The Green Brain (5 page)

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Authors: Frank Herbert

BOOK: The Green Brain
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“Martinho, if you destroy evidence of …”
“You were not out here facing those things,
Doctor
. You were safe back there at the Plaza's edge while I was earning the right to look in that hole.”
Chen-Lhu's face grew rigid with anger, but he held himself silent until he knew he could control his voice, then said, “In that case, I will go with you now.”
“As you wish.”
Martinho turned away, stared across the Plaza to where the carbines were being handed out of the rear of his truck. Vierho collected them, headed back across the lawn. A tall, bald-headed Negro with right arm in a sling fell into step beside Vierho. The Negro wore a
uniform of plain bandeirante white with the golden spray emblem of a band leader at his left shoulder. His craggy, Moorish features were drawn into a scowl of pain.
“There's Alvarez,” Chen-Lhu said.
“I see him.”
Chen-Lhu faced Martinho, assumed a rueful smile to match his tone. “Johnny—let us not fight. You know why the IEO assigned me to Brazil.”
“I know. China's already completed the realignment of its insects. You're a big success.”
“We've nothing but the mutated bees now, Johnny—not a single creature to spread disease or eat food intended for humans.”
“I know, Travis. And you're here to make our job easier.”
Chen-Lhu frowned at the tone of patient disbelief in Martinho's voice. He said, “Exactly.”
“Then why won't you let our observers or those from the UN go in and see for themselves, Doctor?”
“Johnny! You certainly must know how long my country suffered under the white imperialists. Some of our people believe the danger's still there. They see spies everywhere.”
“But you're more a man of the world, more understanding, eh, Travis?”
“Of course! My great grandmother was English, one of
the
Travis-Huntingtons. We have a tradition of broader understanding in my family.”
“It's a wonder your country trusts you,” Martinho said. “You're part white imperialist.” He turned to greet Alvarez as the Negro stopped in front of them. “Hi, Benito. Sorry about your arm.”
“Hullo, Johnny.” Alvarez's voice was deep and rumbling. “God protected me. I will recover.” He glanced
down at the carbines in Vierho's hands, returned his attention to Martinho. “I heard the Padre here asking for blast-pellets. You could only want them for one reason.”
“I have to look in that hole, Benito.”
Alvarez turned, gave a stiff little bow to Chen-Lhu. “And you have no objections, Doctor?”
“I've objections, but no authority,” Chen-Lhu said. “Is the arm severely injured? I will have my own physicians see to it.”
“The arm will recover,” Alvarez rumbled.
“He really wants to know if it was actually injured,” Martinho said.
Chen-Lhu turned a startled look at Martinho, masked it quickly.
Vierho handed one of the carbines to his chief, said, “Jefe, we have to do this?”
“Why would the good Doctor doubt that my arm was injured?” Alvarez asked.
“He has heard stories,” Martinho said.
“What stories?”
“That we bandeirantes don't want to see a good thing end, that we're reinfesting the Green, breeding new insects in secret laboratories.”
“That rot!” Alvarez growled.
“Which bandeirantes are supposed to be doing this?” Vierho demanded. He scowled at Chen-Lhu, gripped the carbine as though ready to turn it on the IEO official.
“Easy, Padre,” Alvarez said. “The stories never say. It's always
they
or
them
—never names.”
Martinho looked toward the place in the lawn where the giant figure of a beetle had disappeared. He found this dalliance with talk far more alluring than the walk across the lawn to that place. The night air carried a sense of lowering menace and … hysteria. And the
oddest thing of all was the reluctance to take action that could be seen all around him. It was like the lull after a terrible battle in a war.
Well, it is a kind of war,
he told himself.
Eight years they'd been fighting this war here in Brazil. The Chinese had taken twenty-two years, but they'd said it could be done here in ten. The thought that it might take twenty-two years here—fourteen more years—momentarily threatened to overwhelm Martinho. He felt a monstrous fatigue.
“You must admit odd things are happening,” Chen-Lhu said.
“That we admit,” Alvarez said.
“Why does no one suspect the Carsonites?” Vierho asked.
“A good question, Padre,” Alvarez said. “They have big support, the Carsonites—all the holdout nations: the US of A, Canada, the United Kingdom, Common Europe.”
“All the places where they've never had any real trouble with the insects,” Vierho said.
Oddly, it was Chen-Lhu who protested. “No,” he said. “The holdout nations don't really care—except that they're happy to see us occupied with this fight.”
Martinho nodded. Yes—that was what all the companions of his schooldays in North America had said. They couldn't care less.
“I am going over now and look in that hole,” Martinho said.
Alvarez reached out, took Vierho's carbine. He hung it on his good shoulder by the sling, took the control handle of the shield. “I will go with you, Johnny.”
Martinho glanced at Vierho, saw the look of terrified relief in the man's face, returned his attention to Alvarez. “Your arm?”
“I still have one good arm. What more do I need?”
“Travis, you stay close behind us,” Martinho said.
“My Security men have just arrived,” Chen-Lhu said. “Delay a moment and we'll ring that place. I will tell them to bring shields.”
“It is wise, Johnny,” Alvarez said.
“We will go slowly,” Martinho said. “Padre, return to the truck. Tell Ramon to bring it around the Plaza and up onto the edge of the lawn over there. Have the Hermosillo truck direct all its lights onto that place.” He nodded ahead of him.
“At once, Jefe.”
Vierho headed back for the truck.
