The Green Brain (3 page)

Authors: Frank Herbert

BOOK: The Green Brain

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“That's something God did by the hand of St. Patrick,” she said. “I don't fancy the bandeirantes as cast in the same mold.” She'd spoken in quick anger and regretted it immediately.

“I should've warned you, Johnny,” Chen-Lhu said.
“She has an Irish temper.” And he thought:
He's putting on an act for my benefit
â
devious little man.

“I see,” Martinho said. “If God didn't see fit to rid us of insects, perhaps we're wrong in trying to do this for ourselves.”

Rhin glared at him in dismay.

Chen-Lhu suppressed a surge of pure rage.
That devious Latin maneuvered Rhin into this position! Deliberately!

“My government doesn't recognize the existence of God,” Chen-Lhu said. “Perhaps if God were to initiate an exchange of embassies â¦” He patted Rhin's arm, noted that she was trembling. “However, the IEO believes we'll be extending the fight north of the Rio Grande Line within ten years.”

“The IEO believes this? Or is it China's belief?”

“Both,” Chen-Lhu said.

“Even if the North Americans object?”

“They are expected to see the light of reason.”

“And the Irish?”

Rhin managed a smile. “The Irish,” she said, “have always been notoriously unreasonable.” She reached for her drink, hesitated as her attention was caught by a white-clad bandeirante standing across the tableâVierho.

Martinho bounced to his feet, bowed once more to Rhin. “
Doctor
Kelly, allow me to introduce one of my brothers of the Irmandades, Padre Vierho.” He turned back to Rhin. “This lovely one, my esteemed Padre, is a
field
director of the IEO.”

Vierho gave her a tight little nod, sat down stiffly at the limit of the divan beyond Chen-Lhu. “Charmed,” he murmured.

“My Irmandades, they are shy,” Martinho said. He
resumed his seat beside Rhin. “They'd rather be out killing ants.”

“Johnny, how is your father?” Chen-Lhu asked.

Martinho spoke without looking away from Rhin. “The affairs of the Mato Grosso keep him much occupied.” He paused. “You have lovely eyes.”

Again, Rhin found herself disconcerted by his directness. She picked up the golden bulb of his drink, said, “What is this?”

“Ah, that is flierce, the Brazilian mead. Take it for yourself. There are little points of light in your eyes to match the gold of the drink.”

She suppressed a quick retort, lifted the drink to sip it, genuinely curious. She stopped with the glass tube almost at her lips as she caught Vierho staring at her hair.

“Is it really that color?” he asked.

Martinho laughed, a surprised and oddly affectionate sound. “Ahh, Padre,” he said.

Rhin sipped the drink to cover a feeling of confusion, found the liquid softly sweet, filled with the memory of many flowers, and with a sharp bite beneath the sugar.

“But is it that color?” Vierho insisted.

Chen-Lhu leaned forward. “Many Irish colleens have such red hair, Vierho. It's supposed to signify a wild temper.”

Rhin returned the drink to the table, wondering at her own emotions. She sensed a camaraderie between Vierho and his chief and resented the fact that she couldn't share it.

“Where next, Johnny?” Chen-Lhu asked.

Martinho darted a glance at his brother Irmandade, returned a hard stare to Chen-Lhu.
Why does this official of the IEO ask such a question here and now?
he wondered.
Chen-Lhu must know where next. It could not be otherwise.

“I'm surprised you hadn't heard,” Martinho said. “This afternoon I bid-in the Serra Dos Parecis.”

“By the great bug of the Mambuca,” Vierho muttered.

Anger showed in the sudden darkening of Martinho's face. “Vierho!” he snapped.

Rhin stared from one to the other. A strange silence had settled over the table. She felt it as a tingling along her arms and shoulders. There was something about it that was fearful, even sexual â¦ and profoundly disturbing. She recognized the reaction of her body, hated it, knew she could not place its source with any precision this time. All she could say to herself was:
This is why Chen-Lhu sent for me
â
to attract this Joao Martinho and manipulate him. I'll do it, but what I'll hate most is the fact that I'll enjoy it.

