The Green Brain (9 page)
Authors: Frank Herbert
Joao flicked the communications switch on the lower left corner of the dash, looked into the tiny screen there giving him a view of the lab compartment. The rear doors were open. He closed them by hydraulic remote. His father lay securely strapped to the bench, the other Indian seated at his head.
The turbines reached their whining peak.
Joao switched on the lights, engaged hydrostatic drive. The truck lifted about ten centimeters, angled upward as Joao increased pump displacement. He turned left onto the street, lifted another two meters to increase speed, headed toward the lights of a boulevard.
The Indian spoke beside his ear: “Turn toward the mountain over there.” A hand came forward, pointed to the right.
The Alejandro Clinic is in the foothills,
Joao thought.
Yes, that's the correct direction.
Joao thought.
Yes, that's the correct direction.
Joao made the indicated turn down a cross street that angled toward the boulevard.
Casually, he gave pump displacement another boost, lifted another meter and increased speed once more. In the same motion, he switched on the intercom to the rear compartment, keyed it for the amplifier and pickup beneath the bench where his father lay.
The pickup, capable of making a dropped pin sound like cannon, emitted only a distant hissing and rasping. Joao increased amplification. The instrument should have been transmitting the old man's heartbeats now, sending a noticeable drum-thump into the forward cabin.
There was no sound but that hissing, rasping.
Tears blurred Joao's eyes. He shook his head to clear them.
My father's dead,
he thought.
Killed by these crazy backwoodsmen.
he thought.
Killed by these crazy backwoodsmen.
He noted in the dash screen that the Indian back there had a hand under the elder Martinho's back. The Indian appeared to be massaging the dead man's back. The rhythmic rasping matched the motion.
Anger filled Joao. He felt like diving the airtruck into anabutment, dying himself to kill these crazy men.
The truck was approaching the city's outskirts. Ring-girders circled off to the left, giving access to the boulevard. This was an area of small gardens and cottages protected by overfly canopies.
Joao lifted the airtruck over the canopies, headed toward the boulevard.
To the clinic, yes,
he thought.
But it's too late.
To the clinic, yes,
he thought.
But it's too late.
In that instant, he realized there were no heartbeats at all coming from the rear compartmentâonly that slow, rhythmic grating plus, now that his ears searched for it, a cicada-like hum up and down the scale.
“To the mountains, there,” said the Indian behind him. Again that hand came forward to point off to the right.
Joao, with the hand close to his eyes illuminated by the dash lights, saw the scale-like parts of a finger shift position. In that shift, he recognized the scale shapes by their claw fringes.
The beetles!
The finger was composed of linked beetles working in unison!
Joao turned; stared into the Indian's eyes, saw then why they glistened so brightly: they were composed of thousands of tiny facets.
“Hospital, there,” the creature beside him said, pointing.
Joao turned back to the controls, fought to keep from losing composure. They weren't Indians ⦠they weren't even humans. They were insectsâsome kind of hive-cluster shaped and organized to mimic a man.
The implications of this discovery raced through his mind. How did they support their weight? How did they feed and breathe?
How did they speak?
Every personal concern had to be subordinated to the
urgent need for getting this information and proof of it back to one of the big government labs where the facts could be explored.
urgent need for getting this information and proof of it back to one of the big government labs where the facts could be explored.
Even the death of his father could not be considered now. Joao knew he had to capture one of these things, get out with it. He reached overhead, flicked on the command transmitter, set its beacon for a homing call.
Let some of my Irmaos be awake and monitoring their sets,
he prayed.
Let some of my Irmaos be awake and monitoring their sets,
he prayed.
“More to the right,” rasped the creature behind him.
Again Joao corrected course.
The voice
â
that rasping, stridulant sound.
Again, Joao asked himself how the creature could produce that simulation of human speech. The coordination required for that action had profound implications.
â
that rasping, stridulant sound.
Again, Joao asked himself how the creature could produce that simulation of human speech. The coordination required for that action had profound implications.
Joao looked out to his left. The moon was high overhead now, illuminating a line of bandeirante towers off there. The first barrier.
The truck would be out of the Green soon and into the Gray of the poorest Resettlement Plan farmsâthen, beyond that, another barrier and the Great Red that stretched in reaching fingers through the Goyaz and the inner Mato Grosso, far out to the Andes where teams were coming down from Ecuador. Joao could see scattered lights of Resettlement Plan farms ahead, darkness beyond.
