Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

  On the first night, Peter had not slept. Instead he had continued travelling, picking his way in the dark through the tangled understory next to the river. But by the second night he had needed rest. The flies still were not biting, so he had found a soft spot at the base of a tree and slept sitting up with his back to the trunk. This is how he spent each of the nights after that as he methodically made his way downstream.

  On the morning of Peter’s eighth day of walking, still naked but feeling vigorous, he emerged from the forest into the blindingly bright clearing of a bustling village.

  Peter drove his Ford Cortina to the top of his driveway, stopped next to Rose’s car, and turned off the engine. He gripped the steering wheel for a moment, then turned his hands over and looked at the palms. They were clean and smooth, without cuts or calluses. He closed his eyes and sighed, trying to gather his thoughts. Peter clearly remembered being attacked by the villagers, at least until the blow that had rendered him unconscious. He was glad to be alive, although he had no idea why the tribesmen had spared him. He had come out of the bush with no possessions or money, and it had taken two days of phone calls and deliberations to arrange a flight back to Cairns. Before being allowed back into Australia, he’d been examined by doctors. They found no health issues. Regardless, he should have been truly knackered by this point, but he felt fine, physically. It was the psychological exhaustion that was taking its toll.

  He popped open the Cortina’s door and emerged into the full heat of a December day. He glanced at the front of his house and saw the curtains move. Rose was watching him through the window but hadn’t come out. Not good. He had called her from Jayapura, but she hadn’t even asked why his trip had been longer than planned. She was definitely mad. Peter had developed an obsession with embarking on the most physically demanding excursions he could dream up. Rose believed he had a death wish. The truth was, she was right. His solo walkabout to Irian Jaya’s interior had been ill-advised, in spite of months of preparation. It had been nothing more than his latest attempt at a glorified suicide. Well, today he would set things right. He would not leave her again.

  When he entered the house, she was sitting at the table, fingers folded together in front of her. Three suitcases sat neatly arranged next to the door.

  “Rose, what’s going on?”

  She turned to him. Her eyes were red. “Peter...”

  “What’s going on?” he repeated.

  “I just—I can’t do this. Sitting here—waiting for you to die!” She had paused before waiting and then spit it out like venom.

  Peter was stunned. “No, Rose—please! Something happened to me this time. I’m not the same man I was before.”

  “You’re always the same man!” She hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  He sat down in the chair across from her. “I haven’t told anyone yet. But I found something—in the bush. It’s something that will change the world, Rose!”

  She stared at him. “Well, what is it?”

  He looked at the table for a moment. He sighed. “I don’t know exactly what it is. It’s still out there.”

  “I see. And you have to go back there to get it.”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to say that.” He reached across the table and was slightly surprised when she allowed him to grasp her hands. “I know it’s been hard living with me. You deserve more. I’m trying to tell you that something has happened to me. It’s something so big I’m afraid if I try to explain it, you’ll think I’ve gone troppo. I need your help figuring out what to do. Stay with me, Rose. I’ll never leave you again. I want us to grow old together.”

  She gazed at his face. Her eyes probed his like she was searching for truth. Seconds passed, with no sounds but the hum of the fridge’s condenser fan. Her brows creased as if she were puzzled by something she saw deep within his eyes. For a moment, Peter thought she might get up and walk out on him for the last time. But gradually her expression relaxed. She sighed.

  “Promise me, Peter. Promise we’ll grow old together.”

  “I swear, Rose. Bloody oath.”

  Peter got up and walked around the table. He leaned over and kissed her. She stood up and embraced him, her face buried in his shoulder. Finally, she pulled away.

  “Okay, how can I help you?”

  Peter kissed her again. Then he considered her question. Where to begin? He wasn’t going back to Irian Jaya. He could never find the hanging village again. But eventually, someone else would.

  He took her hand and led her to the bedroom. On a desk in the corner sat his TRS-80, with its keyboard in front and cassette storage drive to the side. It was gathering dust.

  “I think we need to start here,” he said.

  He sat in the chair and switched on the computer. Rose sat on the edge of the bed. As Peter watched white text appear on the video display, he thought of symbols materializing before him, visible whether his eyes were open or closed. He hadn’t been capable of learning to use the symbols fast enough. But someday someone else would need to. Perhaps everyone would.

  Rose grabbed a cloth and wiped away the dust.

  Chapter Two

  42 Years Later

  Papua (formerly Irian Jaya)

  Quentin Darnell gazed down at his bare feet as he trudged along the bank of the Méanmaél River. He no longer missed his hiking shoes. He had discarded them because they made it difficult to climb the rope ladders in the hanging village. He had offered them to his wife, Lindsey, and then to his students, but his shoes were too big for any of them. Their shoes and most of their clothes had been lost three days ago, dissolved into soil along with the wreckage of the Twin Otter that had carried them out of the Central Highlands. Quentin’s feet were grubby, but they were mostly free of cuts and blisters, thanks to his body’s new healing ability.