“But, Jefe,” Vierho said. “You know yourself what was said about â¦”

“I know!” Martinho barked. “Yes!”

Vierho nodded, a look of pain on his face. “They said it was â¦”

“There are mutants, we know that,” Martinho said. And he thought:
Why did Chen-Lhu force this disclosure now? To see me argue with one of my men?

“Mutants?” Chen-Lhu asked.

“We have seen what we have seen,” Vierho said.

“But the description of this
thing
is a physical impossibility,” Martinho said. “It has to be a product of someone's superstition.
That
I know.”

“Do you, Jefe?”

“Anything that's there we can face,” Martinho said.

“What
are
you talking about?” Rhin asked.

Chen-Lhu cleared his throat.
Let her see now the extremes
to which our enemy will go,
he thought
. Let her see the perfidy of these bandeirantes. Then, when I tell her what she must do, she'll do it killingly.

“There is a story, Rhin,” Chen-Lhu said.

“Story!” Martinho sneered.

“Rumor, then,” Chen-Lhu said. “Some of the bandeirantes of Diogo Alvarez say they saw a mantidae three meters tall in the Serra Dos Parecis.”

Vierho leaned toward Chen-Lhu, face tense. The acid scar was pale on the bandeirante's cheek. “Alvarez lost six men before he gave up the Serra. You know that, Senhor? Six men! And he â¦”

Vierho broke off at the arrival of a squat, dark-skinned man in a stained bandeirante working smock. The man was round faced, with Indian eyes. He stopped almost behind Martinho, stood there waiting.

The newcomer bent close to Martinho, whispered.

Rhin could catch only a few of his wordsâthey were very low and in some barbarous interlands dialectâsomething about the Plaza, the central square â¦ crowds.

Martinho pursed his lips, said, “When?”

Ramon straightened, spoke somewhat louder. “Just now, Jefe.”

“In the Plaza?”

“Yesâless than a block from here.”

“What is it?” Chen-Lhu asked.

“A namesake of this cabaret,” Martinho said.

“A chigger?”

“So they say.”

“But this area's Green,” Rhin said. And she wondered at her sudden feelings of dismay.

Martinho pushed himself up and away from the divan.

Chen-Lhu's face betrayed a strange watchfulness as he looked up at the bandeirante jefe.

“You will excuse me, please, Rhin Kelly?” Martinho asked.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“There is work.”

“One chigger?” Chen-Lhu asked. “Are you sure it isn't a mistake?”

“No mistake, senhor,” Ramon said.

“Is there no facility for taking care of such accidents, then?” Rhin asked. “Obviously we've a stowaway that's come into the Green on some sort of cargo or â¦”

“Perhaps not,” Martinho said. He nodded to Vierho. “Get the men. I will need especially Thome for the truck and Lon to manage the lights.”

“At once, Jefe.” Vierho bounced up and headed across the room toward the other Irmandades.

“What do you meanâ
perhaps not?
” Chen-Lhu asked.

“This is one of the new ones about which you refuse to believe,” Martinho said. He turned to Ramon. “Go with Vierho, please.”

“Yes, Jefe.”

Ramon turned with an almost military precision, strode in Vierho's wake.

“You will explain, please?” Chen-Lhu said.

“This is described as an acid-shooter and almost a half meter long,” Martinho said.

“Impossible!” Chen-Lhu snorted.

Rhin shook her head. “No chigger could possibly â¦”

“This is a bandeirante joke,” Chen-Lhu said.

“As you wish, senhor,” Martinho said. “You have seen the acid scar on Vierho's cheek? This too was
produced by such a joke.” He turned, bowed to Rhin. “Your forgiveness, Senhorita?”

Rhin stood up.
A chigger almost half a meter long!

The odd rumors she'd heard half a world away reached out and touched her now, filling her with a sense of unreality. There were physical limits. Such a thing could not be. Or could it? She was all entomologist now. Logic and training took over. This was a matter which might be proved or disproved in just a few minutes. Less than a block away, the man had said. In the Plaza. And certainly Chen-Lhu wouldn't want her to disengage herself from Joao Martinho quite this early.

