Brian W. Aldiss - Saliva Tree

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Here is the story which fought Zelazny's "He Who Shapes" to a
standstill for the novella award. It is set not in the far future or
even in the familiar present, but in that curiously bright and
timeless late-Victorian world, glimpsed as if through the wrong
end of a telescope, in which the wonderful events of H. 0.
Wells' stories take place.
The author of this brilliant pastiche was born in the mid-
twenties into the East Anglia depicted as background to "The
Saliva Tree," where many farms still had their own little
electricity generators. He has been Literary Editor of the
Oxford Mail for eight years. He made a happy second marriage
in 1965, now lives in a beautiful old sixteenth-century
thatched house in Oxfordshire, "seeing slightly crazy visions."
Nebula Award, Best Novella 1965 (tied with "He Who Shapes," by Roger Zelazny)
THE SALIVA TREE
Brian W. Aldiss
There is neither speech nor language: but their voices are heard
among them. Psalm xix.
"You know, I'm really much exercised about the Fourth
Dimension," said the fair-haired young man, with a suitable
earnestness in his voice.
"Um," said his companion, staring up at the night sky.
"It seems very much in evidence these days. Do you not
think you catch a glimpse of it in the drawings of Aubrey
Beardsley?"
"Um," said his companion.
They stood together on a low rise to the east of the sleepy
East Anglian town of Cottersall, watching the stars, shivering a
little in the chill February air. They are both young men in their
early twenties. The one who is occupied with the Fourth
Dimension is called Bruce Fox; be is tall and fair, and works as
junior clerk in the Norwich firm of lawyers, Prendergast and
Tout. The other, who has so far vouchsafed us only an urn or
two, although he is to figure largely as the hero of our account,
is by name Gregory Rolles. He is tall and dark, with gray eyes
set in his handsome and intelligent face. He and Fox have
sworn to Think Large, thus distinguishing themselves, at least
in their own minds, from all the rest of the occupants of
Cottersall in these last years of the nineteenth century.
"There's another!" exclaimed Gregory, breaking at last from
the realm of monosyllables. He pointed a gloved finger up at
the constellation of Auriga the Charioteer. A meteor streaked
across the sky like a runaway flake of the Milky Way, and died
in mid-air.
"Beautiful!" they said together.
"It's funny," Fox said, prefacing his words with an oft-used
phrase, "the stars and men's minds are so linked together and
always have been, even in the centuries of ignorance before
Charles Darwin. They always seem to play an ill-defined role in
man's affairs. They help me think large too, don't they you,
Greg?"
"You know what I think1 think that some of those stars may
be occupied. By people, I mean." He breathed heavily,
overcome by what he was saying. "People whoperhaps they
are better than us, live in a just society, wonderful people . . ."
"I know, socialists to a man!" Fox exclaimed. This was one
point on which he did not share his friend's advanced thinking.
He had listened to Mr. Tout talking in the office, and thought he
knew better than his rich friend how these socialists, of which
one heard so much these days, were undermining society.
"Stars full of socialists!"
"Better than stars full of Christians! Why, if the stars were
full of Christians, no doubt they would already have sent
missionaries down here to preach their Gospel."
"I wonder if there ever will be planetary journeys as
predicted by Nunsowe Greene and Monsieur Jules Verne"
Fox said, when the appearance of a fresh meteor stopped him
in mid-sentence.
Like the last, this meteor seemed to come from the general
direction of Auriga. It traveled slowly, and it glowed red, and it
sailed grandly towards them. They both exclaimed at once, arid
gripped each other by the arm. The magnificent spark burned
in the sky, larger now, so that its red aura appeared to encase a
brighter orange glow. It passed overhead (afterwards, they
argued whether it had not made a slight noise as it passed),
and disappeared below a clump of willow. They knew it had
been near. For an instant, the land had shone with its light.
Gregory was the first to speak.
"Bruce, Bruce, did you see that? That was no ordinary
fireball!"
"It was so big! What was it?"
"Perhaps our heavenly visitor has come at last!"
