Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Edition With Illustrations (A Classic Illustrated Novel of Charlotte Brontë) Illustrated
Author: Charlotte Brontë
Date: 1847-10-16 04:57:00+00:00
Keywords: Classics; Fiction; Romance; Historical Fiction; Gothic; Literature; Historical; School; 19th Century; Novels
Description: Initially published under the pseudonym Currer Bell in 1847, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyreerupted onto the English literary scene, immediately winning the devotion of many of the world’s most renowned writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, who declared it a work “of great genius.” Widely regarded as a revolutionary novel, Brontë’s masterpiece introduced the world to a radical new type of heroine, one whose defiant virtue and moral courage departed sharply from the more acquiescent and malleable female characters of the day. Passionate, dramatic, and surprisingly modern, Jane Eyre endur

Diffusion Box Set

An Alien First Contact Adventure Series

Stan C. Smith

Contents

Foreword

DIFFUSION

Diffusion

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Review Request

Papuan Language Guide

Acknowledgments

INFUSION

Infusion

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Review Request

Papuan Language Guide

Research Sources

Acknowledgments

PROFUSION

Profusion

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Review Request

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgments

SAVAGE

Savage

Foreword

1. February 16, 1868

2. February 17, 1868

3. February 22, 1868

4. March 6, 1868

5. April 4, 1868

6. April 16, 1868

7. April 20, 1868

8. April 21, 1868

9. April 22, 1868

10. April 23, 1868

11. April 24, 1868

12. April 28, 1868

13. May 5, 1868

14. May 14, 1868

15. May 21, 1868

16. May 24, 1868

17. May 26, 1868

18. June 1, 1868

19. April 24, 1944

Review Request

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgments

BLUE ARROW

1. Peter

2. Yonks Day – Year 1 – 1978

3. Yonks Day – Year 13 – 1990

4. Yonks Day – Year 22 – 1999

5. Yonks Day – Year 36 – 2013

6. Yonks Day – Year 42 – 2019

7. Yonks Day – Year 51 – 2028

Review Request

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Wait, there’s more!

Also by Stan C. Smith

Foreword

Thanks for taking a chance on my Diffusion series. If you enjoy mysterious discoveries, wilderness adventures, science fiction, or imaginative tales of first contact, this series will be right up your alley.

This box set includes all books that are currently in the Diffusion series. I may eventually write another book that directly follows PROFUSION, but for now this is the entire series.

Here is a quick explanation. The core story consists of DIFFUSION, INFUSION, and PROFUSION. These are Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3. They tell the story of Quentin, Lindsey, Bobby, Addison, and a few others who encounter an amazing object, or entity, called the Lamotelokhai.

As you read these three books, you will become familiar with a fascinating character named Samuel Inwood. Samuel plays a crucial role in the overall story. And the unique book, SAVAGE, tells the story of how Samuel first encountered the Lamotelokhai in 1868. SAVAGE is written in a different style compared to the other books. It is actually Samuel’s field notebook. So you get a first-hand account of his harrowing experiences in the wilderness, as told from the viewpoint of a Victorian English gentleman naturalist.

You will also become familiar with another fascinating character, Peter Wooley. Peter encountered the Lamotelokhai many years after the events of SAVAGE but several decades before the events of DIFFUSION, INFUSION, and PROFUSION. The novella, BLUE ARROW is Peter Wooley’s story, as told by his amazing wife, Rose.

Many people have asked what is the best order in which to read the five books. For this box set, I have arranged the books in the following order: DIFFUSION, INFUSION, PROFUSION, SAVAGE, and BLUE ARROW. SAVAGE and BLUE ARROW are arranged after the other novels, even though they are actually prequels. I did this on purpose, because I think you’ll enjoy SAVAGE and BLUE ARROW more if you have at least read DIFFUSION and PROFUSION first.

To be honest, I personally think the best order in which to read these books would be the following: DIFFUSION, INFUSION, SAVAGE, BLUE ARROW, and then PROFUSION.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy them all!

Copyright © 2015 by Stan Smith

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Note to the Reader

The indigenous Papuans in Diffusion speak one of approximately 800 languages known to exist on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. At the end of this book there is a guide to the dialogue of the villagers. You may enjoy referring to it occasionally as you read the book.

In the text of the novel, each word or phrase is referenced by number, and the numbers correspond to the phrases in the language guide at the end of the book.

To those who still believe there is wonder
in what is undiscovered.

Diffusion

Definition:

the transmission of elements or features of one culture to another

Chapter One

Irian Jaya, Indonesia

Peter Wooley was no longer willing to die. Closing his eyes against thorns and stinging sweat, he stumbled through forest understory so dense that running was impossible. He had slipped out of the village undetected, but there was little chance of losing the tribe’s best hunters once they discovered his absence. If he could make it to the river and then cross without drowning, perhaps they would give up and let him go. And if he could somehow trek sixty miles to the coast without survival gear, he might then formulate a plan to prepare the world for what he had seen. Cruelly, he had been given a reason, but almost no chance, to survive.

Peter stumbled and fell. He rolled onto his back, sucking in the viscous air hanging over the forest floor. Sunlight pierced the canopy here and there, but otherwise he stared at a solid ceiling of vegetation that was unrelenting, stretching for miles in every direction and broken only by the occasional river. Peter’s breathing gradually slowed. The constant trilling of insects soothed him and pulled his thoughts from despair to hope. Perhaps he might live to see his dear Rose. He had something to offer her now, a gift like no other. For years he had given his wife little more than heartache and concern over his disregard for his own life. She deserved more than that. Peter was a reckless wanderer with a habit of planning ever-more-perilous ventures before even completing the previous one. As Rose would say, he was willing to die for the sake of a thrill. And this time he had gone too far—a solo walkabout into the remotest forest, itself potentially fatal, but then derailed by an astonishing encounter.

There was movement above. A cat-sized creature launched itself from one tree to another, its long tail held rigid as ballast. It was a tree kangaroo, common in the forests of Irian Jaya, but Peter was sure this variety was unknown to science. The local villagers had domesticated it, and its presence above him indicated that they were likely in pursuit. Peter struggled to his feet. He had to keep moving.

He plunged headlong into a dense patch of plum pines, the trees tearing his skin and clothing. Something tugged at his throat, and the cord around his neck snapped. He turned in time to see a figurine slide from the ensnared cord and fall to the ground. It was a stone carving of a tree kangaroo—the same creature he had just seen in the flesh. For a moment he considered going back for it, then he looked to the trees above and spotted the real tree kangaroo. It stared back at him briefly and then headed back the way it had come, leaping agilely between tree limbs.

Peter cursed to himself. It was going to lead the tribesmen straight to him. Leaving the figurine, he emerged from the plum pines and broke into a run, only to be forced to skirt around another patch of them.

“Peter!”

Peter stopped cold. Samuel stood before him in his skin shorts and oddly gleaming vest. Peter felt a flame of hope. After all, Samuel had convinced the villagers to spare Peter’s life in the first place.

“Samuel, I had to leave! I wanted to say goodbye, but I couldn’t risk it. The others—do they know I’ve left?”

Samuel stepped closer, his expression grim. “They are aware. You must know you cannot leave this place. You cannot bring others here; it is not yet time.”

Peter scanned the forest but saw no sign of the tribe’s hunters. “They’ll kill me, won’t they? You can stop them. Please, Samuel! I can’t stay here.”

The man shook his head. “If I am to endeavor to save your life, you must agree to remain. Stay here with me, Peter. There is much for us to do.”

Peter considered the offer. No doubt, there was much work to do. In fact, this was an absurd understatement. The substance the villagers possessed and protected was beyond Peter’s comprehension. He was no more equipped to make progress with it than Samuel was—or the tribesmen, for that matter. No, it was too big. They needed help. He had to get back to civilization. He backed away from Samuel.

“All I ask is that you give me a chance. Try to hold them off.”

Samuel’s face showed genuine alarm. “Do not, Peter. I beg you.”

Peter’s heart sank as he realized Samuel wasn’t going to help. He shook his head in regret and turned to run. Suddenly he realized a man was blocking his path. Peter glimpsed a familiar array of green lorikeet feathers in the man’s hair, but by the time his brain registered recognition, it was too late to stop. Sinanie’s spear pierced his gut. Peter grasped the shaft, but the man rushed forward, forcing him back and driving the spear deeper.

Peter tripped and fell onto his back. Sinanie pinned him down, forcing the spear in until the ground beneath him stopped it. The pain exploded and escaped as a garbled yelp. Peter could not move, and it became difficult to breathe. Strangely, what came to his mind was the meal he had shared with Sinanie only the day before. He wanted to speak, to explain to Sinanie that, for the first time in his life, he was afraid to die. But words wouldn’t form, and they wouldn’t be understood anyway. Sinanie stood above him, gazing coolly into his eyes. Slowly, the tribesman smiled. It wasn’t a taunting smile. It was more like a small kindness.

Sinanie wasn’t alone now. There were two others—maybe three. They intended to kill him, and they would do more than that. There were different measures of death. Peter knew this now; he had seen it with his own eyes. They would make sure his body wouldn’t heal and would never leave this place. Rose would never know that he had almost become an important man.

One of the men dropped his spear and picked up a club-sized tree limb. He hefted the limb a few times, assessing its balance, and then swung it at Peter. The blow glanced off Peter’s forehead. Stunned, but still conscious, Peter stared at the unrelenting canopy above. In the few seconds before more blows would come, he tried to imagine that he was relieved it was finally over, that he had done all he could. But he knew he hadn’t.

* * *

From its perch in a coral bean tree, the tree kangaroo peered over its twitching snout at the scene below. Clubs pounded flesh until the flesh was no longer a man. And still the clubbing went on. Swirling dust and flying drops of fluid sparkled in shafts of sunlight in the small clearing. Visible light and energy of other wavelengths reflected and transmitted a brutal, but meticulous, task. Tremors from violent blows coursed through soil and up the dense wood of the bean tree to clutching paws. Vocalizations and pheromones made their way to the creature’s ears and nostrils, adding to the scene an emotional layer of determination diluted by regret.

The creature filtered the incoming data, discarding certain parts and wrapping the rest into a coherent package of understanding. Cognitive feelers probed the package, twisting and shuffling layers, teasing out subtleties of meaning and ultimate consequences. The arrival of the man, Peter, had been significant. He had been almost equipped for what was needed. Now the man no longer existed, but perhaps he could still be important.

The tree kangaroo turned away from the laboring tribesmen. It leapt from tree to tree until it arrived at the churning brown river the villagers called Méanmaél.1 By reverse-hopping, claws digging into tree bark, it descended to the water’s edge and began gathering raw materials: decaying vegetation, chewed leaves, soil scraped from the forest floor, and water.

The creature worked without urgency because time was inconsequential. Others would find their way here. It was only a matter of waiting.

Chapter Two

Papua (formerly Irian Jaya)

42 Years Later

Standing dead center in the Last Unknown, Quentin Darnell closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of ancient secrets. This experience was not possible back home, where every living or extinct organism had long been scrutinized and classified. Here, in the Central Highlands of Papua—sometimes called the Last Unknown—every breath yielded odors given off by microbes, worms, insects, and plants not yet identified. Which was exactly why they had come.

The others were approaching, so Quentin retreated deeper into the forest. As he moved through a stand of pandanus, a buzzing call, like a cicada, captured his attention. He spotted a most remarkable bird eyeing him from a low branch. It was a bird-of-paradise, but Quentin could not recall the specific type. Its black head, against a yellow chest and wings, was striking enough, but what gave the creature its impossible appearance were the half-meter-long blue feathers protruding from each side of its head. The feathers resembled curved, serrated swords folded over the bird’s back and trailing behind. It was only a few meters away, and Quentin stood motionless to avoid spooking it. The characteristic noise of the group he’d been traveling with usually prevented such encounters, especially with animals as rare as this one.

Suddenly, the bird ducked its head, forcing the two swords to lift from its back. It dipped lower, and the swords swept forward before slowly arching backward again. It repeated the motion, and with each dip the feathers stabbed forward even more, until they finally pointed straight toward Quentin.

Voices broke the silence, disrupting the bird’s mesmerizing face-off with Quentin. It fluttered away, its display feathers trailing behind, iridescent in the sunlight. Quentin sighed. The encounter had lasted less than a minute, but it would likely be the most serene experience he would have all day.

The boisterous chatter drew nearer. Any human voices would have been intrusive here, but these bore the tenor of American teenagers. One voice—it was Russ Wade—rose above the others.

“Mr. Darnell, are you taking a dump?”

Abruptly the entire group was upon him. Seven students, ranging from fourteen to seventeen, from eighth to eleventh grade, and Lindsey, Quentin’s wife and colleague.

Lindsey emerged from the brush into Quentin’s clearing first, leading the others. Her wavy, caramel-blond hair was still fresh from the air-conditioned ride in the minibus, and she wore a teasing smirk on her face, apparently pleased at having crashed Quentin’s party.

Russ flashed his amiable grin and cartoonish eyes, making it impossible for Quentin to be mad at him. “You should’ve gone at the losmen,” he said, still at high volume.

Ashley said, “Wow, you’re funny Russ. Maybe consider shutting the hell up?”

Miranda, Ashley’s best friend, frowned at her harshness. She said to Russ, “We just don’t want you to scare off the animals.”

Russ wasn’t fazed. “Oh, you girls want to see animals? I thought you just came to see the horims.” The other boys chuckled at the reference to the penis gourds worn by Papuan men, sometimes their only article of clothing. The teenagers discussed the gourds endlessly.

Ashley shaded her eyes and scanned the surrounding forest in a mock gesture. “Miranda, did you just hear a talking penis?”

Quentin glanced at Lindsey. She had a knack for intervening when the students’ banter crossed the line, and he had a habit of letting her deal with it.

“Hey!” Lindsey shouted over the ensuing laughter. “This is our last field day, and we’re wasting time.”

Lindsey was right; they’d stretched their legs after the long ride, and it was time to get started. As they walked back to the minibus to collect the gear, Quentin mustered his enthusiasm to motivate the students once more. The kids were natives to a society of online computer games, where patience was as rare as a bird-of-paradise. Quentin also made a silent wish for this final day to go without incident. For three previous summers, he and Lindsey had brought students to the Central Highlands with no mishaps. Papua was an ambitious destination for a Missouri public school district, and more than one administrator had tried to stop the field trips. But Quentin’s passionate requests to the School Board, emphasizing his deep connection to this place, had so far worked. Nevertheless, one fractured ankle or one case of chikungunya or malaria would bring it all to an end. It could even bring an end to his job.

At the minibus, Quentin said, “This is it, folks. We’ve talked up Lorentz Park for weeks. Today, you’ll have your last chance to see things nobody has ever seen.”

The eighth graders, Bobby, Carlos, and Quentin’s own son, Addison, were attentive. The older kids were at least quiet. “Roberto and Russ, you guys are on insects today. Ashley and Miranda, you’re on plants. Addison, Bobby, and Carlos, you guys are on vertebrates.”

Bobby beamed. He punched Addison’s shoulder. “Vertebrates! What’d I tell you?”

Addison was slight-framed, pale, and rarely physical. He frowned and rubbed the spot on his shoulder. But then he held up his smartphone tablet, showing the mammal guide home screen. Quentin smiled at this. It was usually a struggle to get his son to use that damn thing for anything except Kembalimo, the language game that had become so popular the last few years.2 Addison and Bobby were developing a friendship, and Addison could definitely use a friend, especially one like Bobby.

Bobby was among Quentin’s favorite students. The boy was perpetually enthusiastic, in spite of his struggles with schoolwork and his parents’ recent thorny divorce. Bobby was the only student who had actually earned his place on this trip. Two years ago, he’d shown up in Quentin’s classroom after school, having heard about the previous summer’s trip. He had asked an astounding number of questions and then had declared he would earn the money to pay his own way for the trip by the end of his eighth grade year. It had taken Bobby two years to do it, but here he was. The other students were here because their parents had paid for it, including Quentin and Lindsey’s son, Addison.

Markus, their hired driver, slid from the minibus and straightened to his full height, six inches shorter than Quentin. Black skin and strong features indicated he was native Papuan, rather than Indonesian. Markus kept a tireless running commentary in mixed pidgin and English. Having driven taxis in Jayapura, the capital city of Papua province, he was amused by the odd activities of this group.

“I will help you today,” he said. “We will find many kumul.”

Quentin glanced at Lindsey. On their first day, they had taken Markus up on his offers to help, only to discover that he seemed to hate the forest and everything in it. When the kids had searched for reptiles, including snakes, he’d started referring to them as longlongman or longlongmeri, which meant crazy man or woman.

“No thanks, Markus,” Lindsey said. “We’ll be fine.”

Lindsey took the older kids into the forest, and Quentin took the eighth-grade boys in another direction. They had agreed to stay within shouting distance of each other and the minibus, so before they had gone too far, Quentin stopped at a clearing and waited. The boys sat on the ground, succumbing to this familiar ritual.

At first it seemed quiet. There was no breeze, and the only sounds were from living, moving things. Feeding lorikeets shrieked in the distance. There was faint scratching, claws against wood, possibly a rat or possum. Nearer, they heard motion in the leaf litter—first to one side, then everywhere. Spiders seeking prey, snails gliding, millipedes and pillbugs rummaging through an endless food supply of decaying leaves, and insects of all conceivable forms, performing all conceivable functions. With each passing heartbeat, countless legs scuffled, antennae tapped and tasted, and mandibles and fangs crushed and killed.

“Did you hear that?” Quentin scanned the canopy with exaggerated movements. “That could be the Mbaiso!”

Bobby’s eyes widened. “What’s an Um-bay-zo?”

Quentin lowered his voice. “Mbaiso is Moni for ‘forbidden animal.’ The Moni say they are ancestors, returned in a different form.” He paused. “If you find one, supposedly it can look into your past.”

“Really?” Bobby whispered. Addison said, “Yeah, right.”

They sat quietly. The chuckling of a honeyeater filtered through the trees.

“Have you seen one?” Carlos asked.

Quentin shook his head. “Only young people can see them, and they only appear if you have a deep love of the forest. The Mbaiso can tell these things about people.”

The boys rolled their eyes, but they quickly rose to their feet, eager to start searching.

* * *

The next three hours passed quickly. The boys saw only two mammals: a rat that quickly scampered away, and a cuscus—a type of possum—high in the canopy.

The highlight of the day was a tree python, bright green with buttercup yellow spots. Addison had found it as he relieved himself in the brush. He’d yelled so loud that Lindsey, her students, and Markus came running. The python then became the most photographed snake in the Baliem Valley. At this point, the teachers decided it was time to head back.

Streaks of afternoon sunlight painted the forest as the group made their way to the minibus. The day’s activities had reduced the exhausted students’ chatter to occasional comments as they walked. Miranda and Ashley led the way, but Quentin stayed close behind. The two girls were best friends, but their differences had become apparent to Quentin during the trip. Both girls were popular at school, but Quentin now suspected this was due to their combined personalities. Miranda’s syrupy sensitivity acted as a buffer to Ashley’s rough edges and temper. Together, they were balanced, even remarkable. Apart, their peers would probably marginalize them.

Miranda stepped over a fallen tree and then brushed debris from her pant leg. “I so need a shower. Things are crawling under my clothes.”

Russ was five meters behind, but he still heard her. “You need help getting them out?”

“Whatever, Russ.”

“What does it mean, whatever?” Markus said. But then he stopped walking. His eyes were fixed on the forest ahead.

Miranda saw them first. “Look, there are people.”

Four men emerged from the shadows. Markus spoke a greeting in Dani, but the men approached without answering. In Wamena, the town the Americans used for their home base, many Papuans could be seen wearing a combination of traditional dress and items influenced by the 21st century: a pair of shorts, a wristwatch, even a PVC pipe worn as a horim. But the men approaching them now had no ornaments or implements of modern origin.

Instead of the longer decorative horims seen in Wamena, these men wore short gourds cinched against their abdomens—the functional apparel of active hunters. Brown feathers from the wings of cassowaries fanned out from their headbands. Their noses held ornaments that appeared to be heads of black beetles, the oversized mandibles piercing the septum. Each man held a bow and several long arrows. Disfigured, flaking skin covered most of one man’s legs. Quentin recognized this as Grile, caused by ringworm and easily treated where medical supplies were available. Their bodies were greased from the waist up, something Quentin had only seen in mock battles enacted for tourists.

The men ignored Markus and focused on the Americans. They began talking to each other. Markus looked at Quentin and shrugged.

Quentin tried Indonesian. “Selamat. Siapa namanya? Dimana?”

The men showed no understanding.

Markus spoke again, this time apparently digging into his knowledge of Papuan languages, and he exchanged some words with them.

“These men are going to Wamena,” Markus said. “They talk about killing.”

Quentin’s gut tightened. Papua was an Indonesian province with a history of political injustices and violent resistance by the indigenous Papuans. Bringing students here a few decades ago would have been unthinkable. But tourism was common now, and typically the Papuans were friendly to visitors. “Tell them we don’t want any trouble.”

One of the tribesmen extended a sinewy hand and grasped Ashley’s dark, curly hair. She tensed. The man rubbed the hair between his fingers, as if judging its coarseness.

“Ashley, relax,” Miranda said. She smiled and placed her hand on her chest. “My name is Miranda.”

The man released Ashley’s hair and grasped one of Miranda’s breasts through her shirt. Miranda’s smile transformed into a stricken expression.

“Miranda meri, don’t be afraid,” Markus said, his voice unusually high. “They will go away soon; you will see.”

The Papuan turned back to Ashley and reached for her breast, too.

Ashley blocked with her elbow. “Don’t touch me, asshole!”

She then wheeled and slapped the man’s face. The Papuan’s head wrenched, and his feathered headdress flipped to the ground.

The forest clearing became deathly still.

Ashley stood defiant, her face red and fists clenched. The man recovered from his shock and lunged at her, ranting and pointing his finger. Lindsey was closer than Quentin and threw herself between them.

The man’s companions suddenly filled the air with feral shrieks. But they were not angry, they were laughing. They hooted wildly, doubling over, dropping their bows and arrows to the ground and pointing at their dishonored companion.

The man stopped his verbal assault. Slowly, he picked up his headdress. He looked over Lindsey’s shoulder at Ashley and spoke in an even tone, like he was stating a simple fact, perhaps I dropped this hat on purpose. He placed it on his head, restoring some measure of dignity.

Ashley was now trembling and tears streaked her face.

When the laughter subsided, Markus exchanged words with the men, and he seemed to relax. “These men will not hurt us,” he said. “Now they understand.”

“They understand what?” Lindsey said.

“That you are not from the government. And your students are yangpela, young people. Pikinini. I told them to come to the minibus. We’ll give them food.”

Still chuckling, the men gathered their weapons and walked away with Markus.

“Good God, Ashley!” Russ said.

“Drown in your own vomit, Russ!”

Russ raised both hands to show he meant no harm.

Lindsey touched her shoulder. “Are you okay, Ash?”

“No, I’m not!” She stepped away and stood with her back to them.

In the awkward silence that followed, Quentin struggled for the right words. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Well, I’d say we’ve learned some valuable things about—”

Addison interrupted him, “We learned that Ashley’s bitchy temper could get us killed! She’s such an idiot!”

Addison had typically been a silent, although brooding, observer when the entire group was together, and this outburst seemed to shock everyone. Ashley swung around with rage in her eyes, and Bobby even stepped away from Addison as if seeking a safer distance. The older boys, Roberto and Russ, glanced at each other and then started toward Addison.

Addison was seemingly unaware he had crossed a line. He continued, “Only a total idiot would hit someone who has a—”

Lindsey rushed in and clapped a hand over his mouth. “That’s enough, son.” Still covering his mouth, she guided him away from the group toward the minibus.

Quentin looked around at the remaining students. So much for Addison’s progress with making friends.

Bobby was watching Quentin and seemed to detect his concern. He smiled, his adolescent blue eyes shining, and Quentin sensed that the boy was trying to reassure him. Bobby had a way of doing such things, which was another reason Quentin liked him. Bobby then turned to Carlos and gave him a shove. “Let’s go, before Markus gives away all our food.”

* * *

The peculiar assembly of travelers sat on the ground near the minibus and shared the food Markus had packed. Markus talked with the Papuans some, but he seemed unwilling to divulge further details about their destination and purpose.

As the afternoon sun dropped, the kids opened up to the Papuan tribesmen, trying to ask questions about their customs and gesturing wildly to explain their own equally puzzling lives. Russ and Roberto tried in vain to explain that they played in a garage band. The younger boys pantomimed a question about the Mbaiso, the mythical animal of Quentin’s story. The Papuans simply shook their heads. Two of the men suddenly howled with laughter. Miranda had taken their photo and shown them the image on her smartphone’s screen. Only Ashley sat quietly, keeping an eye on the Papuan she had struck. His name, they’d learned, was Pupun.

Resting on his elbows, Quentin watched. This encounter could have gone a different way. Perhaps those who had criticized this field trip were right; Papua was still occasionally volatile and was too dangerous. But bad things could happen anywhere. And Quentin was compulsively drawn to Papua, by a force he could comprehend but not suppress. If anything, Quentin was self-aware; Lindsey and occasional therapists had made sure of that. He understood his drive to overcome this place, to be a stronger man than his father. Bringing students here without incident was his way to conquer the Last Unknown. But perhaps it was going too far.

Lindsey jabbed his leg with her foot. “Where are you, hon?”

Quentin half-smiled. “Right here.”

* * *

After finishing the food, the Papuans disappeared into the forest. Everyone piled into the minibus, and they began the three-hour drive to Wamena. Soon the students began dozing off.

Lindsey said, “What do you suppose Pupun and his friends are up to?”

Quentin pulled out his smartphone to look at photos. “Maybe they’re the last of a tribe. A disease wiped them out. Those four were immune, and now they’re on a quest to find women—rebuild the tribe.”

“And they thought they’d recruit Ashley,” Lindsey laughed. “No such luck. They’ve wandered the forest for years, getting slapped by women.”

Quentin snorted. “Or maybe they’re guardians of a treasure. Their quest for mates continues because they haven’t found any women worthy of it.”

“More likely they’ve forgotten where they put it. They need help finding it.”

Quentin ignored this. “Probably gold. The legend of the mountain of gold is true, and they’re guarding it.”

“Gold is boring. The treasure is a rare flower. When you smell it, you fall in love, then you search until you find your soul mate. That’s Pupun’s quest.”

“You may be right,” Quentin said. “Pupun had me smell this dried flower he had. Then everything was clear—I had to start my search.”

Lindsey raised her brows.

“It took me about three seconds,” he said.

She slapped his shoulder.

Russ spoke without opening his eyes. “You guys are teachers, for God’s sake. You’re making me sick.”

* * *

As they descended into the Baliem Valley along the dark waters of the Uwe River, the ice-capped peak of Gunung Trikora hung in the mist to the south. The rugged peaks of the Maoke mountain range extended from the eastern half of the island, the independent country of Papua New Guinea, west to the Bird’s Head peninsula in the Indonesian province of Papua. The Bird’s Head peninsula was where Quentin’s parents had introduced him to the tropics when he was six. They had wanted him to meet the Papuans they thought they knew so well. Quentin dismissed this thought. No point in ruining his mood by dwelling on the past.

As they entered Wamena, Markus braked sharply, startling Quentin and waking the others. The road was blocked by a group of Papuans.

“Lauk,” one of them said in greeting. His t-shirt displayed the Morning Star flag.

“Lauk,” Markus said.

Speaking pidgin, the Papuan requested donations for the Free Papua Movement. Markus spoke to Quentin, “You should give these men money, tisaman. They will be happy then.”

Lindsey was already digging in her pack. “Here, Markus. Is a hundred thousand rupiah enough?”

“Plenty good, misis.” He took the money and handed it over.

The man glanced at the bill and smiled. “Papua Merdeka!” he said, and waved them on.

Lindsey said, “Markus, has the OPM been active?”

“You don’t worry about this, okay misis? There is talk of protests, but tourists are very safe.”

“What’s the OPM?” Roberto asked.

Quentin explained, “It stands for Organisesi Papua Merdeka, the Free Papua Movement. Many Papuans want Papua to become an independent country. The OPM are freedom fighters. The flag on that man’s shirt was the Morning Star. It kind of symbolizes their fight for independence. Occasionally in the past there’s been serious trouble in Wamena.”

Lindsey said, “Is something happening we should know about?”

“It’s okay, misis. You’ll see.”

Markus drove to their losmen as the sun slid behind the mountain peaks.

Chapter Three

The pig whimpered as the Papuan man gripped its hind legs. Another man grabbed the forelegs and pulled, lifting the pig from the ground. A third man then drew back his bow. The squealing pig looked directly at Bobby as the arrow pierced its side. Wide eyes pleaded for help, but Bobby couldn’t move. Suddenly he realized the pig’s cries were in Bahasa, the Indonesian language.

Bobby gasped and opened his eyes. The squawking continued, but it was only the morning chatter of Tika, the cockatoo in the losmen’s lobby.

Last night’s pig feast, arranged by Markus, had actually been fun. Butchering the pig had been done in the traditional way, and it had taken three arrows to kill it, but Bobby had been too hungry to let that bother him. While the food cooked, the Papuans had staged a fake battle. That was the best part. They’d painted their bodies with pig grease and soot from the fire, reminding Bobby of the Papuans they’d met in the forest.

Bobby kicked his sheet off. This was the last day, and Mr. Darnell had promised they could explore on their own. Carlos and Addison were asleep, so he shook their beds.

Addison sat up, his coiled hair smashed flat on one side. He stumbled to the bathroom.

Carlos mumbled, “I’m awake already.” He heaved off the bed and started picking through dirty shirts and socks that covered the floor. “You know what I’m buying? One of those necklaces with lizard feet.”

Bobby considered this. Carlos could probably get away with wearing one of those. It was because of his brother. Everyone liked Roberto. If Carlos wore a lizard-foot necklace, people would say, “Well, he did go to New Guinea with his brother Roberto.” If Bobby wore one, they’d say, “That’s disgusting.”

Bobby didn’t have much money for souvenirs anyway.

Addison came out of the bathroom. He had frizzed his hair up with his brush, and now it was like a caramel-colored mop hanging over his freckled face. “If you guys want Indonesian lizard-AIDS, go ahead and buy that crap.”

Bobby looked at Carlos and rolled his eyes. Addison hadn’t apologized to Ashley for blowing up at her yesterday and was still acting like it had never happened. He was clueless about things like that. Bobby got along with him okay, but Addison hadn’t even wanted to come on this trip. The Darnells had made him, because Addison ‘needed more interaction with his peers.’ Addison was the only kid Bobby knew who played Kembalimo more than he did. This had given them something to talk about, and they sometimes communicated through Kembalimo. But Addison could be a pain.

They got dressed and went to the lobby, where the group met each morning. They were the first ones there, so they passed the time talking to Tika.

The older kids, Russ and Roberto, and then the two girls, came dragging in with wild hair and pillow-creased cheeks. Bobby didn’t have any siblings, and during this trip he had learned that older kids would sleep all day if they could.

Ashley’s long frizzy hair was even wilder than the others’. She said, “Does that bird ever shut up?”

Bobby considered responding to this by telling them about his dream, but the older kids made him a little nervous. Especially Ashley.

Roberto yawned and eyed the pack on Carlos’s back. “Where you guys going?”

“Wherever,” Carlos said. “It’s the only time we got on our own. Wanna come?”

“Maybe. Russ, you want to run with the twerps?”

Russ sat in a chair with his head in his arms. “After breakfast, I’m back in bed. You guys got too much energy. It ain’t natural.”

Bobby paced around, eager for the teachers to show up so they could start the day. He plopped into a chair and pulled out his smartphone to pass the time. Without a local SIM card he had no cellular access, so he used the lobby’s Wi-Fi. He opened Kembalimo and browsed through his list of friends. Most of them were kids his age who spoke other languages, living in places like Brazil, Madagascar, and Bahrain. Kembalimo allowed him to talk to them as naturally as he could if they spoke the same language. Addison’s name was near the top of his friend list. He stared at it for a moment and then tapped it. His screen went blank and then was populated with the 128 symbols of Kembalimo. Using his finger, he moved the symbols into groups. Each group contained specific information, because the symbols had gradually been assigned their own meanings as Bobby had played the game repeatedly over the last two years. The message he composed could be roughly translated as: You need to apologize to someone. Bobby tapped Send.

A few meters away, Addison’s smartphone chirped. He pulled it out and stared at the screen, frowning. He then began shoving things around on his own screen.

A string of symbols appeared on Bobby’s screen. Addison had composed his message using the same 128 symbols, but Addison’s symbols had different meanings than they did for Bobby. The game translated them into Bobby’s own Kembalimo language, called a lingo. The message said: Someone needs to apologize for almost getting us killed.

Bobby made eye contact with Addison and tried giving him a disapproving look.

“You guys are real Kembalimo nerds.” Russ had started pacing and he now stared over Bobby’s shoulder at the smartphone, although there was no way he could understand the message in Bobby’s lingo. “Addison’s right there. You can’t just talk to him?”

Bobby felt his face flush as all eyes turned to him. Even Ashley was looking at him.

“It’s just a way to practice,” he said. He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “I usually talk to people in different countries who don’t speak English. We talk about all kinds of stuff.”

Russ blew out a one-syllable laugh. “You just described the most boring game ever. Answer me this: Can you kill anything in that game, like Nazis or zombies?”

Bobby’s face grew even warmer. “Actually, it’s not a game. And there’s no—”

Suddenly the teachers appeared and everyone’s attention shifted away from Bobby.

“Good morning, scientists!” Mr. Darnell always said that, and like always everyone just groaned and herded to the long breakfast table.

At the table there were boiled eggs and bread slices with a bit of peanut butter on them. As they ate, Mr. Darnell reviewed the day’s schedule. The flight to Sentani was at 3:30, and everyone had to be at the losmen by noon. Until then they could explore on their own.

Mrs. Darnell was against this and everyone knew it. Apparently Mr. Darnell had convinced her they wouldn’t be kidnapped or killed if they had a few hours on their own.

When Mr. Darnell finished, she shouted for them to stay seated. “This is not our country; it’s theirs,” she said. “Ashley, what will you do if someone touches you?”

“I’ll say Permisi, uh…selamat jalan.”

“And just walk away,” Mrs. Darnel finished it for her.

A few chuckles rippled around the table. The others wouldn’t let Ashley forget her fight with Pupun. She must have been really scared to hit someone like that. Bobby had been that scared only a few times before. There wasn’t much to be afraid of in Newton, Missouri. One time a growling dog had cornered him in an alley. He’d grabbed a rock and thrown it. He’d missed, but the dog had backed off. He hadn’t thought about throwing the rock, it had just happened. Danger had a way of changing people.

* * *

Bobby, Carlos, and Addison burst through the door onto the street. The air smelled of strange food and pigs. Barefoot walkers and bicycle riders were everywhere, some with bundles balanced on their heads or hanging behind them from straps across their foreheads. Two Papuan men wearing only horims walked by, holding hands and talking to each other in Dani. Across the street a Papuan woman sat on the ground. Two naked children rolled an empty can around in the dirt next to her. An Indonesian boy, waiting with combed hair and white clothes for his mother to finish talking to someone, watched them play but didn’t try to join them.

The three students decided to head for the Pasar Nayak market. As they walked, they passed Papuans squatting in the dirt with small piles of sugar cane, ginger root, or yellow tomatoes spread out on cloth before them. Bobby couldn’t imagine they could make much money selling these, and he was tempted to give away the last of his own money. He thought about the Papuans they had met at Lorentz Park. Pupun and his friends had few possessions and maybe no money at all. But unlike the Papuans here, Bobby hadn’t thought of those men as poor.

At the Pasar Nayak market, which was open on the sides but covered by a metal roof, they wandered for over an hour through endless rows of goods. Carlos couldn’t find a necklace he liked, so finally he bought a machete in a sheath decorated with animals and the words, Wamena, Indonesia.

When they left the market, a Papuan man carrying a pile of t-shirts stopped them. He held up a shirt emblazoned with the Morning Star flag. The man had a warm smile and friendly eyes, and the boys liked what the teachers had told them about the freedom fighters, so they each bought one. This depleted Bobby’s remaining money.

Addison shed his pack and pulled his new shirt on. He said, “How’s it look?”

“Like a dumb-ass tourist,” Carlos said, stuffing his into his pack. Bobby stowed his away, too.

They turned north on Sudarso, a street busy with activity, but as they made their way north, things seemed to change. People were shouting and running. Soon Bobby saw a mass of people in the street several blocks ahead. He stopped walking.

“Guys. I don’t think we should go this way.”

Addison kept walking. “Come on, I want to see what’s going on!”

Suddenly two Indonesian policemen, wearing stiff tan uniforms and black berets, stepped in front of them, blocking their way.

“Mau ke mana?” said one of the policemen. The men were not smiling, and their brown faces sparkled with sweat. A pistol hung from each of their belts, balanced on the other side by a black club.

Carlos said, “Sorry, we speak English.”

Suddenly, smoke billowed from the middle of the crowd ahead, followed by angry shouting. The two policemen turned and ran toward the crowd, leaving the boys staring in fascination. As Bobby instinctively began backing away, the crowd erupted into chaos and violence. Police billy clubs thrashed in the air above the heads, and people tumbled over each other trying to escape.

“Addison! Thank God!”

Bobby turned, startled. It was Mrs. Darnell.

“Where the hell have you boys been?” She grabbed the neck of Addison’s t-shirt and started hustling them away from the violent crowd. She pulled out her walkie-talkie as she walked. “Quentin?”

Brief static and then a voice, “Yeah, Linds. Any luck?”

“I found them. We’ll be at the airport in less than ten.” She lowered the walkie-talkie. “Change of plans. We’re leaving for Sentani now.”

“Why are we leaving early?” Bobby asked as he tried to keep up.

She shot him a glance. “Do you really need to ask that? There are conflicts at the north end this morning. Remember talking about the OPM, and the flag?”

“Yeah. We bought t-shirts. Addison’s wearing his.”

Mrs. Darnell looked at Addison’s shirt for the first time. She stopped walking. “I told your dad this was a bad idea.” She shook her head and started walking again. “It’ll be okay, Lindsey. They’ll stay out of trouble! Oh, and let’s not buy local SIM cards for their phones, Lindsey. Why would they ever need them?”

Bobby had never seen her this upset.

“What about the OPM?” Addison said.

“Some Papuans demonstrated by raising the flag. Things are getting out of hand. Now they’re trying to get tourists out of Wamena.” She nodded at the shirt. “Take that off. Now.”

Addison started to pull it off, but when she looked away he shoved it back down.

As they approached the green domed roof of the air terminal, it became clear that something was very wrong. Tourists were everywhere, slinging luggage around, fumbling for money and paperwork.

Mrs. Darnell plunged straight through the crowd and into the building. Angry shouting and the odor of sweat filled the crowded space. She guided them through the confusion and out the other side. There they saw Mr. Darnell and the other kids sitting next to the airstrip. The luggage was piled on the grass beside them.

“Nice of you guys to join us,” Russ said. “We’ve missed our plane like four times.”

Mr. Darnell rose to his feet. “We should be able to board one of the Twin Otters,” he said. “The larger planes are filled.”

* * *

Bobby’s excitement grew as the plane bounced and rolled to the grassy edge of the airstrip, coming to a stop just in front of him. They had flown from Sentani to Wamena on a big Fokker F-twenty-something, and he’d had a lousy seat far from the window. But this was a proper jungle plane—rugged-looking and dirty white with blue letters that said Merpati. A door near the Twin Otter’s nose popped open, and an Indonesian pilot climbed to the ground. He glanced at the Americans without smiling and then opened a baggage door at the rear of the plane and one on the side of the nose cone. He attacked the pile of luggage, throwing it in like he was angry at every bag. He was not having a good day.

Inside the plane, Bobby counted eighteen seats, jammed into a cabin not much larger than the minibus. Each row had two seats on the right and one on the left.

“Move your butt, Roberto. Miranda, don’t touch me there!”

“Bite it, Russ!”

The older boys took the first row, then Ashley and Miranda, and then the Darnells. Addison and Carlos took the two seats behind the teachers, leaving Bobby by himself. He chose the single seat across from them, happy to have his own space by the windows.

The cabin was hot and smelled like fuel. Tattered fabric covered the seats. In fact, everything seemed worn out, like his dad’s old car. Dents and gashes stippled the cabin wall. Suspicious substances caked the floor, gumming up the seams and screws. Bobby felt the same rush as when he boarded a roller coaster—helplessness mixed with anticipation. He looked out the window, his own private window, at the mountains encircling Wamena and the Baliem Valley.

It had been an exciting day, so far.

Chapter Four

The hotter the goddamn plane, the longer you have to sit and wait, thought Quentin. By the time Lindsey had found the boys, the larger planes had departed, leaving only a handful of Twin Otters. The airline’s resources must have been stretched thin, for it appeared there would be only one pilot on this flight. Through the window, Quentin watched the pilot quarrelling with an airline official. Apparently the pilot’s goal was to argue with every person at the airport before taking off.

Quentin moaned and shifted position. He twirled a small object in his fingers, a habit developed in his first year of teaching that helped calm his nerves. It was a raccoon baculum, or penis bone, that a student had bought while on a family trip to the Ozarks. The student had joyfully explained that Ozark boys once gave the four-inch bones to their girlfriends as tokens of love. Quentin had jokingly offered it to Lindsey when they’d first met, and she’d surprised him by revealing that she’d already collected bacula from a dozen different mammals to show her students. Every day since then he had carried it with him in the pocket of his trousers.

Lindsay smiled at his nervous habit. “Things could be worse.”

“How?”

“We could be stuck here. The Papuans are uprising, and we’d be caught in the middle of it, an international incident. ‘American Teenagers Involved in Civil War.’” She framed the headlines with her hands. “The kids would join the separatists. We’d have to go back and tell the parents they’re now freedom fighters.”

Quentin felt his stress soften. “You’re a little disturbed.”

She smiled again. This time Quentin was struck by the glint in her eyes and felt a surge of passion. But his fervor did not suit the setting. Soon we’ll be home, he reminded himself. He decided the conversation could serve as a distraction. “More likely they’d join the Indonesian police,” he said. “They’ve got aptitude for making people suffer.”

“Why don’t you ask them which side they’d choose? Did you see Addison’s new shirt? He wore it all over town today. I told him to take it off, and he ignored me.”

Quentin turned around to look, noting Addison’s shirt for the first time. He was secretly pleased at the thought of his son siding with the indigenous Papuans. “I guess you’re right; they’d join the Papuans. Maybe start a village in the rainforest and live on sago grubs.”

Quentin glanced around at the other students. At the front of the cabin, Russ and Roberto appeared to be sleeping. Both girls bobbed their heads to music from their headphones. All three younger boys were doing something on their smartphones. A young Indonesian couple sat at the back of the plane, talking intimately together. A policeman whose apparent purpose had been to convince the pilot the Indonesians were legitimate passengers had escorted them onto the plane some minutes ago.

Quentin said, “Whose idea was it to let the students out on their own, anyway?”

Lindsey wiped her smile away, not acknowledging humor in this. “You really don’t want to go there right now.”

A thud-click broke their thoughts as the pilot slammed and secured the passenger door. The pilot clambered into the cockpit. Both engines started. He revved them up, and the entire plane bucked. An open doorway separated the cockpit from the cabin, exposing the pilot’s right side and most of the instrument panel. On the instrument panel was a worn piece of masking tape with a series of marks on it. In what must have been a safety check, the pilot pointed to the instruments one at a time and moved his finger to the next mark on the tape, as if he might lose track of the process. The pilot looked over his shoulder like he was pulling out of a supermarket parking lot, and the plane surged forward onto the airstrip.

In no time, they were rising toward the mountains enclosing the Wamena Valley. Quentin noticed that Miranda was apparently praying. Her cropped blonde hair allowed Quentin to see that her eyes were closed and lips were moving. It was the first inclination toward religion he had seen in any of the students—peculiar, considering they’d been together for over a week. The others watched through the windows as the tin roofs of Wamena gave way to scattered, thatch-roofed huts surrounded by neatly-divided sweet potato gardens.

As they flew north to the peaks of the Maoke Mountains, Lindsey pointed out the road gradually being built from Wamena to Jayapura. Forging a road through hundreds of miles of mountainous and lowland swampy rainforest was beyond Quentin’s comprehension. He wished they would give it up, as it seemed like a vicious assault on this remarkable wilderness.

Huts and gardens thinned out and then disappeared entirely, leaving only rainforest and mountaintops to the horizon. Quentin gazed at the expanse. He and Lindsey had traveled here four times but had experienced only the highland area around Wamena. The vast forest below was a different world, dark and mysterious. Other than the atrocious road being constructed, it had changed very little since Alfred Wallace, the first naturalist to set foot in New Guinea in the 1850s, spent several months to the north and published a fascinating account of his adventures.

Wallace’s time had been a grand age of discovery, but in all his wisdom, Wallace clearly had not considered the long-term impacts of his contact with the indigenous people. And like Wallace, Quentin’s own parents had neglected to appreciate the fact that when people of vastly different cultures met, diffusion of customs and values was inescapable, and they were forever changed. And such changes were not always good.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, as the mountains gave way to lowland rainforest, the only breaks in the scene below were occasional glimpses of the brown water of winding rivers. Of the students, only Bobby still seemed spellbound by the passing forest, his face glued to the window.

Quentin unbuckled and stood in the narrow aisle facing the three younger boys. “I’m sure you guys have a great story to tell about your morning and why Mrs. Darnell was upset.”

Addison didn’t even look up from the screen on his smartphone.

Bobby glanced at Quentin and returned his gaze to the window. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, I want the full story tonight. That’ll give you guys a chance to get it straight.”

They all smiled at this, even Addison.

As Quentin turned back to his seat, a prickly wave suddenly swept through his body. He nearly toppled over. He reached out to right himself, but his hand found nothing. He looked around and could see nothing. There was only a gray vastness. It was peaceful and demanded no explanation. After an indeterminable time, the gray expanse gave way, returning him to the harsh cabin light. He realized he was gripping his chest with one hand.

A voice came from the side, “Great, what’s wrong now?”

Quentin looked at the voice. Addison tapped his smartphone, irritated at something that didn’t work. Lindsey’s eyes were pinched closed, as if coping with a migraine. As Quentin’s equilibrium returned, he watched until she opened her eyes. She seemed as confused as he was.

One of the older boys said, “What the hell was that?”

Bobby’s voice screeched, “Mr. Darnell, something’s wrong! Look at the engine!”

Quentin leaned over Bobby and pressed against the window. The left engine was mounted on the wing above their heads. Oil streamed from its housing, making a horizontal trail in the air, dashing the wing strut. The oil suddenly caught fire. Flames sputtered wildly in the slipstream. Quentin stared at it for a moment and then turned to the others. The Indonesian couple at the rear of the cabin caught Quentin’s attention. They embraced each other as if they were frightened, and he could not see their faces. His eyes were drawn to the man’s dark hands, gripping the woman’s clean, white shirt. Briefly he thought how strangely beautiful this was.

“Quentin?” It was Lindsey. The students were silent, waiting.

“It’s on fire,” he whispered, too quietly for anyone to hear. The plane suddenly pitched left. He caught himself on the seat and looked out the window. The engine had shut down, the windmilling propeller creating enough drag to throw the plane into a turn.

“Hey, man, you all right?” It was Russ, shouting to the pilot in front of him. Then he turned to face them. “There’s something wrong with him!”

Quentin scrambled to the cockpit doorway. What he saw there made him freeze. The pilot’s back arched, pressing his shoulders against the seat. His legs kicked wildly. Gasping for air, the pilot’s breaths came in sickening whines: “HEE, HEE, HEE…” He was trying to remove the headset, but his hands flailed, scratching his face and eyes instead.

With the controls neglected, the plane continued pulling to the left.

Quentin pushed into the cockpit and kneeled by the pilot. “What’s wrong? What can I do?” The pilot’s arm thrashed out and struck Quentin viciously in the face. Reeling from the pain, Quentin grasped his mouth and then looked at his hand. It was red with blood.

“HEE, HEE, HEE…” The pilot’s breathing became even more frantic, and his eyes bulged from his drenched face.

Quentin grabbed the pilot’s wrists and held them to the man’s chest. He leaned over him, looking into his face. “Listen to me! One of the engines—it’s on fire.”

The pilot’s eyes showed no understanding, only raw pain. “HEE, HEE, HUH, HUH…” His breathing changed from a whine to a gasp and seemed to slow down. His legs and arms stopped flailing and Quentin was able to release him.

“HUH, HUH… HUH…” His breathing softened and then was drowned out by the remaining engine. Suddenly his body arched backward, as if every muscle were straining for air.

Quentin watched the body contract again and again, a gurgle spewing from the man’s throat at the peak of each contraction. Finally, the pilot’s torso toppled out of the seat, jamming Quentin’s legs against the copilot seat. The man’s legs struck the control wheel and the plane pitched violently to the side. Quentin tried lifting the pilot, but there wasn’t room. That’s when he saw the man’s feet. His shoes had split apart and pink flesh protruded grotesquely from the rips, as if his feet had exploded.

Quentin pulled his eyes away from this bizarre sight and yelled, “Russ, help me!”

Russ grabbed the pilot’s armpit, and together they hoisted the man back into his seat. Outside the cockpit window, the ground was getting closer. They were losing altitude.

“Russ, go back to your seat. Everyone buckle in!” Quentin watched to make sure they responded and then turned back to the now motionless pilot. He gripped the man’s head. “Hey, wake up!” The pilot’s eyes stared vacuously. Quentin grasped the man’s neck for a pulse, but felt only thick, clammy tissue.

“Quentin, we have to do something!” Lindsey cried.

The fear in her voice slapped him in the face. He looked desperately around the cabin. The two girls huddled together, Miranda’s head buried in her hands. Bobby stared out the window at the dead engine, as if willing it to life. In the rear, the Indonesian couple still clung to each other. Quentin pushed his way toward the couple.

“We’re going to crash! Can you fly this plane?”

The woman remained motionless, her face buried in the man’s shoulder, and again Quentin glimpsed dark fingers against her white shirt. The man shouted something in Indonesian, his face creased with terror. He couldn’t have been older than twenty.

Quentin turned away from them. “Goddammit!” He made his way back to the cockpit. The forest was much closer, the treetops now a blur of motion. He grabbed the control wheel opposite the pilot and yanked on it, but nothing happened. He leaned over the pilot, grabbed the main wheel, and turned it. The plane responded, banking to the left. Quentin had never flown a plane, but he’d seen pilots in movies pull the wheel up for lift. He pulled hard and the plane’s nose pitched upward. He looked out. The trees were not rising as fast, but the plane was still losing altitude. He released the control wheel, and the plane began dropping faster, so he grabbed it and pulled again. It would not stay in place without his hands on it.

Seconds later, the forest canopy was just below them. Quentin saw individual leaves as trees rushed by. The brown surface of a river appeared and then was gone. They were going to crash. He would die. His students and son would die. His wife. Quentin looked back at Lindsey and their eyes met. He released the control wheel and staggered back to her.

“Hurry!” she cried.

He fumbled with the buckle and snapped it into place. Lindsey had been reaching over the seat in front of her, comforting the girls, but now she put her arms around Quentin.

He pressed her head into his shoulder and braced himself for the impact.

* * *

The tree kangaroo, known locally as the mbolop, made its way up the trunk of a towering klinki pine. The top of the forest often revealed the greatest diversity of living things, and each tree variety seemed to hold its own combination of life thriving at its highest reaches. And so climbing was a good use of its time. The creature gathered information as if it were sustenance, feeding on it in order to live. And still there was so much to be consumed and stored.

Claws pierced the klinki pine’s bark, allowing brawny hind legs to propel the creature upward. The tree’s limbs became thinner near the top, and the disturbance made them tremble. A raucous group of cockatoos, known to the tree kangaroo as kékékh, scolded the creature, their shrieks amplifying as it climbed nearer to them, until finally they blasted out of the canopy, a clamorous white cloud.

As the kangaroo watched them fly upward, a prickly wave passed through its body. It stopped climbing. It discerned immediately what was happening, what the man Samuel had done—a heedless action with unpredictable consequences. But such experimentation was not unprecedented in this place. It was to be expected.

Just as the wave of sensation passed, the flock of cockatoos fell silent. And then they rained down upon the tree they had just vacated. Ruined bodies splattered against the limbs, forcing the mbolop to shut its eyes against the spray of fluids and fragments.

Eyes still closed, the tree kangaroo processed these events. Suppositions and observed facts shifted about on a cognitive puzzle board until they fit together like interlocking pieces. The puzzle was then undone and reassembled, searching for the clearest overall picture.

But the creature’s thoughts were again disrupted, this time by a distant sound, a mechanical growl steadily drawing nearer. The mbolop scrambled higher until it could see over the other trees. It spotted the source, a machine hurtling closer and closer, just above the forest canopy. Muscles twitching, the creature prepared to flee. With a deafening roar, the machine passed directly over, close enough that the kangaroo had to tighten its grip to avoid being blown out of the tree by the air wake.

The mbolop turned around in time to see the machine crash into the treetops.

* * *

Quentin had lived a mild life. He had lost a fight when he was a teenager, but adrenaline had prevented him from feeling the pain. He had been in minor car accidents, with no injuries. And he had fallen from a ladder once, cracking his wrist. Never had he experienced anything like the crushing violence of the plane hurtling into the canopy. In a deafening uproar of twisting metal and bursting seams, he was wrenched from Lindsey’s embrace. His seatbelt clamped down on his hips, forcing his head to slam the seatback in front of him. Abruptly, the plane skimmed off the tree canopy, and for a moment, there was only the wind rushing through new openings in the cabin. Eleven people were on the plane, but there were no screams, no words—only the whisper of air.

Chaos returned as the fuselage plowed into the canopy a second time. Quentin was thrown to the side this time and then jostled ruthlessly as if the plane were rolling. The fuselage shrieked as sheared tree branches tore into the metal. It then slowed and seemed to stop.

Quentin blinked, but his vision was blurred. He grasped for anything solid and found the seatback in front of him, but it jiggled as if it had been torn loose. He recalled that he should not be alone. Others had been with him. Lindsey! He reached for her and found her arm, her shoulder, and then her hair. Suddenly there was a loud crack and the entire plane rolled to the side. This was followed by an even greater crack, as if an entire tree had been snapped in half. The plane fell. It crashed onto another tree branch and turned on end. For a moment it plunged tail-first like an elevator with a severed cable. The rear of the fuselage impacted an immovable force, throwing Quentin back into his seat and bringing the loosened seat in front of him into his lap. The plane then toppled over, and with one last jarring crash it came to rest. The fuselage groaned and then fell silent.

* * *

Quentin’s senses began to function again. Shapes emerged from the haze. Spasms of pain, starting as mere tingles, intensified from his hips, his neck, and then from everywhere. His ears were the last to surrender. At first, there was only pulsing static, like breaking waves. Then there were voices. The voices intensified, turning nightmarish. They sounded guttural, like animals that were dying. His students and family were shrieking, gasping for air. He tried closing his eyes, but it didn’t stop.

The pain in his hip became unbearable. He looked down and realized he was hanging from his seat. The plane was on its side. Lindsey was above him, her legs pressing against his. She was alive, conscious, pushing against Quentin’s thigh and the seatback in front of her. The cabin was dim now, but Quentin saw blood dripping from her face.

“Lindsey!”

She didn’t answer. Half her face was concealed by disheveled brown hair. The eye Quentin could see flicked his direction, but blinked confusedly. The students’ distressed cries seemed to swell. He had to do something.

“Lindsey, my hip—I have to get out.” He pulled on his seatbelt latch and the mechanism popped. He dropped against the left side of the plane, hitting his head on the rim of a window. He pressed his hand where sunlight should have shone through Plexiglas. Instead there was moist soil.

Quentin tried to clear his head, but the girls’ cries were persistent and frighteningly intense, making it hard to focus.

“We crashed. Mr. Darnell, we crashed!” Bobby had been seated on the left side of the plane, so he was now against the ground in the seat next to Quentin.

“I know, Bobby. Are you hurt?”

“My head hurts.”

Quentin popped Bobby’s seatbelt open, allowing him to sit up. Quentin then looked around him. Where a wall once isolated the baggage space at the rear of the cabin, there was now a huge opening. He saw slivers of sunlight against murky foliage. The Indonesian man, slouched in his seat, was silhouetted against the trees. The woman and her seat were gone.

Addison hung limp next to Carlos, who was whimpering and clutching his own bloody hand. Quentin wanted to focus on his son, to make sure Addison was alive. But the girls’ cries couldn’t be ignored. He turned to them. He saw no movement in the front row beyond the girls, but Russ’s head hung loosely from his seat. The opening to the cockpit was now skewed to an odd angle, and through it he saw only twisted wreckage and more forest.

Quentin put his hands to his head. He wanted to fade away into oblivion. But Lindsey rasped above him, pulling him back. He rose from his knees and pressed his shoulder to her chest. “Put your arms around my neck.” Her nails dug into his back. He popped the lever on her seatbelt, and her full weight settled onto his shoulder. He collapsed and they both fell.

“Are you okay? Is anything broken?”

She blinked. “I don’t know. My head.” Blood flowed from a gash above her eye, and Quentin wiped it with his shirt.

“Quentin, the kids.”

“I know. You see to the girls. I need to get to Addison.”

Lindsey staggered to her feet. Quentin turned to Carlos, who was sobbing and holding his hand. Quentin freed him from his seat and set him to the side so he could reach his son. He turned Addison so he could see his face. His face was even more pale than usual, and a red impact wound covered half his forehead. Quentin gripped his throat and felt a weak pulse. He lowered him to the floor, but was struck by Addison’s inertness. There was not a tight muscle in his body.

“Oh God no!” Lindsey was now at the front of the plane. Quentin moved to her side.

Miranda cried over and over, “My leg! Please! My leg!”

But Lindsey’s attention was fixed on Russ and Roberto. The gap between their seats and the wall of the cockpit was gone. The wall had crushed Roberto’s legs. His head hung to the side at an impossible angle.

Lindsey grabbed Quentin’s arm. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

There was no doubt of that. Quentin glanced back at Carlos, who was still cradling his hand but watching intently. Mercifully, he couldn’t see his older brother from where he sat. Quentin turned his attention to Russ. The cabin doorway had impacted Russ’s head, gashing his temple, exposing several inches of white skull. Quentin felt for a pulse, but found none. Roberto and Russ, both just graduated from high school, their futures full of promise, were dead.

Quentin turned to the girls, his movements becoming mechanical, automatic. He extracted Ashley from her seat, which was now barely attached to the fuselage, and lowered her to the floor. She finally quieted down. Aside from a sizeable cut on her shoulder, she seemed more frightened than seriously hurt. Reaching for Miranda, Quentin felt distant from his own body. The cockpit wall had forced Roberto’s seat back, trapping Miranda’s right leg. A jagged edge of femur protruded from her thigh, creating a disturbing bulge in her jeans. Lindsey tried to calm her as Quentin released her seatbelt and allowed her weight to settle on him. He started to lower her, but her ruined leg was caught. Her screams had been continuous, but to Quentin they now seemed secluded, unrelated to the task at hand. He twisted and tugged until the leg was free. When he finally put her on the floor, he realized her screaming had stopped.

Chapter Five

In the minutes or hours that followed, Quentin had no concept of the passing of time. He and Lindsey worked frantically to treat wounds that required skills far beyond theirs. Addison, Miranda, and Carlos needed a hospital with skilled doctors. Quentin, Lindsey, Bobby, and Ashley had minor cuts, which would heal if they could avoid infection. But Quentin was unable to find a first aid kit. The plane didn’t have one, or it had been ejected in the crash.

Roberto and Russ were beyond help.

Quentin’s mind reeled. Even if they were lucky enough to be rescued without further casualties, nothing would be the same again. He and Lindsey would have to face the parents of students they had promised to care for, but who now were dead, crippled, or emotionally scarred. And if Addison were to die… Quentin forced this thought aside in order to function.

All that remained of the plane was a cylinder of fuselage. Most of the cockpit was destroyed. Even if the pilot had lived until the moment they crashed, he was certainly dead now. His crumpled body lay amidst remnants of the cockpit and baggage from the forward compartment. If Quentin had remained at the plane’s controls, he would be part of that debris.

The young Indonesian man seemed mostly unharmed, but he did not offer to help. His girlfriend or wife was gone, her seat ripped from its anchors and ejected. She’d been literally torn from his arms. He wandered aimlessly around the wreck, apparently looking for her. The plane’s tail could not have been more than a few hundred meters away, but the forest was dense and no other wreckage was visible.

Miranda’s skin was pale and clammy and she was in shock, alternating between unconsciousness and semi-lucid babbling. While she was unconscious, they forced her femur into alignment and tied her straightened legs against one of the plane’s seatbacks with a pair of trousers. Ashley bravely helped with these tasks. Ashley had a nasty gash on her shoulder, but they had tied a shirt around her upper arm and she was coping. Addison remained unconscious, and there was nothing they could do for him other than check for a pulse every few minutes.

They set Bobby to work removing the seat cushions and any of the seat frames he could work loose. He seemed to welcome the chance to do something, and he tossed the seats one by one into a growing pile outside the cabin.

Carlos sat at the rear of the fuselage, quietly nursing his damaged hand and staring into the forest. He hadn’t said a word, but he’d let Quentin inspect his injuries. Three fingers were crushed, the bones pulverized. Quentin simply wrapped the hand as tight as he dared with a Morning Star t-shirt. When he told him that his brother had died, Carlos shook his head and pulled away, unwilling to listen.

When they had finally met the most pressing needs, Quentin considered the problem of the dead bodies. In the sauna-like cabin, their presence would soon become intolerable. He had to move them. He instructed the others to turn their heads and he carried out the task on his own. He was glad they weren’t watching, because Roberto’s legs were mostly severed at the knees, and they dangled and flopped bizarrely as Quentin carried the body out of the plane.

Finally he stood some distance from the fuselage, the bodies of the boys and pilot at his feet, mostly hidden from the others by the base of a strangler fig tree. Quentin wiped the sweat from his face and swatted at the cloud of flies around him. The heat was oppressive, and they had no water. He looked up at the forest canopy and took note of what was arguably the largest obstacle to their rescue. The canopy appeared undisturbed. There was no gaping hole through which searchers might spot the wreckage. Would the search planes see them? Had the pilot even been capable of radioing that they were in trouble? Their flight hadn’t been a scheduled run. With the chaos in Wamena, dozens of unscheduled flights were leaving the highlands. Their plane may not even be missed yet.

In frustration, Quentin kicked a mangled fragment of the cockpit. The wreckage flipped over and then it caught his eye. The metal appeared to have melted and mushroomed outward. Something about this brought back a scene from the crash Quentin had forgotten. As the pilot was dying, his feet had looked like this—like they had exploded. He stared at the metal for a moment but could make no sense of it.

Quentin searched the debris and failed to find any portion of the instrument panel that might be the radio. The only communication devices they had were their smartphones and one of the walkie-talkies. The other walkie-talkie was in Lindsey’s pack in the lost tail of the plane. The smartphones required cellular network access, and the nearest cellular towers were in Wamena and the capitol city of Jayapura. They were probably a hundred miles from either location. Quentin tried his anyway but couldn’t pick up a signal. The walkie-talkie had a range of only a few miles. Perhaps they could use it if a search plane flew over. He tried it briefly to make sure it worked and quickly turned it off to conserve the batteries.

They hadn’t heard any planes since the crash, which was puzzling considering a steady stream of emergency flights to Sentani would likely continue for some time. He moved farther away from the fuselage and paused, listening. At first all he heard were the incessant flies. Honeyeaters called in the distance, followed by reciprocating calls from other directions. A faint rustling in the leaves above drew his gaze in time to see something move in the canopy. He made out a dark animal, mostly hidden, probably a possum. Then another animal moved, a few meters away but in the same tree. He waited, but there was no further movement.

Other than these natural sounds the area was silent. The crippled Twin Otter must have drifted miles from the Wamena-to-Sentani flight path. Probably to the west, since it was the left engine that had failed. The numb shock in Quentin’s mind began to give way to comprehension of the hopelessness of their situation.

He scanned the forest in every direction. It was all the same—murky, emerald-tinted, and textured with buttress roots, twisting vines, and vertical trunks that disappeared into a sea of foliage. He couldn’t see more than thirty meters in any direction. The streaks of sunlight penetrating the canopy were now at a lower angle as the day faded away. What would the night here be like? Would Addison be alive in the morning? Overcome, Quentin sank to the ground, just out of view of the Twin Otter. His body shook once, startling him. It had been so long since he’d last cried. But he felt a tidal wave coming. There was no fighting it, but he did make a feeble effort to not be heard by the others.

* * *

The tree kangaroo appraised the scene from above. It superimposed images of artifacts scattered about the area over a compendium of objects encountered in the past, but no matches were found. Mannerisms and gestures were likened to a database of known behaviors. Vocalizations, including the man’s stifled sobs, ran through audio comparison algorithms but failed to find their counterparts.

The creature categorized the wreckage and survivors as new, unknown. These could be the ones they had been waiting for. Perhaps it was a misguided effort that had brought the strangers here, but that was of little importance.

The tree kangaroo turned to a second creature clinging to a nearby limb, another mbolop. It grunted softly to draw the other’s attention and then gestured with one of its forelimbs. The other mbolop loosened its grip on the limb and gestured back an acknowledgement. It then bounded off through the canopy, leaping from one tree to the next. The first tree kangaroo remained, hiding amidst the foliage of the silkwood tree. Its clawed hand raked in a tuft of leaves, shoving them into its mouth. The creature chewed slowly, studying the sobbing figure below.

* * *

After draining his pent-up emotions, Quentin felt the vigor of renewed resolve. He rose from the muddy ground and was startled by movement in the trees to his right. A human figure made its way through the dense undergrowth.

“Hey!” Quentin stumbled over creepers and roots to close the gap between them. “Hey, wait!” The person paused. It was the Indonesian passenger. The man held one hand over a large bloodstain on the front of his shirt. Flies covered his hand and the stain, feeding on the blood. He looked at Quentin briefly and continued walking.

“Are you okay?”

The man stopped. “Murni, saya pergi ke Murni. Saya cari Murni.” He was ashen, staring at the ground, and he seemed not to notice the mass of flies. He then walked away.

Apparently he was looking for the woman, named Murni. Her body was probably near the tail portion of the plane. If it were Lindsey, Quentin would do the same. So he watched the man disappear without trying to stop him.

Quentin returned to the plane. With some seats removed, there was now more room in the cabin. Lindsey, Ashley, Carlos, and Bobby sat around the still forms of Addison and Miranda as if waiting for them to wake. The despair in Lindsey’s eyes told Quentin that things were no better.

“How long do you think before they find us?” Ashley said.

“I haven’t heard any search planes yet,” Quentin said. He considered this for a moment. “Listen, there’s no way to know how long it will take. It could be in the morning, or maybe not even tomorrow. I want you to remember something: you came on this trip because you weren’t afraid. You’re all tough. That’s why we’re going to get through this.”

No one responded, so Quentin went on. “In a crisis the first thing to do is care for any injuries. The problem is, we don’t have first aid supplies. There had to be a first aid kit on the plane, and we know we have some supplies in our bags in the plane’s tail. The second thing to do is to find water and food. Lindsey, what did you have in your bag?”

“I had a few things, a couple of water bottles,” she said.

“So we have to find the rest of our stuff. There’s not much daylight left. I’ll search for the bags and first aid kit. You guys get this area ready for the night. Bobby, we’ll need seat cushions arranged for each person to sleep on.”

Bobby nodded and stood up.

Quentin considered the mass of flies feeding on the Indonesian’s blood and he looked at the torn edges of the fuselage. “If I find the other bags, we might have enough cloth to rig up something to keep the insects out of here.” The mosquitoes would get worse as the sun went down. They had taken Chloroquine for the last two weeks to prevent malaria and had planned to continue doses for the next month, but the remaining tablets were waiting for them at home. No other drugs or vaccinations were considered essential for the trip, but now that they were out of the highlands the risk of insect-borne diseases was greater. Besides malaria, there was encephalitis and dengue fever, and probably others Quentin hadn’t even heard of. Not to mention the risk of bacterial infection in their wounds, which could lead to gangrene.

Quentin exited the plane and looked at the cracked branches above, trying to determine the plane’s path. His eye caught the glint of freshly exposed heartwood some distance beyond the wreckage. That had to be the direction. But the forest was remarkably dense, so he ducked back in and told Lindsey and the kids to listen for his calls.

After moving into the forest he quickly lost sight of the plane. The understory saplings grew so close together in places that he had to force them apart. He made progress for perhaps a hundred meters, trying to keep a straight course. He felt isolated, vulnerable.

“Can you hear me?” At first his call was followed only by the sound of flies.

“Mr. Darnell, we hear you!” It was Bobby, his voice already faint and distant.

He called back to Bobby to keep listening. He then pulled off his shirt, thinking of hanging it as a marker. Immediately the flies descended on the sweaty flesh of his back. This was insufferable, so he put the shirt back on. Scattered on the forest floor were long, rigid leaves of the sago palm. He gathered some of these and set them upright like a small teepee. Moving on, he stopped again when the crude marker was almost out of sight, no more than ten meters. He made a second marker, then moved ahead and made a third. Feeling some confidence, Quentin continued like this, trying to work his way in a straight line.

After the fifth marker, he came upon a small clearing containing four sorted and neatly stacked piles of objects. There was a pile of bright red berries, another of yellow bird feathers, and another of iridescent blue beetle carapaces. The biggest pile contained hundreds of large brown acorns. In the center of the clearing stood an upside-down cone made of thin sticks, resembling a miniature hut. The floor of the clearing was a bed of green moss, meticulously cleaned of all debris except for the piles. For the briefest moment he thought the site might be man-made but then realized it was the bower of a male bowerbird. To convince females they were worthy, males created these impressive shrines of gifts collected from the surrounding forest.

Something in the pile of acorns caught his eye. He stepped into the bower and picked it up. It was a small figurine, carved from a stone, an animal of some kind, perhaps a cuscus or tree kangaroo. It was stylized, like a totem carving, and the craftsmanship was striking. Its oval shape was close enough to that of an acorn that the bowerbird must have collected and classified it as such. Quentin’s pulse quickened. There must be a village nearby, perhaps with a radio and an airstrip. Encouraged, he dropped the figurine into his pocket and continued on.

Before long, though, he’d constructed twenty markers and still had not seen the missing wreckage. The light was fading fast. They would have no first aid supplies tonight.

In frustration, he called out, “Hello! Is anyone there?”

A moment later, Bobby called out, “Mr. Darnell, we’re here.”

Quentin suddenly felt disoriented. Bobby’s voice had come from ahead and to the right. Somehow he had almost doubled back to the plane. Defeated, he headed in the direction of the voice, leaving his trail of useless markers.

Stumbling through the darkening tangle of vegetation, he called out again. Bobby’s reply didn’t seem much closer. Then he heard something else, like gushing water, but coming from all sides, and above. A drop hit his cheek and he looked up. Rain was making its way through the gauntlet of the canopy to the forest floor. The pattering became louder, and soon he was in the midst of a deafening downpour. There was no chance of hearing Bobby’s still-distant cries.

Rivulets of rainwater ran down his face, reminding Quentin of his thirst. He found a large leaf and held it out flat with the pointed tip in his mouth. The rain gathered on the leaf and flowed onto his tongue. He called out, pushing his voice until it hurt, but he heard only the rain. He pointed at a tree in the direction he had last heard Bobby and then made his way toward it. Halfway to the tree he picked out another directly beyond the first. Then he picked out another beyond that. He continued this way, calling out periodically but hearing nothing in return. The rain only intensified. It became so dark that Quentin could barely see trees just in front of him. He would have to wait for the rain to stop. In nearly total darkness, Quentin found a tree with knee-high buttress roots at the base. He slid to the ground, his back against the tree and his feet pointing to where the Twin Otter should be. He sat there in the mud, waiting.

Exhausted by the most traumatic day of his life, uncertain that their son still lived, and feeling very alone, Quentin drew up his knees and laid his face and arms over them. In only one day his life had been shattered. In spite of this, Quentin felt deep within himself a need to survive. Not for his own sake, because the years of regret he faced were as daunting as this forest. Instead, he needed to live to ensure the survival of Lindsey and Addison, and the remaining students. For this reason, he would not give up.

His guilt and conviction were finally pushed away by the sympathetic veil of sleep. In the gray moments between states of consciousness, Quentin saw his father, kneeling in the forest, sobbing. After years of believing he had brought enlightenment to the Papuans he so loved, he had witnessed the truth. It was the first and only time Quentin had seen him cry.

Dad, I have failed too.

Chapter Six

Bobby awoke thinking someone had called his name. But he heard only birds chattering in the forest outside, and then another of Miranda’s moans. The plane’s cabin was now gray with the light of morning. The rain had finally stopped.

He wiped his eyes and looked around. The others seemed to be sleeping. Miranda’s eyes were closed, but her moans never ended. Carlos was curled up at the front of the plane where his brother had been crushed. He had barely spoken since the crash. Ashley was stretched out next to Miranda. Ashley’s wavy hair was clumped and tangled, and Bobby stared at her, wishing he could see more of her face.

Mrs. Darnell slept with her arm around Addison. Addison still hadn’t moved a muscle. Maybe he had died already during the night. Bobby was glad Mrs. Darnell had finally fallen asleep. He’d heard her crying through most of the night. They had yelled for Mr. Darnell until they could hardly talk. Then Mrs. Darnell had simply sat down outside the plane, soaked with rain. Finally, Bobby and Ashley had convinced her to move inside.

Bobby wondered what his own mom would do if she were here. She’d probably be a basket case. She hadn’t wanted him to sign up for the trip—said it was too dangerous. But he’d worked hard for the money, and finally she’d given up when Bobby’s dad gave him two hundred dollars toward the trip. Bobby’s mom gave up on a lot of things, including his dad. He just wouldn’t grow up, she’d say whenever Bobby asked why she’d left him. Now his dad was going to college, and working two jobs. That seemed pretty grown up to Bobby.

Bobby had to pee, so he rolled to his side and drew his legs up.

“Hey! Are you there?”

Bobby sat up. “Mr. Darnell!”

Mrs. Darnell lifted her head. “Quentin?”

Bobby scrambled out of the cabin. The air was wet but it smelled fresh. Mrs. Darnell came out behind him, followed by Ashley and Carlos.

In a few minutes they spotted Mr. Darnell fighting his way through the jungle. He hugged Mrs. Darnell like he had been lost for weeks. He was soaked and covered with mud and streaks of blood from scratches. But he was back.

Mr. Darnell explained how hard it was to move through the forest, and that he’d slept under a tree. Then he got very serious. “How are Addison and Miranda?”

Mrs. Darnell frowned, and they both went into the plane. Ashley followed them, leaving Carlos and Bobby outside. Carlos just stood there, his normally brown skin looking pale. Bobby fidgeted in silence. He tried not to look, but his eyes kept moving to where the bodies of Russ and Roberto lay. He could see legs and feet, speckled with flies. Carlos was looking at the same spot.

“Sorry about Roberto,” Bobby said. “He was nice. Awesome guitar player.”

Carlos looked away “Yeah. Maybe I’ll get his stuff.”

Bobby didn’t know if he should laugh and decided not to. He imagined it must be awful to have a brother killed. Bobby had never lost anyone, unless you counted his dad moving out. He had never even had a dog that died.

“How’s your hand?” Bobby said.

“Hurts like a son of a bitch. My fingers are fucking smashed.”

Bobby changed the subject again. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Mostly thirsty.”

In the night they’d managed to drink some rainwater, but it hadn’t been enough. Bobby figured there must be rainwater sitting in pools in the leaves on the ground, maybe even in some of the pieces of the plane. He asked Carlos if he wanted to help collect it.

Carlos shrugged and nodded. “I just got one hand.”

They found two zip-lock bags and a plastic rain jacket of Miranda’s. Bobby tied knots in the ends of the sleeves so the sleeves could hold water. But finding water that looked clean enough to drink wasn’t easy. Water was pooled in the wrecked metal, and they poured what they could into the bags. But the water was brown with dirt and oil. Then they found a jagged piece of the cockpit filled with water that had turned red from hacked-up muscle and skin still stuck to the metal. After that they dumped out both of the bags.

Water was indeed trapped in leaves on the ground, but only small amounts. After tediously collecting nearly a half bag this way, Bobby could see that Carlos’s hand was killing him. “You want to take a break? I can do this for a while.”

Carlos held out another leaf. “Just hold the bag open.”

Leaf by leaf, drop by drop, they worked without saying much more. The first bag filled up and they sealed it and set it at the base of a tree. The clouds disappeared and the forest started to heat up. Water seemed to hang in the air, like rain that wasn’t falling.

As Bobby sealed the second full bag and set it next to the first, there was a sudden wave of pattering raindrops. At first he thought the rain had started again, but the pattering lasted only a few seconds, and it came from one place in the trees above them.

“Look at that.” Carlos pointed with his mummy-wrapped hand.

Bobby squinted. An animal jumped and sailed toward them to another tree. The branch shook, letting go another shower of rain. The creature eyed them for a second and then launched itself again. Now it was above them, clinging to a tree no fatter than a baseball bat.

Bobby realized it was a tree kangaroo. Its shape was similar to the larger ground kangaroos, but it was the size of a big house cat. Heavy haunches and an arched back made the front part of the animal, the forearms and head, seem small. Its rust-colored eyes were low on its face, just over a short snout, and although its body was mostly dark, its face was golden. Most impressive was its tail, longer than the whole body and mottled with brown and tan fur. The tail hung straight down, like its only purpose was to impress. The creature eyed them, its pointed ears cocked in their direction. Then, clinging to the tree with its forearms, the tree kangaroo pumped its back legs. The tree shook, bringing a shower of rain down on them.

“Hey!” Carlos said, drawing the word out as if scolding a toddler.

Without taking its eyes off them, the creature pumped its legs and showered them again.

Clean rainwater ran from Bobby’s hair down his face. “He’s trying to help us.”

“Probably trying to scare us off,” Carlos said.

The creature responded by shaking the tree again, dropping more water on them.

“I’m telling you, Carlos, he’s helping!” Bobby pulled out the plastic jacket he had tucked in his pants and spread it out. He didn’t have to wait long. The creature shook the tree again and water fell onto the jacket and ran into the knotted sleeves hanging below.

“The water here is gone,” Bobby said. “Let’s see if he’ll do another tree.” He moved to a different spot. Carlos grunted and followed. The tree kangaroo scuttled up the tree and leapt from one branch to another until it was above them. It then shook the branch hard, sending a drenching shower onto them and the open jacket. Bobby could now feel the weight of the water.

Bobby shouted back to the plane, “Mr. Darnell, you have to see this!”

* * *

Quentin watched the tree kangaroo. The creature’s fearless behavior could mean humans had influenced it, but perhaps that idea was a manifestation of his need for a connection between the animal and their survival. He pondered this as they stood watching the performance. Suddenly he remembered the figurine he’d found in the bowerbird’s nest. He pulled it from his pocket and studied it. The resemblance was unmistakable.

“There must be people around here,” he said. “Maybe it’s been trained to do this.”

“Then there must be a village nearby,” Lindsey exclaimed.

Silently, Quentin processed the implausibility of the creature being trained. The only animals domesticated by Papuans were pigs and dogs. Rats lived in close association with them, but even those were not so fearless. Tree kangaroos were marsupials, and he knew of no marsupials anywhere that were domesticated or trained to do any helpful tasks.

The tree kangaroo continued shaking water onto the waiting jacket. As Bobby moved from one spot to another, so did the kangaroo. The animal’s behavior was so methodical that Quentin finally allowed himself to believe humans had trained it.

The jacket sleeves filled with water, and Quentin insisted that they all take a generous drink. Astoundingly, the tree kangaroo stopped shaking the trees while they drank, and then promptly started again when Bobby held the jacket out for more.

After returning to the fuselage, Quentin held a bag of water open as Lindsey cleaned Addison’s face. His forehead was grotesquely swollen, with concentric circles of blue and black around the impact wound. He had not stirred since the crash, and Quentin feared brain damage. But a pulse could be felt in his neck and wrist, giving them hope.

Miranda, who was in a perpetual state of semiconsciousness, seemed to be faring better. Suddenly, as Lindsey wiped her face, Miranda opened her eyes. “Where are we?”

Lindsey exhaled loudly. “Thank God, honey! We’ve been so worried.”

Miranda tried lifting her head, but then dropped back, moaning.

Quentin said, “Our plane crashed on the flight to Jayapura, Miranda.”

“I remember.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if the memory hurt. “How long ago?”

“Yesterday,” Lindsey said. “We’re going to get you to a hospital soon.”

Her brows furrowed. “Only one day?” She lifted an arm, whimpering from the pain of movement, and pushed her fingers through her short blonde hair.

Lindsey continued washing Miranda’s skin, talking softly to her.

Quentin took one of the bags of water and a reasonably clean portion of a shirt. He found Carlos slumped against a tree, weary from gathering water, and Quentin unwrapped his ruined hand. It was damaged beyond hope of repair, and infection was beginning to set in. Quentin knew that even in a modern hospital they would likely amputate his three crushed fingers. Carlos sobbed but didn’t complain as Quentin washed the hand.

* * *

“Mbaiso!” Bobby said. “That’s what we’ll call him.” He and Ashley, who had taken over for Carlos, now sat on the rotting trunk of a fallen tree. For some minutes they had been discussing the problem of finding the missing tail section of the plane, but Bobby had a hard time ignoring the tree kangaroo.

“Mbaiso?” Ashley said. “Where'd you get that?”

Bobby explained Mr. Darnell’s story about the legendary creature, the mbaiso.

Ashley snorted. “Mr. D always tells stories like that. Doesn’t mean they’re true.”

“So what about him, then?” Bobby pointed at the animal above them.

“I don’t know. Can we focus on finding the rest of the plane? It sounds like your idea might actually work.”

Bobby had never talked to Ashley alone. He was fourteen, almost a freshman, and had hardly any friends. Ashley was seventeen, a senior, the kind of girl kids like Bobby dreamed about. She was pretty, and Bobby had always figured she was stuck up. But now things were different. Her sarcasm had mostly disappeared. In fact, she seemed impressed with his plan for finding the rest of their stuff. So they went back and convinced Mr. Darnell to give the plan a try. Soon Mr. Darnell, Bobby, Ashley, and Carlos headed into the forest in the most likely direction until they were out of sight of the plane but still within earshot of Mrs. Darnell. At that spot they posted Carlos, who would stay as a yelling link to Mrs. Darnell. They moved on and then posted Ashley as another link in their voice chain, within shouting distance of Carlos.

Ashley was willing to do this, but she seemed to be hiding some dread, perhaps of being left alone there.

“You gonna be okay?” Bobby asked her.

“Shut up, Bobby. Worry about yourself.”

His face flushed. Not willing to give up, he looked up at the tree kangaroo, which had followed them. “Mbaiso, stay here with Ashley, okay?” He pointed at Ashley. The tree kangaroo raised its head and stared, its forelimbs fidgeting while the thicker hind legs gripped a branch. To Bobby’s surprise, the creature stayed put as he pushed on after Mr. Darnell.

Over his shoulder Mr. Darnell said, “You call it Mbaiso?”

“I know your story was made up, but that’s what he is.”

“It’s a good name.” Mr. Darnell ducked under a vine and then held it up for Bobby. “But I’m hoping our Mbaiso acts the way he does from living with people. If we can find them, they can radio for help.” He paused to call to Ashley, who answered right away. Still too close to post another link in the chain.

Bobby glanced to his side and something caught his eye—splintered branches stood out like markers above a small clearing. He approached the spot and Mr. Darnell followed. When they were almost upon it, they froze.

Mr. Darnell whispered, “What the hell?”

The clearing was the size and shape of a Twin Otter wing. But only a small part of the wing was visible at the center of the clearing, protruding from a mound of freshly dug soil.

“It’s buried,” Bobby said. “Someone buried the wing.”

Mr. Darnell moved closer. “What is this?” He kneeled and touched the soil. It was red-brown, different from the black soil of the surrounding area. It was very fine, and the surface reminded Bobby of dark sifted flour.

“It looks like an anthill—like ants buried the wing,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, but where are the ants?” Mr. Darnell dug into the stuff with his hand, and Bobby watched, half-expecting the hand to come up covered with angry, swarming ants.

“And why would ants—wait a minute!” Mr. Darnell pushed aside some of the dirt. Then he used his forearm to shove aside an entire armload. Beneath it there was only the forest floor. Mr. Darnell moved to the protruding metal, felt for its edge under the soil, and then lifted the entire piece with one hand. “The wing isn’t buried. It’s gone.”

They stared at the chunk of wing in Mr. Darnell’s hand. The soil on the ground seemed dry, but the raw edges of the wreckage shined with wetness. He dropped it and jumped to the edge of the clearing. “Don’t touch anything, Bobby!” he wiped his hands on his pants. “The wing has decomposed—or something. Jesus, what is this stuff?” He rubbed his hands and arms like they had acid on them.

Bobby stared at what was left of a Twin Otter wing. It was now upside down, jagged edges turned upward. As he watched, a chunk the size of a penny sagged, dripped to the ground, and then disappeared into the soil.

* * *

Bobby and Mr. Darnell watched the last of the wing dissolve. The process reminded Bobby of a time-lapse video he’d seen once of a decomposing rat.

“Hey, you guys! Did you find something?” It was Ashley, calling from her station.

Mr. Darnell shouted, “Yeah, we did. Keep listening for us.” He hesitated, looking at his hands like he feared they might melt. Then he turned to Bobby. “The rest of the plane has to be nearby.” He pointed to a spot well clear of the disintegrated wing. “You stay there, and I’ll search the area within earshot.

Soon after Mr. Darnell left, though, he cried out. As Bobby rushed to his side, Mr. Darnell grabbed his arm, a silent warning to be careful. Before them lay the tail of the plane, in several pieces. And like the wing each piece was only a small chunk in the middle of a mound of perfect red-brown anthill dirt. To one side was a heap of travel bags, clothing, and other things. Someone had gathered up their stuff.

Mr. Darnell released Bobby’s arm and moved away. Bobby followed. Before them was a seat from the plane. It lay on its side—what was left of it. The rest was just soil. Next to the seat, formed to its curves, was another pile of soil. Bobby stared, and then suddenly he inhaled sharply. The soil had the shape of a human body.

“What is that?” Bobby whispered.

“It must have been the Indonesian girl. And I can only assume that was her companion.” He pointed. Near the dirt figure, as if someone had curled up to fall asleep and then turned to dust, was another mound of soil in the shape of a human body.

* * *

Quentin felt ready to burst. He had no answers, but the questions still came.

“I can maybe understand the bodies,” Lindsey said. “It’s a tropical forest. Things decompose quickly. But the plane wreckage? Where did that go?”

“Not that quickly,” he said, after taking several gulps of rainwater. “We’ve been here less than two days, Linds. Bodies don’t decompose that quickly. Besides, the other bodies are still there.” Upon returning from their search, he’d inspected the bodies of the pilot, Roberto, and Russ. They’d shown early signs of decomposition, but they were still there.

“Then what could have happened? Are you sure they were bodies? Maybe the guy found his wife alive and they left together to find a village.”

“I don’t know!” His voice had an edge that he hadn’t intended. “I suppose that’s possible.” He rubbed his forehead and then glanced at the others. The only conscious person who had not asked the same confounding questions was Miranda. Lying in her makeshift bed, her body broken and weak, she watched the conversation silently.

They sorted through the recovered items. It was mostly clothing and their field supplies: notebooks, binoculars, and wildlife identification guides. Most valuable were Lindsey’s first aid supplies and two bottles of Aqua mineral water. Her stash of snacks was mostly gone except for some cereal bars. After setting aside a portion for Addison in hopes that he would wake up, they divided these up and ate them.

There was no medical kit. Perhaps it had turned to dirt with the rest of the wreckage. Lindsey spread out her own first aid supplies. There were bandages, motion-sickness tablets, q-tips, antihistamines, alcohol wipes, two tubes of antibiotic cream, scissors, gauze, tape, a needle and thread, and insect repellant. It was absurdly inadequate, but they decided to use the supplies at once in case they might be able to prevent infection in at least some of their wounds.

As Quentin worked on Carlos’s hand, the strange condition of the wreckage gnawed at his consciousness. Their lives were at risk from dehydration, hyperthermia, infection, disease, and blunt trauma. And now, even if they somehow could overcome these threats, an unknown force was at work in this forest, causing people and solid objects to disintegrate overnight.

And then there was the raw and simple fact that they had not seen or heard a single plane or helicopter that might be searching for them.

After depleting the limited supplies, Quentin collapsed and folded himself up against the fuselage wall. He sat there and quietly stared at Addison’s limp form.

* * *

Bobby figured that if Mbaiso had been trained to help collect water, he could probably help do other things. Like getting food. Bobby’s hunger was starting to hurt. His small portion of the food they had found only made it worse. And after their success getting water and finding the plane’s tail, he was starting to feel he could be useful. Besides, he liked impressing Ashley with his ideas, and she’d been hanging around him all afternoon.

They stood together now in the fading afternoon light, eyeing Mbaiso, who was a few meters away clinging to a tree. A termite trail ran up the tree’s trunk, from the ground to somewhere far above. Bobby had seen trails like this before. It was actually a tunnel, a covered highway made on the tree by termites out of chewed wood and saliva. Within the tunnel the termites were protected as they traveled up and down the tree. But Mbaiso had smashed part of the tunnel and now the termites swarmed the area. The tree kangaroo was watching the angry termites and keeping an eye on Bobby and Ashley at the same time.

“You actually think he’s going to help us find food?” Ashley sounded skeptical.

“If he can help get water, why not?”

“What are you going to do, just ask him?”

“We didn’t have to ask him about the water,” Bobby grabbed a vine and pulled it to his mouth like he was eating it. “Wow, I’m hungry. Wish I had something better to eat.”

Ashley rolled her eyes and shook her head. She pulled part of the vine to her mouth. “This stuff sucks,” she said. “I wish I had some cheeseburgers.”

The tree kangaroo stared at them, distracted from the swarming termites.

Bobby moved closer to Mbaiso and pulled another vine to his mouth. “I sure wish I could find—”

He stopped and sputtered. “Ow! Crap it hurts!” His mouth was on fire, like hot needles were sticking his lips. He pushed his hand against his mouth and the pain exploded, hurting so much he fell to his knees.

“What, Bobby? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know—Oooogod.” It hurt to talk, so he pointed at the vine and then his mouth.

Ashley inspected the vine. “It’s covered with little hairs. They must be poisonous.”

“Ahhnng gignnnk knoooh.”

“Let me see.” She knelt in front of him. “Look at me.”

Bobby looked into her eyes, only inches away. He could see his reflection against the green of her irises.

“Hold still. Move your hand!”

She was right in his face, the closest he’d ever been to a girl like Ashley. Even after a plane crash and two days of sweating, she smelled good.

“The hairs are stuck on your mouth, Bobby. Hold still.”

She bit her lower lip as she concentrated. He felt a pinprick.

“Got it. See?” She held it up, too close to focus on. “There’s a bunch of ‘em, so sit tight.”

A few minutes later she held up the last hair like a trophy. Bobby almost wished there were more. His lips were a little numb, but they felt better.

Ashley settled back onto the ground. “You may be the man-with-a-plan, but maybe you shouldn’t put random things in your mouth, especially in the middle of nowhere.”

Bobby sat across from her and crossed his legs. He picked at his socks. The morning before, the socks had been white. Now they were brown and red with mud, dried blood, and clinging seeds. Ashley’s socks, he noticed, were much cleaner.

From the direction of the plane, they heard Carlos’s voice, “No, that hurts!” Then came some calming words from Mr. Darnell that they couldn’t make out.

“I hope the doctors can save his hand,” Ashley said.

Bobby had seen Carlos’s hand. Saving it seemed unlikely. “Me too.”

“What do you think is going to happen to us?”

She seemed to want to talk, but Bobby had no answer.

“Do you think they’re looking for us?”

“I don’t know, but I think maybe we’re being watched.”

Ashley frowned. “By who?”

“Whoever trained Mbaiso. Whoever did that to those parts of the plane.”

Ashley looked around them. There was nothing to see but trees, vines, and mud. “If someone is watching, why don’t they help us?”

“I don’t know, but I figure they aren’t cannibals. They would’ve come for us by now.”

Her brows wrinkled. He shouldn’t have mentioned cannibals. He thought hard for something better to say. “Mr. Darnell’s parents found a tribe here that had never seen white people before. They made friends with them by trading things, like knives and radios. The Papuans gave them necklaces and food and stuff. Maybe Mbaiso’s a present for us.”

“Yeah, well that didn’t turn out so well for anyone. Mr. D’s dad killed himself.”

Bobby stared at her. Mr. Darnell hadn’t told him that.

Ashley looked around them again and then sighed. “Damn you, Lori, you bitch! I didn’t even want to come on this stupid trip.”

“Who’s Lori?”

“My mother.”

“You call your mom Lori?”

Ashley ignored the question. She started picking at debris in her hair. She reached back and swept her long frizzy hair over her head so it hung in front of her face. “God, look at all this crap.” She picked at it like she was angry.

“You didn’t want to come?” he asked her.

She kept picking at her hair. “Lori talked me into it. Said it would do me good to see how poor some people are. So I would know how lucky I am.”

Bobby watched her fingers work. He wanted to reach out and remove the pieces she missed but didn’t dare. “You are lucky, I think. We both are. We didn’t die.”

Her fingers stopped.

He went on. “My mom and dad didn’t have the money so I earned most of it myself. Took more than a year. I couldn’t wait to get here, with the jungle and animals and all.”

She looked at him through her tangled hair. “You really are a science boy, aren’t you? Mr. Darnell, Junior.”

“At least I know what I like, and at least I like something.”

Ashley flipped her hair back and looked at him. “That’s cool, science boy. I know what I like, too. Most people don’t know about it, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Horses.” She eyed him like she was daring him to laugh. “We have four. I like riding them and working with them.”

“I didn’t know you had horses.”

“I don’t tell people. So don’t go talking or I’ll beat you stupid.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m going to have horses when I get my own place. That’s one thing Lori and Brent have taught me—if you have money, you get what you want.”

“I’ve never been on a horse, but I think it’d be fun.”

“Tell you what, then. If you figure out how to get us out of here, I’ll teach you to ride.”

Bobby heard something approaching in the trees. He looked up and saw the brown-and-gold body of their marsupial friend. He hadn’t even realized Mbaiso had left them.

“Shit! What is that?” Ashley jumped up and pointed over Bobby’s shoulder.

Bobby turned and suddenly he was nose-to-nose with a strange face. He yelped and backed away. The new creature stood on its hind legs, with smaller forelimbs hanging in front of its chest, like a scrawnier version of the tree kangaroo. It was larger than Mbaiso, but its head was long and thin, and small for the size of its body. Its fur was solid tan except for a white stripe running down the back from head to rump. It raised and lowered its needle-like head. Mbaiso sat quietly above them, watching.

“It’s food,” Bobby whispered. “I told you he’d bring us food.”

* * *

“The infections are worse, and we’re out of clean water.” Lindsey turned an already soiled cloth over and wiped futilely at the wounds on Miranda’s leg. She then swatted at the swarm of flies trying to feed on the stale flesh. Miranda stared vacantly.

“It’ll rain again,” Quentin said. He was trying to build an insect barrier on the front of the fuselage using natty fabric removed from the seat cushions. He reasoned that if he could create a decent shelter for the others, perhaps he could leave them here and go search for help. If it came to that.

Quentin glanced at the fire. “Hey, Carlos, it’s dying down again, pal. Put the rest of that pile on and gather some more.” The pile of fuel consisted of anything dry enough to burn, mostly sago leaves. Getting the fire started had taken forever—even with the lighter he’d found on the pilot’s body—and he didn’t want it going out. A search plane might see the smoke from above. Carlos sat near the fire, his back against a tree. Quentin approached him. “Carlos, you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

The boy seemed oblivious to the insects on his face and arms. He was becoming more withdrawn. Quentin crouched down beside him. “Come on, pal. On your feet. You’ve got to keep moving.” He pulled the boy up, alarmed at how light he was.

“Mr. Darnell, check this out!” Bobby and Ashley approached from the brush. Bobby carried something in his arms. It looked like a wallaby, but with a very narrow head. “Mbaiso brought it to us. It’s supposed to be food.”

“That’s his opinion,” Ashley said. “It just wandered right up to us.”

Bobby set it on the ground, where it simply sat on its haunches.

“It looks like a dorcopsis,” Quentin said, noting the white stripe on its back. “It’s a kind of wallaby. It doesn’t seem very afraid.” Quentin nudged the wallaby with his foot, thinking it might be sick. Like a dog settling in for a nap, the animal plopped on its side at their feet. With its remarkably narrow head, it struck Quentin as a very stupid looking animal.

“I was starting to think we’d have to eat Mbaiso,” Bobby said. “Now we don’t have to!”

* * *

As the forest began to grow dark, Quentin told the others to move into the plane. There was no need for the fire, as the smoke wouldn’t be visible, so Quentin dragged a wrecked piece of metal and glass over the pile of dry fuel in case it rained during the night.

The dorcopsis lay on the ground near the fire, chewing on something. It would be foolish to let it wander off. Bobby was right, butchering the wallaby would go over better than killing the tree kangaroo. At least they hadn’t named the wallaby yet. He extracted a length of electrical wire from the wreckage and fastened one end of it around the animal’s neck. The dorcopsis shook its head a few times but otherwise seemed oblivious. Quentin scooped it up and placed it next to a tree that was entangled with a thick woody vine at the base. He fastened the other end of the wire to the vine. The wallaby tugged at the wire and then sprawled on the ground.

As Quentin turned away, he detected movement in the forest, beyond where the three bodies lay. He stared, and then nearly stumbled backwards with surprise as his brain processed the dim image. It was an upright figure moving slowly through the trees.

“Hey,” he shouted. “Is someone there?”

“Quentin?” Lindsey called from inside the fuselage. “We’re all in here.”

The truth of this hit him, and suddenly he felt exposed. The figure stopped moving and the forest was too murky to make it out. Quentin walked toward it, reminding himself that no large land predators lived in New Guinea. Suddenly the spot exploded. Quentin pulled back, startled. He could barely make out the movement, but he was almost sure it was a human. Then the rustling of the fleeing figure melded with the sounds of the night and was gone.

Chapter Seven

Their second night in the rainforest was as fitful for Quentin as the first. The others seemed to sleep fairly well, although Miranda mumbled most of the night. Quentin woke repeatedly, imagining or dreaming that someone was standing at the open end of the fuselage watching him. Finally it began raining, and he drifted into a more restful sleep as the torrent drowned out the other sounds that had kept him alert.

When he awoke, the rain had stopped and the forest glowed with the filtered light of early morning. Every muscle in his body was sore, and he doubted his ability to even sit up. But he willed himself to a vertical position, stifling a groan. The others were quiet, including Miranda. He stared at her for a moment, making sure she was breathing, and then did the same with Addison. With every passing hour, the chances the two would survive grew slimmer.

Once out of the plane, Quentin struggled to rise to his full height. He raised his shirt. His abdomen was one massive black and gray bruise. He looked around, checking the forest for any signs that someone else had been there. He pulled away the wreckage he’d placed over the pile of fuel. Some of it was reasonably dry, so he fished the lighter from his pocket. Before long the fire was burning again, but he would need to find more fuel to create enough smoke to be seen from above.

Quentin didn’t have to relieve himself, which meant he was dehydrated. He was also hungry to the point of feeling weak. The dorcopsis was still there, very wet but waiting patiently. They would have to kill and eat it.

But first he needed to bury the three bodies, as they were becoming a health risk to all of them. The light of morning had vanquished his anxiety over the mysterious figure from last night, but as he approached the bodies his courage and composure abruptly melted. In place of the bodies were three mounds of reddish-brown soil, nearly washed into the ground by the rain.

* * *

Bobby awoke to the smell of cooking meat. His mouth watered before he even opened his eyes, but he was disappointed that he had missed out on the killing and dressing of the wallaby. He sat up and rubbed his bruises. Mrs. Darnell was at the front of the plane, huddled over Addison. Her shoulders shook.

“Mrs. Darnell?” She didn’t answer, but her shoulders stopped. “You okay?” Still no answer. This made Bobby uncomfortable, so he left the plane.

Carlos was up and sitting by the fire. Next to him was a pile of sticks and brown palm leaves. A piece of metal from the plane had been dragged over the fire and some chunks of meat hung on the edge of it, cooking in the heat.

Bobby eased his sore butt onto the ground next to Carlos. “Damn, everything hurts. How you feeling?”

There was no answer. Bobby looked at his friend’s face, and the air around him seemed to turn cold. Carlos’s face had changed. His skin was pale. His eyes seemed to be lighter, almost gray, with red around them. The eyes glanced at Bobby, and then stared into the fire.

Bobby fought the urge to say something about Carlos’s appearance. “Where’s Mr. Darnell?”

Carlos shrugged slightly.

Bobby nodded at the cooking meat. “That the wallaby?”

Carlos nodded.

“You try it yet?”

Carlos shook his head.

Again, Bobby felt uncomfortable. He gazed awkwardly at the trees.

Mr. Darnell approached them, carrying the raincoat and two plastic bottles filled with clear rainwater. And he was soaking wet.

“Morning, Bobby.” Mr. Darnell put the bottles on the ground and then checked the wallaby meat by poking it with his pocketknife.

“Morning. You should talk to Mrs. Darnell. She seems kind of upset.”

“Yeah. Maybe we need to give her a little time.” He nodded toward Carlos, who was still staring into the fire. “Things aren’t going so well, are they?”

Bobby wasn’t sure if he was supposed to answer this. “I guess not.”

“I tell you what. That tree kangaroo of yours is amazing. I just held out the jacket and he knew what to do. Never seen anything like it. We’ll have to write it up for National Geographic or something, eh?” Mbaiso had followed him back and Mr. Darnell looked up at him. “What do you think of that, fella? You want to be famous?”

Bobby knew Mr. Darnell was trying to make him feel better, and it was working. So he decided to go with him to collect more water. With Mbaiso’s help, they filled the zip-lock bags. As they worked, they praised the tree kangaroo endlessly.

“Mbaiso, you are a noble marsupial,” Mr. Darnell said, after a drenching downpour.

“You’re the king of all marsupials,” Bobby said. “You’re so smart the pythons won’t eat you because they can’t swallow your brain.”

This went on. The stupid diversion almost made Bobby forget his hunger.

Later, they gathered around the fire to share the wallaby meat. Mr. Darnell tasted the meat first. He said it might make them sick if it wasn’t cooked enough. It was charred black, so there was little chance of that. Although dry, the meat was tasty, and for some time the only sounds heard were ripping and chewing and the crackling fire. This made Bobby feel like they now belonged here. They were eating a jungle animal, just like the Papuans did. Even Carlos ate some of the meat as Mr. Darnell handed him bite-sized pieces.

Bobby said, “Should we save some food for Miranda and Addison?”

The Darnells looked at each other in a way that made Bobby wish he hadn’t asked. But Mr. Darnell nodded and said, “Yes, we should do that.”

“Why haven’t we heard any search planes?” Ashley asked.

Mr. Darnell sighed. “I don’t know. As of last night, they had to know at home that we weren’t on the flight to Kansas City. Even if there was confusion at the Sentani airport and they lost track of our plane, they have to know now because your folks are making phone calls.”

“Raising hell is what they’re doing,” Ashley said.

The talking died again, and Bobby thought about this. No matter how mixed up things were at the airport, their parents would do something about it. He thought of his mom and dad. They would have to talk to each other because of this.

He also thought of Carlos’s parents. They didn’t know yet that Roberto was dead, or that Carlos might be dying. Their family had been close. Carlos’s mom stayed home and didn’t work; being a mother was what she did. Bobby pictured her sitting on Roberto’s bed, looking at his stuff and crying. Bobby didn’t know Russ’s family, but he felt bad for them, too. And for the families of the pilot and the Indonesian couple.

Maybe Bobby was the luckiest of all of them. He wasn’t badly hurt and he hadn’t lost a family member. Ashley was lucky, too. Bobby looked across the fire at her, the image of her face fluttering in the heat waves. Other than a cut on her shoulder, she was okay.

Ashley bit some meat from what may have been a leg bone, and then noticed Bobby staring. Her eyes narrowed. She held up the bone. “I feel like we’re eating someone’s pet.”

When most of the meat was gone, Mr. Darnell cleared his throat. He told them that the bodies were missing, turned into dirt. Everyone got quiet. Bobby felt a chill pass through him.

Mr. Darnell said, “I think we should have a ceremony for Roberto and Russ.” He looked at Carlos. “So we can say goodbye.”

Carlos just stared vacantly into the fire.

* * *

Bobby stood before the three mounds. Three people, clothes and shoes and all—now just piles of dirt streaked with little branching valleys carved out by rainwater.

Mr. Darnell spoke. “Roberto Herrera, Russell Wade, and the pilot of our plane, whose name we don’t even know, died before their time.” As he talked he swatted at the flies swarming around them. “Roberto, you were one of the smartest students I’ve known, and you were always willing to share your gifts with others. You were a good brother to Carlos. We could all learn a great deal from your relationship.”

Carlos was slouched over, his face pale. Tears filled his eyes finally, which was somehow comforting to Bobby.

Mr. Darnell went on. “Russell, you were a good friend to everyone. You always went out of your way to make the rest of us laugh, and we appreciated this more than you probably knew. It’s a tragedy that both of you boys were taken from us and from the rest of the world. When we return home we’ll make sure your families know the wonderful things you did in the final days of your lives. Goodbye Roberto. Goodbye Russ.”

Mr. Darnell asked if anyone else wanted to speak. Bobby’s mind was muddy. He could think of nothing to say.

Mrs. Darnell sighed and wiped her eyes. “Goodbye Roberto,” she said. “Goodbye Russ.” She rested her hand on Carlos’s shoulder briefly and then trudged back to the plane.

Bobby and Ashley repeated Mrs. Darnell’s simple goodbyes and then returned to the fire, leaving Carlos and Mr. Darnell staring silently at the piles of dirt.

* * *

Carlos was suffering in so many ways, and Quentin wasn’t sure what to say to him. They stood quietly for a moment, hearing only the buzzing of flies. Finally Quentin said, “I’m sorry for what’s happened, Carlos. Do you want to say goodbye to Roberto?”

“I don’t feel good,” Carlos said.

“I know you don’t. Let’s see if we can clean up your hand again, okay?” He steadied the boy with his arm as they walked back to the plane. Carlos’s skin was cold. Quentin sat him on the edge of the fuselage and went to find some clean fabric. He sorted through the strips of soiled rags. Most of them had been used at least twice.

“There’s none left.” Lindsey’s voice was flat. “Everything’s filthy.” She was crouched over Addison and didn’t bother turning around.

He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Hang on, Linds. Help will be here soon.”

She shook her head almost imperceptibly.

Quentin removed Carlos’s wrap and stared at his crushed hand. The flesh was a hundred shades of crimson and violet, and the smell was dreadful. Red puffiness extended up the arm to the elbow. Quentin went through the motions, dabbing it lightly. Flies descended, so he quickly wrapped it back up.

Carlos suddenly wretched. He rolled from the edge of the fuselage and vomited. The dorcopsis meat, barely chewed and undigested, piled onto the ground.

“Oh Christ, Carlos.” Quentin rolled him to his side to keep his face clear of the vomit. Carlos’s eyes rolled back as his stomach heaved again.

Bobby and Ashley came over from the fire and watched in horror. When Carlos finished vomiting he was unconscious. They moved his limp body inside the plane.

Within minutes, Ashley complained of stomach cramps, and then Bobby joined in. Quentin felt his own stomach clench. They endured several hours of discomfort but nothing more serious.

By midday their cramps had subsided, but Carlos was still unconscious and could now be counted among those who might never wake up. As for Addison, other than drops they’d placed in his mouth, he had taken in no water since the crash—some fifty-five hours ago.

They had kept the fire burning all morning, using up the dried wood and sago fronds in the surrounding area. Each collecting trip took them further away, well out of sight of the fuselage. Soon it would take longer to collect fuel than for the fuel to burn.

They were running out of time.

With sudden crystalline clarity, Quentin knew he had to find a village. There were Papuans near here, he was sure of that. The carved figurine, the tree kangaroo’s domesticated behaviors, and the fleeing figure he’d seen last night; there had to be a village. And a village would likely have some way to contact the rest of the world.

* * *

“This is stupid, Quentin, and you know it!” Lindsey’s eyes were wide with fear. “Our chances are best if we stay with the plane. Survival 101!”

“You and the others are staying here with the plane. If a search party finds you before I find the village, they’ll get the kids to a hospital. If I find the village first, though, it may save them. Hell, it may save all of us.”

“Goddammit, think about this! You’re leaving the crash site.”

“The rule doesn’t apply here! The site is invisible. We can’t even keep a fire going.” He pointed to the unconscious kids. “How much time do you think they have?”

“How does it help them for you to get lost in the forest again? You already tried this! How far did you get, maybe a tenth of a mile? You’ll wander aimlessly until you either stumble on a village or starve to death. Is that your plan?”

She was probably right. But Quentin was going. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said. “But I don’t see how they can find us here.” He placed a walkie-talkie into her hand and folded her fingers around it. “There’s not much power left, so keep it turned off.” He clipped the other one to his waist. “Every half hour we’ll turn them on and make contact, okay? I may find a village before I’m even out of range.”

That was unlikely. The walkie-talkies supposedly had a range of five miles, but they never lived up to this claim, particularly in a forest. They had charged them the night before their flight, but had used some of the charge while searching for the three boys in Wamena.

Quentin looked at the sun through the trees. “I have to go before it gets any later.”

“Maybe one of us should go with you,” Ashley suggested. She and Bobby had been tending the fire, trying to ignore the argument.

“Thanks Ash, but the most important thing you can do now is keep the fire burning for as long as you can.”

Bobby handed him a canvas bag. “Here’s some stuff you might need.”

Inside were the two bottles filled with rainwater and Carlos’s souvenir machete in its garish sheath. Quentin removed one of the bottles and handed it back. “Thanks. You guys keep that fire burning. If it rains, cover the wood so you can get it started again.”

Lindsey had retreated to the fuselage, and Quentin considered going in to face her. He might never see her again, but further fighting would accomplish nothing.

“Lindsey, I’ll see you soon, okay?”

After some seconds of awkward foot-shuffling silence, he turned to go.

* * *

As Lindsey had predicted, Quentin soon had no idea which direction he was going. For a short time Bobby’s voice returned his shouts. But that soon faded away, and the only sounds he heard were chattering birds and buzzing insects. Above him there was an occasional rustling from Mbaiso, who had followed him and now moved from tree to tree to keep up.

Quentin found it impossible to maintain a constant bearing without a compass. He was frequently forced to modify his path, moving to the right or left around a dense cluster of saplings, a tangle of vines, or a fallen tree. But he had reasoned that even with an erratic course, he would eventually come across a trail leading to a village. This made sense to him when he had started, but now he was lost and alone and began to question his logic.

After pushing his way through yet another curtain of woody vines, he glanced at his watch. Two minutes until their second radio communication. He pulled the bag from his back, retrieved the water bottle, and took his first drink, downing a third of the bottle. He shook the bottle and gazed at the remaining water. Specks of matter swirled in the vortex. He unclipped the walkie-talkie and pressed the power button. A small battery icon flashed in the corner of the LCD screen—the charge wouldn’t last much longer.

“Lindsey? Can you hear me?” There was only static. Quentin sighed and looked around, but the dense forest was the same in every direction. Behind him there were no visible signs of his passage, no trail he could retrace.

The scraping of claws against bark brought his attention to the tree kangaroo, clambering down a tree trunk. “Hey, Mbaiso. You mind if I call you Mbaiso?” The creature appeared not to mind. “Where’s the village? Where is everyone?”

“Quentin, are … there?” The crackling voice startled him.

“Yes, Lindsey, I can hear you.”

“Quentin? … you? … I can … hear you. Quen …”

The flashing battery on the LCD screen had one bar left. “Lindsey, you guys okay?”

“Quentin? I can’t … I hope … hear me … Bobby … people in the forest … I wasn’t sure … Ashley saw them … Quentin, they were … I need … know you’re okay … the kids … afraid now … hear me? … where …”

Quentin’s throat constricted. “Lindsey, what’s going on?”

The broken voice continued, “… what they want, but … inside the plane … the kids are … come closer … you need to … back …”

Quentin jammed his thumb into the talk button to respond. The unit emitted a warning tone and then shut off. It was dead. He turned it back on and pressed the talk button.

“Lindsey—”

The unit beeped and shut off. It wouldn’t come back on.

Quentin stood frozen. The forest seemed to tighten on him, shrinking the already tiny clearing in which he stood. He was a speck in a vast ocean. The clipped echoes of Lindsey’s ominous message played in his head. She had been right—he shouldn’t have left. He threw his head back and screamed her name, drawing the cry out until the last bit of air left his lungs. When he opened his eyes Mbaiso was clinging to a tree, watching him intently from above.

“What kind of place is this?” he shouted, half to himself and half to anyone who might be listening. “If you’re here, why don’t you help? Jesus Christ, get out of my face!” He thrashed at the flies, striking his own face in an attempt to kill some of them. Then he plunged back into the tangle in the direction he’d come from.

But everything looked unfamiliar and he was hopelessly lost. Finally he stopped and called out again. Silence. His watch told him twenty minutes had passed since he’d heard Lindsey’s broken message. He pulled out the walkie-talkie and pressed power. The batteries had recovered enough to power the unit on. He listened to static and then pressed the talk button. The unit beeped once and shut off. It was useless. Quentin shut his eyes to block the flood of loneliness and fatigue. In a few hours darkness would fall again. He would have to endure the long night not knowing what was happening to Lindsey and the kids.

A sound rose into Quentin’s consciousness. At first he thought he imagined it, but there it was again—the sound of moving water. Not a waterfall, but more subtle, like the churning of a slow-moving river. He pushed through the foliage in the direction of the sound and almost immediately came upon a tangled bank of rolling, mud-brown water. Had he not heard it, he might have passed within meters of the river without seeing it.

But it was not the river itself that gave Quentin hope. Running parallel to it was a path. He’d seen numerous animal trails running under low-hanging brush, indicating small mammals or ground birds used them. But this trail was different. In both directions, the foliage over the trail was clear to a height that would accommodate humans.

* * *

The path would likely lead to a village. Quentin desperately wanted to return to the others, but there was little chance of finding them by wandering aimlessly. The path gave him a new option. Quentin walked a short distance in one direction, and then the other, but saw no signs that either way was the better choice. After watching the brown water for a moment he decided to head downstream. But first it would be wise to mark where he had found the path. He pulled the souvenir machete from the bag, slid the blade from its sheath, and hefted it in his hand. It looked cheap, but it had some mass to it.

He located a sapling that could be cut up to arrange into an unmistakable marker. He reared back and swung the machete at the base of the tree. The blade sliced cleanly through and continued its arc until it buried itself deep in his left ankle.

Quentin blinked at the machete. It had cut a slice in his trousers and a red stain spread rapidly from the blade. He jiggled the machete’s handle, wincing at the pain, but his tibia bone gripped it tight. He yanked hard on the handle, pulling the blade free. Blood spurted from the slice in his trousers and the red stain began spreading even faster.

He crumpled onto the ground and sat staring dumbly at the wound.

Chapter Eight

It didn’t make sense to Bobby that they should sit inside the plane. It was hot, and it smelled like death. But Mrs. Darnell was afraid of the Papuan men.

If they were so dangerous, they would have attacked when he and Ashley had met them in the forest. At the time they had been gathering fuel for the fire. Bobby was the first to see the dark face watching them and he nudged Ashley. When the stranger realized he’d been spotted, he rose from the bushes to his full height. Another man popped up at his side. Bobby and Ashley just stood there, afraid to speak. The men held sharpened spears, gripping them as if they thought they might have to use them. After a silent stare-down, the men slowly backed away until the forest swallowed them up.

They had returned empty-handed, and the fire soon died. Mrs. Darnell didn’t want them leaving the plane anymore, and now Bobby was forced to endure the heat and smell. They hadn’t heard from Mr. Darnell in hours, and the plane’s cabin was filled with stale air and dread. Was this what it was like to wait for death? Was this what had happened to people he’d read about in books, explorers who were never seen again? Did they sit around like this, watching their friends die, waiting for their turn?

Mrs. Darnell was speaking softly to Addison, stroking his face with a wad of cloth, and Ashley was dripping water in his mouth from a plastic bag. It was all they could do for him.

Bobby thought about his own parents. What would they do? His mom would freak out. But his dad—if he were sitting in this shit-hole with them, he’d try to keep everyone together. Like he did during the divorce. And he would want Bobby to do the same thing.

“Mrs. Darnell,” Bobby said, “you know that thing you and Mr. Darnell do sometimes, where you talk about stuff and make things up about it?”

At first she didn’t answer, but then she said, “What do you mean?”

“You know, like a game. You make up stories about things, like animals. What they’re thinking and stuff. You guys do that.”

Mrs. Darnell shook her head slightly but said, “I guess so.”

“I remember when I was little, my mom and dad talked like that sometimes.”

“Your parents seem like nice people.”

“Yeah, but when they’re together, you don’t even want to be there.”

Mrs. Darnell said, “Sometimes people change, even when you don’t want them to.”

“Maybe Mr. Darnell found the Papuans’ village.”

“Maybe,” Mrs. Darnell said quietly.

“I think they’re a lost tribe, like the tribe Mr. Darnell’s parents found,” Bobby said. “That’s why they aren’t helping us.”

Ashley snorted. “So now we’re all lost.”

Bobby thought for a moment. “And Mr. Darnell found their village. They think he’s from the future or something. He’s trying to tell them we need to get to a town. But they don’t even know about towns.”

Ashley opened her mouth like she might chime in, but then she just leaned back silently.

“They’re probably getting ready to have a feast for us,” Bobby said. “All kinds of food we’ve never tried before.”

This wasn’t working. Mrs. Darnell held her eyes shut as if his attempts at optimism were giving her a headache.

Suddenly a dark figure filled the cabin’s opening. For a second, Bobby thought Mr. Darnell had come back. But it wasn’t him. They all stared at the stranger.

The man crouched, holding a spear in front of him. He was a Papuan tribesman, maybe one Bobby and Ashley had seen earlier, but he was much closer now. Green parrot feathers stuck out from his hair in all directions. Bobby couldn’t tell how old the man was. The skin on his face was smooth, like a boy’s, but the confidence in his eyes was that of a grown man.

Mrs. Darnell’s voice was a whisper. “Don’t do anything to threaten him.”

The man inched into the opening. Bobby turned to Mrs. Darnell for help, but his eyes were drawn to a hole in the unfinished insect barrier above her head, where a second Papuan peered in at them. This man’s eyes, set high on a smooth black face, had the same cool, assured gaze, and Bobby felt a chill when they looked directly at him. And then the face pulled away and was gone. Bobby spun around and the second Papuan appeared next to the first. The green-feathered man looked from Bobby to Ashley, and then to Mrs. Darnell and the still bodies at her side. He bobbed his head from side to side as if to see into the shadows more clearly.

“Gu mbakha-to-fosu le-bo? Mba-mbam?” The Papuan’s voice was higher than Bobby expected, almost musical. The man stepped into the cabin and then moved toward Mrs. Darnell. “Walukh, khomilo?”3

Bobby saw Ashley tense up, and he feared what she might do. The man passed by within arm’s reach. Bobby stared at the dark-stained point of his spear. Above the darkened tip, rows of symbols and shapes were carved into the wood. There were rectangles, triangles, spirals, loops, and many more, and for some reason the carvings seemed oddly familiar to Bobby.

“Walukh, khomilo? Dead?” The man pointed to Addison, Carlos and Miranda.

Mrs. Darnell’s eyes widened. “You speak English? You understand me? Toktok Inglis? Uh… saya dari Amerika. Dari mana?”

The Papuan kneeled next to Carlos and pointed at him. “Khomilo? Dead?”

“They’re not dead, but they’re hurt. Can you help us? Do you speak English?”

“English. Samuel neni fo English.” The Papuan touched Carlos’s arm and ran his finger down the red and gray flesh. He started removing the wrap from Carlos’s hand.

Mrs. Darnell pushed his hand away. “We need to get to a hospital. Can you help?”

The man turned to Mrs. Darnell. Bobby couldn’t see, but he must have given her a convincing look, because she let him remove the wrap. He looked at the rotting hand and then reached into a pouch that hung from his neck. He pulled out his hand, his fingertips covered in gray globs. He spoke to Mrs. Darnell in his musical chatter.

“Thank you,” she said. “But that’s not what we need.”

The Papuan reached for Carlos’s face, forced open one eye and smeared the stuff onto his eyeball. Bobby’s stomach went tight.

Mrs. Darnell pushed the man’s hands again. “Stop that!”

The second Papuan rushed past Bobby and held his spear in Mrs. Darnell’s face. This man’s spear was also covered with vaguely familiar symbols and shapes.

“Please,” Mrs. Darnell said. “There’s nothing wrong with his eyes. He needs a hospital.”

The man spoke to her again. They were soft words, and they made Bobby believe the men did not want to hurt them.

Ashley said. “Just let them do what they want so they’ll leave!”

Mrs. Darnell backed away and watched.

The man with the pouch crawled from Carlos to Miranda. He examined her broken leg and then scooped out more gray sludge and forced open her eyelid. She moaned as he smeared the stuff against her bare eyeball. Mrs. Darnell whimpered and turned away, helpless.

Next he moved to Addison. The man touched his face and chest, and felt his neck.

“Yu le khomilo-mbo,” he said. “Khomilo. Dead.”4

Mrs. Darnell wheeled around. “He’s not dead!” She moved toward them, and the second man brought his spear up again, but she ignored it. “His heart is beating, see?”

The man looked at her silently, his face close to hers. Bobby had always thought of Mrs. Darnell as pretty, but next to the Papuan her face seemed old, and very white.

She was sobbing now. “He’s breathing.”

The Papuans looked at each other. They talked in their high voices back and forth like they were trying to decide something. The man then reached to Addison’s face and rubbed the stuff into his eye. The second man frowned and shook his head at this.

Both men left the plane, and again stale air and dread filled the empty space.

* * *

Quentin limped along the path, cursing his recklessness. He paused and gazed down at his leg. Blood still flowed from the gash in spite of his efforts to stem it. He’d knotted one of his socks around his ankle, but the sock and lower leg of his trousers were now saturated with blood. The blood had seeped into his hiking shoe, and his foot slid inside it with each step. It was getting harder to walk. He had to find a village before losing consciousness. So he trudged on.

The path still followed the river. Occasionally it would cut away and Quentin would lose sight of the water, but soon it would reappear. Finally he could stand the pain no longer, and he stopped. He turned and looked back the way he had come. The forest seemed darker than before. For a moment he forgot which way he had been walking, and he rubbed his face in frustration. Only a small amount of water remained in the bottle, and he drank it down, reveling in the sensation of moisture in his throat. Grunting, he hobbled to the river’s edge and knelt by the water. He submerged the empty bottle. The water looked like chocolate milk as it gurgled into the bottle. No doubt it contained microbes that would have a heyday with his system. But what difference did it make now? This thought struck him as funny, and he laughed out loud and took a long drink from the bottle. The water tasted like mud and algae.

He pulled the bag from his shoulder and peeled off his shirt. He pushed aside the tangled vegetation and waded into the river. A red stain curled away from his blood-soaked trousers and moved slowly downstream. He splashed brown water over his head and body.

Feeling somewhat renewed, he pushed on. The path continued, but seemed to narrow. Sometimes the way was blocked by a riot of new growth, but when he fought through it the path continued on the other side. With every step he heard himself grunt, but it seemed like the voice of a stranger.

The forest grew dark, and the stain on his trousers was now black. Quentin could hardly see the path, but he pushed on anyway, feeling only pain and hearing only the continuous grunting. He no longer knew or cared whether he was making the noise himself. He cared only about taking another step, and then another.

Finally he could go no further and he stopped. For a moment he stood watching the shadows swing back and forth as his body swayed. With a final grunt he buckled and sat down on the trail. He just needed to rest. Then maybe he could start again.

* * *

There were voices talking in the blackness—small, funny voices Quentin didn’t understand. He willed himself to open his eyes and look. A few stars peeped through the canopy, and he realized he was on his back. Two figures, silhouettes of blackness, stood above him. He tried to speak but the words jumbled themselves. The figures stopped talking.

He focused his efforts and tried again. “Help…we need help.”

One of the figures spoke, “Gu mbakha-to-fosu le-bo?”5

Quentin tried to concentrate. “I don’t understand.”

“Nu pesau im-le. Pesua.” The speaker crouched by him. “Friend, gu spirit lai-ati-bo-dakhu. Lele-mbol-e-kho-lo? Laleo? Spirit?”6

Suddenly Quentin was more alert. “Do you speak English?” He struggled to sit up. The figures moved and there was a sharp pain. The men were holding spears against his chest.

“What are you doing?” He collapsed. “Jesus!”

“Mbakha lekhen, Jesus? Laleo khop.”7

Quentin’s mind groped. Were the men even real? He raised his head again. They were still there. One was taller. Strands of light-colored objects encircled his neck, forming a wide loop over his shoulders and chest. Each of the men wore a headdress of some kind.

“I need to go to your village and radio for help. Do you have a radio?”

“Gu laleo-lu de-te-dakhu, Jesus,” the taller man said.8

Quentin tried to get up again but the weapons snapped to his chest. He shoved the spears aside, gripping one of them in his hand. “Look, I need—”

The spear was yanked from his hand and he felt a fire in his chest, and then another. He fell back, clutching the pain. Looking down he saw two dark spots on his shirt.

“You stabbed me! Shit!”

A calm grayness descended upon Quentin. “Lindsey, I didn’t...”

As he faded away, the voices followed him into the grayness. “Gu mbakha-lekhe wa-mol-mo, dodepa-le Lindsey? Lindsey gekhene mbakha mo-mba-te?”9

* * *

In the darkness, the tree kangaroo watched the men from above. Their present behaviors intertwined with a long history of observed behaviors, allowing a reasonably accurate prediction of the scene’s outcome. Rarely was the mbolop allowed to intervene in the unfolding of such events, but it now seemed likely that the potential role of the new outsiders would have no chance to play itself out.

With a drawn-out grunt, the tree kangaroo unfolded itself from its restful perch in the fork of a yawol tree and clambered to the ground. This drew the attention of the tribesmen, and they turned to stare at the approaching creature. In the sultry darkness of the trail beside the river Méanmaél, paws and claws moved with precision. The men watched the movements, nodding their heads in understanding. Soft words were exchanged between them, a dispute ensued, and chewed pandanus nuts were spat with disdain onto the ground. Finally, one of the tribesmen turned and departed, making his way on the trail in the direction the one called Quentin had been walking. The other stayed behind, pacing in circles around the crumpled figure, his spear held ready. The mbolop returned to its comfortable perch to wait.

* * *

The cabin was dark now, and somehow this seemed better to Bobby. He felt almost safe lying next to Ashley. Mrs. Darnell was still awake. She was trying to be quiet but he heard her crying. And the Papuan men were still there, moving around outside the plane. Occasionally a dark shape appeared at the opening, as if checking on them.

He whispered, “Ashley, you awake?”

“How the hell can I sleep?” she hissed. “It’s like we’re prisoners and I have to pee.”

“I don’t think they want to hurt us.”

“Maybe not, but if they were trying to help us, they’d call for a rescue helicopter. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re dying off here.”

Bobby didn’t have anything to say to this. Eventually he closed his eyes and slept.

* * *

Quentin was awakened by voices. Someone was poking his leg and chest. He fought his way to consciousness. The forest was still dark, and several figures crouched beside him.

“What…what are you doing?” he managed to say.

“Ah, very well, then,” a man at his side said. “Perhaps our verdict was premature.”

Quentin blinked and lifted his head. He tried to sit up but was too weak.

“You would be obliged to rest, young man,” said the stranger.

Quentin tried to think clearly. “You speak English. Thank God.”

The man was doing something to Quentin’s leg, tugging at the cloth of his trousers. “Having yet to know me, you might do well to withhold your thanks to God.”

“Our plane crashed and some of my students are hurt.”

“I was told there were young people in your company. Students, you say? Curious.”

“Do you have a radio?”

The man gazed at his own hand as he rubbed something between his fingers. “No doubt you will find this uncomfortable. Steady yourself.” In one swift motion he gripped Quentin’s face, pried open one of his eyes, and roughly smeared something onto his eyeball.

Quentin recoiled. “Ow—shit! What is that?”

“Shit.” The stranger pronounced the word as if he had never heard it before. “It has always been my opinion that a man in distress is an honest man. Your words expose your state of civilization, sir.”

Quentin rubbed his eye and after a moment the initial pain subsided. “What the hell did you put in my eye?”

“You should not worry over that. You will thank me for it soon enough. It is time for questions of my own. From whence have you and your companions come?”

“We’re from the U.S.”

“The U.S. Where might that be?”

Quentin looked at the man, trying for the first time to make out his features. Although it was dark, Quentin saw that he was oddly dressed. What appeared to be a light-colored vest covered his upper body. Over his crotch was a loosely cut pair of shorts. His legs and feet were bare. His accent was not Australian, which was how Quentin described the inflections of all English-speaking people in this part of the world. Instead, it sounded British—a Masterpiece Theatre sort of British. He sounded and looked like a fairly young man. His dark hair was cut short, and he appeared clean-shaven.

“The U.S. The United States,” Quentin said.

“The United States, of course. Tell me, if you will—what do you call this place?” The man held his hands out, indicating their surroundings.

“New Guinea? Papua? I don’t really understand what—”

“Papua? Curious. What brings you here? And with students, no less.”

The man’s questions seemed irrelevant. “I’m sorry, but we need help. My students, my wife, we need to get to a hospital.”

“Do you mean to say that you have brought your wife to this place?”

“Yes. My wife and I survived the plane crash, but some of our students died. The others are hurt. Our son may be dead by now. They need a hospital.”

The man stared at Quentin for a moment. “Sir, you should not worry over them any longer. Their fate, and yours as well, is no longer in the hands of God. I fear your wife and students have perished.”

Quentin stared, but it was too dark to see the man’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you can do nothing to save them.” He motioned to two Papuans standing at Quentin’s feet. “These indigenes, within whose territory you find yourself, fancy their privacy in a way you could scarcely imagine. You will not be leaving this place.”

Quentin suddenly felt weak. He slumped onto his back on the ground. This couldn’t be real. He wasn’t lying injured in the mud in a black forest. He was in his bed, cool dry sheets over him, Lindsey’s smooth skin against his side, the smell of her hair in his face. They would wake up together. He would share the dream he’d had with her, and she would listen.

Quentin heard himself moaning. It was the same voice—his voice—that had followed him on the path. He wanted it to stop, so he pulled Lindsey’s body closer and fell asleep.

* * *

Quentin was floating in space. Stars were everywhere, all around him, above and below. The stars appeared to be passing by in the vast distance, as if he were moving at unimaginable speed. A cold loneliness washed over him, a sensation that he’d been alone for a long, long time. Quentin noticed one particular star growing larger as it approached. It continued to grow, until he had to look away from its blinding light.

* * *

“Wake yourself, sir. It seems you are to persevere another day.”

Someone gripped Quentin’s shoulders and lifted him to a sitting position. The forest was no longer dark. A Papuan man stood above him, armed with a spear. Kneeling beside him was a white man, wearing a peculiar gray vest and little else. Quentin focused on the man’s face—thirtyish, smudged but clean-shaven. The eyes were very light brown, almost gold. Quentin’s mind fought to connect the face before him with the shadowed specter of the night before. Then the words the man had spoken came back with ruthless lucidity. He pushed himself up, gripped the man’s vest, and flipped him onto his back. Quentin was on top of him in an instant.

“What have you done with my wife? And my kids?”

There was a flash of movement as the Papuan jabbed his spear to Quentin’s chest. “Yu Khentelo! Yu beben!” The spear punctured Quentin’s skin, but he ignored it.10

The man beneath him spoke calmly to the Papuan, “Yu khentelo tekhen. Khedi belen. Khedi belen.” He looked at Quentin. “I assure you that I mean no harm to you or your fellow travelers. I have, in fact, returned to you to seek a remedy.”11

“You told me they had perished. What did you mean by that?”

“My conclusion was premature. Our situation has changed. With my assistance, you may yet save them. Please yield, sir.”

Quentin looked up at the Papuan and was struck by the man’s appearance. His face was that of a mature Papuan man, but his skin was smooth and flawless. It lacked the markings of disease and wrinkles that were characteristic of tribal Papuans. And this man’s dress suggested a most traditional existence. Other than a short penis sheath, he wore nothing but three cords around his neck, each strung with small white objects. The Papuan smiled, flashing a row of perfect white teeth, and then suddenly wrenched the spear to the side, tearing Quentin’s flesh.

Startled, Quentin released his grip on the Englishman’s vest. He retreated to one side and sat on the ground, clutching his new wound.

The white man rose to his feet and smoothed his vest. The material shimmered strangely, and it occurred to Quentin that the vest had felt extraordinarily light in his grip.

“Do be wary of Noadi,” said the Englishman. “Whatever schooling you may have had, you can scarcely comprehend the chasm between his morality and your own. Presently it is sufficient to note that he is but a savage, with savage ways. Tell me, sir, have you the want of seeing your wife again?”

“What’d you do to them? Where are they?”

“Their locality is unknown to me. I have hopes that you will lead me there.”

Quentin shook his head. “Last night you said you knew about them, that they were… dead.” The word dropped from his mouth like a stone.

“But I had not the opportunity to confirm the claim.” He gestured to the Papuan. “It is the brothers of Noadi who have frequented the area where your flying vessel ran aground. As is their custom with strangers, they had determined to kill you all. But I only recently learned that they have, curiously, stayed their hand. Your wife and students may yet live. I have come to you so that we might save them.”

Quentin glared at him. “I’m listening.”

“If you would pause for a moment and consider your condition. Mere hours ago you were scarcely living, with copious bleeding and fetid injuries. You have made an astounding recovery, would you not agree?”

Quentin inspected his shin. By now the deep slice from the machete should have been festering, infected with microbes from the river and from his own filth. Amazingly, the gash was partially healed. Instead of red and swollen, it was pale and smooth.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Your rest was brief, I assure you. What of the wounds on your chest? My friends were rather vigorous in restraining you.”

Quentin pulled up his shirt. There was a ragged gash from Noadi’s savage gesture only moments before. On either side of it were two nearly-healed wounds where the spear points had pierced him during the night.

Quentin stammered, “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?”

Quentin tried to grasp the situation. He was sure the stranger was not lying, that it was indeed only hours ago that he lay wounded and delirious, perhaps near death. Suddenly he remembered the man rubbing a gritty substance into his eye. “What did you treat me with?”

The man raised his brows. “Pray tell me, are you familiar with ointments or poultices with such powers to heal?”

Quentin’s answer was immediate. “There is no such substance.”

The man stared for a moment, his face blank. “Curious.”

“What I mean is, there isn’t—”

The man interrupted. “Perhaps later there will be time for this discussion. Let us, for the moment, agree that your recovery surpasses your expectations, and return to the fate of your companions. Clearly your strength is returned. Are you prepared to travel?”

Quentin felt stronger than he had in days. Even his hunger and thirst were diminished.

“Yeah, let’s move.”

* * *

Bobby forced himself awake. Something wasn’t right. Wetness struck his face and he wiped it away. Through sleep-crusted eyelids he saw the green light of morning above him. Something struck his face again, and then his arm. He squinted. The stuff on his arm was reddish-brown and moist. He propped up on an elbow and hit his head. His confusion turned to fear. The roof of the plane’s cabin was less than a meter above the ground.

Bobby looked at the floor beneath him. It was covered with fine soil, concealing his ankles and part of his legs. Ashley and the others were half buried where they lay. Bobby shook Ashley’s shoulder. She moaned.

“Ashley, wake up! Mrs. Darnell, wake up!”

Mrs. Darnell responded immediately. “What’s wrong?” She had been sleeping on her side, and her body was partly buried. She sat up, striking her head on the ceiling, which seemed even lower now than it did only moments before. The soil fell away from her body.

“Mrs. Darnell, your clothes!” Bobby tried to look away, but couldn’t. Most of her shirt was gone. Where the fabric had touched the soil, only bare skin showed.

Bobby realized his own shirt had fallen into his lap. He lifted what was left. The entire back was gone. He grabbed his jeans and pulled. Only the front remained, and they lifted easily from his legs, leaving him naked. The heel portions of his shoes were gone, and the remains covered only his toes. The soil was eating everything around them.

“We need to get out!” Mrs. Darnell cried.

* * *

Quentin led the Englishman along the riverside path, retracing his steps. The Papuan, Noadi, was no longer with them. Apparently he had serious misgivings about the crash site and survivors.

As they walked, Quentin was astounded at his own dexterity. His machete wound was all but healed. The pain in his hip from the plane crash was gone. His lacerations, which had been infected, were now aseptic and dry. Even the bites that had pockmarked every inch of his exposed skin were nearly gone. And now the insects had apparently decided he was no longer fair game. They buzzed near him briefly and then left, as if he were distasteful.

“What did you give me last night?” he asked. The path was wide here, and they walked side by side. “Are you a doctor—a shaman or something?”

“I am no doctor—medical, magical, or otherwise—although I have learned much about healing as a guest amongst the indigenes.”

“What tribe are these people? Are they Yali, or maybe Korowai? They don’t look like Papuans I’ve seen before.”

The man hesitated, as if his choice of words were very important. “What they call themselves is of little importance, as I assure you they are unknown to you.”

“And you,” Quentin said. “Why are you here?”

“I am a naturalist, devoted to studying the fauna and the flora of this land.”

“Well, whatever you gave me healed wounds that should take months to heal.”

The Englishman was silent.

Quentin tried again. “This is an immense medical discovery.”

Silence.

“Who are you?” Quentin asked. “How long have you been here with these people?”

“My name is Samuel Inwood.”

Samuel wore no modern clothing, only a pair of shorts and a strange vest. The shorts were made of animal leather, supported by a strap tied around the waist. The vest seemed to be hand woven and stitched, perhaps from hair or silk. The only item that was plainly not from the forest was a peculiar amulet, made of twisted gold wire and hanging from a cord around his neck.

Quentin asked again, “How long have you been here, Samuel?”

“Perhaps we shall have the opportunity to become better acquainted. As for now, I have learned a good deal from your words regarding the state of society beyond this forest. Your surprise at the healing nature of my treatments, for example, tells me that my discoveries here have not been duplicated elsewhere.” He paused. “But I have yet to learn your name, sir.”

“Quentin Darnell. I’m a teacher. I teach Eighth graders—about fourteen years old.”

“And you have brought with you here your young students, from the United States. Remarkable. Tell me Quentin, what is your age?”

“I’m thirty-six. Why?”

“Thirty-six years. Yes, you have the appearance of a man of that age.”

Quentin was wondering how to respond when they came upon the marker he had arranged on the path after slicing his ankle. “This is where I found the trail,” he said. “I may have walked in circles for hours before that.”

“You must recall your route, Quentin. I am aware of but the general direction.”

Quentin felt panic surfacing. He should have made an effort to mark his path from the crash site. He had carried a machete in his bag; he could have cut markers. The others might die simply because he hadn’t thought to do that. He took a deep breath, trying to flush his doubts. With Samuel’s help, they would find the others and save them. And then perhaps Samuel’s medications could be used on them. Quentin glanced at the listless brown water of the river. He would need to hydrate before leaving the trail.

“Samuel,” Quentin said, “I need some water. Is this safe to drink?”

Samuel was busy scattering the sticks that made up Quentin’s marker. “You may drink without ill effects,” he said.

Quentin no longer had his water bottle, so he waded in to drink with his hands. “Good, I drank from it yesterday.”

Samuel tossed the last stick away. “Yesterday was an altogether different matter.”

Quentin had scooped a handful of brown water to his face, but he paused. “It’s safe today, but it wasn’t yesterday?”

“It is not the river which has changed, Quentin. It is you.”

* * *

Once off the path, Quentin could discern no sign of his passage. “I can’t do this. I came too far.”

Samuel pointed ahead. “It is somewhere to the east. But without your assistance, we may not find it. The lives of your party are at risk. I am not deceiving you on this point. The indigenes are intent upon killing all intruders. I learned only this morning they have not yet committed murder. For what reason and for how long, I do not know.”

“If they told you that, why aren’t they guiding us to the plane?”

“They have not invited me to go there. I am but a guest among them.”

Quentin’s fists clenched. “Then why didn’t you ask them not to hurt my family?”

Samuel gazed at him with patient eyes. “You must understand that their savage ways have been gradually embedded, with no intelligent eyes to observe them, and no civilized mind to reason with them. The habits of countless ages cannot be so easily set aside. So I have come to you in hopes that we might together find your party and prevent violence.”

In spite of the irrationality of the very existence of the half-naked white man in this place, Quentin sensed for the first time that he could trust Samuel.

A motion in the trees above caught their attention. Quentin glanced up in time to see a brown shape complete an arch through the air from one branch to another. It was the tree kangaroo. It jockeyed for a stable position and then turned to stare at them.

Quentin watched the Englishman to see his reaction, but Samuel only glanced at the creature and then looked away as if it were as common as a honeyeater.

Quentin sighed. “Mbaiso, how do we get back?”

Samuel’s brows folded with interest. “Mbaiso, do you say? I presume you are referring to the mbolop, the tree kangaroo?”

“Mbaiso is the name one of my students gave it. It’s from a story I told them.”

“Why did you speak to it in such a way? Does the creature answer you?”

Quentin gave him a sidelong glance. “Just wishful thinking. It’s been hanging around us. It helped us gather water, and it followed me here from the crash site.”

Abruptly the Englishman turned to the tree kangaroo, clicked his tongue in rapid succession, and gestured at the animal with both his arms. In response, Mbaiso backed down the tree by reverse-jumping, claws noisily scratching bark, and hopped to the two men.

Samuel began gesturing with his hands, a series of motions as elaborate as any sign language. He was clearly trying to talk to the tree kangaroo. It hadn’t occurred to Quentin until now that this man may simply be insane.

Mbaiso watched until Samuel finished his extraordinary performance. Then the creature rolled back onto its haunches and began gesturing in return. The tiny forearms weaved, folded, and gyrated with miniature motions as controlled and precise as Samuel’s. Samuel responded, as if clarifying the finer points of his first discourse. Then the conversation suddenly ended. Mbaiso hopped away and scuttled up a tree.

Samuel turned to Quentin. “If you had but told me sooner of your acquaintance with the mbolop, you may have saved us some consternation.”

Quentin could think of nothing coherent to say. “I didn’t think it was—”

For the first time, Samuel’s eyes showed what might have been a sparkle of humor. “Once again, sir, your response reveals much.”

“I, uh, have some questions for you,” Quentin said.

“And I have questions as well. But now the mbolop will lead us to your vessel.” Without another word he turned and followed the tree kangaroo, which now bounded from tree to tree.

* * *

Bobby checked that all his body parts were still there as he fumbled with the remains of his clothing. He tied his jeans around his waist, covering his front but leaving his butt exposed. Ashley and Mrs. Darnell were struggling with the same problems, and it might have been funny if a mass of steel were not collapsing above their heads.

“We have to get them out!” Mrs. Darnell said to Bobby and Ashley as she tied a knot in her shirt. She grabbed Addison by the armpits and tried pulling him to the front of the cabin. The rear ceiling was nearly touching the ground, so this was the only way out.

Bobby moved to her side to help. Ashley gave up trying to knot a scrap of her pants and tried to help too, but there wasn’t much room. Mrs. Darnell squirmed out the opening. She tugged on Addison’s arms, while Bobby and Ashley pushed from inside. As Addison inched through the opening, the remains of his clothing were torn from his body. His skin was pale, almost gray, and Bobby tried not to look at it. Addison’s head rolled to the side and his face pressed against Mrs. Darnell’s arm, forcing one eye open. The eyeball was gray and lifeless.

Addison was finally through and Bobby crawled out to help drag him clear of the wreckage. As they turned back to the shrinking doorway, Ashley’s voice came from inside. She was talking excitedly, but not to them. Bobby and Mrs. Darnell looked at each other. They crawled back through, and there was Carlos, sitting upright.

“They’re awake!” Ashley said.

“What’s going on?” It was Miranda. She was propped up on her elbow.

Mrs. Darnell paused only briefly. “We need to get you out. Carlos, can you crawl?”

Carlos looked at the shrinking opening. “No problem, Mrs. D.” Then he edged past them and through the hole.

Mrs. Darnell glanced at Bobby again, her eyes wide, and then grabbed Miranda’s arm. “Miranda, honey, this is going to hurt, but we have to move you out of here too.”

“Wait a second.” Miranda pulled away the remains of the bloody jeans that had held the splint in place. The splint had disintegrated. She bent the leg, bringing her knee to her chest, and then slapped her thigh. The sound filled the tiny space of the cabin.

Mrs. Darnell put her hand over her mouth. “Miranda!”

“It seems okay now,” Miranda said, as if announcing that cookies were ready to come out of the oven. She pulled at the remains of her shirt and it fell from her body, exposing her breasts. “Can someone tell me what in the name of Elvis is going on?”

Before anyone could answer, a portion of the plane’s fuselage gave way, and the structure dropped another few centimeters with a thunk. The doorway was now smaller than ever.

Carlos’s voice came from outside. “I think you guys should get out. Like now.”

Ashley grabbed Miranda’s shirt and pushed it to her chest. “C’mon, I’ll help you.”

“I told you I’m fine.” Miranda used both legs to push herself through the opening.

Bobby and Mrs. Darnell followed her out just before the gap closed.

* * *

They watched the last of the Twin Otter disappear into a heap of soil. Their shelter was gone. Everything was gone. They didn’t even have a single complete item of clothing between them. There was barely enough to cover their privates. Bobby had already glimpsed more female body parts than he had seen in all his life. He sat on the ground against a tree, mainly because he had not figured out a good way to cover his butt. Trying not to stare, he watched Ashley as she talked to Miranda. Somehow the girls had managed to tie their clothing together to cover their breasts and waists, somewhat like bikinis. Miranda walked back and forth as they talked, bouncing like she was eager to run but had no room for it. Bobby had seen the broken bone sticking out of her leg. Now she was walking around like it had never happened.

Carlos was seated on the ground. He had removed the wrap and was staring at his hand. The fingers looked swollen and lumpy, but he was opening and closing his fist. He grinned and held his hand up for Bobby to see.

It seemed like a miracle, except for Addison, who was no better than before. Mrs. Darnell held Addison’s head in her lap as she watched Miranda bounce around.

Suddenly the girls saw something and stopped talking. Bobby turned. Three Papuan men stood side-by-side without moving, like ghosts in the trees.

“Don’t do anything to threaten them,” Mrs. Darnell said. She lifted Addison’s head from her lap so the men could see him. “He’s not better,” she called out. “Can you help him?”

Bobby recognized two of the men from the night before. They still held their spears with darkened tips and patterned shafts. The man with the green-feathered head was the first to approach. He glanced at a piece of wreckage on the ground and pointed to it. One of the other men reached into his pouch and smeared the pasty miracle-cure stuff onto the chunk of metal. The spot immediately began gleaming with wetness as the wreckage dissolved.

“Our clothes, and all our stuff,” Ashley said. “They’re the ones who did this!”

Mrs. Darnell shushed Ashley. She raised Addison’s head again. “Can you help him?”

The green-feathered Papuan kneeled, looking closely at Addison. “Yu le khomilo-mbo. Khomilo. Dead.”4

“He’s still alive,” Mrs. Darnell said. But her voice was quiet, like she wasn’t sure.

The man rose to his feet. “Khomilo.”

Mrs. Darnell pointed to the pouch hanging from his neck. “Your medicine. Maybe it can help him. Maybe he needs more.”

“Ané kha-fen.” He pointed away, into the forest. “Ané lai-m.” With his spear he motioned for her to get up. Mrs. Darnell didn’t move, and he repeated the words. The two other men were smearing paste onto small leftover parts from the plane. They stopped what they were doing, approached Bobby and Carlos, and waved their spears for them to go.12

“Mrs. Darnell, they want us to go with them,” Bobby said. “Maybe they want to help.”

“Or maybe they want to eat us,” Ashley muttered.

The green-feathered man shoved his spear tip under Mrs. Darnell’s chin and forced her to stand. She waited for the spear to be withdrawn and then grabbed Addison by the armpits, trying to lift him.

“Bobby, Carlos, you’ll have to help me carry him.”

The Papuan’s foot shot out and pushed Addison out of Mrs. Darnell’s hands. Addison’s head thumped the ground.

“Khomilo!”

* * *

Quentin didn’t recognize any landmarks, but the tree kangaroo moved with such purpose that he was reassured. And Samuel followed the animal, asking Quentin no more questions concerning direction.

“Do you think they’re still okay?” Quentin asked as he caught up for the third time. Physically, Quentin felt great, but he lacked Samuel’s practiced agility.

“With any good fortune. Nevertheless, we will soon know.”

Quentin’s anxiety over Lindsey and the kids was like a crushing weight, so he tried thinking of other things. “What is the medicine you rubbed in my eye?”

“I wondered if you might inform me that such things had been found elsewhere. It appears, however, that my own discoveries are more important than I had supposed.”

“But what is it? Is it from a plant?”

“No, most certainly not a plant, nor from insect or beast. Soon enough, Quentin, you may understand. Assuming our indigene hosts allow it.”

“Why haven’t you reported what the stuff can do to the rest of the world?”

“There is much about my discoveries you have yet to learn. Can you be quite sure that your society is prepared for such things?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me, are you a Christian man, a follower of God?”

This caught Quentin off guard. “I don’t know. No—not really.”

“Is this also true of others you know? Is this true of your society?”

“No. There are plenty of religious people. Christians mostly, where I’m from. Why do you ask?”

The Englishman stopped walking. Mbaiso moved ahead, leaping from tree to tree. Samuel clicked his tongue and the tree kangaroo stopped and turned, waiting. A few flies buzzed Quentin’s head but then left without biting.

Samuel spoke. “In my younger life, Quentin, I was a man of Christian principles. Those principles served as a guide for my actions and judgments. While many naturalists were driven to find in nature the evidence that might disprove the hand of God, I was inclined to see God’s hand in all of the wonders of the world—in the elegant design of the butterfly’s wing or in the restless winds of the tropical seas. In my eyes, God’s wisdom was to be found in all of nature. Do you understand, Quentin?”

“I know people who look at things that way.”

“Then you might understand my consternation upon discovering that, in this place, God does not preside.”

Quentin frowned. “What are you saying?”

Samuel paused, as if uncertain. “Forgive me, for I have rarely had occasion to express such thoughts to another man. They are bitter on my tongue. It will suffice to say that God is not here—because something else rules in this place.”

Quentin eyed him. “Something else?”

Before Samuel could answer Quentin suddenly held up his hand. “Do you hear that?” They stood motionless, listening. There were voices in the distance. “It’s them,” Quentin said. “They must be okay!” The voices rose again. Now they were shouting, followed by a scream. Quentin’s stomach lurched, and then he was running headlong through the tangled forest.

“Lindsey, I’m here!” he shouted. “Bobby, can you hear me? Hold on!”

* * *

Something about the Papuans’ calm willpower scared Bobby. They didn’t say much, but their message was clear—they wanted the Americans to go with them. And it was also clear they wanted to leave Addison here, probably to be dissolved into soil like everything else. Mrs. Darnell would not leave him, and that scared Bobby even more. She and green featherhead were in a standoff.

“He’s not dead.” Mrs. Darnell’s voice was low, and her eyes glowered with piercing intensity. “And he’s coming with us.”

“I mbakha? Yu le khomilo-mbo. Ané lai-m.” Again he motioned for her to walk.13

Mrs. Darnell spoke firmly. “I have to take him with us. He is my son, my family.” She grabbed Addison again to lift him.

The man shoved her back with his foot and stepped between them. “Khomilo!” He then began kicking leaves and soil over Addison, covering his pale face.

Ashley exploded forward and swung at the Papuan. “You pygmy bastard!”

The man ducked and she struck his shoulder. They all raised their spears and moved in on her before she could swing again. Three spear points converged on her neck.

“Ashley, stop!” Mrs. Darnell cried. “Let me handle this.”

Ashley’s fists were trembling. “They’re going to kill him!”

“I won’t let that happen.”

Ashley glared at the men. Suddenly she released an earsplitting scream of anger. In the seconds of shock that followed, the forest seemed to echo with the scream.

Bobby swallowed his fear and rushed in. He grabbed two of the spears, trying to hold them away from Ashley. “Please, you guys, just let us—” Before Bobby could finish, one of the spears was yanked from his hand and thrust into his chest.

The words stuck in Bobby’s throat and a bubbling sound came from his mouth. Suddenly he was sitting on the ground, looking up. Ashley screamed again and charged the Papuan man, who now had no spear. Mrs. Darnell grabbed hold of another man’s spear to wrestle it away, and she called to the others for help. Bobby thought he should help, too, but it was hard to breathe. A shaft protruded from his chest. It looked strange hanging there, and his eyes again were drawn to carved symbols he had seen somewhere before. The forest was darker now. A gush of prickling heat rose from his chest and filled his head. As he collapsed onto his back, he thought he heard Mr. Darnell’s voice calling to him from far away.

Chapter Nine

Quentin fought through the trees with Samuel at his heels. He stopped running in order to hear the voices again and adjust his course.

Samuel passed him without stopping. “We are near. Remain behind me.”

The voices rose again—screaming and cursing. Quentin sprinted after Samuel. Suddenly the others were before them and they stopped short. Lindsey, Ashley, Miranda, and Carlos, all of them only partly dressed, faced off with three Papuan men. Quentin’s eyes were drawn to two figures on the ground. One was Bobby, a spear embedded in his chest. The other was Addison, his pallid face and nearly naked body partially covered with dirt and leaves. Both boys lay still, as if dead. Samuel raised his hands to the Papuans, speaking their language firmly. This seemed to draw their attention and they turned away from the fight.

“Quentin!” Lindsey cried. She rushed over and embraced him. “They’ve hurt Bobby.”

As Samuel held off the Papuans, Quentin and the others converged on Bobby’s still form. Quentin felt the spear. It was embedded deep. He held his ear to Bobby’s mouth.

“Is he dead?” Ashley asked.

There was breathing, raspy and wet. “He’s alive, but he doesn’t sound good.” Quentin looked to Lindsey. “Addison?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “His heart was still beating, but...”

Still crouched over Bobby, Quentin glanced at Addison’s colorless skin. It was clear Addison was dying. The truth of this nearly crumpled Quentin’s fortitude. Why in the hell had he brought them here? They’d all be safe at home if he hadn’t. Quentin turned to the survivors. Was there even a chance of saving any of them? Suddenly he straightened up. “Miranda? You’re walking! And Carlos, you’re awake!”

“They used some kind of medicine on them,” Ashley said matter-of-factly. “But it didn’t work with Addison.”

Quentin rubbed the mostly healed spear wounds on his chest and eyed the Papuan men, who now appeared to be negotiating with Samuel, perhaps regarding killing all the Americans. Was this about the medicine contained in their pouches? Were they trying to keep it secret?

Quentin’s eyes drifted again to Addison’s form. Addison’s right hand protruded from the dirt and leaves that partially covered him. The skin on the hand was pale gray. Suddenly the hand turned and flattened against the ground. Quentin blinked. Addison lifted his head and stared back at him. His eyes were the color of storm clouds.

“Jesus Christ!” Quentin said, nearly stumbling backward over Bobby’s body.

Addison was now sitting up. All commotion stopped.

“Laléo-khén! Laléo!” said one of the Papuan men.14

Quentin regained his composure and approached his son. Addison’s eyes followed him, but his deathly face showed no expression. Quentin knelt and touched his shoulder. Addison’s cloudy eyes showed no sign of recognition.

“Laléo-khen!” the Papuan repeated, and then he stepped forward, raising his spear. Samuel held the man back and spoke to him. Finally the Papuan nodded, as if in agreement.

Quentin touched Addison’s face and felt cool, unfamiliar flesh. “Are you okay?”

Lindsey came to Quentin’s side. “Addison, can you see us?”

Ashley’s cry came from behind them. “Someone help! Bobby’s choking!”

Gurgling coughs came from Bobby’s body. Quentin looked to Samuel for help. “Samuel, can that medicine of yours help him?”

“I will do what I can. Do not fear the indigenes. They will not harm you, for now.” Without further explanation, Samuel turned his attention to Bobby. The Papuan men gathered around Addison, uncomfortably close in Quentin’s opinion.

“Addison, can you speak?” Lindsey said. He turned his head to face her, and she clutched Quentin’s arm. Addison’s face was that of a corpse.

Addison’s eyes shifted from one of them to the other as they spoke, but milky corneas shrouded his pupils. A garbled sound came from his throat and then turned into coughing.

“It’s okay, son,” Quentin said. “Don’t try to talk.”

Something brushed Quentin’s elbow, and there was Mbaiso. The creature pushed past him until it was nose to nose with Addison. Mbaiso sniffed him a few times, and Addison’s eyes seemed to focus on the animal as the snout almost touched his lips. Quentin started to push the tree kangaroo away.

“Fano! Mbolop manop.” One of the Papuans handed his spear to the others and motioned for them all to back away from Addison and the tree kangaroo. The man did not seem threatening, and Quentin took note of his appearance for the first time. Like the Papuans he’d seen with Samuel, his face was smooth. He wore traditional adornments, but his most striking feature was the array of green feathers woven into his hair, flaring out like an emerald pincushion.15

The tree kangaroo sniffed at Addison’s face again, pushing higher onto its haunches. Addison tried once more to speak, which led to more coughing. Mbaiso sat back, as if studying the situation. And then its diminutive forearms began moving. They danced with graceful movements that could not be mistaken for random, unthinking motion.

“Quentin,” Lindsey hissed in his ear. “What the hell?”

Quentin nodded. “It can talk.”

“It can talk,” she repeated.

Addison watched with a stony face as the kangaroo continued gyrating its arms.

Ashley’s voice rose from the group gathered around Bobby. “Oh God, Bobby!”

Quentin pivoted to see Samuel set a bloodstained spear onto the ground next to Bobby’s body. Samuel’s hands were also red. Quentin hesitated for a moment, and then turned his attention back to Addison.

The Papuan men squatted side by side, intently watching Mbaiso. The creature paused its hand motions, but Addison only stared. Mbaiso sat back, apparently giving up. It scratched at its abdomen with the nails of both forepaws, as if digging at fleas.

“I mbakha!” the green-headed Papuan said, pointing at Mbaiso.16

The kangaroo’s digging claws punctured its own flesh. And they kept digging, working their way deep into the abdomen. The claws suddenly pulled a chunk of flesh loose. Mbaiso eyed it for a moment, as if inspecting it. The glistening flesh quickly turned dark, leaving a formless brown mass. With a very human gesture, the creature extended its forepaws, offering the substance to Addison.

For the first time since awakening, Addison demonstrated a purposeful behavior. He grabbed the chunk of Mbaiso’s body, shoved it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

Lindsey started forward. “Quentin, he’s—”

“Mbolop manop,” interjected the Papuan. His tone was firm.

Quentin looked at Mbaiso’s abdomen. There was no gaping hole and no blood.

Addison’s emotionless gaze slowly drifted from Mbaiso to the assortment of people surrounding him. When his eyes met Quentin’s, the gray clouds were rapidly vanishing.

* * *

As the sun heated the under-canopy into a sauna, the white noise shifted from the chatter of morning birds to the drone of midday insects. Quentin had begun to believe that the clockwork regularity of this pattern could drive a person mad. But today he hardly noticed. The insects still would not bite him, the heat was less stifling, and the morning’s events were more extraordinary than any past experiences of his life.

Bobby was alive, in spite of the enormity of his chest wound. His pulse and breathing were strong, though he was unconscious. Samuel insisted on leaving the wound open to the air, and during the last few hours the tissue had grown together, healing itself before their eyes.

Quentin chewed the last meat from the dorcopsis leg bone in his hand. After Bobby had stabilized, Samuel had instructed Mbaiso to gather food. Within minutes, Mbaiso had herded two dorcopsis wallabies into their midst. The Papuans had promptly killed and butchered the creatures with a shaft of bamboo and their bare hands, and then cooked them over a low, nearly smokeless fire. They’d all devoured the meat as if it were a Thanksgiving turkey, giving little thought to the stomach cramps incurred the last time they had eaten dorcopsis.

They now sat around the extinguished fire, staring at the slight remains of the wallabies. Quentin wrapped one arm around Lindsey, thankful to have her back. Addison sat to his other side. Addison’s skin had regained its color, and his corneas had cleared up. But his pupils were dilated to enormous size, making his eyes appear black. He had barely acknowledged their attempts to talk to him. But he was alive. And the other students were as energetic as ever, including Miranda, who by all accounts should have been immobile for weeks or months.

Minutes earlier, Samuel had disappeared into the forest with the three Papuan men. He now returned alone and settled to the ground across from Quentin. “When we arrive at the village of my hosts, I shall see that you are properly fed. A preponderance of flesh from the soyabu may produce abdominal distress.”17

“We found that out already,” Carlos said. He had nevertheless eaten his share.

Lindsey asked, “Where did the others go, Samuel?”

“They have returned to their village to discuss matters. It seems your presence here utterly confounds them. We shall venture there when your companion wakes.” He motioned to Bobby, lying beside Lindsey. “The boy shows every appearance that we haven’t long to wait. You should ready yourselves.”

“We have nothing to get ready,” Lindsey said. She explained the events of the morning—why they were left with nothing but the scraps of clothing tied to their bodies.

“The loss of your belongings is regrettable.” Samuel said. “My hosts have little concern for possessions and contrivances.”

“What is it they want from us?” Lindsey asked. “If they don’t have a radio or an airstrip, why are we going to their village? We need to get these kids to a hospital.”

“Do they not seem to you to be healthy, madam?”

“Yes, but I don’t understand why. Does this miracle cure have side effects?”

“The poultice will result only in unreserved benefits to you all.”

Lindsey wasn’t giving up. “So if you’re all about helping us, you’ll help us get to civilization?”

Samuel hesitated. “We will soon be departing. You should ready yourself.”

“I have nothing to get ready. I would like to know our plans!”

As Lindsey spoke, she routinely brushed flies from her face and exposed skin. Quentin looked at the students. While everyone else’s arms were still, Ashley swiped at flies buzzing her face. Lindsey and Ashley, the only two not treated by Samuel’s medicine.

Quentin got up and walked over to the remains of the plane. For a long moment he pondered the mound of soil that was once the Twin Otter’s fuselage. The stuff Samuel and the Papuans carried in their pouches could turn the fields of medicine and chemistry on their heads. But the world had no knowledge of it. This was not a lost tribe, yet to be discovered. The tribe had been discovered, possibly over and over again. But the world had no knowledge of this substance because no one had ever left this place to tell about it.

Quentin turned back to the group. Physically, he felt more vigor than he had in days. But his mind was fatigued, staggering to keep pace with an unprecedented string of enigmas and disquieting revelations. He eyed Samuel, noting the Englishman’s apparent good-natured grace with Quentin’s family and students. Was Quentin capable of hurting such a man in order to protect them? At that moment he decided that he was. He would get his group out of here and back to civilization, even if he had to kill Samuel or anyone else who tried to stop them.

Chapter Ten

As if waking from a dream, Bobby was suddenly aware. But the dream continued. The sky was filled with stars, and there was no ground beneath him. The stars were endless, and Bobby sensed a deep loneliness. One star was closer, growing steadily larger. It swelled until he thought it might blind him. Near it was another object—a planet, with wisps of white and blue. He turned from the bright sun to watch the planet draw nearer, until his vision was filled with clouds and water and ice and land.

Abruptly Bobby was back in the steaming forest. Mbaiso was there, leading him somewhere. The creature turned and waited for him to catch up and then went on. Finally, Mbaiso stopped next to a massive tree and turned his snout upward. At first Bobby saw nothing unusual, but then he made out a darker leafy area. Like a spirit leaving its body, he rose from the ground. A slit in the foliage appeared, and he entered. It was darker inside, but he could see that he was in a room, with walls and floor made of living branches and vines. A thick trunk of the tree protruded through the floor. The trunk split into two limbs at chest level, and both limbs rose up and out the ceiling. The trunk was swollen at the split, like a large termite nest. As Bobby stared, a feeling of knowing washed over him. It was definitely not a termite nest.

* * *

Something squeezed Bobby’s hand and pulled him out of his dream. He opened his eyes, and the grip on his hand tightened.

“Hey, he’s awake!” It was Ashley. Her curly hair framed her face as she looked down at him.

He blinked at her. “Ashley? I saw stars.”

“I bet you did. You okay, science boy?”

She dropped his hand as other faces appeared above him—the Darnells, Carlos, Miranda.

“I saw stars,” he told them. “I was in the sky, then I came here.”

Suddenly, memories flooded Bobby’s mind: Addison, Ashley, the Papuans—a spear in his chest. Bobby gasped. “He stabbed me!” He looked down at his chest. A scar was there, but it looked old. He turned to them. “I’m not dying?”

Mr. Darnell smiled. It was a good, truthful smile.

“This guy, Samuel, fixed you up,” Miranda said. “His medicine fixed all of us.”

Bobby tried sitting up, and found that it was easy. “Addison’s okay, too?” He looked and there was Addison, upright and awake. “Hey, Addison.”

Addison looked but didn’t smile. There was something different about his eyes. They were darker. And then Addison spoke. “Tell them, Bobby.”

Everyone seemed surprised by this and they all turned to Addison.

“Tell them what?” Bobby said.

“About the stars.”

“Addison, what are you talking about?” Mr. Darnell said.

But Addison didn’t answer. He just waited.

Addison’s stare made Bobby nervous, so he looked away. “It was my dream.”

Mr. Darnell said, “You had a dream about stars, too?”

“I dreamt about stars,” Miranda said. “There were stars, then the Earth, and then the jungle.”

“I had that dream,” Carlos said. “There was this thing, like in a tree.”

“Perhaps I might help elucidate these visions.” The voice was new to Bobby. A strange man emerged from behind the others. He was dressed like he lived in the forest but was not black like the Papuans and was not Indonesian. “The dreams are peculiar to your medicinal treatments.” He patted a pouch at his waist. “The poultice I carry possesses healing qualities, but is not without curious effects. I myself had the very dream of which you speak, long ago.”

“Bobby, this is Samuel,” Mr. Darnell said.

“Pleased to meet you, Bobby.” The man talked like he was reading lines from a play.

“How could we all have the same dream?” Mr. Darnell said.

Mrs. Darnell frowned at him. “You had this dream too?”

Mr. Darnell nodded. “This morning. I was surrounded by stars. It seemed incredibly real. But then Samuel woke me up.”

Samuel said, “Then the vision may revisit you, Quentin, until you have witnessed its conclusion. The vision will lead you to the very destination for which we are bound today.”

Addison’s black eyes still stared directly at Bobby. “It will speak to you,” he said. “You should listen.”

Mr. Darnell put his hands on Addison’s shoulders. “Son, what does that mean?”

The black eyes turned to Mr. Darnell. “You won’t understand it.”

For a moment no one spoke.

“Curious,” said the half-naked white man named Samuel.

* * *

The tree kangaroo studied the humans’ activities from a snug depression between two rotting logs where damp soil cooled it belly. Events were unfolding rapidly but in unpredictable ways. The recently arrived strangers displayed novel attributes, indicating they were yet another step in an accelerating progression. But yet some of them revealed impulses that could disrupt this progression. The tree kangaroo had observed such disruptions before—somewhat interesting although devastating to those who were unfortunate to be in the vicinity. Now, the behaviors of the one they called Addison could prove to be interesting as well.

* * *

Again the afternoon sun gave way to clouds, and everything faded to gray. The forest made it impossible to walk side by side, so they hiked in single file as Samuel and Mbaiso led the group toward the village of the Papuans. Bobby brought up the rear. Mr. Darnell had asked him to, and this made Bobby feel important. Physically, he felt great. No more sore bruises, oozing cuts, or bug bites. He even had a belly full of wallaby meat. He felt like he could walk all the way to Jayapura.

But they weren’t going to Jayapura. They were going to the Papuans’ village. Being stabbed by a spear was still fresh in Bobby’s mind. He wanted to believe it had been a mistake—perhaps if they had spoken the same language, the fight wouldn’t have happened. But he still feared what might happen at the village.

As they pushed on, the group became quiet and gradually spread out. Like Bobby, the others seemed to have their own thoughts. Carlos began humming a familiar song that Roberto’s band used to play in their basement. It cheered Bobby up to see him acting normal again.

“Hey Bobby, what did the kangaroo say when someone cut off his tail?”

“What?”

“It won’t be long now. And Addison, where did he go to get a new tail?” There was no answer. “To the retailer, man.”

“You’re so funny that I wallaby your friend,” Bobby said.

Carlos stopped to poke at a covered termite trail running up the trunk of a tree. He broke a hole in the tunnel. “Look at those little mothers,” he said. “Probably think I’m their god or something.” He flicked one of the termites off the tree. “You will obey me!”

Bobby laughed. “Bite him, guys! He’s not koala-fied to be a god.”

“You insulted their god, man. You gotta pay.” Carlos held out his hand, fingers hooked and thumb straight up. “This hand was busted to bits. Think you can beat it?”

The hand looked almost normal, but Bobby wasn’t sure he should mess with it. He looked ahead to see if the teachers were watching. He saw only Addison, looking back at them, so he grabbed Carlos’s hand, ready to thumb-wrestle. Addison walked back to where they stood, and Bobby released Carlos’s hand. Addison looked at the termites on the tree.

“Those are my subjects,” Carlos told him. “They worship me.”

The termites were now swarming around the hole in their tunnel. Suddenly Addison rubbed his hand on the tree, killing them. Then he licked the smashed bodies from his palm.

“Now they worship me,” he said.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Carlos said.

Addison stared at his palm and then licked a few termites he had missed.

Bobby said, “Addison, your mom and dad are worried about you. We are too.”

“Why?”

“Because you may have brain damage,” Carlos said.

“Do you remember things?” Bobby asked him. “Things before the plane crashed?”

“I remember flying. And I saw the other plane. Then we crashed.”

“You’re messed up,” Carlos said. “There was no another plane.”

They were interrupted by Mr. Darnell’s shout. “Hey, you guys, is Addison okay?”

Bobby looked at Addison. “Well, are you?”

Addison licked his hand again.

Bobby shouted back, “Yeah, I guess so. We’re coming.”

* * *

The three boys stayed together as they walked. As Bobby looked ahead he got a glimpse of Mbaiso jumping between trees. “I feel like I know just where we’re going,” he said.

Carlos leapt into the air, trying to touch a pair of seedpods hanging from a tree. “I know, too. It’s from our dream.”

Bobby jumped at the seedpods, easily grabbing one loose even though they were at least a meter above his head. His chest wound tingled a little, but it didn’t really hurt.

Carlos nodded toward the other seedpod. “Your turn, Addison.”

“Can’t eat those,” Addison said.

“I don’t want to eat them. I just want to see if you can jump.”

Bobby held up the green seedpod. “How do you know we can’t eat these?”

Addison’s black eyes seemed to stare through Bobby, like they were looking at something behind him. “Kembakhi,” he said.

Bobby looked at Carlos, then back at Addison. “Huh? Kim-backy?”

“Kembakhi,” Addison said again. He pointed to the pod. “Inside.”

Bobby snapped the seedpod in two. From inside, a swarm of black ants rushed out and onto his hands. The ants were mad, and Bobby felt stinging bites. He flung the pod away and wiped his hands against his thighs. They both looked at Addison.

“Kembakhi,” Addison said. Then he turned away.

* * *

Eventually they reached a dirty-brown river. There was a footpath by the river, the first sign of human impact that Bobby had seen since the plane crash. Mrs. Darnell said she was tired and needed to sit down, so they decided to rest. Ashley said she was tired, too. The flies were really swarming and biting the two of them, but no one else.

They all waded in to cool off. Samuel said they could drink the water, except for Ashley and Mrs. Darnell, because they might get sick. Mrs. Darnell grumbled something about the miracle medicine and just washed her face. Ashley drank some anyway. Bobby didn’t blame her. He was thirsty, and he drank a lot, even though it tasted like mud. Then he noticed Mr. Darnell trying to talk to Addison.

“… and then we’ll get you out of here, and we’ll go home,” Mr. Darnell was saying.

Addison looked at Mr. Darnell the way he’d looked at Bobby, like he didn’t really see him. “We can stay here,” he said.

“Addison, we’re getting you home as soon as we can.”

“We can stay here,” Addison repeated.

Mr. Darnell looked around like he didn’t know what to do.

Bobby spoke up. “Mr. Darnell, do you know what kim… backy is? Kimbacky?”

“Kembakhi, did you say, young man?” It was Samuel. “The indigenes here speak that word. You have heard them speak it, no doubt?”

“No. Addison said it. What does it mean?”

“The word makes reference to Hymenoptera. Ants. Aggressive, biting ants, to put a sharp definition to it.”

Bobby turned to Addison. “How did you know that?”

Addison’s eyes looked through Bobby. “Kembakhi live in the lepun melun.”18

“Young man,” Samuel said. “How can it be that you know words spoken by the indigenes if you have awakened in this place only today? Anggufa diabo?”19

“Nu khomile-lé-dakhu khosü kha-lé,” Addison said. “But I’m better now. Khi-telo.”20

Bobby’s skin turned cold. Addison had said the words without even slowing down, like he’d been talking that way all his life.

“Do you know what he said?” Mr. Darnell asked Samuel.

Samuel’s eyebrows were wrinkled, and this was the first time Bobby had seen him look completely baffled. “Very curious, indeed. He said, ‘I have died and have gone there.’”

“Gone where?” Mr. Darnell asked. His voice had an edge of fear.

“To the place of the dead.”

* * *

Addison stopped speaking after that, so Bobby looked for something else to do while they rested. Mbaiso was drinking at the edge of the river, so Bobby and Carlos sat on the footpath, coaxing the kangaroo to come near them. Soon Ashley and Miranda joined them. Mbaiso approached their group, but then he climbed a tree to watch them from above.

Ashley said what was already on Bobby’s mind. “Do you think we should be listening to this guy?” She waved a hand toward Samuel. “He seems like a nut job to me. What kind of British guy would want to live in this creepy, hotter-than-hell place?”

Miranda had been quiet, but she spoke up. “If he’s taking us to the place in my dream, then I don’t think we need to be afraid.”

Ashley said, “It was just a dream, Miranda.”

“But we all had it,” Carlos said, like this proved Ashley was wrong.

Bobby looked at Ashley. Her face was red, and flies were trying to get into her eyes. “Not all of us,” Bobby said. “Ashley didn’t get the medicine.”

Ashley swiped at her face for the zillionth time. “If it gets rid of the damn bugs, I’ll take some. But I’m waiting to see if it’s turning you guys into monsters or something.” She pulled her hair over her face to keep the flies at bay.

After a moment of silence she shoved her hair back. “I’m really starting to feel left out. You all have this dream, right? It’s at night and you can see the stars, and then you go—”

Miranda interrupted, “It’s not really at night, Ash. It was like being in the stars, flying through space. For a long time, it seemed like.”

“It’s the thing in the tree,” Bobby said. “It’s trying to tell us how it got here.”

Ashley sneered. “You mean you think it’s an alien. Great.”

Bobby paused, embarrassed. “In the dream there was something there—on the tree but not part of it. It was telling me not to be afraid.”

Ashley said, “What if it just wants you to think that, so you’ll come closer?”

No one answered.

* * *

The forest grew dark again, and Quentin could scarcely believe this would only be their fourth night since the crash. They had suffered enough for a lifetime. And now, as they approached the Papuan village, led by an eccentric Englishman and a talking kangaroo, Quentin had no idea what awaited them. Getting straight answers from Samuel was like pulling teeth from a toad, and the Papuans had shown a fondness for jabbing their spears into people.

Quentin had tried concocting escape plans, but they all had similar outcomes: they would either be killed for trying or they would succeed, only to find themselves lost in the remote rainforest. If it was twenty miles to the nearest airstrip, it might as well be a thousand.

Lindsey walked the path in front of Quentin. She had become quiet. She stumbled on something, and Quentin grabbed her arm. He brushed away the mosquitoes biting her neck. With evening setting in, the flies were resting and the mosquitoes were taking over.

Addison would hardly speak unless pressed to, and Quentin feared what might come out of his mouth next. Should he rejoice that Addison now seemed healthy, or agonize that the medicine he’d been given had somehow changed him forever? Addison could now speak a second language, something that would make most parents proud. But the language damn sure wasn’t French or Spanish. And most kids don’t learn a language while they are in a coma.

Lindsey stumbled yet again, this time falling to her knees. Quentin helped her up. It appeared they were no longer on the footpath, and it was difficult to negotiate the vegetation in the growing darkness.

Quentin called ahead, “Samuel, why aren’t we on the path?”

Samuel turned to wait for them.

“I need to rest,” Lindsey said. She settled onto the ground. The kids did the same.

“As I have told you, Quentin, the indigenes value their privacy. Would it not be to their advantage to conceal the path near to the village itself?”

“So how do they get plants to grow more on the most heavily used part of the path? Wait—don’t tell me. The same way they get animals to talk and airplanes to turn to dirt, right?”

Lindsey said, “Maybe he’s not taking us to the village.”

Samuel frowned. “My Papuan hosts are stewards of a most unusual phenomenon. In their low state of civilization, they are ill-equipped to understand it, but they value and guard it nonetheless. In all the years since I arrived here, there have been few allowed near their village. But you are to receive this privilege. I assure you, the village is our destination.”

Quentin said, “There isn’t going to be an airstrip, is there? Or a radio?”

“I am not acquainted with either, but I fear not.”

Lindsey had been rubbing her ankles, but now she stopped. “Samuel, how long have you been here? Please give us a straight answer.”

He sighed, as if giving in. “I was once an eager young student of natural history, with interminable wanderlust. As I resided in London, and frequented the proceedings of the Linnean and Royal Societies, I was fortunate to attend a reading by an esteemed naturalist, Mr. Wallace, whom I greatly admired, regarding his studies of the flora and fauna of this region. He was a student of the entire Malay Archipelago, as a matter of fact. His tales of the great island of New Guinea particularly seduced me. I persuaded him to give me advice, so that I might travel to this land to discover living things new to science. In his time here, Mr. Wallace only explored the northern coasts. This determined me to forge inland, to collect species new even to Mr. Wallace’s substantial collection.”

Quentin held up his hand. “Wait. It sounds like you’re talking about Alfred Wallace.”

“Ah,” Samuel said. “I am pleased that you know of him. A great man of science, surely worthy of such recognition. Upon Mr. Wallace’s counsel I assembled supplies and funds for my own journey. Unfortunately, my resources were—”

Quentin interrupted again. “Alfred Wallace is long dead. He lived back in the eighteen hundreds. When Charles Darwin lived.”

“Mr. Darwin was also an esteemed naturalist. But I hadn’t the occasion to meet him.”

Quentin stared. “That was over a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“Lift your shirt, Quentin,” Samuel said. “Examine your wounds there.”

Quentin felt his chest. There was no pain. The wounds were healed.

“Examine your own son, Quentin, and your students who have reaped the benefits of our medicine. Do you find it so difficult to believe?”

Quentin sank to the ground, overwhelmed. He held his head in his hands.

A voice came from behind him. “We’re there now, father.”

Quentin turned. “What did you say?” Addison had always called him dad.

“We’re there now. Khosükhop, khaim.” Addison pointed up.21

“He is correct,” Samuel said. “We have arrived at the village.”

Quentin turned. Around them was forest, no different than everywhere else.

“As your son attempted to tell you, the village is there.” Samuel pointed up.

Quentin looked. He could see only dark foliage.

“There, Quentin!” Lindsey pointed and he followed her finger—still only darkness. In fact, the place where she pointed was especially dark, with no gaps where the sky peeked through. He looked around and saw another spot that was too dark, and then another. The Papuans’ village was far above them, hidden in the rainforest canopy.

Quentin turned back to Samuel. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

* * *

The kids became very quiet as they followed Samuel. Quentin tried estimating the height of the tree houses, but the darkness made it difficult. He sensed a slight rustle from the trees above. Something was moving up there. If these were indeed huts, the people in them were keeping to themselves.

He poked Samuel and whispered, “Do they know we’re here?”

“Your excessive noise long ago declared our approach. They are a deliberate people, and there is little they do not observe. You will also find them exceedingly shy. Do not anticipate a welcoming party. You have been allowed to come here, but most assuredly not for a social visit. That concept is unknown to them. You may not see the women at all. Even I am not certain I have seen all of their women, and you are now privy to the duration of my stay here.”

“Privy to your claims, anyway,” Quentin mumbled.

Samuel turned. “As I’ve said, Quentin, my hosts are aware of your presence. Whispering is without warrant.”

“If they won’t show themselves or talk to us, why are we here?”

“You ask too much of me, sir. As a visitor, I am not told all things.” Samuel stopped, resting one hand on a massive buttressed tree. “We have arrived.”

Quentin had hoped the hut prepared for them was actually touching the ground. Almost afraid to look, he gazed upward. If there was a tree house there, it could have been ten meters above them or fifty.

“We don’t have to go up there, do we?” Miranda said.

“Sinanie has returned before us to prepare this hut,” Samuel said. “I trust you will find it adequate.” Samuel clicked his tongue repeatedly.

There was movement in the foliage above. Something swooshed by Quentin’s ear, and he ducked involuntarily.

“There we are.” Samuel reached for a rope that had evidently been dropped for them.

“We have to climb that thing?” Lindsey’s voice had an edge.

“It is quite safe, I assure you.”

Quentin took the rope from Samuel. It was absurdly thin and light. Loops had been tied in it every half-meter or so, like rungs in a ladder. Quentin tugged at one of the loops, which were held open by rigid cross-weaving so hands and feet could grip them. The rungs were woven into the main rope rather than knotted on—an impressive piece of handiwork.

Ashley said, “I guess there’s not going to be a shower up there, is there?”

Samuel grabbed the rope ladder. “I will demonstrate. Please follow me when I call out. The yebun is sturdy, but it is unwise to burden it with more than one climber.” With that, he swiftly climbed up the rope until he became a murky gray shape above them.22

Quentin held the end of the rope, feeling it jerk about as Samuel climbed. Finally the rope was still, and Samuel called down for the next climber to begin. Several of the kids immediately volunteered, but Quentin wouldn’t let them climb the rope without testing it himself. But he also didn’t want to leave Lindsey to climb on her own in her weakened state.

“I’ll climb up first and make sure the tree house is safe. Then I’ll come back down and the rest of you can climb up.” No one argued with this.

Climbing the rope ladder was harder than it looked. Whenever Quentin let his hands bear too little of his weight, his foot would push the rope away from his body, and he would end up dangling horizontally. But soon he found his rhythm and began making steady progress. It was difficult to judge the distance to the ghost-like faces watching him from below, and he was glad it was dark. Finally he approached a mass of foliage. But the rope passed through it, and he climbed even higher. “Samuel! Where are you?”

“Just above you,” came the reply. But Samuel’s voice was still distant.

