Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth

by Brian Aldiss

  Doubtfully, Gren looked about. A great row of what resembled long sharp teeth hung over the deck as if about to bite the ship in two. Icy droplets of saliva fell from them, splashing the humans. They had sailed straight into this glass monster's mouth!

  Near at hand, its entrails were dimly visible, filling their vision with an array of blue and green lines and planes, some of which – with a dull murderous beauty – glowed orange from a sun still hidden from the humans.

  'This ice beast prepares to eat us!' yelped the tummy-bellies, scampering round the deck. 'Oh, oh, our death moment come hot upon us, ice cold in these nasty freezing jaws.'

  'Ice!' exclaimed Yattmur. 'Yes! How strange that these foolish belly-boy fishers should give us knowledge. Gren, this stuff is called ice. In the marsh grounds near Long Water where the tummies lived grew little flowers called colderpolders. At certain times these flowers, which flourish in the shade, made this cold ice to keep their seed in. When I was a girl-child I went into the marshes to get these ice drops and suck them.'

  'Now this big ice drop sucks us,' Gren said, as cold water soused down on his face from the vault overhead. 'What do we do, morel?'

  'There is no safety here, so we must look for some,' twanged the morel. 'If the boat slips back off the ice shelf, all will drown but you: for the boat will sink and you alone can swim. You must get off the boat at once, and take the tummy-fishers with you.'

  'Right! Yattmur, sweet, climb out on to the ice while I drive these four fools after you.'

  The four fools were loath to leave the boat, though half of its deck was now shallowly under water. When Gren shouted at them, they leapt away, scattering as he approached, dashing away as he rushed to seize them, dodging and squealing as they went.

  'Save us! Spare us, O herder! What have we four poor filthy lumps of compost done that you should wish to throw us to the ice beast? Help, help! Alas, that we should be so nasty you love to treat us in this way!'

  Gren dived at the nearest and hairiest, who skipped away screaming, his bosoms flopping up and down as he went.

  'Not me, great beastly spirit! Kill the other three that don't love you, but not me who loves you -'

  Gren tripped him as he fled. The tummy-belly man sprawled, his sentence turning into a squeal before he pitched at full length head first into the water. Quickly Gren was on him; they splashed in the icy water until Gren got a firm hold and dragged the spluttering creature up by the flesh and hair of his neck, to pull him by sheer force to the side of the boat. With a heave, he sent him sprawling over, collapsing crying in the shallows at Yattmur's feet.

  Thoroughly cowed by this display of force, the other three tummy-bellies climbed meekly out of their refuge and into the maw of the ice beast, teeth chattering with fear and cold. Gren followed them. For a moment the six stood together, looking into a grotto which to four of them at least was a gigantic throat. A ringing noise from behind made them turn back.

  One of the ice fangs hanging overhead had cracked and fallen. It stuck upright in the wood of the deck like a dagger before slipping sideways and shattering into bits. Almost as if this were a signal, a much louder noise came from under the boat. The whole shelf on which the vessel rested gave way. Momentarily, the edge of a thin tongue of ice slid into view. Before it slumped back into the water, their boat was borne away on the dark flood. They watched it filling rapidly as it disappeared.

  They were able to follow its progress for some while; the mist had lifted slightly and the sun once again painted a streak of cold fire down the back of the ocean.

  For all that, it was with profound gloom that Gren and Yattmur turned away. With their boat gone, they were stranded on the iceberg. In silence the four tummy-bellies followed them as they took the only course possible and climbed along the cylindrical tunnel in the ice.

  Splashing through chill puddles, they were hemmed in by ribs of ice, against which every sound threw itself in a frenzy of echoes. With each step they took, the noise grew louder and the tunnel smaller.

  'O spirits, I hate this place! Better if we had perished with the boat. How much farther can we go?' Yattmur asked, as Gren paused.

  'No farther,' he said grimly. 'We've come to a dead end. We're trapped here.'

  Hanging nearly to the floor, several magnificent icicles barred their way almost as effectively as a portcullis. Beyond the portcullis, a flat pane of ice faced them.

