Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

  Chapter Four

  Quentin gazed at the endless expanse of dense tropical forest 2,000 feet below. The de Havilland Twin Otter cruised at 170 miles per hour, so from takeoff to touchdown the flight to the village of Navera would be only thirty minutes. This made it all too easy to forget the impenetrable nature of this wilderness. Entire expeditions had disappeared attempting to traverse the region on foot.

  Addison was down there somewhere. Somehow he had survived eight months, in spite of having his memory wiped clean and being left alone to die. Quentin tapped a rapid beat against his leg with his raccoon baculum. He glanced at Lindsey. They were the only passengers, and she had moved to the far side of the cabin to look out her own window. If it had been solely her decision, she probably wouldn’t have left the jungle without Addison all those months ago. She would have stayed, searching for him until she was hopelessly lost. And so Quentin had convinced her to leave. There were valid reasons why leaving had been the logical choice. Three of the other students had survived the plane crash, and Quentin and Lindsey had needed to get them home safely. And they’d felt an obligation to bring the Lamotelokhai, the most significant discovery of all time, to civilization. Perhaps most importantly, Addison had been mortally injured in the plane crash. The Lamotelokhai had kept him alive, but Addison was no longer their son after that. He had become a murderous monster. But still, Quentin was sure Lindsey would’ve stayed and that his decision to leave would always be a wedge between them, even if they never spoke of it.

  Now they had learned that not only was Addison alive, but he apparently had some memory of his past life. Quentin not only had a chance to save his son, but also to redeem himself.

  The satellite phone chirped loudly, heard even over the roar of the Twin Otter’s engines. Lindsey had been holding the phone in her lap and quickly answered it.

  “Ardell, please tell me you found them.”

  Seconds later her features hardened. Quentin muttered a curse. Ardell had clearly not called with good news. He turned back to his window. The trees below were now closer. They were approaching the village.

  “What? Oh my God!”

  Quentin whipped around.

  “It was empty? Where the hell did they go? Did you check the hospitals?”

  “What’s going on?” Quentin said.

  She ignored him, listening instead to Ardell. “Jesus, this can’t be happening.” There was a long pause. “Okay. Well, we’ll have the SAT phone, but we’re landing soon. Thank you, Ardell.” She lowered the phone into her lap.

  Quentin waited.

  “They found Peter’s van. In the middle of the street. Near the motel.”

  “In the middle of the street?”

  “And there was blood. In the driver seat and one of the passenger seats.”

  Quentin inhaled sharply. He realized his clenched fist was about to break the baculum, so he shoved the bone into his pocket. In recent months he had almost allowed himself to forget what terror felt like, but now he settled uncomfortably into it like an old habit. And it sharpened his focus.

  “Lindsey.” He waited for her eyes to lock onto his. “It’s beyond our control. They’re going to be okay. For them, shedding a little blood isn’t as dangerous as it used to be. They’ve made it through far worse.”

  Her eyes were narrow and she shook her head slightly. But then her features relaxed. She took a deep breath. “Damn right they have.”

  Quentin nodded. “We’ll do what we came here to do. We’ll find Addison and take him home. And then we’ll deal with this other problem.” Quentin waited for her to respond, silently pleading for her to prop up his precarious resolve.

  As if she sensed this, she gave him a confident nod. “We came here to find Addison.”

  From the air, the landing strip looked even shorter than Quentin remembered. He gripped the seatback in front of him with white knuckles as the Twin Otter cleared the treetops at the forest’s edge and then dropped abruptly into the clearing. The wheels hit the ground, and seconds later the plane bounced to a stop twenty yards from a small crowd of waiting villagers. Wasting no time, the two pilots walked through the bulkhead from the cockpit to the cabin and then lowered the hatch, which had stairs molded to the inside of it. The two backpacks were all Quentin and Lindsey had. They grabbed these out of the seats and descended to the grass and dirt airstrip.