“We are going with you, of course,” she said.

“Of course,” Chen-Lhu said, rising.

Rhin slipped an arm beneath Martinho's. “Show me this fantastic chigger, if you please, Senhor Martinho.”

Martinho placed a hand over hers, felt an electric sensation of warmth.
What a disturbing woman!
“Please,” he said. “You are so lovely, and the thought of what the acid of this â¦”

“I'm certain we'll be quite safe from a rumor,” Chen-Lhu said. “Will you lead the way, please, Johnny?”

Martinho sighed. The unbelievers were so stubbornâbut this was a chance to reach into a high place with inescapable evidence of what most bandeirantes already knew. Yes; District Director Chen-Lhu should come. Indeed, he must come. Reluctantly, Martinho transferred Rhin's arm to Chen-Lhu. “Of course you will come,” he said. “But please keep the lovely Rhin Kelly well to the rear, Senhor. Rumors sometimes develop a terrible sting.”

“We will take every necessary precaution,” Chen-Lhu said. The jibe in his voice was quite apparent.

Martinho's men already were headed for the door.
He turned, strode after them, ignoring the abrupt hush of the room as attention followed him.

Rhin, accompanying Chen-Lhu toward the street, was struck by the purposeful set to the bandeirantes' shoulders. They did not appear like men bent on deceptionâbut that was what it must be. It couldn't be anything else.

T
he night was a blue-white glare from slave lights hanging in their carrier beams above the street. People in the costumes of many nations and many regions, a multi-colored river of people, flowed past the
A'Chigua
toward the Plaza.

Martinho sped up, led his men into the stream. People made way; words of recognition followed.

“It's Joao Martinho and some of his Irmandades.”

“ â¦ the Piratininga with Benito Alvarez.”

“Joao Martinho â¦”

At the Plaza, a white truck of the Hermosillo Bandeirantes played its searchlights on the fountain. There were other trucks and official vehicles across the way. The Hermosillo truck was a working rig recently returned from the interlands, by the look of it. The inter-leavings of its extensile wings were still streaked with dirt. The break-line of its forward pod could be distinguished clearlyâa distinct crack that ran completely around the vehicle. Two of its ground-lift pods didn't
quite match the white of the others, evidence of a field repair job.

Martinho followed the pointing fingers of the searchlights. He moved forward to a line of police and bandeirantes holding back the crowd, was passed through on recognition, his men following.

“Where's Ramon?” Martinho asked.

Vierho pressed up close beside him, said, “Ramon went for the truck with Thome and Lon. I don't see a'chigua.”

“But look you,” Martinho said, pointing.

The crowd was being held back all around the Plaza at a distance of about fifty meters from the central fountain which rose in spooling, glistening arcs. In front of the crowd lay a tiled circle, its mosaic surface decorated with figures of the birds of Brazil. Inside this tiled ring, a ten-centimeter lip lifted to a circle of green lawn about twenty meters in diameter with the fluted cup of the fountain in the center. Between tile and fountain the lawn showed yellow splotches of dead grass. Martinho's pointing finger picked out these patches one by one.

“Acid,” Vierho whispered.

The searchlights centered abruptly on a shifting movement within the spray at the fountain's rim. A hissing passed through the crowd like a sudden wind.

“And there it is,” Martinho said. “Now, will the so-suspicious official of the IEO believe?”

As he spoke, a scintillant spray arched from the creature at the fountain and out onto the lawn.

“
Eeee-ahhhh,
” the crowd said.

Martinho grew conscious of a low moaning off to his left, turned to see a doctor being directed there along the inner rim of the crowd. The doctor turned into the crowd on the other side of the Hermosillo truck, lifting
his bag over his head as he entered the press of people.

“Who was hurt?” Martinho asked.

One of the police behind him said, “It is Alvarez. He tried to get that â¦ thing, but he took only a handshield and a sprayrifle. The shield was not proof against a'chigua's quickness. It got Alvarez in the arm.”

Vierho tugged at Martinho's sleeve, pointed into the crowd behind the policeman. Rhin Kelly and Chen-Lhu were being passed through the onlookers there, space being made for them as people recognized the IEO insignia.

