The Lotus Caves Read online

  Apprehension was wearing off a little. Not a ghost but a man stumbling over his speech, someone who could be at a loss for words.

  Steve asked: “Do you know what year this is?”

  Thurgood shook his head.

  “It’s 2068,” Steve said. He looked at Thurgood, who said nothing. “Did you have any idea how long you had been here?”

  “No. I knew it was a long time.”

  Marty asked: “Have you been in some sort of sleep? Suspended animation—like Rip van Winkle?”

  “Not that I know of. I sleep when it’s dark, wake when the light comes back.”

  Steve said: “You’re over a hundred years old. But you’re no different from the pictures of you, except for the beard.”

  Thurgood pulled his beard with his hand. “It got to this length and then it stayed. Are you from First Station?”

  “No, the Bubble. First Station was abandoned more than fifty years ago. But why haven’t you aged at all?”

  Thurgood shrugged. “Time doesn’t exist here.”

  “But things do grow! Those trees, for instance. There’s an apple tree that must be twenty years old.”

  “Well, they’re all part of the Plant, as I say. They grow from the Plant, and eventually the Plant will reabsorb them. There’s no time, only change.”

  “But you haven’t changed.”

  Thurgood wrinkled his brow. “I used to wonder about that. I suppose the Plant keeps me young. Over a hundred, you say? Maybe it’s the fruit in the orchard. Don’t I remember something about an apple of eternal life? Could be this is where it grew.”

  Marty asked: “How did those trees get here? You didn’t have seeds with you, surely?”

  “I’ve told you. The Plant makes them.”

  “But why? Just for your benefit?”

  “Yes. There’s no one else. Or wasn’t till you came.”

  “But why?”

  “Well, human beings have to be nourished. Human bodies need fueling. We can’t live on sunlight the way the Plant does.”

  “They’re copies of Earth fruit, though,” Steve said. “Apples, pears, peaches.”

  “Those,” Thurgood said, “and others.”

  “But how can the Plant produce things it doesn’t . . .” Marty stopped, shaken. “Are you saying that you asked the Plant for them, and it grew them? That the Plant is an intelligent being?”

  “Of course it is. I thought you’d realized that.”

  He looked surprised at the question. Of course, Marty realized, he had had longer to get used to the idea.

  He said: “And it evolved here, on the Moon? But how? The Moon never was capable of sustaining life, was it? Or are the scientists wrong about that?”

  “No, not on the Moon.”

  “But not on Earth, surely?”

  “The Earth was too hot for life when the Plant came here.”

  “Too hot! But there has been life on Earth for millions of years—hundreds of millions. Are you saying this Plant thing has been in these caves as long as that?”

  Thurgood said: “Time means nothing to the Plant.”

  Steve asked: “Where did it come from?”

  From another, much older galaxy, he told them, traveling in spore form, blown by the wind of solar radiation. It had been a journey that lasted countless aeons, of a seed in search of the landing place where it could lodge and grow and flourish. Certain conditions had to be present—certain chemicals and minerals and a particular level of solar energy. Many planets, possibly thousands, were found and rejected by the seed’s instinctive intelligence. At last it found what it was looking for on the smaller of the twin planets circling third in orbit around this sun. The larger planet was too hot but the smaller, more rapidly cooling, was habitable.

  “Habitable?” Marty asked. “You mean there was air and water?”

  “Not in that form. But there was free oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide.”

  “And the Plant could turn them into air and water, without machines?”

  “Plants on earth convert sunlight into energy. It’s no stranger than that. Only more powerful and purposeful.”

  “The Flower—” Steve said. “Does that do something similar?”

  There had been, Thurgood explained, an initial period of absorption and growth. After that the Plant was fully mature and needed only solar radiation to maintain itself. This was achieved through the Flower, which uncoiled at intervals, thrust upward, and drank in the hot rays of the sun. It was a process something like photosynthesis but more efficient.

  “And there’s a break in the rock cover just there?” Steve asked. “I suppose there has to be, to enable the Flower to go in and out. So you saw the Flower and came looking for it and your crawler fell through, and now we’ve done the same.”

  “Why does the Plant need the protection of rock, anyway?” Marty asked. “If it can seal itself against vacuum, why bother to hide in caves?”

  There were several reasons, Thurgood said. Partly protection against meteorites, partly concealment. The Plant thought in terms not of years but of millennia. And in addition there would be an energy imbalance in maintaining a thermal equilibrium without the insulation afforded by the natural rock. The Flower might not be able to replace the energy lost that way.

  “The floating leaves I saw just after we crashed,” Marty said, “plastering themselves against the roof of the cave—I suppose they were mending the seal which our crawler broke?”

  Thurgood nodded. “There are three or four places where faults existed when the Plant came here, or where they have developed since. The sealing is automatic, like blood clotting in mammals.”

  “It must have lost some air, though.”

  “A little, but it is unimportant. The concentration is richer than is strictly needed.”

  “That’s something else,” Steve said. “There’s oxygen here—it’s a breathable atmosphere. But oxygen’s a waste product as far as plants are concerned. They breathe carbon dioxide, don’t they?”

