Hands brushed Joao, clearing dead insects off him. The pain from the stings and bites receded under the medicant neutralizer.
"Whose skeleton is that in your pod?" one of the IEO people asked.
Before Joao could answer, Rhin said, "Death and skeletons should be nothing new for Joao Martinho, traitor of the Piratininga!"
"They are crazy, that is the only thing, I think," Vierho said.
"Your pets turned on you, didn't they?" Rhin demanded. "The skeleton, that's all that's left of one of you, eh?"
"What is this talk of skeletons?" Vierho asked.
"Your Jefe knows," Rhin said.
"Would you be so kind as to explain?" Joao asked.
"I don't need to explain," she said. "Let your friends out there explain." She pointed toward the rim of jungle beyond the savannah.
Joao looked there, saw a line of men in bandeirante white standing untouched amidst the leaping, boiling insects in the jungle shadow. He took a pair of binoculars from around the neck of one of his men, focused on the figures.
Knowing what to look for made the identification easy.
"Padre," Joao said.
Vierho bent close, rubbing at an insect sting beneath the acid scar on his cheek.
In a low voice, Joao explained about the figures at the jungle edge, handed over the glasses so that Vierho could see for himself the fine lines in the skin, the facet-glitter of the eyes.
"Aiee," Vierho said.
"Do you recognize your friends?" Rhin demanded.
Joao ignored her.
Vierho passed along the glasses with an explanation to another of the Irmandades. The two IEO men who had sprayed Joao came close, listening, turned their attention to the figures in the jungle shadows.
One of the IEO men crossed himself.
"That perimeter ditch," Joao said. "What's in it?"
"Couroq jelly," said the IEO man who'd crossed himself. "It's all we had left for an insect barrier."
"That won't stop them," Joao said.
"But it has stopped them," the man said.
Joao nodded. He was having unpleasant suspicions about their position here. He looked at Rhin. "Dr. Kelly, where are the rest of your people?" Joao passed his gaze around the IEO personnel, counting. "Surely there're more than six in an IEO field crew."
Her lips compressed, but she remained silent.
The more Joao looked at her, the more ill she appeared.
"So?" Joao said. He glanced around at the tents, seeing their weathered condition. "And where is your equipment, your trucks, lab hut, jitneys?"
"Funny thing you should ask," she said, but there was uncertainty in the sneering quality of her voice -- and that definite hysterical undertone. "About a kilometer into the trees over there" -- she nodded to her left -- "is a wrecked jungle truck containing most of our . . . equipment, as you call it. The track spools of our truck were eaten away by acid before we knew anything was wrong. The lift rotors were destroyed the same way -- everything."
"Acid?"
"It smelled like oxalic, but acted more like hydrochloric," said one of her companions, a blond Nordic with a recent acid burn beneath his right eye.
"Start from the beginning," Joao said.
"We were cut off here . . ." He broke off, glanced around.
"Eight days ago," Rhin said.
"Yes," the blond man said. "They got our radio, our truck -- they looked like giant chiggers. They can shoot an acid spray about fifteen meters."
"Like the one we saw in the Bahia Plaza?" Joao asked.
"There're three dead specimens in containers in my lab tent," Rhin said. "They're cooperative organization, hive-clusters. See for yourself."
Joao pursed his lips, thinking.
"I heard part of what you told your men there," she said. "D'you expect us to believe that?"
"It's of no importance to me what you believe," Joao said. "How'd you get here?"
"We fought our way in here from the truck using caramuru cold-fire spray," said the blond man. "That stalled them a bit. We dragged along what supplies we could, dug a trench around our perimeter, poured in the couroq powder, added the jell and topped it off with all our copahu oil . . . and here we sat."
"How many of you?" Joao asked.
"There were fourteen of us in the truck," Rhin said. She stared at Joao, studying him. His manner, his questions -- everything consistent with innocence. She tried to reason from this assumption, but her mind bogged down. She wasn't thinking clearly and knew it. Ever since the first attack; there'd been something, a drug very likely, in the stings of the insects that had got through the caramuru. But her lab wasn't equipped to determine what the drug was.
Joao rubbed the back of his neck where the insect stings were beginning to burn. He glanced around at his men, assessing their condition and equipment, counted four spray rifles, saw that the men carried spare charge cylinders on slings around their necks.
And there was his truck pod safe inside the perimeter. The spray they'd poured into it probably had played hob with the control circuits, though. But there still remained the big truck out in the savannah.
"We'd better try to fight our way out to the truck," he said.
"Your truck?" Rhin asked. She looked out to the savannah. "I think it's been too late for that since a few seconds after it landed, bandeirante." She laughed, and the hysteria was close to the surface. "I think in a day or so there'll be a few less traitors. You're caught in your own trap."