  'Always trouble, always difficulty, always some fresh trouble to living!' Gren said. 'Man was an accident on this world or it would have been made better for him!'

  'I have already told you that your kind was an accident,' twanged the morel.

  'We were happy till you started interfering,' Gren said sharply.

  'You were a vegetable till then!'

  Infuriated by this thrust, Gren grasped one of the great icicles and pulled. It snapped off some way above his head. Holding it like a spear, he hurled it at the wall of ice before him.

  Painful carillons sparked down the tunnel as the entire wall shattered under the blow. Ice fell, broke, skidded past their ankles, as a whole half-melted curtain celebrated its downfall in swift disintegration. The humans crouched, holding their hands over their heads while it seemed as if the entire iceberg was collapsing round them.

  When the din died, they looked up, to find through the gap ahead a whole new world awaiting them. The iceberg, caught in an eddy to the coastward side of the current, had come to rest against an islet where, held in the arms of a small bay, it was now weeping down into water again.

  Though the isle looked far from hospitable, the humans drank in with relief the sight of the sparse green on it, at flowers clinging to it, and at seed pods towering in the air at the top of tall stalks. Here they could enjoy the feeling of ground that did not heave perpetually.

  Even the tummy-bellies momentarily took heart. With small happy cries they followed Yattmur and Gren round a ledge of ice, eager to be beneath those flowers. Without too much protest, they jumped over a narrow gulf of deep blue water, to land on protruding rock and thus scramble safely ashore.

  The islet was certainly no paradise. Broken rock and stone covered the crown of it. But in its smallness lay advantage: it was too tiny to support the larger sort of vegetable menaces that flourished on the mainland; with the smaller menaces, Gren and Yattmur could cope. To the disappointment of the tummy-bellies, no tummy-belly tree grew here to which they could attach themselves. To the morel's disappointment, none of his kind grew here; much though he wished to take control of Yattmur and the tummy-bellies, as well as Gren, his bulk was as yet too small to allow him to do this, and he was counting on allies to help him. To the disappointment of Gren and Yattmur, no humans lived here with whom they could join forces.

  As compensation, a spring of pure water surged out of the rock, larking among the big tumbled stones which covered much of the islet. First they heard its music, then they saw it. The little stream cascaded down on to a strip of beach and so into the sea. With one rush, they ran along the sand to it, drinking there without waiting to gain a less brackish draught higher up.

  Like children, they forgot their cares. When they had drunk too much and belched sufficiently, they plunged into the water to bathe their limbs, although the chill of it did not tempt them to stay there for long. Then they began to make themselves at home.

  For a time they lived on the islet and were content. In this realm of eternal sunset, the air was cool. They devised themselves better body covering from leaves or trailing moss, binding the latter tightly round their bodies. Mists and fogs swallowed them from time to time; then the sun would shine again, low over the sea. Sometimes they would sleep, sometimes would lie on the sunward-facing rocks idly eating fruit while listening to the icebergs groan as they sailed by.

  The four tummy-belly men built themselves a crude shelter a distance apart from Gren and Yattmur. During one sleep it collapsed on top of them. After that they slept in the open, huddled together under leaves as close t
o their masters as Gren would allow.

  Being happy again was good. When Yattmur and Gren made love together, the tummy-bellies would jump about and hug each other with excitement, praising the agility of their clever clutching master and his sandwich lady.

  Huge seed pods grew and clattered overhead. Underfoot ran vegetable equivalents of lizards. In the air fluttered cordate butterflies with wide wings that lived by photosynthesis. Life continued without the punctuation of nightfall or sunrise. Sloth ruled; peace reigned.

  The humans would have merged contentedly into this general pattern had it not been for the morel.

  'We cannot stay here, Gren,' it said on one occasion, when Gren and Yattmur woke from a comfortable sleep. 'You have rested enough and been well refreshed. Now we must move again, to find more humans and establish our own kingdom.'

  'You speak nonsense, morel. Our boat is lost. We must always remain on this island. Chilly it may be, yet we have seen worse places. Let us stay here in content.'

