Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

  Finally Lindsey said something. “Puerto Rico?”

  “I think that’s what she said.” Quentin realized his hands were fists. The lack of information was frustrating. But his aggravation quickly gave way to relief. “At least they’re alive.”

  Lindsey made her way back to the shelter. She mumbled something at the mbolop, and then pushed it off her sleeping mat to make room. The thing made a soft bleating sound. Quentin, Samuel, and Sinanie got under the shelter after her.

  For several minutes they all sat in silent contemplation.

  Samuel said, “The news from Ashley that I find to be particularly alarming is that the Lamotelokhai was divided into portions. What gave them such an idea, I wonder?”

  Quentin felt his hands becoming fists again. “This is insane. How do they think they’re going to get here? I assume Peter can help them get to Obert’s village, but do we need to go back to Navera to meet them?”

  Lindsey said, “Maybe tomorrow we can find Addison and take him with us back to Navera so we can all meet them together.”

  “That is not what Ashley has asked you to do,” Samuel said. “Based upon her words, she believes she must come to the hanging village of my indigene hosts. She mentioned putting the Lamotelokhai back together. I believe she may be referring to the portions of the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge placed into the minds of the indigenes. This concerns me greatly.”

  In the darkness Quentin couldn’t tell if Samuel was looking at him or if his eyes were closed. “I’m not sure I really want to hear the answer to this, but why does that concern you so much?”

  Samuel shifted his position as if he were reluctant to answer. “Ashley stated that the Lamotelokhai had been divided into portions. This would indicate that someone wished to have smaller pieces of it. For what purpose I can only imagine. Nevertheless, I have myself discovered that such an endeavor is perilous, to say the least.”

  “Perilous in what way?” Lindsey asked.

  Samuel shifted again. “I discovered this in the most abhorrent and grievous way. It was more than seventy years ago. And it was due to my desire to learn whatever I could of the nature of the Lamotelokhai. I desired to learn if it were possible and practical to perform useful tasks with only a portion of the Lamotelokhai’s clay. You see, such capability would have innumerable implications.” He paused, apparently thinking.

  Quentin and Lindsey waited.

  “As with some of my other misguided attempts at experimenting with the Lamotelokhai’s clay, the results haunt my dreams to this very day.”

  Quentin hesitated as dread began stirring within him. “What happened?”

  “Well, it is first important to understand that the Lamotelokhai can be thought of as an artist of sorts. It is a creator of wondrous things. Every great artist has his favorite medium from which to fashion works of art. The painter has his palette of dyed oils. The sculptor has his stone or bronze. The Lamotelokhai works in many media, but in my opinion it is a master of the medium of life. It sculpts and paints living organisms as if it were a god. Additionally, it seems to have endless knowledge of every living thing it has encountered, both past and present.” He stopped, as if he were giving them a chance to absorb this.

  Quentin thought about the frightening transformation of Addison, as well as the events at the hospital in Jayapura eight months ago. It certainly hadn’t occurred to him to think of the Lamotelokhai as an artist in those instances. Samuel never failed to surprise him with his unique way of looking at things.

  Samuel continued. “But in order to effectively sculpt and mold living organisms, the Lamotelokhai must be in its complete state. A portion of it is ineffective in such an endeavor. Just as you would be incapable of creating a masterful painting with most of your brain removed.” Again he paused.

  “So what happened when you tried separating the Lamotelokhai?” Quentin asked.

  “I attempted to command a portion of the Lamotelokhai’s clay to sculpt a living creature. The results were wretched beyond imagining. Creatures were contrived with no concordance or harmony of parts. It was as if the devil himself had promulgated his madness in the form of a nightmarish menagerie. And to make matters worse, it seemed that everything these abhorrent creatures touched was then likewise transformed into a new and quite unique abomination. What began as a single creature soon became an overwhelming profusion.”

  Quentin tried to imagine the scenario Samuel had described. It made his skin prickle.

  “How did you stop it?” Lindsey asked.