The airtruck was going faster than he wanted, but Joao knew he dared not slow it. They might become suspicious.
“You must go higher,” said the creature behind him.
Joao increased pump displacement, raised the nose. He leveled off at three hundred meters.
More bandeirante towers loomed ahead, spaced at closer intervals. Joao picked up the barrier signals on his dash meters, looked back at his guard. The dissembier
vibrations of the barrier seemed to have no effect on the creature.
vibrations of the barrier seemed to have no effect on the creature.
Joao looked out his side window and down as they passed over the barrier. No one down there would challenge him, he knew. This was a bandeirante airtruck headed
into
the Red ⦠and with its transmitter sending out a homing call. The men down there would assume he was a band leader headed out on contract after a successful bid, calling his men to him for the job. If the barrier guards recognized his call wave, that would only confirm the thought.
into
the Red ⦠and with its transmitter sending out a homing call. The men down there would assume he was a band leader headed out on contract after a successful bid, calling his men to him for the job. If the barrier guards recognized his call wave, that would only confirm the thought.
Joao Martinho had just completed a successful bid on the serra dos Parecis. All the bandeirantes knew that.
Joao sighed. He could see the moon-silvered snake of the sao Francisco winding off to his left, and the lesser waterways like threads raveled out of the foothills.
I must find the nest
â
wherever we're headed,
Joao thought.
â
wherever we're headed,
Joao thought.
He wondered if he dared turn on his receiverâbut if his men started reporting in ⦠No. That would make the creatures suspect; they might take violent counteraction.
My men will realize something's wrong when I don't answer,
he thought.
They'll follow.
he thought.
They'll follow.
If any of them hear my call.
“How far are we going?” Joao asked.
“Very far,” the guard said.
Joao settled himself for a long trip.
I must be patient,
he thought.
I must be as patient as a spider waiting beside her web.
I must be patient,
he thought.
I must be as patient as a spider waiting beside her web.
Hours droned past: two, three ⦠four.
Nothing but moonlighted jungle sped beneath the truck, and the moon lay low on the horizon, near setting. This was the deep Red where broadcast poisons had been used at first with near disastrous results. This was
where the first wild mutations had been discovered.
where the first wild mutations had been discovered.
The Goyaz.
This is where my father said Rhin Kelly went,
Joao thought.
Is she down there now?
Joao thought.
Is she down there now?
The moonfrosted jungle told him nothing.
The Goyaz: this was the region being saved for the final assault, using mobile barrier lines when the circle was short enough.
“How much farther?” Joao asked.
“Soon.”
Joao armed the emergency charge that would separate the front and rear compartments of the truck when he fired it. The stub wings of the front pod and its emergency rocket motors would get him back into bandeirante country.
With the
specimen
behind him safely subdued, Joao hoped.
specimen
behind him safely subdued, Joao hoped.
He looked up through the canopy, scanned the horizon as far as he could. Was that moonlight glistening on a truck far back to the right? He couldn't be certain ⦠but it seemed to be.
“Soon?” Joao asked.
“Ahead,” the creature rasped.
The modulated stridulation beneath that voice sent a shiver along Joao's spine. Joao said, “My father ⦔
“Hospital for ⦠the father ⦠ahead,” the creature said.
It would be dawn soon, Joao realized. He could see the first false line of light along the horizon behind. This night had passed so swiftly. Joao wondered if his guard had injected some time-distorting drug into him without his knowledge. He thought not. He felt alert, maintaining himself in the necessities of each moment. There wasn't time for fatigue or boredom when he had to record every landmark half-visible in the night, sense
everything he could about these creatures around him. The bitter-clean smell of oxalic acid hinted at acid-to-oxygen chemistry.
everything he could about these creatures around him. The bitter-clean smell of oxalic acid hinted at acid-to-oxygen chemistry.
But how did they coordinate all those separate insect units?
They appeared conscious. Was that more mimicry? What did they use for a brain?
Dawn came, revealing the plateau of the Mato Grosso: a caldron of liquid green boiling over the edge of the world. Joao looked out his side windows in time to see the truck's long shadow bounce across a clearing: stark galvanized metal roofs against the greenâa
sitiante
abandoned in the Resettlement, or perhaps the
barracao
of a
fazenda
on the coffee frontier. It had been a likely place for a warehouse, standing as it had beside a small stream with the land around it bearing signs of riverbank agriculture.
sitiante
abandoned in the Resettlement, or perhaps the
barracao
of a
fazenda
on the coffee frontier. It had been a likely place for a warehouse, standing as it had beside a small stream with the land around it bearing signs of riverbank agriculture.