"Hey, Greg, it must have landed by your friend's farmthe
Grendon placemustn't it?"
"You're right! I must pay old Mr. Grendon a visit tomorrow
and see if he or his family saw anything of this."
They talked excitedly, stamping their feet as they exercised
their lungs. Their conversation was the conversation of
optimistic young men, and included much speculative matter
that began "Wouldn't it be wonderful if" or "Just supposing"
Then they stopped and laughed at their own absurd beliefs.
Fox said slyly, "So you'll be seeing all the Grendon family
tomorrow?"
"It seems probable, unless that red-hot planetary ship has
already borne them off to a better world."
"Tell us true, Gregyou really go to see that pretty Nancy
Grendon, don't you?"
Gregory struck his friend playfully on the shoulder.
"No need for your jealousy, Bruce! I go to see the father, not
the daughter. Though the one is female, the other is
progressive, and that must interest me more just yet. Nancy has
beauty, true, but her fatherah, her father has electricity!"
Laughing, they cheerfully shook hands and parted for the
night.
On Grendon's farm, things were a deal less tranquil, as
Gregory was to discover.
Gregory Rolles rose before seven next morning as was his
custom. It was while he was lighting his gas mantle, and
wishing Mr. Fenn (the baker in whose house Gregory lodged)
would install electricity, that a swift train of thought led him to
reflect again on the phenomenal thing in the previous night's
sky. He let his mind wander luxuriously over all the possibilities
that the "meteor" illuminated. He decided that he would ride
out to see Mr. Grendon within the hour.
He was lucky in being able, at this stage in his life, to please
himself largely as to how his days were spent, for his father was
a person of some substance. Edward Rolles had had the
fortune, at the time of the Crimean War, to meet Escoffier, and
with some help from the great chef had brought onto the
market a baking powder, "Eugenol," that, being slightly more
palatable and less deleterious to the human system than its
rivals, had achieved great commercial success. As a result,
Gregory had attended one of the Cambridge colleges.
Now, having gained a degree, he was poised on the verge of
a career. But which career? He had acquiredmore as a result of
his intercourse with other students than with those officially
deputed to instruct himsome understanding of the sciences;
his essays had been praised and some of his poetry published,
so that he inclined toward literature; and an uneasy sense that
life for everyone outside the privileged classes contained too
large a proportion of misery led him to think seriously of a
political career. In Divinity, too, he was well-grounded; but at
least the idea of Holy Orders did not tempt him.
While he wrestled with his future, he undertook to live away
from home, since his relations with his father were never
smooth. By rusticating himself in the heart of East Anglia, he
hoped to gather material for a volume tentatively entitled
"Wanderings with a Socialist Naturalist," which would assuage
all sides of his ambitions. Nancy Grendon, who had a pretty
hand with a pencil, might even execute a little emblem for the
title page . . . Perhaps he might be permitted to dedicate it to
his author friend, Mr. Herbert George Wells. . .
He dressed himself warmly, for the morning was cold as well
as dull, and went down to the baker's stables. When he had
saddled his mare, Daisy, he swung himself up and set out along
a road that the horse knew well.
The land rose slightly towards the farm, the area about the
house forming something of a little island amid marshy ground
and irregular stretches of water that gave back to the sky its
own dun tone. The gate over the little bridge was, as always,
open wide; Daisy picked her way through the mud to the
stables, where Gregory left her to champ oats contentedly. Cuff
and her pup, Lardie, barked loudly about Gregory's heels as
usual, and he patted their heads on his way over to the house.
Nancy came hurrying out to meet him before he got to the
front door.
"We had some excitement last night, Gregory," she said. He
noted with pleasure she had at last brought herself to use .his
first name.
"Something bright and glaring!" she said. "I was retiring,
when this noise come and then this light, and I rush to look out
through the curtains, and there's this here great thing like an
egg sinking into our pond." In her speech, and particularly
when she was excited, she carried the lilting accent of Norfolk.
"The meteor!" Gregory exclaimed. "Bruce Fox and I were
out last night, as we were the night before, watching for the
lovely Aurigids that arrive every February, when we saw an
extra big one. I said then it was coming over very near here."
