She silenced an angry outburst, whirled away. And she thought: Our bodies betray us. The Chen-Lhus of the world come along, push buttons, bend us and twist us… I won’t do it! I won’t! This Joao is too nice a guy. But why does he carry that weapon in his pocket?
I could kill her now and push Johnny off the float, Chen-Lhu thought. But this is a difficult craft to manage… and I’m not experienced in such matters.
Rhin turned a molten look on him.
Perhaps she’ll come around, Chen-Lhu thought. I know her weaknesses, certainly—but I must be sure.
Joao returned, slipped into his seat. He brought a fresh smell of wetness into the cabin, but the odor of mildew remained and it was growing stronger.
As the morning wore on, the rain slackened. A warm, misty feeling permeated the cabin’s air. Clouds of gun-metal cotton lifted to brush the hilltops above the river and a beaded drapery of raindrops hung on every visible tree.
The pod bobbed and twisted along a swift mud-brown flow accompanied by more and more flotsam—trees, brush, root islands as large as the pod, whole floes of grass and reeds.
Joao drowsed, wondering at the change in Rhin. In their world of the casual liaison, he knew he should merely shrug and make some witty remark. But he didn’t feel casual or witty about Rhin. She had touched some chord in him that the pleasures of flesh had never before reached.
Love? he wondered.
But their world had fallen out of the notion of romantic love. There was only family and honor where those things counted and all else involved doing-the-right-thing, which usually meant salvaging the least messy aspects from any situation that happened to fall apart.
No clear way of approaching his problem presented itself. Joao knew only that he was being nudged and pushed from within, that physical weakness contributed to the fuzziness of his thinking… and besides, their whole situation was hopeless.
I’m sick, he thought. The whole world’s sick.
In more ways than one.
A buzzing sound invaded Joao’s torpor. He snapped upright, wide awake.
“What’s wrong?” Rhin asked.
“Be quiet.” He held up a hand to silence her, cocked his head to one side.
Chen-Lhu leaned forward over the back of Joao’s seat. “A truck?”
“Yes, by God!” Joao said. “And it’s low.” He glanced at the sky around them, started to release the canopy, was restrained by Chen-Lhu, who put a hand on his arm.
“Johnny, look there,” Chen-Lhu said. He pointed to the left.
Joao turned.
From the shore came what appeared at first to be an odd cloud—wide, thick, moving with a purposeful directness. The cloud resolved itself into a mob of fluttering white, gray and gold insects. They came in at about fifty meters above the pod and the water darkened with their shadow.
The shadow reached out all around the pod and paced it, a moving cover to hide them from anything in the sky.
As the import of the maneuver penetrated Joao’s awareness, he turned, stared at Chen-Lhu. The man’s face appeared gray with shock.
“That’s… deliberate,” Rhin whispered.
“How can it be?” Chen-Lhu asked. “How can it be? How can it be?”
In the same moment, Chen-Lhu saw how Joao studied him, realized his own emotions. Anger at himself filled Chen-Lhu. I must not show fear to these savages! he thought. He forced himself to sit back, to smile and shake his head.
“To train insects,” Chen-Lhu said. “It is almost unbelievable… but someone obviously has done it. We see the evidence.”
“Please, God,” Rhin whispered. “Please.”
“Oh, stop your silly prattle, woman,” Chen-Lhu said. And even as he spoke, he knew that was the wrong tack to take with Rhin, and he said, “You must remain calm, Rhin. Hysterics serve no purpose.”
The rocket sound grew louder.
“Are you sure it’s a truck?” Rhin asked. “Perhaps…”
“Bandeirante truck,” Joao said. “They’ve rigged it to fire alternate pairs and save fuel. Hear that? That’s a bandeirante trick.”
“Could they be searching for us?”
“Who knows? Anyway, they’re above the clouds.”
“And above our friends, too,” Chen-Lhu said.
The pulsating counterpoint of rocket motors echoed along the hills. Joao turned his head to follow the sound. It grew fainter upstream, blended with the lapping-swishing-tumbling of the river.
“Won’t they come down and look for us?” Rhin pleaded.
“They weren’t looking for anyone,” Joao said. “They were just going from someplace to someplace.”
Rhin looked up at the covering blanket of insects. From this angle and distance, the individuals blended one into another and the whole cloud of them appeared to be one organism.
“We could shoot them down!” she said. She reached for a sprayrifle, but Joao grabbed her arm, stopped her.
“There’re still the clouds,” he said.
“And our friends have more reinforcements than we have spray charges,” Chen-Lhu said. “That I’ll wager.”
“But if the clouds weren’t there,” she said. “Won’t the clouds ever… go away?”
“They may burn off this afternoon,” Joao said, and he tried to speak soothingly. “This time of year they do that quite often.”
“They’re going!” Rhin said. She pointed at the insect cover. “Look! They’re going.”
Joao looked up to see the fluttering mass start to move back toward the left shore. The shadow accompanied them until they went into the trees and were lost from sight.
“They’re gone,” Rhin said.
“That only means the truck is no longer with us,” Joao said.
Rhin buried her face in her hands, fought down shuddering sobs.
Joao started to caress her neck, to comfort her, but she shook off his hand.
And Chen-Lhu thought: You must attract him, Rhin, not repel him.
“We must remember why we are here,” Chen-Lhu said. “We must remember what it is we must do.”
Rhin sat up, lowering her hands, took a deep breath that hurt the muscles of her chest.
“We must keep ourselves occupied,” Chen-Lhu said. “With trivia if necessary. It is a way to prevent… fear, boredom, angers. I tell you—I will describe for you an orgy I once attended in Cambodia. There were eight of us, not counting the women—a former prince, the minister of culture…”
“We don’t want to hear about your damned orgy!” Rhin snapped.
The flesh, Chen-Lhu thought. She dares not listen to anything that reminds her of her own flesh. That is her weakness, for sure. It is good that I know this.
“So?” Chen-Lhu said. “Very well. Tell us then about the fine life in Dublin, my dear Rhin. I love to hear of the people who trade wives and mistresses and ride horses and pretend the past has never died.”
“You’re really a terrible man,” Rhin said.
“Excellent!” Chen-Lhu said. “You may hate me, Rhin; I permit it. Hate keeps one occupied, too. One may indulge hate while one thinks about such things as wealth and pleasures. There are times when hate is a much more profitable occupation than making love.”
Joao turned, studied Chen-Lhu, hearing the words, seeing the harsh control on the man’s face. He uses words as weapons, Joao thought. He maneuvers people and pushes them with words. Doesn’t Rhin see this? But of course she doesn’t… because he’s using her for something, wielding her. For a moment, Joao sat stupefied with discovery.
“You watch me, Johnny,” Chen-Lhu said. “What do you think you see?”