The thing extended a long pinkish root before it, secured a firm anchorage — the root could not have penetrated much more than six inches or so into the ground, like a worm — and then up-anchored other roots to the rear and moved forward again with the slightest of trembles until the first root was again freed to probe forward. The bushes moved at about two miles an hour, Crane judged, although assessment of speeds that low was always difficult.
The roots twisted as they went into the earth, like drills, twisting up on themselves, their length adequate for the number of turns required to bore down six inches. Caught up beneath the center of each bush and looking like the bundled and wrapped roots of roses and bushes sent from nurserymen back on Earth, a globular mass of earth interpenetrated by matted fibrous roots obviously provided locomotive sustenance.
“I don’t believe it,” Polly said indignantly.
“See how they move — purposeful, determined, unyielding.”
“I read an article in some magazine saying that fictional anthropomorphic plants were quite impossible. Absolutely nonsensical. I don’t remember the reasons why, now; but the writer said they just couldn’t be.”
“He hadn’t been into the Map Country.”
“But it negates all our biology!”
“Agreed. It has been proved impossible by biologists. But I expect these bushes only move now and again; they don’t keep on the prowl all the time.”
“You think they move to escape the living earth?”
“Possibly, One reason why perambulating plants are said to be impossible is the slow absorption rate of nutriments from the soil. But if they carry a whole knapsack full of soil around with them, feeding on that, and then dig down deep with their thick roots when they lay siege — well, it could be done, I suppose. Don’t forget, this chaotic country has tossed the rule books out of the window.”
“I’m ready to believe anything now.”
“And me.” Crane stiffened. “Look! There in the sky! Swooping on them!”
“Good Lord!”
All the bushes turned from silver and olive green to a solid silver mass. Leaves curled and rolled into silver thorns. A perceptible increase in speed surged through the mass of bushes. There must have been two hundred or more. The leaders were already across the road, hurdling the strip of unproductive barrenness, their roots probing the soil beyond and taking them into the shelter of the trees.
And on them, from above, dived the birds.
Birds?
“Well, then,” said Crane. “Animals with wings and tails and feathers and wide reptilian heads and jaws, and yet nothing like the museum reconstructions of Archaeopteryx or Archaeornis, and they’d be a hundred and seventy or so million years ago. And if we were that far back in time there’d be no grass or trees like this — no angiosperms. I doubt we need to worry about dinosaurs yet.”
“Thanks,” Polly said sarcastically. “But I’ll believe that when we’re out of here without meeting a friendly Allosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex.” Still her voice was firm and controlled. Crane felt like standing up and running, screaming blue bloody murder.
The birds dived in steep Stuka attacks on the bushes, screaming a raucous ear-piercing screech as they sliced down through the air, tearing at the branches with teeth and claws. The bushes lashed back, striking down the bright-colored bodies, sending feathers puffing in punctured eiderdowns of clotted blood.
“They’re after the golden fruits hanging on the inner branches,” Polly said, enthralled. She was watching all this macabre conflict as though from a guinea seat in the stalls. “Evidently the bushes of this world don’t require birds to do their propagating for them.”
“No,” said Crane, chuckling weakly at the macabre idiocy of the thought. “They can get about quite well themselves, thank you.”
“And the birds don’t take kindly to that sort of brushoff. Whee! Look at that one ripping up that bush — or — look, the other bush lashed out… The bird’s all bedabbled… He’s falling… Oh, Rolley — it’s horrible!”
She turned seekingly towards him and he put an arm around her, not surprised that she had suddenly awoke to the vicious horror of the scene. Polly took a long time to see evil in anyone. Her continued friendship with him proved that, for he equated his indecision with evil in the eyes of a self-confident girl like Polly; and he was convinced she was far too independent and rawly honest of mind to care for his money enough to subdue her own feelings. So he held her comfortingly, feeling her body firm beneath the leather jacket. They watched the struggle in silence for a while.
In struggling forward the bushes gradually congregated under the trees on the far side of the road where then-massed silver-thrusting defense at last put the birds to flight. Heavy winged, the birds rose, squawking.
For an excruciating instant Crane thought the birds would spot the two crouching humans and attack; but to his inexpressible relief they flew off sluggishly, and he relaxed with a shaky sigh. His arm was still about Polly. He left it there.
“This is a chaotic place,” she breathed, shakily.
“Agreed.” She still trembled; but she rose briskly enough from his circling arm and walked off to the car. “A real madhouse. But we have a job to do here.”
Crane stared after her, frowning. He decided he had to speak plainly to her. By this time it was clearly apparent she was acting under the stimulus of excitement and the drug made her reckless and uncaring so that she wasn’t fully responsible for her actions. The sight of the battle between the animate bushes and the reptilian birds had shocked her back partially to a realization of where they were; but the very extraordinary nature of the experience itself deadened her understanding. Crane had seen that automatic response and that feverish activity in battle.
When carried to the extreme it was not pretty.
He said: “I’ll drive, Polly.”
Before she could protest the wheel gripped hard and slick beneath his fingers, the offside door slamming solidly. She walked around the back of the car and got in the near side.
“All right, Rolley. If you like.”
“I’m going on down this road another mile. After that, if we see nothing, I’m turning back. If we do see anything, well, let’s hope we’ll still be able to turn.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but Crane switched on and revved the engine unnecessarily loudly.
They bumped out onto the road and swung around to face their direction of travel. The animate bushes swayed and swiveled, getting set again after the fight; but stayed rooted under the trees.
“A madhouse,” repeated Crane.
“Rolley,” she said thoughtfully after a time, “have you noticed the sun isn’t moving in the sky?”
Crane hadn’t. Now he said: “I believe you’re right.”
“Does that mean it’s always the same here, then?”
He glanced at his watch. “We’ve been here just over three hours by my watch. The sun should have moved noticeably in that time.”
“It hasn’t. I’m sure of it.”
“And I don’t feel at all tired yet. Normally after all we’ve been through I’d be yawning my head off.”
“That must be another magic property of the Map Country.”
“But we’re still using gasoline. That, at least, hasn’t changed here.”
“I wonder what McArdle’s doing?”
“He knows about the Map Country. He must realize we disappeared off his road. So he’ll be waiting for us somewhere when we emerge.” Crane pushed the grenade satchel more comfortably around on his left side. He didn’t say any more about that.