  Marty said: “They synthesize sugars out of carbon dioxide and water, but carbon dioxide is soluble in water.” He looked at the lake. “There could be plenty there.”

  “I still don’t see what it does with the oxygen,” Steve said. “If it is a waste product, then it would build up all the time. And this is supposed to have gone on for millions of years.”

  Thurgood said: “The Plant evolved into a state of perfect harmony and balance. The thinking part is different from the rest, and it consumes the oxygen.”

  “What about your coming here,” Marty asked, “and then us? Doesn’t that interfere with the perfect balance?”

  “A little, but the Plant can cope with it.”

  “Look,” Steve demanded, “how do you know all this? All the stuff about the way the Plant came here, and how it’s organized. Are you telling us you can talk to it?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Then what do you do? Stand in front of the banana plant and ask questions, and one of the bananas opens up and talks back?”

  “You will find out,” Thurgood said, “in due course.”

  “You mean it will talk to us?”

  “If it wishes.”

  “It knows we’re here?”

  “Except during meditation, the Plant is aware of everything that happens in every part of the caves.”

  “Meditation?”

  “That’s when the light goes. The Plant withdraws into its inner self and meditates.”

  “Meditates on what?” Steve asked.

  “On itself.”

  “That sounds pretty dull.”

  “You don’t understand yet,” Thurgood said. “You couldn’t be expected to. The wisdom of the Plant is something human beings can’t ever grasp properly.” He spoke with patience but also with conviction. “I
t’s a different kind of thinking from ours. Men are always thinking in terms of doing things—building bridges and machines, exploring the universe. The Plant is sufficient in itself. It doesn’t need to make anything or go anywhere.”

  “I still think it sounds dull,” Steve said.

  Thurgood looked as though he might be going to reply, but did not. After a moment, he said: “Don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Feel like a little breakfast?”

  They walked up toward the fruit trees. Marty said: “You live on these, and nothing else?”

  “You don’t need anything else,” Thurgood said.

  “I don’t see how it can be a balanced diet—just fruit.”

  “The Plant sees to that. I’m alive and well, aren’t I?”

  He certainly looked fit enough. Pale-skinned, though that might be partly an effect of the peculiar light from the moss, but otherwise he seemed perfectly healthy. And young, instead of being a tottering centenarian. He stood in front of the cluster of orange trees, examining them. He said to the boys: “Signs of heavier fruiting already. That’s to make allowance for you two being here. They don’t take as long to grow as fruit does back on Earth—no more than a few hours from flower to ready for eating. Catch.”

  He threw a couple of oranges to them. They peeled and ate them, walking through the orchard, and picked other fruits. Thurgood had been right in saying they grew quickly: the belt of raspberry canes, which he remembered denuding on their first visit, was not only starred with white flowers but heavy with fruit, most of it ripely red. And new canes were springing from the ground; he almost thought he could see them grow.

  The boys lost touch with Thurgood at some point. He was still missing when, their stomachs full, they wandered back to the lawn grass that stretched down to the lake. Steve called him: “Mr. Thurgood! Mr. Thurgood . . .”

  There was no reply. Marty said: “He could be anywhere. Anywhere in the caves, that is.”

  He flopped on the grass, and Steve followed suit. Steve said: “Funny he didn’t say where he was going, though—or that he was going.”

  “A lot of things are funny,” Marty said. “He asked if we were from First Station, and you said no, we were from the Bubble. You would think he would have been a bit curious about that, that he would have wanted to know what things were like outside. But he didn’t ask a single question. He left all the questioning to us.”

  “I suppose when you are a hundred years old you could lose interest in things.”

  “But he’s not a hundred years old—not in that sense, anyway. He said it: time doesn’t mean anything here. He hasn’t changed from the day he came in except to grow a beard. He’s the same man he was, so why isn’t he curious about all the things that have happened since then? Think of the things he doesn’t know about: airsphering, brain transplants, the South American War . . .”

  Steve said: “He probably needs to get used to not being by himself. It’s a long time to be a Robinson Crusoe.”

  The orchestra-tree was playing a selection of airs from what was probably a forgotten musical comedy: deservedly forgotten, as Steve commented. He asked: “Do you think we could get a different brand of music if we asked the Plant nicely? But we don’t know where you put the requests in, do we? I suppose we could do a little exploring and see if we can find out.”

  They went back through the cave and the tunnel, and down the ladder tree. Up there in the top cave their crawler still presumably lay by the stem of the Flower. Marty wondered if the moss had yet begun to grow, ever so slightly, over the crawler’s tracks. Steve was leading the way toward another ladder tree, another opening in the cave wall, and Marty followed him.

  The tunnel here was steep and narrow, forcing them to crawl at times. They came out into a cave smaller than any they had seen so far. Moss covered the walls, but its light was dimmer and grayer than in other places. In this dusk they discerned tall gray mushroom-like shapes which at first sight seemed perfectly still. Watching, though, it was possible to detect movement, a slow, slow oscillation of the mushroom caps on the long, gently yielding stems. Nothing else happened. They stared for minutes, and then withdrew.

