Samuel hesitated only a second. “It is difficult for me to say. I am sure that it seems to me much longer than it has truly been.”
Obert’s frown relaxed. “Right, then. I’m guessing there’s folks who’ll be happy to hear you’re breathing. One of you come with me to call this in. They’ll want specifics.”
“Quentin will go,” Lindsey said.
Obert’s hut was dark and smelled of gasoline and animal feces. As Quentin’s eyes adjusted, he saw two dogs lounging in the middle of the floor. They raised their heads but didn’t get up. Machines and gadgets cluttered the hut. Most looked to be broken or disassembled, as if in the middle of a repair job. There were several lawn mowers and a weed eater, all gas-powered, and some kind of drill that looked like it could be strapped to a person’s back. Quentin counted four generators, but only one appeared to be intact. Red plastic gas containers lined one wall. Leaning against one of them was a battery-powered metal detector.
The radio sat upon a knee-high wooden box. Obert motioned for Quentin to kneel on the dirt floor next to it. There were no chairs. In fact, other than a mattress set on palettes, there was no furniture at all. Obert went to the only intact generator, fiddled with a few settings, and yanked the pull start. The thing coughed a few times and jumped to life. At first the noise of the engine was almost overwhelming. Quentin had heard no such unnatural clatter in many days. Obert adjusted the throttle, and the engine smoothed out. A cloud of exhaust filled the hut. Obert ignored it and knelt with Quentin.
The radio looked modern enough. It resembled a home audio receiver, with a digital display and a variety of knobs on the front. A handheld microphone was attached to it with a spiral cable. Obert switched it on, punched the channel button a few times, and spoke into the mic.
“Navera IC74 to Sentani IC9. Obert, Navera IC74 to Sentani IC9.”
A voice came back. “Obert, apa kabar. Anton, Sentani IC9.”
Obert smiled at Quentin. “That’s Anton.” Then he spoke into the mic, “Anton, kabar baik. I’ve got me an emergency, bloody oath! Got some Yanks here. Say they’ve been lost for days. Their plane crashed. You hear me? A plane crash. We need the tall poppies.”
There were several clicks at the other end, the microphone being jostled about. Obert spoke to Quentin. “Gave him a bit of a jump, I reckon. He’ll get someone on that matters.”
After what seemed like a long wait, another voice came on. “Sentani IC9. Navera, I understand you are reporting a plane crash. Is this correct?”
“Deadset, Sentani, I swear it. Americans. They’ve been in the bush for days. Some have died.”
There was a muffled, “Bloody hell!” and then another pause. “Navera, I have no knowledge of a plane going down. What are the names?”
Obert looked at Quentin, brows raised.
“Quentin Darnell and Lindsey Darnell—and some of our students. And there was an Indonesian couple on the plane. We didn’t know them or the pilot. It was ten days ago, I think.”
Before now Quentin had allowed himself to hope that his suspicions were wrong. But now it was confirmed—they were never missed. The implications of this flooded his thoughts, but the man on the radio had more questions. Where did they come from? What plane were they on? Did anyone need immediate medical treatment? Finally he said it was too late in the day to send a plane, but one would arrive in the morning, first thing.
Quentin and Obert returned to the shelter with the news that they would be picked up in the morning. The others’ reactions were surprisingly subdued. Initiated by Lindsey, there was a round of restrained hugs.
Before long, some villagers led a pig to the shelter. One man carried a bow and an arrow. After lashing the pig to one of the shelter’s corner posts, the man readied his bow. The villagers fell silent.
Lindsey pleaded with Obert, “Please don’t do this on our behalf. This is too much.”
Obert nodded but made no effort to stop it. “Visitors are a rare thing, ma’am. Especially those who’ve survived a plane crash. You cobbers are lucky to be alive. A bit of celebration is in order. You are hungry, no?”
“Yes we are, but…”
Obert grinned. “She’ll be right, then. Wouldn’t be fitting to send you away with no tucker in your gut.”