Joao whirled to stare at the Irmandade airtruck. It was beginning to tip crazily over onto its left side. "Padre!" he barked. "Tommy! Vince! Get . . ." He broke off as the truck sagged over even farther.
"It's only fair to warn you," Rhin said, "to stay away from the edge of the ditch unless you first spray the opposite side. They can shoot that acid stream at least fifteen meters . . . and as you can see" -- she nodded toward the airtruck -- "the acid eats metal and even plastic."
"You're insane," Joao said. "Why didn't you warn us immediately? We could've . . ."
"Warn you?"
Her blond companion said, "Dr. Kelly, perhaps we'd . . ."
"Be quiet, Hogar," she said. She glared at the man. "Isn't it time you looked in on Doctor Chen-Lhu?"
"Travis? Is he here?" Joao asked.
"He arrived yesterday with one companion, since deceased," she said. "They were searching for us. Unluckily, they found us. Dr. Chen-Lhu probably will not live through this night." She glared at her Nordic companion. "Hogar!"
"Yes, ma'am," the man said. He shrugged, headed for the tents.
"We lost eight men to your playmates, bandeirante," Rhin said. She looked at the small group of Irmandades. "Our lives are little enough to pay now for the extinction of eight of you . . . traitors!"
"You are insane," Joao said, and he felt the beginnings of a crazy anger in himself. Chen-Lhu here . . . dying? That could wait. First there was work to do.
"Stop playing innocent, bandeirante," Rhin said. "We've seen your companions out there. We've seen the new playmates you bred . . . and we understand that you were too greedy; your game has gotten out of hand."
"You've not seen my Irmaos doing these things," Joao said. He looked at Thome. "Tommy, keep an eye on these insane ones. Don't permit them to interfere with us." He lifted a sprayrifle and spare charges from one of his men, indicated the other three armed men. "You -- come with me."
"Jefe, what do you do?" Vierho asked.
"Salvage what we can from the truck," Joao said.
Vierho sighed, took one of the sprayrifles and charges, motioned their owner to stay with Thome.
"Sure, go get yourselves killed," Rhin said. "Don't think we'll interfere with that!"
Joao stopped himself from turning on her with a burst of outraged curses. His head ached with the anger and the need to suppress it. Presently he walked toward the ditch nearest the stranded airtruck, laid down a hard mist of foamal in the grass beyond, beckoned the others to follow and leaped the ditch.
***
Later, Joao did not like to think about that time in the savannah. They were out little more than twenty minutes before retreating to the island of tents. Joao and his three companions were acid burned, Vierho and Lon seriously. And they'd salvaged less than an eighth of the material in the truck -- mostly food. The salvage did not include a transmitter.
The attack came from all sides, from creatures hidden in the tall grass. Foamal immobilized them temporarily. None of the sprayrifle poisons seemed to do more than slow the creatures. The attack stopped only when the men were safely back behind the ditch.
"It's evident the devils went first for our communications equipment," Vierho gasped. "How could they know?"
"I don't want to guess," Joao said. "Stand still while I treat those burns." Vierho's cheek and shoulder were badly splashed with acid, his clothing peeling away in smoking tatters.
Joao spread neutralizer salve over the area, turned to Lon. The man already was losing flesh off his back, but he stood there panting, waiting.
Rhin came up to help with the treatment and bandaging, but refused to speak, even to answering the simplest questions.
"Do you have any more of this salve?"
Silence.
"Have you taken any samples of the acids?"
Silence.
"How was Chen-Lhu injured?"
Silence.
Presently, Joao touched up three splash burns on his left arm, neutralized the acid and covered the injuries with fleshtape. He gritted his teeth against the pain, stared at Rhin. "Where are these chigua specimens you killed?"
Silence.
"You are a blind, unprincipled megalomaniac," Joao said, speaking in an even tone. "Don't push me too far."
Her face went pale, and the green eyes blazed, but her lips remained closed.
Joao's arm throbbed, his head ached and he felt there was something vaguely wrong with every color he saw. The woman's silence enraged him, but the rage was like something happening to another person. The odd feeling of detachment persisted even after he recognized it.
"You act like a woman who needs violence," Joao said. "Would you like to be turned over to my men? They're a little tired of you."
He found the words strange even as he spoke them -- as though he'd wanted to say something else and these words had forced themselves out. Rhin's face flamed. "You wouldn't dare!" she grated.
"Ah, we can speak," he said. "Don't be melodramatic, though. I wouldn't give you the pleasure."
Joao shook his head; that wasn't what he'd wanted to say at all.
Rhin glared at him. "You . . . insolent . . ."
Joao found himself producing a wolfish grin, saying, "Nothing you say will make me turn you over to my men."
The silence that followed was filled with sense of drawing apart -- farther, farther. Joao felt that Rhin actually was growing smaller. He grew aware of a distant roaring, wondered if it was a sound in his own ears.
"That roaring," he said.
"Jefe?"
