Chen-Lhu’s voice, a low rumble, broke the silence: “This river, it is the Itapura, for sure, Johnny?”
“I’m reasonably certain of that,” Joao whispered.
“What is the nearest civilization?”
“The bandeirante staging area at Santa Maria de Grao Cuyaba.”
“Seven or eight hundred kilometers, eh?”
“More or less.”
Rhin stirred in Joao’s arms, and he felt himself responding to her femininity. He forced his mind to veer away from such thoughts, concentrated instead on the river ahead of them: a winding, twisting course with rapids and sunken limbs. It was a track menaced for its full length by that deadly presence which he sensed all around them. And there was one more peril he had not mentioned to the others: these waters abounded with cannibal fish, piranha.
“How many rapids ahead of us?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“I’m not sure,” Joao said. “Eight or nine—maybe more. It depends on the season and height of water.”
“We will have to use the fuel, fly across the rapids.”
“This thing won’t stand many takeoffs and landings,” Joao said. “That right hand float…”
“Vierho did a good job; it’ll suffice.”
“We hope.”
“You have sad thoughts, Johnny. That is no way to face this venture. How long to this Santa Maria?”
“Six weeks, with luck. Are you thirsty?”
“Yes. How much water do we have?”
“Ten liters… and we have the little pot still if we need more.”
Joao accepted a canteen from Chen-Lhu, drank deeply. The water was warm and flat. He returned the canteen.
Far off, a night bird called, “Tuta! Tuta!” with a fluting voice.
“What was that?” Chen-Lhu hissed.
“A bird… nothing but a bird.”
Joao sighed. The bird cry had filled him with foreboding, like an evil omen out of his superstitious past. A flux of night sounds pulsed in his temples. He stared out into darkness, saw a sudden witch light of fireflies along the right shore, smelled the wind from the jungle like an exhalation of evil breath.
The near hopelessness of their position pressed in upon him. They stood at the edge of the rainy season, separated from any sanctuary by hundreds of kilometers of whirlpools and chasms. And they were the target of a cruel intelligence which used the jungle as a weapon.
A musk perfume lifted into his nostrils from Rhin. It left him with a profound awareness that she was female… and desirable.
The river tugged at the pod.
Joao felt then their alliance with the current dragging itself down to the sea like a black chord.
Another hour passed… and another.
Joao grew conscious of a red fireglow off to the right—dawn.
The hoots and cries of howler monkeys greeted the light. Their uproar aroused birds to morning talk in the sheltered blackness of the forest: staccato peepings, chirrings up and down the scale, intermittent screeches.
Pearl luster crept across the sky, became milk-silver light that gave definition to the world around the drifting pod. Joao looked out to the west, seeing foothills—one after another, piled waves of hills pounding against the Andean escarpment. He realized then that they had come down out of the first steep descent of the river to the high plateau.
The pod floated quietly like a great water bug against a backdrop of trees laced with the dancing flames of forest flowers. A sluggish current twisted into whorls against the floats. Curls of mist hung on the water like puffs of gauze.
Rhin awoke, straightened out of Joao’s arms, stared downstream. The river was like a cathedral aisle between the tall trees.
Joao massaged his arm where Rhin’s head had slowed the circulation. All the while, he studied the woman beside him. There was a small-child look about her: the red hair disarrayed, an unlined expression of innocence on her face.
She yawned, smiled at him… and abruptly frowned, coming fully awake to their situation. She shook her head, turned to look at Chen-Lhu.
The Chinese slept with his head thrown back into the corner. She had the sudden feeling that Chen-Lhu embodied fallen greatness, as though he were an idol out of his country’s past. He breathed with a low, burred rasp. Heavy pores indented his skin and there was a burnt leather harshness to his complexion that she had never before noticed. A graying wheat stubble of hair stood out along his upper lip. She realized suddenly that Chen-Lhu dyed his hair. It was a touch of vanity that she had not suspected.
“There’s not a breath of wind,” Joao said.
“But it’s cooler,” she said.
She looked out the window on her side, saw wisps of reedy grass trailing from the float. The pod was twisting at the push of every random current. The movement carried a certain majesty; slow sweeping turns like a formal dance to the river’s rhythm.
“What do I smell?” she asked.
Joao sniffed: rocket fuel… very faint, the musk of human sweat… mildew. He knew without exploring it that mildew was the odor that had aroused her question.
“It’s mildew,” he said.
“Mildew?”
She looked around her at the interior of the cabin, seeing the smooth tan fabric of the ceiling edges, chrome on the instrument panel. She put her hands on the dual wheel of her side, moved it.
Mildew, she thought.
The jungle already had a beachhead inside here.
“We’re almost into the rainy season, aren’t we?” she said. “What’ll that mean?”
“Trouble,” he said. “High water… rapids.”
Chen-Lhu’s voice intruded: “Why look at the worst side?”
“Because we have to,” she said.
Hunger awoke suddenly in Joao. His hands trembled; his mouth burned with thirst.
“Let’s have a canteen,” he said.
Chen-Lhu passed a canteen forward. It sloshed as Joao took it. He offered it to Rhin, but she shook her head, overcome by a strange sensation of nausea.
Poison in water conditioned me to a temporary rejection pattern, she thought. The sound of Joao drinking made her feel ill. How greedily he drank! She turned away, unable to look at him.
Joao returned the canteen to Chen-Lhu, thinking how secretively the man awoke. The first you knew about it was his voice, alert and intrusive. Chen-Lhu probably lay there pretending sleep, but awake and listening.
“I… I think I’m hungry,” Rhin said.
Chen-Lhu produced ration packets and they ate in silence.
Now she felt thirst… and was surprised to have Chen-Lhu produce the canteen before she asked. He handed it to her. She knew then that he studied her and was aware of her emotions, saw many of her thoughts. It was a disquieting discovery. She drank in anger, thrust the canteen back at Chen-Lhu.
He smiled.
“Unless they’re on the roof where we can’t see them, or under the wings, our friends have left us,” Joao said.
“So I’ve noticed,” Chen-Lhu said.
Joao allowed his gaze to traverse both shores as far as he could see.
Not a movement of life.
Not a sound.
The sun had mounted high enough now to burn the mist off the river.
“It’s going to be a hellish hot day in here,” Rhin said.
Joao nodded.
The warmth had a definite moment of beginning, he thought. One instant it wasn’t there, then it forced itself upon the senses. He released his safety harness, tipped his seat aside and slid into the rear of the cabin, put his hands on the dogs that sealed the rear hatch.
“Where’re you going?” Rhin demanded. She blushed as she heard her own question.
Chen-Lhu chuckled.
She felt herself hating Chen-Lhu’s callousness then, even when he tried to soften the effect of his reaction by saying, “We must learn certain blind spots of western conventionality, Rhin.”