  They had been walking nonstop for hours and Quentin was lost in his own thoughts and engrossed in the strenuous, repetitive effort to make progress. Which is why it took him by surprise when an arm encircled his neck and threw him roughly to the ground. The impact took his breath away, but the arm immediately released him and a hand clapped over his mouth, signaling him to silence. He turned to his side and his eyes met Samuel’s. Beyond Samuel he saw the rest of his group, already on their bellies, cautiously watching something downriver.

  Quentin nodded that he understood to be quiet, and Samuel withdrew his hand. With minimal movement, Samuel pointed downstream and across the river. There were several Papuan tribesmen there, standing in the water or sitting on exposed rocks. The men were talking, possibly taking a break from a long hike or hunt. Quentin counted five tribesmen.

  He whispered to Samuel, “They can take us to their village. There may be an airstrip there.”

  Samuel shook his head slightly. “I know of this tribe. They are murderous and pugnacious.”

  Quentin looked at the men again. Oddly, they all seemed to be bald. Several of them were laughing at one of their companions, who was half-heartedly attempting to spear something in the water.

  “They look friendly enough to me.”

  Samuel shook his head again. “You do not know them as I do. Those men are preparing to carry out a raid on another village.”

  “How do you know?”

  Samuel tapped his head above one ear. “Based upon their headdresses.”

  Quentin looked closer. The tribesmen were not actually bald. They were wearing caps made of hairless animal skin. Suddenly a chill ran its fingers down the back of Quentin’s neck. “They’re human skin, aren’t they?”

  Samuel’s expression was grim. “It is their custom to wear them for days before a raid.”

  Quentin suddenly felt vulnerable, and he hunkered down closer to the ground. “Why do they raid other villages?”

  “In spite of the plentiful food sources you have seen available to the indigenes with which I have been a guest, this region can support few people. Sustenance is scarce. The chief source of animal meat for the few other tr
ibes in the region is human flesh.”

  Quentin eyed Samuel. He looked dead serious.

  “Such is their savagery,” Samuel said. “The tribes regularly raid each other for the meat needed to sustain life. They know that Sinanie’s village is in the area, but they have never successfully completed a raid there. Inevitably they retreat after some of them are killed. They always manage to carry away their fallen companions, so I suppose they do not return to their village without meat.”

  Quentin wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. He turned again to stare at the tribesmen. There was something odd about their skin. Parallel rows of bumps covered most of their chests and backs, arranged in patterns that looked vaguely familiar to Quentin.

  As if reading his thoughts, Samuel said, “You see the scars on their bodies, no doubt. They are prideful of them, and administer them to each other, inflicting great pain, I’m told. They are arranged so as to resemble the scales of crocodiles, a creature which they revere.”

  “Nice,” Quentin said. “If there are crocodiles in the river, why don’t they just eat those? I’d think that would be easier.”

  “Perhaps you have not attempted to subdue a crocodile, Quentin.”

  “Psst!” Lindsey hissed from her position several meters behind them. She then gave them a questioning look. She hadn’t heard the details of their conversation.

  Samuel whispered to Quentin. “We should remain cautious and withdraw from the river’s edge. We can return to the river when we are far beyond these cannibals.”

  Quentin simply nodded. He glanced one more time at the men with their skin caps and reptile scarification and then signaled Lindsey and the others to move silently away from the water.

  A few hours later, after negotiating a two-meter-deep creek bed, Quentin stopped to help the others. One at a time he gave them a hand up the steep ravine, first Lindsey, and then Samuel, followed by the students, Ashley, Carlos, and Bobby. They all walked on ahead. The last to come up the slope was his son, Addison.

  Quentin hesitated before holding his hand out to Addison, because the innocent-looking figure below him was not really his son at all. It simply looked like Addison, down to the last tiny, heart-wrenching detail. It had Addison’s freckled face and wild curly brown hair. It had Addison’s voice, and his frail frame and long fingers. It even smelled like Addison. But it wasn’t him. It was an unfathomable mass of substance that could change its shape and chemical composition. And that was only the beginning of what it could do. The Papuan villagers who had been hiding it for centuries called it the Lamotelokhai. The real Addison was gone. His memory had been wiped clean, and he was either already dead or wandering aimlessly through the forest miles away. Finding him would have been impossible, so Quentin and Lindsey had been forced to leave him behind to die.

  The Addison replica looked up at Quentin and extended its hand as it had seen the others do. Still, Quentin hesitated. The thing’s eyes were the same pale blue as Addison’s, but for a moment their color seemed to shift to an unnatural fiery golden hue. It only lasted for a second, and then the eyes were blue again. Perhaps it had just been a reflection.

  The figure stood there with its hand held up, waiting. “You are afraid,” it said. “Why?”

  Quentin realized he was holding his breath and released it. He reached down and grabbed the thing’s hand. With his help it scrambled up the slope. It stood there next to him, waiting for an answer.

  Quentin released its hand. “We have no idea what you really are. Or what your intentions are. Why shouldn’t I be afraid?”

  It hesitated. “I cannot know why shouldn’t you be afraid.”

  Quentin sighed. Although the Lamotelokhai was a fast learner, its speech still needed some work. As he turned to begin walking, movement caught his eye. Three tree kangaroos scurried up the ravine and then stopped at the Lamotelokhai’s feet. The creatures had been following them since they’d left the hanging village. Quentin turned and started walking, and the Addison replica and tree kangaroos followed him.

