Profusion

by Stan C. Smith

  The aircraft began walking. It turned in a circle, the four insect legs clanking against the tarmac. It then scuttled sideways, directly toward the crowd. Everyone backed away, but the huge cylinder stopped about ten yards out. The hatch opened, the stairs unfolded, and Captain Kirk stepped down.

  He walked up to Bobby, looked at the lump of clay, and then looked Bobby in the eye. A grin appeared on his face, but he quickly got it under control. “I’m not sure you’re the one to ask, but I’d like to request that I be assigned as the pilot of this aircraft.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. But when we’re done with it, we have to leave it here. I already told Mr. Wahid they could keep it.”

  Kirk nodded. “Yes. I could stay here. I don’t have a family back home.” He held Bobby’s gaze and didn’t blink. Apparently he was serious.

  Wahid approached them. “Bobby Truex. You have proven yourself to be very convincing. If you wish to have our assistance, I am sure we can come to an agreement.”

  ∞

  One problem solved, Bobby thought as he gazed out the window at the jungle canopy silently racing by below. The windows had not been noticeable from outside the aircraft but appeared only slightly tinted from the inside. And the seats—they were paper-thin so they could fold down flat as the nested cylinders of the cabin slid over each other, but they were surprisingly comfortable. Right now the plane was short, because only eight people were on board: Captain Kirk, Jonathan, Bobby, Ashley, Carlos, Mr. Wahid, and two of the soldiers. However, the plane could be stretched out longer for when there were more passengers.

  One problem solved, but how many more were ahead of them? And even if they succeeded, would it all be too late?

  Before taking off, Bobby had called Quentin and Lindsey on their SAT phone. Miraculously, they had found Addison and had just returned to the hanging village. Bobby had told them to wait at the village and to leave their SAT phone on, even though the phone’s battery charge was low. He assured them that he and the others would be there in less than an hour. Then there had been a ten-minute delay as Jonathan had tracked down the right person in Peter’s corporation who could obtain the coordinates of the SAT phone, followed by another ten-minute delay as the lump of Lamotelokhai clay reconfigured the new aircraft’s controls with GPS tracking. Now that they were finally in the air, they could easily achieve Bobby’s one-hour estimate.

  Jonathan came back from the forward-facing cockpit—there were identical cockpits at both ends of the aircraft—and sat beside Bobby. “Kirk says we’re one minute out from the location. You’ve been to the hanging village. How do you suggest we do this?”

  Bobby had already questioned the lump of clay about how the aircraft could drop off and pick up passengers when the dense trees wouldn’t allow it near the ground. Apparently the clay had anticipated this difficulty. Either that, or it had reconfigured the plane at the moment Bobby had asked, because it said this wouldn’t be a problem.

  “Let’s stop just above the trees at two hundred yards from their SAT phone,” Bobby said, loud enough for Captain Kirk to hear. “And then I need to go down there by myself.”

  “You’re not going by yourself,” Ashley said. She was sitting beside him. “I’m going with you.”

  Carlos said, “Yep, I’m going too.”

  “And I would like to see the village,” Jonathan said. “I’ve wanted to since Peter told me about the place.”

  Wahid was watching them intently from a nearby seat. “We will all go together. I wish to see what it is that you need from our forest.”

  Bobby looked from one of them to the next. He felt the aircraft come to a stop, hovering in midair. He swallowed and looked directly at Ashley. “No.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m going with you.”

  He scooped up the lump of clay and got up. “I plan to be back in half an hour. There isn’t time.”

  She grabbed his wrist and squeezed so hard it hurt. Her eyes were intense.

  “Please, Ash. If you go, everyone will go. We don’t have time. Can you help me with this?”

  She glared at him, but her features gradually softened. She nodded slightly and released his wrist. “He’s right. We don’t have time. Bobby goes alone.”

  Mr. Wahid started to protest, but Ashley cut him off. “If you want to keep this goddamn plane, let us do what we came here to do!”

