The Green Brain (15 page)
Authors: Frank Herbert
She tried to swallow in a dry throat. Chen-Lhu was listening to this, sure as hell. “I ⦠he was teasing me.”
“Teasing you?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
She turned away, studied the feathered softness of hills lifting to the right, and glimpsed far away there the snow cone of a mountain with a black tonsure of volcanic ash. Some of the mountain's serenity invaded her senses.
“About you,” she said.
Joao looked at his hands, wondering why her admission embarrassed him.
In this silence, Rhin began to hum. She had a good voice and knew it: throaty, intimate. The voice was one of her best tools.
But Joao recognized the song and wondered at her choice. Even after she fell silent, the melody hung
around him like a vapor. It was a native lament, a Lorca tragedy arranged for guitar:
around him like a vapor. It was a native lament, a Lorca tragedy arranged for guitar:
“Stay your whip, Old Deathâ
It is not I who seeks your dark sea.
I would not whine, nor begâ
But ask it as one who has done your work.
This river which is my life,
Let it flow yet awhile in tranquility;
For my love has gray smoke in her eyes â¦
And farewells are difficult.”
It is not I who seeks your dark sea.
I would not whine, nor begâ
But ask it as one who has done your work.
This river which is my life,
Let it flow yet awhile in tranquility;
For my love has gray smoke in her eyes â¦
And farewells are difficult.”
She'd only hummed the song, but the words were there, all the same.
Joao looked out to the left.
The river was lined here with mango trees, dense green foliage broken by the lighter sage of tropical mistletoe and occasional fur-coated
chonta
palms. Above the jungle's near reaches hovered two black and white
urubu
vultures. They hung in the burned-out steel blue sky as though painted there on a false backdrop.
chonta
palms. Above the jungle's near reaches hovered two black and white
urubu
vultures. They hung in the burned-out steel blue sky as though painted there on a false backdrop.
The apparent tranquility of the scene held no illusions for Joao. And he wondered if this were the
tranquility
referred to in the song.
tranquility
referred to in the song.
A flock of tanagers caught his attention. They swept overhead, glistening turquoise, dived into the jungle wall and were swallowed by it as though they'd never been.
The mango shore on the left gave way to a narrow strip of grass on a medium embankment, red-brown earth pitted with holes.
The hatch opened, and Joao heard Chen-Lhu clamber into the cabin. There came the sound of the hatch being closed and dogged.
“Johnny, do I see something moving in the trees behind that grass?” Chen-Lhu asked.
Joao focused his attention on the scene. Yes! Something just inside the tree shadowsâmany figures that moved like a flitting current to keep pace with the pod.
Joao lifted the sprayrifle which he had wedged to the left of his seat.
“That's a long shot,” Rhin said.
“I know. I just want to put them on noticeâkeep them at a distance.”
He fumbled with the seal on the gunport, but before he could open it, the figures stepped out of the shadows into the full sunlight of the grassy beach.
Joao gasped.
“Mother of God, Mother of God ⦠.” Rhin whispered.
It was a mixed group standing as though on review along the shore. They were mostly human in shape, although there were a few giant copies of insect formsâmantidae, beetles, something with a whiplike proboscis. The humans were mainly in the form of Indians and most of those like the ones who'd kidnapped Joao and his father.
Interspersed along the line, though, stood single editions, individuals: there, one identical in appearance to the Prefect, Joao's father; beside him ⦠Vierho! and all the men from the camp.
Joao pushed the sprayriflle through the port.
“No!” Rhin said. “Wait. See their eyes, how glassy they look. Those could be our friends ⦠drugged or ⦔ She broke off.
Or worse,
Joao thought.
Joao thought.
“It's possible they're hostages,” Chen-Lhu said, “One sure way to find outâshoot one of them.” He stood up, opened the gig-box. “Here's a hard-pellet ⦔
“Stuff that!” Joao snarled. He withdrew his sprayrifle, sealed the port.
Chen-Lhu pursed his lips in thought.
These Latins! So unrealistic.
He returned the hard-pellet rifle to the box, sat down. One of the lesser individuals could have been chosen as target. Valuable information could have been gained. Pressing the issue now would gain nothing, though. Not now.
These Latins! So unrealistic.
He returned the hard-pellet rifle to the box, sat down. One of the lesser individuals could have been chosen as target. Valuable information could have been gained. Pressing the issue now would gain nothing, though. Not now.
