Read Online The Green Brain by Frank Herbert - Free Book Online Page B

the Prefect said. Joao studied him. “Why?”
    â€œTuesday last, the day after your little Bahia episode, she was sent to the Goyaz. That very night or the next morning; it is not important.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œYou know what she does in the Goyaz, of course—those stories about a secret bandeirante base there. She is prying into that … if she still lives.”
    Joao’s head snapped up. “What?”
    â€œThere is a story in the Bahia headquarters of the IEO that she is … overdue. An accident, perhaps. It is said that tomorrow the great Travis Huntington Chen-Lhu himself goes to seek his female Doutor . What do you think of that?”
    â€œHe seemed fond of her, when I saw them in Bahia, but this story about …”
    â€œFond? Oh, yes, indeed.”

    â€œYou have an evil mind, Father.” He took a deep breath. The thought of that lovely woman down somewhere in the deep interland where only jungle creatures now lived, dead or maimed—all that beauty—it left Joao with a feeling of sick emptiness.
    â€œPerhaps you’ll wish to march to the west to seek her?”
    Joao ignored the jibe, said, “Father, this whole crusade needs a rest period while we find out what’s gone wrong.”
    â€œIf you talked that way in Bahia, I don’t blame them for turning on you,” the Prefect said. “Perhaps that mob …”
    â€œYou know what we saw in that Plaza!”
    â€œNonsense, but yesterday’s nonsense. This must stop now. You must do nothing to disturb the equilibrium. I command you!”
    â€œPeople no longer suspect the bandeirantes,” Joao said, bitterness in his voice.
    â€œSome still suspect you, yes. And why not, if what I’ve heard from your own lips is any sample of the way you talk?”
    Joao studied the toes of his boots, the polish glittering black. He found their unmarked surfaces somehow symbolic of his father’s life. “I’m sorry I’ve distressed you, Father,” he said. “Sometimes I regret that I’m a bandeirante, but”—he shrugged—“without that, how could I have learned the things I’ve told you? The truth is …”
    â€œJoao!” His father’s voice quavered. “Do you sit there and tell me you besmirched our honor? Did you swear a false oath when you formed your Irmandades?”
    â€œThat’s not the way it was, Father.”
    â€œOh? Then how was it?”
    Joao pulled a sprayman’s emblem from his breast pocket, fingered it. “I believed it … then. We could
shape mutated bees to fill every gap in the insect ecology. It was a … Great Crusade. This I believed. Like the people of China, I said: ‘Only the useful shall live!’ And I meant it. But that was quite a few years ago, father. I’ve come to realize since then that we don’t have complete understanding of what’s useful.”
    â€œIt was a mistake to have you educated in North America,” his father said. “I blame myself for that. Yes—I am the one to blame for that. There’s where you absorbed this Carsonite heresy. It’s all well and good for them to refuse to join us in the Ecological Realignment; they don’t have as many millions of mouths to feed. But my own son!”
    Joao spoke defensively: “Out in the Red you see things, father. These things are difficult to explain. Plants look healthier out there. The fruit is …”
    â€œA purely temporary condition,” his father said. “We’ll shape bees to meet whatever need we find. The destroyers take food from our mouths. It’s very simple. They must die and be replaced by creatures which serve a function useful to man.”
    â€œThe birds are dying, Father.”
    â€œWe’re saving the birds! We’ve specimens of every kind in our sanctuaries. We’ll provide new foods for them to …”
    â€œSome