  The two soldiers stood up, gripping their assault rifles. But Wahid waved to them to sit back down. “Very well,” he said. “We do not wish to interfere with your work. Do what you must.”

  Bobby went to the hatch, and it opened, perhaps automatically or perhaps because Captain Kirk had triggered it. The air outside the plane was silent, and Bobby realized the jet-blades were no longer blasting. He leaned out the hatch. The canopy formed an almost solid sea of green just below. The air smelled of moisture and living things. The scent was familiar to him, although it had been eight months since he’d been here last. Puzzled by how the plane could be hovering with the engines shut off, he looked below. The thin legs of the aircraft extended down through the canopy, probably all the way to the ground, which must have been at least 50 yards below the aircraft.

  He turned and looked at Captain Kirk, who was watching him from the open cockpit.

  “Ready for deployment?” Kirk said.

  Bobby nodded, and the pilot turned back to his array of controls.

  A portion of the interior ceiling just inside the hatch came loose and dropped slowly to the floor, suspended by four cables, one attached at each corner. The flat platform was about four feet long on each side. It was white, and Bobby couldn’t tell if it was made of metal or plastic. As it settled onto the floor, it became obvious it had several layers, each layer hinged to one of the four sides. It seemed everything in this aircraft was made to fold up flat. The top panel suddenly popped up and clicked into place vertically. The panel beneath popped up and locked into place beside it, followed by the third. When the fourth panel popped up, it flipped all the way out until it was flat on the floor. The platform was now a three-sided box, with the fourth side lying open as if inviting someone to enter. Bobby stepped in. The last wall didn’t pop up on its own, so Ashley stepped forward, lifted it, and snapped it into place. Bobby jiggled the four walls. They seemed secure.

  The cables retracted, lifting the box and Bobby off the floor. The section of the ceiling where the cables converged then began sliding out the top of the hatch, taking the box with it. Holding the lump of clay in one hand, Bobby used his other hand to grab one of the cables and steady himself. Seconds later there was nothing beneath Bobby and the platform but the green leaves of the forest canopy and the open space below that. The cables now seemed ridiculously thin, particularly since they all merged into one cable above his head.

  Bobby looked back at the hatch. Ashley and Jonathan were there, watching him. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, with Quentin, Lindsey, and Addison.” The box began to drop.

  “Be careful, Bobby,” Ashley said, just before he lost sight of her through the vegetation.

  The box collided with a limb, but then it tipped to the side until it slid off and continued dropping. As Bobby passed through the canopy, he lost sight of the bright sunlight and entered the murky world of a primeval tropical forest. Finally, the box touched down on the forest floor. Bobby fumbled with the panel Ashley had locked into place, but he couldn’t figure it out, so he just climbed over.

  “Bobby, you really are here!”

  He spun around. It was Lindsey. She was running toward him, and right behind her was Quentin. Bobby was nearly knocked off his feet as he was smothered by hugs.

  “It’s good to see you guys, too, but we need to—”

  “We’re so glad you’re okay!”

  “How in the world did you get here so fast?”

  “What’s up with your hair?”

  “Guys!” Bobby shouted. “We can do all this later. Right now we really need to hurry. Can you just take me to the Pap
uans?”

  They both stepped back. “How bad is it?” Quentin asked.

  Bobby tucked the lump of clay under his arm. “You don’t even want to know.”

  Both of them frowned. “Okay, this way,” Lindsey said.

  “Wait.” Bobby held out the clay. “I need you guys to put your hands on this. Who’s first?”

  ∞

  Several minutes later they were walking to the hanging village. Symbols kept appearing before Bobby eyes. “More knowledge now, more help.”

  Bobby didn’t see any need to figure out what sort of help the Lamotelokhai could offer now, given that it would have all its knowledge back soon.

  The village was mostly invisible from the forest floor, as it had always been. But Samuel was waiting for them on the ground. And Sinanie was with him, as well as three other villagers Bobby recognized as Matiinuo, Korul, and Ot.

