Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

“I read your note,” I said, finally. “This morning.”

  “This morning?”

  I gave him a sheepish look and shook my head slightly. “I think you’re approaching things wrong.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “You’re not going to convince anyone there’s an alien artifact in the Irian Jaya rainforest. You weren’t even able to convince me, and I’m your wife.”

  He nodded slowly. “Rose, it’s so wonderful to here those words—”

  “Here’s what I think,” I interjected. I wasn’t quite ready to talk about our relationship. “You need to go back to working on your software. Kembalimo. You want people to master it? You want them to learn to communicate using 128 symbols they’ve never seen before? Then make it useful. Make it so they need it.”

  He sighed. “I think we’re all going to need it when—”

  “No one cares, because you can’t convince them of that. Make it useful now.”

  His brows furrowed. “How?”

  “It’s some kind of language, right? The symbols are part of a language. If you’re right and the Lamotelokhai was made by intelligent beings, then let’s assume they knew what they were doing. If the thing’s purpose is to make contact with other races, then they must have designed it to be adaptable for a wide variety of ways to communicate, and a variety of cognitive capabilities.”

  He nodded. The gears in his head were beginning to grind into action. “Let’s assume they knew what they were doing.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The object was designed to teach others to speak with it, regardless of their language or means of communication. Regardless of the way they think.”

  Peter edged closer to me on the blanket. “How many languages do you think there are? On this planet, I mean.” He was rolling with it now. “There are 800 on the island of New Guinea alone. Thousands worldwide. Thousands.” He actually took my hand in his.

  I almost pulled my hand away, but his touch was warm and comforting. “And you’re creating a software system based on a radically advanced computer designed to help different species communicate with each other.” I stared into his wide eyes. “Make it useful, Peter.”

  We gazed at each other for a long time.

  “I’m done living without you,” he said. “I’ve tried it, and it’s not working.”

  More seconds passed. I was nearly stunned by how much joy and relief these words provided me. I realized I wanted him. Not only later, for the rest of my life, but right then—at that moment. Hesitantly, as if I were forty years younger, I pulled his hands toward me. He leaned in and kissed me, long and deep.

  “Oh, Christ. Sorry, didn’t see you two.”

  Startled, we turned to see a young man, a trail runner. The runners rarely came all the way to the top of Lumley Hill. He wore a blue New York Yankees cap, and he was drenched in sweat.

  Peter said, “No worries, mate.”

  The guy stared for a moment, obviously confused at seeing a man Peter’s age holding and kissing me. He said, “I’ll leave you alone.” He started to leave and then turned back around. “Ma’am, is everything okay here?”

  I smiled at him. “I’m fine. In fact, if you could grant us a bit of privacy, I’m going to cop a shag with my husband.”

  5

  Yonks Day – Year 36 – 2013

  I understand there are women incapable of leaving their abusive husbands. Some of them eventually die from the violence. And some women will not leave the financial security of their marriages, even though they no longer feel passion. In my own way, I understand these women. I had attempted to leave Peter, unsuccessfully. Twice. Once for ten months. Peter wasn’t abusive, of course, although he was financially secure. By our thirty-sixth Yonks Day, he had created a successful software company, and we had relocated to a home near his corporate campus in Brisbane. Yes, I enjoyed the financial benefits: a nice home, more time to stay physically fit, and the services of the best doctors. But that’s not what kept me from leaving. I had stayed with Peter because on that day fourteen years before—twenty-second Yonks Day—I’d had a personal breakthrough. No longer did I give a damn what anyone else thought. I loved Peter, and I would not let the stares and comments of other people keep me from him.

  When I say it that way, it almost sounds like I was being brave. But the simple truth is I needed Peter. I always had. As I had relentlessly aged, it was my own fragile self-esteem that made me try to leave him. I did not do it for his sake. And later, when my vanity had faded away with my looks and vivacity, it was clearly not for his sake that I clung to him.