  Without speaking a word to them, the pilots secured the hatch, and then the plane revved up. When Quentin and Lindsey were barely clear of the plane’s tail, it heaved forward and turned, facing the far end of the runway. It then throttled up to a deafening volume, tore down the runway, and at the last minute lifted to clear the treetops. This capability was what made Twin Otters ideal jungle planes.

  Familiar Papuan faces abruptly surrounded them. Quentin and the other survivors had stayed one night in Navera on their trek out of the wilderness eight months ago, and the villagers were apparently as happy to have visitors now as they had been then.

  The villagers displayed an odd mix of traditional and modern clothing and adornments. Some of the men sported penis gourds, and some of the women were bare-breasted, but just as many wore shorts and t-shirts. There seemed to be almost as many children as adults, and most of the children were naked. Several of the Papuans stepped forward and guided their guests to the simple shelter at the center of the smattering of thatch-roofed huts. The tribe spoke their own dialect that Quentin suspected was derived from the more widely used language of the Dani people.

  Conspicuously missing was Obert, who had used his radio to help them call for help eight months ago, and who was apparently the only member of the village who spoke English. And Samuel was nowhere to be seen. He had told them when he’d called three days ago that he would wait here at the village for them to arrive. When asked where Samuel and Obert were, the villagers pointed to the forest beyond the huts.

  As they waited, the villagers brought out fresh cucumbers, cooked red fruit wrapped in banana leaves, and some heavily-spiced sago cakes, made from the sago palm. Quentin and Lindsey sat on low benches beneath the shelter, eating the offerings and listening politely to the villagers, who were perhaps explaining events that had occurred since the last time they had seen them.

  “You Yanks look a far cry better now than when you stumbled out of the bush some months back.”

  Quentin recognized the heavily accented, jovial voice of Obert before he even turned to see him. Obert approached them, looking very much the same, wearing shorts and a well-used t-shirt with a faded image of a stick figure in a hammock and the words, No Worries, Mate!

  Beside Obert was a white man with a thick black beard. The beard was new, but there was only one man Quentin knew who wore a skin loincloth and a vest made from spider silk.

  “Samuel!” Lindsey got up and rushed forward. “I almost didn’t recognize you.” She hugged him, which seemed to alarm him at first. He awkwardly patted her back until she released him. She then gave Obert a light hug. “Thank you. We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t agreed to safeguard the satellite phone and keep it charged.”

  “Sorry I wasn’t here for the landing,” Obert said. “I heard the plane approaching and went to fetch your mate, Samuel. He’s been hunkering down in the bush rather than here in the village.” He hooked a thumb at Samuel. “Bit of a wild man, this one is.”

  “Wonderful to see you again, Samuel,” Quentin said. “And you too, Obert.” He decided against hugs and extended a hand. They both shook it firmly.

  Samuel appraised both of them before speaking. “Three days heretofore, I spoke to you with the help of a most astounding contrivance, as if you were just beside me. And now, after a mere three days, you stand before me, having traveled from the northern continent of America. When circumstances allow it, I insist that you expound on how this is possible.”

  Quentin exchanged a glance with Lindsey, and then they both laughed.

  “We’ll do our best,” Quentin said.

  Quentin,
Lindsey, and Samuel left the village of Navera an hour later. They had removed half the contents of each of the packs and given the items to Obert and the other villagers. It was mostly expensive gadgets they probably wouldn’t need, but the villagers could use them. In return, the villagers had stuffed the packs with fruits and sago cakes, which would make the journey easier.

  As soon as they were out of sight of the village, Lindsey turned to Samuel. “Please tell us everything you can about Addison.”

  Samuel gave her a brief quizzical look. “I fear that my knowledge of him will leave you wanting. I know little more than what I have already told you. Addison came recently to the hanging village of my indigene hosts. The villagers’ first inclination was to kill him and destroy his body so that it could not be resurrected. I determined, however, that he held no murderous intentions, and I endeavored to convince the villagers to spare him.”

  “How did he look?” Lindsey asked. “Did he seem healthy?”

