassion.” Jemunu-jah was reluctant to take sides. In point of fact he could not, because he had yet to decide who was right.

  The Deyzara pressed his argument. “Even if this pannula growth—and it is nothing but a growth, no matter how great its actual physical size—is sentient, that hardly means it is capable of, or interested in, helping us. It could be no more than minimally aware of us. The response of its rhizomorphs to the human's hand movements may be nothing more sophisticated than a basal response to movement or shadow. Many plants respond to the proximity of more motile life-forms by closing flowers or curling leaves.”

  Jemunu-jah regarded the bobbing and weaving of the silent rhizomorphs. “Such plant movements are defensive in nature, or a response to the absence or addition of light. This is different. And what about the lying down of every rhizomorph we have encountered in same direction?”

  “I am willing to admit that action does continue to puzzle me. It does not mean, however, that it represents an awareness of our presence coupled with a conscious desire to provide assistance.”

  “We will learn truth if they point us to village,” Jemunu-jah observed sensibly.

  “How much longer can we afford to continue that enticing experiment?” Reaching down, the Deyzara picked up his food pouch and shoved it open and unsealed in the Sakuntala's direction. “You see how little real food remains to me. I believe your supplies and those of the human are in a similarly deficient state. Perhaps you can survive on what edible substances the forest can provide. Possibly the human can as well; I am not intimately familiar with the nutritional requirements of his kind. I only know that I cannot.

  “Furthermore, every muscle and tendon in my body aches, I am stiff and sore all over, and I feel as if my entire corpus could collapse in a paralyzed heap at any moment. Even my integument is sore.”

  Jemunu-jah considered. “I have bruises and scrapes myself. Enough for several families.”

  Masurathoo immediately seized on the Sakuntala's admission. “Our bodies are in sympath
y then, if not yet our thoughts.” Leaning close and reaching up with his speaking trunk, he placed the end as close as he could to one of the Sakuntala's ears. “We must do something to change our situation, or we risk throwing away our lives because we relied on a fungus for survival. And there is still another possibility to consider.”

  Jemunu-jah drew back slightly, uncomfortable at the nearness of that whispering trunk to his face. “What, another possibility?”

  The Deyzara was not to be dissuaded, not even by Sakuntala sarcasm. “Supposing for a moment that the human is right. Suppose the Viisiiviisii is home to gigantic sentient fungi like this pannula. Could it not be sending us around aimlessly, deeper and deeper into the varzea? Could it not be deliberately leading us astray?”

  Jemunu-jah frowned down at the two-trunks. “To what purpose?”

  “So that we will fall over from exhaustion and hunger, whereupon it can infest and devour us at its leisure.”

  The Sakuntala was unimpressed by the Deyzara's reasoning. “If that was its intention, why wait for us to die? Why not just invade our bodies while we sleep?”

  Masurathoo persisted. “We might sense the attempt and awaken. And if it is intelligent, it might recognize that we have in our possession weapons that could harm it.”

  Jemunu-jah rose. “Now you giving to it more sense than even Hasa. I don't accept your argument. If pannula want to help us, it helping us now. If it want to kill us, it can kill us anytime.”

  “And if it's not sentient?” Masurathoo continued. “Or what if it is, and it's just curious about us? Or generally indifferent? What then, big-ears?”

  Jemunu-jah hesitated. “You worry me like young females.” He turned to walk back up the hollow trunk to the place they had chosen for resting.

  Astonishingly, Masurathoo actually reached out and grabbed the Sakuntala's tail. The Deyzara was desperate.

  “Please, my tall friend, you must see what is happening here! The human is so enamored of his supposed discovery that it has bemused his brain. There is more fog in his thoughts than in the forest. Having made what he thinks to be a great discovery, he has become blinded by it. He believes because he wants to believe. This, I do happen to know, is not an unusual occurrence among his kind. I have read of it.”

  That made more sense to Jemunu-jah than anything else the Deyzara had said. He crouched back down on his haunches. As if to help confirm Masurathoo's words, farther up the hollow sokulaa the human continued to play with the dancing rhizomorphs, oblivious to the conversation and conference that was taking place among his companions.

  “Very well. I open to discussion of your beloved possibilities,” he muttered. “What suggestions you have?”

  “Just this.” Masurathoo spared a goggle-eyed glance past the Sakuntala to make absolutely certain the human was not listening. “Today we will follow his lead and that of his beloved fungus. But if we encounter nothing save more of the same, then tonight we will arise well before morning and set off on our own, resuming our original course due east instead of this new track to the north.”

  “What if we have already miss the village?”

  The Deyzara rolled both eyes back into his head, a disconcerting sight at the best of times. “Then we are already dead, and I will never see my family again.”

  Jemunu-jah gestured understandingly, with ears as well as hands. His tail flicked methodically from side to side. “The human is attuned to the forest. He sleeps lightly.”

  Masurathoo had anticipated the observation. “I have watched him every time he makes use of his supplies. His emergency kit includes a general human soporific. I will endeavor to obtain some and slip it into his food. Alternatively, when he is sound asleep I will apply it to his lower torso via injection.”

  Jemunu-jah was impressed. “Bold action for a Deyzara, to contemplate forcibly incapacitating a human.”

  Reddened, protuberant eyes met Jemunu-jah's own. “Desperation can drive even the civilized to take previously unimagined risks. Are we in agreement?”

  Backed into making a commitment, Jemunu-jah still demurred. “Another difficult day lies ahead of us. As we walk there will be plenty time for contemplation of alternatives. I will tell you tonight what choice I make.”

