"Herbert, Frank - The Green Brain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

'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 multi-colored 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.
'Acid,' Vierho whispered.
The searchlights centered abruptly on a shifting movement within the spray at the fountain's rim. A hissing passed through the crowd like a sudden wind.
'And there it is,' Martinho said. 'Now, will the so suspicious official of the I.E.O. believe?'
As he spoke, a scintillant spray arched from the creature at the fountain and out on to the lawn.
'Eeee-ahhhh,' the crowd said.
Martinho grew conscious of a low moaning off to his left, turned to see a doctor being directed there along the inner rim of the crowd. The doctor turned into the crowd on the other side of the Hermosillo truck, lifting his bag over his head as he entered the press of people.
'Who was hurt?' Martinho asked.
One of the police behind him said, 'It is Alvarez. He tried to get that ... thing, but he took only a handshield and a sprayrifle. The shield was not proof against a'Chigua's quickness. It got Alvarez in the arm.'
Vierho tugged at Martinho's sleeve, pointed into the crowd behind the policeman. Rhin Kelly and Chen-Lhu were being passed through the onlookers there, space being made for them as people recognised the I.E.O. insignia.
Rhin waved, called, 'Senhor Martinho - that thing is impossible! It's at least seventy-five centimeters long. It must weigh three or four kilos.'
'Do they not believe their own eyes?' Vierho asked.
Chen-Lhu came up to the policeman who'd described the injury to Alvarez, said, 'Let us through, please.'
'Eh? Oh ... yes, sir.' The line of guards parted.