  In the second cave they tried there was another orchestra-tree. It was much larger than the one by the lake and much louder, but the music—if it was music—was entirely different. It struck at the ears, raucous, tuneless, full of discords and flat notes. And to it a weird company of plant-things danced an incomprehensible jig—some rooted, some flying free. They were of all colors, and the colors were as harsh to the eyes as the sounds to the ears, somehow sharper and more wrenching than the colors of the familiar spectrum. Marty wanted to turn away at once, but Steve insisted on staying, trying to make sense of it.

  “It’s a kind of ballet,” he said. “At least, that’s the nearest one can get to it.”

  “Not likely to hit the Top Ten on Network TV.”

  Steve said: “You can almost get something at times. Just then, for instance.” He made a face. “And right away it goes sour.”

  “It never went sweet as far as I was concerned,” Marty said. His eyes and head were beginning to ache from the din and the kaleidoscopic dazzle. “I think I’ll leave you to sort it out.”

  Steve shook his head. “I don’t really think I want to.”

  They found a cave thickly covered with something that was vaguely like grass, except that it was dark red and looked as though it were at least nine feet deep. A curious rippling movement ran through it from time to time, as though things were moving down below the surface. The boys ventured no farther than the tunnel mouth. There was an entrance to yet another cave on the far side, but the thought of wading through the red rippling grass stuff to reach it was not a tempting one.

  One cave was, except for the glowing moss, entirely empty. They stood in the center and looked around at the shimmering blankness.

  “Did the Plant run out of ideas,” Marty asked, “or is this one lying fallow?”

  “I don’t know,” Steve said. “We could ask Mr. Thurgood. If we find him again. You could lose each other for days in this warren.”

  Marty cupped his hands around his mouth and hallooed. The sound echoed strangely in the silence, and he stopped quickly. Somewhere not far away in the cave system the two orchestra-trees were very likely still giving out their different kinds of music, but here there was a hushed stillness. The rock would provide perfect insulation, of course. All these small separate worlds and yet each, if Thurgood were to be believed, sustained and controlled and watched over by the Plant. Presumably it could see them now, hear their voices. What would it make of these two intruders in its domains—how would it react to them? Marty shivered, and then remembered they were not the first. Thurgood had been here for seventy years, not only unharmed but cherished by the Plant. Only a few hours ago it had seemed that they must resign themselves to dying of starvation. That fear at least was ended.

  They went on and came to a cave studded with clumps of snake-like things that rose, writhing, out of the moss. The boys threaded their way between the clumps, instinctively giving them a wide berth. There was nothing to fear in the caves, Thurgood had assured them, but there was plenty to make one uneasy by its weirdness. A thought came to Marty, and he said: “If the darkness came again while we were here . . . I wouldn’t fancy sleeping among this lot. Nor of finding a way back through it.”

  “No,” Steve said. “Me neither. We could go back to the lake cave. I’ve done enough exploring for today.”

  • • •

  Thurgood was there, lying on the grass by the lake. Marty said something about losing him, and he smiled but did not volunteer anything about where he had been. The boys talked about their own explorations, and he listened incuriously. They asked him questions about the various caves they had found, and the things in them, to which he gave vague, unhelpful answers. Yes, he thought the empty cave had not alw
ays been empty; in fact he could remember a kind of spinning merry-go-round in it at one time. And no, he did not think there was anything actually moving under the red grass—just the grass itself in motion. All these were parts of the mysteries of the Plant. One could not expect to understand them.

  Later they went back up the slope to the orchard. Thurgood showed them things they had not previously discovered, or which they had not risked eating. There were reddish fungi, growing in abundance near one wall, which had a pleasant meaty taste, and round yellow turnip-like roots which tasted of cheese. These were probably protein sources, Marty thought. He also showed them the drinking-­fountain tree. It resembled a palm and one parted the outer leaves to reveal, in the center, a pool of clear liquid in which one could cup one’s hands and drink. The liquid was almost tasteless but not quite; there was a hint of lemon. They drank deeply and Marty noticed that more liquid was forming on the inside of the sword-like leaves, trickling down to augment the pool.

  They drifted back in the direction of the lake. Steve asked if it were possible to swim in it. Thurgood said: “Yes. I used to at one time. I can’t remember how long since. The Plant made me a swimming place. There was a tree with branches I used to dive from . . .”

  “Could it do that again,” Steve said, “if you asked it?”

  There was no reply. Steve repeated his question. Marty looked and saw that Thurgood was moving slowly, falling behind them. He looked as though there were a weight on his shoulders. Marty noticed something else: the light of the moss was starting to dim again. Thurgood yawned and, in a collapsing movement, dropped to lie in the long grass.

  Steve said: “Mr. Thurgood . . .”

  They went back and stood over him. Marty said: “He’s asleep.”

  Light drained, slowly at first and then more and more rapidly, from the cave. In the end there was blackness. It was less frightening than the first time because they knew what was happening and that it was only temporary. They sat side by side in the dark, and Marty said: “It would be a good idea to get flashlights down from the crawler.”