“But, Jefe,” Vierho said. “You know yourself what was said about…”
“I know!” Martinho barked. “Yes!”
Vierho nodded, a look of pain on his face. “They said it was…”
“There are mutants, we know that,” Martinho said. And he thought: Why did Chen-Lhu force this disclosure now? To see me argue with one of my men?
“Mutants?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“We have seen what we have seen,” Vierho said.
“But the description of this thing is a physical impossibility,” Martinho said. “It has to be a product of someone’s superstition. That I know.”
“Do you, Jefe?”
“Anything that’s there we can face,” Martinho said.
“What are you talking about?” Rhin asked.
Chen-Lhu cleared his throat. Let her see now the extremes to which our enemy will go, he thought. Let her see the perfidy of these bandeirantes. Then, when I tell her what she must do, she’ll do it willingly.
“There is a story, Rhin,” Chen-Lhu said.
“Story!” Martinho sneered.
“Rumor, then,” Chen-Lhu said. “Some of the bandeirantes of Diego Alvarez say they saw a mantidae three meters tall in the Serra Dos Parecis.”
Vierho leaned toward Chen-Lhu, face tense. The acid scar was pale on the bandeirante’s cheek. “Alvarez lost six men before he gave up the Serra. You know that, Senhor? Six men! And he…”
Vierho broke off at the arrival of a squat, dark-skinned man in a stained bandeirante working smock. The man was round faced, with Indian eyes. He stopped almost behind Martinho, stood there waiting.
The newcomer bent close to Martinho, whispered.
Rhin could catch only a few of his words—they were very low and in some barbarous interlands dialect—something about the Plaza, the central square… crowds.
Martinho pursed his lips, said, “When?”
Ramon straightened, spoke somewhat louder. “Just now, Jefe.”
“In the Plaza?”
“Yes—less than a block from here.”
“What is it?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“A namesake of this cabaret,” Martinho said.
“A chigger?”
“So they say.”
“But this area’s Green,” Rhin said. And she wondered at her sudden feelings of dismay.
Martinho pushed himself up and away from the divan.
Chen-Lhu’s face betrayed a strange watchfulness as he looked up at the bandeirante jefe.
“You will excuse me, please, Rhin Kelly?” Martinho asked.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“There is work.”
“One chigger?” Chen-Lhu asked. “Are you sure it isn’t a mistake?”
“No mistake, senhor,” Ramon said.
“Is there no facility for taking care of such accidents, then?” Rhin asked. “Obviously we’ve a stowaway that’s come into the Green on some sort of cargo or…”
“Perhaps not,” Martinho said. He nodded to Vierho. “Get the men. I will need especially Thome for the truck and Lon to manage the lights.”
“At once, Jefe.” Vierho bounced up and headed across the room toward the other Irmandades.
“What do you mean—perhaps not?” Chen-Lhu asked.
“This is one of the new ones about which you refuse to believe,” Martinho said. He turned to Ramon. “Go with Vierho, please.”
“Yes, Jefe.”
Ramon turned with an almost military precision, strode in Vierho’s wake.
“You will explain, please?” Chen-Lhu said.
“This is described as an acid-shooter and almost a half meter long,” Martinho said.
“Impossible!” Chen-Lhu snorted.
Rhin shook her head. “No chigger could possibly…”
“This is a bandeirante joke,” Chen-Lhu said.
“As you wish, senhor,” Martinho said. “You have seen the acid scar on Vierho’s cheek? This too was produced by such a joke.” He turned, bowed to Rhin. “Your forgiveness, Senhorita?”
Rhin stood up. A chigger almost half a meter long!
The odd rumors she’d heard half a world away reached out and touched her now, filling her with a sense of unreality. There were physical limits. Such a thing could not be. Or could it? She was all entomologist now. Logic and training took over. This was a matter which might be proved or disproved in just a few minutes. Less than a block away, the man had said. In the Plaza. And certainly Chen-Lhu wouldn’t want her to disengage herself from Joao Martinho quite this early.
“We are going with you, of course,” she said.
“Of course,” Chen-Lhu said, rising.
Rhin slipped an arm beneath Martinho’s. “Show me this fantastic chigger, if you please, Senhor Martinho.”
Martinho placed a hand over hers, felt an electric sensation of warmth. What a disturbing woman! “Please,” he said. “You are so lovely, and the thought of what the acid of this…”
“I’m certain we’ll be quite safe from a rumor,” Chen-Lhu said. “Will you lead the way, please, Johnny?”
Martinho sighed. The unbelievers were so stubborn—but this was a chance to reach into a high place with inescapable evidence of what most bandeirantes already knew. Yes, District Director Chen-Lhu should come. Indeed, he must come. Reluctantly, Martinho transferred Rhin’s arm to Chen-Lhu. “Of course you will come,” he said. “But please keep the lovely Rhin Kelly well to the rear, senhor. Rumors sometimes develop a terrible sting.”
“We will take every necessary precaution,” Chen-Lhu said. The jibe in his voice was quite apparent.
Martinho’s men already were headed for the door. He turned, strode after them, ignoring the abrupt hush of the room as attention followed him.
Rhin, accompanying Chen-Lhu toward the street, was struck by the purposeful set to the bandeirantes’ shoulders. They did not appear like men bent on deception—but that was what it must be. It couldn’t be anything else.
Chapter III
THE NIGHT was a blue-white glare from slave lights hanging in their carrier beams above the street. People in the costumes of many nations and many regions, a multicolored river of people, flowed past the A’Chigua toward the Plaza.
Martinho sped up, led his men into the stream. People made way, words of recognition followed.
“It’s Joao Martinho and some of his Irmandades.”
“…the Piratininga with Benito Alvarez.”
“Joao Martinho…”
At the Plaza, a white truck of the Hermosillo Bandeirantes played its searchlights on the fountain. There were other trucks and official vehicles across the way. The Hermosillo truck was a working rig recently returned from the interlands, by the look of it. The interleavings of its extensile wings were still streaked with dirt. The break-line of its forward pod could be distinguished clearly—a distinct crack that ran completely around the vehicle. Two of its ground-lift pods didn’t quite match the white of the others, evidence of a field repair job.
Martinho followed the pointing fingers of the searchlights. He moved forward to a line of police and bandeirantes holding back the crowd, was passed through on recognition, his men following.
“Where’s Ramon?” Martinho asked.
Vierho pressed up close beside him, said, “Ramon went for the truck with Thome and Lon. I don’t see a’chigua.”
“But look you,” Martinho said, pointing.
The crowd was being held back all around the Plaza at a distance of about fifty meters from the central fountain which rose in spooling, glistening arcs. In front of the crowd lay a tiled circle, its mosaic surface decorated with figures of the birds of Brazil. Inside this tiled ring, a ten-centimeter lip lifted to a circle of green lawn about twenty meters in diameter with the fluted cup of the fountain in the center. Between tile and fountain the lawn showed yellow splotches of dead grass. Martinho’s pointing finger picked out these patches one by one.