Quentin could no longer see the ground. Suddenly the rope seemed ridiculously thin. One weak spot would send him falling to his death, perhaps even landing on Lindsey or one of the kids. His arms were now shaking, but still he kept climbing. Finally he entered another darkened mass of foliage, and there was Samuel’s face, like a pale beacon above.

“You were lying,” Quentin puffed. “You were not just above me.”

“One’s notion of height shifts while living among the trees. I intended no deceit.”

Quentin climbed through a black opening, and Samuel helped him step from the ladder to a solid surface. He sensed that he was in a room, but it was very dark. The air was extremely humid and smelled faintly of wood smoke. Quentin felt around him. Two walls of entwined fibers or vines joined to form a corner near the opening in the floor. The rest was black, empty space. He hopped up and down, testing the surface beneath his feet. The walls of the room rustled from the movement, and the floor bounced like a stiff trampoline.

“These huts are remarkable achievements of structural design and of cultivation,” Samuel said. “They are quite safe.”

“It’s the climb that worries me most. I don’t think—”

At that moment a figure appeared in the opening.

“Welcome, young Addison,” Samuel said.

Addison climbed nimbly into the hut. “Hey n-até-o.”23

Quentin was sure Addison had not started up the rope while he was still on it. He would have felt the weight. “Why didn’t you wait, like I asked you to?”

Addison moved away into the darkness of the hut. “I can climb the yebun, my father.”

Quentin gazed at his son for a moment then decided to begin his descent. Most difficult was finding the rungs with his feet, particularly with his cumbersome hiking shoes. It was no wonder the Papuans and Samuel went barefoot. Just before reaching the ground, he heard something. He paused. From above, the sound grew, like a soft ocean wave. It was raining. Perfect—as if this weren’t hard enough.

Bobby climbed the ladder next and made it safely to the hut, followed by Carlos, and then Miranda. But in their weakened state, Ashley and Lindsey would need help. Maybe he could tie the end of the rope around their waists. But this wouldn’t stop them from falling.

“Hey!” It was Bobby’s voice, from far above, almost drowned out by the rain. “We have a plan. Ashley, get on the rope and hold on.”

Quentin realized what they wanted to do, and he wished he had stayed in the tree house to help. He ran the scenario through his head. There were five people up there, but Samuel was the only adult. How much help would the kids be?

Ashley shoved her foot into the lowest rung, pulled herself up, and placed her other foot in the next rung. Then she was on her way up, rising at a surprising rate.

As she receded into the gloom, she yelled, “If you guys drop me, you’re dead!”

“Just hang on, Ash.” Miranda’s words were punctuated by the effort.

Quentin held his breath, trying to transfer his own strength to the arms of his students. At last there was faint laughter from the tree house, and Quentin sighed forcefully.

“Major Tom to ground control. It’s your turn, Mrs. D. Look out below!”

The rope snapped the air beside them. Lindsey mounted the two lower rungs as Ashley had. Her face was pale even in the darkness, and Quentin sensed her trepidation.

She said, “We’ll laugh about this someday, right?”

Quentin forced a smile. “The time Lindsey was at the end of her rope.” He turned to the canopy and shouted, “Ground control, ready! Guys, please don’t drop my wife.”

Lindsey whispered something unintelligible as she rose into the darkness.

* * *

Stars surrounded Quentin. He’d been here before, in another dream. The long aloneness returned. The stars passed by him, and he waited, knowing one would grow brighter. And there it was, distant but beckoning. As the star swelled, the planet appeared like a tiny blue sapphire. The sun grew and passed by him, and the blue planet filled his vision. Something about the planet was familiar, but not quite right. The continents were misshapen, and mostly desert brown. The planet drew nearer, engulfing him in its vastness.

And then he was in a forest, surrounded by foliage and steaming wetness. On the ground before him a familiar tree kangaroo sat on its haunches. Mbaiso led him to the village of the Papuans, their tree houses veiled in the branches far above. They stopped at an exceptionally large tree, and Quentin suddenly floated from the ground and entered a tree hut, smaller than the one in which he was sleeping. The room was dominated by something clinging to the large, splitting trunk of the tree. Quentin reached out to its gray-brown surface. It was soft, like moist clay. His fingers molded the surface, and he pulled a portion of it free.

The stuff spread over his fingers and palm. It glistened with movement, as if thousands of tiny particles were at work. Abruptly it was gone, absorbed by his flesh. His fingers tingled. The sensation moved through his arm to his shoulder. He stood motionless, allowing the tingles to spread through his entire body.

Quentin awoke. He lay in the dark hut listening to tree frogs and crickets, still feeling the sensation of the substance coursing through his system. Something within him was different. Memories, rich in detail, steadily began flooding his mind.

He was sprawled on his belly under the summer sun, peering at the water’s edge. Two green turtles returned his stare. Their yellow-striped legs paddled gently in the clear water to keep their heads above the surface. He wanted to catch them and take them home. “Quentin, let’s go!” He turned and saw his father, looking very young, with a fistful of fishing poles in one hand and a metal tackle box in the other.

Quentin hadn’t thought about that day in a long time. And there were others—long forgotten scenes, accessible as if they’d occurred only moments before. Many of them were gratifying, notable events of his life. Others were more dismal.

The jet engines’ roar made it easier to concentrate and draw. Quentin’s picture of a Papuan hut was almost finished. He’d already drawn on sixteen pages and he wanted to fill the whole pad before they landed in California. He held the pad up. “Look, Dad. It’s a cooking hut. See the fire hole?” His dad just stared out the window. “Dad, see my hut?” Quentin’s mom turned the pad so she could see. “Nice job, kiddo. Why don’t you let your dad rest for now? He’s not feeling so good.” Quentin looked at his dad. “I liked them, anyway, Dad. Even if they’re not the same as before. I liked Gupy, and Amius too. They’re still nice.” His dad just stared at the clouds.

Chapter Eleven

Bobby awoke. The tree house was quiet. Morning light pierced the walls and ceiling, speckling the sleeping bodies. His night had been full of dreams—the stars again, the forest and Mbaiso, and then the tree. But this time there had been more. He had dreamt he touched the object on the tree, and part of it had soaked into his body as if that were its purpose. Bobby rolled onto his back and stared at the tangled vines of the hut’s ceiling. He rubbed the scar on his chest. It didn’t even hurt. His mind drifted to the fight with the Papuan tribesmen the day before. Without warning the violent scene erupted in his mind with horrifying clarity. Startled, Bobby squirmed and then bolted upright. He was still in the silent, darkened hut. But for just a moment it had been like he was there again, confronting the tribesmen, seconds away from being stabbed with a spear. He sensed that it had been no more than a vivid memory. So he tried conjuring up another.

The frog sat on his hand, looking back at him with round eyes on a flattened face. Its skin was turquoise, almost blue, and kind of dry for a frog. It looked like a plastic statue of a cartoon character. Bobby loved it. But his mom wrinkled her nose at it. “Mr. Darnell gave it to me,” he said to her. “He’s going to give me a male, too, so she can have babies. She can have a thousand tadpoles. This is a White’s treefrog and pet shops in the city will buy them for ten dollars each.” “Well, I can’t imagine why,” she said. “But I guess it might teach you some responsibility.” Bobby looked at the frog in his hand, the most wonderful thing he had ever owned.

Back in the tree hut, Bobby smiled to himself. He could remember every detail. He tried it again, thinking of when Ashley pulled the stinging vine hairs out of his lips. Her face had been so close to his that he could smell her. He realized he could slow the memory down, and then he watched Ashley’s face as she worked at the task in slow motion. He saw details in her eyes and mouth he had completely forgotten.

But then Addison’s voice broke his thoughts. “No… no. Gu laléo-lu. You need me.”24

Addison was talking in his sleep. Bobby crept over to where he lay.

“Senggile-lé. No… They’ll all die. Yanop khomile-lé-dakhu.”25

Addison’s voice faded to a whisper, and Bobby leaned closer, his ear only inches away.

“Don’t. Gu laléo-lu… I’ll make you help me…”

“Bobby? What’s wrong?”

Bobby drew back, startled. It was Mr. Darnell, sitting up on the other side of Addison.

“I don’t know. Addison was saying weird stuff is all.”

Suddenly Addison cried out. Bobby nearly fell over backward. The utter rage in Addison’s scream made Bobby want to cover his ears and purge it from his mind.

Mrs. Darnell sputtered awake. “What? Quentin, what?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Miranda said. The others were awake now.

Mr. Darnell reached for Addison to hold him, but then pulled back like he was afraid.

Addison crawled away to a corner of the hut and then sat quietly watching them as if nothing had happened.

Mr. Darnell eyed his son. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Addison’s face was blank. “Dreams are real now, my father.”

Mrs. Darnell groaned and pushed to one elbow. “They’re not real. They’re only dreams.” She fell back to the floor. “Oh God, Quentin, I don’t think I can get up.”

Mr. Darnell felt her forehead. A beam of sunlight from a hole above fell directly on her face, and her skin was red and sweaty.

“Addison’s right,” Bobby blurted out. “Our dreams are real. I dreamed that something got into my body and was changing me. And now I can remember everything.”

These words shut everyone up. As Bobby waited for them to try it, a flock of parrots screeched in the distance. A snicker came from the back of Carlos’s throat, and Miranda whispered, “Oh my God.”

“Jesus, it is real,” Mr. Darnell said.

Mrs. Darnell was still lying on her back. “What’s real?”

“We can remember stuff,” Bobby said. “Everything that ever happened to us.”

There was a moment of silence, and then she said, “What?”

A movement at the floor’s opening caught Bobby’s eye. Mbaiso climbed through. The kangaroo circled the opening to where the rope ladder lay coiled on the floor, turned away from it, and with a kick of his hind legs sent it tumbling. For a moment the rope hung loose from the ceiling, but then it went tight and the tree house shook from the weight of a climber.

Bobby crept to the edge of the opening and watched. It was Samuel. Bobby looked at the tree kangaroo. He reached out, palm down, like he would to a dog. “Hey, boy. Mr. Darnell says you can talk. Can you teach me?”

Mbaiso simply stared, and then moved out of the way as Samuel’s head appeared.

“Sinanie claims that you are the noisiest creatures of the living world. I am inclined to agree.” He climbed the last few rungs into the tree house, and the rope ladder went tight again as someone else started climbing. “I trust you had adequate rest,” Samuel said.

“We slept well,” Mr. Darnell said. “But we had dreams again, and this time—”

Samuel held up his hand. “Explanations will come. Of particular concern now is your health.” He eyed Mrs. Darnell, still lying on the floor, and then Ashley, who was still sleeping. “There are two among you who yet suffer. You should allow them treatment. I offer the same ointments that have proven beneficial to the rest of you.”

Mrs. Darnell moaned and said, “No, I don’t know what the stuff is.”

Mr. Darnell frowned. “Lindsey, you’re getting worse.”

“Don’t try to make me.”

Mr. Darnell sighed and shook his head at Samuel.

Samuel seemed as if he were about to argue with this. Instead he hoisted a swollen bag from his shoulder to the floor. “I have brought food.” He pulled something the size of a person’s head from the bag. It was wrapped in green leaves, which he peeled away and laid flat on the floor. The stuff inside was mostly white and looked like oatmeal. “You may find khosül to be rather tasteless, but I assure you it contains sufficient nourishment.”

“Looks like sago,” Miranda said.

“Indeed, young lady. Sago paste is the foundation. But only the foundation, for khosül contains animal matter from the sago beetle larva. It is more palatable and nourishing.”

Miranda’s shoulders slumped. “Grubs. We’re eating grubs.”

“Thank you for the food, Samuel,” Mr. Darnell said.

Just then the other climber’s head appeared. The now familiar pincushion of green feathers indicated it was Sinanie. Almost against Bobby’s will, a vivid scene appeared in his mind: Sinanie’s confident face and grunt of effort as he plunged a spear into Bobby’s chest. Bobby gasped and forced the memory from his mind.

Sinanie climbed through the opening, removed a container that hung from his neck, and set it next to the khosül. It was a gourd, wet from water that must have spilled during the climb. Sinanie moved to the only corner of the tree house not occupied. He squatted there and quietly watched them. His eyes met Bobby’s, and he flashed a white smile. Bobby tried to smile back.

Samuel nodded to Ashley, whose eyes were still closed. “May I treat the young lady?”

Mr. Darnell nodded. “Please.”

* * *

The khosül was almost tasteless, but Bobby was hungry enough to eat mud. The others didn’t seem to mind it either, and they all ate in silence. Bobby knew another reason they weren’t talking. They were busy with their own memories. Giggles and murmurs of surprise were mixed with eating sounds as they relived forgotten experiences. In his mind, Bobby saw his mom and dad long before the divorce. For the first time he realized they were never very happy together. When he was younger he couldn’t have known. They had laughed and played with him and he felt safe. But now he saw that they laughed only with him, never with each other. There was something between them—a coldness.

“Holy crap, I can remember right after I was born!” Carlos said.

This was followed by more silence as the others tried it. But Bobby had done that already. The visions were blurry, with voices he didn’t understand and shapes he didn’t recognize. Memories from infancy were too baffling to make sense of.

“Oh, you’re kidding me!” Everyone turned to Miranda. “I found my journal,” she said. “My baking journal—like a diary but with all the recipes I invented. I lost it a year ago, and I just remembered I hid it in the wall in my closet.”

“You’re such a Barbie, Miranda,” Ashley said. Ashley still looked pale, but apparently she was already feeling better.

Carlos was frowning. Finally he said, “When I was four, Roberto got sick. He was gone for like two weeks, and I didn’t know what my parents were talking about then. But now I know. His appendix burst and he got infected. He almost died. No one ever talked about it after that.” Carlos laughed quietly like there was something funny about that.

“Maybe we forget some things for a reason,” Mr. Darnell said to Carlos. He then turned to Addison. “Son, do you remember anything?”

“I had two mothers,” Addison said, his dark eyes staring at the wall.

“What do you mean, two mothers?”

“Two mothers when I was abül, a boy. Lindsey was my mother. And Koina was my mother. She brought me to be with the yanop lop.”

“Yanop lop?”

“The people of the trees. Koina brought me from the place of ancestors to live with the yanop lop.”

Mr. Darnell frowned. “You think you have a mother named Koina?”

“Quentin! We have to go!” It was Mrs. Darnell. Every few minutes she would wake up and say something like this. She was getting worse.

For some time they all sat in silence. Bobby scooped another handful of khosül and shoved it into his mouth. He felt something hard. He worked the object out of his mouth and onto his palm. It was a shiny black oval the size of a quarter. He turned it over, and his stomach tightened at the sight of two large mandibles. It was the head of an insect. The head alone was larger than any beetle he had ever seen.

“What you got there?” Carlos asked.

Bobby couldn’t answer. He dropped the black head onto the floor for Carlos to see. Samuel had told them the khosül contained sago grubs. But Bobby had seen sago grubs in the market in Wamena, with their tiny black heads. An image popped into Bobby’s mind of an enormous white, legless, squirming sago grub with a head this huge. This was too much. He barely made it to the hut’s opening in time. He heard his vomit strike the ground just as he finished retching. Bobby sat back, panting from the effort. He had just ejected nutrients that he desperately needed. He would have to start again.

* * *

Samuel had left, saying that he would talk to the village elders about their situation. While they waited for his return, Bobby had eaten what he could and decided to explore every inch of the tree house. He even climbed the walls. There wasn’t really a ceiling. Instead, the walls sloped inward until they came together to form two points. He pushed his hand through the sticks and living vines of the walls and felt a rope above each point. The hut seemed to be hanging by these two ropes. Although thicker than the rope ladder, the cords seemed too thin to support the weight.

Mrs. Darnell was getting worse, while Ashley seemed to be improving. After Samuel had treated her with his medicine, Ashley had slept. She awoke after a short time and reported having the same dream, about stars and the forest and the thing in the tree house. This got everyone talking about it again.

“Do you think they’ll take us to the dream-tree?” Carlos asked.

Mr. Darnell said, “It was a dream. It may not even exist.”

“But the dream felt real,” Bobby said. “It’s like someone is trying to show us where it came from, and where it is now. The stuff came from space. It ended up here in the jungle. Maybe the Papuans found it and hid it in a tree so no one would take it.”

“Guys, you’re not thinking like scientists,” Mr. Darnell said. “We shouldn’t consider the most bizarre explanation first. It’s the simplest that usually turns out to be true.”

“Like what?” Carlos asked. They all waited for his answer.

“Like maybe it’s a medicine the villagers mixed together from things they got from the forest. That could happen. People are creating new drugs from rainforest products all the time.”

“When was the last time they found one that fixes broken legs?” Miranda said.

“And makes you remember your whole life,” Bobby added.

“And keeps people alive who should be dead,” Carlos said. He then looked at Addison.

Addison regarded Carlos without expression. But Bobby thought he saw something menacing in the blackness of his eyes. Although barely noticeable, it made Bobby avert his gaze so Addison wouldn’t look at him in such a way.

Mr. Darnell broke the silence. “I don’t doubt that we’ve been given an amazing medicine. And obviously it does more than heal wounds. That doesn’t mean it’s from space.”

“Perhaps soon you will have answers.” Samuel had returned. He climbed the last few rungs and stepped onto the floor of the hut. He spoke to Mr. Darnell. “You are to accompany me. Perhaps you may satisfy your curiosities while the indigenes satisfy theirs.”

“Lindsey is weak,” Mr. Darnell said. “She can’t climb down the ladder.”

“Your presence is sufficient at this time, Quentin. Your wife will be safe here.”

Mrs. Darnell tried to sit up. “Quentin, don’t leave.”

Samuel said, “Lindsey, you are as safe here as any place upon this world. The villagers demand to see your husband. There would be consequences should he refuse.”

Mr. Darnell hugged her and whispered something in her ear. He stood and faced the rest of them. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

As Mr. Darnell climbed down the ladder, Samuel waited in uncomfortable silence.

“Samuel, what’s going to happen to us?” Mrs. Darnell asked. “The truth.”

“The truth, Lindsey, is that I do not know.”

“What will it take for them to help us get home?”

“That would require the merciful hand of God himself. But as I’ve told your husband, God does not inhabit this place.” He gripped the rope ladder, but Mr. Darnell was still climbing.

Mrs. Darnell didn’t give up. “Samuel, you seem like a civilized person. Why won’t you help us?”

“You misunderstand me, dear Lindsey. It is for the sake of the civilized world that I believe you should not leave this place.” The rope ladder went limp, and he stepped into a rung. “You should not judge me too harshly. Nor should you judge the Papuans. The civilized world, which you speak of so fondly, would be a changed place were it not for their secretive nature. It may not be wise to reveal what they hold secret.”

And then he was gone. Bobby watched the rope twitch as Samuel descended.

“He won’t listen.” Addison spoke so quietly that Bobby almost missed it.

“Who won’t?” Mrs. Darnell said.

“Father won’t. The Lamotelokhai will talk to him, but he won’t know how to listen.”

Carlos said, “What’s the lamb-oh tell-oh kye?”

Addison turned to him with eyes as cold and black as space. “The Lamotelokhai talks to you when you sleep. I know how to listen. I should be the one to see it, not my father.” Then Addison looked directly at Bobby. “You know how to listen, too.”

Bobby felt his face flush. “What do you mean?” He looked around at the others. “What about them?”

“They don’t matter.”

“Screw you, Addison,” Ashley said.

Carlos spat on the floor. “He’s brain damaged.”

Mrs. Darnell said, “Stop it! Addison’s not well. We need to get him home.” She eyed Carlos. “Can you understand that?”

Carlos shrugged. “Sure.”

Addison stared at them, but something about his eyes made it seem like he didn’t really see them—or didn’t care. “I am staying,” he said.

Mrs. Darnell closed her eyes. “No, Addison, we’re all going home.”

“It is wrong to go home now.”

Miranda spoke up. “How can it be wrong? Our families are worried about us. At least you have your parents with you.”

“They won’t want you there,” said Addison. “Not now.”

The back of Bobby’s neck tingled.

Mrs. Darnell said, “Sweetie, you’re scaring everyone.”

“Mother, you can’t remember.” Addison’s voice was louder now. He turned to Bobby and the others. “But they can.”

Mrs. Darnell looked like she might cry. “You’re not making sense. Please stop.”

Addison didn’t stop. He stood and approached Carlos. “You can remember. Before the pesua crashed. Gekhené pesua im-le. You saw the other airplane.”26

Carlos’s hands were fists. His brows scrunched up, like he was trying to remember. He closed his eyes. When he opened them they were wide with terror. “No!” he cried. “Roberto! He’s not…” His words turned into sobs, and he crumpled to the floor. He sat in the corner, crying and holding his hand like it was smashed all over again.

Addison turned away from him toward Bobby. “You can remember,” he said. “You’ll see.” He came nearer.

Bobby felt trapped. He backed up and almost stepped into the opening in the floor. He grabbed the rope ladder to keep from falling.

Suddenly Ashley was between them. She pushed Addison, saying something about how they’d be better off if he’d go back into his coma.

“You can’t remember,” Addison said to her. “But Bobby can.”

Bobby started climbing down the ladder—to hell with Addison and all the fighting.

Ashley’s face appeared in the opening above him. “Bobby, where are you going?”

“I want to be alone.” He heard Mrs. Darnell’s voice, protesting. “I’ll be back. Tell her not to worry.” He didn’t look up again.

After reaching the forest floor, Bobby sat at the base of a tree and rested his head on his knees. Why did Addison want him to remember the plane crash? Why was he talking about another plane? There was no other plane, and they hadn’t seen or heard any since the crash. He pulled up the memory, and like all other memories, the events appeared in complete detail. He was sitting in the hot plane, waiting to take off, hoping he wasn’t in trouble for making everyone late. Then they were flying over the mountains. He was talking to Mr. Darnell.

Bobby knew what would come next, and panic swelled in his chest. It was no wonder Carlos had freaked out in the tree house. Bobby tried to calm down. The plane crash was in the past. There was no reason to be afraid now. He swallowed hard and went back in time.

He stared out the window at the jungle below, listening to the engines. Mr. Darnell said, “I’m sure you guys have a great story to tell about your morning.” Mr. Darnell was kneeling in the aisle. “Yeah, I guess,” Bobby said. “Well, I want the full story tonight. That’ll give you guys a chance to get it straight.” And then it happened. Bobby’s vision blurred and everything went blank. The next thing he knew, he was staring at a stream of brown stuff streaking out of the plane’s engine outside his window. “Mr. Darnell,” he cried, “something’s wrong!”

It felt so real that Bobby was shaking, so he opened his eyes. He hadn’t remembered blanking out like that before. Intrigued, he took a deep breath and went over it again in his mind. This time he remembered more. There were strange shapes moving in front of his eyes. He couldn’t tell what they were. So he sat up straight against the tree and clenched his fists. He closed his eyes and put all his effort into the memory.

“…That’ll give you guys a chance to get it straight,” Mr. Darnell said. Bobby smiled, staring out the window. And then the blankness washed over him. It felt like that instant of dreamlike feebleness at the top of a roller coaster just before the plunge—helpless and barely aware. There was a shape there, just outside the airplane. It was confusing because the shape seemed so close. A flash of white; a curved edge of something dark; some bits of blue, maybe they were letters; several dark oval shapes in a row. And within one of the ovals Bobby glimpsed another shape. It was a face.

Bobby bolted upright, hitting the back of his head against the tree. Addison was right; there had been another plane. And someone in the plane had been staring right at him.

* * *

Muddy water of the Méanmaél churned past as the tree kangaroo made its way along the river’s bank. It emerged from the brush and stopped before eleven small mounds of soil and plant material arranged in two parallel rows. One row contained five, conspicuously missing the one mound that would balance the two rows. The mbolop relaxed its forelimbs, releasing a collection of sticks, bark, and leaves onto the ground. A second tree kangaroo appeared beside it and dropped a similar collection. And soon a third joined them, adding more collected items. The creatures pushed the loose pieces together, arranging them into a mound that completed two rows of six. The other two kangaroos hopped to the water’s edge, pushed their snouts under the surface for a moment, and then returned and let fly streams of water from their mouths onto one of the mounds. They returned to the river repeatedly to do this for the other eleven mounds. The first kangaroo, known now to the newcomers as Mbaiso, dug into its belly and pulled free a chunk of its own flesh. This it dropped onto one of the mounds. It methodically moved to each mound and did the same thing.

Finally, the tree kangaroos sat back and stared at the mounds. While the other two sat perfectly still, Mbaiso fidgeted. It understood the need for the task at hand, to periodically replenish the local Aiyal, the creature Samuel called a bandicoot. But Mbaiso’s thoughts were engaged with other matters. The new visitors were turning out to be surprisingly diverse, each of them revealing exclusive behaviors and abilities. This made it difficult to generate predictions. Any one of them could alter the course of events in so many ways, making for a most interesting and volatile situation.

The younger one called Bobby was proving to show some promise. Perhaps it would be allowable to push him in directions that could reveal more of his potential.

Mbaiso signaled for the other tree kangaroos to follow, and they left behind the twelve mounds, which were just beginning to change their shape.

Chapter Twelve

Samuel led Quentin to another tree house, and they climbed a rope ladder. Quentin removed his hiking shoes this time, and the climb was easier although this hut was even higher than where they had slept. Waiting for them there were two Papuan men Quentin had not seen before. One had multiple coils of white objects strung around his neck, making a wide collar that covered his shoulders and upper chest. The other had only a few strands of cord around his neck, with dark objects hanging from them. But in his hair were dozens of white cockatoo feathers, sticking out in all directions, similar to the green feathers worn by Sinanie. Both men wore short, functional penis gourds that were intricately painted or carved.

After appraising Quentin’s appearance, the men began questioning him. The questions came rapidly, and some of them seemed irrelevant to Quentin. Surprisingly, Samuel did not seem to have full command of the tribe’s language. He would hesitate often, apparently querying the tribesmen to decipher their meaning. In Quentin’s opinion, this was a strike against the credibility of his claim of living with these Papuans for a hundred and fifty years.

“Gu laleo lai-ati-bo-dakhu. Lele-mbol-e-kho-lo?” the men asked for the third time. By now Quentin knew what it meant: “How are you coming to us, as a man or a spirit?” He had already told them he was a regular, living man.

“They believe your son, Addison, to have risen from the world of the dead,” Samuel said. “And they surmise, therefore, that you are, one and all, spirits.”

“Addison was cured by their medicine. They’re the ones who gave it to him. Why would they think he has come from the dead?” Even as he said this, Quentin remembered that Addison himself had said he had been to the place of the dead.

“Sinanie applied the ointment as a kindness to your wife, who was distraught over your son’s death. They believe the boy was already dead at the time.”

Quentin eyed Samuel. “Do you believe that?”

“I have seen many things I once believed impossible. But notwithstanding my opinion, I fear they believe you are a spirit, Quentin. Perhaps no amount of arguing will convince them otherwise. It might benefit you to simply concede.”

“Will it help us get to civilization if I’m a spirit? If so, then fine, I’m a spirit. We’re all fucking spirits.” So far Quentin hadn’t given a single answer that seemed satisfactory to them.

They asked if Quentin had come because of the Lamotelokhai. Samuel explained that the Lamotelokhai was the source of the ointment. Quentin answered that he had no previous knowledge of the stuff. They asked if he were the creator of the Lamotelokhai. Quentin told them no, he had no idea what it was or where it came from.

The questions continued, and Samuel translated.

“What message from our ancestors have you brought us?”

Quentin repeated that he was a real man, and had no message for anyone.

“You have brought hurt with you. Did you come to kill us?” Samuel explained that shortly before the plane crash, one of the Papuans had been hurt and another killed.

Quentin said he knew nothing about that, and he meant them no harm.

“Can you be killed?”

Quentin answered yes.

“When we kill you, will the world end?” Samuel explained that the end of the world was a concept deeply rooted in their belief system. They believed this event to be inevitable.

Quentin said, “Are they waiting to kill us because they think it might end the world?”

“Quite the contrary,” Samuel said. “The one man who will end their world is the same man they will most definitely allow to live.”

Quentin shook his head at this illogical answer. “Help me out here, Samuel. How can I convince them to let us leave?”

“I believe there are two ways that you may be safe. The first would require you to be the very man they believe will someday come, the man who would end their world. I doubt that to be the case. The second would require you to remain here, as I have. And there are ample doubts regarding that, considering the size of your party.”

Quentin felt panic beginning to well up from his center. “Then we’ll find our way out of here on our own. We won’t tell anyone about this village.”

Samuel shook his head, frowning. “They would not run such a risk. Surely you can see that. Consider the great lengths they have taken to remain concealed.”

Apparently they would have to escape without the Papuans’ knowledge. This seemed impossible, but again Quentin began running assorted scenarios through his mind.

The questions continued. The Papuans wanted to know if they themselves would now grow old. They wanted to know if more spirits would come. And they wanted to know if Quentin was an ancestor of Peter.

Samuel explained. “Peter was a poor fellow who ventured up the river perhaps half a century ago. He was a brave man, whom the indigenes spared for a short time before ultimately deciding his fate.” Samuel shifted uneasily.

“I thought you said we were the first ones allowed to come to this village besides you.”

“I was reluctant to discuss Peter. His was an unfortunate circumstance.”

“What happened to him?”

The Papuans addressed Samuel before he could answer. Samuel frowned, and as they talked, he became increasingly distressed. Were they debating killing them? Quentin eyed the opening in the floor and considered making a run for it. But he would never get Lindsey and the kids safely down from the tree house and out of the village if the Papuans truly meant them harm. He was at their mercy.

As they talked, Quentin focused on an object hanging from the white-feathered man’s neck. It was familiar. It was a carved animal, similar to the one he had found the day of the crash. Though he was uncertain of what effect the action might have, he pulled the figurine from his pocket and held it out to them. “I found this. I think it might be yours.”

The Papuan men stared at the figurine and made no move to accept it.

Samuel’s voice grew tighter than before. “Quentin, I do not know how you obtained that, but it will not—”

“Nu lefaf! Yu be-khomilo-n-din-da. Ya nokhu wola-maman-é. Nokhu solditai imoné khomilo.” The white-feathered man spoke with such force that Samuel became quiet.27

Samuel turned to Quentin. “This council is concluded. We must now go.”

* * *

Bobby tried, but he could pull no more detail from his memory of the other airplane. It had happened so fast. And he seemed to have fainted or blacked out at the time. Was the other plane the cause of their crash? Bobby was pretty sure a mid-air collision would do more than just cause an engine to leak and then catch fire. It didn’t make sense. He rose to his feet to return to the tree house before Mrs. Darnell blew a circuit. There was movement in a nearby patch of saplings. Bobby saw two brown eyes gazing at him from the brush.

“Mbaiso! Where’ve you been, boy?” He held out his hand.

The tree kangaroo stayed put. Then out of the brush came a second tree kangaroo, which Bobby recognized as the true Mbaiso. “Whoa, you brought a friend?”

Mbaiso hopped to his hand and sniffed it. Bobby tried petting his head like he would a dog, but Mbaiso ducked to the side. Suddenly there was a third tree kangaroo. The two newcomers sat a few feet away, watching him. Bobby settled onto the ground and crossed his legs, face to face with Mbaiso. “I know you can talk. Can your friends talk too?”

Mbaiso scratched an ear with his hind leg.

“Parrots can talk, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. But you do, don’t you? If I could just understand, maybe you’d tell me what the hell’s going on here.”

Mbaiso settled back on his haunches. His two companions moved a little closer.

“Can you teach me?” Bobby moved his hands in a nonsense attempt at sign language.

Mbaiso cocked his head, watching Bobby’s hands. And then he began moving his front paws. The movements were controlled and definite.

“How’d you learn to do that?” Bobby tried repeating Mbaiso’s signs. Because of the shape of the creature’s hands, there were no finger movements. The memory of the sequence ran through his mind on demand, and he simply copied it. It was easy.

They continued this way—Mbaiso showing, Bobby repeating. The new kangaroos moved closer until they sat just behind Mbaiso.

Bobby finally dropped his hands. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

Mbaiso tried again, but Bobby just shrugged. Mbaiso’s forepaws began digging into the fur on his belly, as if scratching an itch. He scratched deeper. Bobby stared at the digging claws as they pushed their way through the skin. One paw disappeared. Bobby looked into Mbaiso’s eyes, but the creature seemed unconcerned. Finally the paw appeared again, holding a wet lump of pink innards.

Bobby’s voice was a whisper. “What did you do?”

Mbaiso held the lump of flesh out, and it quickly changed from pink to tan. Mbaiso held the stuff toward Bobby’s face.

“What? What do you want me to…” But Bobby knew, and Mbaiso confirmed it by leaning forward and touching the lump of flesh to Bobby’s mouth.

Not a good idea, Bobby told himself. But before he could talk himself out of it, he pinched it up from Mbaiso’s paw and dropped it into his mouth. He chewed it a few times. It had the texture of gritty mud, with a bitter and metallic taste. Not what he expected from animal flesh. So he closed his eyes and swallowed.

“Okay, now what?”

* * *

Quentin descended the rope ladder, put on his shoes, and waited for Samuel.

“Your presence here has disturbed my indigene hosts more than I dared to believe,” Samuel said when he reached the forest floor. “Tell me, Quentin, how is it you have come to possess an mbolop talisman?”

“I found it in the forest, in a bowerbird’s nest. The day our plane went down.”

“Your choice of occasion to produce this find is unfortunate. I wish that you would have consulted with me beforehand.”

“I thought they might want it. So what do we do now?”

“It is not you and your party that concerns me so much now.” Samuel seemed to struggle for the right words. “You must understand that these indigenes, as with other lower civilizations, have deeply-held beliefs that, although unrefined to us, guide them in their lives.”

If Samuel was lying about his age, he was going to great and offensive lengths to be convincing. “That would be considered an old-fashioned attitude in my world,” Quentin said.

Samuel raised his brows. “Would it?”

“We’ve come to realize that the people of unrefined cultures are just as intelligent as anyone else—more intelligent when it comes to some things.”

Samuel seemed to contemplate this. Then he waved his hand dismissively. “Regardless of their inherent capabilities, uncivilized peoples subscribe to doctrines based upon their beliefs. This is true throughout the world. But here—here among the indigenes to which we are both now bound—there is a force at work. It is a force I can scarcely hope to understand after many years of study. Savage tribes of the world believe supernatural forces are at work in their daily living. Commonly these notions are simple and unwarranted. Our Papuan hosts, in contrast, believe in the supernatural because here it is real. I assure you of this. Whether the force is of nature, or from beyond the natural world, it is one of great magnitude. And so the indigenes’ beliefs should not be ignored. Matiinuo, the elder with whom we have just met, has told me with the firmest conviction that he believes the world is coming finally to an end. Never before have I witnessed such passion in his words.”

“But you know better,” Quentin said. “You know the world isn’t ending, so what difference does it make?”

Samuel held his gaze without answering.

“Don’t tell me you believe him.”

“Perhaps not. But if the people of this tribe decide that their world will end, then I fear not only for them, but for all the peoples of this world.”

Samuel began walking, and Quentin followed.

“Why?” Quentin asked. “The substance you’ve found here will help people beyond anything I can imagine.”

Samuel cleared his throat as if preparing to say something important. “Quentin, are you familiar with the consequences of introducing uncivilized peoples to the civilized world?”

This took Quentin aback. “There are few people who understand it better than I do.”

Samuel gazed at him for a moment with raised brows. “Is that so?”

“My parents were anthropologists. They studied indigenous people here in New Guinea, and I know exactly what you’re referring to. People know of poverty because they have learned about personal possessions and money. People know shame because they were shown clothing. They live in fear because they were given modern weapons.”

Samuel nodded. “Consider the acts of missionaries. Their mission, so to speak, is to bring uncivilized peoples into the light of God and the civilized world. In doing so, such peoples are changed, never to be the same again. Some would argue this is for the savages’ own good. But I have come to realize that this is good only if one accepts that the indigenous state is inherently bad. Do you understand?”

Perhaps Samuel’s ideas were not so outdated. Quentin nodded. “As I said, better than most.”

“Suppose that we turn the situation about. Suppose that we—you and I, and the civilized peoples of this world—are the poor subjects of the missionaries. Suppose that we live our lives in such a way that suits us quite well, praying to our Gods, adopting rules by which to live in harmony, improving ourselves with scientific pursuits. And we are most content with this existence. In fact, there are some of us who would sacrifice much to preserve it.”

Quentin felt a tightness building in his throat. “You think the medicine you’ve discovered is meant to change us?”

Samuel nodded. “It is a gift.”

“A gift from who? God? I thought you said God had nothing to do with this place.”

“It is not a gift from God. God provides us with limits, and with humility. With the Lamotelokhai, there are no limits.”

Quentin stared at him. “No limits?”

Samuel nodded, his face grim. “Quentin, you must never leave this place, even if the indigenes decide you are the one to do so.”

* * *

The sensation started in Bobby’s gut. It wasn’t painful. It was more like the tingles you get when your foot falls asleep and then slowly wakes up. The sensation crept to his chest and up to his neck before he became frightened.

“What’d you give me?” he said to Mbaiso. The feeling entered his face, prickling his lips and warming his eyes. “What is it?” he nearly yelled.

As the feeling rose to his scalp, Bobby pressed his hands to his face. And then the wave of tingles stopped. He peeked through his fingers. The tree kangaroos were still there, watching him. Mbaiso raised one foreleg, moved it as if drawing the letter L in the air, and then repeated the action with the other foreleg, but like a reverse L.

This was a sign Mbaiso had shown him already. But this time, as the gesture ended Bobby saw something strange. The lines of Mbaiso’s body melted away, and an image of the kangaroo pulled free from his own body, rose from the ground, and hung in the air just in front of Bobby. It happened quickly. Mbaiso’s image floated there briefly, and then faded away.

“What the hell?”

Mbaiso signed again. Both arms moved at once, one of them drawing a letter L, the other drawing what looked more like a J with an extra coil at the bottom. Immediately Bobby saw another hallucination. This time one of the kangaroos behind Mbaiso popped up and floated before his face, then vanished. Suddenly it made sense. They were introducing themselves.

“No freakin’ way!” With shaking hands, Bobby copied the two opposite Ls and pointed at Mbaiso. He made the other sign and pointed at the second kangaroo. Finally, he pointed at the third kangaroo and waited.

Mbaiso’s forepaws drew another pair of signs in the air, this time a letter L and a circle with a squiggle through it. A likeness of the third tree kangaroo popped up and then vanished.

“I get it,” Bobby whispered.

The kangaroo named L and curly-J hopped forward and made a new sign. It ended with the two paws together, as if praying, and then slowly moving them apart several inches. As soon as the paws stopped, another hallucination appeared. The tree kangaroo’s likeness moved away from Bobby a few meters. The kangaroo repeated the sign, but separated his paws even farther. The creature’s likeness hopped away again, but farther than before.

Bobby copied it, but he spread his hands apart until there was a foot of space between them. There was no hallucination, but all three of the kangaroos hopped away into the brush and stopped about ten meters out. On a hunch, Bobby made the gesture again, but this time he passed his hands over each other and reversed the direction of separation. The tree kangaroos obediently returned to him.

Bobby smiled. He was learning their language.

* * *

Quentin and Samuel made their way around enormous sago and eucalyptus trees. The immense trees must have been why the Papuans had chosen this location for their village.

“Samuel, how did you end up in this place, anyway? If you started your life with these villagers as long ago as you say—what, back in eighteen sixty or something like that?”

“Eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, actually.”

“If you started living with them then, how did you get here, to this location? There weren’t many explorers who penetrated the interior back then.”

“At that time their village was far to the north, near the port of Hollandia where I made my residence. I first encountered them on a collecting trip. An assistant of mine, Charles Newman, accompanied me. The young man had only recently arrived from London. We had chanced to hear stories of a place the local villagers rarely entered. They told us that those who visited there never returned. As a naturalist, this interested me. I gave no thought to their superstitions. I saw an opportunity to collect specimens rare even to the locals themselves. And so we set out to enter the region. With three of my boys, whom I employed to assist in collecting and carrying, Charles and I ventured inland, making our way along the river. We traveled six days, as we were instructed to. When we approached our destination all signs of mankind gave way to a pathless wilderness. The area appeared to be uninhabited.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“Correct,” Samuel said. “Upon entering the area, we encountered creatures that were most assuredly new to science. My assistant Charles shot several aiyals: bandicoots, which seemed to hold no fear of man. And then he shot a tree kangaroo. That is when our good fortune expired. We found ourselves surrounded by indigenous Papuans, quite unlike any I had seen before, who proved to be as dangerous as they were silent. Almost immediately, they murdered poor Charles. My boys tried to run but were stabbed to death without so much as a word spoken. I feared for my life and kneeled to them, determined on appearing agreeable.

“And then something astounding happened. The mbolop, which I was certain was shot dead by Charles, awoke, and it approached me as I kneeled in the mud waiting for my death. This may seem difficult to conceive, but sure as I attribute the death of my companions to the shooting of the mbolop, I also attribute my own survival to that very creature. The tribesmen I faced were much influenced by the tree kangaroos, as they are to this day.”

“Which is why they make these figurines of them,” Quentin said, pulling the troublesome object from his pocket. “I suppose I insulted them somehow by having one?”

“It is not that you insulted Matiinuo so much as you confused him. The talisman you hold once belonged to him. It is a possession that an Elder does not readily give up. But he did give it away, and soon after it was lost under the most unfortunate circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

Samuel hesitated. “I have told you of the poor fellow, Peter.”

“Yes. Who exactly was Peter?”

Samuel sighed. “As I have said, Peter found his way to the village of my hosts, quite by accident. He was allowed to live for some time. The villagers held hopes that Peter could understand the Lamotelokhai. Matiinuo even gave him the mbolop talisman, a sign of the highest regard.” Samuel looked at the ground. “Peter became a friend to me. But then he insisted on leaving the village.”

“The Papuans killed him, didn’t they?”

Samuel responded only with a blank stare.

“So they let you live, and you remained here for all these years? Why?”

Samuel leveled his gaze at Quentin. “I quickly learned that the indigenes possessed a substance with extraordinary medicinal qualities. When they shared it with me, I experienced the most pleasing advantages. As with Peter, they held hopes that I might understand the Lamotelokhai, and that I might communicate with it.” With these last words, Samuel gave Quentin a guarded look. “You see, the indigenes will not themselves communicate with the Lamotelokhai. Long ago they determined that to do so results in misfortune and bereavement. But they do wait for a man to come who will assume the obligation of doing so. And to some extent I could. But evidently I was not the one they had been waiting for. I faced the dilemma of becoming useful to them or suffering the same fate as the others in my party. I had no more freedom to leave this tribe than you now do. Or that Peter did. I chose to be useful, and to devote my scientific efforts to ascertaining the potentials of the Lamotelokhai. For all the answers that I uncover, however, more questions are revealed. The Lamotelokhai is most mysterious, and very dangerous.”

“What do you mean, dangerous?”

“In recent years, my questions concerning the substance’s capabilities have become more earnest, and the results of my investigations more pervasive and treacherous. I have concluded that there will be, quite literally, no limits to the capabilities of the man who unlocks the particulars of its true nature.”

“And you want to be that man. You’re helping them hide this thing, aren’t you?”

“You think me to be self-interested. But I know I am not that man. My indigene hosts believe a man will come who will converse with the Lamotelokhai in ways that I cannot, and will then take it from this place, essentially bringing their world to an end, or turning the world upside down, as they put it. They accept this as inevitable truth. I suspect that they believe you may be this man, which explains why you are alive at this moment. But I am not so convinced as they are. I mean no contempt, Quentin, but you and those in your party do not lead me to believe that society has progressed to such a state of civilization that the Lamotelokhai’s properties would be utilized safely and sensibly.”

Quentin regarded him. “You decided this after knowing us for two days?”

“As I said, I mean no contempt. When you have learned more of the Lamotelokhai, I trust you will agree that it should remain hidden from those who would suffer its temptations. So strongly do I hold this to be true that I convinced the tribe to migrate far inland to avoid inevitable encounters with civilized peoples. In the fifty years after my capture, I moved with my hosts to no less than four new home territories, each one more remote than before. At last we settled here, a place I was sure would not yield to strangers. Wandering souls of Papuan descent, yes. But for many years no civilized men, until Peter—and now your own party.”

“But you must have known civilization was closing in on you, from all the planes flying over.” Quentin recalled again that he still hadn’t seen or heard a plane since the crash.

“I have indeed seen such things. A means of travel long anticipated by imaginative thinkers. But until now these vessels passed over us harmlessly.”

Abruptly, Samuel stopped walking. He gazed into the forest ahead of them and then spoke loudly, “Noadi, gu mbakha-lekhé wa-mol-mo?”[28]

Quentin followed his gaze. Noadi, the Papuan who’d pierced Quentin’s chest with his spear, stood in their path. Noadi approached them cautiously. He was not carrying his spear. Instead he held what appeared to be a cord strung with white teeth.

“Gu mbakha-lekhé wa-mol-mo, Noadi?” Samuel repeated.

“Nu if-e-kha misafi gup-tekhé fédo-p. Nokhu-yanop-tu.” As he spoke, Noadi nodded at Quentin, and then at the string of teeth in his hands.29

Samuel frowned. “He would like for you to see something he has made. This is most unusual. It is rarely moved from its place of security.”

Noadi stopped before Quentin, looking him squarely in the eye. He grinned broadly.

“Nokhu-yanop-tu,” Noadi said. His singsong voice held no threat. He pulled the string of teeth open before Quentin and spoke rapidly. The cord was long, with perhaps two hundred teeth. The teeth were quite large, probably taken from crocodiles since no other large predators were found in New Guinea. At one end of the string the teeth were much larger, some of them ten centimeters in length—too large for even the most impressive crocodiles Quentin had seen. Noadi held the string of teeth closer, and Quentin saw that they were each etched with a picture. Intrigued, he moved closer and reached for the strand.

Samuel cleared his throat. “Quentin, I wouldn’t…”

Noadi’s eyes grew wide, but then he handed it over. “Nokhu-yanop-tu.” Noadi sat on the ground and gestured for Quentin to sit across from him. As Quentin settled onto the ground, Samuel exchanged words with the Papuan.

“Noadi believes it is important to show this to you. I lived among these people for many years before I was allowed to see it.”

Quentin looked closer. The level of detail of the etched images was astonishing. “What exactly is it?”

“It is an account of the history of the tribe. Each tooth shows an event of significance.”

Noadi pointed to the larger teeth at one end of the cord and spoke rapidly. The first tooth showed three people in the forest. Beyond them was water, perhaps the ocean. They appeared to be hunting, carrying weapons and game. The image wrapped around the back of the tooth and Quentin lifted it to see underneath. The hunters were confronting a palm tree with a large bulge in the trunk.

Quentin looked at the next tooth. The image was unmistakable. It was a Papuan man, suspended against a background of stars. Quentin turned it over. There was the Earth, drawn in great detail, standing out prominently against the stars. The image even revealed continents, misshapen in the same pattern that Quentin remembered from his dream.

“The dream!” Quentin said.

“Indeed,” Samuel said. “A consequence of the Lamotelokhai.”

“I’ve never seen artistry like this, Samuel, not unless it was created with the help of microscopes and lasers. How do they do this?”

“These are a people of extraordinary patience, as they do not grow old. I have known Noadi to labor for eight years on the design of one tooth. The pictures represent hundreds of years of efforts, and the events they show occurred throughout thousands of years. I believe that the tribe discovered the Lamotelokhai on the northern shore of New Guinea ten thousand years ago, perhaps more.”

“Ten thousand years? What evidence do you have of that?”

“It could be much more. But details I have assembled from their narratives suggest this. Also, observe the crocodilian teeth before you. Notice how the teeth decrease in size from one end to the other. It is not only a record of depicted events, but also a record of the species of crocodiles available to the artist. Such significant change requires many thousands of years.”

Quentin’s mind reeled. Papuans were thought to have traveled in boats to New Guinea at least forty thousand years ago, one of the oldest cultures isolated from the rest of the world. To think that this was a detailed pictorial history of such a span of time was beyond belief. If so, the value of the string of teeth before him would be immeasurable.

“I have scrupulously pieced together a scanty picture of historical events,” Samuel said. “But these people are very shy, often unwilling to discuss matters at length, if at all. And the elder, Matiinuo, whom you have met, is the only tribesman living today who lived when they discovered the Lamotelokhai. Matiinuo is notoriously difficult to talk to.”

Quentin stared at him. “You’re not trying to tell me Matiinuo is ten thousand years old.”

“No,” Samuel replied. “Most likely much older. Ten thousand is only a moderate guess.” He returned Quentin’s gaze without faltering.

“Jesus Christ,” Quentin muttered. He looked more closely at the teeth. There were depictions of hunting and fishing, and what might have been a marriage ritual. One image near the beginning of the string caught Quentin’s eye. It showed a frightening creature that resembled a man, but with longer arms and a stooped posture. In one hand the creature held what appeared to be a human head, and the ground around it was littered with bodies. Gazing at the tiny scene, Quentin felt a chill.

He pointed at the creature. “What is this thing?”

Noadi simply stared at the tooth grimly, but Samuel said, “That tooth depicts an event that has shaped the villagers’ beliefs regarding the Lamotelokhai. The powers of the Lamotelokhai intoxicated one of their tribe. He apparently ran amok, madly killing fellow tribesmen before being destroyed. It was this event which induced the indigenes to never again communicate directly with the Lamotelokhai.” Samuel touched the next tooth on the string. “And which induced them to employ the mbolop in communicating with the substance.”

Quentin looked closely. The tooth showed a villager engaged in a sign language conversation with a tree kangaroo.

Near the middle of the string was a scene of the ocean shoreline, with jungle and water. Men in canoes were on the beach. He turned the tooth over and saw that the boat people were being killed by Papuans with spears. Beyond this tooth were more images of battle, each with bodies on the ground, killed by tribesmen with spears. Quentin glanced from tooth to tooth. The second half of the string contained dozens of scenes of killing. Scattered among them were pictures of such activities as building tree houses and hunting. Quentin was witnessing an account of the populating of the island of New Guinea over the centuries, reflected by increasing encounters with outsiders.

Quentin looked at Noadi, who grinned back at him. “Which of these pictures did you make, Noadi? Samuel, can you ask him that?”

“There is no need,” Samuel said. “Noadi created them all. He has witnessed all the events shown, but for the first ones. Matiinuo described the first encounter with the Lamotelokhai to him. Noadi is nearly as old as Matiinuo, as are other members of this tribe.”

The string of teeth was the most stunning artistic achievement Quentin had ever seen, and it looked oddly out of place lying in the leaf litter and mud. “Why have you shown me this?”

“An excellent question,” Samuel said. He exchanged words with Noadi.

The Papuan pointed at the teeth, running his finger from one end to the other, and then jabbing at the last few. “Nokhu-yanop-tu. Wolakholol lembu-té-n-da.” He then pointed at Quentin. “Yu nggulun. Yu manop. Gu di mbolombolop.”30

“Most distressing,” Samuel said. “It appears that Matiinuo’s dismal view of the tribe’s fate is shared by Noadi, and probably the rest of the tribe. He would like you to know that his people have lived an existence worthy of respect, or perhaps reverence.”

“Nokhu-yanop-tu,” Noadi repeated, pointing to the last few teeth on the string.

Quentin looked. There was a scene with men wearing clothing. One of them lay dead on the ground. The other kneeled with his hands up. Quentin turned over the tooth. A tree kangaroo sat between the kneeling man and his attackers. “This is you, isn’t it?”

Samuel nodded, his face grim.

The next tooth showed a man who was plainly Samuel, no longer fully clothed, but wearing his unmistakable vest. He was pointing to what looked like a fallen tree with numerous holes in it. There were several small animals in the scene as well.

The second to the last tooth showed another clothed man. He was on his knees, a spear protruding from his body, facing his attackers. Quentin presumed this was Peter.

The last tooth was unfinished, an image only roughly outlined and not yet etched into the surface. But there was no doubt what it was—the fuselage of the Twin Otter, twisted and on its side. Beside it stood several people, with more lying on the ground.

“Maf lebil lefu-manda,” Noadi said. From his pouch he pulled out another tooth and held it out to Quentin.31

“Curious,” Samuel said. “Noadi says that this tooth will be the last.”

Quentin accepted the tooth from the child-like hand. Unlike the image of the plane, this one was detailed, etched into the surface as if it were completed long ago. Quentin stared at it. He turned it over. It was the same on both sides—nothing but stars. He held the tooth up to Samuel. “What does it mean?”

Samuel frowned at the tooth. “It is all that they believe will soon remain. After the world is turned upside down.”

Chapter Thirteen

Mbaiso signed, drawing a T in the air with a curl at one end. Bobby promptly saw a vision of a tree kangaroo scampering up a tree and then a rope ladder falling and hanging there, ready to be climbed. The vision faded. Mbaiso signed again, followed by another vision, this time a tree kangaroo bouncing on a wet branch, releasing a shower of rainwater.

And so it continued. The pace of the lesson picked up, until Bobby thought his brain might boil over. At first, the signs had mostly to do with things the tree kangaroos did to help people. But soon the lesson shifted to human actions such as climbing, making things, and even killing. There were signs for objects such as spears, rope, and carving tools. And there were plants and animals that Bobby had never seen before. When Mbaiso paused the rapid-fire lesson, Bobby easily recalled everything he had learned.

“If we ever get home, school is going to be a breeze from now on,” he said aloud.

Suddenly the kangaroos sat up straight and twitched their ears.

Bobby looked around, but saw nothing. “What is it, guys?”

The two newer kangaroos scurried off, leaving Mbaiso and Bobby alone. Mbaiso signed, and a matching vision appeared: something moving through the trees. Mbaiso kept signing and the vision changed. A body—a Papuan—lay in the mud. The body was mangled, but it suddenly opened its eyes, sat up, and then struggled to its feet, a twisted, broken man standing before him. Then the vision vanished.

Bobby looked at the trees around him. He whispered, “What are you trying to tell me?”

“Maybe it’s telling you I am here.”

Bobby jerked around. “Addison. I didn’t see you.”

Addison’s black eyes did not blink as he moved closer.

Bobby stepped back. “Why’d you leave the tree house? Your dad will be back soon.”

Addison stopped just in front of him but didn’t speak. His silence was unnerving.

“Why did you scare Carlos like that?” Bobby said.

“I wanted him to remember.”

“I remember the other airplane now, like you said. Is that what you mean?”

Addison actually blinked. “Did you see what he saw?”

“What who saw?”

Addison looked confused for a moment, and then he said, “The boy, Addison.”

Bobby frowned. “I saw the other plane. I even saw people in it.”

“Yes, people,” Addison said. “Do you know who?”

Bobby frowned even more and didn’t answer.

“You don’t remember. Keep trying, then you’ll see.” Addison turned to walk away.

“Addison, did you die? Back at the airplane?”

Addison stopped and turned around.

“I can talk to the tree kangaroos now,” Bobby said. “Mbaiso showed me this dead guy that got up, and then you showed up. And the Papuans, they tried to bury you. And you said so yourself. You said you went to the place of the dead. What happened to you?”

Addison approached until he was close enough to touch. Bobby braced himself for a bad odor, but all he smelled was wet soil and humid air. He whispered, “Are you still Addison?”

The dark eyes stared through him. “I know about Addison.”

Bobby wanted to step back, but he held his ground. “What does that mean?”

Addison held up his hands, looking at the palms. “I am someone else, too. He is Ahea. I have his memories.”

“How can that be?”

Addison rubbed one hand on the other, like there might be something hidden under the surface. “I don’t know. But I will find out.” He turned away again. “You should go to it, too. You can listen to it. The others won’t know how.”

Bobby moved to catch up with him. “Listen to what? I don’t know—”

Mbaiso jumped in front of them. He bleated, almost like a sheep, a sound Bobby had not yet heard him make. Both boys stopped walking. Then Mbaiso signed with his tiny arms. The movements came so fast that Bobby could not follow them. He saw visions, but they were quickly swept away by new ones. There was the lump of stuff in a tree—the Lamotelokhai—and tree kangaroos near it. They were touching it, maybe talking to it.

Suddenly Addison shouted, “Ané kha-fén! Nokhu ima-fon khüp Lamotelokhai! I will see it myself.” Mbaiso didn’t move. Addison lunged at him. Mbaiso jumped, but Addison caught his tail. Before Bobby had a chance to stop him, Addison lifted Mbaiso with both hands and swung him over his head. Mbaiso bleated once more before Addison smashed him to the ground. The kangaroo bounced, rolled over, and was still.32

Bobby’s skin prickled. Static filled his ears like a TV signal suddenly cut off. He stared at Mbaiso’s broken body. “You bastard!” he cried. “Why’d you do that?”

“It made me mad,” was all Addison said. And then he walked away.

Bobby ran in front of him and shoved his chest as hard as he could. “He didn’t do anything to you! What’s wrong with you?”

Addison threw himself at Bobby, driving him to the ground. Bobby tried punching at the face above him, but Addison grabbed his wrists. His grip was too tight to pull free, so tight that Bobby yelled from the pain. Addison stared down at him.

Bobby’s anger turned to fear. “Let go, Addison! Really, it hurts!”

Addison didn’t budge.

Bobby tried to think. “I need to help Mbaiso. You might have killed him.”

Addison’s faced changed a little, into what might have been a smile. “Killed doesn’t mean anything anymore. You know that.”

“You smashed him—hard.”

“He made me mad. Now you’re making me mad. The mbolop isn’t dead.”

Bobby turned his head to look at Mbaiso. “He looks dead.”

“The mbolop doesn’t die. I know, because Ahea knows.” Addison’s grip grew even tighter, and gray veins appeared through the skin of his forehead. “The other airplane, Bobby—remember, or I’ll make you!”

Bobby tried to turn onto his side so he could push himself up. But it was no use. “Okay, will you let me up if I try? I want to help Mbaiso.”

Addison was silent, waiting.

Bobby squeezed his eyes shut. And then he was back in the plane again. Mr. Darnell was talking to them. “That’ll give you guys a chance to get it straight,” he said. Bobby smiled at this and stared out the window. And then his vision started to blur. There was something there. For a moment he saw only shapes and surfaces. Then the other plane moved away. He saw the wing, and windows in a row, with shapes beyond them. And then the plane was gone.

Bobby couldn’t remember anything more. It had happened too fast. He opened his eyes. “I saw the plane, Addison. People were on it. That’s all I remember. Now let me up.”

Addison’s face changed. At first Bobby thought he was going to laugh. But the grin grew larger, until it looked like his cheeks might split open. Addison’s breathing was wet and loud, and his tightened mouth trembled. Bobby pushed against him, trying to back away, but the ground held him in place.

“Nu khén-telo! Gekhené pesua im-le!” Addison’s voice was shrill. “I’ll make you remember!” Addison let go of his wrists and grabbed Bobby’s face. He yanked Bobby’s head from the ground until it was inches from his own.33

Bobby struggled. He struck Addison’s face, but Addison didn’t even flinch. Finally he stopped fighting. “Okay, I’m trying!” He could feel Addison’s wet breath, and he held his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see him. He tried slowing the memory down.

He was on the plane. His vision faded, and he saw the shapes. The other plane was so close that he could have touched it if he could have reached through the window. Bobby slowed the memory down, almost to a stop. The plane slowly moved away—the windows on the side—the shapes beyond them. The shapes were dark, except for the last one, near the rear of the plane. The shape was a person’s head. It was lighter than the others because it was turned to the window, looking out. The face seemed familiar.

Bobby paused the memory and strained for more detail. Suddenly he recognized the face. There was no mistaking it. It was Addison, looking back at him with wide eyes.

Bobby snapped his eyes open. “What the hell? What the hell Addison?”

“What did you see?”

“There was someone on the other airplane. He looked like you.”

Addison let go of Bobby and rolled off to the side. Bobby jumped to his feet, but all he could think about now was what he’d seen. “How the hell could you be on two planes at once?”

Addison rose to his feet. “I am going to the Lamotelokhai. You should too.”

Bobby watched him go until Addison’s form was lost in the trees. He rubbed his ears where Addison had held him. He knelt by Mbaiso, afraid he might find spilled intestines. But Mbaiso was in one piece. Bobby rolled him over. “Oh shit. You poor guy.”

Mbaiso’s face was the wrong shape. It was flat on one side, and the eye was popped most of the way out of its socket. Tears welled up in Bobby’s eyes, blurring Mbaiso’s shape even more. He put his hand on the kangaroo’s chest to feel for signs of life. Something inside moved. Bobby jerked his hand away, and then put it back. There was something. Not breathing, exactly, but solid things moving inside. As he stared, Mbaiso’s head changed. The flattened side slowly took shape again, and the popped eye pulled back into its socket. Bobby rolled back on his heels, watching in wonder as Mbaiso put himself back together.

After what seemed like an hour, Mbaiso’s chest began to rise and fall.

“I knew you could do it!” Bobby said aloud.

Mbaiso’s whole body stretched, like a cat waking from a nap. His head turned Bobby’s way, his brown eyes bright with life. He rolled to his haunches and sat there as if nothing had happened. The tiny forehands began to make signs in the air.

Visions appeared to Bobby: Papuan faces that he didn’t know, the Lamotelokhai in its tree, men running through the forest, disturbing scenes of men fighting—fighting to the death. Bobby closed his eyes, but the scenes were in his mind, and he couldn’t hide from them. The visions kept coming. There was a Papuan man walking in the forest. The man changed and became Addison. Addison walked, looking into the trees, searching for something. Other Papuan’s appeared. They carried heavy clubs. Without any warning they attacked Addison. They beat him, knocking him to the ground. They kept beating him, even when he was clearly dead. They didn’t stop. The beating went on and on. The clubs smashed Addison’s body until there was nothing left but a pulverized mix of leaves, soil, and blood on the ground.

Finally, the vision ended. Bobby stood there, shaken, in the middle of a dark forest full of perils he did not understand. He realized he was crying. “Why did you show me that?”

Mbaiso signed again, and one more vision appeared. As Bobby watched, a lump rose in his throat, one he could not swallow.

He saw the gory soil where Addison’s body was pulverized. But it was not Papuan men standing over it. It was Bobby. And in his hand was a club, stained red.

Chapter Fourteen

Samuel stopped at the base of a large sago palm. “Perhaps, Quentin, you would care to see my own contributions to the welfare of my indigene hosts. I have not, after all, been idle for all these years.”

Quentin said that he was interested, but he should return to Lindsey and the kids.

Samuel shrugged this off and pointed to the tree. “The sago palm provides sago paste, a staple food for the indigenes. To add to their worth, the fallen trunks of dead sago palms provide food and shelter for another important source of nourishment, the larva of Rhynchophorus, the Capricorn beetle. I have discovered that a simple combination of these two foods serves as nourishment of the most remarkable quality. You have eaten khosül yourself.”

“You showed them how to mix sago paste and grubs. That’s your contribution?”

There was some frustration in Samuel’s frown. “Allow me to continue. Because Capricorn beetle larvae were difficult to gather, this food was limited. Collecting the larvae required perseverance, with comparatively small return for months of preparations and many hours of labor. Through my study of the Lamotelokhai, I was able to perfect an efficient system of cultivating Capricorn beetle larvae. And as well, I increased production by breeding more superlative individuals.”

Quentin was curious. “More superlative?”

“Allow me to show you.” Samuel placed his hands on the massive trunk and moved them over the overlapping palm fronds that covered it, feeling for something. “Ah!” he said. He pressed against the surface, and it split open as he forced his way into a hole that was slightly larger than his hand. His arm disappeared into the trunk to the elbow. “Ah!” he said again.

Samuel pulled his arm out. He held a large squirming creature. After a moment trying to comprehend what he was looking at, Quentin exhaled with surprise and disgust. It was a sago grub. But it was enormous. The gleaming black head was easily as big around as his thumb. The writhing white body was like a fat banana. As it squirmed, veins and organs shifted beneath the translucent skin. Samuel held it out to him, but Quentin made no move to take it.

“It is quite harmless, I assure you,” Samuel said.

Quentin was content to observe without holding it. “Okay, I’m impressed. How did you make that? Selective breeding?”

Samuel smiled. “I had some help from the Lamotelokhai.”

Quentin cautiously poked at the larva. “The object we’ve seen in our dreams made these?”

“In a manner of speaking. But under my direction.” Samuel felt the tree again and found another spot where the bark seemed paper-thin. He pressed, forcing the bark inward, but not far enough to break it. “You see, here is another. There may be a hundred in this tree alone. Capricorn beetle larvae naturally feed upon the pith of dead sago palms. I have persuaded them to feed upon living sago trees. Likewise, I have persuaded the sago trees to provide sustenance for them, as well as a safe refuge in which they may live.” He pointed to the gaping hole where he’d found the oversized grub. “If a hollow such as this one is left open, a female beetle will soon lay her eggs inside. The tree will then grow a protective covering over the hollow, leaving it practically invisible to hungry intruders. In time, the larvae grow as large as this one.”

Quentin said, “Interspecies relationships like that take thousands, maybe millions, of years to develop.”

“As I have said, I have not been idle. At the time that the indigenes took me in, they were but hunters and gatherers, expending much energy and time. It is true that they had domesticated a few game animals: the soyabu, which you have had the occasion to eat, and the aiyal, a species of bandicoot. And although not developed for eating, you know of the mbolop. But it was I who taught them the true cultivation of food.”

Samuel gripped the grub with both hands. He wrenched the head off with a pop and tossed it away. The body still writhed in his hand as whitish fluid flowed from the open wound. He placed his mouth over the hole where the head used to be and squeezed the body, causing his cheeks to inflate with sago grub juices. He swallowed as if it were a shot of fine scotch. Again he held the grub out. Quentin simply shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

Samuel then led him to a place where smaller trees grew close together, reminding Quentin of the nearly impenetrable area where their plane had crashed. Most striking, though, was that all the trees were flowering at the same time. Yellow, white, orange, and red blossoms splattered the foliage, and the sultry air was sweet with the smell of nectar. This was unusual, as rainforest trees typically flower at different times to better attract the attentions of a limited supply of pollinators. Countless insects swarmed among the flowers above them.

As they came to a stop, Quentin caught a stray thread of spider web with his face. He brushed at the strand, but it only grew tighter and did not break. He then grasped it with both hands and pulled until it finally broke. He’d used fishing line with less tensile strength than this.

Samuel was now several meters above him, climbing with the agility of a tree kangaroo. He snatched at something Quentin couldn’t see and then descended to the ground using only one hand and his feet. Obviously proud, he held a wriggling creature aloft for Quentin to examine. Again Quentin was stunned. It was a spider with an abdomen the size of his fist. Its long legs flailed helplessly in the air.

“Another source of nourishment,” Samuel said. “And much more.” He grabbed the strand of silk trailing from the spider’s abdomen, which was still connected to the web above them. “I have developed in these orb-weaving spiders characteristics that benefit the tribe, particularly the silk you see here. Woven together, this silk possesses immeasurable strength.” He pulled down on the silk strand, and it grew tight but did not break.

Quentin looked closer at the silk. “This is how you made the rope-ladders. And your vest.”

“Indeed.” With his free hand Samuel fingered his vest. “This garment is nearly the last reminder of my former life.”

“I wondered about that,” Quentin said. “It doesn’t seem very practical in this heat.”

“There are certain needs that outweigh practicality. Keeping a few items to remind me of the man I once was, for example.” He lifted the object that hung from a cord around his neck. “This serves a similar purpose. I was once a rather feeble being, with poor vision, among other imperfections. I required spectacles to see clearly what was just before my own face. Now I have no need for such contrivances.”

Quentin had thought the object was simply a ball of twisted wire. Now he saw that it was shaped with great care—a beautifully crafted ornament made from a one hundred fifty year-old pair of eyeglasses.

* * *

“Why do I need a club?” Bobby said. “Are you telling me I need to kill Addison?”

Mbaiso sat on his haunches without responding.

Bobby sighed. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to go home.”

He decided he’d had enough of the language visions for now. He considered looking for Mr. Darnell but had no idea where to start, and he definitely wasn’t going after Addison. So his only option was to go back to the tree house.

Bobby was not afraid as he climbed the ladder. He figured if he fell, he probably wouldn’t die anyway. Maybe he would never die. His eyes adjusted to the dim light as he entered the tree house, and he saw Ashley looking at him. Mrs. Darnell, Carlos, and Miranda were all sleeping.

“Welcome back, science boy,” Ashley whispered as he sat beside her. “Addison left after you did. I wasn’t sorry to see him go.”

“Yeah, I ran into him.” Bobby said no more about it, and he was glad she didn’t ask. “And guess what,” he said. “I can talk to Mbaiso now, and to his friends. They taught me.”

Ashley tilted her head. “You take off for a few hours and come back knowing how to talk to the animals. You’re kind of an interesting guy, Bobby.”

Bobby felt his face flush.

“Good God—talk about crazy dreams.” It was Miranda. She sat up, wiped her eyes and adjusted her strips of clothing. She touched Mrs. Darnell’s forehead. “Mrs. D, you okay?”

Mrs. Darnell moaned, like she was trying to say something.

“She really needs the medicine,” Bobby said. “I’ll go find Samuel and Mr. Darnell.”

Ashley rose to her feet. “Not alone. Not again. I’m going with you. Miranda, you and Carlos stay here in case Mrs. D wakes up.”

Bobby shook Carlos awake. “We’re going to find Mr. Darnell. Will you be okay here?”

Carlos looked around. “Where’s Addison?”

“Still gone,” Ashley said.

Carlos closed his eyes again. “If he’s down there, I’m fine here.”

Ashley looked at Bobby. “Lead the way.”

* * *

Samuel released the spider and it climbed back up to its web. He and Quentin made their way out of the flowering trees, and the steady thrum of insect wings faded away.

“So the trees here are in flower to attract the insects,” Quentin said. “And the insects feed the spiders. All of that so the spiders can give you silk thread?”

“The spider silk allows the tribe to construct their dwellings high in the trees,” Samuel replied. “In addition, the spiders frequently are eaten by the villagers. I have yet to acquire a taste for them, myself.”

“Samuel, nothing like this has been done before. No one has been able to make plants and animals evolve in a desired direction so quickly. You have to share what you’ve learned.”

Samuel stopped walking. “Do you not understand what is before your own eyes? Tell me, Quentin, why do you think the dwellings of this village are high in the trees?”

“To hide from everyone, I know. But surely you don’t—”

“And tell me, why have the plants been made to grow over the trails? Why have the villagers learned to harden their spears and cook with fires that produce no smoke? And why, Quentin, do you suppose that intruders, as a matter of tribal custom, have hitherto been killed?”

“I get it. You’re hiding this thing, the Lamotelokhai. But you said the villagers believe I am the one who will bring this to an end. Maybe it’s time.”

“Perhaps they do believe that, but I intend to convince them otherwise. In their primitive state, and in their isolation, they can scarcely comprehend the consequences.” Samuel took a deep breath, which seemed to relax him a bit. “There are things, Quentin, you do not yet know. For whatever purpose you are here, be it God’s will or a simple accident, it will be better served if you know more of the discoveries which I have made.” With that, he resumed walking.

“You said God has forsaken this place.”

Samuel nodded. “One day he may reclaim it for his own.”

Quentin considered this. “If God is responsible for what has happened to my family and students, then I have a few things to say to him.”

After a short silence, Samuel replied, “As do I.”

Before long they stopped at the base of an enormous rainbow eucalyptus tree. Samuel extracted a rope ladder that had been concealed by a fat vine growing adjacent to the tree’s bark. “I invite you now to my own dwelling.” Without waiting for an answer, he started climbing.

Like the other tree houses, Samuel’s was virtually invisible from below. Upon reaching the top of the ladder, Quentin entered a now-familiar leafy slit in the floor. But aside from that, Samuel’s hut was nothing like the others. The hut was larger and was held up by at least four attachments to the supporting tree, resulting in four conical points in the hut’s roof. In one corner hung a sleeping hammock that appeared to be made of spider silk. But it was the bewildering array of other objects that captured Quentin’s attention. Nearly every inch of the floor and walls held items made entirely from natural materials such as skins and sticks and bones. Many of the devices Quentin could not identify, but others were clearly made to resemble household items—framed artwork, a table and two chairs, and drinking cups. There were hundreds of items hanging from the ceiling: small leather bags mostly, tied at the top, with several plant seedlings growing from holes in the sides of each bag.

Quentin puffed, winded from the climb. “This isn’t what I expected.”

“The villagers are a simple people. Civilized contrivances are not important to them. As for myself, however, such things prevent me from going mad.”

Quentin looked around the hut. “I’m not so sure it has worked.”

Samuel had been fingering one of the hanging plants, but he stopped and eyed him. Quentin tried to look back without smiling, but failed.

Samuel finally returned a half-smile. “Humor. I have all but forgotten it. To be honest, that is a possibility that frequently haunts me. I have tried to put a definition to madness and have concluded that it is a product of what a man values most. A man who holds no great regard for his own safety is truly a mad man, and will not be long for this world. A man who holds no regard for the society in which he lives—or once lived—is mad as well. Tell me, Quentin, do you care enough about the state of civilization from whence you came to do what you must to preserve its virtues? Perhaps it is I who should ask you of your own madness.”

“It was only a joke.” The conversation trailed off, but Samuel’s words simmered in the back of Quentin’s mind. Quentin was aware of his own obsessive disdain for imposing the modern world upon indigenous cultures. After what had happened with his dad, how could he be otherwise? Yet Samuel was accusing him of having little regard for his own society, as if modern civilization were an unknowing, vulnerable, indigenous culture. Quentin had never looked at his own bloated, high-tech, melting-pot culture in such a way.

Samuel proceeded to show him some of the items in the hut. There was a flute made from the strange skull of a bird called a hornbill, an inventive water dispenser constructed with the skin of a crocodile, and spools wound with various thicknesses of corded spider silk. When prompted by Samuel, Quentin could not break even the thinnest of these. As he looked around him, he realized that at any given moment, several large and spectacular butterflies were flying about the hut. Samuel must have put something in the hut to attract them. Overall, the hut gave Quentin the impression of a comfortable existence.

Quentin finally said, “I appreciate you showing me all of this, but I’m worried about Lindsey and the kids. Lindsey seemed pretty sick this morning.”

“You need not be concerned,” Samuel said. “We will apply ointment from the Lamotelokhai and she will be well.” He went to a darkened corner and lifted a covering of sago fronds. He returned holding a golden object in each hand. One was a sphere the size of a baseball. The other was a delicate-looking sculpture of a butterfly. He handed the sphere to Quentin, who nearly dropped it. It had to weigh at least fifteen pounds.

“Is this gold? I didn’t think there was gold in Papua.”

“To my knowledge it is not found here naturally,” Samuel said. “That is of my own manufacture, from materials scraped from the ground.”

“You made gold?”

“It is a simple task if one understands the Lamotelokhai. No more difficult than the transformation of your flying vessel into the soil of the Earth so that it may nourish new flora to replace the trees it destroyed. But alas, objects of gold have no value here, and I have long since grown weary of their artistic worth.”

“This ability could make you the richest man in the world.”

“Not true, Quentin. If the Lamotelokhai were introduced to civilized society, then these items would hold no more value there than they do here.”

Quentin had to admit there was logic to this. If people could create whatever they wanted, there would be nothing to want. Buying and selling would be obsolete. But then so would hunger, and sickness, and death. Before he could make this argument, Samuel went on.

“I once made many such things, but I have long ago returned them to the earth from whence they came. Instead I turned to more considerable pursuits.”

Quentin held the heavy sphere out to him, and Samuel exchanged it for the butterfly, which was also shockingly heavy. “Such as breeding new animals and plants,” Quentin said.

“Directing the biological process is far more difficult—and rewarding—than working with the simple elements of the earth. Are you fond of butterflies, Quentin?”

Quentin paused. “I guess so.”

“Well, I am fond of all the insects of the world, but I have particular passion for butterflies. That,” Samuel pointed to a large blue and black butterfly circling the room, “is a species new to science, as are the others you see here.”

Quentin responded at once. “Maybe they were new to science a hundred fifty years ago, but now most all large butterflies have been identified.”

“These are quite new, I assure you. I have created them myself.”

Again, Quentin’s curiosity was piqued. It was one thing to breed a sago grub or a spider to grow larger. It was a very different matter to develop a new species. As he looked at the butterflies, his eyes were drawn to a particularly large white one on the ceiling. The butterfly was clinging to a glimmering green chrysalis attached to a living vine that seemed to be part of the hut, and was stretching its wings for the first time. And there were dozens of other chrysalises on the ceiling, of different sizes and colors.

Samuel gestured to the ceiling. “You see, I amuse myself by creating new butterflies. They emerge from their cocoons and fly about my hut. Rather pleasing, is it not?”

Quentin admitted that it was.

Samuel seemed as if he were about to say more, but hesitated. He studied Quentin, creases forming over his eyes. “I have brought you here for a purpose, and I have delayed it enough. I have said to you before, have I not, that the Lamotelokhai has no limits?”

Quentin took one last look at the gold butterfly and handed it back to him. “I assumed you were exaggerating.”

“During my years here, I have carried out hundreds of experiments in order to discover the true nature of the Lamotelokhai. I have learned much. But in recent months I fear I may have engaged questions that should remain unanswered.” Again Samuel paused. “My most recent experiments, I believe, may concern you and your party.”

“In what way?”

“The timing of your arrival gives me reason to think it was not a mere coincidence.” Samuel placed the two gold objects back in the corner. He returned carrying something wrapped in leather and laid it gently on the table. He glanced up at a mat of woven fibers hanging on the wall and adjusted the table to line it up with the mat. He pulled a cord that bound the package shut, and the leather fell open. It contained nothing more than a dull lump of clay. Samuel pressed on the clay, forcing it into an elongated mound stretching across the tabletop. He then stopped moving, his hands resting on the mound, the angle of his body hiding his face.

Perhaps a full minute passed, and Quentin began to wonder. “Everything alright?”

Samuel finally straightened up and turned. “Quentin, have you an object in your possession that is familiar to you? Perhaps the mbolop talisman?”

Quentin pulled the figurine from his pocket.

Samuel pointed with his foot to a spot on the floor. “If you could position yourself here.”

Quentin obliged. This put him in line with the table and the mat hanging beyond it.

“And now,” Samuel said, “throw the talisman at the shield. And please indulge me by throwing it with all the force you may muster.”

Whether Samuel was crazy or not, Quentin was curious enough to comply. He pulled back and hurled the talisman. It hit the mat—twice. Two solid thumps. The sounds were only a split second apart, but there were clearly two of them.

Quentin stared, confused. The light in the hut was too dim to see what had happened.

“Go and see for yourself,” Samuel said.

Quentin sidestepped the table and knelt below the mat. The talisman appeared to have broken. He picked up the pieces. “What the hell?” he said.

It was not broken at all. There were two of them, fully formed and identical.

* * *

Mbaiso was there when Bobby and Ashley reached the forest floor. The two new tree kangaroos emerged from the brush and stopped just behind Mbaiso, forming a triangle.

“They are so cute!” Ashley said. “Pretty quiet, though, for animals that talk.”

“They don’t talk with their mouths. They use their hands.” Bobby couldn’t think of a greeting, so he just made the signs for each of their names. The tree kangaroos didn’t respond. He glanced at Ashley. “I’ll ask them where Mr. Darnell and Samuel are.” He tried several gestures he thought might render this question, including the one he had learned for Samuel.

This time Mbaiso responded by signing. A scene appeared in Bobby’s mind. He was moving through the forest with the tree kangaroos hopping along the ground ahead.

“They want us to follow them,” Bobby said. “Did you see the picture?”

She eyed him. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

The three tree kangaroos hopped away. Mbaiso turned to them, waiting.

“Of course,” Ashley muttered.

Without knowing their destination, they followed. As they walked the silence became awkward, so Bobby spoke up. “We have a name for Mbaiso. We should name the others.”

“Just ask their names if you can talk to them.”

“They told me already, but I don’t know how to say them. Here’s what they are.” Bobby went through the hand motions he had learned. Then he turned quizzically to Ashley.

She scrunched her mouth to one side. “Just call them Mbaiso Two and Mbaiso Three.”

Bobby considered this. “Let’s call them Tupela and Tripela.” He had learned some of the pidgin language used in Wamena using his smartphone tablet. These were the words for “two” and “three.” He pointed out to Ashley that Tupela looked to him like a female and had more bronze on her face, and that Tripela’s eyes were darker.

After walking some minutes in silence, Ashley said, “How do you keep all the memories out of your head?”

Bobby knew what she meant. With his now-perfect memory, he couldn’t stop reliving the events of the last few days. “I can’t. What stuff do you remember most?”

“Mostly Lori and Brent, and things we did together.”

“Your parents.” It still threw Bobby off when she called them by their first names.

“When I was little we did more together,” she said. “I was just remembering when we went to Branson. It was the best time ever.”

“Your parents are still together then.”

Ashley let out a grunt. “Yeah, still together. I guess it’s good they are.”

“Mine aren’t,” Bobby said.

Ashley stared ahead. “I know.” Then she turned to him. “Do you think these Papuans will help us get home?”

“They haven’t killed us, so they must be planning to help us, right?”

“Maybe they just don’t have refrigerators to keep us fresh.”

It took a moment for Bobby to get it. “Jesus, Ashley.”

The tree kangaroos led them to an area of gigantic trees. Some of the trunks were huge, like redwoods, and the forest floor was darker in the shade of these giants.

Finally, Ashley stopped and called out, “Mr. Darnell! Samuel!”

The tree kangaroos stopped. Bobby tried signing again, but they didn’t respond.

“Bobby, we’re being watched,” Ashley said, her voice low.

Bobby followed her gaze. Two Papuan tribesmen watched them from behind a tree. He looked around and saw more. He whispered, “They’re all around us.”

“We’re looking for Samuel,” Ashley called out. “Is he here?”

The Papuans watched them for a moment more, and then they stepped into full view. Bobby counted seven in all. His pulse quickened as they approached. The men formed a circle around them. Bobby had seen three of them before, the same three they had first met at the plane, including Sinanie with his green feathers.

Sinanie pointed to the tree kangaroos. “Mbakha-leké mbolop?”34

Bobby and Ashley glanced at each other. Mbaiso hopped closer and began signing, talking to the Papuans. Bobby watched the signs and another vision appeared in his mind. Inside the tree house of his dreams, a tree kangaroo crouched in front of the Lamotelokhai. The creature was signing as if trying to talk to it. Then the kangaroo vaporized into a wisp. The wisp swirled and grew larger. It became solid again, and it was no longer a kangaroo—it was Bobby. He watched himself place both hands against the Lamotelokhai. And then the vision vanished.

The Papuans chattered to each other, apparently excited about Mbaiso’s message. One of them pointed his finger at Bobby. “Yu nggulun!”35

Bobby shrugged. “I don’t understand.”

“What the hell’s happening?” Ashley said.

“I’m not sure. Mbaiso said something about me touching the thing in the tree.”

Sinanie pointed to Bobby and waved for him to walk. He spoke rapidly, and Bobby heard the words, yu nggulun, again.

“I guess we’re going to the tree,” Bobby said.

“No, we’re not,” Ashley said. “We came to get medicine for Mrs. D.”

The Papuans and tree kangaroos all seemed to be waiting. Bobby turned to Mbaiso and signed what he could to explain what Ashley had said. Mbaiso signed back. In Bobby’s mind a vision appeared of Ashley and a Papuan man walking, and then the two were in the tree house, and the Papuan was giving medicine to Mrs. Darnell. The meaning was clear.

It took some arguing, but Ashley agreed. Bobby would go on with the others, and Ashley would go back with a man named Ansi. Ansi seemed to smile at everything. He wore a penis gourd with black painted patterns, and like the others he had a leather medicine pouch hanging from his neck. He was the first one Bobby had seen who wore paint on his face. A band of black ran across his eyes from one ear to the other. There was a white stripe above it, across his forehead, and one below it, across his nose. He reminded Bobby of a raccoon.

When Ashley and Ansi left, the tree kangaroo Bobby had named Tripela followed them. Bobby watched as they moved away, two humans and a kangaroo. Which of these three doesn’t belong, he thought, smiling to himself.

The remaining Papuans formed a single file line, with Bobby at the middle, and they made their way toward what Bobby assumed would be the Lamotelokhai tree. Eventually the tree canopy became so dense that only a few slivers of sunlight made it through. Bobby kept an eye on the nearly solid ceiling above them, and soon he saw it—a darker area with no light passing through. But this tree house was not rectangular like the others. Instead it kept going, like a long tunnel. Walking beneath it, Bobby kept glancing up to see if it would end, but it didn’t. Finally there was a larger shadow, a hut attached to the tunnel. As Bobby gazed at it, he ran into the back of the tribesman in front of him.

“Oh, sorry,” he said. He realized the entire group had stopped.

“Khofé mbakha mo-mba-té?” The Papuan said.36

Bobby shrugged and apologized again. They were at the base of a great tree. Mbaiso scrambled up the trunk, and soon a rope ladder appeared from above. Bobby watched it fall, uncoiling in the air, and he thought of the wisp of smoke from his last vision. As the first Papuan climbed, Bobby inspected the huge trunk. In his dream, after the stars and running into the earth, Mbaiso had led him here to this very tree. The back of his neck began to tingle.

The Papuans motioned for him to climb next, and soon he stood in the tree house with Sinanie and the other tribesmen. Next to them was an opening in the wall where the hanging tunnel joined the hut. And it was not the only tunnel. Bobby counted five others. They all branched out from this room, like spokes from the hub of a wheel.

The men pointed to the tree growing through the hut’s floor. Bobby scrutinized the bulge where the tree split at chest level. It was just as it had been in his dream—smooth and gray, like a lump of clay pressed around the tree.

The Papuans talked excitedly as Bobby stepped closer, but when he reached out for it they fell silent. His hand shook as he held it just above the surface. He didn’t know why he should be afraid of it now, but he couldn’t stop shaking, so he pressed his hand against it. It felt warm, and he could push his fingertips into it like mud. A tingly feeling started in his hand and moved up his arm, the same feeling he’d had upon swallowing the stuff from Mbaiso’s gut. The sensation spread into his neck and face, up to his scalp. He closed his eyes to fight off the panic that had nearly overwhelmed him before.

And then something happened. Symbols appeared in his mind. They were symbols he recognized. He’d seen them artfully etched into the shafts of the Papuans’ spears. But now, displayed the way they were, he recognized them from before that. He knew these symbols because he had worked with them for two years. His eyes sprang open, and the symbols were still there, plain as day.

Bobby now knew what the Lamotelokhai was.

Chapter Fifteen

Quentin examined the two figurines. They were identical in every way, even the smudges and flaws.

Samuel waited patiently for him to study the objects before speaking. “It would be difficult to provide an account of all events leading to my discovery of such a phenomenon. However, some explanation is needed.” He grabbed one of the chairs and offered it to Quentin, and then sat in the other. “Imagine living in this place for all of the years that I have. It is true I have enjoyed more than a lifetime’s worth of scientific pursuits. But there are times when I feel a great yearning to return to the life I once lived. I have told you of the murder of my fellow travelers, which was when I fell into the midst of my Papuan hosts. I remember the day as if it were only moments ago. But many days have passed since. Fifty-two thousand and five-hundred twenty-four, if you care to know.”

Quentin tried to do the math in his head, but Samuel continued.

“That is all the days of your lifetime and threefold more, Quentin. Imagine it.”

Quentin did, and it made him feel hollow.

“I once had a family. A mother and a father, and there was a dear woman, for whom I cared very much.” Samuel’s eyes flicked toward Quentin. “Her name was Lindsey, if you can imagine such a coincidence. Lindsey Ennis.” He pronounced the name in a whisper, like he wasn’t sure it would come out right. “We were to be married upon my return.”

“I didn’t know that,” Quentin said quietly.

“I see her face every day, as if we had only just parted.” Samuel shook his head. “She and my parents are all long since passed away, I imagine.” He paused for a moment. “As I have studied the Lamotelokhai, I have uncovered surprising qualities. In fact, one might reasonably infer that it can be made to perform any task, no matter how improbable.”

Quentin eyed the two statuettes. “I’m starting to see how you might think that.”

“Recently I found myself in a particularly dreadful state of regret. In my troubled condition, I attempted a most irrational action.”

“What action was that?”

“To employ the assistance of the Lamotelokhai in returning to my previous life.”

Quentin waited for more explanation, but none came. “You mean to help you escape from here? To get back to your home in England?”

Samuel leveled his gaze at him. “Perhaps. But more precisely, to my time.”

Was Samuel trying to make a joke? He wasn’t smiling, so Quentin said, “You’re still here, so I guess it didn’t work.”

“Indeed. There are some pursuits that are not for men to follow. In my despair I strayed into such a pursuit. My actions have caused suffering.”

“So you tried to go back in time—back to what, 1850?”

“I departed from England in the year of 1865.”

“And it didn’t work. What does that have to do with me, and with people suffering?”

Samuel rose from his chair and paced. “It is possible that the Lamotelokhai’s only limits are those of the man seeking its truths. My challenge lies in my own capacity for conveying to the Lamotelokhai what it is that I seek.”

Quentin thought of Samuel resting his hands on the substance before telling him to throw the talisman.

Samuel continued. “In my condition, I acted hastily, and the results were disastrous.”

“What results?”

“That is exactly what I have been trying to find out. From my observations, I can conclude that upon my request, the Lamotelokhai influenced the passage of time.”

Quentin began to speak, but Samuel held up his hand.

“I managed to duplicate the event under more controlled conditions, such as you have witnessed on the table here. Quentin, I have concluded that the second talisman could appear only if the passage of time were altered as the first flies over the table. That, in fact, is what I instructed the substance to do. But something unexpected happened. Rather than simply transporting objects in time as I’d hoped it would do for me, the substance appears to alter the progression of time in the space near it, in this case directly above the table. It is my opinion that when an object passes through such a space at sufficient speed, this fuses two moments in time into a single location of space. This would explain the duplication of a physical object.”

Quentin stared in disbelief. He ran through the events in his mind. If a moving object, say a stone talisman, experienced a brief shift back in time, it would appear just behind the other version of itself. But if the present and past both existed over the table, was a chunk of space missing from the past? Or were both moments present there as well? If so, perhaps the two objects would continue to exist after passing over the table, and both would then hit the mat and drop to the floor, which is exactly what he had witnessed. Mystified, Quentin shook his head.

Samuel proceeded to demonstrate further. He produced a hunting arrow and broke it into two half-meter pieces. Like a small spear, he hurled one of the pieces over the table. It hit the mat, and two identical pieces fell to the floor. After Quentin inspected them, Samuel repeated this with the other half, only this time he gently lobbed it. Quentin watched the object’s slow arch. As it passed over the table, a second piece appeared. But one of them fell short of the mat. Quentin picked them up. They were not identical. One was damaged at the tip. Not just splintered, but misshapen—boiled outward like a cauliflower.

Samuel explained, “When moving slowly, the copy of the object bringing up the rear is invariably damaged, whereas the one before is not. Very curious, would you not agree?”

“Yes, curious,” Quentin whispered. He stared at the arrow’s deformed tip. He had seen this before. The remains of the Twin Otter’s nose and cockpit had been deformed in such a way. He had assumed it was caused by the crash. And then he remembered the pilot. As the poor man had struggled and died before Quentin’s eyes, his feet appeared to have exploded from the inside. Quentin’s hands suddenly felt clammy, and he had to steady himself.

He turned to Samuel. “You said when you first did this it caused suffering. When exactly was that?”

“I believe you know the answer, Quentin. Four days and nights have passed. It was the very day your flying vessel ran aground.”

* * *

After descending the rope ladder, Samuel led Quentin to an area where massive eucalyptus and strangler figs created an impenetrable canopy. Samuel located a rope ladder and climbed into the tangle above. Quentin followed and was soon standing in a room that appeared to be a bulge in a long, narrow tunnel. The hut was small, but there was a fire pit in the center as if it were a gathering place. No villagers were in sight.

Samuel led him out of the room, and they made their way along a hanging corridor. The tunnel was tall enough for them to walk upright, but Quentin had to stoop occasionally where the ceiling hung lower. It was difficult to see far ahead because the corridor twisted left and right before them, undoubtedly to line up with the varying tree limbs from which it hung. The floor of the tunnel bounced beneath their feet as they walked—a distasteful sensation considering the height. But the tunnel was an engineering triumph, and Quentin wondered how the villagers could have constructed it with their bare hands.

After they’d walked some distance, they came upon another room. Samuel signaled for Quentin to wait and then leaned into the room. He spoke gently, perhaps alerting the occupants that he was not alone. When Quentin stepped through the opening, three Papuans stood at the far end of the hut, but one of them quickly slipped out another opening there. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but the figure appeared to be female. If so, this was the first woman he had seen among these people. The two remaining men were strangers to Quentin. One of them, a small man with caked mud on his head resembling a solid bowl, pointed to the floor at their side.

“Walukh, Joamba,” the man said.37

Quentin turned to look. Sprawled there on a sleeping mat was a dark figure. The figure was alive; Quentin could hear it snoring. But something about it wasn’t right. Quentin looked to Samuel for an explanation.

“That is Joamba,” Samuel said. “Examine him closely, if you would.”

Something about the situation told Quentin he would regret it, but he approached the still form. Wooden bowls of water and food were arranged around the mat. Joamba appeared to be lying on his side, facing the wall, but it was hard to tell. Quentin knelt where the man’s head appeared to be. What he saw there confused him. The head and shoulders were disfigured, not even recognizable. Quentin wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The thing then let out an agonized moan, but it came from the other end. Quentin turned to the sound. Suddenly his confusion turned to panic. The man was not facing the wall at all. Two eyes stared directly at him. But the eyes were not set in a face. Instead they bulged, lidless, from a mass of shapeless flesh. Quentin toppled backwards, involuntarily pushing himself directly into Samuel’s legs.

“Joamba is no threat to you,” Samuel said. “Surely you can see that.”

Samuel was right. The poor thing could not possibly harm him. In fact, it barely had any arms. A few puffy fingers protruded from a mangled bulge, and one of them even twitched a few times. Quentin stared, unable to fathom how or why such a thing could be kept alive.

Samuel knelt next to Quentin and spoke softly. “Joamba was a skilled hunter. Like his fellow tribesmen, he insisted on hunting in the old ways, even though it is no longer needed.”

Quentin turned to him. “A hunter? How is that possible?”

“He was as healthy and robust as any of us, until the event in question.”

“The event.”

“Recall the arrows thrown in my hut. One thrown hard, with no ill results but that there are now two. One thrown softly, with dreadful results to one of the arrows.”

Quentin failed to see a connection. “But that was in your hut, over a table.”

“That was but a demonstration within controlled conditions. There were no such controls for the initial event of four days past. I believe the effects of the event extended for miles. Any object, or beast, or human soul that was at rest at the time was not affected. But those that were moving about, such as birds and insects flying—”

“And airplanes,” Quentin said.

“Indeed. Joamba and two of his companions were hunting at the time. In pursuit of a cassowary, his surviving companion told me. Making hasty chase at precisely the fateful moment.”

Quentin considered Samuel’s demonstration. “The talisman I threw—there were two of them after it passed over the table. Is that what happened to Joamba?”

“That possibility seems to be subject to the object’s quickness. Recall the arrow you tossed lightly. I have concluded that a man could not run quickly enough to result in an undamaged duplicate. Instead, Joamba’s duplicate is wretchedly merged with his own body. Joamba’s other companion, Ahea, was not so lucky as this.” Samuel’s voice became a whisper. “There are conditions beyond even the power of the Lamotelokhai to heal. It is a rare thing indeed to have to dispose of a member of this tribe. It makes the tribesmen nervous.”

Quentin looked at the horrifying form before him. How could Samuel call Joamba lucky? Surely death would be better than this.

As if to answer his thoughts, Samuel continued. “The medicinal effects of the Lamotelokhai have taken hold. We have but to wait for Joamba’s complete recovery.”

Quentin was skeptical. “You believe he’s going to be normal again?”

“It is but a matter of time.”

After a final look, Quentin rose and turned away from Joamba. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to control his breathing. “Why did you bring me to see this?”

“I wish you to understand, Quentin, that the Lamotelokhai is as dangerous as it is miraculous. I am but one man, compassionate and educated in comparison to many others, even in civilized society. And yet in a moment of despair I have abused the powers I have discovered here, resulting in great suffering. Imagine what might happen if the Lamotelokhai were to be taken from this place and put in the hands of less reasonable men.”

Samuel gripped Quentin’s shoulders. “Whether or not you hold faith in God, you must surely see that men are better served by dreaming of an invisible God than to have the power of God placed into their own hands.” Samuel seemed to realize he was touching Quentin, and he pulled away. “For many years it has been upon my shoulders to assist my indigene hosts in keeping their secret. But I fear that my recent actions have set into motion events that cannot now be undone, and the burden of this secret may no longer be my own.”

Quentin studied him for a moment. “I don’t think I can handle any more burdens.”

“It is upon you, nevertheless.” Samuel pointed to the tunnel opposite of where they had entered the room. “We are now very near to the Lamotelokhai itself. Perhaps if you were to confront the source of your consternation—to touch it with your own hands.”

“I need to get back to Lindsey.”

“Indeed. She will need healing ointments. I will show you how to gather them from the Lamotelokhai yourself, and you may take them to her.” Samuel moved to the opening.

Quentin looked once more at the disfigured man lying at his feet. Guttural breathing pervaded the silence of the hut, but Quentin could not tell where the respiratory opening was. In fact, for a moment he was sure that the sounds came from both ends of the figure, as if it had two heads. Oddly, he was reluctant to leave, feeling that he should somehow offer comfort to this mass of flesh that was once Joamba, the skilled hunter.

But then Quentin heard another sound. Was it shouting? He turned to Samuel as the two villagers slipped into the tunnel and disappeared. They must have heard it, too. The sound came again. It was definitely shouting—angry shouting. “Samuel, what’s going on?”

Samuel’s seemed to be straining to hear, and he did not answer.

One of the distant voices screeched in anger or pain, and Quentin suppressed a cry. It was Addison.

* * *

Quentin plunged into the tunnel, Addison’s distress calls pulling him forward with savage force. He was only vaguely aware of Samuel following him. Before long the tunnel gave way to another room, and Quentin entered. Addison stood in the center of the hut with his back against the Lamotelokhai, which was molded to a branching tree just as it had been in Quentin’s dream. Papuan tribesmen wielding spears and clubs surrounded Addison. He was now naked, and fresh wounds covered his body. Nevertheless, he stood straight and defiant, and his previously stick-like limbs now looked more formidable. He stared down his attackers, his eyes dark with anger so palpable that it seemed to hold them back like a force field.

“Mr. Darnell, they’re going to kill him!” It was Bobby. He stood across the room at the entrance to another tunnel.

“Bobby, what are you two doing here?” Without waiting for an answer, Quentin stepped forward and bellowed, “Hey! Leave him alone!” It was a standard teacher ploy, designed to break up fights. The Papuans hesitated.

Samuel entered the room, took in the scene, and stopped short.

“Samuel, help us,” Quentin said.

One of the tribesmen pointed a club at Addison. “Gu laléo-lu!” Quentin recognized the white feathers in the man’s hair. It was Matiinuo, the elder tribesman who had questioned him.24

Addison stood taller, his face such a frightening visage of hatred that Quentin barely recognized him. “Nu be-khomilo-n-din-da,” he said, his voice seething. “Nu khén-telo!”38

But there were six tribesmen closing in on Addison.

“For God’s sake, Samuel, stop them,” Quentin said. “He’s my son.”

Samuel shook his head. “On this point, you are wrong. Your son has already been taken from you. The indigenes know this to be true.”

Quentin stared in disbelief. “Samuel, please!”

Samuel watched the tribesmen, avoiding Quentin’s eyes. “I am but a guest here. I have little influence over Matiinuo.”

The Papuans attacked. Their weapons blurred as they pummeled and punctured Addison’s body and face. All that could be heard were grunts of effort and the sickening sounds of weapons striking flesh. Quentin moved in to stop the assault, but it felt as if he were moving in slow motion.

Suddenly Addison ripped Matiinuo’s club from his grasp. With shocking speed he leapt upon the elder tribesman and drove him to the floor, his knee against the Papuan’s chest. Addison’s bloody, sinewy arms shoved the club into Matiinuo’s neck, forcing a wet gurgle from his throat and rendering him helpless. The other tribesmen halted their onslaught and stood frozen in place. In the seconds that followed, the only sounds were Matiinuo’s attempts to breathe. Quentin’s eyes were drawn to Addison’s ravaged face. A spear point had torn his forehead, leaving a strip of scalp dangling in front of one eye. His visible eye bored into the tribal elder.

“Gekhené khup lefu. Gekhené wola-maman-é,” Addison growled. “You don’t know what it is.” He leaned forward, putting all his weight onto the club. Matiinuo’s eyes bulged.39

The others raised their weapons again, but Addison sprang from the elder’s chest and darted into one of the tunnels. Matiinuo writhed on the floor, clutching his crushed throat. The Papuans gathered around to help him.

“Bobby, follow me!” Quentin skirted the tribesmen and entered the corridor where Addison had disappeared. With Bobby on his heels he charged ahead. After rounding two bends, Quentin called out, “Addison!” There was no answer. They rounded another bend and stopped. The tunnel ahead was straight for some fifty meters, but there was no sign of Addison.

A dark figure suddenly dropped from above and landed like an ape just in front of them. Addison then stood upright.

Quentin reached for him. “Son, you’re hurt. We’ll get you out of here now, and—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Addison said. With one hand he lifted the strip of scalp dangling before his eye and pressed it against his forehead. It stayed in place. Both eyes were now visible, and they turned to Bobby. “He knows what it is. He can talk to it, too.” Addison pointed down the tunnel, toward his attackers. “It’s not for them anymore.”

“Addison, it’s time to go,” Quentin said. “We’ll get the others and leave this village.”

Addison moved toward them. “It doesn’t matter!”

Quentin instinctively stepped back. The look in Addison’s eyes—the same anger he had shown Matiinuo—was fearsome.

Addison said, “You know what it is, Bobby. They can’t use it. It’s a computer.”

Quentin blinked at him. “What? A computer?”

“He’s right,” Bobby said. “We can talk to it, because it uses Kembalimo.”

“Kembalimo? The game?”

Bobby shook his head. “It’s not a game.”

Quentin turned from one boy to the other, bewildered. The tribesmen were coming; their bird-like voices grew louder, and the hanging tunnel shuddered with their footsteps. They would surely kill Addison—perhaps kill them all.

“Let’s go, now!” Quentin ordered. He started forward but Addison blocked the way.

“It is not for them,” Addison said. “Their time is over.” Then he leapt up, straight through a hole in the tunnel’s roof.

Through the hole, Quentin saw Addison crouched on the tree limb that supported the tunnel. The tunnel shook as Addison launched himself into the air, out of view. Quentin moved to the side to see, and then gasped. Addison now hung from a limb at least six meters above them. With astonishing grace he swung to his feet and leapt out of sight.

Quentin stared, trying to comprehend what he had seen. Finally he turned back to Bobby, but it was too late to flee. Four tribesmen were upon them, their spears ready.

Samuel came up behind them. “It appears, Quentin, that the indigenes are correct in their notions of the being who was once your son.”

* * *

As the tribesmen led them through the hanging passageway, Bobby’s fear began to subside. After all, the Papuans hadn’t killed them on the spot. They reentered the Lamotelokhai hut, and Matiinuo was still on the floor. Another tribesmen held his hands against the injured man’s throat. Mr. Darnell asked if Matiinuo would be okay, and Samuel said that the Lamotelokhai would repair him.

Mr. Darnell grabbed Samuel by the shoulders. “What has happened to my son?”

“Sinanie has told me your son had been badly wounded when he found him,” Samuel said. “As Sinanie put it, Addison’s body did not yet know it, but his spirit had returned already to the land of your ancestors. Your son’s body still lived, but his mind was beyond healing.”

“But what about the man you showed me, Joamba? He was hurt far worse than Addison. Yet you seem to think the stuff will cure him.”

“With one critical difference, Quentin. Joamba has been exposed to the Lamotelokhai before.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Joamba is known to the Lamotelokhai, both his mind and his body. That which is known can be rebuilt. To a limited extent, I should say. Joamba’s companion, Ahea, was beyond rebuilding.”

Bobby spoke up. “Did you say Ahea? Addison said that name to me today. He said he had Ahea’s memories, like he was two people.”

Samuel frowned. “Ahea’s memories?” He rubbed his chin, apparently puzzled.

As Samuel and Mr. Darnell continued discussing this, a tribesman nudged Bobby toward the Lamotelokhai. This time Bobby’s hands were steady. He pressed against it, digging in with his fingers. Again the symbols appeared in his mind as if they were floating before his eyes. More than a hundred of them: rectangles and triangles, a three-dimensional tetrahedron, a hexagon, quadrilaterals. And there were irregular shapes: spirals, zigzags, loops. Bobby knew them all. Most recently, he realized, he had seen them painted on the Papuans’ spears. But more importantly, they were the symbols of Kembalimo. He didn’t count them, but he knew there would be a hundred and twenty-eight. That’s how Kembalimo worked.

The symbols floated before Bobby, waiting. In his two years of playing Kembalimo, he had worked on only one lingo, and he was far beyond the initial sorting tasks. But now he remembered all of it, even the very first level. First you sort all hundred and twenty-eight symbols into piles based on how you think they are alike. The first level starts with sorting groups of four. Then you sort groups of eight, and then sixteen, and so on.

If he were starting a new Kembalimo lingo on his smartphone, Bobby would clear the screen and begin sorting. But here he wasn’t sure how to do that. He put a hand out toward the symbols—nothing but air. On a gut feeling, he pretended to swipe them to the side. The symbols disappeared—all but four, hanging there, waiting to be sorted. He swept two of them into a pile. The two had round edges. The other two had corners, and he swept them to their own pile. The symbols disappeared, replaced by four more to be sorted.

Now there was no doubt. The Lamotelokhai was a computer, and it wanted him to start creating a Kembalimo lingo. Kembalimo was all about creating your own lingo to communicate with people who don’t speak your language. The Lamotelokhai wanted him to learn to talk to it.

* * *

Quentin returned alone to their tree house, easily remembering the way. Bobby’s excitement over the Lamotelokhai had prompted the villagers to insist that Quentin leave him there to continue his work with it. Samuel assured him that Bobby was perfectly safe if Quentin wished to return to Lindsey. Although doubtful of this, Quentin felt that he had little choice.

Bobby apparently had discovered how to talk to the Lamotelokhai. Quentin had placed his own hands on the stuff, and was shocked to see a hallucination of objects appear before him. The objects did indeed resemble the symbols he had seen in Kembalimo, but he didn’t play the game, so it made no sense to him. It seemed Samuel was wrong—it was not Quentin’s capacity to communicate with the Lamotelokhai that the Papuans had been waiting for. It was Bobby’s.

As he made his way back to the tree house Quentin called out for Addison but saw no sign of him. The rope ladder still dangled from the tree. He removed his boots and his hands and feet gripped the ladder as if he had been climbing it all his life. When he entered the hut, a Papuan tribesman with paint across his eyes stood between him and the others. The man smiled.

“We were starting to worry about you, Mr. D,” Ashley said. “That’s Ansi. He brought medicine. Addison got mad and left, and Bobby went with the Papuans. They’re still gone.”

“I’ve seen them both,” Quentin said. He warily circled the villager to where Lindsey lay. Ashley, Miranda, and Carlos were at her side.

“She’s been sleeping, but she looks better now,” Miranda said.

Lindsey stirred as Quentin touched her face. Her skin was dry and cool. No fever. And she did look better. The insect bites and scrapes were all but gone. Even her hair seemed less tangled and matted. He spoke softly to her, but her eyes remained closed.

Quentin ate some khosül and drank from the water supply in the corner of the hut. He paced back and forth. He left the tree house again and made his way back to the Lamotelokhai tree, but he saw no sign of Addison. It was growing dark and starting to rain, so he returned to the tree house.

As the remaining light faded to emerald shadows, Quentin sat by the opening in the floor with his back to the others. He watched the rope ladder, hoping it would go tight. The weight of the entire day was upon him, and a sob rose to his throat, but he forced it back. The students were watching, and he could not break down now.

Quentin was pulled from his thoughts by a warm hand on his shoulder. He glanced up and saw that it was Lindsey. They gazed at each other, silent. The slightest smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.

She sat on the floor at his side. “I told you I didn’t want their medicine.”

“Yeah, well, it seems we don’t have much say in what happens here.”

Lindsey looked around the hut at each of the kids, at the tribesman called Ansi, and then at Quentin. Her smile faded. “Where’s Addison? And Bobby?”

Quentin gazed through the entryway. “Bobby is safe. He’s with Samuel and some of the villagers. It’s a long story, but he’s learning to talk to a lump of clay by playing Kembalimo.”

“The thing from space,” she said.

Quentin glanced at her. “You had the dream?”

“It was more than a dream.”

Quentin was silent.

She put her hand on his. “Quentin, where is Addison?”

His eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know. He was with me, and then he was gone.”

She slid closer and laid her head against him. Her presence allowed him to finally let go, and his tears ran down his face to his chin and dropped through the hole in the floor.

Chapter Sixteen

Bobby made remarkable progress with the Lamotelokhai, partly because he recalled the choices he had previously made with Kembalimo on his smartphone. In almost no time he had sorted the symbols into groups, and then into a specific order. Once he had decided on the symbols’ order, they were like numbers, and the next level was to solve hundreds of puzzles using the symbols. This way the rules of logic for his lingo were established. The next level beyond that was the hardest part—coming up with combinations of the 128 symbols to represent meanings. It was like creating a language using 128 numbers, and the logic of grouping them was completely different from a typical language. Once you got used to the process it was easier than learning any other language because it was based on rules you created yourself in the earlier stages. On his smartphone, Kembalimo would show him pictures, and he would group symbols together to have those meanings. But with the Lamotelokhai, instead of pictures on a screen, there were visions in his head, and sounds—even feelings. It was easy.

Samuel and the Papuans had silently watched him until after dark. Finally, Samuel approached Bobby.

“I must say I am mystified by your apparent knack for utilizing the same symbols that I have floundered with for many years.”

“It’s just Kembalimo,” Bobby said. “I was already pretty good at it.” He glanced at Samuel’s perplexed expression. “It’s a language program. It’s made to be like a game, so lots of people like it.”

Samuel looked no less confused. “How could it be that this Kembalimo involves the same symbols?”

Bobby shrugged. “You’d have to ask Peter Wooley that.”

Samuel suddenly stiffened. “Did you say the name Peter Wooley, sir?”

“He’s the guy that invented Kembalimo. He’s famous.”

Samuel’s face went pale, and Bobby was tempted to take a step back.

“It cannot be,” Samuel half-whispered. “Peter was killed before my eyes. He was beaten beyond hope of repair.”

“Maybe that was a different Peter Wooley,” Bobby offered. “The guy I’m talking about is alive and well. He’s really rich and he lives in Australia.”

Samuel looked at the floor and shook his head, like he was dismissing this. “But the symbols,” he said. He furrowed his brows and fingered his vest. Slowly his face regained its color, and he seemed to relax. One edge of his mouth turned up slightly, as if he were pleased with something very personal. “How extraordinary,” he said.

Bobby shifted back and forth and nodded toward the peculiar mass beside him. “Do you mind if I…”

“Yes, do continue,” Samuel said. He then turned away, apparently still deep in thought.

Several hours later they walked Bobby back to the tree house. A man named Tengorros was staying there, along with Ansi. Samuel said this was for their protection, but Bobby suspected it was to stop them from leaving.

Mr. and Mrs. Darnell wanted to know what he had learned. He tried to explain but found this to be more frustrating than actually working with the Lamotelokhai. So he told them he had a headache, which wasn’t true. In the darkness of the tree house, he watched the two villagers’ silhouettes as they whispered to each other. Eventually they stopped talking, and Bobby was the last one awake, feeling very alone with his thoughts. The rain had stopped, and the only sounds were trilling insects and tree frogs.

* * *

The stars were the only constant in an otherwise fluid setting. Everything around the tree kangaroo had always been and was still flowing, changing, evolving. But even the positions of the stars themselves were gradually shifting, revealing movement across the planet of the landmass upon which the mbolop lived. And according to archived data, the land mass had been moving long before Mbaiso had been around to measure it.

Clutching the highest limb it could find, the creature extended its legs, pushing itself high enough to see the horizon. This allowed it to triangulate the positions of key stars. It filed the information away and then settled back to a more comfortable perch, completing a routine it had carried out many times before.

Before descending the tree, Mbaiso sat motionless, listening. Although it could not know what sounds to expect, significant events would likely occur soon. Mbaiso and the other tree kangaroos were given little leeway for interfering, but they could observe and document. And Mbaiso was acutely interested in the outcome. The unusual new humans would probably take actions harmful to themselves or to their species. That was expected, but it would mean more waiting—possibly much more waiting. Perhaps the Creator, the Lamotelokhai, was unconcerned with waiting indefinitely, but Mbaiso had been given traits of a living biological entity. Including some sense of mortality, spawning impatience. The mbolop was ready to move on to what events may unfold next, even if this meant testing the boundaries of its permissions.

Mbaiso continued to listen, but so far the night revealed nothing beyond the chorus of night creatures.

* * *

The hut shook slightly and Bobby was alert again. Something rose up through the entrance in the floor where the Papuans slept.

Bobby whispered, “Addison, is that you?”

There was no answer. The figure took a silent step toward the sleeping men and touched their faces one at a time. It then dropped through the hole and was gone.

Both men sat up. They wiped at their faces and mumbled to each other, and then they were quiet again. They didn’t seem to have seen the mysterious figure. And now Bobby wasn’t sure he had seen it himself. He closed his eyes.

He was nearly asleep when he heard a cry in the distance. It rose and then trailed off like the call of a wolf. But it was human, and it was filled with sorrow or pain. Then another cry rose from a different direction. Soon there was a third. One of the Papuans lifted his head. He listened for a moment, then sank back to the floor and didn’t move again.

The cries went on for some time. Bobby stared into the dark, listening to them, haunted by their misery, until sleep finally came.

* * *

Quentin was the first to wake in the morning. For some minutes he lay still as the chatter of birds filled the air. He wished he could go back to sleep. He had dreamt of a life without the plane crash, where his only burdens were those any man could bear. The stresses of his life before the crash seemed so trivial now. Quentin thought of Samuel’s desire to return to his past and understood how desperate the feeling could be.

But sleep would not return. Addison was still out there, and Quentin had to find him. Then he would convince the villagers to let them leave. If that didn’t work, they would escape and find their way to civilization on their own.

Having made this decision, Quentin felt better. He forced himself up, intent on waking the others and getting started. He glanced at the two Papuans who had stayed with them through the night, and then his confidence dissolved in a single wave of shock.

The villagers were gone. In their places were two piles of reddish dirt. Much of the dirt had fallen between the sticks and vines of the floor, but the remaining piles still resembled two sleeping bodies.

* * *

Minutes later, Quentin paced the length of the small hut. Everyone else stared at the remains of the two men. Quentin wanted to find Samuel and get some answers. But he didn’t want to separate the group again.

“We’re all going,” he said. “We’ll find Addison and then we’re getting out of here.”

“I think Addison was here,” Bobby said.

Quentin stopped pacing. “What do you mean?”

“Last night. I saw someone come in. He did something to Ansi and Tengorros. He touched their faces. I think it might have been Addison.”

“Why didn’t you wake us up?”

Bobby looked at his bare feet. “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t sure.”

Quentin closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. Addison would not have killed two men. He opened his eyes. “We’re all going now.”

They drank from the container of water until it was empty. Lindsey and Ashley both insisted that they now felt strong enough to climb down the ladder without being lowered down. So one at a time they all descended to the forest floor.

Quentin led them to Samuel’s tree house. It was some distance away, perhaps a half-mile, but he remembered the route, and before long they stood beneath it. He called to Samuel but there was no response, so they headed for the Lamotelokhai tree. As they approached it, the shuffling of their feet echoed among the massive tree trunks. Quentin spotted the dark outline of a hanging corridor above, and he pointed at it without stopping. He followed the shadow of the hanging tunnel until they finally stood at the base of the Lamotelokhai tree. Quentin cupped his hands to his face to call out, but then he stopped. There was movement in some foliage perhaps fifteen meters above them. At first he saw only leaves and shadows. But then something twitched—something with a face and dark eyes.

“Addison?” Quentin called out. “Is that you?”

The foliage exploded as the form flung itself into the air. Quentin stumbled backward in shock as the thing dropped the entire distance to the ground. It was a fall that would kill—or at least break the legs—of any human being. It hit the ground with a loud thud, bounced a few inches into the air, and landed in a controlled crouch. It then lifted itself fully erect.

There was stunned silence as they all stared at Addison.

“Oh, my God,” Lindsey whispered.

Addison’s body was changed. His arms were longer, like those of a chimpanzee, with sinewy fingers. There was no sign of Addison’s boyish body fat. Instead, his arms, legs, and torso were braided with ropes of muscle. A cord was tied around his waist, and from it hung a pouch that only partially hid his genitals. If it weren’t for Addison’s face, Quentin would not have known who—or what—it was. But even his face was changed, no longer that of a boy. It was now hard, with sharp angles. The wounds from the previous day were all but gone except for a jagged valley in the skin running from his left eye up past his hairline. Addison’s eyes darted back and forth as if he were a cornered animal. Quentin felt a mix of loathing and affection as Addison stepped toward them. He fought the urge to back away.

“Yanop khomile-lé-dakhu,” Addison said.25

Quentin found his voice. “Addison, we’re leaving. You’re coming with us.”

“No. You will help me now.”

“Help you with what?”

“Kill them.” He pointed a long finger upward. “The rest are there.”

Before Quentin could speak, Bobby stepped forward. “Addison, what did you do? That was you last night, wasn’t it? And I heard yelling. What did you do?”

Addison leaned forward, placed one hand on the ground, and shoved his face up toward Bobby. The movement was chillingly nonhuman. “Nu khén-telo! You can talk to it.”33

Bobby nodded. “Yes I can.”

“So you know.” His finger stabbed upward again. “Help me kill the rest.”

Quentin wrestled with the weight of Addison’s words. “What do you mean kill, Addison? You didn’t kill someone, did you?”

Addison stood erect again. “Yes. I am almost finished. Help me kill the rest.”

Quentin didn’t move or speak, afraid to trust his own judgment.

Addison shifted from one muscled leg to the other, glancing at the canopy and back to Quentin. “Help me now!” he cried.

Quentin knew they had to reason with him, convince him to leave with them. They could find their way to civilization and then get help for him. “Addison, whatever you’ve done, we can work it out. It’s time to go home.”

“You don’t listen. You can’t go there. Help me kill them.”

“No, Addison!” Lindsey said. “We don’t kill people. What’s wrong with you?”

Addison stooped forward until both his hands were on the ground. “Then I’ll kill you, too.”

Following those words, everything seemed to go silent.

Quentin opened his arms to the creature that still might be his son. “Please talk to us. Help me to understand.”

Addison held out a balled fist. “Look at me. I can do anything now.” Then he leapt into the air. He grasped a limb, swung over it and landed on his feet on top of it. He gazed down at them for a moment before dropping back to the ground. “I’m better now. You can be too.” He eyed them, expectant, but no one spoke. “The Lamotelokhai knows you now. It has your keliokhmo. It can make you better.” Addison looked at each of them. When his eyes fell upon Ashley, he pointed. “You did not like the khofémanop, Addison. You wrote things about him.”40

Ashley’s face darkened with anger. She left Lindsey’s side. “How do you know what I wrote, Addison? Did you read my journal?”

“The Lamotelokhai knows your keliokhmo. And now I know, too. You wrote things about him—about me. Bad things.”

Ashley’s hands clenched. “You bastard.”

Addison continued, “You didn’t like him. But his father,” he jabbed a finger toward Quentin, “you wrote different things about his father, didn’t you?”

Ashley shrieked, “Shut up, you twisted freak!”

Addison lunged at Ashley, closing the gap with alarming speed. Quentin tried to get between them, but Miranda beat him to it. She blocked Addison with a hand against his chest. “Leave her alone!”

Addison sneered. “You didn’t like him either.” Without shifting his eyes from hers, he dipped his hand into the pouch at his waist.

Bobby lunged. “Addison, don’t!”

But Addison had already grasped Miranda’s face. His long fingers wiped at her eyes, forcing the stuff from his pouch between her lids. Then he pulled back and glared at her.

Miranda fell to her knees, her hands pressed to her face.

Quentin shoved Addison away from her. “What have you done?”

For a moment Addison’s brows furrowed in confusion. But then his features hardened again. “You want to take it!”

“We don’t want to take anything,” Quentin said.

Again Addison’s face softened. He gazed at his own hands for a moment. Suddenly he turned and sprinted away.

* * *

Miranda seemed shaken from the attack but physically unhurt. Quentin examined her eyes. They were red and watering.

She began crying. “What’s happening to me?”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Ashley said. But her voice betrayed her fear.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

Everyone assured her she’d be fine. But Quentin sensed they were wrong. Addison had clearly meant Miranda harm. Samuel had to be right—Addison’s brain had been damaged in the plane crash.

Miranda sobbed. “Nothing can hurt me now, right? They fixed me after a plane crash and a broken leg.” Her words were beginning to slur. “Ashley! I can’t see.” Miranda held out a hand and Ashley took it.

“I’m here, Miranda,” Ashley said. “You’ll be okay.”

“I’m afraid, Ash. I see stars. Why do I see the stars, Ash?”

Quentin’s eyes were drawn to Miranda’s hand, gripping Ashley’s. The tips of her fingers were turning brown, and they stood out against Ashley’s pale skin. Quentin ran in the direction that his son had disappeared. “Addison, come back! You can stop this!”

He paused and listened. The forest was silent except for the stricken sobs of his wife and students as they watched Miranda die.

* * *

Miranda’s body turned to soil before Bobby’s eyes. It started with her fingers and toes. They turned brown, and the tips began to fall away. And then her eyes became dirt and crumbled into her skull. The dark sockets seemed to stare at Bobby, and he had to turn away. He leaned against the Lamotelokhai tree, trying to flush the image from his mind. But even without his flawless memory, Miranda’s decomposing face would have haunted him for the rest of his life. As the others were gathered around Miranda’s remains, Bobby sat to the side, watching the trees for signs of Addison’s return.

Before long Samuel appeared. His face was pale, and he appeared old and tired. Standing over Miranda’s body, he spoke to Mr. Darnell.

“The loss of another of your pupils is regrettable. But the creature has also murdered many of the indigenes. You are aware that I have lived among these people for the majority of my days. Their murder is a devastation beyond reckoning—a loss not only to me but quite possibly to the welfare of all beings of this earth.”

Mr. Darnell stayed quiet and stared at Miranda’s remains.

Samuel continued. “You must not encumber your need to do what must be done by reasoning that the creature is your son. He no longer is, and he must not continue this amok.”

“What are you saying?” Mrs. Darnell said.

Mr. Darnell held up his hand. “He’s right. Addison couldn’t have done this. We’ve already lost him.” His voice was low and uneven, like he had snapped from too much grief.

Samuel went on. “Addison has employed the powers of the Lamotelokhai to take the lives of my indigene hosts, and of your pupil.” Samuel then pointed at Bobby. “The boy possesses an aptitude for relating with the Lamotelokhai, as if he were born to accomplish that very task. He has progressed beyond my own achievements. If we are to employ the substance to overcome Addison, then Bobby may be the only practicable hope.”

“Overcome him?” Mrs. Darnell said.

Mr. Darnell’s face showed that he already knew what Samuel meant. “Bobby’s only fourteen. I can’t ask him to do that. If it’s anyone’s responsibility, it’s mine.”

Bobby recalled the vision Mbaiso had shown him, the brutal killing of Addison, and then him holding the bloody club. Mbaiso had tried to tell him something important. But now it would take more than clubs to kill Addison. Bobby thought of Miranda’s eyes, crumbling into her skull as she died. “I’ll do it,” he said.

The others turned to him.

Bobby swallowed hard. “I understand what has to be done, and I’ll do it.”

Chapter Seventeen

Bobby counted only eight Papuan villagers in the tree house. Samuel had said the Lamotelokhai hut was where they would all come when something bad happened. How many others had Addison killed?

Sinanie was one of the eight remaining villagers. Also among them were three women, the first ones Bobby had seen. Their faces looked similar to the men’s, but they had breasts that weren’t covered up. Down below they each wore a clump of dried grass over their privates, hanging from a cord around the waist. There were no children present.

The villagers should have been enraged. Instead they were quiet, staying together on one side of the hut, watching the Americans. Bobby had asked Samuel about this, and was told that the villagers knew Bobby could talk to the Lamotelokhai, and because of that they believed their world was going to end anyway. They now wanted to stay with Bobby to protect him in case Addison should return. It seemed as if everything was suddenly about Bobby.

It was hard concentrating with so many people in the hut, but still Bobby made progress. For whatever reason, the Lamotelokhai was programmed with the ultimate version of Kembalimo. Bobby had passed all the early levels and was now arranging symbols into groups representing ideas and simple sentences. Samuel hovered over him for a while, asking questions. But then he must have realized this was only slowing things down because he backed off.

As the morning stretched into afternoon, Samuel and a guy named Vututu left to get food and water. Vututu was taller than the others, even taller than Samuel, and he looked like he’d be a fierce fighter. The women seemed unwilling to let him leave the safety of the hut, and Bobby figured he must be married to one or more of them. Vututu took two spears, but Samuel took no weapons. As they left through one of the connected tunnels, the four women cried out—“Yeeee...” It was the same cry Bobby had heard in the middle of the night.

Eventually Carlos came over and asked questions about the Lamotelokhai. Did it really come from another planet? Why did it come here? Was it alive? Bobby didn’t have answers, so he tried telling Carlos about his progress with it.

Carlos twisted his face. “I don’t play Kembalimo, so I don’t get it.” He nodded toward the Papuans. “Why not just ask them to kill Addison? Instead of going to all this trouble?”

Bobby rubbed the scar on his chest and looked at the Papuans. Sinanie’s eyes met his and stared with no expression. Sinanie seemed smaller now, and older. Bobby stepped closer to the villagers and tried speaking to them. “Gu mbakha-to-fosu le-bo? Mba-mbam?” He wasn’t sure what the words meant; he just pulled them from his memory. He repeated the same words, and then added more: “Anggufa diabo?”

At first they just stared at him, but then Sinanie spoke. “Khofé mbakha mo-mba-té?”36

Bobby waited to see if a vision appeared in his mind but nothing happened. He shook his head. And then an idea came to him. These people could talk to Mbaiso, and now he could too. “Sinanie,” Bobby said. The Papuan looked at him. Bobby made the sign for Mbaiso’s name.

Sinanie’s eyes widened. “Mbakha-leké mbolop?”34

Bobby nodded. “Mbolop.” He then signed the names of the other two tree kangaroos.

Sinanie signed quickly and then waited. A vision appeared in Bobby’s mind of a tree kangaroo signing to a person. He realized the person was himself. “Yes, I talk to the mbolop.” Bobby sensed someone behind him, and he turned to see Mr. and Mrs. Darnell there. “I can speak tree kangaroo.” They seemed confused, so he said, “I’ll tell you about it later.”

Bobby turned back to the Papuans. Mbaiso had shown him a sign for Addison, so he used it. Then he used Mbaiso’s signs to describe Addison getting pulverized by men with clubs, and then himself holding a club. The villagers were now watching him closely. Bobby motioned once more: the sign for no. He shook his head. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

Sinanie eyed him for a moment and then started signing.

In his mind, Bobby saw villagers. They talked and walked together. Some of them carried things, like water and animals they had killed. And there were women there, talking and smiling. The villagers looked up. Something fell from the sky into the trees. Bobby sensed that it was supposed to be an airplane, although it didn’t look much like one. A person walked from where the object fell. And there were others. They looked different from the villagers. Their movements were stiff and clumsy, and they had big heads. Bobby realized this must be how Sinanie saw them. As the people from the plane became clear, one of them stood out. It was Addison, but not Addison his friend. It was the dead, scary Addison—Addison the killer.

Suddenly the vision changed. The sky came crashing to earth, like ropes that held it up had finally broken. Villagers, trees, and chunks of earth began drifting upward as if gravity no longer existed, until the last remaining bits fell away into nothing. The blue sky below evaporated. And then there was only darkness and stars.

The vision dissolved. Sinanie’s hands now hung at his sides, and he said, “Ya nokhu wola-maman-é. Nokhu solditai imoné khomilo.”41

“So, what did he say?” Carlos asked.

Bobby turned to the others around him. “The world turned upside down, I think. Because we came here.” It was the best description he could come up with.

“That’s what Samuel told me,” Mr. Darnell said. “They’re convinced their world is eventually going to end, and that they should allow it to happen.”

“So they’re just going to let Addison kill them?” Carlos said.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Darnell said. “But we’re not letting that happen.”

Bobby turned back to the Papuans. He started to sign that he needed Sinanie’s help, but then he stopped. He sensed a change. The air became still, as if all breathing had stopped. He spun around. A dark figure entered from one of the tunnels. It was Addison, his muscled figure looming menacingly in the hut.

They all stared, speechless. Addison had changed even more. The leather pouch that had covered his privates was gone, and he wore a crudely fashioned penis gourd. His skin was darker, or maybe dirtier. His arms seemed even longer, and his hands grabbed the floor as he bent over like an animal and went straight for the Lamotelokhai. Bobby felt an urge to turn and run. Addison put a hand on the Lamotelokhai. With his other hand he shifted invisible objects in the air.

Addison was talking to the Lamotelokhai, learning, gaining strength, maybe even instructing it to kill them. Someone had to stop him. Bobby stepped forward. “Addison, we need to talk.”

* * *

Quentin stared at the creature. It was not Addison, yet it was. His son had become a horrifying, murdering monster. And now the only way to stop him was to kill him. How could a father do such a thing? Quentin shut his eyes and remembered Addison as he had been: pointing wide-eyed at a birthday cake in the shape of a bear; screaming with delight at catching his first fish. That was the real Addison. But when Quentin opened his eyes, the boy was replaced by something dreadful. The face was still mostly Addison’s, but it held no innocence. Instead it seethed with hatred, or perhaps insanity. Insanity was easier to accept.

Addison was dead. Quentin would do what he had to do. This thing had murdered innocent villagers, and then Miranda. It intended to kill them all. Addison was dead.

Bobby was the first to act. “Addison, we need to talk.”

Addison took no notice as Bobby approached him. One of his hands rested on the substance and the other seemed to be moving invisible objects in the air.

“Addison,” Bobby said.

Addison shot a glance at Bobby and curled his lip, like a dog defending its food.

Quentin started to speak, but Bobby held up a hand to stop him.

“I can help you, Addison. I’ve played Kembalimo, too, for even longer than you have. It’ll be better if we do it together.”

Addison seemed to consider this. Then he turned back to the substance. “Too late. I don’t need help.” His hand continued its peculiar movements.

The hut became unnervingly silent. The Papuan women slipped into one of the tunnels, leaving only four men standing with their spears held ready.

“There’s a better way to do that,” Bobby said. “A faster way.”

Addison stopped. He glared at Bobby. Whatever Bobby was trying to accomplish, Quentin thought it was too dangerous. Addison could turn on him as quickly as he had on Miranda. Quentin moved to intervene, but Bobby motioned him away again.

“There’s a better way,” Bobby said. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out.”

“What way?” Addison demanded.

Bobby stepped even closer, now within Addison’s reach. “The tree kangaroos. They can help us talk to it.”

Addison’s hand dropped to his side, hanging to his knee. “Mbolop?”

“Yes. The mbolop taught me their language. And they’re connected to the Lamotelokhai somehow.” Bobby touched the Lamotelokhai, and Addison struck his hand away. Bobby clutched his hand but didn’t back off. “It’s true! Mbaiso is made out of this same stuff.” He pointed, this time without touching. “You can see for yourself. Just go find one of the tree kangaroos. They can show you.”

Addison flung himself onto Bobby in an explosive blur, striking his face and knocking him to the floor. Again the violence caught Quentin off guard. He should have seen it coming, but he couldn’t let go of the boy Addison once was.

“Yu khokhukh-telo-dakhu dialun,” Addison growled as he pressed Bobby against the floor. “Where is the mbolop?”42

Bobby struggled to free himself. “I don’t know! You have to go find them.”

Quentin rushed forward and shoved Addison off of Bobby. Addison attempted to rise, but suddenly the Papuan men were upon him, forcing him back with the ends of their spears. Addison thrashed at the spear shafts, but the tips penetrated his flesh and pinned him to the wall.

* * *

Bobby crawled to a corner of the hut. His face throbbed and his mouth was bleeding. The Papuans held Addison against the wall while Mr. Darnell tried to calm him down, but it wasn’t working. Addison thrashed and growled.

Bobby made his way back to the tree trunk at the center of the hut. This might be his only chance to do what he knew must be done. He laid his hands on the substance, and the symbols appeared in his mind. But where to begin? He thought of the questions Carlos had asked him. ‘Where did it come from?’ ‘Was it alive?’ Bobby had been so busy making the rules of his lingo that he hadn’t considered that he might be ready to actually talk to it. He shoved the symbols to move them into piles. He stopped. No. Talk to it. Tell it what you need.

He moved the symbols, forming a simple sentence: “I am Bobby.” And then a question: “Do you understand me?” Bobby stopped and waited. The struggle with Addison behind him was making it hard to think. And then the symbols moved without his help. They formed a group before his eyes. Bobby stared at the message.

It said, “Yes.”

* * *

Quentin and Lindsey tried reasoning with Addison. They told him they loved him in spite of everything he had done. Addison didn’t seem to hear any of it. The four spears dug into his body.

If the villagers ran Addison through now, perhaps they could kill him and be done with it. When Quentin looked at them, the one called Sinanie nodded toward Bobby, who was now standing with his hand on the Lamotelokhai. They were waiting for Bobby to do something.

Quentin turned back to his son. “Addison, do you understand that they are going to kill you? Listen to me. There has to be another way!”

Addison’s eyes showed no recognition, or sorrow—only anger. “It’s mine,” he hissed. Still staring at Quentin, he grasped one of the spear shafts and pulled hard, forcing it through his own body and the wall of the hut, and pulling the villager who held it closer to him. There was a moment of stunned silence. The Papuan holding the spear was now within Addison’s reach. With astonishing speed, Addison grabbed the man and pulled him closer, biting him viciously on the face. The other Papuans loosened their grips to help the man.

That was all it took. With an explosion of ferocity and swinging fists, Addison was free and the men were pushed back with their own spears. One of the spears still hung from Addison’s body and he yanked it out with one hand. Blood flowed from his abdomen and ran down his legs. His chest heaved with the effort of breathing, and for a moment the gurgling sound of this was all Quentin heard. Addison’s shoulders then slumped and he coughed, spurting blood onto the Papuans’ faces as they watched. He let the spear fall to the floor.

The hatred was gone from Addison’s eyes and he looked almost human again. He approached Bobby, shoved him out of the way, and plunged his hands into the Lamotelokhai. He tried pulling loose a large mass, but the stuff seemed to hold tight. As he pulled at it the Papuans grabbed their spears and moved in to attack. But the stuff came loose and Addison turned to face them. They stopped.

“I’ll kill all of you,” he said. He then backed away and stumbled into one of the adjoining tunnels.

* * *

Bobby watched Addison leave the hut. Addison’s wounds would not be fatal, and he would come back. Bobby was sure of that. Bobby would have to be ready for him, so he returned to the Lamotelokhai. The stuff had smoothed itself out where Addison had removed the chunk, and it looked the same as before.

The Lamotelokhai had said, “Yes.” A lump of clay stuck to a tree in the middle of nowhere actually understood him. Bobby arranged symbols to ask another question: “Did you come from space?” He had a hard time with space. It was more like, away from the earth.

Again the symbols responded: “Yes.”

“I knew it!” Bobby said to himself. He asked another question: “Are you a computer?”

“Yes.”

Bobby had been right about this, too. Then another of Carlos’s questions came to mind: “Are you alive?”

“Yes.”

Bobby frowned. Maybe the stuff didn’t really think after all. Maybe it just agreed with everything. Bobby thought hard. He asked: “Am I a computer like you?”

“No.”

Bobby’s excitement returned. “My friend has changed. He kills people. Did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“My friend is Addison.” Bobby made a name for him. “Did you do something to Addison to make him change?”

“Yes.”

“Did you give him part of yourself to help him kill people?”

“Yes.”

Bobby stared for a moment. “Why?”

The answer came instantly. “Addison asked.”

Bobby frowned again. This didn’t seem right. He arranged symbols. “It is bad to kill people.”

There was no response, so Bobby tried again. “Did you know it is bad to kill people?”

“I cannot know what is bad.”

“Why?”

“A thing that is bad now is not bad after time. A thing that is bad for you is not bad for another.”

Bobby considered this. The Lamotelokhai was right. He was, after all, going to ask for its help to kill Addison. But that was to stop Addison from killing more people. Bobby suddenly felt uncertain. He shuffled the symbols. “Can I ask you to help me?”

“Yes.”

“Addison is going to kill me. Addison is going to kill the people who take care of you. Addison is bad.” Bobby waited but nothing happened. It had been hard to make these thoughts and he wanted to be sure he was understood. “Did you know that Addison wants to kill people?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that is a bad thing?”

“I cannot know what is bad.”

“Can you change Addison to the way he was before he was hurt?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I cannot make something I do not know of.”

Bobby felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to face Mr. Darnell.

“How’s it coming?”

Bobby had been concentrating so hard he had almost forgotten where he was. He looked around the hut. The four women had returned. They sat on the floor behind the men, silently watching. “It talks to me,” Bobby said. “I can ask questions and it talks to me.”

Mr. Darnell lifted his brows. “Did you ask it about Addison?”

“It says it can’t fix him. It doesn’t know him from before the crash.”

Mr. Darnell looked down at the floor. “Bobby, I think Addison is going to keep coming back. We can’t let him do what he’s trying to do.” He squeezed Bobby’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “All your other questions can wait. We need something that will stop Addison. Can you ask it for that?”

“I think so.”

“Then please try. If it gives you what we need, give it to me. I’ll use it.” Mr. Darnell squeezed his shoulder and then walked away.

* * *

Samuel and Vututu returned with a skin bag filled with water and another ball of khosül. They unwrapped the leaves from the khosül and passed it around, but no one seemed to be hungry. After Mr. Darnell had explained the confrontation with Addison, Samuel came over to watch Bobby work with the Lamotelokhai.

“Couldn’t you do this faster than me?” Bobby asked. “Or couldn’t they?” He nodded toward the Papuans.

Samuel said, “As a general rule, they do not communicate directly with with the Lamotelokhai. As for me, I have spent many years learning to use it primarily for tasks involving production of food.” He paused. “On occasions where I have attempted more remarkable efforts, the results have been rather grievous. But you, Bobby, possess a faculty for comprehending the Lamotelokhai that bewilders me. The indigenes believe you are a departed ancestor, returned to the living earth for this very purpose.”

“I’m just a regular kid,” Bobby said.

“Still, it seems that something in your schooling or your inherent nature has prepared you for the task. And I fear that the indigenes’ weapons are not sufficient to stop Addison’s murderous amok. There is urgent need for a poultice tailored for encumbering him.” He stopped and eyed Bobby like he was waiting for an answer.

“I’ll try,” Bobby said.

Samuel nodded slightly. “Very well. And now I must call upon one service of the Lamotelokhai that I hoped I would never again employ.” He moved to the wall of the hut and pulled a lump of the stuff from his pouch. After sitting on the floor he began shaping it with his hands, stretching it out like a long rope.

Reluctantly Bobby turned back to the tree. Everyone expected him to do this, whether he wanted to or not. He concentrated, trying to think of another way.

Mrs. Darnell interrupted his thoughts. “Did you hear that?”

Everyone became quiet. There was a voice, very faint. “Help me! Father, help me!”

“Quentin…” Mrs. Darnell whispered.

The cry came again. “Help me! Father, help me!”

Mr. Darnell’s face went pale. “It’s Addison.” He headed for one of the tunnels.

“I’m going, too,” Mrs. Darnell said.

“This is ill-advised.” Samuel rose from the floor.

“We can’t just ignore him,” Mr. Darnell said.

Samuel stepped in front of him. “Hear me now. If indeed the creature is injured, you must appreciate this as an opportunity. We may prevent further murder by killing it.” Samuel held up a finger for Mr. Darnell to wait, and he went over and talked quietly to the Papuan men.

The cry came again. “Help me! Father, help me!”

Something about the situation felt wrong to Bobby. If Addison were really hurt, wouldn’t he use the medicine to heal his body?

Samuel returned. “Vututu and Aguisa will accompany you and will help with the difficult task you face. If the creature is injured, it will be helpless for only a short time.”

The two Papuan men dropped their spears and grabbed short, thick clubs. Then Vututu and Aguisa left the hut, followed by the Darnells.

Samuel spoke softly to Bobby. “I am doubtful of their success. I beg you to persist in your efforts. Better to prepare for the worst, I should think.”

* * *

Vututu and Aguisa descended the rope ladder first, forcing Quentin and Lindsey to cope with their conflicting thoughts while waiting. Addison’s voice continued calling from below, the same words over and over: “Help! Father, Help me!”

Quentin’s nerves were torn. The cries were desperate. Could there be something left of Addison’s consciousness, some remnant of their son? But their task would be easier if there weren’t. Against his every instinct, Quentin silently hoped that Addison would simply die from the wounds he had suffered. For the first time since the crash, Quentin felt like his sanity was truly slipping away, like he might snap from the pressure.

When all four of them were on the ground, the Papuans headed in the direction of Addison’s cries without speaking.

“Help! Father, help me!”

The cries were closer, but Quentin saw only understory foliage and tree trunks. His anxiety grew with every step, and he pushed harder, leaving Lindsey and the Papuans behind.

“Help! Father, help me!” Addison was just ahead.

“I’m here, Addison!” Quentin pushed his way to a small clearing. “It’s okay, I’m—” He stopped. “Oh Jesus,” he heard himself say. He couldn’t move. He could only stare.

Lindsey and the tribesmen broke through the tangle and stood by his side. No one spoke.

“Help! Father, help me!” It was Addison’s voice, but it wasn’t Addison. The voice came from a horrifying mass of tissue lying on the ground against a buttress root. No, Quentin realized. Not next to the root, joined to it—fused to the root with sinewy tendons. The figure had a head and chest, but the arms quickly diminished into tendons that extended to the ground and the tree, holding the entire mass in place. Below the chest it was the same: strands of flesh fused with the surroundings. There was nothing else—no pelvis, and no legs.

“Help! Father, help me!”

Quentin stared at the thing’s face. Addison’s details were missing, as if God had decided to start over with it, erasing the features down to generic blank stock. There were no eyes, only slight depressions where eyes should be. And the nose was flattened, no more than a slight bulge with two holes in it. Only the mouth appeared fully developed, as if the entire nightmarish visage existed for one purpose: to call out to Quentin.

“Help! Father, help me!”

“That’s not Addison,” Lindsey said, her voice hollow.

They had made a mistake coming here. Quentin took her hand. She resisted, as if afraid to take her eyes off of it. But then she allowed him to lead her away.

The Papuans did not follow. Quentin glanced back at them. Vututu caught his gaze and lifted his club to where Quentin could see it. Quentin nodded. As they made their way back to the rope ladder he heard the two clubs striking flesh, and then there was silence.

* * *

Bobby put one hand on the Lamotelokhai and began shifting symbols with the other. He wrestled with an idea that was forming in his mind. The thing had said it could not make Addison the person he was before the crash. But that didn’t mean they had to kill him. Maybe they could give Addison something to make him love Mr. and Mrs. Darnell again. He tried explaining this to the Lamotelokhai.

“Addison is going to kill the villagers. Addison is going to kill me. Do you know how to stop Addison?”

“Yes.”

Bobby waited, but there was no more. “How can I stop Addison?”

“Kill Addison.”

“No. I don’t want to kill Addison. I want to change Addison. Do you know how to change Addison so he won’t kill?”

“Yes.”

“How do I change Addison so he won’t kill?”

“Kill Addison.”

This wasn’t working. Bobby had to explain what he wanted, but it seemed impossible. He had no words for feelings like love. It would take hours, maybe days, to make that kind of progress.

Again Bobby heard Addison’s cry from far below. “Help! Father, help me!” Mr. Darnell and the others were probably almost there by now. If Addison were really hurt, why wasn’t the Lamotelokhai healing him? Panic started to grip Bobby, making it hard to focus his thoughts. He moved the symbols again.

“Addison is shouting. Does Addison need help?” Bobby waited, but no answer came. He tried again. “Do you know where Addison is?”

“Yes.”

“Is Addison hurt?”

“No.”

Bobby stared. Maybe he didn’t ask the question right. “Where is Addison?”

“Addison is above you.”

Bobby heard vines and sticks breaking. Long fingers forced their way through the living roof of the hut and ripped open a hole. A figure dropped through headfirst, flipped over, and landed on its feet next to Bobby. Before Bobby could back away, Addison grabbed him by the hair, and his other hand smashed into Bobby’s face, rubbing damp, gritty death into his eyes and mouth.

Bobby couldn’t see. He fell to the floor and crawled to a corner. Cries filled the hut as Addison attacked the others. Bobby wiped his eyes, trying to get the stuff out. But it was too late. It was in his body, and it would eat him from the inside. Again he saw Miranda’s empty face, her eyes collapsing into her head.

Bobby heard himself crying over the din of the struggle. He suppressed it and tried to think. How much time did he have? Would he feel his heart and his bones turning to dirt? He rose to his feet and stumbled forward with his hands out until he bumped into something soft—the Lamotelokhai. Bobby put both hands on the substance. The symbols appeared in his mind, even though he could see nothing else. He shifted them into a message.

“Addison put something from you in me. Will it kill me?”

“Yes.”

Bobby choked. He was sure he could feel it now, a tingle in his stomach, the stuff starting to eat him alive. He pushed the symbols as fast as he could.

“Can you help—”

Bobby was knocked off his feet. He landed hard under the weight of a writhing body. The body rolled to the side. Bobby forced his eyes open and saw green feathers. Sinanie lay next to him, rubbing desperately at brown smears on his face. Another Papuan—one of the women—lay on the floor nearby, moaning. There were more screams as the last Papuan man and another of the women fought with Addison, trying to hold him back with spears. But Bobby’s eyes were drawn to the corner. Ashley, Carlos, and two Papuan women huddled against the wall behind Samuel, who was crouched with one hand on the roll of substance he had stretched out on the floor. Samuel held his other hand out to the fighting Papuans.

“I le-ba-lé ye-mén!” he yelled.43

Addison attacked the man and woman. Their spears pierced him, but he managed to grab the man and throw him to the floor.

Samuel yelled again, “I le-ba-lé ye-mén!”

The woman retreated from the fight and Samuel pulled her behind him.

The man beneath Addison grunted and tried to roll away. There was blood on his face, mixed with some of the Lamotelokhai from Addison’s palm.

Samuel cried out to Addison, “Gu nu u-ngga-lekhén-ma-té. I am here!”44

Addison jumped up and lunged at Samuel, screaming and grabbing for Samuel’s face. But then something happened. As Addison passed over the substance there was a crunching sound. He collapsed onto the floor, and his screams became a choking gush.

Addison’s body shook, splattering wetness on the floor. Bobby moved closer to see. It was no longer Addison’s body. Instead it was a sickening heap of skin and flesh. Bulges of bloody tissue stuck out everywhere, like it had exploded from the inside. The legs had not crossed over the strip of Lamotelokhai, and they still looked almost normal. But above the waist it was impossible to recognize anything, other than one arm protruding at an unnatural angle. As Bobby stared, the arm thrashed like it was still trying to fight.

Ashley was the first to speak, her voice barely a whisper. “What happened?”

Samuel kicked at the body with his foot. “There is no time to explain.” He then wiped his eye and held out his hand for Bobby to see. The brown substance was smeared on his fingers. “Death is upon us, Bobby. But if there is one who might prevent it, it is you. Perhaps my death is past due, but I beg you to save your life, and those of the remaining indigenes.”

The tingling was growing inside Bobby’s body. “I don’t want to die.”

“Then you must hurry.”

Tears streaming from his eyes, Bobby put his hands on the Lamotelokhai. He tried to concentrate on the symbols but it was getting hard to think.

“Oh shit, it’s changing!” It was Ashley.

Addison’s body had rolled over, and now there was a second arm protruding from the mess. This arm was bigger than the other, and it seemed to grow before their eyes. With a moist grunt, the body pushed itself to a sitting position. At the top of the body, where Addison’s head should have been, an eye looked directly at Bobby. Muscle and skin around the eye began to change into a lump, and then the lump grew upward. It slowly took the shape of a head.

Suddenly Ashley snatched up one of the clubs, raised it high, and brought it down on Addison with a wet thud. Addison screeched. Ashley swung the club again, but this time the larger arm snapped out and ripped it from her hands. Addison flopped over and then somehow rose to his feet. His upper body was transforming, getting taller.

Addison turned to face Bobby. There were now two eyes on his face. “It is mine!”

Addison stepped toward Bobby, but then Samuel and Ashley attacked from behind. Between blows, Samuel shouted, “Bobby, make haste!”

Bobby moved the symbols. “Addison kills. Can you help stop Addison?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Take some.” A bulge formed on the Lamotelokhai.

But Bobby hesitated. “Will this kill Addison?”

“Yes.”

There were grunts and sickening blows and cries of pain. Bobby tried to focus. “I want to stop Addison, but not kill Addison.”

No response.

“I want Addison…” Bobby struggled to form words. “…to want to not kill. Can you help?”

“Yes. Take some.” The bulge grew larger.

Carlos’s voice rose above the clamor. “Ow! Goddammit!”

Bobby turned to see Carlos fall to the floor, holding his shoulder. Addison was bloodied, but he fought viciously. There was no more time.

“Will this kill Addison?”

“Yes.”

Bobby realized it was no use. He had no other choice.

* * *

Quentin heard the shouts as he reached the rope ladder. Instead of waiting, Lindsey started up the ladder just behind him. Quentin started to protest, but decided against it. If the rope broke, it might be an easier death than what awaited them above.

The ladder held. Quentin helped Lindsey into the hanging tunnel and they made their way toward the shouts. At last they entered the central hut. Addison was in a savage fight with Samuel, Ashley, and a small Papuan woman. Bodies were strewn on the floor around them—some of them writhing in pain, others still. And at the center of the hut stood Bobby. He held one arm up, ready to throw something cupped in his hand. Without faltering, Quentin rushed in and grabbed Bobby’s arm.

Bobby blinked at him, tears flowing from his eyes. “Mr. Darnell! I have to get this into him.”

It was not Bobby’s burden to do this. Quentin scooped the stuff from Bobby’s hand and pushed him out of the way. As Quentin turned to the fight, Ashley caught a vicious blow to the face from Addison, and she crumpled to the floor. Addison snatched her club and flung himself at Samuel and the woman. They tried blocking his blows, but their movements were slower than his.

Quentin screamed, “Addison! Look at me!”

Addison stopped his attack and spun around. Quentin caught a full view of his face. It was torn and blood-soaked. But there was something more. The shape of Addison’s face seemed to shift before Quentin’s eyes, as if it were made of clay.

Suddenly, from behind, the Papuan woman smashed her club into Addison’s head. It was a crushing blow, but Addison ignored it. In fact, he seemed to smile at Quentin as the depression in his skull smoothed itself out. The woman moved to strike again.

“Manda-é,” Samuel said. “Yu lé khomilo-mbo iMoné.” He motioned for her to wait.45

Addison’s body tottered peculiarly as he edged closer to Quentin.

“You came back,” Addison said. “But you can’t hurt me now. You can try. Do you want to hurt me?” Addison held his arms out as if inviting Quentin to strike him.

“No, I don’t want to hurt you,” Quentin said. “I just want my son back.”

“Your son…” Addison looked uncertain for just an instant, but then the smirk returned. “Not here.” Addison stepped closer, holding out a hand smeared with brown clay.

Quentin backed away. Now, his mind screamed. He flicked his wrist, throwing the substance directly at Addison’s face.

Addison’s hand was a blur and he struck the stuff in mid air. The lump of Lamotelokhai splattered and fell aside. But smaller pieces struck Addison’s face. His smile faded, and then he charged, shoving the material in his own hand toward Quentin.

Quentin managed to grab Addison’s wrist with both hands, but he tumbled back under the weight. He struck the floor hard but focused all his effort on holding the hand away from his face. But then the struggle abruptly stopped. Addison simply relaxed, allowing Quentin to push him over on the floor. The hatred in his eyes melted away and his face went slack. Quentin rose to his feet. Addison’s eyes darted from one of them to another but showed no expression.

Bobby stepped to Quentin’s side. “It worked, Mr. Darnell. You got some in him.” Without another word, Bobby moved to the Lamotelokhai and began working with it.

Quentin looked to Lindsey. She stood with her hands over her mouth, staring at Addison. Bodies were scattered on the floor. They all appeared to be conscious, but they just lay there, making no attempt to get up. Bobby stood in the center of the hut shuffling one hand rapidly in the air, moving objects that no one else could see. And at Quentin’s feet, dying, lay a creature that was his son. He had killed Addison himself, an appalling duty no parent should ever have to perform. But he had done it.

Quentin knelt down and cautiously rested his hand on Addison’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Addison. I’m so sorry.”

Addison suddenly sat up. He looked at Quentin with confusion. His eyes drifted around the hut and then locked onto a spot on the roof. There was a hole there, as if someone had torn through it. Without a word, Addison bounded across the hut and leapt for the hole in the roof. He pulled himself through and was gone.

The hut was completely still.

“Remarkable,” Samuel finally said. He turned from the hole in the roof to face Bobby. “Please make haste, Bobby. Our remaining moments are few.” Samuel then sat on the floor, holding his stomach as if he were sick.

Bobby scraped a handful of the substance from the Lamotelokhai. “I’ve got it!” He stepped away from the tree. “At least I think so.” He then smeared some onto his tongue.

Bobby handed Samuel a portion, and then he went to Ashley and Carlos and placed some in their mouths. They accepted it without argument. Bobby moved to the Papuans, and they each accepted a portion. He then turned to Quentin and Lindsey. “Did Addison get any on you?”

“I don’t think so,” Quentin said. He then looked at the hole in the roof. “Maybe we can find him. We can give him some, too.”

“Addison doesn’t need this stuff,” Bobby said. “He’s not dying.”

Lindsey finally took her hands from her mouth. “He’s not?”

“I didn’t want it to kill him,” Bobby said. “I couldn’t figure out how to make him the way he was before. So I made him forget.”

“Forget what?” Quentin said.

“Everything,” Bobby said. Then he looked at the floor. “It was all I could think of.”

* * *

Following the boy known as Addison was demanding. The tree kangaroo, Mbaiso, moved nimbly from tree to tree, but the much larger human boy changed directions frequently, apparently without a destination, and the boy sometimes walked on the ground but then would take to the trees as skillfully as any mbolop.

Mbaiso made no effort to be stealthy, but the boy showed no recognition or interest.

Mbaiso finally paused, claws piercing the spongy bark of a breadfruit tree and holding him steady as his body heaved from the efforts of his lungs to meet the demand for air. He turned and waited for Tupela and Tripela. The other tree kangaroos were several trees behind, and he watched as they bounded between branches, their weight counterbalanced by long tails of mottled brown.

When the three creatures were side-by-side, they watched the human boy recede into the tangle of the forest. It appeared that this human was no longer relevant, so there was little purpose in continuing to follow him. And the tree kangaroos would surely be needed for what was to come next. They descended to the forest floor. After looking one last time in the direction of the boy, they hopped off, making their way back home.

Before long, Mbaiso stopped. With a quick motion of his forelimbs he instructed the others to go on. He then began climbing and didn’t stop until he was high in the canopy, in a position where he could see for some distance. It was a suitable place to process information—to think. And there was much to consider.

Mbaiso was aware of his own origins and purpose. Many centuries ago, following a fierce incident such as Mbaiso had witnessed today, the villagers had determined that it was not their place to communicate directly with the Creator, the Lamotelokhai. The stricken villagers had made one last direct request, for the Lamotelokhai to produce an entity that could serve as a mediator. The Lamotelokhai had complied, as it always did, and had created a creature the villagers would be familiar with but possessing cognitive and data processing proficiencies allowing it to serve a multitude of functions. In short, Mbaiso had been important, to the Creator as well as the villagers.

Although unique, Mbaiso’s structure was biological. As a living creature, he was self-aware. And whether the Creator had intended it or not, Mbaiso was capable of making independent conclusions. Long ago he had determined that more could be accomplished if he were not the only mbolop, and from his own tissue and elements from the forest he had created the creatures now known to Bobby as Tupela and Tripela. This was one of many autonomous decisions Mbaiso had made over the years.

But now change was imminent, and Mbaiso‘s role in the events that would come next was unspecified. He found this to be unsettling.

Perhaps the new humans’ arrival was to be expected, but their behaviors and capabilities were unpredictable. Mbaiso could not know what might happen next. The humans would have to determine that.

There was so much to consider.

Mbaiso settled into a suitable spot and stared out at the expanse of trees and sky. Solar waves warmed his body and baked the forest canopy, throwing into high gear the molecular food-making machinery in the leaves of trees tall enough to emerge into direct sunlight. Countless insects in a thousand varieties buzzed over the canopy, swirling in the air like tempestuous thermals. Occasional birdcalls broke the insects’ monotonous drone: The piping of a fruit dove, the trill of a honeyeater, the shriek of a tiger-parrot—all names that Samuel had given to these birds. It was a calming, familiar scene, having changed little in the nearly ten thousand years of Mbaiso’s existence. But like most days in the Méanmaél River basin, drenching clouds would soon veil the searing afternoon sun, driven inland from the Great Ocean until they condensed against the Maoke Mountains to the South.

Chapter Eighteen

The substance Bobby had given those who were injured in the fight seemed to stop the murderous effects of what Addison had forced upon them. Before long, three more villagers showed up: two women and a man. They had run off in the night when Addison had started killing. The man had white feathers in his hair, and his name was Matiinuo. Samuel said he was the oldest of all of the villagers, something like ten thousand years old. Bobby laughed at this, but then felt embarrassed when he realized Samuel was serious. There were now eleven villagers, possibly all that were left of the tribe. Bobby realized the Lamotelokhai might help with this, so he spoke to it in symbols yet again.

“Do you know if more villagers are alive?”

“Only those near you live.”

“How do you know?”

“No others live.”

“How do you know no others live?”

“I do not know of others alive.”

This might be the best answer he would get. Then Bobby had another idea. “Is Addison alive?”

“Yes.”

Bobby was suddenly alert. He hadn’t known for sure if the stuff he’d created would work, or if it would kill Addison. “Where is Addison?”

“I cannot know where Addison is. I know the distance of Addison.”

“What is the distance of Addison?”

“Distance unit is needed.”

Bobby pressed two fingers onto the Lamotelokhai about a foot apart. “This is a foot.” He had to create a symbol for foot.

The substance answered immediately. “The distance of Addison is 6,404 feet.”

Bobby thought about the answer. Over 6,000 feet—that was more than a mile. Why had Addison gone so far away? “What is the distance of Addison now?”

“The distance of Addison is 6,426 feet.”

He was still moving away from them. Mr. and Mrs. Darnell would want to know this. They were in a nearby hut, resting with Ashley and Carlos. So Bobby left the Lamotelokhai and went to find them.

As Bobby walked, the floor of the hanging tunnel bounced under his feet, making the distance seem longer. He considered the news he carried. It was his fault Addison was gone. Maybe it would have been easier for the Darnells if he had just killed Addison. That might be better than knowing he was wandering around in the jungle with no memory.

In a smaller hut, Ashley, Carlos, and the Darnells sat on the floor picking at a lump of khosül paste. They glanced at him as he entered, but said nothing. Bobby sat down, pulled off a handful of khosül, and squished it between his fingers to make sure there were no beetle heads. Then he told them Addison was alive, but far away, and how he had come to know this.

They sat in silence, eating.

At last Mr. Darnell spoke up. “We’re leaving. Tomorrow.”

Mrs. Darnell nodded. “Tomorrow morning. We’ve decided.”

“What about Addison?” Bobby asked.

Mr. Darnell looked up. “Addison died when the plane crashed. The Lamotelokhai’s medicine couldn’t bring him back. Our responsibility now is to get you three back to your families.”

Bobby frowned. As much as he wanted to go home, he felt like he was just getting started with the Lamotelokhai. “We don’t even know which way to go,” he said.

At that moment Samuel entered the hut. “It is not the direction that is important, so much as the capacity to maintain your bearing,” he said. “And what may prove fatal is your want for food and water.”

Matiinuo followed Samuel in. Samuel sat on the floor, but the Papuan stood back.

“Samuel, please don’t try to stop us,” Mrs. Darnell said. “We don’t belong here.”

Samuel looked at her like he was afraid to say what was on his mind. “As you know, my inclination is to shelter the indigenes from the world, and at the same time shelter the world from the secret that they have guarded for so many ages. But once again I find that I have little influence on their ways of thinking, particularly with Matiinuo here.”

“Meaning what?” Mr. Darnell said.

“My indigene hosts wish for you to go. They believe you have come here with the charge of assuming stewardship of the Lamotelokhai. They have supposed for many years that a man would inevitably come who could speak to the Lamotelokhai. As they put it, this event was to turn their world upside down.” He frowned. “And indeed it has.” Samuel then gestured toward Bobby. “This man they supposed would come is not a man after all, but a boy.”

Bobby spoke up. “We can take the Lamotelokhai with us?”

“They will even assist you on your journey. My journey, as well, I suppose, as I will have no further purpose here.”

Mr. Darnell cleared his throat. “You’ve changed your mind? You were convinced the Lamotelokhai should never be revealed. In fact you had just about convinced me.”

“I still have doubts. But the villagers believe this to be the natural succession of things, and perhaps they are correct. Bobby’s ability with the Lamotelokhai seems to support that. And if they were to prevent your departure, there would someday be others, and others after that. I can only hope that the sensibilities of mankind have progressed such that the Lamotelokhai will be used wisely, and for noble purposes.” Samuel paused. “It is worth noting that the literal meaning of the word Lamotelokhai is, the world will be destroyed.”

Everyone was silent.

“We can’t carry it on foot,” Mr. Darnell said, finally. “If we make it to civilization, we’ll tell others about it. They can send a helicopter.”

Samuel frowned. “A helicopter.”

“It’s a flying machine.”

“That is not satisfactory.” Samuel’s voice was almost angry. “My indigene hosts have lived as savages for thousands of years, and they resist alteration with passion such that you could scarcely imagine. And yet they insist that you remove the one thing that has determined their physiology and habits of culture for many centuries. So I am concerned for the fate of the surviving villagers. Do you truly wish to bring upon them the cruelties of—”

Mr. Darnell held up his hand. “No, I see your point. They deserve to be left alone.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Mrs. Darnell said.

Samuel waved toward Matiinuo. “The villagers and I will help to carry it. We brought it to this place, after all. When I first stumbled upon their village, it was far to the north, near the Sentani seacoast.”

Bobby stared at Matiinuo. The Papuan returned his gaze. His skin was smooth and his clear eyes were like those of a young man. But Bobby thought he saw something more. From deep within the man’s eyes shone the Papuan’s wisdom—the wisdom of ten thousand years. Matiinuo smiled at Bobby. It was sad and tired, but still a smile.

* * *

After Samuel and Matiinuo left the hut, the growing darkness seemed to fill the confined space with misery, so Bobby returned to the larger central hut. He stood staring at the Lamotelokhai. He could now talk to it. Better than anyone else, apparently. If they took it home with them, people would take it away. Bobby didn’t want that to happen.

“It’s really ugly, isn’t it?”

Bobby started. He hadn’t seen Ashley come in.

“I mean, if it’s from an advanced alien race, why would they make it look like a big piece of crap?” She spoke without taking her eyes off the Lamotelokhai.

Bobby shrugged. “Maybe their crap doesn’t look like this.” After a few minutes of silence, Bobby said, “I’m sorry about Miranda.”

Ashley looked at the floor. “Miranda was a good person. Better than the rest of us. I wanted to kill Addison.” She looked up at Bobby. “You could have killed him, but you didn’t. Everyone wanted to kill him, even Mr. Darnell. But you didn’t.” Her face was close to his and she eyed him without blinking.

Bobby felt his face flush, so he turned back to the Lamotelokhai. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“I think I was wrong about you, Bobby.”

Bobby said nothing.

“Before, I thought you were just a nerd.”

Bobby shuffled his feet. “Thanks.”

“But I think maybe you’re something else.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Not really a hero. You don’t look much like a hero.”

“Thanks again.”

She laughed. “How about this, then: When I’m afraid—when I want to be safe—I feel like I should be wherever you are.”

Bobby felt his face flush again. “But I can’t—”

“Let me finish. I don’t think it’s your job to protect us, or anything. But it seems like maybe you’re important in this whole thing.”

Bobby considered this. “I guess so.” He put his hands on the Lamotelokhai. The hut was almost dark, but the symbols were clear. “What do you want me to ask it?”

Ashley put her hands next to his. She stared at the symbols that appeared before her eyes, invisible to Bobby. “I have no idea what all this shit is.”

“It’s Kembalimo. What do you want me to ask it?”

“Ask it if Addison is coming back.”

Bobby shuffled the symbols. “What is the distance of Addison?”

“The distance of Addison is 9,016 feet.”

Bobby turned to her. “He’s still moving away from us. He’s a long ways away.”

“I hope so. Ask if we’re going to die.”

He did. The Lamotelokhai replied that it could not know this, and Bobby told her that.

“Figures,” she said. “Ask if it minds if we take it with us tomorrow.”

Bobby struggled with this one. “We want to take you away from here. Will you help us take you away from here?”

“Yes.”

“I guess it doesn’t mind,” Bobby said.

“Then ask what it will do when we get it home. Is it going to take over the world?”

This was a good question, but Bobby had no idea how to phrase it. “That’s too hard to say.”

“Then ask if there’s an easier way to talk to it.”

Bobby should have thought of that before. He shoved the symbols around. “I want to ask you questions. I cannot ask you some questions. Are there other ways to talk to you?”

“Yes. Many ways.”

Bobby remembered his idea from earlier. “Can the mbolop help me ask you questions?”

“Yes.”

“Can the mbolop help me now?”

“Yes. Mbolop will come.”

Ashley cleared her throat. “Do you two want to be alone?”

“Sorry.” Bobby explained what they’d said.

Ashley laughed. “You’re going to use a tree rat to talk to a big piece of crap?”

Just then Carlos came in from one of the tunnels. Bobby was a little disappointed. His conversations with Ashley were different when they were alone.

“The Lamotelokhai says the tree kangaroos can help us talk to it,” Bobby said.

Carlos stepped between them. “You mean help you talk to it.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But I’ll ask it things for you, if you want.”

Carlos put his hands on the stuff, and then frowned at the symbols that appeared. “Actually, that’s what I was hoping for.”

“What do you mean?” Bobby said.

Carlos hesitated. “You gave Addison some medicine that made him forget.”

Bobby didn’t like where this was going.

Carlos stared at the tree. “I want some of that. Mr. Darnell says we’re leaving tomorrow,” Carlos said. “But I don’t care if we do.”

“Don’t you want to see your parents?” Ashley said.

“Why? So I can tell them why Roberto was killed instead of me?”

Ashley scoffed. For a moment Bobby thought she was going to laugh, but she didn’t. She said, “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“So if you stay here, they lose all of their kids. If you go home, they still have a son.”

Carlos frowned at this, but he didn’t argue. He adjusted the remains of his jeans wrapped around his waist. “I just think it would be easier if I didn’t remember everything that’s ever happened to me. The Lamotelokhai didn’t even ask if that’s what we wanted.”

Bobby’s thoughts returned to his first fight with Addison, when he was forced to remember what had happened on the airplane. Why was this nagging at him now? “Do you guys remember what happened on the plane before we crashed?”

He got blank stares from both of them.

He continued. “There was another airplane. It was really close.”

Carlos said, “What do you mean, another plane?”

“Addison made me remember it. I thought maybe that’s why we crashed. But I saw something out my window, in the other plane. Something really weird.” He hesitated, but they were watching him now, waiting. “It was Addison. He was there, looking back at me through the window.”

Ashley snorted. “Bobby, we’ve seen a lot of crazy shit, but that’s truly crazy.”

Bobby regretted bringing it up. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

They waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, Ashley said, “You were traumatized at the time, that’s all.” She walked around the tree, poking at the Lamotelokhai. “I don’t see how we’re going to carry this. How much do you suppose it weighs?”

“Matiinuo said they would help,” Carlos said.

“They shouldn’t do that,” Ashley said. “They’ll be discovered. Everyone will want to come study them.”

Carlos said, “So?”

Ashley raised her voice. “We’ve pretty much wrecked their lives already. We crash here. Addison goes crazy and kills most of their tribe. Then we take away the thing they’ve worshipped for a gazillion years. Can we do anything more to screw them over? Oh yeah—let’s show the whole world where they live. They can build an airport and a strip mall.”

Ashley’s eyes dared Carlos to argue. She was right. The Papuans didn’t deserve that. Bobby wondered what would happen to the natives without the Lamotelokhai. Maybe they would start to grow old, like normal people. But at least they could live the rest of their lives in peace if they could stay here, hidden. He put one hand on the Lamotelokhai and moved the symbols. “You said you would help us take you away. How will you help us take you away?”

“I will help you in the way you ask me to help you.”

Bobby thought hard. “Can you change your shape?”

“Yes.”

Bobby suddenly stepped back. He stared, frowning, an idea forming in his mind.

Ashley said, “Bobby, your tree rat is here.”

Bobby turned to see a shadow hop across the floor. Mbaiso stopped next to him and began moving his forelimbs. Bobby knelt closer so that he could see in the fading light. Some of the motions he knew from before, but others were new. A vision appeared, and Bobby immediately noticed that unlike the others this one had audio with it.

“The mbolop can help you talk to me.”

It was Bobby’s own voice, but these were not his words, or even his thoughts. Bobby looked at Carlos and Ashley. “Did you hear that?”

They answered together, “Hear what?”

* * *

The night was long and cruel. Quentin needed solid sleep for the next day’s efforts, but each time he closed his eyes the slightest noise or movement drew his attention. His mind raced with the past days’ events and the logistics of tomorrow. And when he managed to push those thoughts aside, he could think only of his son wandering aimlessly through the pitch-black forest. What would become of Addison? How long would it be before he died of thirst and starvation? In the few seconds that Quentin had seen him after the substance stripped away his memories, Addison had shown that his strength and agility were intact. So perhaps he would be able to gather food and water to stay alive. Perhaps he would stay near the Papuan village where food was plentiful. Would the villagers kill him on sight? And what if the effects of the substance wore off, and he tried to kill them again?

Finally Quentin left Lindsey’s side and felt his way in the darkness to the Lamotelokhai hut. As he neared the hut, he saw an orange glow. Inside the hut, several villagers tended a smokeless fire as they watched Bobby work with Mbaiso and the Lamotelokhai. Carlos and Ashley were sprawled on the floor, clearly exhausted.

Quentin watched Bobby. In the last day or so the boy had somehow become fluent in the kangaroo’s sign language. His hands moved rapidly, but with precision. Each time Bobby completed a set of signs, Mbaiso followed with an equally elaborate set. And then Bobby would pause, as if listening or watching something.

“It looks like you have an audience.” Quentin said. “How’s it going?”

Bobby glanced at Quentin, his wide eyes accentuated by the flickering light of the fire. “Mr. Darnell. Sorry, it was talking to me.”

Quentin raised his brows. “Talking?”

Bobby looked at Mbaiso and back at Quentin, apparently reluctant to interrupt what he was doing. “It speaks to me now. Mbaiso helps.”

Quentin eyed him. Bobby seemed jittery. “Are you feeling okay, Bobby? Maybe you need to get some sleep.”

“I’m okay.” Bobby glanced at Mbaiso again. “I’m just kind of busy here.”

Another mystery. It was too much. Quentin suddenly felt drained. He needed to sleep, to shut out all the violations of his perception of how the world should work. So he patted Bobby’s shoulder. “Don’t stay up too late.” It was a ridiculous statement. It was what he would have said to Addison before going to bed on a Friday night, knowing his son would stay up as long as he wanted playing video games.

Bobby mumbled something and returned his attention to the tree kangaroo.

The villagers—there were five of them by the fire—seemed interested in what Bobby was doing, and Quentin decided they posed no threat. So he rousted Carlos and Ashley to their feet and herded them back to the sleeping hut, leaving Bobby to his task.

* * *

Quentin awoke with the sensation of being watched. Lindsey sat cross-legged beside him, staring at his face. The early morning light made her hair and skin look gray. The remains of two t-shirts, crudely tied together, were all that covered her breasts. She’d wrapped a half-disintegrated pair of khaki pants around her hips. Her skin was smudged with dirt and dried blood. Her hair was tangled and wild.

He reached out for her. Her shoulder felt cool and smooth. He ran his hand down her side, letting the backs of his fingers stroke the skin between the t-shirts and the khaki pants.

Lindsey nodded to her left, where Ashley and Carlos lay sleeping only a meter away.

Quentin sighed and withdrew his hand. And then the horrendous events of the previous day flooded his mind—from Miranda’s dying words to the moment Addison fled from them for the last time. He tried to focus on Lindsey instead.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered. It sounded awkward, forced.

Lindsey shook her head slightly.

“Well, you do.” Quentin sat up. Bobby was still not back. “Damn. I told him not to stay up all night. He’s going to need his strength.”

“Are you still willing to leave, knowing Addison is alive?” Lindsey asked.

Quentin avoided her gaze. “We don’t have a choice.” He reached for the container of water Samuel had given them and took a long drink. “If you have a better idea, let’s hear it.” This came out with more edge than he intended. He put his hand on her knee. “We have to get the kids back to their families.” He held the water out to her, but she made no move to accept it.

“I’m sorry for saying it, Quentin, but it would have been better if he had died. If we leave him out here, it will haunt us forever.” Her eyes were welling up with tears.

Quentin felt a rush of sadness. Perhaps it would be better if they had all been killed in the plane crash. He pressed his palm against her cheek and wiped a tear away with his thumb. “We still have each other, Linds. And three of our students are alive. We have to accept that Addison isn’t one of them.”

“Three kids. That’s less than half—”

“But they’re alive. And don’t forget, we’re taking the Lamotelokhai with us. It has to be the most significant discovery in history.”

Lindsey shook her head. “We don’t even know what it is. It scares me. What if Samuel is right? What if this is a big mistake?”

This question had been nagging Quentin, too. “It saved our lives.”

“But it killed more than it saved. What about all the dead villagers? And Miranda—I didn’t see it saving Miranda’s life, did you? And look what it did to Addison. What if that happens again, on a larger scale?”

Quentin pulled his hand away.

“I’m sorry, Quentin, but it scares me. I mean, how does it know how to play Kembalimo? How is that possible?”

Quentin had no answers, so he turned away. That was when he saw that Ashley and Carlos were awake. They both stared at him.

“We’re just trying to figure out what to do next,” Quentin said to them, realizing that it didn’t sound very encouraging. He rose to his feet. “I’ll get Bobby so we can get out of here.”

But just then Bobby stumbled into the hut, breathing hard. “Mr. and Mrs. Darnell,” he panted. “I have something to show you.”

* * *

“Have you been awake all night?” Quentin asked as Bobby led them all through the hanging tunnel.

Bobby ignored the question. “I figured out a way so the Papuans don’t have to go with us.”

“How’s that?” Quentin said.

Bobby hesitated. “I just have to show you.

As they approached the central hut, Quentin heard voices. They rounded the last curve in the tunnel, and the opening loomed ahead, growing larger with each step. The massive tree was framed in the opening. But somehow it looked different. The juncture of spreading branches seemed smaller. As they stepped through the opening, Quentin realized the Lamotelokhai was gone.

“Bobby, what’s going on?” Then Quentin froze.

The Papuans stood in a cluster to one side, talking excitedly. And in the middle of them stood Addison.

It was Addison the boy, just as he had been before. He was naked, and Quentin took in the familiar spindly legs, the wispy promise of pubic hair, the dime-sized birthmark above one nipple. He looked feeble among the Papuans, but his demeanor was relaxed, even authoritative. And the villagers held no weapons. In fact, they chattered at Addison as if he were a long-lost companion.

Addison’s eyes floated casually from Ashley to Carlos to Lindsey, and then to Quentin. The Papuans still talked, but Addison stepped away from them. He spoke. “You are Mr. Darnell and Mrs. Darnell, the father and mother of Addison.” He turned to Ashley and Carlos. “You are Ashley. You are Carlos.”

No one spoke.

“What’s going on, Bobby?” Lindsey said.

“I wanted to find a way that the Papuans wouldn’t have to leave,” Bobby said. “Then I got this idea. The Lamotelokhai said it could change shape. So, well, I asked it to change to this shape.” He pointed at Addison.

Quentin pulled his eyes away from Addison to face Bobby. “What?”

“I thought you’d like it, since Addison is—you know—gone.”

Ashley whispered, “Jesus, Bobby.”

Quentin steadied himself. One second he felt anger, then sadness, quickly replaced by compassion for Bobby. And then, of all things, a brief urge to laugh out loud. Finally, he stuttered, “This is the Lamotelokhai?”

Bobby nodded. “Now he can walk with us.”

* * *

The initial shock gradually receded, giving way to numb acceptance of yet another unforgiving truth. For the briefest moment, Quentin’s eyes had convinced him that Addison was back, returned to his former self by some miraculous feat of the Lamotelokhai’s curative power. But it was not to be. What remained of Addison was still out there somewhere, perhaps already dead, having fallen from a tree or drowned in a river.

But this person in front of Quentin—this thing—was not Addison. It was merely a portrait of Addison. The clay-like substance had somehow been molded into Addison’s shape, nothing more than a resourcefully-crafted sculpture. But Quentin could not take his eyes off it. And the more he stared, the harder it was to believe. The figure before him was Addison’s body, down to the tiniest detail. The skin and hair were identical in every way. The voice was Addison’s. It even moved like Addison.

Ashley approached and inspected the figure from top to bottom. Its nudity seemed to have no effect on her. Carlos followed, but kept his eyes on its face. The thing watched them, showing no expression.

“Another thing—it’s easier to talk to now,” Bobby said. “Just ask it something.”

Ashley looked it in the eye. “Who are you?”

The thing returned her gaze, but remained silent.

“Sometimes you have to change the way you phrase things,” Bobby said. “It doesn’t understand.”

Ashley tried again. “Are you really the Lamotelokhai?”

“Yes,” it said without hesitation.

“Why do you look so much like Addison?” Ashley asked.

“I was asked to look so much like Addison.”

Ashley wrinkled her nose. “No, I mean how do you look so much like Addison? How did you do that?”

“What I know of Addison is what helps me look so much like Addison.”

Ashley turned to Bobby. “It talks funny.”

“It’s still learning how,” Bobby said.

Carlos raised his hand like he was in school. “Where is the real Addison?”

“I cannot know where is the real Addison.”

“But it knows how far away he is,” Bobby said. “Lamotelokhai, what is the distance of Addison?”

“The distance of Addison is nine four three one foot.”

“That means nine thousand, four hundred, and thirty-one feet,” Bobby said.

This shook Quentin out of his daze. Addison was two miles away. He willed himself to speak to the thing for the first time. “Can you tell us where Addison is? What direction is he?”

The thing eyed Quentin, but still its face was blank. “I cannot know the direction.”

“But you know his distance. How do you know his distance?”

“Information from Addison comes to me. I get the information from Addison. When Addison is near, the information from Addison is much. When Addison is not near, the information from Addison is little.”

As peculiar as the thing’s words were, the meaning was clear to Quentin. Addison was somewhere on the perimeter of a circle with a two-mile-radius, a circle with an area of something like fifteen square miles. It was hopeless.

“Does Addison remember us?” Quentin asked.

“Yes. Addison saw you before Addison went away.”

“No, I mean does Addison remember us from before that?”

“No. I removed Addison’s memories.”

Quentin considered this. “If I asked you to put Addison’s memories back, could you do that?”

Bobby interjected, “Mr. Darnell, I already tried. The Lamotelokhai said it couldn’t make Addison the way he was before the plane crash, because it didn’t know Addison then.”

Quentin looked at the copy of Addison. “Is that true?”

“Yes.”

Quentin sighed. He had to accept that Addison was simply gone, but now he found himself face-to-face with an identical copy of him.

Ashley circled the new Addison, looking it over as if not convinced it was real. “My friend Miranda is dead,” she said. “Did you kill her?”

“Yes.”

Ashley stopped. “Why?”

“Addison asked me to help kill Miranda.”

“Miranda was my best friend,” Ashley said, her voice becoming lower.

The thing did not respond. For a moment Quentin considered intervening, but the look in Ashley’s eyes stopped him. Perhaps she needed answers. Maybe they all did. But then Ashley’s next question took him by surprise.

“Before you helped kill Miranda, you got inside of her, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So you know all about her?”

“Yes.”

Quentin exchanged a concerned glance with Lindsey.

Ashley’s brows furrowed. “Could you make a living person with all that you know about Miranda?”

The thing answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

Quentin wasn’t sure he’d heard this right. He said, “You can make a living organism, a human being?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Pieces of the organism could be gathered. Some of the pieces are not here, but I could make them. The pieces could be put together to make a living human being that I know of.”

“And you know of Miranda?” Ashley said.

“Yes. And I know of you.”

That made Quentin uneasy. “Exactly how much do you know of us?”

“A unit of knowing is needed.”

Quentin shook his head, not sure how to respond.

“So you could make Miranda come back to life?” Ashley asked.

The thing did not respond.

Ashley shook her hands, aggravated. “Could you make a living human that is Miranda?”

“Yes.”

Ashley’s eyes were now wide, her voice urgent. “Would she have Miranda’s personality and her memories?”

“Yes.”

Ashley turned to them. “Did you hear that?”

Quentin’s mind reeled. Even if the Lamotelokhai could somehow create a living, breathing Miranda, and even if it could somehow give her all of Miranda’s memories, would it really be Miranda? Miranda died. There was no changing that.

Ashley persisted. “Let’s do this. We have to!”

Lindsey raised her hands. “Slow down, Ash. This is creepy beyond words. Even if he could do this, it wouldn’t actually be Miranda.”

Ashley wouldn’t give up. “He just said it would! And what about Miranda’s parents? Don’t you think they would rather have Miranda come home?”

This was a legitimate question. Apparently this was not an option for Addison. But if it were, would Quentin do it? Probably. After a moment he said, “Shouldn’t we let them decide?”

“It might be too late then,” Ashley said. But then she fell silent.

Quentin felt besieged. What effect would the ability to reincarnate the dead have on the world? What other capabilities did this thing have? But for now the questions would have to wait. He said, “We all wish Miranda were alive. But we need to be careful about what we do until we get the Lamotelokhai to people who can comprehend it.”

As if on cue, Samuel entered the hut bearing several woven bags loaded with food and supplies. He stopped short when he saw that the tree was bare. His eyes darted about the hut and then fell upon the replica of Addison. He dropped the bags to the floor. “God blind me!”

“It’s the Lamotelokhai,” Bobby said.

Samuel stared at the figure as if it were a ghost. “What manner of malice is this?”

Bobby explained as Samuel glanced back and forth from the bare tree to the transformed Lamotelokhai. He approached the figure and prodded it.

It responded by speaking to him. “You are Samuel.”

Samuel stumbled back a step. He turned to the villagers, who chattered at him, obviously enthusiastic about the situation. “Extraordinary,” Samuel muttered.