  In spite of all this, on our thirty-sixth Yonks Day, I almost left Peter for good.

  It was my fault, really, and I should have known better. At some point we have to give up the exploits of our youth. Believing our opinions are superior, threatening disrespectful idiots with a beating, eating whatever and as much as we want, making love at the tops of public hills. And going places without a cell phone.

  Although we now lived in Brisbane, we still returned to Cairns every year for our picnic. Peter and I had hiked up Lumley Hill every Yonks Day for thirty-five years. I was damn well going to do it on our thirty-sixth, in spite of the fact that Peter thought I should avoid such a strenuous endeavor. I was seventy-seven. He was still forty-one, but he did not have the stamina to win that argument.

  Start at first light. Four and a half hours to make the hike to the top of Lumley Hill. Prawn salad, fritters, bottle of Shiraz. A damp, drizzling day with no other hikers or trail runners. Dry dirt transformed to slippery mud. No cell phone, because on this one day I wanted Peter to myself.

  It happened on the way back, not long after crossing Hamliffe Creek. My progress had been slow, but Peter was patient. He wouldn’t allow me to walk any faster. But that didn’t prevent the inevitable. My graceful litheness was only a faded memory, and I was getting tired.

  At that time, the peak number of hip fractures occurred at 75-79 years of age, and 75% of them happened to women. A woman my age was more likely to fracture a hip than to develop breast cancer, and the risk of resulting death was the same. I knew this, but still I insisted on hiking to Lumley Hill. That’s how foolish love can make you.

  I didn’t realize my hip was broken until I tried to get up. I simply couldn’t, and no amount of will power could overcome the pain I felt when I tried. Peter could not carry me by himself. It would take him at least two hours to hike to the rental car, and it would be dark in three.

  Peter left me there in the mud. What else could he have done? I lay on the ground, occasionally trying to shift to a more comfortable position and speaking encouraging words aloud to myself to break the silence of the forest.

  At one point after lying there alone for more than an hour, I thought I heard a slight disturbance. I gazed into the trees, suddenly feeling vulnerable. Something moved. It was perhaps twenty meters away, almost entirely concealed by vegetation. It moved again, silently and methodically. It was a creature of some kind, walking up the hill. I thought I caught a glimpse of azure blue. Was that the head and neck of a cassowary? It couldn’t be; Blue Arrow had been the last known cassowary in the park, and she had died over a decade before. I stared at the tangled brush, occasionally catching sight of a patch of black or a stick-like leg, until the creature was gone.

  It occurred to me that I might have been hallucinating, although my thoughts seemed reasonably clear considering my circumstances. But if it were real, what an astounding thing it would be—that magnificent creature living in secrecy year after year, no one even knowing it existed. Perhaps it was Blue Arrow’s mate, living on in secluded privacy long after she had grown old and passed away.

  It was nearly dark when I heard someone approach.

  “Mrs. Wooley?”

  I shouted back. Soon a man—a trail runner in shorts and singlet—came sprinting up the trail. He knelt by my side.

  “Rose, I met your husband as I was running up the Red Arrow track. He told me what happened. I
had left my cell phone in my car, but I told him I’d come up here to the Blue Arrow track and find you. I’m going to wait here with you until help arrives. I imagine medics are on their way now. Another hour, tops. Can I do something to make you more comfortable?”

  I said, “As long as I’m still, I can bear the pain. But I need to shift my weight off the rocks under me. They’re killing me.”

  He gathered some soggy leaves and created a sort of cushion beneath me. I tried not to cry out as he gently shifted my body. Finally I could take no more and told him thank you. He sat on the trail next to me and crossed his legs.

  “Your husband said you and he met me on this trail before, more than ten years ago. I didn’t recall, but now that I see you, I believe I do remember.”

  “Peter has a photographic memory,” I said. I gazed at him in the fading light. He was perhaps in his upper thirties. His face didn’t ring a bell, but his New York Yankees cap did. “You’re the fellow who caught us in a rather awkward moment!”

