Diffusion Box Set
An Alien First Contact Adventure Series
Stan C. Smith
Contents
Foreword
DIFFUSION
Diffusion
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Review Request
Papuan Language Guide
Acknowledgments
INFUSION
Infusion
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Review Request
Papuan Language Guide
Research Sources
Acknowledgments
PROFUSION
Profusion
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Review Request
Author’s Notes
Acknowledgments
SAVAGE
Savage
Foreword
1. February 16, 1868
2. February 17, 1868
3. February 22, 1868
4. March 6, 1868
5. April 4, 1868
6. April 16, 1868
7. April 20, 1868
8. April 21, 1868
9. April 22, 1868
10. April 23, 1868
11. April 24, 1868
12. April 28, 1868
13. May 5, 1868
14. May 14, 1868
15. May 21, 1868
16. May 24, 1868
17. May 26, 1868
18. June 1, 1868
19. April 24, 1944
Review Request
Author’s Notes
Acknowledgments
BLUE ARROW
1. Peter
2. Yonks Day – Year 1 – 1978
3. Yonks Day – Year 13 – 1990
4. Yonks Day – Year 22 – 1999
5. Yonks Day – Year 36 – 2013
6. Yonks Day – Year 42 – 2019
7. Yonks Day – Year 51 – 2028
Review Request
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Wait, there’s more!
Also by Stan C. Smith
Foreword
Thanks for taking a chance on my Diffusion series. If you enjoy mysterious discoveries, wilderness adventures, science fiction, or imaginative tales of first contact, this series will be right up your alley.
This box set includes all books that are currently in the Diffusion series. I may eventually write another book that directly follows PROFUSION, but for now this is the entire series.
Here is a quick explanation. The core story consists of DIFFUSION, INFUSION, and PROFUSION. These are Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3. They tell the story of Quentin, Lindsey, Bobby, Addison, and a few others who encounter an amazing object, or entity, called the Lamotelokhai.
As you read these three books, you will become familiar with a fascinating character named Samuel Inwood. Samuel plays a crucial role in the overall story. And the unique book, SAVAGE, tells the story of how Samuel first encountered the Lamotelokhai in 1868. SAVAGE is written in a different style compared to the other books. It is actually Samuel’s field notebook. So you get a first-hand account of his harrowing experiences in the wilderness, as told from the viewpoint of a Victorian English gentleman naturalist.
You will also become familiar with another fascinating character, Peter Wooley. Peter encountered the Lamotelokhai many years after the events of SAVAGE but several decades before the events of DIFFUSION, INFUSION, and PROFUSION. The novella, BLUE ARROW is Peter Wooley’s story, as told by his amazing wife, Rose.
Many people have asked what is the best order in which to read the five books. For this box set, I have arranged the books in the following order: DIFFUSION, INFUSION, PROFUSION, SAVAGE, and BLUE ARROW. SAVAGE and BLUE ARROW are arranged after the other novels, even though they are actually prequels. I did this on purpose, because I think you’ll enjoy SAVAGE and BLUE ARROW more if you have at least read DIFFUSION and PROFUSION first.
To be honest, I personally think the best order in which to read these books would be the following: DIFFUSION, INFUSION, SAVAGE, BLUE ARROW, and then PROFUSION.
Regardless, I hope you enjoy them all!
Copyright © 2015 by Stan Smith
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Note to the Reader
The indigenous Papuans in Diffusion speak one of approximately 800 languages known to exist on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. At the end of this book there is a guide to the dialogue of the villagers. You may enjoy referring to it occasionally as you read the book.
In the text of the novel, each word or phrase is referenced by number, and the numbers correspond to the phrases in the language guide at the end of the book.
To those who still believe there is wonder
in what is undiscovered.