Joao knew this region; he could put the bandeirante grid map over it in his imaginationâfive degrees of latitude and six degrees of longitude it covered. Once it had been a place of isolated fazendas farmed by independent browns and blacks and
branco sertanistos
chained to the encomendero plantation system. The parents of Benito Alvarez had come from here. It was hardwood jungles, narrow rivers with banks overgrown by lush trees and ferns, savannahs and tangled life.
branco sertanistos
chained to the encomendero plantation system. The parents of Benito Alvarez had come from here. It was hardwood jungles, narrow rivers with banks overgrown by lush trees and ferns, savannahs and tangled life.
Here and there along the higher reaches of the rivers lay the remains of hydroelectric plants long since abandoned, like the one at Paulo Afonso Fallsâall replaced by sun power and atomics.
This was it: the
sertao
of the Goyaz. Even in this age it remained primitive, a fact blamed on the insects and disease. It lay there, the last stronghold of teeming insect life in the Western Hemisphere, waiting for a modern
tropical technology to lift it into the Twenty-first Century.
sertao
of the Goyaz. Even in this age it remained primitive, a fact blamed on the insects and disease. It lay there, the last stronghold of teeming insect life in the Western Hemisphere, waiting for a modern
tropical technology to lift it into the Twenty-first Century.
Supplies for the bandeirante assault would come by way of Sao Paulo, by air and by transport on the multi-decked highways, then on antique diesel trains to Ita-pira, by
aviadores
river runners to Bahus and by airtruck to Registo and Leopoldina on the Araguaya.
aviadores
river runners to Bahus and by airtruck to Registo and Leopoldina on the Araguaya.
And when it was doneâthe people would return, coming back from the Resettlement Plan areas and the metropolitan shanty towns.
A passage of turbulent air shook the truck, breaking Joao from his reverie, forcing him into an acute consciousness of his situation.
A glance at his guard showed the creature still crouched there, watchful ⦠as patient as the Indio it mimicked. The presence of the
thing
behind him had become cumulative, and Joao found himself required to combat a growing sense of revulsion.
thing
behind him had become cumulative, and Joao found himself required to combat a growing sense of revulsion.
The gleaming mechanical pragmatism of the truck pod around him felt as though it were at war with the insect creature. It had no business here in this cabin flying smoothly above the area where its kind ruled supreme.
Joao looked out and down at the green flow of forest, the
zona da mata.
He knew the area beneath him crawled with insects: wire worms in the roots of savannahs, grubs digging in the moist black earth, hopping beetles, dart-like angita wasps, chalcis flies sacred to the still thriving backwoods Xango cult, chiggers, sphecidae, braconidae, fierce hornets, white termites, hemipteric crawlers, blood roaches, thrips, ants, lice, mosquitoes, mites, moths, exotic butterflies, mantidaeâand countless unnatural mutations of them all.
zona da mata.
He knew the area beneath him crawled with insects: wire worms in the roots of savannahs, grubs digging in the moist black earth, hopping beetles, dart-like angita wasps, chalcis flies sacred to the still thriving backwoods Xango cult, chiggers, sphecidae, braconidae, fierce hornets, white termites, hemipteric crawlers, blood roaches, thrips, ants, lice, mosquitoes, mites, moths, exotic butterflies, mantidaeâand countless unnatural mutations of them all.
That, for sure.
This would be an expensive fightâunless it had already been lost.
I mustn't think that way, Joao told himself. Out of respect for my father. I mustn't think that way ⦠not yet.
IEO maps showed this region in varied intensities of red. Around the red ran a ring of gray with pink shading where one or two persistent forms of insect life resisted man's poisons, jelly flames, astringents, sonitoxicsâthe combination of flamant couroq and supersonics that drove insects from their hiding places into waiting deathâand all the mechanical traps and luring baits in the bandeirante arsenal.
A grid map would be placed over this area and each thousand-hectare square offered for bid to the independent bands to deinfest.
We bandeirantes are a kind of ultimate predator,
Joao thought.
It's no wonder these creatures mimic us.
Joao thought.
It's no wonder these creatures mimic us.
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