The Green Brain by Frank Herbert Page A

brushed Joao, clearing dead insects off him. The pain from the stings and bites receded under the medicant neutralizer.
    â€œWhose skeleton is that in your pod?” one of the IEO people asked.
    Before Joao could answer, Rhin said, “Death and skeletons should be nothing new for Joao Martinho, traitor of the Piratininga!”
    â€œThey are crazy, that is the only thing, I think,” Vierho said.
    â€œYour pets turned on you, didn’t they?” Rhin demanded. “The skeleton, that’s all that’s left of one of you, eh?”
    â€œWhat is this talk of skeletons?” Vierho asked.
    â€œYour jefe knows,” Rhin said.
    â€œWould you be so kind as to explain?” Joao asked.

    â€œI don’t need to explain,” she said. “Let your friends out there explain.” She pointed toward the rim of jungle beyond the savannah.
    Joao looked there, saw a line of men in bandeirante white standing untouched amidst the leaping, boiling insects in the jungle shadow. He took a pair of binoculars from around the neck of one of his men, focused on the figures.
    Knowing what to look for made the identification easy.
    â€œPadre,” Joao said.
    Vierho bent close, rubbing at an insect sting beneath the acid scar on his cheek.
    In a low voice, Joao explained about the figures at the jungle edge, handed over the glasses so that Vierho could see for himself the fine lines in the skin, the facet-glitter of the eyes.
    â€œAiee,” Vierho said.
    â€œDo you recognize your friends?” Rhin demanded.
    Joao ignored her.
    Vierho passed along the glasses with an explanation to another of the Irmandades. The two IEO men who had sprayed Joao came close, listening, turned their attention to the figures in the jungle shadows.
    One of the IEO men crossed himself.
    â€œThat perimeter ditch,” Joao said. “What’s in it?”
    â€œCouroq jelly,” said the IEO man who’d crossed himself. “It’s all we had left for an insect barrier.”
    â€œThat won’t stop them,” Joao said.
    â€œBut it has stopped them,” the man said.
    Joao nodded. He was having unpleasant suspicions about their position here. He looked at Rhin. “Dr. Kelly, where are the rest of your people?” Joao passed his gaze around the IEO personnel, counting. “Surely there’re more than six in an IEO field crew.”

    Her lips compressed, but she remained silent.
    The more Joao looked at her, the more ill she appeared.
    â€œSo?” Joao said. He glanced around at the tents, seeing their weathered condition. “And where is your equipment, your trucks, lab hut, jitneys?”
    â€œFunny thing you should ask,” she said, but there was uncertainty in the sneering quality of her voice—and that definite hysterical undertone. “About a kilometer into the trees over there”—she nodded to her left—“is a wrecked jungle truck containing most of our … equipment, as you call it. The track spools of our truck were eaten away by acid before we knew anything was wrong. The lift rotors were destroyed the same way—everything.”
    â€œAcid?”
    â€œIt smelled like oxalic, but acted more like hydrochloric,” said one of her companions, a blond Nordic with a recent acid burn beneath his right eye.
    â€œStart from the beginning,” Joao said.
    â€œWe were cut off here …” He broke off, glanced around.
    â€œEight days ago,” Rhin said.
    â€œYes,” the blond man said. “They got our radio, our truck—they looked like giant chiggers. They can shoot an acid spray about fifteen meters.”
    â€œLike the one we saw in the Bahia Plaza?” Joao asked.
    â€œThere’re three dead specimens in containers in my lab tent,” Rhin said. “They’re cooperative organization, hive-clusters. See for yourself.”
    Joao pursed his lips, thinking.
    â€œI heard part of what you told