Diffusion
Definition:
the transmission of elements or features of one culture to another
Chapter One
Irian Jaya, Indonesia
Peter Wooley was no longer willing to die. Closing his eyes against thorns and stinging sweat, he stumbled through forest understory so dense that running was impossible. He had slipped out of the village undetected, but there was little chance of losing the tribe’s best hunters once they discovered his absence. If he could make it to the river and then cross without drowning, perhaps they would give up and let him go. And if he could somehow trek sixty miles to the coast without survival gear, he might then formulate a plan to prepare the world for what he had seen. Cruelly, he had been given a reason, but almost no chance, to survive.
Peter stumbled and fell. He rolled onto his back, sucking in the viscous air hanging over the forest floor. Sunlight pierced the canopy here and there, but otherwise he stared at a solid ceiling of vegetation that was unrelenting, stretching for miles in every direction and broken on
ly by the occasional river. Peter’s breathing gradually slowed. The constant trilling of insects soothed him and pulled his thoughts from despair to hope. Perhaps he might live to see his dear Rose. He had something to offer her now, a gift like no other. For years he had given his wife little more than heartache and concern over his disregard for his own life. She deserved more than that. Peter was a reckless wanderer with a habit of planning ever-more-perilous ventures before even completing the previous one. As Rose would say, he was willing to die for the sake of a thrill. And this time he had gone too far—a solo walkabout into the remotest forest, itself potentially fatal, but then derailed by an astonishing encounter.
There was movement above. A cat-sized creature launched itself from one tree to another, its long tail held rigid as ballast. It was a tree kangaroo, common in the forests of Irian Jaya, but Peter was sure this variety was unknown to science. The local villagers had domesticated it, and its presence above him indicated that they were likely in pursuit. Peter struggled to his feet. He had to keep moving.
He plunged headlong into a dense patch of plum pines, the trees tearing his skin and clothing. Something tugged at his throat, and the cord around his neck snapped. He turned in time to see a figurine slide from the ensnared cord and fall to the ground. It was a stone carving of a tree kangaroo—the same creature he had just seen in the flesh. For a moment he considered going back for it, then he looked to the trees above and spotted the real tree kangaroo. It stared back at him briefly and then headed back the way it had come, leaping agilely between tree limbs.
Peter cursed to himself. It was going to lead the tribesmen straight to him. Leaving the figurine, he emerged from the plum pines and broke into a run, only to be forced to skirt around another patch of them.
“Peter!”
Peter stopped cold. Samuel stood before him in his skin shorts and oddly gleaming vest. Peter felt a flame of hope. After all, Samuel had convinced the villagers to spare Peter’s life in the first place.
“Samuel, I had to leave! I wanted to say goodbye, but I couldn’t risk it. The others—do they know I’ve left?”
Samuel stepped closer, his expression grim. “They are aware. You must know you cannot leave this place. You cannot bring others here; it is not yet time.”
Peter scanned the forest but saw no sign of the tribe’s hunters. “They’ll kill me, won’t they? You can stop them. Please, Samuel! I can’t stay here.”
The man shook his head. “If I am to endeavor to save your life, you must agree to remain. Stay here with me, Peter. There is much for us to do.”
Peter considered the offer. No doubt, there was much work to do. In fact, this was an absurd understatement. The substance the villagers possessed and protected was beyond Peter’s comprehension. He was no more equipped to make progress with it than Samuel was—or the tribesmen, for that matter. No, it was too big. They needed help. He had to get back to civilization. He backed away from Samuel.
“All I ask is that you give me a chance. Try to hold them off.”
Samuel’s face showed genuine alarm. “Do not, Peter. I beg you.”
Peter’s heart sank as he realized Samuel wasn’t going to help. He shook his head in regret and turned to run. Suddenly he realized a man was blocking his path. Peter glimpsed a familiar array of green lorikeet feathers in the man’s hair, but by the time his brain registered recognition, it was too late to stop. Sinanie’s spear pierced his gut. Peter grasped the shaft, but the man rushed forward, forcing him back and driving the spear deeper.
