Profusion

by Stan C. Smith

  At least for the moment, they were powerless to do anything else. So Quentin said, “Bobby, where is Peter?”

  Bobby didn’t take his eyes off the ground. “Peter’s dead. I was waiting for a better time to tell you.”

  Quentin’s felt his heart start pounding, forcing hot blood into his fingers and toes and making them burn. He started getting light-headed and was forced to suck in a lungful of air.

  “That is unfortunate news,” Samuel said.

  Lindsey said, “And Ashley?”

  Bobby looked up. “She’s fine. She’s in the plane.”

  Something touched Quentin’s leg. It was his mbolop, holding out a lump of its body for him to take. Without hesitating he plucked it from the mbolop’s paw, ate it, and patted the creature’s head. He straightened up and looked back at Bobby. By that time the substance was already kicking in, causing Quentin’s heart rate to return to normal.

  Bobby gazed at him quizzically. But instead of asking about the mbolop, he said, “And Robert died, too. Maybe you never met him, I don’t know. He was nice to us.”

  Lindsey had just accepted an offering from Rusty, and she swallowed it. She closed her eyes for a moment, apparently feeling the same soothing respite Quentin had.

  Bobby frowned. “Are you guys okay?”

  Samuel interjected, “That remains to be seen.”

  Bobby’s frown deepened.

  “We’re fine,” Quentin said. “We can explain later. What happened to Peter and Robert?”

  “They burned up in an explosion that was supposed to kill off all the transforming creatures.” Bobby looked down at his feet for a moment. “But some got out anyway. That’s why we’re here, to make the Lamotelokhai whole again. Maybe it can stop what’s happening.”

  “How far have the transforming beasts spread?” Samuel asked. “I have witnessed the Lamotelokhai succeed in stopping such transformations that had spread for perhaps a square mile. Beyond that, I am not certain the same remedy would suffice.”

  “It’s way bigger than a square mile,” Bobby said. “Way bigger.”

  Samuel sighed. “God help us all.” He turned to Quentin. “You must take the mbolop with you. All of them. And you must take the mbolop talismans. Give them to good people, to those whom you believe to be worth saving. Do not underestimate the importance of the responsibility the indigenes have entrusted to you.”

  Quentin stared at him. “Things can’t be that bad.”

  “But we’re taking them anyway,” Lindsey said. “All of them.” Her eyes met Quentin’s. “Just in case.”

  “I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” Bobby said, “but we don’t have time to take all these tree kangaroos with us. We still have to wait for the Lamotelokhai to come back up, and we need the other data packets. Including his.” He nodded toward Addison.

  So far, Addison had refused to come near the ball of Lamotelokhai clay, and Quentin wasn’t sure how they were going to convince him to put his hand on it.

  “I guess he didn’t get his memory back,” Bobby said. “He kind of acts like a little kid.”

  Quentin exchanged a glance with Lindsey. They had avoided talking about this. Addison had suffered serious brain trauma from the plane crash eight months ago. That had been before his encounter with the Lamotelokhai, and therefore the Lamotelokhai had no knowledge—no complete set of data—of Addison’s healthy body and mind from before the crash. And on top of that, Quentin and Bobby had erased Addison’s memory to stop his murderous rampage. It was a wonder anything was left in his mind at all.

  “It appears that part of your solution has arrived,” Samuel said.

  Quentin looked. The villagers were returning, apparently with the entire tribe. They were approaching slowly, following Sinanie, who was encouraging them not to be afraid. There were six women with them, more than Quentin had ever seen at one time in this tribe. Gradually the group came closer, and they finally formed a circle around Quentin and the others.

  Matiinuo spoke directly to Bobby. “Nokhu mesendipo kholofudamo diabo Lamotelokhai.”

  “They are ready to confer their knowledge to the Lamotelokhai,” Samuel said.

  Bobby looked at the Papuans and shuffled his feet. “Well, um, right now the Lamotelokhai is—”

  “I mbakha!” cried one of the women. She pointed beyond the group, to where Bobby had placed the ball of clay.