  “Young Master Bobby,” Samuel said as he shook Bobby’s hand. “It brings me great pleasure to see that you are well.”

  “Bobby, sikh mayokh,” Sinnanie said in his high-pitched, singsong voice. Matiinuo, Korul, and Ot each repeated the same words.

  “They welcome you as a fine friend,” Samuel said.

  Bobby nodded. “Thank you.” He looked around. “Where’s Addison? You said you had found him.”

  “He disappeared when we heard your aircraft approaching,” Quentin said, looking around at the surrounding forest.

  Lindsey cupped a hand to her mouth. “Addison! Bobby is here. Don’t you want to come see him?”

  They all waited, watching and listening. A cloud of flies was buzzing above their heads but did not descend upon them to bite. Occasionally they heard the wick-you-wick call of a honeyeater.

  “Don’t be alarmed by his appearance,” Lindsey said softly.

  Suddenly, Bobby saw movement. Something was coming. But the movement was spread out, more than just one person or creature. He caught a glimpse of a tree kangaroo, and then another, and another. It was a whole herd of tree kangaroos, and more kept coming. There were hundreds. In the middle of the herd he saw a larger creature, walking on its feet and knuckles like an ape.

  Bobby recognized the figure immediately. It was Addison, looking the same as he had the last time Bobby had seen him, when Bobby had been given the task of killing him but had devised to erase his memory instead. Addison looked as fierce and dangerous as he had before, and Bobby had to fight the urge to turn and run.

  The horde of tree kangaroos surrounded their group. Addison stopped a few yards out and stood erect.

  Bobby took a deep breath. “Hi, Addison. Do you remember me?”

  Addison grimaced, showing long teeth. Maybe it was a smile? Then he said, “Remember Bobby.” His voice was recognizable but not quite human. “You come for your mbolop, Bobby?”

  Bobby glanced at Quentin and Lindsey, unsure what Addison meant by this.

  Quentin said, “He’s asking if you came here to get your own mbolop.” He nodded toward Lindsey’s feet.

  Bobby looked. A tree kangaroo was sitting there, actually leaning against Lindsey’s leg. Another one sat between Quentin’s feet, and still another was crouched beside Addison’s abnormally short legs.

  “We’ll explain soon,” Quentin said. He then turned to Addison. “Yes, Bobby will get his own mbolop. But first he has some things he needs to do. When all of this is finished, we’ll all go home together. Are you ready to go home?”

  Addison grimaced again. “We go home. Take mbolop home, too.”

  Bobby held the remains of the Lamotelokhai out in front of him. He spoke to it silently. “Now it’s time to give you back the rest of your knowledge. You’ll be complete again.”

  Symbols appeared. “More knowledge now, more help.”

  One of the mbolop hopped forward and stopped at Bobby’s feet.

  Bobby took one look and crouched down. “Mbaiso! It’s you! Long time no see, buddy.”

  Mbaiso ignored him and extended his snout closer to the lump of clay.

  Bobby held it out to him. “You remember this?”

  Mbaiso pressed his nose against the clay. After several seconds he pulled back and stared at it. He opened his mouth slightly and emitted a soft, whining bleat.

  Twenty-four

  Quentin stared, trying to digest what Bobby had just described. Quentin’s mbolop sensed his rising fear and leaned into his leg, which was comforting.

  Lindsey said, “They’re transforming into animals?”

  Bobby nodded. “Yeah, but when you put it that way, it sounds almost fun. But it was a nightmare—is a nightmare. We don’t have time to talk about this. I told them we’d be back to the plane soon.” He turned to Samuel. “The Lamotelokhai put some information in your mind, and in the minds of the villagers. It did that in case of an emergency. Now it needs the information back so it can—”

  Samuel held up a hand to cut him off. “I am familiar with the notion. I know that the indigenes carry within them the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge. But I assure you that I possess no such knowledge.”

