Diffusion

by Stan C. Smith

  Quentin said, “Interspecies relationships like that take thousands, maybe millions, of years to develop.”

  “As I have said, I have not been idle. At the time that the indigenes took me in, they were but hunters and gatherers, expending much energy and time. It is true that they had domesticated a few game animals: the soyabu, which you have had the occasion to eat, and the aiyal, a species of bandicoot. And although not developed for eating, you know of the mbolop. But it was I who taught them the true cultivation of food.”

  Samuel gripped the grub with both hands. He wrenched the head off with a pop and tossed it away. The body still writhed in his hand as whitish fluid flowed from the open wound. He placed his mouth over the hole where the head used to be and squeezed the body, causing his cheeks to inflate with sago grub juices. He swallowed as if it were a shot of fine scotch. Again he held the grub out. Quentin simply shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

  Samuel then led him to a place where smaller trees grew close together, reminding Quentin of the nearly impenetrable area where their plane had crashed. Most striking, though, was that all the trees were flowering at the same time. Yellow, white, orange, and red blossoms splattered the foliage, and the sultry air was sweet with the smell of nectar. This was unusual, as rainforest trees typically flower at different times to better attract the attentions of a limited supply of pollinators. Countless insects swarmed among the flowers above them.

  As they came to a stop, Quentin caught a stray thread of spider web with his face. He brushed at the strand, but it only grew tighter and did not break. He then grasped it with both hands and pulled until it finally broke. He’d used fishing line with less tensile strength than this.

  Samuel was now several meters above him, climbing with the agility of a tree kangaroo. He snatched at something Quentin couldn’t see and then descended to the ground using only one hand and his feet. Obviously proud, he held a wriggling creature aloft for Quentin to examine. Again Quentin was stunned. It was a spider with an abdomen the size of his fist. Its long legs flailed helplessly in the air.

  “Another source of nourishment,” Samuel said. “And much more.” He grabbed the strand of silk trailing from the spider’s abdomen, which was still connected to the web above them. “I have developed in these orb-weaving spiders characteristics that benefit the tribe, particularly the silk you see here. Woven together, this silk possesses immeasurable strength.” He pulled down on the silk strand, and it grew tight but did not break.

  Quentin looked closer at the silk. “This is how you made the rope-ladders. And your vest.”

  “Indeed.” With his free hand Samuel fingered his vest. “This garment is nearly the last reminder of my former life.”

  “I wondered about that,” Quentin said. “It doesn’t seem very practical in this heat.”

  “There are certain needs that outweigh practicality. Keeping a few items to remind me of the man I once was, for example.” He lifted the object that hung from a cord around his neck. “This serves a similar purpose. I was once a rather feeble being, with poor vision, among other imperfections. I required spectacles to see clearly what was just before my own face. Now I have no need for such contrivances.”

  Quentin had thought the object was simply a ball of twisted wire. Now he saw that it was shaped with great care—a beautifully crafted ornament made from a one hundred fifty year-old pair of eyeglasses.

  “Why do I need a club?” Bobby said. “Are you telling me I need to kill Addison?”

  Mbaiso sat on his haunches without responding.

  Bobby sighed. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to go home.”

  He decided he’d had enough of the language visions for now. He considered looking for Mr. Darnell but had no idea where to start, and he definitely wasn’t going after Addison. So his only option was to go back to the tree house.

  Bobby was not afraid as he climbed the ladder. He figured if he fell, he probably wouldn’t die anyway. Maybe he would never die. His eyes adjusted to the dim light as he entered the tree house, and he saw Ashley looking at him. Mrs. Darnell, Carlos, and Miranda were all sleeping.

  “Welcome back, science boy,” Ashley whispered as he sat beside her. “Addison left after you did. I wasn’t sorry to see him go.”

  “Yeah, I ran into him.” Bobby said no more about it, and he was glad she didn’t ask. “And guess what,” he said. “I can talk to Mbaiso now, and to his friends. They taught me.”

  Ashley tilted her head. “You take off for a few hours and come back knowing how to talk to the animals. You’re kind of an interesting guy, Bobby.”

  Bobby felt his face flush.

  “Good God—talk about crazy dreams.” It was Miranda. She sat up, wiped her eyes and adjusted her strips of clothing. She touched Mrs. Darnell’s forehead. “Mrs. D, you okay?”

  Mrs. Darnell moaned, like she was trying to say something.

  “She really needs the medicine,” Bobby said. “I’ll go find Samuel and Mr. Darnell.”

  Ashley rose to her feet. “Not alone. Not again. I’m going with you. Miranda, you and Carlos stay here in case Mrs. D wakes up.”

  Bobby shook Carlos awake. “We’re going to find Mr. Darnell. Will you be okay here?”

  Carlos looked around. “Where’s Addison?”

  “Still gone,” Ashley said.

  Carlos closed his eyes again. “If he’s down there, I’m fine here.”

  Ashley looked at Bobby. “Lead the way.”

  Samuel released the spider and it climbed back up to its web. He and Quentin made their way out of the flowering trees, and the steady thrum of insect wings faded away.