Peter tripped and fell onto his back. Sinanie pinned him down, forcing the spear in until the ground beneath him stopped it. The pain exploded and escaped as a garbled yelp. Peter could not move, and it became difficult to breathe. Strangely, what came to his mind was the meal he had shared with Sinanie only the day before. He wanted to speak, to explain to Sinanie that, for the first time in his life, he was afraid to die. But words wouldn’t form, and they wouldn’t be understood anyway. Sinanie stood above him, gazing coolly into his eyes. Slowly, the tribesman smiled. It wasn’t a taunting smile. It was more like a small kindness.
Sinanie wasn’t alone now. There were two others—maybe three. They intended to kill him, and they would do more than that. There were different measures of death. Peter knew this now; he had seen it with his own eyes. They would make sure his body wouldn’t heal and would never leave this place. Rose would never know that he had almost become an important man.
One of the men dropped his spear and picked up a club-sized tree limb. He hefted the limb a few times, assessing its balance, and then swung it at Peter. The blow glanced off Peter’s forehead. Stunned, but still conscious, Peter stared at the unrelenting canopy above. In the few seconds before more blows would come, he tried to imagine that he was relieved it was finally over, that he had done all he could. But he knew he hadn’t.
From its perch in a coral bean tree, the tree kangaroo peered over its twitching snout at the scene below. Clubs pounded flesh until the flesh was no longer a man. And still the clubbing went on. Swirling dust and flying drops of fluid sparkled in shafts of sunlight in the small clearing. Visible light and energy of other wavelengths reflected and transmitted a brutal, but meticulous, task. Tremors from violent blows coursed through soil and up the dense wood of the bean tree to clutching paws. Vocalizations and pheromones made their way to the creature’s ears and nostrils, adding to the scene an emotional layer of determination diluted by regret.
The creature filtered the incoming data, discarding certain parts and wrapping the rest into a coherent package of understanding. Cognitive feelers probed the package, twisting and shuffling layers, teasing out subtleties of meaning and ultimate consequences. The arrival of the man, Peter, had been significant. He had been almost equipped for what was needed. Now the man no longer existed, but perhaps he could still be important.
The tree kangaroo turned away from the laboring tribesmen. It leapt from tree to tree until it arrived at the churning brown river the villagers called Méanmaél.1 By reverse-hopping, claws digging into tree bark, it descended to the water’s edge and began gathering raw materials: decaying vegetation, chewed leaves, soil scraped from the forest floor, and water.
The creature worked without urgency because time was inconsequential. Others would find their way here. It was only a matter of waiting.
Chapter Two
Papua (formerly Irian Jaya)
42 Years Later
Standing dead center in the Last Unknown, Quentin Darnell closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of ancient secrets. This experience was not possible back home, where every living or extinct organism had long been scrutinized and classified. Here, in the Central Highlands of Papua—sometimes called the Last Unknown—every breath yielded odors given off by microbes, worms, insects, and plants not yet identified. Which was exactly why they had come.
The others were approaching, so Quentin retreated deeper into the forest. As he moved through a stand of pandanus, a buzzing call, like a cicada, captured his attention. He spotted a most remarkable bird eyeing him from a low branch. It was a bird-of-paradise, but Quentin could not recall the specific type. Its black head, against a yellow chest and wings, was striking enough, but what gave the creature its impossible appearance were the half-meter-long blue feathers protruding from each side of its head. The feathers resembled curved, serrated swords folded over the bird’s back and trailing behind. It was only a few meters away, and Quentin stood motionless to avoid spooking it. The characteristic noise of the group he’d been traveling with usually prevented such encounters, especially with animals as rare as this one.
Suddenly, the bird ducked its head, forcing the two swords to lift from its back. It dipped lower, and the swords swept forward before slowly arching backward again. It repeated the motion, and with each dip the feathers stabbed forward even more, until they finally pointed straight toward Quentin.
Voices broke the silence, disrupting the bird’s mesmerizing face-o
ff with Quentin. It fluttered away, its display feathers trailing behind, iridescent in the sunlight. Quentin sighed. The encounter had lasted less than a minute, but it would likely be the most serene experience he would have all day.
Diffusion Box Set Page 1
