“They want us to follow them,” Bobby said. “Did you see the picture?”
She eyed him. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
The three tree kangaroos hopped away. Mbaiso turned to them, waiting.
“Of course,” Ashley muttered.
Without knowing their destination, they followed. As they walked the silence became awkward, so Bobby spoke up. “We have a name for Mbaiso. We should name the others.”
“Just ask their names if you can talk to them.”
“They told me already, but I don’t know how to say them. Here’s what they are.” Bobby went through the hand motions he had learned. Then he turned quizzically to Ashley.
She scrunched her mouth to one side. “Just call them Mbaiso Two and Mbaiso Three.”
Bobby considered this. “Let’s call them Tupela and Tripela.” He had learned some of the pidgin language used in Wamena using his smartphone tablet. These were the words for “two” and “three.” He pointed out to Ashley that Tupela looked to him like a female and had more bronze on her face, and that Tripela’s eyes were darker.
After walking some minutes in silence, Ashley said, “How do you keep all the memories out of your head?”
Bobby knew what she meant. With his now-perfect memory, he couldn’t stop reliving the events of the last few days. “I can’t. What stuff do you remember most?”
“Mostly Lori and Brent, and things we did together.”
“Your parents.” It still threw Bobby off when she called them by their first names.
“When I was little we did more together,” she said. “I was just remembering when we went to Branson. It was the best time ever.”
“Your parents are still together then.”
Ashley let out a grunt. “Yeah, still together. I guess it’s good they are.”
“Mine aren’t,” Bobby said.
Ashley stared ahead. “I know.” Then she turned to him. “Do you think these Papuans will help us get home?”
“They haven’t killed us, so they must be planning to help us, right?”
“Maybe they just don’t have refrigerators to keep us fresh.”
It took a moment for Bobby to get it. “Jesus, Ashley.”
The tree kangaroos led them to an area of gigantic trees. Some of the trunks were huge, like redwoods, and the forest floor was darker in the shade of these giants.
Finally, Ashley stopped and called out, “Mr. Darnell! Samuel!”
The tree kangaroos stopped. Bobby tried signing again, but they didn’t respond.
“Bobby, we’re being watched,” Ashley said, her voice low.
Bobby followed her gaze. Two Papuan tribesmen watched them from behind a tree. He looked around and saw more. He whispered, “They’re all around us.”
“We’re looking for Samuel,” Ashley called out. “Is he here?”
The Papuans watched them for a moment more, and then they stepped into full view. Bobby counted seven in all. His pulse quickened as they approached. The men formed a circle around them. Bobby had seen three of them before, the same three they had first met at the plane, including Sinanie with his green feathers.
Sinanie pointed to the tree kangaroos. “Mbakha-leké mbolop?”34
Bobby and Ashley glanced at each other. Mbaiso hopped closer and began signing, talking to the Papuans. Bobby watched the signs and another vision appeared in his mind. Inside the tree house of his dreams, a tree kangaroo crouched in front of the Lamotelokhai. The creature was signing as if trying to talk to it. Then the kangaroo vaporized into a wisp. The wisp swirled and grew larger. It became solid again, and it was no longer a kangaroo—it was Bobby. He watched himself place both hands against the Lamotelokhai. And then the vision vanished.
The Papuans chattered to each other, apparently excited about Mbaiso’s message. One of them pointed his finger at Bobby. “Yu nggulun!”35
Bobby shrugged. “I don’t understand.”
“What the hell’s happening?” Ashley said.
“I’m not sure. Mbaiso said something about me touching the thing in the tree.”
Sinanie pointed to Bobby and waved for him to walk. He spoke rapidly, and Bobby heard the words, yu nggulun, again.
“I guess we’re going to the tree,” Bobby said.
“No, we’re not,” Ashley said. “We came to get medicine for Mrs. D.”