  “So the trees here are in flower to attract the insects,” Quentin said. “And the insects feed the spiders. All of that so the spiders can give you silk thread?”

  “The spider silk allows the tribe to construct their dwellings high in the trees,” Samuel replied. “In addition, the spiders frequently are eaten by the villagers. I have yet to acquire a taste for them, myself.”

  “Samuel, nothing like this has been done before. No one has been able to make plants and animals evolve in a desired direction so quickly. You have to share what you’ve learned.”

  Samuel stopped walking. “Do you not understand what is before your own eyes? Tell me, Quentin, why do you think the dwellings of this village are high in the trees?”

  “To hide from everyone, I know. But surely you don’t—”

  “And tell me, why have the plants been made to grow over the trails? Why have the villagers learned to harden their spears and cook with fires that produce no smoke? And why, Quentin, do you suppose that intruders, as a matter of tribal custom, have hitherto been killed?”

  “I get it. You’re hiding this thing, the Lamotelokhai. But you said the villagers believe I am the one who will bring this to an end. Maybe it’s time.”

  “Perhaps they do believe that, but I intend to convince them otherwise. In their primitive state, and in their isolation, they can scarcely comprehend the consequences.” Samuel took a deep breath, which seemed to relax him a bit. “There are things, Quentin, you do not yet know. For whatever purpose you are here, be it God’s will or a simple accident, it will be better served if you know more of the discoveries which I have made.” With that, he resumed walking.

  “You said God has forsaken this place.”

  Samuel nodded. “One day he may reclaim it for his own.”

  Quentin considered this. “If God is responsible for what has happened to my family and students, then I have a few things to say to him.”

  After a short silence, Samuel replied, “As do I.”

  Before long they stopped at the base of an enormous rainbow eucalyptus tree. Samuel extracted a rope ladder that had been concealed by a fat vine growing adjacent to the tree’s bark. “I invite you now to my own dwelling.” Without waiting for an answer, he started climbing.

  Like the other tree ho
uses, Samuel’s was virtually invisible from below. Upon reaching the top of the ladder, Quentin entered a now-familiar leafy slit in the floor. But aside from that, Samuel’s hut was nothing like the others. The hut was larger and was held up by at least four attachments to the supporting tree, resulting in four conical points in the hut’s roof. In one corner hung a sleeping hammock that appeared to be made of spider silk. But it was the bewildering array of other objects that captured Quentin’s attention. Nearly every inch of the floor and walls held items made entirely from natural materials such as skins and sticks and bones. Many of the devices Quentin could not identify, but others were clearly made to resemble household items—framed artwork, a table and two chairs, and drinking cups. There were hundreds of items hanging from the ceiling: small leather bags mostly, tied at the top, with several plant seedlings growing from holes in the sides of each bag.

  Quentin puffed, winded from the climb. “This isn’t what I expected.”

  “The villagers are a simple people. Civilized contrivances are not important to them. As for myself, however, such things prevent me from going mad.”

  Quentin looked around the hut. “I’m not so sure it has worked.”

  Samuel had been fingering one of the hanging plants, but he stopped and eyed him. Quentin tried to look back without smiling, but failed.

  Samuel finally returned a half-smile. “Humor. I have all but forgotten it. To be honest, that is a possibility that frequently haunts me. I have tried to put a definition to madness and have concluded that it is a product of what a man values most. A man who holds no great regard for his own safety is truly a mad man, and will not be long for this world. A man who holds no regard for the society in which he lives—or once lived—is mad as well. Tell me, Quentin, do you care enough about the state of civilization from whence you came to do what you must to preserve its virtues? Perhaps it is I who should ask you of your own madness.”

  “It was only a joke.” The conversation trailed off, but Samuel’s words simmered in the back of Quentin’s mind. Quentin was aware of his own obsessive disdain for imposing the modern world upon indigenous cultures. After what had happened with his dad, how could he be otherwise? Yet Samuel was accusing him of having little regard for his own society, as if modern civilization were an unknowing, vulnerable, indigenous culture. Quentin had never looked at his own bloated, high-tech, melting-pot culture in such a way.

  Samuel proceeded to show him some of the items in the hut. There was a flute made from the strange skull of a bird called a hornbill, an inventive water dispenser constructed with the skin of a crocodile, and spools wound with various thicknesses of corded spider silk. When prompted by Samuel, Quentin could not break even the thinnest of these. As he looked around him, he realized that at any given moment, several large and spectacular butterflies were flying about the hut. Samuel must have put something in the hut to attract them. Overall, the hut gave Quentin the impression of a comfortable existence.

  Quentin finally said, “I appreciate you showing me all of this, but I’m worried about Lindsey and the kids. Lindsey seemed pretty sick this morning.”

  “You need not be concerned,” Samuel said. “We will apply ointment from the Lamotelokhai and she will be well.” He went to a darkened corner and lifted a covering of sago fronds. He returned holding a golden object in each hand. One was a sphere the size of a baseball. The other was a delicate-looking sculpture of a butterfly. He handed the sphere to Quentin, who nearly dropped it. It had to weigh at least fifteen pounds.

  “Is this gold? I didn’t think there was gold in Papua.”