  “As I said, we don’t know what you are.”

  It replied immediately. “It would take much talking to tell you. When you sleep again, I will show you.”

  Quentin turned around and raised his brows. “Another dream?”

  It didn’t respond.

  “Do you mind telling me what you’ll be putting into my head?”

  “I will show you my creators.”

  “That’ll definitely be interesting.” Quentin kept walking. “Well, you should expect us to be afraid until we know more about you. That’s the way people are.”

  They walked in silence for some time. Quentin realized he didn’t like having the Addison replica behind him. He stepped to the side and gestured for it to pass by. It hesitated only briefly and then walked ahead.

  When they caught up with the rest of the group, the tree kangaroos had disappeared. The Lamotelokhai joined Bobby, who then began asking it an endless stream of questions. The thing seemed naturally drawn to Bobby, probably because Bobby was the one who had learned to communicate with it first. That was before it had transformed itself into the shape of Addison. Bobby was predisposed to mastering the symbolic language the Lamotelokhai used. The language was based on the same set of symbols used in Kembalimo, a popular game he played. Quentin was baffled as to how there could be a connection between a computer game and this thing that had been hidden in the world’s most inaccessible wilderness for so long. The only explanation he’d come with was that it was a coincidence, but his gut told him it must be much more.

  Quentin skirted around the teens and joined Samuel and Lindsey, who were now leading the way. For some time they had to walk in single file, fighting their way through thick brush. But eventually the forest understory thinned out enough to allow Quentin to walk next to Samuel.

  “I know you think we’re making a mistake,” Quentin said.

  Samuel walked in silence for a moment before replying. “It seems that the fate of the Lamotelokhai is now beyond my ineffectual reckoning.” He gave Quentin a brief glance. “However, I have been entertaining the notion of proposing to you that we halt our journey and establish our own tribal village here, where we might continue hiding it.”

  Quentin and Lindsey burst out laughing. But then Quentin saw that Samuel wasn’t smiling. It had not been a joke.

  Lindsey said, “I think we’ve already proven that we have no survival skills here, Samuel. You’ve had a century and a half of experience. We wouldn’t be much help.”

  Samuel seemed to consider this, then he just nodded.

  Quentin had been through a lot with Samuel in the four days since Samuel had found him, injured and delirious. But he still felt like he barely knew the man. Samuel rarely spoke of his past, other than to doggedly insist that he had been living with the tree-dwelling Papuan villagers for over 150 years, sustained by the restorative powers of the Lamotelokhai.

  The funny thing was that Quentin now believed him. He had seen too much to doubt it was possible. So Quentin found it disturbing that Samuel was so reluctant to reveal his discovery to the rest of the world. Did Samuel know something about the Lamotelokhai he had not yet shared?

  The understory became a dense tangle again so Quentin dropped back into single file and gave up trying to have a conversation. Soon after that it began raining.

  After two days without sleep, Bobby was starting to hear ringing in his ears and see movement at the edges of his vision. But his mind wouldn’t rest. He had been forced to make decisions that had hurt people. To prevent the monster Addison had become from killing them all, Bobby had decided to have the Lamotelokhai erase Addison’s memory. He realized now it would have been easier on Mr. and Mrs. Darnell if he’d simply killed Addison. And then, thinking it might improve that problem, he’d decided to have the Lamotelokhai change itself to look and act like Addison. But this was apparently a bad decision, too, because it freaked them out. So far, the Lamotelokhai would do everything Bobby aske
d it to, and it seemed more willing to talk to Bobby than to the others. In the coming days Bobby would probably have to make more decisions. He was eager to learn more about the Lamotelokhai, but he didn’t want to be responsible for hurting more people.

  It had been raining for an hour. The ground had become so muddy that Bobby had fallen three times. When Samuel slipped and tumbled down a minor ravine, they decided to stop for the night.

  As the adults discussed how they might build a shelter from the rain, Bobby had to force himself to avoid staring at Ashley. She was muddy and soaked, and she frequently adjusted what little clothing she still had, trying to keep it in place. Bobby’s legs were tired, so he sat on the ground. His own clothes were little more than a few strips of his pants and half of his shirt. The remains of his pants were wrapped around his waist, so to keep his privates hidden he pulled his feet up to his crotch and put his arms around his knees. Carlos sat down next to him and assumed the same position, probably for the same reason.

  Bobby said, “Maybe in a few days we’ll be home and sleeping in our beds.”

  Carlos didn’t respond to this. Instead, he drew lines in the mud with his finger. Bobby wasn’t sure what to say to him anymore. Carlos had lost his brother, Roberto, in the plane crash just days ago. One minute he would be talking and seem happy, the next he would turn quiet and gloomy. Several times he had said he didn’t even want to go home.

  Bobby looked at the forest canopy above them, trying to spot Mbaiso and the two other tree kangaroos. The creatures had followed them, but they would often disappear for an hour or more and then randomly show up again. He couldn’t find them, so he returned his gaze to Ashley. She was walking away from the group alone, toward the river. He got up and followed her. Surprisingly, Carlos came with him.