It was Vierho directly behind him.
"What is that roaring?" Joao asked.
"It's the river, Jefe; a chasm." Vierho pointed to a black rock escarpment rising distantly above the jungle. "When the wind is right we hear it. Jefe?"
"What is it?" Joao felt a surge of anger at Vierho. Why couldn't the man speak out?
"A word with you, Jefe." Vierho drew him toward the blond Nordic who was standing outside one of the tents. The man's face looked gray except around the acid burn on his cheek.
Joao looked back at Rhin. She had turned away from him, stood with her arms folded. The stiffness of her back, the pose, all of it struck Joao as almost humorous. He suppressed laughter, allowed himself to be led up to the blond fellow. What had she called him? Ahh, Hogar. Yes, Hogar.
"The gentleman here" -- Vierho indicated Hogar -- "says the female doctor was bitten by insects that got past their barriers."
"The first night," Hogar whispered.
"She has not been the same since," Vierho said. "In the head, you understand? We humor her, Jefe, no?"
Joao wet his lips with his tongue. He felt dizzy and warm.
"The insects that bit her were similar to the ones that were on you," Hogar said. His voice sounded apologetic.
He's making fun of me! Joao thought.
"I wish to see Chen-Lhu," Joao said. "At once."
"He was badly poisoned and burned," Hogar said. "We think he's dying."
"Where is he?"
"In the tent here, but I . . ."
"Is he conscious?"
"Senhor Martinho, he is conscious but not in condition for any prolonged . . ."
"I give the orders here!" Joao snapped.
An odd look passed between Hogar and Vierho.
Vierho said, "Jefe, perhaps . . ."
"I will see Doctor Chen-Lhu now!" Joao said. He brushed past Hogar and into the tent.
The place was a gloomy hole after the morning sunlight outside. It took an instant for Joao's eyes to adjust themselves. In that instant, Hogar and Vierho joined him in the tent.
"Please, Senhor Martinho," Hogar said.
Vierho said, "Jefe, perhaps later."
"Who is there?"
The voice was low, but controlled, and came from a cot at the far end of the tent. Joao made out the form of a human figure stretched on the cot, the white marks of bandages, recognized Chen-Lhu's face in the half light.
"It is Joao Martinho," Joao said.
"Ahh, Johnny," Chen-Lhu said, and his voice sounded stronger.
Hogar passed Joao, knelt beside the cot, said, "Please, Doctor, do not excite yourself."
The words held an odd ring of familiarity for Joao, but he couldn't place the association. He crossed to the cot, looked down at Chen-Lhu. The man's cheeks were sunken as though after a long famine. His eyes appeared immersed in two black pits.
"Johnny," Chen-Lhu said, his voice a whisper. "We are rescued, then."
"We are not rescued," Joao said. And he wondered why the fool prattled so.
"Ahhh, too bad," Chen-Lhu said. "Then we'll all go together, eh?" Chen-Lhu asked. And he thought: What irony! My scapegoat caught in the same trap. What futility!
"There's still hope," Hogar said.
Joao saw Vierho cross himself, though: Silly fool!
"While there's life, eh?" Chen-Lhu asked. He stared up at Joao. "I'm dying, Johnny, but most of my past eludes me." And he thought: We'll all die here. And in my homeland -- they'll all die there, too. Starvation or poison, what's the difference?
Hogar looked at Joao, said, "Senhor, please go."
"No," Chen-Lhu said. "Stay. I've things to tell you."
"You mustn't tire yourself, sir," Hogar said.
"What difference?" Chen-Lhu asked. "We've marched to the West, eh, Johnny? I wish I could laugh!"
Joao shook his head. His back ached and tingling sensations ran along the skin of both arms. The interior of the tent seemed suddenly brighter.
"Laugh?" Vierho whispered. "Mother of God!"
"You want to know why my government won't let in your observers?" Chen-Lhu asked. "Such a joke! The Great Crusade has backfired in my land. The earth goes barren. Nothing helps it -- fertilizers, chemicals, nothing."
Joao experienced difficulty assembling the words into meaningful form. Barren? Barren?
"We face such a famine as history has never seen," Chen-Lhu rasped.
"Is it the lack of insects?" Vierho whispered.
"Of course!" Chen-Lhu said. "What else has changed? We've broken key links in the ecological chain. Of course. We even know what links . . . now that it's too late."
Barren earth, Joao thought. It was a very interesting idea, but his head felt too hot to explore the thought.
Vierho, dismayed by Joao's silence, bent over Chen-Lhu, said, "Why don't your people admit this thing and warn the rest of us before it's too late?"
"Don't be a fool!" Chen-Lhu said, and there was some of the old, harsh com
mand in his voice. "We'd lose all before we'd lose that much face. I tell it here now because I'm dying and because none of you will survive me for long."
Hogar stood up and stepped back from the cot as though fearful of contamination.
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