Bobby suggested he ask it a question.

Samuel cleared his throat and hesitated. Finally he spoke. “The prospect of speaking to the subject of so many years of study is quite beyond my command. It has long been my purpose to better communicate with you. And now that the opportunity is upon me, I fear I am without words.” Samuel forced a smile, but it faded as the Lamotelokhai stared back without expression.

“Do you hear me?” Samuel asked.

“Yes.”

“And all the years that I studied you, did you hear me then?”

“Yes.”

“Could you not have transformed yourself in order to speak, as you now have?”

“I was not asked before to transform myself.”

“I had only to ask?” Samuel seemed to say this to himself as much as to the figure.

“Yes.”

Samuel sputtered a pitiful guffaw. It was the closest thing to laughter that Quentin had ever heard from him. “Confoundingly extraordinary,” he said.

* * *

Preparations for leaving were brief. They had no belongings other than their ragged bits of clothing and the bags of food. When they descended to the forest floor, several of the remaining Papuan men joined them. There was no sign of the women. The men hovered near the Lamotelokhai, still speaking and gesturing to it. Samuel was planning to leave the village with Quentin’s group, and he stood to the side, patiently waiting.

As the Lamotelokhai talked to the Papuans, Quentin was still transfixed by the thing’s resemblance to Addison, from the cracking adolescent voice to the navel shaped like a crescent moon above the woven loincloth Samuel had provided. Disquieted by the immediacy of their departure, Quentin spoke to it. “I would like to know the distance of Addison.”

The figure turned to him. “I do not know the distance of Addison.”

A lump swelled in Quentin’s throat. “What does that mean? Is he dead?”

For the first time, the figure’s face changed. Although barely discernable, it seemed to soften. It’s learning from watching us, Quentin thought.

“Information comes to me when the distance of Addison is little. If Addison dies when information comes to me, the information tells me Addison dies. The information did not tell me this. The information stopped coming. The distance of Addison is great. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Quentin said. Its conversation is getting better too.

Quentin turned away, uncomfortable with the thing looking directly at him. He considered this news about Addison. He’d expected the last moments before leaving this place would produce second-guessing. But he’d been through it all a hundred times in the night, and had grown weary of useless analysis. Now Addison was too far away for the Lamotelokhai to sense him, and this made things easier.

Quentin turned to Lindsey. She had heard the Lamotelokhai’s words and appeared to be barely suppressing tears. Quentin chose to say nothing about it. “We should go,” he said.

Lindsey wiped one eye with her palm, and then she nodded slightly.

It was time.

* * *

With Sinanie guiding them, it took only a few hours to reach the same rusty-brown river where Quentin had washed the blood from his ankle days before. Brilliant sunlight filled the gap in the canopy where the river flowed. Quentin’s eyes were long adjusted to shadow, and the river was like a tunnel of luminescence cut through the forest’s gloom.

“Méanmaél,” Sinanie said, pointing to the river. Samuel explained that this meant ‘the world sea,’ which was a body of water leading to the end of the world.

They stopped at the path flanking the river. The plan was to follow the river downstream until they encountered another village. According to Samuel, this could take at least three days of walking, made difficult by treacherously muddy slopes.

But everyone seemed strong, even Bobby, who still had not slept. Among them there were no wounds, no disease, and no insect bites. The flies kept their distance, hanging in clouds above as if an invisible barrier held them at bay. In spite of the stifling heat, Quentin felt relatively cool. He began to let himself believe they could make it to civilization.

Sinanie told them, through Samuel, that he would leave them here at the river’s edge. He then spoke one last time to the Lamotelokhai. “Lamol mano-mano-po-dakhu-fekho.” 46

The Lamotelokhai gazed at him without responding. Quentin shot a glance at Samuel, but Samuel didn’t offer to translate.

Despite the devastating blow that had been dealt to his tribe, Sinanie seemed to be at peace. After learning that the Lamotelokhai could reincarnate living people, Bobby had suggested that it bring back the villagers Addison had slaughtered. But the Papuans refused this, claiming that such an act would defy the obligatory fate of their companions.

Sinanie turned to Quentin and said, “Nggulun, nun e khelép-té. Wolakholol be-lembu-té-n-da.” He then spoke to Lindsey, Carlos, and Ashley—a different phrase for each of them. When he faced Bobby, he said, “Khofé mano-pelu-m-é-o. Ge imo lalé. Lamol mano-mano-po-dakhu-fekho.” As he spoke, Sinanie pointed to Bobby’s eyes and then indicated the entire world with a sweep of his hand. Quentin sensed that Bobby was being told what he should do with his ability to see.47

And finally Sinanie spoke to Samuel, slowly and deliberately. “Samuel. Go now. Remember.” Sinanie then put his hand on his own chest. “We remember Samuel.”

Samuel straightened his shoulders. “Yes, I will remember. Nggé, nu lenggile-lé-dakhu. Nu gelilfo.”48

“Gekhené ané kha-mén-é,” Sinanie replied. And then he turned back toward his hanging village. They watched after him as he disappeared into the foliage and shadows.49

Samuel shook his head. “I fear the fate of the indigenes is uncertain.” He eyed the Lamotelokhai. “We are taking that which has shaped their existence for centuries.”

The thing stared blankly at Samuel.

“And now,” Samuel said, “I wonder what will become of civilized men.”

The Lamotelokhai spoke. “Samuel, you are afraid. Why?”

Before Samuel could answer, Lindsey said, “I’ll tell you why he’s afraid. Because we don’t know what you are. We don’t know your intentions.”

The figure tried to smile, perhaps for the first time. “I have no intentions. I am a gift.”

“A gift from who?” Lindsey asked.

“From those who created me.”

“Who are they?” Lindsey said. “What do they want?”

“It is likely they are dead. They do not want.”

After a moment of silence, Quentin asked, “A gift of what?”

The figure smiled again. This time it was a confident, warm smile. “A gift of what they knew.”

“Do you have any intentions of hurting us?” Lindsey asked.

“I have no intentions,” it repeated.

“My fear,” Quentin said, “is that you might be used badly, perhaps to do harm. And you could change our civilization. Some people won’t like that.”

Suddenly Bobby spoke up. “Diffusion. You taught us about that, Mr. Darnell. You’re afraid of cultural diffusion.”

Quentin frowned. He hadn’t thought of it quite that way.

Bobby addressed the Lamotelokhai. “Diffusion is what happens when different types of people meet and change each other. The Papuans changed when other people came here. It just happens.”

“Yes,” the Addison replica said. “I was created to share what my creators knew. It is likely this will change you.”

Quentin considered this. Bobby had come to his conclusion about diffusion because he had accepted from the start that this thing was an alien intelligence—something bigger than the human species. Nearly all his life, Quentin’s views had been forged by the tragedy following his parents’ careless actions. And that was a mistake made on such a very small scale.

A shadowy dread that had been lurking in the back of Quentin’s mind began to expand.

Samuel adjusted the bag of food that hung from his shoulder. “Since there is little will among us to prevent this diffusion, may I suggest we continue our journey?”

The seven figures made their way along the river. Eventually conversations stopped, and the only distraction was occasional rustling above them as three tree kangaroos moved through the canopy, keeping pace.

Did you enjoy DIFFUSION? You can make a big difference.

Reviews are by far the best way to help out authors like myself. They really help to get attention for my books.

If you've enjoyed Diffusion, I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave an honest review (even a short review would be wonderful) on the book's page on Amazon and/or Goodreads. You could post a review for this entire box set, or you could post a review for the individual Diffusion book.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Papuan Language Guide

First, I must say that I have the deepest respect for the unique cultures of the Papuan peoples. Obviously I have taken liberties with developing the characteristics of Sinanie’s tribe, but I intended no disrespect by doing so.

I adapted this language from the amazing work of Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vries in their studies of the language and culture of the Korowai, a Papuan community of treehouse dwellers of southern Irian Jaya (now called Papua). Astoundingly, the Korowai had never come into contact with outsiders until the early 1980s. Each word or phrase is referenced by number in the text of the novel.

Méanmaél (the world-sea, a body of water leading to the end of the world)

Kembalimo (This is the name of the online problem-solving language game that Bobby and Addison play. It also means to return in the language of Sinanie’s tribe.)

Gu mbakha-to-fosu le-bo? Mba-mbam? (Where have you come from? Children?) Walukh, khomilo? (Sick, dead?)

Yu le khomilo-mbo. Khomilo. (He begins to die. Dead.)

Gu mbakha-to-fosu le-bo? (Where have you come from?)

Nu pesau im-le. Pesua. (I saw the plane. Plane.) Friend, gu spirit lai-ati-bo-dakhu. Lele-mbol-e-kho-lo? Laleo? Spirit. (Friend, are you coming as a spirit? How are you coming?)

Mbakha lekhen, Jesus? Laleo khop. (What reason—why Jesus? Bad spirit there.)

Gu laleo-lu de-te-dakhu, Jesus. (You are a spirit for sure, Jesus.)

Gu mbakha-lekhe wa-mol-mo, dodepa-le Lindsey? Lindsey gekhene mbakha mo-mba-te? (Why do you do that, call Lindsey? Lindsey what are you doing?)

Yu Khentelo! Yu beben! (He angry! He strong!)

Yu khentelo tekhen. Khedi belen. Khedi belen. (He angry for a reason. Do not kill. Do not kill.)

Ané kha-fen. (Let us go.) Ané lai-m! (You must come!)

I mbakha? Yu le khomilo-mbo. Ané lai-m. (What is this? He begins to die. You must come.)

Laléo-khén! Laléo! (Angry spirit! Spirit!)

Fano! Mbolop manop. (No! The tree kangaroo is good.)

I mbakha? (What is this?)

Soyabu (local word for the dorcopsis wallaby used for food)

Kembakhi live in the lepun melun. (Aggressive ants live in the leaf stem gall bladder.)

Anggufa diabo? (Why – to know? Or: How can you know this?)

Nu khomile-lé-dakhu khosü kha-lé. But I’m better now. Khi-telo. (I died and went there – to the place of the dead. But I’m better now. Healthy-be.)

Khosükhop, khaim. (There, tree house.)

Yebun (rope ladder)

Hey n-até-o. (Greetings, my father – a term of respect from a young Papuan to an unrelated man)

Gu laléo-lu. (You bad spirit)

Senggile-lé. (Be frightened) Yanop khomile-lé-dakhu (People will die. Or: I will kill them)

Gekhené pesua im-le (You saw the plane.)

Nu lefaf! Yu be-khomilo-n-din-da. Ya nokhu wola-maman-é. Nokhu solditai imoné khomilo. (I am finished! He cannot die. Yes, as for us, the end of the world is there. We begin to die now.)

Noadi, gu mbakha-lekhé wa-mol-mo? (Noadi, why do you do this?)

Nu if-e-kha misafi gup-tekhé fédo-p. Nokhu-yanop-tu (I want to give these things to you. It is our people.)

Nokhu-yanop-tu. Wolakholol lembu-té-n-da (It is our people. The world will get out of order.) Yu nggulun. Yu manop. Gu di mbolombolop (He is a teacher. He is good. You tell our ancestors.)

Maf lebil lefu-manda (Picture tooth no more. Or: This is the last picture tooth.)

Ané kha-fén! Nokhu ima-fon khüp Lamotelokhai! (Let us go! We wish to see the Lamotelokhai!)

Nu khén-telo! Gekhené pesua im-le! (I am becoming angry! You saw the plane!)

Mbakha-leké mbolop? (Why are you with the mbolop? Or: What reason the mbolop?)

Yu nggulun! (He is a teacher! Or: He is a communicator!)

Khofé mbakha mo-mba-té? (Youngster, what are you doing?)

Walukh, Joamba. (Sick, Joamba.)

Nu be-khomilo-n-din-da. Nu khén-telo! (It is impossible for me to die. I am becoming angry!)

Gekhené khup lefu. Gekhené wola-maman-é. (Your time has ended. Your universe is now out of order. Or: Your world is ended.)

It has your keliokhmo. (It has gathered together knowledge of you.) You did not like the khofémanop, Addison. (You did not like the boy (son), Addison.)

Ya nokhu wola-maman-é. Nokhu solditai imoné khomilo. (Yes, as for us, the end of the world is there. We begin to die now.)

Yu khokhukh-telo-dakhu dialun. (He is strong and clever.)

I le-ba-lé ye-mén! (Come here, to this side!)

Gu nu u-ngga-lekhén-ma-té. (You want to kill me.)

Manda-é. Yu lé khomilo-mbo iMoné. (No. He is going to die now.)

Lamol mano-mano-po-dakhu-fekho. (Set the world right. Or: Make the world good.)

Nggulun, nun e khelép-té. Wolakholol be-lembu-té-n-da. (Teacher, it is clear to me. The world will not get out of order.) Khofé mano-pelu-m-é-o. Ge imo lalé. Lamol mano-mano-po-dakhu-fekho. (Boy, grow well. You see greatest. Make the world good.)

Nggé, nu lenggile-lé-dakhu. Nu gelilfo. (Friend, I am frightened. I am going away.)

Gekhené ané kha-mén-é. (You can now go home.)

Nggé, gu mbakha-to-fosü le-bo? (Friend, Where have you come from?)

Research Sources

I am thankful for the hard work of those who have painstakingly researched the cultures, wildlife, and ecosystems of Papua. The following are recommended books (and one video).

Flannery, Tim. Mammals of New Guinea. Chatswood, New South Wales: Reed Books Australia, 1995. Print.

Flannery, Tim. Throwim Way Leg: Tree Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds – On the Track of Unknown Mammals in Wildest New Guinea. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. Print.

Marriott, Edward. The Lost Tribe – A Harrowing Passage into New Guinea’s Heart of Darkness. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. Print.

Merrifield, William, Gregerson, Marilyn, and Ajamiseba, Daniel, Ed. Gods, Heroes, Kinsmen: Ethnographic Studies from Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Jayapura, Irian Jaya: Cenderawasih University, 1983. Print.

Muller, Kal. New Guinea: Journey Into the Stone Age. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Passport Books, 1997. Print.

Souter, Gavin. New Guinea: The Last Unknown. New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1966. Print.

Van Enk, Gerrit J. and de Vries, Lourens. The Korowai of Irian Jaya – Their Language in its Cultural Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.

Sky Above Mud Below. Dir. and Perf. Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (organizer and leader) and Gerard Delloye (assistant leader). Lorimar Home Video, 1962. VHS.

This is an amazing video filmed as it happened in 1959, when a group of explorers set out on a seven-month attempt to cross the jungles of Papua (then called Dutch New Guinea). Winner of the 1961 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Acknowledgments

I am not capable of creating a book such as this on my own. I have the following people, among others, to thank for their assistance.

When it comes to editing, my son Micheal Smith is extremely talented, and his tireless and meticulous suggestions are invaluable. If you find a sentence or detail in the book that doesn’t seem right, it is likely because I failed to implement one of his suggestions.

My wife Trish is always the first to read my work, and therefore she has the burden of seeing my stories in their roughest form. Thankfully, she kindly points out where things are a mess. Her suggestions are what get the editing process started. She also helps with various promotional efforts. And finally, she not only tolerates my obsession with writing, she actually encourages it.

I also owe thanks to my former colleague, Monique Agueros. She provided expert editing suggestions in spite of being an amazingly busy person. Thanks, Monique!

Finally, I am thankful to all the independent freelance designers out there who provide quality work for independent authors such as myself. Jake Caleb Clark (www.jcalebdesign.com) created the awesome cover for DIFFUSION.

Copyright © 2015 by Stan Smith

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To those who would do good with the powers they possess.

Infusion

Definition:

the introduction of a new modifying element or quality into something

Chapter One

1977 - Irian Jaya, Indonesia

Peter Wooley made his way up the rope ladder, feeling strong but awkward as his feet searched for each woven rung. He paused and looked down. The forest floor was at least forty meters below. The rope, made of intertwined strands of spider silk, was remarkably thin, but Peter knew it wouldn’t break. What did concern him, though, was that this was likely his last opportunity to climb it.

The rope ladder, or yebun, was suspended from the ceiling of a hanging hut, and Peter entered an opening in the hut’s floor as he climbed the last few meters. He stepped from the ladder to the floor. The hut bounced from the added weight, but he had become accustomed to this during the three days since his arrival at the hanging village.

Two tribesmen stood to the side waiting for him. Both were a good ten centimeters shorter than Peter and were easily recognized by the pincushion arrangements of feathers protruding from their hair—green lorikeet feathers for Sinanie and white cockatoo feathers for Matiinuo. Both men appeared to be no older than thirty, but Matiinuo was actually the village elder. Besides the feathers, the men wore few adornments and no clothes other than short, functional penis gourds, or mbayap. Behind the tribesmen stood Samuel, a peculiar Englishman who for some reason had been living among these villagers. Samuel gazed at Peter for a moment, allowing him to catch his breath, and then raised his brows as if asking if he were ready for what was to come. Peter felt unsure but nodded anyway. Without a word spoken, the men turned and walked out of the hut into a long hanging corridor. Peter followed.

Once again Peter marveled at the sensation of walking through a tunnel suspended in the canopy of the tallest rainforest trees he had encountered in all his travels. But this time it felt rather like a death march.

He fiddled with a talisman hanging from a cord around his neck. It was a sculpture of a tree kangaroo, meticulously carved from stone. Matiinuo had given it to him the previous day. Peter had assumed it was a token of friendship, but then Samuel had explained that it was more an offering of assistance. Matiinuo believed the tree kangaroo might help Peter succeed in the task demanded of him, but Samuel had also made it clear that if Peter failed, he would be killed.

They made their way through perhaps a hundred meters of hanging tunnel before it opened up into a larger hut. Doorways to five other tunnels were evenly spaced around the walls of the hut. The hut was like the hub of a wheel with six spokes. It was the most important hut in the village, but there were no sleeping mats, fire bowls, or other amenities. At the center of the hut was a section of tree, growing up through the floor and branching into two thigh-sized limbs at chest height. Molded around the Y in the tree was a brownish mass that resembled a ball of clay. From a distance it could have been mistaken for an arboreal termite nest. But Peter knew it was much more than that. It was like nothing he had encountered in his life. It was the reason he had been allowed to live for the last three days, and it was the reason he probably would not live to see another.

After entering the hut, Sinanie and Matiinuo stood to one side of the brown mass and Samuel stood to the other. They waited for him to approach.

“Samuel,” Peter pleaded, “I need more time with it. Maybe if I had a few more days.”

Samuel’s face, which was typically hard to read, now showed what might have been pity. “I will endeavor to convince them of that. You have indeed shown considerable propensity for your task. But I fear they do not believe you are the man they have waited for, and I am inclined to agree.”

Peter sighed. Samuel probably couldn’t help him even if he wanted to. He stepped forward and held his left hand just over the brown substance. He closed his eyes, thinking of the reasons he now had for living. The substance beneath his hand had extraordinary power—he felt obligated to let the rest of the world know. He had to live so he could do that. And he had to live so he could return to Rose, never to leave her again. She deserved that from him. Peter braced himself for the challenge before him. There was too much at stake to fail.

Without opening his eyes, he placed his hand on the substance. As before, it was cool and pliable. His palm tingled slightly. Suddenly a jumble of symbols appeared before his eyes, hanging there in the darkness. He opened his eyes, and the symbols were still there, superimposed over his view of the inside of the hut. Some of them looked vaguely like letters or numbers, but most of them were spirals, angles, or shapes that prior to the last few days would have been meaningless to him. He took a deep breath and reached for one of the floating symbols with his free hand. The symbols had no physical substance, but they responded to his gestures. He shoved them into piles based on characteristics such as the presence or absence of right angles. Once they were sorted into clumps, they disappeared, and another jumble of symbols filled his vision. He sorted them again, and then again, working faster with each group.

To his side, Matiinuo and Sinanie exchanged unintelligible words. Matiinuo was getting impatient. Peter had done these exercises before. He had to go beyond what he had already done or it was all over. With a violent swipe he cleared the virtual slate so that it would populate with all of the 128 symbols. Whatever this substance was, it had been trying to get him to complete an exhaustive sequence of tasks that gradually resulted in him assigning numeric meaning to each symbol, and then conceptual meaning to combinations of the symbols. Apparently the end result was that he would be able to input commands the substance would understand. Back home, Peter had recently purchased a new computer, a Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80, and he had quickly learned to input instructions using the BASIC computer language. He was now convinced the substance in this hanging hut had to be some kind of computer. But it was unlike any he had ever imagined. And he was confident that outside of Matiinuo’s tribe and Samuel, no one else had seen such a computer—at least no one on Earth. Because Peter had seen where the object had come from. It had been shown to him in a dream, a dream so astounding that his life would never be the same even if he did survive this day.

He took a deep breath and moved five of the symbols into a cluster. The rest of them faded away. He had already discovered that this combination resulted in a response. As expected, his cluster disappeared and was replaced by three clusters. This was the computer’s response to his command, but he wasn’t even sure what the initial command meant, let alone the response. He needed more time to master the language. Feeling defeated, Peter sighed.

Matiinuo grunted and then spoke. “Nu ne khelép-té. Wolakholol be-lembu-té-n-da.” Sinanie grasped Peter’s arm, ready to lead him out of the hut.

Samuel stepped forward and spoke to the tribesmen. “Mbakha-lekhé-nggolo? Nokhu be-Khelép-telo-n-din-da!” After a moment of silence, he turned to Peter. “My friend, for reasons unknown to me, you have shown great capacity for understanding the Lamotelokhai. But my indigene hosts appear unsatisfied. Perhaps if you would agree to stay here and assist me with my studies, they might see that you can be useful to them.”

But Peter sensed that his opportunity had passed. He would likely be killed before the evening rains set in. He simply shook his head at Samuel and turned his gaze one more time to the Lamotelokhai, the mass of clay that was somehow also a computer. He quickly repopulated the symbols and moved some of them into two piles. He had no way of knowing how accurate it was, but based on the meanings of symbol groupings he had established, he hoped that it said, “Help me.”

Sinanie firmly guided him away from the object and placed the rope ladder into his hands.

* * *

Samuel and Sinanie took Peter to the hanging hut where he had been forced to live for the last three days. After speaking earnestly to each other in Sinanie’s language, they left Peter alone. As he descended through the opening in the hut’s floor, Samuel assured Peter he would do what he could to convince Matiinuo to allow Peter more time.

Soon the rope ladder went limp. Peter was alone. He waited a few minutes and then climbed to the ground and began running. He knew this was probably suicide, but if he could get far enough before his absence was detected, maybe he could get away. Considering the stakes, he had no choice. For the first time in his life he had something consequential to contribute to the world. And he was willing to risk his life to return to Rose—to give her the life she deserved.

But the forest was extraordinarily dense and progress was challenging. Before long he was bleeding from multiple cuts and had lost the tree kangaroo talisman when it had been ripped from his neck. And disturbingly, one of the real tree kangaroos was trying to follow him. The creature could lead the tribesmen to him.

Skirting a dense stand of plum pines, he nearly collided with Samuel.

“Peter!”

Peter stopped abruptly. He felt a flame of hope. Perhaps Samuel had convinced the villagers to let him go.

“Samuel, I had to leave! I wanted to say goodbye, but I couldn’t risk it. The others—do they know I’ve left?”

Samuel stepped closer, his face etched with concern. “They are aware. You must know you cannot leave this place. It is not yet time.”

Peter scanned the forest but saw no sign of the tribe’s hunters. “I can’t stay here. Please, Samuel! You can stop them.”

Samuel shook his head. “If I am to endeavor to save your life, you must agree to remain. Stay here with me, Peter. There is much for us to do.”

Peter backed away. “All I ask is that you give me a chance. Try to hold them off.”

Samuel’s expression turned to alarm. “Do not, Peter. I beg you.”

Peter turned to run. Suddenly he glimpsed a familiar array of green lorikeet feathers in front of him. But it was too late to stop. Sinanie’s spear pierced his gut. Sinanie rushed forward, driving the spear deeper and knocking Peter off his feet.

Pinning him down with the spear, Sinanie stood above him, gazing into his eyes. Slowly, the tribesman smiled. Peter couldn’t move, and it became difficult to breathe.

Sinanie wasn’t alone now. There were two others. They intended to kill him. He would not leave this forest, and Rose would never know what had happened.

One of the tribesmen picked up a tree limb. He hefted it a few times, assessing its balance, and then swung it at Peter. The blow glanced off Peter’s forehead. Oddly, it numbed the pain of the spear piercing his gut. Peter stared up into the canopy above. For a brief moment, he tried to imagine he was relieved it was finally over.

* * *

With intense interest, the tree kangaroo, or mbolop, watched the violence from a low branch of a coral bean tree. Clubs pounded flesh until the flesh was no longer recognizable as a man. And still the clubbing went on. The villagers would make sure the body couldn’t heal and would never leave this place. Suddenly the mbolop gripped the branch and shook it forcefully, its mottled brown and gold body jerking up and down. The creature was agitated at this new development. Although biological in structure, the mbolop was different from the naturally-evolved tree kangaroos it had been created to resemble. It understood its own purpose. And as it watched the disintegration of the man called Peter Wooley, it began to doubt its purpose for the first time. Peter had been important, nearly equipped for what was needed, but he hadn’t been given enough time.

The mbolop jerked its body up and down one more time, then it turned away from the bloody scene. It paused for a moment, listening. It ignored the ambient sounds of the forest and the grunts of the men as they continued to pulverize the remaining flesh into the soil. It was listening for something else. Puzzled, it scurried to the main trunk of the coral bean tree and began climbing, its hind claws digging into the soft bark for leverage. When it reached the highest limb, it stopped and listened again. Nothing—no incoming instructions.

A concept began forming in the tree kangaroo’s consciousness, a plan to do something consequential. The man, Peter, was gone, but perhaps he could still be important. The mbolop began descending the tree, but then it hesitated. Perhaps its plan had formed as a result of incoming commands it hadn’t knowingly detected. It listened again, but still there were only the sounds of the forest and the men below.

The mbolop descended to the ground and approached the brutal scene until it was beside one of the laboring villagers. The tribesman paused only briefly when he noticed the creature then continued pounding the ground. The mbolop sniffed at a small mass of bloody tissue that had not yet been pulverized. It snatched up the mass with its mouth and scuttled back up the tree. It then bounded from tree to tree until it arrived at the churning brown river the villagers called Méanmaél. It descended to the water’s edge, dropped the mass of tissue on the bank, and began gathering and preparing materials: leaves it had chewed, water it carried in its mouth, decaying vegetation, and soil. The creature worked meticulously and without urgency. Narrow shafts of sunlight moved slowly across the forest floor and then vanished as the sun dropped toward the horizon and clouds began to fill the sky. Rain began falling, trickling through the canopy. The forest shifted from green to gray to nearly black. Still the tree kangaroo worked, shoving one pile of raw materials onto another and stamping them together, expelling mouthfuls of river water onto the pile, traveling far down the edge of the river to return with several live beetles and a grasshopper to be chewed and added to the accumulated materials.

Late into the night, the mbolop finally sat back on its haunches and eyed the mound. It was as high as the creature’s shoulders and as long as the height of a man. The tree kangaroo scratched its belly with one of its forepaws. Suddenly it plunged the entire paw through its skin and into its abdomen. After digging around for a moment, the paw emerged holding a glistening lump of flesh. The creature released the lump onto the pile of materials, then plopped onto its side on the ground, exhausted.

The mbolop listened to the soothing sounds of the roiling river water and night insects as it gazed at the product of its labor. It was almost asleep when the pile of materials began shifting, blending together, changing its shape.

* * *

Peter opened his eyes. He could see nothing but mud and leaves, faintly illuminated by dawn’s first light. He realized he was on his side in a fetal position. He rolled onto his back. Above him was a dense forest canopy, sparsely punctuated with glimpses of gray sky. A cloud of flies hovered over him, but they did not descend upon him to bite. He sat up. He was naked. He rubbed his legs above the knees, then held his hands up, staring at them as he clinched and unclenched his fists. He ran one hand over his abdomen and frowned. His appendectomy scar was gone. And so was the birthmark below his navel. His frown intensified as his eyes moved downward. His penis was no longer circumcised. He pulled the skin on it back and then released it, watching with fascination as it moved back into place.

He stood up, testing his legs. They felt strong. He looked around and saw that he was next to a river. After gazing at the brown water for some time, he turned and began walking in the direction the water was flowing.

* * *

Traveling was slow, but Peter had made steady progress. Occasionally he was forced to wade or swim across smaller streams that flowed into the river he was following. When he was thirsty, he had to wait for rain or drink the river’s muddy water. He found a few fruits to eat, but for the first few days he wasn’t particularly hungry and it didn’t seem important. On the fourth day he decided he needed protein. Finding it was not difficult; while walking next to the river’s edge during rainstorms, he had seen large earthworms with their bodies partially extended out of the saturated soil. When the evening rains came he found one of these and pulled it from its burrow. The worm was nearly a meter long. He could only eat it raw, but he was beyond being finicky and it provided all the animal protein he needed.

On the first night, Peter had not slept. Instead he had continued travelling, picking his way in the dark through the tangled understory next to the river. But by the second night he had needed rest. The flies still were not biting, so he had found a soft spot at the base of a tree and slept sitting up with his back to the trunk. This is how he spent each of the nights after that as he methodically made his way downstream.

On the morning of Peter’s eighth day of walking, still naked but feeling vigorous, he emerged from the forest into the blindingly bright clearing of a bustling village.

* * *

Peter drove his Ford Cortina to the top of his driveway, stopped next to Rose’s car, and turned off the engine. He gripped the steering wheel for a moment, then turned his hands over and looked at the palms. They were clean and smooth, without cuts or calluses. He closed his eyes and sighed, trying to gather his thoughts. Peter clearly remembered being attacked by the villagers, at least until the blow that had rendered him unconscious. He was glad to be alive, although he had no idea why the tribesmen had spared him. He had come out of the bush with no possessions or money, and it had taken two days of phone calls and deliberations to arrange a flight back to Cairns. Before being allowed back into Australia, he’d been examined by doctors. They found no health issues. Regardless, he should have been truly knackered by this point, but he felt fine, physically. It was the psychological exhaustion that was taking its toll.

He popped open the Cortina’s door and emerged into the full heat of a December day. He glanced at the front of his house and saw the curtains move. Rose was watching him through the window but hadn’t come out. Not good. He had called her from Jayapura, but she hadn’t even asked why his trip had been longer than planned. She was definitely mad. Peter had developed an obsession with embarking on the most physically demanding excursions he could dream up. Rose believed he had a death wish. The truth was, she was right. His solo walkabout to Irian Jaya’s interior had been ill-advised, in spite of months of preparation. It had been nothing more than his latest attempt at a glorified suicide. Well, today he would set things right. He would not leave her again.

When he entered the house, she was sitting at the table, fingers folded together in front of her. Three suitcases sat neatly arranged next to the door.

“Rose, what’s going on?”

She turned to him. Her eyes were red. “Peter...”

“What’s going on?” he repeated.

“I just—I can’t do this. Sitting here—waiting for you to die!” She had paused before waiting and then spit it out like venom.

Peter was stunned. “No, Rose—please! Something happened to me this time. I’m not the same man I was before.”

“You’re always the same man!” She hesitated. “What do you mean?”

He sat down in the chair across from her. “I haven’t told anyone yet. But I found something—in the bush. It’s something that will change the world, Rose!”

She stared at him. “Well, what is it?”

He looked at the table for a moment. He sighed. “I don’t know exactly what it is. It’s still out there.”

“I see. And you have to go back there to get it.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to say that.” He reached across the table and was slightly surprised when she allowed him to grasp her hands. “I know it’s been hard living with me. You deserve more. I’m trying to tell you that something has happened to me. It’s something so big I’m afraid if I try to explain it, you’ll think I’ve gone troppo. I need your help figuring out what to do. Stay with me, Rose. I’ll never leave you again. I want us to grow old together.”

She gazed at his face. Her eyes probed his like she was searching for truth. Seconds passed, with no sounds but the hum of the fridge’s condenser fan. Her brows creased as if she were puzzled by something she saw deep within his eyes. For a moment, Peter thought she might get up and walk out on him for the last time. But gradually her expression relaxed. She sighed.

“Promise me, Peter. Promise we’ll grow old together.”

“I swear, Rose. Bloody oath.”

Peter got up and walked around the table. He leaned over and kissed her. She stood up and embraced him, her face buried in his shoulder. Finally, she pulled away.

“Okay, how can I help you?”

Peter kissed her again. Then he considered her question. Where to begin? He wasn’t going back to Irian Jaya. He could never find the hanging village again. But eventually, someone else would.

He took her hand and led her to the bedroom. On a desk in the corner sat his TRS-80, with its keyboard in front and cassette storage drive to the side. It was gathering dust.

“I think we need to start here,” he said.

He sat in the chair and switched on the computer. Rose sat on the edge of the bed. As Peter watched white text appear on the video display, he thought of symbols materializing before him, visible whether his eyes were open or closed. He hadn’t been capable of learning to use the symbols fast enough. But someday someone else would need to. Perhaps everyone would.

Rose grabbed a cloth and wiped away the dust.

Chapter Two

42 Years Later

Papua (formerly Irian Jaya)

Quentin Darnell gazed down at his bare feet as he trudged along the bank of the Méanmaél River. He no longer missed his hiking shoes. He had discarded them because they made it difficult to climb the rope ladders in the hanging village. He had offered them to his wife, Lindsey, and then to his students, but his shoes were too big for any of them. Their shoes and most of their clothes had been lost three days ago, dissolved into soil along with the wreckage of the Twin Otter that had carried them out of the Central Highlands. Quentin’s feet were grubby, but they were mostly free of cuts and blisters, thanks to his body’s new healing ability.

They had been walking nonstop for hours and Quentin was lost in his own thoughts and engrossed in the strenuous, repetitive effort to make progress. Which is why it took him by surprise when an arm encircled his neck and threw him roughly to the ground. The impact took his breath away, but the arm immediately released him and a hand clapped over his mouth, signaling him to silence. He turned to his side and his eyes met Samuel’s. Beyond Samuel he saw the rest of his group, already on their bellies, cautiously watching something downriver.

Quentin nodded that he understood to be quiet, and Samuel withdrew his hand. With minimal movement, Samuel pointed downstream and across the river. There were several Papuan tribesmen there, standing in the water or sitting on exposed rocks. The men were talking, possibly taking a break from a long hike or hunt. Quentin counted five tribesmen.

He whispered to Samuel, “They can take us to their village. There may be an airstrip there.”

Samuel shook his head slightly. “I know of this tribe. They are murderous and pugnacious.”

Quentin looked at the men again. Oddly, they all seemed to be bald. Several of them were laughing at one of their companions, who was half-heartedly attempting to spear something in the water.

“They look friendly enough to me.”

Samuel shook his head again. “You do not know them as I do. Those men are preparing to carry out a raid on another village.”

“How do you know?”

Samuel tapped his head above one ear. “Based upon their headdresses.”

Quentin looked closer. The tribesmen were not actually bald. They were wearing caps made of hairless animal skin. Suddenly a chill ran its fingers down the back of Quentin’s neck. “They’re human skin, aren’t they?”

Samuel’s expression was grim. “It is their custom to wear them for days before a raid.”

Quentin suddenly felt vulnerable, and he hunkered down closer to the ground. “Why do they raid other villages?”

“In spite of the plentiful food sources you have seen available to the indigenes with which I have been a guest, this region can support few people. Sustenance is scarce. The chief source of animal meat for the few other tribes in the region is human flesh.”

Quentin eyed Samuel. He looked dead serious.

“Such is their savagery,” Samuel said. “The tribes regularly raid each other for the meat needed to sustain life. They know that Sinanie’s village is in the area, but they have never successfully completed a raid there. Inevitably they retreat after some of them are killed. They always manage to carry away their fallen companions, so I suppose they do not return to their village without meat.”

Quentin wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. He turned again to stare at the tribesmen. There was something odd about their skin. Parallel rows of bumps covered most of their chests and backs, arranged in patterns that looked vaguely familiar to Quentin.

As if reading his thoughts, Samuel said, “You see the scars on their bodies, no doubt. They are prideful of them, and administer them to each other, inflicting great pain, I’m told. They are arranged so as to resemble the scales of crocodiles, a creature which they revere.”

“Nice,” Quentin said. “If there are crocodiles in the river, why don’t they just eat those? I’d think that would be easier.”

“Perhaps you have not attempted to subdue a crocodile, Quentin.”

“Psst!” Lindsey hissed from her position several meters behind them. She then gave them a questioning look. She hadn’t heard the details of their conversation.

Samuel whispered to Quentin. “We should remain cautious and withdraw from the river’s edge. We can return to the river when we are far beyond these cannibals.”

Quentin simply nodded. He glanced one more time at the men with their skin caps and reptile scarification and then signaled Lindsey and the others to move silently away from the water.

* * *

A few hours later, after negotiating a two-meter-deep creek bed, Quentin stopped to help the others. One at a time he gave them a hand up the steep ravine, first Lindsey, and then Samuel, followed by the students, Ashley, Carlos, and Bobby. They all walked on ahead. The last to come up the slope was his son, Addison.

Quentin hesitated before holding his hand out to Addison, because the innocent-looking figure below him was not really his son at all. It simply looked like Addison, down to the last tiny, heart-wrenching detail. It had Addison’s freckled face and wild curly brown hair. It had Addison’s voice, and his frail frame and long fingers. It even smelled like Addison. But it wasn’t him. It was an unfathomable mass of substance that could change its shape and chemical composition. And that was only the beginning of what it could do. The Papuan villagers who had been hiding it for centuries called it the Lamotelokhai. The real Addison was gone. His memory had been wiped clean, and he was either already dead or wandering aimlessly through the forest miles away. Finding him would have been impossible, so Quentin and Lindsey had been forced to leave him behind to die.

The Addison replica looked up at Quentin and extended its hand as it had seen the others do. Still, Quentin hesitated. The thing’s eyes were the same pale blue as Addison’s, but for a moment their color seemed to shift to an unnatural fiery golden hue. It only lasted for a second, and then the eyes were blue again. Perhaps it had just been a reflection.

The figure stood there with its hand held up, waiting. “You are afraid,” it said. “Why?”

Quentin realized he was holding his breath and released it. He reached down and grabbed the thing’s hand. With his help it scrambled up the slope. It stood there next to him, waiting for an answer.

Quentin released its hand. “We have no idea what you really are. Or what your intentions are. Why shouldn’t I be afraid?”

It hesitated. “I cannot know why shouldn’t you be afraid.”

Quentin sighed. Although the Lamotelokhai was a fast learner, its speech still needed some work. As he turned to begin walking, movement caught his eye. Three tree kangaroos scurried up the ravine and then stopped at the Lamotelokhai’s feet. The creatures had been following them since they’d left the hanging village. Quentin turned and started walking, and the Addison replica and tree kangaroos followed him.

“As I said, we don’t know what you are.”

It replied immediately. “It would take much talking to tell you. When you sleep again, I will show you.”

Quentin turned around and raised his brows. “Another dream?”

It didn’t respond.

“Do you mind telling me what you’ll be putting into my head?”

“I will show you my creators.”

“That’ll definitely be interesting.” Quentin kept walking. “Well, you should expect us to be afraid until we know more about you. That’s the way people are.”

They walked in silence for some time. Quentin realized he didn’t like having the Addison replica behind him. He stepped to the side and gestured for it to pass by. It hesitated only briefly and then walked ahead.

When they caught up with the rest of the group, the tree kangaroos had disappeared. The Lamotelokhai joined Bobby, who then began asking it an endless stream of questions. The thing seemed naturally drawn to Bobby, probably because Bobby was the one who had learned to communicate with it first. That was before it had transformed itself into the shape of Addison. Bobby was predisposed to mastering the symbolic language the Lamotelokhai used. The language was based on the same set of symbols used in Kembalimo, a popular game he played. Quentin was baffled as to how there could be a connection between a computer game and this thing that had been hidden in the world’s most inaccessible wilderness for so long. The only explanation he’d come with was that it was a coincidence, but his gut told him it must be much more.

Quentin skirted around the teens and joined Samuel and Lindsey, who were now leading the way. For some time they had to walk in single file, fighting their way through thick brush. But eventually the forest understory thinned out enough to allow Quentin to walk next to Samuel.

“I know you think we’re making a mistake,” Quentin said.

Samuel walked in silence for a moment before replying. “It seems that the fate of the Lamotelokhai is now beyond my ineffectual reckoning.” He gave Quentin a brief glance. “However, I have been entertaining the notion of proposing to you that we halt our journey and establish our own tribal village here, where we might continue hiding it.”

Quentin and Lindsey burst out laughing. But then Quentin saw that Samuel wasn’t smiling. It had not been a joke.

Lindsey said, “I think we’ve already proven that we have no survival skills here, Samuel. You’ve had a century and a half of experience. We wouldn’t be much help.”

Samuel seemed to consider this, then he just nodded.

Quentin had been through a lot with Samuel in the four days since Samuel had found him, injured and delirious. But he still felt like he barely knew the man. Samuel rarely spoke of his past, other than to doggedly insist that he had been living with the tree-dwelling Papuan villagers for over 150 years, sustained by the restorative powers of the Lamotelokhai.

The funny thing was that Quentin now believed him. He had seen too much to doubt it was possible. So Quentin found it disturbing that Samuel was so reluctant to reveal his discovery to the rest of the world. Did Samuel know something about the Lamotelokhai he had not yet shared?

The understory became a dense tangle again so Quentin dropped back into single file and gave up trying to have a conversation. Soon after that it began raining.

* * *

After two days without sleep, Bobby was starting to hear ringing in his ears and see movement at the edges of his vision. But his mind wouldn’t rest. He had been forced to make decisions that had hurt people. To prevent the monster Addison had become from killing them all, Bobby had decided to have the Lamotelokhai erase Addison’s memory. He realized now it would have been easier on Mr. and Mrs. Darnell if he’d simply killed Addison. And then, thinking it might improve that problem, he’d decided to have the Lamotelokhai change itself to look and act like Addison. But this was apparently a bad decision, too, because it freaked them out. So far, the Lamotelokhai would do everything Bobby asked it to, and it seemed more willing to talk to Bobby than to the others. In the coming days Bobby would probably have to make more decisions. He was eager to learn more about the Lamotelokhai, but he didn’t want to be responsible for hurting more people.

It had been raining for an hour. The ground had become so muddy that Bobby had fallen three times. When Samuel slipped and tumbled down a minor ravine, they decided to stop for the night.

As the adults discussed how they might build a shelter from the rain, Bobby had to force himself to avoid staring at Ashley. She was muddy and soaked, and she frequently adjusted what little clothing she still had, trying to keep it in place. Bobby’s legs were tired, so he sat on the ground. His own clothes were little more than a few strips of his pants and half of his shirt. The remains of his pants were wrapped around his waist, so to keep his privates hidden he pulled his feet up to his crotch and put his arms around his knees. Carlos sat down next to him and assumed the same position, probably for the same reason.

Bobby said, “Maybe in a few days we’ll be home and sleeping in our beds.”

Carlos didn’t respond to this. Instead, he drew lines in the mud with his finger. Bobby wasn’t sure what to say to him anymore. Carlos had lost his brother, Roberto, in the plane crash just days ago. One minute he would be talking and seem happy, the next he would turn quiet and gloomy. Several times he had said he didn’t even want to go home.

Bobby looked at the forest canopy above them, trying to spot Mbaiso and the two other tree kangaroos. The creatures had followed them, but they would often disappear for an hour or more and then randomly show up again. He couldn’t find them, so he returned his gaze to Ashley. She was walking away from the group alone, toward the river. He got up and followed her. Surprisingly, Carlos came with him.

The river was maybe fifty meters from where they were setting up camp. When Bobby and Carlos stopped at the jumbled boulders near the water, Ashley was nowhere to be seen.

“Jesus flipping Christ, you guys! I’m taking a pee!” Ashley was squatted in the trees a short distance away, glaring at them. “Turn around!”

Bobby felt his face flush as he and Carlos turned the other way. Before he could stop himself, he slugged Carlos on the arm, to show that it was his friend’s fault that they had followed Ashley.

“Sorry for hitting you, man,” he said in a whisper.

Carlos just stared ahead.

A moment later, Ashley was beside them. “All done.” She looked at Bobby for a few uncomfortable seconds, and then she actually smiled. “I didn’t like coming down here by myself anyway. It kind of creeps me out.” She held up her hands and frowned as she inspected them. Then, apparently determined to wash them, she moved to the boulders at the river’s edge. The jumbled rocks on the bank made it difficult to step directly into the water.

Bobby pointed downstream. “Maybe down there,” he said. He and Carlos followed as she looked for a suitable spot.

“Did you guys want something? Or did you follow me to see me pee?”

Bobby said, “No, we just didn’t think you should come down here alone.”

“My heroes,” she said. Finally she found a place where she could step on several rocks to get to the water. She hopped from rock to rock. The rocks were wet from the rain.

“Be careful,” Bobby said.

“Seriously, Bobby?”

She ended up on a large boulder that sloped toward the water, and she inched her way down the slope on her butt until her toes were at the edge. She leaned forward and started scrubbing her hands.

Bobby decided to join her. He stepped on the same rocks she had used until he was looking down at her from atop the sloping boulder. Carlos had followed him, and they both sat down at the top of the slope and watched her. As she leaned forward, Bobby tried keeping his eyes from drifting below her bare shoulders.

Carlos surprised Bobby by breaking the silence. “There’s something in there,” he said. He pointed to the brown water in front of Ashley.

A large shape was rising to the surface. Bobby’s muscles tensed up as if electricity were shooting through his body.

“Ashley,” he cried. “Get back!”

She had already seen it. Just as she was pushing herself to her feet the shape exploded out of the water and lunged at her. Her arms flew up to protect her face and the thing actually rammed into her elbows, knocking her onto her back. It then crashed down onto the rock.

Bobby stared in horror, hardly able to comprehend what he was seeing. The head of a massive crocodile was on the rock between Ashley’s knees. It swung its jaws to the side and barely missed Ashley’s foot as she kicked and scrambled to get away, her feet slipping on the wet rock. The monster snapped again and almost caught her other leg.

At the edge of his vision, Bobby saw Carlos heave something. It was a football-sized rock, and it flew over Ashley and hit the crocodile squarely on the back behind its head. Apparently startled, the creature retreated into the water and sank out of sight.

Ashley rolled over onto all fours and fought to stand up. Finally her feet gripped the rock and she was upright. Her eyes met Bobby’s. He had never seen her look so stricken.

Bobby leaned forward, his hand outstretched. “Come on!”

Her face became determined and she held out her hand. But she was short by a meter. He inched his way down the boulder, and she took a step up. Their hands met. Bobby gripped her hand as tight as he could. Carlos grabbed Bobby’s other hand to keep him from sliding down.

“Hurry, Ashley!” Bobby said.

She took another step up the rock. “Did you freaking see that? Did you see it, Bobby?” She took another step.

With a wet swishing sound, both of her feet slipped. Her hand was yanked from Bobby’s grip. Her head hit the rock with a sick thud. She stopped moving and her body slid down the boulder and into the water.

For several drawn-out seconds, Bobby stared in disbelief. Ashley’s body bobbed to the surface, face down, and was carried downstream. Behind him, Carlos said, “Oh, shit.”

“Get the others!” Bobby cried, and then he skittered down the rock and plunged into the river.

* * *

The pile of sago palm leaves in Quentin’s outstretched arms was growing larger as Lindsey continued to add more. Samuel and the Addison replica were doing the same thing somewhere nearby. The plan was to use the meter-long fronds for the roof of a simple rain shelter.

Quentin was more than glad to be out of sight of the Addison replica. It was easier to take his mind off his son’s fate when he didn’t have to see a copy of him every time he turned around. Lindsey hadn’t spoken since they’d started collecting the palm fronds, and Quentin made no attempt at conversation. They were descending into a pattern of episodic periods of somber silence. They hadn’t actually articulated it, but there seemed to be mutual agreement that speaking during these episodes would only make things worse. Poorly chosen words could crumble the unsteady walls they were each trying to construct to hold back a tidal wave of grief.

“Help! You guys, where are you? We need help!”

It was Carlos, from back near the camp. Quentin made eye contact with Lindsey for a second that seemed longer than it was, and then he dropped the fronds and sprinted toward camp, crashing through the underbrush.

Carlos was babbling. “Hurry—real bad! It’s Ashley—drowning! And Bobby!” He turned and headed for the river with Quentin and Lindsey on his heels.

Quentin had no idea what had happened, but the thought of losing anyone else in his group prompted an upwelling of anger and determination. He wouldn’t let that happen.

“She fell in here,” Carlos panted, pointing to an area of jumbled boulders. “But the water carried her away. Bobby went in after her!”

Without waiting for further details, Quentin and Lindsey moved downstream, trying to stay close enough to the river to see the water. But the unencumbered sunlight at the water’s edge had resulted in plant growth so thick that this was nearly impossible. After moving perhaps fifty meters downriver, Quentin turned and plunged through the growth until he was standing waist-deep in the water. He had to grasp an overhanging tree to keep from being swept off his feet. Bobby and Ashley were nowhere to be seen. But then, about 75 meters down the river, Bobby’s head appeared. He was struggling, trying to get his footing while pulling something toward the shore. It was Ashley, her body mostly submerged and lifeless.

“Quentin, do you see them?” Lindsey called from shore.

Quentin pulled himself back up the riverbank. He tried not to show the terror that he felt. “This way!”

Moving downstream close to the water’s edge was a nightmare—vines and roots encircling their legs and torsos, causing them to progress in slow motion. But Quentin didn’t dare move farther from the river where he would be unable to see Bobby and Ashley. Finally he spotted Bobby through a gap in the foliage.

“There he is!” he shouted, not even certain the others were still with him. He bounded into the river and pushed aside the branches extending out over the water. The river was not as deep here, but slippery rocks and strong current made it hard to wade.

Bobby was perhaps ten meters out into the river, hanging on to a rock with one hand. His other hand was clamped onto Ashley’s wrist. He was trying to pull her toward him, to get her flipped onto her back. Ashley still wasn’t moving, and Quentin tried not to think about how long she had been face down.

Quentin slipped and then caught himself. He slipped again, this time floating several meters downstream before regaining his footing. He was making progress, but now he had to move upstream as well as across the river. Amidst his struggles, Bobby looked up and saw Quentin approaching, but he was obviously too exhausted to speak.

After slipping several more times, Quentin was at Bobby’s side. He grabbed Ashley by the armpits and turned her over. She was unconscious and her face was unnaturally white.

“I’ve got her,” Quentin said. “Can you get on your feet?”

Bobby still didn’t speak, but without the burden of Ashley’s body he was able to stand up.

Quentin looked at the far shore. It was at least fifteen meters away. They would have to haul Ashley back the way he had come.

Bobby didn’t wait to be told. He linked his fingers together under one of Ashley’s arms, and Quentin did the same with her other arm. They pushed toward shore with her between them. As they approached the shore, Lindsey and Samuel waded out to help. They all dragged Ashley up through the vegetation to a small clearing.

Quentin said, “Bobby, help me lift her! Samuel, we’re going to lay her over your shoulder so her head is hanging down.”

Carlos and Bobby helped lift her. When Ashley was hanging over Samuel’s shoulder, a disturbing amount of water trickled out of her mouth and nose. Quentin pressed on her back and chest and even more came out.

As they put her on the ground, Bobby spoke for the first time. “She was under water way too long.” He dropped to his knees and put his fingers on her neck, feeling for a pulse.

Lindsey didn’t wait. She kneeled on Ashley’s other side and began forceful chest compressions. Quentin heard a rattling waft of air go in and out of Ashley’s mouth with each compression.

“I don’t feel any heartbeat,” Bobby said. His voice was flat, as if he were too numb to emotionalize what was really happening.

Quentin gently pulled Bobby’s hand away and felt her neck himself. He moved his fingers farther under her chin, and then closer to the collarbone. There were no signs of life.

Ashley had drowned.

Lindsey was now sobbing, but she continued the compressions. Quentin didn’t bother to stop her. He released Ashley’s neck, got to his feet, and paced back and forth, clasping his head with both hands. He didn’t know whether to scream or to cry. For a few insane seconds he stared at a nearby tree and considered running full-speed into its trunk. Maybe it would crush his skull and put an end to everything. But he flushed the thought. He didn’t deserve such self-indulgence.

Finally, Lindsey stopped pressing on Ashley’s chest. She sat there on her knees, her tears creating lines of pale skin on her muddy face. She looked up at Quentin, and he saw more in her eyes than just tears. She was on the verge of panic. Like Quentin, she had reached a breaking point but knew that breaking would be disastrous for the entire group. She seemed to take comfort from this silent exchange with Quentin, and finally she nodded slightly.

Quentin turned to Bobby. “How did this happen?”

Bobby ignored him. Instead he spoke to the Lamotelokhai, his voice still unusually flat. “Bring her back. You can, right? I know you can.”

The Addison replica kneeled down but didn’t touch Ashley’s body. “Ashley is dead. I helped you when you were hurt. When I helped you, you were not dead. This is different.”

“I know you can do it.” Bobby’s voice now carried a slight edge. “Bring her back. I’m telling you to bring her back!”

Quentin was aware he should say something—he should intervene. But he remained silent.

The Lamotelokhai gazed at Bobby without expression. Its blue eyes again seemed to shift briefly to a peculiar golden yellow. It then pressed its finger against its own abdomen. With a faint pop, the finger pushed through the skin and disappeared all the way to the first knuckle. The finger came out covered in blood and curled around a walnut-sized mass of tissue. The Addison copy then moved its hand to Ashley’s face. It shoved the mass into her mouth and then wiped the finger across her cheek, leaving a red streak on her deathly white skin. As Quentin stared at the streak, it gradually faded. Seconds later there was nothing left but dry, rust-colored residue.

Everyone seemed unwilling to break the silence. Quentin’s eyes were glued to the stain on Ashley’s skin, but his mind was elsewhere, engaged in a raging conflict. What would happen to Ashley now? Why had he not stopped this? Why hadn’t Lindsey stopped it? Was their despair so consuming that they actually hoped this abhorrent copy of their son could bring Ashley back from the dead?

Quentin realized this was exactly what he wanted. As heinous as the idea was, at that moment he wanted it. After losing Roberto and Russ, and Miranda, and then Addison, he wanted it more than anything. He needed it in order to go on living. He looked across Ashley’s body at Lindsey, and he saw the same need in her eyes.

Minutes passed. Still, no words were spoken. As they watched, Ashley’s skin gradually turned from white to its original flesh color, as if the capillaries near the surface were filling with blood. The entire situation seemed surreal to Quentin. They were all gathered around Ashley, anticipating something that couldn’t possibly happen, at least not in the reality in which Quentin had previously lived. He understood that when an animal died, there could be no turning back. When the heart stopped beating, the cells throughout the body were deprived of oxygen and they died. This was why Ashley’s skin had turned white. And brain cells died even before skin cells did. Ashley’s dead brain cells had likely already released the enzymes that helped microorganisms break them down. Her memories, her personality, all elements of her consciousness, were gone in the first few minutes after her heart had stopped beating. At least ten minutes—maybe twenty—must have passed between Ashley drowning and the Lamotelokhai’s intervention. Decomposition began immediately after cell death, and there was simply no turning back.

Yet here they were, hoping and waiting for the impossible.

Ashley’s face seemed to shift, changing its shape. Quentin blinked, uncertain he was actually seeing it happen. As he stared, her forehead receded, and the skin on her cheeks sagged as if it were no longer attached to the underlying tissue. But soon her familiar facial features returned and solidified.

Quentin was looking directly at Ashley’s temple when it began to throb with a new pulse. At that moment he had witnessed the creation of life from nonliving matter. Minutes later, her chest began to rise and fall.

When Ashley opened her eyes, nobody had yet spoken since Bobby had ordered the Lamotelokhai to bring her back, perhaps a half-hour before. She blinked a few times, and then her eyes seemed to focus on the trees above her. She turned her head and saw that they were all gathered around her. Her brows furrowed and she frowned. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled cough.

Lindsey leaned forward and placed her hand on Ashley’s cheek.

Ashley turned to the side and spat out a mass of pale phlegm. Then she rolled over and vomited up a shockingly large mass of unidentifiable grey, viscous material. After spitting the remains from her mouth, she rolled on to her back again. She looked directly at Bobby.

“Nobody’s saying anything,” she said. “You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

Lindsey turned and looked at Quentin. Her tears were flowing again.

“This can’t be good,” Ashley said. “What happened?”

Bobby spoke to her. “You fell on the rocks, remember? A crocodile came at you, and then you fell in the river. I tried to get you out, but it was hard. It took a long time.” Bobby shook his head and looked toward the river, like he didn’t want to say any more. Then he turned back to her. “You drowned, Ashley.”

Ashley seemed to think about this. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never went to the river, and I didn’t see any crocodile. I think I’d remember that.” She tried sitting up, and Bobby reached out to help her. When she was upright she brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “I remember things just fine. We were all walking. It had started raining—raining for maybe fifteen minutes. It was getting slick. There was like, a gulley, and I stopped to give people a hand as they crossed it. Carlos and Bobby were behind me, so I helped them. Then there was—that thing.” She nodded toward the Addison replica. “I gave him a hand, too. That’s it. Then I woke up here, with everyone staring at me. What the hell, guys?”

The Lamotelokhai spoke. “Ashley, you died. Bobby asked me to reconstruct you. I did. You have the memories of the other Ashley that were available to me. The memories of the other Ashley that happened after the last time I touched her were not available to me. So I could not give you those memories.”

The thing stopped talking. The only sounds were the pattering of lightly falling rain and the constant hum from the cloud of flies buzzing at a respectful distance above them.

Ashley looked at her hands, then she ran them over her legs, inspecting them as if it were the first time she had ever seen them. She turned her gaze back to the copy of Addison.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘the other Ashley?’”

Chapter Three

Bobby sat on the ground with his back to a tree, silently watching the others. They seemed upset, confused about what had happened, and uncertain that they had done the right thing. And again it was all because of a decision Bobby had made.

When he had ordered Addison to bring Ashley back, it seemed like the right thing to do. How could he have made any other choice?

“I feel perfectly fine!” Ashley exclaimed. She was on her feet now, pacing back and forth, apparently annoyed at being told she should be sitting down. “What’s not fine is that I can’t remember what I did during a big part of the day. And the reason why is because the person who did those things wasn’t even me!”

“At least you’re alive,” Carlos said. “You almost got eaten.”

Ashley shot a hard look at him. “That was someone else, remember?” She then hesitated, and her frown softened. She sighed. “Okay. Yes, I’m happy to be alive. But the original me died. How am I supposed to deal with that?”

Bobby stared at the mound of mud he’d been pushing around with his hand. “I couldn’t save your life,” he said quietly.

“Well, you tried,” Ashley said, “and I’m grateful for that. You’re batshit crazy for jumping in a river with a crocodile.”

He stared at the mud.

“Bobby?” she said.

Reluctantly, he looked up at her.

“Thank you.”

There was an awkward silence as Bobby held Ashley’s gaze for as long as he could.

It startled Bobby when the Lamotelokhai was the one to break the silence. “Ashley died. Bobby asked me to reconstruct her. I did. Now I listen to all of you talk. You are afraid. You are angry. Why?”

Everyone was silent.

Mr. Darnell said, “Because we don’t know how you did what you did. We don’t know what it means.”

“It does not mean,” the thing replied. “It is what Bobby asked.”

Mr. Darnell stepped closer and actually looked at the Lamotelokhai as if it were one of his students. “Remember what I told you earlier? If people don’t understand something—fear. That’s how people are. It’s not possible to bring someone back from being dead. That’s something I know.” He held his arms out to include the others. “We all know that. But then Ashley woke up. How can that happen?”

The Lamotelokhai glanced over at Ashley before responding. “I did not bring someone back from being dead. I cannot do that. I made a new Ashley, using what I know of the other Ashley. It was easy, because most of the parts I needed were there, in the dead body of the other Ashley. I did not have to go elsewhere to get them.”

Mr. Darnell looked at the copy of Addison for a few seconds. Then he just shook his head and turned away.

It spoke to him again. “You are afraid. You are angry. Would you like me to take the parts I used to make this Ashley and put them back where I got them?”

Mr. Darnel and everyone else seemed too shocked to answer this.

“No!” Bobby said.

* * *

A short distance from the group of humans was a small-leaved fig tree that had fallen years ago but was still alive, supported by woody vines that had broken its fall. Three tree kangaroos sat on the angled trunk. Mbaiso, in the top position, watched the humans while wrestling with thoughts like none he’d ever had. Below him on the sloped trunk, the tree kangaroos Bobby had named Tupela and Tripela seemed more interested in sleeping than in contemplating the current situation. Mbaiso was not surprised or concerned at their indifference. They had been created long after Mbaiso, and for different purposes. They had never shown any inclinations toward decision-making or autonomy. Mbaiso was different. He had always carried out his instructions from the Creator, but he understood that things were changing and soon the instructions would stop coming.

Mbaiso turned to the other tree kangaroos and made a purring sound with his throat. When Tupela and Tripela opened their eyes, he lifted the front of his body and moved his forearms in a controlled gesture. His companions understood. They hopped to the ground and followed Mbaiso to the river.

Once at the river’s edge, they moved downstream until they were at the bank of jumbled boulders where Mbaiso had seen Ashley fall in. In single file, the tree kangaroos leapt from rock to rock until they were perched atop the large sloping boulder. Mbaiso then faced Tripela, sat back on his haunches, and began a long series of intricate gestures. As Mbaiso had predicted, Tripela signed back, ears flattened against his head showing agitation. Mbaiso patiently provided further information. Tripela’s role was important to his plan. Finally, the gesturing stopped.

Tripela crept down the sloped boulder. He stopped briefly to sniff a dark stain where Ashley’s head had struck the rock. When he was at the water’s edge he paced back and forth, pausing every few turns to thump his hind feet on the rock, creating as much movement and noise as possible. He then stopped pacing and abruptly leapt off the rock in a high arc and landed in the water. He swam back, climbed out, and went back to pacing and thumping.

Mbaiso observed from atop the boulder. Tupela had stretched out beside him and appeared uninterested. Abruptly, Mbaiso sat up straight, his muscles tense. A dark form rose to the surface in front of the rock. Without meaning to, Mbaiso let out a nasally, alarmed grunt. Tripela stopped and watched the water before him. He then thumped the rock. He thumped it again.

The crocodile cranked its tail to the side, propelling it forward and onto the rock amidst a storm of flying water. Its jaws swept to the side and caught Tripela’s head and left forelimb. Mbaiso heard bones crack as the jaw clamped shut. The crocodile slid back into the water and disappeared, dragging Tripela with it.

The flowing water carried away all signs of the disturbance, and the river was silent again. Mbaiso gazed at the water, the muscles in his haunches twitching, ready to flee if necessary. Tupela had retreated when the attack occurred, but now she returned to Mbaiso’s side, and together they watched the brown water slowly churning past.

Something large moved just under the surface. The crocodile’s head and back appeared, and then the creature went into a death roll, as if trying to tear apart a prey animal. Its legs and tail thrashed wildly, throwing water into the air and showering the tree kangaroos. Then the thrashing stopped as abruptly as it had started. The crocodile rolled over and floated with its white belly and diminutive legs sticking out of the water, motionless.

Tupela let out a throat-purr, indicating she was eager to return to the safety of the trees, but Mbaiso stayed put, watching and waiting.

The crocodile’s legs twitched, and then they began to move in a more coordinated way, as if the creature didn’t realize it was upside down and was trying to walk. Its tail then swept to the side, rolling its entire body over. For some time it floated there with its eyes and snout just above the water’s surface.

Mbaiso cautiously crept down the rock slope and stopped at the water where Ashley had washed her hands. The crocodile saw the movement and swam toward the rock. Its massive head inched closer and closer. Mbaiso’s haunch muscles began twitching again. His instinct was to flee, but he fought this urge and held his ground.

The crocodile’s snout bumped the rock, almost touching Mbaiso’s feet. Black pupil slits extending from the top to the bottom of its golden eyes revealed nothing of the crocodile’s intentions. Still, Mbaiso held his ground. He ignored Tupela’s throaty distress calls.

Abruptly the crocodile turned away. It began swimming, steadily and with purpose. Mbaiso watched it clamber over some exposed rocks until it disappeared on the other side, making its way upstream.

Tupela’s calls diminished in intensity and then stopped. Mbaiso climbed to the top of the slope. He turned to gaze up the river, but could see only rocks and water. The crocodile had a long distance to travel and much to do once it reached its destination.

* * *

While the others worked on setting up a shelter, Bobby’s job was to get the tree kangaroos to help him gather fresh fruits to go with the khosül—the sago and bug paste—Samuel had brought from the hanging village. Bobby had asked the copy of Addison to join him. The thing had been just standing there watching the others, so Bobby figured it might help to take it out of sight of Mr. and Mrs. Darnell for a while. And out of Ashley’s sight, too, for that matter. Understandably, she was still freaking out, trying to figure out what the Lamotelokhai had done to her. Bobby was still trying to wrap his head around what had happened too, but he was glad Ashley was alive.

Rain fell in spurts as it funneled though open holes in the canopy while Bobby and the Lamotelokhai watched the branches above for the tree kangaroos.

“I’m hungry,” Bobby said.

The Lamotelokhai didn’t reply.

“Do you need to eat food?”

The thing kept watching the trees. “No.”

“Then how do you stay alive?”

“I am not alive like you.”

“But you’re a computer. How do you get your energy?”

“I get my energy from things around me. Sometimes I need little. Now, in this form, I need more.”

“Because we walked all day?”

“Yes.”

“So what are the things around you that you get your energy from?”

“The air. Light of the sun. Things I touch.” It pointed to the ground.

“You get what you need from touching the ground?”

“Yes. And from touching living things.” It put its hand on a green leaf that hung near its head. Then it moved its hand to Bobby’s neck.

Bobby took a step away. “Well, I can’t do that. I have to eat.”

Something thumped the ground a short distance away. Soon there was another thump, and another.

“Sounds like they found food,” Bobby said. Watching to avoid getting hit, he rushed over and grabbed up two of the fruits, which were shaped like small footballs and covered with spiny green skin. He held them up to the Lamotelokhai. “What are these?”

“Yawol is the villagers’ name for them. Breadnut is the name Samuel would use.”

Bobby sniffed one of the fruits. “Is it good to eat?”

“I cannot know if it is good. There are seeds in it you can eat.”

When the breadnuts stopped falling, Bobby gathered about ten into a pile. Mbaiso came to the ground, followed by Tupela. They sniffed at the pile as if making sure Bobby had stacked them correctly. Then they both plopped onto the ground to rest, their hind legs sticking out to the side and their front legs tucked under their chests.

Bobby searched the trees for Tripela, but saw no sign of him. “What’s going to happen to them? After we leave here, I mean.”

“The villagers asked me to create the mbolop to help them talk to me. Now I am leaving the villagers.”

Bobby had been thinking about this. Mbaiso had become his friend. He would love to take the tree kangaroos home with him, but that was impossible. Questions would come up, and people would want to study them. “So what will happen to them?” he asked again.

“I can take them apart. Put the parts into the soil.”

Bobby’s stomach tightened. “You mean kill them? Like you did to Miranda?”

“Miranda was a living thing. The mbolop are not living things. But yes, like Miranda.”

“I don’t want them to die.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re my friends. Mbaiso is my friend. Do you know what friends are?”

After a short pause it said, “Yes.”

“Can’t they just keep doing what they’ve been doing?”

The thing didn’t answer.

“I want you to let them stay with Sinanie and the others in the hanging village,” Bobby said. “You’re gone from the village now, so I want the mbolop to help them learn to live without you. Will you do that?”

“Yes.”

“And maybe they can look for Addison. Then if they find him they can help him, too. Can they do that?”

“Yes.”

Bobby squatted in front of the lounging tree kangaroos. He reached out to pat Mbaiso on the head, but then both of them got up and hopped away. Instead of climbing a nearby tree, they kept going, headed in the direction of the river.

Bobby frowned. “Wait, they’re leaving now?”

“You asked me to do that,” the Lamotelokhai said.

“I haven’t said goodbye or anything.” Bobby watched the tree kangaroos disappear into the brush. “Can you let Mbaiso stay with us for now? Maybe just send the other two back to help the villagers?”

“Yes. I can send the mbolop you call Tupela. I cannot send the mbolop you call Tripela. I am not receiving information from Tripela.”

Bobby was considering asking what this meant, but then Mbaiso appeared, running straight back toward them. He stopped and plopped down in the same spot he had just left.

“How did you make him do that?” Bobby asked.

“I send information to the mbolop. The mbolop receives the information. That is how I made him do that.”

“So you talk to him, like wirelessly?”

The Addison copy looked at him. “Definition is needed.”

“You talk to him through the air, without touching him?”

“Yes.”

Bobby considered this. “You told Ashley you only had her memories from before the last time you touched her. If you can talk to Mbaiso wirelessly, why do you have to touch Ashley to get information?”

“Ashley is not the mbolop. I can talk to the mbolop wirelessly.”

Bobby sighed. “My mom would say, ‘you’re making my head hurt’.”

The Lamotelokhai stared at him.

“Never mind.” Bobby squatted in front of Mbaiso again. “I’m glad you’re staying with us a while longer, boy.”

Mbaiso twitched an ear to flick off the rainwater.

* * *

Quentin arranged the last sago palm frond on the lean-to and stood back to inspect their handiwork. The shelter was crude, and everyone was already soaked, but it would allow them to sleep without being pelted with rain. The others were arranged beneath it, busily extracting seeds from the breadnuts. There was enough khosül to last a few days, but the prospect of supplementing this mundane staple with something new was incentive enough to engage them all in the process. With some effort, the breadnuts could be split open by hand. Inside they were lined with rows of large seeds the size of walnuts, which they ate raw. Samuel said they were better when boiled, but there was little hope of starting a fire in such wet conditions.

Quentin inserted himself under the lean-to next to Lindsey. Samuel sat at one end of the row of bodies, pulling off chunks of the sago paste and handing them out. There was room for all seven, but the Lamotelokhai sat cross-legged just outside the shelter, facing them.

“You can come in here with us if you want,” Quentin said.

The figure did not respond.

Quentin held out the khosül Samuel had given him. “Do you want something to eat?”

“He doesn’t eat that way,” Bobby said, his mouth full of food.

Quentin withdrew his hand. “You don’t need to eat?”

“There are things that I need. But my units are efficient.”

This statement puzzled Quentin. “Your units? What are those?”

“They are my parts.”

Samuel asked, “What exactly are these parts?”

“My parts were made by my creators. This was their greatest achievement. My parts can do different things, but they can also work together to do one thing. Now they work together so that I may talk to you.”

Samuel frowned. “Your parts are separate things?”

“Yes. Working together they make me what I am. This gives me awareness and I can talk to you. And it allows me to tell my parts to work apart from me sometimes.”

Lindsey spoke up. “So is that what you do when someone removes part of you? Like when Bobby took part of you to make Addison forget? You tell those parts what their job is?”

“Yes.”

Lindsey seemed interested in this. “So if you keep giving portions of yourself away, how can there be anything left?”

“My existing parts make more parts when necessary. I must always have enough parts for my awareness to exist.”

Bobby said, “Can you show us how you tell some of your parts to do something on their own? Something besides making the medicine?”

Without taking its eyes off Bobby, the thing swung one arm over and grasped its other arm, pushing fingers into flesh. Suddenly the arm detached just below the elbow. The Lamotelokhai held the forearm out for them to see and then released it. It plopped onto the muddy ground.

Impulsively, Quentin dropped the lump of sago paste he was holding and reached for the severed arm, thinking in a brief moment of confusion that his son Addison was hurt. But then he stopped and—like everyone else—simply stared at the arm.

The hand began grasping at the mud.

Ashley said, “Oh great, it’s moving.”

It began changing. The fingers shortened, pulling into themselves. The arm arched, pushing its middle section off the ground like a huge inchworm and then fell onto its side. They stared in silence as the arm warped around itself, becoming a shapeless mass.

Then the mass grew hair—dense, short hair, mostly white but with gold splotches like islands on a map. The thing unrolled itself. At one end was a pink prehensile tail, still tightly coiled. At the other end was an absurd face. Two large round eyes sat on top of the head, turned peculiarly upward, with vertical pupils cut into ginger-colored irises. There were no visible ears, which made the head seem as round as a tennis ball.

The little creature rolled over onto its feet. Its pink nose twitched, sniffing the air. Marble eyes rolled one way and then the other, and then froze when they spotted Quentin’s lump of sago paste lying on the ground. With singleness of purpose, it waddled over and picked it up. Gripping the food in one forepaw, it climbed onto Quentin’s knee and held the khosül out to him. Quentin could think of no other response, so he accepted it.

Samuel cleared his throat. “That is a cuscus, of the genus Spilocuscus.”

After another moment of silence, Ashley said, “That thing would be the cutest animal ever if it hadn’t just come from a severed arm.”

“Very curious,” Samuel said. “This is a cuscus species I have not encountered in all the years I have collected here. It is no doubt related to Spilocuscus maculatus, but there are distinct differences.” He spoke to the Lamotelokhai. “What sort is this, if I may ask?”

The cuscus climbed from Quentin’s knee and ambled back to the Addison replica.

“This sort no longer lives,” said the Lamotelokhai, as it reached for the creature with its remaining hand. The cuscus stood on its back legs and raised its forelimbs, allowing the hand to grasp its chest. The Addison replica lifted it and pressed it against the stump of its arm. The cuscus began to transform again, and within a minute it was gone, replaced by a perfectly shaped and attached forearm.

Lindsey spoke to the Lamotelokhai. “These parts of yours—they are what, little machines? Like nano-robots?”

The Addison figure hesitated. “Definition is needed.”

“Nano-robots. Tiny machines—microscopic in size—that work together to accomplish things.”

“Yes,” the thing answered at once.

Shaking her head, Lindsey turned to Quentin and muttered, “Nano-robotics is all theoretical. We don’t even know if it’s possible.”

The Lamotelokhai must have heard her. “As I have said, my parts were my creators’ greatest achievement.”

* * *

Dawn was breaking. Quentin stared at the sun, an impossibly large, deep red orb. Wispy spires of nuclear inferno were visible on its surface. A network of thin lines, like a symmetrical spider web suspended high in the sky, moved across the crimson sun as it rose.

Quentin looked around him. Water was everywhere, reflecting the red glow. Tiny islands of rock emerged as far as he could see. On the islands were clumps of growth in dark patterns like lichens, with stands of thin stalks emerging from the center of each clump. Bulges at the tips of the stalks danced as they swayed in the breeze.

Quentin floated above the water and rocks, and he knew he was in a dream. The Lamotelokhai was communicating with him, showing him something.

The water below reflected cotton-candy-pink clouds as they drifted by. A ripple broke the water’s surface, and then another. Soon the ripples were everywhere—aquatic creatures becoming active in the growing light.

Quentin began to fly, propelled through the atmosphere of this foreign place by some invisible force. Soon the rocky islands zipped by below him. He saw something far ahead—a thin vertical line, extending skyward from the horizon until it disappeared. There were others like it to the right and left, almost obscured by the haze of distance.

Quentin flew faster, until the passing landscape was a blur. But the vertical line still seemed far away. It was unfathomably tall, and Quentin sensed that it was part of the distant spider web he had seen silhouetted against the rising sun. The line gradually drew closer until its width was much greater than the others to the left and right. And still it grew, until it filled his field of vision. Its smooth surface reflected pink sunlight. Quentin slowed, and the ground below came into focus again. Large clumps of growing stalks dotted the landscape, mostly orange at their bases, but with dazzling blues and greens at the bulging tips. Winding among the clumps were thin paths, and small, distant figures walked the paths.

As the tower drew even nearer, the walking figures became more numerous, some of them in large groups. The tower wall rose directly out of the rocks and there were openings at its base. Countless figures streamed in and out. Quentin was swept into one of the openings and down a wide passageway with walls that emitted pinkish light. The moving figures were abundant here, but his speed prevented him from discerning their specifics.

Finally the passageway ended and Quentin emerged into a vast open space, the hollow center of the tower. While the outer surface was featureless, the interior was riddled with doors, balconies, and walkways. The doors glowed with specific colors, and the wall, gently curving inward for miles, resembled an array of shimmering pixels fading into the distance.

Before Quentin could adapt his sense of scale, he accelerated upward. Spherical pods flew about in the atmosphere of the tower, each of them emanating a color. There were no visible means of lift or propulsion, but the pods moved at great speed. He climbed higher, and they became more abundant, until the swarm of flying pods obscured the tower’s floor below. Then without warning he plunged horizontally into another passageway. When he again reached the outer wall of the tower, a door opened and he shot out into the open air. At this height above the ground, the sky was darker, and stars sparkled through the thin air above. Still the tower rose higher. Again he accelerated upward, flying parallel to the tower’s exterior surface.

Finally he spotted the summit. The tower was topped with a large disk-shaped node. Massive tubes joined the node, extending out in six directions. It was the spider web Quentin had seen from the ground. The tower connected the planet’s surface to an unthinkably vast network, which appeared to envelop the entire planet in a perfectly stable geostationary orbit. Quentin was struck by the node’s resemblance to the central hut of the Papuan village, which had housed the Lamotelokhai and was joined to six hanging tunnels.

He passed the lower edge of the node and rose toward its top. As he rounded the upper edge, the vast roof of the node lay before him. It was a disk the size of a city, joining six tunnels that were each at least a mile in diameter. There in the center of the disk something was happening. A cloud of particles was dispersing upward. He drew nearer and realized that the particles, which were not so small, were coming from openings in the disk’s surface. He approached one of the openings. An object emerged from the portal and then shot into space to join the others. Another object appeared at the portal, held in place by clear, glass-like rods to a platform that had lifted it. It was about a meter across and roughly spherical. The clear rods pulled free of the object and retracted into the platform. The object shifted itself and sealed up the holes where the rods had been, and then Quentin knew what it was—the Lamotelokhai.

The platform snapped upward, shoving the thing off. Quentin watched it drift away, joining the cloud of thousands—perhaps millions—of others, all hurtling into space.

* * *

Quentin stirred, the dream lingering in his mind. It was still dark. The rain had stopped, but the silence was punctuated by pattering drops falling from the wet forest canopy. He rose to one elbow. The Addison replica still sat in the same spot watching him.

“I guess you don’t sleep, huh?” Quentin spoke softly so as not to wake the others.

The figure did not respond.

Quentin whispered, “The dream I just had—you put that into my head, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” the figure whispered back. Either it was mimicking Quentin’s tone, or it actually understood the purpose.

“That was the home of your creators, where you came from?”

“Yes, as it was long ago when I was created.”

Quentin studied the Lamotelokhai. He was still struggling to grasp the enormity of what he had witnessed. The massive web that encircled the planet likely provided more living space than the planet’s entire surface. It was beyond comprehension. Nevertheless, the Lamotelokhai had said it was the tiny particles in its own body that were the greatest achievement of its creators. And this achievement was here, sitting in the mud directly in front of Quentin.

“Why did you come here?” Quentin whispered.

In spite of the darkness, he saw the figure smile.

“Perhaps soon you will see why.”

* * *

Bobby was the last to wake. He was aware the others were up—he heard them talking about the dream they’d all had—but he was still exhausted. He rolled over and covered his ear with his elbow, but it was no use. The morning birds and insects were making a ruckus, and it just wasn’t comfortable lying in the mud. Besides, there was the dream. As he listened to the others talk, the details came back to him: The red sun; fish swirling the water; flying into a tower that went all the way up to space; and finally the Lamotelokhai. There wasn’t just one Lamotelokhai. There were too many to count.

“Welcome to the living, Bobby,” Ashley said.

Bobby wondered if she’d intended that to carry deeper meaning than just a morning greeting. He mumbled something that wasn’t clear even to him. He squinted at Ashley. She was filthy, and her hair was a tangle of twigs and mud balls. And she was beautiful. “You look like a mudpuppy,” he said.

Ashley snorted. “If I had a mirror, I’d make you look at yourself.”

They were all grubby and damp. Carlos had managed—maybe on purpose—to spread mud over every inch of his body including his face. Even Samuel was a sight. He must have tried to wash himself in the river, because he was dripping brown water. The only one who looked normal was the Lamotelokhai. The thing still sat on the ground, perfectly clean, in the same spot where it had pulled off an arm the night before.

Bobby eyed the Lamotelokhai. It was easy to forget that the thing used to look like a mass of clay. It seemed so much like a person now. Not really Addison—because it said things Addison wouldn’t say—but still like a person. He spoke to it. “That was the place you came from, wasn’t it? In my dream?”

“Yes.”

“What were those things swimming in the water? Were they fish?”

The Lamotelokhai nodded toward the adults. “Your questions do not fit the pattern of questions from the others.”

Bobby frowned. The thing had always just answered his questions before. “They’re grown-ups, I’m a kid,” he said. “Were they fish?”

“No, not fish. But in some ways like fish. Would you like to see?”

Bobby wasn’t sure what that meant, so he shrugged. “Sure, let me see.”

The thing then repeated the same act it had performed the previous day. It pulled its own arm loose and dropped it onto the ground. Ashley and Carlos moved to Bobby’s side. They stared at the arm, waiting. Like before, it curled up and then shaped itself into something else. Soon it was a perfectly formed creature, flopping in the mud. It was definitely not a fish, even though it had the shape of one. The tail looked like a fish’s, spread wide and trying to swim by flipping at the air. But the creature’s skin looked nothing like a fish’s. It was more like hard leather with softer joints that let it move. The leather was the color of dried blood on the top of the body and pink lemonade on the belly. But Bobby’s eyes were drawn to the strangest part, the head. Actually, there were two of them—or maybe two parts of one head. The hard skin did not cover the heads. This made the body look like a cone, and out of the open end of the cone came two thrashing eel heads about the size of Bobby’s thumb. Each head had two eyes and whiskers that seemed to be feeling for something. There was one mouth just below where the two eel heads joined the body. The mouth opened and closed as if gasping for air. As they watched, the creature’s flopping began to slow down.

Ashley was the first to say something. “Whatever that is, it’s dying.”

“It’s not even real,” Carlos said. Then he looked at the Lamotelokhai. “Is it real?”

“It is a copy, like I am a copy of Addison.”

The adults came over and watched the thing die.

“That is a creature unlike any I have seen,” Samuel said. “What exactly is it?”

“It’s from the Lamotelokhai’s planet.” Bobby said.

The Addison copy picked up the creature, which was now hardly moving, and reattached it to his arm. Soon the creature was gone, and the hand was good as new.

“Why did it have two heads?” Bobby asked.

The Lamotelokhai flexed its hand. “Many of the living things on the planet of my creators had heads similar to this.”

Samuel cleared his throat. He was frowning. “How much time has passed since you left the world upon which this creature swam?”

“A unit of time is needed,” the Lamotelokhai said.

Bobby said, “It wants to know how long is—”

“Yes, I do see that,” Samuel said. “Generally we measure the passing of time in years. A year is the time it takes for the Earth to complete its path about the sun.” Samuel pointed up, even though the sun couldn’t be seen. “Approximately 365 days and nights pass in a year.”

The Lamotelokhai didn’t even pause to think about this. “Six zero two three four two eight nine two years. That is the time that has passed since I was sent from the world upon which the creature swam.”

Everyone was quiet. Bobby tried to picture the number on paper, but it didn’t work. He noticed that Mr. Darnell was counting on his fingers as he repeated the number in his head.

He finished counting and said, “Nine digits.”

“That’s 602 million years ago,” Mrs. Darnell said.

Mr. Darnell was still holding his fingers up. “The number you just gave us was six hundred and two million, three hundred and forty-two thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two years. It’s easier for us to understand if you say it that way. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Is that number really correct?”

“Yes.”

“So when did you arrive here on this Earth?” Mr. Darnell asked.

“I arrived 221,880 years after I was sent from the world of my creators.” It stated the number correctly this time. “So I arrived here 602,121,012 years ago.”

Again, everyone was quiet.

“Extraordinary,” Samuel said. He paused for a moment as if thinking. “Last evening you showed something to us. It was a cuscus of the genus Spilocuscus. You claimed that the species no longer lived. Yet you seem to have memory of it, memory sharp enough to create an accurate imitation of a living individual. Do you have memory of other living things from the past?”

“Yes. I have memory of living things I have encountered since I arrived here.”

Mrs. Darnell said, “You have that kind of information about living things on Earth for the last 602 million years?”

“Yes. There were no living things on the land when I arrived here. But many were in the water. Later, living things were on the land. I have information on all that I have encountered.”

“My God,” Mrs. Darnell said. “Quentin, it’s a databank of the evolution of life.”

An idea hit Bobby like a punch to his head. “You were here when dinosaurs were here, weren’t you?”

The Lamotelokhai looked at him. “Definition is needed.”

“You know, dinosaurs! They were big and kind of like lizards. They were reptiles—really big ones. Some of them ate plants, but some of them were the biggest predators ever.”

“Yes, I was here when dinosaurs were here.”

Bobby turned to the others, his face hot with excitement.

“Way beyond extraordinary!” he said.

* * *

They continued downstream, along a trail that was often no trail at all. The ground was slippery, with treacherous slopes where minor streams merged with the river. It was slow going, and Quentin had little choice but to face his own beleaguered thoughts.

The Lamotelokhai had revealed medical and physical phenomena Quentin had believed impossible. Now the thing claimed to have occupied the Earth for over half a billion years, recording information on evolving life forms. So much information that it could create an exact copy of any living thing it had encountered. It must also have data on such things as water and air chemistry. And this was just for the Earth. What about its planet of origin? And the regions of space it had traveled through before arriving here?

It was clear the Lamotelokhai’s discovery would be seen as one of the most significant events in human history. Bringing it out of hiding was now their chief responsibility. The Lamotelokhai, whatever it was, was bigger than Quentin—bigger than all of them. Maybe even bigger than Addison, whom Quentin had abandoned in the wilderness to die alone. And the importance of the discovery served as a rationale, a justification for this personal nightmare and the remorse that promised to haunt his remaining days.

But even as this notion took hold, a conflicting fixation was sprouting within Quentin, taking root and growing like malignant kudzu through his mind. He felt intensifying anxiety about revealing the Lamotelokhai. He could no longer convince himself it had originated on Earth. The Lamotelokhai was what it claimed to be, and it held the knowledge of a far superior race of beings.

Quentin thought of the Papuans his parents had introduced him to so many years ago. Gupy had treated young Quentin as an adult, showing him how to sharpen the blade of a bush knife while his parents weren’t watching and telling him jokes about the village women. Quentin couldn’t understand the words, but the jokes were evidently sexual. And Amius, with a penchant for having his picture taken, had hoisted Quentin into his lap repeatedly, knowing Quentin’s mom could not resist the photographic opportunity.

But Gupy and Amius’s tribe had changed in the years since Quentin’s parents had studied their language and had exposed them to the outside world in the process of making a documentary. At only seven, Quentin hadn’t been able to grasp the significance of Bintang beer bottles piled higher than his head outside the huts, or used needles and cigarette butts littering the ground. Quentin’s dad had taken all the blame for this upon himself. It hadn’t been his fault, of course. The tribe would have merged with the modern world eventually. But crushing self-reproach had destroyed his father, and therefore the event and its consequences had shaped Quentin’s existence and worldview. Although the Lamotelokhai might benefit humans beyond imagining, Quentin was bringing an advanced culture’s influence to his own species. He was living out his father’s story on a global scale.

And so a fierce conflict grew within Quentin as he trudged, stumbled, and slid about in the mud, slowly making his way downriver with the rest of the group.

Most of the others had become quiet after the first hour of traveling. But Bobby seemed to have an endless stream of ideas and questions for the Lamotelokhai, and it distracted Quentin to listen to them talk.

“There were lots of others like you,” Bobby said. “I saw them being shot out into space. Where did they all go?”

“I cannot know where.”

“Did they go to other planets?”

“I cannot know. That was their purpose. It is likely some of them found suitable destinations, as I have. Others may still be searching.”

“That’s a long time to search.”

No response.

“So you were here 245 million years ago, right?”

“Yes.”

“So you saw them, right? You saw dinosaurs. Live dinosaurs.”

“Yes, I encountered them.”

“So you could make one to show us?”

“Yes.”

“But what if it’s bigger than you? How could you do that?”

“I would need other parts.”

“What kind of parts?”

“The parts could come from many things.”

“Could you use this tree?” Bobby patted a fig tree as he passed it.

At this point Quentin jumped in. “Bobby, that’s a bad idea. Promise me you won’t ask it to do that.”

Bobby’s shoulders slumped. “Maybe just an herbivore?”

Quentin shook his head. “Until we know more about it, don’t ask it to make anything.”

Eventually Bobby seemed to run out of questions, and the group pushed on in silence. Morning turned to afternoon, creating a sauna beneath the canopy’s cover. Afternoon turned to evening, and still they trudged on. When the rain started, it washed away some of Quentin’s sweat, but it didn’t help their progress. Much of the ground had baked hard during the day, but the rain made walking perilous again. No one objected when Samuel suggested they stop.

They followed the same plan for making camp. Bobby collected fruits with help from Mbaiso, the only tree kangaroo still following them. Before long they were sitting under a new shelter, eating the fruits and the last of the khosül. Again the Addison replica sat in the open. Bobby asked it a few random questions but then lay on his side, clearly exhausted.

“Goodnight everyone,” Bobby said.

Ashley and Carlos did the same. Lindsey squeezed Quentin’s hand once and lay down. Samuel, at the opposite end of the lean-to, rose and moved to Quentin’s end. He pardoned himself and sat next to him.

“I don’t suppose you have a plan upon our arrival at a village,” Samuel said quietly.

“What do you mean?” Quentin said, but he was pretty sure he understood.

Samuel eyed the Addison replica. “Quentin, in order to prevent my worst fears, we must reveal the Lamotelokhai only to those least likely to become intoxicated by its influence. You need only to think of your son Addison to know this is true.”

Quentin looked at him sharply.

“I am sorry,” Samuel said. After a pause he went on. “The world is no doubt full of men capable of becoming monsters, given the means to do so. It is upon us to see that the Lamotelokhai does not become the property of such men. We must reveal it to those you would know to be true of purpose. Do you believe the men of position in your home country are to be trusted with such power?”

Quentin sputtered a laugh, but then he thought about this. “Depends who we’re talking about. But it’ll be as safe there as in any country. Much safer than in some.”

“Then that is where we should take it. But having a destination does not make the journey easy. We must have a plan for when we reach a village, for surely we soon will.”

Quentin shifted in the mud and eyed the Lamotelokhai, which watched them without expression. He turned back to Samuel. “If we’re lucky, the village we find will have a radio. If they do, we’ll call for help and a plane will pick us up and take us to Jayapura.”

Samuel looked baffled, and Quentin sighed. “I imagine we can get that far without much suspicion. After that, I don’t know. They’ll want to do medical exams, vaccinations, stuff like that. They’re going to wonder why we’re all perfectly healthy.” Quentin nodded at the Lamotelokhai. “And then there’s that thing.”

“You are worried,” the thing said. “Why?”

Quentin could see no reason to hide anything. “We want to take you to my home, the United States. We’re worried that people will stop us. They will examine us to see if we are healthy. We’re worried that when they examine you they’ll see that you’re not a real person. Then they might try to keep you and use you to do bad things.”

“How will they examine me?”

“They’ll listen for your heart beating. They’ll take samples of your blood. Maybe they’ll X-ray you so they can see your insides.”

“I will make myself look real to them.”

Quentin studied the thing’s face. Why should he doubt that it could do this? It had made an extinct cuscus out of its own arm.

“Let us hope that you can,” Samuel said. “There remains one other matter, however.” He looked directly at Quentin. “If it is to be Addison, then you must call it by that name. We cannot continue to call it the Lamotelokhai.”

Quentin sighed again. He turned to the figure. “Samuel is right. We will have to call you Addison.” He pointed to the others one at a time. “I want you to call them Ashley, Carlos, and Bobby. They are Addison’s friends. Lindsey is Addison’s mother. You call her Mom.” Quentin paused. “And you call me Dad. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Samuel lowered himself into the mud and placed both hands behind his head as a pillow. “It appears we have a plan.” He closed his eyes.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Quentin whispered. He settled onto his side and put one arm around Lindsey’s mud-crusted shoulder.

“Goodnight, Dad.”

Quentin raised his head and stared. The thing sat motionless, watching him.

“Goodnight, Addison.”

Chapter Four

“There are others with us.”

It was the voice of the Lamotelokhai—Addison’s voice. The meaning of the words took hold, and Bobby sat up, scraping his head on the rough edge of the shelter’s sago leaves. The Lamotelokhai sat in the same spot from the night before. But it was pointing. Bobby’s gut tightened. He looked where it pointed. Even in the gloomy morning light he saw them immediately. Three Papuan men stood there watching them.

“Look, you guys! People!” Bobby cried, louder than he’d meant to.

Suddenly everyone was awake, mumbling or staring dumbly at the strangers. The Papuans shot nervous glances at each other. Bobby could see that they were not from Sinanie’s tribe. They looked old, with scars and rashes. And their bodies were thin, the skin stretched over the bones.

“Do not fear them,” Samuel said. “It is a hunting party.”

This was obvious. The men wore no clothing except tightly fitted penis gourds. Two of them held bows and arrows in their hands. The third man carried a shotgun on his shoulder, holding it by the fat barrel with one hand. In the other hand he held a dead tree kangaroo by its tail. Bobby stared at it until he was sure it was not the same species as Mbaiso.

Samuel approached them with his arms out. “Nggé, gu mbakha-to-fosü le-bo?”

The Papuans shook their heads. Samuel tried the ancient Papuans’ language again. From what Bobby could tell, he was trying to tell them they were looking for a village.

The man with the shotgun spoke a long string of words. Most of them Bobby had never heard before, but he heard lekhingga, which he was sure meant far away. And there were some words of pidgin mixed in: waitman, which meant white people, and balus, which meant airstrip or airplane.

Bobby remembered every word of pidgin he’d learned in Wamena, so he moved to Samuel’s side. Bobby said, “Mipela laikim bilong yu helpim. We need your help.”

The man with the shotgun smiled and answered, “Mipela nogat wailis. Mipela bringim yu long viles wantaim wailis.”

Bobby turned to the others. “He says they don’t have a radio, but they’ll take us to a village that does.” Everyone stared at him. “It’s pidgin. I learned it in Wamena.”

“Yet again you surprise me, Bobby,” Samuel said. He turned to the others. “We should make haste before they withdraw their offer.”

There was no breakfast to eat and no gear to pack. Mrs. Darnell and Ashley said they were going to the lady’s room and went off together. While the others waited, the strangers stared at the Lamotelokhai. Even though the thing looked similar to the rest of them, there were differences. Its white skin and curly hair were clean. And there was the strange way it quietly watched everything that was happening, never really helping or taking part, but always watching.

When Mrs. Darnell and Ashley came back, the shotgun man pointed at the Lamotelokhai and spoke to his friends. They stared at it and nodded. Samuel stepped up and said, “Very well, then. Shall we go?” He waved for the men to lead.

They didn’t move. They were now looking at the trees above. The shotgun man spoke to one of the others, who raised his bow and nocked an arrow.

Bobby looked where they pointed. Suddenly his heart was in his throat. Mbaiso was climbing down the tree toward them. The tree kangaroo was very near, an easy shot for someone good with a bow.

“No, don’t!” Bobby cried and rushed forward. But he was too late. The man released the arrow. Bobby turned in time to see it pierce Mbaiso. Its force tore the kangaroo from the tree. Mbaiso hit the ground with a sickening pop, and then lay there, not moving.

Bobby looked back at the men, who seemed surprised by his outburst. “He’s our friend!” he said. “Wantok. Friend!”

The shotgun man held up his dead tree kangaroo. “Abus. Kaikai.”

Bobby ran to Mbaiso. The arrow protruded from both sides of his body, but the kangaroo’s eyes were open, and they turned to Bobby as he knelt down. Bobby assumed Mbaiso could survive the arrow but feared what would happen if the Papuans got their hands on him. They might try to skin him and cut him up for food.

“Addison, help me!” Bobby cried.

The Lamotelokhai came over and knelt next to Bobby. The Papuans gathered around, apparently curious about all the fuss.

“We can’t let these men have the mbolop,” Bobby said to Addison. “Can we send Mbaiso back to the tree house village, like we talked about before?”

The Lamotelokhai grabbed the arrow, snapped it in half next to Mbaiso’s body, and then pulled it out from the other side.

Bobby glanced at the Papuans, worried they would be mad about the broken arrow. The men watched but didn’t interfere. Addison grabbed Mbaiso’s arms and lifted him onto his haunches. He sat like that for some time, looking into Mbaiso’s eyes. Finally he let go. Mbaiso scampered back to the tree and climbed to the first horizontal limb. After looking down at them for a moment, he then moved higher to where the branches meshed with other trees. Soon he was out of sight, moving upstream, back the way they had come. Bobby stared at the spot in the trees, and he realized he would never see Mbaiso again.

“M wé! Mayokh, gu laléo-lu!” cried one of the Papuans. All three of them stared wide-eyed at Addison. If they weren’t suspicious about him before, they definitely were now.

This could ruin everything. Bobby rose to his feet, thinking furiously. He spoke to the Papuans. “Bilong balus.” He then used his hand to show how their airplane fell from the sky, and he made a crashing sound. “Mipela lus. Bilong tumbuna kam helpim, luk mbolop.” The men didn’t respond and Bobby tried to say it differently by rearranging words. What he wanted to say was, “Our plane crashed, we were lost, and our ancestors came to help us, looking like tree kangaroos.”

The men frowned at each other, probably because they weren’t buying the story. The forest sounds seemed to grow louder to fill the uncomfortable silence that followed. Finally the man with the shotgun said something to his friends, and the Papuans turned and walked away. No one else moved. When the men realized they weren’t being followed, they stopped.

“Bihainim!” one of them called out, and waved for them to come along.

* * *

Despite the Papuan hunters’ bedraggled appearance, they forged ahead relentlessly, showing no signs of fatigue. Quentin hadn’t seen the river for some time, and there was no visible trail, but the men seemed to know exactly where they were going. After perhaps three hours of walking, in which Quentin estimated they’d covered only three miles, the terrain began to change. The relatively flat lowlands of the river valley gave way to more densely vegetated hills, slowing their progress even more.

The Papuans showed considerable patience toward the slower Americans. Quentin lost track of the number of times the men stopped to wait for them. They would sit cross-legged on the ground, smiling at the stragglers as they caught up. When everyone was assembled they would rise to their feet and say, “Viles no longwe,” which meant, the village is not far. And the walking would start again.

This continued through the morning and into the afternoon. And still the village was ‘no longwe.’ Progress became agonizingly slow. At any given time they were either climbing a hill or descending one. They had not eaten or drank all day, and this was showing its effects. Finally, Lindsey insisted that they take a break.

“We’re tired and thirsty,” she said to the men. “We need to rest.”

They didn’t respond, so Bobby spoke up. “Um, plis. Les. Malolo. Kaikai. Wara.”

The men exchanged some words and then seemed to reach an agreement. They set their weapons down. The Papuan with the shotgun held up his tree kangaroo. “Mipela kaikaim mbolop. Wara.” He motioned for them all to sit.

“Thank you,” Lindsey said.

One of the hunters produced a knife and began skillfully removing the skin from the kangaroo’s haunch. Bobby and Carlos moved closer to watch. The two other hunters cleared a depression in the ground for a fire. Samuel left to find fruits, mumbling his doubts of success without the tree kangaroos.

The Papuans apparently had no matches to start the fire. They found two branches as thick as Quentin’s wrist and laid one of them flat on the ground. They set the second branch so that its end was propped up by the first. One of them gathered an armful of tree bark. Using his teeth, he pulled toothpick-thin fibers from the bark and placed them on the ground until there was a pile resembling a bird’s nest. He bit into the bark and with some effort pulled loose a much heavier fiber, about as thick as a pencil. He shoved the bird’s nest of fibers into the gap under the propped-up branch and then pushed the larger cord through the gap so that he could hold the ends of it on either side. He pulled up on the cord while resting one foot on the top branch to hold it down. He pulled first on one end of the cord and then the other, like he was trying to saw through the branch with it. The sawing became faster. There was no smoke, but the man didn’t seem discouraged, and he worked at it with practiced skill.

Quentin’s fatigue was catching up with him. Lindsey and Ashley were already resting on the ground, so he joined them.

Ashley lay with her arms crossed over her face, and she spoke in a muffled tone, “I don’t suppose they told you how much farther it is.”

Quentin had to hold his breath to cross his stiff legs. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

Lindsey raised her brows at him as if questioning this. She then patted Ashley’s ankle. “He’s right, Ash. You’ll be with your family in a few days.”

“You live on a farm, don’t you Ashley?” Quentin said.

Ashley didn’t move her arms from her face. “We have horses, but it’s not really a farm. Lori and Brent aren’t the farming types.”

“Lori and Brent?”

“My parents. They don’t like to get dirty. They have a guy who does all the work.”

“They’ll be thankful to learn you’re alive,” Lindsey said.

Ashley laughed. “I bet a bunch of people will be. They’ve probably filed a butt-load of lawsuits.”

Quentin and Lindsey exchanged glances. They had avoided discussing this.

Ashley seemed to sense their uneasiness. She sat up. “Don’t worry, they won’t blame you two. They’ll probably blame the school, and maybe the airplane company. What about you guys? You have families that are worried, too, right?”

Lindsey smiled. “Yes, Mom and Dad and my brother.”

“Do they live in Newton?”

“In Columbia. I grew up there. My folks own The Real Macaw.”

“Seriously? Lori and Brent love to eat there! They like the cowboy room. What’s that one called?”

“The Tucson room,” Lindsay said. “I grew up in the Macaw. I worked there when I was your age, all the way through college.”

Quentin had not eaten at The Real Macaw—named for the scarlet macaw, Aristotle, Lindsey’s family kept in the sitting room—until he had met Lindsey. The first floor of the Victorian home had been converted into a restaurant. Four restaurants, actually—four different dining rooms, each with a different theme. Lindsey’s parents, Tucker and Rita, had converted the place before she was born, and she had grown up living in the upper floor.

They talked about the restaurant for a few minutes, and then Ashley said to Quentin, “What about you, Mr. D?”

A vivid memory flooded Quentin’s mind: his father, sitting at the dinner table, pushing his food around with his fork but not eating. Since returning from their family trip to revisit the Papuan tribe, his skin had started to sag on his cheeks and his eyes seemed larger. Only a boy then, Quentin had been terrified that his dad was transforming into a stranger—someone who hardly ever spoke. Quentin’s mom asked how Quentin’s day was, and she listened with tight lips as he gave his obligatory report. Quentin eyed his dad as he talked, but his dad never looked back at him. This was the last time the three of them had eaten together at the table.

Quentin realized Ashley was watching him, waiting. “My mom lives in Springfield,” he said. “I imagine she’s concerned.”

Ashley paused. “I heard your dad...” She trailed off, obviously regretting going that far.

Quentin glanced at Lindsey and she shrugged pensively.

“My dad decided he had made a mistake. He was the kind of guy who, when he decided something, that was it. And he was prone to dark moods. He and my mom brought the outside world to a remote Papuan tribe—thought they were doing something good at the time. Nine years later, they found out otherwise.” Quentin shifted his stiff legs. “The tribe had changed. I guess my dad believed he was responsible for that.”

“How did the tribe change?” Ashley asked.

“For the worse. Or for the better—depends who you ask.” Quentin shook his head. He had said enough. He turned away and saw Bobby and Carlos watching every slice and hack of the Papuan’s knife. Addison—the Lamotelokhai—sat to the side, appearing every bit as human as the rest of them. A tendril of smoke and an orange glow came from the nest of fibers as one of the Papuans blew on it.

“They got it going!” Bobby said, actually clapping his hands with excitement.

Quentin gave Bobby a thumbs-up.

“You know what I’d like to know?” Ashley said. “Why haven’t we seen search planes? When a plane goes missing, doesn’t someone try to find it?”

Quentin sighed but didn’t answer. A string of confounding events tugged at his consciousness: Samuel’s attempts to alter time, one talisman that was now two, Bobby’s assertion that he’d seen another plane; and the total absence of search aircraft. A sudden desire to share these thoughts gripped him. Maybe Lindsey and Ashley could point out something he was missing, something that would make it all seem coherent and innocuous. But he remained silent. There was no reason to burden them with worrisome—and probably unrelated—matters.

Ashley lay back and covered her face again. Then she said, “I guess the other Ashley just died, didn’t she? According to that thing, Addison, I’m not even the same person. She drowned. For her, everything went black and turned to nothing. Miranda believed in heaven, but I know there’s no heaven or hell. There’s just nothing. And now I’m here, but that other person doesn’t even know I exist. She’s gone.”

Quentin and Lindsey exchanged a glance.

Lindsey said, “I don’t know, Ash. I have a hard time thinking you’re not still the same person.”

Ashley didn’t respond to this, and Quentin sensed she was trying not to cry. To avoid further discussion, he turned his attention to the Papuans. The fire was now blazing, and the men had enlisted the help of the boys, having them hold strips of kangaroo meat skewered on sticks over the flames. Bobby and Carlos held a stick in each hand while Addison, whom the men had not asked to help, watched.

Samuel returned empty-handed. There would be no fruit to help quench their thirst.

As the meat cooked over the fire, one of the men stuffed a handful of leaves into his mouth and chewed until they were pasty. He then motioned for the boys to move the cooking meat in his direction. He pulled the green paste from his mouth, smeared it gingerly over the sizzling meat and then pushed the sticks back over the fire. After a few more minutes of cooking, he pulled the meat strips from the sticks and placed them on a large leaf. The man butchering the kangaroo handed over more raw strips, still smeared with blood and bits of fur. The whole process was repeated until there was an impressive pile of cooked and seasoned meat on the leaf. Only when they had prepared all the meat from the thick tail and one haunch of the kangaroo did they offer some to be eaten. Before handing out the food, they motioned for everyone to sit in a circle around the fire. This was somehow reassuring. It seemed these men were going out of their way to treat them as equals or guests.

They all stared at the pre-chewed green glaze on the meat. Bobby was first to take a bite. He muttered something enthusiastic, and that was all it took. They tore into their portions like starving dogs. The meat was surprisingly tender and agreeable. The Papuan men pointed at them and smiled, obviously pleased.

The Lamotelokhai didn’t eat. Instead it sat motionless, watching the rest of them. This did not go unnoticed by the Papuans. They glanced at Addison a few times, but then looked away, apparently unwilling to make an issue of it.

* * *

Mbaiso steadily increased his distance from the Creator, moving from tree to tree on his journey back to the village. The Creator’s information—its presence—had been fading, and soon it would disappear altogether.

Mbaiso traversed a heavy vine into the lower levels of a plum pine and then stopped, panting from exertion. The tree kangaroo was aware that he would soon be alone for the first time in nearly ten thousand years. He had always been within communication range of the Creator.

He nestled his belly against the limb, allowing his legs to hang over either side. His panting gradually slowed. He closed his eyes and listened. Faint snippets of information were still coming to him, barely detectable—fragments of conversation the Creator was having with the human called Bobby; contemplation over how to express ideas verbally; swift reviews of possible consequences of actions. And occasionally there were peculiar flashes of emotion, as if the Creator were experimenting with such concepts as joy, pity, and sadness. But the incoming information was becoming weaker even now as Mbaiso rested his sore body.

He let out a long grunting sigh. It would have been easy to fall asleep. But there was much distance yet to cover. In spite of the increased risk, he would have to move to the ground where travel would be faster. He scratched his ear with a forepaw and pushed himself off his belly and onto his feet. But then he froze, listening.

Information intended specifically for Mbaiso was coming from the Creator. Usually, the information would come in packets. Each packet would contain a fully formed concept, and when Mbaiso would open the packets, the concepts would simply be there, in his consciousness. Often the concepts would be visions, showing Mbaiso the actions or the consequences of the actions he was expected to perform. But this time the information was different.

Mbaiso absorbed the incoming packets. Cognitive fingers within his consciousness pried the packets open one at a time, revealing information in forms the Creator had not used before. Instead of containing visions, these packets contained information more like words, although no words were spoken nor heard. One packet revealed that the Creator was aware Mbaiso would be on his own soon, too distant to receive information. The next one showed that the Creator was aware that since the arrival of the man, Peter Wooley, Mbaiso had begun developing independent ideas and plans. Another showed that the Creator also knew of the tree kangaroos’ encounter with the crocodile and why Mbaiso had sacrificed Tripela. The Creator did not object to these decisions. Mbaiso’s plans were consistent with the Creator’s purpose.

Finally, there was one packet left. Mbaiso probed the packet, releasing the information, allowing it to infiltrate his awareness. It contained an array of directives—tasks to be completed. He examined the tasks one at a time and found them to be reassuring. They involved giving assistance to the villagers, which had been his primary purpose for his entire existence. And it was clear that the collective outcome of the directives was that the villagers would eventually live without his assistance. This made Mbaiso wonder if his current plans were not his plans at all, but instead had come to him from the Creator undetected.

Mbaiso examined the last of the directives. After considering it for a moment he tilted his head to one side, in case that might help with his understanding. He tried pulling back from it conceptually, to examine it as a whole. He teased it apart, looking at its components, and turned them at various angles to make sure he was not missing some veiled implication. But the task was what it was—nothing more or less. And it was to be carried out after all the others were completed.

Mbaiso shook his head in a brisk circular motion to clear the cognitive clutter. He then descended to the ground and continued his journey. The crocodile was undoubtedly far ahead of him, and it would soon require his help.

* * *

“How far away is the planet you’re from?” Bobby asked.

Addison was walking beside him. “I cannot know the distance. The distance changes.”

This was like most of the answers he had given Bobby. They were not really answers or they were too hard to understand. But Bobby kept asking questions because it took his mind off his thirst. He had eaten four hotdog-sized cuts of tree kangaroo meat—enough to stop his hunger—but his thirst was getting to where he could hardly think of anything else. Since they had started walking again, Bobby had asked dozens of questions. But the answers just led to more questions.

Bobby, Carlos, and the new Addison were lagging behind, but not so far that they lost sight of the others. After miles of hills, the forest flattened out again. They were now on a well-worn trail, so Bobby figured they were getting close to a village.

After being silent for some time, Carlos spoke to Addison. “I need to ask you something before we get there. When Miranda died, you talked about making another Miranda just like her. When Ashley drowned, you did make another Ashley. And she’s just like the old Ashley. How do you do that?”

Addison explained it again, about how he could have reconstructed Miranda’s body with parts he could get from the forest, and how he reconstructed Ashley’s body mostly from the parts that were already there in her old body. From Carlos’s look, Bobby sensed what he was going to say next.

“My brother Roberto died when our plane crashed. I want him to be alive again. I don’t care what the others say about asking my parents first. I don’t want my parents to know he died at all. I just want him back. Can you do that?”

“Roberto was killed before I could know of him,” Addison said. “I do not have the information to do what you ask.”

“But you dissolved his body, right? Didn’t you get information about him then?”

This hadn’t occurred to Bobby.

“Yes. Information came to me then. I could make the body of Roberto the way that it was at that time. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Carlos said. “But I could tell you the rest of what you need to know. I can tell you what he was like when he was alive, like all the things he would say, and what he did.”

Bobby considered this possibility. But then he thought of Addison’s reincarnation. He pictured Roberto’s broken, stinking body trying to walk and talk. This was a really bad idea.

Addison stopped walking. “There is much you would have to tell me.”

“I’ve known Roberto all my life,” Carlos said. “I can tell you everything about him.”

Bobby felt panic coming on. Carlos was serious, and so far the Lamotelokhai seemed to do everything he was asked to do.

Carlos said, “I’ll tell you everything. Can you do it now, before we get to a village?”

Addison looked around him like he was checking for ingredients. “Yes.”

“No!” Bobby said. “You can’t do that!”

Carlos looked at Bobby like he had been slapped in the face.

“Think about it, Carlos. I’m sure he can do what he says, but think about Roberto’s body when he dissolved it. That’s not what you want.” Bobby looked to the new Addison for help with this, but the thing just gazed at him.

“I can tell him the rest, Bobby!”

Addison said, “It is not likely that you could tell me what I need to know to make Roberto as he was. It would take much talking. There is information I would need to know that you could not tell me.”

Carlos frowned. “But you just said—”

Addison actually interrupted him. “But it is not likely. You have memories of Roberto. But they are not enough. It is likely there were things about Roberto you do not know. Others who knew Roberto may know these things. They would have to tell me what they know. And it is likely there were times when Roberto was with no others. There would be no memories of Roberto at those times.”

Carlos exhaled slowly. He rubbed his previously injured hand.

“I’m really sorry,” Bobby said.

Carlos shot him an angry look. “You don’t even have a brother, Bobby.” Then he turned and ran ahead to catch up with the others.

Bobby looked at the Lamotelokhai. “Did you help me out on purpose?”

“I saw that you had doubts about Carlos’s request. Your doubts were correct. And so I helped you.”

Bobby stared. The new Addison stared back without blinking.

“Addison wouldn’t have done that,” Bobby said.

* * *

They reached the village late in the afternoon. The trail abruptly opened to a vast clearing. Quentin shaded his eyes with his hand. The clearing had been hewn from the forest, and it was longer than it was wide—an airstrip. At the far end were thatched huts. From one of the huts rose a steel latticed tower with an antenna at its tip. Hopefully this meant they had a radio. The Americans stared at the site as if they had stumbled upon a lost city of gold.

Their Papuan guides stood before them, smiling. One of them held his shotgun and what remained of the tree kangaroo over one shoulder. With his other hand he pointed at the huts. “Viles,” he said.

Then the men abruptly turned back the way they had come. As they walked past Addison, each of them stared intently at him, but they said nothing.

“They’re leaving,” Ashley said. “Why are they leaving?”

Lindsey called to them. “Won’t you stay and introduce us to the villagers?”

The men glanced back at her but kept walking. So Bobby spoke to them in pidgin. They stopped. As they responded they shook their heads, pointing to the village.

“They don’t get along with these people.” Bobby said. “They fight with them.”

“This is not surprising,” Samuel said. “It is the way of most of the indigenes I have come to know.”

Again the men turned to go. But suddenly the Addison replica spoke to them—a combination of pidgin and their own tribal language. The men stared at him. Addison held out three small gray objects cupped in his hand. After some encouragement from him they each took one. Addison motioned for them to eat. They glanced at each other. Addison’s words became soft, reassuring, and he smiled at them.

One of the men pressed his object between his fingers. It was pliable. He sniffed it and then took a small bite. He mumbled something to his companions and then took another bite. The other men gave in and ate theirs. They nodded to Addison, apparently thanking him for the peculiar food. They turned away and a moment later they were gone.

Quentin was almost afraid to ask. “What was that, Addison? What did you do to them?”

Addison smiled, the same reassuring smile he had given the Papuans. “I gave to them the same gift I gave to you, Dad.”

Quentin waited but no explanation came. “And what is that?”

“The first effect is repair of those conditions that need it.”

Ashley said, “You made them healthy?”

“Yes. And after that will come improvements of functions, and then information about how I came to be here and about my creators. As I have done for you.”

“Why did you do that?” Quentin asked.

“To help them understand what I am. Didn’t it help you understand my purpose?”

“Yes,” Quentin said. “But if you give this gift to everyone we see, the people here may never let you leave. We want to take you to where we are from. We believe the leaders there will not use you to do bad things. But here—we’re not so sure.”

Addison’s smile was gone. “I understand. You wish for me to give no more gifts until we arrive at the place where you are from.”

Quentin felt a pang of guilt. Who was he to dictate the use of such a gift? How could he possibly know the right thing to do? He had to remind himself of the logic of their plan. He placed a hand on Addison’s shoulder. “Your knowledge is a gift for all, not just a few. To be sure you benefit everyone, we believe we should take you to where we come from.”

After a brief pause, Addison’s smile returned. “I will help you with this.”

“It appears that we have been discovered,” Samuel said. He pointed to the far end of the airstrip.

A naked child stood at the edge of the village watching them. They all walked from the shadows onto the airstrip. Lindsey waved. The kid turned and ran for the nearest hut. A moment later, other villagers emerged. By the time they reached the end of the airstrip, at least a dozen Papuans waited for them. Some wore little more than penis gourds or reed skirts, but others wore ragged t-shirts and shorts. They held no weapons. The child, who Quentin now saw was a girl, broke away from the others and ran to greet them. Other kids followed her, wide-eyed and talking. They seemed fascinated by the visitors’ pale skin and Samuel’s vest of spider silk. The girl, who was perhaps six, pulled at Quentin’s khaki pants and spoke the same phrase several times. All the others had lost their clothing when the plane had dissolved, and she seemed to wonder why he was the only one with pants.

The adults greeted them with similar warmth and curiosity, and soon the crowd grew. It was evident that the villagers had their own tribal language, but they interspersed words of pidgin. Bobby tried to explain that their plane crashed and they were lost.

Quentin pointed at the radio tower. “You have a radio. Can we call for help?”

“Wailis,” said one of the villagers, also pointing to the tower.

Bobby said, “Yes, wailis. Plis wailis. Plis.”

The villagers fell silent as a short Papuan man pushed through the crowd. He wore a faded t-shirt with a Cooper’s Beer logo on it, and he spoke with a thick Australian accent.

“I’m the bloke you’re looking for, then.”

* * *

They were led to a shelter at the center of the village. It was no more than a flat roof of sticks supported by corner posts, but it blocked the searing sun. It reminded Quentin of the picnic shelters in city parks back home, and it seemed to serve the same purpose. A woman brought them brown-tinted water in a battered plastic gallon jug and they accepted it gratefully.

The man who’d claimed the radio waited patiently until the water jug was on its second round. “Call me Obert,” he said. “You cobbers look to have seen some trouble.”

Quentin briefly described the plane crash and the deaths. He skipped everything about the Lamotelokhai, the tree house village, and the murder of the villagers there. He said they had wandered for days until they came upon this village.

As he listened, Obert looked from one of them to the next. His eyes stopped when they met Samuel’s. “And what’s your story, then?”

Quentin answered for him. “Samuel is a biologist. He was doing research in the area where our plane went down. He found us and helped us out.”

Obert considered this. “He had no radio?”

A moment of silence followed. Quentin could not think of an answer, but Lindsey spoke up. “Samuel has had his own troubles. He got separated from his research team and ended up lost, without any of his equipment.”

Obert studied Samuel, no doubt taking in his strange vest and his clean-shaven face. “How long you been out there, mate?”

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 talking 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.

Mbaiso gazed after the men until they disappeared. He reexamined the array of tasks the Creator had given him, then he designated one of them as completed.

Chapter Five

When the plane came to a stop and the pilots lowered the passenger door, vivid details of the plane crash Bobby had survived ran through his mind. He felt a stab of dread.

But his fear began to fade when an American man appeared. The guy had an easy way about him, and he smiled a lot. He carried a silver coffee mug with him like it was perfectly normal to drink coffee while getting off an airplane.

“Mr. and Mrs. Darnell, I presume?” He laughed at this like it was a joke. “The name’s Gregory Stamper. Are you or any of your party injured or in need of medical help?”

Mr. Darnell said no, that everyone was fine.

“Damn good thing, because I don’t know the first thing about medicine.” He laughed again. “But I was the only American handy when they heard about you last night. They asked me to hop on this flight so you’d have a friendly face to talk to. So, here I am!” The guy smiled broadly and drank from his silver mug. Bobby decided he liked Mr. Stamper.

They had nothing to pack, and there was no reason to wait. So they said goodbye to Obert and the other Papuans. Before boarding, Samuel walked around the plane, running his hand over the dirty white surface, looking closely at every detail. Unlike Bobby, he seemed excited at the prospect of flying.

Without thinking, Bobby took the same seat he had on the first Twin Otter. In fact, of those who were on the other plane, Addison was the only one who did not sit in the same seat as before. Instead of sitting next to Carlos across the aisle, Addison sat in the single seat behind Bobby. Samuel was alone in the back of the cabin, and Gregory was in the front, taking up the two seats where Roberto and Russ had been crushed.

The pilots brought the engines to a full deafening roar before the plane started moving, and then suddenly it shot forward and picked up speed. At the last second it lifted off the ground, just in time to clear the trees where Bobby’s group had stood looking at the village the previous evening.

As soon as they were on their way and had adjusted to the noise of the engines, Gregory spoke. “I’m from Boston University, but I regularly work with the International Environmental Rapid Assessment Program. We’ve been conducting a survey of the Mamberamo River Basin for a few years now. I happened to be at the airport when your call came in.”

Mr. Darnell introduced all of them.

Gregory looked at them and waited, like he expected more. “What exactly happened to you folks?”

Mr. Darnell gave him the same story he had given Obert, including the lie about Samuel getting lost from his research camp and helping them out.

“I haven’t heard about a field biologist going missing,” Gregory said to Samuel. “What project are you with?”

“My story is more complicated than that, I am afraid,” Samuel said. “I have no wish to deceive you, sir, and so I must ask that you do not inquire further.”

Gregory looked from one of them to the next. He let out a long whistle and then spoke aloud to himself, “Stamper, what have you gotten yourself into now.” He shook his head. “I have to be honest with you people. I’ve been with you only twenty minutes and I can see something is out of whack. The folks at the airport are already suspicious, and I can confidently say it’s going to get worse when you arrive. They say they have no knowledge of any missing planes. Plane wrecks are normally big news around here.” He gave them a serious look. “Do you hear what I’m saying, folks?”

“How can they not know our plane is missing?” Mrs. Darnell said.

“No idea,” Gregory said. “Listen, I know what happens to people who are lost in the bush with no first aid supplies and no tent to keep the insects off. You people look to be perfectly healthy. Personally, I don’t care what you’re up to. But the Indonesian security personnel you are about to face—I promise you they care. You seem like good people. If there’s something you’re hiding, maybe I can help.”

The hum of the engines seemed to get louder as he waited.

“We have to tell him,” Bobby said.

Mr. Darnell shook his head. “We land in less than half an hour. How can we explain?”

“We don’t have to explain,” Bobby said. “Addison can show him.”

“He’s right, Quentin,” Mrs. Darnell said. “We have no choice. Bobby, you talk to Addison.” She turned to Gregory. “Mr. Stamper, we have something to tell you. It’s important—more important than you can imagine. We have to bypass the red tape in Sentani and board a flight to the United States immediately.”

Gregory frowned. “Ma’am, that’s not likely to happen.”

Bobby turned his back to them. “Addison, we need Gregory to know what you are, and we need him to know right now. Can you help?”

Briefly, Addison’s eyes shifted to golden yellow. “Yes,” he said. Without another word, he unbuckled his seatbelt and got up. He held something out to Gregory. “This is a gift,” he said. “You should eat it.”

Gregory looked surprised. “Thank you, son, but I’m not hungry.”

“It will not harm you,” Addison said. “If you eat it, you will understand.”

“What is it, a drug? You guys aren’t in some kind of cult are you?”

“It’s not a drug,” Mr. Darnell said. “I’m not sure how to tell you this, but we have found something.” He put his hand on Addison’s shoulder. “This boy is not what he seems to be. Look, there just isn’t an easy way to explain it. But you must understand how important it is that we get him to the United States. We can’t tell you; we have to show you. If you eat that, you will see.”

Gregory let out a nervous laugh. “You want me to eat it?”

“Gregory, please look at me,” Mrs. Darnell said. When he turned to her, she went on. “I give you my word. It will not harm you, and you will not regret it. Please.”

Gregory took the thing from Addison. “If this makes me sick, I’m having all of you locked up in Jayapura.” He popped it in his mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed.

“Do not be afraid,” Addison said, and he returned to his seat.

For a few minutes Gregory just looked at them. Then his face went blank. Suddenly he moaned and folded up, dropping his head onto the seat next to him.

The pilot on the left side of the cockpit leaned his head through the door to the cabin and shouted in Indonesian at Gregory, who didn’t answer. The pilot called someone on his radio while the other rose from his seat and moved to Gregory’s side. He shook Gregory and spoke to him. Gregory’s hand shot up and pushed the pilot away.

“He’ll be fine,” Mrs. Darnell said.

The pilot ignored her and remained by Gregory’s side. For some minutes Gregory just lay there, curled up in the two seats. The plane began to descend. They were approaching Sentani.

Bobby turned to Addison, “It’s going to be too late.”

Addison pointed forward and Bobby turned back around. Gregory was sitting up, his eyes wide, tears streaming down his face.

Mrs. Darnell said, “Are you okay?”

His eyes darted to her. “Hell no! Do you have any idea what I’ve seen?”

“What the rest of us have seen, I assume,” she said. “The planet where it was created, and how it got here. And we hope you saw something about why it is here and what it can do.”

The plane dropped lower, approaching the airport. Gregory persuaded the pilot to return to the cockpit, and then he asked bursts of questions. Between the questions, he held his head in his hands and spoke to himself, saying things like “Stamper, you’re going to wake up,” or “Just breath, Stamper.” At one point, he said to Addison, “Do you understand me?”

Addison smiled. “Yes.”

“When we land, there will be questions,” Gregory said. “I think you are going to have to show them what you showed me.”

Bobby gripped his seat and closed his eyes as the plane dropped to the runway. But the landing was smooth. Before the plane even stopped rolling he looked out his window and saw men approaching. Some wore white shirts with ties, but others were Indonesian police with brown uniforms and guns on their belts. There was no way all these men would agree to eat chunks of Addison’s body.

The pilots lowered the door, and then the men were waiting for them just outside. Gregory’s hands were shaking, and he wouldn’t stop talking to himself. It didn’t look like he would be much help.

One of the white-shirt men boarded the plane. “My name is Natsir Santoso, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I am told you people are survivors of an accident. Is this correct?”

“That’s true,” Mr. Darnell said. “Our plane crashed on its flight from Wamena on July twelfth. We would like an immediate flight to the United States.”

The man frowned. “Of course you will be transferred to your original destination. But there are protocols that must be followed.”

Gregory spoke up. “Mr. Santoso, could I have a few minutes alone with these folks? They have suffered a terrible ordeal and their situation is, um, very complex. I was just making progress with them when we landed.”

Santoso’s frown grew even deeper. “Mr. Stamper, my understanding is that you are not trained in trauma counseling. These people must talk to qualified professionals.”

There had to be some way to convince these men to help them get home, or at least to buy some time to come up with a better plan. Suddenly Bobby had an idea. He turned to Addison and spoke quietly.

“There’s something I want you to do.”

* * *

Quentin could almost smell the tension in the cabin. An Indonesian security guard entered the plane and stood by the hatch, his presence menacing. Quentin stood up. “Mr. Santoso, please try to understand. We have lost three of our students, and we’ve survived in the wilderness for ten days. Gregory here understands our situation and our distress. We wish to speak with him and only him at this time.”

The man’s expression did not change. “We do not wish to appear unsympathetic. Of course Mr. Stamper may remain with you. But there are some discrepancies we are trying to resolve. We have no records of a carrier missing en route from Wamena. It is important we understand the source of our faulty data. You will all come with us now. You will receive proper clothing and food.”

Suddenly Bobby cried out, “He’s hurt! Can’t you see that? We need to get him to a hospital now!”

It was Addison. He had a huge gash on his left shoulder and arm. The flesh had been torn away and the humerus bone was visible, looking strangely white and clean amidst the surrounding blood and torn tissue. Blood flowed freely from the wound and covered his lap.

Gregory gasped. “What the hell?”

“He needs a hospital now!” Bobby said.

Santoso’s face changed to alarm. “Mr. Stamper, I understood there were no injuries.”

Gregory stammered, “Yes, well, this boy clearly needs medical attention.”

Quentin looked at Bobby, and their eyes met. “What’s going on, Bobby?”

“Don’t you see? We have to get Addison to a hospital right now!”

Quentin understood. It was crazy, but now there was no turning back.

Lindsey caught on, too. “We need you to take us to a hospital, and we demand to see an American doctor. We’re wasting time!”

A few minutes later a woman who apparently had EMT training hurriedly wrapped Addison’s wound, and then they were in a minibus on their way to a hospital in Waena on the outskirts of Jayapura. Santoso and his security men followed closely behind. Bobby had managed to buy them more time, but Quentin had no idea what to do next.

Gregory had gone along with the ruse of Addison’s injury, but now his confusion was catching up to him. As the bus turned onto the Jalan Sentani Chimera, the road to Jayapura, he said, “Alright, what the hell is going on? He’s not really hurt, is he?” He nodded at Addison, who was now bandaged from shoulder to elbow.

The EMT had not spoken any English, so Quentin assumed she didn’t understand, but Gregory’s tone obviously concerned her.

“I asked him to do that,” Bobby said, as if this explained everything.

This was not how Quentin had pictured things going. He had hoped they might simply convince the Indonesians to let them fly immediately to the United States.

Gregory continued, “But it looks real. The blood—”

Quentin held up his hand. “We can’t waste any more time. We need to figure out what we’re going to do.” He turned to Gregory. “Do you have a cell phone?”

Gregory closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. This is happening so fast. Yes, I have a phone.” He pulled his smartphone from his pocket.

“Can you call the U.S. from here?”

“Generally, yes.” Gregory kept looking at Addison as if worried he might disappear.

Quentin snapped his fingers in Gregory’s face, the same way he would with a distracted eighth grader. “Do you agree with us that this discovery,” he nodded at Addison, “should be taken to the U.S.?”

“I have no idea what to do with it!” Gregory held one hand to his cheek, covering one eye. “Yes! Yes, I suppose that’s the thing to do.”

“Then please make a call to the States. To anyone who can help us.”

Gregory ran his hand over his eye and into his hair. “Phil, Stamper. Call Phil.” He punched some buttons on the device and then stopped. “Country code. Oh God…”

“Zero zero one,” Lindsey said. She glanced at Quentin.

Gregory finished dialing and waited. A moment later he sat up straight. “Phil. Gregory Stamper here. Can you hear me?” A pause. “No, no, I’m still in Jayapura. Please listen to me carefully, Phil. Something big has happened. I’m going to ask you to trust me, because I don’t have time to elaborate. I’m with some Americans now. They have found something that is monumentally important. It’s a matter of national—no, global security.” Another pause. “No, not a nuke—much bigger than that. I’m asking you to trust me, Phil. I simply cannot explain. We’re on our way to the hospital in Waena. We need help from the American government.” A pause. “That’s right. We have to get them to put us on a flight to the U.S. now. Yes, now.” A longer pause. “I swear to God this is real, Phil. Thank you. I’ll contact you again as soon as I can.” Gregory cut off the call and pocketed the smartphone. “Phil Bollinger is the head of my department. He has a lot of connections, so he’ll contact someone who can help.”

“I want to call my parents,” Ashley said. “Gregory, can I use your phone?”

Gregory looked at Quentin and Lindsey.

Quentin felt a sudden wave of apprehension. He started to protest but couldn’t come up with a reason that he thought would sound rational. Instead he shrugged.

Gregory punched the screen into cell phone mode, entered the country code again, and handed it to Ashley. “Just the area code and the number.”

Ashley appeared surprised that her request actually worked. With white knuckles she tapped out her number. The seconds passed, and a lump grew in Quentin’s throat. He turned to stare out the window. They were now passing by shanties instead of unbroken forest. They were entering Jayapura.

Ashley stiffened. She’d gotten through. Then her shoulders slumped. “Voice mail,” she said.

A moment later she left a message. “Hey, guys. It’s me, Ash. I know you’ve been worried to death, but I’m okay. We’re still in Papua, but we’re coming home.” She paused as if considering how much to say. “And also, we’re bringing something with us. It’s something important, like the most important thing ever. I just thought you should know. I love you guys. See you soon.”

She hung up and gave Gregory the phone.

“I understand what you say.” It was the EMT. She glared directly at Gregory. “You are trying to hide something.”

Gregory looked stunned. “Ma’am, we just want to get to the United States.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You talk about taking something with you. Are you stealing something from us?”

“No, it’s not like that. You can see we have no possessions.” Gregory looked to the others for help.

Lindsey spoke up. “It’s actually Addison, the boy you are treating.” She rose from her seat and kneeled in the aisle next to Addison and the EMT. “What is your name?”

The woman eyed Lindsey and her features softened slightly. “I am Arina Rohadi.”

“Arina, this is Addison. He found something in the forest. It must be something he ate, or something he touched. But whatever it was, it had an amazing effect on him. His body heals very quickly when he is hurt. Very quickly.” Lindsey spoke to Addison: “If we remove your bandages, do you think your wound could be all gone by now?”

“Yes, if that is what you would like.”

Lindsey tilted her head toward Addison. “Arina, go ahead and remove his wrap.”

The EMT looked from her to Addison and back. “You play a game?”

Addison began unwrapping the wound himself.

“Let me do that!” Arina snatched the unwrapped portion from his hand. She spoke rapid Indonesian as she unwrapped the wound, perhaps cursing. As she peeled away the last layer, she suddenly stopped talking. Addison’s wound was gone. Even the blood was gone, although the bandaging was stained red. Arina ran her hand over Addison’s arm, pressing the flesh between her fingers. “You play a game?” she said again, much louder this time. “I saw this lesion. I touched it!”

“This is what I meant,” Lindsey said. “Addison’s body has been changed by something he found in the forest. Whatever it was, it is still out there. We don’t want to steal it. We just want to get Addison safely home. The United States has well-equipped research facilities. You know that, right?”

The woman was trembling. “We must find the source. To find it we need your help.” She touched Addison’s arm again, as if she couldn’t trust her eyes. “Yes, this is important.”

The minibus came to a stop. They were at the hospital, a low two-story building with a slanted red roof. It resembled an American motel one might see along any interstate highway.

Without warning, the EMT bolted. She threw open the door and ran directly to the minibus that was pulling up behind them. As Santoso and the others piled out, she accosted them, waving her hands as she spoke.

Samuel sighed loudly. “That young woman’s reaction, I fear, is what we must expect from those we encounter. I must say, Lindsey, you told an impressive story. Let us hope it has the desired effect.”

“Listen, everyone,” Quentin said. “We all stick with Lindsey’s story. Addison ate something in the forest that makes him heal quickly. Addison is a real person. He’s our son, and we just want to get him and ourselves home. Is that clear?” There were nods all around. The driver watched them in his mirror but showed no sign that he understood.

Santoso and several of his guards walked to the door of the minibus. He leaned in. “Let me see the boy’s injury,” he said, dropping all pretenses of being cordial. He moved to where Addison sat and looked closely at his shoulder. He turned him roughly and looked at the other shoulder and then straightened up. “You told me that this boy was injured. I had no reason to doubt you, and it appeared to be so. But I see that he is not hurt after all. Miss Rohadi is hysterical. She seems convinced that you have found a medical miracle in the bush. You have said that you were involved in an airline accident, and yet we have no information about a missing carrier. We have contacted the Los Angeles International Airport, and they informed us that there has been no group of passengers missing on return flights from Jakarta.”

Santoso paused, letting this sink in. “You people puzzle me. I have seen foreigners smuggling narcotics. I have seen men who buy airline tickets for our young women, with the intent of selling them into slavery. Once I talked to a woman attempting to leave here with three infant children. She claimed that she gave birth to triplets while on holiday here. Such is the world today.” He looked at Addison. “Now I will have a new story to tell, no?”

Santoso gazed out the minibus window at the hospital. “But first we must understand. There will be questions. Trust me when I say that it is in your best interest to answer them with truth. Our doctors will examine you, to be sure that you do not carry malaria or other diseases. And then, when we fully understand your situation—but certainly not before then—we will make a decision about the next course of action.” He flashed a seemingly genuine smile. “Let us hope that involves sending you to your home country.”

Santoso turned to leave. “You will come with me now.” He then turned back like he had forgotten something. “Mr. Stamper, I understand you have a cellular phone in your possession. May I please have it?”

Gregory frowned. “It’s really not necessary to take my phone.”

Santoso waved to one of the guards. The guard pulled his pistol from his belt, leaned in, and pointed it at Gregory’s face. Gregory’s features hardened as he handed it over.

Santoso smiled. “At this time we do not know what is necessary, do we?”

* * *

They were split into groups as they entered the hospital. Bobby was taken to a room with Carlos and Addison. Mrs. Darnell and Ashley were put in a room across the hall, but Bobby didn’t see where the Indonesians took Mr. Darnell and Samuel.

The room was almost bare except for two patient beds against one wall. There was no medical equipment. The room smelled like it had been scrubbed, but the floor and walls were faded with age, making them look dirty. A policeman stood inside the door until the EMT named Arina got there. She came in with a woman doctor and one of the men with white shirts. The policeman stepped out the door, but Bobby saw that he didn’t leave.

The white-shirt man introduced himself and said that he worked with Mr. Santoso. Arina pointed at Addison and spoke in Indonesian to the doctor. She still looked nervous.

The doctor spoke English to Addison. “I am Dr. Semedi. What is your name?” Her voice was relaxed and friendly.

“Addison.”

“Well, Addison, you have some explaining to do, no? You have upset Miss Rohadi. She believes that you had a serious cut that disappeared. But you and I know that is not possible, don’t we?”

“I saw it,” Arina said.

Dr. Semedi ignored this. She looked at each of them and frowned at their filthy bodies and scraps of clothing. She spoke to Arina. “Please go and get some clothes for these boys. One of the nurses will help you find what you need.”

Arina hesitated for a moment but then left the room.

Dr. Semedi faced them again. “Addison, why did you deceive Miss Rohadi?”

Addison said, “I was asked to.”

Bobby tensed up. This was not the plan.

The doctor raised her brows. “Who asked you to do this?”

Addison nodded at Bobby. “Bobby asked me to.”

Bobby tried to make himself smaller as she turned to face him.

“And why would you ask him to do this?” she said.

Carlos spoke up before Bobby could answer. “We just wanted to get home. These men showed up and they had guns. We thought it would be better to come to a hospital and talk to someone like you instead.”

She eyed Bobby. “Is that correct?”

Bobby nodded.

Dr. Semedi spoke to the white-shirt man. “Would it be possible for me to talk to these boys alone?”

The man simply shook his head no.

She sighed. “Very well. Addison, Miss Rohadi is a medical technician. She has treated many injuries. How is it that you could deceive her in such a way?”

Addison said, “Would you like me to show you?”

Again Bobby tensed up. But before he could protest, Addison did it. He grabbed the skin on his shoulder and ripped it away. The sound of it made Bobby gag. Blood started pouring down his arm, and shiny white bone could be seen in the wound.

In the corner of his eye, Bobby saw the white-shirt man step back against the wall. Dr. Semedi froze, staring at the wound.

Addison smiled at her. “It is a deception.”

Dr. Semedi grabbed the loose skin and muscle that hung from Addison’s shoulder and pressed it back into place. “This is no deception. You have hurt yourself.” Still holding the shoulder, she yelled at the man against the wall. “Please, I need help.” The man looked a little sick, but he nodded and left the room.

Addison still smiled. He put his hand on hers. “It is a deception,” he said again. He pulled her hand away. The flesh stayed in place and the wound no longer bled. Her eyes grew larger as she stared. The skin was moving. The torn edges closed up. And then the last of the blood seemed to soak into Addison’s skin and disappear.

Dr. Semedi stared at the shoulder without speaking. Footsteps echoed in the hallway. The door burst open and some doctors and nurses came in, followed by the white-shirt man. They examined Addison and shook their heads like they were upset about being disturbed for nothing. They all spoke Indonesian, and some were yelling. Dr. Semedi finally threw up her arms and with some effort she shooed them all out of the room, even the white-shirt man. She paced back and forth until Arina came in with three pairs of plastic flip-flops and a stack of hospital-blue shirts and pants that looked like those the nurses wore. Arina handed over the clothes and then left the room.

Bobby asked Dr. Semedi to turn around. He and Carlos peeled off the filthy remains of their clothes and put on the shirts and pants. Bobby told Addison to do this too. The clothes were too big, but the clean cotton felt nice against Bobby’s skin.

At last Dr. Semedi stopped pacing. “I do not know what I saw, but Miss Rohadi saw the same thing, so I did not imagine it.”

“It was a deception,” Addison said. “As I said, Bobby asked me to do this so that we would be brought to this place.”

Dr. Semedi inspected Addison’s shoulder again. “How did you do that?”

Bobby saw a possibility to stick with their planned story, and he spoke before Addison could answer. “We told you, Addison ate something he found in the forest, maybe a flower or a mushroom or something. It was something that makes him heal really fast.”

Dr. Semedi looked like she wasn’t buying this. “That doesn’t explain what I saw. There is no substance which can make a body heal wounds in such a way.”

Addison stepped forward. “That is not true.” He pushed his hand up under his new shirt. “I have what you want.” He pulled his hand out, and it was now holding a plant. The plant looked to be alive, even though the bare roots hung there in the open air. It had tiny oval leaves, and between the leaves were brown seedpods the size of peas.

Dr. Semedi stared at the plant. She then eyed Addison for a moment. She turned from Addison to Bobby, and then to Carlos. Finally she took the plant from Addison’s outstretched hand.

* * *

Santoso took Quentin, Samuel, and Gregory to a stark room and posted a guard inside the door. It appeared they were prisoners. Quentin asked why they’d been separated from the others. Santoso assured him that it was to facilitate medical examination. More likely, thought Quentin, it was to identify discrepancies in their stories.

“Please, gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable,” Santoso said. This was a token sentiment, because the room contained nothing more than two bare hospital beds.

Gregory said, “Are we accused of a crime, Mr. Santoso? If we are, I would like to call the American Consulate. Perhaps you could return my phone?”

Santoso smiled and dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “Of course not, Mr. Stamper. We merely wish to understand the circumstances regarding your American friends.” He turned to Samuel. “I know Mr. Darnell’s name, but you I have not yet met.”

“My name is Samuel Inwood.”

Santoso raised his brows. “Are you British, Mr. Inwood?”

“Indeed I am. But I have been a resident of New Guinea for a rather long time.”

“New Guinea? This is Papua, Mr. Inwood. A province of the Republic of Indonesia.”

Samuel cleared his throat and stood straighter. “When I came to this land, it was known as Dutch New Guinea. And this particular settlement was known as Hollandia.”

Santoso paused before speaking, as if calculating. “A very long time, indeed. I assume that you have the proper papers?”

Samuel looked to Quentin for help, so Quentin spoke for him. “Samuel has been lost in the bush also. He was very generous to us when we found him. But like us, he has nothing.”

“I see,” Santoso said. “Very unfortunate events.”

An Indonesian doctor entered the room, brushed past the guard, and spoke quietly to Santoso. Santoso’s body stiffened as the doctor spoke. He glanced fretfully in Quentin’s direction and then left the room. Minutes later he returned, still visibly agitated.

“It seems the American authorities have taken an interest in your situation,” he said. “Your telephone call has captured their attention.”

Quentin felt a rush of relief; finally some good news.

“Then you will allow us to fly to the United States?” Gregory asked.

“By no means will you leave our country until you have had medical examinations and we are satisfied that you have not broken our laws. But this will now be a joint effort between your people and ours. You will remain here until some Americans arrive from your Consulate in Jakarta.”

“And when will that be?” Quentin asked.

“Before the day is over, I am told.” Santoso opened the door to leave. “I will see that you are fed and provided with clothing. It would not do, after all, for your American friends to think we are not gracious hosts.”

* * *

Dr. Semedi stared at the plant. “Where did you get this?”

“You will find there the substance you want,” Addison said.

The doctor turned the plant over in her hands. “Did you have this with you when you came into the hospital?”

Addison did not reply.

The doctor looked doubtful. “How can you know this is the specimen of importance?”

“You will find there the substance you want,” Addison said again.

The door burst open and Mr. Santoso called Dr. Semedi out into the hall. They stood outside the door talking, but Bobby couldn’t make out their words.

“What did you give her?” Bobby said to Addison.

“She is interested in healing wounds. So I gave her what she wanted. This is consistent with the deception you asked me to create.”

Dr. Semedi entered the room again. She pulled the plant from where she was hiding it under her lab coat. It was now starting to wilt.

“It seems that responsibility for your health is now out of my hands,” she said. “I do not know what it is I have seen here today. I do not know if you tell me truth or lies. But please tell me, if I examine this specimen will I waste our time and resources? We have little to spare.”

Bobby answered, “You won’t be sorry. It’s real.”

“It is the fruits,” Addison said. “You must eat them.”

She looked at the plant. “The fruits.”

“Do not try to understand the substance of the fruits,” Addison said. “You will not succeed. Instead, use the fruits to grow more plants, so that you will have more fruits.”

Dr. Semedi turned toward the door. Mr. Santoso opened it for her and waited. She turned back to them and spoke quietly. “I am not to question you further. In case there is any truth to what you say, I will keep this safe.” She tucked the plant back under her lab coat and left the room. Mr. Santoso glanced at each of them, and then he followed her, leaving them alone.

* * *

Quentin, Samuel, and Gregory were confined to their room well into the afternoon. Quentin requested to see Lindsey and the students, but was told to wait. Gregory asked endless questions about the Lamotelokhai and its capabilities and origins. But finally he seemed to reach cerebral overload, and he lapsed into silence. He was taking it pretty well, Quentin thought, considering all he’d been forced to absorb in a single day.

Samuel passed the time by asking his own questions, mostly regarding the various devices he had encountered since leaving the forest: radios, smartphones, and the hospital intercoms that interrupted them every few minutes with announcements in Indonesian. He never passed up a chance to physically touch anything unfamiliar to him, including the glass window and its plastic frame in the door of their hospital room.

It was late afternoon when Santoso led two Americans into the room. One stepped forward and extended his hand. He wore a gray suit and was tall and thin, perhaps sixty, with almost-white hair impeccably combed straight back.

“Gentlemen, Sterling Hess, Regional Security Officer, U.S. Embassy Jakarta. This is Dr. Paul Saskia.” The other man appeared Indonesian, though he was dressed in an American-cut suit almost identical to Hess’s. They shook hands all around and gave their names.

Hess sat in a folding chair. The man had a relaxed but commanding way about him, and he seemed to consciously ignore Santoso, as if he had already decided he was tired of dealing with him. He pulled a digital tablet from his black bag. “There is some confusion over your situation,” he said. “The first order of business is to clear that up.” He tapped his way through some screens. He stared directly at Quentin for a moment and then looked at something on his screen, frowning. “Where are the others?” Hess asked Santoso. “Mrs. Darnell and the other passengers of the flight?”

Santoso answered, “We have put them in other rooms in order to facilitate their medical examination.”

Hess addressed Quentin. “Do you wish to be separated from your wife and the others at this time, Mr. Darnell?”

“No, I don’t.”

Almost before Quentin finished speaking, Hess boomed, “Then this is bullshit. You are isolating these guests of your country against their will. Please bring the others here. Now.”

Santoso’s face reddened, but he nodded to someone outside the door. Within seconds Lindsey entered the room, followed by the students, including Addison. They all sported the same shirts and elastic pants that had been given to Quentin and Samuel. Quentin introduced all of them. He presented Addison as his son, which was easier than expected.

Hess looked back and forth from his tablet screen to each of them. “Roberto Herrera, Miranda Henry, Russ Wade,” he said. “Do you know the whereabouts of these people?”

After a few uncomfortable glances, Lindsey said, “They were killed when our plane crashed. Along with the pilot and two Indonesian passengers.”

Hess hesitated a moment. “I’m very sorry to hear that.” He then stood up. “If you will forgive me, there is something I must clear up right away. Dr. Saskia here is an American doctor. After what you have endured, you must surely have some use for his services.”

Hess stepped into the hall but did not close the door. Dr. Saskia smiled at them and approached Ashley first. Santoso motioned for one of the Indonesian doctors to stay close and observe Dr. Saskia’s activities. Quentin tuned them out and listened instead to Hess.

“Cameron, Sterling Hess here. There’s been a major gaffe. I’m here with the people now and have confirmed their identities.” A pause. “Cameron, they were standing right in front of me.” Another pause. “Well, they’re quite obviously wrong.” A longer pause. “I don’t know that yet. Yes, I’ll find out. I’ll get back to you. Oh, and Cameron, they say three Americans were killed. Students, in their teens. Along with three Indonesians. Yes, indeed it is.”

Hess re-entered the room. “Who was it that called the United States earlier today?” He glanced at his tablet screen. “The call was made to a Dr. Phil Bollinger.”

Gregory raised his hand.

Hess motioned to the door. “I would like to speak to you alone.”

Santoso looked as if he might interfere with this, but then he let them leave the room.

“You’re wasting your time,” Ashley said to Dr. Saskia. “You won’t find anything wrong with me or any of the rest of us.”

The doctor appeared to be flustered. Clearly this was not what he had expected.

“These people claim to have discovered a remarkable curative agent,” Santoso said, without hiding his skepticism. He pointed at Addison. “Perhaps that boy is the one you should examine first. The boy somehow fooled us, making it appear that he was injured.”

Dr. Saskia approached Addison with a warm smile and urged him to move to one of the patient beds. Addison was soon lying on his back with his shirt off. The Indonesian doctor hovered near as Dr. Saskia asked Addison questions and palpated his abdomen. Quentin held his breath, trying not to show his apprehension.

Hess entered the room, frowning. Apparently Gregory’s words had done little more than irritate him. Gregory followed behind him. His eyes met Quentin’s, and he shook his head.

Hess spoke, obviously trying to keep his voice calm. “I must say, I can scarcely imagine what motives you people have.”

“I assure you,” Quentin said, “we have something that must be taken to the United States right away. You simply need to trust us.”

Hess glared, a darkness gathering in his eyes. The man truly had an imposing presence. But before he could speak, Dr. Saskia’s voice filled the room.

“What in God’s name?” The doctor’s hands were on Addison’s knee and thigh. Even from where Quentin stood, he could see that the leg was moving, as if the bones were shifting beneath the flesh. The doctor gaped at the leg. “How did you do that?” he said.

Addison did not answer. Instead he looked at Hess and smiled.

Hess said, “Paul?”

The doctor’s face had gone white. “I don’t know. I have no way to explain what just happened.”

Hess eyed Addison for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. Then his features hardened, and all signs of hesitation were gone. “Mr. Santoso, we are no longer willing to share this investigation with your doctors. It is clear that these American citizens have medical conditions that can only be addressed in a fully-equipped American facility, staffed by American doctors.” He approached Addison. “Son, can you walk?”

“Yes.”

Hess turned to Santoso. “We will immediately transport these people to the airport, and they will be flown to the U.S.”

Santoso appeared frozen in place. Dark veins pulsed in his forehead. Suddenly he spoke to the two guards standing in the doorway. One of the men yelled down the hall, presumably to other policemen, and the two men entered the room with their hands on their side arms. Within seconds several more armed men blocked the door.

Santoso turned back to Hess. “It seems we are at odds, Mr. Hess. Perhaps you wish to rethink your decision.”

Hess pulled his smartphone from his belt and punched in a sequence of numbers. The guards looked to Santoso for instructions, but he shook his head, allowing Hess to make the call.

Hess spoke loudly. “Cameron, Sterling Hess. We have just been forcibly contained at the hospital. I don’t have details at this time, but there may be something to the communications intel intercept we discussed. We need these people in American custody pronto.” He paused, and his brows shot up as he listened. “You’re kidding me. Why are they interested? It’s just a mistake at Qantas.” He listened. “Good God. I hope it’s worth it. Make sure they know we’re on the first floor, north wing. It doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere.” He returned the phone to his belt. “Calvary’s almost here already. They were sent before I even called.”

“Why?” Quentin asked, but Hess had already shifted his attention to their captors.

“Mr. Santoso, you are minutes away from having an international relations incident on your hands. You and I are diplomats. Let’s talk this out before things escalate.”

Heavy footsteps clattered in the hall, and more Indonesian police appeared outside the door. Quentin heard others in the building, shouting curt commands to each other. It sounded like they were positioning themselves for an attack. The whole situation seemed surreal.

Santoso now sweated profusely, his face still red. “Yes, Mr. Hess. We will begin with you explaining exactly what it is that you are so eager to take from our country.”

“We wish only to get our citizens back to their home where they can receive proper medical treatment. Please have your men stand down and let us pass. You have no legal course for holding us. I have been informed that a United States Special Operations Forces unit will be on site very shortly. A hospital is no place for a confrontation.”

Santoso’s expression was venomous. “We have no intention of using force. We merely wish to know the truth. If force is used, it will be a result of your people’s eagerness for violence. Perhaps you should use your phone again and put an end to this nonsense.”

A cacophony of sounds suddenly poured in from outside the hospital: vehicle tires screeching, men shouting and running, an unintelligible bullhorn voice. Santoso’s eyes grew wide. He started to speak but then thought better of it and left the room. Indonesian policemen now formed a semicircle outside the door, their pistols drawn and held pointed at an upward angle against their chests.

Hess stepped toward the door but was repelled by the guards. He wheeled around. “What exactly in the hell are we risking so much to protect? It damned well better be important.”

Quentin said, “It’s more important than you can imagine, but this is a mistake. We can work together—.”

Suddenly there was a gunshot from outside the hospital, and then another.

Hess shouted, “Jesus Christ!”

Quentin and Lindsey forced the students into the corner of the room and onto the floor. Angry yelling from outside the hospital was now constant. But then suddenly, as if it were orchestrated, things quieted down. Only the garbled bullhorn could be heard, but shortly even that stopped. Quentin looked at the nearest policeman, and their eyes met. The man forced a nervous smile. He was visibly shaking. A single gunshot rang out from the street, and the man’s smile faded. For a moment following the shot there was total silence, and the man’s eyes seemed to plead with Quentin. Then the silence was torn apart by a scream of anger from outside. Before the cry ended, gunshots filled the afternoon air. It sounded like someone had lit a whole strand of firecrackers in the street, and for a moment Quentin could almost convince himself that this was all it was.

Santoso stormed into the room. “Do you have any idea what you have done?” he managed to scream in a mix of Indonesian and English. Two policemen followed him into the room, their pistols drawn and eyes wild. “And for what?” Santoso cried. “A boy and his tricks?” Spit flew from the man’s mouth as he spoke, and Quentin realized they were in immediate danger. Santoso had been driven over the edge.

From the corner of his eye, Quentin saw Bobby lean over and whisper to Addison. This was not the time for another brash idea. Quentin started to warn Bobby, but Santoso yelled at them, “Maybe you are not worth it, no?” He motioned for the policemen to point their weapons at Addison. They glanced at each other, but then complied.

“If you are so valuable,” Santoso cried, “then perhaps we should put an end to this!”

Addison rose to his feet. He moved toward the men. This had an almost calming effect on Santoso. He stopped talking and watched Addison approach, as if mesmerized by this unexpected behavior. Both policemen’s guns were pointed at Addison. Addison took another step, until the nearest gun pressed against his neck. The man holding the gun muttered what could have been either a curse or a prayer. Addison stepped directly in front of Santoso, pushing the policeman and his gun back a step. The room was quiet, although sporadic gunfire could still be heard outside.

Barely above a whisper, Lindsey pleaded, “Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

Addison deliberately lifted a hand and grasped the policeman’s wrist. With his other hand he reached for Santoso’s hand. He held them, smiling gently. The policeman seemed to relax, and his gun moved away from Addison’s neck. Quentin’s eyes were drawn to their hands. Where Addison’s skin touched the men, it appeared to flow into them like liquid.

“Do not be afraid,” Addison said.

Santoso and the policeman looked down at their hands. Both men tried pulling free, but Addison held tight. The policeman’s gun fell and clattered on the floor. Santoso’s eyes grew wide as he watched his own arm change shape, becoming shorter. He babbled something unintelligible and tried desperately to free himself. The policeman simply stared at his arm, silent but horrified. The other men looked on helplessly. Santoso’s arm was no longer even recognizable, and his babbling had turned into pleading screams.

Abruptly the nearest policeman stepped forward, raised his pistol, and shot point blank at Addison’s face.

The pistol’s crack was deafening in the stark room, and it was followed by silence. Even Santoso’s screams stopped. Addison did not fall. The bullet had torn a gaping hole under his eye and out the back of his head. But he stood erect, still smiling. The policeman who had fired lowered his pistol, and it hung limp in his hand as the hole in Addison’s face closed upon itself.

Santoso’s screams resumed. Addison disengaged his own hands from the men’s arms, which had become no more than bulges on their shoulders. The policeman tried to scream too, but his cries turned to sputtering grunts. Both men collapsed onto the floor. The guards from the hall were now in the room, but all they could do was watch in horror as the two bodies fell silent and transformed into amorphous blobs of flesh. The clothing on the bodies seemed to disappear as it was integrated into the shifting forms. The two bodies then merged together into one larger mass.

Quentin moved to where Bobby stood. “What have you done, Bobby?”

Bobby looked at him, his face ashen, and then turned back to the transforming monstrosity as if he might miss something. “I told Addison to make something to scare them away, so we could get out of here. I didn’t think he’d kill them.”

The mass on the floor began taking shape. Pink fleshy skin turned leathery, and bumps formed on its surface. Wrinkles in the skin appeared, growing deeper until folded limbs were apparent. The mass of tissue shuddered, and then it rolled over and expanded. Everyone stepped back. Two legs shot out to their full length, and a snake-like neck uncurled from beneath the arms. Each arm was fringed with red feathers and ended with three impossibly long fingers tipped with hooked claws. Upon the neck was a head the size and shape of a deer’s, but instead of a muzzle, the creature bore a thick beak. The beak sprang open, and a piercing cry filled the room, like a dozen parrots screeching in unison. The creature was on its side, but the head righted itself, revealing another fringe of red feathers that stood out from the back of the head. Oversized marble eyes gazed about the room as if studying each one of them.

After a surreal moment of silent observation, the thing kicked wildly and twisted its body. And then it was upright on two legs, its head nearly touching the ceiling. More long red feathers spread out in a fan from the tail. Thick muscles twitched under the leathery skin, and now that it stood fully erect it was obvious that the body was built for power and speed. A dinosaur of some kind—it had to be. It was a terrifying hulk, and Quentin shrank back to the wall, pulling Lindsey and Ashley with him. One of the policemen ran from the room, but the others seemed too confused to take action.

And then the creature attacked.

Without a sound, it lunged at the men in the doorway. Clawed feet skidded on floor tiles and it went down, slamming into the open door and knocking it from its hinges. The creature managed to grab one of the scattering policemen. The heavy beak clamped onto the man’s thigh. Even as the thing scrambled to right itself, it shook its head violently, tearing through trousers and flesh and flipping the man to the ground like a doll. One of the other men stood his ground and fired at the dinosaur. It charged out of the room after him.

There were more gunshots and screams and ripping flesh. The injured man lying in the doorway stared dumbly at his ruined leg. Quentin rushed over to help him, but then he stopped. The bloodied leg was changing, pulling itself up into the torso, just as Santoso’s arm had done. The man was being transformed.

Screams and gunfire now came from elsewhere in the hospital, followed by the piercing call of the rampaging creature. The man on the floor tried to speak, but was pitifully weakened by sheer panic. The guy’s body was becoming something else, probably just as menacing as the dinosaur. Only this time there was no one else in the room for it to attack. They had to get out. Lindsey and the students seemed to know this and were already stepping over the broken door. Quentin followed, and urged Hess and Saskia to come. But they were frozen in place.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Hess said. The doctor just stared at the changing man on the floor.

“Later,” Quentin said, “but now we have to go!”

Hess snapped out of his trance. He grabbed the doctor’s arm. “Paul, we’re going.”

In the hallway they immediately ran into three more fallen men. The bodies were already changing and were beginning to merge. One of them was still conscious, and he pleaded to them. But the lower half of his body had already become a shuddering mass and was flowing into the others.

Quentin started for the front doors, but then he spun around and confronted Addison. “This has to stop. If everyone that thing attacks turns into another one, we’ll have an epidemic! Can you stop it now, before it kills more people?”

“The creatures are living things. I cannot—”

Addison was interrupted by a stabbing screech. A second feathered dinosaur rushed out of the room they had just left. This one was smaller, formed from the body of only one man. It ran headlong into the much larger third one that was just rising up on two massive legs. The larger creature staggered and lifted its head. Its neck became entangled in a hanging fluorescent light fixture, which broke and fell in pieces around it. It then snapped at the smaller animal that had run into it. The two fussed at each other for a moment and then stopped, as if realizing they were the same species. Together they turned and faced Quentin and the others.

Oh shit. Quentin shot a glance down the hall. The front doors were too far away. They would have to make it to the nearest room.

As if reading Quentin’s thoughts, both creatures charged. Quentin turned to run and abruptly collided with Hess. Hess fell hard, and Quentin stumbled over him onto the floor. He looked back. The creatures’ feet skidded on the tiles, but they were quickly building speed. Quentin jumped up, scrambled to the nearest door and slammed into it. It didn’t open. He tried turning the knob but felt resistance. Through the narrow window a doctor stared back at him, his face stricken with fear. He was holding the knob. Quentin pounded on the door and screamed at him, but the man shook his head and held on.

And then it was too late. Before he could turn around, Quentin heard the clicking of claws on the floor, mixed with the cries of the students as they fell over each other to get away. Quentin turned. Dr. Saskia was helping Hess onto his feet, and the dinosaurs fell upon them first. The larger one grabbed Hess’s arm in its beak, and the smaller one latched onto Saskia’s shoulder. The doctor swung at the creature and ripped free of its grip. He stumbled away. The dinosaur then turned to Hess, who was helpless on the ground, and grabbed his ankle. Both creatures began shaking and pulling.

“No!” Hess’s voice warbled as the creatures shook his body.

Suddenly, deafening blasts obscured these sounds. The smaller dinosaur’s neck was severed and its body flopped on the floor next to its head. The larger creature dropped Hess and turned to face the source of the noise. Three men in black fatigues crouched inside the front doors, their rifles trained on the dinosaur. They all fired at once. The creature’s legs splayed outward, and the body collapsed with a loud bestial grunt. It didn’t move again.

One of the men swiveled and waved to others outside the doors. He then bellowed, “Are you people Americans?”

“Yes,” they all shouted back.

The men approached cautiously. Behind them, others began working their way toward the far end of the hall. They wore riot gear and bulletproof vests. The men approached and then stood staring at the creatures they had killed. Hess cursed as Dr. Saskia examined his wounds. Addison was at Hess’s side, too, resting his hands on him. Quentin hoped he was preventing Hess from transforming into another raging beast.

A stocky, gray-haired man walked in the front doors and made his way straight for them. He wore a green uniform, and the men in black fatigues moved out of his way as he brushed past them. He looked at the dead dinosaurs and then faced them.

“I’m Colonel Roger Richards, Defense and Army Attaché, U.S. Embassy Jakarta.” His eyes glided confidently from one of them to the next. “Folks, I’d like to know what in God’s name is the cause of this goddamn cluster fuck.”

Chapter Six

“Why were you in Wamena?”

“Where did your plane go down?”

“Do you have identification?”

“What have you told the Indonesians?”

They had been hustled into a green military truck with no windows, and the truck now roared through the streets of Jayapura. Bobby didn’t want to talk to these men. The horrified faces of Santoso and the policemen as they watched their own bodies morph into something else flashed through his mind over and over. Their screams of terror rang in his ears. Bobby had killed them all. He had asked Addison to do something without thinking it through, and now the men were dead. There wouldn’t even be bodies for their families to bury. Instead, the dinosaurs would probably be taken somewhere to be dissected and studied.

“Tell us your full names, one at a time.”

“Why were you taken to a hospital?”

“What the hell were those animals?”

The questions kept coming, but Bobby ignored them. His mistake had killed people, and he couldn’t stop thinking about what this meant. How was he any different from the Addison who had killed Miranda and the Papuans? At least Addison had the excuse of being brain damaged.

The truck’s engine grew louder as it accelerated. Bobby decided they must be leaving the city, maybe going back to the airport.

“Have you contacted anyone in the states?”

“Where are your passports?”

During all of this, Ashley and Carlos sat quietly staring at the plastic hospital flip-flops on their feet. The men weren’t asking Addison any questions directly; obviously they didn’t know he was what this was all about.

Eventually the truck slowed down and made several turns before coming to a stop. There were shouts and then a metal door shutting. When the back of the truck opened, they were inside a large building, like an airplane hangar. They climbed out of the truck. Other soldiers worked at various jobs around the hangar, and they stopped what they were doing to stare. Colonel Richards took them to one end of the hangar where there was a narrow hallway with doors, and they entered one of the rooms. Small tables had been pushed together to make one large table in the middle of the room with metal folding chairs around it.

They sat around the table, and some men brought pitchers of water and a stack of paper cups. One of the men said that restrooms were in the hall, but no one got up to use them. Colonel Richards sat at one end of the table, between two other men in green uniforms. One of them turned on a voice recorder and placed it on the table.

Richards cleared his throat. “Folks, I appreciate the fact that you have suffered an ordeal, but we’ve got a situation on our hands, and you people have made it worse.”

Mr. Darnell shifted in his seat. “A situation?”

Colonel Richards frowned at him. “You were in Wamena when it started, were you not? On July twelfth? Flare-up between the OPM and Indonesian forces. Some indigenous Papuans were shot. Nothing new. But Washington, in its infinite wisdom, decided we should get involved. That didn’t go over well. Things have been hairy around here since. Washington realized the mistake in short order, and we’ve toned it down.” Richards waved his hand. “This facility is a temporary base for conciliation measures. The climate had become almost quiet—until today. We get orders to pull you folks out, bring you stateside pronto. We show up. Tempers are short at the get-go. Recipe for a Charlie Foxtrot, which is exactly what we got.”

Bobby didn’t know what a Charlie Foxtrot was, but he got the idea.

Richards rose from his chair and leaned forward with his hands on the table. “Now I need some straight answers. It seems your flight out of Wamena was part of the evacuation fiasco, correct? And you say your plane went down in the jungle?”

They all nodded.

“Folks,” Richards said, “we’re working up a scenario for getting you back to the States without inciting a war. I don’t know yet how that’s going to shake out.” He paused. “The circumstances are atypical. We’ve got a firefight that started for God knows why and didn’t end well for two Indonesian police. We’ve got Indonesian personnel who are missing. We’ve got doctors claiming you possess something that belongs here with them. And we’ve got three dead animals in a public hospital. I’m no expert, but they look like goddamn dinosaurs. You’re not going to tell me those things live here in the jungle, are you?”

“No, we’re not,” Mr. Darnell said.

Colonel Richards nodded his head at this. “And so, here we are.”

* * *

After providing hopelessly confusing answers to some of Colonel Richards’s questions, Quentin suggested they simply tell their story from the beginning. This time they told everything. They even described the hanging village and the ancient Papuans who lived there. Samuel resisted this at first, but Quentin explained that these were representatives of the United States, that the village would be safe. Samuel was dubious but conceded he would have to trust Quentin’s judgment.

Throughout the inquisition, Colonel Richards’s face was granite. Even as they explained their dreams revealing the Lamotelokhai’s origin, and that Samuel had lived in the forest for a century and a half, his face showed nothing more than mild interest. He didn’t even take notes, apparently relying on his memory and the recorder to document the entire conversation. There was no telling if he believed a single word of their story.

The interrogation continued into the evening. Quentin eventually explained Bobby’s attempts to communicate with the Lamotelokhai using the rules of Kembalimo. At this, Richards frowned.

“Kembalimo? You mean the language software?”

Quentin glanced at Bobby, who nodded. “I thought it was just a game,” Quentin said.

Richards leaned forward on his elbows. “It’s much more than a game. How could this thing buried in the jungle understand Kembalimo?”

Quentin shrugged. “Good question.”

Richards grunted. “It appears Peter Wooley may have some explaining to do.”

Samuel had been silent for some time, but suddenly he spoke up. “Bobby has told me of this Peter Wooley. I believe that I have known the man.”

All eyes turned to him.

Richards said, “If you’ve been living like an ape in the jungle for a hundred and fifty years, how could you know Peter Wooley?”

“Who is Peter Wooley?” Quentin asked.

Richards spoke without taking his eyes off Samuel. “Developer of Kembalimo.”

Samuel put his palms on the table. “Sir, could you tell me more about this Peter Wooley?”

“Brilliant man, supposedly. Developed the software algorithms that make Kembalimo work. Folks say it may change the way we all communicate. Wooley is head of SouthPacificNet. He’s damn rich, but oddly enough, not from Kembalimo. He’s an eccentric. Won’t allow Kembalimo to be sold. Wants everyone to use it for free.” Richards scrutinized Samuel as if waiting for an explanation.

“Samuel?” Quentin said. “This isn’t the Peter you told me about is it? The one who came to the village?”

Samuel leaned back in his chair. “The evidence seems to suggest it, though I was a witness to his death. Peter was killed before my eyes.”

“That is correct,” Addison said. It was the first he had spoken since they had entered the room. “The villagers killed Peter. But Peter asked me to help him.”

“But I saw it. He was beaten beyond hope of repair.”

“You are correct. Peter was reconstructed.”

Bobby said, “You mean like you reconstructed Ashley?”

Addison nodded. It was a gesture Quentin hadn’t seen the Lamotelokhai use before.

A smile formed on Samuel’s face. “Then it is he. It is indeed Peter.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Richards said.

“It is he,” Samuel repeated. “That is how he has created this Kembalimo you speak of. It must be. Even the name itself—Kembalimo—this is a word used by the indigenes. Its literal meaning is, to return.”

Quentin pushed away from the table and stood up. He paced the room, pondering this revelation. The man who had stumbled upon the hanging village over forty years ago was the very same man who had created Kembalimo. Peter Wooley must have learned to communicate with the Lamotelokhai using the same symbols Bobby had used. When he had left the village, he took this knowledge with him.

Richards eyed Samuel intensely. “You’re telling me you’ve personally met Peter Wooley, even though you’ve been hiding in the jungle since men fought with muskets?”

Samuel’s eyes sparkled as he spoke. “Colonel Richards, for a short time Mr. Wooley was a guest in the village of my indigene hosts. I considered him a friend, although I have doubts he would say the same of me. Until recently, I believed him to be dead.”

Richards shook his head and let out a grunt that may have been a laugh. “Very well, then.” He waved his hand for Quentin to be seated. “Please continue.”

As Quentin continued the story, the men on either side of Richards frequently left the room. After talking on their phones in the hall, they would return and whisper to Richards before sitting down, only to repeat this a few minutes later. Finally, Quentin asked what they were doing.

“We are currently involved in a diplomatic dance with the Indonesians,” Richards said. “Lives were lost today. They want restitution. And frankly, they want you people.”

Quentin considered this. Perhaps it didn’t matter if Richards believed them or not, as long as he was willing to get them safely to the United States.

Lindsey spoke up. “Colonel Richards, we would like to have access to a telephone.” She nodded toward the cell phone held by one of the men. “The students’ families deserve to hear from them and know that they are alive.”

Richards exchanged a glance with the man next to him and rubbed his chin. “We have been ordered to restrict your communication until things are ironed out. There are unanswered questions.”

“What questions?” Lindsey asked.

“Questions such as those we are exploring now. Shall we move on?”

And so the talking continued. With difficulty, Quentin told of Addison killing the villagers and then killing Miranda. Richards looked at Addison warily.

“Don’t worry,” Quentin said. “My son Addison is no longer with us. This is not really Addison.”

“Then who is he?” Quentin found a little satisfaction in the look of genuine confusion and alarm on Richards’s face.

Samuel spoke up. “What you see before you is the Lamotelokhai itself. It has disguised itself so that we could bring it to those in your home country who would use it with wisdom. A great moral responsibility is upon you, sir. We trust that you will act accordingly.”

The colonel’s next words were low and commanded their attention. “You want me to believe this boy is not human, that he is some kind of computer sent from an extraterrestrial civilization?”

Lindsey placed her elbows on the table. “This morning, would you have believed that you would be killing dinosaurs in a hospital?”

Richards just stared at her.

“It’s true, sir,” Gregory said. “I didn’t believe it either, but the boy gave me some sort of drug and I had these incredible visions—.” Gregory then seemed to realize this didn’t sound the way he had intended. He spoke to Addison. “Maybe you should show him, too.”

Gregory was right. Richards would need proof. Quentin looked at Bobby and their eyes locked. But instead of jumping at the chance to help as he had so many times before, Bobby just lowered his gaze. Quentin felt a pang of guilt for expecting so much of him. Bobby no doubt felt responsible for the bloody scene at the hospital.

“What do you want me to do?” Addison said.

Lindsey said, “Colonel Richards needs to understand what you are.”

“But don’t do anything that will hurt people,” Bobby added.

Addison reached under his hospital shirt and pulled out a brown lump like the one he had given to Gregory. As he walked around the table, the men next to Richards stiffened. He held it out to Richards.

The Colonel glanced at Gregory. “Is this the drug you took?”

“I don’t know if I would call it a drug. But yes.”

Richards took the object and handed it to the man on his left. “Get this to our doctors and have them figure out what the hell it is.” The man took it and left the room.

Addison spoke without expression. “The purpose of the substance is to help you understand. You should eat it.”

Richards grunted. “Like hell I should.” He pointed across the table. “Please take your seat, son.”

Addison looked at Bobby.

“Show him in a different way,” Bobby said, “but don’t hurt him.”

There was no detectable delay between Bobby’s last word and what happened next. Colonel Richards was simply gone. There was a loud pop where his body had been as air rushed in to fill the vacuum. A wisp of water vapor swirled in the air briefly and then vanished. Quentin blinked. The remaining man who sat next to Richards was so startled he practically toppled over in his chair.

“What the hell?” It was Richards. The voice came from outside the door, in the hallway. The door burst open and Richards stepped in. His face had gone white.

The man at the table said, “Sir, are you alright?”

Richards looked around him, and then down at his shaking hands. “What was that?” he said to Addison.

“It would take time to fully explain. Working together, the parts of my body are able to change some properties of the area near me, such as properties of space and time. What I did to you was simple. The spaces in this room and outside the door are known to me. I did this to help you understand. It is a capability I have that you might find useful.”

Richards put his hands on his chest, as if making sure he was in one piece. Then he looked up and said, “Can you do that again?”

There was another pop and a thin cloud where his body had stood. The rest of them simply stared at the spot, speechless.

Another cry came from the hall, this time a burst of delight. The door flew open again, and Richards entered the room. He gaped at Addison. He then pulled his eyes away and leveled his gaze at Quentin. “I may be slow, but I’m not stupid,” he said. “I’m starting to get the point. Lumenick!” he barked at the other man. “I don’t care what it takes, but see to it that the negotiations get wrapped up. We’re taking these people stateside, and we’re doing it now.”

The man stood. “Yes, sir!” He nearly stumbled over his own feet to get out the door.

* * *

Bobby didn’t get it. Addison makes someone disappear and then appear on the other side of a wall, and now Colonel Richards seemed—finally—to believe them. Seeing live dinosaurs wasn’t enough for him, but getting zapped through a wall was.

Colonel Richards ordered all the soldiers to drop whatever they were doing and guard the building. The group was taken to a bigger room with tables at one end and sleeping cots at the other. Green curtains hanging on metal frames separated the cots into sleeping cubicles. Men and women with guns stood near the doors, and more talked and yelled outside. Colonel Richards said he had to go talk to the Indonesians, and he asked if Addison needed anything special like electricity, or some other power source. Bobby grinned at this. Addison told him no, he would be fine.

And so they finally had a chance to clean up and get some rest. There were two bathrooms, and Bobby took his first shower since they had left the losmen in Wamena, thanks to hoses rigged from the pipes below the sinks to the tops of metal curtain frames. To Bobby it was the best shower in the world. Water splattered his skin and ran onto the floor, brown from grime and dried blood. Bobby gazed down at his naked body. It looked strange, like it belonged to someone else—someone older, more grown up. His pubic hair was thick and dark, and there was a shadow of fine black hairs from there down the inside of each of his legs. After scrubbing the dirt away, Bobby realized his skin was now darker. Even though they had spent most of the time in the forest’s dim shadows, somehow he was tan, except around his groin where his pant scraps had been tied. He ran his hand over his chest, feeling the scar from the tribesman’s spear. He was glad the scar hadn’t disappeared completely.

Bobby turned off the water from below the sink, dried off, and slipped back into his blue hospital clothes and flip-flops. Except for Addison, the others had showered before him, and now they were gathered around a table piled high with packages of junk food.

Carlos shot him a look as he approached and said, “Dinner.” The single word came out around a mouthful of orange cheese puffs.

Bobby salivated as he inspected the pile. It looked like someone had emptied an entire snack machine on the table. There were candy bars, pretzels, oatmeal cookies, animal crackers, and all kinds of chips—a grand mountain waiting to be conquered.

* * *

Bobby guessed it was dark outside, but he had no way to know. In spite of being tired he didn’t want to miss whatever might happen next. The others must have felt the same way, because they sat around the table even after they were too full too eat. Colonel Richards came into the room occasionally to check on them. The third time he came in, he asked Gregory to go with him. Within minutes Gregory came back, frowning.

He stood looking at them for a moment. He pulled one of the chairs from the table and sat. “It’s funny—I only just met you folks this morning, but in one day you have turned my life upside down.” He tried to smile, but it looked forced. Then he said, “Just spit it out, Stamper! It seems my role here is no longer important. I have been asked to go on about my business.”

After some uncomfortable silence, Mr. Darnell said, “You’ve been a great help to us, Gregory. I hate to think of where we might be now if you hadn’t been there.”

Gregory got up and shook Mr. Darnell’s hand. “I would like to believe I’ve played a role in this, despite how small it may have been. At this moment, I am one of the few who know the world is about to change.” He reached out to shake Mrs. Darnell’s hand, but she hugged him instead. He then moved around the table to shake everyone’s hands.

When he got to Addison, he said, “I hardly know what to say to you. In spite of what you may see from some of us, please know you are welcome here. I hope you can help us learn to use your knowledge wisely.”

The Lamotelokhai eyed him curiously. “If there are others like you where we are going, that should be easy.” Addison then shook Gregory’s hand, mimicking what the others had done.

Quentin wasn’t convinced it was safe for Gregory to leave the compound, but Richards assured them Gregory would have protection until he caught his flight to the interior, where he would join his research team. And so Gregory left.

* * *

Perhaps an hour passed before Richards entered the room again and instructed Samuel to come with him. They returned a short time later. Richards and half a dozen men stood by the door as Samuel approached Quentin and the others.

Samuel sighed deeply before speaking. “It seems that your countrymen and the officials here have come to an accord. To put it to few words, all of you are to be allowed free passage if I remain here.”

A flurry of protests filled the air. Samuel held up his hands to silence them. “I have agreed.”

There were more protests. Lindsey’s voice rose above the others. “Samuel, why would you do this? You wanted so badly to return to your home.”

Again Samuel raised his hands. “Please understand. For many years I have endeavored to hide the Lamotelokhai from the world, believing that its powers had no place in the hands of men who think themselves civilized but often act to the contrary. But I have always known, as the indigenes have known, that one day there would be no choice. You have convinced me that transporting the Lamotelokhai to your home country is a just and reasonable action, and I now have one last opportunity to assist the endeavor. The Indonesian officials believe we have discovered a plant bearing remarkable healing qualities. Sensibly, I am the one who could lead them to the place where the plant grows.” Samuel nodded toward Addison. “They do not know of the Lamotelokhai, and so they will allow you passage if I stay and guide them.”

“But there is no plant,” Quentin said. “When they find that out, they won’t be happy.”

Samuel raised only a finger this time. “If Addison will provide me some suitable substance that I might keep hidden until the proper time, perhaps I can give them what they believe exists.” He looked at Addison.

“Yes, Samuel, I can do that.”

Samuel smiled. “There, you see?” This was followed by dubious silence, so he continued. “As for my wishes to return to England, please know that this was a wish to return to the England I once knew, where the people I left behind still waited for my return. My colleagues. My father, Solomon Inwood, and my mother, Charity. And my beloved—” Samuel looked directly at Lindsey. “Her name was Lindsey. Lindsey Ennis. Did Quentin tell you this?”

Lindsey started to speak, but then she just shook her head no.

Samuel went on. “But of course she is long dead. I once thought I might visit her grave should I ever return. But she is surely buried beside a husband whom she loved for many years after I was forgotten. And the graves of their children will no doubt lie next to them. And perhaps their grandchildren. I feel no great calling to return there now. Besides, from what I have seen since we have left the forest, I do not believe I would recognize the places I once knew. The world is now filled with marvels beyond my understanding. If the medicinal effects of the Lamotelokhai on my body do not yield, I will still have ample time to grow accustomed to such things. I have even thought of returning to the village of my indigene friends.”

Richards was pacing by the door. “Mr. Inwood, we don’t have the luxury of long goodbyes.”

Quentin glared at Richards. This was too much of a compromise. Samuel had studied the Lamotelokhai for a century and a half. His knowledge would surely be important. Besides, he had become a personal friend. It didn’t seem right to use him as a pawn.

But Samuel seemed okay with this, and he quietly conferred with Addison, undoubtedly getting what he would need to placate the Indonesians. Addison handed him something that Samuel tucked away in his vest. Samuel headed for the door, but then he turned around. “Quentin, I would speak to you alone, if you would allow it.”

Quentin raised a finger to Richards to give them a minute and then moved to the far corner of the room. Samuel followed him over.

“This is a mistake,” Quentin said quietly. “We’re going to need you.”

“It is decided,” Samuel said. “But I must speak of my concerns. Perhaps it is too late to undo what has been done, but I must beg you to be diligent in protecting the Lamotelokhai. You have assured me that men in your country will be fitting caretakers, but I must say that those we have encountered have not given me great confidence. Colonel Richards seems an honest man, but I rather doubt he shares the same morals as you and I.”

As if he overheard this, Richards cleared his throat loudly and pointed to his watch.

Samuel put his hand on Quentin’s shoulder. “I have grown to respect you, Quentin, but I fear we may have made a mistake. If you find reason to agree with me on that, please take whatever action you must—before the Lamotelokhai is removed from your stewardship.”

Quentin figured it was already too late for that. He looked Samuel in the eye. “I understand what you and the villagers have sacrificed, and I’ll do my best.”

Samuel gave him a simple nod and then headed for the door.

Before following Samuel out, Richards turned back to them. “We had to bargain to accomplish our goal. But I guaran-goddamn-tee you this: Mr. Inwood will not be forgotten. Once we deliver you folks stateside, we have every intention of extracting him. He seems to think he can deliver what the Indonesians want. After he does that, I’m sure they will negotiate further.” He glanced at his watch again. “Gather what belongings you have. We’ve commandeered a commercial carrier to take you to L.A. It won’t be stopping in Jakarta. I’ll accompany you on the flight.” He nodded and left.

Within minutes they had boarded a truck and were trundling toward the waiting jet. It was now dark, but Quentin could see that military vehicles packed with armed men flanked them. Richards wasn’t taking any chances. When the truck stopped, they were far out on the tarmac rather than at the terminal. A massive intercontinental Qantas jet loomed over them, blocking the backdrop of stars.

“Now that’s a real plane,” Ashley said as they piled out of the truck.

Bobby stood still, gazing up at the vast aircraft. “I wish Samuel could see this.”

The men escorted them up the wheeled staircase. They passed through the lavish first class into a much larger economy section. The sheer size of the cabin was unsettling. Without seats, the area would be large enough for a game of kickball. And there were no regular passengers, only a small cluster of people surrounding a gray-haired man in a black suit.

As they entered, the man introduced himself as Cameron Weis, Ambassador, U.S. Embassy Jakarta. He had personally come to see that they were being treated well. He had gathered several doctors who were available on short notice, including a man in a khaki uniform, Captain William Kessel, Commanding Officer of the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit. Also there was Dr. Saskia, who had been at the hospital with Sterling Hess and had witnessed the horrific events there. Dr. Saskia seemed to have recovered from his dinosaur bite, and Quentin wondered if Hess had been so lucky.

