The derision was still there in his voice, and she heard it, whirled away.
Joao cracked open the hatch, examined the edges of it, inside and out. No obvious sign of insects. He looked down at the flat surface of the float extending to the rear beside the rocket motors—two and a half meters of low platform almost a meter wide. No sign of insects there.
He dropped down, closed the hatch.
As soon as the hatch closed, Rhin turned on Chen-Lhu.
“You are insufferable!” she blazed.
“Now, Doctor Kelly.”
“Don’t pull that we-professionals-together bit,” she said. “You’re still insufferable.”
Chen-Lhu lowered his voice, said, “Before he comes back, we’ve a few things to discuss. There’s no time for personalities. This is IEO business.”
“The only IEO business we have is to carry your story to headquarters,” she said.
He stared at her. This reaction had been predictable, of course, but a way had to be found to move her. The Brazilians have a saying, he thought, and said, “When you talk of duty, speak also of money.”
“A conta foi paga por mim,” she said. “I paid that account.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that you pay anything,” he said.
“Are you offering to buy me?” she snapped.
“Others have,” he said.
She glared at him. Was he threatening to tell Joao about her past in the IEO’s investigative/espionage branch? Let him! But she’d learned a few things in the line of duty, and she assumed a look of uncertainty now. What did Chen-Lhu have in mind?
Chen-Lhu smiled. Westerners were always so susceptible to cupidity. “You wish to hear more?” he asked.
Her silence was acquiescence.
“For now,” Chen-Lhu said, “you will ply your wiles upon Johnny Martinho, make him a slave of love. He must be reduced to a creature who’ll do anything for you. For you, that should be fairly easy.”
I’ve done it before, eh? she thought.
She turned away. Well… I have done it before: in the name of duty.
Chen-Lhu nodded to himself behind her. The patterns of life were unshakable. She’d come around—almost out of habit. The hatch beside him opened and Joao climbed up into the cabin.
“Not a sign of anything,” he said, slipping back into his seat. “I left the hatch on half-lock in case anyone else wants to go out now.”
“Rhin?” Chen-Lhu said.
She shook her head, took a shivering breath. “No.”
“Then I’ll avail myself of the opportunity,” Chen-Lhu said. He opened the hatch, climbed down to the float, closed the hatch.
Without turning, Rhin knew the hatch only appeared to be closed, that Chen-Lhu had left open a crack and had his ear to the opening. She stared straight ahead at the river’s quicksilver track. The pod lay suspended in a blue vault of motionless air that slowly inflated with heat until she knew it must explode.
Joao looked at her. “You all right?”
There’s a laugh! she thought.
A minute passed in silence.
“Something’s wrong,” Joao said. “You and Travis were whispering while I was out there. I couldn’t make out what you said, but there was anger in your tone.”
She tried to swallow in a dry throat. Chen-Lhu was listening to this, sure as hell. “I… he was teasing me.”
“Teasing you?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
She turned away, studied the feathered softness of hills lifting to the right, and glimpsed far away there the snow cone of a mountain with a black tonsure of volcanic ash. Some of the mountain’s serenity invaded her senses.
“About you,” she said.
Joao looked at his hands, wondering why her admission embarrassed him.
In this silence, Rhin began to hum. She had a good voice and knew it: throaty, intimate. The voice was one of her best tools.
But Joao recognized the song and wondered at her choice. Even after she fell silent, the melody hung around him like a vapor. It was a native lament, a Lorca tragedy arranged for guitar:
Stay your whip, Old Death—
It is not I who seeks your dark sea.
I would not whine, nor beg—
But ask it as one who has done your work.
This river which is my life,
Let it flow yet awhile in tranquility;
For my love has gray smoke in her eyes…
And farewells are difficult.
She’d only hummed the song, but the words were there, all the same.
Joao looked out to the left.
The river was lined here with mango trees, dense green foliage broken by the lighter sage of tropical mistletoe and occasional fur-coated chonta palms. Above the jungle’s near reaches hovered two black and white urubu vultures. They hung in the burned-out steel blue sky as though painted there on a false backdrop.
The apparent tranquility of the scene held no illusions for Joao. And he wondered if this were the tranquility referred to in the song.
A flock of tanagers caught his attention. They swept overhead, glistening turquoise, dived into the jungle wall and were swallowed by it as though they’d never been.
The mango shore on the left gave way to a narrow strip of grass on a medium embankment, red-brown earth pitted with holes.
The hatch opened, and Joao heard Chen-Lhu clamber into the cabin. There came the sound of the hatch being closed and dogged.
“Johnny, do I see something moving in the trees behind that grass?” Chen-Lhu asked.
Joao focused his attention on the scene. Yes! Something just inside the tree shadows—many figures that moved like a flitting current to keep pace with the pod.
Joao lifted the sprayrifle which he had wedged to the left of his seat.
“That’s a long shot,” Rhin said.
“I know. I just want to put them on notice—keep them at a distance.”
He fumbled with the seal on the gunport, but before he could open it, the figures stepped out of the shadows into the full sunlight of the grassy bench.
Joao gasped.
“Mother of God, Mother of God…” Rhin whispered.
It was a mixed group standing as though on review along the shore. They were mostly human in shape, although there were a few giant copies of insect forms—mantidae, beetles, something with a whip-like proboscis. The humans were mainly in the form of Indians and most of those like the ones who’d kidnapped Joao and his father.
Interspersed along the line, though, stood single editions, individuals: there, one identical in appearance to the Prefect, Joao’s father; beside him… Vierho! and all the men from the camp.
Joao pushed the sprayrifle through the port.
“No!” Rhin said. “Wait. See their eyes, how glassy they look. Those could be our friends… drugged or…” She broke off.
Or worse, Joao thought.
“It’s possible they’re hostages,” Chen-Lhu said. “One sure way to find out—shoot one of them.” He stood up, opened the gig-box. “Here’s a hard-pellet…”
“Stuff that!” Joao snarled. He withdrew his sprayrifle, sealed the port.
Chen-Lhu pursed his lips in thought. These Latins! So unrealistic. He returned the hard-pellet rifle to the box, sat down. One of the lesser individuals could have been chosen as target. Valuable information could have been gained. Pressing the issue now would gain nothing, though. Not now.
“I don’t know about you two,” Rhin said, “but in my school we were taught not to kill our friends.”