  He nodded his head, and I’m pretty sure he blushed. “I believe I am.”

  “Have you been wearing the same cap for fourteen years?”

  He smiled at this. “I have washed it a few times. It’s my lucky hat.”

  I shifted slightly, grimacing at the pain. He rose to his knees, but I waved him off.

  “Well, you seemed curious about Peter and I then. I imagine you’re entirely baffled by us now.”

  He shook his head. “None of my business.”

  I stared at him, waiting.

  He settled back on his butt again and crossed his legs. “Okay, yes, I’m curious.”

  Over the years Peter and I had guarded our privacy fiercely. But at that moment I was ready to talk. Perhaps I did not believe I would make it off that hill and thought this might be my last chance to open up to someone.

  “Peter and I are the same age. At least we used to be.”

  He stared at me for a moment. “Is that right?”

  “He doesn’t grow older.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It started thirty-six years ago.”

  He paused for a moment, as if he were almost afraid to ask. “What happened thirty-six years ago?”

  I sighed, shooting pain down to my hip. “It’s a long story.”

  He put his hands together and touched a watch on his wrist. A green glow appeared and then went off. “I estimate we have forty minutes. Thirty, if they come with quad bikes.”

  I hesitated, perhaps knowing that once I started, I wouldn’t stop. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

  “Jonathan,” he said. He politely brushed the dirt off his hand by wiping it on his shorts, and then he extended the hand to me. My elbows were braced to keep me steady, so he grasped one finger and shook it gently.

  “Your family will be worried about you, Jonathan.”

  “My wife will understand when I tell her what has happened.”

  “Then it seems we have some time.”

  We had never shared Peter’s story with anyone before. Peter had always insisted that he complete his Kembalimo project first, and I had suspected this was because, deep inside, he was afraid of what people would think of him. He’d seen a few doctors and had suitably puzzled them, but he was unwilling to try to convince them of the real reason for his perfect health. I think Peter was actually waiting for the object in New Guinea to be discovered again. I think he believed that when that happened, the world would accept whatever he had to say.

  But on that day, with my broken body sprawled in the mud on the Blue Arrow track, I needed to tell someone else our story. And Jonathan seemed ready to listen. I told him about Peter’s encounter with a strange object in the rainforest of Indonesian Papua, and that he had come home a new person. I explained why this was more than just an expression. I told him Peter believed the object had been created by an alien civilization. I told him of Peter’s decades-long attempt to create a software application that would prepare people to communicate with the object when it was found again, and how this endeavor had resulted in his knack for developing useful and lucrative language-related software products. I was still talking when we heard at least one quad bike approaching in the distance.

  I stopped talking and gazed at Jonathan’s face. It was getting too dark to make out his expression.

  “You’ve been very quiet,” I said. “You think I’m crazy?”

  A few seconds later, he said, “I know of your husband. I know of your company, SouthPacificNet. I’ve worked for the company on several occasions, as a freelance software engineer.”

  “You’ve met him? Besides here, I mean.”

  “I don’t know anyone who has met him. He’s considered to be rather eccentric, kind of a recluse.”

  I actually tried to laugh at this, but the fire in my hip cut it off. “Now you understand why. A lot of doctors would like to get their hands on him. He avoids them and just about everyone else.”

  Jonathan seemed to consider this as the quad bikes got closer. Finally, he said, “I’ve never heard of his Kembalimo project. I’d love to help with that. At the risk of sounding boastful, I’m a rather accomplished software engineer. Perhaps I could be useful.”

  “Are you serious? After hearing my story?”

  He didn’t answer. His face was only an oval of blackness.

  “Okay, Jonathan. If I live through this night, I’ll convince him to talk to you.”

  “You’re going to live,” he said.

  The headlights of two quad bikes illuminated the trail. Peter hopped off the back of one before they came to a stop, and he was immediately at my side, gushing over me and thanking Jonathan.

