Dr. Rhin Kelly had listened to the room for twenty minutes, her attention drawn more and more to the tension undercurrents here.
“The new poisons work—yes.” That was a bandeirante at the table behind her answering the problem of survivors—resistant strains. “The mop-up is going to be brutal handwork, just like China. They had to get down there and kill the last bugs by hand.”
Rhin sensed her companion stirring, and thought: He heard. She glanced up from their table’s amber smoke, met her escort’s almond eyes. He smiled, and she thought as she had many times before, what a distinguished personage was this Dr. Travis Huntington Chen-Lhu. He was tall with the deep, square face of North China topped by close-cropped hair that was still jet-black at sixty. He leaned toward her and whispered, “Nowhere do we escape rumors, eh?”
She shook her head, wondering for perhaps the tenth time why the distinguished Dr. Chen-Lhu, district director for the International Ecological Organization, had insisted she come here tonight, her first night in Bahia. She had no illusions at all about why he’d ordered her to come down from Dublin: he obviously had a problem which required action by the IEO’s espionage arm. As usual, the problem would turn out to involve a man who must be manipulated. Chen-Lhu had hinted as much during the day’s “general briefing.” But he had yet to name the man upon whom she must ply her wiles.
“They say certain plants are dying out from lack of pollenization.” That was a woman at the table behind her, and Rhin stiffened. Dangerous conversation, that.
But the bandeirante directly behind her said, “Back off, doll. You sound like that dame they picked up in Itabuna.”
“What dame?”
“She was distributing Carsonite literature right there in the village behind the barrier. Police grabbed her before she’d gotten rid of twenty pieces. They got most of it back, but you know how that stuff is, especially up there near the Red.”
A disturbance erupted at A’Chigua’s entrance, cries of “Johnny! You, Johnny! You lucky dog, Joao!”
Rhin joined the rest of A’Chigua’s patrons in turning to stare toward the sound, noting that Chen-Lhu pretended indifference. She saw that seven bandeirantes had stopped just inside the room as though blocked by the barrage of words.
At their head stood a bandeirante with a group leader’s golden butterfly insignia at his lapel. Rhin studied him with sudden suspicion, seeing a man of medium height, swarthy skin, wavy black hair; stocky, but when he moved there was grace. His body radiated strength. The face was a contrast, narrow and patrician, dominated by a slim nose with pronounced hook. There were senhores de engenho in his ancestry—obviously.
Rhin described him to herself as “brutally handsome.” Again, she noted Chen-Lhu’s pose of disinterest, and thought: So this is why we’re here.
The thought made her oddly aware of her own body. She underwent a momentary revulsion at her role, thinking: I’ve done many things and sold many bits of myself to be here in this moment. And what is there left for myself? No one wanted the services of Dr. Rhin Kelly, entomologist. But Rhin Kelly, Irish beauty, a woman who took pleasure in her other duties—this Rhin Kelly was much in demand.
If I didn’t enjoy the work, perhaps then I wouldn’t hate it, she thought.
She knew how she must appear in this room of lush, dark-skinned women. She was red-haired, green-eyed, delicate complexion—freckles at shoulders, forehead and bridge of nose. In this room—wearing a low gown to match her eyes, a small golden IEO badge at her breast—in this room, she was the exotic one.
“Who is that man at the door?” she asked.
A smile like the ripple from a faint breeze washed over Chen-Lhu’s chiseled features. He glanced toward the entrance.
“Which man, my dear? There appear to be… seven there.”
“Drop the pose, Travis.”
Almond eyes probed at her, swung back to the group at the entrance. “That is Joao Martinho, Jefe of the Irmandades and son of Gabriel Martinho.”
“Joao Martinho,” she said. “He’s the one you said should’ve had full credit for clearing the Piratininga.”
“He got the cash, my dear. For Johnny Martinho, that’s quite enough.”
“How much?”
“Ah, the practical woman,” he said. “They shared five hundred thousand cruzados.” Chen-Lhu settled back on the divan, sniffed the pungent incense arising with the smoke from their table’s vent. And he thought: Five hundred thousand! That’ll be enough to destroy Johnny Martinho—if I can make my case against him. And with Rhin, how can I fail? This branco de Bahia will be only too happy to accept a woman as fair as Rhin. Yes. We’ll have our scapegoat soon: Johnny Martinho, the capitalisto, the gran senhor who was trained by the Yankees.
“The grapevine in Dublin mentions Joao Martinho,” Rhin said.
“Ahh, the grapevine,” he said. “What has it said?”
“The trouble in the Piratininga—his name and that of his father are mentioned.”
“Ahhh, I see.”
“There are strange rumors,” she said.
“And you find them sinister.”
“No—just odd.”
Odd, he thought. The word struck him with a momentary sinking sensation because it echoed the courier message from his homeland that had moved him to send for Rhin. “Your odd slowness in solving our problem is causing very disturbing questions to be raised.” The sentence and the word had leaped out of the message. Chen-Lhu understood the impatience that framed those words: discovery of the looming catastrophe in China could come at any moment. And he knew there were those who didn’t trust him because of the cursed white men in his ancestry.
He lowered his voice, said, “Odd is not quite the word to describe bandeirantes reinfesting the Green areas.”
“I heard some rather wild stories,” she murmured. “Secret bandeirante laboratories—illegal mutation experiments…”
“You’ll note, Rhin, that most reports of strange, giant insects come from the bandeirantes. There’s your only oddity.”
“Logical,” she said. “Bandeirantes’re out in the front line where such things might occur.”
“Surely you, an entomologist, don’t believe such wild stories,” he said.
She shrugged, feeling oddly perverse. He was right, of course; had to be.
“Logic,” Chen-Lhu said. “The use of wild rumors to foment superstitious fear among the yokel tabareus, this is the only logic I see.”
“So you wish me to work on this bandeirante chief,” she said. “What am I supposed to find?”
You’re supposed to find what I tell you to find, Chen-Lhu thought. But he said, “Why’re you so certain this Martinho is your target? Is that what the grapevine said?”
“Ohhh,” she said, wondering at the anger that lurked within her. “You had no special purpose in sending for me. My own charming self was reason enough!”
“I couldn’t have said it better,” he said. He turned, beckoned a waiter who approached, bent to listen. Presently, the waiter wove a path to the group at the entrance, spoke to Joao Martinho.
The bandeirante studied Rhin with a brief flicker, shifted to meet Chen-Lhu’s eyes. Chen-Lhu nodded.
Several women like gauze butterflies had joined Martinho’s group. Eye makeup made them appear to be staring from faceted pits. Martinho disengaged himself, headed for the table of amber smoke. He stopped across from Rhin, bowed to Chen-Lhu. “Dr. Chen-Lhu, I presume,” he said. “What a delight. How can the IEO spare its district director for such dalliance?” The wave of an arm encompassed A’Chigua’s frenetic tensions.