Joao continued to breath deeply, feigning sleep. Chen-Lhu’s words screamed through his mind, warning him, urging him to action. But caution intervened.
Rhin stared downstream wondering … doubting. The pod floated down a lane of moon glitter. Cold glows like fireflies danced in the forest darkness on both sides. A feeling of corruption came to her from that darkness.
Joao, reflecting on Chen-Lhu’s words, thought: “Everything in the universe flows like a river.” Why do I hesitate? I could turn and kill the bastard … or force him to tell the truth about himself. What part does Rhin play in this? She sounded angry with him “Everything in the universe flows like a river.”
Introspection came hard to Joao, bringing dread, inner trembling that moved toward terror. Those creatures out there, he thought, time is on their side. My life is like a river. I flow—moments, memories … nothing eternal, no absolutes.
He felt feverish, dizzy and his own heartbeat intruded on his awareness.
Like a river.
He’s not going to warn anyone about the debacle in China. He has a plan … something in which he wants to use me.
The night wind had grown stronger and now it imparted an uneasy shifting motion to the pod, catching first one stubwing and then the other. As it came through the vent filters, a damp nutrient in the wind fed Joao’s awareness. He moaned as though awakening, sat up.
Rhin touched his arm. “How are you?” There was concern in her voice, and something else Joao could not recognize. Withdrawal? Shame?
“I … so warm,” he whispered.
“Water,” she said, and lifted a canteen to his lips.
The water felt cool, although he knew it must be warm. Part of it ran down his jaw and he realized then how weak he was in spite of the energy pack The effort of swallowing required a terrible energy drain.
I’m sick, he thought. I’m really sick … very sick.
He allowed his head to fall against the back of the seat, stared up through the canopy’s transparent strip. The stars intruded on his awareness—sharp specks of light that stabbed through rushing clouds. The fitful wind-swayed motion of the pod sent stars and clouds tipping across his field of vision. The sensation began to make him feel nauseated, and he lowered his gaze, saw the flitting lights on the right shore.
“Travis,” he whispered.
“Heh?” And Chen-Lhu wondered how long Joao had been awake. Was I fooled by his breathing? Did I say too much?
“Lights,” Joao said. “Over there … lights.”
“Oh. Those. They’ve been with us for quite awhile. Our friends out there are keeping track of us.”
“How wide’s the river here?” Rhin asked.
“A hundred meters or so,” Chen-Lhu said.
“How can they see us?”
“How can they not in this moonlight?”
“Shouldn’t I give them a shot just to …”
“Save the ammunition,” Chen-Lhu said. “After that mess today … well, we couldn’t stand off another such day.”
“I hear something,” Rhin said. “Is it rapids?”
Joao pushed himself upright. The effort it required terrified him. I couldn’t handle the controls like this, he thought. And I doubt if Rhin or Travis know how.
He grew aware of a hissing sound.
“What is that?” Chen-Lhu asked.
Joao sighed, sank back. “Shallows, something in the river. Off there to the left.” The sound grew louder: the rhythmic lament of water against a stranded limb—and faded behind them.
“What’d happen if that right float hit something like that?” Rhin asked.
“End of the ride,” Joao said.
An eddy turned the pod, began sawing it back and forth in a slow, persistent pendulum—around, back, around … . The floats danced across ripples and the pendulum stopped.
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 a 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 gunmetal 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 notsam—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.
The pulsating counterpoint of rocket motors echoed along the hills. Joao turned his head to follow the sound. It grew fainter upstream, blended with the lapping-swishing-tumbling of the river.
“Won’t they come down and look for us?” Rhin pleaded.
“They weren’t looking for anyone,” Joao said. “They were just going from someplace to someplace.”
Rhin looked up at the covering blanket of insects. From this angle and distance, the individuals blended one into another and the whole cloud of them appeared to be one organism.
“We could shoot them down!” she said. She reached for a sprayrifle, but Joao grabbed her arm, stopped her.
“There’re still the clouds,” he said.
“And our friends have more reinforcements than we have spray charges,” Chen-Lhu said. “That I’ll wager.”
“But if the clouds weren’t there,” she said. “Won’t the clouds ever … go away?”
“They may burn off this afternoon,” Joao said, and he tried to speak soothingly. “This time of year they do that quite often.”
“They’re going!” Rhin said. She pointed at the insect cover. “Look! They’re going.”
Joao looked up to see the fluttering mass start to move back toward the left shore. The shadow accompanied them until they went into the trees and were lost from sight.
“They’re gone,” Rhin said.
“That only means the truck is no longer with us,” Joao said.