Rhin waved, called, “Senhor Martinhoâthat thing is impossible! It's at least seventy-five centimeters long. It must weigh three or four kilos.”

“Do they not believe their own eyes?” Vierho asked.

Chen-Lhu came up to the policeman who'd described the injury to Alvarez, said, “Let us through, please.”

“Eh? Oh â¦ yes, sir.” The line of guards parted.

Chen-Lhu stopped beside the bandeirante leader, glanced down at Rhin, back to Martinho. “I don't believe it, either. I'd give a pretty to get my hands on that â¦ thing.”

“What is it you don't believe?” Martinho asked.

“I think it's some kind of automaton. Not so, Rhin?”

“It has to be,” she said.

“How much of a pretty would you give?” Martinho asked.

“Ten thousand cruzados.”

“Please keep the lovely
Doctor
Kelly back here out of range,” Martinho said. He turned to Vierho. “What's keeping Ramon and that truck? Find them. I want our magna-glass shield and a modified sprayrifle.”

“Jefe!”

“At once. Oh, yesâand get a large specimen bottle.”

Vierho sighed, turned away to obey.

“What do you say that thing is?” Chen-Lhu asked.

“I don't have to say.”

“Do you imply it's one of the
things
which none but bandeirantes appear to see in the interlands?”

“I don't deny what my own eyes see.”

“Why have
we
never seen specimens, I wonder?” Chen-Lhu mused.

Martinho swallowed to suppress an angry outburst. This fool safe back here in the Green! He dared to question what the bandeirantes knew for fact!

“Isn't that an interesting question?” Chen-Lhu asked.

“We've been lucky to get out with just our lives,” Martinho growled.

“Any entomologist will tell you that thing's a physical impossibility,” Rhin said.

“The material won't support such structure through that sort of activity,” Chen-Lhu said.

“I can see the entomologists must be correct,” Martinho said.

Rhin stared up at him. The angry cynicism surprised her. He attacked and did not remain on the defensive. He acted like a man who believed that
impossibility
out there at the fountain actually was a giant insect. But in the night club he'd argued the other side.

“You've seen such things in the jungle?” Chen-Lhu asked.

“Did you not see the scar on Vierho's face?”

“What does a scar prove?”

“We have seen â¦ what we have seen.”

“But an insect cannot grow that large!” Rhin protested. She turned her attention to the dark creature dancing along the fountain's rim behind the curtain of water.

“So I've been told,” Martinho said. He wondered then about the reports from the Serra Dos Parecis.
Mantidae three meters tallâten feet. He knew the argument against such a thing. Rhinâall the entomologists were correct. Insects couldn't produce living structure that large. Was it possible the things were automata? Who'd build such things? Why?

“It has to be a mechanical simulation of some kind,” Rhin said.

“The acid's real, though,” Chen-Lhu said. “Look at the yellow spots on the lawn.”

Martinho reminded himself then that his own basic training forced him to agree with Rhin and Chen-Lhu. He'd even denied to Vierho that giant mantidae could exist. He knew how rumors pyramided. There were so few people other than bandeirantes in the Red areas these days. The Resettlement Plan had been most efficient. And there was no denying that many bandeirantes were semi-ignorant, superstitious men attracted only by the romance and money.

Martinho shook his head. He'd been there on the Goyaz track the day Vierho had suffered the acid burn. He'd seen â¦ what he had seen. And now, this creature at the fountain.

The high-pitched roaring hiss of truck motors intruded on his awareness. The sound grew louder. The crowd parted giving a wide berth to the ground blast as Ramon backed the Irmandades truck into position beside the Hermosillo vehicle. The rear doors opened and Vierho jumped down as the motors were silenced.

“Jefe,” he called. “Why do we not use the truck? Ramon could put it almost up to the â¦”

Martinho waved him to silence, spoke to Chen-Lhu: “The truck does not have enough maneuverability. You saw how fast that thing is.”

“You haven't said what you think it is,” Chen-Lhu said.

“I'll say when I see it in a specimen bottle,” Martinho said.

