Frank Herbert The Green Brain

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pod - like 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 -
and I am not timid.
And he smiled at the way the two shadows in the front seats had become one
shadow.
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The animal with two backs, 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.
Chapter VIII
THE 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 mate - that 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.
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.
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.
He looked out the side windows at the moon, low and near to setting. Bronze
earthlight filled out the middle 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 simulation 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 - 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
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it come - 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 way a waiting-silence outside, a feeling of presence in the jungle.
This is nonsense!
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 been - and 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 civilisation. 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.
Slowly, he sank back into sleep.
A flock of parakeets announced the dawn. They chattered and gossiped in the
jungle beside the river. Smaller birds joined the chorus - flutterings,
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, un- healthy 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.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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