“You will not disturb anything there?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“We're as anxious as you to find out what that is,” Alvarez said.
“Let's go,” Martinho said.
Chen-Lhu trotted off to the right where an IEO field truck could be seen making its way through a side street. The crowd appeared to be giving trouble there, resisting efforts to expel them from the Plaza area.
Alvarez turned the control handle and the shield began crawling across the lawn.
In a low voice, Alvarez said, “Johnny, why doesn't the doctor suspect the Carsonites?”
“He has a spy system as good as anything in the world,” Martinho said. “He must know.” He kept his gaze on the disturbed patch of lawn ahead of them, that mysterious place beside the fountain.
“But what better way to sabotage us than to discredit the bandeirantes?”
“True, but I don't think Travis Huntington Chen-Lhu would make such a mistake.” And he thought:
It is strange how that patch of lawn both attracts and repels
.
“You and I have been rivals at the bid many times, Johnny. Perhaps we forget sometimes that we have a common enemy.”
“Do you name that enemy?”
“It's the enemy in the jungles, in the grass of the savannahs and under the ground. The Chinese took twenty-two years …”
“Do you suspect them?” Martinho glanced at his companion, noting the glower of concentration of Alvarez's face. “They will not let us inspect their results.”
“The Chinese are paranoid. They leaned that way before they ever collided with the Western world and the Western world merely confirmed them in this sickness. Suspect the Chinese? I don't think so.”
“I do,” Martinho said. “I suspect everyone.”
A feeling of gloom overtook him at the sound of his own words. It was true—he suspected everyone, even Benito here, and Chen-Lhu … and the lovely Rhin Kelly. He said, “I think often of the ancient insecticides, how the insects grew ever stronger in spite of—or because of—the insect poisons.”
A sound behind them caught Martinho's attention. He put a hand on Alvarez's arm, stopped the shield, turned.
It was Vierho followed by a slavecart piled with gear. Martinho identified a long pry bar there, a large body hood that must have been intended for Alvarez, packages of plastic explosive.
“Jefe … I thought you would need these things,” Vierho said.
A feeling of affection for the Padre swept through Martinho and he spoke bruskly: “Stay close behind and out of the way, you hear?”
“Of course, Jefe. Don't I always?” He held the body hood toward Alvarez. “This I brought for you, Jefe Alvarez, that you might not suffer another hurt.”
“I thank you, Padre,” Alvarez said, “but I prefer freedom of movement. Besides, this old body has so many scars, one more will make little difference.”
Martinho glanced around him, noted that other shields were advancing across the lawn. “Quickly,” he said: “we must be the first there.”
Alvarez rotated the control handle. Again their shield ground its way toward the fountain.
Vierho came up close beside his chief, spoke in a low voice: “Jefe, there are stories back there at the truck. It is said that some creature ate the pilings from under a warehouse at the waterfront. The warehouse collapsed. People were killed. There is much upset.”
“Chen-Lhu hinted at this,” Martinho said.
“Is this not the place?” Alvarez asked.
“Stop the shield,” Martinho said. He stared at the grass ahead of them, searching out the place—the relationship to the fountain, the grass marked by the previous passage of their shield.
“This is the place,” he said. He passed his carbine to Vierho, said, “Give me that prybar … and a stun charge.”
Vierho handed him a small packet of plastic explosive with detonator, the kind of charge they used in the Red areas to break up an insect nest in the ground. Martinho pulled his head shield down tight, took the prybar. “Vierho, cover me from here. Benito—can you use a handlight?”
“Of course, Johnny.”
“Jefe … you are not going to use the shield?”
“There isn't time.” He stepped around the shield before Vierho could answer. The beam of a handlight stabbed down at the ground ahead of him. He crouched, slid the tip of the prybar along the grass, digging, pushing. The bar caught, then slipped down into emptiness.
Something touched it down there, and an electric tingle shot all through Martinho.
“Padre, down here,” he whispered.
Vierho leaned over him with the carbine. “Jefe?”
“Just ahead of the bar—into the ground.”
Vierho aimed, squeezed off two shots.
A violent scrabbling noise erupted under the lawn ahead of them. Something splashed there.
Again, Vierho fired. The blast pellets made a curious thumping sound as they exploded under the ground.
There came the liquid sound of furious activity down there—as though there were a school of fish feeding at the surface.
Silence.
More handlights glared onto the lawn ahead of him. Martinho looked up to see a ring of shields around them—IEO and bandeirante uniforms.
Again he focused on the patch of lawn.
“Padre, I'm going to pry it up. Be ready.”
“Of course, Jefe.”
Martinho put a foot under the bar as fulcrum, leaned on his end. The trapdoor lifted slowly. It appeared to be sealed with a gummy mixture that came up in trailing sheets. A whiff of sulphur and corrosive sublimate told Martinho what the sealant must be—the butyl carrier he'd fired from the sprayrifle. With a sudden giving, the door swung up, flopped back onto the lawn.
Handlights were beside Martinho now, probing downward to reveal oily black water. It had the smell of the river.
“They came in from the river,” Alvarez said.
Chen-Lhu came up beside Martinho, said, “The masqueraders appear to have escaped. How convenient.” And he thought:
I was correct to give Rhin her orders when I did. We must get a line into their organization.
This is the enemy: this bandeirante leader who was educated among the Yankee imperialists. He is one of those who're trying to destroy us; there can be no other answer.

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