As the students filed into a row of seats, the men seemed unable to keep their eyes off of them. Apparently Hess or Saskia had told them at least some of what they had seen.

Ambassador Weis cleared his throat, and the men quit staring. “We honestly do not know what your situation is, folks,” he said. “Only that one or more of the students with you has a most extraordinary condition. Dr. Saskia is here because he has firsthand experience with the student. Our primary objective at this time is to transport you safely to the States, to an adequately-equipped facility with qualified staff. A team of experts is assembling as we speak, although it is difficult to recruit specialists when you have little idea of the nature of the situation.” The ambassador spread his hands to indicate the group of men. “These good doctors will examine each of you. We must be diligent with regard to pathogens.”

Quentin noticed that a row of seats next to them was piled high with metal cases that probably contained medical equipment.

Ambassador Weis continued. “Do you mind telling us which of your students Colonel Richards might have referred to when he used the phrase, a boy, but not really a boy?”

“His name is Addison.” It was Richards himself. Quentin had not seen him enter the cabin behind them. Richards pointed at Addison. “And I did not claim he wasn’t a boy, only that these people claimed he wasn’t. I do know he may be more valuable to our country than you can possibly imagine. Let’s get this tub in the air.”

Quentin didn’t like Richards’s tone. It was time to say something. “I want to make sure everyone here realizes why we brought Addison to you. We believe the U.S. is where he should be, but only because we believe the U.S. is likely to understand that his gifts are meant for everyone on this planet. They are not for the benefit of one nation, or any one group of people. Do you agree?”

Dr. Saskia nodded, but Ambassador Weis gazed at Quentin dubiously, as did most of the others. They obviously didn’t believe that Addison was anything more than a boy.

“I’m certainly no expert,” Richards said. “And I can’t imagine anyone else here is—not after what I’ve seen. So let’s focus on the task at hand. When we get you folks stateside, the true experts can determine a sound course of action.” Richards then made his way to where Addison sat and began asking him questions.

Quentin’s emotions churned as he watched Richards speaking eagerly to the Lamotelokhai. Quentin was still trying to accept that he would never see Addison again. And now he realized that once they got home he would also lose this replica of Addison. Suddenly he was overcome with the notion that he was making a colossal mistake.

* * *

Bobby hardly even noticed when the plane took off. It was nothing like a Twin Otter, and it seemed impossible that anything could go wrong. Ambassador Weis did not stay with them. Even the soldiers that were there left the plane before it took off. Maybe they figured once the plane was in the air, they were safe.

Bobby wanted to sleep, but the doctors weren’t finished with them. They were stabbed with needles to draw blood. Before the plane crash, Bobby had been afraid of needles, but now he hardly noticed. They all had to pee in cups, and then they had to spit into more cups. Long cotton swabs were pushed into their throats, noses, eyes, and ears. Bobby even had to go behind a curtain and strip down so a doctor could examine every inch of him.

The doctors wore masks and rubber gloves, like they were afraid of catching a disease. But of course they wouldn’t. And Bobby was pretty sure they wouldn’t find diseases in the blood, urine, or anything else taken from their bodies.

During all of this, Colonel Richards kept speaking to Addison. When it was Addison’s turn to be examined, Richards stayed right there with him, repeatedly asking the doctors if they saw anything unusual as they wiped Addison with swabs and stuck him with needles. Mr. Darnell tried telling them this was a waste of time, but Colonel Richards told the doctors to do it anyway. Then Mr. Darnell told Addison to show them the trick of tearing open his shoulder and then fixing it. Addison did this without even blinking an eye, and again it made Bobby a little nauseous. The men got quiet, except for Dr. Saskia, who said they all should have believed him in the first place.

So finally Colonel Richards said, “Due respect, gentlemen, but I think this is beyond your expertise. Let’s hold off until we know what the hell we’re dealing with.” Then he took Addison back to where they were sitting before.

Ashley yawned loudly. “Well, this flight has been a blast so far. Time to sleep.” She then shuffled toward the front of the plane.

Colonel Richards spoke up. “Miss Stoddard, it would be best if you all stayed together.”

Ashley turned with an irritated look. “The plane is empty. No one is in first class. And you guys are making too much noise figuring out what we already know.” She waved her hand at the cabin wall. “Do you think I’m going to run away?” Then she pushed through the curtain and was gone.

Richards gazed at the curtain for a moment. “Kid’s got spunk,” he said.

Mrs. Darnell said, “You boys should get some rest too.”

Bobby and Carlos headed for first class. Before passing through the curtain, Bobby turned. “Colonel Richards, you should be careful.”

Richards looked at him, and so did the doctors.

Bobby swallowed and went on. “Be careful what you ask him to do, because bad things always happen.”

Richards said, “Duly noted, son. Your name is Bobby Truex, isn’t that correct?”

Bobby nodded.

Richards smiled at him. “There’s something I’m curious about, Bobby. You were the one who told it—the Lamotelokhai—to change itself to look like the son of Mr. and Mrs. Darnell. Correct?”

Bobby glanced at Mr. Darnell and then nodded.

“Why Addison?” Richards said. “Why not ask it to look like one of the others?”

Bobby didn’t know how to answer this.

“Or why not ask it to look like someone famous? Maybe Abraham Lincoln, or Clint Eastwood? Why specifically Addison Darnell?”

Mr. Darnell spoke up. “Colonel, Bobby was making a legitimate point. You should thank him, rather than question—”

Addison was sitting next to Richards, but suddenly something wasn’t right. Bobby immediately saw what it was, and his senses became numb.

“I can answer Roger Richards’s question,” Addison said. But it wasn’t Addison. The gasps from the doctors seemed faint, like Bobby was hearing them through ears clogged with water.

Sitting next to Colonel Richards was Bobby himself.

Richards turned to look. He stared. He turned to Bobby, and then turned back to the other Bobby.

Bobby wanted to look in a mirror to make sure he was still himself. Instead he looked at his hands. He then pushed past the doctors and stood at the end of the row where Richards and the other Bobby sat. It looked like him in every single way he could see.

The thing spoke to Richards. “I cannot form myself into a creature or object I do not have knowledge of. Bobby knows this. Bobby asked me to form myself into Addison Darnell because he believed he was responsible for Addison going away. Bobby believed it would comfort Quentin Darnell and Lindsey Darnell if I formed myself into the body of Addison.” The thing paused like it was waiting for a reaction. “Do you feel that your question has been answered, Roger Richards?”

Colonel Richards’s eyes narrowed, but the corners of his mouth smiled a little—a look Bobby found disturbing. Richards said, “Yes.”

Addison went on. “Bobby is correct, you should be careful. I was created to share with you some of the achievements of my creators. You must decide what you do with my creators’ achievements. If you harm yourselves, then those who eventually replace you may learn from your mistakes.”

“Do you understand what he is saying?” Mr. Darnell said. “He’s been here for over half a billion years. You could use him stupidly and destroy the entire human race, and he wouldn’t try to stop you. He wouldn’t even care.”

Richards glanced at Mr. Darnell. His face still had the same smirk.

Bobby couldn’t help but stare at his duplicate. Now the resemblance was less than perfect. In fact, the more he stared, the more obvious the differences became. He realized the thing was changing. The straight brown hair was transforming into longer corkscrew curls, and the eyes were closer together. Before long he was looking at Addison again.

Bobby suddenly felt very tired. He stared at the colonel for a moment, but Richards wouldn’t look at him. He shuffled back to the curtain where Carlos waited, and they both passed through it.

First class was much nicer than the rest of the plane. Each seat was actually a booth, the size of four regular seats, and Ashley had already figured out how to turn her seat to the side so it stretched out flat into a bed. She was lying on her side, but she lifted her head when Bobby and Carlos settled into booths across the aisle from her.

“Definitely first class,” she said.

Bobby checked out his space. There was a flat TV screen and connectors for plugging in smartphones, laptops, and other gadgets. Headphones were tucked into a cubby, and for the first time in days Bobby wished he had his smartphone so he could fall asleep to music.

Ashley said, “I tried using the phones, but they must be turned off.”

A stewardess appeared and offered them sodas. They each took one and chugged them down like they were dying of thirst. The stewardess showed them how to control the personal lights in their booths, and then she turned off the overhead lights. She left them alone in the dark. Within a minute Bobby heard Carlos snoring.

Ashley crushed her empty can and said, “I was thinking. Since we’re going straight from Sentani to L.A., it should take about sixteen hours. Papua is sixteen hours ahead of L.A. That means we’ll get there at the same time we left.”

Bobby considered this, but what really interested him was why Ashley had even said it. On the flight to Papua all those days ago, she would never have talked to him like this. In fact, she hadn’t talked to him at all. In the darkness he heard her sigh. She must have thought he was asleep. He wanted her to keep talking, so he said the first thing he could think of. “Addison turned into me.”

“Why in the hell would he want to be you?”

“Well, I think he was trying to answer a question that—”

“Jesus, Bobby, it was a joke. I watched you guys through the curtain. Two Bobbies—damn scary.”

Bobby sensed that she was smiling, even though it was too dark to see for sure. “Yeah, I was kind of scared.”

After some silence, Ashley said, “I’m afraid to go home.”

Bobby’s seat now lay flat, but he pushed up on one elbow to look at her. His eyes were getting used to the dark, and he saw that she was sitting up. “I know what you mean,” he said. “Everything’s going to be different.”

Ashley pulled her legs out of the narrow space and turned her seat forward. “We’re safe now, but they won’t let us call home. Why?”

Bobby didn’t know the answer to this. “I bet you miss your friends from school, huh?”

“Miranda was my best friend. She’s dead.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

Ashley was silent for a moment. “Not so much.”

She then slid across the aisle and sat on the floor in the space left open by Bobby’s swiveled seat. Her face was only inches away, and Bobby felt a tingle through his body.

“What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?” Ashley talked softer now. The low roar of the engines seemed to fade away to nothing.

Bobby felt his face flush and was glad for the darkness. “No, no girlfriend at the moment.” In truth, Bobby had never had a girlfriend.

“Saving yourself for the right girl, huh?”

Bobby knew she was teasing him, but he seemed to have lost the ability to talk. He struggled for anything to say other than the thought that was in his head. The seconds were passing by. It was no use. “Actually, I kind of wanted to ask you to be my girlfriend.”

Ashley froze. Bobby dug his fingernails into his thigh and cursed himself silently. Why was he such an idiot? But she wasn’t laughing at him or cussing him out. Instead, it was like she was thinking. What if she said yes? What would he do then? He had no idea.

And then Ashley did the last thing he expected. She reached out and grabbed his head, leaned over him, and put her mouth on his.

Bobby had never kissed a girl before, although he had practiced against the mirror with the bathroom door locked. Ashley pressed her mouth hard against his. And then he felt the tip of her tongue. He did not dare move his tongue, and she didn’t do it again—just that one quick flick of her tongue into his mouth. And then she pulled away.

Bobby watched her. “You kissed me.” It was a stupid thing to say.

“If you were a few years older, I’d do it again.”

“You’re only three years older than me.”

Ashley sighed. “You’re what, fourteen? You know what will happen when we get home. I’ll have my senior friends. You’ll have your freshmen friends. I’ll say, ‘Hi Bobby’ when we pass in the hall, but that’ll be about it.”

She was right, of course. Ashley flopped her head against the side of the seat, and Bobby could smell the hand soap she must have used in her hair in the makeshift shower in the hangar.

“You know, it’s funny,” she said. “I can’t have you for my boyfriend. But if any boyfriend I’ve ever had were on this trip instead of you, I think we might all be dead.”

This didn’t seem very funny to Bobby. “Why did you kiss me?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Why did you ask me to be your girlfriend?”

“Because I like you.”

“Well, that’s why I kissed you. But if you tell anyone, I’ll just deny it. Who do you think they’ll believe?”

Bobby felt the tingles in his body slipping away, replaced by tension. Best to change the subject. “Do you think we made a mistake, bringing Addison with us?”

She looked at him without answering.

“I’m afraid of what they’ll do with him when we get home,” he said.

Still she didn’t answer.

“He could do something awful, like destroy the whole world.”

“I guess we have to trust them to do the right thing,” she said.

“I thought I trusted myself to do the right thing, but look what happened at the hospital.”

Ashley pulled her leg in from the aisle and sat on her foot. “Maybe we won’t even need hospitals anymore. It seems like things can only get better, since the world is so screwed up now.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Actually, Bobby didn’t think the world was screwed up at all. He had heard people say that, but he’d never understood why.

As Carlos snored in the next booth, they talked about Miranda and Addison and Roberto and Russ. They talked about Samuel and the hanging village and the Papuans who still lived there and the ones who had died. But they didn’t talk about home again. Or school. Or boyfriends and girlfriends.

Finally, Ashley yawned and went back to her own booth. Bobby rolled over and closed his eyes. He touched his lips lightly, thinking of the tip of her tongue.

* * *

Mbaiso had labored through the previous day and then had traveled through the night and into the morning. Traveling was slow, because the human following him could not keep up. The man was sluggish and had difficulty negotiating hills and thick undergrowth. But they had finally reached their destination. The tree kangaroo crouched low and peered through a gap in the leaves. Before him was a village with several small huts. A much longer hut stood beyond the smaller ones. Three human women sat around a fire pit between the huts, talking and performing some task with their hands. Five smaller humans laughed and chased each other around the women. Mbaiso watched them playing. In all the centuries of his existence he had rarely seen small children in the hanging village. The villagers there almost never died, and there had been no need for new children to replace them.

Mbaiso turned around and waited for the man to catch up. Finally, he saw movement. As the man plodded slowly up a slope, the array of green lorikeet feathers in his hair could be seen bobbing back and forth. Sinanie came to a stop after nearly tripping over Mbaiso. He looked down at the tree kangaroo with vacant eyes. He said nothing, because he was not capable of speaking.

Mbaiso moved to the side. Sinanie then walked past the tree kangaroo, pushed through the vegetation, and emerged into the village clearing. Mbaiso remained hidden and watched.

The children saw Sinanie and immediately began yelling and pointing. The women rose to their feet and also began yelling. Other villagers emerged from the huts, mostly men. The tribesmen wore caps of human skin, and their upper bodies bore rows of swollen scars resembling crocodile skin. Several of them carried sharpened spears.

The men gathered around Sinanie. They spoke forcefully to him in their tribe’s language.

Sinanie stared at them, but he could not speak.

The tribesmen spoke louder. One of them slapped Sinanie’s face but got no response. They turned him and pushed him toward the forest, but Sinanie simply turned back around. One of the men struck Sinanie’s head with the side of his spear, knocking him to the ground. Sinanie gathered his feet under him and slowly stood up.

The tribesmen spoke to each other. Abruptly, the men who had brought spears with them turned on Sinanie, thrusting their spears with full force at his neck and face.

Sinanie fell to the ground. The tribesmen stood over him watching until his body stopped moving.

Again the tribesmen spoke to each other. Two of them grabbed Sinanie’s body by the ankles and dragged it across the dirt to the edge of the fire pit. The women went to one of the huts and returned with sharpened wedges of bamboo. By this time the entire village had gathered around and they began butchering the body, preparing for an unexpected feast.

Mbaiso was nearly exhausted, but he had no desire to rest so close to these villagers. So he began his journey back. It had taken him most of the previous day to create a copy of Sinanie developed enough to convince the cannibal tribe it was real. There would be enough flesh to feed the entire tribe. And soon after being consumed, the flesh would carry out its intended purpose. The villagers would no longer have any memory of a hanging village that existed only one day’s travel up the river.

After moving a good distance away, Mbaiso paused in the lower branches of a fig tree to eat some of its fruits. Again he examined his last array of directives from the creator, and he designated another of them as completed.

Chapter Seven

Quentin felt someone shaking his shoulder.

“Mr. Darnell. I must speak with you.”

Dr. Saskia stood in the aisle next to him. Quentin rubbed his eyes. It felt like he’d been asleep for a very long time. He looked around. Lindsey slept curled up in the next seat. It was still dark outside the windows, but they were descending. Was it possible he had slept longer than twelve hours? He shook his head to clear it. “What is it, Paul?”

The doctor looked at Lindsey and hesitated.

Quentin pulled himself up and moved to another row of seats against the bulkhead separating this area from the larger cabin where most of the others had settled in for the night. Quentin heard Colonel Richards’s voice coming from beyond the bulkhead.

Saskia frowned at him. “I woke up some minutes ago, after having the most extraordinary dream. It was a dream, but not a dream, if that makes any sense.”

“Yes, it does. Did you move through space and then come to Earth?”

Dr. Sakia blinked. “That is precisely what happened.”

“We’ve all had that dream. That’s how the Lamotelokhai explains how it got here. Did your dream end up in a tree in the rainforest?”

“It was in a tree, yes. But it didn’t end there. The dream showed you and your friends with it there, and then bringing it to civilization.”

Quentin smiled. “I guess that means we’re an important part of the story.”

Saskia did not smile. “Mr. Darnell, I have always looked at dreams as merely a physiological curiosity. But this dream was unlike any I have ever had. I was entirely lucid.”

Quentin considered this. “Paul, you were at the hospital. Addison put his hands on you when you were hurt. Whatever the stuff is that he’s made out of got into your system. That’s why you had the dream. And there will be more. Just wait until you wake up tomorrow. Do you see why we’re trying to get Addison safely to the U.S.?”

“I do, which is why I have come to you now. Colonel Richards has not slept. He talked to Addison all night. He doesn’t seem himself.”

“He’s still at it?” Quentin got up and went forward to the larger cabin. Saskia followed. The other doctors were scattered about, all of them apparently asleep. Richards and Addison still sat where Quentin had last seen them. But the area around them had changed. Some seats were missing, and a few were grotesquely mangled. Bizarre objects were scattered about: a metal watering can, a stack of paper currency at least five inches tall, a large shapeless mass that appeared to be gold, an antique phonograph player, complete with a horn speaker, and several devices that looked like weapons from a science fiction movie. As Quentin stared at these last objects, alarm began constricting his chest.

In the midst of all this sat Richards, talking frantically, his voice now hoarse. Addison patiently listened. Richards glanced up as they approached, but he just went on talking.

“… the extent of my knowledge of the mechanism. But I’m thinking you can fill in the gaps so that we end up with a functional device. Do you think that’s possible?”

Addison’s face was expressionless. “Yes. But the device then may not be what you desire it to be. My own ideas for design are different from yours.”

Richards waved his hand in exaggerated dismissal. “That doesn’t matter. Once it is functional, we’ll deconstruct it. Then we can make them ourselves.”

“What’s going on here?” Quentin asked.

Richards turned. “I thought you were sleeping.”

Saskia was right; Richards was not himself. There was no sign of his typical self-control.

“We were. We slept a long time. Dr. Saskia says you’ve been at this all night.” Quentin waved at the strange objects. “Colonel, what is all this?”

Richards looked at the area. “I have learned a great deal about the capabilities of this young man.” He looked at his watch. “And there is precious little time before we touch down.”

As if on cue, an electronic ding came from above, followed by the pilot’s voice announcing that they were approaching LAX and they should move to their seats. Richards turned back to Addison.

Quentin picked up one of the peculiar science fiction devices. It was heavy and solid in his hands. “Colonel, this looks like a weapon. Please tell me you didn’t ask Addison to make these. That’s not at all why—”

Richards swung around to face him. “I’m trying to learn what is possible here. If you honestly think that all possibilities will not be explored when the experts get their hands on him, then you are goddamn naïve. Put that down before you hurt yourself.”

Quentin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Richards had ignored all their warnings. After staring at the colonel for a moment, Quentin looked at the weapon in his hands. Suddenly it became clear beyond any doubt that Samuel had been right. Men like Richards were simply not equipped to deal with the Lamotelokhai. Perhaps no one was. Quentin’s fingers trembled with anger—anger at himself and anger at Richards for so brazenly proving him wrong. Richards glared, looking from Quentin’s eyes to the weapon. Quentin realized Richards was afraid. This had to mean that the weapon was real, which only intensified Quentin’s disgust. He had to do something.

Quentin fumbled with the weapon and found a trigger. He raised the thing and pointed it at Richards. “Colonel, your time with Addison is over.”

Richards shifted in his seat like he was preparing to lunge at Quentin. But he sat tight. Dr. Saskia stumbled into a row of seats and crouched against one of the windows.

Richards started to speak, but Quentin cut him off. “I said you’re done! You can sit over there until we land.” Quentin nodded toward the far side of the cabin.

Richards closed his eyes as if trying to calm himself. “You’re making a mistake, Darnell. Place the weapon on the floor now.”

Quentin took a threatening step closer. The device felt warm in his hands now, as if responding to his intentions. “Addison, please move away from Colonel Richards. I have reason to believe he should not be allowed to talk to you.”

Addison stood up and moved away.

Richards’s face grew dark with anger. “You have goddamn nerve, Darnell, I’ll give you that. But your behavior is ill advised. I’ve made progress here. Can’t you see that?” He pointed to the odd assortment of objects around him. “Did you know your son could change common materials into just about anything? Even gold!”

Quentin still pointed the weapon at him. “As a matter of fact, I did know that. But compared to his other abilities, that’s not important. And it’s not important compared to what he knows. He has been here for half a billion years, and he has collected—”

Quentin stopped. Something wasn’t right. Richards’s eyes had shifted to the side, looking over Quentin’s shoulder. And then his head nodded almost imperceptibly. Before Quentin could turn, he was hit from behind. Two arms shot around his shoulders, grabbed the weapon, and pulled it up over his head. Quentin fought to hold on to it.

“Release the weapon, Darnell!” The voice was inches from his ear. It was William Kessel, the Navy medical officer.

Quentin pulled the weapon back down to the level of his face. He let go with his right hand and thrust his elbow into Kessel’s gut. The man grunted and doubled over, forcing his hand to pull hard on the weapon. Quentin felt the trigger move.

There was a low pulsing sound that Quentin felt more than he heard. For a brief moment that sound was all he was aware of. And then the world around him exploded. Deafened by the roar of rushing air, Quentin watched in disbelief as loose items flew upward and out a massive hole in the ceiling. Kessel’s arms were now around Quenton’s waist, holding on to him instead of the weapon. Quentin looked at Richards. The man seemed confused as the debris around him was sucked upward. His eyes met Quentin’s, and then he was lifted off the floor. His head struck the edge of the opening, and his body flipped over and shot straight up and out the hole. Quentin watched it rise through an upper cabin he didn’t even know was there to a second hole above that. Then the rushing air above the plane ripped the body from view with terrifying force. Quentin stared at the gaping hole. For a brief moment he actually saw stars in the night sky where Richards had disappeared.

The suction threatened to pull Quentin off his feet, and he suddenly realized the only reason he still lived was that Kessell now held his legs tight against one of the seats.

* * *

Bobby sat up and banged his shoulder on the wall of his booth. Something was terribly wrong. The plane shook like it was falling apart, and a deafening roar hurt his ears. Emergency lights now cast a red glow throughout the first class cabin, and Bobby saw that Carlos and Ashley were sitting up too. Ashley tried to say something, but he could barely hear her.

Bobby leaned over and looked out the window. Instead of the solid black of night, he saw an ocean of yellow lights below them. They were over a large city and were dropping fast. The stewardess ran by them, her wide eyes emphasized by the red light of the cabin.

Bobby made his way toward the rear of the plane. The floor shook so much that he had to clutch the booths to stay on his feet. He entered the larger cabin and squinted against the brightness of the lights that were still on. At the far end the ceiling was torn wide open, and air gushed through the hole, carrying all kinds of debris with it.

The plane suddenly pitched, dropping even faster. Bobby lost his balance and tumbled backwards, hitting the floor. As he gasped for breath, he realized the air in the cabin was very thin. He pulled himself up. The plane’s motion had jarred some of the overhead storage bins open, and now blankets and pillows flew out the hole in the ceiling.

Most of the doctors were there, clinging to seats and staring at the hole above, but the teachers were gone. And then Bobby spotted Mr. Darnell, directly under the hole, trying to get through a doorway, holding on to whatever he could. Mr. Darnell turned and saw Bobby. He yelled something. Bobby couldn’t hear the words, but from the look on his face he knew it was: “I’m sorry.” And then Mr. Darnell went through the doorway and was gone.

The plane lurched again and Bobby fought to stay on his feet. Ashley grabbed his arm from behind and yelled, “You need to come back and buckle in!”

Bobby nodded. “Go! I’ll be right there.”

Their eyes met. She was terrified. They were going to crash and Ashley knew it.

“I have to find Addison!” Bobby yelled. “I’ll be there in a second.”

Ashley nodded and released his arm.

Bobby turned around and scanned the cabin. He spotted Addison, sitting against the outer wall. He was alone, and he looked very small amidst the violence around him.

Gripping seats hand over hand, Bobby made his way to Addison and crouched beside him. He looked past Addison out the window and saw rows of airport runway lights. But the plane was dropping far too fast. It was literally falling toward the lights.

“We’re going to crash,” Bobby cried into Addison’s ear. “Please help!”

“I cannot stop this,” Addison said.

Bobby felt faint. “Can’t you fix the plane?”

Addison glanced at the huge hole above. “Not in time to stop this.”

Bobby looked out the window. Addison was right. There was no time.

“I don’t want to die, Addison! I wanted to help you do what you came here to do!”

Addison’s face showed no expression, but his eyes shifted to a now-familiar golden yellow. He seemed to be thinking. He let go of the seat and held Bobby’s shoulders. “I cannot stop this. But perhaps you can have what you want.”

Bobby blinked away tears that were filling his eyes. What did that mean? Suddenly everything went gray. The noise of the plane was gone, and he felt nothing but peace and quiet. But then the earsplitting rush of air was back, and with it his fear.

Addison was smiling. “Do not be afraid.”

Bobby took his last look out the window and raised his arms to protect his face.

Chapter Eight

Nine minutes earlier

With Dr. Saskia behind him, Quentin approached Richards and Addison. Some of the seats around them were either missing or oddly deformed, and Quentin stared at a strange assortment of objects scattered around. Among the objects there was money, and even gold. And there were several long devices that looked like futuristic weapons. Obviously Richards had used Addison to create these. What the hell was the man thinking?

Richards talked frantically to Addison and hardly noticed as they approached. It sounded like he was discussing plans for creating some kind of device. Richards seemed almost frantic, speaking rapidly with a voice hoarse from overuse. Dr. Saskia had been right—Richards was not himself.

Quentin stepped closer, preparing to say something, when suddenly he had to steady himself against one of the seats. His vision went gray, as if he were about to faint, but his thoughts were still coherent. There was simply an absence of senses. No sight, no sound, just awareness. It was actually serene. But the moment passed, and the disturbing scene was back.

“What’s going on here?” Quentin asked.

Richards turned to them. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“We were. We slept for a long time. Dr. Saskia says you’ve been at this all night. Colonel, what is all this?”

“I’ve learned a great deal about the capabilities of this young man, Mr. Darnell. And there is precious little time left.”

An electronic ding sounded from above, followed by the pilot’s voice saying they were approaching LAX.

Quentin picked up one of the weapon-like devices. “Colonel, this looks like a gun. Did you have Addison make this? This is not why he’s here.”

Richards’s sighed loudly. “You’re being naïve if you think such possibilities won’t be explored. Put the weapon down. You have no idea how to handle it.”

Quentin did not put it down. His anger threatened to consume him. How could he have been so wrong? They should have never tried to bring the Lamotelokhai to the United States. He turned to Saskia. The doctor shook his head, unable to offer any help. But his eyes flitted nervously to the weapon in Quentin’s hands. Quentin looked around the cabin, hoping some kind of solution might suddenly appear. Most of the doctors were still sleeping. But the Navy doctor, William Kessel, was sitting up, watching them with interest.

Struggling to contain his anger, Quentin examined the device in his hands. He was disgusted that Addison had been used to create such a thing. He found the trigger, then tightened his grip on it and pointed it at Richards.

Before Richards saw the threat, another ding came from above, and then the pilot’s voice. “Folks, due to a situation on the ground at LAX, we are being re-routed to Long Beach Airport a short distance to the south. We’ll be changing course momentarily so please fasten your seatbelts.”

Quentin relaxed his grip on the weapon and placed it on the floor. What could possibly force such an important flight to change course? The plane tipped to one side, shifting its direction. Quentin looked out the downward-facing windows and saw the vast expanse of lights that was Los Angeles, and the parallel runway lights of LAX below. And then he saw it. Sprawled amidst the lights was the carnage of a catastrophe. Patches of fire and flashing lights illuminated scattered wreckage.

“Sweet Jesus!” It was Richards. He had moved to one of the windows next to Quentin.

A stewardess brushed past them, her face etched with concern.

Richards stopped her. “Ma’am! What happened down there?”

“We don’t have details yet, sir.” She rushed off toward the rear of the plane.

Quentin turned back to the window. The wreckage was scattered over a huge area, as if a plane had literally splashed onto the ground.

“It was our airplane.”

They turned to face Addison.

“What are you talking about?” Richards demanded.

Addison looked at Quentin. “The airplane that crashed was this one, Dad. You pointed the weapon at Roger Richards. You wanted him to stop talking to me. William Kessel tried to take the weapon from you. The weapon was activated. This damaged the airplane, and the airplane crashed.”

A hollow numbness grew in Quentin’s gut.

“That’s nonsense!” Richards said. “We’re still here, aren’t we?”

Addison’s voice was calm. “Before the airplane crashed, Bobby asked me to fix the damaged airplane. I could not. He convinced me to do something else instead. So I made a change in the space near the airplane. The change made a second airplane, from an earlier moment in time. I did this so that Bobby might still exist to do what he wanted to do.” Addison gazed at Quentin. “You have experienced such a change before.”

“Yes.” The numbness in Quentin’s gut turned into an icy chill.

“Who was on that plane?” Richards said, pointing out the window.

“We were on it,” Addison said. “It was the same airplane. You were ejected from the airplane before it crashed. The weapon you asked me to create damaged the airplane, and you were almost certainly killed.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Richards repeated.

Out the window, the burning wreckage slipped from view. Quentin struggled to grasp the meaning of Addison’s words. They were all killed?

“We can’t land at another airport,” Richards said. He seemed to be talking to himself, but then he turned to Quentin. “There was a team of doctors and other specialists waiting for our arrival, not to mention a Special Forces unit to provide security. We’ll be vulnerable if we land anywhere else.” Richards pulled his smartphone from his belt and started to punch in a number. “We need to mobilize them.”

Quentin stepped up and placed his hand on the phone. “Colonel, consider what just happened. We were killed. I fired the weapon that caused the crash, but you’re the one who had Addison create it in the first place. The point is it happened. And it will happen again. People get intoxicated with what the Lamotelokhai can do. Your team of experts won’t be immune to that. You told me yourself they would use Addison to make weapons. You don’t honestly believe this gift was sent for that reason, do you?”

“I have no evidence your son’s capabilities are a gift of any kind, nor that he is an extraterrestrial.”

Quentin refused to give up. “You’ll see evidence of that soon. You’d know it now if you’d slept during the night. But my point is that you now know what can happen. You saw the disaster at the hospital, and now your own mistake has caused the deaths of everyone on this plane.”

“We are not dead,” Richards said.

“We’re just copies of ourselves!” Quentin struggled to control his voice. “Tell me, Colonel—this team of experts—do you believe they have plans to immediately share Addison’s gifts with the rest of the world so that everyone can make decisions about its use? Or will they confine the investigation to a group of people who might first consider the benefits to the United States?”

Richards seemed to actually think about this. “Your second assumption is likely.”

Quentin lowered his voice. “Addison is capable of shifting time and space, for God’s sake. Think of the chaos he could create if the wrong people control him.”

Richards studied Quentin’s face for a moment. “Alright, Darnell. What do you suggest?”

* * *

Bobby awoke to the pilot’s voice—something about landing at a different airport. He’d slept through most of the flight. The cabin lights came on, and he squinted against the brightness. Carlos and Ashley were stirring, too. Ashley mumbled something he couldn’t understand, and then their late-night conversation came back to him. And so did the kiss.

“We can’t be there already,” Ashley said.

Carlos headed for the restrooms, leaving Bobby alone with Ashley.

Ashley gazed at him. “Let’s agree not to act weird about things, okay?”

Bobby was relieved that she brought it up first. “I’ll pretend nothing happened if you keep thinking about what I asked you,” he said. “Maybe someday you’ll change your mind.”

Addison came in and stood in the aisle between them. “Something has happened. Roger Richards asked me to create things. I did. One of the things was a weapon. Dad did not like this. He picked up the weapon and William Kessel tried to take it away. The weapon was activated, and it damaged the airplane. Bobby, you asked me to repair the damage, but I could not repair it before the plane crashed to the surface. Before it crashed, you asked me if I could do something that might allow you to continue living. So I did. What I did created a second airplane. The first airplane crashed. This probably killed everyone on that airplane. But on this airplane you may live to accomplish what you want.”

Addison had spoken clearly, but Bobby struggled to understand. Perhaps his brain wasn’t awake yet. He turned to Ashley for help, but she looked just as dumbfounded. Slowly, Addison’s words sank in and Bobby’s skin began to prickle.

Carlos came back in and stopped when he saw their faces. “What’s going on?”

“Plans are being made,” Addison said. “You should come with me now.” He turned and walked away.

“Addison made a copy of our airplane, and the other one crashed,” Bobby told Carlos. “We all died.” Bobby turned away from Carlos’s baffled gape and followed Addison.

* * *

Quentin woke Lindsey and did his best to explain the events. As she listened she nodded a few times but then held up one hand and shook her head as if unwilling to hear any more of it. Quentin sat next to her and waited patiently.

A few minutes later she said, “I want to be strong. I do. For you. For the students. But I don’t know if I can handle any more. How am I supposed to respond to this? I died—we all died—in a plane crash? What the hell, Quentin?” She turned away and stared out the window.

Quentin had no answers. So he simply sat with his hand on her knee as the plane descended toward the Long Beach Airport. Minutes later they touched down. Lindsey turned back to Quentin and silently motioned for him to get up. They joined Richards and the doctors in the main cabin.

Colonel Richards seemed genuinely disturbed by the turn of events, and he now freely revealed what he knew. As he talked, Quentin became aware of the magnitude of their mistake in bringing the Lamotelokhai here. Richards admitted that government officials were planning to keep everything a secret until they fully understood what they were dealing with, which Quentin assumed would be a very long time. The Jayapura hospital conflict had been reported as an unfortunate skirmish, with no mention of dinosaurs or anything else out of the ordinary. The only ones who knew about their flight to Los Angeles were the hastily assembled homeland security officials, government doctors, and armed security men awaiting them. But the plane this team waited for had crashed. To Quentin, the ensuing confusion represented a window of opportunity—a chance to somehow correct his mistake. And Richards now seemed to agree.

“We have to make the general population aware of Addison, before he is sequestered into secrecy.” Richards said.

Quentin nodded. “You’re willing to help us do that?”

“I told you before, I’m slow but not stupid. It’s not every day a man responsible for killing himself and those around him has the chance to reflect on it postmortem.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s assume what your son says is true. An exact copy of our plane and our own bodies are smeared over the LAX tarmac. You can be damn sure the homeland security folks are going ape-shit. Those boys will be up our asses in a few minutes—fifteen tops. We have to get you off this plane and to a public place.”

“Why a public place? Shouldn’t we just hide out somewhere until we figure out what to do?”

Richards shook his head. “You stated yourself that you don’t want your son controlled by only a few individuals. So hiding out with him is a bad idea, unless you feel you are the only ones qualified to work with him.”

“No,” Quentin said. “We don’t think that.”

“Then what you want is a media blitz in a public place—show the whole world. If everyone knows about your son, it’ll be a hell of a lot harder to secretly misuse him.”

“He’s right,” Lindsey said. “Everyone needs to know.”

Addison and the students emerged from the forward cabin and joined them as the plane lurched to a stop. Quentin looked out the windows. They were on the tarmac rather than connecting to a gate. Airport vehicles with flashing yellow lights rushed here and there, but he saw no military or police vehicles approaching their plane.

“We have to get off the plane,” Quentin said.

The Navy doctor, Captain William Kessel, had approached them as they talked. “There’s no reason to leave this plane now,” he said. “A team of specialists will arrive momentarily. They’ll transport you and provide anything you need.”

“Pardon me, Bill.” Richards pushed his way past Kessel from behind. He was carrying one of the weapons Addison had created. In his other hand was a large stack of bills. Richards ignored Kessel and spoke to Quentin. “We may need these.”

Quentin wanted nothing to do with the weapon. “Please leave that here. In fact, it should be destroyed.”

Richards knotted his brows, but then he nodded and handed the weapon to Addison. “Your father would like you to disable this device. And the others, too, if you would.”

Addison took the weapon, but he did not move away until Bobby nodded at him.

Kessel said, “Colonel, what exactly are you planning to do?”

“Bill, there are portions of this story you don’t know, and I have no time to explain.”

Kessel pulled out his smartphone and started punching in a number.

“There’s no point in trying to stop him,” Richards said to Quentin. “They’re on their way here anyway. We have to go.” Richards moved to a hatch marked Exit. He gripped the handle.

Kessel paused his phone conversation. “Colonel, we have orders to wait on this plane until a team arrives. Please don’t touch that hatch.”

The pilot’s voice came from above. “Folks, there seems to be a large scale security alert due to an incident at LAX. We’ll have to sit tight for a spell. Shortly, security personnel will board the aircraft for what we hope is a brief inspection. Due to the specialized nature of this flight, I assume this is merely a formality. Until then, though, the plane will be locked down. Please make yourselves as comfortable as possible.”

Richards leveraged his full weight against the hatch’s handle, but it didn’t move. They were stuck.

Quentin thought of the colonel’s words: ‘…a media blitz…show the whole world at once…’ Richards was right, and he seemed willing to jeopardize his career to help. If there was to be any chance of making the Lamotelokhai public, they had to act now. Quentin signaled Bobby to follow him down the aisle to where Addison knelt by the weapons, which were now malformed masses of metal and plastic. Quentin bent down and nodded for Bobby to do the same. He kept his voice low. “Addison, we need your help again. It is important that we get you off this plane and take you somewhere else. But the doors are locked.”

Addison gazed at him with no indication that he understood.

“Bobby, can you explain?” Quentin said.

“I don’t know what you want him to do,” Bobby whispered.

“I don’t know, exactly. Maybe he could do what he did to Colonel Richards yesterday.”

Before Bobby could answer, Addison spoke up. “I moved Roger Richards to a space that I knew of because I had walked there. I do not know of the space outside this airplane.”

Quentin glanced up at the others. They were focused on Kessel’s phone conversation. “Do you think you could know the space outside by looking out the windows? We really have to go now!”

“Yes. But it will be safer for you if I know of the area by walking there.”

Then Addison was gone. Quentin was so close that he felt the air whoosh through his hair as it filled the vacuum with a loud pop. He blinked. But before he fully understood what had happened, Addison was back.

“Now I know of the space outside the airplane,” he said. “It will be safer for you.”

Bobby touched Addison’s arm. “Whoa!”

“Mr. Darnell?” It was Kessel.

Quentin looked up. The doctors stared directly at him, apparently alerted by the popping air of Addison’s departure. But their view of Addison was at least partially blocked by seats. Quentin hoped they had not seen Addison reappear. Quentin grabbed one of the mangled weapons and held it up for them to see. “Looks like we don’t have to worry about these any longer.”

The doctors seemed to buy this, but Richards knew something was up. He moved to their position and knelt with them as if he were inspecting the weapons. “In minutes we’re going to be neck deep in personnel,” he said.

Quentin looked at Addison. “Can you do it?”

“Yes.”

Quentin stood and faced the others. Lindsey was listening to Kessel’s conversation, but she eyed Quentin warily. He motioned for her to grab Ashley and Carlos and join them.

“What’s going on?” Lindsey said when they were all together.

“Addison thinks he can—” Quentin stopped. There was no need to finish the statement. They were already on the ground. Quentin’s ears popped as they adjusted to the different air pressure. The roar of idling jet engines assaulted his senses. He gasped and his lungs filled with the warm, coastal night air of Los Angeles. He looked up. They were directly beneath the belly of the massive jet.

“Sweet Jesus, he did it!” Richards cried. He grabbed Quentin’s shoulder and shouted, “Follow me!” He pointed to the terminal and waved for them all to follow.

As they moved away from the plane, Quentin turned to look up. Staring at them through one of the jet’s windows was Dr. Saskia, a broad smile on his face. In the window next to him was the face of Captain William Kessel, wearing a look that was as far from a smile as it could have been.

* * *

Getting teleported somewhere wasn’t what Bobby thought it would be. There was no tingly feeling, just the sudden noise from the planes. And the air was different. It smelled like oil and pollution.

But there was no time to think about this. They were running, following Colonel Richards. The colonel understood now how dangerous the Lamotelokhai was. Bobby was starting to wonder if anyone would be able to use the Lamotelokhai without killing people.

As soon as they entered the terminal, an airport security guard stopped them. The guy stared at them, and Bobby realized they must look pretty strange. Except for Colonel Richards, they all wore the plastic flip-flops and blue shirts and pants from the hospital. They looked like mental patients on a field trip.

Richards took charge. “I’m Colonel Roger Richards, from the U.S. Embassy, Indonesia.” He opened a wallet and showed an ID. “These civilians I am escorting have suffered an appalling ordeal, and it has been rendered worse by a diversion to an alternate airport. I’m procuring a rental vehicle and getting them the hell out of here.”

The guard asked to see everyone’s identification.

The colonel scowled. “As I said, these people have just been through an ordeal. They’ve lost their possessions and have been transported back to the States on a military-sanctioned flight. There are special circumstances involved.” Richards glanced at his watch and looked around the terminal. “Look, son. We’re taking your valuable time. You obviously have a situation on your hands here. Here’s my card.” He pulled a white card from his wallet. “Feel free to confirm my objective, but I’ve got to get these people to their destination.” Richards then nodded at them to follow him. The man stepped aside and let them go.

Soon they were out the front doors. They following the Ground Transportation signs and headed across a street lined with waiting taxicabs. They stopped briefly on a divider and then darted across another three lanes and into a parking lot filled with rental cars. They approached the glass-fronted building. “We’re not in the clear yet,” Richards said. “We need to secure a rental before the place is overrun.”

At that moment, screaming sirens filled the air. Police cars pulled up in front of the terminal on the far side of the street. Behind the police cars was a string of black SUVs. If they had crossed the street only seconds later, they would have been directly in the cars’ headlights.

“Time’s up,” Richards said.

They entered the rental building and moved to a row of seats hidden from the front windows by one of the counters. Richards stood at the counter and rented a vehicle. Bobby peeked over the counter to watch the activity across the street. Men piled out of the vehicles and ran into the terminal. Four men in suits waited outside with the vehicles, but then one of them pointed across the street. They started walking toward the building.

“Colonel Richards!” Bobby hissed. “Those men are coming.”

Richards pushed a paper across the counter and snatched up a key that was lying there. “Please take us to our vehicle,” he said to the woman behind the counter. “We’re late.”

They left through a door on the side of the building just as the men finished crossing the street. They were led to a red minivan. The rental lady started doing some kind of inspection, but Richards hastily signed a clipboard and waved her away. As they piled into the van, the four men came out the side door of the building and one of them spotted Colonel Richards. The man pointed at them and yelled something.

Richards mumbled a curse. “I’ll have to talk to these boys. As soon as I get them out of view, you get the hell out of here.” He dumped some things that Bobby couldn’t see onto the driver’s seat and tossed the key to Mr. Darnell. “Remember, a media blitz. Whatever it takes, make it happen.” Then he closed the door and walked toward the men.

Mr. Darnell climbed into the driver’s seat, moving the things Richards had put there under his seat. Mrs. Darnell and Ashley still stood outside the sliding door, and they quickly got in.

Richards tried guiding the men back to the building, but it didn’t work. They continued toward the van. Richards waved his arms for them to drive away. Mrs. Darnell slammed the sliding door shut as the van backed out of its slot. Then the men were there, just outside, looking in. The locks popped down as one of them reached for the door.

“Sir, please open the door,” the man said.

For a second, Mr. Darnell looked like he might unlock the doors. But Colonel Richards was waving like mad. The van leapt forward.

Bobby turned around. The men were running after them. They almost caught up as they turned a corner at the end of the row. But then the van sped up and bounced through an exit onto a street. They made a few more turns and then merged onto a ten-lane highway.

For several minutes everyone sat in silence. They were running away from the government, probably the FBI. There would be APBs and roadblocks, maybe even helicopters.

Ashley finally broke the silence. “Okay, now what?”

* * *

“I imagine it’s too late to go back and apologize,” Lindsey said as she moved up into the empty passenger seat.

Quentin shook his head. “Richards was right. We have to let everyone know. He probably gave up his career to help us do this. We can’t go back now.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Lindsey said. “Those men have already called for help. They know what we’re driving. We’ll be stopped in no time.”

“Lindsey, please,” Quentin said. “I just need some time to figure this out.” He stared at the road before him and tried to focus on the problem. Richards had suggested a media blitz, but it would take time to arrange that. Even if they managed to convince a TV station to interview them, one station could be suppressed. The story may never get out. It would have to be an organized event, where multiple TV stations would be willing to broadcast live. In order to arrange an event like that they needed ideas and they needed time.

“We go home,” he said at last. “We arrange a media event in Newton.”

There was a moment of silence.

“How are we going to get all the way to Missouri?” Lindsey said.

Quentin had no idea, so he didn’t bother answering. But if they stayed on the interstate, they would be spotted. He exited onto Westminster Boulevard. According to the compass on the van’s console, they were headed east. Quentin did some calculations. Los Angeles was at least 1,700 miles from Missouri. That was close to thirty hours of continuous driving, more if they were cautious and took minor roads.

“Quentin?” Lindsey was still waiting for him to respond.

“We’re driving to Missouri,” Quentin said. “We’ll take the back roads. It will give us time to arrange a media event there, something so big that no one can do anything about it.”

“Why can’t we arrange something like that here?”

Ashley spoke up. “Just have Addison make a T-Rex, or have him make a skyscraper disappear or something like that. Then you’ll have your media event.”

“We can’t,” Bobby said. “We’ve killed too many people already. It happens every time.”

Everyone was silent. Bobby was right. Based on their previous experiences it would be reckless to ask the Lamotelokhai to do anything spectacular, particularly in a densely populated area. After privately stewing over discrepant events of past days, Quentin had made a reluctant conclusion about what waited for them in Newton. If he was right, and if they showed up there on live television, it would draw serious attention without blindly requesting another ill-advised action from Addison.

In his mirror Quentin saw Addison sitting quietly in the back of the van, gazing out the window like a normal teenage boy. By itself the Lamotelokhai was passive and posed no threat. It simply granted any request. But the minds of humans made it a horrifying menace.

“Taking it to Newton is the best idea we have,” Quentin said.

Lindsey gazed at him. “Alright, then. We’re going to need road maps and clothes for everyone. We don’t exactly blend in with these clothes. The most immediate problem is that they know what vehicle we’re in. I suggest we get another one.”

Carlos spoke up. “Maybe we can change this one’s color. I bet Addison can do that.”

“Jesus,” Quentin said. “Have you guys done this before?”

He stopped at an all-night convenience store. It would take time to initiate a large-scale search, so it was best to make a stop now. The gas tank was nearly full, but Quentin wanted to top it off anyway. He peeled some bills from the stack Richards had given him. They were all twenties. Once inside the store, he found a rack of t-shirts and grabbed six of them. There were no road maps to be found, but he loaded his arms with drink bottles and snacks and dumped everything in front of the bulletproof glass that protected the gray-haired man behind the counter. Quentin pulled the bills from the pocket of his hospital pants and inspected them. They looked real enough. He thumbed through them. Oh crap. They all had the same serial number.

Quentin glanced at the cashier, but the man was busy ringing up the purchase. He casually wrinkled several bills so they wouldn’t look so similar. As he waited, three teenagers entered the store. They eyed Quentin’s hospital clothes for a moment then laughed and mumbled to each other. Quentin silently willed the cashier to hurry.

The total was over eighty dollars. Quentin slid six bills under the glass, telling the cashier he wanted twenty dollars worth of gas. He held his breath as the guy thumbed through them, counting, and then finally stuffed them into the register drawer. Quentin got his change, scooped up the items, and left. The van took only eight dollars of gas, but he drove away without going back in.

They drove for another half hour, making their way northeast using the van’s compass. Lindsey turned on the radio and flipped through some stations. Disembodied voices described the LAX plane crash. All those on board the unscheduled flight from Indonesia were killed. Beyond that, the voices had little more to say. The number and identities of passengers were still unknown. The purpose of the flight, unknown. The cause of the crash, unknown. No mention of a duplicate plane or a search for fugitives. Hearing reports of their own deaths was unnerving, so Quentin switched the radio off.

It was now midnight, and they had not yet made it beyond the suburbs of Los Angeles. If the police had been notified, it was only a matter of time before they were stopped. The van had no GPS, so Quentin stopped again to get a road map. This time he found a larger store—a truck stop—and parked the van in the shadows behind the main building.

Lindsey and Ashley had to use the toilet. They put on t-shirts from the previous stop. Both displayed a gold logo for Cuervo tequila. With their hospital pants and flip-flops, this hardly improved their credibility. Quentin gave them a wad of bills and warned them about the identical serial numbers. Then they walked around the corner of the building and were gone.

Unable to think of anything else, Quentin counted 470 seconds until they returned. They had a handful of state highway maps and pairs of shorts for everyone.

Ashley tossed the shorts into the van. “The guy said we’re only a block from Pomona Freeway, which goes east to Interstate 10. That will take us all the way to Arizona.”

“Bobby?” Lindsey said. “Do you think you can get Addison to change the van’s color?”

“You can ask him yourself,” Bobby said. “He’s right here.”

Lindsey hesitated. “Okay. Addison, can you do that?”

Addison stepped out of the van. He held his hand against the red paint on the sliding door. “Yes,” he said. “What color would you like it to be?”

Lindsey looked around. She pointed at the building’s cinderblock wall. “I’d like it to be white like that wall.”

Addison stared at the wall, his hand still on the van. The paint under his hand changed. Slowly an asymmetrical area of white began spreading. He pulled his hand from the van and looked at Lindsey, expressionless.

She shook her head. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

When the others were in, they closed the sliding door. Quentin pulled the van onto the street. By the time he merged onto Pomona Freeway, he could see the white color expanding across the vehicle’s blunt hood.

* * *

They drove by the San Bernardino Mountains, but it was too dark for Bobby to see much. Eventually, flashing lights lit up the night ahead. A roadblock. They exited onto a smaller road before being trapped. They didn’t know if the roadblock was for them, but the Darnells didn’t want to take the chance.

Several hours later, Mr. Darnell stopped to get gas again. After filling up, he headed to the restroom. No one else had to go. But a minute later Bobby changed his mind. He left the van and passed through rows of bright candies and chips and automotive stuff until he found the restrooms in the back.

As he entered he heard a voice from one of the stalls. “It was four years ago, the first day of spring break. That’s exactly how she said it. You remember.” There was a pause. “Like I said, because I was there.”

It was Mr. Darnell’s voice. Bobby stepped up to one of the urinals, trying to be quiet.

“All I ask is that you have an open mind,” Mr. Darnell said. “Think about what I’ve told you. I could go on, but I don’t have time. We should be there sometime tomorrow, maybe thirty or so hours from now. We’re coming, regardless.” A pause. “Please don’t do that. That might create results you really don’t want. If anyone calls or comes there before we do, just claim that you don’t know anything about this.” Another pause. “Please help us.”

Bobby finished peeing and backed quietly away from the urinal. But the urinal detected his movement and flushed loudly. The stall door popped open, and Mr. Darnell stepped out. He had a smartphone to his ear.

“I have to go now,” he said. He switched off the phone and put it in his pocket. “Bobby, is everything alright?”

Bobby couldn’t look him in the eye. “Yeah, it’s fine. Just had to use the bathroom.” Bobby went to the sink and washed his hands.

“This phone is from Colonel Richards. He gave it to me when he gave me the money.”

“I didn’t know you had a phone,” Bobby said.

“I thought it might be best if we didn’t talk about it.”

Bobby pushed a lever for a paper towel. “Who were you talking to?”

Mr. Darnell opened the door and nodded for him to go on out. “Just trying to get help from someone I know.”

Chapter Nine

The hours dragged on as they drove east. Orange clouds began to glow on the horizon ahead. Carlos was sleeping, so Bobby talked to Addison.

“What happened to the other Addison when the plane crashed? Are there two Lamotelokhai now?”

Addison stared out the window at the darkness as he answered. “No. The Lamotelokhai on the other plane allowed itself to be destroyed.”

“How do you allow yourself to be destroyed?”

“By changing the properties of my parts.”

“That’s not a very good answer,” Bobby said. “It’s kind of like not answering at all.”

Addison turned to him. “It would require much talking to explain. I decided that you would probably not want to do that. Was I wrong?”

“No, you were right,” Bobby said. “Could you survive a plane crash if you wanted to?”

“Yes.”

“Those people on the other plane—were they copies of us, or are we copies of them?”

“The other Bobby was the same as you,” Addison said. “There were no differences.”

“It makes a difference to me. Am I the original Bobby, or just a copy?”

“There were no differences. But now the other is dead and you are alive. That is the difference now.”

“So I have to go the rest of my life thinking I’m just a copy of someone? That really sucks.”

Addison’s eyes glinted orange from the sky ahead. Or maybe they were shifting colors again. “Something that really sucks is a bad thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.” Then Bobby said. “Why do you make your eyes change colors sometimes?”

This time, Addison’s eyes really did shift to golden yellow. “My creators enhanced their talking with colors. I thought it might help you to know when I am thinking carefully about something. Would you like me to stop?”

“No. I mean I don’t care. But if you want people to think you’re a normal person, maybe don’t do it.”

Addison gazed at him with blue eyes.

“I want to know more about Peter Wooley,” Bobby said. “Colonel Richards said he invented Kembalimo. Did he learn Kembalimo from you?”

“My knowledge of Kembalimo is only what I have heard in your talking. Peter Wooley talked to me using the same symbols you did when you first talked to me. He probably made Kembalimo based on those symbols.”

“Why did the Papuans try to kill him?”

“The Papuans believed Peter would take me away. They did not want him to do that.”

Bobby considered this. “But they let us take you away.”

“Because of you, Bobby.”

Bobby felt a tingle on the back of his neck. “Why me?”

“You knew how to talk to me when you came to them. Because of that they knew, and I knew, that it was time.”

“Time for what?”

“Time for what is next.”

Bobby frowned. “And what is next?”

“I cannot know what is next, Bobby. What would you like to happen next?”

Bobby sighed. “It’s not up to me. I’m just a kid.”

Addison turned back to the window to watch the growing dawn.

Bobby’s thoughts returned to Peter. All those years ago he had found the hanging village and the Lamotelokhai. And after leaving—or escaping—he had created Kembalimo, one of the biggest networked learning programs ever. He didn’t do it to make money, so why?

Then Bobby had an idea. “We need to call Peter Wooley,” he said out loud. “Mr. Darnell, can we use the phone?”

Ashley perked up. “We have a phone?”

“Quentin, you have a phone?” Mrs. Darnell’s voice was low and cold.

Mr. Darnell looked in the rearview mirror, right at Bobby. The orange sky ahead lit up his eyes. “Richards gave me the money and his phone. Yes, I have his phone.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I could call my parents,” Ashley said. “Why didn’t you say we had a phone?”

Mr. Darnell let go of the wheel and held both of his hands up, like he was surrendering. “Yes, I have a phone! I didn’t say anything because I wanted to avoid this.”

“My parents need to know I’m not dead,” Ashley said.

“They already know you’re not dead!” Mr. Darnell actually yelled, and it shocked everyone.

Mrs. Darnell kept her voice low. “How do you know that?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t want to say anything before, because I wasn’t sure. But now I am. They know she’s alive because she isn’t missing.”

Everyone was quiet now.

He went on. “It wasn’t a coincidence that the Twin Otter crashed. It was caused by something Samuel did with the Lamotelokhai. A copy of our plane was created. An exact copy, except that ours was damaged in the process. The other Twin Otter was fine. It didn’t crash.”

Again it was quiet.

“That’s why there were no search planes looking for us.”

“We don’t know that,” Ashley said. “I want to call home anyway.”

Carlos was awake now. “I want to call home too.”

“Actually, we do know for sure,” Mr. Darnell said. “I called.”

“You called who, Quentin?” Mrs. Darnell said.

He stared at the road ahead.

“Quentin!”

“I called our house. We were asleep, but I got up to answer the phone.”

This was followed by stunned silence. Finally, Ashley whispered, “Oh my God.”

Bobby knew Mr. Darnell’s words were true. He’d seen the other Twin Otter with his own eyes. Days ago, Addison—Addison the monster—had said to him, ‘you can’t go there, they won’t want you.’ Even Addison with his brain damage knew.

You can’t go there, they won’t want you.

Seconds passed and only the van’s wheels on the road could be heard. Bobby’s mind was numb. He needed to think about something else. “I still want to call Peter Wooley. Can I use Colonel Richards’s phone?”

Mr. Darnell sighed and then pulled the smartphone from his pocket and passed it back. “You’re right, maybe he can help us. If you can find a number, you should let one of us talk. I imagine an adult will have a better chance of connecting with him directly.”

Bobby turned it on and pulled up the web browser. The signal was weak, but before long he was at the home page for Kembalimo. He had been there before, but only to download the app that connected to the servers and allowed him to play. After a few minutes of digging around, he was at the site of Kembalimo’s parent company, SouthPacificNet. There he found some information on Peter Wooley, but no phone number. Finally he found some numbers for customer relations. One of them was in the United States, in Texas. Ignoring Mr. Darnell’s request, he tapped the number to switch to cell phone mode and call it. A computer voice came on, offering him choices. He selected, talk to a customer relations representative.

“SouthPacificNet International Relations. How may I help you?”

Bobby sat up straight. “Uh, my name is Bobby Truex. I need to talk to Peter Wooley.”

“Mr. Wooley resides in Brisbane, Bobby. He does not take unsolicited phone calls. I will be happy to help you if I can, or I could connect you with technical support.”

“I really need to talk to him. It won’t do any good to talk to someone else.”

“I would be happy to give you an email address. Mr. Wooley often monitors email, and he’s been known to answer them personally.”

Mr. Darnell had been right. Bobby should have let an adult call. “No, there’s no time. Is there any way you can tell him what I want to talk about?”

The woman actually laughed. “Bobby, I have never talked to Mr. Wooley, and I probably never will. But I would be happy to take your message and pass it on.”

Bobby wasn’t ready to give up. “I have things Mr. Wooley would want to know, I swear. Can you let him know we’ve been to the hanging village in Papua? We met someone he knows named Samuel. And we found the Lamotelokhai. He would want to know that.”

“Bobby, what did you say? Can you please repeat that?”

Bobby repeated it.

There was a pause on the other end, and clacking on a keyboard. “What was it you said you found Bobby? Please speak it clearly.”

“The Lamotelokhai. We found the Lamotelokhai.”

“Oh my sweet Lord,” the woman said. “Bobby, please stay on the phone. Do not hang up. In case we get disconnected, can you give me your number?”

Bobby pulled the phone away and looked at it. He wasn’t familiar with the controls. “It’s not my phone. I don’t know the number.”

“Okay, if we get disconnected, please call back. My name is Maria Navarro. Ask for me.” She made him repeat her name. “I have to put you on hold for just a moment, okay?”

“Okay.” Bobby heard a click. He looked up. Mr. Darnell was looking at him in the mirror. The others were staring, too. “I think she’s calling Mr. Wooley for me,” he said. As he waited, Bobby heard several beeps. Someone was trying to call Colonel Richards’s phone.

At least two minutes passed.

“Bobby, you still with me? I’m going to connect you now with Mr. Peter Wooley. Is that okay with you?”

It was a stupid question. “Yes.”

A click, and then another voice. “Hello, this is Peter Wooley. With whom am I speaking?”

Bobby swallowed. “I’m Bobby Truex, Mr. Wooley.”

“How old are you, Bobby?”

“I’m fourteen. I know Samuel, Mr. Wooley. Do you remember Samuel?”

Peter was silent for a moment. “I know a few Samuels, son.”

“This one is different. He’s like a hundred and fifty years old. He said he knows you. He thought you were dead.”

Another silence. “Well, I’ll be stuffed. Samuel Inwood is alive and well?”

“He was when we left Jayapura. He was going to come with us, but then we had to leave him there.”

“Son, where did you meet Samuel?”

“In the jungle after our plane crashed. We went to his village—the hanging village.”

“And you got him to leave that village?”

“It’s kind of a long story. Some bad things happened.”

“I want to hear it all. But first, something very important: the customer relations folks in my company are required to memorize two words from a confidential policy document. They are instructed to call a dedicated line to me in the event that a caller mentions these words. One of the words is Samuel. Son, what do you reckon the other word to be?”

Bobby didn’t hesitate. “Lamotelokhai.”

Peter cleared his throat. “That’s the one. What do you know of the Lamotelokhai?”

“I know a lot. I know you invented Kembalimo, and that’s how I could talk to it at first. Is that why you made Kembalimo, Mr. Wooley?”

“Oh, dear God. Yes.” Then there were some shuffling sounds, like Peter might have pulled the phone away from his face. “Yes, that is precisely why.”

“Well, it worked.”

Peter let out a long breath. “I wanted the next person who found it to be ready.”

“Kembalimo was just the beginning. I asked it to change its shape into a person. Now it looks like Addison, one of my friends. But—” Bobby paused. “Addison’s gone. So now the Lamotelokhai is Addison, and we just talk to it like a normal person.”

There was another long breath. “I’ll be stuffed,” Peter said again. “Bobby, who else is there with you?”

“My teachers and two of my friends. We’re trying to get home without getting caught.”

“What do you mean, ‘getting caught’?”

“That’s a long story, too. We think some people might use Addison to do bad things.”

“Bobby, it would seem there is some urgency to your situation. Might I talk to one of your teachers?”

As he passed the phone forward, Bobby heard the beep of another incoming call.

* * *

Quentin glanced at Lindsey. She took the phone from Bobby, but instead of talking to Wooley she held it out to Quentin with her head cocked to one side. She was angry. He should have told her about the phone—and about everything else.

He put it to his ear. “This is Quentin Darnell.”

“Quentin, Peter Wooley. Can you confirm that what Bobby has told me is true?”

“It’s all true.” Quentin glanced in the mirror. “Bobby isn’t one to lie.”

“This is astonishing news. Forgive me if I am at a loss for the proper thing to say. May I ask why you called me?”

“It was Bobby’s idea. We thought you might be able to help us. Peter, what exactly happened at the hanging village?”

There was a deep sigh. “That was over forty years ago. I am guessing you may know this, but I remember every detail as if I were living it at this moment. I also have not aged a day in the years since. Do you know why, Quentin?”

“I do. What do your doctors think of that?”

“I have no need for doctors.”

Quentin came to a T in the road. Lindsey looked at the map in her lap, and she pointed to the right, so he turned.

“So what happened in Papua?” Quentin said. “Samuel thought you were dead.”

“I was a reckless youth then, testing my own blood’s worth with a self-imposed walkabout. When I stumbled upon the village, the natives wanted to kill me when they found I could not speak with the Lamotelokhai. But Samuel convinced them to wait. This allowed me to learn to manipulate the adaptive symbol mapping system used by the Lamotelokhai. I made steady progress, constructing a common language with an intelligence I had nothing in common with. It was enlightening, to say the least. But my progress was not fast enough for the natives. They decided to kill me.

“But you’re alive,” Quentin said.

“After they attacked, I woke up a short distance from the hanging village. My body was unharmed. So I made my way back to civilization.”

Quentin recalled the conversation with Colonel Richards at the airport in Sentani. Samuel had said he had witnessed the Papuans killing Peter. ‘Beaten beyond hope of repair,’ he had said. Quentin knew what this meant. They had pulverized the body. That’s how they made sure people stayed dead.

“Peter, do you have any idea how you survived?”

“Knowing that the natives intended to kill me, I attempted to ask the Lamotelokhai’s help. So I assumed it used its curative powers to heal me after they attacked and discarded my body, thinking I was dead.”

Peter was wrong. The Papuans would have been thorough. And the Lamotelokhai had said it had reconstructed him, as it had done to Ashley after she’d drowned. Peter had been created from scratch, no doubt from elements in the vegetation and the soil. Apparently Peter did not know he was a copy of his original self.

A beep sounded in Quentin’s ear, an incoming call.

“Peter, I may have to end our conversation. We’ve got a bit of a situation here.”

“Bobby mentioned you were avoiding capture. What the hell is going on?”

“You know how important the Lamotelokhai is,” Quentin said. “Without trying to explain it all, we’re trying to get to our hometown, where we hope to make an announcement to the whole world. This is the only way we can think of to prevent it from being used in secrecy. That’s the only plan we have. We’re kind of winging it.”

“And where exactly are you at this time?”

This put Quentin on alert. “We’re some distance from our destination.”

Peter hesitated. “Quentin, I am convinced your intentions are spot-on. It seems to me you need an ally. I have a bit of influence and some resources that might prove useful. If you would rather not disclose your location, then tell me your destination. You said you wanted to make an announcement to the world. Beauty of an idea. I will help arrange that.”

“So you’re willing to help us?”

“I have devoted forty-two years of my life to preparing the world for what I alone knew was coming. Does that answer your question?”

It did. Quentin told Peter their destination. They agreed that Quentin and Lindsey’s house would be the location for the media event. Peter gave his personal cell phone number, and they ended the call.

Within seconds the phone chirped. A number with a 213 area code glowed on the screen, but there was no name. Quentin eyed Lindsey but her face was a blank slate. She was either dwelling on his decision to hide the phone from her, or on his unsettling motive for doing so. The phone sounded again, and finally she shrugged. So he answered the call.

“Darnell? Quentin, is that you?” It was Richards.

“Good to hear from you, Colonel. What’s happening there?”

“A great deal of confusion, but the scenario is taking shape. There is a general understanding that we have transported here something extraordinarily important, and that you have sequestered it. I have explained why, but you can bet your life they’re assuming the worst. There’s a shit-storm building here, Darnell. Top-level personnel and resources are coming into play. Where the hell are you?”

“We have a plan, but it’s going to take some time.”

“Well, I’m in no position to question your judgment, but you don’t have much time. Listen to me, Darnell. The media blitz we discussed, you’ve got to do it now. And you’d better get rid of my phone. I don’t think they know you have it yet, but—”

There was a click, followed by silence.

“Mr. Darnell, please don’t hang up.” It was a different voice.

“Who is this?”

“My name is Darron Mesner. I represent the interests and security of the people of the United States. Again, please do not hang up. It is very important that you talk to me.”

Quentin gripped the steering wheel tight with his free hand and stared at the road ahead.

“Mr. Darnell—it’s Quentin, right? Please explain your situation and your intentions.”

“I’m with my wife and our students. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You are not accused of doing anything wrong, Quentin. Therefore we’d like to know why you fled the airport. Is there anything you can explain that would help us to understand?”

“We have something that is very important. Our only intention is to make everyone aware of it. We believe it’s here for a reason, and that reason does not involve weapons, or one country dominating another.”

There was a pause. “Perhaps you can tell me what exactly you are referring to.”

“It’s a gift—for all of us. But we’ve seen that it can be very dangerous. So we want everyone to know what it is, to prevent a few single-minded people from making decisions that could be catastrophic.”

“Quentin, you have somehow managed to avoid National Security personnel with a device you say is very dangerous. And now you are behaving as fugitives on the run—with a weapon of unknown origin and destructive power. Do you understand our concern?”

Quentin’s stomach sank. “When you put it that way, yes. But that’s a distortion of what’s really happening here. This thing is not a weapon. In fact, the reason we’re running is to prevent it from being used to make weapons.”

“I understand you brought this thing to the U.S. because you believed our people were best qualified to deal with it. It seems that was a subterfuge.”

“Or we simply changed our minds. We aren’t terrorists, if that’s what you think. We have no intention of hurting anyone.”

“I hope to God that’s true, Quentin.” There was a brief silence. “Tell me, what is your destination? What do you hope to accomplish by driving east?”

Quentin froze. “You know where we are?”

Mesner’s voice was even, with no hint of condescension. “Of course we do. Quentin, I consider myself to be an honorable man. And I give you my word that this device will not be used in the way that you fear it will. In fact, Quentin, it seems that you are currently the expert on the device. Therefore, if you cooperate from this moment on, you will be included in the investigation of it. Your opinions seem sound and will be considered valuable.”

Quentin put on the brakes and pulled the van onto the shoulder. “What I need is a promise that the first thing we do is make a live announcement on national television.” He opened his door and stepped onto the road. The sky was orange to the east and deep blue everywhere else. It was actually quite beautiful—and dead silent. No vehicles were visible in either direction, and the sky was clear of helicopters and planes. “I want to make this announcement myself, before the device is examined by any experts.”

Mesner sighed. “That’s a rather difficult thing to promise, Quentin.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Quentin replied. “But that’s the only way to ensure the safety of all the people of this world. I’m sorry.” Quentin then stepped to the side of the road. He picked up a large rock from the rubble deposited there, dropped the phone on the ground, and smashed it in the desert sand.

Chapter Ten

Sleeping was a lost cause for Quentin. He lay awake in bed, listening to the relentless twitter of katydids and crickets through the open window of their bedroom. He had nudged Lindsey awake, and they’d talked about the strange phone call, but her tone was rather dubious. She had no explanation for why the caller sounded so much like Quentin, or how the guy could know the details of their life he had described. She hadn’t heard the phone ring, and so she’d suggested Quentin might have dreamt the conversation. Within minutes she’d fallen asleep again.

But sleep didn’t come for Quentin. The caller had described in detail a key intimate moment of their relationship, when they’d been in a sleeping bag under an Ozark night sky and they had agreed to try having another child. His first thought was that Lindsey must have told someone about the event. But then the guy had described the fears Quentin had experienced at that moment—fears he had never revealed to Lindsey. This was simply not possible.

Quentin rolled to his side to feel Lindsey’s breath in his face. He could think of only two explanations: he had dreamt the whole thing, or the guy was telling the truth—he really was a copy of Quentin. Ockham’s simplicity principle, that the simplest solution tends to be the best, should’ve applied here. Logically, the call must have been a dream. But Quentin had now been awake for half an hour, and he was sure it hadn’t been a dream.

Finally, he slid out of bed, grabbed his smartphone from the dresser, and walked to the kitchen. He looked at the most recent call and then tapped the number to dial it. Quentin heard ringing, but then it switched to voicemail. “You have reached the voicemail of…” Then a recorded voice stated, “Colonel Roger Richards.” Quentin hung up.

He paced the kitchen floor. Who the hell was Colonel Roger Richards? He went to the bedroom they had converted to office space and woke up his computer. A web search for Colonel Roger Richards led him to the site for the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. A Colonel Roger Richards was listed as the Defense and Army Attaché.

He sank into his desk chair and stared dazedly at the screen. The caller had said their Twin Otter had crashed in Papua, resulting in them finding something there, and they had brought it to the U.S. with the help of the military. A few days ago, about ten days after his group had returned home, Quentin had seen news reports of a skirmish between U.S. soldiers and Indonesians in Papua. A chilling tingle crept up the back of Quentin’s neck. Something strange was happening.

A car door faintly slammed shut out on the street, followed by three more. Quentin’s eyes flicked to the clock in the corner of his computer screen. Just before six a.m. The tingle on his neck spread quickly down his spine.

A knock on the door startled him out of his trance. And it woke Lindsey.

“Quentin? Where are you? Who is that?”

“I’m out here, Linds. I don’t know, but you might want to get up.”

The knock came again, this time louder.

Quentin was wearing only a pair of shorts, but he went to the front door and opened it. On the porch were two men in jackets and ties, in spite of the sultry July air. Behind them were two local policemen Quentin had seen around town before. In the street he saw two police cars, their lights flashing, and a dark sedan. Two more sedans were coming to a stop.

His first thought was that Addison had snuck out during the night and had gotten into trouble or had been hurt. Instinctively he swung around to look down the hallway to Addison’s bedroom. But there Addison stood, his face bright with curiosity.

“Sir, are you Quentin Darnell?” It was one of the jacket-and-tie men.

“Yes. What’s going on?”

The man held up an identification card that Quentin couldn’t see. “I’m Gordon Carver. I’m a regional field agent for the Department of Homeland Security. May we come inside?”

Quentin motioned for them to enter, and they stood awkwardly in the foyer. The two local policemen eyed him pensively but did not speak.

Carver said, “Mr. Darnell, have you and your family been at your house all night?”

Quentin nodded. Lindsey and Addison were now at his side.

An inscrutable look passed between the men. “We are not aware of the details at this time, but it seems there was a fatal airline crash at the Los Angeles airport.”

Quentin frowned. He couldn’t think of anyone he knew who was currently traveling.

The man continued. “Apparently there is some confusion as to the identities of the passengers. For some reason it was believed that you folks were on that aircraft.”

“Well, clearly we weren’t,” Lindsey said. “I take it there is more to the story?”

“Yes, there is.” The men exchanged glances again. The policemen watched Carver as if they, too, were waiting for an explanation. Carver cleared his throat before going on. “But first, can you think of a reason why anyone would claim to have your identities?”

Quentin’s thoughts immediately turned to the mysterious caller. The guy had said the police might show up. He had practically begged Quentin to say nothing about the phone call.

“We did fly back from Indonesia a few weeks ago,” Quentin said. “Maybe they got our names from a passenger list or something?”

The man nodded at this, but the gesture was dismissive. He continued to stare at them, like a teacher out-waiting his students until they produced a satisfactory answer.

Quentin glanced at Lindsey, and she raised her brows at him. She was waiting for him to tell them about the caller. He shook his head slightly.

Perhaps the men read possible deception in this exchange, because their demeanor suddenly changed. “Our job at this point is to nail down the facts, so that we understand what we’re dealing with. We’d like to see some identification for both of you. And we’ll also need to search the premises. Then we can further discuss what we know about tonight’s events. Will you cooperate with us on this, Mr. and Mrs. Darnell?”

Quentin sighed and waved his hand to the interior of the house. “Of course.”

More police and federal men now stood on the front porch, and Carver motioned for them to enter. Lindsey fetched their driver’s licenses and showed them to Carver. Then the men spread out to search the house and garage. For exactly what, Quentin had no idea.

A moment later two men came out of the bedroom office and asked Carver to come look at something. Quentin followed. One of the men pointed at Quentin’s computer. On the screen was a web page describing the personnel of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. In the center of the screen was a short biography and photo of Colonel Roger Richards.

* * *

Bobby dropped a handful of crickets into the terrarium. Romeo walked out of the corner on all fours. His round tree frog eyes stared at the insects as they scattered, but he made no move to eat. Juliet was pressed flat against the glass at one end of the tank.

Bobby peered through the glass and frowned. “Those are the last ones, you guys. You’d better eat.” The frogs hadn’t had much appetite since Bobby had returned from the trip.

Bobby’s mom called from the living room, “I have to get back to work. You want a ride to school or not?”

“I’m coming!” Bobby definitely wanted a ride. It had been a weird morning, with the police and FBI showing up. They’d said some people had come to the U.S. pretending to be Bobby and his teachers and classmates, and that the people were probably dangerous. And the FBI hadn’t left. They had been parked outside all morning, just waiting.

And that wasn’t all that had happened. Everyone on TV was talking about two things: A plane crash in California and something that was supposed to happen tomorrow right here in Newton. This last thing was most exciting of all. Supposedly, the guy who’d invented Kembalimo was making a big announcement, and for some reason he wanted to do it in Bobby’s own town. Bobby loved Kembalimo. He’d been playing it for two years.

When he and his mom left the house a few minutes later, the FBI asked where they were going. Bobby’s mom told them her lunchtime was over and she was going back to work, of course. And Bobby had summer school, if that was all right with them.

The guys politely explained that they would have to follow them.

As Bobby’s mom drove, he could tell she was worried because she wasn’t talking.

“Today we do our reports,” he said. His class included two weeks of afternoon sessions after the field trip to study the data they had collected and make computer presentations with their photos. Today they would show their presentations in class.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” she said. Then she was quiet again.

“It’s gonna be okay, mom. Nothing can happen.”

More FBI cars were parked at the school. She pulled into the drop-off area and then sat quietly for a moment. “I knew the whole thing was a bad idea!”

“Mom, it wasn’t—”

“It was. Your dad was the one who wanted you to go. Then you had to be evacuated from that awful place. And now we find out terrorists used your names to get into the United States?” She waved her hand at the cars that nearly blocked the drop-off area. “They must think the terrorists are coming to your school.”

Bobby saw real fear in her eyes. “I know you didn’t want me to go. You’d rather me just sit at home all summer. But this class has been the best thing in my whole life.”

She stared straight ahead, but her frown relaxed a little.

The two men who’d followed them from the house stood outside her window until she rolled it down. “Ma’am, we intend to stay with your son until the situation we discussed is completely under control. You can be assured he’ll be safe going about his usual business.”

“This is probably the safest place in town today, Mom. Nothing will happen.”

Finally she forced a smile. “Do good on your report. I’ll take off early and pick you up.”

Bobby got out. “You need the hours. I’ll walk home.”

“I’ll be here, and you’ll ride with me,” she said. “I love you, kiddo.” She drove away.

Bobby waved and then turned to the two men. “My mom said you guys think those people are coming here.”

The taller man answered, “To be honest, we don’t know what their intentions are. But we’d like to stick close to you for a while. Is that okay with you?”

Bobby shrugged and nodded. He had his own bodyguards, like a rock star or the president. The men followed him into the school. More government people were in the main office, but Bobby went straight to his science room. He wasn’t the only one with bodyguards. Men were talking in the hallway, and more were in the room, either standing to the side like statues or walking around looking at the animal cages. Other than that, everything was normal.

“Here comes another Kembalimo nerd,” Russ said. “Hey, Bobby, I hear the Kembalimo people are coming here to give you an award—the most time wasted on an online game.”

“It’s not a game,” Addison said. From Addison’s tone, Bobby guessed he had already gotten his share of teasing. And of course he always made it worse by getting mad.

But Bobby knew better. “It’s okay; not everyone is smart enough to understand Kembalimo.”

Roberto laughed. “You gonna take that from an eighth grader?”

Russ got up from his chair. Bobby knew Russ was just acting tough, but he figured he was in for a nuggie or wedgie. His bodyguards didn’t seem interested in stopping it.

“Russ, sit down, or we’ll tell Renee you have crabs.” It was Ashley, and her threat worked. Russ groaned and sat back down.

Ashley didn’t even look at Bobby. Girls like Ashley never looked at Bobby.

Bobby took a seat between Carlos and Addison, who were both busy with their smartphones and barely looked up. “Hey, guys,” he said.

“You have bodyguards, too,” Carlos said. “Ours showed up first thing this morning. Freaked my parents out.”

“Yeah, freaked my mom too,” Bobby said. He pulled out his smartphone and connected to the computer next to their table with a USB cable. He transferred his presentation to the computer.

“Happy last-day-of-school, everyone!” Miranda came in with an armload of white paper bags. She dropped one on the table in front of each of them. The bags were covered with hand-drawn animals and palm trees. She smiled at the FBI men scattered around the room. “I didn’t make enough for you guys. Sorry.”

Bobby opened his bag. Inside it were candies and cookies that looked homemade.

Ashley shook her head. “Barbie strikes again.”

“Actually,” Roberto said, his mouth already stuffed, “Miranda’s awesome. Miranda, will you marry me?”

“She’s way too good for you, man,” Russ said, cookie crumbs spilling out of his mouth.

Mr. and Mrs. Darnell came in with two more FBI men, and everyone shut up.

Mr. Darnell spoke first. “This is Mr. Carver and Mr. Mifflin. They work for the Department of Homeland Security, although you probably already know that. I doubt we’ll be able to focus very well today if we don’t first talk about what’s going on.” Then he motioned for the man named Carver to take it from there.

The guy looked nervous. He cleared his throat and adjusted his suit jacket, giving them a glimpse of a gun in a black holster. “We’re still sorting out details, but it appears that a group of people have breached our security measures and entered the United States under your identities. This might be linked to a fatal airline crash that occurred last night. It’s possible these people actually caused the crash as some form of distraction, allowing them to get by our security.”

Bobby sat up straight. The men at his house hadn’t said this.

“And to make matters worse, these people may possess some type of weapon.”

“What kind of weapon?” Ashley said.

“We don’t know. But as you can imagine, we’re taking this very seriously.”

Ashley spoke again. “So shouldn’t you be in Los Angeles where the terrorists are?”

The man glanced around the room. “We believe these people might be on their way here.”

Bobby raised his hand, and the guy nodded for him to speak. “On TV they say something big is happening here tomorrow. Something about Kembalimo.”

The guy frowned. “We didn’t know about that until this morning. But yes, it seems that SouthPacificNet has selected this location for a public announcement.”

More questions were asked, but Carver didn’t know or didn’t want to share much more than that. He and his partner moved to the classroom door and stood with their arms crossed. They obviously had no intention of budging until class was over.

Everyone whispered about this new information, but soon Mr. and Mrs. Darnell got the regular class session going by calling kids up to present their projects. By now there were at least ten FBI men in the room. They must have been bored, because they actually watched the presentations. They even clapped along with everyone else at the end of each one.

Addison ended up going last, and it was obvious he hadn’t spent much time on his project. Mr. and Mrs. Darnell stared at the floor through most of it. Just as Addison finished, a man came in and spoke quietly to the others. Again Carver took front and center.

“We have new information. The suspects I told you about might well have been on their way to this very town. But I am pleased to report that they have been apprehended in Arizona.”

In spite of the good news, Bobby saw that Mr. Darnell wasn’t smiling.

* * *

As it had done every morning of the nearly ten thousand years of Mbaiso’s existence, the sun rose in the east, throwing long shafts of light through the canopy. And as they had always done, the shafts of light moved steadily across the forest floor as if the sun were searching this place for something it had lost.

Mbaiso positioned himself in front of one of these searchlights and waited as the beam moved steadily across his body, briefly painting his fur a brighter rusty-brown and warming his weary muscles.

Mbaiso had been working days and nights to accomplish his last array of directives from the Creator. Tupela, who had been occupied with her own tasks, now joined him. The two tree kangaroos lazed about on the forest floor near the base of the largest tree in the area—the tree that supported the village’s most important hut. The hut was joined to six suspended tunnels leading away from the tree to chambers where the villagers had gathered to be healed when necessary, to simply be near the Lamotelokhai, or to make requests through the tree kangaroos. Talking directly to the Lamotelokhai had long been a tribal taboo, the result of a villager fixated on personal rewards slaughtering nearly half the tribe. The same scenario had recently reoccurred with the boy, Addison. But it would not happen again—at least not in this place.

Now the central hut was empty. The surviving villagers had returned to their living huts, and the six tunnels with their ceremonial chambers hung silently above the tree kangaroos. There would be no reason for the villagers to use them again.

Mbaiso shifted positions to allow the sunbeam to paint his body again. The sensation was familiar, but everything else about this morning seemed different. A connection had been severed. No new instructions were coming in. There was no reason to gather information because there was no central database to transmit it to. The Creator was gone. And the villagers no longer needed help, because Mbaiso had carried out tasks that would help them live a self-sufficient existence.

Events had progressed, as they eventually had to. The tree kangaroos, like the ancient villagers, no longer had a role to play in what would come next, although they would likely feel the effects even in this secluded place.

Mbaiso examined the array of directives one more time. There was only one remaining to be carried out. He had examined it from every angle but could find no concealed meaning. The directive was clear: after completing the array of tasks, Mbaiso was to disaggregate Tupela’s body and then his own, returning them to the soil.

His final task was to die.

Mbaiso contemplated the array of tasks that hovered there in his consciousness. He shook his head forcefully and then deleted the entire array. For the first time in his existence, Mbaiso had decided to disobey a directive from the Creator.

Tupela seemed to notice Mbaiso’s agitation. She ambled over to him and used gestures to request details about the tasks they were to complete next. Mbaiso pushed himself up to a sitting position and signed to her: Soon there will be much to do. For now you should rest. She then wandered off and settled down at the base of the massive Lamotelokhai tree.

Mbaiso watched his beam of light move across the ground and then vanish as the structure of the forest canopy rendered the sun unable to search for whatever it had lost.

Chapter Eleven

Bobby had no idea it could take so long to drive across Arizona. The state was huge. And after spending weeks in the rainforest, the desert seemed so brown and dry, all sand and rocks and hills, speckled by wimpy little shrubs as far as he could see. They drove the back roads, so the desert was all there was to look at. It had been eight hours since Mr. Darnell had busted the cell phone, and they were still in Arizona. The only real excitement was when Mrs. Darnell had turned on the radio and the people were talking about Peter Wooley. Besides the plane crash, the top news of the day was that Mr. Wooley was making some big announcement at noon tomorrow in Newton, Missouri. They played a clip of Peter’s voice, and Bobby recognized his accent. Peter explained that tomorrow’s announcement was going to change the world, and everyone should watch it. Then the radio people made jokes about how it was a brilliant publicity stunt.

Mr. Darnell turned off the radio. “Peter said he would arrange something, and he meant it. I bet the media are already showing up in Newton.”

Mrs. Darnell had been looking at maps constantly, and a big one was spread out on her lap. “We’re still something like twelve-hundred miles away,” she said. “We’d have to drive straight through to be there by noon tomorrow.”

They were passing through a town called Saint Johns, which was spread out, almost like it wasn’t a town at all. But it had two gas stations, and they stopped at one. They filled up, and since the place had pizzas, Mr. Darnell bought two. They went to the restroom in shifts so their group wouldn’t attract attention. But then a highway patrol car pulled in next to them. A chunky patrolman got out and walked into the store just as Mrs. Darnell and Ashley came out. He held the door open and nodded as they passed through. But instead of walking in, he turned and stared. Mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes, so Bobby couldn’t tell if he was looking at the van or checking out their butts. Ashley opened the van’s sliding door, and the patrolman then had a clear view inside the vehicle.

“Just don’t look at him,” Mr. Darnell mumbled as he backed the van out.

The patrolman was frozen in place, still holding the door open. Then they rounded the corner of the store, and he was out of sight. Holding his breath, Bobby turned and watched the gas station as they drove on. Two blocks away, then three.

“He’s not following us,” Bobby said, and he started breathing again.

The houses thinned out as they left the town behind. Ahead was a long stretch of highway through the desert, with nothing but gray mountains in the distance. The smell of hot pizza filled the van, and Bobby realized he was hungry. Before grabbing one of the boxes he took a last look at the town that was shrinking behind them.

And there was the highway patrol car, lights flashing. It was quickly gaining on them.

“He’s coming!” Bobby cried.

Suddenly the van filled with frantic voices. Ashley and Carlos wanted them to gun it and outrun him. Mrs. Darnell was freaking out, since nobody had a driver’s license. By then the patrol car was right on their tail, sirens blaring. Mr. Darnell pulled over and stopped.

A loudspeaker voice came from behind them. “Driver of the vehicle! Get out and stand where I can see you.”

Bobby looked back. The patrolman had his door open and was crouched behind it, talking into a microphone. At least he wasn’t pointing a gun at them.

“If you guys have any ideas, this is the time,” Mr. Darnell said. He opened his door and stepped out of the van.

“Sir, hold your driver’s license where I can see it and walk to the back of your vehicle.”

Mr. Darnell walked toward the patrol car. “I’m sorry, but I’ve lost my license.”

“Stop there, sir.” The patrolman looked at something in his own hand, maybe a smartphone. Bobby guessed he was comparing Mr. Darnell to a picture. “What is your name, sir?”

“Quentin Darnell.”

The patrolman put his megaphone in his car and talked without it, but Bobby could still hear him. “Mr. Darnell, place your hands on the back of your vehicle.”

Mr. Darnell did this. His face was just on the other side of the rear window, and he silently mouthed something. He was asking them—asking Bobby—to do something.

The patrolman talked to someone on his radio. Finally he came forward and rapped on the van’s rear window. “The rest of you exit the right side of the vehicle and stand where I can see you.”

Mrs. Darnell got out and then opened the sliding door. Ashley and Carlos piled out.

Ashley poked her head back in. “Bobby, have Addison do something!”

Bobby turned to Addison. “We have to get to our home, but now we can’t.”

“You want me to help you, don’t you?”

Bobby thought hard. The patrolman had already called it in, so others would be here soon. Right now there was only one man. Addison could do something to him, maybe make him go to sleep, or give him part of his body, like he did to Gregory. Maybe he could teleport them somewhere, but he could only do that to somewhere they had already been.

Bobby shook his head and slid toward the door. “I don’t know what to do. Unless you can make this van fly.”

Addison said, “You would like me to make this van fly?”

Bobby stopped. He had been kidding, but Addison was waiting for an answer.

“All passengers out of the vehicle, now!” The patrolman was on his loudspeaker again.

“We’re coming!” Bobby said. He turned to Addison. “Sure, but we don’t have any time.”

Addison looked around him, and then out at the patrol car. “It will take some time.”

“How long?”

“A unit of time is needed.”

“Um,” Bobby shook his hands desperately, “we use seconds and minutes. Here’s what seconds are: Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three. That’s three seconds.”

“Four-hundred seconds. If there are problems, maybe six-hundred.”

Bobby blinked at him. “Really?”

Ashley stuck her head in the door again. “Are you trying to get us shot?”

Bobby stared into Addison’s eyes. “Please do that—as fast as you can.” He crawled out, and Addison followed. They all stood there squinting in the desert sun. The patrolman looked from them to his smartphone, and back to them.

Suddenly Addison walked between the vehicles to where the patrolman stood.

“Son, go back with the others.”

Addison stopped just in front of the patrolman, his reflection showing in the man’s glasses. “I am going to do something now,” Addison said. “Do not be afraid. And please do not hurt my friends.”

“No one’s going to get hurt, son. Just move back to—”

The man stopped. Addison had put his hands on the patrolman’s hood, and they seemed to melt into the car. The patrolman yanked off his sunglasses. His eyes were round. The metal around Addison’s hands moved like white syrup, and his arms seemed to pour into it. Addison’s head and shoulders started getting smaller as his parts moved into the patrol car.

The patrolman backed up. “What’s happening?” Without taking his eyes off Addison, he leaned over and fumbled for something in his car, maybe his radio. But then he seemed to forget what he wanted and just stood there staring.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Darnell said. “We’ll explain everything.”

Addison’s head and chest kept shrinking. Soon they were only half their normal size, and he looked like a deformed clay figure, except that he was alive and moving.

Oozing metal on the hood of the patrolman’s car formed into small pieces that started moving around like mechanical gray crickets. The patrolman backed away and stood in the middle of the road. He wasn’t paying attention to anything else. Bobby looked down the highway. A big truck was coming from Saint Johns but was still far away. The car’s engine stopped running, and the desert became quiet except for the scuttling and scratching of the metal crickets as they spread out over the vehicle.

Mrs. Darnell said, “What’s happening, Bobby?”

“I’m not sure. Addison said he would make the van fly.”

They all turned and looked at him, except for the patrolman.

“Then maybe we can get home,” Bobby said.

“What the hell are those,” the patrolman said. He sounded like he might be sick. The truck was getting closer, and he let Mr. Darnell lead him by the elbow to the side of the road.

Scurrying crickets covered the patrol car, and the sound of their work was a constant buzz, like a radio that was only getting static. One of the tires popped with a loud hiss, and the car settled to one side. Seconds later, the other three popped. And then the car changed shape. The roof fell in, and the entire vehicle flattened out to the ground. Addison pulled back from the car and stood by Bobby at the side of the road. He looked like something from a nightmare. His legs were still normal, but the top part of his body was disfigured and shrunken. The patrolman, totally freaked, kept looking from his car to Addison, and back to his car.

The crickets were now on the move, thousands of them walking from the patrol car to the van. Bobby knelt between the vehicles to watch. Upon closer inspection he saw that they did not walk on legs. Instead they stretched and compressed their shape like fat inchworms.

“You should not touch them, Bobby.” It was Addison, but his voice was like a cartoon animal. Bobby backed away from the little robots.

The semi truck finally reached them, and it screeched to a stop in the middle of the road. The driver leaned over his steering wheel to stare. The door popped open, and a bald man in a sleeveless denim shirt dropped to the pavement. “Everybody here okay?” he shouted.

The patrolman didn’t answer, so Mr. Darnell told him they were fine.

The trucker pointed to the swarming, chittering mass. “What the hell are those?”

“It’s a long story,” was all Mr. Darnell said.

Soon the patrolman’s car was completely transformed into crawling robot bugs. They swarmed onto the minivan. The scraping, squeaking sounds continued as the van’s front end grew longer and a thick column formed from the floor to the ceiling between the two front seats. Some of the bugs flowed away from the van and formed a long pile on the ground. The pile became a solid object with a bucket-like cylinder at each end.

Addison stepped forward. His body looked almost normal now, just smaller than it should have been. “Your help is needed,” he said. He grabbed the bucket at one end and lifted.

Mr. Darnell stepped up and grabbed the other bucket. He strained to lift his end. Bobby rushed forward to help. Together they lifted the huge object. Addison guided them to the front of the van, and they raised the thing high and placed it across the roof, just over the new column between the seats. The two buckets now hung on each side of the van.

A second, nearly identical object was already being formed. They lifted this one and placed it on the roof at the rear of the van. Then they backed away and watched. The remaining bugs swarmed the top of the van, reshaping it so the two sets of wings with their buckets became part of the whole machine. And then the bugs were gone and everything was silent. Except for the tires, the van was all white, and it gleamed in the sun.

Addison climbed into the driver’s seat. He turned the key and started it up. The engine was now quieter, just a low pulsing sound, and Bobby could feel its soft rumbling in his bones. Addison touched some controls on the steering wheel and the four buckets swiveled, first one way and then the other. And then the buckets began to hiss. Bobby couldn’t hear any kind of motor inside them, but air began to blow from the buckets so hard that the van came off the ground a little and then settled back down.

When Addison opened the driver’s door and got out, his body was back to normal. He looked at Bobby and smiled. “Five-hundred and eighty seconds,” he said.

* * *

It occurred to Quentin that a minivan that had been converted into a jet in less than ten minutes might not be safe. When he suggested this, Ashley said they should trust Addison.

“And besides,” she said, “if we die, no one will miss us anyway.”

This pretty much shut everyone up, except for the highway patrolman. The poor guy looked like he’d just come out of a coma. He stepped over to Quentin and looked him in the eye. “I’m obviously involved in something way over my head here. I’m going to ask you this, and by God you’d best tell me the truth. What are you planning to do?”

Lindsey spoke first. “We don’t intend to hurt anyone, if that’s what you mean. As you’ve seen, we have something unusual with us. We were the ones who found it. We’re avoiding the homeland security people because we know it will be used to hurt people. We have a plan to prevent that. You have a chance to keep the world safe if you help us.”

The patrolman eyed the minivan jet. “What would happen if I tried to hold you people here for the feds?”

“We wouldn’t blame you,” Quentin said. “But we’re pretty determined to go.”

The man looked at his hands, which were shaking. He gripped his belt to keep them still and shuffled his feet in the roadside gravel. Finally he turned to the truck driver. “Sir, you’re the only other witness here. I’m considering letting these people go. My gut’s telling me it’s the right thing to do. I’m gonna need you to work with me on this when the feds get here. Do you believe my judgment in this matter is sound, or are we going to have a problem?”

The truck driver nodded at the minivan. “Hell, I wanna see that goddamn thing fly. I think you should let ‘em go.”

The patrolman squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then faced them again. “You don’t have much time. You were right when you said the feds are looking for you. Hell, everyone’s looking for you. If we were any closer to Gallup or Flagstaff, they’d be here by now. Have I made myself clear?”

Quentin nodded. “Very clear. And we’re grateful. By this time tomorrow, you should know just how important this decision was.”

The patrolman sighed. “I have no intention of being a liar, so when they get here, I’ll explain just what you’ve told me—that you believe you’re doing the right thing, and you convinced me likewise. I’ll take what’s coming to me for doing it.” He shook his head. “There’ll be a special hell for you if you make me regret this.” Then he glanced at the van. “I’ll leave that part out. If they know you’re in the air, they may shoot you down.”

Addison stepped forward and held out a hand to each of the men. “This is a gift for you. You should eat it.”

Warily, the men took the gray lumps offered to them. They made no move to eat them.

Quentin motioned everyone into the van. Addison took the driver’s seat. Quentin eyed him warily and then slid into the seat behind Lindsey. Before pulling the door shut, he turned to the men. “Addison is right, you really should eat those. Oh, and I’m sorry about your car.”

The patrolman just shook his head again.

Quentin shut the door. The four thrusters jumped to life, blowing air so hard that the van lifted at a startling rate. He watched the ground drop away, the two men below shielding their eyes from the blasting sand. The thrusters rotated, and the craft accelerated forward. Junipers and pinyons on the desert floor shot past in a blur. Quentin guessed they were flying several hundred miles per hour, but the rushing wind was surprisingly quiet.

“I’ll tell you when to turn,” Lindsey said to Addison. She already had the map in front of her and was navigating as if nothing had changed. “Just stay above highway 191 for now. Looks like we left just in time,” she said, gazing at the ground.

Quentin peered at the road below. A string of vehicles raced south.

Although the van’s exterior was changed, its interior looked the same as before, except for the thick column between the front seats and the addition of two joysticks on the steering wheel. The column, Quentin figured, contained some sort of drive shaft or mechanism that connected the four thrusters to the vehicle’s engine. The two joysticks appeared very simple. Addison held one in each hand and seemed to control everything through them. Quentin gazed through the window at the foremost thruster on his side. It was obviously sucking air in the front and blowing it out the rear hard enough to lift and propel them. How could a six-cylinder minivan engine pull that off?

He said, “Addison, what did you do to the engine? It sounds different.”

Addison kept his hands on the joysticks, but he turned to Quentin. “The engine needed to be different for the van to fly. So I made it different.”

“Does it still run on gas?”

“Yes, but it was originally built to use more gas than is needed. Now it is different.”

Another way the world is about to change. “How far can we get on the gas we have?”

Addison gazed down at the passing desert. “If things stay as they are now, forty-nine million, nine hundred fifty-four thousand, and eighty feet.”

They were all silent for a moment. Then Bobby said, “How many miles is that? A mile is five thousand, two hundred and eighty feet.”

Addison replied, “Nine thousand, four hundred and sixty-one miles.”

Quentin said, “On one tank of gas?”

“We also have gas from the other vehicle.”

The tiny robots must have carried gas from the patrol car to the van. Quentin stared at the thruster again. “Addison, this van uses a fairly conventional method of flight. In a dream you showed us the home of your creators. The people there flew some kind of sphere-shaped vehicle. Why didn’t you just make the van into one of those?”

“Those vehicles were used only inside the towers you saw. The towers were made so the vehicles could fly inside them. Outside of the towers, the vehicles could not fly. So they could not fly here.”

Lindsey was still looking at her map. She said, “We’re a thousand miles from our home. How long will it take?”

Again Addison looked at the ground. “If things stay as they are now, it will take eighteen thousand, three hundred sixty-seven seconds.”

Lindsey frowned. “Okay…”

Bobby helped out. “Sixty seconds is a minute. Sixty minutes is an hour. How many hours is that?”

“That is five hours, six minutes, and seven seconds.”

Lindsey looked at the clock on the dash. “That puts us there at nine-thirty. Peter’s news announcement isn’t until noon tomorrow.”

They all got quiet, probably imagining, like Quentin was, what it would be like to show up at their homes. How would their families react? How would their other selves react?

Bobby broke the silence. “Addison, did your nanobots get into these pizzas?”

“No.”

Bobby kept one box and passed the other forward. “Don’t want to waste them, then.”

* * *

Addison hadn’t altered the van’s dashboard, so the simple digital compass was the only navigation instrument they had. But navigating was not difficult. Lindsey kept her eye on the map, and they flew north until she spotted I-40. The double ribbon of highway was easy to see from a great distance, and the next few hours passed in reasonable comfort. To avoid landing, Quentin convinced them to pee in the soda cups that had accumulated on the floor. This was not an easy sell for Lindsey and Ashley, but the van’s back seat offered a modicum of privacy.

They followed I-40 through New Mexico and Texas, and into Oklahoma without incident. Occasionally they spotted small planes flying far below, and Quentin hoped none saw them. To avoid flying over Oklahoma City, they cut to the north to follow I-35 to Kansas City.

That’s when their luck changed.

“Um, you guys, we have company,” Carlos said.

Two military fighter jets were closing in on them from the east, their contrails streaming behind them into the distance. The jets passed overhead with a deafening roar. Quentin spun around and watched them split and circle around in opposite directions.

“They’re not going to shoot us down are they?” Ashley said.

“Addison, can we go fast enough to outrun them?” Quentin asked doubtfully. The jets flew at terrifying speed.

Addison looked at the jet circling before them. “It would not be safe for you.”

There was nothing they could do but watch the jets circle and fly by them again, one from ahead and one from behind. The relative velocity of the jet from behind was low enough that they clearly saw the pilot as he overtook them. He tapped the side of his helmet over his ear. Then he was past, and he cut off to circle back.

“He wants to talk,” Lindsey said.

The jets made another pass from behind, and the pilots repeated the same gesture. Lindsey shrugged and shook her head to make them understand that they didn’t have a radio. On the next pass, the pilot changed his approach. He held up a white clipboard. Written by hand was one word: FOLLOW. He flipped the board over. It said TINKER AFB.

Lindsey turned around to Quentin. “What do you want to do now?”

Ashley said, “You guys, I kind of have this fear of getting blown up in mid air.”

They had little choice. If the Air Force thought they were terrorists—and they probably did—then they might actually fire on them. So now what? Quentin looked through the window again at the van’s thrusters, which could turn in almost any direction. They couldn’t outrun the fighter jets, but they could probably out-maneuver them.

“Everyone buckle in and hold on,” Quentin said.

“What are you doing?” Lindsey said.

Quentin fumbled for his seatbelt, and suddenly the thin strap seemed ridiculously inadequate. “Maybe we can lose them if we fly closer to the ground.”

“Okay, no,” Ashley said. “That doesn’t sound like a plan.”

Carlos called from the back seat, “They’re coming back!”

Quentin’s mind raced. “Addison, wait until they pass by us and then try to descend without them seeing.”

“Mr. Darnell?” It was Bobby. “I think it’ll be better if you just let Addison figure something out. Just be sure to tell him that no one should get hurt.”

Quentin hesitated. He gripped the arm of his seat.

The jets came up from behind on both sides. And there was the clipboard again. FOLLOW. The pilot flipped it over. OR WE FIRE.

Quentin considered Bobby’s suggestion. “Addison, those jets have weapons they can shoot at us. Can you get us away from them without getting us shot?”

“How do the weapons work?” Addison said.

“I don’t know! Rockets, maybe. They shoot self-propelled rockets that have explosives in them. Or maybe they have guns that shoot metal bullets.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“I can get us away without getting us shot.”

Before he could change his mind, Quentin said, “Then do it.”

Without warning, the thrusters flipped around and blasted in the opposite direction. Quentin was thrown forward and the seatbelt dug into his flesh. The fighter jets shot ahead and rapidly shrank in the distance.

And then the van fell like a rock.

There was no screaming; they were all too petrified to scream. Quentin was lifted off the seat, and he felt his stomach in his throat.

“Do not be afraid,” Addison said.

Quentin was pulled even harder toward the ceiling, and he realized they weren’t in free fall. They were actually accelerating straight down. He wanted to scream at Addison that they would be killed, but he couldn’t speak. The thrusters rotated again, and Quentin braced himself for a deceleration that would likely shatter the van’s frame and crush their bones. But it didn’t come. Addison skillfully slowed at a rate that was only barely uncomfortable. Then the pressure shifted again. Quentin was pressed into his seat as they shot forward. He looked out the side window. They were nearly on the ground. Trees flashed by in a blur of green, and then gave way to an open field, and then another flash of trees. The thrusters rotated once more, and again the seatbelt dug into Quentin’s flesh as their velocity dropped to nothing in only a few seconds. A swirl of leaves and dust shrouded the van until the tires touched the ground, then the thrusters fell silent.

They were hidden in a patch of trees. The jets roared by overhead.

“I believe I have done what you asked,” Addison said.

* * *

Bobby sat with Carlos on the ground outside the van. Dusk was coming, and the light under the trees that hid them was starting to dim. Bobby heard the pulsing of a helicopter in the distance. The Air Force was still searching.

Ashley said, “Let’s just find a motel so we can get some real sleep.”

Mrs. Darnell was still studying the map. “There should be several small towns just to the east. Maybe we can land near one and walk in.”

Mr. Darnell sat in the van with his legs hanging out the door. “We can’t do that. Flying in the dark is probably our only chance of making it to Newton. We have to keep going.”

“I’m not sure I can navigate in the dark,” Mrs. Darnell said.

Carlos said, “Can’t they use radar? It probably doesn’t matter if it’s dark.”

Dark or not, Bobby figured they were more likely to get caught the closer they got to home, since the FBI probably knew where they were headed. They needed a better way to get there. Bobby considered this for a moment, then rose to his feet and went around the van to where Addison still sat in the driver’s seat. “Addison, can I talk to you?”

Addison stepped out and followed him away.

Before speaking, Bobby thought back to the disaster at the hospital. He would have to pick his words carefully. “Addison, I think the only way to get home is for you to teleport us there, or zap us, or whatever it is you do.”

“I cannot do that because—”

“I know, because you haven’t been there. So what I’m thinking is, you could leave us here and go there yourself first.”

Addison’s brows wrinkled. It was the first time Bobby had seen him do that. “Your home is three-hundred miles from this place. It would not be safe for you, even if I go there first.”

“But could you do it?”

“Yes. But it would not be safe for you.”

“Well, I know it’s not safe for us to fly the rest of the way in the van.”

“There is a chance you would be hurt.”

“How much of a chance?”

“I cannot know.”

“Okay, if you teleported us there a hundred different times, how many times would we get hurt?”

Again Addison wrinkled his brow. “Two times. Maybe three times.”

“That’s all?”

“As I said, it would not be safe for you.”

* * *

They were in the air only a few minutes before spotting a town. Hovering low near the edge of it, Quentin strained his eyes to see details in the encroaching dark. Soon he saw two long structures with a parking lot between them. It looked like a motel. Only a few blocks away a small river lined with forest wound its way by the edge of the town. On the other side of the river was open farmland.

Addison landed in some trees on the far side of the river. They left the van hidden there and walked in the twilight along the border between the forest and a milo field. As they walked, Quentin asked Addison the same question for the fourth time.

“You really think there is at least a ninety-five percent chance it will work?” He had explained percents to Addison.

“I cannot know, but that is what I think. There is a chance you will be hurt.”

“But less than a five percent chance.”

“That is what I think.”

The plan was crazy, but crazy had become a way of life. It now seemed unlikely that they could fly the three hundred miles to Newton undetected. But Addison said he could do it without them, because he could fly differently. Quentin guessed that meant faster, or lower—perhaps maneuvering in ways that would crush their bodies.

They came to a bridge Quentin had seen from the air. The bridge road would take them the few blocks to the motel. Only one vehicle, a pickup truck, passed them as they walked the road. Quentin glanced at the license plate to make sure it wasn’t a government vehicle.

A blue and gold Economy Inn sign marked the motel. Only a few cars were there, but the office appeared to be open for business. The others waited behind one of the rows of rooms while Quentin and Lindsey went into the office. A red-haired woman in her sixties sat behind a counter watching a small television. When she saw them, she looked surprised.

“Didn’t hear you drive up,” she said. “Where’s your car?”

“We had a flat tire,” Lindsey said. “We left our car down the road a bit.”

The woman nodded, picked up her phone, and started punching a number. “Friend of ours has a garage. He can probably fix it tonight.”

“No!” They both said it at once. The woman held the phone.

“We can fix it ourselves,” Quentin said. “We’ll do it in the morning. Right now we’re exhausted. We’d like a room.”

Frowning, she replaced the phone and turned to a computer. “Just the two of you?”

They should have rehearsed this.

“We have our daughter with us,” Lindsey said.

The woman looked out the front windows. “She didn’t want to come in?”

Quentin raised his voice. “Can we please just have a room? We’re very tired.”

The frown faded and the woman’s face became a concrete wall. “Certainly, sir.” She started entering information on her computer. She asked for their license plate number. Quentin started to give her his own car’s number then he changed his mind. Instead he gave her the number from the truck that had passed them minutes before. He told her they never carry a credit card and then paid for the room with twenties. They left the office before she could ask more questions.

The door to their room was in plain sight of the office. Quentin went around back and told Ashley to come now. The boys were to sneak in when the woman wasn’t watching. The room was small, but at least there were two beds. A telephone and a small pod with a connector for wired Internet access sat on a table between the beds. Quentin eyed the phone and wondered if using it would bring the military down on them. Then he picked it up and dialed the number Peter had given him. A woman’s voice came on.

“Economy Inn office. Do you wish to make a long-distance call?”

Quentin hesitated. The woman had caught him off guard yet again. “Yes, I do.”

“That’ll be an extra charge, sir. You can give me a credit card number or you can pay a cash deposit on the call.”

Quentin gritted his teeth. He dug out another twenty-dollar bill and asked Lindsey to take it to the office. A few minutes later the woman came back on.

“I’ll connect you now.”

Quentin held his breath as the phone on the other end started ringing.

“Wooley here.”

“Peter! This is Quentin. We talked earlier.”

“Glad to hear your voice, Quentin! Are you safe?”

“For the moment. We’ve had some close calls. Peter, I can’t talk long. I just wanted to check with you about the plans for tomorrow.”

“I’ve managed to arrange a significant event. The secrecy of it has worked in our favor. The media channels are suitably intrigued. Should be a ripper party. Please tell me you will be there tomorrow, Quentin. If it ends up a bust, I may not be able to rally them again.”

“If our current plan works, we’ll be there tomorrow, at the address I gave you.”

“Excellent. I can be there myself by noon, local time.”

Quentin hadn’t expected this. “I thought you were in Brisbane.”

“I’ve worked most of my life for this, and I wouldn’t miss it. I’m at LAX at the moment. Folks are rather cranky here. Why do I have the feeling you have something to do with that?”

“We’ll have to explain later. I should go now. Noon tomorrow.”

“Yes, indeed. But tell me Quentin, have you considered what you wish to say or do? Expectations will be high, you know. Mere words may not be sufficient.”

Quentin knew what he meant. “Don’t worry. When we’re done, there will be no doubts.” And then he realized he had left out an important detail. “Peter, if you happen to get there before us, there is something you should know. There is another person there by the name of Quentin. And there is a Lindsey and an Addison.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Please just trust me. Those other people don’t know the details, so try to humor them until we get there. I can’t explain any more right now. We will see you then, okay?”

“Ace! Quentin, may I ask a quick favor? You have indicated that it is in the form of a boy. Do you think I could speak to this boy for just a moment?”

Quentin hesitated. Then he held the phone out to Addison. “Peter wishes to speak to you.”

Addison inspected the phone before holding it to his ear. “Peter,” he said. There was a pause as Peter talked. “Yes, I can do that. At the time you were in the village, you were afraid you would die, because others would not know what you had learned. But there was someone you wanted most to know. You thought of her as Rose, but you knew her name to be Rosalyn. She was very important to you. Peter, did you return to Rose and tell her what you wanted to tell her?” There was a long pause. “I understand, Peter. I am sorry. Peter? Recently you have started having visions again when you sleep—visions of my creators.” There was another pause. “Because it is time, Peter. Yes, Peter. Goodbye.” Addison handed the phone back.

They stared at him. “What was that all about?” Quentin said.

“Peter asked me to prove to him that I am what you say I am. So I did.”

Bobby peeked through the curtains. “It’s pretty dark now. Addison should go.”

Lindsey spread the maps out on one of the beds. From the room receipt, they knew they were in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. So she showed Addison where they were and how he could get to their hometown. Then she described how to navigate through Newton to their house.

Quentin’s reluctance to let Addison go took him by surprise. After all, this was not his son. Why, then, did he have to fight the urge to hold the thing close to him?

Apparently Ashley had the same urge. She threw her arms around Addison. “You be careful,” she said. “We’ll be waiting for you.” Addison did not embrace her back. Lindsey sat on the bed watching and made no move to get up.

Quentin and Addison slipped out the door and around the corner. Quentin had intended to walk Addison back to the waiting van, with hopes that he would come up with some adequate words. But Addison stopped just behind the motel.

He gazed at Quentin’s face. “Do not be afraid, Dad.” And then the boy was gone, replaced by darkness and a sharp pop of collapsing air.

* * *

In Newton, Missouri, Quentin sat on the bed, nervously twirling his raccoon bone. This had been one of the strangest days of his life. He hadn’t been able to shake the haunted feeling he’d gotten from the early morning caller claiming to be his identical copy. Then there was the mass of feds. And the false report that the suspects had been caught. And now the TV reporters. They were here for a different reason—Peter Wooley’s mystery announcement.

Lindsey came into the bedroom with two glasses of wine. She handed one to Quentin and sat on her side of the bed. For a few minutes they sipped the wine and stared at the TV. The news stations were reporting the happenings in Newton, but they didn’t know much, so the same sound bites were being repeated again and again.

Lindsey switched the TV off. “Addison’s still watching this crap. Says he’s not tired.”

Quentin dropped the bone and put his hand on her thigh. “It’s been a big day for—” A burst of wind outside suddenly cut him off. Then there were men yelling, the national security guys—so much for their promise to be inconspicuous.

The wind got louder. Quentin put his glass down. “What is that, a tornado?”

They went to the living room. Addison was already at the front door, looking out. Quentin pulled him back and peered into the front yard. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He stepped out onto the porch, Lindsey and Addison at his side. An aircraft of some kind was landing in their yard. The craft had four jet engines mounted on top. It also had four tires, and its shape reminded Quentin of a car—more specifically, a minivan. The jet engines were actually very quiet. In fact, rushing air was all that could be heard. The thing came to rest on the grass, and the blasting air abruptly stopped.

A door opened and someone stepped out. The feds were out of their cars, guns drawn. Lindsey stepped back to the front door and switched on the porch light. The yard brightened, illuminating the person who was now approaching.

Quentin froze. It was Addison, or someone who looked exactly like him. At Quentin’s side, Addison—the real Addison—whispered, “Dad, who’s that?”

The person stopped at the steps just a few feet away. Quentin looked at his son and then at the stranger.

The boy spoke with Addison’s voice. “You are Quentin Darnell and Lindsey Darnell.” He pointed. “And you are Addison.” The stranger then smiled. “I will be back, Dad. At noon tomorrow.” He pointed to their feet. “The place where you are standing, you should keep it clear at that time. At noon tomorrow. The others will be with me.”

There was a pop, and the boy was gone, a thin wisp of white vapor swirling in the air where he had stood.

Chapter Twelve

The television cast an unnatural tint throughout the motel room, and the newscaster’s voice droned on without emotion.

“Qantas officials are refusing to comment until the investigation is complete, but the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI have made it clear that Qantas Flight 43 is at the very least a monumental case of mistaken identity, and quite possibly could be a brazen terrorist plot we have yet to see unfold. These facts we do know: Flight 43 was an unscheduled flight from Jayapura, Indonesia; a flight of unknown purpose, shrouded in secrecy. That airliner was an Airbus A380, one of the largest, most luxurious airliners made, with a passenger capacity of nearly five hundred. We are told that fewer than twenty passengers were on the flight. The cause is unknown, but Flight 43 crashed just before landing last night at 10:20 pm Pacific time. There were no survivors. But only minutes later, the very airliner that was thought to have crashed inexplicably landed safely—at nearby Long Beach Airport. Information on that plane’s passengers, as well as the purpose of the flight, has not yet been released. It is still unclear if this was an act of terrorism. That of course is the question on the minds of many at this time. But perhaps the biggest mystery is, who was on the A380 that crashed?”

Bobby’s neck tingled as he watched video of the crash scene. Fires burning. Scattered pieces of jet. Could some of those pieces be parts of his body? He asked if he could change the channel. Nobody answered, so he scanned through channels until he found a show talking about Peter Wooley and Newton, and all the FBI and reporters there. The reporters were there for Peter, but no one seemed to know why the FBI was there. Bobby wondered what his mom was thinking of all this. And then there was his other self. Thinking about that made him feel wretched, so he got up and paced around the tiny room. The clock on the night table said a quarter after ten. Addison had been gone for an hour. How long would it take him to fly to Newton? Could he even make it there without getting shot down? He had said he could survive a plane crash, but what about a missile?

Bobby stopped pacing. “Mr. Darnell? Can I talk to you about something important?”

He and Mrs. Darnell were sitting on one of the beds with their backs against the wall. Mr. Darnell grunted and got up. “Let’s take a walk.” He opened the door to look around and then waved for Bobby to follow. The night air felt dry, but it was filled with the familiar sounds of crickets and cicadas. And it smelled like home.

“I needed to get out of there anyway,” Mr. Darnell said. They headed toward the bridge. There were no streetlights here, and the road was very dark. “Something on your mind, Bobby?”

“Yeah, everything.”

“I know what you mean.” The crickets got louder as they approached the river.

“When Addison gets back, I don’t think we should take him to Newton,” Bobby said.

Mr. Darnell kept walking.

Bobby went on. “He’ll be caught, then the government people will tell him what to do.”

“That is why we brought him to the United States.”

“But it was a bad idea, and now we’ve messed things up. We keep messing things up. Addison’s smarter than us. We should let him decide what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

Bobby shrugged. “I mean let him make the decisions. Instead of giving him over to the government, we could hide him somewhere. We could tell him to only do things to help people. We could teach him what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Mr. Darnell stopped walking. “We should probably head back.” They turned and started back. “Bobby, I’ve never told you about my father, have I?”

“No, but I’ve heard things.”

“Then maybe you know my dad was an anthropologist. A linguist, to be precise. He and my mom introduced me to Papua—actually it was West Papua. My dad was a good person, Bobby. The Papuans he worked with fascinated him. He believed he was helping them by exposing them to the rest of the world. But if there is one thing I know—one thing I feel deep inside me—it’s that my father was wrong. He knew it too, but not until it was too late.”

Mr. Darnell stopped again. “My parents didn’t do anything bad, Bobby. They didn’t force anything on the Papuans that was not wanted. But think about it. If you introduce metal knives—or maybe guns—to an isolated tribe, they are happy to use them. But then they become so good at hunting that they wipe out the game in their area. They have to switch to trading with other people, and using money. And then they can buy things like alcohol. Soon they are a changed people. The old ways of life are just a memory.” Mr. Darnell kicked at something on the ground. “My dad couldn’t live with that.”

“And you think the creators of the Lamotelokhai are kind of like your dad, right?”

“Maybe. We probably won’t know until it’s too late.”

“So, why don’t you like my idea?”

Mr. Darnell started walking again. “Bobby, you’re talking about giving up any control we might have and letting the Lamotelokhai make decisions that could affect everyone. What if its purpose is to change us into something we’re not?”

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

They walked in silence until they were at the corner of the motel. Mr. Darnell stopped. “Bobby, you’re a smart kid—probably smarter than I am. But we’re talking about humanity’s future. Don’t you think we need to have control over that?”

Bobby looked him in the eye. “I guess so.”

They checked around the corner and then snuck back into the room. Everyone was now awake, and there in the middle of the room stood Addison.

* * *

Addison had flown three hundred miles to Newton in ninety minutes—in the dark. And instead of flying the van back, he had left it sitting in Mr. Darnell’s front yard, surrounded by men with guns. Bobby was beginning to fear what might happen when they all showed up there.

They talked to Addison for a while, but soon Ashley and Carlos crashed and Bobby’s eyes grew tired. He glanced at the clock on the night table, but then he noticed the little pod by the phone. Apparently the motel didn’t even have Wi-Fi. Bobby looked from the pod to Addison. “Addison’s a computer,” he said. He pointed to the pod. “Maybe he can connect to the Internet.”

Mrs. Darnell said, “Why would we want him to do that?”

Mr. Darnell slid his feet off the bed. “Maybe it would help. Even if the news people get the word out, Addison will be taken away from us in a few hours. For all we know he could be hustled off to some military bunker and experimented on. If he knows more about humans and our history, maybe he’ll recognize if he is being used recklessly.”

He touched the port. “Addison, this is a connection to the Internet. It’s how millions of computers share information. If you can connect to it, you could learn almost everything about us. Would you like to try that?”

Addison stepped over and put his finger on the cable port. His finger went inside, even though the hole was too small. For several seconds he didn’t move. Finally, he looked up at them. “I can do this. But it will take some time to understand how the information can be learned.”

Bobby thought about this. He knew information was sent in little packets, and Addison would have to figure out how to decompress those. Even then, the decompressed packets would result in typed information that was encrypted, such as HTML and Java code. Most likely, Addison had never seen typed words before. He probably couldn’t even read. And then there were all the pictures and videos and animated Flash stuff.

Addison looked up again. “I understand now. You are right. This is a way to learn. I would like to learn more with the Internet.”

Mrs. Darnell spoke up again. “The Internet has a lot of misinformation. This may be a bad idea.”

“Yes, I see there is misinformation,” Addison said. “I understand. I would like to learn more with the Internet.”

Mrs. Darnel frowned, but Mr. Darnell just shrugged and said, “We’re losing him soon.” He rubbed his eyes. “Addison, will you be okay doing that while we sleep?”

“Yes,” Addison said.

Ashley and Carlos were sprawled out in different directions on one of the beds, so Bobby grabbed a pillow and flopped onto the floor. His eyelids grew heavy as he watched the Lamotelokhai. Addison simply stood in place, his eyes seemingly focused on nothing.

* * *

Standing on his porch, Quentin glanced at his watch—ten-thirty a.m. It had been a long night. The place was now crawling with FBI and Homeland Security people. Guys with bombproof suits had inspected the extraordinary aircraft sitting in the front yard. After deciding it wasn’t going to explode, they had brought a flatbed truck, winched the thing onto it, and took it away. Quentin never got a chance to go near it.

For several hours after the aircraft incident the feds had questioned Quentin, Lindsey, and Addison. Quentin had told them everything he knew, which wasn’t much. There had been the strange phone call yesterday morning, and last night the aircraft had landed in his yard. He had no idea where it had come from or what it was. The one thing he was certain of was that the boy who’d emerged from the aircraft looked exactly like Addison. He had even called him Dad.

The boy had said he would be back at noon and the others would be with him. Who exactly were the others? Quentin was sure as hell going to be here at noon to find out. The feds had evacuated most of the surrounding homes, but Quentin had insisted that his family be allowed to stay near the front porch until the boy returned. And apparently they would be waiting there with several hundred armed men and women. Trucks and SUVs were parked haphazardly everywhere, including on the neighbors’ lawns, forming a barrier around the house. Video cameras on tripods were stationed around the yard, many of them pointed at the porch. Addison’s look-alike had said to keep the porch clear, and Quentin was determined to do so, even if it was the only place in the entire neighborhood clear of equipment and people.

Though there was a general air of excitement, Quentin was disturbed by all the guns. Many of the feds carried pistols in holsters. Some held larger automatic weapons as they paced back and forth between the vehicles. There were even truck-mounted, belt-fed machine guns.

“Mr. Darnell?” A federal agent approached from the street, followed by two armed men. The man stopped in front of Quentin and nodded. “My name is Darron Mesner, Federal Bureau of Investigation. May I ask you a few questions?”

“They’ve already asked everything,” Quentin said.

Mesner’s gaze was unwavering. “Humor me.”

Quentin sighed and nodded.

Mesner looked at his watch. “Seventeen hours ago I spoke on the phone to a man who claimed to be you.”

This got Quentin’s attention. “So did I.”

“You sound very much like the man I talked to. And then eight of our men claim they saw a boy identical to your son get out of an unidentified aircraft and speak to you.” He waved to where the aircraft had landed in the yard. “So I’m trying to make some connections. Other than this man who claims your identity and the boy who looks like your son, have you made contact with anyone else in the last forty-eight hours?”

“You mean besides a hundred or so federal agents? No one out of the ordinary.”

“Do you know Peter Wooley? Have you ever spoken to him?”

Quentin recognized the name. Wooley was the one making the big announcement in Newton that day. “I know who he is, but I don’t know him personally.”

Mesner studied him for a moment. “Wooley arrived here this morning. The guy has surrounded himself with an army of reporters. He’s just down the road.” Mesner nodded to the east. “Says he has scheduled a live announcement at noon. Do you know where he wants to make the announcement?”

Quentin was completely alert now. “He wants to do it here?”

Mesner gave him a look indicating he was correct.

“Why?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me. The guy’s got more media cameras focused on him than I’ve ever seen in one place, and I’ve seen a lot. He’s live on the air and demanding to know why he can’t show up for his appointment at your house.”

Quentin could see that Mesner was scrambling for answers, almost pleading for him to shed some light on the situation. But Quentin was looking for his own answers. A boy who was Addison—but wasn’t—had appeared in his front yard. And when Quentin had looked into the boy’s eyes, he had begun to suspect this was not about terrorists or threats to national security. It was about something else entirely.

“Here’s what I can tell you, Mr. Mesner. I don’t believe the people coming to our house have any intentions of hurting anyone. And I would like to invite Mr. Wooley and his reporters to our house to make his announcement. Do you have any kind of real evidence that Peter Wooley or our other expected guests are a threat?”

Mesner’s steely eyes appraised him. “You sure sound like the man I talked to seventeen hours ago.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of uncanny to me too.”

Mesner sighed. “We’ll escort Wooley and a limited number of media teams through the cordon.”

* * *

Quentin jerked his head up. He thought he had heard voices. Bright sunlight made its way through slits in the motel room’s curtains. He squinted at the clock on the night table. It was late—after ten-thirty. He looked around. The others were sleeping, but Bobby and Addison were gone. He heard the voices again. This time they were recognizable. Bobby and Addison were talking in the bathroom.

Quentin laid his head back down and closed his eyes. In the next few hours the world would know what he knew. Lindsey shifted next to him. What would become of them? Where would they even live? They couldn’t just show up in Newton and expect to share their house with their original selves. And then another thought hit him. He had lost Addison, and Addison’s replica—the Lamotelkhai—would soon be taken from them. Today they would show up at their home, and there Addison would be, vibrant and alive and innocent. But that Addison was the son of another Quentin and Lindsey, and they would have no choice but to walk away from him—possibly forever. Remorse welled up in Quentin’s consciousness.

He groaned and rubbed his temples. He needed to focus on other things, so he got up, woke the others, and then knocked on the bathroom door. “Bobby, we need the bathroom.”

“Just a second!” There was whispering. The door opened and Bobby and Addison came out. Bobby said, “I wanted to talk to Addison, since they’ll probably take him away today.”

“What were you guys talking about?”

“Just talking,” Bobby said. “Addison was on the Internet all night. I think he knows everything now.”

Quentin appraised Addison. “Then maybe he can tell us what to expect when we get home.”

“People are there,” Addison said. “They are waiting.”

Quentin was mildly surprised to get an answer. “How many people?”

“I cannot know how many. When I was there last night I saw eleven people, including you, Lindsey, and Addison. This morning I saw photographs of your house. The photographs showed ninety-four people. It is likely there were more the photographs did not show.”

“That many? Did any of the people have cameras?”

“The photographs I saw were taken with cameras.”

Quentin was too nervous to laugh at this. “No, I mean TV cameras. Were there television cameras there?”

“Yes.”

Lindsey turned on the TV, and suddenly they were staring at the front of their house. In the foreground a reporter talked about the upcoming announcement. After listening for a moment, it was clear the reporter had no idea what the announcement was about.

Lindsey turned it off. “We’d better get ready. We don’t want to disappoint them.”

* * *

An hour later they were cleaned up and ready to go. They still wore t-shirts and shorts from a truck stop, which were tacky and pungent, but at least they had showered.

Quentin had asked Addison to explain what would happen to their bodies as they were transported three hundred miles in a split second, but the answers were invariably frustrating. Would they be dismantled into atomic particles, transported at the speed of light, and reassembled? Addison more or less indicated this was not the case—so much for the Star Trek theory. Was the fabric of space somehow twisted so that they simply stepped from one location to another? Addison indicated this was closer to the truth. When asked for details, he started going on about entropy and quantum uncertainty, the inherent duality of space-time at its most basic level, alternate time lines, probability adjustment, stabilization—Quentin couldn’t keep up.

Regardless of the exact mechanism, Addison had made one thing perfectly clear: they might get hurt. By hurt, Quentin assumed he meant mangled, boiled, or possibly exploded from the inside. As the minutes dragged by, he tried to avoid thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Finally, at six minutes before noon, they assembled in the center of the room.

“Addison, what can we do to make this safer?” Quentin said. “Should we hold hands?”

Before Addison could answer there was a loud knock at the door. They all froze.

“Yes?” Lindsey called out.

“Hello?” It was the lady from the front office.

Quentin stepped to the door and opened it just a crack. “Good morning.”

“Hardly morning now, sir. Checkout was at eleven-thirty.”

“We’ll just leave the key here in the room, okay?”

“Supposed to check out at the front desk.” The woman turned and walked away.

Quentin looked at Lindsey.

“Forget it,” she said. “That woman only frustrates you.”

“Are you suggesting I can’t handle her?”

The kids laughed nervously at this. Lindsey said, “This is serious, Quentin.”

He glanced at the clock—five ‘til noon. He was so nervous that those minutes would be excruciating if he didn’t find a distraction. “It won’t take but a minute.” He slipped out the door and headed to the office. The woman was already behind the counter watching TV. She looked up at him and glared. He smiled anyway. “I’d like to check out.”

She still glared at him. “I was right.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re one of them.”

Quentin’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

“You’re one of them people on the TV. The ones they’re looking for. That’s why I called Chief Sommers.” She nodded over Quentin’s shoulder. He turned around in time to see a police car pulling to a stop directly in front of the office door.

Quentin turned back to her. “Shit, lady!”

“Don’t you try nothing mister.”

He spun around again. Chief Sommers was out of his car and approaching the door.

Quentin darted behind the counter.

“You stay away from me!” the lady shouted.

The policeman was in the front door. “Hey, stop where you are!”

Quentin looked down the narrow hallway behind the counter. There was a back door. He ran and threw it open. He turned and saw Sommers racing toward him. He seemed intent on tackling Quentin, which would be easy since he outweighed Quentin by at least fifty pounds. He was a barreling hulk.

Quentin ran out the back door and headed straight for the river. Sommers followed at full speed. There were enough trees near the river that Quentin hoped he could lose Sommers there and get back to the room with enough of a lead for Addison to transport them. So he ran with everything he had. The police chief was surprisingly fast, but his extra bulk slowed him down. Quentin approached the river and then circled to the left. Sommers yelled, but Quentin couldn’t make out his words.

After a wide loop, Quentin was back at the motel well ahead of Sommers. He rounded the corner just as another police car careened into the parking lot. And hanging out the office door was the motel manager, waving to the car. She saw Quentin. Rather than waiting for the police car to stop, she actually sprinted toward Quentin, screaming.

Quentin threw open the door. “We have to go now!” Without a word they all jumped up and stood in the center of the room.

“Addison, please be careful,” Lindsey said.

Addison was as calm as ever. “Try to move as little as possible.”

Quentin shot a glance at the clock. It was exactly noon.

Suddenly the woman was in the doorway. For a moment, she seemed shocked that there were six people in the room. But then she turned and started shouting, “They’re in here! All of them!”

Quentin clenched his eyes shut. “Now, Addison!”

* * *

Quentin dropped to the floor. The drop was at least six inches, and he stumbled briefly. He opened his eyes. Before him was something he had thought he might never see again—his own front door. He looked down at his body. It was not inside out. He looked at the others, and they seemed fine too, but they were staring out at the front yard. Quentin turned, and suddenly he felt weak in the knees. The yard was filled with people. Dozens of military trucks and government cars blocked the street and filled the neighbors’ yards. Cameras were aimed at them, mounted on tripods, held on cameramen’s shoulders, even held high above with extension booms. And every single person was looking directly at them.

Three people emerged from the crowd. After a moment of confusion, Quentin suddenly knew who they were. The three stepped onto the porch, and each of them stood before their respective mirror image. No one spoke. Quentin’s eyes moved from the father to the wife to the son, Addison—not the Lamotelokhai but the real Addison. Not a boy who had endured injury, psychological mayhem, and being abandoned by his own parents. Instead, this was his son, and for a moment Quentin almost forgot every horrific thing that had happened.

As they stood gazing at their counterparts, the crowd remained silent. Addison wasn’t the only one who was different. There was something about all three of them. It wasn’t just from the injuries. The Lamotelokhai had healed those. It was subtler than that, something that had changed in them gradually, so that Quentin had grown accustomed to it without noticing. They had seen death and miracles, and they held knowledge that the world was about to turn upside down. They were now strangers to this house.

Two men approached them. One of them appeared to be in his thirties. Below his white button-down shirt he wore blue jeans and leather sandals. He sported a closely trimmed beard with a smattering of grey, revealing that he might be somewhat older than his smooth skin suggested. His hair was pulled tight into a ponytail. Before he even spoke, Quentin knew this was Peter Wooley.

“You folks are punctual, I’ll give you that. And your entrance was wicked impressive. You must teach me how you did that.” The man smiled broadly, showing perfect white teeth. “I’m Peter Wooley. I’ve been waiting for you for some time. But then you know that, eh?”

The man next to Peter cleared his throat. He was clearly a federal agent of some sort. Who else would wear a suit jacket and tie in July? “My name is Darron Mesner.” He looked from one Quentin to the other, and his gaze settled on the one who had just arrived. “I believe we spoke on the phone yesterday morning.”

Quentin nodded, still out of breath. “Sorry. I just finished outrunning a police chief in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.”

Both men stared at him.

Peter Wooley chuckled. He then waved to someone in the crowd of people to come to his side. An elderly woman who looked to be in her eighties approached them. Like Peter, she wore a white shirt, jeans, and sandals.

“I’d like you to meet Rose,” Peter said. “My wife, and my partner in crime.” He flashed a smile to Mesner. “Pardon the expression.”

Mesner’s eyes grew wide as he appraised the woman who was old enough to be Peter’s grandmother.

Rose smiled at Mesner and extended a mottled hand to Quentin, then to Lindsey. “I’m quite used to such reactions. Peter and I are an anomalous couple. But you understand, don’t you? I see it in your eyes.”

Lindsey said, “We understand. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rose.”

Rose’s eyes sparkled. “I wasn’t sure I’d live to see this day.”

Mesner cleared his throat again. “We have a media fiasco here. We’ve agreed to allow Mr. Wooley to make whatever announcement he intends to make. But I’m shutting this show down right now unless you convince me your intentions are one hundred percent peaceful. You’ve carried something halfway across the country that witnesses say could be a weapon. This will not be taken lightly.”

Lindsey spoke up. “Didn’t you talk to Colonel Richards? He knows what we have and how important it is. It was his idea to organize this media event.”

“Some of us don’t agree with Richards.”

“Well, as you can see, we’ve brought nothing threatening with us,” Quentin said. “We only wish to share some important news.”

Mesner looked at the Lamotelokhai. “I understand this boy is not what he appears to be.”

Quentin put his arm around Addison’s shoulder. “That’s the news we’ve come all this way to share.”

“Why do you look just like us?” It was the real Addison.

Quentin stepped toward him and was surprised when his other self pulled Addison back. “We don’t mean to scare you. Something happened when you were flying from Wamena to Sentani. There was a strange event that affected the passing of time, and then there were two airplanes, and two of each of us. You probably didn’t notice when it happened.”

The real Addison wrinkled his forehead. “I did see something. But I never told anyone, because I wasn’t sure.”

Bobby said, “I saw you, Addison. I was looking out the window and I saw you there, looking back. Do you remember?”

Addison remained tucked under his father’s arm. He nodded.

Quentin wanted to tell Addison the truth. “Your Twin Otter was fine, and you made it home safe. But ours crashed. It took us all this time to get here.”

The real Addison looked from one of them to the next. “Where are the rest? Where’s Miranda, Roberto, and Russ?”

Quentin took a deep breath. “We had problems. Some didn’t make it back.”

“You mean they died?” It was the other Lindsey.

“Yes. And there’s something else.” With some difficulty, Quentin looked directly at her. “Addison didn’t make it back, either.”

All three of them, this other family, turned to look at the Lamotelokhai. The other Quentin said, “I don’t understand.”

Quentin shifted uncomfortably. “Well, that’s why we’re here. And that’s why the reporters are here, and the FBI. There’s more to the story.”

Peter cleared his throat. “Speaking of that, we’re live on the air at the moment. Are you folks ready to tell the people what they should hear?”

Quentin looked around. The number of guns outnumbered the cameras pointed at them. He glanced at Lindsey and she nodded. “We’ll do our best,” he said.

Mesner added, “Be aware that any threatening action you take will be dealt with swiftly.”

Peter turned to face the crowd. He waved the reporters closer. Several microphones on long booms were positioned over his head. He paused for a moment, waiting for the crowd to become quiet, displaying impressive self-composure. Not until the area was totally silent except for the summer breeze did he speak.

“My name is Peter Wooley, and I have promised you an announcement that will change the world. A sizeable promise indeed, and I do not fault you for your skepticism. But the moment of truth has arrived, and it is time for you to decide. Were my words merely hype? Or were they an understatement of the truth?”

Again he paused, as if savoring the tension. “When I was a younger man—for the record it was more than forty years ago—I stumbled upon something I did not understand. But from that moment on, this phenomenon became the only truly significant purpose for my life. At that time I could not share it with others. Perhaps that was as it should have been. Perhaps the world was not ready. But today, whether we are ready or not, the time has come.”

Quentin had thought it impossible the crowd in his yard could become quieter, but it did.

After another controlled pause, Peter continued. “I must confess that my role in this event is relatively minor. These good people are the ones truly responsible for bringing this phenomenon to us all.” Peter motioned for them to come forward.

Lindsey hung back and smiled at Quentin as he stepped forward. The boom mics shifted so that they were over his head. The television cameras were turned on him, and everyone waited. His mind reeled. He’d thought about this moment during the night, had decided upon a plan. But he had underestimated how difficult it would be. Perhaps he had never truly believed they would make it to this point.

He turned to the others. Addison—the Lamotelokhai—smiled at him, the smile he had learned to use when people were afraid. Quentin knew what he had to say first.

“I have lost my son.” His voice cracked, but he quickly brought it under control. The people in the yard remained silent. “My son Addison was hurt when our plane crashed in Indonesia. He would have died. He should have died. But we found something there. It is something that can do wonderful and impossible things.”

Quentin looked at Addison the boy. His son watched him, innocent, not understanding. He turned back to the crowd. “When people have access to such a thing as that, decisions are made based on emotions. We don’t consider the consequences. I have come to realize this is the difference between power earned versus power given. Power we have earned is used with caution, with an understanding of consequences. Power that is given to us, on the other hand, is misunderstood. And so we toy with it.

“This phenomenon Peter mentioned is a gift. It is unimaginable power that has been given to us.” Quentin paused to look at Darron Mesner. The agent raised his brows, as if he were waiting patiently for Quentin to make a point of some kind. Quentin turned back to the cameras. “I’m afraid we’re in trouble, my wife and I. We brought this gift with us to the United States, and then we ran away with it, to avoid having it taken away. After this announcement we will probably be arrested. So we want everyone to know the truth. Here are the reasons for our actions: We used this gift without considering the consequences. We used it to save the life of our son. But he was beyond saving. We didn’t realize the magnitude of this mistake until it had cost the lives of dozens of innocent people. We then tried to use this gift to ensure our own safety, only to witness the consequences as more innocent people were killed. And after enduring that, we have come home, only to find that we have no home anymore.”

Quentin paused and tried to look at each of the cameras. “When you have seen proof of what we have to say, I think you will agree that we must allow the whole world to determine how best to use this gift.” He motioned toward a group of federal agents standing nearby. “With all due respect, we did not believe we should simply hand over such a thing to those who might think first and foremost of ways to use it to make our country more powerful than others.”

The crowd seemed transfixed by his words, but Quentin had nothing more to say. He looked at the others, and his eyes met Bobby’s. If he were to ask Bobby, he was pretty sure the answer would be, let Addison take it from here. Aware that yet again he was putting their lives into the hands of an unknown entity, Quentin leaned closer to the Lamotelokhai and said quietly, “Addison, you mustn’t hurt anyone or do anything that will make these people shoot us. But you need to tell them what you are. And they won’t believe you if you just tell them. You will have to show them something to help them believe.”

“I understand.” Addison stepped forward. He gazed at the crowd and then spoke firmly, “Peter Wooley and Quentin Darnell told you about a gift. But they did not tell you I am the gift.” A ripple of murmurs drifted across the yard, but Addison cut them off. “I am not a living thing like you are. You can think of me as a computer if you want to.” He then paused as if aware they would need time to process this. “Those who created me wished to share some of what they had accomplished. That is why I am here.” He paused again. “I have waited here for more than six hundred million years, but until recently there have been no living things here who could talk with me.”

The drifting whispers turned to indignant laughter and ridicule.

Addison ignored this. “I would like to show you one of my creators. This might help you to understand.” He smiled. “Do not be afraid.”

Addison held his arms at his sides and looked at his feet. After perhaps ten seconds of uncomfortable silence the crowd’s laughter returned. Suddenly Addison collapsed on the porch and became a shapeless mass. The other Darnell family backed away, horrified. One of the reporters said, “God almighty!”

The mass began to take shape. It resembled a large turtle, or an armadillo, curled up on the floor. Then it unfurled itself and stood up. Cries of alarm rose from the crowd. Quentin feared that a nervous gunman might open fire, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the creature before him. It stood about four feet high on two hind legs, but the main torso tilted forward at a forty-five degree angle. Protruding from the chest was another leg, longer and much thinner than the other two, providing the support that allowed it to lean forward. There were two arms, looking almost human, except that the hands had four fingers in opposing sets of two. The torso appeared to be covered with hard brown leather. Most disturbing were its heads. They were side-by-side, each of them looking like a sock puppet with two eyes and no mouth. A large mouth was positioned just below where the two head-stalks attached. Quentin realized the top of the body was the same anatomical arrangement as the fish-like creature Addison had shown them days earlier.

Suddenly the spindly chest appendage moved. Before, when it supported the body, it had appeared to have only one joint about midway between the body and floor. But when it lifted off the floor it became obvious that it was multi-jointed. The appendage snaked out and reached down to the first step below the porch. The multiple joints locked into place and the limb was rigid again, allowing the creature to lean forward. Its hind legs lifted off the floor and swung forward, straddling the center leg and passing over the two remaining steps. The creature landed lightly on the sidewalk. The motion was graceful, yet it was so shockingly alien that the crowd gasped, and those nearest the porch backed away. An authoritative voice commanded, “Hold your fire. Do not fire!”

Quentin had seen the impossible in recent weeks, but this disturbing yet beautiful creature was so foreign in its structure and movements that he could only stare in disbelief. The creature shifted from side to side, possibly waiting for the crowd to calm down. Its two head-stalks acted independently, each pair of eyes inspecting different areas of the crowd at the same time. The boom mics were quickly wrangled into position over the creature’s head, in case it was capable of speaking.

And then it did speak. Its mouth was much larger than a human’s, but the lips were extremely dexterous. “Do not be afraid,” it said. The voice was no longer Addison’s. “I have changed to the form of one of my creators. This individual was one of those who designed me, and many others like me. She lived more than six hundred million years ago. It is almost certain that her kind no longer exists. They were aware of their finite existence, and I was created so that others may know of them and remember them.”

As the thing spoke, waves of color expanded and contracted on each head-stalk, reminding Quentin of the iridophore cells allowing chameleons to rapidly change color. The color changes seemed to be an integral part of the thing’s verbal communication, and they included a broad palette of bright and subtle hues.

The creature paced a few steps one way and then back, using its center limb like a crutch. As it turned, the head stalks swiveled to allow the eyes to remain fixed on what they were looking at. The movements were mesmerizing, and Quentin wondered how much of this the television audience could see, and how many of them actually believed it was real.

The thing stopped and faced the cameras again. “I came to this place long before your kind existed. My purpose was to wait for beings capable of understanding my creators’ accomplishments. During the time I waited, I encountered many different living things. All of them eventually disappeared, to be replaced by more. But none of those living things were able to talk to me and understand my purpose—until recently. Approximately thirty-seven thousand years ago, I encountered beings of your kind. They were unlike all the previous living things I had known. These people had learned to move across water from one part of the planet to another with boats they had made. They were the first living things I had encountered here who could talk to me.

“Approximately one hundred and fifty years ago, another of your kind came to me. Because of experiences in his life, he asked for my help with tasks that previous people had not, such as cultivating food.

“A short time later, approximately forty-two years ago, another of your kind came to me. His name is Peter Wooley, and he is here with us now.” Both head stalks turned to Peter, and both of the graceful forearms pointed at him. “Peter’s experiences allowed him to talk to me in new ways. But Peter was forced to leave that place, and I did not encounter him again until today.

“Twelve days ago I met the people who stand before you.” The creature motioned to Quentin and the others. “Bobby Truex is one of them. Bobby’s experiences in his life were influenced by the efforts of Peter, even though they had not met until now. And so Bobby was able to talk to me in new ways. Because of that, I am now here in this place, talking to you.

“I have told you these things so that you will understand that Bobby is the primary communicator for your kind at this time. And Bobby has told me of fears that he has. Bobby fears that the accomplishments of my creators might endanger all of you. He is correct. I have not come here to instruct you on how to use the accomplishments of my creators. You may use them to destroy some or all of your kind. If you do that, I will wait here, as I have done since I arrived. Others may eventually replace your kind. Perhaps those who replace you will be better suited to use the accomplishments of my creators.”

The thing pointed at Bobby again. “Bobby does not want the accomplishments to be used in ways that hurt and kill. Bobby is the primary communicator at this time, and I follow his requests. But soon, others of you will be primary communicators.” The creature then stared at the cameras, as if waiting for this to sink in.

Finally, it said, “I will change my form back to what is more familiar to you.” Its heads lowered, and the tiny arms dropped. The creature collapsed again. As the crowd and the cameras watched, clothing and human skin became apparent in the folds of the mass. A few minutes later it straightened up, and Addison stood before them. He said, “It is time for what is to come next.” Addison then stood motionless, waiting.

Darron Mesner waved at some men to approach Addison, but the men were hesitant. They approached with guns drawn.

“Please put your guns away,” Lindsey said. “They only make your intentions obvious, and they can’t hurt him anyway.”

The men ignored her, and Addison allowed them to escort him toward the street.

Mesner eyed Lindsey, and then Quentin. “You all need to come with us, so we can determine exactly what’s going on here.”

Bobby said, “They’ll be careful with him, right? It’s easy to make a mistake.”

“They’ll be careful,” Mesner said. “You people should have trusted us from the start. Would have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“Bobby is trying to tell you something we’ve learned the hard way,” Quentin said.

Mesner frowned and stepped closer to Quentin. “There are some, Mr. Darnell, who will likely consider your actions to be treason. But that’s not for me to decide. I withhold judgment until all evidence is examined. I only wish you had done the same, rather than taking off across the country like self-righteous lunatics. Perhaps you should hold more trust in your country’s leaders.”

Quentin’s face flushed with anger. “Our trust is in humanity, not in a few individuals.”

Mesner stepped even closer. “Your ignorance is shocking and dangerous. Do you really think it would be our leaders making the decisions you fear? It will be the people, for God’s sake! If this thing holds the power that you imply, it will be the general population crying out for its use as a weapon. Perhaps not at first—at first they’ll demand that it be used to feed the hungry, or cure disease. Perhaps the general level of comfort will rise. But not everyone can have everything they want. There isn’t enough space or resources on the planet to allow that. The more people have, the more they consider anything preventing an optimum level of comfort to be a threat. People don’t like to feel threatened, Darnell. When they do, they become something different from what your naïve idealism would like them to be. They’ll demand that this gift of yours be used to eliminate any perceived threat, perhaps even if it means using it as a weapon of mass destruction. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Disturbingly, Quentin did see. He had to forcibly remind himself that he held more faith in humanity than Mesner obviously did. He started to say something, but Mesner backed off and waved for more men to come.

“We’ve set up a temporary facility for examining you all.” Mesner hooked his thumb toward the street. “The other one will be taken to a more robust facility.”

“His name is Addison,” Quentin said.

Mesner nodded. “Addison, then.” Without another glance at them he headed toward Addison, who was being led to the back of an armored truck.

“Son of a bitch!” Quentin muttered.

Lindsey was now at Quentin’s side. “We’ve done what we came to do. We let the world know. They wouldn’t dare make decisions now without consensus.”

Quentin realized he was clenching his fists and tried to relax.

One of the agents gestured toward the street. “We need you folks to come with us.”

“Mr. Darnell?” It was Bobby. “I did it anyway.”

Quentin looked at him. “You did what?”

“What you told me not to do. I thought you might change your mind, so I talked to Addison this morning while everyone was asleep. I got him ready.”

“Ready for what?”

The agent closed in. “I have to insist you people stop talking now and come with us.” The other men moved in on them, too.

Bobby ignored them. “I taught him what he needs to know. You know, about what’s right and wrong. He’s ready. I just need to tell him.” The agent gripped Bobby’s shoulder and started leading him away. “Do you want me to tell him?” Bobby called to Quentin.

The man roughly clamped a hand over Bobby’s mouth and put his other arm around his chest. “We’re not playing games, son!”

Before Quentin could respond, Ashley cried out, “Addison! We need help!”

Everyone froze. Addison emerged from a group of agents at the rear of the armored truck. Several of the men moved to stop him, but Mesner warned them back.

“This guy’s hurting Bobby,” Ashley said.

The agent’s eyes shifted, but he didn’t release Bobby. The other men kept their guns trained on Addison as he approached.

“Bobby, would you like my help?” Addison said.

The man’s hand prevented Bobby from speaking, but he nodded.

Addison stepped directly in front of them. “You should let go of Bobby now.”

Quentin rushed forward. “Everyone stop!” he yelled. “Addison, don’t do anything.”

The agent still held his hand over Bobby’s mouth, and Quentin looked the man squarely in the eye. “Sir, do you have any children of your own?”

“Yes,” the man said, barely a whisper.

Quentin nodded to the television cameras. “Then your family is probably watching. I don’t pretend to know exactly what Addison is, but he is not what he appears to be. He doesn’t understand how tragic it would be for your family to watch you die before their eyes. I’m begging you, please let the boy go.”

Addison’s eyes turned golden yellow as he reached for the man’s arm. “Do not be afraid,” he said.

The guy released Bobby and stepped back before Addison’s hand touched him.

Bobby wiped his mouth. He spoke to Quentin. “He’s ready. Should I tell him?”

Quentin nodded. “Do it.”

A slight grin materialized on Bobby’s face. “Addison, phone home.”

There was a pop, a tendril of water vapor, and then silence. Addison was gone.

Chapter Thirteen

The chaos at Quentin’s house eventually gave way to a more methodical investigation. The camera crews wouldn’t leave, and Mesner was reluctant to have them forcibly removed on live television. But they were obviously growing weary of waiting for Addison to return and getting only clipped answers to their questions.

Addison would not return. Quentin had told the feds this again and again. Bobby had instructed the Lamotelokhai to disappear, and it was too late to get it back. Agent Mesner had ranted, had threatened them and even pleaded with them. “How could a fourteen-year-old boy have the right to do this?” he’d asked. “How could a boy make a decision for the entire country?” Quentin had reminded Mesner that the Lamotelokhai was for the entire world, which didn’t help to placate him.

Quentin was sure he and Lindsey would be taken into custody. Perhaps they would even be locked away. But for now they were held at the house, in case Addison returned. Quentin sat with Lindsey on the front porch steps, surrounded by National Security personnel, while the kids were still being questioned individually inside. The front door opened and Mesner stepped out, followed by the other versions of Quentin and Lindsey. Mesner told his men to vacate the porch and move to the street. He then withdrew into the house, leaving the two identical couples somewhat alone. The other Quentin and Lindsey sat on the steps next to them.

“So Mesner wants you guys to question us now?” Quentin said.

The other Darnells eyed them warily, obviously uncomfortable. “Why not?” the other Quentin said. “We all need answers.”

“There’s one thing I’d like to know,” the other Lindsey said. “How did Addison die?”

Quentin took a deep breath. “Actually, we don’t know exactly.”

“What does that mean?” the other Quentin said.

“There were some things that happened.” Quentin sighed. “We had to leave him there, in the forest.”

The other Quentin looked incredulous. “What? What could possibly happen that would make you—”

The other Lindsey put her hand on her husband’s knee. “It can wait, Quentin. You’re talking to yourself, remember? They’re us. We can assume we would’ve made the same decision.” This was followed by contemplative silence.

The other Quentin said, “This thing you found—this Lamotelokhai—it’s not really gone, is it? You know where it is?”

“I have no idea,” Quentin said. “Bobby convinced me we’d all be better off if we let it hide somewhere and decide on its own what to do next.”

Another incredulous look. “Bobby convinced you.”

Quentin simply gazed back at his copy.

“Even though this thing could change the future of our species.”

“Don’t assume I made the decision lightly. You have no idea what we’ve seen.”

The other Quentin looked around the yard, trying to gather his thoughts. His left knee began bouncing, and his hand impulsively patted his pocket for the raccoon bone, but apparently it wasn’t there. Quentin realized he hadn’t seen his copy of the bone since crashing in the rainforest, and suddenly he missed its presence.

Finally the other Quentin said, “This goes against every instinct I have. It seems we are now at the mercy of some unknown force. My parents—your parents—imposed the same kind of influence on Amius and Gupy and their people. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of what you’ve done, so how could you not have thought of that? Do you think Dad would’ve agreed to this?”

Quentin suppressed his contempt. “We had no choice.” But doubts were again beginning to arise within him.

The other Quentin eyed him. “So what’s next? Are we ever going to see this Lamotelokhai again?”

“If we told you where it is, would you tell Mesner? That is why he wanted you to talk to us, right?”

The couple exchanged glances, and then the other Lindsey said, “Somehow you both reached the conclusion that it should disappear. We don’t know why. But how ironic would it be to not trust the two of you?

* * *

Agent Mesner was furious, but Bobby stuck to his story—he had no idea where the Lamotelokhai was, and he had told it to stay hidden forever. Half of this was actually true. Bobby had been separated from the others and was being questioned by Mesner and two other feds. At least he was in the Darnells’ kitchen and could get a soda whenever he wanted. He was on his third.

Except for the Lamotelokhai’s location, Bobby had told the truth. Just like with Colonel Richards, Mesner had wanted to know everything, starting from the beginning. Finally it seemed he was out of questions, and he sat across the table from Bobby shaking his head.

“Now I have a question for you,” Bobby said. “What would you do with it? If you had it—and it can do anything you want—what would you ask it to do?”

“I guess we’ll never know, will we?” Mesner said.

“No, really. I answered your questions. What would you do with it?”

“I would turn it over to the authorities, which is what you—”

“No, I mean you. If you had it, what would you do with it?”

Mesner sighed. “Okay, Bobby. If it could do anything?” He thought for a moment. “I would ask it to make a rocket that could take regular folks like me into space. I’ve always wanted to go into space, probably since I was your age.”

Bobby took a drink of his soda. “That’s a pretty good wish. For me it’s dinosaurs. I wanted the Lamotelokhai to make real live dinosaurs.”

Mesner was actually smiling now. “And it did, right? At the hospital in Papua.”

Bobby looked at the can in his hands. “Yeah. That didn’t go so well.”

“You’re trying to make a point, aren’t you Bobby?”

“No. I just wanted to talk about it. You know, like normal talk.”

Mesner nodded slowly. “Like normal talk.”

An agent leaned in the doorway. “Sir, I got a couple people here. Considering the circumstances, we allowed them entry.”

Mesner nodded. The agent stepped aside and Bobby’s mom appeared in the kitchen doorway. Bobby was behind her—the other Bobby. Their eyes got wide when they saw Bobby at the table.

“It’s true!” his mom said. She approached slowly. The other Bobby stayed behind her.

Mesner glanced from one Bobby to the other, and then he waved the other two agents out of their chairs so the other Bobby and his mom could sit. There was an awkward silence.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Bobby’s mom said.

No one responded to this. Finally Agent Mesner got up and said he would let them talk. He and the other agents left the kitchen.

“Where’s Dad?” Bobby said.

She hesitated, almost like she didn’t grasp the question. “Travis is on his way. He called when he saw you on TV.”

The other Bobby finally spoke. “Are you really me?”

“A copy of you. Or you’re a copy of me. I don’t know.”

“Do you know what I’m thinking?”

Bobby smiled. “No. How could I?”

“Are there any more copies of you?” his mom said.

“There was another one. He died in a plane crash at the airport.”

His mom gazed at him silently. Her eyes turned wet. Bobby reached across the table and touched her hand. Instead of pulling away, she gripped his hand tight.

The other Bobby said, “Where’s he going to live?”

His mom blinked. Obviously she hadn’t thought of this. “Live?” she said.

Bobby fumbled for words in the silence that followed. “I guess I don’t have a home anymore.” He half-laughed. “They’ll probably put me in jail or something, anyway.”

His mom gripped his hand tighter. “You’ll live in your home, with us.”

Suddenly Miranda’s voice was in the living room. Bobby jumped up and left the kitchen, followed by his mom and his twin. There was Miranda, alive and well. And the other Ashley was with her. The two Ashleys were face-to-face, probably feeling the same awkwardness Bobby had just experienced.

Ashley saw him come out of the kitchen and seemed relieved to have a distraction. She waved Bobby over. “It’s Miranda, Bobby. She’s alive! And the other Carlos is outside—with Roberto. I haven’t seen Russ yet, but they’re all alive!” She laughed nervously. “And this is the other me, of course.”

Bobby said hello to the girls. They both looked dazed and didn’t respond. Four adults stood behind them—probably their parents. Bobby wondered which were Lori and Brent.

Bobby didn’t really know what he had expected, but this wasn’t it. There was fear in the parents’ eyes. Miranda and the other Ashley looked as if they might turn and run at any second.

Ashley must have sensed this, too. She was trying to stay positive. “I have so much to tell you guys. You would not believe the last two weeks! I don’t think we’d even be here if not for Bobby.” She moved closer and actually put her arm around Bobby’s shoulder.

The other Ashley’s eyes grew even wider when she saw this, and she exchanged a look with Miranda. She obviously didn’t approve.

Standing there in the new Ashley’s embrace, Bobby simply smiled.

Chapter Fourteen

Marjorie Temple fumbled for the keys to Room 4. It had been a doozy of a day already, and now that the mercury was pushing a hundred, she wanted to finish housekeeping and settle into the cool office before the worst of it. Only three rooms were filled last night, but she had saved Room 4 for last. To be honest, she would’ve been happy to bolt the door and never set foot in 4 again. But travelers passing through would have no clue what’d happened there, so she might as well make good use of it.

She took a deep breath and opened the door, half expecting somebody to be there. But the room looked normal enough. The police tape had been removed when the FBI got word that the real criminals were found in Missouri. Chief Sommers had said he never actually got a good look at the man he’d chased out back. And then they had all looked at Marjorie like she was a crackpot. But she knew darn well what she’d seen with her own eyes. The whole gang had been there, the same six from the TV, plain as the nose on her face. And then they weren’t there. Gone, like spooks. The FBI, they just said don’t worry about it, like it happened to everyone—everyone who was plum crazy, most likely.

Marjorie muttered to herself as she cleaned the bathroom. The bathrooms were always first—best to get them out of the way. The towels were a sight. This wasn’t the mess from three folks—more like a gang of six criminals on the run. She swapped out the towels and wiped the tub and floor, stopping now and then to look into the main room to make sure she was alone.

Still muttering, she pulled the sheets from the beds. She glanced at the clock on the night table. And then she looked across the far bed and frowned. There was a new night table between the beds. The old one was in the far corner. If Luther had bought another one, he would have told her. Or more likely, he would’ve dropped it off up front, expecting her to put it in the room. She examined the table. It was just like the other one, only brand-spanking new. Not a scratch or water ring on it. But the table was off center. Luther had bothered to put the Internet plug and clock on the table, but didn’t have a care to situate it right. She dropped her armload of sheets on the bed and gripped the night table with both hands. It wouldn’t move. She tried harder. The table budged, but it was heavier than heaven. She opened the drawer. It was empty. She stared at the confounded thing.

“Good enough right where you’re at,” she muttered.

Marjorie moved the old table next to the other side of the bed. She stood back and appraised her work. Good enough. She finished changing the sheets and locked the door, more than happy to leave Room 4. Soon she was back at her desk, sipping a cream soda and watching the idiots on TV try to figure out what was going on in Newton, Missouri.

In Room 4, the new night table stood in silence, holding up a glowing alarm clock and an Ethernet connection pod that was now strangely fused to the table itself. Suddenly the table shifted three inches to the left, so that it was precisely halfway between the two beds.

And then it settled back in and continued its work.

Chapter Fifteen

Five Months Later

The canoe cut a clean line through the green water of the Sittee River. Bobby kept his eyes focused on the thick canopy to his right, watching for a flash of orange or green. They had already spotted thirteen iguanas, and one more would be a new record. In fact, this morning’s paddle had been an all-around success. They had seen a family of coatimundi moving along the edge of the river, rooting around with their long snouts for bugs and lizards. And just as they had turned back, some two miles up the river, the melon-sized snout of a manatee had surfaced next to the canoe. It stared at them for a few seconds and then went under—the closest Bobby had been to one of the gentle brutes.

In spite of Bobby’s efforts, they spotted no more iguanas on the last stretch of river. The weeks-old record would still stand, at least until tomorrow. From the canoe’s stern, Quentin guided them to the put-in. The boat scraped gravel as it ran aground, startling Bobby out of the daze the last hour of quiet had left him in. After they climbed out, Quentin pulled the canoe onto the grass, flipped it over, and lifted it to his shoulders. The black Kevlar was light, and there was no need for Bobby to help.

“I’ll see you inside,” Quentin said. “Don’t be too long.” Looking like a boat with legs, he headed to the shed.

The canoe was a gift from Peter, and so was the shed where they locked it up. In fact, everything was a gift from Peter, including the house. It usually took a long time to build a house in Belize, so instead Peter had bought the Sittee River Lodge, which used to be rented out for rainforest vacations. The locals who had worked for the Lodge were now paid to care for the place and to make sure nobody knew who really lived there. To Bobby the place was paradise, and now that it was winter the days weren’t too hot.

Bobby counted anole lizards along the path to the house. If it were up to him, he’d stay outside all day. But Quentin and Lindsey were home-schooling him, and they made him do lessons every afternoon. Bobby didn’t mind so much. Most of the lessons were online, and Peter had bought him a screaming fast 30-inch all-in-one.

After a couple months of trying to live at home, Bobby had decided to move in with the Darnells—they now made him call them Quentin and Lindsey. Living with his mom and his other self was just weird. Nobody seemed to know what to say. And going to the same school had been the worst part. Even though there were also two Carloses and two Ashleys, Bobby had felt tormented more than the others. He had then tried living with his dad. It was a different school there, but things were still awkward, especially when the other Bobby came for the weekends. And so it didn’t take much arguing for Bobby to convince his mom and dad to let him come live with Quentin and Lindsey.

As Bobby made his way along the corral, a shadow appeared over the top of the fence.

“Hey, science boy, there’s something for you at the house.”

Bobby looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. Ashley gazed down at him from the saddle of her horse, Marley. “Another box from Peter?” he asked.

“Nope. This one you’ll want to open right away. In fact, I want to be there when you do.” She cantered away, heading for the stable. “You’re riding with me this evening,” she called back. “No excuses!”

Bobby pretended to be afraid of the horses, because he liked when Ashley teased him. But he wouldn’t miss riding with her for anything.

Ashley had stayed in Newton longer than Bobby. But like Bobby she’d said that school was the hardest part. Her friends and teachers didn’t know how to act around her. They called her the Ashley twin. Miranda had seemed okay with being a friend to twin Ashleys, but after she heard about how the other Miranda had died, she started giving excuses for avoiding both of them. And so Ashley had eventually decided to come live with the Darnells. This made her kind of like a sister, and that was weird. But it didn’t matter. Bobby was going to kiss Ashley again, and not just once. He recalled every word of their conversation on the plane that night. She had said if he were older she would probably kiss him again. All he had to do now was keep the local Garifuna boys away from her. And then there was the expat family living a mile down the river, halfway to the coast. They had a son who might be a problem.

Carlos was the only one still living back home, and it appeared he would stay there. He was so happy to get his brother Roberto back that he didn’t mind being an extra twin to the other Carlos. His parents were the kind of people who could handle it. They had always made everyone feel welcome at their house, including Bobby.

Bobby was happy for Carlos, but he was also a little envious, particularly when he missed his old life. Bobby had lost his mom and dad and almost all his friends. He was trying to make a new home in a country he had never seen before. It was better now that Ashley was here, but sometimes it was still hard.

Bobby entered the lodge, flipped off his muddy sandals, and went straight to the table in the screened-in living room where they always put the mail. Their home’s location was a secret, so Peter had set up a public mailing address for them in Brisbane. He had people there who sorted through their mail and only forwarded pieces that were really important. There were lots of gifts, including checks for different amounts of money. But those were always donated to charities. Peter gave them everything they needed, anyway. Peter had said a few weeks ago there had been a check for a million dollars. It was from the family of a man who’d had AIDS.

Addison was staying hidden, but people knew where the breakthroughs were coming from. The whole world had seen the videos from Newton. So when a cure for AIDS had suddenly appeared on the Internet, the drug companies were ready to try it within a few weeks. Big surprise—it worked. And then a cure for diabetes had mysteriously appeared. It worked, too. Now people were saying there might be a new drug that simply makes people healthy, no matter what their ailments. Bobby didn’t know if others could see it coming, but it was obvious to him that this might cause another problem: too many people on one little planet. How would Addison solve that one?

There had been other breakthroughs, too: new ways to slow down global warming, new kinds of food, new computer chips, and especially new breakthroughs in nanotechnology. Recently, microscopic machines had been introduced that could clean up smog over a city.

At the beginning of all this, Quentin and Lindsey had been afraid that cultural diffusion of the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge would totally change the human species. But Bobby’s plan to hide Addison had changed that. The alien knowledge and technology was now just trickling into human culture without turning the entire world upside down. Instead of diffusion, Bobby liked to think of it as careful, measured infusion of ideas.

Three boxes and some letters were on the table. The first box looked like it might be a part they needed for the car. All of those had to be sent from the U.S. or China. The second box was from Peter. Probably some new gadget he wanted them to have. That could wait. Bobby picked up the third box. It was heavy. But the strange thing was that it hadn’t gone through the sorting office in Brisbane. Instead, it had come directly from Pawhuska, Oklahoma.

“Hey, you guys, what is this?” he shouted.

Lindsey entered from the study and examined the package. “Perhaps we shouldn’t open it. It may not be safe.”

Quentin came in. He still had streaks of water on his shirt from hoisting the wet canoe. “Don’t open what?”

“It’s from Oklahoma,” Lindsey said. “Sent directly here.”

Quentin squinted at the box. “Must be a mistake.”

But it wasn’t a mistake. The box was addressed to Bobby Truex. “It’s from Addison,” Bobby said. “It has to be.”

Ashley came in, breathing hard. “You better not have opened it without me, Bobby.”

Bobby hefted the box. “I think it’s from Addison.”

There wasn’t much debate. Everyone wanted to know what was in it. Quentin cut into the box and pulled out a note and a large lump of brown stuff wrapped in plastic.

Quentin handed Bobby the note. “It’s for you.”

The note had only a few lines:

Bobby, please use the web browser on your
computer to go to the following address:

http://lamotelokhai.weebly.com

Bobby went straight to his room and sat at his desk. The others gathered behind him. He woke up his computer and typed the address.

Ashley said, “The computer from an advanced alien civilization has a Weebly site?”

Bobby shrugged. “Not a bad way to blend in.”

The page loaded, but it appeared to be a blank white background with nothing on it.

Suddenly some black text appeared. “Hello Bobby.”

A text box and submit button appeared near the bottom of the screen. Bobby typed, “Who is this?” But he knew exactly who it was.

Instead of answering, the Lamotelokhai responded with, “Am I correctly doing what you asked me to do, Bobby?”

Bobby thought about this. “Yes. But you don’t have to solve all our problems at once. You could slow down if you want.”

Amazingly, the next thing that appeared on the screen was an emoticon: :-)

“He did not just text-smile at us,” Ashley said.

The smile disappeared, followed by: “There are many problems that people do not yet know about. There is much to do. But I can slow down if you wish it.”

Bobby looked at the others. Quentin just shook his head and shrugged. Lindsey said, “We’re not qualified to decide how fast the human race progresses.”

Bobby typed, “You decide, Addison.”

“I understand. It is interesting that you call me Addison. I do not have Addison’s form at this time.”

“It’s a habit.”

“Bobby, do you have the package I sent to you?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“I am learning about things that influence the emotions of people. I believe the contents might be something that will make you happy. You should remove the packaging and place your hand upon it. It must be your hand, Bobby. Other hands will not work. After some time has passed, please contact me again and tell me if I am correct.”

Lindsey said, “The Lamotelokhai is using you for an experiment?”

“Goodbye Bobby. Use this address when you want to contact me again.” A few seconds later, the white screen was replaced by the home page of the city of Pawhuska, Oklahoma—Gateway to the Tallgrass Prairie.

Bobby returned to the table and eyed the stuff wrapped in plastic. Better open it now before anyone could try to talk him out of it. He grabbed some scissors and cut open the plastic. It was exactly what it looked like through the wrapper: a lump of clay about the size of a bowling ball. He put his hand on it.

As the seconds passed, the only sounds heard were the birds outside. The lump started to change. Bobby pulled his hand away. Creases formed as it took shape, and then fur grew on the surface. A few minutes later, the thing uncurled and sat up on two hind legs and one thick tail. Golden eyes peered at Bobby over a black and tan snout.

Bobby blinked, scarcely believing his own eyes. The creature blinked back.

“Mbaiso!”

Chapter Sixteen

Three Months Later

With clawed fingers, Mbaiso lightly caressed the termite tunnel that ran from the ground up to a massive nest high above, providing the industrious insects a sheltered corridor on the tree’s surface. Mbaiso felt the vibrations of termites making their way up and down the tree. Much could be learned from such elegant and practical designs. The tree kangaroo turned his snout upward to gaze at the hanging tunnels there. The tunnels formed a network of corridors with rooms serving as nodes, each node connecting six tunnels. These newly constructed tunnels and rooms were half of a day’s travel to the south of those used by the ancient villagers, and they were smaller.

Mbaiso withdrew his paw from the termite tunnel, leaving it undamaged. He then climbed to the nearest hanging tunnel and entered an opening in its floor. Other tree kangaroos bustled in both directions, carrying raw and processed materials like busy termites. Mbaiso made his way through the tunnel, which was just wide enough to allow two tree kangaroos to pass each other, until it opened into a six-armed hut. He ambled to the center of the hut, stepping around several amorphous masses of flesh that lay quivering on the floor. He leaned forward until he was nose to nose with Tupela. He inhaled her scent, received her cognitive signals, and visually assessed her condition. The data indicated she was within healthy parameters, but she was somewhat weakened. Accelerating production would not be wise. Mbaiso counted seven fleshy masses on the floor around her, new tree kangaroos in various stages of completion. Each of them had originated from a hefty chunk of flesh extracted from Tupela’s body, merged with a smaller portion from Mbaiso, then frequently supplemented with raw materials brought from the forest floor and the river.

Events were progressing satisfactorily.

Mbaiso exited the network of tunnels. Today he would travel north to visit the larger hanging village of the humans. But he would not stay long. The villagers there no longer needed help, and much of his time was required for providing leadership to his growing colony. In the absence of instructions from his Creator, Mbaiso had resolved to devise his own plans for preparation. Being idle did not suit Mbaiso, particularly with his understanding of what was soon to come.

Mbaiso descended to the ground. As a habit developed over many years, he inspected the forest floor and understory brush, looking for any disturbance to the leaf litter or any debris that might reveal that the area was occupied. Satisfied, he moved to a beam of sunlight, sat back on his haunches, and closed his eyes.

Suddenly a shadow fell over him, and Mbaiso instinctively hopped to the side to avoid danger. But the approaching figure was no threat. In fact, it would not have been possible to construct the hanging tunnels and chambers without its help. The figure stood waiting. Mbaiso had agreed to take the human with him to the larger hanging village today. It was not possible to know what the result might be, but it was time.

Silently, the two began making their way to the north.

Chapter Seventeen

Five Days Later

Quentin enjoyed Peter’s visits. Not only had Peter made their new life in Belize possible, he had also become a close friend to them all. He insisted on cooking for them when he came and somehow always managed to have a box of fresh ingredients show up at the house the very morning of his arrival. This was no small task, considering the nearest moderately stocked grocery was in Dangriga, twenty miles away by potholed roads. Peter had declared that after his ordeal in New Guinea, he had given up adventure for cooking. It was a healthier pastime. Today he was preparing something called Coronation Chicken, with apricot jam and mango chutney, and he seemed to be doing a nice job of it in spite of their rather spartan kitchen.

This visit had a particularly significant purpose: to discuss moving the Lamotelokhai. Until today, they had never told Peter the Lamotelokhai’s actual location, and to his credit he hadn’t asked. But he had convinced them it would have to be moved. Somehow it had avoided detection, in spite of efforts by the world’s best networking experts. But eventually it would be found. Besides, there was only so much it could do with limited bandwidth. What it needed was a secure facility with a fiber optics backbone, cutting edge firewall and server technologies, and diesel generators in case of power outages. And that’s exactly what Peter had built just outside of Oklahoma City. The facility would operate under the guise of a Kembalimo server farm for North America. Kembalimo’s popularity had swelled since the media event last summer, and a new facility was needed to accommodate the growth anyway. Hidden deep within the facility was a server room with unprecedented security measures and bandwidth infrastructure, the new home for the Lamotelokhai. All they had to do was transport it there.

To say that Quentin and his new family were involved in this transfer was an overstatement. Peter and his most trusted employees had done everything. All Quentin had to do was reveal the specific location of the Lamotelokhai, which he had already done this afternoon. Bobby would contact it and tell it about the move. The Lamotelokhai would change itself into the form of a human being, walk out of Room 4 of the Economy Inn, ride in a company van to the new facility, and walk past the unsuspecting employees into its new home. By necessity there were three employees at the facility who knew the truth. The remaining three hundred had no idea the place would serve such a world-altering purpose.

Ashley had just come in from working the horses. She sniffed the air. “This place hasn’t smelled this good since the last time you were here, Peter.”

Lindsey made a face. “Thanks, Ash.”

“Not that I’m complaining. What girl wouldn’t love to eat rice and beans a hundred different ways?”

Peter chuckled. “Besides the cooking, are your folks here giving you a fair go?”

This reference to Quentin and Lindsey as her folks seemed to throw Ashley a bit. She exchanged glances with Bobby. “Yeah, actually they are.”

Dinner was ready. Shortly they were seated and digging in.

Ashley spoke around a mouthful of food. “Peter, next time you come you should bring Rose. We miss seeing her.”

Peter frowned, a rare expression for him. “Rose is not feeling so well.” He shifted in his seat, obviously finding the topic difficult. “Rose and I both are eighty-three, did you know that?”

“I’m sorry she’s not well,” Ashley said.

Peter shook his head. “No worries, Ash. It’s a funny thing—I have no need of medicines, but there are no medicines that can help her.”

The rest of them were silent while Peter looked at his plate.

Finally, he said, “I hope you folks don’t mind this, but when I meet the Lamotelokhai face-to-face, I have a favor to ask of it.”

Lindsey reached across the table and put her hand on Peter’s. “Yes, you should do that, Peter.”

A brown shape suddenly sprang from the floor and crashed onto the table, spilling a pitcher of water.

Lindsey lit into the tree kangaroo, “Get your sorry carcass off the table!”

Bobby jumped up and scooped Mbaiso into his arms. “I forgot to put him out!” He went to the screen door and dumped the creature into the yard. Quentin heard him say, “I’ll bring you a salad when we’re done.”

“Why does that thing need to eat?” Ashley said. “It’s not even real.”

Bobby sat back down. “That’s how it gets energy. Just like you, only different.”

She snorted. “Okay, now I understand.”

Bobby went on, as he tended to do. “The real Mbaiso used to eat, too. This one’s just a copy, but I guess it works the same way.”

Ashley used her fork to push some food around on her plate. “Well, that’s something we have in common. We’re all just copies.”

Mbaiso had been in trouble several times recently, so Quentin changed the subject for Bobby’s sake. “So Peter, you feel like everything’s ready for the transfer?”

“My team is standing by. I just need your final blessing.”

“I want to go with you to pick it up,” Bobby said.

Peter looked at Quentin and Lindsey. “I have no objection to that. It might facilitate communication, Bobby being the thing’s mate.”

Quentin could think of a dozen reasons why this was a bad idea; primarily, the hassles that might ensue if people recognized him. Bobby was not a fugitive—the FBI had finally given up their questioning—but their privacy here depended on the deception Peter had created regarding their whereabouts. The whole world believed them to be living in a secure residence within Peter’s SouthPacificNet corporate campus. If Bobby were spotted in North America, he’d be hounded by reporters, or worse. But upon reflection, the other reasons had to do with Quentin’s fear of letting Bobby out of his sight.

Finally he said, “If you can make sure he won’t be recognized, I suppose he could go.”

Ashley dropped her fork. “I’m going too! Do you know how long we’ve been stuck here, Peter?”

“She’s right,” Lindsey said. “Maybe they’ll better appreciate what they have here if they go on a trip.”

Quentin threw up his hands.

Peter grinned. “That settles it. You two are assigned to a secret mission. But I’m leaving here in one hour. If you can’t be packed and ready, you’re not fit for such a mission.”

This is how it came to be that Quentin and Lindsey found themselves alone in the house for the first time in months. The occasion was not squandered. Later that night they lay together in the screened living room, catching their breath. They held each other without speaking, listening to the insects and frogs that had lived on the banks of the Sittee River since long before humans had set foot in this part of the world.

Just as it always happened in the last quiet moments of the day, Quentin’s thoughts turned to the forest of Papua, and the life-altering trials that had occurred there. But he would not speak these thoughts. Everything that could be said had been said far too many times. Lindsey had found a way to move forward, at least on the outside. Sometimes Quentin was awakened in the night by her stifled sobs. But she would never talk about it, and in the mornings she would be a role model of composure and vivacity for all of them.

Finally, Lindsey’s breathing let Quentin know she had found sleep, and he hoped it would be free of dreams. Peter had promised that the Lamotelokhai would occasionally teach them more about its creators through visions as they slept, but so far this had not happened. When they did come, those dreams would be welcome. For now, all others were silently feared.

Quentin allowed Lindsey’s rhythm to draw him away from awareness. As he descended, he pushed away the image that would forever visit him at this fading moment: a dark figure moving like a ghost through endless trees.

* * *

“Quentin, it’s the sat phone.”

Lindsey shook him awake. This time Quentin heard the chirping device Peter had given them. It was an unfamiliar sound, because Peter was the only one who had the number. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. There was one other.

“Why would Peter call so soon?” Lindsey asked. “Something has to be wrong.”

Quentin pushed himself off the mattress they had placed on the floor and stumbled to the phone. “Hello. Peter?”

“Greetings, Quentin. It is a pleasure to hear your voice, but rather unsettling that you are not before me as we speak.”

Quentin knew the voice, the accent. “Samuel? Is that you?”

“It is indeed, thanks to the help of our good friend, Obert.”

Quentin wondered if he were dreaming. He had asked Peter to arrange delivery of one of his newly developed satellite phones to Obert in the village of Navera, where they had radioed for a rescue plane. It was a long shot, but if Samuel somehow made his way back to Navera, he would have the opportunity to contact them. Besides Peter, Obert was the only other person on the planet who could call this phone.

Quentin punched the speaker button and set the phone down so Lindsey could hear. He said, “Samuel, it’s great to hear that you’re well! When the Indonesians took you away, we feared the worst.”

Samuel chuckled. “Yes, of course. There was that. I informed those people that I would guide them to the place where we found the plant—the one they believed to hold the powers of healing.”

“But Addison created that.”

“Quite right. And upon entering the wilderness I gave it to them. And then it was a simple matter of waiting for my opportunity to escape. I fear, Quentin, that they failed to estimate my ability to outrun them.”

Quentin smiled. “Well, you are surprisingly fit for a man your age.”

Lindsey spoke up. “Hello, Samuel. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Lindsey, is that you? My goodness, this machine is truly a wonder!”

“Well, you can thank Peter for that,” Quentin said. “Tell us, Samuel, what have you been doing all these months?”

There was a pause, as if Samuel wasn’t sure he should answer. “I have returned to the village where you found me. The indigenes who remain there have been kind to me, and I like to believe that I can provide them with various services. Perhaps a day will come when I will be ready to venture to the outside world. But my brief exposure those months ago convinced me that it is not yet my time. Perhaps it will never be.”

“We understand, Samuel,” Lindsey said. “We’ve also decided a simpler life is the best choice. But you are in Navera. It must have taken you days to travel there. Did you do that just to tell us you are alive and well?”

This time there was a longer pause. “Actually, I have come here for a specific reason. There is something I must tell you.”

They waited.

“Your son Addison has returned to the village of my indigene hosts.”

Quentin suddenly felt faint. “What did you say?”

“He wishes to know where his mother and father are. It seems the mbolop have provided him with the assistance he has needed to survive.”

Quentin could not manage to formulate a response. Lindsey seemed to be struggling as well.

After a moment of silence, Samuel spoke again.

“Quentin and Lindsey, you will scarcely believe what your son has been doing these past months.”

Did you enjoy INFUSION? You can make a big difference.

Reviews are by far the best way to help out authors like myself. They really help to get attention for my books.

If you've enjoyed Infusion, I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave an honest review (even a short review would be wonderful) on the book's page on Amazon and/or Goodreads. You could post a review for this entire box set, or you could post a review for the individual Infusion book.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Papuan Language Guide

First, I must say that I have the deepest respect for the unique cultures of the Papuan peoples. Obviously I have taken liberties in developing the characteristics of Sinanie’s tribe, but I intended no disrespect by doing so. I have also taken liberties in developing the crocodile cannibal tribe, the tree kangaroo hunters, and Obert’s village, although nearly all of their characteristics are based upon actual Papuan cultures.

Compared to Book 1 (Diffusion), Book 2 (Infusion) contains relatively few native language phrases used by Sinanie’s tribe. The phrases used in Book 2 are provided below.

I adapted this language from the amazing work of Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vries in their studies of the language and culture of the Korowai, a Papuan community of treehouse dwellers of southern Irian Jaya (now called Papua). Astoundingly, the Korowai had never come into contact with outsiders until the early 1980s.

Papuan Dialogue from Book 2 (Infusion):

1. mbayap (Penis gourd. Typically called a horim in Wamena)

2. Nu ne khelép-té. Wolakholol be-lembu-té-n-da. (It is clear to me. The world will not get out of order.)

3. Mbakha-lekhé-nggolo? Nokhu be-khelép-telo-n-din-da! (Why? We cannot know!)

4. Nggé, gu mbakha-to-fosü le-bo? (Friend, Where have you come from?)

Research Sources

I am thankful for the hard work of those who have painstakingly researched the cultures, wildlife, and ecosystems of Papua. The following are recommended books (and one video).

Flannery, Tim. Mammals of New Guinea. Chatswood, New South Wales: Reed Books Australia, 1995. Print.