The pig squealed when the arrow pierced its side. It pulled at the rope as the man yanked the arrow back out and casually nocked it again. Obert invited them all to sit on the ground. In minutes the pig was dispatched, butchered, and transferred to foil packets that were placed into the embers of a fire. From their huts villagers brought sweet potatoes, breadfruits, bananas, and a variety of other fruits and vegetables.
For Quentin, it began to sink in that they would actually make it back. It hadn’t occurred to him that this realization would be difficult. But it was. They had endured days of tragedy and violence. At some point a switch had turned on in Quentin. He had learned to see the potential threat in everything, the darkness behind the eyes of every human being. And now he struggled to turn the switch off. There was no reason to think these villagers would harm them—that they might kill them as they slept. There was no reason to think that the plane would fail to appear in the morning, or that it would crash on the flight to Sentani, killing them once and for all. But these were Quentin’s thoughts. And even if they survived the flight tomorrow, what would happen then? It seemed that the remainder of his life would hold only threats.
Obert and another Papuan brought out two cardboard boxes containing bottles of beer. This surprised Quentin, although he wasn’t sure why—if the villagers could get lawn mowers to maintain the airstrip, they could certainly procure beer. Obert offered a bottle to each of them, including the students. Ashley snatched the opener and popped hers open without a word. She took a long swig of warm beer and then let out a sigh, holding her eyes closed.
Bobby and Carlos looked stunned. Ashley tossed them the opener. They both turned to Quentin and Lindsey. Quentin just shrugged.
“They’re our students, Quentin,” Lindsey said.
He smiled and gave her a pleading look.
She gazed at the boys. Finally she nodded and turned away.
In unison, the boys said, “Yes!” They opened their bottles and drank deeply, not to be outdone by Ashley. They both frowned at the bitter taste.
Obert chuckled. “Watch you don’t get yourselves stonkered, lads.”
The opener was passed around and they all drank a beer, except for Addison, who just gazed curiously at his bottle and its South Pacific Lager label.
“It has been some time since I have had the occasion to drink beer, Obert,” Samuel said, holding up his half-empty bottle to salute their hosts. “You can scarcely imagine how refreshing this is.”
The villagers insisted that Lindsey and Ashley sleep in a long hut at one end of the village. Obert explained that the long hut was where all children and unmarried women slept, and that arrangement was expected of all female guests. Quentin began to protest, but Lindsey assured him they would be fine.
Quentin, Samuel, and the boys were taken to the hut of one of Obert’s friends, a man named Seri. Seri had a wife and daughter, but apparently his wife preferred to sleep in the long hut. Once they had settled into Seri’s hut, other villagers brought them sleeping mats.
Quentin was relieved to find that Seri’s hut didn’t smell as bad as Obert’s. But before long, Seri started a fire. There seemed to be no thought given to ventilation, and soon the smoke hung thick in the air. Seri did not speak English, but he chattered to them constantly, oblivious to the cloud of smoke. There was less smoke near the floor, so Quentin followed Samuel’s lead and lay flat on his sleeping mat. He told the boys to do the same. Bobby and Carlos did so, but Addison continued sitting up, watching Seri bustle about the hut.
The entire village had witnessed Addison’s refusal to eat or drink anything, so they were already curious about him. It would not do to have him sitting up all night.
“Addison, please lie down
and at least act like you are sleeping,” Quentin said.
Addison complied. “Goodnight, Dad,” he said.
“Goodnight, Addison.”
Eventually Seri stopped talking and settled in for the night. The hut became silent. An animal scuttled across the floor, followed by more of them. One even crawled over Quentin’s legs, pausing to sniff his pants. Quentin heard chewing only a few feet from his head. Rats. The hut was alive with rats. They were probably harmless, otherwise Seri could not ignore them the way he did. But the thought of them inspecting every inch of his body as he slept would not make it any easier for Quentin to rest. He wondered if Lindsey and Ashley were dealing with the same issues. But then exhaustion overcame him.
