Frank Herbert The Green Brain

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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, recognised 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.
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'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, thought:
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 - fertilisers, 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 command
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.
'We need a scapegoat, you see?' Chen-Lhu said. 'That's why I was sent here -
to find us a scapegoat. We're fighting for more than our lives.'
'You could always blame the Northamericans,' Hogar said, his tone bitter.
'I fear we've worn that one out, even with our people,' Chen-Lhu said. 'We did
the thing
ourselves, you see? There's no escaping that. No ... all we could hope for was
to find here a way of blaming someone else. The British and French provided
some of our poisons. We explored that with no success. Some Russian teams
helped us ... but the Russians haven't realigned their entire country - only
to the Ural Line. They could show the same problems we have and ... you see?
They'd make us appear foolish.'
'Why haven't the Russians said anything?' Hogar asked.
Joao looked at Hogar, thinking:
Senseless words, senseless words.
'The Russians are quietly rolling back their Ural line into the Green,'
Chen-Lhu said. 'Re-
infesting, you see? No ... my last orders were to find a new insect, typically
Brazilian, that would destroy many of our crops ... and for whose presence we
could blame ... who?
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Perhaps some bandeirantes.'
Blame bandeirantes, Joao thought.
Yes, everyone is blaming the bandeirantes.
'The really amusing thing,' Chen-Lhu said, 'is what I see in your Green. Do
you know what I see?'
'You're a devil!' Vierho grated.
'No, just a patriot,' Chen-Lhu said. 'Are you not curious as to what I see in
your Green?'
'Speak and be damned!' Vierho said.
That's telling him, Joao thought
'I see the signs in your Green of the same blight that has struck my poor
nation,' Chen-
Lhu said. 'Smaller fruit, smaller crops - smaller leaves, paler plants. It's
slow at first, but everyone will see it soon.'
'Then maybe they'll stop before it's too late,' Vierho said.
That's foolishness, Joao thought.
Who ever stops before it's too late?
'Such a simple fellow you are,' Chen-Lhu said. 'Your rulers are the same as
mine: they see nothing but their own survival. They will see nothing else
until it's too late. This is always the way with governments.'
Joao wondered why the tent was growing so dark after being so bright. He felt
hot and his head whirled as though he'd had too much alcohol. A hand touched
his shoulder. He looked down at it, followed the hand up to an arm ... a face:
Rhin. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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