Frank Herbert - The Green Brain

The darkly flowing jungle, the lights sent waves of drowsiness through Joao. He knew he could not stay awake if his life depended on it.

“I’ll stand watch tonight, Travis,” Rhin said.

“I wonder why our friends out there don’t bother us much at night?” Chen-Lhu said. “It’s very curious.”

“They’re not losing sight of us, though,” Rhin said. “Go to sleep. I’ll take the first watch.”

“Watch and nothing else,” Chen-Lhu said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just don’t go to sleep, my dear Rhin.”

“Go to hell,” she said.

“You forget: I don’t believe in hell.”

Joao awoke to the sound of rain and darkness that slowly crept into gray dawn. The light increased until he could see steel lines of downpour slanting against pale green jungle on his left. The other shore was a distant gray. It was a rain of monotonous violence that drummed against the canopy and pocked the river with countless tiny craters.

“Are you awake?” Rhin asked.

Joao sat up, found he felt refreshed and curiously clear headed. “How long’s it been raining like this?”

“Since about midnight.”

Chen-Lhu cleared his throat, leaned forward close to Joao. “I’ve seen no sign of our friends for hours. Could it be they don’t like rain?”

“ I don’t like rain,” Joao said.

“What do you mean?” Rhin asked.

“This river’s going to become a raging hell.”

Joao looked up to his left at clouds hovering low above the trees. “And if there ever were going to be searchers, they sure as hell couldn’t see us now.”

Rhin wet her lips with her tongue. She felt suddenly emptied of emotion, realized then how much she had counted on being found. “How… how long does the rain last?” she asked.

“Four or five months,” Joao said.

An eddy turned the pod. Shoreline twisted across Joao’s vision: greenery dimmed to pastel by the torrent. “Anybody been outside?” he asked.

“I have,” Chen-Lhu said.

Joao turned, saw dark patches of wetness on the IEO fatigues.

“Nothing out there except rain,” Chen-Lhu said.

Joao’s right leg began to itch. He reached down, was surprised to find the energy pack gone.

“You began showing muscle spasms during the night,” Rhin said. “I took it off.”

“I must’ve really been asleep.” He touched her hand. “Thanks, nurse.”

She pulled her hand away.

Joao looked up, puzzled, but she turned, stared out her window.

“I’m… going outside,” Joao said.

“Do you feel strong enough?” she asked. “You were pretty weak.”

“I’m all right.”

He stood up, made his way back to the hatch and down to the pontoon. The rain felt warm and fresh against his face. He stood on the end of the float, enjoying the freshness.

In the cabin, Chen-Lhu said, “Why didn’t you go out and hold his hand, Rhin?”

“You’re an utter bastard, Travis,” she said.

“Do you love him a little?”

She turned, glared at him. “What do you want from me?”

“Your cooperation, my dear.”

“In what?”

“How would you like to have an emerald mine all your very own? Or perhaps diamonds? More wealth than you could possibly imagine?”

“In payment for what?”

“When the moment comes, Rhin, you’ll know what to do. And meanwhile, you make a pliant blob of putty out of our bandeirante.”

She silenced an angry outburst, whirled away. And she thought: Our bodies betray us. The Chen-Lhus of the world come along, push buttons, bend us and twist us… I won’t do it! I won’t! This Joao is too nice a guy. But why does he carry that weapon in his pocket?

I could kill her now and push Johnny off the float , Chen-Lhu thought. But this is a difficult craft to manage… and I’m not experienced in such matters .

Rhin turned a molten look on him.

Perhaps she’ll come around , Chen-Lhu thought. I know her weaknesses, certainly—but I must be sure .

Joao returned, slipped into his seat. He brought a fresh smell of wetness into the cabin, but the odor of mildew remained and it was growing stronger.

As the morning wore on, the rain slackened. A warm, misty feeling permeated the cabin’s air. Clouds of gun-metal cotton lifted to brush the hilltops above the river and a beaded drapery of raindrops hung on every visible tree.

The pod bobbed and twisted along a swift mud-brown flow accompanied by more and more flotsam—trees, brush, root islands as large as the pod, whole floes of grass and reeds.

Joao drowsed, wondering at the change in Rhin. In their world of the casual liaison, he knew he should merely shrug and make some witty remark. But he didn’t feel casual or witty about Rhin. She had touched some chord in him that the pleasures of flesh had never before reached.

Love? he wondered.

But their world had fallen out of the notion of romantic love. There was only family and honor where those things counted and all else involved doing-the-right-thing, which usually meant salvaging the least messy aspects from any situation that happened to fall apart.

No clear way of approaching his problem presented itself. Joao knew only that he was being nudged and pushed from within, that physical weakness contributed to the fuzziness of his thinking… and besides, their whole situation was hopeless.

I’m sick , he thought. The whole world’s sick .

In more ways than one .

A buzzing sound invaded Joao’s torpor. He snapped upright, wide awake.

“What’s wrong?” Rhin asked.

“Be quiet.” He held up a hand to silence her, cocked his head to one side.

Chen-Lhu leaned forward over the back of Joao’s seat. “A truck?”

“Yes, by God!” Joao said. “And it’s low.” He glanced at the sky around them, started to release the canopy, was restrained by Chen-Lhu, who put a hand on his arm.

“Johnny, look there,” Chen-Lhu said. He pointed to the left.

Joao turned.

From the shore came what appeared at first to be an odd cloud—wide, thick, moving with a purposeful directness. The cloud resolved itself into a mob of fluttering white, gray and gold insects. They came in at about fifty meters above the pod and the water darkened with their shadow.

The shadow reached out all around the pod and paced it, a moving cover to hide them from anything in the sky.

As the import of the maneuver penetrated Joao’s awareness, he turned, stared at Chen-Lhu. The man’s face appeared gray with shock.

“That’s… deliberate,” Rhin whispered.

“How can it be?” Chen-Lhu asked. “How can it be? How can it be?”

In the same moment, Chen-Lhu saw how Joao studied him, realized his own emotions. Anger at himself filled Chen-Lhu. I must not show fear to these savages! he thought. He forced himself to sit back, to smile and shake his head.

“To train insects,” Chen-Lhu said. “It is almost unbelievable… but someone obviously has done it. We see the evidence.”

“Please, God,” Rhin whispered. “Please.”

“Oh, stop your silly prattle, woman,” Chen-Lhu said. And even as he spoke, he knew that was the wrong tack to take with Rhin, and he said, “You must remain calm, Rhin. Hysterics serve no purpose.”

The rocket sound grew louder.

“Are you sure it’s a truck?” Rhin asked. “Perhaps…”

“Bandeirante truck,” Joao said. “They’ve rigged it to fire alternate pairs and save fuel. Hear that? That’s a bandeirante trick.”

“Could they be searching for us?”

“Who knows? Anyway, they’re above the clouds.”

“And above our friends, too,” Chen-Lhu said.