Rhin buried her face in her hands, fought down shuddering sobs.
Joao started to caress her neck, to comfort her, but she shook off his hand.
And Chen-Lhu thought: You must attract him, Rhin, not repel him.
“We must remember why we are here,” Chen-Lhu said. “We must remember what it is we must do.”
Rhin sat up, lowering her hands, took a deep breath that hurt the muscles of her chest.
“We must keep ourselves occupied,” Chen-Lhu said. “With trivia if necessary. It is a way to prevent … fear, boredom, angers. I tell you—I will describe for you an orgy I once attended in Cambodia. There were eight of us, not counting the women—a former prince, the minister of culture …”
“We don’t want to hear about your damned orgy!” Rhin snapped.
The flesh, Chen-Lhu thought. She dares not listen to anything that reminds her of her own flesh. That is her weakness, for sure. It is good that I know this.
“So?” Chen-Lhu said. “Very well. Tell us then about the fine life in Dublin, my dear Rhin. I love to hear of the people who trade wives and mistresses and ride horses and pretend the past has never died.”
“You’re really a terrible man,” Rhin said.
“Excellent!” Chen-Lhu said. “You may hate me, Rhin; I permit it. Hate keeps one occupied, too. One may indulge hate while one thinks about such things as wealth and pleasures. There are times when hate is a much more profitable occupation than making love.”
Joao turned, studied Chen-Lhu, hearing the words, seeing he harsh control on the man’s face. He uses words as weapons, Joao thought. He maneuvers people and pushes them with words. Doesn’t Rhin see this? But of course she doesn’t … because he’s using her for something, wielding her. For a moment, Joao sat stupefied with discovery.
“You watch me, Johnny,” Chen-Lhu said. “What do you think you see?”
Two can play that game, Joao thought. And he said, “I watch a man at work.”
Chen-Lhu stared. It wasn’t the kind of answer he’d expected—too subtly penetrating and leaving too much uncommitted. He reminded himself that it was difficult to control uncommitted people. Once a man had invested his energies, he could be twisted and turned at will … but if the man held back, conserved those energies …
“Do you think you understand me, Johnny?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“No, I don’t understand you.”
“Really, I’m quite uncomplicated; it’s not difficult to understand me,” Chen-Lhu said.
“That’s one of the most complicated statements any man ever made,” Joao said.
“Do you mock me?” Chen-Lhu asked, and he put down an upsurge of dismay and anger. Johnny was acting most out of character.
“How could I mock
if I don’t understand?” Joao asked.
“Something has come over you,” Chen-Lhu said. “What is it? You are behaving most strangely.”
“Now we understand each other,” Joao said.
He goads me, Chen-Lhu thought. HE goads ME! And he asked himself: Will I have to kill this fool?
“See how easy it is to keep busy and forget our troubles,” Joao said.
Rhin glanced back at Chen-Lhu, saw a smile spread across his face. He was speaking mostly for my benefit, she thought. Wealth and pleasures—that’s the price. But what do I pay? She looked at Joao. Yes, I hand him a bandeirante on a platter. I give him Joao to use as he sees fit.
The pod floated backward down the river now, and Rhin stared upstream at hills that disappeared into drifting clouds. Why do I bother with such questions? she wondered. We don’t stand a chance. There are only these moments and the opportunity to take whatever pleasure we can from them.
“Are we down a little on the right side?” Joao asked.
“Perhaps a little,” Chen-Lhu said. “Do you think your patch is leaking?”
“It could be.”
“Do you have a pump in this stuff?”
“We could use a sprayhead from one of the hand units,” Joao said.
Rhin’s mind focused now on the weapon in Joao’s pocket, and she said, “Joao, don’t let them capture me alive.”
“Ahh, melodrama,” Chen-Lhu said.
“Leave her alone!” Joao snapped. He patted Rhin’s hand, looked out and around the pod on all sides. “Why do they leave us alone like this?”
“They’ve found a new place to wait,” Rhin said.
“Always look on the black side,” Chen-Lhu said. “What is the worst that could happen, eh? Perhaps they want our heads in the fashion of the aborigines who lived here once.”
“You’re a great help,” Joao said. “Hand me the sprayhead off one of those hand units.”
“At once, Jefe,” Chen-Lhu said, his voice mocking.
Joao accepted the metal and plastic hand pump unit, slipped back to the rear hatch and down to the float. He paused there a moment to study their surroundings.
Not a sign of the creatures he knew were watching them.
Downstream at a bend in the river, a rock escarpment loomed high over the trees—distance perhaps five or six kilometers.