“I don't know about you two,” Rhin said, “but in my school we were taught not to kill our friends.”
“Of course, Rhin, of course,” Chen-Lhu said. “But are those our friends?”
She said, “Until I know for sure ⦔
“Exactly!” Chen-Lhu said. “And how will you know for sure?” He pointed toward the figures standing now behind them as the shore once more drifted into a line of overhanging trees and vines. “That is a school, too, Rhinâthat jungle over there. You should learn its lesson, too.”
Double meaning, double meaning,
she thought.
she thought.
“The jungle is a school of pragmatism,” Chen-Lhu said. “Absolute judgments. Ask it about good and evil? The jungle has one answer:
âThat which succeeds is good. '
”
âThat which succeeds is good. '
”
He's telling me to get on with the seduction of Senhor Johnny Martinho while the poor fool's still wide open from shock,
she thought
. True enough
â
danger, shock and horror, they all create their own rebound.
she thought
. True enough
â
danger, shock and horror, they all create their own rebound.
She nodded to herself.
But where do I bounce?
But where do I bounce?
“If those were Indians, I'd know why they put on that show,” Joao said. “But those are not really Indians. We cannot tell how these creatures think. Indians would do that sort of thing to taunt us, saying: âYou're next.' But these creatures ⦔ He shook his head.
Silence invaded the pod: an impressive solitude magnified
by heat and the hypnotic flow of shoreline.
by heat and the hypnotic flow of shoreline.
Chen-Lhu lay back, drowsing, thought:
I will let the heat and idleness do my work for me.
I will let the heat and idleness do my work for me.
Joao stared at his hands.
He'd never before been trapped in a situation where both fear and idleness forced him to look inward. The experience terrified and fascinated him.
Fear is the penalty of consciousness forced to stare at itself,
Joao thought.
I should be busy with something. With what? Sleep, then.
Joao thought.
I should be busy with something. With what? Sleep, then.
But he feared sleep because he sensed dreams poised there.
Emptiness ⦠what a prize that would be: emptiness,
he thought.
he thought.
He felt that somewhere in his past he had reached a glowing summit devoid of before-and-after complications, a place of no doubts. Action ⦠play ⦠reflex motionâthat had been the life. Now, it all lay there, open to introspection, open to study and re-examination.
But he sensed there might be a tip-over point with introspection, that somewhere within him lurked memories which could engulf him.
Rhin rested her head against the back of the seat, looked up at the sky.
Someone'll start looking for us soon
, she thought.
They must ⦠they must ⦠they must.
Someone'll start looking for us soon
, she thought.
They must ⦠they must ⦠they must.
Must rhymes with lust,
she thought. And she swallowed, wondering where that thought had originated. She forced her attention onto the skyâso blue ⦠blue
she thought. And she swallowed, wondering where that thought had originated. She forced her attention onto the skyâso blue ⦠blue
⦠blue: a blank surface upon which anything could be written.
Searchers could come over us at any minute now.
Her gaze wavered, went to the mountains along the western horizon. Mountains grew and diminished there as the river carried her through its blue furrow.
It's the things we must not think about because they'd overpower us with emotion,
she thought.
These things are the terrible burden.
Her hand crept out, clasped Joao's. He didn't look at her, but the pressure of his response was more than a hand enfolding hers.
she thought.
These things are the terrible burden.
Her hand crept out, clasped Joao's. He didn't look at her, but the pressure of his response was more than a hand enfolding hers.
Chen-Lhu saw the motion and smiled.
Joao stared out at the passing shore. The pod drifted on an enchanted current between drooping curtains of lianas. The current carried them around a bend, exposing the towered brilliance of three
Fernan Sanchez
trees: imperative red against the green. But Joao's eye went to the water where the river was at work, slowly undercutting clawed roots in the muddy bank.
Fernan Sanchez
trees: imperative red against the green. But Joao's eye went to the water where the river was at work, slowly undercutting clawed roots in the muddy bank.
Her hand in mine,
he thought.
Her hand in mine.
he thought.
Her hand in mine.
Her palm was moist, intimate, possessive.
Rising waves of heat encased the pod in dead air. The sun grew to a throbbing inferno that drifted over them ⦠slowly, slowly settling toward the western peaks.
Hands together ⦠hands together,
Joao thought.
Joao thought.
He began to pray for the night.