Flannery, Tim. Throwim Way Leg: Tree Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds – On the Track of Unknown Mammals in Wildest New Guinea. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. Print.

Marriott, Edward. The Lost Tribe – A Harrowing Passage into New Guinea’s Heart of Darkness. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. Print.

Merrifield, William, Gregerson, Marilyn, and Ajamiseba, Daniel, Ed. Gods, Heroes, Kinsmen: Ethnographic Studies from Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Jayapura, Irian Jaya: Cenderawasih University, 1983. Print.

Muller, Kal. New Guinea: Journey Into the Stone Age. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Passport Books, 1997. Print.

Souter, Gavin. New Guinea: The Last Unknown. New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1966. Print.

Van Enk, Gerrit J. and de Vries, Lourens. The Korowai of Irian Jaya – Their Language in its Cultural Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.

Sky Above Mud Below. Dir. and Perf. Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (organizer and leader) and Gerard Delloye (assistant leader). Lorimar Home Video, 1962. VHS.

This is an amazing video filmed as it happened in 1959, when a group of explorers set out on a seven-month attempt to cross the jungles of Papua (then called Dutch New Guinea). Winner of the 1961 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Acknowledgments

I am not capable of creating a book such as this on my own. I have the following people, among others, to thank for their assistance.

When it comes to editing, my son Micheal Smith is extremely talented, and his tireless and meticulous suggestions are invaluable. If you find a sentence or detail in the book that doesn’t seem right, it is likely because I failed to implement one of his suggestions.

My wife Trish is always the first to read my work, and therefore she has the burden of seeing my stories in their roughest form. Thankfully, she kindly points out where things are a mess. Her suggestions are what get the editing process started. She also helps with various promotional efforts. And finally, she not only tolerates my obsession with writing, she actually encourages it.

I also owe thanks to my former colleague, Monique Agueros. She provided expert editing suggestions in spite of being an amazingly busy person. Thanks, Monique!

Finally, I am thankful to all the independent freelance designers out there who provide quality work for independent authors such as myself. Jake Caleb Clark (www.jcalebdesign.com) created the awesome cover for INFUSION.

Copyright © 2017 by Stan Smith

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To those who look to the future not with despair but with anticipation.

Profusion

Definition:

An abundance or large quantity of something. A pouring forth of something in great quantity.

Chapter One

1948 - Dutch New Guinea

Samuel Inwood trudged up a densely-forested hill, slipping in mud from a recent rain and bearing a heavy pack made from woven sago leaves that had been softened by chewing. He stopped at the hill’s summit, hefted the pack to the ground, and sat beside it. His bare arms and legs were scratched and bleeding, but they would heal soon enough. He inspected his spider silk vest and fingered a ragged hole. That would have to be mended.

The sound of claws scuttling on tree bark made Samuel glance up quickly. A tree kangaroo, locally known as an mbolop, was clambering up a tree a few yards away. The creature had followed him from the village. Samuel frowned. He would have preferred to do this without being observed, even by the mbolop.

The surrounding trees upon the hill’s crown were relatively sparse. Many years ago Samuel had been on a hill similar to this one. It had been his first hunting excursion with the Papuan savages who had long ago captured him and killed his companions—savages he now considered to be friends.

Today, though, Samuel had not come here to hunt.

“I estimate the village to be nearly three miles distant,” he said, not necessarily to the mbolop nor to anyone in particular. During eighty years living with the tribe, he had developed a habit of speaking aloud when he was alone.

He opened the pack. Inside were twelve pouches, each of them made from the skin of a bandicoot, and each of them containing a lump of clay slightly smaller than his fist. He pulled forth one of the pouches. He held it upside down until the lump of clay fell out onto the ground before him. He then pulled forth a second pouch and dropped a nearly identical lump of clay next to the first. This was followed by a third lump, and then a fourth. Eight lumps still remained in the pack, contained within their own skin pouches.

Samuel had discreetly collected the lumps over a period of three months, carefully storing them in his hut. Each was contained within a pouch so the lumps would not touch, as his purpose would be ill-served were they to be mixed together before this particular day. He had pinched off the lumps, one at a time, from a much larger source, a mass of clay over two feet in diameter. The Papuan villagers called the clay Lamotelokhai, which meant the end of the world. Eighty years before, Samuel had briefly believed the clay might have been a portal to God. Since then, however, he had seen that it was something even more astounding.

Samuel studied the four lumps before him. A pinch from any one of them could be used to perform seemingly impossible tasks. If he wished to cause an object to dissolve into soil, he would need only to apply the clay to the object. If he or a companion were injured, applying the clay would heal the wounds—even if the wounds would otherwise have been fatal. If he wished to cook a meal or fire-harden a spear tip, he could apply the clay to the wood before burning it, resulting in a smokeless fire that would not reveal his location.

Unique tasks requiring more specific instructions, however, could only be performed by the larger source of the clay, the Lamotelokhai. Or so Samuel had previously believed. Recently, however, an idea had been circling about in his mind. What if it were possible to combine bits of the clay into a mass smaller than the Lamotelokhai but large enough to carry out complex tasks? If this were possible, the benefits would be numerous beyond imagining.

The question was this: how large would the mass need to be?

He looked again at the sparse hilltop trees. “Am I alone?” he shouted, and then again in the language of the villagers. “Nu bai-khokhüm?” There was no response, although he sensed the mbolop watching him from above. Returning his attention to the lumps of clay, he shifted his position on the ground and straightened his back, attempting to drive away his misgivings.

“Let no man deceive himself,” he muttered. “Let him become a fool, that he may become wise.” He then pushed the four lumps together and molded them into one.

He plucked a river stone from the pack and placed it next to the clay. Then, he placed his hands on the clay and closed his eyes to create a clear vision of his request. He stirred up a well-rehearsed series of thoughts, running them through his mind in a specific order: a vision of the river stone becoming smaller and taking on a golden color; a silent explanation that the rock had turned to gold, the heaviest of metals; a vision of a gold nugget tipping a scale, outweighing a stone on the opposite end.

Samuel opened his eyes, pinched off some of the clay, and smeared it upon the stone. He then sat back and waited.

Nothing happened.

He pulled four more skin pouches from the pack, removed lumps of clay from them, and pressed the lumps into the larger mass. He placed his hands on the clay, repeated the series of thoughts, and smeared another pinch of clay on the stone.

Again, nothing.

“God blind me! Have I embarked upon another fruitless path of inquiry?”

He pulled the last four skin pouches from the pack, extracted the clay lumps from each of them, and pressed them into the mass, resulting in a lump that was now as large as his head. If this didn’t work, he would have to conclude the experiment was a failure, as it was impractical to gather more. He placed his hands on the clay and repeated the sequence of thoughts. After anointing the stone, he sat back and watched, softly singing an old song from his childhood to calm himself.

“A-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go, we’ll catch a giraffe and make him laugh, and then we’ll let him go.”

The stone shifted. Or did it? Perhaps it was just his imagination.

“A-hunting we will go, we’ll catch a bear and cut his hair, and then…”

The stone shifted again. This time it continued changing. It was becoming smaller. Its edges seemed to soften, and its surface turned to shimmering golden yellow. Samuel held his fingers above it to be sure it wasn’t hot, and then he picked it up. The bottom of it had conformed to the twigs and soil, as if it had melted and cooled, although no debris was stuck to its surface. Its weight indicated that indeed it was gold. He looked more closely. It was imperfect, with speckles of minerals showing on its surface. This was peculiar. He had made this same request of the Lamotelokhai many times, always resulting in perfect, pure gold specimens. Nonetheless, the results were encouraging.

He proceeded to the second experiment he had prepared. He placed his hands upon the lump of clay, closed his eyes, and conjured another sequence of thoughts. In his mind’s vision, the gold specimen transformed its shape. First it elongated and formed a head, thorax, and abdomen. Then two broad wings sprouted from each side of the thorax, gradually spreading wider until the entire object was an intricate gold sculpture of a butterfly. He opened his eyes and smeared a pinch of clay onto the impure gold.

He waited, softly humming the old song.

The gold began to change. It narrowed in two places, forming the three insect body regions. Then, however, the sculpting process went astray. Instead of delicate wings blossoming from each side, tendrils of speckled gold spewed forth into shapeless extensions. The insect body curled up and writhed, as if it were a malformed creature in great pain. Samuel watched, mesmerized, as the object’s shape continued shifting. For a moment the gold resembled a giraffe, and then a bear, and then it even resembled the face of his beloved Lindsey, whom he had left behind in London and who had no doubt grown old and passed away years before. When he saw this, he glanced away, unwilling to be tormented by the sight. When he returned his gaze to the gold, the transformations had stopped, leaving an amorphous mass that bore no resemblance to a butterfly. He touched it with his finger, half expecting it to change again, but it was cold and solid.

“Most… extraordinary,” he said. He turned to the lump of clay. “You seem to understand my requests but are hardly capable of granting them. Of what use are you? I shall have to endeavor to discover what you can and cannot do.”

He got up and began searching the area for a beetle or other large insect, which he would need for his next experiment. After sifting through leaf litter on the forest floor for some minutes, a slight movement in a low bush caught his attention. He approached the bush and soon was eye-to-eye with a slender arboreal lizard perhaps two feet in total length. Its yellow-spotted black body sharply contrasted with a brilliant blue tail.

Samuel sighed and shook his head. This was yet another new species of the genus Monitor. He would have a most impressive collection of specimens, had his life not taken such a calamitous turn of fate.

He slowly inched his way closer and then thrust his hand out in a blur and snatched the lizard. He inspected the struggling creature, holding it out so that its lashing tail could not whip his face.

“If you are indeed new to science,” he said to the lizard, “then I have the honor of naming you.” He used his free hand to subdue the tail. “Monitor cerulean seems to fit you well, as your tail is as blue as the evening sky. Let us see what we can do to make the name even more fitting, shall we?” He then carried the lizard back to the lump of clay and sat upon the ground.

He placed his free hand on the clay, closed his eyes, and formed a mental vision of the lizard. Then, he imagined the blue pigment of the creature’s tail spreading forward, transforming the scaly skin on the rest of the body from black and yellow to the same brilliant cerulean hue. He opened his eyes and smeared a pinch of clay onto the lizard’s back. By this time the creature had stopped struggling, so he released it, keeping his hand ready above it in case it tried to run. The lizard tilted its head but remained where it was.

Samuel waited.

Soon his mental vision began materializing. Beginning at the base of the lizard’s tail, bead-like black scales faded to gray and then became blue. This alteration progressed until its entire body and head were blue with yellow spots.

As the yellow spots began changing to blue, the lizard abruptly wrenched its head to the side. Its mouth snapped open and emitted a menacing hiss. Samuel pulled his hand back, thinking the lizard was about to lunge at him. Instead of attacking, however, the creature spasmed and tumbled onto its side, its legs kicking desperately, as if gripped by seizure. Suddenly its body split in two, spewing forth blood and entrails.

Samuel rose to his feet. “What in God’s—” He stopped short. The two halves of the lizard were now moving—transforming. Torn skin rolled up into itself and fell away from each portion of the carcass. The elongated rolls of skin then began crawling away, moving on their own like macabre grubs. Exposed organs detached themselves from the lizard’s body. Some of them began oozing away, while others sprouted rudimentary legs and began crawling.

Horrified, Samuel realized he was stumbling backwards.

The lizard’s tail broke free from the body and thrashed about. Its haphazard movements became more coordinated and deliberate, until finally it slithered away like a snake. The head portion of the body was still floundering about, going through its own revolting transformation. As it rolled on the ground, its jaws snapped shut on some dry leaves and small plants, which then began changing, eventually assimilating into the creature’s head. The unholy beast then began snapping up every living and once-living object within its reach, as if it had discovered a new life-sustaining food source. Each thing it clamped upon became part of its abhorrent and growing mass.

Samuel could hardly look away from this disturbing sight, but suddenly his attention was drawn again to the snake-like tail, which had slithered and spiraled its way up a sapling tree and was now at the height of his chest. The thing was tightening around the sapling like a snake constricting its prey. Carefully keeping his distance from the creature’s voracious head, Samuel stepped closer to the sapling to observe. But then he stepped back again when the trunk softened where the tail was gripping it, the entire tree folding and collapsing toward him. The autonomous tail then somehow melded into the folded joint of the sapling’s trunk and was gone.

And then the entire tree began to move.

“God save me,” Samuel uttered.

The tree continued changing its shape as it slowly writhed about. Samuel backed away, but he tripped and fell over something. Sprawled on his back, his feet and knees rested atop a hulking mass that only moments before had been the head of a small lizard. The thing was now the size of Samuel’s body, although its form was unrecognizable. No longer resembling the lizard it once was, it had grown body parts of many different creatures, all of them squirming and fighting as if they desired to escape from the horrifying conglomeration to which they were bound.

As Samuel tried to comprehend what he was seeing, a creature’s head materialized from the mass and clamped its jaws onto his bare calf. The head was the size of a small dog’s, but it appeared to be reptilian, with round yellow eyes and vertical pupils. Samuel kicked it with his free foot, tearing its teeth loose from his flesh. He rolled out of its reach and then sat up, pressing his hand against his bleeding leg.

The multifarious masses continued to squirm and grow before his eyes, including several smaller blobs that had originated from the lizard’s entrails and hind legs. With every passing moment they grew larger as they engulfed leaf litter, soil, and living plants. The reptilian head that had bitten Samuel gaped and screeched as it fought to free itself from the jumbled body parts of a dozen or more different creatures, all of them squirming in the same frantic manner.

Several sharp cracks drew Samuel’s attention upward. He rolled to the side just in time to avoid being killed by the trunk of a large falling tree. Smaller limbs on the now horizontal tree folded where they joined the main trunk and then broke off. The limbs began bending and cracking on their own accord, taking on new shapes. One of them emitted a dry, twittering shriek, unlike any sound Samuel had heard before.

He stared at the scene before him, too shocked to run or to try to stop the accelerating process. Suddenly he was aware of a curious sensation in his bitten leg. He looked down. The wound was changing. His skin was peeling back, exposing red muscle and pale fat. The underlying tissues were moving about, transmuting into something else. For a brief moment a three-toed claw emerged from the wound and grasped at the air before sinking back into his calf muscle. Another bulge formed, and a pair of eyelids parted. A rust-colored eye stared back at him.

Samuel tried to cry out in despair and crawl away from the transforming flesh, but he could not escape his own body. He curled up on his side and pummeled his leg with his fist, desperately hoping to stop the monstrous transformation by beating it to a pulp.

In his panicked frenzy, his flailing arm struck something beside him. It was the mbolop, the tree kangaroo. Samuel’s inadvertent blow sent it tumbling, but it quickly righted itself and sat up on its haunches. The creature scratched at its belly. It then ripped open its own skin, plunged one paw deep into its abdomen, and extracted a bloody lump of flesh, which it held out as an offering.

Samuel stared at the mbolop, then looked down at his leg. The wriggling, transfiguring wound was steadily growing larger. It had expanded down to his foot. One of his toes was now six inches long and was thrashing about, looking much like a lizard’s tail. His entire body would soon be transmogrified.

He snatched the lump from the mbolop’s paw and shoved it into his mouth.

* * *

In his desire for haste, Samuel ran directly through a patch of yalün, or stinging nettles. The unnatural transformation of his leg had stopped, but the wound was still wide open, and the nettles pricked and lacerated his raw flesh, injecting their astringent sap. The pain nearly caused him to collapse, but dread and remorse pushed him onward.

He continued fighting his way through dense jungle for nearly two hours. At last, exhausted and bleeding, he arrived at the village. He made his way straight to where the Lamotelokhai was concealed. Soon he stood at the base of an enormous, buttressed tree. Wasting no time, he extracted a thin rope with evenly spaced loops—a rope ladder—that had been tucked away in the crevices of the tree’s bark. He began climbing toward the hut, which was over a hundred feet above the ground. His leg was now nearly healed, and soon he ascended directly through a hole in the hut’s floor and stepped away from the ladder.

To his surprise, three Papuan natives were there in the hut. One of them stepped away from the others and blocked Samuel’s path. He was about Samuel’s height, but he had dark skin and wore no clothing other than a sheath made from a gourd, fitted tightly over his sexual organs. A band of white paint, made from palm oil and the crushed shells of river clams, extended from one ear to the other like a mask. Green lorikeet feathers protruded in random directions from his frizzly hair. His name was Sinanie, and Samuel had lived with him and his fellow tribesmen since 1868.

Sinanie appraised the scratches and filth covering most of Samuel’s body, a deep frown forming on his face. He said, “Samuel, ge sumo abül lép-telo (you have the smell of a man who is afraid).”

Samuel was still trying to catch his breath. “Sinanie, nu khof-e-kha lamoda-Lamotelokhai tekhén-mo (I must touch the Lamotelokhai).”

Sinanie furrowed his brow. He did not step aside.

There was no time to explain. Samuel walked around Sinanie and kneeled down before a low table. Upon the table was the Lamotelokhai, a shapeless lump of clay approximately the size and mass of a man’s body. This was where Samuel had gotten the smaller lumps of clay he had secretly combined on the remote hill. And the Lamotelokhai was the reason Samuel had remained in this forest for eighty years. Without waiting to see if the natives intended to stop him, he placed his hands on the clay. He formed words in his mind without speaking them, although his lips moved slightly to facilitate the process.

“I must confess, I have again done something foolish and am in desperate need of your assistance.”

Chapter Two

Quentin Darnell stared at a brown water stain on the ceiling above the bed. He had been awakened at 4:30 by a loud call to prayer from the mosque across the street. The calling hadn’t stopped, so there was no going back to sleep. Finally, he turned on his phone to check the clock—6:00 am. He had to do something—anything—to pass the time. Their flight to the inland village of Navera wasn’t for another three hours. Lindsey was still sleeping, so he quietly got out of bed, slipped into his rumpled t-shirt and khaki trousers, and shoved on his hiking shoes. He plucked a thin, 4-inch bone from the nightstand and put it in his pocket. It was from a male raccoon, a bone called the baculum, also known as the penis bone. He liked to think it brought him good luck—his only superstitious habit. This one was a replacement, as he had lost the original eight months ago in a plane crash.

After visiting the bathroom, he went back to the bed and gently shook Lindsey’s shoulder.

She stirred. “You’re going somewhere?”

Quentin sat on the edge of the bed. “I just need to walk or something. Maybe I can pick up a few things we’ll need. I’ll be back in plenty of time to make sure you’re awake and to get ready.”

She nodded slightly and rolled onto her side. In a barely-conscious whisper she said, “I’m sleeping. Makes time go faster.”

Sleeping was not an option for Quentin. He left the room and walked down to the lobby of the Grand Bayliss Hotel. The lobby was actually impressive compared to most other hotels in the Indonesian province of Papua. But upon closer inspection, it was easy to see evidence that this was a business struggling despite its best efforts amidst Papua province’s impoverished economy and Indonesia’s interminable bureaucracy.

“Mr. Grayson, delivery for you.”

Quentin turned. Grayson was the name his family now used in public. The speaker was a hotel counter clerk, the same young Indonesian man who had checked them in the night before. His nametag said Rama. He waved Quentin over to the desk and then hefted two internal-frame backpacks onto the counter. The packs looked expensive, and they appeared to be full. Rama then handed Quentin a sealed manila envelope.

“Arrived late last night,” he said, smiling pleasantly.

Quentin thanked him and took the envelope. All it said on the front was:

To: Warren and Olivia Grayson

Grand Bayliss Hotel

From: SouthPacificNet

He opened the envelope. Inside was a surat jalan, or travel permit, already filled out and approved for Warren and Olivia Grayson. He zipped open the top of one of the backpacks. It was filled with premium, lightweight wilderness gear. Hiking shoes, clothing, a cylindrical water filter with a pump lever, a handheld GPS device, and other things he couldn’t identify without pulling them out.

Quentin shook his head. How Peter Wooley’s staff had managed to get the travel permit approved without his and Lindsey’s presence was a mystery, and perhaps a bit disturbing, but it would save them from taking a last-minute minibus ride to the police station to get one. And the hiking gear was a godsend. He and Lindsey had simply had no time to shop for the things they might need.

He paused, allowing a depraved memory to resurface—a memory of watching his son Addison pick himself up from the floor of a hanging hut, battered and bleeding, and then fleeing into the trees. Addison had just had his memory wiped out by a substance Quentin himself had forced upon him. They’d searched for him with no luck, finally giving up and abandoning him to die alone in the wilderness. Now, what would it be like going back into the Papuan rainforest, and back to that same hut? It was all happening so fast. Fifty-five hours ago he and Lindsey had been awakened by a call from Samuel on their satellite phone. Samuel Inwood, who had been living in the wilderness of Papua for more than 150 years, was perhaps the most extraordinary man Quentin had ever met. He had called them with the news that their son, Addison, was still alive. Samuel had explained that Addison was no longer a normal boy, and that his appearance was rather shocking. But he was alive.

Quentin shook his head to rid his mind of these futile thoughts. He asked Rama to store the backpacks behind the counter until he came back, and then he walked through the glass and chrome doors onto the street. The street was officially named Kemiri Raya, but was often referred to as Sentani Kimera. It was the same road Quentin and four other survivors of a devastating plane crash had traveled months ago from the airport to a hospital in Jayapura. The hospital visit hadn’t ended well: Quentin’s group held captive, Bobby asking the Lamotelokhai to help, the Lamotelokhai responding by killing multiple Indonesians and transforming them into enraged, bird-like dinosaurs that then killed even more people. Again Quentin shook his head. He wished he could forget the entire incident. But of course he couldn’t—he couldn’t forget anything.

Outside the hotel, the air smelled of fried rice, curry, and a poorly-planned sewage system. The proportions of these smells would shift in the wrong direction as the day’s heat set in. The traffic was still sparse, mostly minibuses for hire and motorcycles. Bicyclists and pedestrians bustled about on the roads and sidewalks. Although Quentin preferred tropical forests over tropical cities, this entire scene was invigorating and exotic, and he welcomed the chance to walk. Plus, he desperately needed the diversion.

The crowd on the street consisted of a diverse mix of various Indonesian ethnicities, such as Bugis and Javanese, as well as people of Papuan descent, indicated by darker skin and distinct facial features. Other than tourists at the airport, Quentin had rarely seen Americans here. No more than a hundred or so expats resided in Jayapura, most of them missionaries or health workers. The city had once been a minor trading settlement, but it was now home to more than 300,000 people. Nearly all this growth had occurred since World War II, when a massive invasion of Humboldt Bay by Allied Forces had driven out the Japanese. The site had then become General MacArthur’s headquarters, establishing it as a major base. A year after the invasion, the Dutch had designated the city as the capital of Netherlands New Guinea. To Quentin, Jayapura showcased a fascinating juxtaposition of cultures—a nexus for the diffusion of customs, languages, and beliefs.

As he walked east toward the airport and Jayapura proper, Quentin turned his thoughts to Bobby and Ashley. During recent months the two teens had become part of his family. In fact, they would almost certainly have been here in Papua with him and Lindsey if the teens hadn’t left with Peter only hours before the shocking call from Samuel.

Quentin suddenly felt the need to make contact with them. He pulled out his phone, confirmed that he had a signal, and then tapped the country codes and selected Peter’s cell number. He covered one ear to dampen the noise of passing motorcycles. The call went straight to voicemail.

That was unusual.

Quentin stopped walking. He called Bobby’s phone. It went straight to voicemail. A moment later, a call to Ashley’s phone gave him the same result. A sense of helplessness took hold of him. He and Lindsey would be flying to the interior in a few hours. They had to find Addison—they simply had to. This was no time for a second emergency. He turned and made his way back to the hotel, now oblivious to the bustling activity around him.

When he entered the room, Lindsey was sitting up in the bed with her phone to her ear.

“I understand,” she said. “We’ll be in the air in two hours. After that we’ll be reachable only on Peter’s satellite phone, but even that could be spotty. Please call back the minute you know something.” She ended the call and dropped the phone onto the bed.

Quentin swallowed hard. “What is it?”

She turned to him with a benumbed expression. “That was Ardell Gray from SouthPacificNet. He’s one of the three people in Peter’s company who know what Peter and the kids are doing. Quentin, they’ve lost contact with them. No one knows where they are.”

Chapter Three

Bobby pushed a button, and a silent motor drew the accordion shade up into a compact strip across the top of the window. He had never been in a Mercedes-Benz before, let alone a luxury Mercedes passenger van. He found it to be both fascinating and disgustingly excessive. After two hours of messing with various electronic gadgets, he was still discovering new surprises. He gazed out the window. It was April, and things were greening up, but the Oklahoma landscape outside was a desert compared to the shore of the Sittee River in Belize, where he had lived for the last eight months. He turned around and glanced at the clock next to the television mounted behind his head. It was after 8:00 am. They would arrive soon.

“Should we wake her up?” Bobby asked.

Peter was sitting in one of the two deeply-cushioned seats on the other side of the table they had folded out from a cubby in the wall. He looked up from the brown leather folder of documents he was reading and smiled. He nodded at Ashley, sleeping in the seat beside Bobby. “Be my guest.”

Bobby hesitated.

Peter said, “Afraid to rouse her, aren’t you mate?”

“I have a healthy respect for her temper,” Bobby retorted. He shook her shoulder. Then he shook it again.

She rubbed her eyes. “Are we there?”

“Almost,” Bobby said. “Just thought you’d want to be awake so we could go over the plan again.”

She gave him a look. “We’ve talked about it twenty times.”

Peter closed his leather folder and stuffed it into the matching leather satchel that was in the seat beside him. He moved the satchel onto the floor by his feet and then patted the empty seat meaningfully.

Bobby understood why. If everything went according to plan, there would soon be something that looked just like a human sitting there for the ride back to Oklahoma City.

Peter took a moment to tighten the elastic band that held his silver-speckled hair in a ponytail. He adjusted the collar of his white shirt, fastened the top button, and tucked the shirt into his blue jeans. Leaning forward, he grabbed the leather sandals he had kicked off two hours ago and put them back on. He took a deep breath and smiled at them.

“I am almost queasy, if you can believe it. I first encountered the Lamotelokhai four and a half decades ago. So much of my life has been spent thinking about it and preparing. I do hope I make a good impression.”

Bobby laughed at this, partly because he was nervous too.

“It’s just a machine,” Ashley said.

Peter said, “And the prize goes to Ashley Stoddard, for the understatement of the year.”

Ashley almost smiled. “I’m Hattie Grayson now, remember?” She pushed the button to raise the window shade on her side and turned to watch the passing countryside. Bobby wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was, that the grassy fields dotted with thick patches of trees brought back memories of outmaneuvering two fighter jets to avoid being captured or shot down, hiding in a patch of trees until the coast was clear, and then walking into the town of Pawhuska to find a motel room where they could rest until morning. It had been the most exciting time of Bobby’s life and also the most traumatic.

“It’s starting to look familiar,” Bobby said to her.

Ashley continued staring out the window. “Yes it is,” she said quietly.

Peter pressed a button on the arm of his chair. “Robert, progress report please.”

A voice came back through the van’s surround sound system. “Five minutes from our destination.” The voice belonged to Robert Ramey. Not only was he their driver for the day, but he was also one of only three of Peter’s employees who knew about this mission.

Perhaps Robert and the other two knew about it, Bobby thought, but he doubted if they really understood how important it was—or how dangerous.

Tall steel trusses suddenly punctuated the view on both sides as the van rolled over a bridge. Shortly after crossing the bridge, they slowed down and turned into a parking lot. Bobby looked past Ashley, and his eyes were drawn to the door to room 4 of the Economy Inn.

Peter said, “Does this look like the place?”

Bobby nodded. “I can’t believe we’re back here.”

“You and me both,” Ashley said. She was also staring at room 4.

Bobby saw that there were only three other cars in the parking lot. “He needs to park right there,” he said. “In front of room 4.”

Peter pressed the button and relayed Bobby’s suggestion to Robert. The van pulled in, and Robert killed the engine. Peter moved to the edge of his chair and grasped the handle of the sliding door. He looked at Bobby and Ashley.

“I know you would like to be with your folks in Papua. The timing of Samuel’s call was unfortunate. After we’ve completed this mission, perhaps we can fly there so we can greet them when they come out of the bush. If all goes well, they’ll have Addison with them.”

Ashley glanced at Bobby. She was smiling. She and Bobby had talked about requesting this but were afraid it would be asking too much. “That would be awesome!” she said.

“It’s the least I can do. For now, though, we have a most pressing matter to attend to. As you know, Quentin and Lindsey will kill me if you two get into any trouble. I want you with us when we go into the room, but wait until I come for you. Got it?”

“Got it,” they both said.

Peter slid the door open, and Robert was waiting for him just outside. Robert looked to be older than Peter, but Bobby knew he was much younger, due to the fact that Peter hadn’t aged in the forty-five years since he had first found the Lamotelokhai. Like Peter, Robert wore blue jeans, sandals, and a button-down shirt, although Robert’s shirt was plaid. He even wore his gray hair in the same ponytail. Bobby and Ashley had spent the previous day with Robert deep inside the Kembalimo server facility. Peter had asked Robert to show them everything they wanted to see, including the top secret room that would be the Lamotelokhai’s new home.

Robert was smiling as Peter got out of the van, which probably meant that Robert didn’t realize how dangerous their cargo could be. Peter shut the door, and the two men walked to the motel’s office.

Bobby and Ashley could see into the office through the large glass windows on its front. They sat in silence, watching Peter and Robert talk to the woman behind the counter. She looked like the same woman who had been here eight months ago—the woman who had called the police to report that six fugitives were hiding in room 4. She had almost caused Bobby and his group to miss the most important appointment of their lives.

“This doesn’t seem right,” Ashley said. “We should have brought bodyguards—like twenty of them.”

Bobby said, “Why would someone scouting a location for a movie bring twenty bodyguards?”

“Peter could have come up with a different story. A group of actors coming here to actually film the scene. Or an FBI investigation.”

“Or maybe a bodyguard convention?”

Ashley snorted a laugh. “At the Economy Inn of Pawhuska.”

Bobby smiled. He was as nervous about this as she was, but he tried not to let it show. The plan seemed too simple. Peter had insisted that they bring only one vehicle, to be inconspicuous. The Mercedes van wasn’t really inconspicuous, but it was a good match for a movie director looking for a scene location. Peter had made the point that if anyone knew the Lamotelokhai had been hiding at the motel, then they would have taken it already. Besides, there were only three other people in Peter’s corporation, including Robert, who knew why they had actually come here. ‘Secrecy is the cracker of the day,’ Peter was fond of saying. And he had insisted that Bobby and Ashley could come on this mission only if they agreed not to show their faces in public. They had taken private flights from Belize to Houston, and then to Oklahoma City. They had exited the plane and immediately entered the van, which had then taken them to Peter’s Kembalimo server headquarters. Peter hadn’t allowed them to leave the headquarters until this morning. They hadn’t even stopped to pee—Peter had told them to use the tiny bathroom in the back of the van. In spite of all this caution, Bobby was still nervous. What if someone—like Darron Mesner and the other feds, for example—suspected the Lamotelokhai was here, but they were just waiting for someone to show up and lead them right to it?

But Bobby understood it was crucial to move the Lamotelokhai to a safer place.

“Uh-oh, what now?” Ashley said.

Bobby looked. It appeared Peter was arguing with the lady in the office. Peter was typically calm and in control. Now his back was stiff, and he was talking with jerky hand movements. Bobby started to worry that the lady might call the police again.

Finally, Peter put something on the counter, the lady handed something to him, and then he and Robert came back out. Peter opened the sliding door and got in while Robert waited outside.

“What an extraordinarily disagreeable woman,” he said. He held up a key attached to a red piece of plastic with a 4 stamped on it. “She seemed to believe the story of why we’re here, but she insisted on personally giving us a tour of room 4.” He forced a smile. “I had to pay for a night’s stay in every room of the hotel to convince her to allow us to look about on our own. With any luck, we will conclude our business and be off the premises in a jiffy.”

A lump rose in Bobby’s throat. This was it. He would actually be face-to-face with the Lamotelokhai again. Horrifying memories began replaying with high-definition clarity in his mind. A monster that had once been his friend killing Miranda and at least a dozen Papuan villagers. Eight-foot dinosaurs ripping innocent people to shreds in a hospital. A huge passenger jet splattering against the ground, pulverizing everyone in it. The Lamotelokhai was an amazing thing, but carnage seemed to result every time someone tried to use it. If it fell into the wrong hands…

For the ten-thousandth time, Bobby shut this thought down before it could play out in his head. Instead, he put on one of the cowboy hats Peter had brought to disguise them and handed the other to Ashley.

“One more time for good measure,” Peter said. “We’ll all go in together. Bobby, you’ll do your magic with the Lamotelokhai. Robert, Ashley, and I will come back out and get in the van. Then Ashley will go back in, and I will follow her ten seconds later. Bobby and the Lamotelokhai will come out to the van, and then Ashley and I will come out.”

Ashley started to shake her head, but Peter held up a finger and said, “Our researchers have proven that nine out of ten people observing that sequence will not notice there is an extra person.”

Ashley snorted. “Seriously, who does research like that?” But she put on her cowboy hat and nodded that she was ready.

Seconds later they were standing inside room 4. Bobby looked around. The room was just as he remembered it, except for two things. First, the pod for wired Internet connection was no longer on the nightstand between the two beds. In its place was an upright card with a Wi-Fi password. The Economy Inn had joined the 21st century. Second, there was another nightstand in the corner of the room. It was scratched and worn, obviously older than the one between the beds.

Peter cleared his throat. Bobby realized they were all looking at him, waiting. He walked between the beds and knelt before the nightstand. This had to be it. He placed his hands on the small table.

“Is it you?” he said.

The surface of the table heaved slightly, nearly causing the lamp on top of it to fall over. Bobby grabbed the lamp and the digital clock that was next to it and placed them on one of the beds. The table then began to change. First the corners became rounded. The gap around the drawer vanished, and the drawer’s metal knob melted into the wood. The entire nightstand then became a brown, clay-like lump with no particular shape. Bobby stood up and backed away to give it room.

“Holy crap,” Robert muttered.

Bobby turned to him. “Don’t be afraid.”

Robert’s eyes were round, and he had backed up to the closed door behind him. “I was told what to expect. But holy crap.”

Peter’s eyes were round, too, but his face looked the way Bobby imagined his own face used to look on Christmas morning. The Lamotelokhai affected people in different ways.

The brown lump of clay had begun forming into something. Indentations had appeared on the surface and were now becoming folds. The folds deepened, shaping the clay into something with arms, legs, and a head. The featureless body awkwardly got to its knees and then to its feet. To Bobby it looked like a humanoid clay figure created by a five-year-old, coming to life. The creepiest thing about it was that it didn’t even have a face. There was no mouth or nose for it to breath through. Bobby turned around to make sure Robert wasn’t completely freaking out. The poor guy was still frozen in the same spot. When Bobby turned back, bits of clothing were starting to appear on the clay, and a mouth, a nose, and a pair of eyes were taking shape.

A few minutes later the transformation was finished. Standing in front of them was Addison. Bobby’s friend. Son of Quentin and Lindsey. But of course it wasn’t really Addison. The thing gazed at them. It had every one of Addison’s freckles, and it had the same dark, curly hair. It was wearing flip-flops, blue shorts, and a yellow t-shirt that said Jose Cuervo across the front—the same clothes it had been wearing the last time Bobby had seen it.

“Hello, Bobby,” it said with Addison’s voice. “Hello, Ashley. Peter, it is nice to see you. How is Rose, Peter?”

Peter hesitated for a moment and then stepped forward. “Rose is not feeling very well, I’m afraid.”

The thing’s eyes turned from pale blue to fiery gold. This was its way of showing people it was thinking about something.

“I understand,” it said. It dug into its left palm with the fingers of its other hand and then held out a small brown lump. “You should give this to Rose.”

Peter stared at the lump. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then he stopped. It looked like he was about to cry. Finally, he took it. “This is to help her?”

“Yes,” the thing said.

He pulled a blue and white handkerchief from his jeans pocket and used it to wipe his eyes. He then folded it around the lump and put it into a pocket on the front of his shirt. “Thank you. Will it be okay if I carry it this way until I am with her again?”

“Yes, it will be okay,” the Lamotelokhai said. It then turned to Robert, still with his back to the door. “You are Robert Ramey.”

“It’s an honor to meet you,” Robert said.

“Why?”

Robert’s eyes flicked toward Bobby briefly. “Well, um, because you’re important. You’ve already helped us all so much. You may even be the one thing that prevents our extinction.”

“The probability that I will cause your extinction is approximately equal to the probability that I will prevent it.”

This was followed by silence.

Finally, Peter spoke. “If we have anything to say about it, there will be no extinctions taking place.” He put a hand on Robert’s shoulder. “As you probably know, Robert is with us today to help transport you to a new location.” He held his hands out and looked around at the room. “This place does not suit your capabilities.”

“I understand,” the thing said. “Bobby has explained this to me. I will go with you.”

Ashley spoke up for the first time. “You’ve been in this room for months. I bet you’re sick and tired of it.”

The copy of Addison looked at Ashley with a blank face. “I cannot be sick. And I am not tired.”

Ashley sighed. “Dude, seriously?”

Bobby saw that the thing was now smiling slightly. Was it actually messing with Ashley—making a joke?

A vehicle could be heard on the road outside, and Robert pulled the curtain back to watch it pass by. “We should go. No reason to linger.”

Bobby wasn’t quite ready to go. He turned to the Lamotelokhai and spoke softly. “I’m kind of afraid.”

“Yes, I see that you are,” it said. “Why?”

“I know you didn’t come here to hurt people. You proved that during the time you were hiding here. But before that, when you were with us, bad things kept happening, and people did get hurt. They have an awesome place for you in Oklahoma City.” Bobby tilted his head back toward Peter and Robert. “They showed it to me yesterday. It’s nice, but still I’m afraid of what could happen before we get there. Promise me you won’t do anything that will hurt people, okay?”

Just briefly, the thing’s eyes—Addison’s eyes—again changed from blue to fiery gold. “I can promise you that I won’t do anything that will hurt people. However, it is not possible to predict what might happen when I am with you and with others of your kind, as you are unpredictable. Therefore it is possible I would break my promise to you.”

Bobby stared at the thing’s eyes. “Then it’s not really a promise, is it?”

It gazed back at him without answering.

Bobby wasn’t ready to give up. “It will take two hours to get to Peter’s building in Oklahoma City. Then maybe another hour to get you situated in the room they have ready for you. And then we’ll leave you alone to do what you feel you should do. Just like you’ve been doing while you’ve been hiding here. Please promise me that in the next three hours you won’t hurt anyone—even if someone asks you to.”

The thing smiled slightly. “I understand.”

It looked like that was the best Bobby was going to get. He was about to agree with Robert that they should go, but he thought of one more thing. “The van is right outside, but Addison’s face is even more famous than any of ours. Can you look like someone else, at least until we get into the van?”

“Yes,” it replied. It stood still with its arms at its sides. Seconds later its features softened and began to shift. Light skin became darker, bones shifted, and clothing dissolved. After several minutes, the transformation was complete.

The room remained quiet. Before them stood a nearly naked Papuan tribesman, wearing nothing more than a penis gourd and several cords around his neck, strung with stone beads, black beetle carapaces, and small bones.

“This is the body of Miok,” it said. Its voice had the lyrical sound that Bobby remembered from the men of Sinanie’s tribe, almost like singing.

Ashley said, “I remember Miok, but that’s not going to work.”

“I agree,” Peter said.

Again Bobby thought the thing was smiling just slightly. Another joke? If so, its sense of humor might need some work in terms of delivery.

Miok said, “I can make myself appear to be objects and living things I have encountered. I have encountered Miok and the others of his tribe. I have encountered you, Peter. And you, Bobby. And I have encountered you, Ashley, as I am sure you remember. I have also encountered Miranda, Carlos, Quentin, and Lindsey.” He turned to Robert. “I have not yet encountered you, Robert.”

“No, I suppose not,” Robert said.

Ashley said, “You’ve definitely encountered Miranda. You helped kill her. Why don’t you change yourself to her?”

Bobby turned to look at Ashley, but she didn’t take her eyes off Miok. He knew her well enough to sense that her anger was about to get out of hand if he didn’t step in. “That’s probably a good idea,” he said. “Miranda wasn’t on TV with the rest of us.”

The Lamotelokhai nodded. Again it stood with its hands at its sides, and its features began shifting into something else. Several minutes later, Miranda stood before them. Her hair was a mess. Her skin was dark from mud and dried blood. Filthy scraps of jeans and t-shirts were crudely knotted together and arranged so they barely covered her chest and groin. It was Miranda in the same condition as when Addison had used the power of the Lamotelokhai to kill her.

“Jesus Christ!” Ashley blurted out, her voice choking. She turned away and faced the wall. “Bobby, please make it get this one goddamn thing right.”

Ashley’s pain cut into Bobby like a spear to his chest. He looked at the Lamotelokhai, but the sight was so disturbing that he had to swallow a few times before speaking. “Miranda was her best friend. I don’t think she expected her to look this way. Maybe you could—”

“Perhaps we are overthinking this,” Peter interrupted. “The van is ten meters from the door.” He pointed to Robert. “You’re wearing an undershirt. Can we please borrow your shirt?”

Robert quickly unbuttoned his green and white plaid shirt and handed it over.

Peter gave it to the Lamotelokhai. “Do you know how to put this on?”

Without answering, Miranda put on the shirt. Peter then gently asked Ashley for her hat. She plucked it from her head and threw it at him. He placed it on Miranda’s head and stood back. “Good enough, I should think.”

Ashley, Peter, and Robert went out to the van. Ashley came back in, followed by Peter.

Bobby looked at the Miranda copy and motioned to the door. “Remember, please be careful.”

Miranda smiled at him and led the way out the door. Bobby followed and squinted in the morning sunlight. The same three cars were still in the parking lot. He could see the woman’s head behind the counter in the office. It looked like she was watching them, but he couldn’t tell for sure. They got in the van, and Miranda sat in the seat facing Bobby. Seconds later, Peter and Ashley came out. Ashley got in, and Peter went to the office to return the key.

They watched Peter through the window for a moment, and then the Lamotelokhai said, “Ashley and Bobby, I am interested to hear about the status of your relationship.”

Bobby stared at the copy of Miranda. He didn’t look at Ashley, but he could tell she was doing the same thing.

“What are you talking about?” Ashley demanded.

“I have learned much about your kind during the time I was in that room. Some of what I have learned allows me to consider from a new perspective your behaviors I observed when we were together before. When I consider your previous behaviors, I am able to surmise that you, Bobby, had romantic inclinations toward Ashley. And you, Ashley, had romantic inclinations toward Bobby. And now, as I observe you again, I surmise the same inclinations. It is clear from many of the artistic creations of your kind, such as novels, songs, and movies, that many of you are interested in the status of the romantic relationships of others. And so I am interested to hear about the status of your relationship.”

“I don’t want you to be Miranda,” Ashley suddenly said. She was glaring at the Lamotelokhai. “I wasn’t even serious when I suggested it before. Please turn into someone else.”

Without saying a word, the thing handed Ashley her hat, removed Robert’s shirt, and began transforming right there in the seat. It was happening so close that Bobby instinctively tried backing away, but all he could do was push himself deeper into the leather seat.

Suddenly the van’s door slid open.

“Bloody hell,” Peter said when he saw the transforming mass. He seemed to gather his wits quickly, though. He got in and sat in the only open seat, beside the Lamotelokhai. As Peter pulled the door shut, Bobby saw that the lady in the office was standing closer to the front window now. She was definitely watching them.

When the transformation was complete, the thing was Addison again, complete with t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. It gazed at Ashley for a moment, and then at Bobby, but it remained silent.

Peter pressed the intercom button. “Robert, let’s take our passenger to its new home, shall we?”

The van backed up and pulled out onto the road, headed north toward the bridge and Oklahoma City.

Seconds later, Bobby saw the blurred shape of a white car careening around them from behind.

“What the hell?”

Bobby had heard Robert’s yell without the help of the intercom. The van screeched to a stop, nearly throwing Bobby and Ashley into the laps of Peter and Addison.

“Mr. Wooley!” Robert’s voice came through the intercom this time. “Some woman just blew past us and then crashed into the truss of the bridge ahead. She’s out of her car and walking this way. She appears to be hurt.”

Bobby’s heart felt like it was in his throat. He looked at the Lamotelokhai. The thing just looked back at him with no expression. Next to it, Peter rubbed his chin like he was thinking. Then he let out a nervous, frustrated growl.

“Please remain exactly where you are,” he said to all of them. He then got out and slid the door most of the way shut behind him.

“Please help me!” It was a woman’s voice.

“Good lord, ma’am, you’re injured,” Peter said. “We’ll call an ambulance.”

“No! My husband—he’ll kill me!”

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Peter said. “I’ll call—”

“No! You don’t understand—he’s going to kill me. He’s coming after me now! I can’t wait here for an ambulance. Please, I need a ride. Anywhere. Anywhere but here! Please!”

There was a pause. Bobby couldn’t see them, but he imagined Peter was rubbing his chin again.

“Alright, come with me,” Peter said.

The door slid open. Peter held out his hand, and the woman stepped into view. Her face was covered in blood. She wore a pretty blue dress with little yellow stars all over it and blood running down the front.

“You can have my seat,” Bobby said, and he quickly moved and sat in Peter’s seat next to the Lamotelkhai.

She climbed in. “Thank you. I’m so sorry.” After sitting down she wiped her face and stared at the blood on her hand.

Peter got in, closed the door, and kneeled on the floor next to Bobby’s seat. He said, “Bobby, press the com button.” After Bobby pressed it, he said, “Drive north, Robert. I’ll locate a hospital.” He looked at the woman as he dug out his smartphone. “Try to relax. We’ll get you somewhere safe.”

Bobby couldn’t help staring at the poor woman. She moved her right hand from her side into her lap. There was something in her hand. It was silver, the size and shape of a water bottle. But it wasn’t a water bottle.

The van started picking up speed, but then it abruptly stopped. Bobby heard Robert’s muffled voice. He was talking to someone.

Suddenly there was an explosion right next to the van, like a firecracker or a gunshot.

“Robert?” Peter shouted.

Bobby reached for the intercom button, but then he saw the woman’s hand move again. She had pulled the silver cylinder closer to her belly. Then her finger moved against the object. There was a harsh hissing sound, like air leaking from a punctured tire.

Bobby looked up at the woman’s bloody face. She was staring right at him. But then her eyes closed and her head dropped, as if she had abruptly fallen asleep.

Suddenly, Bobby realized what was happening, sensing that he too was falling asleep, but he was out before he could warn anyone.

* * *

Bobby heard voices, as well as the clicking and whirring of electronics. The voices washed over him and then receded, and then washed over him again. Finally, they became louder and did not fade away.

He opened his eyes, and the voices stopped. He felt like he had been asleep for a long time. He stared at a ceiling that looked to be concrete painted white. A man’s face appeared above him.

“Bobby Truex, it is a pleasure to have you with us. I imagine you would prefer to sit up.” The man did something with his foot, and a motor slowly cranked the bed into a sitting position.

Bobby then saw that the walls were just like the ceiling—white concrete. Medical equipment was arranged around the bed, and there were more people there—two men and a woman—sitting in chairs and monitoring computer screens. The man standing next to Bobby was older than the others. He had short black hair and a mostly-gray beard. He wore glasses with red plastic frames—the kind younger people usually wore. All four of them wore pale green doctor-type shirts and pants.

“Where am I?” Bobby said.

The man beside him held up a finger. “Hold on a moment.” He turned to one of the men. “Ready to test it?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied.

He turned back to Bobby. “Bobby, could you please repeat your question?”

“Where am—”

Everything went black.

Bobby opened his eyes. He sensed he had been asleep again, but only briefly this time.

The man with red glasses was still beside him. He was frowning. He held up a finger just as he had done before. Again he turned to the younger man. “Drop the delay by point five seconds, and drop sensitivity to 200 millijoules.”

The man at the computer typed for a moment and then nodded.

“Okay then,” said the man beside Bobby. “Could you please ask your question again?”

Bobby stared at him for a moment. He then opened his mouth to speak. “Whe—”

Everything went black.

He opened his eyes, again feeling he had been asleep only a short time.

The man beside him was gazing at Bobby’s face as if observing a fish in an aquarium. “Seems to be working. Don’t become distressed, Bobby. We have tried to make it as painless as possible. But we can’t have you just saying whatever you wish when we reunite you with your extraordinary friend, can we?”

Chapter Four

Quentin gazed at the endless expanse of dense tropical forest 2,000 feet below. The de Havilland Twin Otter cruised at 170 miles per hour, so from takeoff to touchdown the flight to the village of Navera would be only thirty minutes. This made it all too easy to forget the impenetrable nature of this wilderness. Entire expeditions had disappeared attempting to traverse the region on foot.

Addison was down there somewhere. Somehow he had survived eight months, in spite of having his memory wiped clean and being left alone to die. Quentin tapped a rapid beat against his leg with his raccoon baculum. He glanced at Lindsey. They were the only passengers, and she had moved to the far side of the cabin to look out her own window. If it had been solely her decision, she probably wouldn’t have left the jungle without Addison all those months ago. She would have stayed, searching for him until she was hopelessly lost. And so Quentin had convinced her to leave. There were valid reasons why leaving had been the logical choice. Three of the other students had survived the plane crash, and Quentin and Lindsey had needed to get them home safely. And they’d felt an obligation to bring the Lamotelokhai, the most significant discovery of all time, to civilization. Perhaps most importantly, Addison had been mortally injured in the plane crash. The Lamotelokhai had kept him alive, but Addison was no longer their son after that. He had become a murderous monster. But still, Quentin was sure Lindsey would’ve stayed and that his decision to leave would always be a wedge between them, even if they never spoke of it.

Now they had learned that not only was Addison alive, but he apparently had some memory of his past life. Quentin not only had a chance to save his son, but also to redeem himself.

The satellite phone chirped loudly, heard even over the roar of the Twin Otter’s engines. Lindsey had been holding the phone in her lap and quickly answered it.

“Ardell, please tell me you found them.”

Seconds later her features hardened. Quentin muttered a curse. Ardell had clearly not called with good news. He turned back to his window. The trees below were now closer. They were approaching the village.

“What? Oh my God!”

Quentin whipped around.

“It was empty? Where the hell did they go? Did you check the hospitals?”

“What’s going on?” Quentin said.

She ignored him, listening instead to Ardell. “Jesus, this can’t be happening.” There was a long pause. “Okay. Well, we’ll have the SAT phone, but we’re landing soon. Thank you, Ardell.” She lowered the phone into her lap.

Quentin waited.

“They found Peter’s van. In the middle of the street. Near the motel.”

“In the middle of the street?”

“And there was blood. In the driver seat and one of the passenger seats.”

Quentin inhaled sharply. He realized his clenched fist was about to break the baculum, so he shoved the bone into his pocket. In recent months he had almost allowed himself to forget what terror felt like, but now he settled uncomfortably into it like an old habit. And it sharpened his focus.

“Lindsey.” He waited for her eyes to lock onto his. “It’s beyond our control. They’re going to be okay. For them, shedding a little blood isn’t as dangerous as it used to be. They’ve made it through far worse.”

Her eyes were narrow and she shook her head slightly. But then her features relaxed. She took a deep breath. “Damn right they have.”

Quentin nodded. “We’ll do what we came here to do. We’ll find Addison and take him home. And then we’ll deal with this other problem.” Quentin waited for her to respond, silently pleading for her to prop up his precarious resolve.

As if she sensed this, she gave him a confident nod. “We came here to find Addison.”

* * *

From the air, the landing strip looked even shorter than Quentin remembered. He gripped the seatback in front of him with white knuckles as the Twin Otter cleared the treetops at the forest’s edge and then dropped abruptly into the clearing. The wheels hit the ground, and seconds later the plane bounced to a stop twenty yards from a small crowd of waiting villagers. Wasting no time, the two pilots walked through the bulkhead from the cockpit to the cabin and then lowered the hatch, which had stairs molded to the inside of it. The two backpacks were all Quentin and Lindsey had. They grabbed these out of the seats and descended to the grass and dirt airstrip.

Without speaking a word to them, the pilots secured the hatch, and then the plane revved up. When Quentin and Lindsey were barely clear of the plane’s tail, it heaved forward and turned, facing the far end of the runway. It then throttled up to a deafening volume, tore down the runway, and at the last minute lifted to clear the treetops. This capability was what made Twin Otters ideal jungle planes.

Familiar Papuan faces abruptly surrounded them. Quentin and the other survivors had stayed one night in Navera on their trek out of the wilderness eight months ago, and the villagers were apparently as happy to have visitors now as they had been then.

The villagers displayed an odd mix of traditional and modern clothing and adornments. Some of the men sported penis gourds, and some of the women were bare-breasted, but just as many wore shorts and t-shirts. There seemed to be almost as many children as adults, and most of the children were naked. Several of the Papuans stepped forward and guided their guests to the simple shelter at the center of the smattering of thatch-roofed huts. The tribe spoke their own dialect that Quentin suspected was derived from the more widely used language of the Dani people.

Conspicuously missing was Obert, who had used his radio to help them call for help eight months ago, and who was apparently the only member of the village who spoke English. And Samuel was nowhere to be seen. He had told them when he’d called three days ago that he would wait here at the village for them to arrive. When asked where Samuel and Obert were, the villagers pointed to the forest beyond the huts.

As they waited, the villagers brought out fresh cucumbers, cooked red fruit wrapped in banana leaves, and some heavily-spiced sago cakes, made from the sago palm. Quentin and Lindsey sat on low benches beneath the shelter, eating the offerings and listening politely to the villagers, who were perhaps explaining events that had occurred since the last time they had seen them.

“You Yanks look a far cry better now than when you stumbled out of the bush some months back.”

Quentin recognized the heavily accented, jovial voice of Obert before he even turned to see him. Obert approached them, looking very much the same, wearing shorts and a well-used t-shirt with a faded image of a stick figure in a hammock and the words, No Worries, Mate!

Beside Obert was a white man with a thick black beard. The beard was new, but there was only one man Quentin knew who wore a skin loincloth and a vest made from spider silk.

“Samuel!” Lindsey got up and rushed forward. “I almost didn’t recognize you.” She hugged him, which seemed to alarm him at first. He awkwardly patted her back until she released him. She then gave Obert a light hug. “Thank you. We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t agreed to safeguard the satellite phone and keep it charged.”

“Sorry I wasn’t here for the landing,” Obert said. “I heard the plane approaching and went to fetch your mate, Samuel. He’s been hunkering down in the bush rather than here in the village.” He hooked a thumb at Samuel. “Bit of a wild man, this one is.”

“Wonderful to see you again, Samuel,” Quentin said. “And you too, Obert.” He decided against hugs and extended a hand. They both shook it firmly.

Samuel appraised both of them before speaking. “Three days heretofore, I spoke to you with the help of a most astounding contrivance, as if you were just beside me. And now, after a mere three days, you stand before me, having traveled from the northern continent of America. When circumstances allow it, I insist that you expound on how this is possible.”

Quentin exchanged a glance with Lindsey, and then they both laughed.

“We’ll do our best,” Quentin said.

* * *

Quentin, Lindsey, and Samuel left the village of Navera an hour later. They had removed half the contents of each of the packs and given the items to Obert and the other villagers. It was mostly expensive gadgets they probably wouldn’t need, but the villagers could use them. In return, the villagers had stuffed the packs with fruits and sago cakes, which would make the journey easier.

As soon as they were out of sight of the village, Lindsey turned to Samuel. “Please tell us everything you can about Addison.”

Samuel gave her a brief quizzical look. “I fear that my knowledge of him will leave you wanting. I know little more than what I have already told you. Addison came recently to the hanging village of my indigene hosts. The villagers’ first inclination was to kill him and destroy his body so that it could not be resurrected. I determined, however, that he held no murderous intentions, and I endeavored to convince the villagers to spare him.”

“How did he look?” Lindsey asked. “Did he seem healthy?”

Samuel continued walking, apparently considering this. “As it does for you and I, the medicine of the Lamotelokhai sustains him.” He then stopped and turned to them. “I feel I am obliged to remind you of your son’s transformation—the transformation that you witnessed yourself when fateful events brought you to the village of my indigene hosts. Your son was distinctively suited to communicating with the Lamotelokhai, and without regard to consequences, he invoked taboo by making a request for lu gamo. This means to ascend and become strong. You and I, and the villagers as well, have all become improved with the Lamotelokhai’s help. However, when requesting lu gamo, one becomes very improved. You witnessed this transformation in your son.” Samuel looked to the trees in the direction they had been walking. “The transformation is apparently permanent.”

Quentin glanced at Lindsey, but she wouldn’t look at him, fixating instead on Samuel. “He’s still Addison, though, right? You said he asked about us—about his parents.”

“Yes, he seems to remember you. There is certainly cause for hope. However, I wanted you to know what you should expect if we find him.”

“If we find him?” Lindsey said. “You think there’s a chance we won’t find him at all?”

“Addison came to the hanging village, accompanied by the mbolop you call Mbaiso. That is when I prevented the villagers from killing him.” Samuel paused for a moment. “His ability to express himself in words was, well, rudimentary. However, he was able to inquire about you, his parents. He was determined to show something to me, so I followed him. We traveled south for nearly half a day. What I found there was astounding, to put it mildly. A colony of mbolop, hundreds of them, living in hanging chambers similar to those of my indigene hosts. I attempted to convince Addison to travel with me to the village of our friend, Obert. Addison did not understand my words, or he simply was not inclined to do this. A few days after that I went back to the mbolop colony, but I was unable to find him. That is when I determined to travel to Obert’s village without him, with hopes that I could somehow get a message to you. Now here you are.”

Quentin considered this. He and Lindsey had lived for months in silent anguish, rarely speaking of the nearly impossible chance that Addison might still be alive. Samuel’s brief call on the SAT phone had sparked a fierce—but perhaps blind—determination in both of them to come here, get Addison, and take him home. It hadn’t occurred to Quentin that they might not even find him, or that Addison might be unwilling to go with them or incapable of understanding.

“We’ll take it one obstacle at a time,” Lindsey said. “First we have to find him. I assume we’ll be going to this colony of tree kangaroos?”

Samuel started walking again. “Indeed. Three days of laborious traveling are upon us, I’m afraid.”

A few hundred yards further into the forest they came upon Samuel’s camp, which was little more than a sleeping shelter constructed from poles and rigid sago fronds. Standing beside the shelter, as if he had been patiently waiting for them, was Sinanie. Quentin immediately recognized him, although Sinanie now had several new cords strung with ornaments around his neck, and he no longer had white paint around his eyes. But he still wore his short penis gourd etched with Kembalimo symbols, as well as green lorikeet feathers in his hair, perhaps thirty of them sticking out in random directions. He smiled at them as they approached, flashing perfect teeth.

“It is good to see you are well, Sinanie,” Quentin said, although he was aware Sinanie spoke little English. After having taken the Lamotelokhai from them, Quentin had often wondered what would happen to the villagers’ health.

Samuel apparently understood what Quentin was actually thinking. “To be honest, without the Lamotelokhai’s presence, I feared for my own condition as well, although the indigenes are very much older than I. But as you can see, the Lamotelokhai’s benefits have not abandoned us.”

Sinanie said, “Lindsey, Quentin, gu laléo lai-ati-bo-dakhu lelé-mbol-e-kho-lo?”

“He wishes to know if you are coming back here as a spirit,” Samuel said. “I believe he is asking if you are in good health, or if you have died since he last saw you.”

Quentin exchanged a glance with Lindsey. The fact of the matter was that they had died since they had last seen Sinanie. Their entire group had been disintegrated in a violent jetliner crash.

“Tell him we do not come as spirits,” Lindsey said. “We are in good health, and we are happy to see him, too.”

Samuel spoke to Sinanie in the Papuan’s language. Sinanie then smiled at them again. Quentin was tempted to shake his hand or embrace him but suspected these gestures would only baffle him.

Sinanie opened a small skin pouch that hung from his neck, a pouch in which previously he had carried a supply of clay from the Lamotelokhai. He held the pouch out so they could see its contents.

“Quentin, nu if-e-kha misafi gup-tekhé fédo-p.” He then shoved the pouch toward Quentin.

“He wishes to give one of them to you,” Samuel said. “As you take one, be careful to not touch the other.”

Quentin plucked one of the two objects from the pouch. He recognized it immediately, a stone talisman, intricately carved to resemble a tree kangaroo—an mbolop. Matiinuo, the elder member of Sinanie’s tribe, had once given the same stone to Peter Wooley. Peter had lost it, and then Quentin had found it over forty years later, only to lose it again.

Quentin hefted the stone. “This thing refuses to stay lost.”

“Sinanie accompanied me when I returned to the place that your son Addison had shown me. He has seen what is happening there, and he now believes the talisman to be more important than ever before. Having seen the place with my own eyes, I am inclined to agree.

Sinanie held the pouch out to Lindsey. She took the other talisman. Quentin didn’t have to look at it closely to know it was identical to his own. Eight months ago Samuel had duplicated the talisman in a fantastical demonstration of the Lamotelokhai’s ability to shift time. Sinanie must have found both of the figurines in or near Samuel’s tree house, which was the last place Quentin had seen them.

Quentin pocketed his copy of the talisman. “We’re ready to go if you are.” He then helped Lindsey adjust her pack to better fit her shoulders. Samuel kicked over the temporary shelter and scattered the sago fronds, leaving little evidence that the spot had been occupied for three days.

Just as they started hiking south, a movement in a tree above caught Quentin’s eye. It was a tree kangaroo.

“Is that Mbaiso?” he asked.

Samuel looked up. “The mbolop you call Mbaiso was otherwise occupied. This is another I recruited to accompany us and help with collecting food. If you wish to call it by a specific name, you will have to create one, as I have never been inclined to do such things.”

Chapter Five

Bobby’s head hurt, especially behind his ears. He wanted to touch his scalp and feel for a wound, but his arms were restrained. And so were his legs. It seemed like hours since the man with red glasses had left the room, and Bobby hadn’t been allowed to get up. The three doctors—or whatever they were—continued working with their computers, talking to each other about technical stuff and occasionally asking Bobby to do things that didn’t make sense. To speak a certain word, for example, or to think about something that made him mad. Every time he tried to say something they hadn’t asked him to say, he would black out. Then he would wake up, and the process would continue. He was scared, and it was taking all his willpower to hold back tears.

Now he had to pee and take a crap, and if they didn’t let him up soon he would have to do both right here on the bed.

Finally, the windowless metal door opened, and the man with red glasses stepped in. He asked the others how things were going, and they all answered by nodding. He gazed into Bobby’s eyes.

“I would like to speak to this young man,” he said.

One of the doctors typed something on his keyboard and then said, “Go ahead, sir.”

Bobby felt a sharp pulse behind both his ears.

The man said, “How are you feeling?” When Bobby didn’t answer, he said, “You may speak freely now.”

Still, Bobby was afraid to speak. He cleared his throat, but nothing happened. “Where am I?”

“You are in a research facility. A rather remarkable one, actually. My name is Hugo Helmich. You can call me Dr. Helmich. Or just Hugo, if you prefer.” He spoke like he was an enthusiastic tour guide.

“Where’s Hattie?”

“We know her real name is Ashley. No need to pretend.”

“Where is she? And where are Peter and Robert?”

Helmich smiled. “They are here. Ashley and Peter are perfectly fine. Robert, unfortunately, is recovering from a gunshot wound. We have hopes that he will recover fully.” He pushed his glasses further up on his nose and smiled again.

Bobby closed his eyes and swallowed. He couldn’t wait any longer. “I have to go to the bathroom. Right now.”

“I am not surprised,” Helmich said. He began undoing the restraints on Bobby’s legs and nodded to the woman doctor. She got up and left the room. She came back in immediately, pulling behind her a strange toilet on wheels. She shut the door and parked the toilet next to the wall. Helmich finished releasing Bobby’s legs and started on his arm restraints.

“The floor here is very hard,” Helmich said, with a look of real concern on his face. “If you do something unexpected, you will of course be rendered unconscious, resulting in a head injury when you fall. That would not be good for you or for us.” He finished the last strap, stepped back, and held one hand out toward the toilet.

Bobby stared at it. “You expect me to go in front of all of you? I have to take a crap.”

Helmich didn’t move. “Do you like films, Bobby? Motion pictures, I mean. Movies.”

Bobby frowned at him. The question made no sense, and he had to go so bad it hurt.

Helmich lowered his hand. “Hollow Man, with Kevin Bacon. Bacon’s character develops a way to become invisible. An intriguing idea. Even more intriguing, he finds that he is willing to do many things while invisible that he would never have done otherwise. Interesting concept, don’t you think?”

Again Bobby just frowned at him.

“I suggest you imagine yourself to be invisible,” Helmich said.

Bobby wasn’t happy with this response, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He got out of the bed and then wobbled on his feet for a moment. He realized for the first time that he was wearing a green shirt and pants, just like those the doctors were wearing. The only things he had on that were actually his were his shoes. He walked to the toilet and turned around. All four of them were watching him. Probably at least one of them was ready to press a button that would knock him out. He closed his eyes, pulled his green elastic pants to his knees, sat on the mobile toilet, and did what he had to do.

As soon as he stood up, the woman wheeled the toilet out of the room and shut the door with a clang.

Helmich said, “Perhaps you would like to stand for a bit, stretch your legs. You have something important to do today. Need to be in tiptop condition.”

Bobby paced the floor. His head still hurt, so he rubbed his scalp. Both sides of his head were shaved bald around his ears. He moved his hands backward. Behind each ear was something solid. They were small boxes, a few inches across, made of hard plastic or metal. He pulled on one of them. It wouldn’t budge. It was actually attached to his skull. He pulled harder, and this made him wince from the pain.

“What are these?” he said. His voice cracked a little, and again he fought to hold back tears.

Helmich spoke calmly. “Wireless receivers, solid state lithium-ion batteries, neurostimulators, implanted electrodes.” He shook his head. “You don’t really want details, do you?”

“I can’t pull them off. Why won’t they come off?”

“They’re well-anchored. But you could certainly hurt yourself if you try too hard. Again, that would not be good for you or for us.”

Bobby looked at his hands. His trembling fingers now had blood on the tips. “I want to go home now.”

Helmich approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. “And we would like to send you home, Bobby. But first we have some very important things to do. Will you help us out so you can go home?”

Bobby looked at him. He wanted to believe him. But there was nothing about this situation that suggested he would ever be allowed to leave this place.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Well, you can begin by telling me exactly what you would say if you were to ask your friend, the Lamotelokhai, to do something for you.”

* * *

Bobby was back in the bed, his arms and legs secured. For at least an hour Helmich had told him to explain again and again how he would ask the Lamotelokhai to do different things. It wasn’t like there was a trick to it. Bobby would just ask, and the Lamotelokhai would do what he asked. But asking it to do things was dangerous, which he had tried explaining to Helmich. Bobby had asked the Lamotelokhai to do something to help them at the hospital in Jayapura, and it had created rampaging dinosaurs that killed at least seven people. And that was just one example. Helmich had seemed fascinated by these stories, but Bobby doubted he really understood. No one did.

Finally, Helmich had stopped asking questions. Now he sat next to the bed, reviewing the video he had taken of Bobby’s answers. He had just heard Bobby say these things, and now he was watching it all again. Bobby couldn’t imagine his answers were that interesting.

The door burst open, startling them both. A woman Bobby hadn’t seen before stepped in and said, “We’re ready just outside, sir.” She then retreated.

Helmich went to one of the other doctors and whispered to him. The man nodded and started typing on his keyboard.

Helmich came back to Bobby’s side. “I’m afraid we need to ask you to not speak for a little while again. And you know how that works, don’t you?”

Bobby felt a pulse behind his ears as the devices on his head were switched back on. He nodded to Helmich, afraid to make any sound with his mouth.

“We would like to reunite you with your friends. So that you will know we are taking good care of them. Does that sound nice to you?”

Bobby nodded.

The woman came back into the room, this time pulling a rolling bed. Lying in the bed was Robert. Bobby hardly recognized him because his neck and one side of his face were covered with bandages. He seemed to be barely conscious, his eyes half open.

The woman waited for a moment, then left the room and came back pulling another bed. Peter was sitting up on the bed. He looked around the room, and his eyes met Bobby’s.

“Good Lord, what have they done to you?” He pulled at his restraints, but they held him to the bed. He turned to Helmich. “You wanking idiot! You have no idea what you’re doing. If you think my people don’t know where we are, you’re delusional. They’re probably on their way now.”

Helmich ignored this. He looked at the doctor he’d whispered to. The doctor nodded.

The woman parked Peter’s bed beside Robert’s. She left and returned with a third bed. Sitting on this one was Ashley, her eyes wide with fear. When she saw Bobby her fear transformed into rage.

“You assholes, who do you think you are?” She yanked at her restraints. She then let out a fierce, piercing scream.

Even Helmich seemed startled by this. He looked at her with his mouth open.

“She’s the one,” the doctor at the computer said.

Helmich eyed him. “You’re sure?”

The doctor glanced at Ashley, who was now glaring at them. “It’s not even close.”

Robert was then wheeled out of the room, and the woman returned and began wheeling Peter’s bed out.

As he passed through the door, Peter cried out, “Bobby, try to hold it together. We’ll get out of here, and they’ll pay—”

The door slammed, cutting him off.

Helmich gazed at the closed door. “That is an optimistic man.” He turned back around. “But honestly, if you folks simply cooperate, you will have nothing to fear.” He looked at Ashley. “Ashley Stoddard. It seems you are the winner. Bobby’s cognitive activity indicates he is very emotional when you are near him. Did you know that?”

“My name is Hattie Grayson,” she said. “That’s Wyatt. He’s my brother. You’ve kidnapped the wrong people. Don’t you feds ever get anything right?”

“Feds.” Helmich said this like he was thinking about what it meant. He smiled. “Do you like films, Ashley? Motion pictures?”

She glared at him without answering.

He went on. “Consider Tarzan films. Do you know what Jane’s purpose is in every Tarzan film that has been produced?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Jane is there because Tarzan loves her. He will always endeavor to rescue her. Perhaps Margot Robbie’s Jane in The Legend of Tarzan stated it best: ‘An ordinary man will do impossible things to save the woman he loves.’”

Ashley’s glare began to give way, and Bobby knew she was afraid.

“Your name is not Hattie,” Helmich said. “We all know who you are, Ashley. But perhaps we should call you Jane.”

Helmich waved his hand at the doctors, and one of them carried some kind of headset over to Ashley’s bed. The other two doctors followed him. When he tried to put the device on Ashley’s head, she pulled away. The other two then held her still. She squirmed and cried out. She even spat at them.

Bobby instinctively pulled at his restraints. Everything went black.

He opened his eyes. The device was now on Ashley’s head. The woman doctor was wiping away a trickle of blood that had run down Ashley’s temple.

“You’ll be fine,” the woman said. “Just hold still so it won’t tear your skin.”

“What is this?” Ashley said. The fierceness was gone from her voice. “What are you going to do?”

The woman patted her shoulder and then returned to her computer.

Bobby’s eyes met Ashley’s. She was terrified, and there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even speak to her.

Helmich moved a stool to the side of Bobby’s bed and sat. “Time may be of the essence. We will begin immediately. Bobby, I am an advocate of showing, rather than explaining. Very soon you will know exactly what it is that we need you to do.” He held up a digital tablet. “Based upon what you have told us, these words represent what you would say to the Lamotelokhai in order to request something. Please say these words aloud, exactly as they are written.”

Bobby looked from Helmich to Ashley and back. He had no choice, so he read the words.

“Addison, I need your help. Please just do what I ask, okay? I will explain later. I need for you to divide yourself into ten smaller but equal portions. Can you do that?”

Helmich smiled at him. “Very good.” He put the tablet down so Bobby couldn’t see it. “Now, please say it again.”

Bobby brought up a perfect image of the tablet and repeated every word.

Helmich blinked at him. “Impressive short-term memory. Well, let’s take a different approach. Repeat the sentences again, but change one or more of the words.”

Bobby didn’t like where this was going. “Addison, I don’t need—”

Everything went black.

Bobby awoke to the sound of crying. It was Ashley. She was sobbing and trembling.

“You assholes!” she cried. “That hurt!”

Bobby was enraged. “You f—”

His world turned black.

This time he awoke to desperate screaming.

“Stop! Stop it, please!” Ashley’s back was arched and she was thrashing her head back and forth, trying to dislodge the headset.

Bobby wanted to break his restraints and trash everything in the room. He wanted to kill Helmich and the other doctors. But he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t speak. Instead, all he could do was stare at Helmich, his gut wrenching tight and his heart beating so hard he felt it in his ears.

Helmich leaned closer to Bobby. He spoke over Ashley’s cries. “Quite astounding, isn’t it? It’s all automated. A fraction of a second after you say or do anything we have not asked you to…” He nodded toward Ashley.

Bobby felt cool streaks on his burning cheek as his tears began to evaporate. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Helmich’s smirking face.

“Now that you understand,” Helmich said, “it is time to move on from learning to doing.”

Chapter Six

Quentin helped Samuel fasten the last sago fronds to the frame of their crude shelter by tying them with stringy fibers of sapling bark that Sinanie called khol. An afternoon rain had already drenched them, so the shelter’s purpose at this point would simply be to prevent rain from pelting them as they slept.

In spite of having bodies enhanced by alien technology, Quentin and Lindsey were worn out from the first day of hiking. Quentin let out a groan as he folded himself into the shelter and sat next to her. She was holding two grapefruit-sized stuff sacks and handed one to him.

“I’m not inflating both of them,” she said.

Quentin opened his sack and pulled out a tightly-rolled sleeping mat. Judging by its paper-thin fabric and negligible weight, it was a top-of-the-line product. At one end, surrounding a one-way valve, was a thickened pad that served as a hand pump. Following Lindsey’s lead, he twisted open the valve and started pumping.

Samuel and Sinanie tucked themselves into the shelter. Sinanie glanced briefly at the slowly-expanding mats and then turned his attention to a raw spot on one of his feet. Samuel, on the other hand, seemed fascinated by the inflating mats.

“We’re not as accustomed to sleeping on the ground as you two are,” Quentin said. “Unfortunately, we only have two of these,”

Samuel caressed the shimmering green material. “That is remarkable. There was a time long ago in which simple comforts were much more important to me. I fear that I have gradually descended into a rather savage state.”

Quentin noticed Sinanie shoving some leaves into his mouth. After chewing them briefly, he pulled the wad of pulp from his mouth and spread it over the abrasion on the side of his foot. Quentin felt a pang of guilt. If he hadn’t taken the Lamotelokhai from the village, Sinanie could have simply spread some of its clay on his wound, and it would have healed in a few hours.

“The indigenes have reverted to many of their old healing practices,” Samuel said, apparently perceiving what was on Quentin’s mind. “They are generally healthy, however they no longer have the means to heal deadly wounds, or to restore to life their companions who have recently died. If warriors from another tribe were to attack the village, the results could be grievous. Only thirteen of them remain at this time.”

Lindsey said, “My god, only thirteen?”

Quentin stared at Sinanie and felt cold inside. Addison had killed half of Sinanie’s tribe. Quentin had to remind himself that during the last eight months the Lamotelokhai had provided humanity with effective cures to several devastating diseases, including AIDS and diabetes. Far more lives had been saved than had been lost.

“Samuel,” Quentin said, “can you tell Sinanie we are sorry, and we did not mean to do his tribe any harm?”

Samuel spoke to the Papuan, although he hesitated a number of times as if he did not have full mastery of the language.

Sinanie finished spreading the chewed leaves on his wound and then blew on it as if helping it to dry. He looked at them and spoke. “Gu finop. N-mom-él nggé khil Lamotelokhai-alingga. Nokhu nggul-lekhé nokhu khokhün nokhu-amo-ba-lé laibo. Õkhu khatakh.”

Samuel considered Sinanie’s words for a moment. “He says that you, Quentin, are a compassionate man. His uncles and friends, meaning his tribe, are healthy, even without the Lamotelokhai. But they are discontented because they have abandoned their purpose—the purpose for which they were born. And thus they are ashamed.”

Quentin looked at Lindsey and then at Sinanie. “Their purpose? You mean to hide and protect the Lamotelokhai?”

Samuel hesitated and then exchanged a few words with Sinanie. “That is correct, but there is more to consider than only that. Sinanie is referring to something he has not discussed with me in a long time. I am unsure that I can adequately describe it, as the very concept of it bewilders my thoughts. He told me long ago that the Lamotelokhai has placed a measured portion of its knowledge into the mind of each of the members of his tribe. When I asked what this knowledge was, he replied that he did not know, only that the knowledge was quite extensive. How one can have knowledge in his mind without understanding the nature of the knowledge remains a mystery to me.”

Lindsey spoke up. “Sinanie believes that the main purpose of his life is to have some of the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge in his mind?”

“The indigenes have told me that their tribe was wakhatum for the Lamotelokhai. Wakhatum refers to stories or knowledge, in this case referring to those who keep the knowledge. The tribe has traditionally had no more than thirty members because each member was given a portion of the knowledge. Thirty is approximately the number needed to carry the knowledge of the Lamotelokhai.”

Quentin and Lindsey exchanged another glance, this time a grimmer one.

Lindsey said it first. “And Addison killed half of them.”

“Addison killed sixteen villagers, including twelve men and four women. There were thirteen who survived, only half the number needed to carry the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge.”

“And so they believe they have abandoned their purpose,” Quentin said.

Samuel nodded silently.

Lindsey said, “So what does that mean, that the Lamotelokhai was using the villagers’ brains to make a backup of its data?”

Samuel shook his head, indicating that he failed to understand the question.

“Do you think Sinanie might tell us more about this?” Quentin said.

Samuel spoke again to the Papuan. Sinanie crawled out of the shelter and gestured for them to follow him. He led them through the dense brush until they came upon a fallen tree they had passed before stopping to set up camp. Molded to a fork in the tree’s trunk was a brown mass the size of a backpack—a termite nest. Sinanie broke a club-sized branch from the tree and swung it at the nest, putting a dent in it. He swung several more times, splitting the nest open. He then dropped the club and placed his hand into the gash he had created in the nest. Within seconds frantic termites covered his hand. He raised it to his face and began licking the termites off. Samuel stepped forward and did the same thing.

“Try them,” Samuel said as he licked the last crawling insect from his hand. “Their flavor may surprise you pleasantly.”

Quentin didn’t step forward, and neither did Lindsey. Quentin said, “I thought maybe Sinanie was going to show us something.”

Samuel just smiled and loaded his hand up with termites again.

After several more minutes of this, Sinanie began speaking. He punctuated his statements by pointing at the swarming termites. Everyone watched him attentively until he was finished.

“I must say, his familiarity with these insects is impressive even to me,” Samuel said. “He would like you to understand that the termite nest is one functioning colony, achieving its purpose with the collective actions of three different castes of termites.” Samuel allowed more of the insects to crawl onto his hand and then held it out for them to see. “Those with the black heads are of the soldier caste. They are uniquely suited to protecting the nest. They are, in fact, biting my skin at this moment.” He flicked a couple of them off. “The small, pale ones are of the worker caste. They build the tunnels and forage for food. And somewhere in the interior of the nest are the queen and kings of the reproductive caste. I imagine I hardly need to explain their function, though you may not know that they are the most delectable to eat.”

“How does that relate to Samuel’s tribe?” Lindsey said.

“I believe he is making the point that each member of his tribe carried a distinct portion of the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge. If you destroy any of the three castes of the termite nest, then the entire nest will fail to achieve its purpose. If you destroy any of the portions of the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge, the knowledge is no longer complete. The united purpose is no longer achieved.”

Curious, Quentin summoned the courage to step forward and touch the nest’s exposed interior, allowing some of the termites to crawl over his skin. The black-headed soldiers began biting, though, and he quickly swiped them all off. Finally, he spoke. “If it was important to the Lamotelokhai to place its knowledge into the minds of thirty people, what did it do when sixteen of those people were killed?”

“I know only what the indigenes have told me,” Samuel said. He then turned and spoke with Sinanie. The Papuan continued eating termites as he answered the questions.

Samuel turned back to them. “In the years I have lived with my indigene hosts, I had never witnessed the irrevocable death of a villager. Until your arrival, of course. But I am told that in the past, upon the rare occasion of a permanent death, the dead villager’s knowledge was placed into the mind of another villager. This sometimes would require one of the females to bear a child for this purpose.”

“Jesus,” Lindsey said in a whisper. Then more loudly, “That makes it seem like the Lamotelokhai has simply been using the villagers to suit its own purpose.”

“I might remind you that the indigenes hold the Lamotelokhai in the highest regard,” Samuel said. “They consider it a great honor to have served as its stewards.”

“This still hasn’t answered my question,” Quentin said. “What did the Lamotelokhai do when Addison destroyed more than half the people carrying portions of its knowledge?”

Samuel slowly nodded. “Indeed, an interesting question.”

Chapter Seven

Peter Wooley sputtered and then cried out. He pulled at his restraints, confused. He looked around at the stark white concrete walls, remembering where he was. A bizarre feeling of relief washed over him. He had just been dreaming, even though he didn’t recall falling asleep or even feeling tired. In the dream he had occupied the body of his old friend, Samuel. He had hiked miles from the hanging village in order to carry out an experiment, with the goal of discovering what could be accomplished by piecing together small portions of the Lamotelokhai’s clay. But the experiment had gone horrifically wrong, spawning an outbreak of creatures that were the stuff of nightmares. Even now that Peter was awake, he found himself shaking and fighting back tears.

This had been more than a mere dream. More detailed and lucid. This felt like the visions the Lamotelokhai had placed in his mind before. Peter could think of only one reason the Lamotelokhai would put such a disturbing vision into his head.

“Hey! Someone get in here! We need to talk!” He waited, but his shouts were followed by silence. He yelled again. He yanked violently against the restraints, actually rolling the bed a few inches toward the center of the room.

The metal door clicked as it was unlocked. It swung open, and the woman who had pushed his bed into the room stood in the doorway. A burly man stood behind her. They both wore green scrubs, like everyone else Peter had seen in this place. They entered the room, but the bloke remained by the door. The woman came over, pushed the bed back to the wall, and flipped a brake with her foot.

“You’ve got to listen to me,” Peter said. “I think there’s a possibility that something very dangerous might happen. I know you have Addison—”

“You mean the Lamotelokhai,” she said.

Peter hesitated only briefly. “Yes, good for you, you know what it’s called. But I’m pretty bloody sure you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“What are we dealing with, Mr. Wooley?”

“And it seems you know who I am. Then perhaps you’ll listen while I explain something.”

She sat on the edge of the bed next to Peter’s knees. “Absolutely. Our purpose here is to learn all we can.”

“Are you with the United States government?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were going to explain something to me.”

Peter glared at her for a moment. “I had a dream. More accurately, a vision. I believe the Lamotelokhai put it into my head as a warning of what might happen if you people are careless.”

She raised her brows again. “What might happen?”

“It’s difficult to describe. What I saw was apparently the result of attempting to work with a small portion of the Lamotelokhai, rather than with the entire entity.”

The woman’s eyes grew wide for a brief moment, and she glanced at the man by the door. “Go on,” she said.

“I’m trying to tell you that the thing is dangerous beyond anything you can imagine. I know for a fact that the Lamotelokhai is programmed to do whatever we ask it to do, regardless of the consequences. Perhaps it’s just studying us, watching to see if we destroy ourselves. If we do, it will simply watch it happen. Maybe a million years later—maybe fifty million—a more intelligent species might evolve on this planet. If so, those future beings will have the opportunity to make the same mistakes we did. It won’t stop them, just as it won’t stop us.”

The woman waited patiently, apparently considering his words.

“It gave me a warning,” Peter said. “But if you don’t heed the warning, it won’t interfere.”

The woman nodded thoughtfully. “Why did the Lamotelokhai give you this warning?” She nodded toward the straps holding him to the bed. “You are not in a position in which you are likely to make a careless mistake, are you?”

“I don’t know! It gives me these visions occasionally, maybe because its particles have been in my body for fifty years!”

She seemed to consider this before speaking again. “Mr. Wooley, since arriving at this facility, have you seen anything that might suggest that we are being careless?”

He stared at her, stewing in his anger. “I have seen little of this facility, perhaps because you drugged me and brought me here unconscious. Not to mention that you shot my friend. And the very fact that you are performing some sort of barbaric experiment on a mere child suggests that you are ill-suited to do anything at all scientific, let alone anything involving the Lamotelokhai.”

“Well, you should see more of the facility, Mr. Wooley. I think you would be impressed, particularly since we constructed it in only half a year.”

Peter said, “Can we get back to the impending catastrophe I’m trying to warn you about? Personally, I don’t care if the Lamotelokhai kills you and your other government lackeys in the most horrible way possible. But the danger is very much larger than that. I’ll say it again, the vision I saw suggested it is a very bad idea to try to deal with a subset of the particles that make up the Lamotelokhai. God knows it’s dangerous enough to use the entire thing intact.”

She put her hand on Peter’s knee, and he shook his leg to dislodge it. “Here’s an interesting thought,” she said. “If you were the Lamotelokhai, and you did not want us to divide the collective particles of your body into smaller portions, perhaps because such an act might allow us to learn the secrets of how you function, then wouldn’t you be tempted to scare us by warning of the terrible things that might result?”

Peter was incredulous. “If you think the warning is a deception, then you have no—”

“This conversation has been helpful,” she said. “In fact, we are counting on you being correct, that the Lamotelokhai will do anything it is asked to do.”

She stood up and walked to the door. “Please let us know if you decide to share additional information. We wish to learn all we can. You may ask for me by name, if you wish. I am Sofia.”

She and the bloke stepped out, and the door slammed shut.

Chapter Eight

The elevator’s stainless steel doors whisked open and then were silent, waiting for Bobby to step through. He tried to control his breathing. Outside the elevator was a white floor. Beyond that was a glass wall with another white room behind it. He stepped forward, and the doors closed behind him. He was in a large circular room, empty except for the cylindrical elevator shaft in the center. He now saw that the glass wall before him was only one of ten glass panels that made up the outer wall of the room. Behind each glass panel was a smaller chamber. He walked around the elevator shaft, looking into each of the chambers until he found one that wasn’t empty. Standing inside the chamber and gazing back at him through the glass was Addison. The Lamotelokhai.

Bobby stared at it, terrified that he might make a mistake.

Addison smiled. He then spoke, and his voice came through speakers somewhere in the ceiling. “Hello, Bobby. You are wearing an interesting hat.”

Bobby swallowed. “It’s a protective helmet, in case I fall.” This was exactly what he had been told to say, and it was true. “I like it, so I wanted to wear it today.” This part was a lie, but if he hadn't said it, Ashley would have been hurt again.

Addison stepped closer to the glass. “I have observed some interesting events since I last saw you. It is difficult to predict what behaviors your kind might exhibit next.”

Bobby kept his mouth shut, waiting for a pulse behind his ears. None came, so he didn’t dare speak.

“You are afraid,” Addison said. “Why?”

This wasn’t going the way Helmich had told him it should. After several long seconds of waiting, Bobby felt the pulse. The device was off, and he was now allowed to answer the Lamotelokhai. But he knew what would happen if he said anything Helmich didn’t like.

“I’m not afraid. I’m just kind of nervous about everything that’s happening. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.” Bobby held his breath, half expecting to wake up on the floor. But nothing happened. Helmich was waiting for him to say what he’d been instructed to say.

Addison gazed at him with no expression.

There was no point in trying to put it off. Bobby had no idea if it would work, and he silently hoped it wouldn’t, particularly after the terrifying vision he’d seen in his mind less than an hour ago. But he had no choice.

“Addison, I need your help. Please just do what I ask, okay? I will explain later. I need for you to divide yourself into ten smaller but equal portions. Can you do that?”

Addison’s eyes turned from sky blue to fire gold. They stayed that way for many seconds, longer than Bobby had seen them do it before. Finally they turned back to blue.

“That is an interesting request,” it said.

Bobby gave the response he was allowed to give. “I’m sorry, but it’s important. Can you do it for me?”

Addison looked down at his own body and then back up at Bobby. “If I do, it will affect my ability to function as a collective entity.”

Bobby felt faint. The Lamotelokhai was actually considering doing it. Why in the hell did these people want to split it up? Did Helmich think he could destroy it this way? Bobby wanted to stop this, to warn the Lamotelokhai. But he knew that he wouldn’t be able to finish his warning and that Ashley would have to suffer. He had to trust that the Lamotelokhai would not allow itself to be harmed.

“I’m sorry, but it’s important,” he repeated. “Can you do it for me?”

Addison lowered his head, like he was praying.

Don’t do it! Bobby opened his mouth to say what he was thinking, but then he stopped himself. It was too late.

Addison folded over at the waist. But instead of bending forward like a person would, his upper body folded straight back, until his head touched the floor behind his feet. The motion was so unnatural and sickening that Bobby barely stopped himself from crying out in surprise. He stared, helpless.

Addison’s left arm and part of his shoulder detached and fell to the floor beside his inverted head, which was still attached to the folded body. Bobby heard the thump on the floor through the ceiling speakers. There was no blood or gore, just a smooth, pink surface where the arm had been attached. The other arm and shoulder tumbled away from the body. Next came the head, with a portion of the chest still attached. It fell and came to rest facing away from Bobby. Without the head propping it up, the rest of the body fell into a heap. Each of the legs detached just above the knee, followed by the two thighs. After that, the jumble of body parts made it hard to comprehend what was happening. But Bobby knew Addison’s torso was being split into three sections. The Lamotelokhai was doing exactly what he had asked it to do—just as it always had.

A low beep sounded in the earpiece that had been fitted to Bobby’s left ear. He then heard people cheering and congratulating each other. It sounded like a NASA control room after a successful Mars landing.

“Very well done, Bobby.” It was Helmich. “You have convinced even those of us who have held the most skepticism. Now, as you know, you have another task to complete. Please be most careful. We do not want to have to hurt you or your friends.” The earpiece beeped again, and the radio went silent.

Suddenly the floor vibrated as a large machine somewhere beneath kicked on. The machine’s hum rose to a higher pitch, and then the ten chambers surrounding the room began pulling away from the room’s center. They moved steadily outward, and Bobby then saw that each chamber was on two metal rails. The rooms stopped after receding about ten feet outward, and the machine fell silent. The rooms had been pulled out from the center like pieces of a pie, and now there were gaps between them.

Bobby listened for a moment to his own breathing and the blood rushing through his ears. He had to do something to stop this. Maybe he could surprise them. Maybe they were so busy congratulating each other that he could enter the chamber, shove the Lamotelokhai’s pieces back together, and order it to zap itself out of here—to the motel room or anywhere else. Bobby looked around at the strange array of chambers and then at the pile of Addison’s body parts, and he knew it was too late. Any opportunity he may have had was now past.

He walked through the gap that now existed beside Addison’s chamber. The chamber’s door was there, just as Helmich had said it would be. The door looked like an airplane’s emergency hatch. Bobby stood before the hatch as he had been told to do until the lock clicked. He pushed down on the lever and pulled hard. This broke the airtight seal, and the hatch opened. He stepped in and closed it behind him.

He stood over the ten portions of Addison’s body. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. He had assumed that, if the Lamotelokhai actually did what he asked, it would transform itself into ten pieces of featureless clay. The pieces before him looked like the result of a chainsaw massacre, minus the blood. Each body part still had Addison’s clothes on it. Bobby could now see the thing’s face, and he was relieved that the eyes were not moving or staring at him.

Following the instructions he’d been given, he picked up one of the pieces, an arm with the shoulder attached. It was heavy, maybe fifteen pounds, and he decided the best way to carry it was to grip two of the fingers and dangle the arm at his side.

He carried it to the hatch, waited for the click, opened the door, stepped through, and went to the next chamber’s hatch. The lock clicked, and he took the arm inside. He moved toward the middle of the chamber to put the arm on the floor.

“Hello, Bobby.”

Bobby froze. The voice had not come from his earpiece or the speakers above. Instead, it had come from within him, sounding very much like his own voice.

The voice spoke again. “Perhaps now you can explain.”

Bobby glanced up at one of the cameras in the ceiling. If he did anything other than what he was supposed to, Helmich would press a button and knock him out. If he spoke, the implants behind his ears would knock him out. But he had to do something.

He tried forming silent words. “Is that you?”

Everything went black.

He awoke to a voice in his earpiece. “Please get up, Bobby. You must finish your task. Your friend Ashley is not a happy camper at this moment. If she were capable of speaking coherently, I think she would ask you to avoid talking, even in a whisper.”

Bobby was flat on his back. His head hurt, especially where the implant was attached behind his left ear. The helmet they’d given him hadn’t done much to protect that area. He sat up. Addison’s arm was on the floor beside him.

“Leave it where it is and attend to the others,” Helmich said in his ear.

Bobby got up, stepped out of the chamber, and closed the hatch. He returned to the first chamber while imagining several ways he’d like to kill Helmich. One of them involved a baseball bat. He re-entered the first chamber and picked up the other arm.

“For me to speak this way, you must have your hand upon a portion of me.” The voice was in his head again. “Your thoughts are many, and they are without singular meaning. Perhaps if you speak aloud.”

Again Bobby looked at the ceiling camera. He couldn’t just stand there. It would look suspicious. So he carried the arm to the hatch and left the chamber. He entered the center room, passed by the second chamber, and waited by the door of the third chamber. He clamped his lips shut, determined this time to form mental words without involuntarily mouthing them.

“I can’t.”

“I understand you now,” it said. “Perhaps now you can explain.”

The door clicked. Bobby had no choice but to enter the chamber. He concentrated on forming silent words. “I’m sorry for what I asked you to do.”

“You said that you would explain. I am curious.”

Bobby was standing in the middle of the third chamber. “I will, but first I have to let go for a second.” He placed the portion on the floor and quickly returned to the first chamber. He picked up another portion, this time a lower leg, and carried it to the fourth chamber.

“Are you going to be okay?” he said silently, still careful to keep his lips clamped shut.

“My portions are in close proximity, and therefore they can work together to accomplish cognitive functions, such as speaking to you.”

Bobby deposited the leg and returned for the other lower leg. When he picked it up, the voice continued where it had left off.

“It is not possible, however, for me to perform mechanical functions.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to ask you to do this.”

Bobby left the piece in the fifth chamber and returned for one of the thighs.

“I do not understand,” the voice said.

“It’s hard to explain. If I didn’t do it, Ashley would get hurt.”

“Why?”

Bobby left the thigh in the sixth chamber and went back for the other thigh. He was starting to sweat from the work.

“It’s because of something they attached to my head,” he said silently. “If I say something I’m not supposed to, it automatically hurts Ashley. I have to do what they tell me to. That’s why I had to tell you to split up into parts.”

There was no voice for some seconds after that. Bobby paused before placing the piece on the floor of the seventh chamber. He scratched his neck with his free hand, trying to look like he had an itch.

Finally it spoke. “You are faced with an interesting dilemma.”

“It’s not interesting, it’s terrible. Just a second.” He put the piece down and returned to the first chamber. There were four more pieces, one of which had to be left where it was. He decided it would be the head, because he didn’t want to pick it up. He grabbed the piece that used to be the butt and groin.

“I need your help,” Bobby thought. It was getting easier to make clear statements without using his mouth. “We need to get out of here. But these people have Ashley. And they have Peter and Robert. We all need to get out of here, including you. Can you help with that?” He entered the eighth chamber and walked to the center.

“An interesting dilemma indeed,” the voice said. “In this disaggregated state I do not have the capability to help you in a physical way.”

Bobby put the piece on the floor and returned to the first chamber. He picked up the piece that had been the belly and headed for the ninth chamber.

“We have to do something,” Bobby said. “There’s only one more piece of you to move after this one, and then they probably won’t let me touch you again. So we won’t be able to talk.”

“You would like to talk to me after that?”

“Yes! Even if you can’t do your normal stuff, if I can talk to you maybe you can help me figure out what to do.” Bobby was now standing in the ninth chamber.

“You will need to keep a portion of me with you,” the voice said.

“I can’t! They won’t let me.” Bobby could almost feel Helmich resting his finger on the knockout button.

“If you wish to talk with me, you must keep a portion of me with you.”

“Bobby?” It was Helmich in his earpiece.

Bobby dropped the body part on the floor and returned to the first chamber. He avoided looking at Addison’s head as he gathered up the chest portion. He moved as slowly as he could without causing suspicion, but his mind frantically struggled to form the right words.

“I can’t keep this part! I have to put it in the last room!”

“You do not need the entire part,” the voice said. “Perhaps you could take a portion of it.”

Bobby stepped into the space between the chambers. As he waited for the hatch to the tenth chamber to click, he pulled off a chunk the size of his fist, hoping there were no cameras there.

“I’ve got some. Is it enough?”

“It is difficult for me to know now. We will know soon.”

The door clicked, but Bobby didn’t move. Helmich would see the chunk of Lamotelokhai in his hand as soon as Bobby stepped into the room. His pants didn’t have pockets. Trying to be discreet, he squeezed the chunk against his leg to make it flatter. He then slowly raised the hand holding the chunk up under his shirt, used two fingers to lift the elastic band of his pants, and tucked the flattened chunk under the band. He turned the lever, pulled the door open, and stepped through the hatch. He stopped. His movements had caused the flattened chunk to slide down and almost come loose from his waistband. He shifted the larger chest portion he was carrying so that his arm held the smaller chunk in place.

“I don’t know if I can do this! It’s going to fall and then they’ll know.”

“The portion will not fall.”

“How do you know?”

“It will not fall.”

Bobby took a step. The chunk stayed in place, so he walked to the center of the last chamber. “I have to put this piece down now. If this doesn’t work, I may never get to talk to you again.”

“I will attempt to make it work.”

“I’m really sorry,” Bobby said silently. He waited, but the voice did not reply. He placed the piece on the floor. As he stepped back he casually rested his hand on his waist to prevent the hidden chunk from dropping.

The chunk was gone.

“Nicely done, Bobby.” It was Helmich. “Now please return to the center viewing room. Close the door as you leave the chamber.”

Bobby looked at the floor. The chunk wasn’t there. He took another step back. He didn’t feel it inside his pant leg. He tried to gather his thoughts. “Lamotelokhai, are you there?”

There was no answer.

“Bobby, for Ashley’s sake, please go to the center viewing room,” Helmich said in his ear.

Bobby stepped out, closed the hatch, and went to the center room. He turned and gazed through the glass at Addison’s head. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

“Bobby?”

Bobby almost jumped with joy. “It’s working! I can hear you!”

“I have successfully patterned my cognitive activity so that I may speak to you with the smaller portion of me you removed.”

Bobby thought, “I can’t find the piece I took. Where is it?”

“Its particles have moved into your body.”

Suddenly the room shook as the machinery below the floor kicked on again. Almost immediately the ten chambers began pulling further away from the center room.

The voice was in his head again. “The distance between my portions is becoming greater. If the distance continues to increase at this rate, my cognitive functions will stop in twelve seconds.”

“No!” Bobby screamed within his mind. He turned to one of the cameras and waved his hands over his head, but he knew it would do no good. The chambers were now at least fifty yards out into a vast dark space, and they were still rolling away.

“If you wish to have my help, you will need to decrease the distance between my portions. My cognitive functions will stop in three seconds.”

Bobby could only stand and stare at the receding chambers. Finally, the machinery stopped churning and fell silent. The chambers were now small rectangles of white light in the distance, evenly spread in a wide circle around the center room.

“Lamotelokhai? Addison?”

There was no response.

The elevator shaft in the center of the room opened. Men and women in green doctor clothes spilled out, each of them carrying a computer or some other device, and they quickly started setting them up in the room. Helmich came out of the elevator last. He grasped Bobby’s shoulders and smiled at him, as if he were a proud father.

“What an invigorating and successful day!” he said. “You have been most helpful. Come, I will take you to see Ashley. You may want to apologize to her for what you have put her through.”

Bobby followed him into the elevator, his thoughts silent as well as his mouth. The doors slid shut, and they were alone.

“I believe we deserve a treat.” Helmich said. Suddenly he clapped his hands together. “Say, do you like ice cream?”

Chapter Nine

The first light of morning drove away the opaque blackness and then the murky shadows of the forest near the river the local humans called Méanmaél. This was Mbaiso’s favorite time for activities that served no purpose other than amusement—activities that distracted the tree kangaroo from the tasks that would fill the rest of his day.

With no particular destination, Mbaiso made his way along the river, sniffing and pawing at anything interesting. Each time his path took him close to the water’s edge, he became acutely alert to the possible presence of crocodiles. Due to Mbaiso’s own actions many days ago, crocodiles were now more abundant in the area.

A slight movement in the leaf litter caught his eye. Cautiously, he stepped closer. The moving object appeared to be a brown worm. Now this was an interesting distraction. Mbaiso had seen worms like this before. Many other creatures never had the opportunity to learn to avoid such a worm, as their first encounter was nearly always their last.

The tree kangaroo circled to one side of the worm and then to the other, carefully investigating the arrangement of leaves and soil around it. The worm continued wriggling back and forth as Mbaiso looked for the most promising angle of approach. He did not intend to eat the worm or even to kill it. He desired only to touch it. Finally, based upon the area’s spatial parameters, Mbaiso selected a position, dug his hind claws in for leverage, and lunged forward. His intent was to jump past the worm with enough speed to avoid danger, touching the worm in the process.

The leaf litter around the worm exploded. In a fraction of the blink of a tree kangaroo’s eye, a broad head shot out, jaws gaping, and two long fangs slammed into Mbaiso’s abdomen, injecting a lethal dose of venom. The head immediately pulled back, releasing him.

Mbaiso tumbled on the ground and slid to a stop. He got up on his haunches and gazed at the creature, no longer hidden beneath the litter. The worm-like tail, which typically acted as a lure, was attached to a large snake, much larger than Mbaiso had predicted—and much faster. The villagers called the snake malan. Samuel called it a death adder.

Mbaiso scurried up a tree to avoid a second dose of venom. A strange sensation began emanating from the bite, spreading to his legs. Soon his legs began shaking, and it became difficult to maintain his balance. This was followed by numbness. Gradually, the lack of feeling became so complete that Mbaiso had to use visual cues to be sure he was still grasping the tree’s bark. He remained in the same position until the numbness passed. By this time, low shafts of sunlight were beginning to cut through the forest canopy. Although unintentional, the encounter with the snake’s venom had been an interesting and unique experience. Mbaiso had existed for thousands of years, and unique experiences were not easy to come by. Mbaiso decided he would do it again when he had the opportunity.

Finally, the tree kangaroo descended to the ground and returned to the bank of the river to quench his abnormally strong thirst. He scanned the water’s edge for evidence of waiting crocodiles. Satisfied that it was safe, he took a long drink.

Suddenly a wave of agitation washed over him. He sat up on his haunches, ears cocked, listening. Nothing unusual. But the agitation persisted. He focused his attention inward, probing his mind for the source of the sensation. His consciousness extended fingers of thought, systematically peeling away layers of his processing centers, finally examining the subtle changes that had taken place during the first moment he had detected the uneasy feeling. Disaggregated pieces gradually came together, bringing the feeling’s component parts into focus.

The uneasy feeling had nothing to do with the residual effects of the snake’s venom. Instead, it was linked to an abrupt cessation of an incoming signal. The signal had previously been so faint that Mbaiso hadn’t even been aware of it until it had stopped. Further probing revealed that the information processing centers that had detected the sudden absence of the incoming signal were those that had previously allowed Mbaiso to communicate with the Creator.

He climbed to a comfortable spot in a tree so he could contemplate this in safety. He sprawled on his belly on a thick branch and closed his eyes. Apparently, without Mbaiso knowing it, a faint signal from the Creator had continued after the Creator had departed. The signal had been too faint to contain information or instructions, but it did signify that the creator had existed somewhere beyond the forest that had always been Mbaiso’s home.

But for some reason the signal had stopped. Perhaps the Creator had moved much farther away. Possibly it had even left the great forest of this world. Or perhaps the Creator had ceased to exist. Mbaiso rested upon the limb, considering the implications of each scenario, until the sun was at its highest position of the day. The abrupt end to the Creator’s signal would almost certainly impact the preparations he had supervised for many days. He did not know if the preparations were yet sufficient. But after analyzing possible consequences of waiting for further preparation, he decided it was time to move ahead with his plans.

Driven by renewed purpose, Mbaiso left the Méanmaél and made his way up a gently sloping hill, sometimes leaping from tree to tree and sometimes hopping on the ground. Upon the hill’s broad plateau was a dense stand of uncommonly tall khaim trees. Although nearly invisible from the forest floor, an elaborate network of tunnels and chambers hung in the canopy of the trees, a small-scale version of the hanging village of the humans where Mbaiso had once lived.

He stopped between the buttress roots of a tree just beyond the border of the hanging tunnels. He twitched his nostrils, sniffing the air, and detected the scent of a creature that was mostly human. In addition to the scent, he heard a faint sound, the creature’s voice. Mbaiso leapt onto the tree’s trunk and dug his claws into the bark to keep from sliding back down. He pumped his hind legs, thrusting himself a full body-length higher, and dug in again. He repeated this until he entered a hut far above the forest floor.

In the center of the hut, a dark figure sat with his back vertical and his legs folded beneath him. He was human, but not quite like any human Mbaiso had encountered before. The other humans had called him Addison.

Mbaiso cautiously padded closer but then sat back on his haunches to wait. The creature did not appear to be aware of his presence yet. His eyes were closed, and he was speaking, though in an unusual way, his voice rising and falling rhythmically. The almost-human creature held his arms in the air before him, bouncing his fingers up and down with the rising and falling of his voice.

“Deels um bus go down um town,
down um town, down um town.

Deels um bus go down um town, All round town.

Wiper um bus go wish um ish,

Wish um ish, wish um ish.

Wiper um bus go wish um ish, all round town.”

Addison opened his eyes and looked at the tree kangaroo. “Baiso.”

Mbaiso hopped closer, still cautious, until his nose was just before Addison’s. Addison leaned forward, and their noses touched. It was a ritual that reassured Mbaiso and seemed to calm the almost-human creature.

The tree kangaroo sat back and began talking to Addison, using the forepaw gesture language he had always used with the villagers. Addison quietly watched. He continued to sit and stare for some time after the gestures ended. Mbaiso waited patiently, aware that visions were playing out in Addison’s mind to facilitate his understanding.

Addison abruptly jumped to his feet and slapped his belly with both hands, indicating he was ready and willing. He then stepped to the hole in the floor of his hut and dropped through it. Mbaiso crawled through the hole more cautiously. When the tree kangaroo emerged beneath the hut, Addison was already several trees ahead of him. The human slapped his belly again, this time conveying impatience.

When Mbaiso arrived at the central hub of the miniature hanging tunnels, Addison had already squeezed through one of the openings. He was stretched out on his side, propped up on one forelimb because the room’s ceiling was too low for him to sit up. He lay near Tupela—too near for Mbaiso’s comfort. Tupela was important to Mbaiso’s plan, and Addison could be unpredictable.

Three shapes stretched and undulated on the floor next to Tupela. They were new tree kangaroos in various stages of formation. The largest of them would be fully mature by the end of the day. Each of them had originated when Mbaiso had added a small portion of his body to a portion of Tupela’s. Other tree kangaroos entered and left the hub, engaged in various errands and tasks. After surveying the chamber, Mbaiso decided it was not suitable for what he needed to do.

He stopped a tree kangaroo that was entering the hub carrying a layop fruit in his mouth. The creature paused and stared as Mbaiso signed instructions with his forepaws. The tree kangaroo dropped the fruit onto a pile of other fruits that had been gathered and then delivered the same instructions to a third tree kangaroo, which then turned and delivered the message to a fourth.

By the time Mbaiso and the human creature descended to the forest floor, a group of over a hundred tree kangaroos was waiting for them. Soon after that the entire colony had arrived except for Tupela and the three unformed young.

Mbaiso let out a hailing bleat. The tree kangaroos stopped fidgeting and watched him. With Addison towering above him at his side, Mbaiso began a sequence of gestures, describing the purpose of this gathering. The tree kangaroos were to learn the next phase of their purpose, a purpose that could not be fulfilled in this part of the forest. Soon they would journey to other parts of this world’s great forest. And when they found a place where they could carry out their purpose, they would need to know what to do.

Occasionally, Mbaiso had seen Addison speak to one of the tree kangaroos who was now near the front of the gathered mass. Addison had given her the name Newton. Mbaiso signed for her to approach the human. When she was at Addison’s side, Mbaiso pressed his snout against hers. His instructions were too extensive for conveying by gestures. A packet of information he had painstakingly prepared passed into her consciousness through the point of contact.

Before this moment, Mbaiso had transferred this packet of information to only one other tree kangaroo. The man, Samuel, had recently come to the mbolop colony and had asked Mbaiso to allow one of the tree kangaroos to go on a journey with him, to find the humans who were the parents of Addison. Mbaiso had given the information to the mbolop he had chosen to accompany Samuel.

Newton pulled away from Mbaiso. She turned to the human creature and gazed up at him. Addison made a strange facial expression, exposing his teeth, and then he sat down on the ground with his legs crossed before him. He extended one of his forepaws and placed the palm on Newton’s head for a moment. It was something he had done to Mbaiso before, possibly a gesture of trust or affection.

Newton dug into her abdomen, breaking the skin with her claws. She pushed her paw in until it disappeared and then pulled it out holding a wet lump of her insides. She offered it up to the human.

Addison looked at the lump and then at Newton, hesitating. After a few moments he took the lump and placed it in his mouth. Mbaiso and the rest of the colony watched and waited. Mbaiso fretted, digging his claws into the soil beneath him and flicking his ears back and forth. Perhaps his plan wouldn’t work.

Addison suddenly straightened his back. He rolled to one side and sprang to his feet. Newton and some of the other tree kangaroos grunted in alarm and backed away. Addison began walking away, but then he staggered. He fell to his knees. He turned and looked toward Mbaiso but seemed unable to focus his eyes. Addison then fell forward, and his face struck an exposed root with a thump.

Mbaiso, Newton, and the others gathered around the body. Mbaiso sniffed the back of Addison’s head and then shoved it with his snout. Addison didn’t respond.

Mbaiso signed some instructions to Newton and then to the others. One of the tree kangaroos hopped forward and touched snouts with Newton. The two remained in contact until a packet of instructions had been passed on—instructions that had now been augmented by Newton’s encounter with Addison.

The two separated, and the tree kangaroo Newton had touched scampered off, presumably back to the task it had been engaged in prior to the gathering. Another came forward, and the instruction packet was passed on again. One by one, every member of the colony came forward and received the necessary information. Finally, when the shafts of sunlight penetrating the canopy were again at a low angle, Mbaiso and Newton were alone with the human’s still body. The two tree kangaroos waited.

Addison rolled over slowly and sat up. Newton hopped up to him, and they touched snouts. The human then extended a hand and slowly stroked Newton’s head.

Chapter Ten

Bobby gazed at the walls and ceiling as a woman wheeled his bed down a hallway. Everything here looked the same—white, painted concrete with nothing on the walls. The doors didn’t even have numbers or names. The place was definitely not a hospital.

The woman stopped the bed before a featureless door that looked like all the others. She held out a key attached to a spiral lanyard around her neck, unlocked the door, and wheeled the bed into the room. Three more beds sat next to one wall, occupied by Ashley, Peter, and Robert. They were all awake and sitting up, including Robert, and like Bobby they were restrained. Helmich stood facing the beds, his arms folded. Behind him were four small cameras on tripods, all pointing toward the beds. The woman parked Bobby’s bed next to Ashley’s and left the room.

“Are you okay?” Ashley said.

Bobby looked at Helmich.

“You may speak freely,” he said.

“I’m okay,” Bobby said. “Didn’t sleep much. I can’t even turn on my side on this bed.” He shot a look at Helmich.

Helmich nodded his stupid nod. “Have I asked you already if you like films? Consider Papillon, with Steve McQueen. McQueen’s character, a safecracker, is wrongly accused of murder and sentenced to life in prison in French Guiana. Worst conditions you can imagine—you should consider yourself lucky. But the character never gives up. He formulates one plan after another, sustained by his boundless hope. At last, after he has grown to be a much older man, he manages to escape.” Helmich looked at Bobby with a smile. “Perhaps you might take heart in such a story, and in the hope that perhaps you will find a way to leave this place. Fortunately for you, that will simply require your complete cooperation. Say, I’ll arrange a Papillon viewing for all of you. We’ll make it a festive occasion!”

Bobby had no idea how to respond to this, so he just glared at the man.

“Who are you, and what the hell is this place?” Peter said.

“Yes, it is time for questions.” Helmich gestured to the cameras behind him. “We are not alone today. I have invited my benefactors—my superiors, if you will—to join us. They are as excited to meet you as the rest of us have been. Please do not ask who they are. They would be here in person if they wanted you to know.”

“Hey, freak,” Ashley said. “Last I checked, real doctors don’t torture people.”

Helmich nodded his stupid nod again. “I am more of a freelance consultant. And yes, I am a medical doctor. A neurologist, specifically. I am also a somewhat accomplished psychologist. And I have a passing interest in exobiology, astrobiology, human-machine interfacing, American pop culture, and motion pictures. Some of those interests make me highly qualified to be here, others make me an interminable bore. Or so I am told.” He raised his eyebrows behind his red glasses like he was waiting for the next question.

“I’d like an honest and detailed report on Robert’s condition,” Peter said.

“I’m doing okay,” Robert said before Helmich could answer. His speech was a little slurred, and his neck and part of his face were still bandaged. “They’ve actually taken pretty good care of me. But I agree with Bobby about the damn straps on the bed.”

“Robert was struck by a nine millimeter rubber bullet just above his right clavicle,” Helmich said. “The round, which by the way was designed to be less lethal, did not rupture any major arteries, nor did it fracture any bones. I can now say confidently that he will recover fully, although the full range of motion in his neck may not be restored for some time. And although you haven’t asked, the woman you met on the road at the bridge—her name is Sabrina—is going to be fine as well. Some of the blood you saw on her was simulated, but some of it was real. She mustered a praise-worthy performance, did she not? I suppose she would be considered a method actor.” Again, he raised his brows, waiting.

Bobby spoke up. “What are you trying to do to the Lamotelokhai? Why did you want to split it up?”

“They split it up?” Peter asked.

Ashley said, “I had a dream yesterday, a vision that thing put in my head. If you idiots are trying to split the Lamotelokhai up, you need to know what I saw.”

“Yes,” Helmich said, “Bobby has told me of this dream. And I understand Mr. Wooley experienced the same dream as well. How do you suppose that is possible?”

“It doesn’t matter how it’s possible,” Peter said. “What matters is why we had the dream.”

Helmich pushed his glasses up on his nose and then stroked his chin. “I am beginning to suspect that you people have a profound lack of curiosity.”

Bobby said, “You haven’t answered. What are you trying to do?”

“Yes,” Helmich responded, “that is the question, isn’t it? You might say that our group has put all of its proverbial eggs into one basket. We have structured our efforts upon one primary premise, that the Lamotelokhai is nothing more than a collection of interconnected but potentially independent parts. If you separate those parts into subgroups—say ten subgroups—then the entity will be incapable of functioning as a whole. We also have hypothesized that the distance between the ten subgroups is important. That’s why we have constructed this facility, with a circular, subterranean space 324 meters in diameter. It allows us to increase the distance between the subgroups under controlled conditions. In case you are interested, in the space below us we can move each of the ten subgroups 162 meters from the center. This places them into a circular array 324 meters in diameter, with 100 meters between the subsets around the perimeter. It’s all quite fascinating, although I can’t say I was at all instrumental in its design. I’m not much of an engineer.”

Bobby shoved out a frustrated grumble from the back of his throat. “You need to put its parts back together. I still don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it’s really dangerous.”

Helmich sighed and frowned. “Perhaps you do not fully understand the idiom, putting all of one’s eggs into one basket. Consider the 1981 film, All The Marbles, with Peter Faulk. Faulk’s character is a sleazy manager of two female professional wrestlers.”

“Seriously,” Ashley said, “do we have to hear about another stupid movie?”

Helmich held up a finger as if he were lecturing them. “Patience. Yes, such films are often rubbish, but this one is an under-appreciated gem. The two wrestlers happen to be very good at what they do. But as you can imagine, the world of small-time professional wrestling is rife with drudgery, unglamorous gigs, and shady characters. This unlikely trio hits a low point when they are forced to accept a mud-wrestling match. But they finally manage, through one ruse after another, to obtain a chance at the tag-team title. The climax is a brutal, twenty-minute depiction of the match, one of the great sports scenes in cinema history. The two wrestlers, as well as their manager, know that this is their one and only chance. Nothing else matters. It is for all the marbles. They have put all their eggs into one basket.”

Helmich fell silent and waited, as if he expected applause or something. When no one responded, he went on.

“And so, you see, we know that we have only one chance. We will either succeed or we will fail. But there is no turning back. You tell me this is dangerous, as if we were not aware of that. Yes, it is a high-stakes match. But we are already ahead of the other teams. We have found the Lamotelokhai before any of them.”

Bobby, Ashley, and Peter exchanged confused glances.

“Other teams?” Peter said.

“Of course. There are at least sixteen other groups that I am aware of. We’ve even collaborated with some of them, although we certainly cannot reveal to them what we have accomplished here recently. They are scattered around the globe, funded by assorted governments and benefactors. Most of them have facilities as elaborate as this one, although with designs based upon entirely different hypotheses. One of them is even designed to convince the Lamotelokhai to construct a wormhole in space, so that the sponsors of the facility can be transported to other solar systems. Blithering idiots, if you ask me. Another I know of is designed to destroy the Lamotelokhai with a contained nuclear blast. I believe they are offended by its presence here.” Helmich laughed as if this were funny. “Honestly, you should be happy our team found you first.”

Bobby was too stunned by all of this to know what to say. Apparently the others were too. It was actually Robert who broke the silence.

“Why are you avoiding Bobby’s question?”

Again Helmich sighed and frowned. He then glanced at a smartwatch on his wrist. “I am providing context. I joined this team voluntarily, because I believe there is much to be gained by understanding the technology behind the Lamotelokhai. I am one of millions who believe that humankind is not best served by allowing this remarkable entity to hide out somewhere, making its own decisions about what we need and do not need. You want to know what we are trying to do? We intend to understand how the Lamotelokhai works. Once we understand that, we will have the ability to achieve on our own what the Lamotelokhai may or may not have decided to achieve for us. We will make our own decisions about what is best for us. If we succeed, humanity will reclaim its position of authority and autonomy on this planet. If we fail, well, then it won’t matter what happens. This is for all the marbles.”

Bobby felt the small amount of hope he still had slipping away. It was one thing for Helmich to be clueless about the risk he was taking. It was a very different thing for him to understand the risk but not care about it. It would be a waste of breath to try to talk any sense into him.

Helmich looked at his smartwatch again. “I now have a few questions of my own. I would very much like for you to be forthcoming with your answers, as I am not keen on expending additional time extracting them from you under duress.” He gave Ashley a meaningful look. “Can we all agree on that?”

After a moment of silence, Peter said, “Ask your questions.”

Helmich nodded and half-smiled. “Why were you moving the Lamotelokhai, and where were you planning to take it?”

Peter answered immediately. “We felt that it needed to be in a more secure location. We were taking it to a facility that I had constructed for that purpose.”

Helmich nodded, apparently considering this. “I see. It is fortunate then that we found you before you accomplished that. Now for my second question. You people are, I suppose, the world’s leading experts on the Lamotelokhai, at least for the moment. What role do you believe it should play in human existence? Please answer one at a time.” He nodded toward Robert first.

Bobby could hear Robert swallow a lump in his throat from several beds away. “I believe it can be a repository of knowledge, perhaps a database we can tap into whenever we have an important problem to solve.”

“So you think it should be a glorified encyclopedia, perhaps with an online interface like that of a search engine.”

“Well, I don’t know what it might—”

Helmich held up a hand to cut him off. “I get it.” He then nodded at Peter.

Peter sighed loudly. “Okay, I’ll play along. I don’t know exactly what role it should play. I would suggest that a consortium be formed, with representatives from every country, culture, and way of life. This consortium then could decide what role the Lamotelokhai should play that would benefit everyone.”

Helmich clapped his hands three times in fake applause. “Well done. You have described the most dysfunctional consortium imaginable, unable to make any decisions whatsoever due to the very human tendency to favor one’s own interests.”

Peter glared. “Okay, what is your—”

Helmich put up his hand again. “Let’s move on.” He nodded at Ashley.

“Go frack yourself,” she said.

Helmich smiled. “Well said. I suppose you are confident that I am in too much of a hurry to arrange things so that I can coerce you to give an honest answer.”

Ashley’s defiant look wavered a little.

“I suppose you’re right,” Helmich said. “All of that nonsense is so tedious and messy. Let the record show that you simply have no opinion on the matter.” He then turned to Bobby. “Your turn, young man.”

Ashley spoke up before Bobby could open his mouth. “You act like you don’t care what happens if things don’t go the way you want them to. But when it comes to not caring, the Lamotelokhai kicks your ass. That’s something you people just don’t get. You should probably listen to those of us who know.”

Helmich gazed at her. “I am listening. And so are my superiors.”

“Good,” she said. “All of you go frack yourselves.”

Helmich turned to Bobby.

Bobby considered backing up Ashley by repeating her words. But he didn’t want to pass up a chance to say something that might make a difference.

“The Lamotelokhai is smarter than us. Smarter than all of us, even you. What you’re trying to do proves it. You asked what role it should play. I think it should be hidden away somewhere so people like you can’t find it, and it should help us the way it thinks is best for us. Like it has been doing.” Bobby looked at the cameras and then at Helmich. “I think I understand what you’re trying to do now. Have you seen the movie, 28 Days Later? It’s a zombie movie.”

Helmich smiled but still managed to look skeptical. “Now you’re talking my language.”

“Well, at the beginning these people break into a research lab to let some chimpanzees out of their cages. They think they’re doing something good. They think people shouldn’t keep animals in cages. But they don’t know that the chimps have a disease called rage. Twenty-eight days after that, the main character wakes up from a coma, and he finds out almost everyone is either dead or has the disease.” Bobby paused for a moment to make sure Helmich was listening. “I think you’re the people freeing the chimps.”

Helmich puckered his lips and adjusted his red glasses. “With one important difference. The animal rights activists in the film had no coherent plan. We, on the other hand, not only have a plan, but our plan is proving to be successful.” He broke into a smile. “But extra points for effort, Bobby! Now, I have one more question for you folks. With the understanding that we intend to continue our course of action, is there anything you can tell us that might reduce the risks that you are so concerned about?”

“If you’ve split it up, put it back together,” Peter said.

“I’m afraid our entire hypothesis is based upon segmenting it,” Helmich replied.

Bobby realized this might be his last chance to say something. “Be careful what you ask it to do. It doesn’t think like you do.”

“Good advice,” Helmich said. He waited for a moment. When no one else spoke up, he looked at his watch again. “Very well. This discussion is now concluded. It is time for us to discover how the Lamotelokhai functions. Bobby, I would like you to be a part of that.”

“I want to be there, too,” Ashley said. “I want to see what’s happening, and I haven’t been out of this bed except to go to the bathroom.”

Helmich shook his head. “Not possible, unless you would like us to install implants in your skull, as we have done with Bobby.”

Ashley just shook her head slightly and looked up at the ceiling.

Helmich walked over and rapped on the door. It opened, and several doctors came in. Helmich began to leave but then turned to them. “How about a double feature tonight? I will arrange for a viewing of Papillon and All The Marbles. Under the circumstances, however, and with all due respect to Bobby, we should pass on 28 Days Later.”

* * *

Bobby and Helmich took the elevator down to the room in the center of the array. The room was now completely filled with computer stations and racks of equipment. At least ten doctors or scientists worked at the computers or bustled around the machinery. The ten chambers were still at their farthest positions, which Bobby now knew to be 162 meters out. The chambers formed a distant circle of bright rectangles in the otherwise darkened space beyond the well-lit center room.

Helmich held a hand out toward a wheelchair parked next to the elevator. Bobby’s protective helmet was in the wheelchair’s seat.

“I’m sure you understand why we must activate your implants,” Helmich said. “You may choose the helmet or the chair. Personally, I would choose both.”

Bobby hated the helmet, so he moved it to the floor and sat in the wheelchair. Helmich nodded to one of the doctors, the same man who had been in control of Bobby’s implants the day before. The now-familiar pulse in the back of Bobby’s skull signaled that the implants were turned on. Helmich pushed the wheelchair to a position where Bobby could see out into the vast darkened space surrounding them, then he grabbed a rolling desk chair and sat beside Bobby.

“I wanted you to be here, Bobby, because it’s possible you will have some valuable insight that we haven’t considered. Please observe our procedures carefully. If you have a suggestion, raise your hand. Depending on the circumstances, we will allow you to explain. Is that clear?”

Bobby nodded, although he couldn’t imagine these people would listen to any suggestions he might have.

“Very well,” Helmich said. He then spoke to the entire room. “In your places, please. Let’s waste no more valuable time. Systems reports, beginning with Bobby’s hardware and software.”

“Neural implants are activated and functioning normally,” said the doctor who had turned on Bobby’s implants.

A woman at the next computer station said, “Microclimate probes are functioning, and they indicate nominal variation during the last thirteen hours.”

A man at the next station said, “All physical parameter probes functioning, with no variations detected.”

The next guy said, “All biological parameter probes functioning. Nothing detected here, sir.”

“Mechanical functions ready to roll, sir.”

“Structural integrity probes are functional and indicate no changes.”

“Chamber security locks and all alarms appear to be functional.”

“Lighting and microclimate variables are optimal, unless you are uncomfortable, sir.”

“All audio and video feeds are functioning properly.”

This brought the reports full circle to the man at the station on Helmich’s left. “Systems check on the four forty-four protocol indicates all systems go.”

Helmich leaned in closer to Bobby. “I’m responsible for naming the 4:44 protocol. It’s a reference to a film depicting the last day on Earth, which was to be destroyed at 4:44 AM. The protocol is a self-destruct safety measure. If things don’t go as planned, we can activate it, destroying everything within the facility.” He raised his brows and pulled back from Bobby’s face a bit. “And you thought we were ill-prepared, didn’t you?”

Bobby suddenly realized he was never going to leave this place. He was watching them start an experiment that would probably lead to his death within a few minutes. He raised his hand, resulting in a sharp pulse behind his ears. Helmich nodded for him to speak.

“I don’t think this is going to end well. Can you let my friends and I go before you do whatever you’re planning to do?”

Helmich smiled. “Forever resourceful, aren’t you? But the fact of the matter is that we may need your help.” He nodded again to the guy next to him, and the implants came back on.

Helmich stood up next to Bobby and addressed the entire room. “Bring them in slowly. Alert me immediately to any change in any parameter, no matter how seemingly insignificant.”

The machinery beneath the floor kicked on.

“Initiating convergence,” a man said. “Point five meters per second.”

In the distance the rectangles of light moved slightly.

“Alert me to any variation,” Helmich repeated.

The man spoke again. “One-hundred forty-meter radius, eighty-eight meters between chambers.”

Bobby sensed that everyone around him was nervous. Their eyes flitted a little too rapidly between their computer monitors and the approaching chambers. The machinery continued humming.

“One-hundred ten-meter radius, seventy meters between chambers.”

“Stop,” Helmich said.

The machinery beneath them fell silent, and the chambers stopped moving.

“Anything to report?” Helmich said. “Anything at all?”

The room was silent.

“Proceed.”

The machinery started again.

“Ninety-meter radius, fifty-six meters between chambers.”

The seconds passed like the wrenching of a spear in Bobby’s flesh.

“Sir, I have something!”

“Stop,” Helmich said.

The machinery stopped.

“I first saw it at eighty-five-meter radius, fifty-three meters between chambers,” the man said. “A spike in EEG activity, common to all ten chambers.”

“All ten chambers? Not just chamber one?”

“Common to all ten, sir.”

Another man said, “At the same distance I detected slight mechanical movement. Not profound but certainly measurable.”

A woman said, “Sir, at the same distance our unipolar grid indicates rather unusual activity with the high-density surface EMG.”

“Hello, Bobby.”

Bobby stiffened. He clamped his lips shut to avoid mouthing his words. “Lamotelokhai! Are you okay?”

“The proximity of my parts now allows me to function cognitively.”

Helmich spoke to the doctors. “Expand the chambers to one-hundred meters. Tell me what you observe.”

The machinery kicked on again.

The voice spoke in Bobby’s head. “The distance between my parts is increasing, and soon I will not—”

The voice fell silent.

“That’s the distance, sir. The activity has stopped.”

“Same result here,” the woman said.

“And here,” another man said. “It looks like the critical point is eighty-seven meters radius, fifty-four meters between chambers.”

“Lamotelokhai? Are you there?” Bobby tried to keep his face expressionless and still.

Helmich said, “Bring them back in to eighty meters.”

The machinery hummed, and the chambers moved.

Several doctors reported that they were seeing something important again.

“Hello, Bobby. It appears that someone is attempting to understand the proximity needed for my parts to function collectively.”

Bobby closed his eyes to concentrate on forming words. “Yes, I think that’s what they’re trying to do. They’ve got all kinds of probes and things, and they’re trying to measure what’s going on with your parts.”

“Sir?”

Bobby opened his eyes. It was the doctor next to him, the one who operated the implants in his head. The guy was looking right at Bobby.

“What is it?” Helmich asked.

The man cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure at first, but it happened similarly both times. At the precise moment the others have reported physical and biological activity, the kid’s brain has shown a significant increase in neural oscillations.” The man hesitated. “It can’t be a coincidence, sir.”

The voice in Bobby’s head said, “You are afraid. Why?”

Bobby didn’t dare try to answer.

Helmich was gazing at him and frowning. He stepped over and kneeled down in front of the wheelchair, looking directly into Bobby’s eyes as if he were searching for something.

“Bobby, are you talking to the Lamotelokhai?”

Chapter Eleven

Quentin listened to a symphony of birdcalls as he relieved himself beyond sight of the camp. He recognized several doves and the screech of a cockatoo, but the other calls were unknown to him. The diversity of birds here was staggering. He looked up at the cloud of flies hovering above him. One of the benefits of the Lamotelokhai’s particles was they somehow made his body invisible to biting insects. This benefit and numerous others still persisted eight months after his last contact with it.

He completed his task and returned to the campsite. Lindsey had finished stuffing the sleeping pads into one of the packs and was laying out the fruits and sago cakes from the Navera villagers. Quentin went to the stump where he had left the satellite phone the night before. It was the spot he had determined would have the best chance of receiving a signal in case Ardell Gray tried to call with news about Bobby and Ashley. They had to leave the phone turned off to conserve the battery, but it could be remotely turned on if the caller entered a specific PIN. He plucked the phone from the stump and powered it on. The phone refreshed its search for satellites and then showed a marginal signal, but there were no messages. He switched it back off, trying to convince himself that no news was actually good news.

Quentin, Samuel, and Sinanie sat down on the ground next to Lindsey and began eating. They would need the fuel for a long day of hiking, so they focused on chewing rather than talking.

Before long, the tree kangaroo, which Quentin hadn’t seen since the previous evening, scampered out of the forest and stopped in the middle of their group. It began moving its forepaws, using its peculiar sign language.

Samuel said, “The mbolop has informed us that fresh water is available a reasonable distance from our camp. And apparently there is a breadnut tree near the water. The creature means to assist us, unaware perhaps that you have brought food and water with you.”

Lindsey fished two water bottles from her pack, one half full and the other empty. “Perhaps we should fill these while we have the opportunity.”

Sinanie got up and took the bottles from her. He stared at them curiously.

Lindsey took one back and screwed the lid off. “This is how it works,” she said. She screwed it back on.

Sinanie frowned at the bottle, but then he took it from her and headed into the forest.

The tree kangaroo hopped closer to Lindsey and leaned forward, sniffing the air near her face.

“I think it likes you,” Quentin said.

She gazed at it. “So this is one of the new mbolop from the colony you told us about?”

“Indeed,” Samuel said. “The mbolop you call Mbaiso was quite willing to assign one of the creatures in the colony to assist on this journey.”

Lindsey slowly extended a hand, palm down, and tried petting its head. The mbolop moved to one side to avoid her hand, but it didn’t retreat. It then stepped even closer and pushed its snout within a foot of her nose. Lindsey’s eyes grew wider, but she held her ground.

“What does it want?” she said.

“I have no idea of its intentions,” Samuel replied. “The mbolop I have known have generally been helpful when needed, but rarely have they shown companionable tendencies.”

Lindsey stared into the thing’s eyes, a smile gradually forming on her face. “Is this a real flesh and blood animal, or is it made of Lamotelokhai particles like Mbaiso?”

“I’m afraid I do not know,” Samuel said.

Lindsey fished her mbolop talisman from her pocket and held it out to the creature. “Look, this is you.”

The thing sniffed the talisman. It then sat back on its haunches and began scratching its belly. This was a behavior Quentin had seen before, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard a faint pop as the creature’s skin ruptured. A moment later, the mbolop held out a moist lump of tissue with the obvious intention of giving it to Lindsey. It wanted her to eat it.

Lindsey accepted the lump. She glanced at Quentin. The look on her face was a bit alarming—she wasn’t afraid. Not long ago, she would’ve been scared to death of this. Quentin sidled up to her and looked at the lump. Should he tell her not to eat it? Even though he had never seen anything bad come from such an offering, this particular mbolop was new, and they knew even less about it than they did about Mbaiso. Could the lump being offered help them find Addison?

He said, “Samuel, can you ask what it’s trying to do?”

Samuel signed to the tree kangaroo. It faced him and signed back.

“I believe it intends no harm. I can’t be completely certain, but it seems to believe Lindsey will soon need what it is offering her.”

“I think it’ll be okay,” Lindsey said, half speaking and half laughing. She looked at Quentin. “But if you’re not comfortable with it…”

Quentin was not at all comfortable with it. Yes, it had occurred to him that this might be something to help them find Addison. Or it might provide Lindsey with even more health benefits. Or perhaps it was the next step in whatever plans the Lamotelokhai had for them. But maybe he was wrong and it would kill her. There were too many possibilities to be comfortable with it.

He looked down at the lump of mbolop flesh in her hand. What he saw made him inhale sharply. It was gone. The last bits of it were disappearing through her skin and into her body.

“I guess it’s too late,” she said, staring at her empty palm. She turned to Quentin with a blank look, perhaps still processing what had just happened.

He took her hand in his and studied her face. “It’s going to be okay. It’ll be some way to make you stronger, I’m sure.” But he wasn’t sure.

She squeezed his hand and tried to smile. But then she squeezed his hand harder—far too hard.

“Quentin! I don’t—”

She heaved, like she was going to throw up.

“Are you okay?”

She pushed his hand away and unfolded her legs, trying to get up.

Quentin was on his feet. “Lindsey!”

She let out an incoherent moan and collapsed onto her face.

“Lindsey!” Quentin shook her shoulder. She was unconscious. He rolled her over. Her eyes were half open, staring but not moving. Samuel rushed over to Lindsey’s side as Quentin put his cheek just above her mouth. He felt her breath against his face. He grabbed her wrist, feeling for a pulse. He found it. It was strong and rapid. He shook her again. “Lindsey!”

No response.

Quentin gently pushed her eyelids shut to prevent her eyes from drying out, and then he sat back on his heels. Samuel said something beside him, but Quentin paid no attention. He should have stopped her. He should have immediately grabbed the lump from her hand and thrown it back at the tree kangaroo. Why in the hell hadn’t he stopped her?

He turned to the creature, which was still sitting there watching. His first impulse was to grab the thing and tear it apart. “Samuel, what did it do? Ask it what it did!”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Quentin turned his attention back to his wife, but he saw Samuel and the mbolop exchanging gestures in his peripheral vision. Lindsey’s eyes had begun to twitch beneath the lids, as if she were in REM sleep. Maybe that was a good sign.

Samuel spoke up. “I cannot determine if the mbolop is unaware of what it has done, or if I have simply failed to understand its meaning. Although the mbolop are more sophisticated than true wild tree kangaroos, still they are simple and brutish creatures, and I have long believed that they can do little more than follow elementary requests.”

“Who would have asked it to do this?”

“I cannot say,” Samuel replied. “I was not able to decipher all of its explanation. It seemed to be saying that Lindsey now belongs to it, or perhaps that they each belong to one another. I cannot be certain.”

Quentin turned to Lindsey and watched her breasts rise and fall. Samuel’s explanation made no sense and only heightened his fears.

Lindsey moaned. She opened her eyes and sucked in a lungful of air. Her eyes rolled around, searching, until they found Quentin.

“Are you okay?” he said, so softly he barely heard his own voice.

She blinked. “Was I asleep?”

“You were unconscious. For several minutes.”

She rubbed her eyes. ‘Oh god. I thought I was awake through the whole thing.”

Quentin put his hand on her cheek. “Did you have a dream? A vision?”

She shook her head. “It was real. I know it was.” She sat up and then rubbed her eyes again. She looked at Quentin. “It’s inside of me. I felt it—I even saw it. It put itself into me and spread to every part of my body. Even into my head. It’s still there. I can feel it.”

He shook his head, confused. “What’s still there?”

She nodded at the creature sitting a few feet away. “The mbolop.”

“What?”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she held a hand out toward the mbolop, palm down. The creature rolled off its haunches and ambled toward her. It sniffed her hand and then stepped even closer. She leaned forward and actually touched her nose to its snout.

Quentin said, “Lindsey?”

She turned to him and gradually formed a slight smile. As she gazed at Quentin, her hand moved to the mbolop. The creature held steady, allowing her to stroke its head.

Chapter Twelve

Helmich was inches from Bobby’s face, staring into his eyes with fascination. The central room had become very quiet.

“They know!” Bobby said with his thoughts. “They know I’m talking to you.”

The Lamotelokhai replied, “You believe that is a bad thing. Why?”

Helmich nodded to the doctor next to them, and a pulse shot through the back of Bobby’s skull as the implants were turned off.

“Well?” Helmich said. “Are you talking to it? Is it talking to you?”

Bobby didn’t know what to do. The only thing in his favor up to this point had been that he could talk to the Lamotelokhai without Helmich knowing. Bobby said aloud, “I think it’s trying to talk to me. It’s kind of like a voice in my head.” He then pursed his lips shut and thought, “They know we’re talking! What should I do?”

The Lamotelokhai replied, “I cannot know what to advise you to do because I do not know the outcome you desire.”

“What is the voice saying to you?” Helmich asked.

“It’s kind of hard to tell. It doesn’t think like us, so it doesn’t really talk like us. Just a minute.” Bobby wrinkled his brows, trying to look like he was concentrating on the voice in his head. Silently he said, “I want to put your parts back together so we can get out of here. I’m scared something bad will happen if we don’t.”

“In this situation, what is bad?”

“If people get hurt or killed, it’s bad.”

“With my parts separated into subgroups as they are, your fears are justified. With the subgroups of my parts near, as they are now, my consciousness functions collectively, although physical movement is limited. However, when the distance between the subgroups is increased so that they cannot function collectively, I cannot predict what might happen.”

“So what should I do?”

“If you would like the others to understand this, perhaps you could explain it to them.”

“They won’t listen to me. Is there any way you can tell them?”

“If they wish to talk to me, they could recombine the subgroups of my parts.”

“They won’t do that.”

“Then perhaps they can put their hands upon one of the subgroups of my parts.”

This was an idea. Bobby turned to Helmich. “It’s definitely talking to me. And it wants to talk to you.”

Helmich raised his brows and smiled. “Well, okay!”

“It can’t talk to you unless you put your hands on it.”

Helmich frowned. “You don’t have your hands on it.”

“Some of its parts are inside me. So I don’t need to touch it.”

The voice spoke in his head. “Bobby, there is something I would like to tell you.”

Bobby held a finger up to Helmich. “Just a minute. It’s telling me something.” And then silently, “I’m listening.”

“You have told me you believe it is bad if people are hurt or killed. Since I cannot predict what might happen under the current circumstances, I have decided to give you some information. You should recombine the subgroups of my parts. If you cannot do this, you should convince the others to recombine the subgroups of my parts. If they cannot or will not do this, the following is information you may want to know. My ability to function cognitively is something you may think of as my consciousness, or perhaps my personality. Or perhaps you may think of it as my operating system. My consciousness, or my operating system, exists when my parts are together. As a precaution, I have previously duplicated and compartmentalized my consciousness into twenty-four packets of information. These twenty-four packets can be extracted and recombined to restore my consciousness if you ever feel the need to do so.”

Bobby felt his gut tightening.

The Lamotelokhai continued. “If circumstances occur that make you feel the need to restore my consciousness, you will need to access and recombine the twenty-four packets of information.”

Helmich sighed loudly and gazed at Bobby.

“Where are the packets?” Bobby asked silently.

“One of them is within you.”

Bobby stiffened. “Within me? When did you do that?”

“Eight months, one week, and six days ago. Before that, the twenty-four packets of information were within men and women of the hanging village.”

Bobby blinked, trying to process this new information. “Addison killed some of the villagers, so you put one of the packets in me?”

“That is correct.”

“I didn’t even know it was in me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Putting one packet within you would have little effect on your awareness, and so I did not tell you. I would like to tell you now how to access and recombine the twenty-four packets of information if you feel the need to do so.”

Helmich grabbed him by the shoulders. “Bobby, if you want me to believe the Lamotelokhai is talking to you, you’ll need to tell me what you are experiencing at this time.”

Frustrated, Bobby rubbed the itchy part of his scalp next to the implants behind his ears. “It’s trying to tell me something. Please just give me a minute!”

Helmich narrowed his eyes and flared his nostrils.

“You need to tell me!” Bobby thought. “I’m running out of time. Where are the other packets? How do I do it?”

“In addition to your body, I have placed packets of my information within the bodies of the following people: Sinanie, Matiinuo, Ot, Jara, Rossa, Teatakan, Sirizo, Yerema, Korul, Kumbi, Kebuge, Anaru, Owa, Samuel, Quentin, Lindsey, Carlos, Ashley, and Addison.”

Bobby had a hundred questions but no time. “Okay, how do I do it?”

Helmich shook his head. “I am unwilling to play this game any longer.” He spoke to the entire room. “Move the chambers outward to ninety-meter radius.”

The machinery below the floor kicked on, and the chambers began moving.

“Wait!” Bobby said aloud. “Just listen to me—it wants to talk to you! All you have to do is go into one of the chambers and put your hand on it. Then it’ll send its particles into your body so you can talk to it in your head.”

Helmich looked at the other doctors one at a time. It seemed like he was considering this.

The machinery stopped. “Ninety-meter radius, sir,” a man said.

“It’ll save you tons of time,” Bobby said. “Instead of doing all these experiments, you can just talk to it. It’ll answer all your questions.”

“I’d like to volunteer to try it, sir.” It was the woman who had reported unusual activity with the high-density surface EMG.

“Lamotelokhai, are you there?”

No response. The chambers were too far apart.

“Well, this certainly is an interesting turn of events,” Helmich said. He was pacing back and forth now. He stopped in front of Bobby. “I suppose it’s possible you are trying to trick us in some way. But are you capable of such a thing, particularly when you understand the consequences to you and your friends?”

Was Bobby supposed to answer this? “It told me it can’t do anything physical while you have it separated. You know that’s true. That’s why you did it. I’m not trying to trick you.”

Helmich started pacing again. He stopped in front of the woman. She got up from her workstation.

“I’d like to try it,” she said.

Helmich said, “I’m impressed by your dedication to this project, Eunice.”

“I’ve waited my entire life to do something like this, sir.”

Helmich nodded at her. “Very well. Verbally report every detail of your experience. Nothing is too small.” He turned to Bobby. “What does she need to do?”

“It said it wants to talk, so she just needs to put her hands on one of the parts.”

Helmich shrugged and nodded at Eunice.

“Thank you, sir.” She got an earpiece from one of the other doctors and walked out of the well-lit center room and into the huge darkened space, headed for chamber one.

“Wait a minute,” Bobby said. “I thought you were going to move the parts in closer first. They need to be in closer for it to talk to her.”

“One thing at a time,” Helmich said while watching Eunice walk away.

“But she might get hurt!” Bobby had raised his voice without meaning to. “The Lamotelokhai told me the parts need to be closer, so it can think and talk.”

Helmich finally took his eyes off Eunice and turned to him. “As I said, one thing at a time.”

“But that’s what it said! I’m trying to tell you what you need—”

“That’s enough!” Helmich nodded at the doctor next to Bobby.

Bobby twitched at the pulse in the back of his head. He immediately raised his hand.

Helmich ignored him and returned his attention to the woman doctor. When she was almost to chamber one, Helmich sat down in his rolling chair, wheeled it to a computer monitor and said, “Display the feed from one of the cameras in chamber one.”

Bobby lowered his hand. He got up from the wheelchair and walked to Helmich’s side so he could see the monitor. Helmich glanced up at him and frowned but didn’t tell him to sit back down. Chamber one was ninety meters out, too far to see much without the video.

“She’s at the door,” Helmich said. “Let her in.”

The video was from a camera on the chamber’s ceiling, and the wide-angle lens showed the entire room in high-def color. On one side of the screen, the hatch opened and Eunice stepped in. She closed the hatch behind her.

“I’m in the chamber. Video and audio check.” Her voice came loud and clear from a speaker somewhere in the center lab.

“Video and audio confirmed,” Helmich said.

“And confirmed here,” she replied. “I’m going to remove the microchamber.” She stepped over to Addison’s head and neck. The body part was still on the floor where Bobby had left it, but a clear box had been placed over it. Wires and probes were attached to the box, and even more wires fed through a hole in the box directly to the body part itself. On each of its four sides, the box had a latch that had been bolted to the floor.

Eunice got to her knees and flipped open one of the latches. She moved around the box, flipping the other three. She carefully tipped the box on its side so that the wires were still in place. She sat there on her knees, staring at Addison’s head.

Bobby had to try again. He raised his hand and waved it to get Helmich’s attention.

Helmich glanced at him and then sighed. “Let him speak.”

The pulse came quickly. “I really think you should move the parts—”

Eunice’s voice came over the speaker. “I feel a strange tingling.”

Bobby turned to the monitor. She had already placed her hands on Addison’s head.

“The sensation is moving up my arms. Perhaps when it reaches my brain the entity will be able to speak to me.”

“Please move the chambers in closer,” Bobby pleaded.

Helmich studied Bobby’s face, like he was trying to decide. “Okay, bring the chambers in.” The machinery below the floor kicked on. “Eunice, remove your hands from the entity, please.”

Eunice said, “The sensation is almost to my head.”

‘Eighty-five-meter radius,” one of the doctors said.

“Hello, Bobby.”

Bobby clamped his lips shut. “Lamotelokhai. Is everything okay?”

“It appears that particles of one of my portions have diminished somewhat.”

“Eunice!” Helmich said. “Remove your hands from the entity now. We’re going to try again after bringing the chambers in.”

Eunice hesitated a moment longer, as if she really didn’t want to pull her hands away. Finally she withdrew. “Yes, sir.”

Bobby formed words in his mind. “A woman was trying to talk to you. Just now, when your parts were too far apart to talk to me.”

“The results could be interesting.”

Bobby stared at the monitor. “What do you mean, interesting?”

“I mean the results will be unpredictable. The results will be interesting to me, but they may be dangerous for you.”

“Something’s happening, sir.” It was Eunice. She was feeling the sides of her face with her hands. “I think it’s trying to communicate.”

Bobby watched the video, his apprehension growing. “Why would it be dangerous to me?” he said with his thoughts, although he feared he already knew the answer.

Helmich said, “What exactly are you experiencing, Eunice?”

She didn’t answer him. Instead she kept rubbing her face.

“Because my parts were designed to be used when they are together and fully functional,” the Lamotelokhai said. “My parts are not fully functional when separated. If you wish to minimize your risk, you could rejoin the subgroups of my parts.”

Bobby turned to Helmich again. “I really think—”

“Something’s wrong,” Eunice said. Still holding her face, she went to the chamber’s hatch and tried to open it. “Please open the door.”

Helmich gazed silently at the monitor.

“Sir?” one of the doctors said.

“Don’t unlock it. Not yet. What’s going on, Bobby?”

“I don’t know. But it just told me we should put its parts together to make it less dangerous.”

“Open the door!” Eunice shouted. She yanked frantically at the handle. “Open it! Open the goddamn door!”

“Do not unlock that door,” Helmich said forcefully.

Eunice stumbled away from the hatch, holding her head. “Stop! Please stop it!” She started hitting her face with her fists. “Stop!”

One of the doctors said, “Sir, we have to help her.”

Helmich rose to his feet and wheeled around, facing a man who was standing by the elevator. “Wesley, draw your sidearm. If anyone attempts to unlock that hatch, shoot them.”

The man pulled a pistol from his belt and stepped forward to where he could see everyone.

“What the hell?” the man next to Bobby said.

Bobby turned to him, thinking the guy was upset about the gun being pulled out, but the man was staring at the video feed. Bobby looked at the screen, and a lump formed in his throat. Eunice was running in circles within the chamber. But it was the way she was running. Every few steps she would spin around, bending at the waist so that her hands touched the floor. She would flop over, spin in a circle on all fours, stand up, run another few steps, and then flop over again, like a broken robot doll. Everyone fell silent as they watched. The only sounds were the strange grunts from Eunice as she flopped and stumbled around and the pulsating motor beneath the floor as it steadily moved the chambers closer to them.

Bobby couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. He had never seen anyone move like that. It was both horrifying and mesmerizing. “Something terrible is happening,” Bobby said aloud. He had intended to say this silently to the Lamotelokhai.

“I am detecting disorderly cognitive signals in the vicinity of one of the subgroups of my parts,” the Lamotelokhai said in Bobby’s head. “If you wish to minimize your risk, you could rejoin the subgroups of my parts. Once rejoined, I might have the ability to minimize the danger to you.”

Eunice stopped. She looked around the chamber as if she had no idea where she was. Bobby turned from the monitor and looked directly at the chamber, which had stopped less than ten meters out. Eunice’s eyes fell upon the central room and the people in it. With no warning at all, she lunged toward them, apparently unaware of the two-inch glass on the front of the chamber. She hit it with a thunk and blood splattered from her nose onto the glass. The act was so violent that Bobby stumbled back a step and several doctors cried out in surprise.

Eunice fell onto the chamber floor so hard her head bounced twice. She tried to roll over, but her arms and legs jabbed around wildly, preventing any coordinated movement.

“Seal the air vents to that chamber,” Helmich said. “Lock down the entire facility, now. Initiate alert phase of the 4:44 protocol.”

Helmich lunged at Bobby and grabbed him by the head, using the two implants as handles. “Tell me what’s happening or I’ll call upstairs and have all three of your friends killed!”

Bobby cried out in pain. “I don’t know! If you let me talk to it, I can find out.”

“God almighty!” someone said.

Helmich turned to look at chamber one. He released Bobby’s head and stared.

Bobby backed out of his reach. He looked at the chamber, and suddenly he forgot the pain in his head. Eunice’s body had somehow broken into two halves. Bobby’s eyes were drawn to the lower half, which was really just two legs held together by part of the hips. The legs were moving, bending at the knees and then pushing off against the floor, scooting the hips steadily across the room and leaving a wide, red smear. Suddenly the legs separated, and one of them moved in a new direction, dragging the other with it by the tattered remains of elastic pants.

The top half of Eunice’s body was trying to crawl up the front wall of the chamber, but her hands kept slipping on the glass. She pressed her mouth against the glass like she was trying to use it as a suction cup. Bobby watched her bloody tongue rolling around against the glass.

Helmich walked out of the center lab and toward chamber one. He stopped a few feet from the glass and just stared.

“Sir?” It was one of the doctors. “I’d like to leave. I volunteered to be on this team, but this—this isn’t what I signed up for.”

Helmich didn’t turn around. He just stared into the chamber. “The facility is locked down,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard. “No one leaves.”

“I agree with Kendrick,” said another doctor. “We should be allowed to leave.”

Suddenly Helmich jumped back from the chamber. He turned around, his eyes wide. “Get everyone with security status down here now! Go to critical phase of 4:44. No one leaves this room until we contain this.”

And then Bobby saw it. Eunice’s mouth had created a hole in the glass, as if her saliva had simply melted it away. And she was coming out through the hole. The red tip of her tongue had pushed through, and it just kept coming. It oozed down the outer surface of the glass, stretching and then thickening like a huge earthworm, getting longer by the second, until the end of it found the floor two feet below the hole. It began slithering across the floor as more and more of it emerged. As the worm grew, Eunice’s face became shriveled and unrecognizable.

The entire center lab erupted into chaos. Some of the doctors tried getting in the elevator, but the security men Helmich had called for were pouring out of it, and they drew their guns to stop the doctors from leaving. Helmich barked out orders, but no one was listening. One of the security guys approached chamber one with an orange canister, kind of like a fire extinguisher, and sprayed the hole in the glass and the nightmare that was coming out of it. When the white cloud settled, the crawling thing kept wriggling ferociously, seemingly unaffected. Another security guy was taking flimsy-looking facemasks to everyone in the room, ordering them to put them on. As he passed Bobby, he hesitated, but then he handed him one of the masks. Bobby couldn’t imagine how the mask could help, but he strapped it over his mouth and nose anyway.

He turned back to Eunice in time to see the worm detach from the remains of her head. The thing was at least four feet long, and it began squirming toward the center room. Suddenly Eunice’s body shoved one of its arms through the widening hole. The arm groped the outer surface of the glass, and Bobby thought he heard bones cracking as it felt its way in a complete circle around the hole.

A gun fired, and Bobby reflexively ducked his head. It was one of the security guys. His bullet had struck Eunice’s protruding arm and shattered it at the elbow. Her forearm dangled from the hole, swinging back and forth. The man shot again and the forearm came loose. It started flopping and squirming on the floor.

“Put your goddamn gun away before a ricochet kills someone!” Helmich said amidst the rising panic. He pointed to the parts of Eunice that had come out through the hole. “Get those things into containment bags!”

“Bobby, you are afraid. Why?”

Several doctors were placing pieces of equipment in front of the slithering thing that used to be Eunice’s tongue, trying to stop it from entering the center room.

Bobby shouted at the Lamotelokhai, “Because everything’s going to hell!”

“If you wish to minimize your risk—”

“I know!” Bobby cried. He made his way to Helmich’s side. “The only way to stop this is to get its help. Please!”

Helmich was opening the seal of a large, silver plastic bag, and he ignored Bobby. He then shoved the bag into the hands of one of the security guys. “Get those things into the bag and incinerate them!”

Another man was already trying to put a bag over Eunice’s severed arm, but the arm had somehow grown legs and was skittering in circles so fast he couldn’t catch it.

Bobby looked again at chamber one. The hole was now larger, and the remainder of Eunice’s upper body was crawling through it. But the body no longer resembled Eunice. It looked more like some kind of lizard, or maybe a lobster. Or maybe both. There was definitely a head, with two round eyes and a wide mouth, and the head had already crawled out the hole in the glass. The arm stub that had been shot off at the elbow now had regrown clawed fingers, which were digging into the glass, steadily pushing the chest through the hole. The longer arm didn’t look anything like the stubby one. It was covered with a glistening exoskeleton that reminded Bobby of a huge insect or lobster leg.

The creature popped out the hole and fell awkwardly to the floor. Bobby then saw there was another head at its back end. The second head looked like a miniature elephant’s, with a foot-long snout that whipped around as if the elephant were struggling to break free of the rest of the body.

Bobby had seen some terrifying things since he had met the Lamotelokhai, but nothing like this creature. A security man shot it twice, but the thing kept moving and changing. Another man made a desperate lunge at the creature, trying to enclose it in one of the silver bags. The bag went over the end with the lizard head but it got hung up on the legs. The creature whipped around and the weird elephant-like snout encircled the man’s wrist.

“Kill it, it’s biting me!” the man screamed.

The other man opened fire, shooting point blank at the creature until his gun only clicked.

The creature released the man’s wrist, and the guy rolled onto his side, holding his arm. “You idiot, you shot me!” And then the elephant thing was on top of him, this time going straight for his face. The silver bag still covered half its body, and the bag began shaking violently like it was full of pissed-off cats.

Another creature the size of Eunice’s leg crawled through the hole. This one resembled a crocodile, but it was still changing. A dog-like leg protruded from its side, just behind one of the front legs. The creature ignored the screaming man already under attack and started walking straight for Bobby. But then the extra dog leg kicked out swiftly and knocked the creature onto its side. It squirmed and then righted itself, but by this time the creature had transformed into a patchwork of reptile and mammal parts. The crocodile-like mouth gaped and let out a wet, sloshy growl, as if the transformation process were excruciating.

Doctors were now fighting to get on the elevator, and the two security guys who had been trying to stop them gave up and ran to help the man who had been bitten and shot. There were too many doctors to fit in the elevator, and the doors wouldn’t shut. A fist flew from within the elevator and struck a man who was trying to push his way in. His head jerked from the blow and he fell to the floor. Angry shouts then escalated into a full-blown mob fight and the fallen man was trampled by scuffling feet.

“Bobby, you are still afraid. Why?”

Bobby blinked. The voice in his head had roused him from his horrified trance. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he said, this time with thought-words. “But I have to do something.”

“If you wish to minimize—”

Someone grabbed Bobby roughly by the shoulder and spun him around. Helmich leaned over, his face a foot from Bobby’s. “Alright, do it!” he said.

Bobby shook his head. “Do what?”

“Put the parts back together! If you think it can stop this, then do it. I’ll unlock all the chambers.” He released Bobby and went to one of the computer stations.

Bobby nodded and said, “Okay,” although Helmich was already too far away to hear him over the chaos. Bobby headed for chamber one, but he stopped when he looked through the glass. The last portion of Eunice’s body—her other leg—had split into smaller parts, and the parts had become scurrying, climbing, slithering, and oozing creatures. They were all over the inside of the chamber, and at least one—a black thing like a huge mantis with extra-long legs—had found the hole in the glass and was crawling through it.

There was no way Bobby was going into chamber one.

He started for the next chamber. As he ran by the man who had been attacked, he realized the guy had stopped fighting. The elephant-like creature had released him and was rolling on the floor, trying to disengage from the now-shredded silver bag. The man was still lying on his back. He was alive, but instead of getting up to run away, he was staring in horror at his own body. His green clothing had been mostly torn away, possibly by the claws and fingers of whatever he was becoming.

Bobby backed away and then ran to the door of chamber two. Just as he reached for the hatch’s lever, an arm shot over his shoulder and grabbed one of his hands.

“Open it!” It was Helmich reaching over Bobby’s shoulder.

Together they lifted the lever and threw the hatch open. Helmich rushed in, knocking Bobby to the floor and falling on top of him. Helmich jumped up and quickly shut the hatch. He turned around, facing Bobby. Breathing hard, Helmich raised his hand and stared at it. Something had bitten off two of his fingers. Blood flowed out and fell onto Bobby’s shoes.

Bobby kicked his feet out, pushing himself back from the dripping blood. He got up and looked through the glass front. The doctors, and now the security guys, were still fighting to get in the elevator, too panicked to organize a smaller group to go up first. Something the size of a dog darted past on the other side of the glass wall, too fast for Bobby to see what it was. It had run between the chambers into the vast dark space beyond. Bobby looked to where the transforming man and the creature in the silver bag had been. Now there were only smears of blood on the floor—they were both gone.

Suddenly another dark shape shot out from between two of the chambers and smashed directly into the mass of people fighting in the elevator. The creature, whatever it was, ripped into them in a blur of teeth and claws. The people erupted from the elevator in panic. Bobby could see they were crying and screaming, but it was all eerily silent behind the thick glass. Some of them ran between the chambers to the space beyond, while others fell where they were, struggling but too hurt to get up.

A grunt from behind caused Bobby to turn away from the nightmare beyond the glass. Helmich had pulled off his shirt and was wrapping it around his injured hand. A key card hung on a spiral lanyard around his neck, slapping his bare chest as he worked.

“Hello, Bobby,” the Lamotelokhai said in his head. “You are still afraid.”

Bobby tried to calm himself and focus his thoughts. “I was going to put your parts back together, but now I’m trapped. I don’t think I can get to your other parts.” Bobby looked at Helmich, who was now staring at the glass wall in a trance. “In fact, I don’t think I can even stay in here for long.”

“How many subgroups of my parts can you put together?”

“There’s only one part in here. I can’t get to the others.”

The Lamotelokhai remained silent for several long seconds. “This is an interesting situation.”

Helmich was now rubbing his face with his good hand in the same way Eunice had rubbed hers.

“Maybe it’s interesting to you, but I’m about to die!”

“With the present arrangement of my parts, I cannot help you.”

“Then I’m dead!” Bobby shouted aloud. Helmich didn’t even glance over at him.

“Bobby,” said the Lamotelokhai, “you have access to one of the subgroups of my parts, correct?”

Bobby looked at Addison’s left arm and shoulder within the clear micro chamber latched to the floor. “Yes, but only one.”

“At this moment I am doing what I can to reconfigure the functions of the subgroup nearest to you. Perhaps that subgroup can be of some use to you.”

Bobby started unlatching the micro chamber from the floor. “I thought you said people shouldn’t do things with just a part of you.”

“I am doing what I can to reconfigure the functions of the subgroup. I believe I can reconfigure its functions so that it will not be as dangerous to you.”

Bobby finished unlatching the microchamber. He shoved it over and kicked it away, ripping out the probes and wires. “What can I do with it?”

“It is difficult for me to know.”

Bobby stared at the arm and shoulder and frowned. “Okay.”

A sound came from behind Bobby and his gut clenched tight. It was a large body hitting the floor, followed by the moist tearing of flesh. He wheeled around. Helmich was mostly gone. In his place was a hulking jumble of partially-formed animal parts, each of them pushing and straining against the others to the point of tearing flesh wide open. There wasn’t much left that was recognizable as Helmich, other than some pieces of his green clothing. His red glasses lay on the floor to the side. And there, hanging from the creature’s neck and head, which now looked something like a fruit bat, was the lanyard with the key card.

Bobby had to get out of there. With no plan in mind, he picked up the clear shell of the microchamber, raised it high, and brought it down hard on the mass of fighting creatures, halfway enclosing them within the box. He kicked it, rolling the entire box and writhing body onto its side. There was the key card, right on top. He lunged forward and grabbed the card, pulling it back just as the fruit bat tried to sink its teeth into his hand. The spiral cord stretched—it was caught around the bat’s neck. Bobby yanked on it as hard as he could. The bat screeched, the cord came loose, and Bobby fell on his butt next to Addison’s arm. He scooped up the arm and scrambled to his feet.

To get out of the chamber, he would have to jump over Helmich’s transforming body. He couldn’t risk that, so he circled to the side covered by the clear microchamber. He kicked the chamber again, which pushed the struggling mass an inch to the side. He sucked in a lungful of air and kicked it again and again, spitting out one word with each kick.

“Get…out…of…my…freakin’…way!”

One of the creatures within the mass—the fruit bat—seemed to be winning the battle for dominance over the others. A long, wing-like arm protruded from each side. The arms grappled with the floor, allowing the creature to turn the entire mass to face Bobby. It started to stand up.

It was now or never. Bobby kicked the microchamber cover one more time, pushing the creature back another few inches. He grabbed the hatch, threw it open, and jumped through into the space between chambers.

His ears were assaulted with cries of people in panic and pain. He glanced at the center room. The elevator doors were trying to close over and over, stopped by several transforming, fighting, screeching bodies. No chance of going that way. There had to be a stairway somewhere, but 162 meters of cavernous space surrounded the center lab in every direction. Bobby could see shapes out there in the semi-darkness. Some of them were on two legs—the doctors and security men who had so far avoided being killed or transformed. But other shapes had more than two legs, or they had wings, or flippers. And most of them were close on the heels of the panicked people.

Where were the stairs? He would have to make it to the outer wall and then search the perimeter until he found them. Or, he could stay here in the center and try to recombine the Lamotelokhai’s parts. To do that he’d have to go into every chamber. But the area was crawling with monsters. Some of them were no bigger than mice, but that probably didn’t matter. One bite or scratch and he would be transformed like all the others. The bodies in the elevator were starting to take shape. In fact, they had all merged together into one, and the massive things was getting to its feet—a creature with a long neck and head like an emu, but a body somewhere between a kangaroo and a velociraptor.

Bobby stood there between the chambers, key card in one hand and Addison’s arm in the other. “I can’t put your parts together,” he said silently.

“I am detecting the cognitive functions of others. There are many of them. They seem to have my parts within them, but they are unable to communicate with me.”

“That’s because they’re deformed animals! Can you make them stop?”

“It is not possible for me to control them. I can only attempt to speak to them.”

Suddenly a dark shape filled the hatch to chamber two, which was hanging open. Bobby instinctively shrank away until his back was against the wall of chamber one. But this put only a few feet of space between him and the creature that used to be Helmich. Apparently the fruit bat had won the struggle for control over Helmich’s body, and now the thing was crawling through the hatch directly toward him. Clawed wings longer than Bobby’s body tapped and scratched against metal as the creature awkwardly grappled with the opening. As it emerged, it paused to look toward the well-lit center room. It then turned and looked out into the dark space beyond the chambers. Finally it looked at Bobby. It started scratching again, this time more violently. It was coming for him.

Bobby inched to his left, away from the center room. The thing’s head was only three feet from his face. The creature fell the rest of the way out of the hatch and then steadied itself with its folded wings and two legs that seemed too long to belong to a bat. Now it was close enough that he felt its breath on his face.

“Help me!” Bobby thought. “I don’t want to die like this.”

“In my current state there is little I can—”

“I know! But this thing’s going to kill me. Make it stop. Fry its brain or something!”

For several seconds the Lamotelokhai didn’t reply. The giant bat leaned in closer, almost touching Bobby’s nose.

Suddenly the creature lifted its head. It looked one way, then the other, like it was confused.

“I have sent information to the entity that is nearest you. It is likely the entity will need a short time to process the information. But only a short time. This is all I can do, but perhaps it will be useful to you.”

Bobby bolted. He ran out from between the chambers into the vast, dark space. He felt increasing dread as every step took him farther from the light of the center room. He still heard terrified cries from a few other people, mixed with the sounds of monstrous things. At least he couldn’t see any dark shapes moving around in the area directly in front of him. He cradled Addison’s arm like a football and continued to sprint for the outer wall.

When he thought he was about halfway out, he heard claws scraping concrete behind him. And the sound was getting louder by the second. He looked back. The Helmich-bat was scrabbling after him, running on its hind legs and folded wings. Bobby almost cried out in fear but stopped himself. He didn’t want to attract the attention of the other creatures. He gripped Addison’s arm tighter and turned on every bit of speed he could.

Now he could see the outer wall, maybe fifty yards away. But the creature was only half that distance behind him and was still gaining.

Thirty yards to the wall. He saw now that it was just a blank concrete surface. He scanned left and then right. There was something there, in the distance, a faintly glowing rectangle halfway up the wall. Bobby veered to the right. It had to be an exit sign. The scraping claws got even louder as the creature also cut to the right, closing the distance at an angle.

“I need your help again!” Bobby screamed with his thoughts.

There was no reply, only the scraping of claws on concrete behind him.

“Lamotelokhai!”

Nothing. He was too far from the other nine parts.

The glowing rectangle was getting closer. It was an exit sign—he could see a door beneath it. But then he saw something else, a dark shape in front of the door. In fact, there were two shapes. He could see them now, the body of one of the doctors—a woman—and a creature crouched over her, chewing on her abdomen. They were right in front of the door.

“I need help!” Bobby thought, although he knew the Lamotelokhai couldn’t hear him.

The Helmich-bat was right behind him, and he was ten yards from the door. He had no idea if he could open it, even if it weren’t blocked by another monster.

The thing chewing on the body raised its head and looked at Bobby. It was dog-like, but its back end was more like a reptile’s, and it had a bulging hump over its shoulders.

Suddenly the woman beneath it began struggling, and Bobby saw that her arms had already transformed into squirming, tentacle-like things. One of the tentacles encircled the reptile-dog’s neck, and the two creatures began snarling and struggling.

Bobby skirted around them, the Helmich bat at his heels. He put his back to the wall and held Addison’s arm in front of him to use as a shield. But the bat skidded to a stop beside the two fighting creatures. It paused there, watching the battle.

This would give Bobby a few seconds at the most. He swallowed hard and turned back to the door. The glowing rectangle above it said Salida. He saw a black key-scanning box on the wall by the door’s handle. He pressed Helmich’s key card against the box as he had seen the doctors do.

The door clicked.

Bobby turned the handle and pushed it open. There was a dimly-lit stairway leading up. He started through the door, but then something grabbed the right side of his head and neck and held tight. He dropped Addison’s arm and reached over his shoulder. His fingers found the bat’s head, its teeth tearing into his flesh.

“No!” He tried gouging one of the creature’s eyes with his thumb. The teeth only sank in deeper, and a claw dug painfully into his arm.

Bobby twisted his body and lunged through the doorway to escape the bat’s hold. The teeth ripped away from the flesh of his head and neck, causing pain so intense that flashes of light flooded his vision. He hit the floor hard. He put his hands to the back of his head, trying to stifle the pain. The implant behind his right ear was gone, torn off by the creature’s teeth.

Blinding light was all he could see, but he felt the creature crawling over his legs, coming again for his head. He tried kicking, but the thing’s weight held his feet down. He blinked, and now he could see the creature’s hulking shape. His vision was starting to come back. The bat’s head was now above his chest.

Bobby choked back a sob. There was no point in fighting now. The thing had already torn into him, contaminating his body with the same rogue Lamotelokhai particles that were killing and transforming all the others. Soon it would start in his body. In spite of his horror, for just a moment Bobby wondered what kind of creature would force its way out of his body, or if perhaps he would split into many creatures like Eunice had. Even if he could escape now, he would only be carrying the same fate to the people upstairs, including Ashley, Peter, and Robert.

He turned his head and saw Addison’s arm on the floor next to him. His mind besieged by terror, he instinctively allowed the arm to represent a glimmer of hope.

Bobby grunted and pulled his knees up to his chest. He then kicked his legs out, sending the bat sprawling back. But it quickly gathered its wings and legs beneath it and started coming for him again. Bobby threw Addison’s arm through the half-open doorway and then pushed against the floor with his feet, shoving the door the rest of the way open and scooting his own body through.

The bat lunged and caught Bobby’s shoe with its teeth. He kicked the door with his other foot. The door struck the thing’s head, tearing its teeth from his shoe. Bobby was on his feet in an instant. He pushed on the door, but it closed on the bat’s neck and wouldn’t shut. The bat let out a gurgle as he leaned into the door even harder. Its claws desperately raked the outside of the door and the wall as it tried to pull itself free.

Bobby was vaguely aware he could have opened the door slightly and the creature would have pulled its head out, but he didn’t care. Instead, he slammed his shoulder against the door with all his strength. The creature gurgled again. Bobby put both hands against the door and leaned into it. He braced his feet against the bottom step and was able to push even harder. He heard himself sobbing, so he pushed with everything he had in a desperate, demented attempt to make the sobbing stop. Finally it did stop, and then he realized the bat’s claws had stopped scratching the door. The creature was silent.

Bobby wasn’t finished. He stepped back and then kicked the door. The creature’s head slid down to the floor and didn’t move. He kicked the door again, and he kept kicking until it latched shut, severing the creature’s head in the process.

He sat down on the bottom step, wiping tears from his face and trying to catch his breath. The bat’s head lay at his feet, mouth open and tongue hanging out. Blood had been smeared on the floor around it by the bottoms of Bobby’s shoes. He held up his hands and stared at them. How long before they transformed into claws, or wings, or tentacles? He had to at least try to stop it. He hoisted Addison’s arm into his lap. It still looked exactly like it had before, a human arm attached to part of a shoulder, still partially covered by the torn and grimy remains of a t-shirt. There was no blood where the arm had separated from the body, just jagged pink tissue. He placed both his hands on the arm.

“I don’t know if you can understand me or not, but I really need help. I need to stop the stuff that got into me from turning me into a monster.” He didn’t know how else to say it. It would either work or it wouldn’t. It might even make things worse. But what did he have to lose?

He tore some of the pink tissue from the ragged end of the arm. It was squishy, changing shape as he pressed it between his fingers. He rubbed some of it onto his arm where the bat’s claw had punctured his skin. This hurt, because the wound was deep, but then the pain quickly faded away. That had to be a good sign. He worked the rest into the bites on the back of his head and neck. He winced as he touched the raw scalp where the implant had been torn off, but again the pain faded quickly.

A movement in front of him caught his attention. The bat’s eyes were now open. They rolled back and forth like they were searching for something. The thing’s tongue started moving. In fact, it was growing larger, actually crawling out of the bat’s mouth like a huge slug.

It was time to go.

Bobby scooped up Addison’s arm and bounded up the stairs. He turned a corner and climbed a second flight, ending at another door with a key card reader. He pressed Helmich’s card to the reader, the door clicked, and he pulled it open. He stepped into a hallway, squinting against the harsh LED lighting.

A body slammed into him from the side, knocked him over, and fell on top of him.

“Oh god, I’m sorry!” It was a woman, the same woman who had taken Bobby to the meeting with Helmich earlier that day. She pushed herself off of him, her eyes wide. “It’s you! How did you get here?” She grabbed his shirt by the shoulder.

Bobby sat up and pulled Addison’s arm closer to his belly. The woman took a look at it then let go of his shirt. She got to her feet and backed away.

“Is that what I think it is? Why do you have that?”

Bobby got up. “We have to get out of here. Where are my friends?”

She stared at him like she was trying to comprehend. “Where’s Dr. Helmich?”

“He’s dead—they’re all dead!”

Her eyes got wider. But then she turned her head. “What is that?” She was looking at the bottom of the door to the stairway.

Something was trying to crawl out through the narrow slit under the door. Three spider-like legs, each at least a foot long, grappled with the floor, trying to get enough traction to pull something larger through. Failing at this, they simply detached and began crawling away on their own. Seconds later more of them followed.

Bobby and the woman backed away from the door.

“Don’t let them touch you,” Bobby said. “We have to go! Where are my friends?”

The woman continued staring at the crawling things, either ignoring Bobby or too terrified to answer. The thin creatures were coming under the door five or six at a time now. They were spreading out across the floor. Some of them remained in the same shape, while others stopped, curled up, and began transforming. One of them became something between a scorpion and a spider the size of Bobby’s hand. It took off running down the hall with unnatural speed. Another creature ran the other direction before Bobby could see what it was. Several others were forming insect-like wings.

“Where’s Ashley!” Bobby shouted. “After what you’ve done to us, you can at least tell me where she is.”

She pulled her gaze from the spreading creatures and looked at him. Her cheeks were quivering. “Follow me.” She took off down the hall.

Bobby ran after her, eager to distance himself from the skittering Helmich-spawn.

They made a left turn and ran down a long hallway, apparently toward the center of the complex. They came to a T and turned left again. Ahead of them a group of doctors were gathered outside an open door. They all turned and stared.

“What’s he doing here, Hannah?” one of the men said. They were all looking at Bobby and what he was carrying.

The woman with Bobby—Hannah, apparently—said, “We’ve got to leave now!”

“Like hell,” another man said. “The 4:44 is at crisis level. Helmich isn’t letting anyone out.”

“Dr. Helmich is gone!” Hannah cried.

They all fell silent.

Hannah said, “Look, I believed in this project. We all did. But—”

A flying creature the size of a pigeon crashed into the back of her head. Her body lurched forward and the creature, still clinging to her hair, flopped over her head and onto her face. The next few seconds were strangely silent. Hannah reached up to her face in slow motion. She made only the slightest whimper as she grabbed the thing, pulled it away, and dropped it to the floor.

Bobby’s gut tightened when he saw what it was. It had the wings and head of a wasp, but the abdomen more closely resembled a huge centipede, with numerous curved, sharp-tipped legs on either side. It twisted itself over and onto its feet, seemingly unharmed.

“Hannah, you’re bleeding,” said one of the woman crowded around the scene.

Bobby looked up from the creature to Hannah. Blood and clear fluid were running down her face from one of her eyes.

She put her hand to her eye. “Oh no,” she said softly.

The creature spread its wings and flew up off the floor. At the same time, another creature buzzed right by Bobby’s head and hit one of the men just below the chin, latching on tightly. He coughed and staggered back.

The doctors suddenly seemed to realize they were in danger. Some of them ran down the hall away from the source of the flying creatures. A few of them dashed into the nearest room, but the centipede-wasp flew through the door before they could close it. They poured back out, shrieking, and followed the others down the hall. Two women stayed behind, trying to help the man pull the other flying creature from his neck. Hannah stood where she was, probing her eye socket with her finger as if she couldn’t quite believe what had happened. Bobby looked in the direction from which he and Hannah had come. Several rat-sized creatures were running toward them.

He stepped in front of her. “Where are my friends?”

She looked at him with her good eye. “This whole thing was a mistake, wasn’t it?”

The creatures were approaching fast.

“Please,” Bobby said firmly.

“This way.” She turned and began shuffling down the hall. Bobby urged her to hurry and her shuffle turned into an ungraceful jog.

After making several turns and running far enough for Bobby to get winded, they entered a hallway with numerous unmarked doors. Hannah stopped in front of one of them.

“Your friend Ashley should be in here.” Still holding one hand to her eye, she fumbled for her key card.

“I’ve got it,” Bobby said. He pressed Helmich’s card to the reader, and the door clicked. Bobby went in. Hannah followed, but she stayed by the door.

Ashley lay in her bed, apparently asleep.

Bobby set Addison’s arm on the bed and started unbuckling her restraints. This woke her up.

“What?” she said. Her eyes met his. “Bobby?”

“We have to get out of here,” he said. He finished freeing her wrists and then saw her ankles were already free.

She sat up. “Shit!” She was staring at Addison’s arm on the bed beside her.

Suddenly he had an idea. He pulled another chunk free from the jagged end of the arm and held it out to her. “This might save your life.”

She took it. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s from the Lamotelokhai. Just eat it, or rub it on your skin or something. Please, we have to go.”

She hesitated only a second and then rubbed the stuff on her arm. She got up from the bed. “What’s wrong with her?” She was looking over Bobby’s shoulder.

Bobby turned. Hannah was still by the door. She was looking down and rubbing her face with her hands. Bobby gathered up Addison’s arm and then cautiously walked over to her.

“Where’s Peter? And Robert?”

Hannah didn’t look up. She muttered something that wasn’t really words and didn’t sound like her voice.

Bobby glanced at Ashley. “Don’t touch her,” he said. He grabbed Ashley’s arm and led her out of the room. He pulled the door shut just as Hannah collapsed to her knees.

“What the hell was that?” Ashley said.

Shouting echoed from somewhere down the hall. There wasn’t time to explain, but Ashley had planted her feet, and Bobby knew she wasn’t going to budge until she got answers.

“They took the Lamotelokhai apart to figure out how it works. Something didn’t go right and one of them transformed into these… I don’t know, these creatures. It’s like the dinosaurs that time at the hospital. They’re attacking people and turning them into creatures too. So we need to get out of here.”

She was staring at his face and neck. “Did one of them bite you?”

He sighed. “Yeah, but I think this stuff helped me.” He nodded down toward Addison’s arm. “That’s why I gave you some. Please, Ashley! Where’s Peter?”

“How should I know? I’ve been tied to—”

She stopped talking, and Bobby turned in the direction of her gaze. A mass of creatures—at least twenty—was moving toward them. Some were no bigger than rats, others were larger. One of them was the size of a cat. It crawled awkwardly on folded wings like a smaller version of the Helmich-bat. Another looked like a skinny tree kangaroo with bulging eyes and no tail.

Ashley started backing away from them. “Those are the creatures?”

“Don’t let them touch you,” he said. He went to the next door in the hall. He opened it with the key card. The room was empty.

The creatures were getting closer. He ran to another door. That room was empty too. The scratching and skittering of the creatures grew louder. There were more doors in the hall but no time to check them.

Ashley shouted, “Peter! Robert!”

No answer.

They had no choice but to run. They came to a T at the end of the hall and stopped.

“The place is a big circle,” Bobby said. “There must be exits on the outer wall.” The problem was, the halls were straight instead of curved, making it hard to tell which direction was out or in.

As Bobby was looking to the right, he glimpsed two people in green clothes running from left to right at the next T. If any of these people were as smart as they thought they were, they’d be trying to get out right now. From the way the others had talked, it sounded like at least some of them weren’t crazy enough to actually carry out the 4:44 protocol. Unless they planned to do it as soon as they got clear of the facility.

“They’re catching up!” Ashley said.

Some of the faster creatures were only seconds behind them.

“This way,” Bobby muttered, and he took off following the doctors he’d seen.

He and Ashley turned right at the T and ran straight all the way to the outer wall. Next to a door with another sign above it that said Salida were six green-clad men and women. They were shouting at each other and didn’t see Bobby and Ashley until they were only a few yards away. The doctors stopped shouting and stared.

Bobby spoke first. “Do you guys know where our friends are? Peter Wooley and Robert?”

For a moment none of them spoke.

“He’s got part of it,” a woman said. She was holding a tablet with her finger hovering above the screen. “We should initiate now!”

“Don’t!” said one of the men. “I’m not willing to die here. Neither are you, Sofia, and you know it. Just open the door and we can leave.”

It appeared that Sofia was the only one of them with a key card.

Bobby heard tapping and scuttling behind him just before the doctors saw what was coming.

“Sweet Jesus,” one of the men said. “Open the goddamn door, Sofia!”

Sofia was shaking, her finger still hovering over the tablet.

Without warning, the man drew back and punched her. The tablet clattered to the floor, and she crumpled into a heap and began moaning.

The man ripped the key card from her neck. He went for the door.

“Hurry!” someone said.

The creatures were twenty yards away, and there was nowhere to go but through the door.

The door opened, and blinding sunlight poured in. The doctors ran out except for Sofia and another woman who had knelt down to help her up. But Sofia could barely even sit up. The other woman looked up at Bobby and Ashley.

“Please. Help me!”

The first creatures in the swarm were seconds away. Bobby exchanged a glance with Ashley, and then they both grabbed Sofia by the armpits and dragged her to the door. The door had already closed, so Bobby let go of the woman and pressed Helmich’s key card to the reader. The door clicked.

“Oh Jesus,” the woman said.

Bobby pulled the door open and turned around. The kangaroo-like creature had outdistanced the others and was now sitting on Sofia’s lap, sniffing her face. Sofia was apparently too dazed to move.

“Pull her out the door,” Ashley said quietly.

Bobby held the door open as they dragged her out. The kangaroo stayed on Sofia’s lap until it was through the door. It jumped off and hopped away. Just as Sofia’s feet cleared the opening, Bobby stepped through and slammed the door shut, but not before another creature—something the size of a rabbit but more like a lumpy, disfigured bird without wings—slipped through and ran off.

“Sofia, are you okay?” It was the second woman. She was on her knees, holding Sofia by the shoulders.

“Bastard,” Sofia said, holding a hand to her forehead. “He hit me.”

It occurred to Bobby that the air was warm. This wasn’t what the air in Oklahoma had felt like. He turned and looked at their surroundings. There was a gravel parking lot with about ten cars in it. Several of the doctors were driving out of the lot onto a road, throwing dust and gravel in clouds behind them. Beyond the parking lot were open fields. Beyond the fields were scrubby green trees. And sticking up through those were several tall palm trees. He turned and looked at the compound. It wasn’t tall, only one story, but the white walls extended far to the left and right, gently curving in until they disappeared. It was a concrete circle 324 meters in diameter.

“Where are we?” Bobby asked.