"Why, it almost landed on our house," Nancy said. She
looked very pleasing this morning, with her lips red, her cheeks
shining, and her chestnut curls all astray. As she spoke, her
mother appeared in apron and cap, with a wrap hurriedly
thrown over her shoulders.
"Nancy, you come in, standing freezing like that! You ent
daft, girl are you? Hello, Gregory, how be going on? I didn't
reckon as we'd see you today. Come in and warm yourself."
"Good-day to you, Mrs. Grendon. I'm hearing about your
wonderful meteor of last night."
"It was a falling star, according to Bert Neckland. I ent sure
what it was, but it certainly stirred up the animals, that I do
know."
"Can you see anything of it in the pond?" Gregory asked.
"Let me show you," Nancy said.
Mrs. Grendon returned indoors. She went slowly and
grandly, her back straight and an unaccustomed load before
her. Nancy was her only daughter; there was a younger son,
Archie, a stubborn lad who had fallen at odds .with his father
and now was apprenticed to a blacksmith in Norwich; and no
other children living. Three infants had not survived the
mixture of fogs alternating with bitter east winds that
comprised the typical Cottersall winter. But now the farmer's
wife was unexpectedly gravid again, and would bear her
husband another baby when the spring came in.
As Nancy led Gregory over to the pond, he saw Grendon
with his two laborers working in the West Field, but they did
not wave.
"Was your father not excited by the arrival last night?"
"That he waswhen it happened! He went out with his
shotgun, and Bert Neckland with him. But there was nothing to
see but bubbles in the pond and steam over it, and this morning
he wouldn't discuss it, and said that work must go on whatever
happen."
They stood beside the pond, a dark and extensive slab of
water with rushes on the farther bank and open country
beyond. As they looked at its ruffled surface, they stood with the
windmill black and bulky on their left hand. It was to this that
Nancy now pointed.
Mud had been splashed across the boards high up the sides
of the mill; some was to be seen even on the top of the nearest
white sail. Gregory surveyed it all with interest. Nancy,
however, was still pursuing her own line of thought.
"Don't you reckon Father works too hard, Gregory? When
he's not outside doing jobs, he's in reading his pamphlets and
his electricity manuals. He never rests but when he sleeps."
"Um. Whatever went into the pond went in with a great
smack! There's no sign of anything there now, is there? Not
that you can see an inch below the surface."
"You being a friend of his. Mum thought perhaps as you'd
say something to him. He don't go to bed till ever so
latesometimes it's near midnight, and then he's up again at
three and a half o'clock. Would you speak to him? You know
Mother dassent."
"Nancy, we ought to see whatever it was that went in the
pond. It can't have dissolved. How deep is the water? Is it very
deep?"
"Oh, you aren't listening, Gregory Rolles! Bother the old
meteor!"
"This is a matter of science, Nancy. Don't you see"
"Oh, rotten old science, is it? Then I don't want to hear. I'm
cold, standing out here. You can have a good look if you like but
I'm going in before I gets froze. It was only an old stone out of
the sky, because I heard Father and Bert Neckland agree to it."
"Fat lot Bert Neckland knows about such things!" he called
to her departing back.
He looked down at the dark water. Whatever it was that had
arrived last night, it was here, only a few feet from him. He
longed to discover what remained of it. Vivid pictures entered
his mind: his name in headlines in "The Morning Post," the
Royal Society making him an honorary member, his father
embracing him and pressing him to return home.
Thoughtfully, he walked over to the barn. Hens ran clucking
out of his way as he entered and stood looking up, waiting for
his eyes to adjust to the dim light. There, as he remembered it,
was a little rowing boat. Perhaps in his courting days old Mr.
Grendoii had taken his prospective wife out for excursions on
the Oast in it. Surely it had not been used in years. He dragged
the boat from the barn and launched it in the shallows of the
pond. It floated. The boards had dried, and water leaked
through a couple of seams, but not nearly enough to deter him,
Climbing delicately in among the straw and filth, he pushed off.