Evening shadows began to quilt the river's edges. Night swept upward from the trench of slow current toward the blazing peaks.
Chen-Lhu stirred, sat up as the sun dipped behind the mountains. Amethyst vapors from the sunset produced a space of polished ruby water ahead of the podâlike flowing blood. There came a moment at the dark when the river appeared to cease all movement. Then they entered the damply cushioned night.
This is the time of the timid and the terrible,
Chen-Lhu thought.
The night is my time
â
and I am not timid.
Chen-Lhu thought.
The night is my time
â
and I am not timid.
And he smiled at the way the two shadows in the front seats had become one shadow.
The animal with two backs
, he thought. It was such
an amusing thought that he put a hand to his mouth to suppress laughter.
, he thought. It was such
an amusing thought that he put a hand to his mouth to suppress laughter.
Presently, Chen-Lhu spoke: “I will sleep now, Johnny. You take the first watch. Wake me at midnight.”
The small stirring noises from the front of the cabin ceased momentarily, then resumed.
“Right,” Joao said, and his voice was husky.
Ahh, that Rhin
, Chen-Lhu thought.
Such a good tool even when she does not want to be.
, Chen-Lhu thought.
Such a good tool even when she does not want to be.
T
he report, although interesting for its variations, added little to the Brain's general information about humans. They reacted with shock and fear to the display along the river bank. That was to be expected. The Chinese had demonstrated practicality not shared by the other two. This fact, added to the apparent attempts of the Chinese to get the other two to mateâthat might be significant. Time would tell.
he report, although interesting for its variations, added little to the Brain's general information about humans. They reacted with shock and fear to the display along the river bank. That was to be expected. The Chinese had demonstrated practicality not shared by the other two. This fact, added to the apparent attempts of the Chinese to get the other two to mateâthat might be significant. Time would tell.
Meanwhile, the Brain experienced something akin to another human emotion-worry.
The trio in the vehicle were drifting farther and farther away from the chamber above the river chasm. A significant delay factor was entering the system of report-computation-decision-action.
The Brain's sensors reviewed once more the messenger pattern being repeated on the cavern ceiling.
The vehicle was approaching a series of rapids. Its occupants could be killed there and irrevocably lost. Or they might renew their efforts to fly away in the craft.
There lay a worry-element requiring a heavy weighing factor.
There lay a worry-element requiring a heavy weighing factor.
The vehicle had flown once.
Computation-decision.
“You report to the action groups,” the Brain commanded. “Tell them to capture the vehicle and occupants before they reach the rapids. Capture the humans alive, if possible. Order of importance if some of them must be sacrificed: first the Chinese is to be taken, then the dormant queen, and finally the other male.”
The insects on the ceiling danced their message pattern and hummed the modulation elements to fix them, then took off into the dawnlight at the cavemouth.
Action.
Â
Chen-Lhu stared downriver across the front seats, watching the moonpath crawl beneath the pod. The path rippled with spider lines in the eddies, flowed like painted silk in the broad reaches.
The breathing sounds of deep, satiated sleep came from the front of the cabin.
Now I probably will not have to kill that fool, Johnny,
Chen-Lhu thought.
Chen-Lhu thought.
He looked out the side windows at the moon, low and near to setting. Bronze earthlight filled out the hid-dle circle. Within this darker area there appeared the likeness of a face: Vierho.
He is dead, Johnny's companion,
Chen-Lhu thought.
That was a simulacrum we saw beside the river. Nothing could've survived that attack on the camp. Our friends out there have copied dear Padre.
Chen-Lhu thought.
That was a simulacrum we saw beside the river. Nothing could've survived that attack on the camp. Our friends out there have copied dear Padre.
Chen-Lhu asked himself then:
I wonder how Vierho encountered death
â
as an illusion or as a cataclysm?
I wonder how Vierho encountered death
â
as an illusion or as a cataclysm?
A bootless question.
Rhin turned in her sleep, pressed close to Joao. “Mmmmm,” she murmured.
Our friends will not hold off the attack much longer,
Chen-Lhu thought.
It's obvious they've just been awaiting the proper time and place. Where will it come
â
in a rock-filled gorge, at a narrow place? Where?
Chen-Lhu thought.
It's obvious they've just been awaiting the proper time and place. Where will it come
â
in a rock-filled gorge, at a narrow place? Where?