  Samuel continued walking, apparently considering this. “As it does for you and I, the medicine of the Lamotelokhai sustains him.” He then stopped and turned to them. “I feel I am obliged to remind you of your son’s transformation—the transformation that you witnessed yourself when fateful events brought you to the village of my indigene hosts. Your son was distinctively suited to communicating with the Lamotelokhai, and without regard to consequences, he invoked taboo by making a request for lu gamo. This means to ascend and become strong. You and I, and the villagers as well, have all become improved with the Lamotelokhai’s help. However, when requesting lu gamo, one becomes very improved. You witnessed this transformation in your son.” Samuel looked to the trees in the direction they had been walking. “The transformation is apparently permanent.”

  Quentin glanced at Lindsey, but she wouldn’t look at him, fixating instead on Samuel. “He’s still Addison, though, right? You said he asked about us—about his parents.”

  “Yes, he seems to remember you. There is certainly cause for hope. However, I wanted you to know what you should expect if we find him.”

  “If we find him?” Lindsey said. “You think there’s a chance we won’t find him at all?”

  “Addison came to the hanging village, accompanied by the mbolop you call Mbaiso. That is when I prevented the villagers from killing him.” Samuel paused for a moment. “His ability to express himself in words was, well, rudimentary. However, he was able to inquire about you, his parents. He was determined to show something to me, so I followed him. We traveled south for nearly half a day. What I found there was astounding, to put it mildly. A colony of mbolop, hundreds of them, living in hanging chambers similar to those of my indigene hosts. I attempted to convince Addison to travel with me to the village of our friend, Obert. Addison did not understand my words, or he simply was not inclined to do this. A few days after that I went back to the mbolop colony, but I was unable to find him. That is when I determined to travel to Obert’s village without him, with hopes that I could somehow get a message to you. Now here you are.”

  Quentin considered this. He and Lindsey had lived for months in silent anguish, rarely speaking of the nearly impossible chance that Addison might still be alive. Samuel’s brief call on the SAT phone had sparked a fierce—but perhaps blind—determination in both of them to come here, get Addison, and take him home. It hadn’t occurred to Quentin that they might not even find him, or that Addison might be unwilling to go with them or incapable of understanding.

  “We’ll take it one obstacle at a time,” Lindsey said. “First we have to find him. I assume we’ll be going to this colony of tree kangaroos?”

  Samuel started walking again. “Indeed. Three days of laborious traveling are upon us, I’m afraid.”

  A few hundred yards further into the forest they came upon Samuel’s camp, which was little more than a sleeping shelter constructed from poles and rigid sago fronds. Standing beside the shelter, as if he had been patiently waiting for them, was Sinanie. Quentin immediately recognized him, although Sinanie now had several new cords strung with ornaments around his neck, and he no longer had white paint around his eyes. But he still wore his short penis gourd etched with Kembalimo symbols, as well as green lorikeet feathers in his hair, perhaps thirty of them sticking out in random directions. He smiled at them as they approached, flashing perfect teeth.

  “It is good to see you are well, Sinanie,” Quentin said, although he was aware Sinanie spoke little English. After having taken the Lamotelokhai from them, Quentin had often wondered what would happen to the villagers’ health.

  Samuel apparently understood what Quentin was actually thinking. “To be honest, without the Lamotelokhai’s presence, I feared for my own condition as well, although the indigenes are very much older than I. But as you can see, the Lamotelokhai’s benefits have not abandoned us.”

  Sinanie said, “Lindsey, Quentin, gu laléo lai-ati-bo-dakhu lelé-mbol-e-kho-lo?”

  “He wishes to know if you are coming back here as a spirit,” Samuel said. “I believe he is asking if you are in good health, or if you have died since he last saw you.”

  Quentin exchanged a glance with Lindsey. The fact of the matter was that they had died since they had last seen Sinanie. Their entire group had been disintegrated in a violent jetliner crash.

  “Tell him we do not come as spirits,” Lindsey said. “We are in good health, and we are happy to see him, too.”