  He and the girl were splashing naked through a series of pools which had formed among the big square blocks of stone on the crown of the islet. Life was sweet and idle, Yattmur kicked her pretty legs and sang one of her herder's songs: he was loath to listen to that dreary voice in his head. More and more it came to represent something he disliked.

  Their silent conversation was interrupted by a squeal from Yattmur.

  Something like a hand with six bloated fingers had seized her ankle. Gren dived for it and pulled it away without difficulty. It struggled in his grasp as he examined it.

  'I'm silly to make a noise,' Yattmur said. 'It is just another of those creatures that the tummy-bellies have named crawl-paws. They swim out of the sea on to land. If the tummy-bellies catch them, they split them open and eat them. They are tough but sweet to taste.'

  The fingers were grey and bulbous, wrinkled in texture and extremely cold. They flexed slowly as Gren held them. Finally he dropped it on to the bank, where it scuttled off into the grass.

  'Crawlpaws swim out of the sea and burrow into the ground. I've watched them,' Yattmur said. Gren made no answer.

  'Does anything trouble you?' she asked.

  'No,' he said flatly, not wishing to tell her that the morel desired them to move again. He sank stiffly to the ground, almost like an old man. Though she was uneasy, she stifled her apprehensions and returned to the bathing place. Yet from that time on she was aware of Gren drawing away from her and becoming more closed in on himself; and she knew the morel was to blame for it.

  Gren woke from their next communal sleep to find the morel already restless in his mind.

  'You wallow in sloth. We must do something.'

  'We are content here,' replied Gren sulkily. 'Besides, as I have said, we have no boats to get us to the big land.'

  'Boats are not the only way of crossing seas,' said the fungus.

  'Oh morel, cease being clever before you kill us with it. Leave us in peace. We're happy here.'

  'Happy, yes! You would grow roots and leaves if you could. Gren, you do not know what life is for! I tell you that great pleasures and powers await you if you only let me help you stretch out for them.'

  'Go away! I don't know what you mean.'

  He jumped up as if to run away from the morel. It gripped him tightly, rooting him to the spot. Gathering strength, he concentrated on sending waves of hatred at the morel – uselessly, for its voice continued in his head.

  'Since it is impossible for you to be my partner, you must suffer being my slave. The spirit of enquiry is all but dead in you; you will respond to orders but not to observation.'

  'I don't know what you are saying!' He cried the words aloud, waking Yattmur, who sat up and gazed mutely at him.

  'You neglect so much!' said the morel. 'I can only see things through your senses, yet I take the trouble to analyse and find what is behind them. You can make nothing from your data, whereas I can make a lot. Mine is the way to power. Look about you again! Look at the stones over which you climb so regardlessly.'

  'Go away!' Gren cried again. Instantly he doubled up in anguish. Yattmur came running over to him, holding his head and soothing him. She peered into his eyes. The tummy-bellies came up silently to stand behind her.

  'It's the magic fungus, isn't it?' she said.

  Dumbly he nodded. Phantoms of fire chased themselves over his nerve centres, burning a tune of pain through his body. While the tune continued he could scarcely move. At length it passed. Limply he said, 'We must help the morel. He wishes us to explore these rocks more carefully.'

  Trembling in every limb, he rose to do what was commanded of him. Yattmur stood with him, sympathetically touching his arm.

  'When we've explored, we will catch fish in the pool and eat them with fruit,' she said, with a woman's talent for producing comfort when it was needed.

  He flashed her a humble look of gratitude.

  The big stones had long been part of the natural landscape. Where the brook ran among them they were buried in mud and pebbles. Grass and sedge grew on them, deep earth covered them in many places. In particular, here prospered a crop of the flowers that bore their seed pods aloft on tall stalks, which the humans had seen from the iceberg; these Yattmur had casually called Stalkers, without realizing until much later how appropriate the title was.

  Over the stones ran the roots of the Stalkers, like so many lengths of petrified snake.

  'What a nuisance these roots are,' grumbled Yattmur. "They grow everywhere!'