The Papuans and tree kangaroos all seemed to be waiting. Bobby turned to Mbaiso and signed what he could to explain what Ashley had said. Mbaiso signed back. In Bobby’s mind a vision appeared of Ashley and a Papuan man walking, and then the two were in the tree house, and the Papuan was giving medicine to Mrs. Darnell. The meaning was clear.
It took some arguing, but Ashley agreed. Bobby would go on with the others, and Ashley would go back with a man named Ansi. Ansi seemed to smile at everything. He wore a penis gourd with black painted patterns, and like the others he had a leather medicine pouch hanging from his neck. He was the first one Bobby had seen who wore paint on his face. A band of black ran across his eyes from one ear to the other. There was a white stripe above it, across his forehead, and one below it, across his nose. He reminded Bobby of a raccoon.
When Ashley and Ansi left, the tree kangaroo Bobby had named Tripela followed them. Bobby watched as they moved away, two humans and a kangaroo. Which of these three doesn’t belong, he thought, smiling to himself.
The remaining Papuans formed a single file line, with Bobby at the middle, and they made their way toward what Bobby assumed would be the Lamotelokhai tree. Eventually the tree canopy became so dense that only a few slivers of sunlight made it through. Bobby kept an eye on the nearly solid ceiling above them, and soon he saw it—a darker area with no light passing through. But this tree house was not rectangular like the others. Instead it kept going, like a long tunnel. Walking beneath it, Bobby kept glancing up to see if it would end, but it didn’t. Finally there was a larger shadow, a hut attached to the tunnel. As Bobby gazed at it, he ran into the back of the tribesman in front of him.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. He realized the entire group had stopped.
“Khofé mbakha mo-mba-té?” The Papuan said.36
Bobby shrugged and apologized again. They were at the base of a great tree. Mbaiso scrambled up the trunk, and soon a rope ladder appeared from above. Bobby watched it fall, uncoiling in the air, and he thought of the wisp of smoke from his last vision. As the first Papuan climbed, Bobby inspected the huge trunk. In his dream, after the stars and running into the earth, Mbaiso had led him here to this very tree. The back of his neck began to tingle.
The Papuans motioned for him to climb next, and soon he stood in the tree house with Sinanie and the other tribesmen. Next to them was an opening in the wall where the hanging tunnel joined the hut. And it was not the only tunnel. Bobby counted five others. They all branched out from this room, like spokes from the hub of a wheel.
The men pointed to the tree growing through the hut’s floor. Bobby scrutinized the bulge where the tree split at chest level. It was just as it had been in his dream—smooth and gray, like a lump of clay pressed around the tree.
The Papuans talked excitedly as Bobby stepped closer, but when he reached out for it they fell silent. His hand shook as he held it just above the surface. He didn’t know why he should be afraid of it now, but he couldn’t stop shaking, so he pressed his hand against it. It felt warm, and he could push his fingertips into it like mud. A tingly feeling started in his hand and moved up his arm, the same feeling he’d had upon swallowing the stuff from Mbaiso’s gut. The sensation spread into his neck and face, up to his scalp. He closed his eyes to fight off the panic that had nearly overwhelmed him before.
And then something happened. Symbols appeared in his mind. They were symbols he recognized. He’d seen them artfully etched into the shafts of the Papuans’ spears. But now, displayed the way they were, he recognized them from before that. He knew these symbols because
he had worked with them for two years. His eyes sprang open, and the symbols were still there, plain as day.
Bobby now knew what the Lamotelokhai was.
Fourteen
Quentin examined the two figurines. They were identical in every way, even the smudges and flaws.
Samuel waited patiently for him to study the objects before speaking. “It would be difficult to provide an account of all events leading to my discovery of such a phenomenon. However, some explanation is needed.” He grabbed one of the chairs and offered it to Quentin, and then sat in the other. “Imagine living in this place for all of the years that I have. It is true I have enjoyed more than a lifetime’s worth of scientific pursuits. But there are times when I feel a great yearning to return to the life I once lived. I have told you of the murder of my fellow travelers, which was when I fell into the midst of my Papuan hosts. I remember the day as if it were only moments ago. But many days have passed since. Fifty-two thousand and five-hundred twenty-four, if you care to know.”