When he was over the approximate center of the pond, he
shipped his oars and peered over the side. There was an
agitation in the water, and nothing could be seen, although he
imagined much.
As he stared over the one side, the boat unexpectedly tipped
to the other. Gregory swung round. The boat listed heavily to
the left, so that the oars rolled over that way. He could see
nothing. Yethe heard something. It was a sound much like a
hound slowly panting. And whatever made it was about to
capsize the boat.
"What is it?" he said, as all the skin prickled up his back and
skull.
The boat lurched, for all the world as if someone invisible
were trying to get into it. Frightened, he grasped the oar, and,
without thinking, swept it over that side of the rowing boat.
It struck something solid where there was only air.
Dropping the oar in surprise, he put out his hand. It touched
something yielding. At the same time, his arm was violently
struck.
His actions were then entirely governed by instinct. Thought
did not enter the matter. He picked up the oar again and smote
the thin air with it. It hit something. There was a splash, and
the boat righted itself so suddenly he was almost pitched into
the water. Even while it still rocked, he was rowing frantically
for the shallows, dragging the boat from the water, and running
for the safety of the farmhouse.
Only at the door did he pause. His reason returned, his heart
began gradually to stop stammering its fright. He stood looking
at the seamed wood of the porch, trying to evaluate what he
had seen and what had actually happened. But what had
happened?
Forcing himself to go back to the pond, he stood by the boat
and looked across the sullen face of the water. It lay
undisturbed, except by surface ripples. He looked at the boat
A quantity of water lay in the bottom of it. He thought, all that
happened was that I nearly capsized, and I let my idiot fears
run away with me. Shaking his head, he pulled the boat back to
the barn.
Gregory, as he often did, stayed to eat lunch at the farm, but
he saw nothing of the farmer till milking time.
Joseph Grendon was in his late forties, and a few years older
than his wife. He bad a gaunt solemn face and a heavy beard
that made him look older than he was. For all his seriousness,
he greeted Gregory civilly enough. They stood together in the
gathering dusk as the cows swung behind them into their
regular stalls. Together they walked into the machine house
next door, and Grendon lit the oil burners that started the
steam engine into motion that would turn the generator that
would supply the vital spark.
"I smell the future in here," Gregory said, smiling. By now, he
had forgotten the shock of the morning.
"The future will have to get on without me. I shall be dead
by then." The farmer spoke as he walked, putting each word
reliably before the next.
"That is what you always say. You're wrongthe future is
rushing upon us."
"You ent far wrong there. Master Gregory, but I won't have
no part of it, I reckon. I'm an old man now. Here she come!"
The last exclamation was directed at a flicker of light in the
pilot bulb overhead. They stood there contemplating with
satisfaction the wonderful machinery. As steam pressure rose,
the great leather belt turned faster and faster, and the flicker in
the pilot bulb grew stronger. Although Gregory was used to a
home lit by both gas and electricity, he never felt the
excitement of it as he did here, out in the wilds, where the
nearest incandescent bulb was probably in Norwich, a great
part of a day's journey away.
Now a pale flickering radiance illuminated the room. By
contrast, everything outside looked black. Grendon nodded in
satisfaction, made some adjustments to the burners, and they
went outside.
Free from the bustle of the steam engine, they could hear the
noise the cows were making. At milking time, the animals were
usually quiet; something had upset them. The farmer ran
quickly into the milking shed, with Gregory on his heels;
The new light, radiating from a bulb hanging above the
stalls, showed the beasts of restless demeanor and rolling eye.
Bert Neckland stood as far away from the door as possible,
grasping his stick and letting his mouth hang open.
"What in blazes are you staring at, bor?" Grendon asked.
Neckland slowly shut his mouth.
"We had a scare," he said. "Something come in here."
"Did you see what it was?" Gregory asked.
"No, there weren't nothing to see. It was a ghost, that's what
it was. It came right in here and touched the cows. It touched
me too. It was a ghost."
The farmer snorted. "A tramp more like. You couldn't see
because the light wasn't on."