  “I returned to the hanging village to call upon the Lamotelokhai. I spoke to it in my thoughts, describing the dilemma I had caused. It provided me with a handful of its clay. It placed a vision into my mind, a vision showing me what I was to do. So I took the clay to the site of my imprudent mistake. It was several miles distant, and by that time the profusion of ungodly creatures had grown to encompass such an extensive area that I could not imagine how it could be subdued. It required all of my courage to avoid fleeing to save my life. Following the instructions within the vision the Lamotelokhai had shown me, I scattered bits of the clay onto the ground. Soon the bits transformed into insects—flies to be specific. And those flies transformed fallen leaves and other organic matter into more flies.

  “As I watched in wonder, an enormous cloud of flies swarmed from the ground and dispersed. They continued rising as more and more were created. Some of them alighted upon my skin, with no untoward effects. However, those flies that encountered the transforming creatures seemed to halt the creatures’ transformations. In good time it seemed that all the transformations had stopped. I can scarcely imagine what might have occurred had I not enlisted the Lamotelokhai’s assistance.”

  For some seconds the only sounds were the scuttling of nocturnal creatures and the cricket-like calling of tree frogs.

  “What became of the transforming creatures?” Lindsey asked. “Were they killed by the flies or transformed back to their original forms?”

  “Neither one nor the other. The creatures simply halted further transformation. Some of them were in such a state that they could not walk nor fly, and they eventually died where they were, presumably due to starvation or thirst, or to being preyed upon. Others were functional creatures, able to move about, some of them even able to procure food. Those remained in the area for some time. For years after the incident I occasionally returned to the region. Each year I saw fewer of the unnatural creatures. Finally, on the eleventh year, there were no more to be found, and I assumed that they had all perished.”

  Samuel could then be heard arranging himself so that he could go back to sleep. “Sleep well, my friends,” he said.

  Quentin gazed at Lindsey in the darkness, and he could tell she was looking back at him, perhaps pondering the same disquieting scenario that was playing out in his mind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mbaiso pumped his legs, shaking the tree limb beneath him, which was barely thick enough to hold his weight. This disturbance flushed a cloud of insects, and he watched them spiral upward, their wings glittering in the unobstructed sunlight above the canopy. They dispersed to other, less trespassed-upon leaves and limbs. Mbaiso cautiously turned his body, searching in every direction until he spotted what he was looking for. It was another limb, several tail lengths below but at a distance slightly beyond any he had attempted.

  He tilted his head downward and lowered his tail as a counterbalance. Below him was one of the hanging tunnels of his mbolop colony. And far below that was the forest floor, although only small glimpses of it were visible through the canopy foliage. A long fall. Long enough to kill a real tree kangaroo.

  Mbaiso gathered his hind legs beneath him and positioned himself carefully. He bounced again to test the leverage the limb would provide. Not much. He considered finding a different limb, but it was too late for that—he had already envisioned the fulfillment this challenge would provide, and a lesser challenge would not do.

  He began swaying, for
ward and back. He escalated the swaying, and suddenly, just as the limb began its forward swing, he took advantage of its momentum and launched himself out. He held his tail high, providing stability as he arced through the open space. His claws caught the target limb, and he flung his tail forward over his head to break some of his momentum.

  He nearly toppled over, but he dug his hind claws in, shifted sideways, and wrapped his forelegs around the limb. He held tight but couldn’t keep himself from slipping until he was hanging upside down from a limb no thicker than his tail. Having the heavy body of a real tree kangaroo, Mbaiso lacked the agility needed to quickly remedy this situation. So he simply hung there, allowing his excitement to dissipate.

  As he gazed upward, something caught his eye. It was high above, moving steadily across the cloudless sky, leaving an almost perfectly straight white cloud behind it. It sparkled in the sun’s light like a droplet of water. But the object was not made of water. It had a definite symmetrical shape. Mbaiso had seen such an object before. Months ago, such a thing had fallen from the sky. Humans had then emerged from it, and those humans had changed Mbaiso’s existence by taking away the Creator. As the villagers would say, they had turned the world upside down.