  The Lamotelokhai was back, rising from the ground. It was a mound the size of an overturned bowl, but it continued to grow as the villagers gathered around to watch. Finally it stopped—a mound of clay a yard across, the size of the original Lamotelokhai.

  “Excuse me,” Bobby said, and he pushed his way through the onlookers to kneel beside it.

  Quentin watched over the shoulder of one of the shorter villagers.

  Seconds after placing his hands on it, Bobby looked up. “It’s ready now.” His eyes searched the crowd and settled on one of the men. “Teatakan,” he said, and then he gestured toward the clay.

  Teatakan stepped forward and transferred his knowledge to the Lamotelokhai. As he stepped back, the others spoke softly and rubbed his arms and shoulders, praising him.

  Bobby called another name. “Jara.”

  One of the women stepped forward.

  The process continued until Bobby called Kebuge, the last Papuan on the list. The Lamotelokhai had given him no more names. Except Addison’s.

  “It’s his turn,” Bobby said, looking at Quentin and then Lindsey.

  Quentin moved away from the group and spotted Addison. He was still playing games with the tree kangaroos.

  Lindsey stepped up beside Quentin.“I’ll try.” She called out gently, “Addison, please come over here.”

  He stopped what he was doing but didn’t come closer. “I no touch, Mummy!”

  “It won’t hurt you, honey, I promise.”

  Addison dropped to all fours and took a few ape-like steps toward them. But then he stopped and twisted his face into a frightening sneer. “No, Mummy! It hurt me. It hurt me bad!”

  Did Addison actually remember being hurt by it? Did he remember Quentin throwing it at his face, trying to kill him?

  A slight commotion had risen from the villagers behind him, but Quentin was focused on Addison and his own despairing thoughts.

  Addison’s sneer remained, and he crouched like he was about to charge them and attack. At that moment, Quentin realized his son was too broken to live any kind of normal life, even if they somehow managed to get to Puerto Rico and stop the spreading creatures. Addison was too unpredictable. And downright terrifying. The son he had known and loved was gone forever.

  Quentin held both his hands out. “Addison, please don’t be upset.”

  “Hey, Quentin. Lindsey.” It was Bobby. “Maybe this will help.”

  Quentin pulled his eyes away from Addison and turned. Bobby emerged from the gathered villagers. And just behind him was Addison. It was Addison as Quentin wanted to remember him—human and unhurt. He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, the same clothes the Lamotelokhai had been wearing when it was disguised as Addison eight months ago. Quentin knew this figure before him was actually the Lamotelokhai, but seeing it in that form was still like getting punched in the chest. He felt Lindsey grab his arm and squeeze.

  “It’s almost complete now,” Bobby said as he and the Addison copy approached. “I don’t think it can talk out loud yet, but still, I thought this might help with Addison.” He shrugged and half-smiled.

  Suddenly the real Addison was beside Quentin, standing upright. He was staring at the copy of his former self.

  “Who that, Mummy?”

  Lindsey said, “Do you remember him? That’s you. That’s what you looked like before.”

  Addison took a step closer. The thing looked back at him without expression. They both had the same blue eyes, but nothing else in common. “Who you?” Addison said.

  The Lamotelokhai remained silent.

  “Um, there’s some
thing else,” Bobby said. “There were supposed to be twenty-four data packets. But when the Papuans were downloading theirs, I counted them up. There were only nineteen—twenty if you include Addison’s. So I asked the Lamotelokhai about that. It said it was already aware of the situation, because it had put five data packets into Addison.”

  Quentin looked at him. “Five? Why?”

  “I guess because I made it erase Addison’s memory. That’s when it put the five packets in him. Because then there was plenty of room.”

  “Who you?” Addison asked again. He stepped even closer. “Who you!”

  Lindsey spoke softly. “I told you, Addison. That’s what you—”

  Addison attacked the Lamotelokhai. He threw himself upon it so viciously that Quentin grabbed Lindsey’s arm and stumbled backward. The Lamotelokhai fell flat on its back under the weight of the attack, and Addison sank his teeth into its neck. He pulled back, ripping out a large chunk of the neck and tossing it aside. He then pummeled the thing’s face as he snarled and grunted, his arms a blur.