His man shook his head emphatically. "Light weren't that
bad. I tell you, whatever it was, it come right up to me and
touched me." He stopped, and pointed to the edge of the stall.
"Look there! See, I weren't telling you no lie, master. It was a
ghost, and there's its wet hand-print."
They crowded round and examined the worn and chewed
timber at the corner of the partition between two stalls. An
indefinite patch of moisture darkened the wood. Gregory's
thoughts went back to his experience on the pond, and again he
felt the prickle of unease along his spine. But the farmer said
stoutly, "Nonsense, it's a bit of cowslime. Now you get on with
the milking, Bert, and let's have no more hossing about, because
I want my tea. Where's Cuff?"
Bert looked defiant.
"If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the bitch. She
saw whatever it was and went for it. It kicked her over, but she
ran it out of here."
"I'll see if I can see her," Gregory said.
He ran outside and began calling the bitch. By now it was
almost entirely dark. He could see nothing moving in the wide
space of the front yard, and so set off in the other direction,
down the path towards the pig sties and the fields, calling Cuff
as he went. He paused. Low and savage growls sounded ahead,
under the elm trees. It was Cuff. He went slowly forward. At
this moment, he cursed that electric light meant lack of
lanterns, and wished too that he had a weapon.
"Who's there?" he called.
The farmer came up by his side. "Let's charge 'em!"
They ran forward. The trunks of the four great elms were
clear against the western sky, with water glinting leadenly be-
hind them. The dog became visible. As Gregory saw Cuff, she
sailed into the air, whirled round, and flew at the farmer. He
flung up his arms and warded off the body. At the same time,
Gregory felt a rush of air as if someone unseen had run past
him, and a stale muddy smell filled his nostrils. Staggering, he
looked behind him. The wan light from the cowsheds spread
across the path between the outhouses and the farmhouse.
Beyond the light, more distantly, was the silent countryside
behind the grain store. Nothing untoward could be seen.
"They killed my old Cuff," said the farmer.
Gregory knelt down beside him to look at the bitch. There
was no mark of injury on her, but she was dead, her fine head
lying limp.
"She knew there was something there," Gregory said. "She
went to attack whatever it was and it got her first. What was it?
Whatever in the world was it?"
"They killed my old Cuff," said the farmer again, unhearing.
He picked the body up in his arms, turned, and carried it
towards the house. Gregory stood where he was, mind and
heart equally uneasy.
He jumped violently when a step sounded nearby. It was
Bert Neckland.
"What, did that there ghost kill the old bitch?" he asked.
"It killed the bitch certainly, but it was something more
terrible than a ghost."
"That's one of them ghosts, bor. I seen plenty in my time. I
ent afraid of ghosts, are you?"
"You looked fairly sick in the cowshed a minute ago."
The farmhand put his fists on his hips. He was no more than
a couple of years older than Gregory, a stocky young man with
a spotty complexion and a snub nose that gave him at once an
air of comedy and menace. "Is that so, Master Gregory? Well,
you looks pretty funky standing there now."
"I am scared. I don't mind admitting it. But only because we
have something here a lot nastier than any specter."
Neckland came a little closer.
"Then if you are so tilooming windy, perhaps you'll be
staying away from the farm in the future." '
"Certainly not." He tried to edge back into the light, but the
laborer got in his way.
"If I was you, I, should stay away." He emphasized his point
by digging an elbow into Gregory's coat. "And just remember
that Nancy was interested in me long afore you come'along,
bor."
"Oh, that's it, is iti I think Nancy can decide for herself in
whom she is interested, don't you?"
"I'm telling you who she's interested in, see? And mind you
don't forget, see?" He emphasized the words with another
nudge. Gregory pushed his arm away angrily. Neckland
shrugged his shoulders and walked off. As he went, he said,
"You're going to get worse than ghosts if you keep hanging
round here."
Gregory was shaken. The suppressed violence in the man's
voice suggested that he had been harboring malice for some
time. Unsuspectingly, Gregory had always gone out of his way
to be cordial, had regarded the sullenness as mere slow-
wittedness and done his socialist best to overcome the barrier
between them. He thought of following Neckland and trying to
make it up with him; but that would look too feeble. Instead, he
followed the way the farmer had gone with his dead bitch, and
made for the house.