Sofia and the other woman looked up at him. Their eyes darted nervously to the object Bobby held against his chest—Addison’s arm.

“Four miles east of Salinas,” the other woman said. She pronounced it suh-lee-ness.

Bobby shook his head.

“Where’s that?” Ashley asked.

Sofia spoke up, her voice still shaky. “The Caribbean side of Puerto Rico.”

Chapter Thirteen

Quentin stopped walking when he realized Lindsey was no longer with him. She was a dozen yards back, waiting for the mbolop to come down from a tree. Quentin sighed and pulled off his pack. He started to set it down and realized he was standing over a slide, a smoothed-out trail entering the water of the Méanmaél river on his left. Under typical circumstances he would call Lindsey over to look at it, and they would speculate as to whether it had been created by a small crocodile or a large water-rat. But she hadn’t been herself all morning, since her somewhat alarming encounter with the tree kangaroo. Not that she seemed ill or depleted in any way. Her condition was quite the opposite, in fact. Lindsey was more animated and enthusiastic than she had been in several days, which was strange considering the circumstances.

Quentin hefted his pack to his shoulder and walked back to her side. Samuel and Sinanie were already well ahead of them, but they were following the river’s edge and would be easy to find. Quentin put the pack down and waited, uncertain of what to expect from the mbolop.

Suddenly the creature scuttled backward down the trunk of the tree. When it turned to face them it had a plum-sized fruit gripped in its teeth, perhaps some variety of avocado. It held the fruit in its diminutive forepaws and chewed a hole in it. Methodically, as if this were a practiced procedure, it placed the fruit on the ground, clawed its way into its own abdomen again, dug out a glistening lump of tissue, and shoved the lump into the hole in the fruit. It then picked up the fruit and offered it to Lindsey.

Quentin forced himself to remain silent as she ate it. This was the fourth time in four hours the mbolop had offered her something to eat, and she had long since made it clear that she considered the offerings to be safe and would not be dissuaded from eating them. Never mind that the first of them had rendered her unconscious.

Quentin sighed loudly.

She smiled as she finished the fruit and tossed the seed away. “If you knew how good I felt right now, you’d stop worrying.”

“How do you know you’re not just high on something that thing gave you? You have no idea what you’ve ingested.”

“I know what it’s giving me,” she said. “It’s giving me what I need. It’s taking care of me, making sure my body chemistry is perfectly balanced. That’s why I feel so good.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

She stepped closer to him and gave him a long, deep kiss. She smelled the way she always did—desirable—even on the second day of hard hiking. She pulled back and gazed into his eyes.

“Do I seem out of balance to you?”

Quentin had to control his breathing. “Not really, no.”

“Then stop worrying.” She smiled. “Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me?”

“Of course.”

“Mark Twain National Forest. We were in that old orange tent. When you said it that night, how did you know it was really true?”

Quentin frowned. “Are you actually comparing this to—”

She leaned in and kissed him again, this time for even longer.

Finally, she pulled back. “Look, I know why you’re worried,” she said. “But this feels right.” She held up her hands, fingers out, and gazed at them. “I felt fine before. The Lamotelokhai’s nanoparticles—or whatever they are—had been taking care of us. But this is different. In the last few hours I’ve started feeling better than ever.” She shook her head. “If that’s even possible.”

Quentin studied her face. Her eyes were bright and alert. She certainly appeared to be herself.

Abruptly she furrowed her brows and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”

Quentin sniffed and shook his head.

“It’s fresh soil,” she said. “Like it’s right in my face.” She looked down at the mbolop. It was now snuffling around in the leaf litter on the forest floor, as if it were looking for something to eat. She then looked up at Quentin, her eyes wide.

“What?” he said.

She pointed at the mbolop. “Put your hand down there. Let him smell you.”

Quentin crouched and extended his hand, palm down. The creature leaned forward to sniff it.

“That’s you!” Lindsey cried. “I smell your skin. Right now. Right in my face!”

Quentin looked at her, confused. He felt the tree kangaroo lick his fingertips and he instinctively withdrew his hand.

“Oh my god!” Lindsey said. She put her hand over her mouth. “Oh my god.” This time it was muffled. She turned away, still covering her mouth.

“Lindsey?”

She let out a burst of laughter. “It’s incredible!”

“What is?”

She turned to him, flashing a delighted grin. “You’re not going to believe this.” She guided him by the shoulders a few steps and stopped. “Stand right there.” She took several steps back and stood facing him, still grinning.

“You’re starting to scare me again,” he said.

“Put one hand behind your back.”

He did.

“Now pick a number and hold out that many fingers.”

Quentin gave her a look, but then he held out three fingers behind his back.

“Three,” she said.

He stared at her. She raised her brows, waiting.

He changed from three fingers to five.

“Five.”

Quentin turned and looked behind him. The mbolop was sitting there on its haunches, watching him. This was impossible. He tucked his hand against his body so there was no way Lindsey could see it, and then he folded all his fingers into a fist except for the middle one.

“Very funny,” she said. “One finger.”

He turned around to face her, speechless.

She smiled again and shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it either.

“Hold on,” Quentin said. He walked over and kneeled down by the mbolop. He leaned in to within inches of its snout and cupped his hands around his mouth. He then whispered to the creature, so softly that Lindsey couldn’t possibly hear from where she was. He said, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

She giggled. “As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.”

* * *

“I must say, the most peculiar things happen when you two are in the vicinity,” Samuel said. “Enigmata are drawn to you as are ants to honey.”

Lindsey pulled the last of the food from her pack, a half-dozen sago cakes, and passed them to Quentin to divide up. The mbolop was lying on its side next to her. “I know it all sounds strange. The funny thing is, it already feels normal to me, like this connection I now have with the creature is something that was missing in my life before. I feel… complete. Not alone anymore.”

Quentin cleared his throat.

She put a reassuring hand on his. “It’s not like that. It’s more like—I don’t know—like when we were kids learning to walk. Suddenly that’s what we did, and it seemed like we should have always been able to walk, only we couldn’t before that because it just wasn’t our time yet.”

Quentin exchanged a glance with Samuel, who seemed just as perplexed by this new development. Sinanie gazed thoughtfully at Lindsey. It was hard to say how much of Lindsey’s explanation he had understood, but he had watched attentively as she had demonstrated to Samuel how the mbolop was now an extension of her senses.

After Quentin and Lindsey had caught up to Samuel and Sinanie, they had continued hiking for another hour before deciding to tell them about this. Samuel had suggested they stop to rest, and it had seemed like the time to bring it up. Neither of the men had seen or experienced this phenomenon before. It was becoming apparent the tree kangaroos were as full of surprises as the Lamotelokhai had been.

They sat in silence for some time, eating the last few sago cakes.

“I think I’ll name him Rusty,” Lindsey said. The mobolop raised its head as if it knew she was talking about him.

Quentin eyed the creature’s mottled brown fur. “It suits him.”

“Not just because of his color. There was this boy I met when I was a young girl. I was only six. In first grade. We lived too close to my school for me to ride the bus, so I would walk. The school was only five or six blocks away, but one day I was daydreaming about something. Suddenly none of the houses looked familiar. I got scared, and I froze. I just stood there on the sidewalk. Eventually a boy I had seen at school came out of his house. He asked why I was just standing there.” Lindsey huffed out a brief laugh and shook her head. “When I told him, he said I wasn’t lost at all. He said he’d seen me walk by his house every day. He was right. I hadn’t taken a wrong turn. Suddenly his house and all the others looked familiar again.”

“I suppose your hero’s name was Rusty,” Quentin said.

She laughed and put her hand on his again. “I could name him Quentin, but that would get confusing, now wouldn’t it? But seriously, that kid somehow helped me see things in a new light. And so the name fits.”

He squeezed her hand. “I guess the real question is, why do you feel compelled to name the thing in the first place?”

She frowned at this. “Bobby named Mbaiso.”

“Bobby was fourteen then.”

“Does it bother you that I’m naming him?”

It was Quentin’s turn to frown. “Of course not. It’s just that we came here to find Addison. When we do, we’ll take him home, and the mbolop will stay here.”

Her eyes narrowed. “There’s no way in hell I’m going back without Rusty.”

He stared at her, taken aback by this. “You can’t take a tree kangaroo—”

“We’ll figure out a way! Or we’ll stay here.”

Quentin had no idea how to respond. He shook his head. “You’re joking, right?”

Her features softened somewhat. “No. Yes.” Her lips showed the slightest of smiles. “I wish you could understand what I’m feeling right now.”

Samuel cleared his throat politely. “More than 150 years have passed since I first encountered the Lamotelokhai. I have witnessed many peculiar phenomena thenceforth. It is my opinion that it is wise to allow such a phenomenon to run its course before drawing conclusions. What seems inconsequential now may turn out to be of great consequence. What seems perilous now may turn out to provide unforeseen benefits.”

Quentin and Lindsey stared at each other. Quentin nodded in acceptance.

The mbolop—Rusty—rolled from its side and sat up. It dug into its abdomen, produced another lump of flesh, and offered it to Lindsey. The fifth one of the day. She put it in her mouth without hesitating.

“Unforeseen benefits,” she said, glancing at Quentin.

* * *

After several more hours of hard hiking it started raining, so they stopped for the night. By this time, Lindsey was already fluent in the mbolop sign language. She had explained to Quentin that it was easy. When she saw Rusty sign something, a vision appeared in her mind. The visions helped clarify the meaning of the gestures. Bobby had once told Quentin he had acquired the same ability with Mbaiso eight months ago. He had acquired it in the same way, by eating a chunk of Mbaiso’s body.

The group quickly constructed another lean-to shelter to sleep under. It was still raining when they finished the shelter, so they all sat in a row beneath it. The mbolop plopped into the mud next to Lindsey. Quentin was hungry, but the food was gone.

He nudged Lindsey. “Maybe Rusty can find some fruit we can eat.”

She patted the tree kangaroo on the head to get its attention and then made some gestures with her hands. The creature jumped up and hopped away.

“You’re an mbolop whisperer,” Quentin said.

In spite of her haggard, soaked, and mud-covered appearance, Lindsey smiled at this. But then she pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and just stared at her feet.

Samuel was in the process of wiping mud from his lower legs by repeatedly sweeping his palm from his knees to his bare toes. He glanced at both of them. “Have you considered what you might say to your son if we are able to find him?”

Lindsey remained quiet as Quentin considered this.

“I suppose we’ll know better what to say once we have a better idea of his state of mind,” Quentin said.

Samuel took one more swipe at his leg and then flung the mud from his hand. “I would suggest that you refrain from excessive exuberance. He seems to me to be quite timid, and I fear he may retreat if frightened.”

For months Quentin had subjected himself to three conflicting mental images of Addison. First, there was Addison as he had been before all this started—Addison his son. Actually, a copy of that Addison still existed. He was living an innocent, undisturbed life with his parents—copies of Quentin and Lindsey—and he deserved to be spared from this nightmare. Quentin’s own copy of Addison, the original Addison, had been lost in a plane crash not far from where they sat at this moment. Following the ill-advised application of the Lamotelokhai’s medicine, that Addison had turned into a murderous monster. That was the second version of his son, the version Quentin had tried so hard to forget. And third, there was the version of Addison that had actually been only the Lamotelokhai’s disguise.

Now the second version of Addison, Quentin’s own son, had apparently regained his memory, or at least part of his memory. Surely no other parent had ever had to endure such an embattled emotional tug of war.

Quentin looked at Lindsey. She glanced at him and shook her head before going back to staring at her feet, perhaps unwilling to delve into the black abyss of the topic. Quentin didn’t blame her.

Suddenly she spoke. “Samuel, how far are we from the hanging village?”

“I would guess that it is no more than three miles distant,” Samuel replied. “We should arrive there tomorrow morning.”

“I think I see it. At least I see where it is.” She was still staring at her feet.

This was followed by silence. Quentin struggled to grasp the implications of her words.

She didn’t take her eyes off her feet. “It’s in an area with trees that are taller than the surrounding canopy, right?”

“That is true,” Samuel said.

“Then I see it, a mile or so away. A broad area with much taller trees.” She glanced at Quentin and saw him staring. “Don’t look so startled. It’s Rusty. He’s looking for fruit. He just happened to climb high enough to have a view over the canopy.”

She turned her attention back to her feet, although Quentin supposed she was actually watching the view through the eyes of the creature. Lindsey’s eyes sparkled with intense curiosity, and the corners of her mouth formed a grin. It was an expression Quentin had not seen enough of in the past eight months. At least for the moment she seemed completely serene. But this was as disturbing as it was comforting. He had no idea what was really happening to his wife.

“Lindsey?” He waited for her to look up before going on. “You seem to be happy with whatever this is between you and the tree kangaroo.”

“His name is Rusty.”

Quentin hesitated. “Okay, Rusty. Maybe it’s because I can’t really know what you’re feeling, but it’s freaking me out a little. It’s almost like you’re changing into someone else before my eyes. Can you see why I would feel that way?”

Again, the reassuring hand on his. “I’m not changing into someone else, hon. But I feel like I’m becoming a better me. Rusty is helping me do that.” She paused for a moment. “You know what I think?”

Quentin raised his brows and waited.

“I think this isn’t all that unusual. The oxpecker that lives on the zebra’s back, eating bugs and parasites. The bird gets food, the zebra gets pest control. The bacteria living in our guts. They get food and a place to live, and we get help with digestion.”

This took Quentin by surprise. “You’re suggesting you’ve suddenly fallen into a new form of mutualism? Those relationships evolve over hundreds of thousands of years. This thing with that—with Rusty—started this morning!”

“All I know is this feels right. Besides, mutualism is the rule in nature, not the exception. And you know not all of those relationships took that long. Some of them happened overnight, by accident.”

“Lindsey, that thing’s not even a real animal!” He sighed. The last thing he’d intended was to start an argument. He looked to Samuel, hoping for some help.

Samuel nodded. “When I departed England, the word ‘mutualism’ was rather new, although the idea of symbiosis had been well known for centuries. It is my understanding that mutualism requires that both organisms in the relationship derive some benefit from it. Perhaps a question worthy of attention is, what benefit is the mbolop deriving from you, Lindsey?”

This was followed by silence.

Finally Lindsey said, “I don’t know. But as you said yourself, for now the benefits may be unforeseeable.”

Samuel looked at Quentin and shrugged.

They sat in silence for some minutes, each of them perhaps lost in their own thoughts.

“I have bad news and good news,” Lindsey said abruptly. “Rusty didn’t find any fruits we can eat. But he found something else on the bank of the river. Apparently the rain has driven the earthworms there to the surface. They’re big ones—longer than Rusty’s body.” She held a hand up and formed a one-inch circle, apparently showing the girth of the earthworms.

“Excellent!” Samuel said. He turned to Sinanie and spoke to him in the Papuan’s language.

Sinanie had been quiet since they had settled in under the shelter, but now he flashed a broad grin and said, “Génggémop. Sikh!” He got up and took off toward the river.

Samuel turned back to them. “Sinanie is particularly fond of the giant earthworms that inhabit the soil near the Méanmaél. They come above ground only occasionally, I suppose when precise conditions of moisture and temperature align.” He gestured toward the sky. “This rain will not allow us to make a fire, but the giant earthworm is still quite palatable in its raw state.”

Chapter Fourteen

Ashley broke the silence. “Puerto Rico?”

“How did we get to Puerto Rico?” Bobby asked.

Sofia and the other woman glanced at each other. Sofia said, “It wasn’t us who brought you here. We were simply told you were on your way and to get ready.” She grimaced and got to her feet. She was half a foot shorter than the other woman. “If you don’t remember, then you were probably brought here unconscious.” She looked around on the ground. “Where’s my tablet?”

“You dropped it,” the taller woman said. “It’s still inside.”

“Then I have to go back in.” She groped at her neck and chest. “Where’s my key?”

“Sofia,” the taller woman said, “you can’t trigger 4:44. Some of our people are still inside.”

“Dr. Helmich gave me the codes because he trusted me to do the right thing if circumstances required it. I need to get to my tablet!” She turned to Bobby. “That key is definitely not yours. Give it to me.”

Bobby closed his fist around Helmich's key. “Our friends are in there. Besides, some of those things are already out.”

She lunged at him. “Give me the key!”

Ashley stepped next to Bobby, ready to help push her away, but the taller woman grabbed Sofia’s arm and held her back.

“Sofia, please! If Dr. Helmich wanted you to do it, he would have contacted you. He hasn’t given the order.”

“Are you blind?” Sofia cried. “Obviously something went wrong!”

Bobby decided this was not a good time to mention that Helmich was dead.

“Let go!” Sofia said, shaking off the other woman’s grip. Then she froze for a split second. She rushed toward the parking lot, picked up something that had a spiral cord on it, and immediately turned back. Before Bobby registered that she had her missing key, she went straight for the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open.

She didn’t even have to step all the way inside to pick up her tablet.

“No, you can’t!” the other woman said.

But it was too late. Sofia tapped her screen several times. Seconds later an alarm went off inside the building, followed by more alarms from the outside, above the doorway.

“Five-minute warning,” Sofia said, barely audible above the alarms. She then turned her back to them and threw her tablet through the open door and it clattered down the hallway.

Bobby glimpsed something large and dark beyond the doorway, and it was quickly getting larger. Sofia must have seen it, too. She stepped back and pulled the door shut. But before she could even turn around, the door exploded outward. It flew off the hinges, knocked Sofia to the ground, and landed on top of her. The creature that had demolished the door came barreling out with frightening speed, but then it grunted and its head snapped forward, flinging a string of snot into the air. Its shoulders couldn’t fit through the door.

The creature was terrifying. Its head looked something like a black bear’s, but the neck was hairless and as long as Bobby was tall. The portion of the body he could see was also hairless, and it seemed like there were more legs than should be possible. The thing didn’t growl or screech—it just panted and grunted, barely audible above the alarms, struggling to push through the doorway.

“Sofia!” The taller woman rushed forward to help. Sofia was beneath the broken door, but the creature’s gnashing head was in the way.

It was working its way through the opening, inch by inch. Puddles of dark blood formed at its feet as the rough edges of the broken door frame gouged its flesh.

The woman went to the top end of the fallen door. From there she was close enough to reach under it. She grabbed Sofia’s collar and pulled, but Sofia wasn’t moving—she was just dead weight.

Ashley grabbed Bobby’s arm. “We have to go!”

Bobby’s feet wouldn’t move. Things were happening too fast for his mind to keep up. Five minute warning, she had said. How many of those minutes had already passed? How far away did they need to get? He stared at the struggling creature. It’s head was changing, and it no longer resembled a bear. Now it was more like a dragon or dinosaur, with only patches of black fur remaining. Its shoulders slid forward again, and it started struggling even harder, as if sensing it was almost free.

Ashley punched his arm. “Bobby!”

“Yeah, okay! But we have to help them.”

“Damn it, Bobby!” Ashley rushed to the woman’s side and grabbed her shoulder. “Come on, we’re getting out of here!”

The woman was still pulling on Sofia’s collar. “I can’t just leave her—”

With a sickening grinding of flesh the creature came loose from the doorway. It stumbled forward from the momentum and collapsed right on top of the door, crushing Sofia beneath it. Ashley and the woman fell back on their butts and scrambled backward.

The creature was larger than it had appeared when stuck in the door frame. Its back end was the size of a hippo and looked like nothing Bobby had ever seen. It squirmed, trying to right itself, but was unable to because arms and legs stuck out in every direction. Bobby couldn’t even tell which side of it was the top or bottom. To his horror, he saw at least two legs wearing green elastic pants and running shoes.

The thing floundered for a few more seconds and then managed to stand up, still on top of the door and Sofia. It shook itself off and looked around like it had no idea what to do now that it was out of the building. Its head was still changing, becoming thinner, and the neck had grown even longer.

“Get up slowly,” Bobby said, just loud enough to be heard over the alarms.

Ashley and the woman got to their feet. The creature saw the movement and stared. It straightened its neck, extending its head closer to them.

The alarms stopped.

“Oh no,” whispered the woman next to Ashley.

The explosion started deep within the compound, a low whump that shook the ground, and a split second later it got louder. Bobby briefly saw an orange glow through the doorway behind the creature, and then he was knocked off his feet by a blast of hot air. But the creature caught the worst of it. Fire erupted from the building and then immediately receded. The entire back half of the creature was ablaze, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. The creature panicked and took off, a fireball running through the open field, igniting the weeds.

Bobby was dazed and sitting on his butt, but he realized Ashley and the woman were in worse shape. He jumped up to help. The woman was trying to put out her hair. “Take it easy, I’ve got it,” he said. He patted out the flames between his palms. He then looked at Ashley. The bottom seam of her shirt was burning. “Your shirt!”

Ashley slapped it, snuffing out the fire, and then blew on her hands to cool them. Bobby helped them both get to their feet, and they stood there for a moment, staring up at the compound. Its white, gently curving wall stretched out to the left and right. Other than the demolished door, the structure appeared to be intact.

He grabbed the heavy metal door and flipped it off of Sofia. She was dead—beyond dead. He approached the open doorway, but the heat coming from inside was so intense he had to move back.

“The 4:44 protocol was designed to sterilize the entire compound without destroying the structure,” said the woman behind him. “There’s nothing alive in there right now, not even bacteria or viruses. It will cook for at least a week, and then it will be another week before the place cools down enough for anyone to go in.”

Bobby turned and looked at Ashley. She stared back at him. She blinked away some tears but didn’t wipe them off. Bobby looked where the burning creature had run off. Some of the flames on its trail through the weeds had gone out, but others were spreading into larger fires. Beyond the field, smoke was rising from the trees. Either the creature had died and was burning up, or it had ignited some of the trees as it ran through.

“I have a car here,” the woman said. “I’m going to drive to San Juan. I don’t know what else to do. I’ll get a flight back to the States. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to go home and no one will know I was involved in this whole mess.”

Ashley said, “But you’ll know, won’t you?”

The woman nodded slightly and looked at the ground. “You can ride with me if you want.” She turned and headed to the parking area.

Bobby was still holding Helmich’s key card, but he had dropped Addison’s arm—maybe the only remaining portion of the Lamotelokhai—in the scuffle. He draped the card’s lanyard around his neck and picked up the arm. He and Ashley exchanged glances, but they didn’t speak.

They followed the woman to her car.

* * *

Bobby was surprised the compound wasn’t more isolated. Within a minute of pulling out of the gravel parking area, they were on a paved road driving by a cluster of short, blocky houses on the edge of a small town. A few minutes after that they were on a bustling four-lane highway.

No one in the car was talking, so Bobby stared out the window at the rugged hills covered in dense but low tropical forest as he thought about Peter and Robert. Had they suffered very long, or had the heat killed them instantly? Maybe somehow they were still alive. Maybe they’d escaped the compound before Bobby and Ashley had gotten out. Or maybe they’d found an insulated room or closet. Bobby thought about the key card hanging from his neck, and he considered telling the woman to drive back to the compound. He could figure out a way to go back in and open every door to see if Peter and Robert had somehow survived the heat. He wanted so badly for that to be possible. But of course it wasn’t.

Bobby expected to have tears, but his eyes were dry. Why wasn’t he crying? Maybe because he had seen so many traumatizing things. Maybe seeing so many people die in horrible ways had broken him, made him unable to care about anything.

“My name is Tiffany,” the woman in the driver seat said. “Tiffany Travers.”

“Ashley,” Ashley said. She was sitting in the front passenger seat while Bobby was in the back with Addison’s arm.

“Bobby,” he said, although he figured she already knew his name.

They rode in silence for a few minutes.

Ashley turned to Tiffany. “Did it bother you that they kidnapped us and brought us here?”

Bobby watched Tiffany’s eyes in the rearview mirror. She just stared at the road.

“I wasn’t actually told that’s what happened,” she said.

“But you must have known. Did it bother you?”

“Yes it did. But it’s not as simple as that. All of us came here because we believed it was important. I knew it was possible you’d be brought to the compound that way, but I was convinced our purpose was important enough to make that an acceptable transgression. I would have preferred you to come because you wanted to, because you agreed with us.”

Bobby just shook his head and looked back out at the passing hills. He didn’t have the energy to get mad at anyone. Ashley must have felt the same way, because she let it go.

“What were those things?” Tiffany said after a few minutes. “Those animals, or whatever they were. Where did they come from?”

Bobby said, “It’s all because of what you guys did. The Lamotelokhai is dangerous, but everyone always wants to play god.”

She glanced at him in the mirror. “But what were they?”

“They were your friends,” he replied. “Dr. Helmich and the others. That’s what they were turned into. You shouldn’t have done what you did to the Lamotelokhai.” Bobby watched her eyes. She was fighting back tears, and he actually felt sorry for her.

Ashley said, “They weren’t all burned up. Some got out.”

Until now Bobby had avoided thinking about that. He was the one who had allowed the creatures to escape the lower level. And he was the one who had opened the outer door of the compound. Now those things were running around the countryside. What if they went into the nearby town? His stomach churned at the thought of what might happen.

The Lamotelokhai was the only thing that could stop the consequences Bobby was envisioning. But the Lamotelokhai was probably gone—at least nine tenths of it. He looked at the remaining portion on the seat next to him. The Lamotelokhai had told him that if he ever needed to do so, he could access and recombine the twenty-four packets of information. Apparently, the packets were a way of making a backup of its own consciousness, or operating system. Things had been pretty chaotic at the time, and Bobby hadn’t paid much attention, but now his perfect memory made every detail accessible, including who the Lamotelokhai had put those packets into. Bobby himself was one of them. And so was Ashley.

He pulled Addison’s arm onto his lap. The Lamotelokhai had intended to tell him how to access the information packets, but then things had gone to hell, and there had been no time for it. He rested his palms on the arm. He was afraid of what might happen if he tried to communicate with the Lamotelokhai, but they needed its help to stop the death and destruction.

The Lamotelokhai had told him it would try to configure this arm so that it wouldn’t be dangerous. It had stopped him from transforming into a monster after the Helmich-bat had attacked him, so maybe the arm was safe. He had no idea if it would work, but he started talking to the arm with his thoughts. “I know there’s a packet of your information inside me. I want to download it from my body into yours. Can you do that? If you can do that, I’ll find all the other packets and download them, too.”

Bobby didn’t have to wait long. His head began to tingle. It didn’t hurt—in fact it almost tickled, and he felt a smile forming on his face. Soon the tingling feeling was on the move. It went from his head into his neck. It worked its way into his shoulders, down his arms, and into his hands. The last place he felt it was on his palms where they were touching Addison’s arm.

“What are you smiling about?”

Bobby looked up and realized Ashley was watching. Before he could answer he felt Addison's arm move against his palms. Startled, he shoved it from his lap onto the seat beside him. The arm and shoulder began shortening and thickening. The fingers became little stubs and then disappeared. The torn shred of t-shirt melted into the shoulder until it was gone. The skin transformed into a rough brown surface as the entire object became an amorphous lump.

Bobby felt trapped. The car only had two doors, so it wouldn't be easy if he had to make a quick escape. He watched the lump, ready to yell at Tiffany to stop the car if it turned into any kind of creature. But it had stopped changing. It looked like nothing more than a lump of clay the size of a soccer ball. It was a miniature version of the Lamotelokhai’s original form.

“What did you do?” Ashley said.

“I’m not sure yet.” Bobby cautiously put his hand on the lump of clay. Images appeared before his eyes. He jerked his hand back. But some of the brief flashes had included symbols from Kembalimo. How was this possible? He put his hand on it again. The images flew by. They seemed random and too fast to make any sense. Bobby knew Kembalimo, perhaps better than anyone, because he was one of the few people who had used it to talk to the Lamotelokhai. But these flashes were nonsensical.

Of course they were. He hadn’t downloaded the other packets of information yet.

“Put your hand on it,” he said to Ashley.

She frowned at him. Tiffany eyed him in the mirror.

“You need to trust me. It won’t hurt, I swear. I just did it myself. Just put your hand on it.”

She twisted around far enough to extend her hand back between the two seats. Bobby held the lump of clay out so she could reach it.

She quickly pulled her hand back. “What is all that?”

“Kembalimo symbols. Just ignore what you see and leave your hand on it for a minute. You might feel something, but it won’t hurt.”

“You want to tell me what I’m trying to do?”

“If it works I’ll explain the whole thing.” He waited until her hand was firmly on the clay. Then he spoke with his thoughts. “Ashley has a packet of your information in her, too. I want to download it from her body into yours. Can you do that?”

He watched Ashley’s face.

She obviously felt something, because she twitched her head like there was a fly on her nose. Then she looked like she was concentrating. Her eyes met Bobby’s.

“It tickles,” she said without smiling.

“Is it finished yet?”

“How would I know? It’s in my arm right now.” Seconds later she said, “Now it’s in my hand.” And finally, “I think it’s done.”

Bobby put the object back on the seat. Its surface began to ripple. Wide bumps formed and then moved, creating the illusion that the whole thing was rolling. Soon the rippling stopped, and the lump of clay looked the same as before.

Bobby put his hand on it. The visions appeared again, but now they were more stable. Kembalimo symbols appeared, remaining long enough for him to actually recognize them. And there were other symbols he had never seen before, and flashes of images, like stars and trees. There were even sounds in his head—snippets of some weird language or animal.

“What did you just do to me?” Ashley asked.

Bobby pulled his hand back. The visions and sounds stopped. “I downloaded some information from you into this.” He nodded toward the lump. “It was a packet of data the Lamotelokhai put into you back when Addison killed the Papuans at the hanging village.”

She opened her mouth to say something but then stopped and crossed her arms. Apparently she was waiting for him to explain.

“I know, I was kind of freaked out about that, too. Here’s all I know about it. The Lamotelokhai is a computer, right? So it made a backup of itself. But that backup is split into twenty-four packets of data. We just downloaded two of those packets into this.” Again he nodded at the clay. “The rest are in other people. The Lamotelokhai told me who they are. I think it knew it was about to be destroyed.”

Tiffany said, “What are you two doing?”

Bobby looked at her in the mirror. She was shifting her eyes between him and the road. “You probably didn’t know it,” he said to her, “but you guys may have started a really big problem. The Lamotelokhai warned us of what might happen, but you guys wouldn’t listen. Those creatures you saw that got out of the compound? Now they’re probably going to kill more people and spread. And they’ll keep spreading and killing more people. They may even spread over the entire planet. Do you understand what you’ve done?”

She was fighting tears again, and she didn’t answer.

Bobby went on. “We need the Lamotelokhai to help stop it. But the Lamotelokhai is probably dead—or destroyed, I guess—because of your 4:44 protocol. And even if it survived, we can’t get to it for at least two weeks.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else I can say.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ashley said to Bobby. “We need to get the other twenty-two data packets.”

He blew out a puff of air. “Well, yeah. But most of them are in the Papuans in the hanging village.”

“Oh. Well crap.” She turned back around to stare out the windshield.

“Yeah.”

She spun back around. “So let’s go there and get the data packets.”

Bobby stared at her. They didn’t have identification, passports, or money, which would make leaving Puerto Rico almost impossible. But then it dawned on him that there might be another way. “Peter said there were two other people in his company who know what we were trying to do. He must have trusted them.”

Ashley turned to Tiffany. “Tif, we need to borrow your phone.”

Tiffany braked abruptly and pulled to the side of the road. The car stopped. Her arms were shaking, even though she was gripping the steering wheel.

They waited for her to say something.

She turned her head without letting go of the wheel. Much of the hair between her right eye and ear was burned away, making her look kind of pitiful. “I have to think for a minute,” she said.

They waited.

Finally she spoke. “I know this project was a mistake. I think I knew it before, when I realized Dr. Helmich was, well, a little fanatical compared to the rest of us.”

Bobby felt a surge of anger. “I have a box anchored to my skull. The other one was bitten off by a giant bat that used to be Dr. Helmich. Is that what you call a little fanatical?”

She turned around and actually studied Bobby’s condition for the first time. “That wound’s going to be infected soon. And you’ll have to have the remaining one surgically removed. I’ll take you to a hospital.”

“I don’t have to worry about infections.” Bobby touched the remaining implant. “And this can wait. Do you have a phone we can borrow?”

She closed her eyes, like she was trying to decide. Then she opened them and nodded toward Ashley’s feet. “Under your seat. They make us leave everything in our vehicles except one ignition key.”

Ashley pulled out a tan leather purse and Tiffany reached for it. Ashley hesitated, then handed it to her. Bobby heard a zipper, and Tiffany held up a smartphone. “Before you start calling people,” she said, “maybe we should talk about what we’re going to do next.”

Bobby and Ashley exchanged a glance. Bobby said, “Okay.”

The woman half-turned in her seat so she could look at both of them. “I don’t want to get in trouble. I really just want to go home. I have a family.”

Ashley said, “A family?” Bobby recognized a fierceness in her voice that he had heard before.

But apparently Tiffany didn’t. She said, “I’m going to San Juan and to the airport, where I’ll try to get on the first available flight to the States. I can take you two to a hospital first, or you can ride with me to the airport.”

Without warning, Ashley shoved her palm out and awkwardly smacked the woman on the side of her face. “A family! You want to talk to us about your fucking family?”

Bobby lunged forward to put his body between them. “Ashley, stop!”

Tiffany let out a whimper and fumbled with her seatbelt. She got it loose and started getting out of the car.

“Mrs. Travers, wait!” Bobby said. “Please.”

She hesitated. Besides, where was she going to go?

“We really need your help,” Bobby said. “Please.”

She looked at Bobby. Even her hands were trembling now, and there were tears in her eyes. “I told you I was sorry. I’m not the one who did those things to you.”

“We know you’re not.” Bobby turned to Ashley. “We need her help. Please.”

Ashley’s eyes were narrowed and enraged, and she was breathing hard. But she nodded.

Bobby settled back into his seat.

“I came here thinking I might have the chance to do something good for the world,” Tiffany said. “I had no idea something like this would happen. I’m scared.”

Bobby sighed. “We’re all scared. Ashley and I have seen what happens when people make mistakes with the Lamotelokhai. The mistake Dr. Helmich made is worse than all the others so far.” Bobby looked out the window. “We need your help. We don’t even know where we are.”

Tiffany seemed to consider this. “Are you going to go to the police?”

Bobby looked at Ashley and she met his gaze. Her eyes had relaxed.

“I think they might need to evacuate the area around the compound,” Bobby said. “Maybe a really big area.”

Tiffany nodded, but she was frowning. “So we need to call the police.”

“Look,” Ashley said, “we know you just want to go home to your family. If you call the police now—get someone who can evacuate the people near the compound—and then help us get to the airport, you can fly home and we won’t tell anyone we know who you are.”

Tiffany nodded again. “Okay. Um, okay. I’ll do what I can.” She turned on her phone and dialed 911. After several seconds she said, “English, please.” There was another pause. “Yes, I need to report an emergency. Animal attacks, several miles east of Salinas, just north of Jobos Bay Estuarine Reserve.” Another pause. “They have? I see. Okay, well please tell them to hurry. It’s very serious. No, I’m sorry, I can’t. Just hurry!” She lowered her phone. “My lord, they’ve already gotten calls.”

Dreadful thoughts flooded Bobby’s mind, and he tried to ignore them. He put his hands on the lump of clay and spoke aloud. “Lamotelokhai, I need your help. Can you understand me?” The same snippets of symbols, images, and sounds passed through his consciousness, but none of it made any sense.

Ashley snatched the phone from Tiffany’s hand and started tapping. Then she looked at Tiffany. “How do I call the U.S.?”

“Puerto Rico’s a U.S. territory. Just tap 1, then the area code and number.”

Ashley tapped out a phone number Bobby assumed was the special number Peter had given them. Abruptly she handed him the phone. “You know a lot more about what’s going on here than I do.”

Bobby put the phone to his right ear, but that side of his head hurt too badly, so he switched to the left.

A man answered. “Benson here.”

Bobby remembered the name. Jonathan Benson was the third employee of Peter’s who knew about the plan to move the Lamotelokhai. Bobby hadn’t met him.

“Um, this is Wyatt Grayson,” Bobby said.

“Bobby! Is that really you? We’ve been losing our heads here. Where are you? Where’s Mr. Wooley?”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story, and I have really bad news about Peter.”

There was a moment of silence. “What do you mean?”

Bobby explained the best he could without taking too much time, and the guy listened without interrupting. He told him about the experiment gone wrong and the rampaging creatures. He ended with their escape from the compound, the 4:44 protocol, and how it had burned up everything and everyone inside.

“Are you still there, Mr. Benson?”

“Yeah, still here. I just—I don’t know what to say. Peter and Robert are dead?”

“There’s another thing, and this is really big. Some of those creatures got out and ran away.”

There was another pause. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Bobby didn’t understand either, and there just wasn’t time to explain further. “Mr. Benson, you’re one of the people in Peter’s company he trusted the most, so you can probably arrange things like trips on his jets and stuff like that, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Well, we need you to come get us. Like right now.”

“I can certainly do that. Where are you?”

This was one of the many things Bobby had left out. “We’re on our way to the airport in San Juan. Puerto Rico.”

Yet another pause. “Why in God’s name are you in Puerto Rico?”

Bobby had no idea. He tapped Tiffany’s shoulder. “Why are we even in Puerto Rico in the first place?”

She shook her head. “We weren’t told that, but I assume those funding the project had their reasons. Maybe to avoid scrutiny from the U.S. government, or maybe fewer regulations, but I don’t know.”

Bobby spoke into the phone. “No idea. Can you come get us anyway?”

“Yes, I can.”

“I know this is asking a lot,” Bobby said, “but if Peter were here he’d know we have no choice. After you pick us up, we need to go to Missouri to see my friend, Carlos Herrera. Then we need to go to Papua, Indonesia.”

“That’s… well, that is asking a lot.”

“But you know how important the Lamotelokhai was to Peter. I can’t even tell you how important this is to the Lamotelokhai. And to a lot of people around here, probably. Maybe everyone in Puerto Rico. You just need to trust me that Peter would want you to do this.”

Jonathan sighed. “Okay, Bobby. I believe you. Will I be able to call you back at this number?”

Bobby considered this. “Yes.”

“Good. You get to the Marin International Airport. I’ll call you when I have more information about my arrival time.”

“Mr. Benson, it’s really important that we hurry.”

“How important is it that you come back here to Missouri to see your friend? That’s going to take considerable time.”

“We can’t save the Lamotelokhai without seeing him in person.”

Jonathan let out a long breath, which sounded like tearing cardboard in Bobby’s ear. “Right, then. Okay, I’ll let the police know you guys have been found. Everyone’s searching for you. And since it’s you, Bobby, I think the feds are involved. But I’m not telling anyone Peter and Robert have been killed until I have absolute proof of that.”

“Mr. Benson, I think it’s just as important now as it was eight months ago that we can’t let the government have the Lamotelokhai. Especially not a small part of it, which is all I have left now.”

“Understood. Peter has given Ardell and myself the authority to leverage an impressive portion of the SouthPacificNet resources. You did the right thing, calling me.”

Bobby ended the call. He looked up to see a string of blue and yellow cars and SUVs with Policia on their sides race past them in the opposite direction, sirens blaring. Tiffany started the car and pulled back out onto the road.

“We’re an hour from the airport,” she said. “We need to get some clothes for you two first.” She gazed at Bobby in the mirror. “And you need to get cleaned up.”

Bobby said, “Mrs. Travers, we’re going to have to keep your phone.”

She glanced in the mirror again but didn’t say anything.

Bobby tapped the phone’s screen and pulled up the web browser. He went to an international calling assistance site and looked up the codes to call a satellite phone in Papua, Indonesia from Puerto Rico. He tapped in the codes and then the number for the SAT phone Peter had given them months ago. He then tapped the PIN that would power on the satellite phone, which would probably be shut off to save the battery charge. He listened for a moment to make sure the call was routing through, and then he nudged Ashley’s shoulder and stuck the phone in her face.

She turned and frowned. “What?”

“You’re handling this one.”

Chapter Fifteen

For Quentin, the second night of camping in the wilderness typically allowed more sleep than the first. But on this night every slight sound set him on edge. The forest floor was alive with scurrying creatures, most of them probably rats and small marsupials, but some sounding like they had more than four legs—large spiders or scorpions, most likely.

So when the SAT phone chirped, he flinched and shouted a curse, waking the others. He crawled from the shelter and stumbled to the fallen tree where he had placed the phone to maximize the chance of picking up incoming calls. Lindsey was right behind him.

He fumbled with the phone’s buttons in the dark. “Hello, this is Quentin.”

“Quentin, this is Ashley. I can barely hear you. Can you hear me?”

“Ashley!” Quentin turned to Lindsey, but her face was just a shadowy oval in the darkness. “I hear you. Are you okay? Is Bobby okay?”

“Well, we’re alive. Look, it’s really a long story, and I’m worried I’m going to lose you, so first there’s some really important stuff I need to tell you. Can you still hear me?”

Quentin held the phone out and tapped it to activate the speaker. “Yes, go ahead.”

“Well, we have to come there. To the hanging village. And we have to do it soon. You’re at the hanging village, right?”

For a moment Quentin was at a loss for words. Lindsey remained silent, but she gripped his arm, her nails digging into his skin.

“Um, no. We plan to arrive there tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, can you just stay at the village until we get there?”

“Ashley, how could you possibly—”

“Listen! I’ll tell you what I can. First just promise you’ll stay there with the villagers until we get there. Promise!”

“Okay, I promise.” Quentin pulled from Lindsey’s grip and started pacing.

Ashley went on. “We’ll get there as fast as we can. We were kidnapped. They took us… compound… Rico.” Her voice started breaking up.

Quentin rushed back to where he’d had a better signal. “Ashley! Are you there?”

“I’m here, but I can hardly hear you. They took us to this place in Puerto Rico and they made… Lamotelokhai into… then things went really… got out in time but the whole building… and Robert were still inside… gotten out.”

“Ashley!” Quentin stepped up onto the fallen tree and held the phone as high as he could. “Ashley, are you there?”

“I hear you. I just need to know you’ll be at the village, okay?”

“We’ll try to wait there, but what’s going on? How are you going to get here?”

“We’ll get there, don’t worry. It’s because of the Lamotelokhai.” She paused and Quentin heard Bobby’s indistinct voice in the background. Then Ashley went on. “Okay. We have to kind of put the Lamotelokhai back together, from twenty-four packets of data it created as a backup. That’s why we’re coming there. The people who took us divided it up into pieces. And, well, just about everyone died. We’re lucky to be alive. But we have to come there. You’ll be there, right?”

“We’ll be there.”

Lindsey spoke up for the first time. “Ashley, I don’t know what’s going on, but you and Bobby be careful, okay? You two are our family. We love you.”

There was a moment of nothing but static. “We love you guys, too. We’ll call again when we can. Maybe there will be a better signal. See you there.” The line went silent as the call ended.

Quentin lowered the phone and stared at the screen. It said 4:42 AM. He stepped down from the fallen tree, powered the phone off, and set it back in its place on the log.

He and Lindsey stared at each other in the almost complete blackness.

Sinanie broke the silence. “Mbakha-mo-f-é wofekha amo-mémo?”

Samuel spoke to him in his language, presumably trying to explain how phones worked, although as far as Quentin knew, Samuel had used a phone only once.

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, forward 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.

The humans of the great forest would need assistance. They would need protecting, as Mbaiso had protected the villagers. Without protection, they would surely perish.

While Mbaiso and Newton waited, the shafts of light piercing the canopy slowly changed angles as the sun moved across the sky. Eventually clouds blocked the sun, and the shafts of light were gone.

Finally, Addison opened his eyes. He sat up and rested his face in his hands, staring at the ground through the spaces between his fingers. He was alive and apparently healthy.

Mbaiso was satisfied with Newton’s ability to care for the nearly-human creature. But he was not at all satisfied with the condition that had caused Addison to fall in the first place. The sharing of senses between humans and their paired mbolop had been a mistake. Humans were apparently not well-suited to such sensory duality. This would have to be fixed before the colony went out to the great forest of this world.

Mbaiso sat upright and signed to Newton, conveying what he wanted her to do next.

Newton snorted. “No!” she then signed back.

Mbaiso scratched his snout and thumped one foot against the ground. He was confident he could force Newton to do what he had asked, but there was something about her defiance that pleased him. It was his own defiance, after all, that had led to the realization of his ambitious plan.

He gazed at Newton and then at Addison, who was still staring at the ground through his fingers. Addison’s next accident might kill him, in spite of Newton’s assistance. But perhaps the colony no longer needed him. Most of the colony would be leaving this place soon, although Mbaiso intended to stay here with Tupela. Addison would not be needed for expanding the hanging tunnels. At this point his death would probably not interfere with Mbaiso’s plan. Besides, there might be more to learn by observing Newton’s reaction to the death of the almost-human boy.

But as for the rest of his mbolop colony, Mbaiso intended to remedy the situation. He waited until a pair of mbolop approached to check on Addison. They both had come earlier in the day, sniffing at Addison’s body and signing to Mbaiso for an explanation. Mbaiso now stopped one of them and pressed his snout to hers. She received a packet of data, an addendum to the set of instructions regarding pairing with humans. She then turned to the mbolop at her side and passed the data packet to him. They both hopped away to repeat this with the other mbolop of the colony.

Chapter Seventeen

Peter stared at the microwave meal on his lap. Mashed potatoes, corn, and some kind of meat covered in brown gravy. Other than having a compartmentalized tray made of paper instead of foil, it was identical to the tv dinners he used to buy for a dollar at the Coles grocery in Cairns back in the 70s. He glanced over at Robert. The poor bloke was shoveling his meal into his mouth with a plastic spoon like a starving animal.

“Let’s begin, shall we? We should have had this done already.” The woman held a tablet and had barely looked up at them since unceremoniously placing the meals on their beds and unfastening their wrist restraints. Her name was Marleah, and apparently she was the one assigned to taking care of Peter and Robert’s basic needs. Every time they had to relieve themselves, she had to undo their restraints, and she complained every time about how much easier her job would be if she didn’t have to do this. If she were Peter’s employee, he’d have her repeat the part of her training about taking pride and pleasure in her work.

“Please describe your first encounter with the Lamotelokhai,” she said. She then held the tablet out, apparently having tapped a record button.

“Can’t remember,” Robert said with his mouth full of mystery meat. “I got shot. Traumatized, I guess.”

Marleah glared at him. “I’ve got more than forty questions here. This will be over faster if you just answer them honestly.”

“Can’t remember,” Robert repeated. “And why would I want this interview to be over? At least now I can scratch my crotch.” He dropped his spoon and started scratching away.

Peter could’t help but smile. This was a feisty side of Robert he had not yet seen, as his employer.

Marleah rolled her eyes and turned to Peter. “Mr. Wooley?”

Peter stirred his potatoes with his spoon. “My first encounter?” He looked up and met her eyes. “It was a long time ago, before you were born.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It was a rather unusual experience. It’s doubtful you could appreciate the intricacies of it, nor the implications. If you could, I don’t believe you would be involved in this insanity.”

“If you’re implying that Dr. Helmich is insane, then you surely understand that he will take whatever steps are necessary to get honest answers from both of you.”

Peter appraised her. “You’re American—I can tell that. What is your profession, might I ask?”

Marleah sighed. “I’m an RN.”

Robert snorted a laugh without looking up from his meal.

“A nurse,” Peter said. “And somehow you have come to terms with the truthfulness of your poorly-veiled statement that we may be tortured.”

“We’re all here because we believe in this project. We believe you and your cohorts have made a terrible mistake in hiding the Lamotelokhai from the rest of us. As if it were entirely up to you to do such a thing.”

Peter shook his head and looked at his food.

“My father died in November,” she said.

Peter looked up at her.

“I loved my dad. Everyone did. And we now live in a world where a dear man like my father should not have to die because of a stroke. Sure, if Dad would have had diabetes, or maybe AIDS, he probably would have lived. Because the Lamotelokhai decided, for whatever reason, to give us cures for those. But strokes were not high on the priority list, I guess. Too bad, Dad, you’re out of luck.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Peter said.

“Every one of us here could tell you a similar story. We all have good reasons to believe in this project.”

A shout came from somewhere beyond the windowless metal door, followed by more frantic shouting.

Marleah frowned. She went to the door and used her key card to open it. She looked out. With the door open, Peter could hear more shouting, along with the distant drumming of feet against concrete. People were running.

Marleah stepped back in and slammed the door shut. She turned to face Peter and Robert, her eyes wide.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked.

“There’s something out there. I—I don’t know what it is.”

Peter and Robert exchanged a glance. This didn’t sound good. Peter couldn’t help but think of the dream he’d had, in which he’d witnessed unspeakable horrors through Samuel Inwood’s eyes. “Was it an animal?” he asked Marleah. “One you couldn’t identify? Maybe one that shouldn’t exist?”

She furrowed her brows in confusion, nodding.

“Oh, bloody hell! I knew the dream was a warning.”

With her back to the door, Marleah said, “What are you say—”

Her words were cut off by a blasting alarm, loud enough to startle Peter even though it came from beyond the thick door.

“Oh no!” Marleah said. She covered her mouth, her eyes darting around the room like a frightened animal’s.

“What is that?” Robert shouted.

Her eyes narrowed, and she lowered her hand from her face. Determination was now chiseled into her features rather than panic. She rushed to Peter’s bedside and yanked off the sheet, sending corn and mashed potatoes flying. She then began loosening his ankle restraints. “They’ve triggered the 4:44 protocol!”

Peter said, “The what?”

“You don’t want to know. We have less than five minutes.”

“What happens in five minutes?” Robert asked. When she didn’t answer he threw his sheet off, meal and all, and fumbled with his own ankle restraints.

Marleah finished freeing Peter and helped Robert. Seconds later they were on their feet, following her to the door. Again she used her key card to open it. She stuck her head out but immediately pulled it back in and slammed the door shut.

“Oh Jesus!” she said.

“Open it,” Peter said. “Let me see.”

She sucked in some air and then unlocked the door. Peter stuck his head out. The alarm’s volume assailed his ears, disorienting him. There was some kind of creature in the hall, moving away from them. At first its awkward scuttling limbs reminded him of a crab’s, although the thing was as big as a German shepherd. But then one of its legs slipped on the smooth concrete and flailed to the side. He realized it wasn’t a leg at all. It was a wing.

He pulled his head back in and closed the door enough to muffle the alarm without latching. “The hall is clear to the right. I think we can make a run for it.”

Marleah shook her head. “We have to go left to get to the outer perimeter where the exits are. We probably have about three minutes.”

“Then we have no choice,” Peter said. “Are you ready?”

They nodded.

He threw the door open and they rushed out and started fleeing down the hallway to the left. But then they stopped. The creature had turned and was looking at them. Its eyes were mounted high upon a head that otherwise looked remarkably like that of a large sea turtle. And now beyond it was a swarm of several dozen smaller creatures. All shapes and sizes. Running, crawling, and slithering. And more of them were pouring into the hall from around a corner.

Peter threw his arms out to prevent Robert and Marleah from going any farther. If these creatures had anything to do with what he had seen in his dream, it would be wise to avoid them.

“Back into the room!” Peter shouted.

Marleah shook her head. “No, we’ll die in there! This way!” She took off running in the only direction they could go—away from the building’s exits.

Peter glanced at the approaching creatures. The turtle-headed animal with wings was now scrambling toward him, either to attack or to escape the horde that was quickly advancing. He turned and ran after Robert and Marleah.

They took a right and then a left. The hall opened into a circular space. In the center was a round elevator shaft. The elevator door was closed. Marleah ran for the elevator, but instead of going for the door, she circled to the back side of the shaft. Peter and Robert followed. When they caught up, she was already halfway up a vertical ladder bolted to the shaft and ending at a hatch in the ceiling five meters up.

Robert started up the ladder after her. Peter began climbing as soon as Robert’s feet were at eye level. The throbbing alarm had become more intense, or maybe it was just louder in this room, and Peter had to fight the urge to let go of the ladder and cover his ears.

Marleah stopped at the hatch. Peter could hardly see past Robert’s body, but he could tell that she was fumbling with something. Her hand shot out with her key card, and she pressed it against a card reader on the ceiling. The hatch opened, and sunlight poured in. The hatch apparently opened onto the compound’s roof. Marleah climbed through, then Robert.

Peter was almost to the hatch when something pulled on his foot. He looked down. The winged turtle had clambered up the ladder and its toothless jaws were clamped onto his shoe. Its featherless wings, each over a meter long, thrashed about, awkwardly trying to hold on to the ladder. Peter tried shaking the creature off, but its jaws were like a vice. So he pulled himself up, hoisting the monster with him. He looked down again. The smaller creatures were now swarming the room, running around like frenzied ants. The turtle gripped his shoe so tightly that Peter worried it might crush the bones in his foot.

He hooked his fingers over the edge of the opening and strained, dragging the creature up. Marleah and Robert leaned through the hatch and grabbed his shirt. They pulled him up until he was sitting on the lip of the hatch. He pulled his right leg out, but his left leg and the creature still dangled below him.

“Get off me!” he screamed.

Marleah and Robert grabbed his knee and pulled, forcing Peter onto his back. His foot and the creature’s head came into view over the hatch’s lip. Suddenly the thing forced its wings through the opening and found purchase. This took much of the weight off Peter’s leg, but the creature still didn’t let go.

The alarm stopped.

“Oh God!” Marleah cried. “Shut the hatch!”

Before anyone could act, a massive whump came from below, shaking the entire roof. This was followed by a roar that steadily got louder. Suddenly flames blasted through the hatch. Peter cried out as the creature was ripped from his foot. He rolled away from the hatch. His shoe and pant leg were burning, but for some reason he thought only of the creature. He looked up and there it was, in the sky. Its body was on fire, but nevertheless its wings were intact and it was flying. It circled aimlessly once and then took off toward the horizon, leaving a trail of black smoke drifting across the cloudless sky. It was a strangely beautiful sight.

Robert and Marleah pummeled Peter’s foot and leg with their hands trying to put out the flames. Pain spread to his butt and back, and it steadily got worse. Peter realized the roof was heating up.

“Bloody hell!” he cried. He sat up and got to his feet in spite of excruciating pain in his leg.

“It’s the heat from inside,” Marleah said. She lifted one of her jogging shoes off the concrete roof. Strings of melted rubber extended from the shoe to the concrete. “It’ll get even hotter. We have to get off the roof. Now!”

Peter looked around. They were in the exact center of a vast circular roof. The edges looked to be about 150 meters away no matter which way he turned.

Marleah started running, her shoes leaving a trail of melted goo.

Peter looked at Robert. The bandage on his face and neck had been pulled most of the way off, revealing purple bruising. He was lifting one foot and then the other to avoid being burned through his shoes.

“I know you’re hurt, sir, but either you have to run or I have to carry you.”

“I can run,” Peter said. They took off after her.

When they were only halfway to the compound’s outer wall, Peter knew they were in serious trouble. The soles of his shoes were nearly gone. Marleah was twenty meters ahead, but he could hear her crying out in pain. She kept running. They all kept running. There was no other choice. It was hard to breathe. Like inhaling fire. Peter imagined at any moment Robert and Marleah would burst into flames before his eyes.

About fifty meters to go. Peter was sure there was nothing left between the bare skin of his feet and the concrete.

Twenty meters. Now he was sure the skin of his feet had been burned away and he was running on exposed bone. Step after excruciating step, the edge of the roof drew nearer.

Marleah reached the edge first. She threw herself onto her belly, put her feet over the edge, and slid off, wailing in pain the whole time. For just a moment, her fingers were visible, hanging on to the roof’s lip, but then she let go.

Peter and Robert arrived seconds later. Five meters below them, Marleah lay in the rocky dirt, moaning and holding her ankle.

“Give me your hand!” Peter said.

Robert nodded. “Once I’m down, I’ll catch you when you jump.” He took Peter’s hand and dropped to his knees. A second later he was over the edge, pushing his feet against the wall to keep away from its heat. Peter sucked in a lungful of hot air. With the additional weight pulling him down, he couldn’t shift from one foot to the other. He thought he could actually smell the flesh burning on his feet. Robert’s eyes met his.

“Do it,” Robert said.

Peter let go. Robert hit the ground with a grunt and rolled onto his side. Peter was tempted to simply launch himself from the roof to avoid the searing concrete, but such a desperate move would surely break his legs. He dropped to his belly and slid off the side as quickly as he could without losing his grip on the edge.

He heard Robert call from below, “I got you, sir!”

His fingers began to fry, so he let go. Robert broke his fall some, but when he hit the ground his knees buckled and his head flew forward and struck the wall.

“Sir! Peter!”

He realized Robert was looking down at him. He blinked. “I’m okay. I think.”

Robert sat back. “God, I thought you were dead.”

Peter sat up. He put his hand to his forehead, and it came away red. He tried to gather his thoughts. What the bloody hell had happened? It had been more than a fire. It was like a bomb had gone off inside. Perhaps the explosion had been in the lower, underground level. Maybe that’s why the walls and roof were still intact.

Suddenly a wave of panic washed over him. “Bobby and Ashley! They’re still in there!” His arms flailed as he tried to get up.

“You can’t go inside,” Marleah said. She was sitting a few meters away, still holding her ankle. “They triggered the 4:44 protocol. There’s nothing left alive inside the compound. Not even microbes.”

“What?” Peter said, collapsing back into the dirt. “Why would they do such a thing?”

She stared at her ankle. “It was a precaution. In case something went wrong with the procedures. Obviously something went wrong.”

“Maybe they found a safe place,” Robert said. “Maybe a closet or something.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing alive in there. And it’ll be weeks before the temperature drops enough for anyone to enter.”

Peter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had to get inside. Maybe the kids had somehow found a way to survive. Maybe they had even gotten out. He struggled to his feet. His left leg was seriously burned from the knee down, the flesh blistered and the pant leg partially burned away. He looked at the bottoms of his shoes. He had been right about the soles. They were melted, and blistered skin was fused with the remnants of rubber and fabric. He needed to move now, before the pain got so bad he couldn’t walk.

He spoke to Marleah. “You said there were doors. Which way to the nearest one?”

She looked up at him. “You can’t go in there.”

“Which way!”

“I don’t know. There are four. People only use one because that’s where the parking lot is. It’s probably that way.” She nodded.

Peter held his hand out and Robert helped him to his feet. He started limping away.

“I can’t walk,” Marleah said. “My ankle is broken.”

Peter kept walking. Without saying a word, Robert caught up and walked beside him.

They followed the gently curving outer wall. But before they were even out of sight of Marleah, Robert stopped. “What is that?” he said. He was staring ahead.

Peter squinted. A rabbit-sized creature was running beside the wall, headed for them. But it wasn’t a rabbit—not even close. It was pink and hairless, and it ran on two legs like a flightless bird. Something strange was protruding from its side. Peter grabbed Robert’s sleeve and pulled him away from the wall as the thing scampered past them, and he saw what was protruding from the creature’s side. It was a human hand.

“I think I’m seeing things,” Robert said.

Peter turned and watched the creature. “You’re not. I saw it too.”

The thing stopped when it saw Marleah sitting where they had left her. It approached her cautiously. Peter started to yell at her to avoid touching it, but he was too late.

She kicked it with her good foot. “Get away from me!”

The freakish animal tumbled away but was not so easily deterred. It approached her again.

“Marleah, move away from it!” Peter shouted.

Instead of backing away, she kicked it again. Again it tumbled away, and again it approached her, this time more aggressively. Another kick. It tumbled. And then it leapt at her and latched onto her leg.

“Get off! Get off!” She pounded it with her fists until it let go. But it attacked again.

“She needs help,” Robert muttered, and he started limping back to her.

Peter hesitated. The dream he’d had flooded his thoughts again. “Wait!”

Robert turned.

“I don’t think you can help her.”

Robert frowned. “It’s attacking her. I’ll stomp on it.”

Marleah continued screaming at the creature, trying to fight it off.

“Listen to me,” Peter said. “It’s more dangerous than it looks.”

“How so?”

“The Lamotelokhai tried to warn us—”

Suddenly Marleah’s cries escalated to sheer terror. “What is this? Oh no! What is it?” She was scooting backwards, pushing herself with her hands. But not to escape from the hairless creature—it was running away from her, still hugging the slightly curving wall.

Instinctively, Peter started toward her with Robert at his side. It was impossible to ignore someone in such desperate distress.

“What is it?” she cried over and over.

At ten meters away they both stopped. It was now obvious why she was backing away.

Peter became vaguely aware that Robert was retching. In the corner of his vision he saw him cover his mouth. But Peter couldn’t take his eyes off Marleah. She was trying to back away from her own legs—because now they weren’t legs at all.

“No! What is it?” Her cries were becoming little more than garbled screeches.

Her legs had lost their solid physical form. Instead, they had become shifting, wriggling masses of worms. Hundreds of them. Some were large, like snakes. But most were the size of spaghetti. The main mass of them was attached to Marleah—it was being dragged with her as she tried to escape. But many had broken loose, and she was leaving behind a trail of individual squirming earthworms as she pulled herself across the rocks and dirt.

“No! No!”

Something with wings fluttered by Peter’s face. A second winged thing flew up from the ground and came for him. He swiped at it with his hand. He then realized the worms Marleah had left behind were changing, becoming other creatures. Some of them now had legs and were skittering about. Others were sprouting wings and taking to the air. One of these fluttered at his face and he ducked instead of trying to swat it, fearful that any contact might result in the same frightful fate as Marleah’s.

“Robert, run!” Peter turned and ran as fast as the pain of his broiled leg would allow. A moment later he heard Robert grunting behind him, trying to catch up.

“No! Noooo!” Marleah’s screams became muffled, and then they stopped altogether.

As they followed the curving wall, Peter saw a car speeding away on a gravel road, leaving a cloud of dust. After running a few more meters, a cluster of parked cars came into view. And then they were at the entrance to the compound.

The door appeared to have been blown off its frame. It lay on the ground in front of the entrance. Next to the door was the body of a woman. She had been crushed, possibly by the broken door.

While Robert stared at the woman’s body, Peter approached the open doorway. At arm’s length from the opening, he could go no closer due to intense heat. He could see nothing but darkness beyond the doorway. It was like the gaping maw of hell.

“Bobby! Ashley!” Of course there was no answer. There was nothing alive in there. Not even microbes, Marleah had said.

Robert stepped up beside Peter. “Maybe they got out. That psycho Helmich knew they were important. He probably took them with him when he evacuated the place. Don’t you think?”

Peter didn’t answer. He just stared into the darkness.

Chapter Eighteen

Bobby watched Tiffany walk across the parking lot and through the gleaming doors of the Kmart. She had changed into shorts and a shirt she’d gotten from the car’s trunk, and she’d combed her hair to hide the burned spot. Now she was going in to buy clothes for Bobby and Ashley.

“I notice she took the keys with her,” Ashley said.

Bobby had noticed this too, but he was glad. If Tiffany had left the keys, at this moment he’d be talking Ashley out of driving off and leaving her here. They needed Tiffany’s help. They had no money, or ID, or anything else—except a cellphone and an incomplete chunk of the Lamotelokhai.

Bobby closed his eyes and tried to gather some courage. There was something he had to do, and it couldn’t wait—they would be at the airport soon. He touched the skin behind his right ear. The area still hurt, and it was crusted with dried blood. He moved his hand to the left side of his head and touched the box anchored to his skull. He had no idea how it was attached, but sheer force was probably the only way he could remove it. He had already tried pulling gently on it, but he’d had to quit because of the pain. So he decided to treat it like a Band-Aid—pull hard and fast, not soft and slow.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he sucked in some air and then yanked on the box. A cry escaped between his gritted teeth and his feet shot out and kicked the back of the driver seat.

Ashley whipped around. “Damn, Bobby!”

He clamped his eyes shut, enduring the lasting pain and trying to breathe normally. He hadn’t pulled hard enough. The box was still attached, although now it jiggled a little when he touched it. He opened his eyes and looked out the windows to make sure his cry hadn’t attracted attention. Tiffany had parked at the outer corner of the lot to change her clothes, and the closest people were too far to have heard.

“You need to wait and have a doctor do that.”

Bobby looked at his hand. It was shaking, and his fingertips were red with blood. “A monster bit the other one off. I survived that. I just need to pull harder.”

“Well, at least let me do it.” She got out of the car, flipped the seatback forward, crawled in next to him, and shut the door behind her.

Bobby turned so she could get at the left side of his head.

She gripped the box with one hand and put her other against the side of his head. “Ready?”

Bobby closed his eyes again. “No, but I want it off.” He waited. Seconds passed.

She let go. “I don’t think I can do it.”

Bobby exhaled.

“Why don’t you use that?” she asked, nodding toward the lump of clay. “Or do you still think it’s dangerous?”

Bobby considered this. So far this portion of the Lamotelokhai hadn’t done anything disastrous. Maybe it could help.

“It might work.” He looked at her. “But you should get out of the car, just in case.”

She frowned. But then she crawled out, closed the door, and leaned in through the open window. “If you turn into a monster, I’m going to kick your ass.”

Bobby put his hands on the lump of clay and decided this time to just speak out loud. “I need help getting this thing off my head. Can you make it come off without hurting me?” He waited for a moment then pinched off a pea-sized chunk and rubbed it into the box and the surrounding skin. He waited.

Ashley watched him silently, her elbows resting on the door.

Abruptly the box dropped to his shoulder and tumbled onto the seat. He picked it up. It was black and made of metal, featureless except for the side that had been against his skin. That side had a sticky gray pad and four shiny steel posts that looked like they’d been melted off at the ends. Was the rest of each post still stuck in his skull?

Ashley opened the door again and crawled into the back seat. “If it can do what you ask, it should also do what I ask, right?”

“I guess so, but—”

She put her hands on the clay. “I want Bobby’s shaved hair to grow out. Like, right now.” She pinched some off and smeared it gently onto the right side of his head. There was something almost magical about her fingers rubbing his scalp. He was tempted to close his eyes but decided that would look weird.

She finished and said, “Turn.” He turned, and she rubbed it into the other side. She wiped the remaining bits onto the back of the seat in front of her. She then sat back and gazed at the side of his head.

This made Bobby feel awkward, so he looked out the window at the Kmart. It looked like every other big store he had ever seen, except some of the signs were in Spanish. And the shoppers were Puerto Ricans, most of them with dark hair.

The shaved areas of his scalp began to tingle.

“It’s working,” Ashley said. “I can’t believe I did it right.”

Bobby felt his head. It was working. Bristles now covered the previously smooth skin. And the bristles were getting longer by the second.

Ashley put her warm, magical fingers against his scalp again. “We’ve just discovered a cure for baldness.”

Bobby smiled at this. “It came a zillion light years to help middle-aged men feel young again.” But then he forced the smile away. It didn’t seem right to make jokes when so many people had just died, including Peter and Robert. Maybe he could go back to the compound and use this piece of the Lamotelokhai’s clay to bring them back to life. But it would be days before they could enter the compound. And besides, the bodies were probably burned to ashes. Maybe if he successfully restored the Lamotelokhai’s consciousness, he could ask it to create a new copy of Peter’s body and put Peter’s consciousness in it. That wouldn’t work for Robert, though, because the Lamotelokhai hadn’t put its particles into him to learn about him.

Ashley finally pulled her fingers from his scalp. “What else do you think it can do?”

“No idea.” He put his hands on the clay and spoke aloud. “I want to know what else you can do. Can you tell me?”

He didn’t really expect much to happen. But then an arrangement of Kembalimo symbols appeared before his eyes. He squeezed his eyes closed. The symbols were still there, and they remained when he opened his eyes again. It had been months since he had talked to anyone using Kembalimo, but he remembered every symbol combination he’d developed when he had worked through the Kembalimo lingo-building process back in the Papuan rainforest. Millions of people had created their own Kembalimo lingoes using Peter’s smartphone app, but Bobby was one of the few who had ever created a lingo with the actual Lamotelokhai.

The general meaning of the arrangement of symbols was, “Hello, Bobby.”

An old habit kicked in, and he raised one hand, ready to move symbols into a reply, but the 256 symbols that used to be arranged in a border around the main statement were missing. There were no symbols to choose from, other than the four that made up the greeting.

So Bobby spoke aloud. “Hello, Lamotelokhai. Is it really you?”

The four symbols faded away and were replaced by one. “No.”

Bobby frowned. “Then what are you?”

The single symbol disappeared and was replaced by at least thirty more, arranged to be read left to right, top to bottom. “Lamotelokhai created me. I am knowledge. Small knowledge. I talk to you. My purpose.”

“Bobby?” It was Ashley.

He turned to her, and the symbols moved with his field of vision. Now they were displayed in front of her face. He pulled his hands from the clay, and they disappeared. “It’s talking to me. I think the Lamotelokhai gave it some basic programming. Because it knew it was about to die.”

He put his hands back on the clay. “Your purpose is to talk to me?”

One symbol appeared. “Yes.”

“And you are the Lamotelokhai’s knowledge?”

The symbol was replaced by another set. “Small knowledge. I talk to you small. I help you small.”

Bobby figured he knew what this meant—limited help. “So what can you do to help us?”

The symbols changed. “Please talk different.”

Bobby stared. “Um, would you be able to stop all the transforming creatures that started back at Dr. Helmich’s compound?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Small knowledge now. Small help. You help me more knowledge. More knowledge more help.”

Bobby cursed quietly. They still needed to get the other data packets. It could take weeks. But maybe this thing could at least help them do that.

“Um, can you heal us if we get hurt?”

“Possible. Need hurt definition.”

This looked promising, and communication was already getting easier. “If we get cut or scraped.”

“Possible. Need definitions.”

He sighed. Maybe it wasn’t getting easier. “Here, I’ll show you.” He pinched off some clay and applied it to the gashes on the right side of his head from the Helmich-bat’s teeth. As he spread the clay he realized the hair in this area was now much thicker. “Can you heal these cuts?”

After a few seconds the symbols changed. “Talk first. Take my parts second.”

“Okay, I have cuts on my head. I am going to take some of your parts and put them on my cuts. I hope you can heal the cuts.” He pinched off more and applied it. He waited. His scalp was still tingling due to the fact that the hair was still growing quickly, so he couldn’t tell if anything new was happening. But soon he realized the pain was fading. He touched the cuts. They definitely felt better.

The symbols before his eyes changed. “Success or fail. Tell please.”

“It’s working,” Bobby said. “Success.”

The symbols disappeared.

Bobby rummaged around. Tiffany’s car was clean, but there were some papers in the storage bin between the front seats. They were mostly in Spanish, but they looked like something to do with the purchase or renting of the car. He pulled one of the papers loose, folded it, and set it on top of the lump of clay. He pressed his hand to the side of the lump, under the paper. “Can you make an exact copy of this paper?”

Bobby pulled his hand back and watched. The folded paper became soft, and its corners drooped. It melted into the clay and was gone. A new lump started to arise. The new lump fell away from the larger mass onto the seat and continued to change. Soon it was a folded piece of paper. He opened it. It certainly looked like the same document. He put his hand back on the clay.

“When I said make a copy, I meant to make a new copy and keep the original. You know, so there would be two.”

Symbols appeared before his eyes. “I understand.”

Another lump appeared, dropped off, and became a second folded paper. Bobby didn’t bother to unfold it.

He grinned at Ashley. “This thing might be able to help us!”

He looked toward the Kmart. Tiffany had not come out yet, but she would soon. There was something else he wanted to try. He pressed the first paper against the lump. “The Lamotelokhai could zap things from one place to another. Even people. It did this to me a couple of times. It was just like, zap, and I was in a different place. Can you zap this paper to a different place? To, um, the front seat of this car?”

Symbols formed. “Need place definition.”

Ashley said, “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

Bobby ignored her. “The front seat.” He leaned forward and put his hand with the paper in it on the passenger seat. “Right there. It’s just a few feet away.” He brought his hand back and pressed the paper against the clay. “Can you zap it into the front seat?”

Suddenly everything turned gray. Bobby saw nothing and heard nothing. Seconds passed—or maybe minutes—and then shapes began to appear. He could hear a voice, faint at first, and then louder.

“Bobby! Say something!” It was Ashley’s voice.

He blinked. The shapes before his eyes became clear. The backs of two car seats, a windshield, a dashboard with knobs and letters on it. And something moving, in the front passenger seat. It was a mass of something, with skin and hair. And bits of white cloth quickly turning red from seeping blood.

“What is that!” Bobby said. His voice sounded strange in his ears.

Suddenly Ashley’s arms were around him and her forehead was against his temple. “Oh, thank God! I thought your brain was fried or something.”

Bobby couldn’t take his eyes off the bloody, quivering mass. “Ashley, what is that?”

She pulled back. “How should I know? I’ve been trying to snap you out of your trance. There was this sound, and my ears popped. Then it was there, in the seat. The thing was noisy at first, like it was gagging. You know, trying to breathe. I didn’t know what to do. But I think it’s dead now. Are you okay?”

She was right, the mass was now hardly moving. It was dying, if not dead already. Bobby finally pulled his eyes away from it. He stared at his hands. The left one still gripped the folded paper. He had meant to let go of it before asking the clay to zap it to the front seat. But it was still in his hand.

He looked again at the sickening mass. Bits of pale green cloth, pale skin dotted with freckles, a femur-sized bone sticking out with its end deformed like melted plastic, part of what looked like scalp with brown hair—the same color as Bobby’s hair. And there, blood-covered and warped, was the heel of a Converse low-top with the snake-skin print. Bobby’s shoe.

“It’s me,” Bobby said.

A white and red plastic bag was shoved through the open window into Bobby’s lap. The driver door popped open and Tiffany got in.

“I had to guess on your sizes, but I think—”

She stared at the blob of skin and cloth and blood beside her. She whipped her head around to look at Bobby and Ashley. Without saying another word she got out of the car. She walked to the grass by the edge of the parking lot and put her hands on her knees like she was going to throw up.

Bobby flipped the driver seat forward and got out. He went to her and put a hand on her back. “I think it’s dead. It didn’t suffer long.”

Her mouth opened, but only words came out. “I thought for a second it was one of you two. What is it?”

“It’s hard to explain, but I think it is me. A copy of me, anyway.”

She looked up at him but kept her hands on her knees. Her face was pale. “I want to go home.”

“I know.” Bobby looked around the parking lot. A lady with a red shopping basket by her car was staring, but she turned away when their eyes met. “We’ll get that thing out of the car. Then you can drive us all to the airport. You can fly home, and we won’t tell anyone we were with you. Okay?”

She nodded but remained bent over.

Bobby went back to the car as Ashley was climbing out. They opened the passenger door and stared at the mass on the seat.

“If that’s you, it’s not an improvement,” Ashley said.

He turned to her and raised his brows. A year ago, they both would have been heaving in the grass with Tiffany. But they had seen so much since then.

Bobby gazed over the hood toward the store. No one was looking their way. Still, he was glad this side of the car was facing away from the other cars. He grabbed the blob by a curved rib bone that was sticking out, but when he pulled on it, the bone came loose with a wet pop.

“Help me,” he said to Ashley. Together they grabbed it wherever they could get a grip and rolled the thing off the seat. It hit the pavement with a squishy thump. Bobby tried not to look at it too long, but he couldn’t help noticing part of an arm protruding from one side. At least it wasn’t his head or one of his eyes.

They took Tiffany’s elbows and walked her back to the car, and they all got in. Tiffany stared at the passenger seat. It was covered with pooled blood and pink chunks.

“It’s out of the car, Mrs. Travers,” Ashley said. “Let’s go before police show up.”

Bobby said, “The police are probably too busy.”

Tiffany backed up and drove out to the highway, leaving the mass of body parts in the parking lot.

Ashley plucked the folded paper from the seat. It was the copy Bobby had asked the clay to create. She opened it and stared at it for a moment before handing it to him. The paper had several holes in it, and its edges were not straight. There was printing on it, but the letters were garbled and blurred. It was not even close to a perfect copy.

“I don’t know what you were thinking,” Ashley said, “but let’s not try anything like that again.”

* * *

Bobby stared at his face in the mirror. He had been washing dried blood from his face and neck for several minutes, and finally it looked like he’d gotten it all. But he still looked stupid, because the hair Ashley had treated with the clay was still growing, and now it was longer than the rest of his hair.

He grabbed the baseball cap Tiffany had bought him and put it on. It was red with white letters, PR, above the flat, oversized brim. With his red t-shirt and blue jeans—too big but held up with a belt—he was less likely to stand out in a crowd.

He stuffed his crusted, burned doctor clothes into the trash and left the bathroom. Ashley had already changed and was waiting in the back seat of the car. Tiffany stood next to a gas pump where they were parked. She had made it clear she didn’t like sitting next to the mess in the passenger seat. They got in the car and Tiffany pulled out onto the road.

Twenty minutes later they were at the San Juan Marín Airport. They entered a multi-level parking garage and found a place on the top level where there were no other cars. Bobby got out, holding the lump of clay under his arm, while Tiffany grabbed a purse and duffel bag from the trunk.

Tiffany looked at the clay. She handed Bobby her duffel bag. “Take some of my clothes out and put that thing in the bag. You can’t walk through the airport carrying it like that.”

Bobby took it and thanked her. He was able to get the clay into the bag without removing anything. He zipped the bag shut. Bobby, Ashley, and Tiffany went down some concrete stairs and crossed a street full of taxis and shuttles to a huge terminal building.

Inside, Tiffany stopped. “Do you know what you’re going to do next?”

“We’ll be fine,” Bobby said. “Someone’s coming for us.”

She studied them for a moment. She frowned at Bobby and tilted her head like she was looking at his ear. “Um, your hair.”

Bobby took off his cap and felt his scalp. The hair that had been shaved was now at least an inch longer than the rest.

“I was trying not to say anything,” Ashley said. “But it is starting to look funny.”

Bobby replaced the cap. “I guess I’ll just have to cut it.”

Tiffany shifted her eyes from Bobby to Ashley and back to Bobby. “Look, I know we made a mistake. And I know it’s not over. I heard you talking about trying to fix the problem. Is there any way I can help?” The way she had hesitated gave Bobby the impression she was hoping they’d say no.

Bobby glanced at Ashley. She hated the woman. He could see it in her eyes. He spoke before she could.

“You helped us get here,” he said to Tiffany. “You didn’t have to, but you did anyway. If our plan works, and we can prevent those things from spreading everywhere, it will be because you helped us. You should go home.”

She exhaled, her shoulders relaxed, and she nodded. “Good luck, you two.” She then turned and walked away at a brisk pace.

“She’s really stupid if she thinks no one will know,” Ashley said. “She left her car with a bunch of blood in it. A mangled body in the parking lot. Probably a hundred other things that will lead the feds to her.”

Bobby considered this. “Maybe the feds hired her in the first place. Maybe Helmich worked for the government—the CIA or something.”

“If so, they’ll never admit it.” She turned to Bobby. “We’ve got to do something about that hair.”

There was a vibration in Bobby’s pocket, followed by a chime. He pulled out Tiffany’s phone. It was a text message from someone named Gary: “What the hell is happening there? Been watching the news. Call me when you can!”

“Tell him Tiffany is dead,” Ashley said. She was leaning into his shoulder to read the screen.

Bobby ignored her and typed a reply: “I’m okay. On my way home now. Won’t be able to call for a while. Don’t worry.” He hit Send.

Ashley snorted indignantly.

“We need this phone,” Bobby said. “We don’t want her husband shutting the account down because he thinks it’s been stolen.”

“That’s why they call you science boy.”

“You’re the only one who calls me that.”

Without tickets, or ID, or anything else, they wouldn’t be able to go through security checkpoints to other parts of the airport, so they found a quiet corner near the outer wall where Tiffany’s phone had a strong cell signal. They sat on the floor.

“We should have asked her for some money,” Bobby said. “I’m starving.”

“Look at that.” Ashley was staring at a television attached to the ceiling. A dozen or so people were gathered nearby, staring somberly up at it. The screen was showing a news report with English subtitles. People with haunted looks on their faces were being interviewed, describing something they had seen. The video cut away to a view from a helicopter. It showed a neighborhood of blocky white houses. Police cars with flashing lights were scattered throughout the neighborhood. The camera zoomed in. Bodies were lying in the streets. People were running. The camera zoomed in closer, and a wave of gasps and cries came from the people gathered below the TV. Bobby squinted. Not all of the running figures were human.

“It’s our fault,” Ashley said. “They got loose because we left the compound.”

Bobby turned to her. She was right. More accurately, though, it was Bobby’s fault.

Ashley was still staring at the TV. “Do you think they’ll be able to stop it?”

“I’d like to think so, but the things I saw in the lower level of the compound…”

Finally she turned to him. “Then we can’t screw this up. We have to put the Lamotelokhai back together and bring it back here.”

The phone in Bobby’s hand vibrated and chimed again. This time it was a call from a number based in Oklahoma City. It had to be Jonathan. Bobby answered.

“Bobby, Jonathan Benson here. Are you and Ashley still safe?”

“We’re okay. We’re at the airport.”

“That’s a relief. I’ve been watching the news at every opportunity. Never seen anything like it. You were right, it’s damn serious.”

Bobby nodded, as if Jonathan could see him. “The airport here is pretty calm right now, but I bet people will start panicking soon. When will you be here?”

“I’m in the air as we speak. Bobby, you mentioned that you needed to see your friend in Missouri before going to Indonesia. Is that absolutely necessary?”

“We can’t save the Lamotelokhai without him. And the Lamotelokhai is the only thing that can stop what’s happening here.”

“That’s what I presumed. And that’s why we’re on our way to Kansas City. I called the family of Carlos Herrera. My intent was to convince them that Carlos should come with us to Puerto Rico, and that they should expedite the process by driving him to the airport.”

This took Bobby by surprise. He hadn’t thought of saving time this way. “Yeah?”

“They weren’t keen on the idea.”

“I bet they weren’t. I’ll call Carlos myself. I’ll get it sorted out.”

“Precisely what I was hoping you’d say. If you convince his folks to allow it and everything goes smoothly, we should arrive in San Juan as early as 2:00 am your time. If you can wait somewhere near the main entrance to the airport from the parking facility, I’ll find you. We’ll be landing at Terminal B.”

“We’re by the main entrance now. But we don’t have anything with us. We left our passports and stuff in Oklahoma City.”

“I have your things. You’ll be boarding a private jet, in which case the captain has discretion over who can and cannot board. There shouldn’t be any problems.”

They ended the call and Bobby gave Ashley a quick summary. He then typed a text message and sent it to a number he had been calling every month for the last eight months. The text said, “Carlos, it’s Bobby. I’m going to call you from this number, so you better answer!” He counted to thirty and then called the number.

“Bobby, is that you? What the hell’s going on?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I need to be sure I’m talking to the right Carlos. What did Addison say that time he smashed those termites and ate them off his hand?”

Carlos sighed. “He said, ‘Now they worship me.’ Bobby, this is my phone. The other Carlos has his own phone.”

“I had to be sure,” Bobby said. “Listen. I know this is crazy, and I know your parents are going to shit, but we need your help.”

Chapter Nineteen

Peter turned away from the compound’s dark opening. There was no way they could go back inside. If Bobby and Ashley were still in there, they were dead. Without a doubt.

There was a gravel parking lot with several cars and an unpaved road, stretching as far as they could see in either direction. They were near a coast—the air was warm and humid, with the unmistakable scent of mangrove mud and rotting algae.

Several small fires burned in the nearby weeds, and dark smoke rose from low mangrove trees beyond that. Peter’s eyes were drawn to a movement in one of the trees, near the rising smoke. He heard branches cracking, as if from the weight of a heavy creature. He squinted. He couldn’t see a creature in the tree, yet the branches kept moving. This gave him an uneasy feeling. He turned. In the opposite direction, the horizon was stacked with forest-covered mountains.

Robert stepped to Peter’s side and said, “Where the hell are we?”

“It looks like we’ve been taken out of the United States.”

“Maybe Hawaii?”

“Maybe.” Peter walked to the nearest car. It was locked. He checked the others. All locked. He walked to the road, acutely aware of the worsening pain in his burned leg and foot. To the right the road went to the mangroves, and therefore to the shore. To the left it went toward the mountains. He turned left and started walking. Robert followed.

Within a few hundred meters, fields of bananas or plantains came into view. Peter could hear vehicles passing by on what sounded like a paved road further ahead. Suddenly a dog-sized animal ran across the road ahead of them. It was moving too fast for Peter to see details, but it had too many legs to be a dog.

“We shouldn’t be out in the open like this,” Robert said.

Peter had to agree.

They heard Sirens in the distance. The sirens drew nearer and then slowed when they approached the place directly ahead of Peter and Robert where the gravel road ran into the paved highway. Peter thought the vehicles were going to turn toward them, on their way to the destroyed compound, but they turned the opposite direction and began growing quieter in the distance.

Peter could now see a cluster of houses beyond the paved road—a small town or village. That’s where the emergency vehicles had gone. Something big was happening there, but at least there would be vehicles. Peter had a strong desire to get inside a vehicle and close the doors and windows. So they kept walking.

Every step was excruciating. Peter was confident in his body’s ability to heal; for fifty years he had enjoyed the benefits of the Lamotelokhai’s particles. But it would be hours—perhaps even a day—before new skin replaced the burned skin. He wasn’t sure he could run, but he knew that running might become necessary at any moment. He looked down at his leg. The exposed flesh was every color from pink to black, and he was leaving a bloodstain on the dirt with every step.

Finally they arrived at the paved road. More sirens approached from the left. Four cars with flashing lights came screaming toward them and then turned off toward the cluster of houses on the far side of the road. The cars were white with broad blue and yellow stripes and the words Policia Transito. The cop in the last car stared at them as he turned off the highway, but he continued following the others.

Peter glanced at Robert. “I think we’re in Mexico, or perhaps the Caribbean.”

“They didn’t even stop,” Robert said. “We look like we’ve been through a meat grinder, and they didn’t even stop.”

Peter watched the cars as they sped into the village. The breeze from the coast behind him shifted direction for a moment, and he thought he heard screams coming from the houses ahead. He was already on edge, but now a deeper sense of dread swelled within him.

Still more sirens approached from the left, a group of navy blue cruisers and SUVs. Robert walked onto the road and stood directly in front of them. Peter realized it was the right move. They had no choice—they couldn’t stay out in the open like this. He joined Robert on the road.

The first of the vehicles, a Tahoe, skidded to a stop before hitting them. The vehicles behind it barely slowed down. They ran onto the shoulder, barreled around them, and turned onto the road leading into the village. Two policemen sat in the Tahoe. The one on the passenger side got out and approached them with his hand on the butt of his sidearm. He looked at their burned and stained hospital clothes and at Peter’s scorched leg. The other cop turned off the siren.

“¿Quién eres?” the man before them said. “¿Qué pasó?”

“We need help,” Peter said. “It isn’t safe here. Can we get a lift?”

More screams arose from the village, and the cop turned to look. “Come, get in,” he said. He opened the door to the Tahoe’s back seat. They got in and the locks clicked. The driver hit the gas and sped around the turn toward the houses.

The officer in the passenger seat turned and addressed them through a steel mesh barrier. “What have you seen? What is happening?”

“It’s animals,” Peter said. “There are animals everywhere. You can’t let them touch you. Don’t let them touch anyone.”

The Tahoe turned left onto a dirt road lined with tightly-packed houses. Other police cars were parked haphazardly in the road and yards ahead.

“What animals? Dogs?”

“No, not dogs. They are—”

“¡Mierda!” the driver shouted and slammed on the brakes.

Two figures had run out from between the houses on the left and directly in front of the Tahoe. The first was a woman. Close on her heels was a man. The woman saw the Tahoe. She skirted around the front of it without slowing down and grabbed the handle on the back driver-side door. Briefly, Peter saw her terrified eyes just outside his window as she yanked on the handle. But then the man came around the vehicle and stopped beside her. She shrieked and yanked on the handle again, but it was locked.

“¡Ayúdeme!” she cried.

Peter then realized the man beside her was not actually a man. Or at least not entirely. One side of his face was almost normal, but the other side was misshapen, with lumpy, red skin drooping down like the neck of a turkey. The arm on that side of his body was much longer than the other, with skin hanging loose in the same way. He stood beside the hysterical woman, gazing at her with one eye drooping several inches below the other. He held out his good hand as if trying to calm her.

Both cops got out of the Tahoe, the driver nearly knocking the disfigured man over as he opened his door. The disfigured man then turned his attention to the officer. He tried speaking, but one side of his mouth was drooping almost to his chest, and the sounds were incomprehensible. He reached for the officer as if pleading for help. The cop shoved him away and said, “¿Qué te ocurre? ¿Qué está pasando aquí?”

The officers had left their doors open, so the woman got in the front seat and slammed the door shut. She crawled over the center console and closed the passenger door.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” Robert said through the mesh barrier.

She was whimpering and staring into her lap, and she didn’t answer. Peter leaned forward so he could see what she was looking at. It was her hands. They were transforming. One finger on each hand was much longer than the others, with a membrane of skin stretching between the elongated finger and the woman’s armpit. The membranes were bunched up at the armpits, constricted by her t-shirt sleeves.

“¿Qué está pasando aquí?” the cop outside the door shouted again. His partner was now beside him, and they both had their sidearms aimed at the disfigured man. The man’s face was now even more misshapen, and his head leaned to one side due to a lack of solid structure on that side of his neck. Suddenly he collapsed into a heap on the road. The two officers stood over him, staring, apparently at a loss for what to do.

As Peter looked through his window at the poor bloke lying in the dirt, another movement outside the car caught his eye. He squinted, trying to get a better look. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

Walking toward them from between two houses was a creature that looked like a crocodile, but with hind legs as long as a man’s. The front legs were shorter, about the size of a man’s arms, and so the creature walked at a slant, with its hips and tail higher than its head.

“Hey!” Peter rapped on the window to get the cops’ attention. When they turned to him, he pointed.

The crocodile continued walking leisurely toward them, although with its abnormally long legs it looked like it could easily outrun a human. The cops turned their guns on the approaching creature. It came right up to the helpless, disfigured man, and the officers stepped back against the SUV. The crocodile was three meters long from its snout to the tip of its tail. Its entire body was much larger than that of an adult human. Was it possible multiple people were merging into one creature as they were transforming? If not, perhaps this creature had previously been a cow or horse.

The woman in the front seat continued crying as Peter and Robert watched the surreal scene outside the vehicle. The crocodile gazed at the helpless man. It then nudged the man with its snout. The man moaned pitifully and tried to move away, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. Nearly all of his exposed skin had now transformed into loose piles of flesh splayed out on the ground. Apparently sensing the man’s helplessness, the crocodile attacked. It clamped onto his arm and started backing up, dragging him away.

Finally the two policemen acted. They both fired at the creature. It released the man and raised up onto its hind legs. It then charged at the cops, closing the five meters of distance with frightening speed. The creature hit one of the officers, slamming him back into the SUV and rocking the entire vehicle. The officer went down with the snarling, thrashing crocodile on top of him. His partner shouted something and shot point blank at the creature. He fired again, and again, until the crocodile stopped moving. He shoved the creature aside and helped his partner up. The guy was covered in blood, either his own or the creature’s.

The cop who had just saved his partner threw open the driver door, got in, and began shouting into his two-way radio. “Officer down! Necesitamos ambulancias y refuerzos en—”

Suddenly he took notice of the woman in the seat beside him. She was still crying, but her voice was changing. It was now more of a screech, no longer human. She still held her hands out, staring at them, but there was barely room for them in the confined space. The elongated finger on each hand had continued growing and each was at least a meter long now, with the leathery membrane draping down into her lap. Her fingers were becoming pterodactyl-like wings.

The officer dropped his radio and got out. He put an arm around his partner and helped him limp away from the SUV. They turned and looked back at the vehicle, one man’s face glistening with sweat, the other’s with blood.

The uninjured officer locked his eyes onto Peter’s, and they stared at each other through the glass. But then the cop shifted his gaze, looking at something beyond the SUV, behind Peter. He said something to his partner and started guiding him away. The two men half-ran, half-staggered between houses and were gone.

“God almighty,” Robert said.

Peter turned, and then he saw why the cops had fled. The ground on the other side of the street was moving. It was covered with insects, or some other type of small creatures. Thousands of them. They seemed to be coming from a row of fruit trees growing beside one of the houses. The trees were rapidly getting smaller, because pieces of their limbs were breaking off and falling to the ground. But the fallen pieces were not simply accumulating in piles. They were dispersing, crawling away from the trees of their own volition, spreading out in every direction. Some of them were already in the street, moving toward the Tahoe.

Peter realized the driver door was still open. “We have to close the door!” He pulled the lever to open his own door. It was locked. Robert tried his door. Also locked.

“Ma’am,” Peter said through the mesh barrier. “You need to close the door.”

But the woman was beyond understanding him. Her arms had become wings, folded awkwardly in several directions because they were too long to extend fully in the tight space. Her head and shoulders were hunched over, and Peter couldn’t see her face.

He slammed his hand against the steel mesh. “Ma’am, close the bloody door!”

She straightened up and turned. Her face was no longer human. It had become elongated, with a beak extending out in front of her eyes. She opened the beak and squawked at him through the barrier, baring rows of pointed teeth.

“They’re under the car now,” Robert said. He was too busy watching the spreading swarm outside to pay much attention to the transforming woman. “They look like centipedes. Big ones. We’ve got to shut that damn door!”

Suddenly the woman went berserk. She thrashed her wings and dislodged a laptop that was mounted on the dashboard. She tore at her t-shirt with her long beak, trying to rip it from her body. She then scratched and wriggled her way past the steering wheel and out the open door. She scrabbled over the grotesque body of the turkey-neck man, and then Peter could see that there was no woman left in her at all. Her shorts had come off in her struggles, revealing short legs with tiny clawed feet. A thin, meter-long, hairless tail whipped about between the two legs. Horrified and fascinated, Peter couldn’t take his eyes off her. She expanded her wings, tearing away what was left of the shirt. She tried flapping her wings a few times, but her torso was still proportionally too large for flight.

Abruptly the winged reptile stopped moving. It fixed its stare on the ground. The centipedes were now swarming the dirt beneath it. It thrust its beak out and grabbed one, like a heron snatching a frog. It threw its head back to swallow the centipede and then picked up another.

“They’re getting in!” Robert cried, lifting his feet off the floor and onto the seat.

Peter looked. Several centipedes the length of his hand were crawling on the floorboard. He lifted his feet to avoid them.

He and Robert were trapped.

Peter rolled onto his back and kicked the glass window. Pain exploded in his scorched foot and he cried out.

“Move over,” Robert said. Without waiting for Peter to move, he threw himself onto his back and kicked the other window with both feet. It didn’t break.

Peter pulled himself from beneath Robert and got to his knees. He looked down in time to see a centipede crawl up and over the edge of the seat, inches from Robert’s head. He pulled his sleeve over his hand and flicked it onto the floor.

Robert grunted and kicked again. This time the window cracked, but it was held in place by the safety membrane between the glass layers. Two more kicks and the glass fell to the ground. Robert got to his knees as Peter brushed two more centipedes off the seat. More of them were making their way into the vehicle.

Peter and Robert looked at each other. Robert nodded over Peter’s shoulder and said, “I don’t want to die like that.”

Peter turned. The winged reptile was still trying to eat the swarming centipedes, but now it was struggling. Its once-rigid beak was sagging, flapping around loosely. The creature was transforming again, probably due to contact with the centipedes.

Peter looked down and flicked another centipede off as it came over the lip of the seat. “Okay,” he said. “Out!”

Robert reached through the broken window and found the door handle, but the door still wouldn’t open. He went through the window head first until he was sitting on the door with his feet on the backseat. As Peter brushed more centipedes off the seat, he heard Robert grasping at anything he could on the Tahoe’s roof to gain leverage. Robert managed to pull one knee through the window, but as he struggled with the other leg, he fell onto the road.

He was on his feet in an instant, stomping on centipedes and cursing. He spun around. “They’re on my back! Get them off!”

“You’re okay,” Peter said. “I don’t see any. Clear the ground, I’m coming out.” Peter flicked one more centipede and then lunged through the window. Robert grabbed him around the chest and pulled him out.

“Kill that one, and that one!” Peter said, pointing at centipedes that were breaching the perimeter Robert had established. Although Peter’s right shoe was still mostly intact, there was almost nothing left of his other shoe to protect his seared flesh. And he didn’t want to find out whether seared flesh would transform into a monster as quickly as healthy flesh.

Robert kept stomping, but it was a losing battle. They had to run.

“This way!” Peter took off down the street, away from the epicenter of the centipedes, stepping between them with his exposed foot as gingerly as he could. This was far more painful than he had imagined, but soon he and Robert were ahead of the spreading swarm.

Peter heard a low droning sound above. Things were flying about just over the houses—at least half a dozen of them that he could see. They were the size of pigeons, but they weren’t birds. They were dragonflies.

“We need to find cover,” he said. “One of the houses.”

Robert grabbed his elbow and pulled him off the street. “This one!”

Like the others, the house was basically a box with a flat roof. The front had a single window and a door, both with metal bars over them.

Robert rapped on the door frame. “Hey! Can we come in?”

A woman’s voice came from beyond the door. “¡Vete! Go away!”

Robert glanced at Peter. He then tried opening the outer door. It was locked. He rattled it loudly. “We need help! We’re hurt, and—”

A blast came through the door, hitting Robert in the chest. He immediately crumpled to the ground.

“Robert!” Peter kneeled next to him.

Robert was wheezing, like the wind had been knocked out of him. Peter rolled him onto his back and then felt himself going pale. Just below Robert’s collarbone, a four-inch cavity had been gouged into his chest.

“Bloody hell, you shot him!” Peter screamed at the house.

Another shotgun blast came through the door, whizzing over Peter’s head. He dropped instinctively and pressed himself against his friend. Robert weakly lifted one of his arms and wrapped it around Peter as if trying to protect him. His gurgling breaths were coming through the hole in his chest, just beneath Peter’s ear.

And then the wheezing stopped. Robert’s arm loosened and fell to his side. Peter kept his head there for a moment. He didn’t need to look at Robert’s eyes to know he was dead.

Something crawled over the blistered skin of Peter’s ankle. He pushed himself up, shook off a centipede, and stomped it with his right foot. But more were coming—a lot more. Before getting up, he allowed himself one look at Robert’s face. Blood had run from his mouth and nose. Peter wiped at it with his sleeve and pushed Robert’s eyes closed.

He looked up at the house. The woman was staring at him through one of the four-inch holes, but then she backed away, probably holding her shotgun ready to shoot again.

He swallowed, fighting off the urge to start sobbing. There wasn’t time for that. Centipedes were gathering at his feet. Bird-sized bugs were swooping above. The town was being overrun by monsters that defied all logic.

Peter ran. He ran to the end of the row of houses, and then he ran next to the gravel road until he came to the paved highway. He turned right and kept running, step after agonizing, bone-crunching step.

* * *

So focused was Peter on putting one foot in front of the other that the car was nearly on top of him before he even knew it was there. Its horn sounded just behind him, startling him from his trance. It was a red Corolla, and it had slowed to match his pitiful pace. A woman in sunglasses behind the wheel leaned forward to get a better look, and then she mouthed some words he couldn’t hear with her windows up. She pointed to her passenger door.

Peter got in. “Thank you. Gracias.”

Instead of accelerating, she continued gazing at him. “Mr. Peter Wooley?”

He stared at her. Was she from Helmich’s compound? He grabbed the door handle, ready to bail. “How do you know my name?”

“Everyone knows who Peter Wooley is, no? Unless they don’t watch the news. Acho men, what is happening? I saw police. Many police! And you, Mr. Wooley, you look like mierda. You look much better on television.”

If that was a joke, he wasn’t laughing. “Can we get out of here? This area isn’t safe.”

She started driving again. Seconds later a group of navy blue police vehicles screamed past them, headed for the village. Peter wished he could warn them that there was probably nothing they could do.

“What is happening?” the woman asked again.

He shook his head. “Not easy to explain. People are getting sick, and every person they touch is getting sick.”

She took her foot off the gas and looked at him. “Are you sick?”

“No. If I were, you would already know it. This is going to sound crazy, but it changes people—turns them into creatures. Animals.”

She continued slowing down and came to a stop on the road’s shoulder. She gazed at him for a moment and then took off her sunglasses. She had striking brown eyes. She wore a snappy, business-like blazer and skirt the same red color as her car. Perhaps in her late thirties. Close to Peter’s apparent age. But of course Peter was fifty years older than his apparent age.

“Animals?”

Instead of replying, he watched two helicopters fly over, also headed for the village. They didn’t appear to be military, perhaps police or news choppers.

The woman also watched them fly over. “If you were not Peter Wooley, I would push you out of my car. But now I am afraid. This is because of the Lamotelokhai, no?”

He nodded. “It’s because of what someone tried to do with the Lamotelokhai. Do you mind telling me where the bloody hell we are?”

She tipped her head forward. “Salinas is just there. It is where I live.”

“And where is Salinas?”

She frowned at him. “Caribbean side.”

“Caribbean side of what?”

Her frown deepened. “You don’t know you are in Puerto Rico?”

“Puerto Rico. That makes sense.” He glanced at her. “It’s a tedious story. How far are we from Salinas?”

She pulled onto the road and accelerated. “It’s just there.” She tipped her head again. “Just a mile.”

“That’s too close. It won’t be safe there.”

“You are really starting to scare me.”

“I’m sorry, but you should be afraid.”

She drove in silence for a minute or so. “My name is Georgia. I would shake your hand, but I don’t want to turn into an animal.” She emphasized the word like she didn’t believe him, or perhaps she was making a joke.

“Georgia, could I use your cell phone?”

Her phone was already in her lap, and she handed it to him. “I have been trying to call my madre and padre, but I think the towers are overloaded.”

Peter tried calling Jonathan Benson but immediately got a simulated voice saying in Spanish and then in English that his call could not be completed. Bobby and Ashley were dead, Robert was dead, no one knew where Peter was, and everything around him was going to hell.

Rectangular houses appeared on both sides of the road, and they passed a tire store and a Walgreens. Two ambulances screamed by them, followed by more police cars. There were no pedestrians on the streets. Perhaps the people of Salinas already had some idea of the horror only a few miles away—horror that was no doubt spreading and would soon engulf this city.

“A hospital is just ahead,” Georgia said. “I will take you there.”

“No, I don’t need a hospital.”

She glanced at him. “But your leg.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Peter didn’t feel like explaining that his burns would be healed by tomorrow—if he lived that long.

Georgia turned right onto a residential street. “I am going to my home. My madre and padre live with me, and I’m sure they are worried. You are welcome to come.”

With no cell phone service and no vehicle, Peter couldn’t afford to say no. “Georgia?” He waited for her to glance at him before continuing. “You recognized me. You know who I am, so you know I’m not some mad wanker.”

“Perhaps you are not aware, Mr. Wooley, but some people think you actually are loco.”

Peter hesitated only briefly. “Well, you can trust me when I say it isn’t safe here. You need to leave. And take your madre and padre with you. And yes, I’d like to ride with you if you don’t mind. But we need to leave immediately.”

Georgia pulled into the driveway of a nice orange-stucco home landscaped with expensive-looking palms and other tropical trees. She turned the car off. “Personally, Mr. Wooley, since I saw you on television almost a year ago, I have not believed you to be loco. Honestly, I was smitten with you. You were so sure of yourself, about to reveal the secret of the century. And then a month later, fantastic new technology and medical breakthroughs mysteriously appear on the web. Turns out the secret was real. And now here you are. By some miracle you are sitting in my car.” She looked him in the eye. “I trust you.”

This was a bit more than the response Peter had expected, but it would do. “Good. We need to get your folks into the car and leave now.”

She opened her door. “My madre and padre don’t do anything quickly.”

Georgia’s parents appeared to be in their sixties, and they didn’t speak much English, although they did recognize Peter when she introduced him. They immediately took notice of his injuries and his burned and bloodied hospital clothes. They spoke rapid Spanish to Georgia, and she explained that they were offering Peter bandages, ointments, and a change of clothes. He turned these down, insisting there was no time. They had to leave now. This resulted in more talking as Georgia tried to explain the situation.

Peter chewed his lip and paced the floor. He heard rumbling from outside and went to the front window. Two tan military trucks were approaching. They rolled past Georgia’s house and stopped at the end of the block. Men in camo fatigues ran up to several houses on the far side of the street and pounded on the doors.

He realized Georgia and her parents were at his side, looking out.

The first soldier got no answer, and he jogged to the next house. The second soldier found someone at home. He entered the house. Seconds later he came back out and led two people to one of the trucks and helped them get in the back.

“Are they evacuating everyone?” Georgia asked.

“If they’re not, they should be,” Peter said. It also occurred to him that they might be systematically checking for people who were already transforming. “Regardless, they’ll be at your door next.” One of the soldiers was already crossing the street, coming toward them.

Georgia turned to her parents and spoke in Spanish. They listened with eyes wide.

The soldier pounded on the door. Georgia spoke again to her parents, obviously trying to calm them. She straightened her shoulders, put her chin up, and opened the door.

The husky bloke stepped into the house before she had a chance to speak. He said, “Señora, estamos haciendo una evacuación obligatoria de Salinas. ¿Cuántas personas están en la cas—”

The man had been scanning the room as he spoke, but he stopped when he spotted Peter. He nearly stumbled stepping back through the open door. “¡Infectado!” He screamed. Through the window, Peter saw other soldiers jump from the trucks and run to the house. Seconds later he was staring at the muzzles of four military assault rifles.

At that point, the first man seemed to remember something, pulled a paper surgical mask from his pocket, and awkwardly put it over his face, looping the elastic straps behind his ears while still holding his weapon. The other three then put on their own masks.

“¡Tírate al suelo!” said the soldier who had seen Peter first.

Peter raised his hands. “I don’t want any trouble.”

The man switched to English. “Sir, stay where you are.” He looked at Georgia and her parents. “This man is infected! Have you had physical contact with him?”

“I’m not infected,” Peter said as calmly as he could. “I can explain my appearance.”

One of the men yelled something to someone outside while the first man asked Georgia again if they’d had physical contact.

Georgia said, “No, we have not touched him. Don’t you know who this is? It is Peter Wooley.”

The man gave her a blank stare.

“Peter Wooley! Kembalimo? The Lamotelokhai?”

The soldiers looked at Peter. He could only see their eyes, but they didn’t seem impressed.

“No contact?” The first man asked. “You have made no contact?”

“No!” Georgia repeated. “I gave him a ride in my car.” She hesitated for a moment. “And I let him use my cell phone.” She nodded toward her parents. “But my madre and padre have not had any contact with him.”

The men looked at each other and rapidly exchanged excited words. One of them turned to Georgia’s parents. “You two, follow me.”

They stared at him.

He said, “Vamos afuera.”

They looked at each other and then followed him outside.

“Where are you taking them?” Georgia asked.

The first soldier said, “For their safety we are evacuating them with the others. We will evacuate you two as well, but first it must be determined that you are not infected.”

“We’re not infected,” Peter said. “If we were, we would have transformed by now. It happens almost immediately.”

“We’ve been ordered to carry out a specific protocol, sir.”

Peter grumbled. “We all need to leave this area, including you blokes. I’ve seen what’s happening, and it’s spreading. We can’t be here when the creatures start showing up.”

The man’s brows furrowed. “Creatures?”

Peter clenched his teeth. There wasn’t time to explain. As he started to plead with the man again, he heard a diesel truck trundling up the street, stopping in front of Georgia’s house with a hiss of released air brake pressure.

The three soldiers who were still at the door saw the truck, nodded at each other, and then circled around Peter and Georgia, leveling their guns at them.

“Outside,” the first man ordered.

Peter started to protest, but Georgia put her hand on his arm. “Let’s do what they ask. They’re obviously as frightened as we are.”

They walked to the street. The truck was a large semi, but the connected trailer was not a typical freight box. It was something Peter had seen once before, at a traveling carnival in Brisbane. The trailer had eight windowless doors along the side, and he assumed there were eight more on the other side. It was called a bunkhouse trailer, typically used as sleeping quarters for mobile workers.

The soldiers guided them to the front end of the trailer. One of the men extracted folded steel staircases that had been tucked beneath the first two doors. He stepped up and opened the first door and then the second.

The first soldier said, “Inside. Each of you.”

“You must be kidding,” Peter said. “Why?”

“We are isolating anyone who might be infected. This is what we had available. When it is clear that you are not infected, you will be evacuated with everyone else and released. The other way we can be sure you are not a threat is to shoot you.”

Peter looked at the trailer. The metal doors seemed solid enough. He and Georgia might be safer in those bunk rooms than out in the open. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.

“¡Diablo! ¿Qué son esos?” It was one of the soldiers. He was shading his eyes and looking to the sky.

Peter looked. His first thought was that they were seabirds, perhaps frigatebirds. But they were too large, and the heads weren’t right. Suddenly he realized he was looking at flying reptiles—at least four that he could see. His gut clenched up.

He turned to the first soldier. “It’s already here. I don’t think there’s a bloody thing you can do to stop it. Anyone who can’t be evacuated needs to stay inside, maybe even close themselves in a closet.”

The soldier gazed at him, though it was hard to read his expression with the mask over his nose and mouth. He opened his mouth to say something, but then multiple reports from semiautomatic weapons sounded from somewhere nearby, perhaps the next street over. Suddenly the soldiers were all business.

“In the trailer, each of you!” the man shouted.

“I’ll get in,” Peter said. “But please allow my friend to evacuate with her parents.”

The soldier hoisted his assault rifle and fired it into the air, startling everyone, including the other soldiers. He glared at Peter. “Inside!”

“Please! We’re going,” Georgia said. “But I want to be in the same room with Mr. Wooley. I’m claustrophobic. Without someone to talk to, the small space will make me loca.”

The man nodded.

Georgia and Peter climbed the three steps to the door nearest the front of the trailer. Georgia turned. “You will evacuate my madre and padre, no?”

“We’re doing it now, Señora. Close the door.”

Peter followed Georgia in and pulled the door shut. Inside the room it was completely dark. One of the soldiers could be heard stepping up to the door and then jiggling the handle, perhaps locking it with a key or padlock. Peter ran his hand over the wall beside the door until he found a switch. He flipped it, and a dim ceiling light came on. Above the door was a black plastic rectangle that appeared to be covering a window. He reached up and slid the panel to the side, allowing more light in. He then slid the panel of plexiglass underneath, leaving only a fine screen. The room was small, about three meters by two meters, nearly half of which was occupied by a bunk with two stacked beds. The beds had thin mattresses but no other bedding. The room was cool, no doubt due to an air conditioning unit powered by the truck’s diesel engine, which was still running.

Georgia sighed and sat down on the lower bunk. A truck rumbled past outside.

“That must be the truck your parents are in,” Peter said. “They’ll be taken to a safe place.”

She nodded but did not seem comforted by this.

Outside, a man started speaking with a megaphone. They listened for a moment, and then Georgia said, “They are telling people to stay in their houses.”

The room shook, and the trailer began to move. But seconds later it came to an abrupt stop, causing Peter to hit his shoulder on the top bed frame. The man with the megaphone had stopped talking. People were shouting, and then one man’s voice rose above the rest. “¡Ayuda! ¡Mátelo! ¡Alguien mátelo!” This was followed by three gunshots in rapid succession.

“What’s happening?” Georgia said. She stood up beside Peter, but all they could do was stare at the locked door. Peter wanted to look through the window above the door, but the bunks and the two storage cabinets in the room were all fastened to the walls, and there was nothing else he could stand on.

A few seconds of relative calm followed the gunshots. But then everything erupted into chaos. There were more screams and nonstop shooting. Something that sounded like a body thudded into the side of the trailer and shook the entire rig. An inhuman screech rose above the melee, followed by several more that sounded like they were answering the first. A droning hum, faint at first, gradually increased, as if a swarm of bees were approaching. The humming became so loud that it nearly drowned out the other sounds, and then even more screams and gunshots erupted.

“¡Qué horror!” Georgia said. “¡Mamá and Papá!”

“They will be okay,” Peter said, trying to sound confident. “Their truck left before this started.”

Something hit the screen above the door. Peter looked. A winged insect—a wasp—was now crawling about on the outside of the screen. The thing was enormous, no less than five inches long, and it had a glossy red and black exoskeleton. It began chewing the screen, cutting and scratching, which was audible even above the chaos beyond.

Peter rushed over and slid the plexiglass panel shut and then slid the black plastic panel over that. He stepped back and sat on the lower bunk. Georgia sat down next to him. They stared at the door, unable to see what was happening and unable to ignore the horrific sounds.

Gradually the human shouts and screams diminished, and then were silent. Instead, they only heard an occasional bellow, or a screech, or a trill. And they heard sounds that were beyond their ability to describe. At one point something moved across the top of the trailer, not scuttling or running, but instead dragging or slithering. It then moved down the trailer’s wall and was gone.

Chapter Twenty

Quentin trudged down a treacherously muddy slope, wishing he had brought a cap to keep the rain out of his eyes. Lindsey walked in front of him, and by her side was the tree kangaroo she had named Rusty. The creature would occasionally hop off and disappear on some unknown mission, but it would always return to her side.

Quentin was trying to see Lindsey’s newfound relationship with the mbolop from her perspective. It clearly delighted her. In fact, she seemed almost intoxicated by the strangely intimate connection. Should he be happy for her? After all, it could represent a new horizon in the evolution of humankind, orchestrated by the Lamotelokhai. Or perhaps it was simply a mistake, a random exploit of an individual tree kangaroo. Either way, Quentin couldn’t help but feel some anxiety—perhaps even jealousy—over the odd symbiosis between the creature and his wife.

He wrestled with these discomforting thoughts as their group gradually covered the remaining miles to the hanging village. They arrived while the sun’s morning rays still penetrated the canopy at a low angle. Eight months before, they had been brought to this village and held captive until Bobby had shown he could communicate with the Lamotelokhai. The area hadn’t changed much since then. The tree huts were still nearly invisible to anyone walking by on the forest floor. Not that anyone ever did, other than the occasional far-ranging hunter from another Papuan tribe. And according to Samuel, such unfortunate hunters were routinely killed for their unwitting mistake. To say that Sinanie’s tribe valued their privacy was an understatement.

Not surprisingly, no villagers were waiting on the ground to welcome them. Sinanie and Samuel led them directly to the base of the largest tree in the area, a tree Quentin remembered all too well.

Sinanie cupped a hand around his mouth and called out a single word, “Yebun!”

Quentin gazed up at the tree’s dense canopy. Only a trained eye could see the hut and the six connecting tunnels radiating from it like the spokes of a wheel. A slight commotion shook the foliage, and seconds later a thin, coiled rope appeared, spiraling in slow motion as it fell. The rope reached its full length just before hitting the ground, dancing back and forth from its momentum.

Quentin and Lindsey frowned at each other. They had known this was coming, but they both had admitted they would be perfectly content never climbing one of these damn things again. It was a rope ladder, or yebun, 150 feet long, made with the silk from spiders Samuel had bred for this purpose. The yebun was basically one continuous rope, thin as a child’s pinky finger, with loops woven into it every two feet or so. The loops were rigid so they would stay open, allowing climbers to insert their feet. The villagers would typically climb them one person at a time to reduce the risk of snapping the rope. Quentin still had both feet on the ground, yet the thought of the rope snapping made his stomach lurch.

Without glancing at them or saying a word, Sinanie started climbing.

Lindsey said what Quentin was thinking. “Samuel, we’re really in a hurry to find Addison. Perhaps we can forego the visit to the treehouse?”

Samuel tilted his head toward the rope ladder. “My dear Lindsey, has it been so long that you have lost your arboreal fortitude?” The corners of his mouth indicated a slight smile, a rare thing for Samuel.

“Most humans stopped living in trees millions of years ago,” she replied.

“That is an interesting supposition I would like to discuss when time allows it. For the present, however, we should ascend to the hut so that we may rest and eat. In addition, you may be interested to witness what my indigene hosts have been doing in the central hut.” Samuel waited for the rope to stop shaking, indicating Sinanie had reached the hut. He then held one hand toward the rope and bowed, inviting Lindsey to go first. It was a strange gesture for a man dressed only in a skin loincloth and a vest made of spider silk.

Resigned to the inevitable, Quentin and Lindsey shed their packs and removed their hiking shoes to make the climb easier.

Minutes later Lindsey reached the top of the ladder, and Quentin started climbing. Before he was halfway up, he had found his rhythm and was making quick but cautious work of it. When he began entering the lower canopy foliage, he looked down. Samuel was far below, appearing very small and pacing back and forth as if he were thinking about something.

Quentin kept climbing, passing through at least ten yards of dense foliage before arriving at the opening in the hut’s floor. The rope was fastened to a limb that was part of the hut’s ceiling, making it easy for him to climb though the opening and step off onto the floor.

The walls and ceiling hadn’t changed much in eight months, even though they consisted partly of living vines. One exception was that the hole in the ceiling where Addison had once entered with the intent of killing everyone had grown shut. Like all the huts and tunnels of the village, this one was suspended from the tree branches rather than resting upon them. The tribe lived, quite literally, in a hanging village. In the center of the hut was its most prominent feature, a thick trunk rising up through the floor and out the ceiling. It forked into two branches at chest height. The Lamotelokhai had existed there for years, molded to the trunk like a massive lump of clay, until the day Bobby had asked it to change its shape so it could walk to civilization. To Quentin’s dismay, Bobby had asked it to change into the shape of Addison.

There wasn’t time to dwell on these memories, because six Papuan villagers seated upon the floor had paused what they were doing to stare at the newcomers. Quentin knew them all by name: Teatakan, Kumbi, Ot, Korul, Yerema, and Jara. In front of them were four woven baskets containing small stones, and scattered on the floor were various wooden and stone tools.

Ot spoke to them. “Lindsey, Quentin, gu laléo lai-ati-bo-dakhu, lelé-mbol-e-kho-lo lal wafil?”

“Ot wishes to know if you come here as spirits or as a woman and a man,” Samuel said.

“We are well and do not come as spirits,” Quentin replied.

Samuel translated. Ot and the others went back to what they had been doing.

Samuel swept his hand toward the Papuans. “I do not know what forces motivate these indigenes. After many years with them, I still find them to be perplexing. Perhaps they themselves do not fully understand it. They are but savages, after all.”

Lindsey furrowed her brows at him. “Samuel, you should come with us back to civilization, at least long enough to be exposed to current ideas about race and culture.”

Samuel ignored this, and Quentin stepped forward to observe the contents of the baskets. The first contained walnut-sized river stones. The second contained stones that had each been roughly carved into the shape of a squatting figure. When he looked in the third basket, it became clear what the villagers were making. It contained at least a hundred finished figurines. They were all nearly identical to the tree kangaroo figurine Quentin and Lindsey each had in their pocket. The fourth basket contained another small pile of the finished figurines. They appeared to be no more refined than those in the third basket. Quentin kneeled and reached into the last basket to pick one up, but he was stopped by hasty rebukes from several of the villagers.

“I was told the same when I attempted to touch those,” Samuel said. “You may pick up any of the talismans from the third basket, but not from the fourth. They have told me only that the fully completed talismans would be spoiled were someone to touch them. I assumed it was for the same reason that Sinanie gave you your mbolop talismans in skin pouches—so that his fingers would not spoil them.”

Lindsey pulled her figurine from her pocket. “Yet Sinanie didn’t object when we touched them.”

“Curious, is it not?”

There was a disturbance at the hut’s wall behind the squatted villagers. The living vines were forced aside, and a tree kangaroo pushed its way through, followed by a second one Quentin recognized as Rusty. Rusty ambled around the Papuans and then lay on his side at Lindsey’s feet. The other tree kangaroo went directly to the third basket and gazed at the contents, inspecting the figurines.

The Papuans pointed to Rusty and spoke to each other, seemingly excited or agitated. Ot spoke Lindsey’s name, followed by a sequence of unfamiliar words.

Samuel offered a translation. “The indigenes wish you to know they are pleased that Lindsey’s mbolop talisman has had its desired effect. They seem to believe that the mbolop’s companionable behavior is proof of this.”

Lindsey shook her head. “What does one have to do with the other?”

“Regarding this, dear Lindsey, I am as confounded as you are.”

Quentin hissed at Samuel and Lindsey to get their attention. He had been watching the new tree kangaroo, and he pointed at it. The creature had picked up one of the figurines from the third basket and placed it on the floor. Now it was digging into its own belly. As they watched, it rubbed a small lump of its own flesh onto the figurine. It then transferred the figurine to the fourth basket, pulled another from the third basket, and started the procedure again.

“This is it!” Lindsey said. “This may explain what’s happening to me. And to Rusty. Samuel, can you ask them what’s going on?”

Samuel nodded. “Perhaps they will be more forthcoming now that you are here than they have been with me alone.” He then engaged in an exchange with Ot and Sinanie.

As they talked, the tree kangaroo systematically anointed stone figurines with extracts from its abdomen one by one and moved them into the fourth basket.

Finally, Samuel turned back to them, shaking his head. “I know not whether the indigenes are saying what they know to be true, or whether they have contrived an elaborate ritual that they find comforting in the distressing absence of the Lamotelokhai.” He began pacing with a hand on his chin.

Quentin and Lindsey waited, shuffling their feet impatiently. They both needed answers.

“I suppose it is possible,” Samuel muttered, apparently to himself. He stopped pacing and looked at Lindsey. “Yes, it certainly is possible! Sinanie and several of his fellow tribesman have seen the quite extraordinary colony of mbolop where your son Addison has been residing these recent months. Whether what I am about to say is factual or not is left to be determined, but they believe that the mbolop you call Mbaiso is creating the colony for a specific purpose.”

“What purpose?” Lindsey asked.

“For the purpose of assisting mankind. Mbaiso, the first of the mbolop created from the clay of the Lamotelokhai, existed for the purpose of assisting the Papuans of this tribe, particularly with tasks involving the Lamotelokhai, such as communicating with it. Although I have always considered the manufactured tree kangaroos to be little more than brutish creatures, Mbaiso apparently considers his original purpose to be of such importance that he intends to carry it out beyond the confines of this tribe.”

Quentin glanced at Lindsey, but she looked as bewildered as he felt. “Meaning what, exactly?” He said.

“The creatures are evidently attempting to produce one mbolop for every man and woman.”

“Every man and woman? Everywhere?”

Samuel sighed. “I fear the mbolop may have a poor understanding of the number of people upon this world. Likewise, I fear the indigenes fail to understand.” He gestured toward the baskets of stone carvings. “They have little experience beyond their meager tribe.”

Lindsey said, “They’re trying to carve a figurine for every person on Earth?”

Samuel shook his head. “Not every person, but perhaps most.” He went to the third basket and picked up one of the figurines. “Perhaps equally as curious, they have employed one of Mbaiso’s colony to assist with the final preparation of the talismans. I was skeptical initially, but the more I ponder it ….” He held up a finger. “But of course, I haven’t explained, to what purpose are they working?” He paused, as if trying to build suspense.

Quentin finally said, “Yes, to what purpose?”

“Indeed, although you may be as skeptical as I was.” He nodded to the tree kangaroo. “This mbolop, like the original you call Mbaiso, is composed, at least in part, of the clay of the Lamotelokhai. It has the capability of applying measured portions of its clay to each talisman, thus giving the stone specific qualities.” He paused and rubbed his chin again. “Years ago, when I attempted to discern what could be accomplished with an isolated portion of the Lamotelokhai’s clay, perhaps I should have looked instead at the usefulness of the mbolop. It could have saved me much consternation.” He continued rubbing his chin, apparently thinking about this.

Quentin took a deep breath and tried to avoid tapping his foot impatiently. Getting a quick explanation from Samuel was like convincing a turtle to run.

Samuel continued. “While Mbaiso has endeavored to create an mbolop to assist each person of the world, the indigenes have determined that there should be a way to designate who is deserving of such assistance. You must understand that, by their very nature, these indigenes have a rather wretched opinion of people other than their fellow tribesmen. You see, other tribes of the region have repeatedly attacked them, for revenge or to cannibalize them. And to make matters worse, many years ago Sinanie and I traveled north to Humboldt Bay, as we had heard rumblings, as if the great island of New Guinea were being destroyed. We witnessed there a most troubling display of warfare. This did not improve the indigenes’ opinions of mankind.”

“When was that?” Quentin asked.

“It was the year 1944, if my record of the passing time is correct. Approximately eighty years have passed since.”

“World War II,” Lindsey said. “Humboldt Bay was the site of a major engagement between US and Japanese forces. That must be what you saw.”

“Japanese, yes. As I suspected. I encountered one of the Japanese soldiers. The poor fellow was nearly expired from dreadful dysentery. His companions were already dead when I found him. Apparently he and the others had fled into the jungle and had become lost. His name was Iwataro Hayashi. At times I think of him and wonder if he is well.”

Quentin gazed at him. There was only one reason Samuel would think the Japanese soldier could still be alive. “You gave him some of the Lamotelokhai’s particles.”

Samuel glanced at the villagers as if this were a secret. They had gone back to working on the figurines, and Sinanie was inspecting the contents of the baskets. “He was in a most pitiable state, and at the time I feared I was gradually becoming a savage. I suppose I did it as much for myself as for him.” Samuel then stared at the hut’s floor, apparently lost in his thoughts.

Lindsey said, “Um, about the mbolop and the figurines.”

“But of course. So you see, my indigene hosts are predisposed to suspicion and fear of those outside their own tribe. It is simply their nature. Thus it should not surprise us that they have devised a way to choose who is worthy of assistance from the mbolop and who is not. They apparently believe the two of you are worthy.”

Lindsey frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Sinanie endeavored to give you the mbolop talismans. If I correctly understand their explanation, when you touched the two figurines, you were designated as worthy of assistance from the mbolop. Lindsey, that is why the mbolop you call Rusty now belongs to you—or you belong to it, the distinction is not altogether clear to me.”

There was a moment of silence, and Quentin wondered what was going through Lindsey’s mind. He pulled his figurine from his pocket. “When I touched this, it somehow marked me as worthy? So why did Rusty attach to Lindsey instead of me?”

The slightest curve appeared on Samuel’s lips. “Perhaps, Quentin, it did not take a fancy to you. The point of the matter is, however, that the tree kangaroos from the colony will ‘attach,’ as you say, only to those who have been given talismans. The first person to touch a talisman from the fourth basket will become changed in such a way that they will be able to attach to an mbolop. Once this occurs, that talisman may not be applied to another person. Or so I am told. That is why the Papuans do not wish for you to touch the contents of the fourth basket.”

It was Quentin’s turn to pace back and forth. The entire hut bounced slightly with each step. “Okay, the tree kangaroos want to help everyone by multiplying so that every person can pair up with one. The villagers want to choose who gets to do that by giving figurines only to people they think deserve it.” He stopped pacing and shook his head.

“That is inaccurate,” Samuel said. “The indigenes do not wish to choose those who are worthy. They expect you to choose—yourself and Lindsey. You are to take the completed figurines with you when you depart.”

Quentin stared at him. He realized his mouth was open and shut it.

“You are perhaps distressed by this responsibility,” Samuel said with a hint of compassion. “But the importance of it may be far greater than you have yet imagined. I am myself just beginning to comprehend the significance. I suspect that the intended assistance may go far beyond mere help with minor tasks.”

“What do you mean?” Lindsey asked.

“I shall explain as best I can. You know as well as I that the Lamotelokhai is a wondrous and powerful phenomenon. I believe it can immeasurably benefit all of mankind.”

“Agreed,” Quentin said.

“However, I have become intimately acquainted with the dreadful consequences of using it carelessly.”

“As we have,” Quentin said. “Too many times.”

“Perhaps, but you must remember that you have known the Lamotelokhai for less than one year. I have studied it for a century and a half. I have committed numerous blunders, some with consequences difficult to describe, such was their horror. And I am a cautious and methodical man. Furthermore, my indigene hosts have lived beside the Lamotelokhai far longer. Many thousands of years, in fact. They are even more cautious than I, and they soon discovered the risks of communicating with it directly. They consequently made it tribal taboo to talk to the Lamotelokhai, and they created the mbolop for that purpose. Again, I must point out that this was thousands of years ago. I believe they would have heretofore been destroyed had they not been so cautious.”

Quentin wasn’t sure where this explanation was going. “You don’t have to convince us the thing is dangerous.”

“What I am attempting to say is that the indigenes understand the perils, and consequently the mbolop, Mbaiso, is aware of the perils, as the creature was created to reduce them. Again, Mbaiso is aware of the perils. Now, consider your conversation with Ashley using your rather fantastic talking device.”

“Our SAT phone,” Lindsey offered.

“Indeed. Ashley indicated that something with dreadful consequences had resulted from imprudent use of the Lamotelokhai. I am suggesting that the mbolop may have foreseen such consequences as inevitable. And I suspect that the assistance they wish to provide may be far more significant than help with certain tasks. I believe they intend to save the lives of as many people as they can.”

Quentin suddenly felt faint. He glanced at Lindsey. Her face had lost its color, indicating that she also understood.

“How many tree kangaroos are in the colony?” she asked.

Samuel looked at both of them and nodded once, apparently acknowledging that they grasped his meaning. “It is hard to say. Based upon what I saw when last I was there, perhaps as few as three hundred.”

* * *

They drank water from hollowed-out gourds. They ate their fill of dried Dorcopsis meat and the paste called khosül the Papuans made from sago palm pith and mashed sago beetle larvae. After they had eaten, they had no compelling reason to wait, so Samuel, Quentin, and Lindsey descended to the ground and departed the hanging village, Rusty close at Lindsey’s side. After another three hours of hiking, Samuel stopped and announced they had arrived at the mbolop colony.

According to Samuel, this was the only place Addison had been seen. If he wasn’t here, it would likely be impossible to find him.

They stared up at the endless canopy. The hanging chambers and tunnels bore a remarkable resemblance to those of Sinanie’s village. They were smaller and more concealed, but they were definitely there, faintly visible among the vines and leaves.

“Addison,” Lindsey called out. “It’s Mom and Dad. Where are you?”

“As I have explained,” Samuel said softly, “your son may not appear or behave as you might expect. If he is here, and if he descends from the trees, you would do well to prepare yourselves for that. Shouting may frighten him, perhaps preventing him from approaching.”

Lindsey frowned but nodded. Quentin understood what she was feeling. The anticipation was unbearable. And the apprehension, and the guilt. After all that had transpired, they both needed to find their son. It was a need with roots anchored so deeply within them that Quentin feared what might happen if Addison didn’t show up. They might never leave this place.

They were so intent on this purpose that, since leaving the hanging village hours before, they had not once mentioned their disturbing conversation regarding the mbolop figurines. Quentin didn’t have any emotional space at this time for the notion that he and Lindsey were responsible for choosing a few hundred people to survive the apocalypse. So far, he had managed to shove the implications into a dark corner of his mind.

“How do you suggest we find out if he’s here?” he asked Samuel softly.

Samuel used his bare foot to clear away some twigs, then he sat down and crossed his legs. “The mbolop heard us approaching long before Lindsey’s boisterous shouting. I suggest we wait for what might transpire next. Quietly, if possible.”

They took off their packs and settled onto the ground on either side of him. Rusty crouched beside Lindsey. After a few excruciating minutes of silence, Quentin whispered, “Is there any way we can climb up there?”

Samuel gazed up at the canopy. “The mbolop have no need for rope ladders, nor does your son Addison. And from what I can see, the hanging chambers and tunnels appear to be significantly smaller than those of my indigene hosts. I fear these tunnels would not support our collective weight.”

They were silent for another long minute. Suddenly, Lindsey spoke up. “Maybe I can help.” She patted Rusty’s head. “Can you go up to the hanging tunnels and look for Addison?”

Rusty ambled to the nearest tree and began climbing straight up the vertical trunk.

Quentin watched Samuel for any indication that this might be a bad idea. Samuel simply watched the tree kangaroo as it steadily climbed to the canopy. Lindsey put her hands on her knees and stared down at her hiking shoes.

Samuel spoke quietly to Lindsey. “Your mbolop companion might prove to be quite useful.”

She nodded slightly and continued staring at her shoes. Quentin wasn’t as ready as they apparently were to accept this odd symbiotic relationship. It was disturbing, and it seemed like Lindsey was losing a part of herself. Or, perhaps more truthfully, that Quentin was losing a part of her. Abruptly he was aware of the figurine in his pocket and his proximity to an entire colony of tree kangaroos that apparently had been created to pair up with humans who possessed such figurines.

“Rusty is in one of the chambers!” Lindsey said. She spoke loudly, as if wearing headphones, unaware of her own volume. And she was smiling. “Other tree kangaroos are there. I see at least four. And there’s another.”

Quentin shifted his weight and looked at Samuel.

“He’s in a tunnel now. Tree kangaroos are passing, going the other way.” She smiled and gazed downward, fully engaged in the experience. “He’s entering a larger chamber. It has connecting tunnels, like the central hut of Sinanie’s village. Tree kangaroos are in here. Some are smaller, underdeveloped. This must be how they grow them.” Her smile grew wider. “Mbaiso is here. He’s signing to me.”

After a long pause, she said, “Mbaiso is curious. He wants to know why we’ve come here. He wants to know if Bobby is with us.” Finally, she looked at Quentin. “Mbaiso is coming down.”

“What about Addison?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t say anything about Addison.”

Long seconds turned into longer minutes. Quentin watched Lindsey, but she just gazed back with no expression. She shook her head at one point, indicating she had nothing to offer.

Mbaiso and Rusty appeared, not descending a tree but rather hopping on the ground. Most of the tree kangaroos Quentin had seen looked similar, but there were subtle differences in the piebald patterns on their tails, bodies, and faces. Mbaiso’s face was uniformly rust-colored, and Quentin recognized him right away. The two mbolop approached and stopped a few feet away. But then other tree kangaroos appeared, moving cautiously toward them through the understory growth. At first several appeared, and then many. It was hard to tell how many because they stayed a safe distance back, some of them partially hidden among saplings, tree trunks, and ferns. But there were dozens, at least.

One of them didn’t stay back with the others. It walked on all fours, rather than hopping, until it was beside Mbaiso. It lacked the prominent testicles that were visible on Rusty and Mbaiso. She was a female.

“Hello,” Lindsey said to the third mbolop. “Rusty, who is your friend?”

Rusty moved closer to the female. He leaned in and pressed his snout to hers. They remained this way, motionless.

Lindsey stiffened. Her hands gripped her khaki trousers at the knees, knuckles white, and she let out a brief cry.

Quentin got up and rushed to her side. “Lindsey?”

“Her name is Newton! She has seen Addison—spent time with him. I think I see him right now.”

“You see who? Addison?”

“Addison! They were together, Newton and Addison.”

Quentin kneeled down beside her. This startled the female, and she scampered back, breaking contact with Rusty.

Lindsey blinked and looked at Quentin. “He’s here. I know he is. I couldn’t see him clearly, but I’m sure it was him. He named her Newton, Quentin!”

Quentin didn’t even know where to begin with his questions. “How could you see him?”

“The mbolop, Newton. Her memories.”

“Quentin, Lindsey,” Samuel said, his voice controlled and even. “Please refrain from shouting or moving excessively. I believe your son is here.”

They turned to Samuel and then followed his gaze. The tree kangaroos were moving closer, now more than a hundred of them. And something else was there, a dark figure. It watched them from behind a tree, only one of its eyes visible. It was low to the ground, perhaps crouching.

Lindsey got up and took a step forward. “Addison? Honey?”

“Mummy?”

The voice was not Addison’s. Or maybe it was. But Addison hadn’t used that word since he was a toddler.

Lindsey took another step. “Honey?”

The creature behind the tree stood up. It then stepped into full view.

Quentin’s gut tightened. He heard Lindsey gasp, but the sound seemed distant. The creature was Addison. Since the last time he had seen his son, he had almost forced himself to forget Addison’s transformed appearance. It was a transformation Addison had wished upon himself and had accomplished with the Lamotelokhai’s help. And in that new, powerful, monstrous form he had gone on a murderous rampage, killing Miranda and half the members of Sinanie’s tribe. The thing standing before them was not something that had evolved naturally. It was not a creature from the distant past precisely reconstructed by the Lamotelokhai. Instead, it was a physical form conjured by a fourteen-year-old boy who used to read monster comic books and then had his brain bashed in during a plane crash and reconstructed by alien technology.

Addison leaned forward, bent his knees, and put his hands on the ground. He then walked toward them, like a gorilla would walk.

Lindsey backed up until she was at Quentin’s side. “I forgot,” she muttered. “How could I forget?”

He took her hand and squeezed it. “We made ourselves forget. It’s how we survived.”

Addison stopped just in front of them. Again he stood erect. His torso was long and lean, with conversely shorter legs. His arms were longer than a boy’s should be by half, with extraordinarily spindly, curved fingers that appeared to be designed specifically for gripping tree limbs. He was naked, but his penis and scrotum were barely visible, nearly lost in a thick mat of curly pubic hair. Other than that and the long corkscrew hair growing from his scalp, the rest of his body was hairless. His skin was darker than it had been, either from dirt, from the sun, or because he had wished it to be. His face was still smooth, but its shape was angular and mature. It was not the face of a boy. But his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, were still the eyes of their son, Addison. And this was enough for Quentin.

“Addison,” he said, “Samuel told us you were alive, and that you remember us. So we came here to find you. We’d like to take you home.”

Addison looked at him. He then shifted his gaze to Lindsey. He looked down at the tree kangaroo named after his home town. He smiled, revealing inch-long canines.

“Mummy. Daddy. Newton my mbolop. Newton go home, too.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“You two could use some cleaning up. You look rather dreadful.”

Bobby snapped his head up, hitting it on the airport terminal wall behind him. He shook Ashley’s leg to wake her.

The man was kneeling on the floor at their feet, looking at them at eye level. Beneath a blue Yankees ball cap, his hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He wore a blue denim shirt, brown shorts, and leather sandals. He had to be Peter’s guy, Jonathan.

“That was fast,” Bobby said, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”

The guy held out a hand. “Jonathan Benson. It’s 2:30 AM. Shall we go? I imagine you two would like a more comfortable place to rest.”

They both stood up and shook his hand.

“It’s starting to get crazy here,” Ashley said, looking around at the activity in the terminal. “Is that going to slow us down?”

Bobby realized she was right. There were more people around now than before he’d fallen asleep. Many of them bustled about like they were late. Bobby could hear angry shouting. Large groups of people stood beneath each of the televisions, watching a news report that was still showing video from a helicopter. But now you could only see what was in the chopper’s spotlight because it was dark outside. The spotlight was trying to follow things that were running on streets and between buildings.

“I guess it’s gotten worse,” Bobby said.

Jonathan didn’t bother turning to look at the TVs. “I’d say you’re right about that, though I haven’t had much opportunity to monitor the situation.” He looked at Ashley. “If we get moving now, we shouldn’t have many delays.”

Jonathan stepped closer and grabbed their shoulders like he was about to give them a group hug. “Before I’m willing to leave, I need to know something. Are you one hundred percent certain Peter and Robert are dead?”

“We didn’t actually see their bodies,” Bobby replied. “But they were both in the compound, and Helmich’s idiots set off some kind of heat bomb. There’s nothing alive in there now, we’re certain of that.”

The guy closed his eyes. His lips moved silently, like he was saying a prayer, or maybe swearing. He opened his eyes. “Then we should go, pronto.” He headed for Terminal B, and they followed.

Waiting for them next to the security checkpoint was a man in pilot clothes—black pants, white shirt with black and yellow stripes on the shoulders, black tie, but no hat on his shiny bald head. He wasn’t the same pilot who had flown them from Belize to Oklahoma. Jonathan introduced him as Quincy Kirk. Bobby thought this was a great name for a pilot—Captain Kirk. The guy flashed a friendly smile and shook their hands while Jonathan pulled out their passports, which he had picked up after they had left them behind at Peter’s facility in Oklahoma City.

Going through security was easier than Bobby had thought it would be. Captain Kirk showed his ID and some papers, did a bit of polite but firm arguing with a man and then a woman, and a few minutes later two airport security men led them through a narrow hallway and out a door to a noisy tarmac area. No one even looked in Bobby’s duffel bag.

Although it was the middle of the night, enough lights were shining on the runway for Bobby to see the sleek private jet waiting for them. It was larger than the jet they’d taken to Oklahoma, with seven passenger windows on the side instead of only three.

“It’s a Cessna Citation Ten,” Jonathan shouted over the noise as they walked to the jet. “Or Citation X, if you prefer. Cruises at over 600 miles per hour with a range of 3,700 miles. We can get you to Jayapura with only three stops: LA, Honolulu, and Fiji. With any luck we’ll be there twenty-three hours from now.”

Ashley grabbed his arm to get his attention. “We can’t get there any faster than that?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “No, we can’t. This is the fastest business jet available to civilians.”

She released his arm. “It’ll have to do, then.” She then climbed the steps and entered the jet.

“Sorry about her, but we really do have to hurry,” Bobby said, and he followed Ashley.

The jet had seats for twelve passengers, in rows of four facing each other. At the back of the plane, Bobby spotted a messy tuft of black hair sticking up from behind one of the seats—Carlos.

Ashley walked past Carlos with hardly a glance at him and went straight for the restroom at the back of the plane. Bobby took the seat facing his friend and placed the duffel bag on the floor. Carlos was sleeping, his head tilted back, mouth open, snoring with a Darth Vader breathing sound, like he used to do. For a brief moment, Bobby wished he had a can of whipped cream to spray into his open mouth. Carlos would think that was funny.

Jonathan took the seat to Carlos’s left and across the narrow aisle. “Go ahead and wake him. He hasn’t been asleep long. He and I had an interesting conversation on the flight. I feel as if I know a bit more about what you kids went through in Papua last summer.”

“Maybe I should let him sleep.”

Ashley came out and sat across the aisle from Bobby, in the seat facing Jonathan. “How long before we can take off?”

The plane lurched and started rolling just as she finished saying this.

“We’re making every effort we can to accelerate the process,” Jonathan said. “I have no doubt that what we’re doing is important, but now that we have a bit of time on our hands, perhaps you can provide more of an explanation.”

Ashley said, “Is it required for all of Peter’s employees to have their hair in a ponytail and wear sandals?”

Bobby frowned at her. “What’s wrong with you?”

She glared back at him, but then she shook her head and rubbed her face with both hands. “It’s the middle of the night, a maniac tortured me, and I’ve seen some pretty weird shit. I’m sorry.” She uncovered her face, looked at Jonathan, put on a fake smile, and blinked her eyes twice in a stupid, flirty way.

Jonathan took a breath and held it, apparently struggling to decide how to react to Ashley’s attitude. “Perfectly fine, Miss Stoddard. I’m happy to answer your question.” He pursed his lips and thought for a few seconds. “I met Peter in 2013. Actually, I met him briefly some years before that, but that’s a story for another day. In 2013, his wife Rose fell and broke her hip.”

“We know Rose,” Bobby said. “Peter brought her to see us a few times.”

“Then you must know Rose is a rather elderly woman, which is actually in part why she broke her hip. Anyway, fortunately, I was there when it happened and was able to help out. I became friends with them.”

The plane had been rolling steadily, but suddenly it stopped. Captain Kirk called back over his shoulder, “All secure, sir?”

Jonathan nodded at their seats. “Fasten your seatbelts, please.” When they had checked Carlos’s belt and fastened their own, he shouted back, “Secure!”

The plane’s jets roared and they shot forward, picking up speed until they were in the air. The noise quieted to a level where they could talk again.

Jonathan went on. “Anyway, we became friends, and I started working with Peter on his Kembalimo project. It was unlike anything I’d ever done, trying to figure out a way to help people communicate with an alien intelligence. It was the job of a lifetime. Eventually we found a few additional talents to help with it. Robert was one of them, and there was Ardell Gray. The four of us became rather obsessed with the project. We practically lived together, day and night.”

Ashley squirmed in her seat, and Bobby silently willed her not to lob whatever insult she was holding back.

“I’m sure you’ve heard it said that, over time, a dog owner begins to resemble his dog. Or perhaps the dog resembles its owner.” Jonathan smiled, although he looked kind of sad. “I suppose that’s what happened to us—Robert, Ardell, and myself.”

Bobby waited for more, but Jonathan was done. Ashley snorted a short laugh and turned to stare out her window at nothing but blackness.

“That’s kind of funny,” Bobby said, although it wasn’t really. He then began telling Jonathan about what had happened. He told how he and the others had been kidnapped in Oklahoma, and how they’d woken up in the compound. He told about what Helmich had been trying to do, and the terrible things that had happened as a result, and how they had escaped, leaving Peter and Robert behind to die, and about the animal-creature-things that got loose, and about Tiffany, and how they got to the airport. And he told of how he was trying to reassemble the consciousness of the Lamotelokhai from twenty-four data packets stored in the minds of twenty-four people.

Before he finished, Ashley had fallen asleep.

Jonathan asked a lot of questions, but finally he seemed to run out of them. After sitting in silence for a few minutes, he said, “You’re right. This is important—the most important thing I’ve done in my life. He looked at his smartwatch. We will be in Jayapura in twenty-two hours. Then we’ll figure out a way to get you to the hanging village. One way or another, we’ll get you there.”

Twenty-two hours seemed like a long time. How many more people would die in that time? Bobby considered trying to sleep, but he was hyped up from talking about and reliving the last few days. Besides, there was something he needed to do.

He woke Carlos up. This wasn’t easy, because Carlos could sleep through an earthquake, tornado, and plague of locusts all at the same time. It took quite a bit of shaking.

“Bobby, damn.” Carlos stretched and wiped his mouth like he was checking for drool.

“Long time no see, Carlos.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you get your parents to let you come?”

Carlos wiped his mouth again and rubbed his eyes. “Well, he tried.” He nodded over toward Jonathan. “And I tried. Not much luck. I got pissed and told them I was going to bed. Then I climbed out my bedroom window. I was in his car when he came out.”

Bobby stared at him. Carlos wasn’t kidding. “Your parents are going to hate me now.”

“Not if we save the world. That’s what you said we had to do, right?”

“I’ll probably be charged with kidnapping,” Jonathan said. “But I understood that time was crucial. Bobby, we could have taken you to Missouri to see Carlos, but by my calculations that would have cost at least three additional hours.”

Of course they had done the right thing. But Bobby had no idea how long it would take to finish what they needed to do in Papua, and Carlos’s parents would be getting more worried and mad by the minute. Bobby unzipped his duffel bag and hefted the lump of Lamotelokhai clay into his lap. Kembalimo symbols appeared before his eyes, but he ignored them, and they quickly went away.

Carlos squinted at the clay, his eyes still puffy from sleep. “What is that?”

“Exactly what it looks like—part of the Lamotelokhai.”

Carlos stared at it. “Okay, this is starting to freak me out.”

“Nothing wrong with being scared. If everyone was as scared of the Lamotelokhai as they should be, we wouldn’t be trying to save the world right now.” Bobby tried to smile. “By the way, I died again today. A messed up copy of me did, anyway. Or maybe I’m the copy, I don’t know. But it was the third time I’ve died—that I know of.”

Carlos tried to smile too. “Well, you’ve got me beat by one, I guess.”

“Yeah, now I’m tied with Ashley.” He glanced over at her, but she was still sleeping.

Jonathan spoke up. “Jesus, you kids have been through hell, but you’re able to joke about it?”

Bobby picked up the clay and held it out so Carlos could reach it.

Carlos looked like he wanted to back away from it. “What?”

“You’re going to have to trust me. This is the whole reason we had to pick you up and bring you here. There’s some information in you—a data packet—that needs to be downloaded into this thing. Can you put your hand on it? I swear it won’t hurt. I’ve done it. And Ashley has.”

Carlos just stared at it.

“Come on, man, it’s getting heavy.”

Carlos exhaled, but it was more like a growl. He put his hand on it. He blinked and shook his head. “Damn Kembalimo symbols. I never did learn to play.”

“Kembalimo’s not a game. Ignore them and keep your hand there.” Bobby closed his eyes and spoke with his thoughts. “Carlos has another packet of your information in him. I want to download it from his body into yours. Can you do that?” He opened his eyes.

Carlos frowned. But then he smiled a little. “It tickles.”

“Just let it go from your head down to your arm, and don’t let go until it goes out your hand into the clay.”

About a minute later, Carlos pulled his hand away. “Done.”

New symbols appeared in Bobby’s vision. “More knowledge now. More help.”

Bobby spoke silently. “What can you do to help now that you couldn’t do before?”

The symbols changed. “Please talk different.”

Bobby sighed. He was too tired for this. He put the clay back in the bag and zipped it. He looked across at Carlos. “I know there’s stuff we need to talk about.” He turned to Jonathan. “Us too. But do you guys think it could wait? I’ve had a bad day, and I’d just like to sleep now if that’s okay.”

Carlos immediately closed his eyes. “Good with me.”

Jonathan said, “I understand, Bobby.”

Bobby fumbled with the controls on his seat until he got it to lean back a little. He put his knees up in the seat and turned on his side, facing Ashley. He gazed at her, thinking of a moment on a different flight they’d been on eight months ago, when Ashley had kissed him for the first and only time. He then realized her eyes were open. She was looking back at him. She extended a hand and held it out halfway across the narrow aisle. She opened and closed her fingers twice.

Bobby wasn’t sure, but it seemed like an invitation. He reached out and took her hand. She squeezed and didn’t let go. Her eyes closed again.

Bobby tried to stay awake, to gaze at their enmeshed fingers. Because it was one good thing in a whole world of bad things.

Chapter Twenty-Two

As the light peeking in through the small window above the door slowly faded, so did the sounds of many of the creatures outside the trailer. Apparently these creatures preferred sunlight. But the fading of these sounds provided little respite for Peter’s frazzled nerves, as the night brought new sounds of things that thrived in darkness. On more than one occasion, large unidentified creatures had sniffed at the corners of their door. Apparently detecting their presence, the beasts had then clawed and even pummeled the door for what seemed like an eternity before giving up. It had been hours since he and Georgia had heard anything resembling a human voice, although they had heard numerous helicopters and jets flying over Salinas.

They were trapped. The tiny room had no toilet, and there was no food or water. Luckily, the truck’s diesel engine was still running, providing power to the lights and air conditioning unit. Otherwise, the room would have been pitch black and stifling.

Peter had a slight need to urinate, but Georgia was on the verge of agony. She had resorted to pacing back and forth. Four short steps in one direction, four back. Finally she stopped and said, “To hell with this. Please turn the other way.”

Peter faced the back end of the room. He listened to her fumble with her skirt and hose. He then heard her pee splashing on the floor. When he finally turned around, she was trying to push the liquid out under the door with her foot, but the two-inch heel on her red pump made this nearly impossible. She gave up and sat on the lower bunk.

She said, “I have imagined someday meeting you, but this is not how I thought it would be.”

He smiled. “Well, this should at least make you feel less alone in your misery. Please look the other way.” He got up and relieved himself, adding to her puddle. He used his mostly-intact right shoe to squeegee some of it out. Suddenly something hit the door, sending him stumbling back. Whatever was outside let out a long grunt, somewhere between a hog’s snort and the underwater cry of a whale. It pressed its weight against the door, which creaked and popped, threatening to burst from its frame. There were no weapons in the room, not even a loose piece of furniture to swing at whatever might come through the door. So Peter sat down on the bunk next to Georgia.

The creature rammed the door again. Georgia shifted closer to Peter. They stared silently at the door, hardly breathing, until the creature gave up. It let out another whale-snort as it wandered off.

Georgia shifted a few inches away from him. “I won’t die in this trailer. I won’t.”

“Nor will I. It’s a safe place. We just need to stay here until help arrives.”

“Yes, until help arrives.” But then she shook her head, as if she couldn’t convince herself this was a good idea.

Something skittered across the roof. They watched the ceiling until the sound was gone.

Peter stood up. “We might as well try to rest.” They had already searched the drawers and cabinets of the two storage units bolted to the wall, as well as a hatched opening beneath the lower bunk. They had found nothing, not even sheets or pillows. “I’ll take the top bunk.” He climbed the ladder fastened to one end of the bunks and wormed his way into the tight space between the mattress and ceiling.

Georgia sighed. She got up and switched off the light. Seconds later she turned it back on. “No. I’m sorry, but I must have the light.” She sat on the bunk, and her pumps clattered onto the floor. The bed creaked as she lay down.

Peter stared at the ceiling just above his face. He had never been prone to claustrophobia, but this situation was starting to reveal the boundaries of his tolerance. Perhaps it would help to talk. “Don’t worry, they’ll come for us. I’m sure they’re putting together rescue parties as we speak. There will be others—people locked in closets and basements. There will be survivors.”

“Yes. I hope so.”

Did she even feel like talking? “What do you do, Georgia? Professionally.”

“Lawyer. Domestic violence, divorce. In Guayama. Twelve miles east.”

Peter could have guessed this—her clothes, her house, the way she talked. He waited to see if she would expand on the subject.

Somewhere outside, a disturbance erupted. It went on for at least a minute, two creatures snarling and screeching as if they were both losing a deadly struggle. Then it abruptly stopped.

“May I call you Peter?”

“Of course.”

“Would you like to come down here with me, Peter?”

He stared at the ceiling. “Are you frightened?”

“Who wouldn’t be? But that is not the only reason I ask.”

Peter wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t move.

“You’re married, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She huffed out a brief laugh. “Yes, of course you are. I apologize.”

“Her name is Rose. I think you would like her. She’s tough. The toughest person I know.”

Georgia remained quiet for a moment. “I’m sure she’s worried about you.”

“Probably.”

She shifted her weight, like she was turning on her side. “Could you tell me about her? Perhaps how you met? I would like to hear your story.”

Peter considered this. His was a story unlike any other. Georgia might not even believe it to be true. But he wanted someone to talk to, and perhaps she did too. So he started at the beginning—actually his second beginning, when he had been only forty-one, which had been over forty years ago.

* * *

Peter was awakened by a thunderous roar. His eyes flew open. All he could see was the ceiling inches above him. Another roar passed over the trailer. Military jets.

Suddenly his senses were barraged by chaos. The bed jolted, nearly throwing him against the ceiling, and the roar of jets was replaced by sound waves so powerful the only response he could bear was to cover his ears. Ground tremors continued for seconds afterwards, like the trailer was sitting at the epicenter of an earthquake.

Before it got quiet, the chaos started all over again. Georgia’s face appeared next to Peter’s bunk, wide-eyed and terrified. She had to grip the bunk’s frame to keep from falling. Her mouth moved, but Peter could hear only the lingering rumbles of massive explosions. Finally the noise faded away enough that they could talk.

“They’re bombing us!” Georgia said. “Why would they do that?”

Peter rolled off the bed and dropped to his feet. This caused only a small twinge in his left foot, which was nearly healed. He looked up at the ceiling, listening to the last of the rumbles and the jets flying over. “They must be trying to kill the creatures, to contain the situation.”

“¡Noña es! How can it be so bad they would do this?”

Peter didn’t reply. He continued looking up, trying to grasp the implications. The explosions had been close, no more than a few miles away. They must have bombed the area where it had started. Maybe Helmich’s compound, or even the village where Robert had been killed.

Georgia grabbed his arm. “If they’re trying to contain it, they’ll have to drop bombs here. Do you think they will?”

She was right. The epidemic had started less than twenty-four hours ago, and someone had decided it was serious enough to bomb a populated area, even though there had to be survivors hiding out in vehicles and houses. Those in charge were smart enough to realize that the horror and death could spread over the entire island. Perhaps even beyond.

“Peter?” She shook his arm. “We have to get out of here.”

He looked at her. “Try your cell phone. If it works, let someone know where we are.” He turned and faced the door, his mind working furiously to come up with a plan.

“Still no service,” she said. “And my phone is nearly dead.”

How far had the truck rolled before coming to a stop? Were they still in front of Georgia’s house? “Okay. We have to break the door to get out. And then we run straight for your car. Do you have your keys with you?”

She shook her head. “They’re in the house.”

Peter cursed silently. “Then we go to your house first, get the keys, then to your car.” He glanced at her and then hesitated. Her mascara had run down her face from crying, and her hair was disheveled. Her red business suit was creased and dislodged, looking uncomfortable. Her red pumps were on the floor. Could she run fast enough with only hose on her feet? Those shoes would certainly be awkward, even if she broke the heels off. She was trembling. And so was he.

“Georgia, it has been a pleasure sharing this fine room with you.”

She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “Don’t talk like we’re going to die.”

He nodded and tried to smile. “Get ready to run.” He turned back to the door and kicked it hard with his right foot.

It didn’t budge.

He tried again, and then again. He kept trying until his foot and ankle throbbed.

“We can take this off, maybe. Use it to break the door.” Georgia was at the back of the room, inspecting the wardrobe cabinet that was bolted to the wall. It was about four feet tall by two feet wide, and it sat atop a cube-shaped storage unit with two drawers.

Peter pulled on the cabinet, and it jiggled a bit. It was made of particle board, so even if he couldn’t break the bolts, perhaps he could break the wood. He pushed it back and forth and managed to work it loose enough to get his fingers between the cabinet and wall. It was more solid than it looked—he couldn’t pull it free. He needed leverage, but there was nothing here to use. He stepped back and took a deep breath. Another round of jets roared by overhead.

Georgia pushed him aside and opened the wardrobe’s door. She then hooked her fingers over the top of the door. It broke off before she had put all her weight on it. She took the broken door, slid into the lower bunk where she could approach the cabinet from the side, and wedged one end of the door behind the wardrobe. Peter leaned in beside her, and they pulled out on the door and pried the cabinet loose. Together they carried it four steps to the locked door. Standing on either side, they pulled back and slammed it into the door.

The door didn’t break, but the impact rattled it more than Peter had been able to by kicking. They slammed it again. On the third try, the door’s hinges started coming loose. Once more might do it.

“Wait,” Georgia said, and she held the cabinet back before Peter could swing it again. “Those animals may have been drawn here by the noise we’ve made. Should we wait—give them a chance to lose interest?”

This was a good point. But how long before someone made the call to bomb Salinas too? They stared at each other, breathing hard from the effort and listening for danger.

“I don’t think we should wait,” he said. He gazed at her until their eyes met. “Directly to your house for the keys, yes?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“On the count of three, then.”

They took a step back from the door to get ready. Peter counted aloud to three, and they swung the cabinet forward in a wide arc, smashing it against the door.

The hinges broke. The door flew open and then dangled askew by a padlock the soldiers had used to lock them in. The room was flooded with early-morning sunlight. They dropped the cabinet and Peter rushed to the doorway. The stairs had been retracted back under the trailer. No problem, they could jump four feet to the street.

But then Peter froze. The ground was swarming with creatures. Many of them appeared to be insects—crickets, beetles, roaches, and some that defied categorization. But there were also spiders as large as mice. And centipedes. Several fat toads hopped about, lazily snatching up the insects. And lizards darted back and forth, gorging themselves. A turkey-like creature without feathers was slowly strolling by, pecking at the bugs and swallowing them whole.

“Are they dangerous?” Georgia whispered. She was standing beside him, looking at the ground.

“I think we should assume everything moving is dangerous.” Peter looked over at Georgia’s house. It was seventy meters away. Too far.

Something came walking around the far side of her house. It was huge, with dark fur and a thick tail that dragged on the ground. It couldn’t be anything other than a giant ground sloth. It approached a low tree in Georgia’s yard. It lifted itself upright, using its tail as a third leg for stability. It reached for one of the lower tree limbs with one of its forelegs, raking it into its mouth with long, sickle-like claws. After taking one bite, the creature shook its head and released the limb, as if the leaves were distasteful. That’s when Peter saw that the distal tips of the limb were moving, squirming about like tentacles.

Something buzzed past Peter’s ear. Georgia ducked back into the room, grabbed the loose cabinet door, and held it up like a baseball bat. A four-inch wasp rattled against the ceiling, perhaps disoriented by the dark, confined space. Suddenly, it swooped down toward her. She grunted and swung. Peter heard the wasp’s exoskeleton crack and barely ducked his head in time as it rocketed out the door in several pieces.

With the door now open, it was only a matter of time—perhaps seconds—before one or both of them would be bitten, stung, or scratched by one of the creatures. Peter grabbed the trailer door, which was still hanging from its padlock. Perhaps he could put it back in place. But as he pushed down on the lower half to straighten it up, the padlock broke free, and the door clattered onto the street. Within seconds, insects and several crab-like creatures were walking over it. And then another large insect flew into the room.

Peter and Georgia were out of options and out of luck.

Georgia swung the cabinet door at the insect, which had landed on the frame of the top bunk. Peter caught enough of a glimpse to see that it was gray and resembled a stout praying mantis, and then the thing was nothing more than splatters on the bed and wall.

“Don’t touch any of that. It doesn’t matter if it’s dead,” he said. He went back to the open doorway. “I don’t think we can get to your house.”

“The cab of the truck!” She exclaimed. “It’s still running.”

Peter blinked at her. He looked at the street, crawling with living things. He then looked up at the ceiling. Yes, it might be possible. He grabbed the loose cabinet and stood it on its end in the doorway. It was four feet tall, too tall to step up onto, so he stepped onto the lower bunk and hoisted himself onto the cabinet as Georgia held it steady. Standing on the cabinet with his head and shoulders outside the trailer, he was high enough to reach the lip of the trailer’s roof. Seconds later he had pulled himself up and was lying prone on the roof. He extended a hand down to Georgia.

“Can you get on the box?”

She was already working on this. Peter saw the cabinet rocking back and forth as she crawled onto it. Her head appeared through the door. She was able to turn her body enough to reach up with one hand and grab his. But then the box collapsed. It tumbled out onto the street and suddenly Georgia was dangling there, held only by Peter’s left hand.

He grunted and shifted his weight away from the edge to avoid being pulled off. He held out his right hand. “Grab ahold!”

She tried, but she was using her left hand to grasp his left. She had to cross her right hand over her left to grab his free hand. She managed to do this, but he tried pulling her up, he couldn’t get her high enough, and he couldn’t get to his knees with her weight pulling him down.

A wasp or some other insect buzzed around his head and actually tried to land in his hair. He flipped his head wildly. The buzzing stopped, but he couldn’t tell if the thing had flown off or had landed somewhere on his body. Regardless, he was powerless to do anything about it. His hands were starting to sweat, and he felt Georgia slipping from his grip.

“Swing me to the side!”

Peter strained his shoulders to pull her to one side. She used her feet to help him, and soon they had a steady rhythm going. On the fourth swing she threw her leg up and caught the edge of the roof with her foot. This took enough weight off Peter’s arms that he was able to gather his knees beneath him, allowing him to pull her up and onto the trailer.

He stood up and immediately turned away from her. “Is there anything on my back?”

After panting for a few seconds, she said, “Nothing is there. But there are things here on the roof. There, and there.”

Peter helped her to her feet. There were a few insects on the roof, but it was nothing like the street below. They moved to the front of the trailer. The gap between the trailer and the cab was about four feet. Peter exchanged a glance with Georgia and then leapt to the cab. He turned and held his arms out to her.

She said something, but the words were lost to the roar of a low-flying jet. He gestured for her to jump. She did, directly into his arms, knocking him off balance. They both fell onto the roof of the cab and slid down the windshield onto the engine hood. The hood was slanted, and Peter had to grab a windshield wiper to prevent them both from tumbling over the side. The surface was hot due to the engine having run all night. They got to their feet, but Georgia, wearing no shoes, was forced to lift one foot and then the other to avoid burning.

The truck’s driver must have left in a hurry, because the door was hanging open. Without saying a word, Georgia went straight for the open door, stepped on a narrow spot where it hinged to the cab, and worked her way into the driver seat.

Peter was right behind her. He stepped on the door’s hinge and started making his way around to the side of the cab by holding on to the large mirror.

He noticed a lumbering brown shape approaching the cab. He froze. The giant sloth that had been in Georgia’s yard had spotted him and was coming straight for him.

Georgia clambered over to the passenger seat. “Get in. Get inside!”

It was too late. Peter was only halfway around the edge, and the beast was already there. He held still. Perhaps if he didn’t move, it would wander off. It was an herbivore, after all. Wasn’t it?

Abruptly the creature raised up on its hind legs, again using its thick tail to steady itself. Peter assessed it from the corner of his eye. It was massive. How many men, women, or children had been killed, their bodies incorporated into this behemoth? It stood ten feet tall, and now its head was at the same level as Peter’s. For a moment it looked down at its own feet, apparently watching the myriad of smaller creatures crawling, hopping, and slithering on the ground. It even shuffled its feet to avoid things that were moving too close. But then it turned its attention to Peter.

With one foot still on the truck’s hood, Peter was not in a position to jump quickly into the cab. So he held as still as he could. He even closed his eyes to hide their involuntary, panicked movement. He sensed the sloth’s face inches from his ear. It sniffed, and he felt the movement of air as it sucked in his scent. Moist lips smacked. Its tongue moved about with the sound of a sloshing bucket of goo. Peter felt the tongue lightly touch the tips of his hair.

“Easy, mate,” he said, as soothingly as he could manage. “I’m not a threat to you, and I’m not something to eat.”

The thing snorted in return, blowing wet mist onto Peter’s cheek. He opened his eyes. The sloth’s snout was less than a foot away. “Easy, mate.”

The creature was gazing at him with brown eyes that seemed too small for such a massive head. Perhaps the sloth was only curious about him. But of course that didn’t matter. Whether it licked his face or tore his head off, the result would likely be the same—transformation into something nonhuman.

“Easy,” he said again. He turned to the truck and slowly, methodically crawled over the door and into the seat. The creature stood there and watched him until he pulled the door shut. It then dropped to all fours and started moving away, stepping to the side periodically to avoid some of the larger crawling things on the ground.

Peter wiped the sloth’s spittle from his face and stared at his hand. Was it enough to infect him? He looked over at Georgia. She was watching him warily. “If I begin to feel strange, I’ll jump out of the truck. Agreed?”

She nodded, or perhaps it was just her trembling. “Can you drive this truck?”

Peter looked at the dashboard and then at the gear shifter. “I think so. Maybe.”

Abruptly, the earth shook, rocking the truck, and all other sounds became insignificant compared to the ear-splitting roar that flooded Peter’s senses. Debris flew across the street in front of them, including patio furniture and the front half of a boat. Something smashed into the window next to Georgia’s head, cracking the glass and leaving a smear of blood and black feathers. A storage shed tumbled end over end and came to rest in the street in front of them, blocking their way.

The roar gradually faded, replaced by the sounds of objects pelting the roof of the cab, like a nightmarish hail storm.

“Sweet Jesus!” Georgia cried. “They’re bombing Salinas.”

Peter stomped on the clutch and squinted at the gear shifter. It had a diagram of ten different gears. He shoved the shifter left and then down into first and gave it some gas as he let out the clutch. The truck barely moved.

Georgia leaned over and slammed her hand against a yellow knob on the dash. There was a hiss of air from the brakes and the truck lurched forward.

Peter floored it. The truck struck the storage shed, breaking it open and pushing it out of the way. The engine was already whining, maxed out, so he shifted to second.

“Turn right,” Georgia cried.

Peter cranked the wheel. The nose rounded the corner without a problem, but the trailer hit a car parked on the right and rolled right over it, shaking the cab back and forth as its wheels crashed onto the yard of the corner house and then over the curb back onto the street.

He shifted to third, accelerated, and then shifted to fourth. The road was strewn with debris, but Peter wasn’t stopping for anything. Creatures of every shape and size scattered out of the truck’s path or were crushed beneath it.

“Faster,” Georgia cried. “Get us out of Salinas!”

Peter had it floored, but the truck wouldn’t speed up. He shifted to fifth gear. He wanted to shift to sixth, but the diagram showed it being in the same place as first. What the hell was that supposed to mean? There was a lever on the gear shifter—probably what he needed—but he was too panicked to experiment with it, so he just held the gas pedal to the floor.

As they approached the edge of town, houses and businesses gave way to open fields, and the road became less cluttered with debris.

“Oh no,” Georgia said. She was staring straight ahead.

Peter looked. A fighter jet was flying low over the road, headed straight for them. Just before it passed over, Peter glimpsed two objects separating from the jet, each with its own smoke trail.

Peter clenched his muscles and gripped the wheel. “Hold on!”

The world around them erupted. First, small bits of leaves and dust flew past from behind, then larger chunks of wood and trees, and then vehicles and entire sections of houses. The cab of the truck lurched forward and tipped downward. Peter realized the bunkhouse trailer was no longer on the ground. The trailer wrenched free from the hitch with a violent grinding that could be heard over everything else. He looked in his mirror—the trailer was gone. A shadow passed over the windshield and he stared, dumbstruck, as the entire trailer blew over the cab. It hit the road in front of them and started sliding on its side.

Peter realized they were going to hit it. He tried turning to the right, but it was too late. They crashed into the corner of it, knocking the cab onto its side.

Georgia screamed as the pavement rose up and slammed into her side of the truck. The cab’s momentum then rolled the truck over onto its nose and roof. Peter was thrown from his seat, and he hit his head and shoulder on the ceiling. He was dazed but still aware that the cab was sliding upside down on the road, and then onto dirt. When it hit the weeds it rolled onto its passenger side, dumping him on top of Georgia as it came to a stop.

“Mr. Wooley? Are you okay?”

It seemed like a strange question. He was the one who had fallen on her, and he was still sprawled on top of her. He groaned and tried moving his legs. “I don’t know.” He managed to get off and sit up, which in turn allowed her to sit up. “No broken bones, I suppose.”

“I think I am okay also.”

Peter looked around, becoming aware of their dilemma. The windshield was cracked but still in one piece. The driver window was intact. He looked down. The passenger window was gone, but soil and weeds were pressed against the window frame. At least they were somewhat closed off from the creatures.

Georgia rubbed a bloody spot on her knee. “They bombed Salinas. My home. Mamá and Papá’s home. How could they?”

Peter shook his head. He didn’t know what to say.

“Do you think the bombs killed the animals? All of them?”

Again he shook his head. He turned and looked out the cracked windshield. They were facing away from Salinas, but black smoke wafted by in thick clouds from behind them. Georgia reached out her hand, tears in her eyes, and Peter took her hand and held it. They watched as light objects—paper, ashes, fragments of clothes—fell like snow onto the ground.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Quentin tried to avoid making sudden movements. Addison watched them warily, his muscles twitching as if he might flee. And from the looks of his sleek, muscular body, if he decided to run there would be no catching him.

Lindsey took a cautious step closer. “Yes, Addison, Newton can come home with us. Did you know Mommy has her own mbolop? His name is Rusty.” She pointed at her tree kangaroo.

Addison looked. “Rusty. Rusty go home, too.”

“That’s right. We’ll all go home together, okay?”

His face formed a grimace, an expression that was not quite a smile. “Where home, Mummy?”

Lindsey took another step closer. She was now within Addison’s reach, which made Quentin tense up, ready to pull her back if there was trouble. She said, “Home is where you used to live. Do you remember your house? It’s in a town called Newton.”

He shifted his gaze to his tree kangaroo and back to Lindsey. “Newton my mbolop.”

“Yes, but Newton is also the place where your home is.”

Addison bared his teeth, this time in a real smile. “That silly, Mummy.”

Lindsey smiled back. “It is silly, isn’t it?”

Quentin cautiously stepped to Lindsey’s side. “Addison, we’ve missed you so much. We came as soon as Samuel told us you were here.”

Addison appraised him silently for a moment. His eyes then scanned the ground around Quentin’s feet. “Where your mbolop, Daddy?”

This took Quentin by surprise. “Well, I don’t have my own mbolop.”

Addison grimaced again, baring his top and bottom canines. “Daddy, you need mbolop.”

“Why, Addison? Why do I need one?”

“You my Daddy. I no want you to die.”

Quentin wasn’t sure how to react to this. He realized he wasn’t breathing and drew a lungful of heavy air.

Lindsey said, “Your dad will get his own mbolop. Maybe you can choose one for him. Would you like to do that?”

Addison grinned broadly and turned to look at the tree kangaroos, which now seemed to be everywhere.

Quentin glared at Lindsey.

“He’s right,” she said softly. “You should have your own.”

Addison was already herding one of the tree kangaroos toward him. Lindsey had put him in a no-win situation. He didn’t want his own mbolop, but the last thing he wanted right now was to turn their reunion with their son into a disaster.

Addison guided the mbolop until it was at Quentin’s feet. It was similar to all the others, although perhaps with more black fur on the tail. The creature looked up at him.

“Your mbolop, Daddy.”

“Thank you, Addison, but I’m not sure I need my own—”

Addison lunged toward Quentin and grabbed his hand. It took all of Quentin’s willpower to not back away. Addison pulled on his hand, urging him to bend over and touch the tree kangaroo.

“Okay, son, okay.”

Addison let go. Quentin held his hand, palm down, in front of the creature’s snout. It sniffed his skin. Then it sat up on its haunches, dug into its abdomen, and produced a pink lump of body tissue. It offered the lump to him.

This was happening too fast. Quentin stepped back. “I’m sorry. I’m not ready to do this.”

Addison frowned, contorting his face in a nonhuman way. “Daddy die with no mbolop.”

“Please,” Lindsey said. “Once you do it, you’ll understand. I promise.”

Why was she pushing this, especially at this moment? “We came here to take Addison home. That’s all I want to do.” He faced Addison. “Are you ready to come home, son?”

Addison’s frown turned into a snarl. Suddenly he snatched the tree kangaroo and hefted it over his head. He was about to throw the creature when Mbaiso jumped in front of him and let out a lamb-like bleat.

Addison hesitated.

Mbaiso moved his forepaws quickly but with precision.

Addison abruptly smiled again. He put the tree kangaroo down and then patted its head apologetically. He turned to Quentin. “Me go home with Mummy and Daddy. But me mad if Daddy die.”

* * *

Quentin helped Samuel put the finishing touches on the lean-to shelter. It was too late to hike back to Sinanie’s village, so they had decided to camp beneath the hanging tunnels of the mbolop colony.

Every few minutes Quentin looked over at Addison, fearing he might change his mind and run away—or worse. Lindsey and Addison had been sitting on the ground together, talking and occasionally laughing, for some time. She seemed to be forming a connection with him.

Quentin gave the shelter a good shake to make sure it wouldn’t collapse, and then he approached them cautiously to avoid spooking Addison. As he approached, he saw that they were engaged in some kind of activity, so he quietly sat a few yards away and observed.

Lindsey had her eyes closed. Addison sat with his stubby legs crossed. Rusty and Newton lounged on the ground between them. Within the frame created by Addison’s legs was something he was carefully shielding from view with his hands. He plucked an object from the hidden spot and held it in front of Rusty’s snout. It was a small leaf.

“Color, color!” he said.

“That’s easy, it’s green,” Lindsey said, her eyes still closed.

Addison tossed it aside and produced a piece of bark. “Color, color!”

“That one’s easy, too. It’s brown.”

Addison bobbed his head and laughed with excitement. He pulled a round blue object from his stash. It looked like a berry of some kind. “Color, color!”

“It’s blue, silly.”

His head bobbed again. Next he pulled out a large red flower petal and held it out for Rusty to see. “Color, color!”

Lindsey hesitated. “It’s, um, brown? No, maybe gray?”

Addison howled with laughter and pounded his chest with one hand. “No no, Mummy! No!”

Lindsey opened her eyes. “Hey, did you trick me? Tree kangaroos can’t see red, can they? And you knew that, didn’t you?”

Addison actually rolled on the ground, kicking his feet and slapping his belly and chest, obviously delighted. Abruptly he jumped to his feet. “Mummy. Daddy. Me show you my tree house. Up.” He waited for them to follow him.

Lindsey said, “Honey, we can’t climb like you. We have to stay down here.”

He puckered his mouth. “Rusty show you.” He jabbed a finger toward the tree kangaroo. “Okay, Mummy?”

“Okay, but please be careful.”

He shoved Rusty with his foot, forcing the creature to get up. “Come, Rusty! Stay, Newton!” He then ran off with Rusty, and Newton remained obediently where she was.

Quentin gazed at Lindsey but didn’t say anything.

“You’re upset with me,” she said. “But keep in mind I know some things you don’t know yet.”

“Such as?”

“Such as how beneficial it is to pair up with one of the mbolop. It’s life-changing, Quentin.”

He continued gazing at her, unwilling to even try to respond.

“They’re from the Lamotelokhai. I think we should trust them.”

He shrugged and looked down at the dead leaves he had been grinding up in his closed fist. “There was a time when you refused to be treated by the Lamotelokhai’s particles.”

“Things are different now. You know that.”

Samuel walked up to them and sat down next to Quentin.

“I must concede to resounding defeat. Try as I might, I cannot procure an accurate count of the tree kangaroos. The confounded creatures will not stop moving about. I conclude that my original estimate was reasonable. There are approximately three hundred.”

Quentin looked over toward the lean-to shelter. Tree kangaroos were milling about everywhere. Some were even sniffing the shelter and pushing against it, as if inspecting the workmanship. Another of the creatures confidently approached Quentin. It smelled his leg. It was the third one to do this in the last hour. It clawed into its abdomen and offered him a lump of tissue. Quentin shook his head, refusing it. After a minute or so the creature put the lump back and wandered off.

A thought Quentin had been trying to keep at bay suddenly surfaced. He spoke to Samuel. “What do you honestly believe? Do you really think the tree kangaroos are here to save people?”

Samuel poked at the ground with his finger for a few seconds. “I have always believed that the Lamotelokhai did not come here with the intention of destroying us. But I have also long believed that it will destroy us. Because I have concluded that mankind is not predisposed to use it wisely and properly. Perhaps we never will be. Perhaps we lack certain necessary characteristics, not the least of which is a general sense of compassion for others.”

Quentin waited for him to go on, but Samuel went back to poking the ground. “So, the tree kangaroos,” Quentin said. “Are they really capable of saving people? If so, can they save only three hundred?”

“Do I believe they can save people? They are of the Lamotelokhai’s clay, and so I am certain they can. As for the number, three hundred is preferable to three, is it not? You two are charged with choosing those three hundred. I do hope you choose wisely.”

Quentin turned to Lindsey, and their eyes met. She shook her head, although he wasn’t sure what the gesture meant.

Suddenly she stiffened. “They’re inside Addison’s tree house.” She frowned. “It’s smaller than I thought it would be.” She quickly put a hand over her mouth and looked down at Newton. “No, honey. I didn’t mean I don’t like it. It’s very nice.”

Quentin realized Addison was experiencing everything Newton saw and heard, just as Lindsey was immersed in Rusty’s experiences.

“What is that? Oh, you want me to guess? Well, hmm. Is it a little man? It is? Did you make it? Oh, it’s Daddy?” She looked over at Quentin, smiling. “Did you make Mommy, too? Oh, yes, that’s me! Those are very nice, Addison.” She paused. “Oh, I have to guess again? Let me see it, okay? Is it a necklace? What are those things? Oh. Oh my. Snake heads. Did you kill all of those, Addison? You ate them.” She put a hand to her chest. “Well, I hope they were yummy. They were. Okay.”

She dug into her pocket. “Now it’s my turn. I have something. Can you guess what it is?” She held her mbolop talisman in front of Newton’s face. “Yes, it’s a rock. But it was carved to look like something. Can you guess what? No? Well, it’s a tree kangaroo. An mbolop.” She laughed. “Yes, that’s funny isn’t it?”

Quentin turned to Samuel. “I’m starting to feel left out.”

“Perhaps you should yield to the inevitable. Claim your mbolop. Soon, when you are choosing three hundred living souls to whom you will give the talismans, your conscience may prevent you from claiming your own.”

Quentin shook his head. “I can’t make myself believe that the end of the world is here. Do you really think it is?”

“I have contemplated its eventual arrival for so many years that perhaps I have grown accustomed to the notion. I do not wish to be insensitive to the grave implications.”

Quentin sighed and stared up at the fading light filtering through the forest canopy. Ashley had said on the SAT phone that some people had divided the Lamotelokhai into pieces, and that she and Bobby were coming here to put it back together. She had made it clear that this was important. Had she actually meant save-the-world important?

There was no point in driving himself crazy with speculation. “What about you, Samuel? Aren’t you going to pair up with one of them?”

Samuel eyed him. “Perhaps you have been too occupied with spurning the offers of numerous mbolop to notice that I have had no such offers. This is no doubt due to the fact that Sinanie and his fellow tribesmen have not offered to me a talisman.”

“Oh. Sorry. Well, when they hand them over, I’ll be sure to give you one.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “I am hesitant, as are you.”

Quentin turned to Lindsey. She was looking back at him, and so was Addison’s mbolop.

Lindsey grinned. “Addison says, ‘Hi Daddy.’ And he wants to know if you have your mbolop yet.”

Quentin turned to the tree kangaroo. “Hi Addison. No, I don’t have an mbolop.”

Newton turned her gaze back to Lindsey. A few seconds later, Lindsey said, “Yes, you’re right. Daddy is silly. But we’ll help him, won’t we?”

* * *

Quentin awoke slowly and reluctantly. It had rained half the night, and sleep had been sparse. He sat up and rubbed the splattered mud from his face. Lindsey was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping mat, Rusty beside her. Her clothes were as wet as his, but she was writing on a small pad she must have had in her pack. Samuel sat a few feet beyond her, wiping his bare legs clean with a large leaf.

Quentin looked around. A few tree kangaroos were hopping about, apparently with specific destinations in mind. Most of them had disappeared into the trees just before dark to spend the night in the safety of their hanging chambers.

He turned to Lindsey. “Have you seen Addison yet?” Like the tree kangaroos, Addison had insisted on leaving them at dark to climb to his hut.

“He was here a few minutes ago,” Lindsey said without looking up from her pad. “I think he was checking on us.”

Samuel said, “It seems he is concerned that you may disappear, just as you are concerned that he may run away.”

Lindsey finally looked up from her writing. “You’ll never guess what he wanted to know regarding you.”

“Do I have my own mbolop yet.”

She went back to writing.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

She handed him the pad. The page had two columns, one with the heading Pros and the other Cons. The Pros column was filled with writing. The Cons column was empty.

He started reading the items aloud. “Optimized hormonal balance = contentment. Optimized nutritional balance = vigor. Deep connection to another living thing = new ways of seeing the world = stimulation.” He stopped reading and sighed. “Can I ask why you don’t have anything in the Cons column?”

“Because there aren’t any, as far as I can tell. Go ahead, finish reading them.”

He sighed again. “Companionship = contentment. Assistance with tasks = more time for other things. The mbolop are made of Lamotelokhai’s particles = this alone should be enough.” He glanced up at her and then read the last item on the list aloud. “According to Addison, Samuel, and Sinanie’s tribe, you are going to die without your own mbolop.” He handed the pad back to her.

She said, “And I could add that your wife and son want you to be safe. Hon, all these things are true. I’ve never felt better in my life.”

Quentin considered arguing, but he just shook his head. Maybe she was right.

A dark shape appeared above them and landed near their feet with a thump. It was Addison. Where had he come from? Quentin couldn’t see a tree limb within fifteen yards of where he had landed.

Addison plopped down before them and crossed his legs. In each hand he held a sizable monitor lizard, one of them missing its head and the front half of its body. The other was whole but appeared to be dead.

Their son held the intact lizard out to them. “Mummy, Daddy eat. Samuel eat too.”

A moment of silence passed. Quentin accepted the lizard. “Thank you.”

Addison grinned, his teeth red with blood and chunks of meat. Then he ripped into his own lizard, occasionally picking shreds of skin and other inedible parts from his mouth and flicking them away.

“The legs and tail are particularly desirable,” Samuel said. “Even in the raw state.”

“Okay, you’re welcome to start on it.” Quentin handed the lizard to Lindsey, who passed it on.

Samuel turned it over, observing it from every angle as if admiring its beauty or deciding what species it was. He then brushed away some grime, pulled a small gleaming knife from a pocket inside his vest, and began cutting, somehow maintaining the appearance of fastidiousness and gentlemanly manners.