  Lindsey lunged forward and tried pulling Addison off the Lamotelokhai, but Quentin pulled her back. “My God, Addison!” she cried. “Stop!”

  Apparently he didn’t even hear her. He kept pounding. But seconds later his blows slowed down. And then they stopped. He sat there on the Lamotelokhai’s chest, panting and staring down at the thing’s mangled head.

  There was no blood, no exposed bone. Just clay.

  Addison’s chest was heaving from the effort of the attack as he looked up at the crowd surrounding him. His eyes moved from one person to the next. He found Quentin and Lindsey.

  “Dad? Mom?”

  Quentin’s throat went dry, and he struggled to swallow.

  Lindsey said, “Addison, what have you done? Are you okay?”

  Addison looked down at the mutilated figure beneath him. “What is this?” He then seemed to notice his hands—powerful, animal-like fingers encrusted with grime. He let out a pitiful sob. “What’s going on? What happened to me?”

  Quentin was only a few steps away, but he couldn’t get to his son fast enough. He dropped to his knees and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Addison, who am I? Tell me who I am!”

  Tears were starting to form in Addison’s eyes. “You’re my dad. What’s happening? My voice…. What’s happening?”

  The maimed figure on the ground began stirring. Quentin and Lindsey pulled Addison off the Lamotelokhai, and they all settled onto the ground beside each other, watching it. Its face and neck were quickly shifting back to normal. It reached for the chunk of its neck Addison had bitten off and pressed it against its abdomen. The clay particles began moving through the t-shirt, and seconds later the chunk was gone.

  “Mom, Dad, is that the Lamotelokhai? Is that why it looks like me?”

  Quentin said, “You know what the Lamotelokhai is?”

  Before Addison could answer, the fully-recovered Lamotelokhai spoke. “Quentin and Lindsey Darnell. A fascinating sequence of events has brought us together again. Your kind can be interesting and unpredictable. But at this moment, your kind is being destroyed. If you wish for that to occur, I will not interfere. If you wish to prevent it, then I must go to the site of this destruction immediately.”

  Twenty-five

  Before the Lamotelokhai could offer an explanation, Bobby had a hypothesis about what had happened to Addison. “It must have been when we were all together back in Newton, when we made the big announcement about the Lamotelokhai. The other Addison was there, the one who had been in the other copy of the Twin Otter—the plane that had never even crashed. The Lamotelokhai must have touched him and read his memories. That’s what it gave to Addison just now.”

  Quentin, Lindsey, and Addison stared at him, absorbing this.

  “Bobby is correct,” the Lamotelokhai said. “The information I put into your son is the information I collected when I encountered the other Addison. If you wish for me to remove the information, I will do so.”

  “No!” Lindsey said.

  “We’re grateful for what you’ve done,” Quentin said. “We thought we had lost our son.”

  Lindsey turned to Addison. “What’s the last thing you remember, honey?”

  It seemed to take him a moment to realize she was talking to him. “Those people came to our house, the ones who looked just like us. They talked to all the news reporters about the Lamotelokhai. The Lamotelokhai changed its shape. It freaked everyone out.”

  Bobby had replayed that day in his head countless times. It was a day that had changed the world.

  “That was eight months ago,” Quentin said. “What do you remember after that?”

  Addison shook his head. “No, it was today. Or maybe yesterday. But not eight months ago.” He looked at his hands again, and then at the rest of his naked body. “But I also remember things that happened here—living with the mbolop, helping them with their tree houses. What happened to me?”

  Bobby realized this could go on forever. “We need to talk about all this on the plane. People are dying right now.”

  “Again, Bobby is correct,” the Lamotelokhai said. “The process that began while my parts were separated is likely to continue. If you wish for me to attempt to stop it, I must go to the location where it began.”

  “I can just take the Lamotelokhai with me,” Bobby said. “You guys can stay here with Addison if you want.” He looked at the Addison copy. “Are you ready?”