The thought turned every shadow outside into a source of peril, and Chen-Lhu wondered at himself that he could have allowed his mind to play such a fear-inspiring trick.
Still, he strained his senses against the night.
There
was
a waiting-silence outside, a feeling of presence in the jungle.
was
a waiting-silence outside, a feeling of presence in the jungle.
This is nonsense!
Chen-Lhu told himself.
Chen-Lhu told himself.
He cleared his throat.
Joao turned against the seat, felt Rhin's head cradled against him. How quietly she breathed.
“Travis,” he whispered.
“Yes?”
“Time's it?”
“Go back to sleep, Johnny. You've a couple more hours.”
Joao closed his eyes, lay back into his seat, but deep sleep evaded him. Something about the cabin ⦠something. There was something here demanding his recognition. His awareness came farther and farther out of sleep.
Mildew
.
.
It was stronger in the cabin than it had beenâand there was the acrid tang of rust.
The smells filled Joao with melancholy. He could feel the pod deteriorating around him, and the pod was a symbol of civilization. These imperative odors represented all human decay and mortality.
He stroked Rhin's hair, thought:
Why shouldn't we
grab a little happiness here, now? Tomorrow we could be dead ⦠or worse.
Why shouldn't we
grab a little happiness here, now? Tomorrow we could be dead ⦠or worse.
Slowly, he sank back into sleep.
Â
A flock of parakeets announced the dawn. They chattered and gossiped in the jungle beside the river. Smaller birds joined the chorusânutterings, chirps, twitters.
Joao heard the birds as though from an enormous distance pulling him upward to wakefulness. He awoke, sweating, feeling oddly weak.
Rhin had moved away from him in the night. She slept curled against her side of the cabin.
Joao stared out at blue-white light. Smoky mist hid the river upstream and downstream. There was a feeling of moist, unhealthy warmth in the closed cabin's air. His mouth tasted dry and bitter.
He sat up straight, leaned forward to look through the overhead curve of windshield. His back ached from sleeping in a cramped position.
“Don't look up for searchers, Johnny,” Chen-Lhu said.
Joao coughed, said, “I was just looking at the weather. We're going to get rain soon.”
“Perhaps.”
So gray, that sky,
Joao thought. It was an empty slate prepared as a setting for one vulture that sailed into view across the treetops, wings motionless. The vulture tipped majestically, beat its wings once ⦠twice ⦠and flew upstream.
Joao thought. It was an empty slate prepared as a setting for one vulture that sailed into view across the treetops, wings motionless. The vulture tipped majestically, beat its wings once ⦠twice ⦠and flew upstream.
Joao lowered his gaze, noted that the pod had become part of a drifting island of logs and brush during the night. He could see parasite moss on the logs. It was an old islandâat least one season old ⦠no, older. The moss was thick.
As he watched, an eddy came between the pod and the logs. They parted company.
“Where are we?” Rhin asked.
Joao turned to see her sitting up, awake. She avoided his eyes.
What the hell?
he thought.
Is she ashamed?
he thought.
Is she ashamed?
“We are where we've always been, my dear Rhin,” Chen-Lhu said. “We're on the river. Are you hungry?”
She considered the question, found that she was ravenous.
“Yes, I'm hungry.”
They ate in quick silence with Joao growing more and more convinced that Rhin was avoiding him. She was first out the hatch to the float and stayed a long time. When she returned, she lay back in the seat, pretending sleep.
To hell with her,
Joao thought. He went out the hatch, slammed it after him.
Joao thought. He went out the hatch, slammed it after him.
Chen-Lhu leaned forward, whispered close to Rhin's ear, “You were very good last night, my dear.”
She spoke without opening her eyes: “To hell with you.”
“But I don't believe in hell.”
“And I do?” She opened her eyes, stared at him.
“Of course.”
“Each in his own way,” she said, and she closed her eyes.
For some reason he couldn't explain, her words and action angered him, and he tried to goad her with what he knew of her beliefs: “You are a terrible aboriginal calamity!”
Again, she spoke without opening her eyes: “That's Cardinal Newman. Stuff Cardinal Newman.”
“You don't believe in original sin?” he jeered.
“I only believe in certain kinds of hell,” she said, and
again she was looking at him, the green eyes steady.
again she was looking at him, the green eyes steady.
“To each his own, eh?”
“You said it; I didn't.”
“But you did say it.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes! You said it!”
