The Green Brain by Frank Herbert

dark yellow sac contracted, and a voice issued from the half-formed mouth.
    â€œYou must listen,” it rasped.
    Joao gulped, whirled back to the controls, unlocked them and sent the pod into a wild, spinning turn.
    A high-pitched rattling buzz sounded behind him. The noise seemed to pick up every bone in his body and
shake it. Something crawled on his neck. He slapped it, felt it squash.
    All Joao could think of then was escape. He stared out frantically at the earth beneath, glimpsing a blotch of white in a savannah off to his right and in the same instant recognizing another airtruck banking beside him, the insignia of his own Irmandades bright on its side.
    The white blotch in the savannah resolved itself into a cluster of tents with an IEO orange and green banner flying beside them. Beyond the flat grass could be seen the curve of a river.
    Joao dove for the tents.
    Something stung his cheek. Crawling things were in his hair—biting, stinging. He kicked on the braking rockets, aimed for open ground beside the tents. Insects were all over the inside of the pod’s glass now, blocking his vision. Joao said a silent prayer, hauled back on the control arm, felt the pod mush out, touch ground, skidding and slewing. He kicked the canopy release before the motion stopped, broke the seal on his safety harness and launched himself up and out to land sprawling on hard ground.
    He rolled over and over, eyes tightly closed, feeling the insect bites like fire needles over every exposed part of his body. Hands grabbed him and he felt a jelly hood splash across his face to protect it. Hard spray slammed against him from all sides.
    Somewhere in a hood-blurred distance he heard a voice that sounded like Vierho’s shout, “Run! This way—run!”
    He heard a spraygun fire: Whoosh!
    And again.
    And again.

    Hands rolled him over. Spray hit his back. A wash that smelled like neutralizer splashed over him.
    An odd thudding sound shook the ground and a voice said, “Mother of God! Would you look at that!”

5
    J oao sat up, clawed the jelly hood from his face, stared across the savannah. The grass there seethed and boiled with insects around an Irmandades airtruck.
    A voice said, “Did you kill everything inside the pod?”
    â€œEverything that moved.” The reply was husky, halting, as though overcoming pain.
    â€œIs there anything in it we can use?”
    â€œThe radio’s destroyed.”
    â€œOf course. That’s the first thing they go for.”
    Joao looked around him, counted seven of his Irmandades—Vierho, Thome, Ramon, Pietr, Lon …
    His eye was caught by the group clustered beyond his men—Rhin Kelly among them. Her red hair was awry. Dirt streaked her face. There was a wild, glazed look in her green eyes. She was glaring at him.
    He saw his pod then, to the right, on its side and just within what appeared to be a perimeter ditch. Foam and spray residue were all over it. His eye traversed the line of the ditch, saw that it ringed a hard-packed dirt area
with the tents in the center and savannah beyond. Two men in green IEO uniforms stood beside him holding sprayer handtanks.
    Joao returned his attention to Rhin, remembering her as he’d seen her in Bahia’s A’Chigua . Now she wore a plain IEO field uniform, its green blotched by red-brown dirt. Her eyes held no invitation at all.
    â€œI see poetic justice in this—traitors,” she said.
    Her hysterical tone of voice caught Joao’s ear and it took a second for her words to filter through. Traitors?
    He grew aware of the bedraggled, worn look of the IEO people.
    Vierho approached, helped Joao to his feet, proffered a cloth to wipe off the jelly.
    â€œJefe, what is happening?” Vierho asked. “We picked up your signal, but you didn’t answer.”
    â€œLater,” Joao rasped as he recognized the anger in Rhin and her companions. Rhin appeared feverish and ill.
    Hands