Vierho came up beside him, said, “But the truck would give us â¦”

“No! Dr. Chen-Lhu desires an undamaged specimen. Get us some foam bombs. We go in with our hands.”

Vierho sighed, shrugged, returned to the rear of the truck, spoke briefly to someone inside. A bandeirante in the truck began passing out equipment.

Martinho turned to the policeman helping hold back the crowd, said, “Can you get a message to the vehicles across the way?”

“Of course, honorable sir.”

“I want their lights turned off. I don't want to risk being blinded by lights in front of me. You understand?”

“They will be told at once.” He turned, relayed the message to an officer down the line.

Martinho strode to the rear of his truck, took a sprayrifle, examined the charge cylinder, extracted it, took another from a door rack. He locked in the charge, and again checked the rifle.

“Keep the specimen bottle here until we've immobilized that â¦ thing,” he said. “I'll call for it.”

Vierho rolled out the shield, a two-centimeter thickness of acid-resistant, tempered magna-glass, mounted on a two-wheeled handtruck. A narrow slot at the right accepted the rifle.

A bandeirante in the truck handed out two protective suitsâsilver-gray fiberglass sandwiches encased in slick acid-resistant synthetic fabric.

Martinho slipped into one, examined the seals.

Vierho donned the other.

“I could use Thome on the shield,” Martinho said.

“Thome has not as much experience, Jefe.”

Martinho nodded, began examining the foamal bombs and auxiliary equipment. He hung extra charge cylinders in a rack on the shield.

It was all done quickly and silently, with the ease of long experience. The crowd behind the truck took on some of their silenceâa charged waiting. Only the faintest murmuring of conversation surrounded the truck.

“It is still there on the fountain, Jefe,” Vierho said.

He took the control handle of the shield, moved it out onto the mosaic tiles. The right wheel stopped on the patterned blue-scale neck of a condor worked into the tiles. Martinho rested his sprayrifle in its slot, said, “This'd be easier if we only had to kill it.”

“Those things are quick as O Diablo,” Vierho said. “I do not like this, Jefe. If that thing should get around our shield â¦” He fingered the sleeve of his protective suit. “This would be like a piece of gauze trying to stop the river.”

“So don't let it get around the shield.”

“I will do my best, Jefe.”

Martinho studied the creature waiting behind the water curtain at the rim of the fountain, said, “Bring a handlight. Perhaps we can dazzle it.”

Vierho set the shield stand, returned to the truck. He was back in a moment with the light hanging from his belt.

“Let's go,” Martinho said.

Vierho released the handtruck stand, activated its motors. A faint humming issued from it. He turned the driver handle two notches. The shield crept forward, levered its way over the raised ring of the Plaza onto the lawn.

A stream of acid arched outward from the creature at the fountain, splashed onto the grass ten meters in front
of them. Oily white smoke boiled from the lawn, was dispersed to their left by a light breeze. Martinho noted the direction of the breeze, signaled for the shield to be turned upwind. They circled right.

Another stream of acid arched toward them, fell short about the same distance.

“It is trying to tell us something, Jefe,” Vierho joked.

Slowly they approached it, crossed one of the yellowed patches of grass.

Again the stream lifted from the fountain rim. Vierho leaned the shield backward. Acid splashed onto the glass, ran down the front. A biting smell filled their nostrils.

A murmurous “
Ahhhhhhhh
” lifted from the crowd around the Plaza.

“They are fools to stand that close, you know,” Vierho said. “If that thing should charge â¦”

“Someone would shoot it with a hard-pellet,” Martinho said. “Fini a'chigua.”

“Fini Dr. Chen-Lhu's specimen,” Vierho said. “Fini ten thousand cruzados.”

“Yes,” Martinho said. “We must not forget why we run this risk.”

“I hope you don't believe I'd do this for love,” Vierho said. He inched the shield forward another meter.

A foggy area began to form where the acid had hit.

“Etched the magna-glass!” Vierho said, astonishment filling his voice.

“Smelled something like Oxalic,” Martinho said. “Must be stronger, though. Take it slow now. I want a sure shot.”