Frank Herbert - The Green Brain

“I’m still not sure,” she said.

Chen-Lhu looked up at Joao. “Perhaps you should speak to her, Johnny. Surely you don’t want to leave her here.”

Here or there—not much difference , Joao thought. But he said, “As you say: the decision already has been made. You’d better get aboard and fasten your safety harness.”

“Where do you want us?” Chen-Lhu asked.

“You in back; you’re heavier,” Joao said. “I don’t think we’ll get off the ground before we hit the river, but we might. I want us nose high.”

“Do you want us both in back?” Rhin asked. And she realized then that she had agreed with their decision. Why not? she asked herself, not realizing she shared Joao’s pessimism.

“Jefe?”

Joao looked down at Vierho, who’d just completed a final examination of the undercarriage.

Rhin and Chen-Lhu went around to the right side, began climbing in.

“How does it look?” Joao asked.

“Try to hold it up on that left skid a little, Jefe,” Vierho said. “That might help.”

“Right.”

Rhin began strapping herself into the bucket seat beside him.

“We’ll send help as soon as we can,” Joao said, sensing how empty and useless the words were as soon as he spoke them.

“Of course, Jefe.”

Vierho stepped back, readied a bomb thrower.

Thome and the others came out of the tents, loaded with weapons, began setting them up on the side facing the river.

No goodbyes , Joao thought. Yes, that’s best. Treat this as routine, just another flight .

“Rhin, what’s in that little overnight bag you brought?” Chen-Lhu asked.

“Personal things… and…” She swallowed. “Some of the men gave me some letters to take.”

“Ahhh,” Chen-Lhu said, “an appropriate and touching bit of sentimentality.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Joao growled.

“Nothing,” Chen-Lhu said. “That’s just it: nothing is wrong with it.”

Vierho returned to the wingtip, said, “Just as we planned, Jefe—when you give the signal that you’re ready, we’ll lay down a foamal barrage along your path. That should stall them long enough for you to make it onto the river, and it’ll make the grass out there more slippery.”

Joao nodded, began rehearsing the flight routine in his mind. None of the switches were exactly where they should be. Igniter to the left now; throttle knob jutting from the dash instead of on the floor between the seats.

He set the trim tabs, adjusted the feather-slots in the ailerons.

A pre-dark hush had fallen over the savannah. The grass stretched out ahead of them like a green sea. The river out there was only about fifty meters across: a narrow path for him to hit if the pod got up too much speed. There’d be no dusk at this latitude and altitude, Joao knew. He’d have to gauge his moment carefully, using the last of the light for the dash across the savannah—and darkness to shield them once they hit the river.

A fifteen-meter range for those acid-shooting insects , Joao thought. That only leaves us a narrow strip down the middle if they attack from shore. And God alone knows what other forms they may be able to hit us with—flying creatures, water skaters …

“Stand by with sprayrifles as soon as we’re safely on the river,” he said. “They may mount an all-out attack once they see us trying to escape.”

“We’ll be ready,” Chen-Lhu said. “The rifles are in this gig-box under me, not so?”

“Right.”

Joao lowered the canopy, sealed it. “This model has self-sealing rifle ports on both sides where the windows dip just behind the wings,” he said. “See them?”

“Clever design,” Chen-Lhu said.

“Vierho’s idea,” Joao said. “It’s in all our pods.” He waved to Vierho, who returned to the bomb thrower.

Joao turned on the pod’s landing lights.

All the men saw the signal; a shower of rifle spray arched out toward the river. Foamal bombs began landing along the track they’d take.

Joao punched the igniter, saw the safety light go on. He waited, counting three seconds before the light dimmed and went out. Not too bad , he thought, and he eased the throttle knob ahead.

The rocket motors came on with a jarring blast that had them over the perimeter ditch and roaring toward the river before Joao could ease off the feed. With a sense of breathless shock, he realized they were airborne. The pod felt sluggish, though, and with a tendency to fishtail—too much drag from the floats. They weren’t meant to be left out there in flight.

There was no time for flying niceties, though. Joao wrenched the nose around, aimed for a stretch of river where the savannah blended into jungle on both sides. The river was a long pool there, wider, pointing toward blue hills in the background. There came a moment of gliding suspense. Floats touched the river in a cushioned bounce… up, down… spray on both sides… slower, slower.

The nose came down.

It was only then that Joao remembered he had to favor the right side float.

The pod was still making forward speed, but coasting slower and slower.

Joao held his breath, wondering if the patch had been torn off, waiting for the right side to start its tipping plunge into the river.

The pod remained level.

“Have we made it?” Rhin asked. “Are we really out of there?”

“I think so,” Joao said, and he cursed the surge of hope that had accompanied that brief flight.

Chen-Lhu passed sprayrifles forward, said, “We seem to’ve caught them by surprise. Ah, ah! Look back!”

Joao whirled as far as his safety harness would permit, looked back across the savannah. Where the distant cluster of tents had been there now rolled a gray mound that heaved and extruded odd protuberances which flailed and subsided.

With a deep shudder, Joao realized the mound was composed of billions of insects overwhelming the camp.

An eddy caught the pod, turned it away from the scene as though some instinct within Joao controlled the motion to remove from view a thing he no longer could bear to see. For a moment the river shimmered ahead of him with a glassy orange haze. Then night blotted the view. The sky became a luminous silver with a thin slice of moon.

Vierho , Joao thought. Thome… Ramon …

Tears blurred his eyes.

“Oh, God!” Rhin said.

“God, hah !” Chen-Lhu barked. “Another name for the movement of fate!”

Rhin buried her face in her hands. She felt that she was up for try-out in some cosmic drama, without script or rehearsal, without words or music, without knowing her role.

God is a Brazilian , Joao thought, calling to mind his nation’s old expression of self confidence touched by fear. At night, God corrects the errors Brazilians make during the day .

What was it Vierho had always said? “ Believe in the Virgin and run .”

Joao felt a sprayrifle across his lap, the metal cold against his hands.

I couldn’t have helped them , he thought. The range was too great .

“YOU SAID the vehicle would not fly!” the Brain accused.

Its sensors probed the messenger pattern on the cave ceiling, listened for the afferent hum that might expand the meaning. But the configuration revealed on the ceiling by the phosphor-light of servant insects remained firm, as steady as the patch of stars standing in the cave-mouth beyond the messengers.

Chemical demands pulsed through the Brain, sending its servant nurses into a frenzy of ministrations. This was the closest to consternation the Brain had ever experienced. Its logical awareness labeled the experience as an emotion and sought parallel references even while it worked on the substance of the report.