  'The funny thing is the way the roots from one plant grow into another as well as into the ground,' Gren said, answering abstractedly. He was squatting by a branch of two roots, one of which ran back to one plant, one to another. After they had joined, they curled over a block of stone and down into an irregular gap between other stones to the earth.

  'You can get down there. You will come to no harm,' said the morel. 'Scramble down between the stones and see what you can see.'

  A hint of that painful tune sprang again over Gren's nerves.

  He scrambled down between the blocks as he was directed, nimble as a lizard for all his reluctance. Feeling cautiously, he discovered that they rested on other blocks below, and those on other blocks below that. They lay loosely; by twisting his body he was able to slide himself down between their cool planes.

  Yatmur climbed after him, showering down a gentle rain of dirt on to his shoulders.

  After crawling down the depth of five blocks, Gren reached solid ground. Yattmur arrived beside him. Now they were able to move horizontally, half squashed between the walls of stone. Attracted by a lessening in the darkness, they squeezed along to a large space, large enough for them to stretch out their arms.

  'The smell of cold and dark is in my nostrils and I am afraid,' Yattmur said. 'What has your morel made us come down here for? What has he to tell of this place?'

  'He is excited,' Gren replied, unwilling to admit that the morel was not communicating with him.

  Gradually they began to see more clearly. The ground above had fallen away to one side, for the source of light was the sun, shining in horizontally between the piled stone, sending a thin ray probing there. It revealed twisted metal among the blocks, and an aperture ahead of them. In the collapse of these stones long ago, this gap had remained. Now the only living things here beside themselves were stalker roots, twisting down into the soil like petrified serpents.

  Obeying the morel, Gren scrabbled in the grit at his feet. Here was more metal and more stone and brick, most of it immovable. Fumbling and tugging, he managed to pull out some broken bits of guttering; then came a long metal strip as tall as himself. One end of it was shattered; on the rest of it was a series of separate marks arranged to form a pattern:

  "That is writing,' wheezed the morel, 'a sign of man when he had power in the world, uncounted ages ago. We are on his tracks. These must once have been his buildings. Gren, climb forward into the dark aperture and see what else you can find.'

>   'It is dark! I cannot go in there.'

  'Climb forward, I tell you.'

  Shards of glass glinted dully by the aperture. Rotted wood fell away all round it as Gren put a hand forward to steady himself. Plaster showered down on his head as he climbed through. On the other side of the aperture was a drop; Gren slid down a slope of rubble into a room, cutting himself on glass as he went.

  From outside, Yattmur gave a squeak of alarm. He called back softly to reassure her, pressing a hand to his heart to steady it. Anxiously he stared about in the all-but-blackness. Nothing moved. The silence of the centuries, thick and cloying, lay here, lived here, more sinister than sound, more terrible than fear.

  For a spell he stood frozen, until the morel nudged him.

  Half the roof had collapsed. Metal beams and brick made a maze of the room. To Gren's untutored eye, everything was indistinguishable. The ancient smell of the place choked him.

  'In the corner. A square thing. Go there,' ordered the morel, using his eyesight to advantage.

  Reluctantly, Gren picked his way across to the corner. Something scuttled from under his feet and out the way he had come; he saw six thick fingers, and recognized a crawlpaw like the one that had seized Yattmur's ankle. A square box three times his height loomed over him, its front surface marked by three protruding semi-circles of metal. He could reach only the lowest of these semi-circles, which, the morel instructed him, were handles. He tugged at it obediently.

  It opened the width of a hand, then stuck.

  'Pull, pull, pull!' twanged the morel.

  Growing savage, Gren pulled till the whole box rattled, but what the morel termed the drawer would come no farther. Still he pulled, while the tall box shook. Something was dislodged from the top of it. From high above Gren's head, an oblong thing came crashing down. As he ducked, it fell to the floor behind him, sending up a cloud of dust.

  'Gren! Are you all right? What are you having to do down there? Come out!'

  'Yes, yes, I'm coming! Morel, we'll never open this stupid box thing.'