  Hanging with his belly toward the sun, Mbaiso watched the object move across the sky until it disappeared, leaving behind a cloud that gradually dissipated as it was pushed by the breeze into a serpent-like wisp. Still he clung to the limb, unmoving, processing the implications of the object in the sky. There was something about it he found discomforting. It gave him doubts. Perhaps his carefully nurtured plan might be inadequate. He had known there must be more humans in other parts of the great forest of this world, but seeing the object made him suspect he had underestimated how many. He considered all the mbolop in his colony, each of them painstakingly created from particles of his own body combined with particles from Tupela’s. With this method of procreation, it was not possible to accelerate production.

  Perhaps it was too soon to send his colony out to the great forest of this world.

  Mbaiso clambered along the underside of the limb, paw over paw, until the limb was nearly vertical and he could maneuver to the larger trunk. No longer in the mood for amusing challenges, he made his way to the forest floor.

  Mbaiso found the almost-human creature, Addison. As expected, the mbolop paired with Addison was there too. The two were engaged in a puzzling activity with several of the colony’s other mbolop. Mbaiso found a comfortable spot in a low fork of a wotuwo tree where he could observe and think.

  Mbaiso had been made soon after the human villagers had found the Creator. As the human, Samuel, would say, nearly 10,000 years had passed since then. During that time, Mbaiso had performed the functions he had been created for: facilitating communication between the villagers and the Creator, gathering data for the Creator, and assisting the villagers with various tasks. He had grown to appreciate the comfort of routine, the satisfaction of keeping the human village in balance. Unmet needs were to be addressed immediately in order to restore balance and therefore Mbaiso’s comfort. When the Creator had gone away with the new humans, the village had been thrown into disarray, prompting Mbaiso to do something he had never done before—defy the Creator’s instructions. He had been instructed to terminate his own existence, but instead he had formulated a plan of his own. His plan would restore purpose to his life, and a renewed sense of balance.

  Mbaiso pushed aside his thoughts regarding the unknown number of humans in the great forest of this world. There were other problems he needed to address now. So he observed Addison and Newton.

  Addison had recruited three of the other mbolop in addition to Newton, apparently pulling them from their duties to engage in an activity that seemed to amuse him. Mbaiso understood the desire for amusement, but there were certain aspects of the pairing of Newton to Addison that could be troublesome.

  “Hide seek, hide seek, hide seek!” Addison said to the three mbolop. He pointed to the forest beyond them. Addison then turned his back to them and covered his face with his hands.

  At Addison’s feet, Newton gestured to the tree kangaroos, and they scurried off. Each of them concealed itself behind some vegetation.

  After a brief wait, Addison turned around and ran straight to the nearest concealed mbolop. “Found you, found you!” he cried. He then went to the other two, repeating the same words.

  The three mbolop came out of hiding and gathered before Addison and Newton.

  “Hide seek, hide seek, hide seek!” he said. This started the routine all over again. Each time they did this, Addison covered his eyes, but Newton watched the mbolop as they concealed themselves.

  It was obvious to Mbaiso that Addison was able to watch them through Newton’s eyes. But the three hiding mbolop did not seem to understand this. Again and again they would conceal themselves, only to be immediately found.

  “Hide seek, hide seek, hide seek!” Addison cried again. This time he pointed upward.

  When he turned around, Newton repeated the gesture, and the three mbolop climbed into the trees. Soon they were all concealed high above, although Newton had observed their every move. Addison uncovered his eyes, ran to the nearest tree, and scaled it with the agility of a silek, the creature Samuel called the sugar glider. Newton followed him up the tree.

  Addison quickly found the first mbolop. “Found you, found you!” He then turned and launched himself toward the next concealed mbolop.