Quentin awoke to the roar of an airplane passing low over the village. It was already daylight. Bobby and Carlos were still sleeping. Addison was not, and when he saw Quentin stirring, he sat up without a word. Seri and Samuel were not in the hut.
Quentin inspected his clothing and skin. No rat bites, although several brown pellets fell from his shirt as he rolled to his side. He crawled to Bobby and Carlos and they woke up as he inspected them.
He said, “You ready to go home? The plane is here.”
They emerged from the hut to find most of the villagers already waiting by the airstrip. Standing with them were Lindsey, Ashley, and Samuel, talking to Obert.
“You ladies sleep as soundly as we did?” Quentin said.
Lindsey forced a smile. “Our hosts were very kind.”
Ashley leaned in and whispered, “There were rats! Loads of them!”
Obert overheard this and smiled. “Our rats help keep our humpies clean. And they eat up the centipedes.” He held his hands up about a foot apart, apparently showing the size of the centipedes. “Better rats than centipedes. Deadly, those are.”
After circling the village, the plane straightened out and approached the airstrip, which now seemed absurdly short. But the pilot landed skillfully, and the plane bounced to a stop at the end of the airstrip. It was another Twin Otter, identical to the one in which they had crashed, right down to the blue Merpati Air logo on its side. Two Indonesian pilots hopped out of the cockpit and walked back to the hatch behind the wing. They lowered it to the ground, allowing access to the stairs built into the back of the hatch. A white man who looked to be about forty emerged from the cabin. In his polo shirt and khaki shorts, he looked like he’d just stepped off a cruise ship. He jogged the twenty meters from the plane and extended his hand.
“Mr. and Mrs. Darnell, I presume?”
Mbaiso crept forward, placing his paws on the narrow limb with extreme caution to avoid shaking it. It was an unusually dark night, but his eyes were well suited for darkness, his body having been patterned after the living tree kangaroos of the coastal region where he had been created. The poupa, a bird Samuel called the crested berrypecker, was now only a tail-length beyond Mbaiso’s reach. It was roosting for the night, but one overly eager step would alert the bird to his presence and it would flutter away. With measured precision, he moved two steps closer and then lunged. He caught the poupa in his jaws before it even opened its eyes.
Mbaiso’s diet consisted mainly of leaves and fruits, but he had traveled all through the day and most of the night. The bird would replenish his shrunken energy reserves. He bit off the poupa’s head first, then quickly consumed the rest of the body, leaving nothing but a few blue and green feathers that turned in gentle spirals as they drifted to the ground.
The hanging village was not far now. There would be much to do when the morning light came. Mbaiso looked down at the forest floor. This was an excellent place to rest. He backtracked on the limb and settled into a comfortable position where it joined the main trunk. He then shifted his body until he had an unobstructed view. He belched out a contented grunt and gazed at the extraordinary sight below him. The ground was speckled with a sea of glowing green maselop. Samuel referred to them as luminescent mushrooms. There were hundreds of them, but in the blink of an eye Mbaiso accurately counted those he could see and statistically estimated the number he couldn’t see due to obstruction from vegetation. But the Creator was gone—the central database was out of range—so Mbaiso deleted the data from his consciousness. He allowed his mind and muscles to go loose, and as his energy stores gradually replenished, he simply observed the mesmerizing luminescent scene.
Eventually the morning light overpowered the glow of the maselop, making the forest floor below Mbaiso look no different from any other area. Rejuvenated, he stretched, descended to the ground, and then traveled the remaining distance to the area of the hanging village. Before searching for the villagers, he made his way along the bank of the Méanmaél, watching with his eyes and listening for information. He found what he was searching for at a place where a sandbar extended out from the shore. Mbaiso also detected Tupela’s presence. He spotted her sprawled in a tree, warily eyeing the sandbar. Satisfied, he turned away from the river. He took to the trees. Before long he was within the boundaries of the village. He stopped in the lower canopy of a eucalyptus tree. The unusually tall tree was characteristic of the area, which was in fact the reason the village had been built here. He held his small ears erect, listening. The hut that had housed the Creator was nearby, but there were no sounds indicating it was occupied. He made his way to one of the sleeping huts, and then to another, but they were empty. Although Samuel had lived in his own hut, the indigenous humans had a number of huts that were used by all the villagers. They would sleep or prepare food in the hut that most suited their needs at the time.