  “We’re going with you,” Lindsey said. “And we’re bringing Addison and all the tree kangaroos. That’s nonnegotiable.”

  ∞

  “What the hell, Bobby?” Ashley was leaning out the aircraft’s hatch as the lift rose up through the canopy.

  Bobby just smiled at her. He wasn’t alone in the lift. Crammed into the four-by-four box were seventeen tree kangaroos, as many as he had been able to fit without stacking them.

  The lift came to a stop, and the mechanical arm retracted, pulling the platform inside. Bobby messed with the latch until he figured out how to open the panel. The tree kangaroos poured out and scattered throughout the cabin, startling everyone. One of the policemen shouted and leapt onto a seat. When he saw what the creatures actually were, he forced out a chuckle that still sounded nervous.

  Suddenly, everyone started asking Bobby questions at once. He held up his hands to stop them. “I don’t know why, but we have to take them with us. And this is only the first load.” He stepped over the open panel into the box and then latched it shut. “I’ll get them loaded as fast as I can.” The lift arm extended, carrying him out the hatch again.

  When the lift was halfway through the door, Ashley grabbed it, stopping its movement. “I’m going with you.”

  “I told you there’s no time for—”

  Suddenly she vaulted over the side of the box. Her knees hit the panel, and she tumbled inside.

  Bobby grabbed her elbow to help her up. “Are you crazy? You could have fallen!”

  “Everything okay?” Captain Kirk called out.

  “We’re fine,” Ashley said. “Take us down please.” The box finished moving out and started dropping.

  She glared at Bobby. “You knew I wanted to go down there. I want to see Samuel. And Sinanie. You should have asked me to get in with you.”

  He stared back at her in disbelief. He was about to ask again if she was crazy, but he held off. She was trembling, either from anger or fear, and she had an intense look he had seen only a few times before. Suddenly a wave of regret washed over him. Why had he treated her that way? He realized she was right—he should have asked her to ride down with him. Her presence on this trip down wouldn’t delay the process if they both waited on the ground as the rest of the tree kangaroos were lifted.

  The platform hit a limb and tipped to one side before sliding off. Ashley held on to one of the cables, never taking her eyes off Bobby’s. She was glaring at him like she wanted to push him over the side, and he grabbed a cable in case she actua
lly did.

  Bobby wanted to say he was sorry, but at this moment those words didn’t seem like enough. “Sometimes I don’t really know the right thing to say. But if you would let me kiss you right now, that’s how I could show you how I feel.”

  Her brows furrowed. The platform hit another limb and momentarily tipped.

  “Apology accepted,” she said. And then she leaned in and pressed her mouth against his so hard it hurt.

  But it hurt for only a second, because then Bobby didn’t even care. Ashley actually put her arms around him, like how they kissed in movies. Her eyes were closed, so he closed his, and this made it even better. She kissed his lips, first his top lip and then his bottom lip, and he kissed hers. Then he felt the tip of her tongue. He touched her tongue with his, and suddenly the kiss went to a whole new level of amazing.

  Bobby was vaguely aware that the rustling of leaves against the descending lift had stopped. They were in the open space beneath the canopy, but he wasn’t about to stop the kiss until Ashley was ready.

  Abruptly, the lift hit the ground.

  “Bobby and Ashley. What a surprise it is to see that you are two people, when only a moment before I would have sworn that I was witnessing one individual with four arms.”

  Bobby released her. His heart was pounding. She stared at him for just a second before turning away.

  “Samuel!” she cried. “I was hoping I’d get to see you.” She started opening the side panel but then stopped. “No freaking way!”

  The lift was surrounded by tree kangaroos.

  “I told you there were more,” Bobby said, still catching his breath. “We have to take all of them.” He looked around. Quentin and Lindsey weren’t in the immediate area. At least he wouldn’t have to explain what had just happened to them.

  Samuel was smiling. “My keen observations suggest that much has happened between the two of you since last I saw you together.”

  Ashley glanced at Bobby. “We’ve been through a lot recently. Bobby saved my life. Of course he almost got me killed, too.” She nudged him with her elbow. “More than once.”