  Samuel spoke to Sinanie in the Papuan’s language. Sinanie then smiled at them again. Quentin was tempted to shake his hand or embrace him but suspected these gestures would only baffle him.

  Sinanie opened a small skin pouch that hung from his neck, a pouch in which previously he had carried a supply of clay from the Lamotelokhai. He held the pouch out so they could see its contents.

  “Quentin, nu if-e-kha misafi gup-tekhé fédo-p.” He then shoved the pouch toward Quentin.

  “He wishes to give one of them to you,” Samuel said. “As you take one, be careful to not touch the other.”

  Quentin plucked one of the two objects from the pouch. He recognized it immediately, a stone talisman, intricately carved to resemble a tree kangaroo—an mbolop. Matiinuo, the elder member of Sinanie’s tribe, had once given the same stone to Peter Wooley. Peter had lost it, and then Quentin had found it over forty years later, only to lose it again.

  Quentin hefted the stone. “This thing refuses to stay lost.”

  “Sinanie accompanied me when I returned to the place that your son Addison had shown me. He has seen what is happening there, and he now believes the talisman to be more important than ever before. Having seen the place with my own eyes, I am inclined to agree.

  Sinanie held the pouch out to Lindsey. She took the other talisman. Quentin didn’t have to look at it closely to know it was identical to his own. Eight months ago Samuel had duplicated the talisman in a fantastical demonstration of the Lamotelokhai’s ability to shift time. Sinanie must have found both of the figurines in or near Samuel’s tree house, which was the last place Quentin had seen them.

  Quentin pocketed his copy of the talisman. “We’re ready to go if you are.” He then helped Lindsey adjust her pack to better fit her shoulders. Samuel kicked over the temporary shelter and scattered the sago fronds, leaving little evidence that the spot had been occupied for three days.

  Just as they started hiking south, a movement in a tree above caught Quentin’s eye. It was a tree kangaroo.

  “Is that Mbaiso?” he asked.

  Samuel looked up. “The mbolop you call Mbaiso was otherwise occupied. This is another I recruited to accompany us and help with collecting food. If you wish to call it by a specific name, you will have to create one, as I have never been inclined to do such things.”

  Chapter Five

  Bobby’s head hurt, especially behind his ears. He wanted to touch his scalp and feel for a wound, but his arms were restrained. And so were his legs. It seemed like hours since the man with red glasses had left the room,
and Bobby hadn’t been allowed to get up. The three doctors—or whatever they were—continued working with their computers, talking to each other about technical stuff and occasionally asking Bobby to do things that didn’t make sense. To speak a certain word, for example, or to think about something that made him mad. Every time he tried to say something they hadn’t asked him to say, he would black out. Then he would wake up, and the process would continue. He was scared, and it was taking all his willpower to hold back tears.

  Now he had to pee and take a crap, and if they didn’t let him up soon he would have to do both right here on the bed.

  Finally, the windowless metal door opened, and the man with red glasses stepped in. He asked the others how things were going, and they all answered by nodding. He gazed into Bobby’s eyes.

  “I would like to speak to this young man,” he said.

  One of the doctors typed something on his keyboard and then said, “Go ahead, sir.”

  Bobby felt a sharp pulse behind both his ears.

  The man said, “How are you feeling?” When Bobby didn’t answer, he said, “You may speak freely now.”

  Still, Bobby was afraid to speak. He cleared his throat, but nothing happened. “Where am I?”

  “You are in a research facility. A rather remarkable one, actually. My name is Hugo Helmich. You can call me Dr. Helmich. Or just Hugo, if you prefer.” He spoke like he was an enthusiastic tour guide.

  “Where’s Hattie?”

  “We know her real name is Ashley. No need to pretend.”

  “Where is she? And where are Peter and Robert?”

  Helmich smiled. “They are here. Ashley and Peter are perfectly fine. Robert, unfortunately, is recovering from a gunshot wound. We have hopes that he will recover fully.” He pushed his glasses further up on his nose and smiled again.