Frank Herbert - The Green Brain

The river tugged at the pod.

Joao felt then their alliance with the current dragging itself down to the sea like a black chord.

Another hour passed… and another.

Joao grew conscious of a red fireglow off to the right—dawn.

The hoots and cries of howler monkeys greeted the light. Their uproar aroused birds to morning talk in the sheltered blackness of the forest: staccato peepings, chirrings up and down the scale, intermittent screeches.

Pearl luster crept across the sky, became milk-silver light that gave definition to the world around the drifting pod. Joao looked out to the west, seeing foothills—one after another, piled waves of hills pounding against the Andean escarpment. He realized then that they had come down out of the first steep descent of the river to the high plateau.

The pod floated quietly like a great water bug against a backdrop of trees laced with the dancing flames of forest flowers. A sluggish current twisted into whorls against the floats. Curls of mist hung on the water like puffs of gauze.

Rhin awoke, straightened out of Joao’s arms, stared downstream. The river was like a cathedral aisle between the tall trees.

Joao massaged his arm where Rhin’s head had slowed the circulation. All the while, he studied the woman beside him. There was a small-child look about her: the red hair disarrayed, an unlined expression of innocence on her face.

She yawned, smiled at him… and abruptly frowned, coming fully awake to their situation. She shook her head, turned to look at Chen-Lhu.

The Chinese slept with his head thrown back into the corner. She had the sudden feeling that Chen-Lhu embodied fallen greatness, as though he were an idol out of his country’s past. He breathed with a low, burred rasp. Heavy pores indented his skin and there was a burnt leather harshness to his complexion that she had never before noticed. A graying wheat stubble of hair stood out along his upper lip. She realized suddenly that Chen-Lhu dyed his hair. It was a touch of vanity that she had not suspected.

“There’s not a breath of wind,” Joao said.

“But it’s cooler,” she said.

She looked out the window on her side, saw wisps of reedy grass trailing from the float. The pod was twisting at the push of every random current. The movement carried a certain majesty; slow sweeping turns like a formal dance to the river’s rhythm.

“What do I smell?” she asked.

Joao sniffed: rocket fuel… very faint, the musk of human sweat… mildew. He knew without exploring it that mildew was the odor that had aroused her question.

“It’s mildew,” he said.

“Mildew?”

She looked around her at the interior of the cabin, seeing the smooth tan fabric of the ceiling edges, chrome on the instrument panel. She put her hands on the dual wheel of her side, moved it.

Mildew , she thought.

The jungle already had a beachhead inside here.

“We’re almost into the rainy season, aren’t we?” she said. “What’ll that mean?”

“Trouble,” he said. “High water… rapids.”

Chen-Lhu’s voice intruded: “Why look at the worst side?”

“Because we have to,” she said.

Hunger awoke suddenly in Joao. His hands trembled; his mouth burned with thirst.

“Let’s have a canteen,” he said.

Chen-Lhu passed a canteen forward. It sloshed as Joao took it. He offered it to Rhin, but she shook her head, overcome by a strange sensation of nausea.

Poison in water conditioned me to a temporary rejection pattern , she thought. The sound of Joao drinking made her feel ill. How greedily he drank! She turned away, unable to look at him.

Joao returned the canteen to Chen-Lhu, thinking how secretively the man awoke. The first you knew about it was his voice, alert and intrusive. Chen-Lhu probably lay there pretending sleep, but awake and listening.

“I… I think I’m hungry,” Rhin said.

Chen-Lhu produced ration packets and they ate in silence.

Now she felt thirst… and was surprised to have Chen-Lhu produce the canteen before she asked. He handed it to her. She knew then that he studied her and was aware of her emotions, saw many of her thoughts. It was a disquieting discovery. She drank in anger, thrust the canteen back at Chen-Lhu.

He smiled.

“Unless they’re on the roof where we can’t see them, or under the wings, our friends have left us,” Joao said.

“So I’ve noticed,” Chen-Lhu said.

Joao allowed his gaze to traverse both shores as far as he could see.

Not a movement of life.

Not a sound.

The sun had mounted high enough now to burn the mist off the river.

“It’s going to be a hellish hot day in here,” Rhin said.

Joao nodded.

The warmth had a definite moment of beginning, he thought. One instant it wasn’t there, then it forced itself upon the senses. He released his safety harness, tipped his seat aside and slid into the rear of the cabin, put his hands on the dogs that sealed the rear hatch.

“Where’re you going?” Rhin demanded. She blushed as she heard her own question.

Chen-Lhu chuckled.

She felt herself hating Chen-Lhu’s callousness then, even when he tried to soften the effect of his reaction by saying, “We must learn certain blind spots of western conventionality, Rhin.”

The derision was still there in his voice, and she heard it, whirled away.

Joao cracked open the hatch, examined the edges of it, inside and out. No obvious sign of insects. He looked down at the flat surface of the float extending to the rear beside the rocket motors—two and a half meters of low platform almost a meter wide. No sign of insects there.

He dropped down, closed the hatch.

As soon as the hatch closed, Rhin turned on Chen-Lhu.

“You are insufferable!” she blazed.

“Now, Doctor Kelly.”

“Don’t pull that we-professionals-together bit,” she said. “You’re still insufferable.”

Chen-Lhu lowered his voice, said, “Before he comes back, we’ve a few things to discuss. There’s no time for personalities. This is IEO business.”

“The only IEO business we have is to carry your story to headquarters,” she said.

He stared at her. This reaction had been predictable, of course, but a way had to be found to move her. The Brazilians have a saying , he thought, and said, “When you talk of duty, speak also of money.”

“A conta foi paga por mim,” she said. “ I paid that account .”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you pay anything,” he said.

“Are you offering to buy me?” she snapped.

“Others have,” he said.

She glared at him. Was he threatening to tell Joao about her past in the IEO’s investigative/espionage branch? Let him! But she’d learned a few things in the line of duty, and she assumed a look of uncertainty now. What did Chen-Lhu have in mind?

Chen-Lhu smiled. Westerners were always so susceptible to cupidity. “You wish to hear more?” he asked.

Her silence was acquiescence.

“For now,” Chen-Lhu said, “you will ply your wiles upon Johnny Martinho, make him a slave of love. He must be reduced to a creature who’ll do anything for you. For you, that should be fairly easy.”

I’ve done it before, eh? she thought.

She turned away. Well… I have done it before: in the name of duty .

Chen-Lhu nodded to himself behind her. The patterns of life were unshakable. She’d come around—almost out of habit. The hatch beside him opened and Joao climbed up into the cabin.

“Not a sign of anything,” he said, slipping back into his seat. “I left the hatch on half-lock in case anyone else wants to go out now.”

“Rhin?” Chen-Lhu said.