Quentin tried to do the math in his head, but Samuel continued.
“That is all the days of your lifetime and threefold more, Quentin. Imagine it.”
Quentin did, and it made him feel hollow.
“I once had a family. A mother and a father, and there was a dear woman, for whom I cared very much.” Samuel’s eyes flicked toward Quentin. “Her name was Lindsey, if you can imagine such a coincidence. Lindsey Ennis.” He pronounced the name in a whisper, like he wasn’t sure it would come out right. “We were to be married upon my return.”
“I didn’t know that,” Quentin said quietly.
“I see her face every day, as if we had only just parted.” Samuel shook his head. “She and my parents are all long since passed away, I imagine.” He paused for a moment. “As I have studied the Lamotelokhai, I have uncovered surprising qualities. In fact, one might reasonably infer that it can be made to perform any task, no matter how improbable.”
Quentin eyed the two statuettes. “I’m starting to see how you might think that.”
“Recently I found myself in a particularly dreadful state of regret. In my troubled condition, I attempted a most irrational action.”
“What action was that?”
“To employ the assistance of the Lamotelokhai in returning to my previous life.”
Quentin waited for more explanation, but none came. “You mean to help you escape from here? To get back to your home in England?”
Samuel leveled his gaze at him. “Perhaps. But more precisely, to my time.”
Was Samuel trying to make a joke? He wasn’t smiling, so Quentin said, “You’re still here, so I guess it didn’t work.”
“Indeed. There are some pursuits that are not for men to follow. In my despair I strayed into such a pursuit. My actions have caused suffering.”
“So you tried to go back in time—back to what, 1850?”
“I departed from England in the year of 1865.”
“And it didn’t work. What does that have to do with me, and with people suffering?”
Samuel rose from his chair and paced. “It is possible that the Lamotelokhai’s only limits are those of the man seeking its truths. My challenge lies in my own capacity for conveying to the Lamotelokhai what it is that I seek.”
Quentin thought of Samuel resting his hands on the substance before telling him to throw the talisman.
Samuel continued. “In my condition, I acted hastily, and the results were disastrous.”
“What results?”
“That is exactly what I have been trying to find out. From my observations, I can conclude that upon my request, the Lamotelokhai influenced the passage of time.”
Quentin began to speak, but Samuel held up his hand.
“I managed to duplicate the event under more controlled conditions, such as you have witnessed on the table here. Quentin, I have concluded that the second talisman could appear only if the passage of time were altered as the first flies over the table. That, in fact, is what I instructed the substance to do. But something unexpected happened. Rather than simply transporting objects in time as I’d hoped it would do for me, the substance appears to alter the progression of time in the space near it, in this case directly above the table. It is my opinion that when an object passes through such a space at sufficient speed, this fuses two moments in time into a single location of space. This would explain the duplication of a physical object.”
Quentin stared in disbelief. He ran through the events in his mind. If a moving object, say a stone talisman, experienced a brief shift back in time, it would appear just behind the other version of itself. But if the present and past both existed over the table, was a chunk of space missing from the past? Or were both moments present there as well? If so, perhaps the two objects would continue to exist after passing over the table, and both would then hit the mat and drop to the floor, which is exactly what he had witnessed. Mystified, Quentin shook his head.
Samuel proceeded to demonstrate further. He produced a hunting arrow and broke it into two half-meter pieces. Like a small spear, he hurled one of the pieces over the table. It hit the mat, and two identical pieces fell to the floor. After Quentin inspected them, Samuel repeated this with the other half, only this time he gently lobbed it. Quentin watched the object’s slow arch. As it passed over the table, a second piece appeared. But one of them fell short of the mat. Quentin picked them up. They were not identical. One was damaged at the tip. Not just splintered, but misshapen—boiled outward like a cauliflower.