  “To my knowledge it is not found here naturally,” Samuel said. “That is of my own manufacture, from materials scraped from the ground.”

  “You made gold?”

  “It is a simple task if one understands the Lamotelokhai. No more difficult than the transformation of your flying vessel into the soil of the Earth so that it may nourish new flora to replace the trees it destroyed. But alas, objects of gold have no value here, and I have long since grown weary of their artistic worth.”

  “This ability could make you the richest man in the world.”

  “Not true, Quentin. If the Lamotelokhai were introduced to civilized society, then these items would hold no more value there than they do here.”

  Quentin had to admit there was logic to this. If people could create whatever they wanted, there would be nothing to want. Buying and selling would be obsolete. But then so would hunger, and sickness, and death. Before he could make this argument, Samuel went on.

  “I once made many such things, but I have long ago returned them to the earth from whence they came. Instead I turned to more considerable pursuits.”

  Quentin held the heavy sphere out to him, and Samuel exchanged it for the butterfly, which was also shockingly heavy. “Such as breeding new animals and plants,” Quentin said.

  “Directing the biological process is far more difficult—and rewarding—than working with the simple elements of the earth. Are you fond of butterflies, Quentin?”

  Quentin paused. “I guess so.”

  “Well, I am fond of all the insects of the world, but I have particular passion for butterflies. That,” Samuel pointed to a large blue and black butterfly circling the room, “is a species new to science, as are the others you see here.”

  Quentin responded at once. “Maybe they were new to science a hundred fifty years ago, but now most all large butterflies have been identified.”

  “These are quite new, I assure you. I have created them myself.”

  Again, Quentin’s curiosity was piqued. It was one thing to breed a sago grub or a spider to grow larger. It was a very different matter to develop a new species. As he looked at the butterflies, his eyes were drawn to a particularly large white one on the ceiling. The butterfly was clinging to a glimmering green chrysalis attached to a living vine that seemed to be part of the hut, and was stretching its wings for the first time. And there were dozens of other chrysalises on the ceiling, of different sizes and colors.

  Samuel gestured to the ceiling. “You see, I amuse myself by creating new butterflies. They emerge from their cocoons and fly about my hut. Rather pleasing, is it not?”

  Quentin admitted that it was.

  Samuel seemed as if he were about to say more, but hesitated. He studied Quentin, creases forming over his eyes. “I have brought you here for a purpose, and I have delayed it enough. I have said to you before, have I not, that the Lamotelokhai has no limits?”

  Quentin took one last look at the gold butterfly and handed it back to him. “I assumed you were exaggerating.”

  “During my years here, I have carried out hundreds of experiments in order to discover the true nature of the Lamotelokhai. I have learned much. But in recent months I fear I may have engaged questions that should remain unanswered.” Again Samuel paused. “My most recent experiments, I believe, may concern you and your party.”

  “In what way?”

  “The timing of your arrival gives me reason to think it was not a mere coincidence.” Samuel placed the two gold objects back in the corner. He returned carrying something wrapped in leather and laid it gently on the table. He glanced up at a mat of woven fibers hanging on the wall and adjusted the table to line it up with the mat. He pulled a cord that bound the package shut, and the leather fell open. It contained nothing more than a dull lump of clay. Samuel pressed on the clay, forcing it into an elongated mound stretching across the tabletop. He then stopped moving, his hands resting on the mound, the angle of his body hiding his face.

  Perhaps a full minute passed, and Quentin began to wonder. “Everything alright?”

  Samuel finally straightened up and turned. “Quentin, have you an object in your possession that is familiar to you? Perhaps the mbolop talisman?”

  Quentin pulled the figurine from his pocket.

  Samuel pointed with his foot to a spot on the floor. “If you could position you
rself here.”

  Quentin obliged. This put him in line with the table and the mat hanging beyond it.

  “And now,” Samuel said, “throw the talisman at the shield. And please indulge me by throwing it with all the force you may muster.”

  Whether Samuel was crazy or not, Quentin was curious enough to comply. He pulled back and hurled the talisman. It hit the mat—twice. Two solid thumps. The sounds were only a split second apart, but there were clearly two of them.

  Quentin stared, confused. The light in the hut was too dim to see what had happened.

  “Go and see for yourself,” Samuel said.

  Quentin sidestepped the table and knelt below the mat. The talisman appeared to have broken. He picked up the pieces. “What the hell?” he said.

  It was not broken at all. There were two of them, fully formed and identical.

  Mbaiso was there when Bobby and Ashley reached the forest floor. The two new tree kangaroos emerged from the brush and stopped just behind Mbaiso, forming a triangle.

  “They are so cute!” Ashley said. “Pretty quiet, though, for animals that talk.”

  “They don’t talk with their mouths. They use their hands.” Bobby couldn’t think of a greeting, so he just made the signs for each of their names. The tree kangaroos didn’t respond. He glanced at Ashley. “I’ll ask them where Mr. Darnell and Samuel are.” He tried several gestures he thought might render this question, including the one he had learned for Samuel.

  This time Mbaiso responded by signing. A scene appeared in Bobby’s mind. He was moving through the forest with the tree kangaroos hopping along the ground ahead.