Finally, he heard the villagers talking in the distance. The sounds led him to Samuel’s abandoned hut. He entered the opening in the hut’s floor and watched them. The human called Addison had recently killed and disaggregated many of the villagers, and now all of the survivors were here. They were inspecting and discussing the strange variety of objects and furnishings Samuel had created.
Sinanie was the first to notice the tree kangaroo’s presence. He hissed at the others. The villagers became quiet and watched Mbaiso as he moved his forelimbs, signing to them. The Creator had provided Mbaiso with many ways to communicate, but the villagers had always preferred the language of gestures.
When Mbaiso finished signing, he crawled through the opening, descended to the ground, and waited. Sinanie clambered down the rope ladder first, followed by Matiinuo, Ambep, and Willok. When it was clear the others were not coming, Mbaiso led the four tribesmen to the river. They followed without speaking, although it was a long walk, and Mbaiso did not pause to sign to them. The tribesmen were surprised he had returned, and they undoubtedly had questions regarding the Lamotelokhai’s whereabouts and progress. But that could wait.
When they arrived at the sandbar, Tupela was still there keeping watch. Sinanie immediately pointed to the sandbar, where two reptilian bodies basked like beached logs in the morning sun.
“Semail,” Sinanie exclaimed. This was their name for crocodiles.
While the tribesmen remarked on the size of the semail and the rarity of seeing two at once, Mbaiso hopped to the edge of the river where the vegetation ended and the sandbar began. He considered walking out onto the sandbar, but the presence of the second crocodile made the possible consequences unacceptable. So he sat on his haunches and focused on the information coming to him. The information indicated that Tripela’s sacrifice and subsequent actions would likely result in the desired outcome. The semail was primed to carry out its function.
The night before, during his journey back to the village, Mbaiso had created the last few information packets needed for his plan. He now concentrated on the packets, verifying their precision and integrity. In the same way he had always released data packets to the Creator, Mbaiso released the packets to the semail.
The larger of the two crocodiles turned and began lumbering toward the shore. It crawled directly over the back of the second crocodile, provoking a disapproving grunt. The tribesmen stopped talki
ng when they saw what was happening, and they began backing away when the creature pushed through the tangled vegetation on the shore, headed in their direction. But then the semail stopped. Mbaiso approached it, resulting in excited words from the men. He signed for them to come closer, but they were reluctant.
The crocodile began to change. Its body developed folds, which grew deeper until they actually pinched the entire body into smaller portions. Before long there were nine masses of reptilian flesh squirming on the ground. The uneasy tribesmen came closer, whispering wishes of good fortune to their ancestors to appease them. As they watched, the masses transformed into nine smaller crocodiles, each the size of a large man’s leg. When the transformation was complete, all but one of the crocodiles crawled to the river and disappeared. The last one lay before the men, not moving.
Mbaiso purred to draw the attention of the fascinated men. He then signed to them. Matiinuo signed back, and Mbaiso signed again. This went on for some time. Still the crocodile did not move.
Finally, Matiinuo nodded. He walked away and returned with a rock the size of a breadnut fruit. With both hands he raised it above his head and brought it down with considerable force, crushing the crocodile’s skull.
Matiinuo and Sinanie each grabbed a hind leg and together they hefted the reptile up between them. The four men smiled approvingly. The creature was large enough to supplement their diet with animal meat for many days. And as Mbaiso had explained, the eight remaining semail would stay in the area. In fact, they would passively crawl out of the river whenever they saw members of Sinanie’s tribe. The tribesmen were to spare at least one of the semail, which would grow large and then split again into smaller semail. And this would continue, cycle after cycle.
The tribesmen understood. They spoke personal praises to Mbaiso. Finally, they turned and headed back to the village with their generous supply of meat.
Diffusion Box Set Page 33