  “Excellent! I'm confident it will be the right one.” Turning away, the Deyzara began to assemble his gear. “It may be the last chance we have to make one.”

  The light was beginning to fade when they reached the river. One more river, Jemunu-jah thought tiredly. Yet one more. And this one wider and swifter of current than any of those they had previously crossed. They might yet have to pause and expend more of what little remained of their reserves of strength on building a raft with which to attempt the crossing. This unnamed watercourse was sufficiently broad that it might not be possible to swim it. Furthermore, during the approach he had not seen or smelled any vatulalilu. If they were to try swimming so deep and wide a waterway without some form of protection or camouflage they might as well do so with some of the human's clever advertising signs hanging around their necks, proclaiming to every water-dwelling carnivore that dinner had arrived.

  He was tired; he was frustrated; he missed his family and clan and home. Now this, a physical barrier greater than any they had yet encountered. Looking up and down the channel, he could see no sign of shallows that might be waded. Swim or make a craft: those were their only two choices, and the first of them was not viable. Not for any creature with a shred of intelligence remaining.

  “Might as well camp here for the night. It's early, but we're not going anywhere until morning.” Advancing through the rain, Hasa began the search for a suitable site.

  Nothing fazes the human, Jemunu-jah thought. No obstacle, no danger. Yet there was no denying that the furless biped possessed common sense as well as intelligence. So much effort, not for clan or mula, but in the pursuit of Commonwealth credit. Was Hasa civilized or just smart? Jemunu-jah was beginning to think that the two did not necessarily go together.

  As he turned to one side, Masurathoo caught his eye. The Deyzara's plan was typically devious. The Sakuntala were more direct. Yet Jemunu-jah could not see himself killing the human merely because they disagreed on what course to take. He was more inclined to kill the Deyzara simply to shut him up. Briefly, he considered killing both of them. That would leave him alone in the depths of the southern Viisiiviisii. It was better to have companions, even if one talked so much it made his ears hurt and the other dripped contempt the way a horulia shrub shed water.

  “Remember what we discussed,” Masurathoo was whispering to him out of his fully extended speaking trunk. “Have you come to a decision?”

  Jemunu-jah did not look down at the Deyzara. He was contemplating the river, using his exceptional vision to penetrate the rain and study the far side. “Yes, I have. We going to cross this river, on raft.”

  Masurathoo sagged visibly. “You can't be serious, Jemunu-jah. Even with our tools, it will take at least two days to construct something suitable. And then where will we be?”

  “On other side of river,” the Sakuntala replied sensibly.

  “And what does that gain us? The opportunity to continue this interminable march through hostile varzea?”

  “Not interminable, I think.” Raising a long, slender arm, he pointed with his two middle fingers. “Look.”

  Masurathoo could not squint: his eyes were either open, shut, or shielded by double lids. But he could hear the human's shout at the same time he detected movement on the far line of submerged trees.

  Whatever it was, it was coming toward them across the river. It took a momentary lessening of the rain for him to resolve the slowly advancing shapes.

  There were two rafts. Each supported a pair of minimally clad Sakuntala. A large, dead ti-tokuliu lay in the middle of the nearest. Using long paddles, the Sakuntala were propelling the two unlovely but sturdy craft across the river, their strong arms battling the current. Off to his right, Hasa was gesticulating in the
rain, voicing an alternating stream of excited whoops and joyful obscenities.

  “Hunting party from a village.” Jemunu-jah's eyes glistened as he tracked the rafts' approach. “Hauea! Maybe not the village we seek, but right now I will glad to accept the hospitality of the lowliest of clans.”

  “So will I.” Turning at a sudden thought, Masurathoo found himself searching the surrounding trees and deadwood for waltzing black rhizomorphs. None were to be seen. That did not mean, he realized, that the pannula was not present. Its mycelium could be running through the body of the decaying tree just off to his left or through the fallen log under his feet. If it was as vast an organism as Hasa had suggested, it could be everywhere around them.

  “Coincidence. We have just been traveling in the right direction all along.”

  “Right direction, yes,” Jemunu-jah agreed. “Original direction we chose, not. How do one give thanks to a fungus?”

  “It's coincidence.” The Deyzara was insistent—but not as insistent as before.

  Peering across the river, the villagers had been astonished to see three strangers staggering out of what they had believed to be uninhabited forest. While their dialect was distinctive, Jemunu-jah had no trouble communicating with them. Hasa and Masurathoo managed less well. It did not matter. What was important was that the villagers were friendly, distant relatives of the minor but well-known Kioumatii clan. The hunting party of S'Kio was happy to bring the strangers back to their village.

  It was a rudimentary community, Jemunu-jah saw immediately. The dwellings in the trees were suspended above the water by cables of woven vines, loopers, and lianas, not imported strilk. Few signs of modernity and Commonwealth culture had penetrated this far south. There were a handful of advanced tools and utensils, sheets of lightweight rain-shedding fabric, a couple of vermin-proof food storage lockers, and one thing more.

  A battered old model but operational communicator.

  Their hearts leapt when the village elder informed them of its existence. Its range was extremely limited, they were informed, and it could not talk to one of the Commonwealth speakers in the high sky. But it would reach to Tavumacia, the next nearest village. Tavumacia had a more powerful communicator and could talk to not one but a dozen additional villages. Eventually, contact could be made with Taulau Town. If the village's own cranky apparatus was in the mood to function.