  Addison was in mid flight when Mbaiso noticed something was wrong. Addison’s almost-human hands flailed as if he had lost sight of his targeted limb. One hand caught the limb, but it wasn’t enough. His chest struck the limb, and he let out a high-pitched grunt. He bounced off and lost his grip, his hands thrusting out desperately as he fell. Halfway to the ground his head hit a larger limb. His body then tumbled loosely until it slammed onto the forest floor.

  Mbaiso and Newton got to the motionless body at the same time. Addison was lying face up, and Newton nudged his head with her snout. There was no response. She sniffed his face and then released a nasally distress bleat. She looked at Mbaiso and bleated again, pleading for him to do something.

  Mbaiso gazed at Addison’s face. Blood was still flowing through the creature’s nearly human body, and he was breathing. But the breaths were shallow, and there was no eye movement.

  Newton bleated again.

  Mbaiso hopped away and sat on his haunches a short distance from Addison’s body. He waited.

  Newton bleated and spun about in a circle. Again she nudged Addison’s head.

  Mbaiso didn’t move. He wished to observe what she was capable of, as it was important to his plan.

  Again she spun about. She hopped onto Addison’s chest and pushed her snout against his lip. She bleated, hopped off, and paced to Addison’s feet and back to his head.

  Still Mbaiso didn’t move.

  Finally, Newton became quiet. She scratched her abdomen until her claws broke the skin. She pulled forth a dripping lump of flesh, placed it on Addison’s face, and then smeared it onto his cheek and one of his eyes. She glanced at Mbaiso then sprawled onto the ground next to Addison’s shoulder and lay there with her head up. She waited.

  Mbaiso processed this new information. If Addison quickly recovered from his fall, it would mean that Newton had adequate healing abilities and could likely care for Addison. And by extension, the other mbolop would be capable of caring for other humans. Perhaps this assumption could be invalidated by the fact that Addison wasn’t like other humans, but this was the data currently available to Mbaiso. It was better than no data.

  Mbaiso continued to watch as Newton rested silently beside Addison’s body. Other tree kangaroos from the colony came forward to investigate, sniffing cautiously at Addison’s still form and then wandering off. Addison’s body twitched occasionally, sometimes with a faint pop, as cracked bones were pulled back into their original positions by the particles Newton had provided—the same particles
that comprised the Creator as well as Mbaiso and all the mbolop of the colony. The Creator had not provided Mbaiso with an understanding of the secrets that allowed the particles to exist and function, but Mbaiso was aware of what the particles could do. He knew they could exert force upon objects such as Addison’s bones by creating localized and incremental nudges to the most pliable of all the forces, that of gravity.

  Mbaiso had been given some understanding of his heritage. The creators of the Creator existed in a forest far from the great forest of this world. They were seekers of knowledge. But nothing they had ever learned before could compare to their eventual mastery of localized control over the properties of time, space, and gravitational forces. This was achieved not by massive machinery, but instead by the creation of the tiniest of particles. The discovery of the particles marked a turning point in the history of the creators of the Creator, which then led to the making of the Creator, as well as many others like the Creator. These Creators were sent out to locate other great forests, carrying with them the particles, formulated into a package possessing the awareness necessary to judiciously administer the particles’ power.

  Mbaiso had also been given the knowledge that the particles composing him were the greatest achievement of the creators of the Creator, perhaps the greatest achievement possible. He existed as a result of the Creator’s administering of the particles’ power. For thousands of years Mbaiso’s actions had been based primarily upon instructions from the Creator. But then the Creator had gone away, and Mbaiso had experienced a turning point in his existence. The Creator’s absence from the hanging village had turned Mbaiso’s world upside down, triggering something new and compelling within him. Instead of destroying himself, as instructed by the creator, he had formulated a plan. It was a plan that would allow him to carry out the same tasks that had always provided him with purpose—to assist humans.

  More specifically, to assist humans in their interactions with the Creator. For 10,000 years, this assistance had been limited to a small village of humans. But now the Creator had gone away. Mbaiso was certain of what this meant. He had seen many things happen, and he was aware of the vulnerabilities of humans to the powers of the Creator’s particles—particles that could nudge the properties of physical reality.