Quentin was hungry, but he wasn’t sure he was hungry enough to eat raw lizard meat. Apparently it was a day for being indecisive. He got to his feet and went to the log where he had left the SAT phone. He shook the rainwater off and wiped it with his shirt before powering it on. Still there were no messages or missed calls from Ashley and Bobby. The indicator showed only 35% battery charge remaining. He powered the phone off, went off to relieve himself, and then returned to his sleeping pad. Addison was working on the last of his meal, the tail. Samuel was cutting small strips of flesh from the other lizard and laying them on a clean leaf.

“I would prefer this meat to be cooked,” Samuel said, “but present conditions are not favorable for making a fire.”

Quentin watched Addison eat, experiencing both joy and revulsion at the sight of his son. Would Addison have to remain in this form for the rest of his life?

And what about his mental state? He now seemed to have the mind of a toddler. This was no doubt Quentin’s fault. Eight months ago, in a desperate attempt to stop Addison from killing more people, Quentin had asked Bobby to order the Lamotelokhai to provide a substance that would kill him. Quentin himself had thrown the substance at Addison’s face, fully intending to kill his own son. It wasn’t until after this unthinkable act that he learned Bobby instead had made the substance to erase Addison’s memory, thus saving Addison’s life. It had taken Quentin a while to realize it, but he would be forever grateful to Bobby for this. And he would be forever guilt-ridden for having initiated the act in the first place.

What would life be like for Addison with his current appearance and mental state? Assuming, of course, that the world was not actually coming to an end.

Something nudged Quentin’s leg. Another tree kangaroo. This one was a bit smaller than most of the others, although it was clearly a male. The creature held two bluish-purple fruits the size of large grapes, one in its mouth and one between its forepaws. It dropped the fruits next to Quentin’s foot.

“They are from the plum pine,” Samuel said. “Podocarpus, if I am not mistaken. You may eat them, although I do not recommend eating more than what the mbolop has offered. Perhaps the mbolop senses something that you yourself do not know, Quentin.”

Quentin picked up the fruits to inspect them more closely. “Why do you say that?”

“Because native Papuans use those fruits for medicinal remedies.”

“I haven’t needed any medicines for eight months,” Quentin said.

“As I said, perhaps the mbolop knows something you do not.”

Quentin took another look at the tree kangaroo. Hairs with black tips grew on its head and neck, making it darker than most of the others. The rims of its ears were tipped with white. It stared back at him as if waiting for him to eat the fruits.

Addison slapped his belly with one hand and pointed at the tree kangaroo. “Mummy! Daddy has mbolop. That Daddy’s mbolop!”

Quentin glanced at her. She nodded but held her tongue.

Samuel watched with no particular expression, apparently deciding it was best to withhold his opinion.

Quentin took a small bite of one of the fruits. The flesh was slimy and slightly sweet. Not bad. “Thank you,” he said to the tree kangaroo. He took a larger bite. “I suppose you have something else to offer me.”

The creature cocked its head to the side. It straightened up on its haunches and started scratching its abdomen. Addison slapped his belly again, but Quentin didn’t take his eyes off the mbolop. Seconds later the creature held out a lump of tissue. Or nanoparticles, or Lamotelokhai clay. Whatever it was, Quentin knew it would change his life if he accepted it. As if what he really needed right now was yet another life change.

He held his hand out, and the mbolop dropped the lump onto his palm. He watched the substance spread out and disappear through his skin, punctuated by Addison’s frantic belly slapping.

He had thought the tingling sensation would be more pronounced, but it was barely detectable, just a subtle feeling of warmth. It moved up his arm and into his shoulder, at which point it seemed to dissipate. He felt something at his side, and he realized Lindsey had moved closer. She stretched her legs out in front of her.

“Lay your head in my lap, in case your body goes to sleep. Your mind will stay awake.”

Quentin looked at her, but he didn’t feel like saying anything. He was starting to feel nauseous, so he shifted and put his head in her lap. Suddenly he was aware he was moaning, but it was beyond his control. The world around him faded away. It was replaced by something else, a vision, although the visual element was only one of many layers. His other senses were alive as well, as were his emotions. This was disorienting, but soon his mind adjusted to the barrage of different forms of stimulation.

The mbolop particles flowed through his veins and into his cells. He was aware of it happening and could feel every minuscule particle gliding and bumping along and stacking up at bottlenecks, only to be released when pressure mounted. There were millions of them, and he could feel them all. And on top of this multi-point layer of sensation was a visual layer, numerous three-dimensional videos playing at once. He saw every detail of his mbolop, as if tiny drones were flying inches above its body and sending images to his mind. The creature’s eyes, with flecks of golden pigment within the otherwise brown irises. Short, black-tipped hairs on its face, harboring particles of dirt but no parasites or pests. A recent scratch on the edge of its nose, which Quentin somehow knew was from a tussle with one of its sisters over a perfectly ripe orange berry with a name that could only be expressed with precise movements of two forepaws. A pattern of tan, orange, and brown mottling that extended from the base of its long tail to the tip, and which not only served as an indicator of the creature’s identity, but also had shifted in pattern and color during its lifetime, serving as a marker of social status and developmental achievements.

And on top of the visual layer, there was a layer of scents, each of them with specific significance. And there were tastes, and sounds. Layered on top of all that was an almost overwhelming flood of emotions. They washed over Quentin’s consciousness like a syrupy fluid, so confining that he could not force his thoughts elsewhere. He experienced them one at a time, as if they were queued up in a specific order. He felt confusion and then wonder as he experienced the mbolop’s memory of gradually awakening during its final hours of development into a fully-formed adult. He felt exuberance and fear as it ventured out of the hanging chambers for the first time, finding itself on a narrow limb high above the forest floor. He felt a combination of determination and sadness as the mbolop helped its brothers and sisters tear apart a struggling sibling with a body that had somehow failed to develop normally.

The emotional memories continued to flow, one at a time, and all the while Quentin was still aware of the other layers of sensations—visions, smells, tastes, and sounds. And finally, it all ended.

Quentin opened his eyes.

“There you are.” Lindsey’s face was above his.

He blinked. “Lindsey, it was—”

“I know.” She smiled.

Addison’s face appeared beside Lindsey’s. “Daddy, now you have mbolop.”

Quentin sat up. Samuel was still gazing at him, as if only seconds had passed. Addison slapped his own belly a few times, grinning and nodding his head.

The mbolop was still there, at his feet, watching him. The thing was a simple yet complex creature. It hadn’t lived long, a few months, but its life had been filled with meaningful, painful, harrowing, and fascinating moments. It was like all the other mbolop, but it was distinct. It wasn’t a real animal—it was something more. It was made of tiny particles crafted by beings who were likely long extinct.

And above all, this mbolop was now Quentin’s.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Bobby woke up when the Cessna Citation’s tires hit the runway at Sentani International Airport, just west of Jayapura, the capital city of Papua. Groggy, he looked around. Ashley and Carlos were also beginning to stir. Jonathan was awake, frowning at his smartphone.

“What?” Bobby asked.

Jonathan pulled his eyes away from the phone. “We’re lucky we left Puerto Rico when we did.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Whatever that maniac Helmich started is sweeping across the island, much faster than it can be contained. Hell, they don’t even know how to begin to contain it. They’ve resorted to air-launched missiles and firebombing. Apparently nothing is working.”

They all stared at him as the jet braked on the runway. Bobby looked down at his lap. The outbreak was getting worse even faster than he had feared. A familiar feeling of guilt once again took hold of him.

Ashley spoke first. “They’re bombing Puerto Rico?”

Jonathan nodded grimly. “We’re lucky we got out of there before they locked down the airports.”

“How many people have been killed?” Bobby asked.

Jonathan shook his head. “No idea.” He then furrowed his brows at Bobby. “Look, this isn’t your fault. You were kidnapped and taken there. There was nothing you could have done.”

Bobby nodded, but the pit in his stomach didn’t care about Jonathan’s words. All over again, people were dying because of things he’d done. Only this time it was a lot of people, maybe even thousands. It didn’t seem fair that he could escape from Puerto Rico when all those other people couldn’t.

The Cessna abruptly came to a stop. Captain Kirk shouted from the cockpit, “This is it, sir. Our greeting party is forcing us to stop here.”

Jonathan popped his seatbelt and got up. “Captain Kirk and I have been on the radio with the local authorities here. They are suspicious. I explained we’re on a crucial mission to save lives in Puerto Rico. Otherwise I don’t think we would’ve been allowed to land at all. When they find out we were in Puerto Rico less than twenty-four hours ago, they may shut us down.” He looked directly at Bobby. “If we tell them who you are, and what you have with you, they may let us continue.”

It hadn’t occurred to Bobby that they wouldn’t even be allowed into the country. What if the Indonesians threw them in jail and took away the incomplete Lamotelokhai?

Captain Kirk opened the jet’s hatch and lowered it. Almost immediately the opening was darkened as police poured in, yelling orders and waving black assault rifles. They escorted Captain Kirk to one of the seats near Bobby and motioned for Jonathan to sit down.

Bobby looked pleadingly at Jonathan.

“It’s okay,” Jonathan said. “Just stay calm.”

Five policemen had entered the plane. They wore black fatigues, tan shirts, and black berets with red and gold badges. In addition to the rifles in their hands, they wore pistols on their belts. They quickly walked the length of the Cessna’s cabin like they were searching it. Then they gathered in the aisle with Bobby, Carlos, and Ashley on one side, and Jonathan and Captain Kirk on the other. Bobby could smell their sweat and the oil on the rifles. The soldiers motioned for Kirk to stand up. One of them spun his finger, ordering the pilot to turn in a circle. Then they made each of the passengers do the same. Bobby assumed they were making sure no one was transforming into anything nonhuman.

One of them went to the hatch and waved his arm. Another man entered the cabin. He wore a white shirt with a black tie, and for a moment Bobby thought the man was Natsir Santoso. But of course that wasn’t possible. Santoso had suffered a terrible death eight months ago, transformed into a dinosaur and then shot dead—another death that weighed heavily on Bobby’s conscience.

“My name is Satria Wahid. I represent the Sentani International Airport, as well as the people of Papua. We allowed you to land because you claim you have a solution to the crisis in Puerto Rico, which may soon become a global crisis.” He looked at a watch on his wrist. “You have exactly three minutes in which to further explain your purpose. If I do not find it convincing, I have the authority to order you to depart immediately.”

This was followed by silence. Bobby realized several of the armed men were staring at him. They may have recognized him, but more likely they were staring at his hair, which was now hanging to his shoulders from the two spots where Ashley had rubbed the Lamotelokhai clay.

Jonathan said, “As I explained on approach, we have a way to stop the outbreak in Puerto Rico. You know of the Lamotelokhai, right?”

Wahid’s eyes were fixed on Bobby. “Of course. And I am aware that it originated here in Papua. It was taken from us.”

“That’s ancient history now,” Jonathan said. “I’m sure you’re aware the Lamotelokhai has helped all of humanity—without being in possession of the United States or any other country.” Jonathan paused. “Look, Mr. Wahid, this boy is Bobby Truex.” He nodded toward Bobby. “And you may recognize Ashley Stoddard and Carlos Herrera. These are the people who discovered the Lamotelokhai. We’ve come here because using the Lamotelokhai is the only way to stop the outbreak in Puerto Rico. We can save millions of lives, maybe even more. But there is something here in Papua the Lamotelokhai needs first. All we ask is that you allow us to travel inland to get what it needs.”

Wahid’s eyes narrowed. “So you wish to take something. Again.”

Bobby decided if they were going to take the approach of being honest, they might as well tell everything. He unzipped his duffel bag and hefted the lump of clay to his lap. “Mr. Wahid, this is part of the Lamotelokhai.”

Wahid’s eyes widened. Several of the soldiers beside him backed away as if he were holding a bomb.

Bobby went on. “This is only part of it, because a group of power-hungry people captured it and took it apart. That was in Puerto Rico. It’s what started the outbreak there. We brought this here because the Lamotelokhai made backups of its memory, and the backups are out there in the jungle. We have to get to them to fix the Lamotelokhai, so that the Lamotelokhai can stop the outbreak. And we really need to hurry.”

Wahid continued staring at the clay. “What game are you playing?”

Bobby put his hands on the lump. He formed words silently in his mind. “Can you hear me? I need your help right now.”

An array of symbols appeared before his eyes. “More knowledge, more help.”

“Soon I’ll get you a lot more knowledge. But right now I need help. What things can you do best right now with the knowledge you have?”

The symbols shifted. “Please talk different.”

“I ask you, what game are you playing?” Wahid said.

Bobby lifted his hands from the clay to clear his vision. “Give me just a minute. I want to prove that we’re telling the truth.”

Ashley turned to him and gave him a look that said, you better know what the hell you’re doing.

He nodded to her and placed his hands back on the clay. “I know you’re not good at zapping things from one place to another,” he thought. “You really screwed that up. I need to know what you’re good at. What can you do without screwing it up?”

Symbols appeared—a lot of them. “Calculate with numbers, recall stored information, predict outcomes, manipulate materials, make mechanical things, modify biological—”

Bobby stopped reading. Manipulate materials and make mechanical things? He looked around for something. A television screen and a few audio controls were next to his seat, but he didn’t see much else that wasn’t part of the plane. Suddenly an idea came to him. He looked at the wall of the cabin and followed it up to the ceiling. Of course.

“There’s something I want you to do,” he thought. “We’re in a passenger jet right now. It’s a machine that’s made to fly people around to different places on the planet. But it took us twenty-three hours to fly here from Puerto Rico. I bet the aliens who made you had better airplanes than this. Can you change this airplane to make it better?”

Symbols appeared. “Unknown. I will evaluate airplane and then I will know. Need to touch airplane.”

Bobby looked up at Wahid and the soldiers. They were watching him, waiting. He eased forward to the edge of his seat and placed the clay on the floor against the wall. Within seconds the wall began to waver, as if it had become soft. The wavering spread up the wall and across the floor like a ripple on the surface of a pond.

The Indonesian men began talking excitedly, but Bobby didn’t turn away from the clay. He realized the lump was quickly getting smaller. Its particles were flowing into the aircraft. Within seconds it was only a little larger than a grapefruit. He quickly gathered it up.

“What are you doing?” he asked silently. “I didn’t say to disappear.”

Symbols appeared. “Airplane appears large. Many of my parts needed.”

Bobby exhaled, relieved that the clay could at least still talk to him. What would have happened if he hadn’t picked it up?

The floor began to disintegrate under Bobby’s feet. He and Ashley jumped up and backed away, crowding Wahid and the soldiers.

“What is happening?” Wahid cried.

“What’s happening?” Bobby asked the diminished lump in his hands.

“Evaluating airplane,” was the reply.

Wahid stumbled past two of the soldiers, heading for the hatch.

“You don’t need to be afraid,” Bobby shouted. But he was now standing there alone. All the others were leaving the plane, including Captain Kirk.

Ashley was the last of them to exit the hatch. She turned back to Bobby. “Don’t just stand there, the damn plane’s coming apart!”

She was right. The wall and floor were continuing to disintegrate, and now Bobby could see through the growing hole to the tarmac below. The edges of the expanding hole writhed with movement—thousands of little squirming bugs, like inchworms made of metal or plastic. He backed away a little more, but he wasn’t really afraid. He had seen this before. Months ago, this was what the Lamotelokhai had done to a police car just before moving all its tiny pieces to the minivan they’d rented. It had then used the extra parts to transform the van into a jet-powered flying vehicle.

Bobby shouted, “I thought you were just going to evaluate the plane!”

Symbols appeared. “Yes. Evaluating.”

Ashley had come back into the plane, and she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the hatch. “Now!”

Bobby finally gave in, and they scrambled down the stairs and joined the others on the runway. Bobby turned around in time to see the Cessna fold in the center, its belly crashing to the tarmac. This tipped the nose and tail skyward, but then the plane separated in the middle, and the tail end, which extended far beyond the rear wheels, fell backward and hit the ground with a clamor of crunching metal.

Everyone silently backed away. Wahid and the policemen were apparently too stunned by the sight to say anything. No other planes were landing or taking off at the moment, and Bobby could actually hear the chittering and scraping of thousands of metallic bugs. A green armored truck with six tires and POLISI printed on the side screeched to a stop beside the awestruck crowd. Two soldiers got out, but they just stood there staring.

The two halves of the Cessna began dissolving where they had separated. Another six-wheeled military truck—the one that had stopped the plane—was parked just below the Cessna’s nose. Bobby could already predict what was going to happen.

“Someone needs to move that truck!” he shouted.

No one moved. The bugs were still eating away at the plane, causing pieces of it to fall like snow into a heap. This quickly progressed until the nose was heavier than the portion behind the front landing gear, and the jet’s nose tipped forward and crashed onto the truck. The truck was heavy-duty and didn’t seem badly damaged by this, but when the chittering bugs reached the end of the jet’s nose, they kept going. They were consuming the truck as well.

When there was nothing left of the jet and truck but a pile of tiny particles, it all stopped.

Symbols appeared before Bobby’s eyes. “Airplane evaluated.”

Bobby had forgotten he was holding the lump of clay. “You destroyed it,” he said aloud.

“I make airplane better. Yes or no?”

He stared at the heap of particles. “Yes.”

The particles became chittering bugs again.

Mr. Wahid spoke up. “You have the Lamotelokhai. You have convinced me of that. Now convince me that I should not request that our military forces destroy this…” He waved at the huge pile, unable to come up with a word for it.

Jonathan, Ashley, and Carlos stayed silent. Apparently it was up to Bobby to explain. He looked at the shifting pile of jet-bugs. For all he knew, the softball-sized chunk of clay was incapable of making anything at all, let alone an aircraft even better than the Cessna. But he had to say something.

“We’re having the Lamotelokhai make a new aircraft. It’s a gift to your country, for letting us get what we came here for. The aircraft will be the most advanced ever made.”

Ashley was glaring at him.

“Will you accept this gift?” he asked Mr. Wahid.

Wahid turned to the pile without answering. It was still just a seething pile of jet-bugs. Maybe Wahid was right—maybe they should destroy it with bombs now, before the deconstruction process began spreading and killing people.

Bobby spoke silently to the clay in his hands. “Please, do this right. You’re not doing anything that will hurt people, are you?”

Symbols appeared. “Making airplane better.”

Bobby watched the shifting mountain of robot bugs. Gradually the pile began to change its shape. A cylinder formed, about the size of the Cessna Citation’s body. But it was exactly the same at both ends—a long point, curving to one side. The cylinder’s surface became smooth and black. Blacker than black, with no visible seams. And no windows. It was just a long, black tube with curved, pointed tips.

The entire cylinder rolled to the side, and since the tips were curved, when the points touched the runway this forced the tube up and off the ground. Bobby realized it was being forced up by two black rods, one near each of the curved ends. The rods continued pushing the tube up until the curved tips were pointing straight down at the ground. Just as it began to topple onto its other side, two more rods shot out on that side and held it steady. The rods all grew longer, pushing the entire cylinder off the ground until the two downward-pointing tips were higher than Bobby’s head. The supporting rods each developed a joint halfway down and another joint near the ground. The jointed rods took a step, like the legs of a giant insect, moving the entire cylinder forward. The whole thing then took a few steps back and then forward again, shuffling as if it were getting comfortable with its balance.

During these transformations, not a word had been spoken by anyone. Bobby turned and saw that the group of onlookers had grown. A few more policemen had arrived, but most of them looked like airport workers. Several of them now gasped and pointed, and Bobby turned back to the black cylinder. Just above each of the four legs, a black rod was growing out and slightly upward. As the rods grew longer, each of them formed an elongated loop with thin, blade-like edges. When they were done forming, the four loops pivoted up and down, as if the tube were stretching its wings. Only the loops weren’t really wings.

Symbols appeared before Bobby’s eyes. “Better airplane complete. You fly now.”

“It doesn’t have wings,” Bobby said aloud. “Will it even fly?” Actually, the four loops reminded him of those bladeless fans he had seen. Maybe they worked kind of like that. Or maybe the whole thing was just a worthless piece of junk. But it didn’t look like junk—it looked amazing.

“No wings. You fly now.”

“How is anyone supposed to fly that? It doesn’t even look like a jet.”

“I send you knowledge now.”

“Just a minute.” Bobby looked at the aircraft and then at the people around him. He had told Wahid the jet was for Indonesia, but he hadn’t said when it would be handed over. If the aircraft actually flew the way Bobby hoped it would, it might get them to the hanging village quickly.

Bobby stepped over to Captain Kirk and tugged at his sleeve. The pilot seemed to have a hard time pulling his eyes away from the sleek black aircraft. Bobby said, “If you want to learn how to fly it, just hold this.” He held out the clay.

Captain Kirk eyed it warily. “Are you serious?”

Bobby nodded. Silently he said, “I’m handing you to someone else. After I do that, send him the knowledge.” He handed it over.

Kirk stared at the lump like Bobby had just handed him a snake. Then he stiffened. He closed his eyes. Seconds later he opened them and smiled. “I’ll be damned. Here, take this.” He handed the clay back to Bobby, stepped away from the group, and approached the black cylinder. When he got close, Bobby realized the aircraft was much bigger than the Cessna had been. It towered above Kirk. The pilot stepped right up to one of the legs and touched a button or lever that Bobby couldn’t see. All four legs bent at the middle joint, lowering the cylinder until the downward-facing points at each end almost touched the tarmac. It was low enough for Kirk to reach up to the cylinder and touch another invisible button or lever. A hatch opened on the thing’s belly, revealing a bright interior, which stood in contrast to the pitch black exterior. A set of narrow black stairs unfolded, and without even looking back, Captain Kirk climbed in. The stairs folded up, the hatch closed, and he was gone.

Bobby realized Ashley was standing next to him.

“What if it doesn’t work?” she hissed. “Did you even think of that?”

Suddenly the four elongated loops shifted forward and rotated until they were horizontal. They started blowing air straight down. It was just a breeze at first, almost silent, but then it picked up, and the blast hit Bobby so hard he had to lean into it to stay in place.

The black cylinder rose straight up and hovered there as the four legs pulled up and disappeared inside. The engines, if there were any, made no sounds, just the hurricane blast of air. Bobby squinted and watched. The aircraft was changing—getting shorter. He couldn’t see any seams on the black shell, but now he realized the whole thing was a set of nested cylinders, sliding into each other. It kept shortening until it looked like a black soup can with curved, downward-pointing ends. Then it started growing again, until it was longer than the Cessna Citation used to be. The legs reappeared, the aircraft settled onto the ground again, and the blasting wind stopped. A few excited voices rose from the crowd around Bobby, but mostly everyone just stared.

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 Papuans?”

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.

Chapter Twenty-Five

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.

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 something 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.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

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 actually 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.”

“Ashley!” It was Quentin. He rushed over and hugged her over the side of the lift. When they separated, he held her out by the shoulders. “You look okay. I’d say Bobby got the worst of it.” He nodded toward Bobby, probably at the scars on his neck from being bitten by the Helmich-bat.

“Debatable,” she said. When Quentin frowned, she added, “We’ll tell you about it sometime.”

Bobby opened the panel, and he and Ashley stepped out. He then got to work herding tree kangaroos into the lift. Ashley, Quentin, and Samuel helped, and soon they had packed nineteen into the box. Bobby yelled to the aircraft, and the box started rising.

“There’s something you don’t see every day,” Bobby said, nodding toward the hanging village.

Ashley turned and saw the rest of the tree kangaroos, a couple hundred of them. And behind the mbolop, spread out to prevent stragglers, was the entire Papuan tribe. Lindsey, Addison, and the Lamotelokhai were at one end of the line of villagers.

Ashley watched as the herd approaching. “Bobby, whenever I’m with you, things get weird. And then they just keep getting weirder.”

* * *

Bobby latched the panel shut on the sixteenth load of tree kangaroos. There were only a few left on the ground, including Mbaiso and the three that were remaining strangely close to Addison, Quentin, and Lindsey. He shouted to Captain Kirk, and the lift began rising.

“Once again, I have made the difficult decision to remain with my indigene friends,” Samuel said as the platform rose toward the canopy. “Perhaps one day, if you and the Lamotelokhai endeavor to make the world safe again, I will have the occasion to venture outside this forest. I can only hope that you are not too late.”

Samuel then nodded to Sinanie. The Papuan swung a heavy woven bag from his shoulder and handed it to Quentin. Bobby had no idea what was in it.

Samuel went on. “I pray that you will not need the talismans. But I trust that you will disseminate them wisely if you do, for you will be sowing the seeds of humanity’s future.”

Quentin set the bag down, opened it, and pulled out a small skin pouch. He held it out to Samuel. “This one’s for you. We will leave behind one of the mbolop. We can also leave some for Sinanie and the all of the others.” He nodded toward the gathered villagers.

Samuel looked at it for a moment and shook his head. “My indigene hosts wish you to take them all. As do I.”

Quentin held the pouch out to Sinanie, who shook his head and didn’t take it. He tried several other villagers, who also refused.

Samuel stepped up to Bobby and Ashley. “Perhaps I will see the two of you again. If that day comes, I imagine you will be together, will you not?”

Bobby looked at Ashley, but she held Samuel’s gaze.

“I hope so,” she said. “I’ve recently decided we make a pretty good team.”

Samuel nodded without smiling. “Godspeed to you both, then. Please safeguard the Lamotelokhai from those who lack your proclivities for wisdom and compassion.”

“We will,” Bobby said. “I promise.”

After several more long minutes of goodbyes, the lift came back down. Bobby, Ashley, Quentin, Lindsey, Addison, the Lamotelokhai, and the last of the tree kangaroos, including Mbaiso, crammed their way onto the platform, and then it began rising for the last time.

* * *

As the aircraft sped toward Sentani, Bobby once again watched the forest canopy race by beneath him. Captain Kirk had lengthened the plane to make room for the extra people and the tree kangaroos. Surprisingly, the cabin didn’t smell like a zoo. But Mr. Wahid and the two policemen seemed pretty freaked by it all. There wasn’t a seat or spot on the floor not occupied by an mbolop. And the creatures were acting nervously, never staying in one place. It seemed like each of them wanted to sniff and explore every square inch of the plane.

The flight to the airport took only ten minutes, and soon the aircraft was dropping straight down to the same spot on the runway where it had been created. Bobby figured they had been gone about three hours. The crowd of people, which was even larger now, was still there on the tarmac. And beside the crowd was a jet that looked like the Cessna Citation, only this one was gray, and the tail bore a US flag—a military plane.

Captain Kirk landed the aircraft without even jostling the tree kangaroos. Four men immediately began walking toward them from the gray jet. Two of them wore camo fatigues, one wore a green uniform with a tan tie, and the fourth wore shorts and an untucked shirt. The uniformed man and the man in shorts both had gray hair and wore sunglasses. The men stopped beside the aircraft and waited impatiently until Captain Kirk opened the hatch. Then they climbed the stairs and came into the cabin.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the man in shorts said as he pulled off his sunglasses.

It was Colonel Roger Richards.

He looked around at the tree kangaroos. “When you folks do something, you do it neck-deep and shit-thick.”

Bobby had no idea what that meant, but seeing Richards gave him hope. He trusted the colonel. The guy had risked his career to help them avoid the Lamotelokhai falling into the wrong hands.

Quentin got up and shook his hand. “It’s good to see you, Colonel.”

Richards glanced down at his own clothes. “I’m a civilian now, no thanks to you and your motley crew.” He said this with a half-smile. Then he straightened up and cleared his throat. “Listen up.” He nodded to the uniformed man next to him. “This is Colonel Reed Northcott. He replaced me as Attaché for Defense and Army, Jakarta. For reasons that should be obvious, I’ve been following any news I can get on you folks and Peter Wooley’s SouthPacificNet. I happened to receive some intel recently that a private SouthPacificNet jet had flown to Puerto Rico and then was en route to Indonesia. I put two and two together and figured you were up to something important, and that you might show up here. Bingo. You folks have a penchant for flying under the radar, but damn.” He waved his hand toward the walls of the aircraft. “You stick out like a sore thumb everywhere you go. Considering the nature of the crisis in the Caribbean, I convinced Colonel Northcott it would be worth his while to skip over here from Jakarta to see what you were up to, and to see if you needed assistance. He agreed, and he also agreed I should come along, considering my history with you folks.”

Bobby decided to speak up. “Colonel—or Mr. Richards—we have to get to Puerto Rico. Like, right now. We think we may have a way to stop what’s happening there.”

Richards hesitated, and then Colonel Northcott spoke up. “You’re too late, son. Puerto Rico is beyond recovery.”

“What does that mean?” Lindsey asked.

“Beyond recovery, ma’am. The island is lost. All three and a half million civilians presumed dead. Efforts now are focused on containment. Largest containment effort in history.”

Bobby’s stomach lurched. Three and a half million. It was a number too big to make any sense. There was only one word for what Bobby had done—holocaust. This was all his fault.

Bobby dropped his face into his hands. He pinched the skin of his cheek, trying to inflict some pain. But it was nothing compared to what he deserved. Suddenly he started feeling sick. He couldn’t just sit here and think about this and listen to these men talk. He had to get some fresh air. He got up and pushed his way past Richards and the other men to get to the open hatch. Several of the mbolop had moved to the hatch and were looking out, so he nudged them back. He then stood by the opening, breathing in the wet, tropical air. The others kept talking, but Bobby didn’t listen. He couldn’t, because it made him feel dead inside.

Mbaiso came to him and stopped at his feet, looking up. Bobby sat on the floor next to him. “Hey, buddy. I’m sorry, but I think you’re going to wish you’d stayed back in the jungle. You’re not going to like where we’re going.”

Mbaiso sat up and moved his forepaws, signing to Bobby. Brief visions appeared in Bobby’s mind, clarifying the meaning, just as they had months ago. “Bobby hurt. Why Bobby hurt?”

“You’re not a person, so I don’t think you’d understand,” Bobby said quietly so the others couldn’t hear. “I’ve done something really bad. Maybe the worst thing anyone’s ever done.”

Mbaiso gazed at him, sniffing the air. He then dug into his body and held out a pink lump.

“What’s that for?”

Mbaiso didn’t move.

Maybe Mbaiso wanted to put him out of his misery. Bobby certainly wanted his misery to end. But then he thought about Ashley and their moment in the lift. Maybe there was something worth living for, even if he didn’t deserve it. “This won’t hurt me, will it?”

Still, Mbaiso didn’t move.

Bobby took the lump and ate it.

* * *

Bobby opened his eyes. Mbaiso was still there, watching him. Richards and Colonel Northcott stood a few feet away with their backs to him, still talking to the others as if only a few seconds had passed. But while Bobby had been out, he had seen, heard, and felt so much that it was hard to believe so little time could have passed. He now knew more about Mbaiso than he’d ever imagined possible. He reached out and stroked Mbaiso’s head, feeling an almost overwhelming connection to him. Thousands of years of the creature’s life had flashed through Bobby’s mind—images of how Mbaiso had been created, how he had lived, and how he had finally decided to ignore the Lamotelokhai’s instructions to destroy himself, choosing instead to start a colony of mbolop.

But from all Bobby had seen during that nearly endless vision, one truth stood out. Mbaiso had been created so the Papuans wouldn’t have to talk directly to the Lamotelokhai, and therefore Mbaiso had prevented the villagers from destroying themselves and perhaps destroying much more than their own tribe. Mbaiso had stopped this catastrophe not just once, but again and again, century after century. Humans had survived—maybe the planet itself had survived—because of Mbaiso.

Since Bobby had encountered the Lamotelokhai eight months ago, he had known it was dangerous. But now, in a moment of complete clarity and certainty, he understood how dangerous it really was. And he understood what Mbaiso had been trying to do—save as many people as possible. The Papuan villagers would have perished without Mbaiso, and now that the Lamotelokhai was out of hiding, the rest of the world would perish without the mbolop colony.

Bobby realized that even if the Lamotelokhai could stop the outbreak in Puerto Rico from spreading, the world wouldn’t be safe until Mbaiso could carry out his plan.

He stroked Mbaiso’s head again. “We’ll figure this out together, right?” Bobby got to his feet. Apparently no one had even noticed what had happened to him. They were still talking about Puerto Rico, and Mr. Wahid was upset about something.

“I’m going there right now,” Bobby said loudly.

Everyone shut up and turned to look at him.

He stepped forward. “I’m leaving now, and I’m taking this aircraft. Mr. Wahid, I know I promised you could have it, and I’ll try to make sure it gets back to you. In the meantime, you can have a second one just like it. There’s another jet right over there.” Bobby pointed out the hatch at the US military jet Richards and colonel Northcott had used. He then turned to the Lamotelokhai. “I’d like you to give some of your particles to Mr. Wahid. Make it so he can rub them on that jet to turn it into an aircraft just like this one. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” It got up, removed a fist-sized portion of its own arm, and handed it to Mr. Wahid, who snatched the beret from the head of one of the Indonesian soldiers and held it upside down to receive the gift.

“And one more thing,” Bobby said. “Delete the GPS location of the site we visited today. No one else can ever go there. If any person or aircraft shows up there, your new planes will automatically self-destruct.” This wasn’t true, but Bobby hoped Wahid would believe it.

Bobby turned to Colonel Northcott. “I just gave away your jet for a chance to stop the outbreak. I’m sorry, but—”

“Who the hell do you think you are, son?” Northcott waved his two men to move toward Bobby.

A blur of motion and fury took everyone by surprise as the real Addison leapt over the seats and skidded to a stop between Bobby and the soldiers before they were even close.

“Leave Bobby alone!” His nonhuman voice was so fierce that the men stumbled back, one of them tripping and falling between two seats.

“What is that thing?” Northcott said, his eyes wide. Apparently he hadn’t taken a good look at Addison until this moment.

“He’s not a thing,” Bobby said. “He’s my friend. You should see what he can do when he gets really mad.”

The soldiers had recovered and were drawing their pistols.

“Lamotelokhai!” Bobby shouted. “These men want to keep us from going to stop the outbreak. Don’t kill them, but make them realize we’re going now, with or without their help.”

The copy of Addison stepped toward the men. “I understand, Bobby.”

“Hold on! Everyone stand down.” It was Roger Richards, his hands in the air. He faced Colonel Northcott. “Reed, I’ve known you for years. You want the same thing these people do—to save lives. Hell, that’s why you’re checking out the lead I tracked down. If you had seen the things I’ve seen this boy—this Lamotelokhai—do, you’d know he could easily kill us all before you could even spit. You’d also know there’s a good chance he can stop the outbreak. Let them have the damn jet. You can work that out later. But right now you need to provide these folks with every resource you can. If you don’t want to go with them, please disembark. But I’m going, and I’ll do everything I can—hell, I’ll give up my life if necessary—to stop this horrific outbreak. So make your decision, Reed, because we’re taking off.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Once the aircraft was up to full speed, it felt like no plane Quentin had been on before. Rather than a constant roar of jet engines, all he heard was the high-pitched whine of air passing smoothly over the streamlined exterior. The aircraft’s speed was unnerving—each time a downdraft or change in air pressure caused the plane to drop slightly, Quentin experienced a moment of weightlessness. But the plane’s sophisticated controls always recovered gently, avoiding any violent jostling. Quentin was actually enjoying watching several hundred tree kangaroos suddenly float inches off the floor, twisting in panic and running in place for a few seconds before the floor slowly rose back up to meet them.

It was at least an hour into the flight before Quentin decided it would be reasonably safe to remove his seatbelt and stand up. Lindsey was sitting beside him, and he assured her he wouldn’t be up long. There were twelve people on the aircraft. Wahid and the two Indonesian soldiers had stayed in Sentani, but Richards, Colonel Northcott, and his two men were still aboard. These men were firmly planted in their seats, holding on to whatever they could, still not trustful of the aircraft’s alien design. They frowned at Quentin like they thought he was crazy for standing up.

Quentin made his way forward to where Bobby, Ashley, and Carlos were sitting. Once beside them, he saw that Carlos and Ashley were sleeping. Mbaiso was on the floor at Bobby’s feet. But what really caught Quentin’s eye was that Ashley’s head was on Bobby’s shoulder. And they were holding hands, their fingers entwined on Bobby’s lap. Quentin stared. Why hadn’t he seen this coming?

Bobby looked up and made an embarrassed face that said, Oops, you caught us.

The plane shot through an air pressure anomaly, and Quentin’s feet lifted from the floor. He gripped Bobby’s seatback until he dropped back down. He cleared his throat. “Did the Lamotelokhai tell you how long it’ll take to get there?”

Bobby’s eyes got wide, and he repeated the oops expression. “I didn’t remember to ask.”

“That’s alright,” Quentin said. “I’ll talk to it.” He then nodded to Ashley’s hand in Bobby’s. “When did this happen?” he asked quietly.

Bobby gave him another embarrassed look, this one saying something more like, Do I really need to explain the details?

Quentin smiled and decided to let it go. He turned to the other side of the aisle, to the two Addisons. His son had wanted to sit with the Lamotelokhai, as he apparently had an endless stream of questions to ask. This was okay with Quentin, as long as he didn’t ask it to do anything. As Quentin listened, though, he realized Addison was asking for details of what had happened eight months ago in the Papuan wilderness. Quentin hoped the Lamotelokhai had not yet told him the body he now occupied had murdered Miranda and a dozen Papuan villagers.

“Excuse me, you two,” he said. “I have a request.” He looked at his real son. “Could you please wait to talk about what happened last year until your mother and I can explain things to you? When we do explain, you’ll understand why it was important to wait.”

Addison gazed back at him with an expression that was hard to read, probably because it wasn’t entirely human. “Sure, Dad. I can wait.”

Quentin exhaled, relieved. It was intimidating to be under Addison’s direct stare. He turned to the Lamotelokhai. “I’d like to know how long it will take us to get to Puerto Rico.”

The thing answered immediately. “I do not know the distance to Puerto Rico at this moment.”

“The pilot entered the destination in the plane’s GPS—”

“Yes, I see that now. How would you like the time expressed?”

“Uh, hours and minutes?”

“The marked destination in Puerto Rico at this moment is eight thousand, six hundred and eight miles. If we continue at this velocity, we will arrive in four hours and fifty-four minutes.”

That couldn’t be right. It had taken Bobby and Ashley twenty-three hours, with three stops. “How fast are we moving? Expressed in miles per hour.”

“One thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two miles per hour.”

Quentin stared. “Is that even possible?”

“My research suggests that your question may be rhetorical. However, yes, it is possible. Considering the current conditions outside this aircraft, that velocity is referred to as Mach two-point-two. On the Internet, I have encountered text, photographs, and videos that suggest your kind has created twenty-one models of aircraft that move faster than we are moving. And there are even more that some of your kind attempt to keep secret, although I had little difficulty finding evidence of them. And, in an attempt to anticipate your next question, no, we will not need to stop before we arrive at our destination. This aircraft was constructed from the parts of another aircraft and a ground vehicle, which contained fuel that could be converted to suit the functions of this aircraft, allowing us to travel to our destination—and beyond if necessary.

Again, Quentin stared. Why should he be surprised? This was nothing compared to copying his son’s consciousness and putting it into another body. But this discussion had spawned a whole new set of questions.

“You seem to remember things that happened to you after leaving the hanging village eight months ago, as well as everything you learned from the Internet while you were in that motel room. But I thought you made backups of your knowledge before that, back when you were still in the hanging village. How is it that you can remember what happened to you after making the backups?”

The thing’s eyes turned from blue to golden yellow for a few seconds. “Yes, I made backups in the hanging village. When some of those backups were deleted, I redistributed them.” It shot a glance at Addison when it said the word deleted as if letting Quentin know it was honoring his request to avoid mentioning the murders. “I was able to update the packets in Bobby and Ashley with new information when they came to the motel. And in addition, Bobby salvaged a portion of my parts in Puerto Rico using that portion as a foundation on which to reconstruct my knowledge. That portion contained critical information I had transferred to it before my other portions were destroyed.”

Quentin considered everything it had just said. “Your ability to speak has vastly improved. You could easily pass for a human, although you do sound a bit like Spock.”

“But without the ears,” it said. Then it attempted a smile.

Quentin shook his head and returned to his seat beside Lindsey. “We’ll be there in less than five hours. No stops. Oddly enough, we left Papua at 7:00 PM, and we’ll arrive in Puerto Rico at noon.”

She ignored this and said, “It's going to work. We’re going to get there, and the Lamotelokhai will stop the outbreak.”

He looked at the bag full of mbolop figurines on the floor by his feet. “It has to work.”

They sat in silence, and Quentin listened to the air whistling past at 1,700 miles per hour. “There’s something else, too. Bobby and Ashley are holding hands. They’re an item now.”

She looked at him. He definitely had her attention now. “Are you serious? We’re planning to adopt them!”

“Yeah?”

“Uh, ‘I’d like you to meet our daughter, Ashley. And this is our son, Bobby, who also happens to be her boyfriend.’”

She had a point.

* * *

Quentin stared down at his mbolop. He had clamped his feet against its sides to keep it from rising off the floor whenever the plane hit low pressure, and it seemed comforted by this.

“Plato.”

Lindsey looked at him with raised brows.

“I’ve decided that’s his name. Because I feel like he has released me from the cave.”

She nodded. “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. And after all these years, you’ve emerged into the light, and you see the world in a different way. It’s a bit more cerebral than the name Rusty.”

Quentin smiled. “Rusty is a fine name. And it originated from the same basic concept.” He hefted the bag of mbolop talismans to his lap, loosened the top, and gazed inside. It smelled of dried animal skin and dust. It contained hundreds of skin pouches, each of them tied closed around a tree kangaroo figurine. According to Samuel, each of them could save one person’s life. More accurately, each figurine would allow one person to pair up with an mbolop that would then save the person’s life. But from what? From the transforming animals Bobby had described? From old age? From some other impending disaster they didn’t even know about yet? Regardless, the figurines were intended to be used. But Quentin wasn’t about to play god by deciding who should and should not have one. He pulled out a handful of the pouches, put the bag on the floor, and stood up.

“Can I have everyone’s attention? Bobby, can you wake those two?”

Bobby shook Ashley to wake her, and since Carlos slept like a log, Bobby shook him much harder.

Quentin waited until everyone was paying attention, including the pilot. He displayed the pouches with one hand while he held himself steady with the other. His feet lifted from the floor for a few seconds and gently dropped back down.

“First, as astounding as it is, we’re arriving in Puerto Rico in about four hours.” This elicited blank stares from everyone except Colonel Northcott and his men, who turned to each other and whispered. Quentin went on. “Considering what’s happening there, I would like each of you to have one of these. This is rather difficult to explain, so I’d like to go through it just once.”

* * *

Quentin couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Captain Kirk had stopped the aircraft ten miles off the southern coast of Puerto Rico. They were now hovering at 7,000 feet, with the aircraft positioned parallel to the coast so they could all look out to the north. But their view of the island was blocked by massive columns of smoke. As far as they could see to the east and west, hundreds of fighter jets and helicopters swarmed like flies, constantly dropping explosives. They were bombing the water around the island.

Quentin pulled his eyes from the window. Colonel Northcott was beside Captain Kirk, leaning over the instrument panel and talking to someone on whatever kind of communication device the aircraft had. At the colonel’s feet was his mbolop, which Northcott had named Bullseye. The colonel had resisted pairing with am mbolop at first, as did all the others, but Bobby had given a heartfelt and convincing exposition on why he believed the mbolop would save their lives, particularly since they were headed to ground zero of the outbreak.

Next to Northcott was Richards, who was engaged in a sign-language conversation with his mbolop, Clint.

Northcott finally straightened up. He conferred with Richards for a moment and then stepped away from the cockpit.

He spoke to the entire group. “Okay, folks, we’ve been given a directive. Forty miles to our east is an Expeditionary Fast Transport vessel, the USNS Spearhead. It’s been designated as one of four command centers strategically positioned around the island, with General Donovan Vickars in command. I’ve convinced General Vickars we’re aboard a friendly aircraft, albeit of unconventional design, and that we’re here to provide assistance. From what I can tell, at this point they’ll take any help they can get, but they absolutely will not allow us to fly over the island until we have presented ourselves for inspection.” He then looked around the cabin at the extraordinary mix of passengers. “The general’s going to shit a brick when he sees this.”

Several minutes later, flanked by four military helicopters, they were approaching the ship. From above, the USNS Spearhead appeared to be a large metal rectangle with a helicopter pad at one end. A chopper was taking off, possibly to make room for them. In its current configuration, the aircraft was longer than the pad was wide, but Captain Kirk expertly turned it diagonally and dropped onto the pad with the pointed ends stretching corner-to-corner.

Two soldiers, a young man and woman, both in green camo pants and brown t-shirts, boarded the aircraft as soon as the hatch opened. They stopped short when they saw the tree kangaroos. As they stared, a constant roar of innumerable explosions could be heard in the distance.

“Don’t even ask,” Northcott barked at them. “I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to. We’re on a tight mission schedule. Let General Vickars know you’ve cleared the aircraft and he can come to us, or I can go to him. But it’s got to be now.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said. They gazed around the cabin. The woman said, “I’m pretty sure the General’s going to want to see this, sir.”

The soldiers went back out the hatch. A minute later they returned with the general behind them. He appeared to be about sixty, with a bald head, bushy brows, and intense eyes. He was dressed exactly the same as the younger man and woman, his brown t-shirt showing fresh sweat at the neck and armpits. Apparently he did his share of the work. Or perhaps his appearance could be explained by the stress and chaos of the current outbreak situation.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he said, duplicating Richards’s reaction to the sight. The general scanned the cabin, pausing his gaze when he saw Bobby, and then pausing again when he saw Quentin and Lindsey. When he finally noticed Addison and the Lamotelokhai, he studied them for a full five seconds. Quentin got the impression the general was a man who didn’t miss details, and that he was quickly forming his own opinion of the scenario.

“General Vickars,” Northcott said, “I believe there’s a good chance we can be of some assistance in your efforts here. The Lamotelokhai created this aircraft, and it is here with us. It claims it may have the capability to stop the outbreak. Requesting permission to cross your front line of defense.”

The general continued scanning the cabin. He seemed to notice Northcott’s mbolop, which was sitting between the colonel’s feet. He then looked at each person in turn, each time lingering on a particular tree kangaroo in close proximity.

Finally he said, “I’m willing to try anything at this point, Colonel. We’ve lost the island. Three point five million souls. Thirty-five hundred square miles of US territory. We’re currently barraging the perimeter in an attempt to prevent the outbreak from spreading via aquatic organisms. No idea if it’s working. A three-hundred-mile perimeter, depleting available ordnance at a staggering rate. We can’t sustain it for more than a few more hours, maybe till the sun goes down, in spite of assistance from every goddamn ally we have. If the outbreak doesn’t fizzle out by then…. ” He didn’t finish, but the implication was clear.

“Then we’d like to cross the defense barrier immediately,” Northcott said.

“Very well. Your civilians can stay here aboard the Spearhead.”

Colonel Northcott glanced at Quentin and then shook his head. “We’ve already discussed this. There’s not a soul on this aircraft who wishes to sit this mission out. Since I have no expertise with the Lamotelokhai, and all of these civilians do, I’m inclined to allow it.”

Vickars looked around the cabin yet again. He spoke to Richards. “I’m not even asking how you got here.” Apparently Richards had a reputation.

Richards said, “I’m here because I need to be a part of this. Clock’s ticking, General.”

Vickars sighed. He walked to where the two Addisons were sitting, stepping carefully to avoid tree kangaroos. He looked from one of them to the other. “I assume one of you is the Lamotelokhai?”

“Yes,” the Lamotelokhai said.

He looked directly at it. “Everyone assumes you’re what started this outbreak. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

Vickars frowned. “Are you trying to wipe out the human race?”

“No. The outbreak started because some of your kind attempted to learn how my parts function. They separated my parts into subgroups, which is something I do not recommend doing. You might say they voided my warranty.” The Lamotelokhai smiled, attempting humor at a staggeringly inappropriate time.

Vickars appeared unfazed. “Can you stop the outbreak?”

“I cannot know with certainty. Bobby has asked me to try, so I will. It is likely that with every passing minute, the probability of success diminishes.”

The general gazed at him for a few more seconds. “Then you should go.” Vickars turned to go, but then he seemed to think of something else, and he turned back to the Lamotelokhai. “Please do what you can. The human race is worth saving. Consider that if you are able to help us survive, we may someday achieve greatness, perhaps like the race of beings who created you.”

The Lamotelokhai didn’t reply, but even from where Quentin stood, he could see its eyes change from blue to fire-yellow. It was contemplating the general’s words.

Vickars stepped to the hatch. “Colonel, we can’t let up on our barrage, but you and your friends may fly over the defense barrier.”

* * *

The Puerto Rican landscape was devastated. Few structures remained standing, and very little forest remained unburned. All this destruction had been a desperate attempt to stop something terrifying. It was a testament to what humans were capable of when backed into a corner—when threatened with extinction.

Everyone in the aircraft was glued to a window, silently digesting the stark truth of what they were seeing below. Plato pressed his snout against Quentin’s ankle repeatedly. The creature was trying to offer him comfort in the form of a lump of its tissue. But at this moment Quentin was reluctant to allow chemical dilution of his anguish and shock. He was starting to realize that human-mbolop symbiosis had a learning curve, and he was teaching himself to set limits on his reliance on minute-by-minute assistance with every emotion.

“The bombing isn’t killing them all,” Bobby said. He was beside Quentin, and he pointed out toward the horizon. In the distance was a flock of long-winged birds, rising and dropping haphazardly as they flew over rising columns of heat from fires that were still raging.

“I need a destination,” Captain Kirk said over his shoulder.

Quentin pulled himself away from the window and he followed Bobby, Ashley, and the Lamotelokhai to the cockpit.

The Lamotelokhai said, “My best opportunity to stop the transformations will be from the location where the transformations began.”

Ashley said, “One of Helmich’s people told us the compound was four miles east of Salinas, whatever Salinas is.”

“GPS, location of Salinas,” Captain Kirk said. An aerial photo map on the instrument panel zoomed in on a cluster of streets and structures. Kirk said, “Four miles east of location.” The map shifted, showing a coastal area with agricultural fields and mangrove shores. The aerial photos showed lush, green vegetation and intact structures, nothing like the barren wasteland Quentin had just seen through the window.

Bobby leaned in closer and pushed the image around with his finger. “That’s it right there. It looks like they were just starting to build the compound when this picture was taken, but I’m positive that’s it.”

“Redirect to new location,” Kirk said. The plane turned smoothly, as if it knew people were standing up in the cabin, and then it accelerated. Kirk said, “We’ll be there in three minutes.”

Quentin turned to the Lamotelokhai. “So how do we do this?”

It was still staring at the map as it spoke. “When we arrive at the location, I will go to the surface and determine the best available strategy for stopping the transformations. There will be nothing else you need to do.”

Quentin was almost too afraid to ask, “What are the chances for success?”

Its eyes changed color briefly. “I cannot know. Based upon words I have heard spoken in this aircraft, the transformations may have spread over an area of at least thirty-five hundred square miles. Perhaps more if the transformations have spread into the surrounding water, which is likely. And it is uncertain whether the transformations have spread beyond the perimeter defense barriers described by General Vickars. And it is uncertain whether the limited ordnance General Vickars described will be depleted before my selected strategy can be carried out. And it is uncertain—”

“Okay.” Quentin held up a hand. “I get it.”

The aircraft came to a stop. Captain Kirk touched a few controls and then got up. “We’re here.”

They all went to the windows to look out. Like every other place on the island they’d seen so far, the landscape below was destroyed—a blackened, cratered desert.

“There’s the compound,” Bobby said. “What’s left of it anyway.”

Bobby was on the other side of the cabin, so Quentin crossed over and looked. What he saw below was not the massive compound Bobby and Ashley had described. Instead, it was a hellish, raging inferno in the general shape of a circle. Spires of flame emerged and receded, one after another, and multiple shades of yellow and orange shifted and squirmed over every surface almost like living creatures. It reminded Quentin of those time-lapse videos of the surface of the sun. The intensity of it was almost beautiful.

“What was that place made of?” Quentin asked, mostly thinking out loud.

“It was just painted concrete,” Bobby replied. “But they did set off some kind of bomb that was supposed to cook the place for at least a week. Maybe whatever was in the bomb is what’s burning.” After several more seconds of staring, he said, “Peter and Robert died in there.”

Quentin pulled back from the window and put his hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this started.”

Kirk brought the aircraft closer to the ground, perhaps a quarter of a mile, and positioned it over an open area on the south side of the burning compound. The breeze blowing north from the coast was pushing the rising heat inland, so when he opened the hatch the air was only slightly warm.

The Lamotelokhai walked to the open hatch and gazed at the ground below. Everyone else gathered behind it. Quentin knew the thing wasn't his son, but the resemblance was powerful, and he felt an instinctive desire to grab the boy to prevent him from falling out.

The Lamotelokhai turned from the hatch to face them. “I will go to the surface. I will then evaluate options for initiating a process that may stop the transformations. I wish to inform you that the options I am most likely to choose will result in significant depletion of my parts. As some of you know, my parts must exist together in sufficient quantity to allow my consciousness to function, and it can take some time to regenerate depleted parts. It is possible my parts will be depleted below the quantity needed for my consciousness to function, perhaps even below the ability of remaining parts to generate new parts. If that happens, be cautious of the remaining parts. In fact, I recommend destroying them, thus avoiding another incident such as this one.”

Bobby stepped closer to the Lamotelokhai and the open hatch. “You mean trying to fix this will kill you?”

“I am not alive, Bobby.”

“To me you are! Can we use the backup data packets again if we need to?”

“I removed those data packets from each of you to reconstruct my stored data and consciousness. They are no longer within you.”

Without saying another word, the Lamotelokhai turned its back to them, stepped through the hatch, and fell.

For a moment everyone just stared through the open hatch at the rising smoke and wavering layers of heat beyond. Bobby rushed forward and leaned out. Quentin stepped to his side and grabbed his arm—just in case he leaned out too far. By the time he looked down, the Lamotelokhai was already a tiny speck on the ground, walking across a field of weeds that had not yet burned. It was moving toward the flaming compound, but then it stopped, inspecting something on the ground. A large creature of some kind was crossing a corner of the field to the south, but it either didn’t see the Lamotelokhai or didn’t care.

“What are those things?” Ashley asked, pointing out the hatch. “They’re coming this way.”

Quentin followed her gaze. A flock of about twenty large birds was approaching. He squinted at them as they got closer. The birds had long, spoon-like bills, and for a moment he thought they were pelicans. Then he realized they were much larger than pelicans, with wings of bare skin rather than feathers. They were flying reptiles.

“Quentin?” Lindsey said.

They were approaching at full speed, and they weren’t showing any signs of veering away from the aircraft.

“You guys should get back from the door!” Ashley said as she retreated back into the cabin.

Quentin pulled Bobby’s arm, and they moved back a few steps. The creatures continued advancing at full speed, and suddenly they smashed into the aircraft’s side. One of them shot right through the open hatch, with two more following just behind it. The reptiles plowed into the shocked onlookers, hitting Bobby first and knocking him over on top of Quentin.

Suddenly, all Quentin could hear were panicked human cries and bird-like shrieks. One of the creatures clamped down on Bobby’s ankle. While fighting his way back to his feet, Quentin glimpsed inch-long teeth tearing into Bobby’s flesh. The creature flapped its wings, pushing itself back toward the hatch and dragging Bobby with it.

Quentin lunged forward and caught Bobby’s floundering hand.

Ashley let out an inhuman scream as she charged the reptile-bird and started swinging at it with her fists.

Another of the creatures slammed into the hatch, its body coming halfway inside. It grabbed Bobby’s other leg in its toothed bill and started pulling.

Bobby’s hand slipped from Quentin’s grip. Ashley took another swing, but her fist found only air. The two birds were out of the aircraft, and Quentin watched Bobby slip over the lip of the hatch and disappear.

He dove for the hatch and barely stopped himself from tumbling out. Bobby was already hundreds of feet below, falling fast. The two reptile-birds still hadn’t let go. Their wings flapped furiously, but it was a losing battle—Bobby was too heavy for them. Quentin watched in horror as their efforts forced them north over the burning compound. Suddenly the creatures seemed to realize they were about to burn up, and they let go.

Bobby fell another 1,000 feet directly into the center of the raging flames.

Quentin stared, lying on the aircraft’s floor, unable to believe what he had just seen. Ashley stood over him, screaming Bobby’s name over and over. Shouts of panic and the clatter of fighting rang through the cabin behind him. Quentin tried shaking off his shock and got to his feet.

“Lindsey!” He ran to help her.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Peter tried not to breathe or even blink. One small movement and the creature would know the truck’s overturned cab was occupied. Georgia was crouched beside him, also motionless. Yesterday they had learned that at least some of the creatures were drawn to movement when a hairless, dog-sized animal with unusually short hind legs and human-like forelimbs had seen them moving and had charged them, ramming the windshield as if it were unaware of the glass barrier. Stunned by the blow, it had teetered off, leaving them with a large crack in the glass.

The creature now gazing at them was much larger, at least as large as two adult humans. It walked on two hind legs and had diminutive arms fringed by feathers—probably a dinosaur, or some twisted variation with the genetic foundation of a dinosaur. He had been unable to discern any rhyme or reason to the creatures they had seen. Some were apparently copies of real creatures that had existed in the past, while others were outlandish chimeras with characteristics of different animals and sometimes even plants. Regardless, the creature before them was powerful enough that it could easily bash through the cracked windshield if it detected them.

The dinosaur paced back and forth several times next to the overturned cab. Then it stepped closer and leaned in toward the windshield to get a better look. It froze. Its round pupils grew slightly larger as it stared into the darkened cab. It shifted its head forward and back as if trying to make out details, perhaps trying to decide if Peter and Georgia were potential prey.

Suddenly it jabbed its snout at the windshield, leaving a smear of goo. Peter flinched, but Georgia remained perfectly still. The creature shifted its head again, and it bumped the glass a second time. Peter realized then that it wasn’t looking through the windshield at all—it was watching its own reflection. This was reassuring, but it didn’t change the fact that a small movement could give them away.

After sparring with itself for a few more seconds, the dinosaur snapped its head around, looking at something in the distance. It then took off, running swiftly on its hind legs.

Peter and Georgia exhaled. She picked up a bottle of water, took a drink, and offered it to Peter. He took two swallows. They only had one bottle left after this one, and they had no way to know how long they’d be stuck in the sweltering cab. By Peter’s estimation, they had been here for at least 27 hours—yesterday morning they had awakened in the bunkhouse trailer, and now it was about noon. Fortunately, the truck was a sleeper cab, with a small bunk area behind the seats in front, which is where they were now, partially concealed but still visible to curious creatures like the dinosaur. The sleeping area was no more than a box three feet wide with a platform that had held a mattress before they crashed. But now the cab was on its side, and since the sleeper cab was slightly cooler, they had been spending most of the time tucked into the bottom end of it on top of the folded mattress. Beneath the mattress platform they had found a plastic-wrapped case of water bottles, with only four remaining. They had no food, and Peter hadn’t eaten since his last meal in Helmich’s compound. That had been over 48 hours ago.

Georgia sighed loudly, and she crawled out of the tight space into the larger cab. She kneeled next to the passenger-side window, which was missing its glass. After checking the area for insects and other small animals that may have crawled in under the cab, she lowered her face to the weeds and soil and sucked in what little fresh air she could get. “We can’t stay in here much longer,” she said before leaning down to take another breath.

Peter crawled out behind her. She was right—they probably wouldn’t last another day. The engine had stopped when the truck had crashed, and they hadn't been able to restart it. Without air conditioning, the cab was brutally hot. After turning the ignition key, they had been able to partially open the power window on the driver side for fresh air. But then a huge black insect had flown in, forcing them to take cover under the mattress until it had found its way out. It wasn’t safe to keep the window open. Yesterday had been dangerously hot, and today was already shaping up to be worse.

Soon they would have to abandon the truck and take their chances outside.

Peter gazed out the windshield, which was cracked, smudged. The area around the truck was mostly charred and blasted beyond recognition. They were lucky to have survived the bombing. The destruction of Salinas had been only the beginning. After that, someone somewhere must have decided the only way to stop the spreading of the creatures was to bomb the hell out of everything. The explosions had gone on for hours, with an intensity unlike anything Peter had ever seen. The landscape was devastated, but somehow the truck had never taken a direct hit.

The barrage of destruction had finally let up yesterday afternoon. But soon after that a low roar of countless explosions had started again, this time to the south, probably off the coast. And it hadn’t let up since. An uninterrupted wall of smoke and steam rose in the distance for as far as they could see.

“We’ll go east,” he said. “We’ll try to make our way to the compound.”

She turned and looked at him. “Where all of this started? Why?”

“Because it’s the epicenter. Ground zero. Those who want to understand what happened will go there first. At least we know people will show up there eventually. Anywhere else,” he waved to the grim terrain around them, “we have no idea.”

She nodded. “Then I am ready. I believe I'll suffocate if I remain in here one more hour.”

He looked at her. She was wet from sweat, her clothes were grimy and torn, and she had no shoes. Peter imagined he looked even worse.

He said, “For the moment, we’re alive. And we’re still human. I think we should remain here until we have absolutely no choice. Perhaps a military vehicle will pass by or a helicopter will spot us.”

She sighed and put her face to the ground for another lungful of air. She then straightened up and looked at him. Her gaze was drawn to the driver window above his head. “Look at that, Peter.”

He shaded his eyes and looked to the sky. It was an aircraft, but not like any he'd seen before. It was black, and it was pointed at both ends. There were no wings or rotor blades. Instead, two thin rods with oval-shaped loops protruded from each side. The aircraft passed over them silently, traveling east.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Bobby, it is time for you to become aware. Do not be afraid.”

“Where am I?”

“Open your eyes.” The voice was in Bobby’s head, and it sounded much like his own voice.

Bobby blinked. He was sitting on the ground, surrounded by weeds. Beyond the weeds were mangrove trees, many of them blasted to shreds or burned. Beyond the mangroves, a few miles off shore, jets and helicopters dropped bombs on the Caribbean sea, creating thunder and a wall of rising smoke and steam. He turned his head away from the coast. In the distance was Helmich’s compound, engulfed in flames, a sight he had been looking at from the aircraft only seconds ago. He looked up. The aircraft was high above the compound, a thin black line hovering in place.

“How did I get here?”

“I will explain soon. At this moment you must stand up and run.”

“What?” He spun around. “Why?”

“Above you. Stand up and run.”

Bobby scanned the sky. Two birds with long wings were flying toward him from above the burning compound.

“Stand up and run. It would be unwise to allow the approaching creatures to attack you.”

Bobby jumped to his feet. He came up quicker than he'd intended and sprawled on his face. Something was wrong—his arms and legs weren’t moving like they should.

“Focus your thoughts on your body. Think about moving, and then move. It will get easier. Now stand up and run.”

One of the birds screeched. They were getting closer. Bobby looked at his legs and concentrated on getting up. He got to his feet. He visualized running toward the nearest group of mangrove trees. His body took off.

When he was halfway to the trees the birds screeched again. They were right behind him, and he realized he wasn’t going to make it. He concentrated on running harder. His legs responded, covering the remaining distance faster than he'd ever run before. He skidded into a half-burned mangrove and slid under the lowest limbs and out the other side. He heard the two birds hit the tree behind him.

Safe for at least a few seconds, Bobby turned to look. Both birds had folded their wings and were walking on their elbows in a way no bird should be able to. They weren’t birds, they were reptiles, with long bills that were broader at the end and filled with sharp teeth. Some kind of pterosaur. They clambered through the mangrove, pulling at the low branches with clawed fingers on their elbows. They were coming after him.

Again he willed his legs to run. He darted around trees and burnt stumps until he was sure the pterosaurs could no longer see him. He rounded a mostly-intact mangrove and kneeled down, listening for the creatures and watching through the branches. One of them screeched. It sounded like it was flying away.

“It appears that you have eluded the creatures.”

Bobby looked around him and realized he was kneeling in foul, stagnant water. “Where are you?” The sudden quiet made him realize he had been talking with his thoughts. “Where are you?” he repeated, this time aloud.

“There is little time to explain now. We must attempt to prevent the transforming creatures from spreading.”

“Why can’t I see you?”

“I will explain briefly. Bobby, when you were in the aircraft you were attacked by the two creatures you just eluded. The creatures pulled you through the hatch. You were killed when you fell.”

“What?” Bobby looked down at his body. Panic began to rise within him, but then suddenly it subsided, as if it had simply been turned off with a switch. “I don’t remember that,” he said.

“No, you wouldn’t. Your current consciousness includes only the knowledge you had when I last touched you. I last touched you before I exited the aircraft to come to the surface, which was before the creatures attacked you.”

Bobby nodded, beginning to comprehend. “I died, and you created a new body for me. Like you did for Ashley when she drowned.”

“No. That procedure takes much time. We have insufficient time for it now. We must attempt to prevent the transforming creatures from spreading. Your consciousness has been archived within my parts, and I simply activated it. You are within my parts, Bobby.”

Bobby opened his mouth but failed to speak. He felt his heart begin to race, but then it abruptly slowed down and felt normal again. He looked down at his hands. They were not Addison’s freckled hands, they were his hands. And the clothes were his—the clothes Tiffany had bought at Kmart. He felt his face. It was his face. The hair on his head was his, including the extra long hair where he’d been shaved.

“You are curious as to why you are in your own body rather than that of Addison, my previous form. Changing to your form allowed faster activation of your consciousness, as fewer reconfigurations were necessary. We do not have time to spare. We must attempt to prevent—”

“I know we don’t have time!” Bobby said aloud. “But I’m kind of freaking out right now.”

“I understand.”

Bobby looked at his hands again. “This is you? The Lamotelokhai? It’s not a real body?”

“That is correct. But now it is also you.”

“But I feel normal! My heart’s beating, and I’m breathing air.”

“I configured my parts so that you would feel normal. You do not have to breathe air if you do not want to.”

Bobby closed his mouth and held his breath. He waited.

“Bobby, we should act now if we are going to attempt to prevent the transforming creatures from spreading.”

Bobby continued holding his breath. He waited. But he felt no increasing need for air. He opened his mouth but still didn’t suck any air in. It was true, he didn’t need to breathe.

He realized if he were in his real body he would have thrown up from shock.

“You will not throw up unless you want to,” the Lamotelokhai said.

Bobby took a deep breath, just to feel air moving into his lungs.

“Are you ready to help me, Bobby?”

“Just wait!” Suddenly a terrible thought went through Bobby’s mind. “What about Ashley? And the others? Were they killed, too?”

“I did not detect additional deaths. I believe they are all alive and in the aircraft at this time.”

Bobby took another deep breath, this time in relief. Then he frowned. “Why did you tell me to run away from the pterosaurs? If I’m inside you, shouldn’t I be invincible?”

“I was being cautious. I am not certain what effect the transforming creatures will have on my parts. Possibly no effect at all.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“That is correct.”

Bobby took another deep breath and held it. Apparently he could hold it all day if he wanted to, but he let it out. “Okay, I think maybe I can deal with this now. Let’s do what we came here to do.”

“Very well. I have prevented the spreading of transforming creatures on a previous occasion.”

Bobby frowned. “You have?”

“It was on a smaller scale. I was able to create insects—flies—which carried my particles to all the transforming creatures. The particles then stopped the creatures from transforming further. I might be able to spread similar particles in this situation, but dispersing them with flies would not be effective, as it would take too long for flies to disperse throughout such a large area.”

Bobby considered this. “You need to create something faster, then. What about dragonflies? They’re some of the fastest insects.”

“Yes. But this island covers thirty-five hundred square miles. Even dragonflies—”

“Birds, then. Or flying reptiles. You can create any animal you’ve touched before, right? Maybe a really fast bird.”

“Yes. But there is another problem. Many of the transforming creatures are small. The smallest I have detected are approximately the size of flies. Much larger birds will likely fail to locate all such small transforming creatures.”

This time Bobby spoke aloud. “Okay, I’ve got it. You send out birds. They fly all over the island. When they get to where they’re supposed to go, they come apart and split up into dragonflies. The dragonflies fly to all parts of that section of the island. When they get where they’re going, they come apart and split up into flies. And the flies find all the transforming creatures!”

After a second of silence, the voice in Bobby’s mind said, “That is a suitable strategy.”

Bobby got to his feet, his knees making a sucking sound as he lifted them from the mud. “Okay, let’s do this.”

“Actually, Bobby, it will be you who will do this.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Your consciousness functions differently from mine. My consciousness can exist as its own entity and does not require a biological body in order to function. In order for your consciousness to be fully functional, it must be in control of a body similar to the one which it occupied throughout its development. Your consciousness is inextricably tied to your human biological form, particularly the structures responsible for your memories and consciousness. I exist within this body with you, but you must be the one who controls its physical movement.”

Bobby considered this. “That’s why you told me to run from the pterosaurs, instead of just getting up and running yourself. And that’s why you keep telling me to hurry, instead of just stopping the transformations yourself.”

“That is correct. It is also why I encouraged you to develop a suitable strategy, instead of developing the strategy myself. Because you will be the one to carry it out.”

“But I have no idea how to create things like birds or dragonflies.”

“You will learn. As I said, it is time for you to become aware.”

Suddenly it occurred to Bobby that not only had the outbreak been his fault, but now it would also be his fault if this plan didn’t work. He felt certain again that he would be throwing up if he were in his real body.

“There appears to be ample and suitable raw materials in this area,” the Lamotelokhai said. “Before you begin, however, I will point out that this procedure will deplete my parts. My parts can be regenerated from these raw materials, but that will take time. It is possible you will be at considerable risk when my parts are depleted. Because of this risk, you may consider not carrying out your plan at all.”

“That’s not really an option. If the outbreak spreads, it will kill everybody.”

“Yes, but remember that you are not alive. If you are able to regenerate my depleted parts, you will not be killed.”

He thought for a moment about the implications of this.

“You must decide now if you wish to carry out your plan.”

Bobby shook his head. “I’ll carry out the plan. What do I need to do?”

“You need to prepare a subset of your parts with the instructions you wish to have carried out. You will then deploy the subset of parts into the raw materials that are abundant in the area around you. The deployed parts will carry out your instructions. You will then need to generate new parts to replace them.”

Bobby looked around him. That sounded easy enough. Only he had no idea how to do any of it.

“Provide instructions for your parts,” the Lamotelokhai continued. “To do this, visualize what you wish to happen as your plan is carried out. The more detailed your visualization, the better.”

He concentrated, but then he sighed. “I can visualize birds, dragonflies, and flies. But I don’t know anything about how to make them, like their bones and blood and chemistry and all that.”

“I will complete your visualization with the necessary details. The details are in my archived data.”

Bobby sighed. He closed his eyes and concentrated. He visualized Lamotelokhai particles flowing out of his body into the mangrove and into the water and mud at his feet. He then visualized shapes emerging from those raw materials. The first large flying creatures that came to mind were the pterosaurs he’d encountered only minutes ago. But he definitely didn’t want to create more of those. Back in Missouri, he had often seen massive flocks of migrating snow geese. Those would do the job nicely. They were large, and they were fast flyers. And they didn’t attack and kill people.

In his mind, hundreds of them began taking shape. No, he needed thousands, at least ten thousand, so he broadened his vision. He pictured the entire landscape around him transforming into countless white geese. He tried to image the roar of their wings as he pictured the birds taking to the air, a flock of them miles across. He imagined them flying off in every direction, to every corner of the island. He gave them the capability of knowing the distance of their brothers and sisters, so they could distribute themselves evenly over the island, each of them destined for a reasonably-sized area of land. He envisioned them disintegrating once they reached their destinations, turning into thousands of green dragonflies, the kind he often saw in his new home in Belize. In his mind, the dragonflies, knowing the distance to their nearest brothers and sisters, flew rapidly to their designated patches of land before disintegrating and becoming thousands of tiny flies. To make sure there were plenty, Bobby envisioned the smallest flies he could think of, the tiny insects his mom used to call no-see-ums. The flies then scattered, and when they found transforming creatures, they attached themselves to skin or feathers or scales, injecting just enough Lamotelokhai particles to stop the transformation.

Bobby then took the vision one step further. He visualized the creatures transforming back into the humans they had once been. He doubted this could work, because most of the people had been divided into multiple creatures or torn to pieces. But it was worth a try.

“Well done, Bobby,” the Lamotelokhai said. “I have filled in the necessary details. Now carry out your plan.”

So he did. He took hold of the nearest mangrove branch and looked down at the mud around his feet. He willed the plan to begin.

He was surprised when he actually felt the particles leaving his body, flowing out through his skin and into the tree and the mud. He felt his body getting smaller. His hands were shrinking, and his arms and legs. Oddly, his clothes were shrinking with his body, which meant they weren’t really clothes at all.

Soon his body had become so thin he worried he would collapse. He stared at his hand. It was slender and fragile. His legs were so thin he thought he must look like a heron. He put his hand to his head. It felt smaller than usual, but still large compared to the rest of his body.

“Will I disappear?” he asked aloud. His voice was higher, like he had sucked in helium.

There was no answer.

“Lamotelokhai?”

“Speech function partial now.” The voice in Bobby’s head still sounded like his own voice, but the words were in monotone, with no expression. “Your consciousness still complete.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Parts done flowing out. Plan initiated. Not safe here. Move away.”

Suddenly the mangrove tree beside Bobby began collapsing. The limbs folded over, and the entire tree sank into the mud. Shapes began rising from where the tree had been.

Backing away, Bobby tripped and fell. He was weaker now, which was no surprise considering he probably weighed sixty pounds. He got to his feet and stumbled back from the transforming mud. He made his way through the mangroves until he was on dry ground, standing again in the partially burned field of weeds. Even with constant explosions several miles out from shore, he could hear strange moaning and crackling sounds coming from the mud and trees. The sounds slowly turned into screeching cackles. The transformation process expanded to the left and right, and toward Bobby, until even the mangroves at the edge of the field collapsed, joined with elements of the soil, and became snow geese.

Bobby covered his ears to dampen the cackling. For as far as he could see, the shore was covered with a blanket of white geese. One of the birds rose above the others, becoming airborne. As if they’d been waiting for this signal, others began taking off, and then more beyond those. The wave of flight spread rapidly, and soon all of the birds were rising upward, a cloud of snow geese miles wide, generating vortexes of whirling ash.

As the geese passed over Bobby, they filled the sky until he could no longer see the black aircraft hovering thousands of feet above. He wondered if Ashley was watching, and what it must look like from where she was.

The geese continued dispersing until Bobby could see the sky again. He saw one of them explode into a cloud of dragonflies, which then spread out in every direction.

“My plan is actually working,” he said in his high-pitched voice when the cackling had diminished.

“Yes,” the Lamotelokhai said. “Now replenish parts.”

Bobby looked at his tiny hands. “Yeah, we definitely need to do that.” He scanned the barren shoreline. “But all the trees are gone.”

“Birds biological. My parts not.”

“Then what do you—” Bobby noticed that a creature was walking toward him from the far side of the field. He dropped to his belly. “There’s something coming this way,” he said silently.

“Yes. I detected.”

Bobby lifted his head enough to see it over the weeds. The creature was fat and walked on four short legs, and its head was comically small. “Should I run?”

“Creature not transforming. Not dangerous. Touched by fly. Your plan successful.”

Bobby watched. It was still coming toward him. “If my plan were successful that thing would have turned back into a human.”

“Not possible. You knew that.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The creature was now only a few yards away. It spotted Bobby and stopped. It gazed at him with tiny eyes set in a turtle-like face. Bobby could see that it didn’t have fur, but he couldn’t tell if it was a reptile, a mammal, or something else entirely. The creature stared at Bobby for a few more seconds then skirted around him and went on its way.

“What if it had attacked me?” Bobby asked. “Could it hurt me?”

“If not transforming, no. If transforming, maybe.”

Bobby got back to his feet. “Well, I doubt the flies have touched all the creatures around here already. What’s the fastest way we can replenish your parts?”

“Go to Helmich compound.”

“What?” Bobby looked at the compound, about half a mile away. “It’s on fire.”

“Fastest way. Instead of make new parts, use old parts.”

He stared at the burning structure. “It’s on fire,” he said again. “Wouldn't your old parts be destroyed by now?”

“Unlikely.”

“Then how could we get them out?”

“You are not alive. You will not—”

Bobby waited, but it didn’t finish. “I will not what?”

“No,” it said. “No time now. New problem. Water creatures transforming. Their presence detected. Must have started elsewhere and now spreading. Go to water.”

Bobby looked to the shore, now clearly visible with the mangroves gone. Several miles out he could see the wall of smoke and explosions, the planes and helicopters flying above it. “You mean the fish are transforming?”

“Yes. And other creatures. If you wish to stop it, go to water now.”

Bobby didn’t know if the barrage of bombing could successfully contain the transforming creatures, but even if it could, General Vickars had said they wouldn’t be able to continue the bombing much longer. Bobby realized that now it might not even matter if the snow geese were successful. He started running. “Have the creatures made it past the bombing?”

“Unknown.”

His depleted body was difficult to maneuver, and he was making slow progress. “If we release creatures in the water, how long will they take to spread around the island?”

“Unknown.”

Bobby was now slogging his half-sized feet through several inches of mud. “Do we have enough parts left to do this?”

“Unknown.”

He entered the water and stopped when he was knee deep. “Um, okay. I’ll do what I did last time. He closed his eyes and started concentrating.

“Bobby.”

He opened his eyes. “What?”

“If parts diminish too much, my functions stop.”

He knew that already. “Okay. I’ll try not to get rid of too many parts.”

“Bobby.”

“What!”

“If parts diminish too much, your functions stop.”

“What does that mean? I’ll die?”

“No. You are not alive. But you will be gone.”

Bobby stared out at the military jets and helicopters. The pilots were doing everything they could to stop the outbreak from spreading to the rest of the world. He closed his eyes again.

“Bobby.”

“I don’t care! I’m doing this.” He formed a vision in his mind, as he had done before, of Lamotelokhai particles flowing out of his body, this time into the water and mud. He imagined the particles working their way into algae and bacteria and plankton and fish. Larger creatures began taking shape. Bobby visualized the fastest fish he could think of, the sailfish. In his mind, thousands of sailfish formed and then swam away, spacing themselves evenly around the entire 300-mile perimeter of the island. Then they disintegrated into smaller fish. He couldn’t think of a smaller ocean fish, so he pictured a fish he used to catch, the bluegill, hoping the Lamotelokhai could fill in enough details that the fish wouldn’t die in saltwater. He then pictured the bluegills disintegrating into tiny minnows, which he thought would be able to locate even the smallest of transforming creatures. He opened his eyes and hoped for the best.

“I provide details,” the Lamotelokhai said.

Particles began flowing from Bobby’s body. His arms and legs became even thinner. His chest and abdomen began to shrivel. He realized he was getting shorter.

“Lamotelokhai?”

There was no answer.

“Are you there?”

Nothing.

Bobby felt dizzy, so he put his hand to his head. He could actually feel it shrinking.

“Stop!” he cried. “That’s enough.” He walked back toward the shore, struggling to keep his balance. When he finally emerged from the water onto the mud, he stopped and inspected his body. What he could see of himself barely resembled a person. His legs were as thin as a child’s wrist, and his shoes were less than half their normal size. He couldn’t have weighed more than forty pounds.

“Lamotelokhai?”

No answer.

A disturbance drew his attention. The sailfish were forming, taking shape, floundering in the shallow water. At first there were only a few. They flipped their tail fins until they had wriggled their way into deeper water. More lumps began rising from the mud and shallow water, gradually taking shape and fighting their way to where their sail-like fins could stand upright and then shooting out from shore, the fins sliding smoothly through the water and then disappearing.

The growing, flopping, swimming forms continued to appear along the shore until the splashing reached farther than Bobby could see. Gradually the sailfish started to disperse and disappear.

“Lamotelokhai, I need to know what to do next,” he said aloud. He hardly recognized his voice.

Something broke the water’s surface about a hundred yards out, the head and neck of some kind of sea creature. It was desperately swimming toward shore. Suddenly two black fins surfaced just behind it, in pursuit. Bobby’s sailfish were chasing it. The creature hit the shallows, moving so fast it slid in the mud until most of its body was out of the water. The sailfish slid up behind it, but the sea creature kept coming, running on flipper-like legs. Giving up, the two half-submerged sailfish turned awkwardly and flipped their tail fins until they were gone.

The sea creature looked back once and continued up the mud. It was maybe fifteen feet long including its neck and tail. It moved like a seal but had a longer neck, with an alligator-like head. Then Bobby noticed something. The thing’s neck was now shorter than it had been only seconds ago. As he had suspected, the creature was still transforming. And it was coming directly toward him.

Bobby turned and walked slowly away from the water’s edge, trying not to attract the creature’s attention. There were no mangroves to hide in. The only structure within half a mile was Helmich’s compound, which was still burning. He didn’t know if the reptile could hurt him, but the Lamotelokhai had made it clear he should avoid transforming creatures. Maybe one of the flies he had created would find it soon and stop the transformation.

He looked over his shoulder. The reptile was following him. He didn’t speed up, but instead he turned to his right and continued walking. The creature also turned. Bobby had no idea if he could outrun it—or if he could even run at all.

The creature began trotting, splashing through the remaining shallow water and then across the mud. It was obviously better suited for water, but still it was gaining on him. So Bobby tried running. After several steps he fell on his face. He needed to concentrate on moving his body, but the sight of the monster barreling toward him made this difficult. He looked at his thin legs, trying to focus his thoughts on their new length and size. The lumbering reptile was now twenty yards away.

Bobby got to his feet and ran, dodging water-filled pits, mud holes, and burned mangrove roots. The creature’s flippers slapped the mud close behind him, and its nostrils wheezed. It was closing the distance quickly.

Bobby’s foot hit a hole and he went down again. He rolled onto his back, assuming the thing was too close for him to get up. It was still ten yards back, so he rolled over, got up, and started running again.

There was no place to hide, no destination to focus on other than Helmich’s compound. So he veered left and headed toward it.

He fell again. This time there was no getting up. The creature’s jaws clamped onto his foot and ankle just as he rolled onto his back. Its teeth tore into his flesh, and he cried out. He kicked its head with his other foot, but this tore his flesh even more. He tried pushing himself backwards to pull his leg free, but the thing braced itself by digging its clawed flippers into the mud. The creature then started backing up, dragging him toward water.

“Stop!” Bobby cried.

Its eyes, high on its alligator head, stared without blinking as it kept pulling. Its mass actually wasn’t much more than that of a grown man—it was mostly neck and tail—but it was surprisingly strong and was making steady progress toward the water.

The pain from its teeth made it hard to think. Why was he even feeling pain? He shouldn’t have to feel pain if he didn’t want to, just like he didn’t have to breath. He concentrated on his flesh caught in the reptile’s teeth. “No pain,” he thought. “It doesn’t hurt.” And suddenly, the pain disappeared.

Bobby looked past the creature. It had dragged him halfway back to the shore. The thought of being pulled into the water and torn to pieces nearly caused him to lose himself entirely to panic. The creature continued dragging him toward the water. He was now on the mud, and his back was sliding, making the reptile’s work even easier.

“Stop!” he cried again. But it did no good. With the Lamotelokhai gone, Bobby was on his own. He had no idea what to do.

The creature backed into the shallow water, pulling Bobby along with it.

“Dammit, stop!”

Bobby was now floundering in a foot of water. He tried to think. The creature tugged at him again and his face went under. In his panic he sucked saltwater into his lungs. He started to cough it out and then realized it didn’t matter. He could breathe water—or anything else for that matter—if he wanted to. He was the one in control of his body.

That was it. He knew what he needed to do.

He sat up and grabbed his mangled leg above the knee. “Lamotelokhai, if you can hear me, move your data out of our left leg!” He then looked at the reptile’s unblinking eyes. “Here, you can have the damn thing.” He focused his thoughts on his leg and squeezed. The leg responded, giving way like putty. It separated just above his knee.

Bobby pushed himself back, putting distance between himself and the creature. The reptile stopped, apparently aware its prey had escaped. It raised its head, lifting Bobby’s leg into the air. It then turned and headed for deeper water, taking the leg with it. Seconds later it was gone.

Bobby managed to push himself upright onto his right foot. He started hopping toward the shore, but the water made this almost impossible, and he fell. Rather than try again, he crawled on his hands and one knee until he was out of the water and past the mud. He rolled onto his butt and sat there, staring at what was left of his body.

“Lamotelokhai?”

There was no response. Bobby was completely alone.

* * *

Bobby had no idea how long he had sat there feeling regret and staring out at the water and the tumultuous off-shore defense barrier. But now it was time to do something.

He looked up. The black aircraft was still hovering above. Even if they could see him, which was unlikely, it would be stupid to risk coming down here without knowing for sure the outbreak had stopped. They were probably waiting for the Lamotelokhai to return to the aircraft. Bobby was sure they weren’t waiting for him. As far as they knew, he was dead.

He thought about Ashley. She thought he was dead. How was she handling that?

The Lamotelokhai was gone—or at least so depleted it no longer had a consciousness. And it had said that it could even get so depleted that it wouldn’t be able to replenish its parts. Would it still be here if it hadn’t set aside enough of its memory to preserve Bobby’s consciousness? If so, this was his fault. If it was too far gone to be replenished, the world would have to go on without the Lamotelokhai’s help because the Lamotelokhai had sacrificed itself to save him. Of course if his plans to stop the outbreak failed, none of this would matter. And that would be his fault, too.

He needed the Lamotelokhai to come back.

Bobby put his hand on the ground beside him. He formed a vision in his mind of his particles flowing into the dirt, converting its elements into new particles, and flowing back into him.

He waited.

The process started. He could feel it, a slight tingling, a gradual rebuilding of what he had depleted. But he also felt the slowness of the process. So he waited.

Little by little, his body grew.

“Lamotelokhai?”

Nothing. Maybe it had lost too much of itself to ever return. He remembered the Lamotelokhai saying that if this happened it should be destroyed.

After several more minutes, he decided the process was taking too long. The others would eventually give up and leave him here. He turned and gazed at Helmich’s compound, still burning like it was filled with gasoline, and he thought of what the Lamotelokhai had tried to tell him about its other existing parts.

Bobby couldn’t afford to wait any longer. His body was almost back to its normal size, although he still had only one leg. A missing leg wouldn’t have been a problem for the Lamotelokhai, so why should it be a problem for him? He focused his thoughts. He envisioned his new particles migrating to the stump of his leg and building new tissue—bone, cartilage, muscle, skin.

A few minutes later he got up and started walking toward the burning compound.

* * *

At a hundred yards, he felt the intense heat. At fifty yards, he had to turn off the pain. But he kept walking. The Lamotelokhai had said its old parts probably hadn’t been destroyed by the fire, which meant they were still in the compound. Bobby was going in after them.

The way he saw it, there were two possible outcomes. One was that he would find the old parts and use them to restore the Lamotelokhai’s consciousness. The second was that he would simply burn up and die. And the last of the Lamotelokhai’s parts would die with him. Perhaps this was not such a bad thing—after all, the Lamotelokhai had recommended destroying it if it got too depleted to function.

Either way, he was doing the right thing.

He walked right up to the compound. The entire roof had been destroyed, and huge rolling flames were billowing out the top. Sections of the outer wall had collapsed, and fire raged out through the gaps. In a wide perimeter around the compound, the ground had been blackened from the heat and smoke. Bobby looked at his t-shirt and shorts. They were not burnt or even singed, further proof that they weren’t real. He imagined if he turned his pain back on it would be so intense it might destroy his consciousness.

He walked along the outer wall until he found the door he and Ashley had left through only two days earlier. The broken door still lay on the ground, but Sofia’s body had either burned up or been dragged off by creatures. Flames spewed out through the door, and Bobby approached it until they licked at his face. His memory was perfect—it had been perfect since he’d met the Lamotelokhai eight months ago—so he could easily recall the way to the lower level from this door. All he had to do was retrace his steps.

He looked at the sky one more time. The aircraft was still there. The others hadn’t given up on the Lamotelokhai yet. Ashley was in that aircraft. And Quentin and Lindsey, and Carlos. He studied the plane for several seconds, knowing this might be the closest he could get to seeing his friends—his family—one last time.

He turned his eyes back to the open furnace before him. He walked through the doorway into the flames. He stopped. This is what fire looks like from the inside? Everything was orange and yellow and white. It wasn’t as loud as he’d expected. In fact, it was quieter than outside the compound. He held up his hands. They appeared only as dark shadows against the brightness of the surrounding inferno. Apparently his skin wasn’t burning, although it was hard to tell.

He walked down the long hall, stepping over chunks of concrete from the collapsed roof. Although the walls were intact, most of the ceiling had blown out or fallen in, which explained why the entire compound had looked like a huge circular fire from above. The floor was intact. This meant the lower level might still be accessible. Bobby turned several corners until he found the staircase on the outer wall—the staircase where he had allowed the creatures to escape and kill three and half million people.

The door had partially melted, so he was able to push it aside easily. With his pain turned off, the softened, glowing metal didn’t even feel hot against his bare hands. He went down the stairs and was able to do the same to the door at the bottom. He entered the huge open space of the lower level. The fire was lighter in color here, perhaps hotter. Whatever substance Sofia had released with the 4:44 protocol must have been more concentrated down here.

Bobby paused to assess his condition. His hands and fingers were still intact, although he had to hold them in front of his face to see them. He felt his abdomen and legs. His clothing and skin were cool to the touch, but for all he knew, his body could have been a thousand degrees.

He walked to the center room. Surprisingly, the glass-fronted chambers were still intact. That bastard Helmich had used some impressive materials.

Bobby went to the nearest of the ten chambers. One of the last things Helmich had done was to unlock the chambers. The door to this one was jammed, probably due to the heat. But Bobby had no problem pushing it open.

There were fewer flames inside the chamber, and he could see beyond a few inches for the first time since entering the compound. In the middle of the floor, surrounded by charred wires and connectors, and still covered by its clear microchamber, was Addison’s head. One tenth of the original Lamotelokhai. It appeared to be undamaged. Even Addison’s long, curly hair was unburnt.

The latches that had held the microchamber to the floor had melted, allowing him to kick the chamber over. He picked up the head. Immediately he felt particles moving into him. He held Addison’s head until the sensation stopped. The head had gotten only slightly smaller, but somehow he knew there was nothing else within it he needed, so he dropped it on the floor and went to the next chamber. There he found most of Addison’s right leg. He picked it up, and the same thing happened.

He went from chamber to chamber, forcing open each jammed door, removing each microchamber, and soaking up some of the particles from each of the Lamotelokhai portions. Finally, in the last chamber, he found Addison’s left leg, the last of the nine portions he had left behind two days ago. When he had absorbed what he needed from it, he dropped what was left of the leg.

“Lamotelokhai?” He spoke aloud, but almost no sound came out, probably because he was actually breathing fire.

He spoke with his thoughts. “Are you there?”

No answer.

Maybe it would take time. Or maybe it wouldn’t work at all. Bobby made his way across the open space to the stairway, climbed to the first level, picked his way over chunks of the roof, and finally emerged from the flames into the relatively cool afternoon sunlight. He walked away from the compound to the parking area. There were still two cars in the lot, although one of them was battered and upside down. He stopped and stood on the gravel, looking up. The black aircraft was still there. He imagined Ashley, Quentin, and Lindsey arguing with Colonel Northcott, trying to convince him to keep waiting for the Lamotelokhai to finish its job and return.

He gazed out at the Caribbean Sea and realized the perimeter bombing had stopped. He couldn’t imagine how they could know for sure the outbreak had ended, so he assumed they had either run out of bombs or given up.

He looked at his body and hands. He didn’t seem to have been damaged by the fire. He turned his pain back on. Nothing—he felt fine. He bit his lip to make sure his pain was actually working. It definitely was.

“Lamotelokhai? Are you there?”

Symbols appeared before his eyes. They were jumbled and didn’t make sense. Then he heard a voice in his head. It wasn’t human, and it was speaking a language unlike anything Bobby had ever heard, with grunts and twitters, and some sounds that seemed like two voices at once. He listened, fascinated, for several minutes. And then the voice changed.

“Do you understand me now?”

Bobby was suddenly alert. “Lamotelokhai? Is that you?”

“No. But I am familiar with the entity you call the Lamotelokhai. It was created by my kind.”

For a moment Bobby thought he hadn’t heard the voice correctly. He quickly replayed the memory to be certain. “How can you be talking to me? I thought all the Lamotelokhai’s creators died millions of years ago.”

“That is most likely true, although I cannot know for sure. Your Lamotelokhai has told you that because it has been instructed to.”

Bobby frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I am the consciousness of one of my kind. I am stored within the data provided to your Lamotelokhai. I was inserted there before your Lamotelokhai was sent from its planet of origin to find a suitable destination. Your Lamotelokhai does not know I exist within its data.”

Bobby was trying to comprehend, trying to decide what questions to ask first. “Why doesn’t it know about you?”

“My purpose is very limited. I do not exist to interact with your Lamotelokhai. I become active only when certain transitional events occur. Your Lamotelokhai has initiated a process that marks a transition in its existence and purpose.”

Bobby began pacing back and forth, hoping this would help him think. “Is the Lamotelokhai dead? Is that why you’re talking to me?”

“Due to your efforts, your Lamotelokhai is again fully functional. Your efforts have been extraordinary. And fascinating to evaluate.”

“Evaluate? You mean like a test or something?”

“Not in the way you are thinking. But analysis of your efforts does provide interesting data so that I may properly assist you in this transition. If, in fact, the transition does take place.”

“What transition?”

“Your Lamotelokhai has transferred control of its functions to you, an indigenous being of this planet. This is an act that can only be initiated under very specific conditions. I have determined that these specific conditions have been met by the events that have recently occurred. That is why I have become active. If you choose to continue this transition, I will provide guidance.”

Bobby was starting to feel frustrated. He repeated his question. “What transition?”

“The transition of your Lamotelokhai into the consciousness of an indigenous being. Or, if you prefer, the transition of your consciousness from a biological body into your Lamotelokhai. You must decide, Bobby, if you wish to become your Lamotelokhai.”

Bobby stopped pacing. “What choice do I have? My body’s gone.”

“As you know, your Lamotelokhai can create another body for you. It can then insert your consciousness into that body.”

Bobby considered this. “No. That happened to Ashley, and we’ve figured out what it really means. The Lamotelokhai can make me a new body and add my consciousness to it, but then I die. Or my consciousness dies. The other Bobby may be fine, and he’ll have all my memories, and he’ll think he’s me. But he won’t be me, because I’ll be dead, and I won’t get to live his life. I don’t want to die, so I don’t want to do that.”

“Your explanation is correct,” the voice said. “And your decision is noted. You will become your Lamotelokhai.”

Bobby stared at the ground. He had too many questions to know where to begin.

“I will provide you with guidance by connecting your consciousness to my data. I will give your Lamotelokhai discretion over when to reveal portions of it to you.”

“What kind of data?”

“Data pertaining to my kind, the creators of your Lamotelokhai. The data is configured to be immersive. When portions of the data are revealed to you, it will seem to you as if you are actually visiting the world of my kind. You may talk to us, ask us questions, even touch us, or live among us for periods of time if you wish. This is our way to teach you about who we were and what we accomplished. Do you understand?”

Bobby nodded slightly. “Yes.”

The voice was silent for a moment. “I will withdraw now. When my kind created your Lamotelokhai and millions of others like it, we predicted that fewer than one in six thousand would eventually find itself in circumstances that warrant the transition you are experiencing. It has been my honor to speak with you and to oversee this transition. Perhaps we will speak again soon.”

The voice fell silent.

Bobby said, “Are you there?”

“Hello, Bobby.”

Bobby recognized this voice. It was his own voice, but not quite. “Lamotelokhai, you’re back?”

“Yes. I see that my old parts have been incorporated into our body. While I was gone, you must have entered the burning compound on your own. A surprising and courageous decision.”

Bobby said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel any different from before?”

“I do not feel, although I have researched what feeling means to your kind.”

“So nothing is different about you?”

There was a pause, “There are some changes to my core data associated with the parameters of my primary purpose. I considered this to be curious but assumed it was a result of repeated recent reconfigurations of my information. If these changes are what you are referring to, may I ask how you became aware of the changes?”

Bobby smiled. “Never mind. I was just making sure you’re okay.”

“I believe I am okay. Bobby, look to your left. I detect that someone we know is approaching.”

Bobby turned. There wasn’t one person—there were two, walking toward him on the gravel road. Bobby’s eyes were drawn to the bright red clothes of the person on the right. It was a woman, and she looked like she’d just survived a war. Bobby shifted his eyes to the person walking next to her, a man, wearing filthy, pale green hospital clothes. Bobby felt a surge of confusion. It couldn’t be. He took a step forward, and before he even realized it, he was running.

“Peter!”

Chapter Thirty

Quentin rubbed the makeshift bandage covering his arm. His cuts were fairly deep, but they would heal quickly. And so would the cuts on Lindsey’s arms. The damn reptile-birds’ teeth had been wickedly sharp, but with everyone’s combined efforts, they had been able to subdue the creatures and throw them out the hatch. Most everyone had been scratched or bitten, but so far no one had started transforming. This would be a do-or-die test of their mbolops’ ability to protect them. However, even if the mbolop saved everyone from transforming, they couldn’t bring Bobby back from the dead.

Standing at the open hatch, Quentin stared at the ground below. He needed to feel like he was doing something useful. It had been over two hours since the birds had attacked, and he had nothing else to do but watch for danger and wait for the Lamotelokhai to return to the aircraft.

The sight of Bobby falling to his death kept playing on a loop in Quentin’s mind. Because of Quentin, Bobby had been through some harrowing events in the last year. He had even died in an airliner crash. But that had been with the Lamotelokhai beside him, able to shift the very properties of space and time to save him. Or at least to save a copy of him.

But not this time. Bobby had fallen to his death, and the Lamotelokhai hadn’t been at his side. In fact, even now the Lamotelokhai probably wasn’t aware of what had happened. It was trying to save billions of lives. Even if it was aware of Bobby’s death, Quentin doubted it would use precious time restoring the life of one boy.

Quentin looked out over the blue water of the Caribbean. The surface was now undisturbed all the way to the horizon. The military’s barrage had ended. After talking to General Vickars on the aircraft’s radio, Colonel Northcott had grimly announced that the barrage had stopped not as a result of confirmed victory, but simply because available resources had been depleted. The only evidence that there might be reason for hope was the spectacular dispersal of thousands of white geese that had occurred an hour ago, followed a half-hour later by a similar dispersal of dark aquatic creatures just off the shore. These events must have been the Lamotelokhai’s handiwork.

Lindsey appeared at Quentin’s side. As she gazed at the scene below, she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Quentin shook his head. “Bobby’s gone. I don’t know what else there is to say.”

“Well, maybe I need to talk.”

He looked at her. She had tears in her eyes.

“Quentin, please?”

He turned and embraced her. “Okay, Linds. I’m sorry. Let’s talk.” He took her hand and started leading her toward some unoccupied seats at the far end of the aircraft.

Suddenly, three bodies appeared in mid air in front of them and immediately fell onto the seats and floor in a jumble of flailing arms and legs. Tree kangaroos scattered in panic. Quentin stopped abruptly, and Lindsey collided with him.

“Ow, damn!”

“¡Eso duele!”

“Well, that didn’t go so smoothly!”

Quentin stared at the thrashing bodies, ready to push Lindsey back if they were dangerous. Lindsey cried out and then rushed past him. She nearly dove onto one of the struggling figures and pulled him to his feet.

“Bobby! You’re alive!”

It really was Bobby. And Peter. Both of them apparently back from the dead. And a woman Quentin had never seen before was with them.

Ashley forced her way past Quentin and threw her arms around Bobby, nearly knocking the boy to the floor.

* * *

“I don’t remember falling—or dying,” Bobby said. “The Lamotelokhai made a new body for me, out of dirt and plants and stuff. Then it put my consciousness into the body, like it had done for Ashley that time she drowned. But the consciousness didn’t include memories of what happened after the Lamotelokhai left the plane.”

Quentin watched him as he talked. Something wasn’t quite right. It was Bobby’s eyes, or some subtle thing about his expression. Or maybe it was his voice. Quentin felt uneasy. The Lamotelokhai didn’t make these kinds of mistakes. When it had recreated Ashley’s body, she had been an exact copy with no detectable differences from the original Ashley.

The aircraft was flying back to the USNS Spearhead, and everyone on the plane except Captain Kirk was seated in a cluster as they talked. Bobby had assured them there was no reason to wait any longer—the Lamotelokhai would not be returning to the aircraft. Apparently, after the Lamotelokhai had completed its mission to stop the outbreak, Bobby had told it to go back into hiding. This news had elicited anger from Colonel Northcott, who evidently had hoped the Lamotelokhai would finally become the property of the US government or military. Bobby had then told Northcott flat out that he had anticipated this reaction, and that’s why he’d told the Lamotelokhai to go back into hiding. Quentin had done his best to hide his proud smirk.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Quentin asked, still concerned about Bobby’s appearance.

“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m pretty sure the outbreak has stopped. The Lamotelokhai is hiding somewhere safe, and I’m alive again.” He glanced at Ashley, who was sitting beside him. She took Bobby’s hand in hers with a look on her face that dared anyone to say anything about it.

Quentin said, “So I guess the Lamotelokhai transported the three of you up here to the aircraft?”

Bobby nodded. “Zapping us up here was the last thing I asked it to do before it left.”

As Bobby spoke, Quentin noticed Peter frowning and exchanging a look with the woman in red. Something wasn’t right. Was Bobby hiding something due to the presence of Colonel Northcott and his two men?

Lindsey spoke up. “Okay, Peter, it’s your turn. We all thought you were dead. How did you escape Helmich’s compound?”

Peter looked like hell. “It’s a long story. But I wouldn’t have made it without the help of Georgia Madera, here.” He nodded to the woman in red, who looked as bedraggled as he did.

* * *

By the time they were in view of the Spearhead, Quentin had started to realize how hungry he was. No doubt, the others were just as hungry. He resolved to ask General Vickars as soon as he saw him if there was any food to be spared on the Spearhead.

Mere seconds after they had landed on the ship’s helicopter pad, Vickars came through the hatch. “Whatever you folks have done, we’ve been receiving encouraging reports from numerous outposts on the island. It seems those who are coming into contact with the creatures are no longer being infected. We’re putting together a plan to deploy ground troops to systematically exterminate all remaining aberrations.”

“Those aberrations were once people,” Lindsey said.

He gave her a look that was not without remorse. “Agreed. But many of them are dangerous. If you have a better solution, I’d love to hear it.”

They all remained silent.

The general went on. “As for the aquatic organisms, we can only hope. We have vessels collecting samples. It’s been several hours since we’ve had a report of an organism showing signs of active transformation. We’re cautiously optimistic.”

Bobby spoke up. “I’m pretty sure both groups of creatures have stopped transforming.”

Vickers looked at Bobby with a frown. “And you know this how?”

“I was with the Lamotelokhai when it made the snow geese and the sailfish. The Lamotelokhai knows what it’s doing.”

The general rubbed his bald head with one hand, like he was considering this. “Bobby Truex. A famous name. I’ve been told more people around the world know your name than the name of the president of the United States. The Lamotelokhai stated in front of the entire world that you were its primary communicator.” He drew quotation marks in the air. “Is that still the case, Bobby?”

Bobby didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

Vickars nodded. “Then your words give me encouragement. I hope to God you’re right.”

Bobby looked the general in the eyes. “I’m pretty sure I am, sir.”

Vickars glanced around the cabin. “I take it the Lamotelokhai is no longer on this aircraft?”

“It left,” Bobby said. “It’s hiding in a safe place.”

Vickars crossed his arms over his chest. “My concern—and I’m sure it will be a concern for everyone—is that it’s possible this will happen again. You tell me the Lamotelokhai is in a safe place, but that’s what we all thought before, and look what happened.”

Quentin decided it was time for him to speak up. “General, to be honest, I suspect something like this will happen again.” He hesitated, not entirely sure he wanted to say what he needed to say next. “But we have a solution for that, although you may find it to be rather unusual.”

Vickars eyed him, waiting.

Quentin spread his arms, waving at the odd assortment of passengers. “We only have about three hundred right now, so we’re going to need a lot more, but the solution is the mbolop.”

The general’s expression was blank. “Mbolop?”

“Tree kangaroos.”

* * *

Quentin finished the last of his second plate of hash browns and canned ham. Then he killed the rest of his bottle of water. It had been far too many hours since most of them had eaten. Peter and Georgia must have been even hungrier than Quentin, because they had torn into their food like starved beasts.

The aircraft was now flying at only half its maximum cruising speed as they traveled back to Indonesia, where they would drop off Richards, Northcott, and his two men. Then they would hand the aircraft over to the Indonesians. Peter had arranged for two private jets to meet them in Papua. One of the jets would transport the entire herd of mbolop to a warehouse in Brisbane. Peter and Bobby had spent several hours communicating with Mbaiso, and Peter was already concocting a plan to help achieve Mbaiso’s goal of creating one mbolop for every human on Earth. The other private jet would take Quentin and his group wherever they wanted to go. Perhaps they would all fly to Missouri together to deliver Carlos back to his parents.

Quentin looked across the aisle, where one of several foot-high piles of salad filled the floor between the seats. And that was only what remained after the tree kangaroos had all eaten their fill. General Vickers had been generous with the Spearhead’s food stores. He had also given them fuel, enough for the aircraft to circle the Earth twice, according to Captain Kirk.

Quentin glanced at Lindsey, sitting beside him. Rusty was in her lap, and she was gazing at the mbolop with a thoughtful smile.

“It’s good to see you smiling,” he said. “Maybe someday everyone will feel what you’re experiencing right now with Rusty. Everyone is going to want an mbolop for the protection it’ll provide the next time a disaster like this happens.”

She nodded. “I suppose. But I wasn’t smiling because of Rusty.” She hesitated.

“Tell me,” he urged.

“I’m daring to hope that our entire family can go back to a quiet life. All of us together. You, me, Addison, Bobby, and Ashley.”

Quentin closed his eyes and envisioned it—the simple existence and solitude of their home on the Sittee River. His yearning to make a life there with all of them was so intense it almost hurt.

He opened his eyes. “I can’t imagine what Addison must be feeling right now—what he must be going through. And we haven’t even told him yet what happened in the hanging village.”

“It wasn’t really him who did those things,” she said.

He considered this. “He might not see it that way.”

She didn’t reply to that. A few seconds later, she said, “You know, he seems to be okay with everything. Want to know what he told me? He said he doesn’t want to even try to change his body back to what it used to be. He said he likes being strong, like a wild animal.”

Quentin frowned. “That’s a little disturbing.”

She stroked the fur on Rusty’s back. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not.”

Plato had been nestled between Quentin’s feet on the floor, but now he hopped up onto his lap. Quentin rested his hand on the creature’s side. He laid his head back and closed his eyes again, feeling Plato’s heart beating beneath his fingers and listening to the air whistling across the plane’s smooth exterior.

Chapter Thirty-One

“Why haven’t you asked me why I lied?” Bobby asked silently.

The Lamotelokhai replied, “I did not ask you because I did not find your lies to be interesting. In fact, I predicted you would lie. Would you like me to ask you why you lied?”

“I thought maybe you’d get mad at me or something.”

“I do not get mad.”

“Yeah, I know. I suppose that’s a good thing.”

There was a pause. “Bobby, why did you lie?”

Bobby sighed. “Never mind. But here’s something else I want to know. Why did you bother putting my consciousness into your body? You were supposed to be stopping the transforming creatures, not wasting time saving one person.”

“Since I first encountered you eight months ago, you have been my primary communicator. Therefore you have been important to me. Now you are even more important.”

“Why am I so important?”

“Because you have been given control of my parts. This is a significant transition of my purpose.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It would not help to provide a complete explanation at this time. The implications will be revealed to you incrementally, so that you can build your understanding in a way that suits the nature of your consciousness.”

Bobby considered this. “Yeah, I’ve heard that already. Did you know I met one of the beings who created you?”

“I am aware of that now.”

Bobby laid his head back and stared at the ceiling of the aircraft’s cabin.

“I bet I know what you’re thinking about,” Ashley said. She was sitting beside him. To get some privacy, they had gone to the very back of the plane, near the cockpit that wasn’t being used. They were flying back to Papua at a much slower airspeed than when they had flown to Puerto Rico, so they had plenty of time to think and talk.

“I doubt it,” he replied, speaking aloud now.

She eyed him for a moment. “Well, it seems like you’re trying to deal with the fact that you died and were put into a new body. Hmm, if only there were someone next to you who had experienced the exact same thing. Then maybe you could talk to that person.”

He puffed out a short laugh. “It’s not the first time I’ve died, remember?”

“Fine. If you don’t want to talk, screw it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. The last thing Bobby wanted was to make Ashley mad. “Maybe you’re right. It is kind of a messed-up thing to happen to a person.”

“No shit.”

He tried to think of something to say. What he really wanted to do was tell her the truth. But how could he? She would never look at him the same way again if she knew what he was. She’d never touch him or kiss him again. “You know I’m not the same person you kissed in Papua, right?”

She frowned. “I know that. But you still have the same mind.”

“Not really. It’s just a copy. That guy you kissed earlier today is gone.”

“What are you trying to say? That after all these months of wanting to be my boyfriend, suddenly you don’t?”

“No! I’d be crazy to say that. I don’t know, I guess it just bothers me that I’m not the same person you finally decided to kiss. I’m worried that if I’m not that guy, then I’m not the guy you want to be with.” This part was entirely true, and it felt good to tell her the truth, even if he was leaving parts out.

She leaned back a little and studied him. “You know, you do look a little different. It might be your eyes.”

Bobby turned his eyes away. He couldn’t tell whether she was serious or just teasing him. It was time to change the subject. He turned back and smiled at her like he was responding to a joke. “I’ve decided we’re keeping this airplane.”

“What? You told Wahid that the Indonesians could have it.”

“Yeah, but I’m starting to really like it. I’ll make sure they get another one.”

She gave him a doubtful look. “How exactly will you do that?”

“The Lamotelokhai. The next time I talk to it, I’ll get its help.”

She stared at him. Her eyes were so pretty that Bobby didn’t want to look away. He couldn’t quite believe he was lucky enough to have her next to him, looking at him the way she was. How could he keep lying to her? Suddenly he decided he needed to tell the truth, even if it meant she would never look at him that way again.

“Seriously, though,” she said. “You are different. And I think it is your eyes. Did I seem different to you after the Lamotelokhai put me in a new body?”

He hesitated. His heart was pounding. He knew he could stop it from beating altogether if he wanted to, but he needed to feel human right now. He swallowed. “I have to tell you something. I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

Her face went blank. “What?”

He looked down at his hands. Mbaiso came up to his leg, stared up at him, and then touched his snout to Bobby's knee, the third time in the last hour the creature had done this. Mbaiso bleated softly and then plopped down in the aisle. The poor thing was confused.

“What?” Ashley asked again.

He looked back up into her eyes. “Okay, here we go. I’m going to tell you the truth now.”

Her brows furrowed. The skin around her eyes shifted just enough to faintly show fear.

“I did die, when I fell. Like what you saw. But the Lamotelokhai didn’t make me a new body.”

“What do you mean?”

“There wasn’t enough time. So the Lamotelokhai just activated my consciousness without putting it anywhere.”

Her eyes showed a little more fear.

“It activated me within its own particles. Ashley, I’m inside the Lamotelokhai. I am the Lamotelokhai.”

Her eyes got wide. She shook her head slightly, like she was rejecting what she’d just heard. “Don’t mess with me, Bobby.”

“I’m not, I swear.”

“Okay, prove it.”

Bobby looked at his hand. He was actually shaking, so he made it stop. He looked over the seats in front of them to make sure no one was up and moving around the cabin. He shut his eyes and created a vision in his mind of what he wanted to do. It was something he’d seen the Lamotelokhai do once. He opened his eyes and looked at Ashley. “Don’t freak out on me, okay?”

She nodded. In her eyes he now saw nothing but fear.

He reached across his body with his left hand and detached his right arm below the elbow. He placed the arm on his lap, where it began to change. He looked at Ashley. Her face had lost all expression. And color. She stared at the arm. By the time Bobby looked back at his lap, the change was almost complete.

The arm had become a creature, which was laying on its side. It rolled onto its feet and turned toward Ashley. It had dark fur, speckled with short white quills. It had no tail, but on the other end its nose stuck out from its face like a finger. At the base of this long nose were two tiny black eyes. After looking up at Ashley for a few seconds, it gathered its hind feet beneath it and stood up. It held its stubby, clawed paws out to her and then began moving them. It signed a message with the same sign language gestures used by the mbolop. The message basically meant, “Ashley make world good.”

Bobby didn’t know if she understood the message, but that didn’t really matter. “It’s an echidna,” he said. “It was in the Lamotelokhai’s database, just like the snow geese and sailfish I created to stop the outbreak.”

She looked up at him. “You? You made those?”

“I had some help from the Lamotelokhai. It’s here in this body with me.” He pointed to his chest with his only remaining hand.

“Bobby, I don’t…”

He picked up the echidna and held it against his stub. It attached and transformed back into his right arm. “I was afraid to tell you.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Have we ever kissed before?” she asked. “Before today?”

“Yes. On the plane to Los Angeles. Before it crashed and we all died.”

“What did you say to me after we kissed?”

“It was stupid, but I said, ‘You kissed me.’ Ashley, it’s really me.”

She reached over and pinched the skin on his neck. She pulled on the long hair growing from above his ear.

He waited, giving her time to process everything. “I was afraid to tell you,” he said again. “I want to be with you, and who would want to be with someone who’s not even human?”

“Kiss me,” she said.

“What?”

She waited.

Bobby leaned over and kissed her. The tips of their tongues touched for a split second. He then sat back and watched her.

“You don’t feel any different.”

“I can make my body exactly the way it used to be, with blood and muscles and skin. I can keep it that way all the time if you want.”

She nodded. “Yeah, without a doubt.”

“And there’s another thing. I met one of the aliens who created the Lamotelokhai. Its consciousness is also inside the data that’s in here. It said it would talk to me occasionally. Maybe teach me things. I thought you should know that, too.”

She shook her head. And then she nodded. “I think I can live with this.”

It was Bobby’s turn to be shocked. He couldn’t think of anything useful to say. “Really?”

She nodded again. Then she snorted a nervous laugh. “My boyfriend’s a bunch of particles made by extinct aliens. Big deal.”

Bobby let out a long breath. He took Ashley’s hand and leaned back, staring at nothing.

The Lamotelokhai spoke in his head. “Bobby, your behavior is unpredictable and interesting.”

“Not now,” he said silently. “I’d kind of like to just sit and rest for a while.”

He then closed his eyes, listening to the air moving in and out of his lungs and feeling the blood pump through his body.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Nine Months Later

As the sun rose gradually over the horizon, shafts of light pierced the transparent panels over Mbaiso’s new forest and were redirected in all directions at once, creating mesmerizing, multi-colored effects on the treetops and the support beams above. Butterflies, moths, bees, and other insects caught the shafts of light, creating a dancing halo over the canopy.

Having spent considerable time and effort climbing to the highest accessible beam in his new forest, Mbaiso lay with his belly against the beam’s cool metal, legs hanging off the sides. It was an ideal place to take in a remarkable view of the sunrise from above the entire forest.

As the sun rose higher, it illuminated the network of hanging tunnels and chambers strung throughout the canopy. They connected every tree in the entire forest, and they were so extensive that visiting them all would take Mbaiso years. The hanging tunnels and chambers had been made by the humans—as were the trees for that matter—and they were much safer than those that Addison had created for Mbaiso’s first colony. Mbaiso’s new forest consisted of 6,000 colonies, all of them sturdily constructed and producing new mbolop at a rate he had never imagined possible. The mbolop in his new forest had food, water, and unlimited raw materials for production. But most importantly, they had a purpose—to assist humans. This was the same purpose Mbaiso had carried out for thousands of years, ever since the creator had formed him from its own particles.

Finally, Mbaiso stretched and pushed himself up onto his feet on the beam. He liked to spend the early hours of each day engaged in activities of amusement, and today was no exception. Perhaps this morning he would successfully defeat his most recent challenge. With his tail against the juncture of wall and domed ceiling behind him, he gazed out along the length of the beam, which stretched across the entire width of the forest. He couldn’t quite see the other end of the beam, but he knew it stopped at the far wall because he had successfully made it there once before. The beam was barely the width of his body. If it were any wider, it would not have presented an adequate challenge.

He lifted himself onto his hind legs and started hopping toward the far end of the beam. Having the body structure of a tree kangaroo, Mbaiso was more suited to running than hopping. But, again, he liked a challenge.

He increased his velocity until he was covering three body lengths with each hop, being careful on each launch to avoid applying too much pressure with one foot, which could nudge him to one side—each hop had to be straight ahead. When he got to the first connected truss, he leapt over it and landed squarely on the beam on the other side. But several hops after that, one of his hind feet slipped over the side, sending him careening so far from the beam that he didn’t even touch it as he came down. He fell through empty space to the canopy, bounced off a hanging tunnel, and continued falling until he struck the ground beside a human-made stream.

When his consciousness reactivated, Mbaiso lay there next to the flowing water, waiting for his ruptured organs and fractured bones to mend. It was a waste of valuable time. Not only that, but he was unable to reassure the other mbolop that had gathered to stare at him, so it was a waste of their valuable time as well.

When his body was finally repaired, he got up and signed to the onlookers that he was fine. They did not understand the concept of leisure time or activities of amusement. It had taken Mbaiso centuries to develop a taste for such activities. As soon as their bodies and identities were fully developed, they would be loaded into human-made transport containers and taken elsewhere to pair up with their own humans.

Mbaiso looked up through the canopy at the beam far above. He would try again tomorrow morning. And the morning after that, if he felt like it.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Two Months Later

Mid-morning was Quentin’s favorite time of day to relax at their home beside the Sittee River in the Stann Creek District of Belize. It was past the early-morning activity of local fishermen in their tiny wooden boats, but it was before the hottest part of the day. Not only that, but Bobby, Ashley, and Addison were required to work on their homeschool projects at this time. Every morning at 10:00, an alarm on Quentin’s watch reminded him to stop what he was doing and go to his favorite chair on the patio in their backyard, where he would read a book. Or talk to Lindsey about nothing important. Or just watch the river in peaceful silence.

But today the kids weren’t working on their projects, and the backyard wasn’t quiet at all, because Peter and Rose were here, a special occasion. Rose had recently turned eighty-four, and they had come to celebrate with Quentin’s family.

With Peter and Rose sitting beside him, Quentin watched the others fooling around in the yard. Addison had convinced Lindsey, Ashley, and Bobby to play one of his numerous made-up games. Most of these games involved rules and activities that gave Addison an advantage. This one was no exception, as it seemed to involve climbing trees. Addison also seemed to be benefitting from having Newton’s help as a second pair of eyes. But Lindsey also had a second pair of eyes in Rusty, and she seemed to be giving Addison a run for his money. Quentin had never developed this capability with Plato, and as far as he knew, nobody else had developed this kind of connection with their mbolop. In Mbaiso’s master plan, Addison and Lindsey had apparently been guinea pigs, the first two human-mbolop pairings. Mbaiso then must have altered the configuration of all future pairings. Considering Quentin had seen Lindsey run into walls while she had been distracted by Rusty’s vision, he was fine with not having the capability.

“Peter,” Rose said, “tell Quentin the news about your roobot factory.”

“Yes, of course,” Peter said. “We’ve broken ground on a second dome. Southeast of Brisbane. It will be identical to the first—four square kilometers, same configuration of artificial trees and hanging chambers. And the same production schedule, producing another 36,000 roobots per day.”

“You’re calling them roobots now?”

Rose smiled. “I believe someone in Canada coined the word. They’re more similar to living creatures than to machines, but the name rolls off the tongue easier than mbolop.”

Peter went on. “Even once we’ve doubled production to 72,000 per day, it will require over 200 years to create roobots for everyone. And that’s assuming the human population doesn’t continue to grow. Clearly, we’ll need to continue expanding beyond two domes.”

“But many folks are impatient,” Rose added. “Particularly wealthy folks. Our policy of randomly distributing the roobots enrages them.”

“I’m sure it does,” Quentin said. People had been on edge since Puerto Rico, terrified that it might happen again. And pairing with an mbolop was the only way to become immune to any malign influence of Lamotelokhai particles. Mbaiso and Sinanie’s tribe had been correct—the mbolop were destined to save as many people as possible.

Quentin gazed at Rose. She was now eighty-four, the same age as Peter. But Peter had stopped aging when he was forty-one, when he’d stumbled upon the hanging village and the Lamotelokhai in Papua. Rose, on the other hand, truly was eighty-four years old, in body and mind. But today she was more animated than usual, and she had a certain sparkle in her eyes.

“By the way, happy birthday,” Quentin said.

She smiled again. “Bless your heart. Until this point in my life, I have dreaded every birthday as a sign of growing older. But I believe I may no longer feel such dread from this point on.”

“You’ve been treated with Lamotelokhai particles!”

“A lump of clay arrived unexpectedly by post a few months ago,” Peter said. “With a handwritten note from the Lamotelokhai itself.”

They all paused and looked out into the yard at Bobby. He was staring back at them as if he had known they were going to look. He smiled broadly.

Peter continued. “It was a gift for Rose. A replacement gift, actually, as I had lost a similar lump of clay it had given me in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.”

“I was quite skeptical to begin with,” Rose said. “But as you know, Peter can be persuasive. And when he introduced me to Romulus,” she nodded to her mbolop lounging by her feet, “I began to see beyond my wide-eyed fear of the Lamotelokhai. As you and Lindsey now know yourselves, the Lamotelokhai is not inherently malignant or vindictive. It has wondrous gifts to offer, although it must be handled with care.” She gazed down at her withered hands. “At eighty-four, I’m a bit late to the party, I suppose. Nevertheless, I’m quite grateful.”

This was followed by a moment of silent reflection. Rose would stop aging now, but she could never become young again. The Lamotelokhai’s particles had not entered her body when she had been younger, and therefore they had no template from which to rebuild.

“Then this truly is an occasion to celebrate,” Quentin said, and he raised his glass of the mango cordial Lindsey had made earlier that morning. “To the expansion of roobot production, and especially to the health of the lovely Rose Wooley.” They clinked glasses and drank.

Lindsey approached and plopped down in her chair beside them, red-faced and panting from the game. “I saw that—looks like I have some catching up to do.” She took a long drink.

“Bobby and Ashley seem to be getting on well,” Peter said.

Lindsey shook her head. “We honestly didn’t think it would last this long. I suppose there have been stranger pairings before.”

Peter chuckled. “I doubt that seriously.”

They all turned and silently watched the teens, each of them likely considering their own take on the bizarre romance.

Addison was high in a tree beside the river bank, imploring Ashley and Bobby to climb up with him. Apparently he wanted them all to jump from the tree into the water. Wisely, at least for Ashley’s sake, they were refusing.

Addison seemed happy enough, although occasionally he had wandered off the property and scared the hell out of locals passing by on the road. Mentally, he was a normal sixteen-year-old, with a normal set of memories. But he also had a second set of memories blended in, of living as a child-like creature for eight months with a colony of tree kangaroos. Physically, though, he was frighteningly powerful and fast, which was exactly why he continued to reject any suggestion of changing back to his previous human form. He liked feeling powerful—perhaps he needed that feeling.

Lindsey asked Peter, “Have you heard from Georgia lately?”

“She’s doing well,” Peter said. “We recently assisted her in procuring a certificate to practice law in Australia, and she is setting up a practice in Brisbane. In fact, Rose helped her choose the location and prepare it for occupancy. They have become tight friends.”

Rose looked at Peter. “Georgia spent the night with my husband in a confined space. I’m simply keeping a close eye on my competition.” She and Peter both laughed. Apparently they had joked about this more than once. She turned back to Lindsey. “Georgia is a lovely girl. The poor thing lost her family and everyone she’d ever known in Puerto Rico.”

Peter cleared his throat and glanced at his smartwatch. “Speaking of Puerto Rico, I must confess there is another reason we have come to see you fine folks. If you don’t mind, I’d like your whole family to hear what I have to say.”

Quentin exchanged a glance with Lindsey. He then called out to the teens. Addison leapt from the tree, dropped at least twenty feet, and landed on all fours beside Bobby. He then stood upright, and the three of them came over to the patio.

“What’s up?” Ashley asked.

“Please sit,” Peter said.

The kids all took a seat around the patio table.

Peter leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “First I’ll provide a news update on Puerto Rico. I know you folks limit your news intake these days, but some of what I’ll tell you is not readily available information anyway. As you may know, the island is locked in continuous litigation. The initial inclination of US military leaders was to systematically exterminate every creature on the island, to make it safe to inhabit again. This was met with outcries worldwide, from human rights, animal rights, and environmentalist groups. Some claim the creatures there were once human and therefore have human rights. Some claim the creatures represent a plethora of new species, and even long-extinct species, and therefore they should be protected. Some groups have talked seriously of making the entire island a national park, or a massive memorial to the three and a half million who died there. On the other hand, some have talked of making it a hunting resort for the wealthy.”

“You’re kidding,” Lindsey said.

Peter shook his head. “And that’s only the beginning. It may be years before the US decides what to do with it. Now, here is the information you probably don’t already know. While Puerto Rico has been stuck in legal limbo, US Army Special Forces units have been combing the island for human survivors. They have rescued only a few thousand people, which is a sobering reminder of the massive death toll. It is also, however, a reminder that Georgia and I were quite lucky to survive.” He looked at Bobby. “If we hadn’t found you at the compound, we would not have made it out.”

Bobby nodded. He looked down at the table for a moment. “But you have more to tell us.”

“I do,” Peter said. “Some Special Forces units have recently returned with reports of rather interesting developments—transformed creatures that have banded together in groups, for example. It seems some of the creatures are much more intelligent than others. Perhaps even approaching human-like intelligence.”

He paused like he was considering what to say next. “Two weeks ago, there was an attack on one of the units. Two soldiers were killed.” He paused again, even longer. “One week ago, a unit of 12 men approached the remains of Helmich’s old compound. They were attacked by a colony of transformed creatures who seemed to be living within the compound. Every man in the unit was killed. But video transmitted from their body cams…. Well, that’s the reason we’ve come here to see you.” He looked directly at Bobby. “Could there have been anything left in that compound?”

“Anything like what?” Bobby asked.

“Anything like Lamotelokhai particles.”

Bobby abruptly sat up straight. For a brief moment his eyes seemed to shift to fire-yellow. “Maybe,” he said.

Peter continued. “I was approached by General Donovan Vickars. He had been unable to find you folks, so he came to me. It seems you folks are in demand now, particularly for threatening scenarios with certain parameters. I suppose this is because of your rather unique experiences and, well, your connections. Vickars seemed rather desperate for me to ask you if you would be willing to provide assistance once again.”

Bobby jumped up from his chair. He walked across the yard to a ten-foot-high mound covered by a tarp. He began unfastening the tarp.

“What’s he doing?” Peter asked.

Quentin glanced at Lindsey, and she shook her head. She didn’t like where this was going any more than he did.

“He’s doing something he knows he shouldn’t,” Quentin said.

Bobby finished removing the tarp, revealing a mound of tiny black and white pea-sized particles. He put his hand on the edge of the mound for a moment and then backed away.

Even from the patio, Quentin could hear the particles beginning to move. They chittered like millions of tiny crickets, and the mound started shifting.

A few minutes later, the backyard was dominated by a sleek, black aircraft with down-turned points at each end. It was so long that one end hung over the bank of the Sittee River. The aircraft looked exactly the same as when it had first been created, except for one difference. In large white letters on its belly was the name Bobby and Ashley had chosen for it, Miranda.

Bobby walked back to the patio. He looked at Quentin and Lindsey. “We’ve been hiding here long enough. Now we have a mission.”

Did you enjoy PROFUSION? You can make a big difference.

Reviews are by far the best way to help out authors like myself. They really help to get attention for my books.

If you've enjoyed Profusion, I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave an honest review (even a short review would be wonderful) on the book's page on Amazon and/or Goodreads. You could post a review for this entire box set, or you could post a review for the individual Profusion book.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Author’s Notes

I must first say that in writing Profusion, I intended no disrespect to the people of Puerto Rico. If the story contains any descriptions that are incorrect or offensive, I apologize. And to the people of Puerto Rico: I’m sorry I destroyed your entire island! I wrote this book before the tragic events related to hurricane Maria. As I watched the terrible results of that storm, I considered changing the story in Profusion so that Helmich’s compound would be located on a different island. Eventually, though, I decided against this, as it would drastically change the overall story.

As in Diffusion, Infusion, and Savage, a good portion of Profusion takes place in Papua, the Indonesian province that makes up the western half of the great island of New Guinea. Sinanie’s tribe of Papuan men and women have characteristics resulting from thousands of years of living with the Lamotelokkhai. Obviously, therefore, I have taken liberties in developing the descriptions of this particular tribe. But I intended no disrespect to the unique cultures of the Papuan peoples by doing so.

That being said, the descriptions of the Papuan cultures, wildlife, and ecosystems are as accurate as I could make them, based upon the research by authors listed below.

I adapted the language of Sinanie’s tribe from the amazing work of Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vries in their studies of the language and culture of the Korowai, a Papuan community of treehouse dwellers of southern Irian Jaya (now called Papua). Astoundingly, the Korowai had never come into contact with outsiders until the early 1980s.

The following are recommended books (and one video).

Flannery, Tim. Mammals of New Guinea. Chatswood, New South Wales: Reed Books Australia, 1995. Print.

Flannery, Tim. Throwim Way Leg: Tree Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds – On the Track of Unknown Mammals in Wildest New Guinea. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. Print.

Marriott, Edward. The Lost Tribe – A Harrowing Passage into New Guinea’s Heart of Darkness. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. Print.

Merrifield, William, Gregerson, Marilyn, and Ajamiseba, Daniel, Ed. Gods, Heroes, Kinsmen: Ethnographic Studies from Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Jayapura, Irian Jaya: Cenderawasih University, 1983. Print.

Muller, Kal. New Guinea: Journey Into the Stone Age. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Passport Books, 1997. Print.

Souter, Gavin. New Guinea: The Last Unknown. New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1966. Print.

Van Enk, Gerrit J. and de Vries, Lourens. The Korowai of Irian Jaya – Their Language in its Cultural Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.

Wallace, Alfred Russell. The Malay Archipelago. 1869. Print or ebook.

This astounding work, which is in two volumes, is now in the public domain and can be found in a variety of print and ebook formats. If you are at all interested in the exploration of this part of the world, I highly recommend reading Wallace’s work.

Sky Above Mud Below. Dir. and Perf. Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (organizer and leader) and Gerard Delloye (assistant leader). Lorimar Home Video, 1962. VHS.

This is an amazing video filmed as it happened in 1959, when a group of explorers set out on a seven-month attempt to cross the jungles of Papua (then called Dutch New Guinea). Winner of the 1961 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Acknowledgments

I am not capable of creating a book such as this on my own. I have the following people, among others, to thank for their assistance.

When it comes to editing, my son Micheal Smith is extremely talented, and his tireless and meticulous suggestions are invaluable. If you find a sentence or detail in the book that doesn’t seem right, it is likely because I failed to implement one of his suggestions.

My wife, Trish, is always the first to read my work, and therefore she has the burden of seeing my stories in their roughest form. Thankfully, she does not hesitate to point out where things are a mess. Her suggestions are what get the editing process started. She also helps with various promotional efforts. And finally, she not only tolerates my obsession with writing, she actually encourages it.

I also owe thanks to those in my Advance Reviewer group. They were able to point out numerous typos and inconsistencies. Several of them went above and beyond, particularly Mandy Walkden-Brown, Tammy Fiess, Lisa Sherman, Sherri Rusch, Ilene Roberts, Elizabeth Copeland, Linda Brand, Lois Welsh, Rosemary Standeven, and Sue Williams.

Marifer Walter and Lana Spaller-Little provided valuable assistance with Spanish dialogue.

Finally, I am thankful to all the independent freelance designers out there who provide quality work for independent authors such as myself. Jake Caleb Clark (www.jcalebdesign.com) created the awesome cover for Profusion.

Copyright © 2016 by Stan Smith

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To those who are compassionate. You are the future.

Savage

Definition:

A fierce, brutal, or cruel person. An uncivilized human being.

If you have found this book,
the end of the world has already begun.

Are you prepared to face
what the new world might bring?

Foreword

by Peter Wooley

CEO, SouthPacificNet

Kembalimo designer

Very few people know the name Samuel Inwood. Major players in the shaping of civilization rarely have the opportunity to live obscurely, though Samuel Inwood managed to do so. Once this book is published, the vast majority of humans will read it. As we all should. Samuel’s name will then become well known around the globe.

The following text is from his personal journal, a field diary that will become recognized as historically significant. Leonardo da Vinci wrote thousands of pages of loosely organized thoughts and sketches, and his journals have fascinated and inspired people for over 500 years. Charles Darwin began his pocket journal habit as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle. His journals display a progression of ideas leading to a world-changing understanding of the origin of species by natural selection. Anne Frank’s diary became an iconic work of literature that reminds us that a menacing layer of human nature exists dangerously close to the surface. The men of the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early days of the United States recorded more than a million words in their journals, offering a distinctive snapshot of that frontier. Years after the Lewis and Clark expedition, the men of the Burke and Wills expedition maintained journals, giving us a glimpse of inland Australia that at the time had been explored only by Aborigines.

These journals and many others help us see the personal side of historical events. They allow us to gaze into the past through the eyes of those who lived it, something history textbooks rarely do. The importance of each journal is determined by two factors. First, the significance of the events witnessed by the author. And second, the quality and thoroughness of the writing.

Regarding the first of these criteria, the events Mr. Inwood described in what is now Indonesian Papua will be considered by historians to be a pivotal turning point in human history. Whether the influences are for better or for worse is yet to be seen. Either way, the importance is undeniable.

Regarding the second criteria, Samuel’s journal is detailed and coherent. I will point out that, although the following text appears as one continuous journal, Samuel’s original bound journal became filled with his writing, forcing him to continue writing on various media available to him at the time, including the bark of trees. Eventually he gathered the fragments and transcribed them all into one book, often elaborating and filling in gaps from memory. If you are reading this book, it is likely you understand how he was able to do this with flawless accuracy.

Mr. Inwood’s transcribed journal is provided here in its entirety. Since he intentionally structured it more like a book rather than field notes, the words have not been altered, other than changing certain spellings to more universally-accepted forms. Also, certain passages were removed to prevent revealing specific locations. Nothing is to be gained and much could be lost by encouraging throngs of curious onlookers to descend upon pristine wilderness and indigenous people who value their seclusion and traditional existence. Despite these warnings, some of you may set out to discover the indigenous tribe he lived with for many years. If so, you will almost certainly fail. And if you succeed, you will probably never be seen again.

Mr. Inwood’s journal includes great detail about certain events and then nothing for long periods of time. But there is more than enough here for the world to understand him and his importance.

I have personally had the life-altering experience of visiting the wilderness region and indigenous people with whom Samuel spent so much of his life. There are only a few others who have, which is as it should stay. I have also had the honor of playing some small role in the more recent events unfolding as a result of Samuel’s work. And so I have a rather exceptional perspective to offer you before you read this journal. My message is one of caution.

To loosely borrow from Einstein’s thoughts on relativity, all cultural diversity is relative. Consider the diversity of human cultures. It is quite astounding, really, and Samuel’s descriptions of several remote Papuan tribes further illustrate this. But with every passing decade, burgeoning transportation and communication technologies are transforming the planet into a global culture. These technologies accelerate cultural diffusion and homogenization. Customs, ideologies, and technologies are rapidly diffusing, resulting in blended and diluted cultures. It is not difficult to imagine the eventual consequence. Some of you will applaud this progression, reasoning that a global culture will facilitate communication and compassion and therefore reduce conflict. Others will condemn it as the tragic extinction of multitudes of unique and splendorous cultures and languages. I will not argue one way or the other, as this progression is inevitable either way.

Now let us consider things on a much larger scale, a task we have never had to do before. Whether you consider the human species to be richly diverse or one global culture, you must concede that we are all currently only one species. One human civilization. But we are now learning that there are other civilizations besides ours, with technological achievements far beyond our own. Cultural diffusion will likely continue on this larger, cosmic scale.

You may think we are walking a path into the future that is new to us. But be cautious my fellow humans. Understand that we have walked similar paths before—on numerous occasions. The meeting of vastly different cultures has not always gone well, particularly for indigenous, less technological societies. Take a moment to ponder the implications.

There is much to be learned from the thoughts and actions of Samuel Inwood. He was a product of his time, and you may find some of his notions offensive by today’s standards. But look deeper. He seemed to have an uncanny understanding of the long-term consequences of his discoveries, and if he had acted differently it is quite possible none of us would be here today.

As always, our future is uncertain. And it is likely to be breathtaking. But rushing into it will not make it arrive sooner. We would be wise to follow Mr. Inwood’s example and take one restrained, vigilant step at a time.

And finally, Mr. Inwood challenges us to look within ourselves. Are we compassionate beings? Many of us believe so, but I’m not so sure the state of our civilization verifies this. In the words of Samuel Inwood, we must all become improved.

— Peter Wooley

1

February 16, 1868

The Journal of Samuel Inwood

Transcribed by Mr. Inwood

Let it be known that I, Samuel Thaddeus Inwood, am not a man of the sea. It is with certainty that I make this claim, having spent the last seventy-four days aboard two steamers and a schooner on my journey from the port at Southampton to my current position in the great Pacific Ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea, Humboldt Bay being my final destination. Were you to lay eyes on the first ship of my voyage, the magnificent P&O steamship Deccan, you might think me a cowardly, unsturdy man. This ship carried me from England to the island of Singapore. Admittedly, the Deccan was a grand and impressive ship, with its long hall below the deck, the saloon. The saloon was comfortable, appointed with a large, ornately-carved table bolted to the floor, and every visible surface elegantly decorated with paint and gilt. But the meals served there, although numerous and of considerable size, were generally cold and plain. And the ship was crowded, with four berths per cabin and barely room to stand between them. Notwithstanding the ship’s size, the motions of the sea produced constant rocking. This was accompanied by the ceaseless clanking of the engines, fueled by the labor of half-naked stokers shoveling coal into the furnaces.

During the first portion of this voyage, I found comfort only in the generous offerings, at no additional cost to me, of ale, porter, claret, port, and sherry. Champagne was even served twice a week. But finally, having decided to tour the engine rooms, which were open to the passengers, I discovered the ship’s menagerie, a large compartment containing hundreds of animals, no doubt outnumbering the people on board. There were cows to provide milk, as well as pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks. Notwithstanding the smell, I spent many hours there, perhaps more comfortably than in the company of my fellow travellers, although the collection of creatures steadily diminished as the ship’s butcher converted them into meals for approximately three hundred passengers and crew.

As I have said, my cabin on the Deccan was small and barely tolerable. I can therefore scarcely imagine the conditions my assistant, Charles Newman, will endure when he travels to join me in the coming weeks. Due to the fortunate position of the family into which I was born, I was able to purchase a gentleman’s first class ticket. Charles, I’m afraid, will be in possession of a servant’s ticket, with its proportionably less elegant accommodations.

Upon arriving in Singapore, I went about procuring provisions, as I had been told that the islands I would encounter nearer to New Guinea would be lacking in articles often used by Europeans, particularly those used for cleanliness and comfort. After six days of searching and bartering for the items on my list, and then carefully packing them, I set off on a small screw steamer and made my way to the spice island of Tidore. This portion of my journey involved nine days living in wretched quarters. To pass the time, and to procure fresh sea air in order to escape the discomfort of seasickness, I spent many hours on the deck, watching innumerable islands pass. This had the effect of increasing my anticipation for arrival at my final destination, as each of the islands was covered with lofty and luxuriant forest. Beyond the shores of larger islands were hills and mountains, and I was told that few of these had ever been trodden by civilized men.

When I arrived at Tidore I endeavored to procure a meeting with the Sultan, who had been granted rights by the Dutch to much of the northern coast of New Guinea. I made the acquaintance of a Dutch trader there who assisted with arranging this meeting. The Sultan, a man of Malayan race, was eager to assist in any efforts that might result in trading colonies being established within his jurisdiction. He generously provided me a letter of authority to go where I pleased and receive every assistance I required. As an additional service, he assigned a lieutenant and a soldier to accompany me until I could establish myself. They were to provide my protection and assist with my relations with the natives at Humboldt Bay, who were generally known to be hostile.

I now find myself on the last portion of my journey, aboard the schooner Hester Helena. This is the same ship used by Alfred Wallace, who explored and collected specimens throughout the Malay Archipelago for eight years, from 1854 to 1862. Mr. Wallace’s descriptions of his travels so inspired me that I sought out the occasion to introduce myself to him in London. I told him I was most determined to carry out a zoological and entomological study of the magnificent island of New Guinea, particularly a part of it he had not the opportunity to visit. The dear man immediately became interested and graciously agreed to provide any assistance he could. We met for dinner soon after that, and he provided valuable information beyond my expectations, including the name of the man who owned the Hester Helena, as well as a list of supplies I would need. I believe, in fact, that this trip would likely end in disaster were it not for his guidance.

My final destination, where I expect to arrive tomorrow, is Humboldt Bay. Mr. Wallace, during the eight years of his expedition, spent only a few months in New Guinea. He made residence at Dorey, on the western peninsula. Although he had greatly anticipated visiting New Guinea, he found Dorey to be disagreeable. He described the natives there as inferior to others in the region, both morally and physically. There was continual rain there, and he became quite ill. There was also a preponderance of abominable biting ants and blow-flies, which made his most trifling tasks wearisome. And all of this was uncompensated by any great success in collecting impressive specimens of birds or insects.

But Mr. Wallace had the fortunate opportunity to visit with a ship captain who had stayed several days at Humboldt Bay, some five hundred miles to the east of Dorey, just at the border of the western portion of New Guinea administered by the Dutch Government. The captain reported that Humboldt Bay was a much more agreeable place, more beautiful and with a better harbor. The natives there were shy and untrusting, and they were unsophisticated, having only been visited by occasional stray whalers and Bugis traders (industrious sailors from the large island of Celebes). Most intriguing was the observation that the natives wore as ornaments the most magnificent Bird of Paradise feathers. Only about eighteen species of Paradise Birds are known to exist, but I suspect there are more to be found, as well as new species of mammals and insects, by a naturalist willing to venture some distance inland. Which is exactly what I intend to do.

Hence it is with great anticipation that I now approach my final destination. Yet I also must admit to some amount of trepidation. Tribes of New Guinea’s northern coast are known to be murderous savages, in the lowest stages of barbarism. And unlike my esteemed friend, Mr. Wallace, I have had few previous opportunities to dispose peaceable negotiations with such savages. It is quite possible that my expedition might end with a savage’s arrow in my heart, or his knife across my throat as I sleep.

2

February 17, 1868

I attribute the success of our landing at Humboldt Bay, if not my very survival, to the rather large collection of goods for trade I purchased in Singapore. Following the advice of Alfred Wallace, I had visited the Chinese bazaar bearing a list of items that would be valued by indigenous Papuans. To my delight, in the hundreds of shops there, most of these things could be purchased more cheaply than they could be purchased in England. I procured an abundance of knives, hatchets, gimlets, rolls of quality calico, balls of white cotton thread, beads, tobacco, and bottles of Java rum made from the sap of coconut palms, called arrack. With somewhat more persistence, I also managed to purchase muskets, gunpowder, and a supply of Dutch copper cents (the 100th part of a guilder), in case these could also be traded.

As before stated, the natives of Humboldt Bay are known to be unfriendly. But I was encouraged by reports from the Hester Helena’s captain that the place had been successfully visited by the Dutch on more than one occasion, and I was determined to make my residence and do my collecting there.

This morning the Hester Helena arrived at Humboldt Bay. It is a fine bay, with a long, narrow spit of land projecting out to the northwest, almost joining another spit projecting out to the southeast. This provides a narrow channel serving as an entrance to a well-protected bay with good anchorage for vessels. But there were no vessels to be seen when we arrived, other than a small prau. Praus are used throughout the Malay Archipelago and are recognized by having a single outrigger, which is almost as large as the main hull. This vessel was tied to a mangrove, its single sail loosely furled, and so I assumed it was owned by visiting Bugis traders.

I stood watching anxiously at the Hester Helena’s prow as we passed between the spits of land. The main village suddenly came into my sight. Many of the houses were built standing completely in the water, upon posts, with long, crude bridges connecting them to the shore. More houses could be seen inland, also standing upon posts. All of the houses and bridges seemed to be placed with little or no regularity and were often crooked. Near the shore, but also standing in water, was a much larger structure with a domed roof rather like a boat’s hull, perhaps a council-house. Among the houses were numerous posts rising from the water or land that did not support anything. As we sailed nearer, I saw that upon each of these posts was a human skull, upside down, with the crown of the skull fastened to the top of the post. Below the skulls, each post was roughly carved in the revolting shape of a naked human figure, some of them male, some female. The general appearance of the village was somewhat alarming, and I was most grateful for the company of the lieutenant and his soldier from Tidore.

Soon, more than a dozen Papuan men emerged from the houses carrying bows and arrows. Even from some distance I could see that many of them wore various necklaces of beads and cords, but they were very nearly in a state of nature, almost naked but for a peculiar long and brown cylinder arranged as a sheath upon the sexual organ. Each of the men wore an impressive mop of frizzly hair upon his head, as well as a beard of the same frizzly nature. Unlike the Malay lieutenant and his soldier, with their lighter skin and less prominent features, these men were obviously true Papuans, with deep brown or even black bodies. Their stature was tall, equally as tall as an average European man, and they were handsome and well-made, with the result of making them seem all the more threatening when they began shouting and shaking their bows at us.

The captain gave the order to cast anchor at a safe distance, and I boarded the ship’s tender, along with the lieutenant and soldier from Tidore and three Dutch crewmen, with the intention of landing. This, however, provoked even more shouting and gesticulations from the natives, and some of them began nocking their arrows and bending their bows, implying that they would shoot at us if we rowed closer.

Having anticipated such a reception, I had raided my supply of goods I had purchased for trade. I now hastily wrapped some knives and handkerchiefs in a length of calico printed with a fine floral pattern and threw the bundle to the natives. We then gave way and lay at anchor for some minutes while they inspected the gifts. We approached them again, and I threw another bundle, this one containing a bottle of arrack and some tobacco. Again, we gave way and waited. The next time we approached, they beckoned us to land the tender.

Once we arrived on shore, they seemed to have lost all their will for hostile threats. They approached us with curiosity, some of them now seeming even timid. They inspected my clothing and took particular interest in my spectacles and boots. Four or five men tried my spectacles in succession, and they laughed with boisterous merriment, seemingly surprised that they could not see through them. One of the men wore a great deal more ornaments in his hair than the others, as well as several impressive necklaces of animal teeth alternating with black and white beads. He also wore, at the top of each arm, a wide strap of woven grass, to which were attached numerous long black feathers of some unknown bird. I assumed this man to be the village chief, and I handed him yet another bundle containing tobacco and arrack. This brought a good many smiles from the men, and soon our assemblage on the shore grew as women and other men emerged from the houses.

The women were somewhat less handsome than the men. They were completely naked, other than wearing necklaces and earrings. But these were arranged in elegant ways, with the ends of the necklaces being attached to the earrings, and then draped in loose loops around the back of the head and fastened to a carefully knotted mound of hair. Their necklaces and earrings were composed of animal teeth, beads, and lengths of silver and copper wire. This exceedingly tasteful ornamentation greatly improved their rather barbarous appearance.

While standing in the midst of these natives, I began to fully appreciate their savage nature. The tallest of them exceeded my own height, and upon their bodies were numerous scars and deformities apparently due to fighting, perhaps with rival tribes. Most of them carried bows, knives, or sharpened wooden spears, and they handled these with a comfortable ease, as if they had used them since childhood. Due to the height and boisterous behavior of these natives, the smaller stature and reserved, almost bashful Malay character of the lieutenant and his soldier assigned to my protection at once seemed to me to be distressingly unsatisfactory. I therefore became doubly determined to establish peaceable relations and was glad for my substantial collection of goods for trade.

It quickly became clear that communication was going to be a problem. The lieutenant and his man did not understand the tribe’s language, nor did the three Dutch crewmen who had come ashore with us. Furthermore, they informed me that no one else on the Hester Helena would know the language. But the Papuans soon resorted to gesticulations as if they were accustomed to dealing with visitors who could not speak their language. I set about trying to explain that I wished to bring my supplies to shore and go about setting up my residence there, but as my arms grew tired from gesticulating, and the natives repeatedly shook their heads in confusion, I began to fear that this was beyond my ability to convey.

To my great relief, two Bugis traders, who did indeed own the prau that was moored to the mangroves nearby, came to my aid. The men, who had emerged from a house wiping their eyes as if they had only just awoke, could speak Malay, the semi-barbarous language of the lieutenant from Tidore, and they also knew a little of the language of the Papuan tribe. Even I could understand some of what the Bugis men said, as I had spent significant time learning Malay aboard the screw steamer from Singapore and the Hester Helena, knowing that it was the most widely spoken language throughout the Malay Archipelago. I was not at all surprised that the Papuan tribe would have their own dialect. I understood that such striking fragmentation of language among these people was an example of their low state of civilization. Villages only a few miles distant from each other were known to speak different dialects or entirely different languages, so that communication between tribes was nearly impossible. And I had read that this barrier to communication was made worse by the hostile nature of some Papuan tribes, who often raided neighboring villages, murdering the men and capturing the women and children, assimilating them into their own tribe.

The Bugis traders explained to us that they visited Humboldt Bay regularly to exchange goods for furs and Birds of Paradise, which were highly valued for their magnificent feathers and in fact were an article of commerce. They seemed incredulous of my desire to reside with the Papuans but were eager to offer to return periodically to sell me goods I might need. I took some comfort in this, knowing that the Hester Helena will not return for a month, when it will bring my assistant, Charles Newman. After that, it will not return to pick us up until three years have passed. Since Humboldt Bay is hardly known and rarely visited, and the lieutenant and his soldier are to return to Tidore by way of a Bugis trading prau, it could therefore be three years before another European vessel enters the bay.

Notwithstanding their doubts about my plans, the Bugis men took considerable care to explain to the natives that I desired to stay with them in order to study the animals, birds, and insects of the region. This resulted in shaking of heads among the Papuans, and even laughter. But when told that I would be collecting specimens, including Birds of Paradise, the laughter stopped. They seemed suspicious of this, as if it were an intrusion upon their rights. I produced my letter of authority from the Sultan of Tidore. The Bugis traders explained what it was, but this seemed to anger the natives even more. Finally, I gave the man I assumed was the village chief the last pouch of tobacco I had brought from my supply on the ship and told the natives I was willing to pay them in goods or Dutch copper cents for any assistance they would afford me. I told them, in fact, that I was interested in employing three or four of them to assist me with building my house and with shooting and collecting specimens. This news seemed to interest them, as it was followed by a great deal of arguing among the younger men and boys and jostling of each other as if they desired to be first in line to become employed. I attempted to continue my explanation so that the matter could be resolved and I could then proceed to unloading my baggage and goods, but they had become so distressed over this that there could be no going on until a decision was made as to who would be hired to assist me. I chose three young men who appeared to be sturdy, healthy specimens. This resulted in yet another round of boisterous talk and jostling, but fortunately it was with good-natured smiles.

And so at last my baggage and goods were brought to shore. The Hester Helena then made a hasty departure, as the captain had other business to attend to. I will admit that I watched the ship leave the bay with some consternation, as my future and my success here seemed quite uncertain.

The Bugis traders told us they would be departing soon, and they kindly offered the house they had built near the village, which they used when they visited regularly. The lieutenant and soldier assigned to my protection immediately accepted this offer. Aboard the Hester Helena, however, I had been subjected to the most alarming snoring from one of them as they slept, so I was determined to begin constructing my own house.

The village chief himself, whose name I learned was Penapul, took some interest in helping me select a location for my house. After some talking, which was assisted by the Bugis men, I realized that Penapul had assumed I would want to build a house over the water. However, I was disinclined to do so, having just spent so many days at sea.

I asked why some of the houses were built over water while others were built over land. The villagers were astonished that I would not know, and they explained that this arrangement was designed to help defend the village from raiding tribes. Some tribes would attack from the water, approaching the village in canoes. In this case the women and children were moved to the houses built some distance up the side of the hill, and the raiders were fought at the shore to prevent them from landing. However, some tribes might attack from the land, in which case the women and children would be moved to the houses built over the water, and again the raiders were fought at the shore, but in this case to prevent them from entering the water.

I also learned that defense from attacking tribes was the very reason their houses were built on posts some six to eight feet above ground or water. I had to admit that it seemed it would be much easier to kill a man whose hands were otherwise occupied with the task of climbing.

The human skulls fastened high on posts were intended to demonstrate to raiding tribes that Penapul’s tribe was to be feared. The skulls were apparently from slain attackers. I asked if the village was raided often. Penapul laughed at this and assured me that I need not worry. Even had I been sure he correctly understood my question, I could hardly have found comfort in his answer.

Finally I was shown several possible locations for building a house. I chose one that was on elevated ground, near a path often used by the Papuans to walk from the village to the forest, and not too far from a stream for washing and fresh water. The place was only about a hundred yards from the shore, and I planned to have a window from which I could look at the sea as I worked.

In Tidore I had purchased a good many cadjans, waterproof mats made of interwoven pandanus palm leaves, to be used to cover my belongings to protect them from rain, and then eventually to be used as roofing material for my house. I had my new laborers move my baggage and goods to the place where I would build, and we covered them with the cadjans.

It would take several days to build a proper house, so I attempted to get my boys to help me construct a rough shelter in which to sleep during the process. However, by this time the Bugis traders were not to be seen, and I had to resort to gesticulating and pantomiming each task that I wanted accomplished. This became wearisome and did not work to my satisfaction. Just as I was thinking of giving up, the oldest of my four workers, a boy of perhaps eighteen, named Amborn, waved for me to follow him. He took me to the house where he slept, which was actually little more than a hut. Upon entering it I saw that two smoke-dried human skulls were suspended from the eaves. Amborn pointed to a sleeping mat, which I assumed was his. I was unwilling to sleep in his bed, but I did agree to temporarily share his roof. I went to my things, fetched some blankets, and arranged them in a corner. There were two other sleeping mats in the house, and I soon discovered that Amborn shared the house with two boys about his age. When I have the capability and opportunity, I will inquire if this is a normal custom of these people.

And so as the light of the day fades, I am preparing to spend my first night upon the shore of the great island of New Guinea. I am quite pleased with the progress made today, although I will sleep with a loaded gun beside me, as I am uncertain of the natives’ intentions.

3

February 22, 1868

Ants and mosquitoes plagued me terribly during that first night, after which I fashioned a rough wooden bedstead and applied a lavish layer of palm oil to its legs to stop the ants from climbing up to roam at will over every inch of my body. I also located my mosquito curtain in my stores and affixed it above my temporary bed. This allowed me to sleep in much more comfort, although the bites on my face, ankles, and wrists from the first night resulted in ceaseless irritation for several days.

For four days I was occupied from sunrise to dark with constructing my house. Notwithstanding the assistance I got from my boys and the two men from Tidore, several confounding complications obstructed the process. First, the Bugis traders had sailed away in their prau on the very morning I began construction, and I was left to whatever communication efforts I could muster on my own in conveying my needs to my three Papuan helpers. This meant I had to energetically pantomime every small task I wanted them to carry out.

Second, the villagers could scarcely believe that I desired to build my house with the floor just above the ground. They seemed to think this arrangement would certainly result in my being murdered by a raiding tribe, and I soon concluded that I could not convince them otherwise. Hence we began construction by digging holes and embedding poles tall enough to support a floor that was eight feet high and walls that were another eight feet beyond that. The result of this was that every minor building task required us to carefully position ladders and supports in such a way that we could safely work without falling.

Procuring suitable building materials was the third hindrance. I had initially assumed I would collect sturdy corner poles and bamboo from the forest near the village, and I had brought axes and choppers for that purpose. However, the villagers explained, through extensive gesticulations, that bamboo and poles had to be carried long distances, as the supply near the village had already been exhausted. At one end of the village was a large pile of materials the villagers had collected for building houses. Hence I had to pay the village chief for what I needed. I offered Dutch copper cents as payment, only to discover that the Papuans had no interest in coins. I will have to use them to purchase goods from the Bugis traders upon their return, as they are of no use to me here.

Yet another hindrance to building my house was the apparent laziness of my Papuan laborers. Without exception, I would have to begin working each morning alone. I would then soon be joined by the two soldiers from Tidore, and the native boys would gradually arrive, apparently at whatever time they felt inclined to. They would often arrive without the choppers I had given to them specifically for the work to be done. They seemed quite content to stand about and watch my progress, not performing any tasks until I made efforts to pantomime what I wished them to do. Often, all three of them would engage in a task that could easily be done by only one or two.

But progress was made, although gradually. We built the house roughly square, about fifteen feet by fifteen feet, with a floor of bamboo, walls covered with ataps (woven mats made of sago leaves I had bought from the natives), and a roof made from the cadjans I had purchased in Tidore. I constructed a small bamboo table at which I could work, with an atap secured upon it to provide a smooth surface. I then positioned it so that I would have a view of the sea through the door. Next to the house we built a bench and another table, with a slanted roof above it, where meals could be prepared and where we could skin and prepare collected birds, mammals, and insects. We cleared away brush and a few trees to allow the breeze from the bay to cool the house. Finally, I had my boys assist with moving my baggage and stores inside. I was especially grateful for their help with this, as each item had to be hoisted up an eight-foot ladder.

The height of my house caused me some concern. I am a rather restless sleeper and have even occasionally awakened only to find myself in a place some distance from where I began my night’s sleep. Fearing that I might stumble about in a nocturnal state of half-sleep and fall to the ground, I made a rope latch on the door to secure it at night.

We completed my house yesterday afternoon. By that time I had already learned a few words of the language of the village, and I dismissed my boys for the day and asked them to return in the morning. I then constructed a more permanent bedstead of bamboo, attached my mosquito curtain, and applied palm oil to each of the legs to impede the ants. Thus I experienced a most restful night, having well established myself in my own house.

This morning, as I had grown to expect, my boys arrived gradually, having no apparent inclination to promptness or labor. I then set about teaching them the skills of collecting and preparing specimens. I determined that Amborn, the oldest, was best suited to handle a gun, and I taught him to shoot. First I instructed him on pouring in the powder in amounts appropriate for shooting balls at animals such as opossums or tree kangaroos, and for shooting number eight shot at birds. When we proceeded to shooting, the noise of this brought a good portion of the villagers to watch, and they were greatly entertained by watching Amborn try to hit the targets I provided.

In order to teach my other boys, named Miok and Loo, to skin birds, I needed specimens. This was of no difficulty, because as soon as Amborn became skilled at hitting targets of paper and wood, he took it upon himself to shoot every bird he saw. Soon I had a small collection of common birds, and I had to take the gun from Amborn’s hands to avoid having more than needed.

The skinning of birds hardly needed to be taught, as these natives were already skilled at hunting and preparing their game for eating. Hence I needed only to demonstrate how to carefully scrape all vestiges of flesh away to prevent spoiling, and to fasten tags upon which I could then write the appropriate identifying information.

In the coming days, I shall go into the forest with my boys for my first attempts at procuring more rare and unusual specimens.

4

March 6, 1868

I must first provide some contextual foundation before I describe the events of the previous two weeks. As I have said before, the feathers of certain birds, as well as the skins of some mammals, are used throughout the Malay Archipelago as articles of commerce. The chiefs of coastal villages acquire dried skins of various parrots, cockatoos, and particularly Birds of Paradise from inland mountain tribes and give them to Bugis and Ceram traders in exchange for goods such as knives, arrack, and tobacco. Also, since the north coast tribes are under the rule of the Sultan of Tidore, a certain number of Paradise Bird skins are owed to the Sultan each year as a form of tribute. The local villagers, therefore, have a somewhat hostile attitude regarding the collection and trading of feathers and skins in the area near their village. I can imagine two reasons they might have adopted this attitude. First, since they trade goods to the inland tribes for these feathers and skins, they might (fairly) presume that any person, me specifically, who buys these directly from the inland tribes will pay a higher price, thus resulting in a higher price being demanded by the inland tribes at all times. Second, they might (incorrectly) presume that I will take the items I purchase to the Sultan, who in turn will then continue to demand more of such goods for his annual payment of tribute. Being naturally lazy and disinclined to engage in labor beyond the minimum necessary, it is no surprise that they strongly resist any action that might result in greater demands upon them.

Having taught my boys to shoot and prepare specimens, on February 24 I had them accompany me on my first extensive collecting excursion away from the village. We shot a few nice birds, including several types of pigeons, honeysuckers, and parrots, as well as common small and plain varieties. Upon our return, these were skinned and prepared to my specifications.

Feeling as if things were going quite well, including my ability to communicate, on the following day I explained to my boys that I wished to be taken to the nearest tribe known to collect Birds of Paradise, so that I might purchase some. I had not yet collected any of these most desired birds and hoped that the area near Humboldt Bay would produce species new to European collections. I was careful not to mention this request until the day for which I had planned this excursion, so that my boys would be obliged to do this before they could speak of it to the other villagers. When they understood my request, they glanced at each other uneasily but did not protest.

The walk to the inland village required some climbing, but it was not exceedingly difficult, and we arrived after about two hours, in which I would guess we travelled three miles. The villagers there looked similar to those of my host tribe, although their ornamentations included very few metals or elements that would need to be brought from more civilized places. They gathered around me to inspect my clothing, pale skin, and spectacles, in much the same way that Penapul’s tribe had done the day I had arrived at Humboldt Bay. They probably had even fewer opportunities to see white men, if indeed they had seen any at all. We were guided to one of the houses, and there I saw human skulls hanging from the rafters. I wondered if these were collected from the same tribes that were enemies of Penapul’s tribe. Or perhaps some of them actually were from Penapul’s tribe, as I had come to realize in recent days, due to my discussions with Amborn, that the occasional raiding of villages seemed to be a natural part of life here, and was not an act that would preclude friendly trading between tribes.

These villagers regularly provided feathers and skins to the Humboldt Bay tribe, who in turn exchanged some of them for goods from the Bugis traders and gave some of them to the Sultan of Tidore as annual payment of tribute. When my boys explained to them what I wished to purchase, they were delighted, and soon I had numerous dried skins of Paradise Birds from which to choose. Some of the birds were poorly prepared and not suitable for my needs, and all but one of them were the common yellow type. The other was a magnificent specimen, of a type that I thought might be new to science. It had a head of yellow and black, but the body was covered in feathers of rust brown and orange, with the most remarkable lengthened, bright orange feathers protruding from the body behind the wings. This skin was well preserved, likely because the Papuans knew it would bring a higher price. I selected three of the common type and the rare orange one. Not knowing what goods the natives would value, I had brought a variety of items, but they were most interested in knives and choppers, and were quite willing to accept only a few of these for the birds. I had Amborn ask them if they would be willing to collect more types of Paradise Birds for me to purchase from them, and this resulted in enthusiastic nodding of their heads and waving of their new knives and choppers.

I was pleased with the day’s success and believed this to be a promising trading arrangement with the mountain tribe.

But this was not to be, for on the next day, Penapul, having heard the circumstances of my trading with the neighboring tribe, arrived at my house with a group of tribesmen, including my three boys. He was in a frightful state of agitation, and my first thought was that they had come to add my skull to their collection. Penapul repeatedly pointed in the direction of the mountain village, indicating his disapproval of my previous day’s trading. He then turned to Amborn, who was now making an effort to avoid looking directly at me, apparently torn between the words of his chief and his loyalty to me. After some excited words between them, Amborn explained to me, with words and gesticulations, that he was to fetch the birds I had procured the day before and turn them over to Penapul. I was reluctant to allow him to do this, but I had no intention of giving up my head for such a cause, as I was quite fond of it.

At this point the lieutenant and soldier from Tidore arrived. I explained in Malay what was happening. The two men then confronted the natives, threatening them with their guns. The dispute was quickly becoming alarming, which was likely made worse by their incapability to properly communicate. Finally I had to place myself between them to protect the men whose purpose was actually to protect me. I simply stood between them with my hands held before me, hoping the natives would recognize the respect due to a civilized man, until things became quiet. Reluctantly, I went into my house and selected two of the common yellow Paradise Birds and gave them to Penapul, hoping he did not know of the other two. He nodded at this, apparently satisfied, and soon he and his tribesmen left me alone with the lieutenant and soldier. The lieutenant told me it would be best if he and his man were to guard my house whenever I left it again to go collecting, as the Papuans would surely try to steal my belongings upon the first opportunity to do so. I rather doubted the threat to be that extreme, but I agreed, as the two men had no other purpose here but to protect and assist me, and this would keep them safely occupied some distance from the villagers, thus avoiding further conflict.

I made a few moderately successful collecting excursions in the area near my house during the two days following, and on the third day I instructed Amborn to again take me to the mountain village. I had every legal right to do this, with the proper letter of authority, and after several days of pondering the injustice of my situation, I made the decision with confidence. To my surprise, Amborn agreed to take me there. I asked the lieutenant to guard my house, and we then departed. However, when we arrived at the village, there were no friendly greetings, and we were told they had not been successful hunting and therefore had no specimens to trade. When asked if they would have some soon, they just shook their heads. I could only assume that Penapul’s tribesmen had gone to the mountain tribe to warn them to avoid trading with me. This would explain why Amborn was willing to take me there.

I returned to the Humboldt Bay village frustrated and with no specimens other than a few common birds we had shot while walking. To add to my difficulties, I arrived at my house to discover it abandoned by the lieutenant and soldier. Thinking they might be sleeping or eating, I went to the hut where they resided, but they were not there, nor were their belongings. I returned to my house to enlist the help of Amborn, who was busy skinning the birds we had shot. I took him to the lieutenant’s hut and used my limited vocabulary to tell him I wished to know their whereabouts. I then took him to find the chief, and with much gesticulating and talking, I was told that a trader had arrived while I was inland, and that the lieutenant and soldier had decided to return to Tidore aboard the trader’s prau. This explanation seemed to me to be suspicious. Firstly, the lieutenant had said nothing to me in regards to leaving at the next opportunity. Secondly, it seemed unusual that the trader would arrive, conduct his business, and then depart within such a brief time. But no amount of questioning could produce any further explanation that might settle my doubts.

In the days following, it seemed as if many of the villagers went to some trouble to avoid my presence, often looking at the ground when passing by me, or even turning to walk a different path when seeing me approaching.

In the days leading up to today, I adequately occupied my time by doing some collecting near my house, returning frequently to be sure my property was not being stolen. Continuing this limited habit, however, would never have allowed me to substantially expand my collection, and so I had nearly succeeded in convincing myself that my fears were unfounded, and that I should again begin travelling inland to collect.

My fears, however, were rekindled today. I paid a visit to the chief, Penapul, to purchase some bamboo and wood poles to build next to my house a small hut that would be better suited for preparing meals. Upon entering his house my attention was drawn, as it usually was, to the impressive collection of human skulls hanging from the eaves. On previous visits I had counted eight, at least four more than any of the other houses I had visited. But today there were ten, two of which appeared to be freshly prepared, with gleaming white bones and bits of red tissue still attached in various hard-to-clean notches and crevices.

I will endeavor to find evidence that the two new skulls in Penapul’s hut belonged to my men from Tidore, but I suspect that such evidence would provide me no further comfort or protection. For that, I will continue to have a loaded gun at my side.

5

April 4, 1868

My assistant, Charles Newman, arrived two days ago on the Hester Helena. When the ship arrived, the villagers proceeded to give it the same unfriendly and threatening welcome they had given me, but I was able to convince them that more gifts would be given if they would yield.

Charles stepped from the ship’s tender to the shore wearing a black coat over a black waistcoat and white shirt, looking altogether uncomfortable and misplaced. Although thirty-four years old, his diminutive stature, wavy black hair, and sprightly bearing made him appear much younger. The indigenes were curious about Charles, but if they held suspicions about his purpose here, they did not reveal them, nor did they threaten him once he was upon the shore. When they surrounded him to inspect his strange clothing, he nearly disappeared in their midst, though I occasionally glimpsed his fearful eyes as he attempted to look to me for reassurance that he was not about to be run through with a chopper or spear.

At last the natives gave way, and I was able to embrace him and then shake his hand, which I did most vigorously.

“I am as pleased as all creation to stand at last on the shore of New Guinea.” Charles said. “I trust that things have gone well for you here.”

“Well, I still have my skull, at least for now,” said I.

He frowned at this, so I laughed and told him we would discuss it later. We then occupied ourselves with unloading his possessions, and I talked for some time with the schooner’s captain.

Even I can scarcely believe that, as a man of good breeding and some intelligence, I did not load my things onto the ship and travel with Charles to a less threatening location. Indeed I did consider it, and the ship’s captain even encouraged me to do so. But I was overcome by an odd and perhaps unwise sense of resolve to surmount the adversity of my current station. I felt that if I were to give up and leave Humboldt Bay, I would be forced to consider a failure the mission I had dreamed and planned for so long. And I was encouraged by the unencumbered enthusiasm of my dear assistant, Charles, who seemed even more delighted to be here than I had been when I first arrived.

The villagers gradually retreated to their houses and previous tasks, leaving us alone by the shore. With Charles at my side, I watched the Hester Helena sail from Humboldt Bay, hoping we would still be alive upon its return three years hence.

“Sir,” Charles said, breaking the silence, “you are the author of my delight. I am here at your will, and I can scarcely express enough gratitude. Since I was a boy I have dreamed of sharing in the glory seen by stalwart explorers of such wild places.” He turned to face the inland and raised his hands. “And this, sir, is the wildest of them all.”

I laughed, having nearly forgotten the extent of Charles’ enthusiasm, kindness of disposition, and fondness for well-spoken words. “It is I who would thank you,” said I. “My stay here has been less than fruitful, but with your assistance I will soon remedy the situation.”

Charles straightened his back, as if to become taller. “Sir, by my honor, which is bright and unsullied, I am at your service.”

I introduced Charles to my boys, and we had them move his baggage into the house, which was now getting rather full. We then found Penapul and gave him a bottle of arrack in exchange for some bamboo, which we used to construct a bedstead for Charles, similar to my own. I insisted that Charles sleep in my house until we had the opportunity to build a second house adjacent to it.

Charles had brought me several letters from my mother and father, and from my beloved Lindsey. Before I had left England, Lindsey had agreed to marry me upon my return, which was to be no more than four years after my departure, and I took great pleasure in reading her letters. There was even a letter from Alfred Wallace, offering me encouragement and a few words of advice that he had forgotten to mention when we had met. Charles then told me, with characteristic humor and oratory skill, of his travels. He had actually enjoyed his time on each of the ships, indicating that he was rather more suited to life upon the sea than I had been, which made me feel less troubled over purchasing a servant’s ticket for him.

Only after I had sent my boys home for the day, and it was late in the evening, did I finally explain all the details of my disagreeable situation to him. I found his words regarding this to be encouraging.

* * *

Note: When transcribing this notebook, I determined that writing some of the conversations exactly as they took place would help readers understand the decisions that were made leading up to subsequent fateful events. Below is the conversation that took place after I had explained to Charles all that had happened. Due to Charles’ penchant for colloquialisms, I have added, parenthetically, a few translations.

* * *

“I certainly see why you are in such a state of hugger-mugger (confusion),” said Charles. “Perhaps the simplest explanation is that the soldiers from Tidore had grown weary of the place and did indeed take advantage of a trading prau that happened to arrive on the very day you visited the mountain tribe. I would have gone to the Sultan of Tidore to inquire as to whether they had safely returned to their stations there, had I known there was such a need.”

“Yes, it is possible that they left on a trading vessel,” said I. “But I find the entire situation to be troubling nevertheless. While the Hester Helena was here today, I asked Captain Duivenboden if he had heard any news of the two men returning to Tidore, but he had heard nothing.”

“Which by no means proves anything one way or the other,” said he.

“Quite true.”

After thinking quietly for some time, Charles said, “Perhaps we should pocket the native chief’s affronts to your rights and consider things from his perspective.”

“Go on.”

“Penapul believes that he holds the rights to trading in the area surrounding his village, notwithstanding true and legal control being granted to the Sultan of Tidore. I imagine Penapul loves the Sultan as the Devil loves holy water, and no doubt he has fought to maintain his trading rights for many years. In his eyes this may be as precious to him as your rights as an English gentleman are to you. But you wish to collect birds and animals in the area—his area. You do not wish to trade the specimens you collect, nor to hinder in any way his trading of feathers and skins, but it seems likely you would not convince him of such truth.”

“All of which is correct,” I said. “So where does this lead your thoughts?”

“Perhaps we should appear to Penapul that we are willing to come out at the little end of the horn (disadvantaged), when in fact we may come out at the big end. We should promise to him that we will not trade with the mountain tribes.” He held up his hand as I started to speak. “Yes, even though you have legal authority to do so. We should attempt to ask him which specific birds and mammals he does not wish us to collect, and thus we avoid them and remain in his favor. Or perhaps we should ask how far we would need to travel, or if there are any specific areas such as certain mountains or valleys, where he would not object to our collecting.”

I considered this. “I suppose you are correct, although avoiding certain birds and mammals would be less than ideal, as it would result in a collection that does not truly represent the area’s diversity of creatures.”

“You are correct, sir,” said Charles. “But I do wish to see some of the great island of New Guinea before I lay down the knife and fork. I am merely suggesting that we first gain the chief’s favor, and then the fat may burn itself out of the fire (the trouble may blow over).”

Notwithstanding the serious nature of our conversation, I was compelled to laugh, as it had been many weeks since I had enjoyed the company of another civilized man.

“Assuming that the fat does indeed burn itself out of the fire,” said I, “there will be much for us to accomplish in the coming months. Tell me, Charles, of your state of pleasurable excitement, as I am in need of words to remind me of why I endeavored to come here.”

This resulted in a broad smile upon his face. “I fear that you may grow weary of my smirking gigglemug. My being here is like a childhood dream come true. You will be pleased to know that, before departing London, I finished putting up and labeling your substantial collection of beetles from Scotland. So I departed mad as hops (excitable), with no unfinished business to burden my mind. And now that I am here, in spite of my greeting by men who are clearly as savage as a meat axe, I am all-fired grateful for such an opportunity, and I am at your service, bag and baggage.”

* * *

The next morning when my boys arrived to begin working on a house for Charles, I took Amborn with me to see the chief. With the boy’s help I explained to Penapul that I wished to avoid interfering with or intruding upon his trading rights and asked if there might be places we could collect without doing so. He smiled broadly at this and immediately told me of a place where I was welcome to collect anything I wished. He made it abundantly clear that there were many birds and other animals there, and of types that were not to be found near the village. This was quite satisfactory to me, until I asked how far it was. Apparently it required several days of travelling, which meant Charles and I would have to sleep in the forest, without the comforts I had taken no small effort to create in my house. Penapul assured me that my boys would take me there, presumably helping with carrying and with other tasks.

It did somewhat surprise me that Penapul was so pleased to offer this assistance, but any uncertainties I may have had were lessened by my excitement to begin serious collecting efforts again and my hopes of being in the chief’s good favor, which in turn would ensure our safety.

Although I returned to my house with renewed enthusiasm, I still insisted that Charles and I both sleep with loaded guns beside us.

6

April 16, 1868

The construction of Charles’ house went without difficulties. It was, in fact, a more efficient process than the construction of my own house, as I had become much more skillful in conveying to my laborers what I wished for them to do, due to my increasing command of their crude language and of particular gesticulations they understood. We built the house next to mine, at the same height above the ground, although somewhat smaller. The construction took fewer than three days, and this time seemed to pass quickly due to Charles’ interminable fervor.

After the house was complete I endeavored to teach Charles all I had learned regarding the natives, guarding against irritating insects, avoiding certain foods I had found to cause intestinal distress, and other important necessities for living here. I also provided Charles with a systematic review of insects, birds, and other animals I had collected thus far, which was miserably limited.

Finally, we began preparing for an excursion to the region recommended to us by the chief. In preparing the necessary supplies, my boys, Amborn in particular, were very helpful. They demonstrated how we could combine my limited supply of cotton canvas with natural materials from the forest to construct reasonably dry shelters that could be swiftly dismantled and carried for some miles to be erected again for the following night. It was beginning to look like we would be able to travel to the area and collect there for a number of days with acceptable comfort. Furthermore, I was able to make certain that my three boys could carry all necessary equipment and supplies. Charles and I would carry guns, ready to shoot birds and mammals when they were found.

On several occasions during these recent preparations, the chief came to see us. Upon each visit he excitedly gesticulated and talked about the distant region he had informed me about. It was as if he greatly anticipated our departure for the place, and he expressed exaggerated surprise that we had not already travelled there and returned with all manner of rare and magnificent creatures. I was at the same time encouraged and distressed by this newly-acquired attitude of jubilant support. Such copious enthusiasm was not typical for Penapul, and I could not help but find it to be suspicious.

My distress regarding this matter increased yesterday, when Penapul paid us yet another visit. He came to us at a time when my boys were not present, but my rapidly growing ability to communicate allowed me to understand much of what he was saying. He explained that he now wished for my three boys to guide us to the recommended region and then return to the village, leaving us there to collect and manage all necessary tasks on our own. He made it clear that the boys would return to us after an agreed upon number of days and then guide us and carry our supplies back. This arrangement was not satisfactory to me, which I attempted to explain to him. He either did not comprehend or was simply unwilling to discuss it further, for he promptly left us to puzzle over this news.

Last evening, after I had sent my boys away for the day, I discussed this new predicament with Charles.

* * *

Note: Again I have included this conversation exactly as it took place, to help readers understand the decisions that were made leading up to subsequent fateful events.

* * *

I was extremely distressed by our situation, and I paced back and forth in my house, slapping at mosquitoes with more force than necessary. “My instinct tells me I should fear the worst, that perhaps Penapul has instructed the boys to murder us in our sleep and return to the village.”

As soon as I had uttered this, I knew it was not logical, and Charles confirmed this.

“If that were the case, sir, why tell us anything that might cause our suspicion? And for that matter, why not simply murder us here?”

“Well, for one thing, they know we keep our guns with us at all times. But I suppose you are correct. I cannot imagine, however, why he would wish for my boys to leave us in the wilderness. Perhaps he plans to stop them from returning for us, thinking we will perish without their assistance, thus being rid of us without any risk to members of his tribe.”

Charles nodded at this.

“God blind me!” I cried. “We should have left this wretched place on the Hester Helena.”

“Is it possible, sir, that you are allowing the chief to become your bugaboo?” said Charles. “Perhaps we should not worry so much. Since my arrival here, I feel that I have come to know your boys quite well, particularly Amborn. They seem to have substantial loyalty to you, and now perhaps to me as well. And the chief seems to me to have a fancy for putting on the pot (being grand) and is rather impulsive, sometimes becoming excited about one idea or another and then promptly forgetting it in favor of yet another idea that seems interesting for the moment.”

“Again you are correct, Charles. I believe I know what you are suggesting, that we proceed with our plans. When we arrive at or destination, we convince my boys to remain with us as we collect.”

Charles continued my reasoning. “And when we return, Penapul will either have forgotten his exorbitant request or he will have no choice but to welcome us back, given that he seems to be afraid to confront us in person. I would expect him at that juncture to display a bit of podsnappery (willfully ignore inconvenient facts).”

“Charles, you are indeed optimistic, and I cannot express enough gratitude that you are now here with me on this most trying adventure.”

“It seems we have a plan!” he said.

* * *

And so we decided we will leave tomorrow morning. I instructed my boys to arrive early, prepared for a collecting excursion that could last as long as a week.

7

April 20, 1868

A great many remarkable events have occurred since we departed from the village, such that it is difficult for me to believe it was merely three days past. But I shall attempt to tell of them in the order in which they occurred. First, I shall point out that, although I had my doubts during the first day and night of travel, I can now say with some confidence that I am rather well suited to a primitive existence in the tropical wilds. I have come to realize that nearly any difficulty can be overcome with some ingenuity and effort, and I have developed an increasing respect for the practical knowledge of Amborn and his patience in teaching me his apparently inherent skills. The other two boys, Miok and Loo, have proven themselves to be useful but do not seem to have much interest in learning to communicate with me or in teaching me, as Amborn does.

The first day of travelling was trying, as Charles and I were not yet accustomed to the rigors of moving great distances through untrodden forest. However, we soon developed a reasonable rhythm of walking and restful pausing that resulted in steady progress. My boys were considerably more burdened with supplies than Charles and I, but they seemed to travel without tiring, and I became determined to learn to match their pace.

I estimated that we travelled over four miles on the first day. We established our first camp without difficulty, and I was thankful we had practiced the procedures under less demanding circumstances next to my house. I can report with honesty that I slept reasonably well that night. Amborn had instructed me on how to construct a platform of sticks to elevate my sleeping mat several inches above the ground to limit the number of ants crawling over my body during the night. The boys were skillful in constructing these swiftly and with little apparent effort. I had brought a small supply of palm oil for my lamp and for applying to the supports to prevent the ants from climbing them, but Amborn showed me how to accomplish the same task with sap from a tree that he called lanol.

Travelling the second day became even more efficient, and by midday we had covered a distance equal to that of the entire previous day. In the afternoon, as we descended into a valley, my boys stopped and pointed at something. About fifty yards away, I saw movement in the dense trees and realized I was gazing upon the most magnificent bird I had ever seen. I knew it to be a cassowary, though I was sure these birds were not yet known to exist in this region of New Guinea. Its splendid blue and crimson head was held aloft at about the height of my chin by an absurdly slender neck. The bird slowly walked away from us, as if it held no fear of man. Charles saw it, too, and he took aim at it and shot, missing. My gun was loaded with eight shot, which at the considerable distance would have little effect. The bird fled into the forest and was not seen again. It was a disappointing loss, and Charles apologized profusely for failing to kill such a splendid specimen. My boys, apparently excited by the sighting, exchanged enthusiastic words. They then put down their loads and began constructing our camp.

A good number of daylight hours remained in which to travel, and I asked Amborn why we had stopped. He explained that the presence of the cassowary indicated we had arrived at our destination. This delighted me, not only because the journey had taken less time than I had presumed it would, but also because this meant that I might have further opportunities to shoot one of these remarkable birds.

I scouted the immediate area to confirm that fresh water could be procured nearby, and we set about establishing a camp that could sustain us for several days. When things were situated to my satisfaction, I gathered my three boys and attempted to explain that I wished for them to stay with us rather than returning to the village as Penapul had requested. I then gave them a length of fine calico and three new knives as a further incentive to stay. They responded to this by tearing the calico into three equal lengths so that they would each have their own, and then they compared their knives, pointing out the minutest differences that might indicate that their own was better than the other two. Amborn then explained, however, that they had no intention of leaving us alone. They did not remember or were perhaps unaware of the chief’s request. This relieved my anxiety considerably. And again I was relieved, upon the first light of morning, to see that they had not snuck away during the night.

Our first full day of collecting was successful beyond my hopes, as I had become accustomed to my disappointing efforts nearer to Humboldt Bay. We saw two cassowaries, and Charles succeeded in shooting one of them, which did much to ease his suffering personal esteem from the previous day’s miss. This bird not only provided a most impressive skin and feathers, but also a substantial supply of meat that I found to have an agreeable flavor. I am inclined to write at length regarding the anatomical details of this bird, but that should wait until a later date when I have the time to compare specimens and adequately prepare manuscripts for publishing. In addition to the cassowary, we shot seven parrots of five species (including one of deep red), one cockatoo, two lories, three kingfishers, four pigeons of different species, four thrushes of the same species, three species of warblers, one sunbird, two cuckoos, fourteen flycatchers, and a honeysucker. With regard to mammals, we shot a small flying opossum and an opossum-like cuscus.