  The ride down the trail was a nightmare of pain, despite the morphine they’d given me. I was strapped to a backboard stretcher attached to one of the quad bikes, but the trail was rough, and progress was slow. Two hours later, I was finally in an ambulance and on my way to Cairns Private Hospital.

  The surgery went well. As well as can be expected considering they had to remove the head and neck of my femur and install a metal replacement. Women don’t die from hip surgery. The real risks come after the surgery, and six days later I developed a complication known as deep venous thrombosis, or DVT. DVT is what almost caused me to leave Peter for good.

  DVT is a blood clot that forms in a deep vein. This is caused by inactivity, which had not been a problem until it was forced upon me by the installation of a titanium femur. DVT is not typically dangerous, but my clot took it upon itself to move into one of my lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism. That’s when things got serious.

  Later, Peter suggested we give the blood clot the name Gunner. It seemed fitting, as the clot was capable of dispensing a devastating blow. My life had been saved by yet another surgery, to remove Gunner. But not before the little bastard had caused the death of a hefty portion of my right lung.

  My prospects of ever seeing the view from Lumley Hill again dropped to nearly zero. I was told I’d be lucky to climb a flight of stairs.

  During my six-week hospital residency, Peter lived in my room. He read novels to me and never tired of providing excruciatingly detailed reports of the happenings at SouthPacificNet. At the end of the first week, Jonathan paid us a visit. Not only had I forgotten I’d promised Jonathan I would convince Peter to talk to him about helping with Kembalimo, I had also neglected to warn Peter about how much I had revealed to Jonathan that night he had sat with me on the Blue Arrow track. Soon after he entered my hospital room, Jonathan awkwardly revealed what he knew. Surprisingly, Peter took it in stride, perhaps because he was interested in Jonathan’s expertise. Or perhaps because Jonathan seemed to actually believe Peter’s story. The two of them started talking about the Kembalimo project, and suddenly I found myself mercifully free of Peter’s relentless doting attentions. I actually took a nap.

  Jonathan returned the next week, and again the week after that. He insisted he had come to check on my recovery progress, but with
in minutes he and Peter would huddle up together and start talking shop. I suggested they might want to meet at Peter’s office, but Peter refused to leave my hospital room. By this time there was an unspoken understanding that Jonathan would be employed by, and working closely with, Peter. Jonathan had an intense interest in the challenges presented by the Kembalimo project. During their discussions at the hospital they developed a basic framework for a web-based language “game” that would allow each user to quickly develop a custom symbolic language based on his or her personal alphanumeric thought processes. As an incentive for completing the game, users could then communicate with any other Kembalimo user in the world, regardless of their native language. With the resources Peter commanded at the time, it would not take long to move from a rough concept to a functioning system.

  It was an exciting development, and for the first time my enthusiasm for the Kembalimo project nearly matched Peter’s. Perhaps this was because Jonathan’s participation seemed to invigorate Peter and distract him from his concerns over my health. Perhaps I was truly beginning to see the importance of the project. Or perhaps I just needed some breathing room. Regardless, I thought his rekindled fervor was wonderful. But as Peter said, my brush with death had me looking at the world through rose-colored lenses. He was becoming rather fond of puns, especially when he was happy.

  6

  Yonks Day – Year 42 – 2019

  I had never wanted to be in the spotlight. That had become Peter’s role, and even after years of being a recluse, he was good at it. And so, on our forty-second Yonks Day, there were no reporters at Mount Whitfield Park. Peter even brought four members of his security team—all of them female at my request—to gently persuade hikers and runners to leave their smartphones and cameras in their cars. Today was an event for me, not for the public.

  Don’t ever let anyone tell you physical therapy is easy. It’s not. It is hard. It is grunt-and-strain-and-spit-and-cry-and-consider-the-ways-you-could-kill-your-personal-trainer hard. Like old age, it’s not for sissies.