“You're shouting,” she said.
He took a moment to calm himself, then, in a whisper: “And Johnny, was he good?”
“Better than you could ever be.”
Joao opened the hatch and entered the cabin before Chen-Lhu could answer, found Rhin staring up at him.
“Howdy, Jefe,” she said. And she smiled, a warm, intimate, sharing smile.
Joao answered the smile, slipped into his seat. “We're going to hit rapids today,” he said. “I can feel it. What were you shouting about, Travis?”
“It was nothing,” Chen-Lhu said, but his voice still grated with anger.
“It was an ideological issue,” Rhin said. “Travis remains a militant atheist to the end. Me, I believe in heaven.” She stroked Joao's cheek.
“Why do you think we are near rapids?” Chen-Lhu asked. And he thought:
I must divert this conversation! This is a dangerous game you play with me, Rhin.
I must divert this conversation! This is a dangerous game you play with me, Rhin.
“Current's faster, for one thing,” Joao said.
He stared out the front windows. A new, surging character definitely had come over the river. Hills had drawn closer to the channel. More eddies trailed their lines from the shores.
A band of long-tailed monkeys began pacing the pod. They roared and chittered through the trees along the left bank, only to abandon the game at a river bend.
“Every creature I see out there, I have to ask myself: Is that really what it seems?” Rhin said.
“Those are really monkeys,” Joao said. “I think there are some things our friends cannot imitate.”
The river straightened now, and the hills pressed closer. Thick twistings of hardwood trees along both shores gave way to lines of sago palms backed by rising waves of the jungle's omnipresent greens. Only infrequently was the green broken by smooth red-skinned trunks of
guayavilla
leaning over the water.
guayavilla
leaning over the water.
Around another bend, and they surprised a long-legged pink bird feeding in the shallows. It lifted on heavy pinions, flew downstream.
“Fasten your seatbelts,” Joao said.
“Are you that certain?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“Yes.”
Joao heard buckles snapping, fastened his own harness, looked at the dash to review Vierho's changes in controls. Igniter ⦠firing light ⦠throttle. He moved the wheel; how sluggish it felt. One silent prayer for the patch on the right hand float, and he set himself in readiness.
The sound came as a faint roaring like wind through trees. They felt another quickening of the current that swept the pod around a wide bend, turning in an eddy until it faced directly downstream, and there, no more than a kilometer away, they saw the snarled boiling of white water. Foam and misting spume hurled itself into the air. The sound was a crashing drum roar growing louder by the second.
Joao weighed the circumstancesâhigh walls of trees on both sides, narrowing channel, high black walls of wet rock on both sides of the rapids. There was only one way to go: through it.
Current and distance required careful judgment: the pod's floats had to hit the crosscurrent waves above the
rapids at just the right moment for those waves to help break the river's grip on the floats.
rapids at just the right moment for those waves to help break the river's grip on the floats.
This'll be the place,
Chen-Lhu thought.
Our friends'll be here ⦠waiting for us.
He gripped a sprayrifle, tried to see both shores at once.
Chen-Lhu thought.
Our friends'll be here ⦠waiting for us.
He gripped a sprayrifle, tried to see both shores at once.
Rhin gripped the sides of her seat, pressed herself backward against the cushions. She felt that they were hurtling without hope toward the maelstrom.
“Something in the trees on our right,” Chen-Lhu said. “Something overhead.”
A shadow darkened the water all around them. Fluttering white shapes began to obscure the view ahead.
Joao punched the igniter, countedâone, two, three. Light offâthrottle.
The motors caught with a great banging, spitting roar that drowned the sound of the rapids. The pod surged through the screen of insects, out of the shadow. Joao swerved them to avoid a line of foaming rocks in the upper pool. He nursed the throttle by the feeling of G-pressure against his back.
Don't blow, baby,
he prayed.
Don't blow.
he prayed.
Don't blow.
“A net!” Rhin screamed. “They have a net across the river!”
It lifted from the water above the rapids like a dripping snake.
Reflex moved Joao's hand on the throttle, sent the knob slamming against the dash.
The pod leaped, skimmed across a glossy pool. Slithering current tugged them sideways toward smooth black walls of rock. The net stood out directly ahead when the pod lifted, floats breaking from the water.
Up â¦up.
Joao could see the river plunge off beyond the net, water leaping in crazy violence there as though trying to escape the glassy black walls of rock.
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