“They have fallen down,” Jemunu-jah commented. “It means nothing.”
“No? Let’s see.” Retracing his steps, Hasa halted beside the cluster of prostrate rhizomorphs. In response to his renewed proximity, they immediately straightened. After playing with the bobbing, ducking tips for a couple of minutes, he stepped back again. As they began to lie down once more, he moved forward and deliberately pushed them flat so they faced in a southward direction. Retreating, he turned once again to retrace his previous course.
Behind him, the rhizomorphs slowly lifted themselves and adjusted their positions until all were once more facing north.
“What do you think now?” he asked triumphantly.
“The alignment could be due to other factors,” Jemunu-jah insisted. “Direction rain is coming from, position of hidden sun, current temperature. Could be many factors involved.”
Hasa nodded. “Or, having our welfare—excuse me, my welfare—in whatever a pannula uses for a mind, it could be pointing the way toward the village we’ve been trying to reach, assuming that would be the nearest place of safety for us from marauders like the mokusinga.”
Where a human could only cross its arms, Masurathoo was able to entwine his. “I am not going to proceed through this horror of a landscape on the basis of directions provided by a fungus.”
Hasa glanced at the third member of the party. “How about you, fuzz-face?”
The Sakuntala wanted to grab the human by the throat and shake him. That, he reflected, would have been the reaction of an uneducated Hata-nau or perhaps one of Aniolo-jat’s rabid followers. He, on the other hand, was civilized. Though every time he patiently absorbed one of the human’s obnoxious jibes he found himself wishing it were otherwise.