Samuel explained, “When moving slowly, the copy of the object bringing up the rear is invariably damaged, whereas the one before is not. Very curious, would you not agree?”
“Yes, curious,” Quentin whispered. He stared at the arrow’s deformed tip. He had seen this before. The remains of the Twin Otter’s nose and cockpit had been deformed in such a way. He had assumed it was caused by the crash. And then he remembered the pilot. As the poor man had struggled and died before Quentin’s eyes, his feet appeared to have exploded from the inside. Quentin’s hands suddenly felt clammy, and he had to steady himself.
He turned to Samuel. “You said when you first did this it caused suffering. When exactly was that?”
“I believe you know the answer, Quentin. Four days and nights have passed. It was the very day your flying vessel ran aground.”
After descending the rope ladder, Samuel led Quentin to an area where massive eucalyptus and strangler figs created an impenetrable canopy. Samuel located a rope ladder and climbed into the tangle above. Quentin followed and was soon standing in a room that appeared to be a bulge in a long, narrow tunnel. The hut was small, but there was a fire pit in the center as if it were a gathering place. No villagers were in sight.
Samuel led him out of the room, and they made their way along a hanging corridor. The tunnel was tall enough for them to walk upright, but Quentin had to stoop occasionally where the ceiling hung lower. It was difficult to see far ahead because the corridor twisted left and right before them, undoubtedly to line up with the varying tree limbs from which it hung. The floor of the tunnel bounced beneath their feet as they walked—a distasteful sensation considering the height. But the tunnel was an engineering triumph, and Quentin wondered how the villagers could have constructed it with their bare hands.
After they’d walked some distance, they came upon another room. Samuel signaled for Quentin to wait and then leaned into the room. He spoke gently, perhaps alerting the occupants that he was not alone. When Quentin stepped through the opening, three Papuans stood at the far end of the hut, but one of them quickly slipped out another opening there. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but the figure appeared to be female. If so, this was the first woman he had seen among these people. The two remaining men were strangers to Quentin. One of them, a small man with caked mud on his head resembling a solid bowl, pointed to the floor at their side.
“Walukh, Joamba,�
�� the man said.37
Quentin turned to look. Sprawled there on a sleeping mat was a dark figure. The figure was alive; Quentin could hear it snoring. But something about it wasn’t right. Quentin looked to Samuel for an explanation.
“That is Joamba,” Samuel said. “Examine him closely, if you would.”
Something about the situation told Quentin he would regret it, but he approached the still form. Wooden bowls of water and food were arranged around the mat. Joamba appeared to be lying on his side, facing the wall, but it was hard to tell. Quentin knelt where the man’s head appeared to be. What he saw there confused him. The head and shoulders were disfigured, not even recognizable. Quentin wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The thing then let out an agonized moan, but it came from the other end. Quentin turned to the sound. Suddenly his confusion turned to panic. The man was not facing the wall at all. Two eyes stared directly at him. But the eyes were not set in a face. Instead they bulged, lidless, from a mass of shapeless flesh. Quentin toppled backwards, involuntarily pushing himself directly into Samuel’s legs.
“Joamba is no threat to you,” Samuel said. “Surely you can see that.”
Samuel was right. The poor thing could not possibly harm him. In fact, it barely had any arms. A few puffy fingers protruded from a mangled bulge, and one of them even twitched a few times. Quentin stared, unable to fathom how or why such a thing could be kept alive.
Samuel knelt next to Quentin and spoke softly. “Joamba was a skilled hunter. Like his fellow tribesmen, he insisted on hunting in the old ways, even though it is no longer needed.”
Quentin turned to him. “A hunter? How is that possible?”
“He was as healthy and robust as any of us, until the event in question.”
“The event.”
“Recall the arrows thrown in my hut. One thrown hard, with no ill results but that there are now two. One thrown softly, with dreadful results to one of the arrows.”
Quentin failed to see a connection. “But that was in your hut, over a table.”
Diffusion Page 18