  Bobby shook his head. “It put the knowledge into you without you knowing, just like it did to the rest of us.”

  “He’s right,” Quentin said. “Lindsey and I had no idea, but the information was there.”

  After a bit more convincing, Samuel finally agreed to place his hand on the clay. His eyes grew wide when the process started. “Extraordinary!” He exclaimed.

  A minute later it was complete. He pulled his hand back and stared at it for a moment. He then turned to Sinanie and the three other villagers and began explaining in their language. The villagers listened, enthralled. They talked back and forth, and then Sinanie placed his hand on the clay. When the transfer was complete, he spoke rapidly to his companions, and they followed his lead and began transferring their information.

  As they did this, Quentin watched Addison, who had apparently gotten bored with all the talk and was playing a game with Newton and the other tree kangaroos. The game involved Addison covering his eyes while Newton watched the other creatures. Quentin looked down at his own mbolop. His newfound connection to the creature was extraordinarily powerful, but so far it hadn’t involved shared vision or any other shared senses. Regardless, he felt a constantly-elevated level of physical and mental well-being, comparable to how he had felt during the best moments of his entire life, such as the day he had married Lindsey, or the day Addison had come home as an infant from the hospital. Perhaps this was due to eating numerous bits of the mbolop’s body, which it had been periodically extracting and giving to him since they had paired up earlier that morning. Whatever the cause, he was confident his new state of mind was not in any way harmful, in spite of his previous misgivings about pairing up with one of the creatures. Soon he would have to come up with a suitable name for his mbolop.

  He looked over at Lindsey and realized she was watching him. She nodded, as if she understood what was going through his mind. But when she turned to look at the others, he saw subtle lines of concern in her features. Bobby’s news had her scared, and Quentin’s thoughts shifted back to the current situation.

  He turned to Bobby. “What else can we do to help the Lamotelokhai?”

  Bobby was still holding the clay as Matiinuo transferred his information to it. Matiinuo was the last of the four Papuans to do this.

  “We have to get the rest of the data packets,” Bobby replied. “We still need packets from Teatakan, Jara, Rossa, Sirizo, Yerema, Kumbi, Ankara, Owa, and Kebuge.” He nodded over Quentin’s shoulder. “And Addison.”

  “Addison?” Lindsey turned her head suddenly.

  “That’s what the Lamotelokhai told me.”

  Samuel spoke to the villagers, repeating the Papuan names Bobby had listed. They talked back and forth and then quickly walked off in different directions.

  “Young man,” Samuel said to Bobby,” you have restored to the villagers a great sense of responsibility and resolve. For centuries they have been stewards of the
Lamotelokhai’s knowledge, carrying it within them always so that it could be procurable upon an occasion of need. But no such occasion has heretofore offered an opportunity such as you have offered today. I dare say you have conferred upon them a spring to the step and a gleam to the eye.”

  Bobby was staring at the ball of clay in his hands and didn’t seem to be paying attention. He looked up at Samuel. “Sorry, it was talking to me. It needs to make more of its particles before it can handle the rest of the data packets. It’s too small, I guess.” He carried it to the base of a tree and carefully placed it on the ground. He then whispered to the clay, too quietly for Quentin to be able to hear what he was saying. Bobby backed away from it, and Quentin, Lindsey, and Samuel gathered beside him to watch.

  “It can talk to you?” Quentin asked.

  “Yeah, but only with Kembalimo symbols. It gets easier to communicate every time it gets another data packet.”

  “It’s shrinking,” Lindsey said. “Is it supposed to do that?”

  She was right. The clay had flattened out against the ground.

  “It told me it would,” Bobby said. “It has to spread out to find the stuff it needs. I tried to make it promise it would come back, but I’m not sure it knows what a promise is.”

  As they watched, the clay continued flattening until it was a thin film. It then sank into the leaf litter and soil, virtually disappearing.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Bobby said, still staring at the ground.