Gregory Rolles was too late back to Cottersall that night to
meet his friend Fox. The next night, the weather became
exceedingly chill and Gabriel Woodcock, the oldest inhabitant,
was prophesying snow before the winter was out (a not very
venturesome prophecy to be fulfilled within forty-eight hours,
thus impressing most of the inhabitants of the village, for they
took pleasure in being impressed and exclaiming and saying
"Well I never!" to each other). The two friends met in "The
Wayfarer," where the fires were bigger, though the ale was
weaker, than in "The Three Poachers" at the other end of the
village.
Seeing to it that nothing dramatic was missed from his
account, Gregory related the affairs of the previous day,
omitting any reference to Neckland's pugnacity. Fox listened
fascinated, neglecting both his pipe and his ale.
"So you see how it is, Bruce," Gregory concluded. "In that
deep pond by the mill lurks a vehicle of some sort, the very one
we saw in the sky, and in it lives an invisible being of evil intent.
You see how I fear for my friends there. Should I tell the police
about it, do you think?"
"I'm sure it would not help the Grendons to have old Farrish
bumping out there on his pennyfarthing," Fox said, referring to
the local representative of the law. He took a long draw first on
the pipe and then on the glass. "But I'm not sure you have your
conclusions quite right, Greg. Understand, I don't doubt the
facts, amazing though they are. I mean, we were more or less
expecting celestial visitants. The world's recent blossoming
with gas and electric lighting in its cities at night must have
been a signal to half the nations of space that we are now civ-
ilized down here. But have our visitants done any deliberate
harm to anyone?"
"They nearly drowned me and they killed poor Cuff. I don't
see what you're getting at. They haven't begun in a very
friendly fashion, have they now?"
"Think what the situation must seem like to them. Suppose
they come from Mars or the Moonwe know their world must
be absolutely different from Earth. They may be terrified. And
it can hardly be called an unfriendly act to try and get into your
rowing boat. The first unfriendly act was yours, when you
struck out with the oar."
Gregory bit his lip. His friend had a point. "I was scared."
"It may have been because they were scared that they killed
Cuff. The dog attacked them, after all, didn't she? I feel sorry
for these creatures, alone in an unfriendly world."
"You keep saying 'these!' As far as we know, there is only
one of them."
"My point is this, Greg. You have completely gone back on
your previous enlightened attitude. You are all for killing these
poor things instead of trying to speak to them. Remember what
you were saying about other worlds being full of socialists? Try
thinking of these chaps as invisible socialists and see if that
doesn't make them easier to deal with."
Gregory fell to stroking his chin. Inwardly, he acknowledged
that Bruce Fox's words made a great impression on him. He
had allowed panic to prejudice his judgment; as a result, he
had behaved as immoderately as a savage in some remote
corner of the Empire, confronted by his first steam locomotive.
"I'd better get back to the farm and sort things out as soon
as possible," he said. "If these things really do need help, I'll
help them."
"That's it. But try not to think of them as 'things.' Think of
them asas1 know, as The Aurigans."
"Aurigans it is. But don't be so smug, Bruce. If you'd been in
that boat-"
"I know, old friend. I'd have died of fright." To this
monument of tact, Fox added, "Do as you say, go back and sort
things out as soon as possible. I'm longing for the ne)rt install-
ment of this mystery. It's quite the joUiest thing since Sheriock
Holmes."
Gregory Rolles went back to the farm. But the sorting out of
which Bruce had spoken took longer than he expected. This
was chiefly because the Aurigans seemed to have settled
摘要：

HereisthestorywhichfoughtZelazny's"HeWhoShapes"toastandstillforthenovellaaward.Itissetnotinthefarfutureoreveninthefamiliarpresent,butinthatcuriouslybrightandtimelesslate-Victorianworld,glimpsedasifthroughthewrongendofatelescope,inwhichthewonderfuleventsofH.0.Wells'storiestakeplace.Theauthorofthisbri...

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