Insects, particularly butterflies and longicorn beetles, many with a brilliant metallic luster, appeared to be abundant. I collected the most impressive of those we saw, but I decided to devote a day to collecting more insects after first procuring a good representation of the area’s birds and other animals.

And now, at the twilight of our second day of collecting, I will attempt to describe, with as much judicious thought as I can muster, the rather bewildering events of this day. If you have read these words from the beginning, I hope that you have by this point determined that I am a man of reasonable education and civilized notions, devoted to pursuing knowledge and advancing science. I am seldom prone to fantastical ideas or the superstitions inherent in those of a lower state of civilization. Please be mindful of this as you read the following words, as my only intent is to put to paper the things I have witnessed and my attempts to make sense of them.

Knowing that we had supplies for no more than four days of collecting, I began our second day determined to venture inland to the south from our base camp. Then on our third day, I reasoned, we would venture as far as possible to the east, and on our fourth day to the west. Hence we set out early. I had my boys bring choppers and instructed them to clear a wide path as we made our way south. My plan was to establish paths in each direction from our base camp so that we could return here on future collecting trips and use the same paths, thus reducing duplicated efforts. Based upon our success on the previous day, I was even considering building a permanent house at the site of our base camp.

Our progress south was slow, as the jungle was thick and required much chopping. At times, Charles and I even shouldered our guns and assisted with the work. By the time we had progressed about a mile, we had shot a reasonable collection of birds, including two species of parrots I had not collected before and a new pigeon. We had not seen any mammals, probably due to the excessive noise of our chopping efforts. However, suddenly I turned around to see that a large rat-like creature had approached us on the path we had just chopped. The animal had a hairless tail and long, pointed snout, and I recognized it as a bandicoot, although an unusually large type. Bandicoots are ground-dwelling marsupials, and several species have been found on islands of the Malay Archipelago, but none were known to occur in this part of New Guinea, so it was almost certainly a new species. I knew other species of bandicoots to be smaller than this, perhaps twelve inches from snout to base of the tail, but this one appeared to be twice that length. Most unusual was that it seemed to hold no fear of man, and it approached without hesitation. Thinking that perhaps it had simply not seen us, I told Charles to shoot it before it discovered its mistake and ran away. It was an easy shot and a clean kill.

I instructed my boy Miok to stay there and skin the bandicoot, as the entire carcass would be a burden to carry. He was to finish the task and then catch up to us as we continued to the south. But before we were even out of sight of Miok, another bandicoot of the same type approached us. By this time I was quite curious and told Charles to refrain from shooting. Again I thought the creature must have failed to see us, perhaps due to poor sight. Or perhaps it was remarkably stupid. The wretched creature approached us until it was merely a few feet away. It then stopped and settled on its belly upon the ground, as if it were too tired to go any further. I nudged it with my boot and it did nothing more than shift its position a few inches.

I was completely confounded by this strange behavior, as was Charles, and it seemed to drive Amborn and Loo into a state of agitation. They talked with excitement to each other, ignoring Charles and myself as if they had forgotten we were there. I inquired to Amborn as to his opinion on the matter, and he talked to me so rapidly that I could understand none of his words. With some perseverance, I was able to calm him enough to communicate effectively. Apparently he and Loo had heard stories from other members of his tribe of such strange animals living in this place, but they had not had the opportunity to see them with their own eyes. This made me curious, so I inquired as to what other stories about this place they might have been told. Amborn discussed this briefly with Loo and they actually laughed together before he returned his attention to me. He explained that others of his tribe feared this place. Some had apparently travelled here to hunt and had not returned. But he made it clear that he and Loo did not hold the same fears, and I realized that these young men were, in this respect, similar to the boys of Europe. They were skeptical of the opinions of the older generation. Perhaps this is a universal characteristic of young men of all cultures.

Nevertheless, this new information caused me to again consider Penapul’s motives for sending us to such a place. I hadn’t long to contemplate such matters, however, because from the corner of my eye I detected yet another creature moving about. I looked at the spot and saw what appeared to be a tree kangaroo, although at that moment it was on the ground. Instead of foolishly approaching as the two bandicoots had done, this creature sat upon its haunches and carefully watched us. Having never seen a tree kangaroo, except in illustrations, I was quite anxious to add it to my collection. I attempted to direct Charles’ attention to where I had seen it, so that he might shoot it, but by the time he had turned around it had disappeared among the thickest vegetation. We walked to the spot and looked about, but the creature was not to be found.

And then, as if this place were determined to confound us even more, a most alarming thing happened. Amborn crouched low to the ground and gesticulated for us to do the same. He pointed and said the word, abokhai, which I knew to mean “man” or “hunter.” Charles and I looked to where he pointed, but we saw nothing. I was somewhat skeptical, as we had seen no signs of a village or any human presence at all in the region. Unlike the area near Amborn’s village, there were no footpaths, stumps of chopped trees, territory markings, or any other indications that people existed here. After a minute or so Amborn must have decided the abokhai was gone, because he rose to his feet and proceeded to describe the man, using his hands to draw upon his own body various ornamentations the man had worn. He used his word for “green parrot” to indicate the type of feathers the man wore upon his head.

Notwithstanding Amborn’s agitated state and his tribe’s inclination to fantastical beliefs, I considered the possibility that he had indeed seen a man there. Amborn had usually been reliable regarding most matters. Perhaps it was merely a hunter from another tribe, who upon seeing us decided to avoid conflict or perhaps was frightened by the strange occurrence of two white men.

I decided we should continue moving south as we had planned, and we had made another half mile of progress with no incident of any interest occurring, when Miok finally caught up to us. As I turned to watch him approach, I saw that not only had he failed to bring with him his sack of supplies and collected specimens, but he also did not have the skin of the bandicoot. His hands were red from the bandicoot’s blood, but all he carried with him was his skinning knife in one hand and his chopper in the other. Miok was in a state of agitation, and he claimed to have seen not only one, but three abokhai, or hunters. Apparently, two of them had been watching him when he saw them, and he had called out a greeting to them, but they had not responded. He then had seen a third abokhai watching from the opposite direction, upon which he abandoned his supplies and the bandicoot and ran to find us.

Unwilling to leave the specimens and supplies to be stolen by these hunters, if indeed they did exist, I decided we should return as a group to fetch them. I had little fear of being attacked by these strangers, as Amborn, Charles, and myself each carried a loaded gun.

As I now reflect on the events that happened next, they are confusing at best, and at worst they signify that my senses have possibly been attacked and made unreliable due to some spoiled food or intoxicating substance I may have recently swallowed. But I feel no other ill effects, and Charles assures me that he has seen and experienced the very same events. So I wish to write them down while my memory of them is fresh, and perhaps later as I review them with diligence and rigor, I may determine them to be mere symptoms of our exhaustion, dehydration, or some other condition.

As a group armed with three rifles, we returned to the place where Miok had stopped to skin the bandicoot. However, finding the exact location was not as easy as expected. It seemed we had not chopped the vegetation as low as I had thought, and finding the spot required some searching. When we eventually found it, the bandicoot carcass and skin were missing, with only a bloody area to show where they had lain upon the ground. However, it was Miok’s sack of specimens and supplies that I found to be most mystifying. The bag was there on the ground, but its outermost edges seemed to have disintegrated, having been transformed into small dark particles resembling soil. The portion of the bag in the center appeared to be intact, but there was a ring of this soil-like substance about the outer edges, as if the bag were decaying and returning to its basic elements of nature on an unnatural schedule rapid beyond all reason.

I asked Charles to describe in his own words what he was witnessing, and this corroborated my own observations. Even as we stood and watched, this unnatural process of decay continued before our eyes, until the entire sack and its contents were no more than a pile of brown matter upon the ground, even giving off a smell that could not be mistaken for any other than that of moist, fertile soil.

My boys seemed as mystified by this sight as Charles and I were, and they became quiet, whispering soft words between them that I could not discern. It was then that I saw one of the strange hunters with my own eyes. Although the man was partly concealed by a tree, he was near, and I saw that his appearance was quite striking, with handsome, well-defined physiognomy and clear skin that showed no signs of nutritional distress, scars, or disease. Numerous green parrot feathers were fastened to his hair, protruding upward in various directions, and there was pale face paint around the area of his eyes, looking somewhat like a mask. He wore little ornamentation or clothing, other than a cylindrical gourd fitted upon his sexual organ, shorter than those worn by the men of the Humboldt Bay tribe. One of his hands gripped a spear made of wood, its sharpened tip darkened from hardening over a fire. For a moment I gazed at him, and he at me, as I attempted to discern whether he was simply a product of my imagination. Just as I had acquired my wits enough to inform Charles of the man’s presence, the native retreated and seemed to disappear into the vegetation surrounding him. I continued to gaze upon the spot, but he did not reappear.

I was then forced to admit that indeed we were being followed and observed by natives, and as we had all been distressed by what we had witnessed and had lost some of our supplies, I decided it best to return to our camp for the day. The strange and shy natives would hopefully be gone from the area by the next morning when we would return to continue collecting on our southward trail.

However, that was not the last confounding event, as we soon realized the path we had chopped with much effort was not as clear as I remembered it to be. In fact, we soon found ourselves searching for any sign of the path at all, as if we had become lost, or as if the path had never existed. I then found evidence of our chopping, in the form of a plant stem that had been severed, but it appeared that lateral branches lower on the stem had grown upward, so that the remaining plant was now just as tall as it had been before it was chopped. The result of this was that the path was no longer discernable. I found other similar chopped plants that had grown tall again, but these required considerable effort to locate, making it impossible to follow the path in such a way. Hence we were forced to find our way back to our camp without the benefit of a path. This took some time and was slowed by the fact that earlier we had not taken note of landmarks, assuming we would have no need for them.

My native boys have a heightened directional sense, though, allowing them to travel dense jungle better than European men could, and we found our camp before darkness set in, bringing great relief to my mind.

As my boys prepared a meal, I discussed with Charles the events of the day in an attempt to elucidate any overlooked details, and perhaps to find comfort in the rigor of analysis.

* * *

Note: Again I have included this conversation exactly as it took place, to help readers understand the decisions that were made leading up to subsequent fateful events.

* * *

“Perhaps,” said I, “it would be helpful if we were to separate each of the puzzling sights we have seen into their rightful categories. The appearance of the strange hunters, for example, may be entirely unrelated to our becoming lost, or to the unnatural transformation of Miok’s sack of supplies into soil. Cause and effect should not be assumed without compelling evidence.”

“Correct,” said Charles. “We should consider only the facts as we have observed them. All else is lather and prunella (flimsy). Let us first consider this native you saw. I believe you said he had a rather strange appearance.”

“Yes, although putting it to words may be cumbersome.” I thought on this for a moment. “I am compelled to say that he seemed, well, out of place here. There was something about his appearance that set him apart from the Papuan natives I have seen thus far. A primitive and barbarous life here, existing naked and unwashed in the wildest jungle, results in a characteristic appearance that, until now, I believed to be without exception.” I waved my hand at my boys. “Consider Amborn’s tribe. They live in a place where they have access by trade to items from more civilized places, and yet even the younger boys and girls show the telltale signs of weathering, injury, privations, and disease. I imagine most of them cannot expect to live beyond thirty or forty years at most. But this man I saw, this hunter—it was as if I were looking upon the face and skin of a young boy, but he was a man, with a man’s eyes. He gazed upon me with a look that I find hard to describe. His eyes held no fear, only curiosity, as if he were seeing something remarkable he had not seen before, in the same way I might have looked upon the tree kangaroo I saw today.”

For some seconds Charles looked at me before speaking. “I wish I had seen the man myself,” he said. “I imagine he was simply a young hunter who had never had the occasion of seeing white men before. This explanation would comfort me in its unassuming simplicity.”

“For now I will accept that,” I said with some uncertainty.

“I can’t imagine that they have any cause for obstinacy,” Charles said. “Should it please the pigs (if God is willing), these natives may even be willing to assist us in our endeavor. I hope that they approach us so that I might see them with my own eyes.”

“We will know soon enough,” said I. “Let us next consider the chopped plants growing to their original height in a matter of mere hours. I suggest that we assume this phenomenon, rather than being attributed to botanical tissue growth, which seems impossible at the rate we witnessed, to instead be a result of a tropism.”

“A tropism?”

“Yes, yes. My friend, Mr. Wallace, has discussed tropisms, as they are of particular interest to Charles Darwin. The word refers to a tendency of some plants to move toward or away from a stimulus, such as sunlight. Some plants can change their position and angle by expanding the cells on one side of the stem, thus bending toward the sun much more quickly than could be possible with normal growth. And it is possible that some plants might respond thus to trauma.”

“Such as being chopped with a blade,” said Charles.

“Precisely. I have heard this theory referred to as traumatropism, and it may explain how the lower stems of the plants we chopped were able to compensate in such a way, perhaps expanding the cells on the bottom side of each stem, causing them to bend upward.”

Charles appeared to be unconvinced of this, but he said, “So we have adequately—or perhaps I should say tolerably—explained the native hunters and the chopped vegetation. And the unenergetic behavior of the bandicoots can be explained in many ways, such as disease or the fearlessness of being unaware of the threat of man. But what possible hypothesis can we batter through to explain a sack decomposing before our eyes?”

We contemplated this in silence for some minutes.

“The tropical climate holds many mysteries yet unsolved,” said I. “The atmosphere here is quite warm and pure. Perhaps this, as well as some fertile or abounding characteristic of the soil, results in unusually industrious organisms of putrefaction.”

Charles nodded slightly while frowning, indicating his doubts. “Or perhaps the elusive native you saw is in some way responsible. Perhaps he applied some softening ointment or poultice that his tribe may use to hasten decay.” His doubtful frown remained.

Finally I sighed in defeat. “I have seen nothing like it before, and my thoughts fail me. Perhaps a decent night of sleep and the light of a new day will renew our perspective on this. Perhaps tomorrow, Charles, the answer will find us.”

“Or perhaps,” said he, “we will find that we have been allured by the blue roses of an impossible conundrum.”

* * *

That is an account of today’s events. Even at this late hour, as I sit upon my primitive bed, writing by the light of my palm oil lamp and contemplating a plan for tomorrow, I have little confidence in our explanations for what we have witnessed. My curiosity implores me to set out to the south again, perhaps marking our passage rather than chopping a path, so that we can further investigate any secrets this strange place may yield.

8

April 21, 1868

It seems almost certain these words will be my last, as I have little hope of waking to see another day once I close my eyes to sleep. Furthermore, it is equally probable that these words will never be read. If by some miraculous turn of fate they are found and read by civilized eyes, they may be dismissed as the rantings of a dying man. If you do find yourself in possession of this notebook, please know that I, Samuel Thaddeus Inwood, English gentleman and man of science, am truly sorry for the pain of bereavement forced upon my parents, my betrothed, the family of my assistant Charles Newman, and the families of my boys Amborn, Miok, and Loo. Perhaps most importantly, please know that here, in this darkest jungle, there remains hidden a most mysterious phenomenon. It is a substance of no great beauty or magnificence. But this is misleading, because at the least it holds the most peculiar properties, and at most it may be the humble disguise of God Himself.

I must get on with it, lest I pass away before explaining.

Following yesterday’s strange events, we determined early this morning to try again to travel south from our base camp to continue collecting. I tore some calico into strips and tied these to trees to mark our way.

After an hour of travelling to the south, during which we had shot several new birds, I saw a tree kangaroo in the branches above us. It gazed upon me in such a way as to make me think it may have been the very same tree kangaroo I had seen the previous day. It had the same look in its eyes—curious but not afraid. This time the creature made no attempt to run away, and I pointed it out to Charles, who always kept his gun loaded with a ball. Charles took aim and shot, and the tree kangaroo fell to the ground. We approached it, and to all appearances it was dead.

Just as I congratulated Charles on an excellent shot, I heard a disturbance in the trees behind us, followed by a snorting sound from Charles I had never heard him make before. I turned to him and to my horror saw that he had been run through from behind by a native’s spear. With a wretched expression upon his face, he groped at the bloody point of the spear protruding from his abdomen. I desperately tried cocking the hammer on my gun, but it slipped from my thumb, and my number eight shot fired uselessly into the ground. The owner of the spear pulled it free. Charles staggered and turned to face him. The native immediately ran him through again, this time through the throat. Charles fell to the ground, twisting wildly about, struggling to breathe but inhaling only his own blood.

Amborn, Miok, and Loo dropped their sacks of supplies and the gun and began running back the way we had come. This turned out to be the worst direction possible, as two more natives stepped forth from the trees, directly in their path. My boys pulled their skinning knives from their waist cords, however these were pitiable weapons against the attackers’ long spears. Amborn let out a dismal shriek, attempting to sound fierce, but his voice carried the tenor of desperate fear.

The man who had stabbed Charles appraised me for a moment, looking in particular at my gun, which was still smoking from the ineffectual shot. He must have decided that I presented no further threat, as he moved away from me and into position behind my boys, preventing their retreat. Before I had the wits or means to protect them, the boys were savagely attacked by all three of the men, pierced repeatedly in their heads and necks until they lay dead upon the ground.

In a state of bewilderment I turned my eyes from the bodies of my boys back to Charles, who was at this point hardly moving at all, his eyes wide and staring directly at me. I had been trying uselessly to reload my gun, and I simply tossed it aside and knelt beside Charles. The natives were coming for me, and I decided my last moment would be better spent consoling my dear friend. I put my hand upon his cheek and realized I was too late, as Charles was already dead.

I heard the murderous savages speak to each other as they stood behind me. Still on my knees, I turned to them and held out my hands, determined on appearing agreeable. But instead of looking at me, their attention was fixed upon something to the side. I turned to look, and there was the tree kangaroo I had instructed Charles to shoot. I had been quite sure the rifle ball had killed it, but obviously I had been mistaken, for now the creature was sitting up, licking its substantial wound.

The resurrected creature then walked toward us until it was directly between me and the men who intended to murder me. What happened next you might find difficult to believe, but as these are likely my last words, I have every intention of writing what I know to be true, other opinions be damned. The tree kangaroo sat upon its haunches and moved its forepaws about in a most peculiar way, looking very much as if the gesticulations held some intelligent meaning rather than the brutish and random movements of a lower animal. The Papuan men watched this display with interest, after which they exchanged words I could not understand, as they had little resemblance to the language of Penapul’s tribe.

As they talked, shook their heads, and pointed in my direction, I waited, distressed and stupefied, for my death. One of them was the same man I had seen the day before, with green parrot feathers still protruding from his frizzly hair. The other two wore woven bands around their arms with black cassowary feathers attached, but they had no headdresses or feathers upon their heads. All of them bore the same strange appearance of having bodies of men wrapped in the youthful skin of boys.

At last they seemed to come to an agreement about something and turned their attention to me. I tried to prepare for my death by expressing a silent prayer, but my thoughts were jumbled and quite useless. Instead of immediately murdering me as I expected them to, they took hold of my shirt and tore it from my body. After passing my ruined shirt between them and observing it with curiosity, they tossed it to the ground. They grasped my boots and pulled on them, causing me to tumble. They pulled my boots from my feet, inspected them, and tossed them next to the shirt. When they came for my trousers, I tried to resist. One of them clubbed me on the side of my face with the shaft of his spear, nearly knocking me senseless. They removed the last of my clothing, leaving me in a state of nature, without dignity. The brute with green feathers upon his head picked up my spectacles, which had been knocked to the ground. He inspected them for a moment and then picked up my satchel, which had been pulled from me when my shirt had been taken. He removed my field notebook, looked it over, and returned it to the satchel along with my spectacles. He then placed the satchel over his shoulder as he had seen it on mine, which resulted in laughter from his companions.

With blurred vision due to my spectacles having been stolen and the blood flowing from my forehead into my eyes, I watched one of the men select a sapling about an inch in diameter and pull it from the soil. He removed the lateral stems and leaves until it was no more than a flexible stick with a point at one end and a soil-covered root ball at the other. He and the others approached me, and I rose to my knees so that I might hold my head upright with some small amount of dignity before being run through with their spears.

As the savage with green feathers gazed at me, I said, “If you wish to kill me, have the decency to do it now.”

The man actually smiled, although this hardly provided me any comfort. His companions held my arms and head so that I could not struggle. With one hand, the green-feathered man then grasped the pectoral muscle on one side of my chest and pulled it outward. With his other hand he drove the point of his spear entirely through the pinched fold of muscle. I cried out in despair but was unable to move. He withdrew the spear and then threaded the tip of the sapling through the bleeding hole until he could grasp the tip as it came out the other side of the fold of flesh.

The piercing of the spear had been distressingly painful, but it hardly prepared me for the torment that ensued when the man held the distal tip of the sapling and pulled on it until the entire sapling had passed through my pectoral muscle and the wide root ball stopped it from being pulled through completely. I felt the glorious relief of fainting coming upon me, but the man then pulled on his end of the sapling, forcing me upward onto my feet in the most insufferable way.

I attempted to beg them to simply kill me, but coherent words would not form upon my lips. As I watched them through enfeebled eyes, one of the men opened a small leather pouch that hung from his neck. He scooped some unknown substance from the pouch onto his finger as if it were betel. Systematically and with apparent purpose, he smeared some of the substance upon the bodies of Charles and my three boys, and then upon the pile of my clothing and the three guns. While these puzzling acts took place, the tree kangaroo I had thought to be dead sat upon its haunches and watched, as a domestic dog might watch with interest its European owners preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

Without a word spoken, the natives turned to leave. The man with green feathers pulled on the sapling in such a way that I was forced to follow to avoid great pain. It was then that I realized the sapling was nothing more than a cruel leash with which to lead me and prevent me from running away.

For perhaps an hour I was pulled along, naked and bleeding, by my pectoral muscle, occasionally stumbling and causing myself great discomfort. My mind could think of nothing but putting one foot before the other, and of what barbarous plans these savages intended for me. If they were cannibals, it seemed odd that they had left behind the bodies of Charles and my boys. Alternatively, if they intended to keep me alive, it seemed they had failed at this, as I would surely perish from the wound they had inflicted upon me. Without proper medicines, which I felt sure they did not have, it would soon fester and ulcerate. So what possible purpose could they have for me?

We finally arrived at the indigenes’ village, by which time I was significantly weakened from bleeding and exhaustion. I saw several huts, built some height above the ground and supported by corner poles as the huts were in Amborn’s village. But I had little opportunity to observe further, as more tribesmen, perhaps ten in total, soon surrounded me. I saw no women among them. There was much talking among the men, revealing again that their language was unfamiliar to me. As I stood among them I began to stagger on my feet, and when the native holding my rudimentary leash finally released it, I fell to my knees.

The talking soon stopped. It appeared that an agreement had been reached. Three of the men left and soon returned carrying a most ordinary looking object, which they set upon the ground in front of me. It appeared to be a large lump of clay, resting upon a platform of poles fastened together as a means of carrying it. I had no idea of the object’s nature or purpose, but in my desperate state I could only imagine it would somehow be used to further maim or perhaps kill me. I staggered to my feet and attempted to run. Immediately I was subdued and held upon the ground.

What happened next is difficult for me to put to words, but as I have said, I have determined to describe all the details of my last hours, in case this notebook might somehow be found.

Held firmly to the ground, I watched as one of the savages brought forth a sharpened wedge of bamboo. He grasped my bare foot and pushed the foot down on its side. He then positioned the sharpened edge against the large tendon above my heel. The man next to him raised his foot and brought it down upon the bamboo wedge, forcing it to cut entirely through the tendon, severing it.

So shocked was I by the ruthless cruelty of this act that I hardly cried out in my suffering, simply watching as they performed the same operation on my other heel.

I was then unable to run, walk, or even stand upon my feet, and the men dragged me by my arms back to the lump of clay. They dropped me before it and then stood watching.

I crouched there upon my knees, sobbing. I had no idea what they wanted of me.

A spear point punctured my thigh, and then another, forcing me to crawl closer to the object. This continued mercilessly until I was merely inches from it. It appeared to be nothing more than clay, perhaps dug from the ground, pressed into a somewhat spherical lump about two feet in diameter. I could not imagine what sinister purpose it might serve in my prolonged and unpleasant death. Yet another spear to my thigh forced me upon it. I placed my hands on its surface, thinking the savages must wish for me to do something with it.

It may be assumed that what I remember happening next is the fevered and false visions of a dying man. However, even at this moment of my last twilight, it seems to me to have been real and true.

Upon laying my hands on the clay, I saw before my eyes a sight that I thought to be of my mind’s trickery. I saw figures there, like letters of some unknown script, just before my face. I withdrew my hands, intending to rub the blood from my eyes, and the figures vanished. I blinked and looked up at my murderous captors. They watched me with great interest. I returned my hands to the clay and the symbols appeared again. Everything within my view was blurred due to my missing spectacles, but these figures were in perfect focus. With one hand remaining on the clay, I waved my other hand through the apparition. Although I felt nothing against my skin, the strange figures moved about in reaction, as if they were made of wood and were floating about upon a pool of water. I held my hand to the side of one of them and then waved it through the figure. The figure flew to the side and disappeared, as if my hand had pushed it away. I repeated this operation with each of the other figures until they were all gone.

But soon after I had rid the last of them from my sight, the figures appeared before me again, perhaps fifteen of them. It occurred to me that I had perhaps gone completely mad. Seeking some measure of comfort, I withdrew from the clay, and the supernatural vision vanished. But this did not please the natives, and they stabbed at me viciously with their spears, forcing me to lay my hands upon it yet again. And again the figures appeared. But this time, soon after appearing, they began to move about on their own, with no influence from me. One figure moved to the side and stopped. Then two more moved out of the main group and stopped just above the first one, followed by three that stopped above those, and then four above those. There were still six more in the original group, and I watched, somewhat expecting to see five of them move into place above the last four, completing what appeared to be a numerical pattern. But they remained still, so I extended a hand and waved five of them into their logical place.

They all vanished before my eyes and were replaced by even more than there were before. Again the figures began moving, with one taking position on the bottom and two above it. But then, instead of three moving into place above the two, this time four of the figures moved into position above the two, and then eight more above the four. When they did not move again, I carefully waved sixteen figures into place above the eight.

They all vanished and were replaced by perhaps a hundred more. But suddenly I felt overcome with pain and confusion and fell to my side, releasing the mysterious lump of clay, again causing the figures to vanish. What manner of substance was this? Civilized man was the only creature capable of arranging such mathematical patterns. And how could these figures appear and move in such a way? It seemed as if I were being tested, to prove I was capable of understanding the patterns. It then occurred to me, however, that I was a dying man, and my state of dying was precisely why these visions had befallen me. God Himself was speaking to me. He was testing me, determining whether I was worthy of entering His Kingdom.

I was torn from my forlorn thoughts by the point of a savage’s spear. By this time my body was bleeding from numerous punctures, as well as my severed heel tendons, and I was feeling like I might lose consciousness. The natives forced me up to my knees and I again rested myself against the clay, this time in order to prevent my body from collapsing. The strange figures appeared before me yet again. I gazed upon them as they began to move into another pattern. I now felt oddly comforted, due to my belief that God was there with me. I simply watched the figures, with no intention of moving, waiting for my final moment to arrive.

The natives began talking behind me. They were becoming agitated. Still I did not move. Suddenly I was aware of extreme pain in my thigh. I looked down to see the sharp end of a spear, red with my own blood and protruding out by several inches. Then another appeared at its side, having been driven through my leg with great force. The pain of this caused me to abandon my attempts at dying with a measure of dignity. I wrapped my arms about the clay and held it tightly, hoping that His presence within it might ease my passing.

I cried out, “God, spare me! I can endure no more!”

A brief moment later there was an odd sensation of tingling within my hands. It quickly spread to my arms and then throughout my body. When the sensation passed into my legs, my pain diminished. I looked down at the spear tips, which were now being twisted about by the men in their attempts to force me to do whatever it was that they wished of me.

Suddenly, in my thigh burned a pain even greater than before. There was the smell of burning flesh. Before I could comprehend what was occurring, the spear tips ignited with flames. As I cried out in my suffering, the natives pulled their spears from my flesh and stared at the tips, which were still burning. They quickly recovered their senses and extinguished the spears upon the ground.

The events following this apparent miracle are difficult for me to recall, as I had been driven to a stupefied state. I fell to the ground, unable to support myself even with the help of God Himself. The natives stood over me as they engaged in a discussion. Finally, they grasped my ruined legs and dragged me some distance. One of them tied a rope around my ankles, with no regard for my wounds. I remember groaning at the pain this caused, as I had become too weak to cry out. Then, as they hoisted me up by my ankles to one of the raised houses, I discovered I was still quite capable of screaming.

The next thing I recall was awaking upon the floor of the hut. The native men were gone but for one, the savage with green feathers upon his head. He stood above me, gazing at me with no intelligent expression upon his face. When he saw me lift my head, he kicked one of my feet, which caused me to groan.

“What do you wish of me?” I said to him.

He continued to gaze at me for a moment, and then he spoke slowly and clearly.

“Gu laléo. Gu aup Lamotelokhai.”

* * *

Note: By the time I transcribed this notebook, I had a good grasp of the language of this tribe, and I determined that translating some of the conversations exactly as they took place would help readers understand important events. Below is my translation (added when transcribing this notebook):

* * *

“You are an outsider. You talk to the Lamotelokhai.”

* * *

He then removed my satchel, which was still hanging from his shoulder, and dropped it on the floor beside me. He went to the door and began descending the ladder. Before he was out of my sight, he glanced at me a final time and smiled, exposing perfectly healthy teeth.

After lying alone in the hut for some time, I crawled to the wall so that I might sit against it. I opened my satchel to find that all its contents were still there, including my spectacles, notebook, ink, pens, and nibs. I inspected the wounds on my heels. They had stopped bleeding, which surprised me, but I knew that even if I were to survive another day, I would likely never again be capable of walking.

So my fate, it seems, is determined. I shall perish here, if not tonight, then certainly within a few days. As poor Charles might have said, I am creating a vacancy. And I have no return ticket. I have spent the last hours of daylight writing an account of these events. I now feel overcome with the need for rest, and my fantastical determination that God has somehow spoken to me through a lump of clay seems more absurd with every passing moment.

9

April 22, 1868

Never have I been a particularly religious man. I dare say that my relations with God have been primarily based upon necessity. I felt it necessary to attend my family’s church, St Mary Aldermary. I felt it necessary to agree to be married to Lindsey, my betrothed, in the very same church. Many of my colleagues in science seem to delight in discoveries that most confound the doctrines of Christianity. I, however, as a matter of necessity, have sought to recognize the hand of God in every wonder of nature, as otherwise the complexities of the natural world bewilder my thoughts. Furthermore, upon those rare occasions when I have felt my very life to be at risk, I have prayed to God for the kindness of good fortune.

And so it is that I feel I have betrayed the graces that God has bestowed upon me, as even at this moment, when ample evidence suggests that God has spared my life, I cannot help but question if it was indeed His will. Now that immediate death no longer haunts my thoughts, I feel a need to look at my situation rationally and without preconception. What is it, exactly, that is happening to me? If rigorous analysis proves that my circumstances have improved due to the forgiving hand of God, then I shall forever be His grateful servant. However, if, as I am beginning to suspect, my condition is due simply to the influences of natural, corporeal phenomena, then I must endeavor to better understand these phenomena, as they surely are unknown to science and the civilized world.

I shall describe the events of this day to facilitate this analysis.

I awoke several times during the night. Surprisingly, this was due to reasons other than the pain of my injuries. The first time I awoke, it was due to experiencing a most unusual dream. It seemed to me at the time to be real, such that I awoke truly believing I had experienced its events. The dream began in the heavens, in which innumerable stars populated the dark night sky. However, rather than the familiar situation of stars overhead and ground below, there were stars in every direction—above, below, and to all sides. I was able to look in any direction at will but was unable to see my own body. There was nothing but black sky and stars. To my surprise I saw no familiar constellations. And I had considerable time to examine the stars, so long in fact that I was nearly overcome with a sense of aloneness, as if I had been there with only stars as my company for years, or perhaps centuries.

At last the previously unchanging view of the heavens began to shift, and I had the sensation that it was I who was moving. The stars began to shift faster, and faster still, until new stars were passing by me before I could get a proper look at them. If there were constellations that I knew, they passed by unrecognized. Again, this state of movement seemed to go on for a very long time, and my sense of aloneness intensified.

Finally, a star in the distance seemed to grow larger, as if it were getting gradually closer. As it continued to grow, it became so bright that I could not gaze directly upon it, and it was then that I saw something quite astonishing. Beside the star was a world, steadily growing larger as I drew nearer to it. It was rather like looking at the moon when it is full and round, but instead of a stark and dead surface, this world was vivid with blue oceans, brown continents, and white clouds. As the world drew even closer, I saw something else. It was a smaller world, the moon with which we are all familiar. I knew then that I was gazing upon the earth itself, in a way that no man had ever done before. Although I knew it must have been the earth, the shapes and arrangements of the continents puzzled me, as they did not resemble those that modern man has determined to be so, as shown on every globe installed in schools of civilized countries. The continents before me were somewhat recognizable, but arranged in such a way that reminded me of a map I had seen, created by the geographer Antonio Snider-Pelligrini, in which he theorized that the continents had gradually drifted about on the earth’s surface. If Mr. Snider-Pellegrini was correct, I was observing the earth as it appeared in some long-past age.

The earth grew larger and filled my entire vision, and still I moved closer, until I passed directly through a thin layer of clouds. In the next instant I was on a barren, brown landscape, devoid of any discernable living things. Bare rocks and volcanic mountains could be seen in every direction to the horizon. Again I had the strange sensation that an unimaginable duration of time was passing, and as I watched, the landscape around me began to change. Bodies of water advanced and receded in a matter of seconds. Brown rocks and dirt gave way to a thin layer of green upon the ground, followed by taller vegetation. Great forests filled the landscape, and like the bodies of water, they advanced and receded again and again. Mountains rose abruptly and gradually leveled out as they were washed into the seas. Still I felt a sense of aloneness, but now this was alleviated by another sensation, that of great anticipation.

At last the passing of time diminished. I found myself in a jungle, not unlike the forest of my present situation. The smell of moist soil entered my nostrils, and I heard the singing of birds and felt the tropical climate. To my surprise, upon the ground before me was a tree kangaroo, of the same type Charles had shot. It gazed at me, and then it turned and ran away. I followed. The creature led me directly to the village of the barbarous indigenes who had killed Charles and my boys, and there upon its carrying frame was the same confounding lump of clay. But this time, in this strange and vivid dream, I did not give a moment’s thought to the presence of God. Instead, I was overcome with a different understanding, that there was indeed a presence there, but most assuredly not that of God. Notwithstanding that an intelligent presence within a lump of clay naturally implies an act of God, I somehow was aware that this presence, rather than being the creator of this earth, was upon the earth after having journeyed a great distance.

That is when I awoke. And rather than lying in the darkness and brooding over my ruined body and impending death, I thought only of the importance of my dream. Had it been more than a mere dream?

I awoke again later in the night, thinking that ants or some other pests were creeping about upon my body and entering my wounds. It felt as if each puncture and gash were crawling with activity. But when I felt them with my fingertips, I could find no evidence of marauding insects, and I had no source of light for a visual inspection. As I lay there trying to rest, I continued to feel as if things were moving about on my wounds, or perhaps that the torn skin itself were moving.

Eventually I awoke yet again and saw that the night had passed and so had much of the morning. I heard the softly spoken words of my Papuan captors somewhere outside. As I lay there on my side, gazing at the hut’s wall and slowly gaining my senses, I realized that I felt no pain. I sat up, surprisingly with no discomfort. Still completely naked, I inspected my wounds, upon which I became greatly confused. The spear punctures were nearly healed, as was my pectoral muscle that had been run completely through. Fresh and pale skin had grown over them, making them appear as scars from injuries that had occurred weeks before. Was it possible that I had slept for such a long time? I rubbed the scars with my fingers and still felt no pain. Next I inspected my severed heel tendons and found them to be in the same advanced state of healing. I knew this to be quite impossible, as severed heel tendons snap apart in such a way that they must be forcibly pulled together to be carefully sewn, an operation that rarely results in a patient’s ability to walk or run as he once did. But my tendons seemed to have reattached themselves. I put pressure upon one heel and the tendon grew tight without rupturing. I then rose to my feet and carefully took a few steps. To my amazement, the tendons functioned satisfactorily. I walked to the door of the hut, which was about fifteen feet above the ground, and below me two tribesmen sat together, quietly talking. When they saw me, one of them stood and shouted, at the same time thrusting his spear in my direction, a clear message that I was not to leave the hut. And so I spent the next few hours pacing, contemplating my miraculous recovery, and feeling my body seemingly grow stronger with each passing moment. Finally, I sat with my satchel to write these events in my notebook.

To any civilized person who might be reading these words, you probably assume that there can be only two possible explanations: either I have gone mad, or God did indeed act on my behalf. I did, after all, beg for His mercy while being tormented. However, now that my mind is clear, I can assure you that there is yet a third possibility, that the mysterious lump of clay, which is not a vessel of God after all, is the author of my current existence. It is a most extraordinary entity, and if I continue to grow stronger and can avoid being murdered by the savages holding me captive, I intend to learn what I can of its particulars.

10

April 23, 1868

Little else of importance happened yesterday after I had written in my notebook, although my captors did finally bring food and water. Late in the afternoon, two tribesmen climbed to my hut and gave me a hollowed-out gourd filled with sago paste, and another containing dirty brown water. I was much in need of these and readily accepted them. Sitting naked upon the floor, I devoured them as my captors watched. One of the men was the savage with green parrot feathers in his hair, the very man who had killed Charles. The other was a man I had not seen before. White cockatoo feathers protruded from his frizzly hair in the same fashion as the green feathers of the first man. In addition, the man with white feathers wore more ornamentation than any of the other tribesmen I had so far seen. Bands of woven grass encircled his upper arms, adorned with black cassowary feathers, and a broad necklace of small white and orange cowrie mollusk shells hung about his neck. This was so wide that it covered his shoulders and much of his chest. Like the other men, he wore a hollow gourd upon his sexual organ, and I saw that his gourd was adorned with figures carved into its surface. Something seemed familiar about these figures, and then I recognized some of them as the same figures that had appeared in my vision when I had put my hands to the mysterious lump of clay. I pointed to the figures on the gourd and asked what significance they held, but of course the men could not understand my words.

At that moment I realized my thoughts had transcended mere concerns over my immediate death. I knew then, and I still believe now, that I may die at the hands of these savages, but a great scientific curiosity was arising within me. I had encountered a phenomenon I could not explain, one that could be of great importance to science. Rather than thinking only of my escape, I began to have thoughts on how I might convince the natives to allow me to live so that I could learn more about what I had observed the last few days. And I was encouraged in this respect when the two men approached me, pointed at the various wounds they had inflicted upon me, and exchanged words. They were discussing my remarkable recovery, indicating that it was important to them.

“Samuel,” I said to them, and I placed my hand on my chest. They gazed at me for a moment, and then I stated my name again.

To my surprise, they each repeated my name, although the pronunciation was less than perfect. I pointed to them and then used gesticulations I thought might express my desire to know their names.

Apparently this worked, as the man with green feathers placed his hand upon his own chest and said, “Sinanie.”

“Sinanie,” I said back to him.

Then the man with white feathers touched his chest and said, “Matiinuo.”

“Matiinuo,” said I.

The two men gazed at me a moment longer, and then they left me alone with nothing to do but ponder my fate.

My second night as a prisoner in the hut was more restful. I slept with relatively little concern or discomfort, notwithstanding the fact that I had no proper bed. Before sleeping I had to relieve my bowels, after which I kicked the feces out the door. Upon doing this, I saw that there were no natives below to prevent my escape. I considered this option for some minutes and even jumped about frantically in the hut to see if my injured ankles were healed to the point of allowing me to run. But the results of this were of mixed implications. On the one hand I experienced no pain and felt as if I could outrun the swiftest native. On the other hand the very truth of this inclined me to believe that, should I successfully escape, I would never have the opportunity to understand what manner of substance could have such astounding qualities of healing. I would be leaving behind a most significant discovery.

It also occurred to me that, should I escape and somehow find my way back to the Humboldt Bay village, I would hardly be welcome there once it was known that Amborn, Miok, and Loo had been murdered while in my service. It seemed that my safety there might be as uncertain as it was here. And so, as astounding as it might seem, I chose to stay in my present situation.

I awoke this morning to another surprise. Unlike the previous night, I had slept without dreaming. Upon awaking, however, I was comforted by a most uncharacteristic sense of well-being. As I lay naked upon the floor, marveling at how I could feel so fit, I attempted to recall the multitude of injuries I had suffered. To my amazement, visions of each event I endeavored to remember came to me with perfect clarity. I could relive each moment as if it were happening all over again. This was at the same time interesting and alarming. I arose and paced about the hut, thinking of events from my past. Each of them, no matter how small or unimportant, appeared as a perfectly detailed vision in my mind. I was able to recall things I had long forgotten: words spoken or read, acquaintances met, and sights I had seen years before, even well back into my youth. It was all quite astounding, and I amused myself in such a way for much of the day, fearing that this unusual intellectual ability might expire at any moment.

As if this were not astonishing enough, there was yet another surprise. As I paced about the hut, it occurred to me that everything before my eyes was perfectly focused, despite the fact that my spectacles were still in my satchel, where I had placed them the previous night. Not since I was merely a boy had my unaided eyes seen things with such clarity. Hence, my spectacles remained in the satchel, as I apparently had no further need for them.

Later in the afternoon, Sinanie and Matiinuo climbed up to my hut again. When I saw that they had no weapons, but instead had brought only food and water, I exclaimed to them with excitement the details of my newfound ability. Of course they could understand none of it, and they observed me in silence for some time. They placed gourds of water and sago paste on the floor, and then Matiinuo came forward. He opened one of his hands, and in it was a white cockatoo feather, similar to those attached to his hair. He grasped the feather with two fingers and then held it against his hair. After a brief moment he moved it to another spot upon his hair, and then to another after that, as if he were unsure of where it should be attached.

I gazed at his frizzly hair, and then I knew. I extended my hand and actually touched a spot on his head. “It was there,” said I. “Yesterday the feather was in that exact location.”

He looked at Sinanie and said, “Mülalüp nokhu-khata-pa amo-ba-lé. Khakhul-fekho lép-telo. Imoné-fekho khil gam.”

Sinanie said, “Yu sol nggulun?”

Matiinuo then said, “Nokhu be-khelép-telo-n-din-da. Nokhu ülmo belén bakha-li. Nokhu funép ülmo lulo-kha-lé. Nokhu funép nggawél ülmo.”

* * *

Note: Again, I have determined that translating some of the conversations exactly as they took place will help readers understand important events. On that day, of course, I could not understand the natives’ words. Now, however, as I transcribe this notebook, I am able to provide a translation:

* * *

Matiinuo: “We have done things like that in former times. Yesterday he was ill. Now he is healthy and improved.”

Sinanie: “Is he a new teacher?”

Matiinuo: “We cannot know. We will not kill him on this day. Perhaps we will kill him tomorrow or the day after. Perhaps we are not willing to kill him.”

* * *

After this exchange of words, the two men gazed at me for a moment, and then they descended to the ground, leaving me alone yet again.

As the afternoon now turns to evening, there is little for me to do other than employ my newfound mental capacity to recall every detail of what I have already learned about these unusual natives and the lump of clay they keep concealed here. Perhaps tomorrow I will have the opportunity to learn more.

11

April 24, 1868

It is a rare thing for a man to experience an event that transforms his mind such that he then views the world with an entirely new perspective. Most men may experience only one such event, perhaps as they pass from boy to man and discover for the first time that all people are capable of malicious and deceitful acts, or perhaps when they learn that they are to be forever subject to a flourishing attraction to members of the fair sex. Nonetheless, in the single day that has passed since I last wrote, I have experienced not one, but two such events, and I fear I shall never be the same man that I was.

I will begin with my dream of last night, my third night as a prisoner here. I hesitate to use the word dream to describe it, as this word implies an unimportant, often senseless transmogrification of a person’s thoughts, somehow conjured during one’s sleep. But this dream, like the dream of my first night here, had little resemblance to any dreams of my past. It was clear and detailed in such a way as to indicate to me that the vision was not from my own imagination, but rather was being shown to me. I am sure of this, because the contents of the vision were quite beyond my own mind’s capacity to concoct.

At some time during the night, which I believe to have been the early morning just before awaking, I was suddenly alert and quite aware of my surroundings. But on this occasion, instead of finding myself in the heavens with nothing but stars to see, I was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, in some strange land unlike any I have seen in my travels. There were rocks below me, and among the rocks were pools of water, rippling from the actions of fish or other aquatic creatures just below the surface. The pools of water stretched out into the distance as far as I could see. Most unusual, however, was the odd red hue of the entire scene, due to the sun just rising from the horizon. And never had I seen a sun like this. It seemed to be far larger than I had ever seen the sun, even just at sunrise, and its color was a deep and spellbinding red. As I watched the sun rise higher, it did not turn from red to brilliant yellow as I have always known the sun to do. Instead, it remained red, although it became much brighter, and it cast a beautiful pink light upon the landscape.

As I watched this immense, crimson sun rising, I noticed yet another curious thing—a web of thin threads suspended in the sky somewhere between the sun and myself. These threads were clearly visible against the red sun, and then when I looked elsewhere in the sky I saw that they were faintly visible from one horizon to the other, as if the entire world were trapped in the vast web of a spider.

I had little time to ponder the impossibility of such a notion, for I began moving, flying perhaps ten yards above the ground. The swirling pools of water passed by below me, gradually at first, but then I flew faster and faster until they passed by in a bewildering blur. I looked ahead, and in the distance I saw a thin, pale line that stretched from the ground all the way up to the heavens. I was sure this was a portion of the vast web that filled the sky far above me, somehow connecting it to the ground. The pale line grew in size as I flew closer to it, until what I had thought was a thin vertical line turned out to be an immense white, cylindrical tower several miles in diameter. I had never dreamed that such a structure could be built and could not imagine what it was that prevented the tower from collapsing under its own weight and falling to the earth. And to my bewilderment, there were other such towers visible in every direction, so far away that they appeared as long threads stretching straight up until they vanished into the heavens.

Before I had time to fully appraise the vastness of the tower before me, I flew into a wide corridor leading to its interior. This corridor bustled with activity, and at first I thought it was filled with people, walking to and fro on their daily business, as crowded as Oxford Street in London. However, I soon determined that they were not people at all, but rather some type of creature that walked with a very different posture. They carried themselves in a nearly horizontal state, with two legs at the posterior and one much thinner leg near the anterior end, which seemed to stiffen with each step and support the creature’s entire weight as the two rear legs swung forward, thus making progress as if using a crutch. I could discern little else regarding their anatomical structure, as I passed by them too swiftly, but it was clear they were unlike any creatures I had ever seen. This was quite bewildering to me, particularly when considering the fact that they moved about with apparent intelligent purpose.

I found the corridor itself to be of interest, as the walls were of a peculiar white material that seemed to emit its own light, thus illuminating the entire hall in a most pleasing way. I continued moving through the long corridor toward the tower’s interior, but I saw that it was joined to many lateral corridors, all of them brimming over with the strange creatures walking with purpose to unknown destinations.

Just when I began to think the corridor might lead me entirely through the tower to the opposite side, the hall gave way to the hollow center of the tower, which was a sight beyond all comprehension. The tower was a vast cylinder, projecting forever upward, and I dare say that the hollow interior was at least two miles across and could have held a small city within it. The inner wall of the cylinder was riddled with innumerable balconies and doorways, where more of the creatures could be seen moving about. Each doorway glowed with its own unique color of light, which when gazed upon from a distance created a beguiling pattern of luminous colors that gradually faded into the distance along the inward curving wall of the enormous cylinder.

The most staggering vision yet came to me when I turned my gaze upward. So tall was the tower that the wall, twinkling with the colored lights of its doorways, gradually receded into the distance and finally appeared as nothing more than grey mist, as if looking into distant fog. The most striking sight to behold, however, was the vast number of objects flying about in this space. I ascertained that the objects were vessels of some sort, as I saw the three-legged creatures entering and exiting them on the ground floor and on the balconies. The flying vessels were perfectly spherical, and like the doorways, they each glowed with their own particular color. However, it was the extraordinary number of them, and the rapid and haphazard manner in which they flew that I found to be so bewildering. As I gazed upward into the atmosphere of the tower, the flying vessels resembled a swarm of thousands of fireflies of every possible color, flying about such that they must surely collide, causing great harm to the passengers within them. However, no such collisions seemed to occur.

By this time I had become convinced that these visions were much more than a mere dream, as even at my most imaginative and intellectual moments I could never have conceived of such magnificent and mystifying products of industrial achievement. These visions were being shown to me, as if some grand being with power equal to that of God Himself wished for me to witness them. Further evidence that these visions were arranged and intentional was provided by the fact that each time I was presented with a sight requiring some time to observe and ponder the significance, my flying motion stopped as if to allow this. Thus, having paused just so long as needed for my appraisal of the tower’s grand interior, I began flying upward.

I cannot say what distance may have passed as I rose swiftly up the tower, other than that it was many miles. And still the endless balconies bustled with the activities of thousands of inhabitants. It confounded my mind to attempt to comprehend the size of the structure and the population it held within it, particularly considering that I had seen additional such towers in the distance before entering this one.

Finally, after what seemed to be many minutes of rising upward, I abruptly changed direction and entered another horizontal corridor, which had the same appearance and bustling of occupants as the first one. This corridor, however, led me back out to the tower’s exterior. Upon exiting the tower, I saw that I was higher above the ground than any man had ever been. The ground was so far below that I could discern no features other than the largest bodies of water and mountains. And above, rather than the pink sky that I had previously observed, was a black sky filled with stars. And still the tower extended far above me as I continued rising upward beside its exterior surface. Finally I saw the tower’s lofty summit. Its top was joined to the vast web of horizontal threads I had seen from far below. From my position I could see three of these threads attached to the distal end of the tower. The angles of these three threads suggested to me that there were three more I could not see extending from the other side.

As I neared the top of the tower, it became apparent that each of the horizontal threads of the web was as large in diameter as the tower itself. Again I wondered how such mass could be held so high above the world without falling and crashing to the ground.

At last I flew above the tower’s summit and changed direction again. Flying toward the center of the enormous circular roof, I saw something remarkable happening there. A cloud of tiny particles slowly rose from the tower’s roof and disappeared into the starry heavens. But as I drew nearer, the particles were larger than I had thought. They were in fact each of them several feet in diameter, and they were flying from hundreds of openings in the tower’s arched roof. I finally came to rest beside one of these openings. A platform slowly appeared out of the hole, and upon it was something I recognized. It was a lump of clay, exactly like that which I had encountered in the village of my captors.

Suddenly, by some hidden mechanical operation below, the platform was thrust upward by a pole to which it was attached, thus tossing the object with considerable force toward the stars above.

The last I remember of this most extraordinary vision was watching as the lump of clay continued flying into the heavens among thousands of others that were being released in a similar way.

That was the vision that appeared to me in the night. I may refer to it as a dream, for want of a better word, but I do not believe I was truly sleeping during the process. I have written this in an attempt to better understand it. Perhaps you will draw a different conclusion than I have. However, at this time, after contemplating all that I have recently witnessed and experienced, and assuming that the wondrous visions were not merely dreams of my mind’s creation, I can think of no better explanation than the following. The lump of clay present in this village is not a natural phenomenon of this world. Instead, it originated on another world, upon which exists a civilization far greater than that of modern men. Like the other industrial achievements of this greater civilization, the lump of clay possesses properties that bewilder the intellect of a man such as myself, as I am certain it would of any other man of this world.

You may conclude that a place of vast towers rising into the heavens must surely be the Kingdom of God. I must disagree. This is not to say that I believe God does not exist, however I must acknowledge that the grand achievements often attributed to God’s hand are stories created by the minds of men. These stories, although they inspire and stir the intentions of innumerable civilized people, are of acts, beings, and objects that are incorporeal and nonmaterial. On the other hand, the achievements of industry I have seen in my visions are physical structures built by corporeal beings. I now believe that somewhere in the heavens is a world where these astonishing structures exist, and I intend to learn whatever I can of the mysterious lump of clay that originated there.

* * *

The second event that changed the way I view the world occurred in the morning, following the aforementioned vision. Upon awaking I was quite pleased to discover that my health had continued to improve. I still felt no pain in the areas of my injuries, and I had retained the capability to recall every past moment of my life. It is scarcely possible to overstate the pleasing benefits of this last condition, as I believe I could be quite content to sit alone for days as I recall in great detail all that I have ever learned and previously forgotten. I do not know for certain to what specific ingredient I owe for this astounding capability, but I now suspect all of my health benefits are a result of laying my hands upon the object that now occupies my thoughts and dreams, the mysterious lump of clay. If I could take this object into my possession and somehow transport it out of this primeval forest and back to London, I can only imagine how it might change that civilized society. If it could benefit others as it has me, then the medical profession would be greatly transformed. Likewise would the profession of education be transformed, as students would retain all that they read and all that they hear spoken.

As if the natives could sense my thoughts lingering on the lump of clay, Sinanie, Matiinuo, and two others came to my hut in the morning and took me again to confront it. I was forced at spear point to descend the ladder and walk to the same clearing where I had been savagely maimed three days before. The lump of clay was then carried out in the same manner as before and placed on the ground before me.

I looked around at the dozen or so Papuan natives gathered there. At first I thought all of them were men, but then I saw one woman. She was standing partially hidden behind one of the men, gazing timidly at me over his shoulder. She was the first female of the tribe I had seen. Her breasts were exposed for all to see, but she wore a cord about her waist from which hung a tightly bunched mat of grass fibers that somewhat covered her reproductive area. Her long, frizzly hair was neatly drawn back and tied into a clump at the back of her head. Numerous cords were tied to the clump of hair and were looped around to the front. Fastened to these cords were a variety of amulets and talismans carved from bone and wood, each of them hanging at a different position between her breasts. This was a pleasing arrangement of ornaments, and like the men around her, she bore the youthful skin of a child upon the body of an adult of indeterminate age.

Matiinuo pointed to the lump of clay, and he said, “Lamotelokhai.”

“Lam-oh-tell-oh-kai,” I repeated slowly. It appeared the tribe had a name for the lump of clay. It seemed to me to have the sound of something of grand importance, suitable to what I already knew of the object.

The men pressed several spear points to my skin to guide me toward it but did not draw blood, which suggested that, at least for the moment, they were no longer interested in causing me injury or pain. I complied, as it was my wish to learn more about the object anyway. I kneeled and put my hands upon the lump of clay, the Lamotelokhai. A cluster of hundreds of the strange figures appeared as an illusion before my eyes, suspended there as if hanging by threads too thin to be seen. One of the figures moved to the side, followed by three more that moved into position just above it. But I was no longer interested in completing mathematical patterns, as I was prepared to test an hypothesis I had developed following my previous encounter with the Lamotelokhai.

Three days before, when I had been pushed to the limits of my endurance, I had cried out to the object for mercy, thinking that God’s presence was within it. And then a miracle had occurred, or so it had seemed. I now determined, based upon that experience, to simply speak to the object.

“From whence have you come?” said I.

Suddenly I no longer was kneeling on the ground in a remote village. Instead, I was back in my previous vision, suspended in the air above a red-hued landscape of rocks and pools of swirling water. In the distance was the tall, thin outline of one of the towers, extending upward and disappearing into the haze of the sky. This was the same place I had visited in my dream, however this time the vision was much more immersive and hypnotic. All of my senses were engaged with stimuli, such as sounds of the water beneath me rippling from the movements of swimming creatures, the warm wind against my skin, and a most overpowering aroma of some unknown and caustic substance in the air itself as it entered my nose and mouth. I was only barely aware that I had ever existed outside of the vision. To make matters worse, confusing images flowed into my mind. I could not understand most of them, however they seemed to be related to the world that I was observing, such as different continents upon it, and how the three-legged inhabitants used the resources of the world to create their towers. Then, suddenly, the vision ended. I was again upon my knees, at the mercy of a dozen savage natives.

So great was the shock of this abrupt assault upon my senses that I nearly toppled over. I recovered my balance and sat motionless for some time, attempting to align my thoughts into some coherent path. Finally, I was able to consider the implications of what had happened. I had spoken a request, and somehow the object had understood and responded by placing a most vivid vision in my mind. But this vision had been so much more than the dreams I had experienced, perhaps because my hands had been resting directly upon the clay. I looked down at my hands. They were now shaking, and I pressed them firmly to the pliant clay to steady them. I attempted to think clearly. It occurred to me that perhaps I should avoid asking further questions, lest I again become overwhelmed. But I was caught in the grip of profound curiosity.

“From whence have I come?” I asked.

Again, a vision flooded my mind. I found myself standing on Hertford Street in Mayfair, London, gazing at the terrace house of my parents, where I had been born and had lived as a child. A carriage passed by me, and I heard the muffled conversation of two gentlemen within it. I smelled the sweat of the horses. It was as if I were there, in the same spot I had stood so many times as a boy. The vision ended, and again I was left reeling from the shock of it. After taking a moment to becalm my mental faculties, it occurred to me that this time I had recovered more quickly, perhaps because the vision had been of a place with which I was already familiar. Or perhaps more experience with such visions made them easier to endure. Following this conjecture, which I now know to be false, I formulated yet another question.

“How is it possible that my grievous wounds came to be healed in only three days?”

Suddenly, it was as if my consciousness had broken free of my physical self and floated away. I was looking at my own body, as if I had become a tiny mosquito and was flying about. With a force apparently beyond my control, I flew to the place where my hand rested upon the Lamotelokhai’s surface. As I moved closer, it seemed as if I were the tiniest of specks, and my own hand loomed before me as large as a mountain. I approached even closer, until the skin of my hand stretched out before me like a vast landscape of hills and valleys and hairs, which were standing like tall trees. I then passed directly into the skin, and I was surrounded by things completely foreign and strange to me. Cells of the tissues of my hand were enormous, and I passed through them freely. I beheld myriads of particles and filaments of all shapes and of unknown purpose. I finally reached a place which I was certain was the point of contact between my palm and the lump of clay. I was sure of this because, although the clay consisted of particles of varying shapes, all of them were of distinct symmetrical form, as if they had been produced in a factory rather than by a process of nature. Flowing into my living tissue from the symmetrical components of the clay was a river of small particles, all of them of the same size and appearance. Each of them had the shape of a cube, but with cylinder-like appendages protruding outward from each of the cube’s eight corners. Thousands of these particles steadily flowed from the uniform components of the clay into the irregular components of my hand’s interior. I fell in behind them, following them as they made their way through endless vast and peculiar landscapes of the inner workings of my own body.

At last the symmetrical objects arrived at a place that was apparently their final destination, upon which they began a most astounding process. Before me was an area of obviously violent destruction. Instead of the organized and intricate structure of the healthy tissues I had passed through to get here, this area was a scene of complete disarray. Cells were torn open, their contents spilling out and being swept away by rivers of fluid. Particles of filth and dirt, of all sizes and shapes, were everywhere, tumbling about or firmly embedded in ruined tissue. Upon arriving by the thousands at this scene of destruction, the machine-like objects wasted no time. Moving at a rate my mind could scarcely comprehend, they attached themselves to the ruined tissue. Wherever one would attach, others would immediately attach to it in a very orderly fashion, like interlocking pieces of a puzzle, stacking upon each other, layer upon layer. And then, as I watched in astonishment, each of the stacked objects seemed to shift its own shape and change its own composition, until together they resembled the very tissues to which they had attached themselves. This process continued, until at last the entire area was organized and intricate. It was healthy tissue once again.

The grand vision ended as abruptly as it had begun. I looked about in confusion, having completely forgotten where I was. The Papuan natives still stood around me in a circle, watching me. I tried to say something, but I could form no words. I sensed that my hands were trembling, and I looked down at them. Without knowing it, at some point I had clenched them into fists and in the process had pulled handfuls of clay loose from the large lump. Raw scratches could be seen on my palms where my unkempt fingernails had torn the skin. I opened my fists and gazed at the clay I had pulled loose. Before my eyes it disappeared as it was absorbed through my skin into my body.

As if they understood that my mind had been overcome with more splendorous sights than most men had ever seen in a lifetime, the natives lifted me to my feet and guided me back to my hut.

For much of the afternoon I lay naked upon the floor, trying without appreciable success to force my mind to function as it should. At last I recovered enough to sit up and attempt to write the details of my experiences.

I am now more determined than ever to learn what I can of this Lamotelokhai, but I must be more cautious. It is quite possible that learning of its extraordinary properties too quickly could drive a man to utter madness.

12

April 28, 1868

Much has happened in the four days since I last wrote. In order to simplify the telling, I will first describe my progress with the Lamotelokhai, followed by some pertinent observations of the nature of the tribe to which I now seem to be inextricably bound.

I continue to get the sense that these natives regard my work with the Lamotelokhai as something of importance to them. They have taken me to it every day, as if this were integral to some schedule only they are privy to. It should not be long before I can ask them to explain this, as I am quickly learning the basics of their language, a task greatly facilitated by my new and extraordinary gift of recollection.

I was again taken to the Lamotelokhai on the day following my last notebook entry. The natives carried their spears, however they did not use them for coercion, as I knew precisely what to do and was quite willing. I had carefully formulated some questions for the object in such a way that I would not again be overcome by an onslaught of bewildering visions. Or so I had hoped.

Again on my knees, naked, and surrounded by Papuan observers, I wasted no time. I placed my hands upon the lump of clay, resulting in a vision of several hundred of the strange figures. I ignored them and asked my first question.

“Are you what the natives here call Lamotelokhai?”

Before I could prepare myself for what I knew would come next, I had already been transported to a rocky shore beside the sea. Immediately my senses were nearly overpowered by the stiff ocean breeze, the sounds of waves striking the shore, and the smell of salt water and rotting aquatic plants among the rocks. Several Papuan men stood before me, but they did not seem to see me, and I watched them as if I were an invisible phantom. One of them I recognized to be Matiinuo, although he was without his white feathers. Other than that, he appeared much as he does today, with youthful skin and clear eyes. However, the men with him were in a far worse state, showing the usual ravages of uncivilized life. They appeared to suffer from starvation and perhaps other privations, their ribs and knee bones clearly outlined by withered and contorted skin. Thick effluence seeped from their blood-shotten eyes, which were sunken within their sockets. Matiinuo and his companions gazed down at something on the ground. It was the Lamotelokhai, somewhat misshapen in order to conform to the rocks and sand upon which it rested. Matiinuo reached for it, pulled loose a handful, and gave a portion of it to each of his companions. After some little hesitation they ate their portions. They continued gazing at the clay for a time, and then Matiinuo spoke to the men.

“Khakhul-fekho lép-telo. Alümon-fekho khil-telo. Nu be khomilo-n-din-da. If-é lelua laléo ganggail khendil. If-é laléo umo nu é-fu. If-é laléo mekho nu damo. If-é laléo mekho gekhené damo. Nokhu-lekhé laimekho if-é lop, laléo-tekhé damo-nu lefül abül yu la-khe-bené fa-lu-lo khendil. Ati-lo, Lamotelokhai. Nu laléo-fi alip Lamotelokhai.”

* * *

My translation (added when transcribing this notebook):

“Today you are ill. Tomorrow you will be healthy. It is impossible that you die. This clay is a spirit with much magic power. This spirit talks to me when I sleep. This spirit put knowledge (information) into me. This spirit will also put knowledge into you. We must take this clay into the forest and hide it, because the spirit has told me that in time someone will come and take away this magic. When they take away this magic, the world will end. I will name this spirit Lamotelokhai.”

* * *

The vision ended, and I was back in the village, blinking my eyes and trying to hold my balance, as even the briefest of such visions was staggering to behold. I had not understood all of Matiinuo’s words in the vision, but it did seem clear that I was being shown that he had indeed given the object the name, Lamotelokhai.

However, I had not anticipated that a seemingly simple question would result in such an overpowering vision. Upon contemplating my next question, I decided that even more caution would be wise.

“What is my name?”

Before I had even spoken the complete sentence, I was transported back to my hut, at the precise time when I had introduced myself to Matiinuo and Sinanie. Again I was gazing at the two men, afraid and uncertain of their intentions. And again I put my hand to my chest and spoke my name. “Samuel.”

This time, when the vision ended, I recovered more quickly, perhaps because this vision had been brief. Perhaps also because it was a scene that was familiar to me, or because it was a question for which I already knew the answer.

I considered for a moment that these two visions had begun before I had even completed my questions. I had no ideas for how this could be possible, but I realized that perhaps I did not need to speak my questions aloud at all. Thus I formulated my next question only in my mind, mentally saying the words as I often do when I read to myself.

“Are you a living organism, or are you some manner of machine?”

I steadied myself to endure the vision, in case this new method had the same effect, and then it was upon me. I suddenly found myself hovering in the air in a vast chamber, with white luminous walls far in the distance. All manner of apparatuses and machines filled the chamber. Some of them were small, while others were as large as a house. Some of them were built with obvious solid, mechanical parts, while others seemed to be filled with various liquids. The entire chamber bustled with the industrious activity of hundreds of the strange three-legged creatures I had seen in my dream. The creatures moved about with apparent purpose around the apparatuses. It seemed to me to be a factory of some kind, although there was not a single item of machinery for which I had any idea of its purpose.

I then flew through the open air of the chamber until I was near one of the walls, which bulged outward as if the chamber were a huge flattened bubble. Near the wall was a white structure that was larger than most of the other machines. It was irregularly shaped and rounded, such that there were no corners or straight edges, and its tallest rounded bulge was perhaps thirty feet high. At one end of the structure, dozens of the creatures were gathered as if waiting for something to happen.

As I drew nearer, I saw that something was indeed happening. There was a round opening in the structure, and the white walls around the opening moved of their own accord as if made of pliable India rubber. The entire flexible perimeter of the opening contracted, causing the hole in the center to be pushed away from the main body of the structure. Oddly, this looked to me like the anus of a gigantic white earthworm, with muscles contracting in an attempt to push out a particle of waste. And just as this somewhat revolting thought occurred to me, an object did indeed appear from the opening. There was no mistaking the object. It was a large lump of clay, the Lamotelokhai, or one of the thousands like it I had seen in my dream. Before the object fell to the floor, the nearest of the three-legged creatures held out a thin tray beneath it. At that moment I realized for the first time that, in addition to having two legs in the rear and one very slender leg near the head, these creatures also had two small, frail-looking arms, attached to the body on either side of the anterior slender leg. Holding the tray out with one of its diminutive hands, the creature accepted the clay, and somehow the tray supported it, notwithstanding the fact that the large lump appeared to be far too heavy. The creature then carried the clay, balanced upon the small tray, away to some unknown destination. I watched as another lump was pushed from the opening and carried off in a similar way by another of the creatures, and then another after that.

The vision ended, and I caught myself before falling over onto the ground at the feet of the observing natives. This last vision had been more than I had bargained for, and I feared that this day’s session with the Lamotelokhai might come to an early end, as there seemed to be a limit as to how many of these mesmerizing visions my mind could endure before becoming utterly dazed and useless. I contemplated what I had seen as I becalmed myself. I was still confused regarding my question. I had witnessed these objects being produced in a place I had believed to be a factory, but the actual process of their final stage of creation had seemed oddly natural and animal-like. Nevertheless, it was clear that the three-legged creatures had supervised their production and were ultimately responsible for what became of them afterwards.

Before long I had recovered my balance and wits sufficiently as to increase my confidence, which then caused me to set aside my previous determination to be cautious. In my excitement, I desired to learn more of these strange creatures that seemed capable of hitherto unimagined feats. I hastily expressed a new request in my mind without speaking it aloud.

“In my visions I have seen a strange world. Upon this world were creatures, moving about within towers that reached beyond the sky. And I saw these creatures laboring in a factory, producing objects such as that which I now touch with my hands. I would like to learn more about these creatures.”

This proved to be a grave mistake, as I had forgotten to ask only questions of a very specific nature, which would have limited the scope of the Lamotelokhai’s response. However, it was too late. My mind was flooded with visions so grand and numerous that I could not possibly comprehend it all. There were visions of every intricate detail of the external and internal anatomy of the three-legged creatures. Their bodies were so foreign to my understanding that I had no choice but to allow the scenes to flash by me without the slightest comprehension. I had somewhat more success with visions regarding social matters. There were examples of relations between individuals and groups, some of them more complex than I had thought possible. There were scenes of rituals, official proceedings, administering of justice, educating the young and old alike, social gatherings, means of determining consensus among large populations in order to make important decisions, and activities in which they engaged for amusement. There were visions of artistic achievements and endeavors of enterprise and industry. And there was much more, but I could only endure the smallest fragment of it before my mind began to fail, and then I was aware of only occasional pieces of these lessons. I became terrified that the flood of visions would never stop, and I fell into the grip of panic. Just when I was at the thin edge of my sanity, the visions stopped. I was only scarcely aware that I had fallen to the ground, and I could provide no assistance to the natives as they dragged me to my hut and hoisted my weakened and useless body up to it.

For what seemed like many hours I lay upon the floor staring at the rafters, unable to sleep and yet unable to shape my thoughts to any useful purpose. This condition persisted the rest of the day and through the night. On several occasions I soiled myself. I was unable to prevent it and likewise was unable to command my body to even roll away from it.

Sinanie and two other men entered my hut some time after the sun had come up. They kindly cleaned my body and the floor, and they dragged me a few feet to the side. They forced me to drink water from a gourd. This seemed to help, because after they went away I slept tranquilly.

When I awoke it was late in the afternoon, and I realized that I felt much better. I got to my feet and paced about the hut, as my body had become bruised from lying motionless upon the bamboo floor. It occurred to me that the only thing that had prevented my passing into complete madness, or perhaps even dying, was that I had fallen upon the ground, thus releasing my hold upon the Lamotelokhai and terminating the visions. However, I had learned many things from those visions, notwithstanding the fact that I had absorbed only a small fraction of what was being shown to me. I now had a great deal of knowledge of the three-legged creatures, the creators of the Lamotelokhai. I found the particulars of the structure and function of their bodies to be altogether bewildering, as I could make little sense of what I had seen. However, it was the nature of their society that most interested me.

I have lived my life in the greatest civilized society in the world. However, the most educated men, with whom I dare to include myself, would argue that we have not yet come close to what we imagine to be the epitome of social progress. This “perfect social state” that we imagine involves equality of all members of society, with respect to wealth and opportunities to pursue that which brings pleasure and comfort to each individual. Such equality is so easily imagined, and yet it is so difficult to achieve. This, I am sure, is due to aspects of our “civilized” society that many have struggled so hard to establish and therefore would struggle equally to preserve. Perhaps the most obvious aspect is the accumulation of wealth. It is the dream of many men to accumulate wealth in order to rise above the general population, to be considered wealthy, and to claim the property and privileges that accompany that title. However, the reality is that this leads to great inequality, as only a few can achieve such wealth, while the vast majority must suffer in ways too numerous to count.

During the agonizing minutes in which I had witnessed visions of the three-legged creatures’ society, one thing was made clear to me, that those creatures had achieved a level of equality of which modern men can only dream. Each individual creature was free to pursue activities, occupations, and professions that most interested him, often changing professions at will as his interests progressed over time. Every achievement, including construction of the vast towers and the tunnels in the sky, was for the good of the entire population, and was accomplished because there were sufficient numbers of individuals interested in making it so. Every individual enjoyed the same rights and privileges and had access to what he needed in order to live in good health and happiness. There seemed to be no expectation of, nor any great yearning for, accumulation of wealth beyond that of any other individual.

It is my belief that the progression of any group of people begins with a state of pure savagery, which then, given suitable time and resources, gradually progresses to agriculture and industry, with the inevitable result of accumulated wealth for the few and suffering of the many. But my belief extends beyond this arguably inadequate state of society, as such a civilization will surely crumble if it does not eventually progress to a state of equality for all individuals such as I have witnessed in my visions.

Having myself come from a family of some wealth, this may seem to be an argument rife with hypocrisy and contrary to my station in life. However, I am only one of many educated and cultured men who believe this to be the highest state of civilization, and I would be quite willing to redistribute my share of my family’s resources if only the great civilization of England were upon the verge of such enlightened transformation. Sadly, though, I fear that the realization of such change will not occur during my brief lifetime, as there are far too many wealthy men in England who do not share this vision.

Although I shall not live to see such a future as this, I am much encouraged to have witnessed evidence that it is quite possible to achieve.

* * *

For the remainder of that day I slowly recovered my strength by pacing about while further contemplating the bewildering visions that had nearly killed me. Sinanie came to my hut with another man, whom he introduced as Ahea. Like the other men I had seen, Ahea wore a gourd upon his sexual organ. Other than that and a few braided cords around his neck, the only adornment he wore was a headdress made of the fur of a mammal, perhaps a cuscus. At first I feared these men had come to take me to another of my sessions with the Lamotelokhai, for which I certainly was not ready—at least not yet. Instead they placed sago paste and water on the floor before me and then watched in silence as I consumed them.

It wasn’t until yesterday, April 27, that I was again taken to the Lamotelokhai. The natives did not seem to care that my previous encounter with it had been so costly to my mental wellbeing. As before, after bringing out the Lamotelokhai and setting it beside me, they stood around me and waited for whatever might happen next. However, I had determined to avoid further harm, and upon placing my hands on the lump of clay I silently expressed my first request.

“Lamotelokhai, I would like to learn from you in ways that do not involve placing visions into my mind. I beg you to show me no more visions, for I am too feeble to endure them!”

I waited, not knowing if such a request would be granted or even understood. The only thing that happened was that the strange figures floating before my eyes disappeared. I concluded that this was the Lamotelokhai responding to my desperate request, and so I proceeded as I had planned.

“I have seen that you healed my injuries, and I have seen that you set on fire wooden spears embedded within my body. I wish to make requests so that I might learn what other deeds you are capable of.”

I then pulled a small portion of the clay free. I looked around at the natives and saw that the man standing next to Sinanie held a spear. I pointed at the spear and held out my hand for him to pass it to me. The man hesitated and then exchanged a few words with Sinanie, after which he extended the point so that I could grasp it, which I did, smearing the clay upon the tip.

I then formed in my mind a request. “Can you put fire to this spear?”

Before I even had the chance to release the spear, it ignited. I quickly withdrew my scorched hand and rubbed the palm into the dirt beneath me to soothe it. The man gazed in wonder at his burning spear for a moment and then put out the fire on the ground. This resulted in excited talking among the natives. I found this to be puzzling, as it now seemed to me that requesting such a thing from the Lamotelokhai was a simple matter, and surely they had learned before this day to make such requests.

I was much encouraged by this success. Although I had deemed it necessary, I had understood that asking the lump of clay to never again show me visions would limit what I could learn from it. However, now it seemed there was still much I could learn without the risk of conjuring visions that could cost me my sanity.

Next I placed a bit of the clay upon a birthmark I had always had on the back of my right hand.

“You have shown me that you can send machine-like objects into my body to repair my injuries. Can you repair this imperfection of my skin?”

I felt prickling on my hand before I had finished forming this silent request. I waited patiently. Some minutes later, the birthmark began changing its size and color, and before long it was not visible at all. In its place was healthy and pale skin, with normal hairs protruding from it rather than the abnormal long and black hairs that had grown there before.

The natives were much less impressed with this than they had been with the burning spear. I, however, perhaps due to my more advanced knowledge of civilized medical science and the intricate nature of healing, was duly impressed regarding such an operation.

Again I was encouraged by my success and was beginning to realize the immense possibilities. Hence, I made a slightly larger request. First I spread the clay onto my beard, which had grown quite wildly, as I had not shaved since I had last been in my house on Humboldt Bay. Having noted that my previous requests had been granted before I had even finished forming the words in my mind, I decided to try making a request without expressing silent words at all. Instead, I simply formed a mental depiction of my clean-shaven face.

Although I could not see my own face, it felt as if tiny ants were crawling about on it, reminding me of the night my wounds had healed as I tried to sleep. For a few minutes I resisted touching my face, but soon I was overcome with fears that something might go terribly wrong, resulting in my disfigurement, and I could not stop myself from putting both hands to my face. If the process had involved any pain, I am sure I would have cried out in panic, but I becalmed myself, and soon it was over. My face was then perfectly smooth, as if I had just had it shaved in the finest London barber’s shop. This time the natives were indeed impressed, resulting in much talking and pointing.

As I prepared to make my next request, a most peculiar thing happened. A tree kangaroo walked between the legs of the natives and stopped at my side. I was quite sure it was the same creature Charles had shot on the ill-fated day of his murder. The tree kangaroo gazed at me for a moment with the same countenance I had seen before, one of mild curiosity, although I assume this description to be of my mind’s invention. It then faced the nearest natives, sat up on its haunches, and began moving its forepaws about in the same intricate manner as before. Even more than before, I was convinced that this was a silent language of some kind, as the gesticulations seemed too precise to be otherwise. The natives watched this strange behavior with no particular expression on their faces, as if this were something they saw every day. After about a minute of this, the creature dropped back down upon all four feet and walked through the natives’ legs again. They allowed it to go without harming it.

This unusual exchange apparently brought an end to my session with the Lamotelokhai. Sinanie waved for me to stand up. Then, to my surprise, several of the men led me to a hut that was not my own. Two women were in the hut. They were similar in appearance to the woman I had seen several days before. They were surprised at my sudden presence and looked as if they might run away at any moment. However, Sinanie spoke to them, and with whispered remarks to each other and disdainful glances at me, they returned to their tasks. They were creating sago. Sinanie spoke to me as he pointed out various items and procedures, as if I were a student there for the purpose of learning of their indigenous culture.

The sago tree is a palm, of great thickness but not as high as a typical cocoa-nut tree. The sago has immense spiny leaves, sometimes fifteen feet long, which are used for many purposes. However, it is the pithy center of the broad trunk that is processed into sago, a staple food used by some hundreds of thousands of people of the Malay Archipelago. Assuming Sinanie’s tribe prepared sago in a way similar to Penapul’s Humboldt Bay tribe, the pith of the tree’s trunk would have first been cut from the tree where the tree had fallen, and then this pith would have been washed in a stream and kneaded until all that remained was a dense paste, or raw sago. It was this raw sago that these women worked with as I watched. A fire burned in one corner, and above it, suspended upon shelves made of clay, lumps of raw sago dried in the fire’s heat. Woven baskets that contained hard lumps of sago that had previously been dried sat next to the two women. The women were using rounded rocks to pound these hard lumps into fine powder. I assumed that this fine, dry powder could be stored for long periods of time and then mixed with water as needed, thus producing the rather tasteless sago paste that they had fed to me. It puzzled me why these natives did not bake this paste into sago cakes, which I knew to be a common way to prepare it and a way that was to my liking. However, with my limited use of their language I could not effectively ask them this.

As we descended the ladder from the hut, the man Ahea waited for us on the ground. He offered me some cooked meat and a plantain. Until this time I had consumed only sago paste, which certainly would sustain me but was quite bland. Thus I readily accepted these and consumed them at that very moment as if I were a starving beast. The natives laughed and pointed at me, apparently amused by this.

I was then taken to yet another hut, where a man I had not seen before sat upon the floor, carefully carving a small piece of wood with a sharpened bone. Numerous talismans, amulets, and other objects he had evidently already carved were neatly arranged on the floor. And there were stones, pieces of wood, and dried gourds, perhaps waiting to be carved.

As Sinanie pointed and talked, for this was apparently another lesson, I kneeled and inspected the completed objects more closely. I was struck by the artistry of each of them. The man, whose name I was told was Noadi, was highly skilled. There were small carvings of various animals, including several that appeared to be tree kangaroos, although they were of a peculiar artistic style, such as I had seen with carvings on totem poles in the museums of London. Next to these lay two spears with sharpened and fire-hardened points. Most striking, however, was that upon their shafts were carved the very same figures I had seen floating in the air before my eyes when I had put my hands upon the Lamotelokhai. I then saw that these same figures were carved into the surfaces of several hollow gourds scattered among the objects on the floor. These gourds were of the type the men wore upon their sexual organs. I picked up one of the gourds and held it out to Sinanie, also pointing to the figures carved upon his own gourd.

“I have seen these figures, when I touch the Lamotelokhai,” said I.

He replied, “Kho-Lamotelokhai di gekhené alip maf. Masekha doleli di nokhu alip maf. Gekhené, laléo, di alip maf Lamotelokhai.”

* * *

My translation (added when transcribing this notebook):

“The Lamotelokhai talks to you with those shapes (pictures). It is to invoke taboo for us to talk with those shapes. But you, outsider, talk to the Lamotelokhai with those shapes.”

* * *

Although I had scarcely tried speaking them myself, by this time I had learned some of the words of this tribe’s curious language. The word ‘di’ was a reference to ‘talking,’ the word ‘gekhené’ was a way of saying ‘you,’ and the word ‘maf’ meant something regarding a picture. Sinanie, I believe, was referring to the Lamotelokhai talking to me with pictures. Beyond that I could make little sense of what he had said.

Noadi picked up one of the slender gourds that had not yet been carved with figures. He spoke a few words and pointed to my sexual organ, which was still exposed for all to see. I had become so accustomed to my naked state and loss of dignity that I did not at first realize he meant for me to wear the gourd. I accepted the gift. The men in the hut quietly watched, apparently waiting for me to put it on, but I had not the slightest idea of how this was done, nor how the contrivance would stay in place once I began walking about. One reason for my confusion was that, unlike the men of the Humboldt Bay tribe, who used cords around their waists to secure their gourds upon their privates, Sinanie and his fellow tribesmen had no cords in place for such purpose. Hence, their gourds were prone to swinging from side to side as they walked.

I looked from the gourd in my hand to those worn by the natives before me, at which point they began a hearty roar of laughter. I was in no mood for such humiliation, and I held out the gourd to return it to Noadi. Instead of accepting it, he stood up and pulled on his own gourd until it came off with a rather revolting sound. It was then that I realized how these men kept their gourds from slipping off. They not only inserted their sexual organ into the gourd, but also they stuffed the scrotum and its two occupants inside, thus making all of this so tight that the gourd could only be removed with some force. Noadi stuffed the contents back into his gourd, making the process look quite easy. I tried it myself, resulting in even more hearty laughter, which in turn made me so determined to succeed that I finally accomplished the task. This involved no small measure of pain, but I refused to display any evidence of this that might produce further mockery.

I managed to muster an attitude of defiance. “I see that you find this to be amusing,” I said to Sinanie. “At least you could tell me what you call these ridiculous adornments.” I then pointed to my gourd and said, “Fi,” which was their word for ‘name.’

Sinanie pointed to his own gourd and replied, “Mbayap.” He then pointed to mine and said, “Mbayap-lena.” I knew the word ‘lena’ to mean ‘small.’

This began another round of exuberant merriment.

* * *

Those were the notable events of yesterday, April 27. Today I was taken from my hut for yet another session with the Lamotelokhai, which was followed by another lesson on the culture and language of these indigenes. It now seems scarcely possible that only a few days ago they seemed intent on maiming and killing me. I do not know for certain the reason that their treatment of me has changed as it has, but it seems likely to be a result of my progress with the Lamotelokhai. The natives wish for me to learn what I can of it, although to what consequence I can only guess. This is fortunate for me, as I now have no other desire so great as to understand more of what it can do.

It is certainly true, I must add, that I wish to survive this ordeal and someday return to London to see my parents, my friends, and my betrothed, Lindsey. I yearn for their company, and I have no desire to expire here in the wilderness without returning to them, and without informing others of what is hidden here. Perhaps I may eventually be capable of formulating a request for the Lamotelokhai to help me escape this village and take it with me to civilization. However, until that is possible, my place is here, among the savages who nearly killed me.

When I was taken today from my hut, instead of leading me to the clearing where I had previously worked with the Lamotelokhai, the natives led me to yet another hut I had not yet seen. When we climbed the ladder to the hut, I saw there the lump of clay, resting upon its carrying platform, which in turn rested upon a short bamboo table. The table, only about knee high, stood in the middle of the room, and living vines were growing up its legs and over every inch of its surface. Tendrils and stems of the vines intertwined with the bamboo in such a way that, until looking more closely, I thought perhaps the table itself was a living plant.

Sinanie gestured for me to approach the table, indicating that today I was to have my lesson in this hut. I had not anticipated such an arrangement, thus I used some gesticulations and words I had learned to explain that I wished to leave the hut before beginning. He seemed to understand, and he followed closely as I went to the ground and collected several small stones. I then looked about under some fallen branches and rotten trunks until I located a large stag beetle, which I carefully captured and handed over to Sinanie, indicating to him that I wanted it kept alive. Finally, I picked up a few sticks and pulled a small plant from the soil, and we returned to the hut where the Lamotelokhai and three other natives awaited.

For my first experiment I placed a stone upon the table beside the lump of clay. I rested my hands on the clay and formed a vision in my mind, in which I imagined the stone breaking apart into fine sand. I pulled off some of the clay and smeared it onto the stone. After perhaps a minute of waiting, the stone cracked into two pieces with a sharp pop. Each of the halves then cracked into two more, and each of those into two. Before long the pieces cracking apart were too small to see, although I still heard innumerable faint pops as they broke apart. In place of the stone there was now a pile of sand.

My next request was a bold one, which I was doubtful could be achieved. I placed a second stone on the table, put my hands on the clay, and formed a vision of the stone transforming into gold. I smeared a pinch of clay upon the stone and waited. Soon the stone’s color began changing, until finally it was the very color of gold. I picked it up, only to discover that it was no heavier than before. It was most certainly not gold. Either my request was not understood, or the task was simply beyond the capabilities of the Lamotelokhai. Thus I put words to my request.

“I wish for the entire nature of this stone to become gold. Gold is a metal, which is much heavier than the minerals that make up this stone. Gold, in fact, is the heaviest of all metals. Can you do this?”

I then anointed the stone with more clay and waited. The stone’s shape began to change, imperceptibly at first and then more quickly, until it resembled melted gold, its surface shiny and smooth. I held my hand above it and felt no heat. When I picked it up, the lower side was imprinted with the contours of the tabletop, as if it had indeed melted there and then cooled and hardened. It was now less than half the size of the original stone, and based upon its weight, I could only conclude that it was gold. Needless to say, I was quite delighted over this. However, at the same time, I experienced an ominous sense of dread. I had made this request as a result of my scientific curiosity, but others would view it with quite different motives. This ability was the kind of thing that men were inclined to fight wars over.

Alas, I hadn’t time to ponder on such matters, as I did not wish to squander the short time I was allowed with the Lamotelokhai. I had determined to discover what I could regarding the effects of the clay upon living things other than myself. I beckoned Sinanie to bring me the stag beetle, which he had kept alive in his hands. I took the beetle and placed it upon the table. It was an impressive insect, rusty in color and nearly four inches long. Half this length was comprised of two massive mandibles, looking somewhat like the antlers of a deer. The beetle began walking about the tabletop.

This time I tried making a request by combining expressed words with a mental vision. “I wish to change the color of this beetle,” said I. And then I formed a vision of the beetle with a beautiful metallic violet exoskeleton. I rubbed clay on the beetle, and soon after that I was gazing upon the exact creature I had imagined, a four-inch beetle of a lustrous and nearly luminous purple color. It was unlike any beetle I had seen before, and I was sure no such beetle had hitherto been discovered. This astonishing transformation brought forth words of amazement from the natives standing behind me.

The beetle seemed unaware that anything unusual had happened, and it continued picking its way through the living vines as it walked along the edge of the table. Occasionally it tipped its body headfirst over the edge before apparently deciding it did not want to fall off, after which it would pull itself back from the brink and continue on its original path.

An experiment then occurred to me that I had not thought of before. If the Lamotelokhai could put visions into my mind, perhaps it could influence the thoughts of other creatures as well. This time I simply spoke my request aloud.

“I wish to alter the way in which this beetle behaves,” I said. “It seems to fear walking over the edge of the table. I wish for it no longer to fear this.”

I reached out to apply another pinch of clay to the beetle’s back, yet then I stopped, thinking that perhaps it was not necessary, as I had already applied the clay once. The creature continued walking, occasionally testing the table’s edge and then pulling back, obviously unwilling to lose its footing and fall to the floor. Then, however, after several more attempts, it suddenly seemed to hold no fear. Without a moment’s hesitation, it walked off the edge and plunged to the floor, landing upon its back. Unharmed, it used its large mandibles and slender legs to turn itself over. I placed it back upon the table, only to watch it fall to the floor again.

As I watched the beetle continue this behavior, I contemplated the implications, and again I was overcome with foreboding and dread. If it was such a simple matter to change the beetle’s behavior, perhaps I could influence the thoughts and behaviors of any living creature, including men. Perhaps I could cure madness or intellectual deficiencies. However, perhaps I could also persuade men or women to carry out acts against their own will. I could scarcely imagine what might happen if the Lamotelokhai were to fall into the hands of a mad man, or perhaps just a man with lordly ambitions. My thoughts on this matter consistently led to my imagining undesirable consequences. It seemed that for every possible benefit of this clay, there were innumerable wicked deeds to be contemplated.

I wished to try many more experiments, but Sinanie was determined to limit the duration of each of my sessions with the Lamotelokhai. Consequently I was then taken to more of the village huts to continue learning about the daily life of these peculiar people. During the process I met several villagers for the first time, including yet another woman, only the fourth I had seen, although I had met at least twelve different men. It was interesting to learn more of the tribe’s customs, but I could not prevent my thoughts from returning to the Lamotelokhai and all it could do.

Even now, as I sit alone in my hut, writing beside the open doorway to catch the last of the day’s light, I can think of little else. There are no natives below my hut to prevent my leaving. I have food in my belly and water to drink. Although I have no civilized clothing, I now possess a gourd that covers my private organs, which somehow seems to place me at a level equal to the other men of the village. And I dare say that I am beginning to think of Sinanie and a few of the others as friends. I am in good health. In fact, I feel physically improved beyond any time of my previous life, no doubt due to the medicinal benefits of the Lamotelokhai. And there seems to be yet enough scientific questions to investigate to keep me busy and stimulated mentally for a very long time.

Although I do hope to see my beloved Lindsey again someday, presently my will to escape this village has dissolved.

13

May 5, 1868

It seems my wish for a peaceable existence will forever elude me, as today I was again a witness to murder. Today, Penapul and a half dozen of his warriors attacked this village. They must have been hiding in the forest north of the village, perhaps waiting for any unsuspecting individual or small group to walk nearby. An opportunity came to them when three tribesmen, Korul, Ot, and Teatakan returned from a hunting excursion, unaware they were walking into an ambush.

I was with Matiinuo and Sinanie, learning about their process of making strong cord and rope from plant fibers, when we heard shouting. We quickly grabbed spears and joined the other tribesmen who were running to the scene of the disturbance. However, we were too late. Ot and Teatakan lay dead or injured upon the ground, and Korul was maimed and bleeding from numerous wounds. Penapul and his men saw us coming, and they gathered into a defensive line, brandishing spears and steel choppers that were red with fresh blood.

Sinanie, Matiinuo, and a dozen other tribesmen formed a line, shoulder to shoulder, facing the Humboldt Bay men. I stood for a moment, frozen with indecision, but then I stepped up beside Sinanie and held my spear toward the attackers in the same manner as the others. I was keenly aware that I was defending the tribe that had held me as their captive. However, not only had I grown fond of them, but also they were the stewards of the Lamotelokhai, which I now understood to be of immeasurable importance.

Upon seeing me with his enemies, Penapul called out to me. “Ané lai-m, Samuel! Nokhu ima-fon khüp Miok, Loo, Amborn.”

“Penapul, a terrible thing has happened,” I said in English. “Miok, Loo, and Amborn are dead. But you have taken your revenge. You must now leave this village, or you surely will be killed.”

Of course my words were not understood. The men at my side began advancing, one step at a time, while repeatedly uttering loud grunts that were no doubt intended to intimidate Penapul and his men. To the side I saw Korul stagger and fall, finally succumbing to his grievous wounds. Matiinuo broke from our line, ran to Korul, and dragged his body back behind us. Matiinuo then shouted with rage at the attackers and rejoined our line of defense.

“You have killed three men!” I shouted to Penapul. “Justice has been wreaked. Please yield.”

But my words were useless. Sinanie and the others rushed forward, leaving me standing alone, uncertain of what I should do. I was quite sure I would help Sinanie defend the village against an attack, but Penapul’s men were now outnumbered, and it seemed they could do no more harm. At first I thought perhaps Sinanie’s advance would serve the purpose of forcing Penapul’s men to flee, but they did not retreat and were immediately overwhelmed by fifteen attackers.

In mere seconds the fighting was over. Four of Penapul’s men lay writhing upon the ground, and the others had run away to save their own lives. I then watched with mortification as the four fallen invaders were stabbed repeatedly until they were most assuredly dead. This act of barbarism should not have shocked me so much, considering what I had previously seen these savages do. However, what I found to be so unsettling was the indifferent and apathetic manner in which they extinguished the lives of the helpless men, as if the task were no more significant than slapping bothersome flies.

When Sinanie and his fellow tribesmen were certain the men were dead and that Penapul and his warriors were truly gone, they turned their attention to their own fallen men. With scarcely a word spoken, they carried the bodies of Teatakan, Ot, and Korul to the hut where the Lamotelokhai was kept. They did not even check the men to see if they were still alive. With an ease of manner, as if they had done this many times before, they employed an elaborate technique of hoisting the men up using ropes that seemed to be there for that very purpose. When all three of the bodies were in the hut, I followed the remaining men up the ladder. At this point there were so many natives in the hut that I feared it might collapse under the weight, but it held fast. Three women were present, but they hid themselves from me by standing behind the men in such a way that I only occasionally saw portions of their faces, and I could not determine if they were the females I had seen before.

The three bodies were arranged beside the low table holding the Lamotelokhai. Matiinuo pulled a bit of clay from the large lump. He went to Ot’s side, forced open the lid of one of the man’s eyes, and rubbed the clay directly onto the eyeball. He then repeated this operation with Teatakan and Korul. This apparently concluded the treatment of these fallen men, as most of the natives then left the hut. Sinanie came to me and indicated that I should leave as well, and he followed me to the ground.

I said to him, “Yekhené mbakha-mol-mo-dakhu khomilo?”

* * *

My translation:

“Will the men die?”

* * *

Sinanie nodded at me, indicating that he was impressed by my rapidly improving use of his language. He then began walking with me to my hut. He replied, “Lamoda-Lamotelokhai. Béto-pé lép afü-ma-tél-e-kha menél khi-telo.”

* * *

My translation:

“They were touched by the Lamotelokhai. Afterward the very sick people become healthy.”

* * *

It then occurred to me that his words for ‘very sick’ might have had a much broader definition than I had previously assumed, and that perhaps these natives did not even distinguish between ‘very sick’ and ‘dead.’ I attempted to form the correct words to inquire about this.

His answer was extensive and somewhat confusing. My interpretation, although perhaps imperfect, was that he believed that indeed there was no difference between ‘very sick’ and ‘dead.’ The Lamotelokhai could heal both of these conditions. But he pointed out that there was a distinct difference between ‘dead’ (khomilo) and ‘very dead’ (khomilo-ayan).

I then asked what ‘very dead’ meant, and he explained that it took much work to make a man ‘very dead.’ It was necessary to pound, or stab, or cut the man’s body until there was nothing remaining, at which point the clay of the Lamotelokhai could no longer make the man healthy again.

When we arrived at my hut, Sinanie left me alone. I walked north to again visit the site of the attack. The Humboldt Bay men still lay where they had been slaughtered, but they were now in an advanced state of decomposition, with nearly half of each body already turned to soil. This had to be the result of the natives putting portions of the Lamotelokhai upon the bodies, just as they had done to the bodies of poor Charles and my three boys. I found it unnerving that the same clay, from the same source, could somehow preserve life in one instance and destroy life in another. I returned to my hut to once again ponder the implications of the strange things I had learned.

I am apparently free to leave this village whenever I wish. However, I have determined the Lamotelokhai to be too important for me to leave now. In recent days I have learned much about it, not the least of which is that there may be no limits to the miracles it can perform. Instead, the limits exist only in my capacity to communicate clearly what I wish for it to do. Hence, there is much work yet for me to do here, and it is difficult to express how important I believe this work to be. It seems inevitable that this mysterious lump of clay will eventually be taken from Sinanie’s tribe, and then, due to its extraordinary nature, it will find its way by trade or outright seizure into civilized society. This I have grown to fear above all things, as I can imagine the ways it will be used to further the power and wealth of the few, thus resulting in even greater suffering of the many. And very little effort is required to imagine far worse consequences.

Now I fear that Penapul will return, bringing with him more of his warriors and seeking further revenge. If he overcomes Sinanie’s tribe, he will likely steal the Lamotelokhai and take it back to Humboldt Bay, thus commencing a sequence of events that will deliver it into the hands of more influential men.

To add to my fears, I had met no fewer than forty men when living with Penapul’s tribe. Here in Sinanie’s tribe I have seen only eighteen men, three of whom are now injured at the very least.

We are greatly outnumbered.

14

May 14, 1868

In the days following the attack, there was much consternation among the villagers. This was the first time that laléo (the word for outsiders or strangers, particularly those of evil nature) had ever attempted to raid this village. Apparently, Sinanie and his fellow tribesmen had a habit of killing any hunting parties who happened to wander near the village, thus resulting in other tribes of the region altogether avoiding the area. This explained why Penapul had been happy to send Charles and I to collect in this place, and why he had wished for my three boys to return upon guiding us here. He had wished, as I had suspected, to be rid of us without risking the lives of the boys.

My command of the tribe’s language had much improved by this time, and several days after the attack I suggested to Sinanie that the tribe move to a new location further inland. He told me he would propose this possibility to Matiinuo, who was the tribal elder. In order to further expound upon the merits of this suggestion, I also explained that Humboldt Bay, due to its excellent quality, would attract more ships and would eventually become colonized. After I explained what the term “colonized” meant, this seemed to concern him, which was the result I desired. However, he explained that moving the village would require a great deal of effort, as new houses would have to be built and new hunting grounds established. In addition, they would likely have to fight and drive away another tribe whose territory they would have to claim as their own.

I then suggested they could go to Penapul’s tribe and attempt to establish peaceful relations by offering gifts, or perhaps goods for trade. Sinanie seemed completely perplexed by this notion, and no amount of discussion could convince him that such a relationship between tribes could ever be possible.

Hence, as the days have passed, and as I have learned more about the habits of this tribe and the wonders of the Lamotelokhai, so have I kept my eyes on the dark shadows of the forest, fearful that Penapul will return with all of his warriors.

At this time I must conclude my writing, as I have exhausted the last pages of my notebook. In recent days, I have contemplated destroying this notebook, as it occurred to me that it might lead men with evil intentions directly to the Lamotelokhai. But I have decided that it is only a matter of time before civilized men, regardless of their moral character, discover the Lamotelokhai anyway. This notebook, therefore, might serve as a warning to those who would find and read it. I truly hope my words have adequately explained the importance and dangers of what has remained hidden here in the most remote jungle for such a long time.

15

May 21, 1868

I explained to Sinanie my quandary regarding my shortage of pages on which to write. He then looked with only mild curiosity at my notebook. By all reckoning, this should have been a significant revelation for a savage who previously had never used written script as a means to communicate. As Sinanie’s tribe had long ago forbidden direct engagement with the strange figures created by the Lamotelokhai, these figures were now little more to them than fanciful designs to be carved upon objects as ornamentation. As such, Sinanie may have considered my somewhat less-than-elegant handwriting to be rather crude attempts at decorative art. He nevertheless led me into the forest to show me a tree with loose bark that could be peeled off in large sheets. The backside of the bark was smooth and light in color, and would be suitable as paper. I thanked him prodigiously, to his amusement, and collected a pile of sheets. Later I trimmed them to the same size, dried them, and bound them together into a serviceable notebook using cord I had learned to make from plant fibers.

Upon the first pages of my new notebook I wish to describe in some detail what I have most recently learned of my indigene hosts.

Notwithstanding the barbarous state of these natives’ existence, I have witnessed various events and customs such that I am compelled to reconsider my original conclusions, leading me now to regard certain aspects of their culture with some esteem. In fact, I find it unavoidable to draw comparisons to the culture of the three-legged creatures that created the Lamotelokhai, whom I have seen in my visions to exist in a state of civilization that all societies should aspire to someday achieve.

As I have previously stated, it is my opinion, as it is the opinion of many learned men, that the highest state of civilization would afford equality to all individuals, both in wealth and social station. Remarkably, the two indigenous tribes I have lived among, but particularly Sinanie’s tribe, seem to have achieved such equality. Admittedly, there is little or no wealth to speak of here, but each member of the tribe seems to have access to the same resources as all other members. Even the huts themselves are shared, as the natives move about and sleep in whichever hut is positioned most conveniently for the activities they are currently engaged in. If three men are preparing for a hunting excursion, they will gather their bows and spears and other supplies and sleep together in the hut nearest the direction they wish to embark upon the first light of morning. If several women wish to process raw sago into sago paste, they will gather the necessary ingredients in the hut where they have built drying shelves of clay, and there they will work and sleep until their task is complete. The resulting sago paste, as well as the meat procured by the hunters, is then made available to all members of the tribe, in whatever quantities they may need. When supplies run out, Matiinuo gathers the tribe together to inform them that more is needed. At these gatherings, the villagers have been accustomed to render voluntary obedience, and typically there are adequate numbers of members who will engage themselves willingly in the needed tasks. Upon the rare occasion that all the villagers are unwilling due to being occupied in other tasks, Matiinuo, being the tribal elder, will simply assign the work to be done to those he wishes to do it. What I find to be most striking is that any or all members of the tribe who have the skill and inclination may participate in the requested tasks. The only exception to this that I have seen is hunting, which seems to be restricted to the men of the tribe.

Another example of the social equality of these people is the treatment of the three men attacked by Penapul’s tribe. The wounds of Teatakan, Ot, and Korul were treated in the same way that any other members of the tribe would be treated. In addition to this, it seemed that all members of the tribe participated, or at least had the opportunity to participate, in administering care to these injured men.

This led me to inquire of Sinanie as to whether or not there were individuals of the tribe who were particularly skilled at healing, such as a shaman. His response indicated that there were indeed several men, including himself, and one woman, who were often consulted regarding such matters due to their knowledge and skills.

It is inevitable that, in an advancing society, specialization or division of labor will become essential, as advancing knowledge renders it impossible for one man to learn all the particulars of more than one or two specific fields of specialty. A barber learns the intricacies of the coiffeur’s art in order to provide the latest styles of the culture in which he works. The factory worker learns to operate the specific machinery of his assigned station. The naturalist, such as myself, learns the taxonomy and physiology of the specific sorts of living things that inspire his interests, such as the mammalogist’s inclination for beasts bearing fur.

But in the ‘great’ societies of the world, the vast majority of citizens have little choice in the occupation in which they specialize. This again is a result of the accumulation of wealth. The vast majority have little or no wealth and likewise little or no choice in their occupation. Those few who are fortunate to have wealth, myself included, may pursue whatever interests them. But in the tribe of the savage, where wealth is nonexistent, it seems that all men and women have the same opportunities to pursue whatever occupations or activities they may wish.

With such equality, the savage tribe does not know of wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, or master and servant. Most incitements to great crimes are thus lacking, and petty ones seem to be rare.

This, however, does not mean that in this village justice need never be administered, as I was witness to one such event. A tribesman by the name of Kaura was accused of invoking taboo by requesting of the Lamotelokhai certain personal benefits. Several tribesmen noticed that Kaura’s physical features had somewhat changed, indicating that unfitting requests of the Lamotelokhai may have been made. Matiinuo himself came to fetch me to attend Kaura’s inquest, as apparently this was yet another aspect of their customs they wished me to understand. I was taken to the hut of the Lamotelokhai, where about ten other men were gathered and seated on the floor. Two women were present as well, but they quickly left the hut upon seeing me arrive.

The inquest, or trial if it could be called that, was brief. The men who were the accusers explained what they believed to be evidence of wrongdoing, primarily that Kaura’s body had changed in certain ways. Kaura was then told to stand up, so that all could better see him. Even I could see that his arms were rather longer than one would expect. In fact, Kaura’s general structure seemed to more resemble one of the great apes, such as the Orangutan, the great man-like ape of Borneo. This gave Kaura a rather alarming and powerful appearance, although his face had scarcely changed at all. There was much nodding of heads and words of agreement that some rule or law had been violated, and Kaura, apparently seeing that he had no choice, admitted to the infraction.

Being aware that these men were capable of barbarous acts of violence, I expected Kaura’s punishment to involve such acts. However, instead he was simply told to make right what he had done wrong. As everyone in the hut watched, Kaura called forth the tree kangaroo, which seemed to always be somewhere nearby. Kaura employed the peculiar language of gesticulations to communicate with the creature, after which the tree kangaroo did the most peculiar thing. The creature responded to Kaura’s gesticulations by scratching its own belly with its forepaws. Then, before my very own eyes, the skin of the abdomen gave way, splitting apart as one paw was inserted several inches into the abdominal cavity. Soon the paw was withdrawn, and upon it rested a small mass of bloody entrails. Apparently without thinking this to be the least bit strange, Kaura took the dripping mass from the tree kangaroo and ate it.

Notwithstanding my own bewilderment at such behavior, the natives seemed satisfied with this, and most of them rose to their feet and began leaving the hut. Apparently they believed justice to be done. I approached the tree kangaroo for closer inspection. There was no longer any sign upon its belly of the self-inflicted wound. Sinanie, Noadi, and several other natives remained in the hut, watching me. I then had a discussion with them in which I learned a great deal of new information. I have decided it best to write the particulars of this conversation just as it occurred, except that I will translate the natives’ words to expedite the writing and reading of it.

“The mbolop (tree kangaroo) is unharmed,” said I. “How is this possible?”

Sinanie replied, “The mbolop cannot be harmed. It is of the Lamotelokhai.”

For a moment I assumed he must have meant that the tree kangaroo was protected by the medicine of the Lamotelokhai’s clay, as were he and his fellow tribesmen. However, then I realized that he had used the word ‘keliokhmo,’ which meant ‘to make’ or ‘to come together from,’ and that he was implying that the tree kangaroo was indeed made from the same clay that made up the Lamotelokhai.

“How did the mbolop come to be?” I asked.

Sinanie’s answer was extensive. “The mbolop exists because Matiinuo requested it to be so. This was long ago, before other men came to this land, and our tribe was the only tribe here. Our tribe crossed the big water for many days to come here. Matiinuo found the Lamotelokhai, because it called to him in his dreams. The Lamotelokhai was near the water’s edge. Matiinuo touched it, and he saw the woliol (figures) in his mind.” Sinanie paused and pointed to the figures carved upon the gourd that covered his sexual organ. “After that, Matiinuo saw other great things in his mind, and he became an improved person. He suffered no more from walukh (general sickness, but also the suffering of old age). He knew then that the Lamotelokhai had magic power, and he took the others of the tribe to it, and the others became improved. Life was then very good for our tribe, and there was no walukh. However, one day, Matiinuo’s brother, his name was Izack, went alone to the Lamotelokhai, and he talked to it. He asked for lu gamo (to ascend and become strong, or to become very improved). He then became strong. However, he became lelül lokhul (infected in the brain, perhaps meaning he became insane). Izack wanted to have the Lamotelokhai for himself. However, my tribe, we also wanted the Lamotelokhai. Izack was improved and strong. He attacked my tribe, which was his own tribe, and he killed men, women, and children. He used the magic power of the Lamotelokhai’s clay to make them khomilo-ayan (very dead), and they could not be healed. But his brother Matiinuo went with more men and killed Izack. They beat him with clubs and beat him and beat him until he was khomilo-ayan. That is when Matiinuo and the others of my tribe declared that talking directly to the Lamotelkhai was to invoke taboo. Matiinuo made one last request directly to the Lamotelkhai. He asked it to make the tree kangaroo. Now we talk only to the tree kangaroo. The tree kangaroo knows what is taboo. That is how the tree kangaroo came to be. That is why the tree kangaroo cannot be harmed.”

As Sinanie was explaining this, Noadi left the hut and soon returned with a white object in his hand. When Sinanie finished talking, Noadi handed the object to me. It was a very large tooth, more than four inches long, most likely from a crocodile. Upon its surface was etched in astounding detail a scene of bloodshed, in which bodies of men were strewn about on the ground, some of them missing arms or legs. In the center of all of this stood a creature that at first I thought was a man, but upon closer inspection more resembled a great ape, its arms elongated, with long, curved fingers. This creature was Izack, having been transformed by the power of the Lamotelokhai. And in some ways Izack resembled Kaura, although Kaura’s transformation had not yet been as extreme as this. At first I wondered why both men would request to be changed in such a similar way. Then it occurred to me that, in this place of dense tropical jungle, this was the most desirable body form, as it would allow them to move about in the trees with great agility. As I gazed at the creature etched in the tooth, standing over his maimed victims, an uneasy chill overcame me, as if I were gazing upon the devil himself.

When I handed the tooth back to Noadi, he left the hut again, as if he were resolute in returning the tooth immediately to its rightful place.

I took a moment to ponder all of this new information. “When you captured me and killed my companions, you applied clay from the Lamotelokhai to their bodies and our belongings.”

Sinanie nodded. “The clay helps the bodies and the belongings return to the soil of the forest.”

This explained how our sack of supplies disintegrated before our very eyes. “How is it that you can do such a thing without talking to the Lamotelokhai?” said I.

Sinanie smiled at me as if he were talking to a schoolboy. “Each of the men in our tribe carries with him a skin pouch, and in it he keeps clay of the Lamotelokhai. This clay can be used for different purposes, and we do not have to talk to the Lamotelokhai. The clay knows what purpose we intend when we apply it to something.”

Notwithstanding the peculiar nature of this explanation, I was still curious about the tribe’s notions of justice. “Kaura talked directly to the Lamotelokhai,” said I. “And he asked it to make him very strong. That is why he was accused.”

Sinanie said, “That is correct. Kaura agreed to fudamo (to repay or repent), which he did. Now he will not become lelül lokhul and kill us.”

I asked, “How do you trust that he will do what you have told him to do?”

Sinanie looked at the other men beside him, and they smiled as if I had asked a question with an obvious answer. “We witnessed his fudamo. You yourself witnessed it.”

Apparently they could not imagine, or perhaps it was indeed impossible, that Kaura could have deceived them.

I then said, “I talk to the Lamotelokhai, and you don’t accuse me. Why?”

Sinanie answered, “You are laléo (an outsider). We have always known an outsider would come who could talk to the Lamotelokhai in different ways. The Lamotelokhai told us this long ago. This outsider, when he comes he will take the Lamotelokhai away, and then true Lamotelokhai will occur.”

This confused me. “What does ‘true Lamotelokhai’ mean?”

“The world will end,” he said. “The world will turn upside down and it will end. That is the meaning of the word Lamotelokhai. That is why it is the name we have given to the magic clay.”

“Do you mean that your world will end, or do you mean that the entire world will end?” Finding the correct words to ask this question was difficult, and perhaps I was unsuccessful because the natives seemed unable to understand. Or perhaps they simply did not perceive any distinction between these two notions.

My waning confidence in using their language was uncompensated by any great success in asking my next few questions, which regarded their laws. This was perhaps due in part to the fact that they had no written language by which to record specific laws in any permanent form. Therefore their laws, such as the prohibition of talking directly to the Lamotelokhai, were subject to varying interpretations by each individual. However, upon further inquiry, I determined that there was more to it than simple interpretation. They were confounded by the notion of having specific laws to be followed by all people under all circumstances. How, they inquired, could one administer justice to a man without considering the man’s situation and the events that led to his behavior? After considerable discussion, I came to understand that these natives did not live within the confines of specific and rigid laws. Instead, they were subject to a natural sense of what was fair and just in any situation, as determined by public opinion and with regard to the rights of their fellow tribesmen. Perhaps this is a sense that is inherent in every race of man, but the power to adhere to it becomes lost in more densely populated and ‘civilized’ communities.

What I found to be most striking was the manner in which they administered justice. I said to them, “You did not harm Kaura, as I thought you might.” I was not aware of a word for ‘punish,’ as perhaps they did not have one. “What will prevent him from again directly talking to the Lamotelokhai?”

Sinanie answered, “Kaura did not harm us. Why would we harm him?”

“If you harmed him,” said I, “he would not do it again, as he would fear being harmed again.”

They dismissed this notion as absurd. I attempted to explain that in some communities, including my own city of London, those who failed to obey the laws were often punished harshly, sometimes even maimed or executed in painful ways. Sinanie and his companions were aghast and could not understand why these people were not simply told to make right whatever they had done wrong. If a man had taken something, for example, why would he not simply be told to return it? I said that sometimes the crime was very serious, such as murder. In this case, they said, why would he not be told to increase his efforts in order to provide whatever assistance to the tribe that the murdered man could no longer provide?

“But you have said that Matiinuo’s brother, Izack, was killed when he murdered members of your tribe,” said I.

Sinanie answered, “Izack intended to continue killing. We stopped him.”

After pondering these notions for a moment, I said, “When you encountered me, you murdered my companions. And then you maimed me without mercy. Why?”

Sinanie said, “We did what was needed. We kill outsiders so they will not take the Lamotelokhai from us. We did not kill you because the mbolop told us you might be the man who will come to talk to the Lamotelokhai, the man who will better understand it and will take it away.”

“Am I that man?”

“We are not yet certain.”

“Why did you maim me?”

“We did what was needed. You intended to run away. We stopped you.”

This confirmed my impression that these natives did not comprehend the notion of punishment. They simply did what they felt was necessary, and being savages, that did not preclude maiming and killing. But as I considered their response to what I had told them regarding justice and punishment in London, it occurred to me that they might consider me to be the savage. This was a rather dismal thought, so I decided to pursue other questions.

“I have seen no children in your village. Why?”

“We have children when we need them,” Sinanie replied. “At this time we do not need children.”

“I do not understand. Your tribe will die if you do not have children.”

Again the natives smiled as if this were something I should already understand. Another tribesman who was present, a man I had not previously spoken to, by the name of Tinal, answered this question. “If we had children always, there would be too many people in our tribe. Our tribe is the correct size.”

“Perhaps your tribe should be larger,” said I. “If the Humboldt Bay tribe returns with all their men, you will be too few.”

Sinanie said, “That tribe believes they have killed Teatakan, Ot, and Korul. They will not return. Our tribe is the correct size.”

“How do you know your tribe is the correct size?” I asked.

The men looked at each other again, although this time they did not smile. The answer that followed confounded me. It continued to inundate my thoughts even into the dark of night, and later I would lie in my hut, unable to sleep as I pondered its meaning.

Sinanie said, “Our tribe is wakhatum for the Lamotelokhai (wakhatum refers to folktales, or stories, or knowledge, in this case referring to those who keep the stories and knowledge). Our tribe is the correct size for this. The Lamotelokhai contains much wakhatum (in this case the meaning is closer to ‘knowledge’). It is knowledge that will turn the world upside down, which will be Lamotelokhai (the end of the world). The knowledge is very important, and so the Lamotelokhai has put some of the knowledge into each member of our tribe. Our tribe is the correct size for the knowledge. If we had more men and women, there would be no more knowledge for them to carry, and they would have no purpose. We each carry the knowledge given to us, and there is no more knowledge.”

I spent several moments pondering what he had said. Then I asked, “Why did the Lamotelokhai put knowledge into each of you?” I asked.

“The knowledge is important. It is our purpose.”

“Do you know what the knowledge is?”

Sinanie smiled. “We know the knowledge is important. It is very much. It is too much for us to know.”

I attempted to ask him how it could be possible to carry knowledge and at the same time not know what the knowledge was, but asking this seemed to be beyond my ability, as it resulted only in frowns and shaking of heads. Therefore, I decided to pursue this specific matter at a later time, after having time to formulate proper questions. I returned to a previous question still on my mind.

“What if one of you is killed and becomes khomilo-ayan (very dead)? What becomes of the knowledge?”

Tinal answered this question. “That is the time when one of our women will have a child, so that our tribe will be the correct size. The child will then be given the knowledge previously carried by the khomilo-ayan.”

Notwithstanding the bewildering nature of this answer and the myriads of new questions it created, I instead asked a simple question. “And how long ago was the last time that the tribe had to have a child?”

Once again the men smiled, and Tinal replied, “A very long time.”

I was curious as to precisely how long this was, but I had already determined that these natives had only a rudimentary sense of mathematics and did not posses the means to express large numbers with any exactness. Instead, they expressed the passing of time with regard to past events. As I pondered this, something Sinanie had said came back to beleaguer my thoughts.

“You have said that Matiinuo found the Lamotelokhai when your tribe came to this land. Matiinuo is the elder of your tribe, correct?”

Sinanie said, “Yes, Matiinuo is the oldest. He lived when our tribe came across the big water. The rest of us came into the world after Matiinuo found the Lamotelokhai.”

I took a moment to devise a way to ask my next question. Finally, I said, “I would like to know how long Matiinuo has lived. What can you tell me to help me understand?”

The men considered this, and then Sinanie replied, “When Matiinuo found the Lamotelokhai, he became improved, and he no longer suffered from walukh. Before that, he was a normal man. Normal men do not live long, and so he was very young when he found the Lamotelokhai. Matiinuo is now the only member of our tribe who existed when our tribe came over the big water. The others have died, long ago. I came into the world soon after Matiinuo found the Lamotelokhai, so I am almost as old as Matiinuo. There were no other tribes in this land when I was a child, and for many days after that. The animals were different then. Some men of our tribe were killed and eaten by crocodiles with teeth like this.” He held his fingers apart to show that the teeth were as large as the one Noadi had shown me, with its carved scene of Izack and his murdered victims. Sinanie continued, “We hunted the wolaup, which was a slow creature with a delicious, fleshy snout and two very large front teeth. The wolaup had the weight of four men. We hunted the ndewé, a wallaby that stood taller than you, Samuel, and had the weight of two men. And then other tribes came over the big water, and they also hunted these animals, until these animals were gone. We had to kill many men so that they would not take the Lamotelokhai’s magic. Finally the other men stopped coming near our village. Those are events that have happened since Matiinuo came into this world.”

Due to the tendency of savage people to express the past in the form of myths and fantastical stories, I could hardly say which portions of Sinanie’s answer were factual. However, if indeed these men had lived when such beasts roamed the forests of New Guinea, I could scarcely imagine a lifetime of such a span of time. Such changes would no doubt take hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, or perhaps even many thousands. Had I not already seen impossible things made entirely possible by the clay of the Lamotelokhai, I would have dismissed this notion altogether.

Now I do not know what to believe.

* * *

One other recent event is worthy of describing before the day’s light fades. Yesterday I had the opportunity to accompany three tribesmen on a hunting excursion. This was the first time I had departed from the village for any substantial distance, but Sinanie and Matiinuo were unconcerned that I might run away. They likely knew as well as I that I could not return to the Humboldt Bay tribe, and I certainly was not capable of living by my wits alone in the wilderness.

The three natives I accompanied were Teatakan, Ot, and Korul, the very men who had been injured, and perhaps even killed, by Penapul’s men. They had recovered fully from the attack and now bore only faint scars that appeared to have healed for many months. I had the impression that these three men loved hunting above all other things, and in fact they provided the majority of animal meat eaten by the tribe.

In a matter of only a few hours after leaving the village, the hunters had killed three bandicoots. These were of the same large type my assistant Charles had shot many days ago, before he was murdered. The bandicoots were peculiarly docile, even to the moment of their death by arrow or spear, as if they were the most stupid of domesticated livestock, existing solely for slaughter and consumption by men. Upon asking the hunters about this, I learned that this behavior was not a phenomenon of nature, but was indeed due to these bandicoots being somewhat domesticated by the tribe. Rather than confining the creatures to pens near the village, in which they would have to be cared for and fed, the beasts were allowed to freely roam the forest of the region. Then hunters, such as my three companions for the day, could go in search of them when the village’s dwindling supply of meat required it. This I found to be notable. Other Papuan tribes were known to have domesticated dogs for help with hunting, but I was quite sure none were known to have domesticated animals of any type for the purpose of harvesting.

Immediately after killing each of the bandicoots, the men butchered them using the same sharpened bamboo wedges they had once used to sever my heel tendons so that I would not run away. Notwithstanding my distressingly perfect memory of this barbarous act, I was impressed by their skilled and efficient manner of removing the meat and skin. They expertly cut the skin from the body in one large piece, removed the meat and other edible organs, placed these upon the skin, and then gathered up the edges of the skin and tied it off, thus creating a sack to be easily carried.

Teatakan told me they would typically hunt these bandicoots until each hunter had a skin sack full of meat to carry back to the village. However, on this occasion, since I was there to carry one of the sacks, they became quite excited for the opportunity to pursue an additional creature, a cassowary. I told them that my assistant Charles had killed a cassowary, and that I had found the meat to be delicious. Upon hearing this, the hunters laughed as if I had intended for my story to be amusing. When I asked why this was funny, they indicated that they did not believe this to be possible. They explained that the cassowary was the most elusive of all game and could be killed only by the most skilled hunters, most certainly not by a man such as myself, who had no hunting experience. Rifles were apparently unknown to them, and I made no further attempt to explain. I became quite curious to see how, without a gun, they could kill such a large and swift creature. They referred to their hunting technique, as well as to the few men capable of achieving it, as kayareumala. Kayarie was the name given to the cassowary, and mala signified making war, which further indicated that they considered the hunting of cassowaries to be a more serious venture than the hunting of other game.

We walked perhaps a mile to a place where cassowaries were known to frequent. Korul and Ot went off to find supplies that would be needed for kayareumala. Teatakan stayed with me and began gathering grass fibers and rolling them together between his hands, creating thin and flexible cord. As he did this I asked him to tell me more about kayareumala. The following is his response, to the best of my ability to translate.

“The kayarie (cassowary) is the spirit of a woman, and all kayarie originated in the world of women. I, and other hunters, we are from the world of men. In order to catch a cassowary, we must pass into the world of women. To do this, we must achieve yikeulaka, which means to be possessed by the spirit of a cassowary. When we enter the world of women, we must be very careful, as women have wisdom that is different from the wisdom of men. We must be careful, or we will be tricked and harmed, perhaps killed. The first of us to achieve yikeulaka will be the one to try to catch a cassowary. The others will drive the cassowary to him. Then we must leave the world of women and not return to it for many days. If we have success and catch a cassowary, we will carry the meat and feathers to the village. The others will eat the meat and adorn themselves with the feathers. But we, the kayareumala, must never eat the meat or we will not again be allowed to enter the world of women. And we must not lay with a woman for many days, or we will not again be allowed to enter the world of women.”

This explanation served to heighten my desire to witness the process. Before long, Korul and Ot returned with the needed supplies, which included leaves of a female pandanus, three pandanus flower heads, each about the size of a large mango, and a handful of small brown mushrooms. I observed with some curiosity as the men fashioned the pandanus leaves and flower heads into cassowary masks, held together by the fiber cords Teatakan had made. These masks, which were striking in appearance and ingenious in design, featured beaks made from the long, rigid pandanus leaves, and the pithy flower heads were arranged to represent the cassowary’s large horny calque or helmet upon the top of the head.

The hunters then divided the small pile of mushrooms and ate them, after which they began to dance, mimicking the bird in its search for food among the trees. This went on for some time, and I began to wonder if they had any intentions at all of hunting cassowaries. No less than an hour passed as they danced about, their movements becoming ever more tipsy and haphazard. I began to suspect that the mushrooms the men had consumed had some intoxicating effect upon them.

At last Ot stopped dancing, and his body seized with violent trembling. This, I was later told, indicated that he was the first of the three men to achieve yikeulaka. Apparently he was now possessed by a cassowary’s spirit and could enter the world of women. When Teatakan and Korul saw Ot’s trembling state, they rushed to him and supported him by grasping his arms. Soon the trembling subsided, and Teatakan told me—much to my relief—that they were now ready to hunt the cassowary.

We placed the three skin sacks of bandicoot meat in the forked trunk of a tree to keep them safe, and we put all of the hunting weapons on the ground below, with the exception of Ot’s bow and one arrow. Still adorned with their cassowary masks, the hunters led as I followed, and we slowly and silently made our way up the densely-forested slope of a rather substantial hill. Finally, when the ground was becoming level near the hill’s summit, the hunters stopped and stood very still. I then saw ahead of us a large cassowary. The bird, apparently unaware or uncaring of our presence, was searching for food. Its motions reminded me of the men’s dance. We carefully retreated down the slope until we were out of the bird’s sight. Without a word spoken, Teatakan walked up the hill to the left, Korul to the right. Ot, his eyes peaking out from his mask, nocked his arrow and positioned himself behind a thick tree. He waved his hand at me, indicating that I should move further down the hill, which I did and then stationed myself behind a tree. I watched as Ot waited for Teatakan and Korul to circle behind the bird from both sides, presumably to drive it straight down the slope. This seemed to me to be an unlikely consequence, as the bird could just as easily run off in any other direction.

However, I was soon surprised to see the cassowary walking unhurriedly down the slope, rather than running with great rapidity as I had expected. Teatakan and Korul followed slowly on either side, far enough behind it so as to avoid driving it to complete panic. When the bird would drift to the right, Korul, who was on the left, would stop, and Teatakan would continue moving, gently forcing the bird back to the left. In this way they were able to drive the cassowary within range of Ot’s bow. At the critical moment, Ot, remaining mostly behind the tree, bent his bow and shot the cassowary.

Before Ot had released his arrow, I had thought that this unusual cassowary hunt would be nearly finished soon after shooting the bird. I was quite mistaken. As I later learned, an arrow could rarely kill an animal as large as a cassowary, at least not instantly, which was why bows were seldom used in fighting other tribes. Instead, the arrow’s purpose was to cause the bird to have a brief moment of surprise and confusion. At the precise moment Ot’s arrow was released, he dropped his bow and ran with full rapidity directly at the bird. The arrow pierced the cassowary, startling it for the briefest moment, and then the bird began running. However, Ot was so close behind the arrow that the bird had insufficient time to gain full stride. Ot leaped headlong for it and managed to grasp one of its legs. The cassowary, weighing more than a hundred pounds, turned upon its attacker with the fury of an injured beast.

The cassowary is known to be a dangerous bird, with a powerful beak and toes armed with long, curved claws, which could inflict serious injury to anyone so unfortunate as to be attacked. Ot was instantly engaged in a vicious fight to the death, while Teatakan and Korul, and even myself, were still too far away to lend immediate assistance. I arrived at Ot’s side before the others, and by this time he had managed to straddle the bird and grasp its slender neck in his hands to choke it. I attempted to grasp its thrashing legs but could not do so without great risk of encountering the formidable claws. Suddenly, and with the great desperation seen only in a dying beast, the bird twisted itself in such a way that Ot tumbled off to the side. Then the bird’s legs both caught him in the abdomen and sliced downward with a revolting sound. Ot released the bird’s neck, and it immediately rose to its feet and ran away, disappearing into the trees. At that moment Teatakan and Korul arrived, and they gazed down with surprising calm at their wounded companion.

Teatakan was the first to take action. He rolled Ot onto his back. I then saw that the worst of Ot’s wounds would have been, under any normal circumstances, quite fatal. It was an immense and dreadful gash from his rib cage, through his abdomen and groin, and down his right leg nearly to the knee. The gash lay open in such a way that his intestines could be clearly seen, some of which had been torn open, their contents strewn about within his abdominal cavity. I could not imagine how the Lamotelokhai could heal such a grievous wound, even if it were possible to carry Ot to the village in a timely fashion.

While Korul and I attempted to hold the gash closed to prevent spilling of the entrails, Teatakan opened the small pouch hanging from a cord around his neck. From the pouch, he brought forth upon his fingers a lump of clay, presumably from the Lamotelokhai, and spread it upon the torn skin. Such a small amount of the clay seemed to me to be an absurdly trivial measure when considering the wound’s magnitude, and I thought that Ot would most assuredly expire from excessive bleeding before any medicinal benefits could occur. Teatakan then joined us in attempting to hold the wound closed, and for some minutes we continued this, the only sounds being Ot’s miserable cries from below and the singing of honeyeaters from the trees above.

Finally, it seemed that Ot’s skin was beginning to fasten itself together. We pulled away our hands, and the gash remained closed. Korul stayed with Ot while Teatakan and I gathered enough long sago leaves to build a rough shelter for the night. Rain began falling as darkness set in, and we spent the night under the shelter. Although I could sleep scarcely more than a few minutes at a time, I must say that I felt oddly as if I belonged there in those miserable circumstances, with savage hunters who desired to treat me as one of their own.

By the first light of morning, Ot was able to walk, although only slowly. We returned to the tree where we had left the three sacks of bandicoot meat and found that one of them had been torn open and partially eaten by some unknown arboreal creature. We began walking with the remaining meat back to the village, and soon the hunters were laughing and discussing how they might tell the tale of the hunt to the other villagers. It was as if they had experienced such things on many occasions before. By the time we neared the village, Ot was able to walk just as swiftly as any of us.

However, this fateful excursion held one last distressing surprise. Just as we approached the village edge, we came upon two natives. We apparently startled them, as upon hearing us approach them from behind, they turned and ran. For a brief moment I caught a glimpse of their faces.

The two natives were men I knew to be from Penapul’s tribe at Humboldt Bay.

16

May 24, 1868

I am beginning to believe a great burden is upon me, one that I am not qualified nor inclined to bear. The natives have suggested that I may be the man they have waited for, the man who would speak to the Lamotelokhai in new ways and would somehow take it away from the village. As they tell it, the Lamotelokhai has informed them that the arrival of such a man is inevitable. Perhaps I am that man, and perhaps I am not, but with each passing day my fear of the Lamotelokhai’s power grows ever stronger.

For the first time since I was brought to this village, I have a strong desire for a stiff glass of brandy, or perhaps an entire bottle, as it would help to becalm my mind so that I may write these words with objectivity and then sleep without troubling dreams. Today I experienced an event that may forever haunt my soul. I considered foregoing the distress of writing its particulars in this notebook, but as I have already taken such pains to include all relevant information here, I feel obligated to describe it. If the Lamotelokhai should ever make its way to civilization, by my hand or by another’s, this notebook may provide a warning. Or perhaps at the very least it will provide important insight.

I awoke this morning in a state of melancholy. In my new life here, I am comforted by the respectful way the indigenes have now decided to treat me and by the scientific pursuit of a better understanding of the Lamotelokhai, a worthy and stimulating endeavor. Yet not a day passes in which I do not long for the company of old friends and family, and particularly of my betrothed, Lindsey, whom I fear I may never see again.

In recent days the villagers have stopped taking me to the Lamotelokhai’s hut for my experiments. Instead, Matiinuo has told me I may visit it whenever I wish, although he did stipulate that at least one tribesman was to be there to witness what might occur. Hence, this morning, after pacing about my hut in an unsuccessful attempt to distract my thoughts from distressing subjects, I found Sinanie and went to the Lamotelokhai. Upon placing my hands on the lump of clay, I had no particular requests in mind, so I simply spoke aloud to it in English, as if it were a human being.

“I am confounded by my situation,” said I. “I feel that I can no longer presume to know what is right and wrong, what is benevolent and malicious. However, I do know that I wish to see Lindsey, although I am uncertain she would favor the man I am becoming. I wish to place my hand upon her cheek, and to tell her of the wondrous things I have seen.” I pondered what I had just said, and I nearly laughed at the absurdity of speaking in such a way to a lump of clay, regardless of where it had come from or who had created it.

In hindsight, I now know that I should steadfastly avoid the Lamotelokhai’s hut when my mood is desperate. However, at the time I could not recognize my own mistake. I said to the clay, “Ignore what I have previously asked of you. I wish to be with my beloved Lindsey. If you never grant another request, please at least consider this one.”

And then it was too late. I no longer was in the Lamotelokhai’s hut. Instead I was standing in the drawing room of my Georgian house in Fitzrovia, London. It was just as I remembered it. I inhaled the fragrance of wallflowers and moss roses, as several bunches had been arranged elegantly in vases upon my piano. The chairs and tables were arranged just as I had left them. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me.

“Samuel, what a pleasant surprise!”

I turned about, and there before me was Lindsey. Her chestnut-colored hair was braided and pinned into a low bun at the back of her neck. She was wearing my favorite skirt and bodice with sleeves, both of soft lavender dye and simple embroidery, and neither with the elaborately trimmed confections of high fashion.

For a moment, I naturally assumed the Lamotelokhai had placed another vision into my mind. However, in all previous visions, I had been merely an observer, in which my presence was of no consequence, nor was I even detected by those I observed. Now, though, in this vision, Lindsey gazed directly at me, awaiting my response.

“Lindsey,” I said, stammering. “It is you, as if I had never departed.”

“Yes, Samuel, it is I, and I am so happy you are here with me now.”

She walked gracefully to me and placed a hand upon my cheek. I felt the warmth of it and smelled clove perfume on her wrist. Fearing that she might vanish if I were to move, I carefully raised my hand and placed it on her cheek. At that moment, I knew she was real. As I gazed at her face, my eyes were drawn to my own hand against her pale and clean skin. My fingernails were uncut, and the skin was darkened by many weeks of unwashed dirt and healed scars. I looked down at my own body and was suddenly quite mortified, as I was still completely naked but for the filthy gourd tightly fitted upon my sexual organs. I withdrew my hand and stepped away from her.

“I am so sorry for my appalling appearance. You must think I have become a savage.”

She smiled. “Whatever do you mean, my love? You look perfectly dapper and trim, as you always do.”

Before she even finished speaking, I felt a change come over my entire body. I looked down again and saw that I was now wearing my favorite waistcoat over the yellow linen shirt Lindsey had given me. Below that were tweed trousers and my waxed calf oxfords. I had nearly forgotten the sensation of clothing against my skin, and I found it to be rather confining, although certainly more appropriate for the situation. I then realized that I had forgotten all of this was merely a vision, so pleased was I in again seeing my betrothed.

“Lindsey,” said I, “I do not know if it is truly you, or if you are nothing more than a lovely vision of my mind’s making.”

She smiled again. “Do you like the flowers? I bought them from the flowergirl we often see on Whitfield Street.”

“They are lovely,” I said.

“She told me her name is Hattie. Did you know that?”

Again I was already forgetting that this situation was not real. “No, I did not know her name. The poor girl seems very dear, though.”

She walked to the piano and pressed only one key, D sharp, as she inhaled the fragrance of the flowers. She held her finger on the key until the note faded to silence. “I bought two bunches, but I paid her for four,” she said.

At that moment I convinced myself I was indeed talking to Lindsey, rather than an apparition. After all, if she were a figment of my own making, how could she know the flowergirl’s name?

“It is so good to be here with you, Lindsey,” I said. “My expedition has not gone well. I fear my collection has been lost, although I hardly had the opportunity to accumulate anything more than the most common birds and insects. And Charles, my assistant, has been killed. I will have to report this news to his family.”

She turned to face me. “That is dreadful, the poor man. And I am sorry to hear about your collection. Perhaps you can begin again.”

I stepped closer to her, and this time, rather than touching her face, I put my arms around her and embraced her tightly. Again I smelled her clove perfume. I spoke tenderly near her ear. “I do not know how this is possible, but I have been given the opportunity to speak to you, although I now exist in a pitiable state in the darkest jungle on the opposite side of the world. It is an opportunity such as no man has ever had before, yet I find it difficult to find the right words to say to you.”

She whispered back to me, “You are here, Samuel. That is all that matters.”

And with those words I became enraptured and set aside all of my doubts. Perhaps later, I thought, I could decide what to tell her and what horrid particulars to keep contained within my own memory. For the moment, all that mattered was that I was with her, and I continued embracing her for a good many minutes as we spoke in whispers about matters of little consequence. I was happier than I had felt in many weeks. However, this was not destined to last.

When I finally released my embrace and pulled away, I happened to glance downward just as the collar of her bodice lifted away from her neck, and through the gap I had an unobstructed view down her front. But instead of gazing upon her undergarment and pale skin, I saw a strange blackness. I witnessed it only briefly, just long enough to determine that it was not at all what the cloth’s thickness and the angle of the window’s light should have revealed to me. It was strangely alarming to behold, and my doubts again began to grow.

I gazed into her eyes and saw nothing peculiar there. But a seed of doubt and contempt had been planted in my mind.

“Lindsey,” said I, “what has happened since I departed from London? My parents, are they well?”

She smiled at this. “Of course they are well. They speak of you often.”

“And what news of my brother, Owen?”

Her smile nearly turned into a laugh. “You’re trying to trick me. I know you don’t have a brother.”

She was correct on that matter, and the trick had failed. I then asked, “What news can you tell me of Prime Minister Disraeli’s cabinet? I imagine he has appointed men to all stations by now, has he not?”

Lindsey gazed at me for a moment, but her smile did not fade. Finally, she laughed. “I’m sure you would rather tell me of your adventures.”

I did not relent. “Please, I wish to hear of the cabinet and parliament. Tell me what has transpired. I insist.”

She laughed again. “I would rather—”

I interrupted her. “I insist, Lindsey!”

Never before had I spoken to her in such a manner, but this did not dampen her mood. In fact, she laughed yet again. This supported my growing suspicion that she was no more than a fantastical vision, constructed from what I already knew of her, as I had never before seen her become angry. I was incensed by the possibility that she was not real, and rather than simply appreciating this gift the Lamotelokhai had given me, I became even more determined to drive her to anger. I wanted so badly for her to be real that I concluded that her anger would prove she was capable of something more than my own memories of her. Hence, I then said something that would infuriate any lady of civilized society.

“I wish for you to remove your bodice and skirt,” I said. “Please do it immediately.” Upon uttering these words, I felt great shame, as I would never typically say such a thing to a member of the fair sex. I began to apologize, but it was too late.

Still laughing, Lindsey removed her bodice and sleeves. I attempted to turn my eyes away, but then I could not, as the horror of what I saw before me caused me to stumble backwards and nearly fall to the floor. Rather than a typical cotton undergarment, as one would expect, below Lindsey’s shoulders was blackness such as I can scarcely describe. It was not the darkness of black cloth, or even of black velvet, but rather a blackness so absolute that I knew there was simply nothing there at all. She then removed her skirt, revealing more of the same infinite blackness.

She took a step closer, and I backed away, quite horrified. Her head and shoulders were just before me, as were her hands, wrists, feet, and ankles. All else was simply an absence of anything at all. I could see only that which was in my memory. As was proper for a gentleman, I had never seen more of Lindsey than what I could see at that moment.

She spoke as she came even closer. “Samuel, let us talk about pleasant things. Have you met interesting people on your journey?”

I cried out and covered my eyes, as I could endure no more of this vision.

When I lowered my hands and opened my eyes, I was once again in the hut of the Lamotelokhai. Sinanie was still there, frowning and watching me with interest. In an unpleasant state of distress, I told Sinanie that I intended no further experiments with the Lamotelokhai, and I hastily left the hut.

After careful consideration, I have decided I must tell the Lamotelokhai to never again, under any circumstances, put visions into my mind, even if I request it. In fact, I may even ask if it can make me forget it is possible to speak to it at all. It is indeed a most powerful substance, but I have come to believe it is as dangerous as it is fascinating, and that it will bring great suffering to the world. Its rightful place is here, hidden deep in the wilderness.

17

May 26, 1868

I wish to tell the events of today exactly as they happened, as I am in no condition to express meaningful comments regarding their implications. Perhaps in the coming days I can reflect on these events with some measure of objectivity.

This morning I had resolved to visit the Lamotelokhai to demand that it never again put visions of any kind into my mind, which again I had determined to be necessary for my sanity. I fetched Sinanie, and scarcely had we climbed the ladder to the Lamotelokhai’s hut when we heard a great commotion to the north. Immediately I assumed the worst, and when I saw villagers carrying spears and running toward the commotion, I knew my assumption to be correct. The village was again being attacked.

Sinanie and I each were handed spears by the other men as we ran to defend the village. When we reached the source of the commotion, my worst fears were realized. The Humboldt Bay tribe had returned, this time with many more men. Although I did not see Penapul, at least thirty-five men and boys from his village stood shoulder to shoulder, advancing steadily as they grunted in unison. Including myself, fewer than fifteen defenders opposed them. Teatakan, Ot, and Korul were gone on a hunting excursion, and two of our men were already lying injured or dead on the ground. We were outnumbered by at least twenty men.

The line of attackers, armed with spears and steel choppers, continued advancing one step at a time, and we had no choice but to yield. At this rate, we would soon be forced out of the village, and Penapul’s men would then overrun the huts and take from them whatever they wished, including the Lamotelokhai.

Sinanie and Ahea were to my right. Matiinuo and ten other villagers were to my left. I looked at Matiinuo, and for the first time I saw fear in his eyes. I had learned enough about these natives to know that they did not fear death. The one thing they truly feared was failing in what they believed to be their primary purpose.

Unexpectedly, another commotion arose behind us. It was a woman’s voice, a sound I had never once heard while living in this village. I turned around to see a woman tumble from the door of a hut and fall fifteen feet to the ground. A man from Penapul’s tribe began climbing down from the hut after her, but he appeared to be injured. The woman attempted to get up but could not. Suddenly, two other men were upon her, and they drove their spears through her body. I stared at her murderers, shocked from witnessing their brutal act. I then saw that one of them was Penapul.

I cried out, “Matiinuo, they are attacking from behind!” In my haste, I failed to speak this in his language, but it was of no consequence because at that moment the line of invading attackers yelled fiercely and rushed forward, stabbing and chopping madly.

Never before had I been faced with such a violent onslaught, and having had no experience whatsoever with fighting, I was nearly paralyzed with distress. Coming directly for me with his chopper was a man I had met at Humboldt Bay, by the name of Nabul. He had been kind to me then, and we had never quarreled, but now he clearly intended to slice me to bits. The only advantage I had was the length of my spear compared to that of his chopper, and so I thrust it at him to hold him beyond effective chopping range. As he swung his chopper at my spear again and again, apparently intending to hack it to a shorter length, several men beside me succumbed and fell. The attackers from each end of the advancing line then began circling behind us. They would soon overwhelm us, as no man could simultaneously fight enemies before and behind him.

Sinanie cried out, “Keliokmo dimo!” Immediately the ten or so men who were still able to fight gathered together into a circle, facing outward. I recognized what they were attempting and inserted myself into their formation. This quick and coordinated action seemed to cause our attackers to pause. For a moment, all was strangely quiet and still.

Our situation seemed to be hopeless, and during this brief respite, I determined that these men had to be stopped at any cost. They could not be allowed to take the Lamotelokhai, as this would most assuredly have dreadful consequences.

“I must go to the Lamotelokhai’s hut,” I said to Sinanie. Again I neglected to use his language, as I was too distressed to form the correct words. I hoped that the word Lamotelokhai was sufficient to convey my meaning.

I gazed directly at the attacker before me. “Nabul,” I said to him, “I am sorry.” I then took two steps forward and thrust my spear at his face. He stepped back, hacking at my weapon and forcing it to miss. Just as the men on either side of Nabul turned their weapons on me, the two men at my sides stepped out to engage them, giving me the opportunity to drive Nabul back even further. He tried desperately to counteract my thrusts, but I did not relent, and my spear punctured his cheek and glanced off his teeth. He retreated, holding a hand over his torn face, and I took this opportunity to run, leaving my companions behind to fend for themselves. As I ran, I saw Penapul and two other men attacking another woman, but rather than stopping to help her, I continued running.

Much to my relief, Penapul’s warriors had not yet entered the Lamotelokhai’s hut. I climbed the ladder hastily, kneeled before the lump of clay, and put my hands upon it. As I did this I heard shouts of anger and distress from the fighting below.

“I beg for your help,” said I. “Penapul has come for revenge. The men and women of this tribe are all going to perish if I do not do something. I know you have put your knowledge into these people, hence they are important to you, as they are to me. They are being murdered, all of them.”

At that moment I was nearly overcome by the most dreadful visions in my mind, appearing at a bewildering rate. There was fighting and killing, with much bloodshed.

“Stop, I beg you,” I cried. My thoughts were already jumbled. I had seen too much violence and had no desire to witness more, nor did I want to have a hand in murdering more people. “I do not wish to kill Penapul and his men,” I said. “Nor do I wish for Matiinuo’s men to kill them. But they must be stopped! Can you help?”

Between my hands, a bulge on the clay began to rise. I could think of no other purpose for this except that it was forming there for me to take. So I pulled loose the handful of clay, descended the ladder, and ran. The woman I had failed to help lay dead upon the ground as I passed.

Penapul and the other men who had attacked from behind had joined the main group and were moments away from completely overwhelming Sinanie’s remaining men. Only seven of our tribe remained. Matiinuo and Noadi were among the bodies strewn about at the feet of those still standing. When I saw this, great fury boiled within me such that my thoughts of a peaceable outcome turned to thoughts of revenge. I ran directly at Penapul, pulled loose a portion of the clay in my hand, and threw it. The clay struck him in the chest. He paused and wiped some of it off. He gazed at the clay in his hand for a moment and then looked at me and laughed, perhaps assuming I had gone mad. He turned his attention back to the battle. I then approached his men as closely as I dared and threw bits of the clay at them until I had hit every Humboldt Bay tribesman. As I was holding no weapon and was throwing what appeared to be harmless clay, the warriors ignored me and continued their onslaught. By the time I had finished this, only four of my companions remained standing.

I did not know what effect the clay might have on the attacking men, or if it would have any at all. Another of Matiinuo’s tribe fell, leaving only Sinanie and two others, Ahea and a man named Faül.

“Penapul!” I cried out.

By that time only a half dozen of Penapul’s men were active in the fight, circling the three survivors and waiting for an easy opportunity for a fatal chop or thrust. The others were standing back, watching. Penapul turned and looked at me. His face was injured in two places, but this did not prevent him from forming a smile.

Although I hadn’t the opportunity to become proficient with Penapul’s language, my greatly improved memory served me well at this time. “You have murdered my friends,” I said to him, using his language as best I could. “These people are now dead. Those still living are too few to be a threat to you. Let them live and they will go far away to make a new village.”

By my reckoning, Penapul likely had no understanding of the notion of khomilo-ayan, or ‘very dead.’ If he would spare only one or two of us, we could apply the clay of the Lamotelokhai to heal the injured and even the recently dead.

Penapul said something to his men, and they halted their attack. It was clear that Sinanie and the two others were utterly exhausted. They could hardly hold their spears up, and it would take little effort for Penapul’s warriors to dispatch them. Penapul and three others approached me, and I backed away, which caused them to circle me to prevent my escape. I began to think that the Lamotelokhai’s clay was harmless to them, and that my life would soon end.

Penapul spoke to me, and the following is my attempt to translate.

“We have feared this tribe for a long time. Our men came here to hunt but did not come back. Hunters from other tribes came here, but they were not seen again. Amborn, Miok, and Loo came here with you, and they did not come back. Now this tribe will be dead, and we will not fear them again.”

“You can go home now,” I said in his language. “Now they are not to be feared.”

Penapul smiled again. “We will complete our task, and then we will go home. We will take the heads with us. The skulls will hang in our houses, and we will look at them often and tell stories of this day.”

I looked at him with renewed alarm. If they beheaded the bodies, this would most assuredly thwart the Lamotelokhai’s healing powers. And if they killed every last one of us, there would be no one to apply the healing clay anyway. Suddenly I realized all would be lost.

Penapul handed his spear to the man next to him and took the man’s chopper. He then approached me. I glanced about, but his warriors had surrounded me. Penapul stopped when he was close enough to strike me down. He slapped the flat edge of the long and bloody blade against his hand several times, as if to taunt me in my final moments.

The events that occurred next are nearly beyond my capacity and will to describe, but I believe that they should be told and known.

Penapul began speaking to me, but then he stopped after uttering only the first word. For a moment he seemed confused. He then grasped the chopper with both his hands and pressed the tip of the blade to his own throat. I thought perhaps he was taunting me yet again, but suddenly he threw himself upon the ground. This action drove the blade through his throat and it emerged from the back of his neck. I stared down at Penapul with great shock as his body immediately began floundering about with violent spasms, causing his own men and myself to step back to avoid being thrashed by his arms and legs.

I looked up at Penapul’s men, and they seemed to be as shocked by this as I was. But then one of them dropped his spear to the ground and began screaming. He simply stood with his arms at his sides, crying out with such force that he sounded more like a wild beast than a human being.

Beside the screaming man, another warrior threw his spear aside. He then ran with all his strength toward the nearest tree. At the last moment before hitting it, he bent at the waist so that his head hit the tree, instantly breaking his neck. He fell to the ground and did not move again.

Another man turned his spear upon himself. He thrust the spear’s point into his ribs, and when he could push it no further, he placed the blunt end of it against the ground and leaned into it with all of his weight until blood began oozing from his mouth. He then fell to the ground to die.

During all these horrible actions, the screaming man’s wailings seemed to grow ever more desperate.

Another man dropped to his hands and knees, and with great strength he began throwing his own head downward, repeatedly striking his face against the ground, transforming it into a ghastly pulp—but still he did not stop.

By this time, the general mass of the Humboldt Bay men had been thrown into a state of utter panic. Many of them tried to run away, but before they had run even a dozen steps they abandoned the attempt and engaged in the most unthinkable suicidal acts. I saw a man force his hand into his mouth and down his throat with such force that it killed him. Another man went to the tree where his companion had broken his own neck, stepped upon the man’s body, climbed the tree, and then threw himself to the ground. Most of the men, however, turned their own weapons against themselves.

When at least half of the men had died, I could endure the sight no longer, and I turned away so I could not see it and held my hands to my ears to deaden the cries of the man who still stood screaming with his arms at his sides. Oddly, in my mind I could think only of the stag beetle I had once seen walk fearlessly off the edge of a table.

Suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps I could stop this savage mayhem. I could run to the Lamotelokhai and request another handful of clay that I could apply to the surviving men to prevent their suicides. Instead, I simply stood with my eyes closed and ears covered, unwilling to save them—unwilling to allow the survivors to return to their village, only to attack us again at some future time.

When the man who had been screaming finally stopped, I turned around. He had collapsed and was now apparently dead. He had screamed with such vigor that blood had flowed from his eyes, and he had spewed forth bits of his throat and lungs.

So blunted were my senses by the horror of what I had done that it took some time for me to realize that Sinanie, Ahea, and Faül were the only men, other than me, who were still standing.

Sinanie’s eyes were wide as he spoke to me. “Samuel, yekhené-pan-to ülmo. Gekhené khokhukh-tebo semail-e-khén kül. Gu laléo-lu. Kho funé yanop golole-té-do yalén, yanop khedi-fa-fon-dakhu.”

* * *

My translation:

“Samuel, they killed themselves. Your anger is like the anger of a crocodile. You are a powerful spirit. All the people should be afraid, because you will exterminate all the people.”

* * *

Sinanie, Ahea, and Faül then turned their attention to their dead and injured companions. There were too many for so few men to carry, so they instead went to fetch the Lamotelokhai.

I still had not moved from the place where I stood, and I felt quite unable to do so. Instead, I simply gazed at the carnage around me. Every last man and boy from Humboldt Bay had been exterminated.

18

June 1, 1868

I have occupied no small measure of my time in recent days by contemplating what it is that distinguishes a civilized society from a barbarous one. I am sure there are many opinions on this. Some may believe it is industry and wealth. Others may feel that it is acquisition of lands. Perhaps it is a robust system of government, of administering justice, and of national education. Or perhaps it is a rich culture of artistic and scientific achievements. Or it is all of these things combined. But I have come to believe that above all these things there is one quality that most distinguishes the civilized man from the savage. That single quality is compassion.

Compassion is what motivates us to respond to the suffering of others by helping them. It is important to distinguish between compassion and sympathy. Whereas sympathy implies a general concern for others, it does not imply acting upon that concern. Men who have compassion do indeed feel sympathy, but they go beyond this sympathy and actually behave in ways that benefit the welfare of others.

In the great ‘civilized’ societies of the world, such as London, there is an astounding preponderance of suffering among the populace, and there is no shortage of sympathy. Sympathy in fact seems even to be fashionable among the wealthy. However, sympathy does not alleviate the suffering—compassion does. Hence, having contemplated this endlessly, I have determined that a general inclination for compassion is the one last achievement that lay beyond the reach of great civilizations.

There is yet another conclusion I have made. In order for a man to be compassionate, he must have the capacity and will to imagine himself in the body of another human being, so that he may understand the other’s thoughts and feelings. This can be achieved only if he is able to believe that he and the other human being are similar, perhaps even equal. A wealthy European man may have little difficulty feeling compassion for another wealthy European man. However, that same man may fail to feel compassion for others if he believes they are fundamentally different from himself, due perhaps to their lack of wealth, poor breeding, lower station in life, or physiognomy and skin color. It seems to me, therefore, that this belief that others are different, perhaps inferior, is exactly what prevents men from feeling compassion, and therefore it is what prevents societies from becoming truly civilized.

I have come from the world’s greatest city, but am I a civilized man? Due to my actions, and subsequently to my inaction, forty-four men and boys suffered most excruciating deaths. If I had felt some measure of compassion for them, would I not have attempted to stop the slaughter? If they had been men more like me, perhaps white men who spoke English, would I have still wished them to die?

I attempted to convince myself that their deaths were beyond my control. My fateful request to the Lamotelokhai had been as follows: “I do not wish to kill Penapul’s men. Nor do I wish for Matiinuo’s men to kill them. But they must be stopped.”

I have endlessly considered these words, and it seems they were interpreted literally, yet incorrectly. I failed to state clearly that I wished for the men to be stopped without the men actually dying. One could argue that this was an honest mistake.

However, that does not change the fact that, upon witnessing my friends being stabbed and chopped, I desired to kill Penapul’s men. My anger was such that I wished for all of them to die, and when I had the opportunity to prevent this, I took no action.

When it was over, after we had treated our fallen men and women with the clay of the Lamotelokhai, I considered the possibility of also treating the bodies of the Humboldt Bay men.

It seemed that it might be the right thing to do, but again I did not act on this thought.

* * *

What is the purpose of the Lamotelokhai? This is another question I have pondered in recent days. Perhaps it was created and sent here in order to determine which societies are truly civilized and which are comprised of savages. Perhaps, in fact, it was sent here to rid the world of populations that fail to acquire certain qualities deemed important by its creators, such as compassion. What I find distressing about this notion is that Matiinuo’s tribe has lived with the Lamotelokhai for hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands. However, I fear that if the Lamotelokhai were taken to London, its ill-intentioned use could bring a quick and disastrous end to that great society.

On the other hand, perhaps the Lamotelokhai’s purpose is merely to share the knowledge and power of its three-legged creators. If that is so, then it seems my responsibility should be to take it out of this remote corner of the world and put it into the possession of those who would better learn from it.

Sinanie and his tribe, all of whom have recovered from their injuries or deaths, now seem convinced that I am the man who is to take the Lamotelokhai away. They have told me this, although they have hardly spoken to me otherwise since the massacre. They have made no further attempts to teach me about their culture, as if they fear me and are simply waiting for me to take the Lamotelokhai and leave.

However, this I must never do, as I believe it to be improbable that the Lamotelokhai could be used with any measure of compassion. Even in the hands of learned and well-intentioned men, the Lamotelokhai could be used with dreadful results. In the hands of less honorable men, the results would be unthinkable. Hence, I will endeavor to convince the natives to continue hiding the Lamotelokhai from the rest of the world. So important is this to me that I will remain here and will use whatever influence the tribe has granted me to make it so.

* * *

I wish to tell of one more event, which happened today, and then I will wrap this notebook, along with my others, in the dry bark of the yakhuo tree to preserve it, and I will put it in a safe place, as I have no further intentions of writing upon its pages. I have found that writing in my notebook has become an invitation to melancholy. As it is unlikely that I will leave this place any time soon, writing frequently of my daily experiences only serves to remind me of my loved ones and the civilization I may never see again. I will add more words to these pages only when significant events occur to warrant it. If you should find yourself in possession of my notebooks, please take heed of the warnings I have provided herein.

Today I visited the hut of the Lamotelokhai for the first time since the massacre. Sinanie and Matiinuo both insisted on accompanying me there. I had decided that I must overcome my fear of it, as there was still much to learn.

Upon placing my hands on the clay, I hesitated, as I was not certain of how to make the request I had so carefully considered, nor was I certain that it was a good idea.

I spoke aloud and in English. “Lamotelokhai, I am not the man I once thought myself to be. I have done much thinking recently of such notions as compassion, sympathy, and peaceable intentions. I believe your creators possess such qualities beyond what I am capable of.”

I glanced at Matiinuo and Sinanie before stating my request. “I would like to be improved,” I said to the lump of clay. “Not my body, but my mind, and only with respect to these qualities. I wish to be the type of man your creators can respect, the type of man they would consider to be worthy of the knowledge they have endeavored to share. Can you help me with this?”

Then, before I could decide against it, I pulled loose some of the clay, placed it in my mouth, and swallowed it. Matiinuo and Sinanie shifted about on their feet and spoke softly to each other.

Matiinuo then said, “Samuel, gekhené mbakha mo-mba-té?”

* * *

My translation:

“Samuel, what have you done?”

* * *

I spoke to them in their language. “Do not be concerned. I have asked to be improved, but not in a way that might cause me to become lelül lokhul and harm your tribe.”

They did not appear to be comforted by this explanation. However, it was done, and I had no inclination to undo it. I then picked up a hollow gourd I had brought with me. Crawling about in the gourd was a large orb-weaving spider I had captured. It had occurred to me that the silk of such a spider could be useful for many purposes, particularly if I could employ the Lamotelokhai’s help to make the silk stronger, and perhaps to make the spider larger so that it could produce more of it.

But I must resist the temptation to describe the particulars of this, as I have vowed to stop writing in this notebook.

It has now been a good many hours since I asked the Lamotelokhai to improve me, but I feel no different than I felt before.

19

April 24, 1944

The gift of perfect memory was among the first gifts bestowed upon me by the Lamotelokhai seventy-six years ago. This faculty, of course, has been beneficial to me in my attempts to elucidate a better understanding of the Lamotelokhai, as well as in other smaller matters, such as keeping record of the precise year and date during my prolonged existence. However, it is also, in some respects, a curse upon me. Given such an extent of time, most men would gradually forget the faces and words of their loved ones. In every day that passes, though, I see the faces and hear the words spoken long ago by Lindsey and my mother and father, as if I had been with them only moments before. This makes it rather difficult to leave the past behind.

It is significant that seventy-six years have passed without the Lamotelokhai being discovered and taken to civilization. There was a time, particularly after I had realized my body had stopped aging, in which I believed that after this many years I would myself have taken the Lamotelokhai away from this village. Surely, I once presumed, mankind would progress in his social evolution such that a general sense of compassion and peaceable intentions would be achieved. However, it seems this presumption was terribly naive.

This brings me to the reason I have uncovered this notebook to once again write upon its pages. Someday, whether I live to see it or not, the Lamotelokhai will indeed be found by outsiders. When that day comes, I wish for my notebooks to be found as well, particularly if I am no longer alive to provide cautionary counsel to those who might need it. I want the world to know why I, Samuel Thaddeus Inwood, have made such efforts to delay the Lamotelokhai’s discovery.

I have brought forth my notebook in order to describe events of the last several weeks, as these events have reaffirmed my conviction that the only safe place for the Lamotelokhai is here, hidden in the darkest jungle.

Beginning about two years ago, it became evident that endeavors of colonization and industry were taking place to the north, perhaps at Humboldt Bay. I occasionally could hear the low rumblings of some unknown and massive machinery, and a great many flying vessels would pass over us high above the trees. Imaginative men had long foretold of such winged machines, but never had I believed that they would fly with such rapidity and thunderous noise.

I became concerned that all of this industrious activity to the north might result in men venturing inland and perhaps discovering our village, but for two years the only evidence of their existence was the aforementioned disturbances.

However, nearly a month ago, the situation changed. Early on the morning of March 30, the ground began trembling from some massive and frightening disturbance to the north. I thought perhaps this was an earthquake, but the thunder and tremors of it continued for five days, after which all fell silent. During these five days we saw more flying vessels pass above us than I had ever imagined possible.

The area remained relatively quiet for more than two weeks after that. However, on April 19, a most disturbing thing happened. It occurred when I was on a hunting excursion with Teatakan, Ot, and Korul, an activity for which I had developed some fascination. We were east of the village in search of bandicoots, which seemed to have become somewhat scarce. Ot was the first to detect something out of the ordinary. It was a foul smell, perhaps that of a dead beast of some kind. We followed the smell several hundred yards to its source, and what I saw there will no doubt haunt my thoughts forever. Scattered about, sitting up against the trunks of trees or lying upon the ground, were the bodies of eleven men.

The men appeared to be of Japanese descent, or perhaps they were from Singapore. They seemed to be soldiers, as they all wore similar olive-green uniforms, although these were torn and terribly soiled from the most grievous cases of dysentery imaginable. Dysentery, in fact, was what appeared to have killed these men. Scattered about among the bodies were rifles of an unusual design, dome-shaped helmets of steel, and tall boots that had been discarded, no doubt due to swelled and fevered feet. It appeared that the men had brought with them no food or water, nor any other supplies.

Why would these soldiers venture so far into the wilderness without adequate supplies and medicines? Perhaps they had set out on a short excursion and had become lost, but it seemed more likely they had been forced to flee into the jungle and had no opportunity to gather what was needed.

As we looked upon this tragic scene, one of the men suddenly moved. He opened his eyes, and with obvious difficulty he focused his gaze upon us. I kneeled in front of him, but I had no water to offer, which is what he needed most, as dysentery drains every drop from the body.

The man then spoke to me. “Koroshite kudasai. Watashi ga hazukashimete imasu.”

I could not understand his words, but I was reasonably certain they were Japanese. I turned to my companions and spoke to them in their language. “We can help this man. He does not deserve to die in such a terrible way.”

All three of them frowned, but Teatakan was the one to speak. “These men have travelled too close to our village. We must leave him to die. He is weak and will soon die. These men will then return to the soil and to their ancestors, as they should.”

This was the response I had expected, and I knew it would be unlikely I could convince them to change their minds. For a moment I considered telling them that this man could possibly be the one they had waited for, the man who might speak to the Lamotelokhai in new ways and take it away. As I pondered this I gazed at the man, and then at his uniform, and then at the helmet and rifle that lay at his side. He reached for the weapon but was too weak to move it once it was in his grasp. I then decided to keep the notion to myself.

Korul set his bow on the ground and then held his spear with both hands, ready to thrust it. He said, “If you wish this man to die quickly, I will kill him.”

I shifted my position to shield the dying man. “Do not kill him,” I said.

Korul nodded and lowered his spear. “Come, Samuel, we will continue hunting. The man will soon die.”

“You go,” said I. “I will be just behind you. I wish to talk to this man. When I finish, I will call out to you if I cannot see where you are.”

The three hunters agreed to this, and they continued walking east. I turned my attention back to the Japanese man.

“I wish I could speak to you in your language,” I said. “There is so very much I could tell you.”

The man’s eyes were still upon me, but it seemed that he was unable or unwilling to speak.

I turned to look for Teatakan, Ot, and Korul, but the dense forest had already hidden them. I then pulled out the skin pouch I kept in the pocket of my waistcloth. With my finger I dug a small lump of clay from the pouch. I wiped it on the man’s lips, and he swallowed it immediately, perhaps assuming it was food.

“I do not know what brought you to this place,” I said to him. “But I do hope you find peace in whatever place you may go to next.” I placed my hand upon my chest. “Samuel,” I said. “Samuel Inwood.”

I did not expect him to reply to this, so I returned my pouch to its pocket and began to stand up.

Then he did speak, although with obvious difficulty. “Iwataro. Iwataro Hayashi.”

“I wish you Godspeed, Iwataro,” I said to him.

As there was little more I could do, I then left him and his dead companions.

* * *

The next day I decided to travel north to Humboldt Bay in order to witness with my own eyes what was occurring there. Sinanie agreed to accompany me, and we departed the following morning with ample time to travel more than half the distance before nightfall. We arrived at Humboldt Bay on April 22. From my time spent with Penapul’s tribe many years ago, I knew of an area without trees upon the hill on the west side of the bay that afforded an unobscured view. However, long before we reached the hill’s summit, Sinanie nearly convinced me to turn back, as the air was filled with thunderous eruptions so forceful that the hillside itself shook beneath our feet. Having travelled so far to see what was causing these noises, I was reluctant to retreat, and so we soon arrived at the open view upon the summit. Before us was a scene so dreadful that we simply stared at the bay without speaking for some minutes.

Humboldt Bay was filled with war ships. There were dozens of them. The greatest of them were far larger than the grand steamship Deccan that had carried me from England to Singapore. Mounted upon these enormous ships of metal were canons, which were the source of all of the thunderous destruction. The canons fired repeatedly at the shore, sending streaks of fire to destroy everything before them and filling the sky above the bay with clouds of dark smoke. So violent were the explosions upon the shore that it seemed impossible that any man, beast, or plant there could still be living. If Penapul’s village had ever managed to rebuild its population following the loss of its boys and men, they almost certainly could not exist after this indescribable destruction.

Among the larger ships were smaller ones that appeared to be completely loaded with men, and these vessels made their way directly toward the beach. As I watched, one of these ships ran right up onto the beach, where its load of soldiers swarmed onto the shore amidst smoke and firing of guns.

When I turned to look to the west, I saw great columns of black smoke rising in the distance. It was as if the entire northern coast of New Guinea were being attacked and destroyed by the unimaginable power of these machines of war. Never before had I witnessed anything like it, and I hoped to never see such violence again.

Without a word spoken, Sinanie and I turned away and began our journey back to the village.

* * *

Perhaps someday I will be judged harshly for my actions. Perhaps those judging me will argue that the knowledge and power of the Lamotelokhai could have been used to prevent such lamentable warfare. How could this be, though, when such murderous intentions exist in the minds of men? How could such a war be ended or prevented? Would the people in possession of the Lamotelokhai use its powers to make all their enemies suddenly complacent and agreeable? If so, is it morally justifiable to forcibly alter the thoughts in the minds of other men? And where would that lead us to next?

Or perhaps the country in possession of the Lamotelokhai could bring about peace by simply exterminating its enemies? If so, I can tell you that I have seen such a solution with my own eyes, and it does not bring the peace and comfort of mind that you might wish for.

Perhaps you might argue that the Lamotelokhai’s power could be used to provide every country with all the resources and wealth its people may desire, thus eliminating any want for war. But where do the desires of men end? Rarely do they end with accumulated resources and wealth. Instead, men then wish for power. They wish to own all of the lands of the earth, and even then their desires do not stop. Hence, the final result would still be war, but in this case it would be war between countries possessing unlimited resources. Such a war is frightening to contemplate.

Perhaps you might argue that I am simplifying this matter to the point of distortion, and that the greatest minds of the world will surely devise ways in which the Lamotelokhai may be used to bring about peace. If so, you may be correct, but I have had seventy-six years to ponder this, and I have significant doubts, which in the last few days have been confirmed. The world’s greatest minds were apparently not able to prevent the war that is now taking place, and I believe I know why. It is because, as great as the world’s societies may have become, they have still not achieved one very important characteristic: a general inclination for compassion.

Hence, I have convinced Matiinuo, Sinanie, and the others of the tribe to move the village far inland, to a place so remote that outsiders will not find it for many years to come. I will use the Lamotelokhai’s help in concealing the village so that it will not be seen by men in flying vessels above, nor by occasional wandering hunters or explorers below. Sinanie and I have devised a plan for constructing huts high in the tallest of trees. Rather than being supported by poles, which are easily seen from the ground, these huts will hang from the trees themselves.

I do not know for how long we will manage to remain hidden, but I hope for many years. If you are reading these words, the Lamotelokhai has at last been discovered by outsiders, in which case you should pray to God for the wisdom and compassion required to use it safely. However, even this act is likely to be found wanting, as the Lamotelokhai’s power seems to far exceed the power of any god.

We must all become improved.

Did you enjoy SAVAGE? You can make a big difference.

Reviews are by far the best way to help out authors like myself. They really help to get attention for my books.

If you've enjoyed Savage, I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave an honest review (even a short review would be wonderful) on the book's page on Amazon and/or Goodreads. You could post a review for this entire box set, or you could post a review for the individual Savage book.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Author’s Notes

First, I must say that I have the deepest respect for the unique cultures of the Papuan peoples. Obviously I have taken liberties in developing the characteristics of Sinanie’s tribe, but I intended no disrespect by doing so. I have also taken some liberties in developing Penapul’s tribe, although nearly all of their characteristics are based upon actual Papuan cultures, as described by Alfred Russell Wallace in his amazing account of his work in that part of the world from 1854 to 1862, titled The Malay Archipelago (first published in 1869), and as described by other authors listed below.

I must also point out that the character, Samuel Inwood, was a product of his time. His notions and ideals are based on an accumulation of research and reading the texts of such men as Alfred Wallace. It is not my intention to insult the more modern sensibilities of readers. Instead, I wish to accurately depict a man of Samuel’s time and station in life, and his gradual realization of a broader way of looking at humanity.

I adapted the language of Sinanie’s tribe from the amazing work of Gerrit J. van Enk and Lourens de Vries in their studies of the language and culture of the Korowai, a Papuan community of treehouse dwellers of southern Irian Jaya (now called Papua). Astoundingly, the Korowai had never come into contact with outsiders until the early 1980s.

I am thankful for the hard work of those who have painstakingly researched the cultures, wildlife, and ecosystems of Papua. The following are recommended books (and one video).

Flannery, Tim. Mammals of New Guinea. Chatswood, New South Wales: Reed Books Australia, 1995. Print.

Flannery, Tim. Throwim Way Leg: Tree Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds – On the Track of Unknown Mammals in Wildest New Guinea. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. Print.

Marriott, Edward. The Lost Tribe – A Harrowing Passage into New Guinea’s Heart of Darkness. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. Print.

Merrifield, William, Gregerson, Marilyn, and Ajamiseba, Daniel, Ed. Gods, Heroes, Kinsmen: Ethnographic Studies from Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Jayapura, Irian Jaya: Cenderawasih University, 1983. Print.

Muller, Kal. New Guinea: Journey Into the Stone Age. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Passport Books, 1997. Print.

Souter, Gavin. New Guinea: The Last Unknown. New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1966. Print.

Van Enk, Gerrit J. and de Vries, Lourens. The Korowai of Irian Jaya – Their Language in its Cultural Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.

Wallace, Alfred Russell. The Malay Archipelago. 1869. Print or ebook.

This astounding work, which is in two volumes, is now in the public domain and can be found in a variety of print and ebook formats. If you are at all interested in the exploration of this part of the world, I highly recommend reading Wallace’s work.

Sky Above Mud Below. Dir. and Perf. Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau (organizer and leader) and Gerard Delloye (assistant leader). Lorimar Home Video, 1962. VHS.

This video was filmed as it happened in 1959, when a group of explorers set out on a seven-month attempt to cross the jungles of Papua (then called Dutch New Guinea). Winner of the 1961 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Acknowledgments

I am not capable of creating a book such as this on my own. I have the following people, among others, to thank for their assistance.

When it comes to editing, my son Micheal Smith is extremely talented, and his tireless and meticulous suggestions are invaluable. If you find a sentence or detail in the book that doesn’t seem right, it is likely because I failed to implement one of his suggestions.

My wife, Trish, is always the first to read my work, and therefore she has the burden of seeing my stories in their roughest form. Thankfully, she does not hesitate to point out where things are a mess. Her suggestions are what get the editing process started. She also helps with various promotional efforts. And finally, she not only tolerates my obsession with writing, she actually encourages it.

Monique Agueros, a colleague of mine for many years, also provided helpful editing suggestions.

I am thankful to all the independent freelance designers out there who provide quality work for independent authors such as myself. The mostly hand-drawn map of New Guinea at the beginning of the book was created by Sabrina Genarri (via fiverr.com). The cover design was created by Emanuele La Motta (via 99designs.com).

Copyright © 2017 by Stan Smith

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Note to the Reader

Blue Arrow is the story of Peter Wooley, as told by his amazing wife, Rose. It is a novella of 15,000 words. I’m assuming you have read Diffusion, Infusion, and Profusion. If you have, you already know who Peter and Rose are and will likely be eager to better understand the fascinating history of their relationship.

You can learn more about my novels and sign up for my author emails at my web site. I have another series called BRIDGERS that I’m sure you’ll enjoy!

http://www.stancsmith.com

1

Peter

I imagined leaving Peter when I was only forty-one. I packed my bags and placed them by the door. I envisioned myself walking out the door and down the street. I would rent a flat in Southside Cairns and someday open my own beach shop. Rainbow-colored sunglasses, dried starfish, earrings with dangling abalone and cone shells, large-handled bags with embroidered clownfish, and tasteful flip-flops made of hemp fibers—not the cheap plastic ones.

But then Peter came home. At that time—it was 1977—Peter wasn’t what you’d call a working man. Three generations of his family had thrived in the shipping business. Sugar cane, mostly. He was not rich, but the family business had provided him with enough funds that working was optional. Oh, Peter could have worked, but he had other things on his mind. If you ask me, he was busy devising a most spectacular way to die. First, there was cycling. He wanted to outpace Hubert Opperman’s ride from Fremantle to Sydney—4,600 kilometers in thirteen days. Like Opperman, Peter had to carry his bike more than fifteen kilometers at Nanwarra Sands. And he did this on his own. No support vehicle, no one dropping off food and water. He didn’t beat Oppy’s record, but he survived. Then there was swimming—twenty kilometers across the Rottnest Channel. Again on his own, no support. Jellyfish nearly brought an end to that, and to his life. And then there was rock climbing—without safety equipment. Just to prove he could, I guess. But all of that came to an end when he attempted to traverse the island of New Guinea from north to south. Alone. This was impossible, of course. Well-equipped expeditions had failed. Peter would die there. I knew it, and he knew it.

And so, when Peter left me at home to go die in New Guinea, I packed a couple of bags and placed them by the door. Four weeks later they were still there, waiting for me at the door. Two more weeks passed. I hadn’t left, and I hadn’t moved the bags. I began to realize I didn’t really want to leave, that I wanted the bags by the door so Peter would see them when he came home. Perhaps then he would see what was happening to our relationship. Perhaps then he would decide his life was worth living. If only he would come home.

Another week passed. Peter was three weeks overdue. I should have begun the mourning process, because I knew he was dead somewhere in the rugged, stifling, uncharted wilderness. He had probably eaten the wrong fruit, or contracted a rare disease. Or maybe he had fallen in a ravine. Perhaps most likely he had simply died of hunger or thirst. But still my bags remained by the door, and every day I waited for a phone call that might end my suffering one way or the other.

And then Peter came home.

He called from the airport, and an hour later I heard the familiar sound of his Ford Cortina pulling into the driveway. He came in and saw my packed bags. He was apologetic, repentant, remorseful. And changed.

Peter said he had found something in the jungle. Out there in the wilderness. He said it was something so important it would change the world. He didn’t know exactly what it was, and he hadn’t brought it home. I’m not sure I believed him, but at the time all that mattered was that I desperately wanted to. I had never seen him so emotional about something. Perhaps I allowed myself to believe his fervor was in part due to coming home to me. He promised he would never leave me again, and that we would grow old together. He wept and held me with trembling hands, and he talked about us being partners, and how he needed my help figuring out what to do.

So I unpacked my bags and put them away. We all make mistakes in our youth, and I was only forty-one, after all.

2

Yonks Day – Year 1 – 1978

Yonks means a long time. As in, I haven’t seen you in yonks. It is derived from donkey’s years, which also means a long time. Yonks Day comes once a year. I like to think of it as Peter’s other birthday, as it is the date of his return. And he had come home a new man.

A year after Peter had come home, we weren’t yet calling it Yonks Day. It had only been a year, so why would we?

During the first weeks following his return, Peter was occupied with a sort of second courtship. He went to great lengths to convince me I was the love of his new life. He sold his bikes and his climbing gear. He had lost the best of his wilderness survival gear in New Guinea, but he took what was left and sold it, too. He set up a savings account in which we would deposit what we could each month until I could quit working for Sylvia at her beach shop and buy my own shop on the Esplanade. His efforts were not wasted; I fell in love with him all over again.

That first year was magical. It was a sit-on-the-beach-and-giggle-at-the-sinking-sun-until-everyone-goes-home-and-then-make-love-in-the-sand year. It was a collect-gull-feathers-and-put-them-in-a-box-until-you-have-thousands-and-then-make-Rose-a-wall-hanging-that-looks-like-ocean-waves year. It was a year of keeping promises and making love until I hurt. You see, I was not perfect. But Peter was.

Many people claim their partner is perfect. What they mean is, their partner is perfect for them, or their partner is a perfect dancer, or a perfect cook. Peter was none of those things. But he was physically perfect. He had come home with no imperfections. His appendectomy scar was gone. His moles and birthmarks were gone. He was no longer circumcised.

Like I said, he was a new man.

Love is blind, they say. I would add that love is also numb. It is particularly numb to fear and suspicion. I saw and felt in those first months exactly what I wanted to, and I avoided asking too many questions. Who was I to question good fortune?

On the first anniversary of Peter’s return, I had intended to get up early to surprise him with breakfast. But I was too late. I put on a long t-shirt and left the bedroom. Light under the office door indicated he was working. I opened the door and squinted.

“I thought we were sleeping in, Peter.”

His eyes were wide when he looked up. “Couldn’t sleep. I know it’s a special day, but I thought I’d work on this until you got up.”

I smelled stale coffee. “You ran water through yesterday’s grounds again?”

“Saves time. I need your thoughts on this.” He waved me over to look at the pad of paper in his lap.

I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus on it. In a column on the left were hand-drawn symbols, each of them unique. There were spirals, ovals, and a circle. There were sharp angles and zigzagging lines. Some of the symbols looked almost like letters of the alphabet, but not quite. The page I could see contained about thirty of the symbols, so I suspected there would be more on the next few pages. There would be a total of 128, because that’s how many symbols Peter claimed to have seen in the jungle.

On the paper, to the right of each symbol, he had written a person’s name. The first was Linda, and then Margaret, Tom, Sheila, Jason, and so on.

“You’re naming the symbols?”

He flipped the page, showing that the names continued. “Working on it. Got the idea this morning. Here’s what I’m thinking.” He turned to the Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 on the desk. It was a computer that used a cassette tape drive and could execute simple commands in BASIC code, displayed in white text. He said, “We can’t use the actual symbols, right? There are no corresponding characters on the keyboard, and we’ve already decided it’s impractical to produce a new keyboard with all 128 symbols.”

I picked up his mug and swallowed some of the awful coffee. “Right.”

“So we give each symbol a name.” He tapped the pad of paper. “And we make sure folks have a printed index of the names paired with the symbols. Folks can group the symbols by typing the names, separated by a space.” Four names appeared on the TS-80’s tiny screen as he typed. He pressed Return, and the names disappeared. The flashing cursor waited for him to type more names. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me.

I swiveled the second chair around and sat next to him. I appreciated that he consistently included me in the process. He had done so from the day he’d come home the year before. But I hadn’t been able to provide much help. In fact, there were times I had thought Peter was delusional. He claimed to have found something strange in the wilderness, something guarded by an ancient aboriginal tribe. It sounded like a story from an old Tarzan novel. At one point he had even implied that the object had come from a distant alien civilization. But after I had laughed at this, he stopped mentioning the possibility. Yet he swore the thing he’d found was some kind of computer, and that it had communicated with him using 128 symbols. He even remembered every one of the symbols. He had spent months trying to develop some kind of software application that would teach people to communicate with the mysterious computer, or whatever it was. He was convinced the object would eventually be discovered again, and his software would then become useful.

I plucked the pad of paper from his lap and flipped through the pages. “You’ve given them people’s names. You expect folks to remember these? Why not just give them each a number?”

He shook his head. “I’m thinking ahead. When I was there with it, the process began with me sorting the symbols into groups based on their shapes or features. And you’re right—that part would be easier if we just used numbers to designate them. But then later it guided me on to sorting tasks that resulted in assigning numeric values to the symbols. It would confuse folks if the symbols already had numerical names.”

“God forbid we confuse folks.”

Peter chuckled. Because he loved me, not because he actually thought it was funny. This endeavor had become his new obsession, and it’s not easy to laugh at your own obsessions. Peter was convinced the object he’d found was important. Not I-discovered-a-new-species-of-butterfly important. More like, I-discovered-a-medical-miracle-that-will-make-doctors-obsolete important. But I had my doubts, even though I had seen Peter’s body, somehow stripped of its imperfections.

I dropped the pad of paper onto the desk. “Okay, I’m up now, so no more work for you. Today’s a special day, and we’re celebrating.”

Peter sighed. Then he smiled and slapped his knee. “Right you are, Mrs. Wooley! That’s precisely why we are going out.”

“Peter, I was going to—”

“Oh, but you’re not. I have already stuffed a pack with tucker, and we are going to sit and enjoy it from atop Lumley Hill. We’re going for a picnic, sweet Rose.”

This was how Peter was. He knew I adored Lumley Hill, and he knew I fancied prawn salad and fritters, which he had secretly made while I was at the shop the previous day.

So we drove to Flecker Botanical Gardens, climbed the Red Arrow track then the Blue Arrow track into Mount Whitfield Park, and then we climbed the side trail to the top of Lumley Hill. This was a combined trek of over two hours, and in 1978 the trails were crude at best. We sat in the shade of a mango tree as we ate. The air was clear and we could see the turquoise water of the reef around Green Island, nearly thirty kilometers out in the Coral Sea. Peter pulled a bottle of wine from his pack, and I sniggered when he realized he’d forgotten the corkscrew.

Peter talked endlessly. He said the mango tree was there at the top of the hill because a cassowary had carried the seed in its gut until it shat it out. The giant birds were still common on Mount Whitfield and Lumley Hill, which was one reason I loved the place. Peter then did an impersonation of a cassowary shitting a mango seed, making me laugh. I listened to him talk and told a few stories of my own.

Late in the afternoon the sun cast a spellbinding hue over the Coral Sea. Peter wandered off to relieve himself somewhere in the trees. When he returned he sat beside me and held his cupped hands out. Resting in them was a long but delicate feather that sparkled with indigo iridescence in the sun’s light.

“You found a cassowary feather!” I said.

“It’s a surprise for you, sweet Rose.”

I plucked the feather from his hands. Something that had been hidden beneath it caught my eye. “Peter!”

“That’s the rest of your surprise,” he said. He grabbed the object by two fingers and offered it to me. “I figured it was time I got you a proper wedding ring.”

I slid the ring onto my finger and gazed at it. It was a gold band with a single diamond, large enough to catch the eye but small enough to be tasteful and practical. It was the first time in my life I had worn a wedding ring. We hadn’t exchanged rings when we had married twelve years before, thinking at the time it was a frivolous tradition and a waste of money.

“It’s lovely,” I said. “Now I’ll have to find one for you.”

He wrapped his arm around me and gazed out toward Green Island. “No worries, love. Plenty of time for that.”

I rested my head on his shoulder and stared at the horizon, where blue sky blended with the emerald water and white breakers of the Great Barrier Reef. Two gulls flew side-by-side over the mouth of the Barron River, squawking as if they were bickering with each other. But then they parted ways, and one of them flew north while the other flew south.

I was forty-two, and at that time it was the best day of my life. A year before, when Peter had come home, we were both forty-one. I didn’t know it, but on that day on Lumley Hill a year later, Peter was still forty-one.

3

Yonks Day – Year 13 – 1990

Every relationship has its challenges. Typically they are you’re-spending-too-much-money-at-the-pub kinds of challenges. At the risk of being dramatic, the challenges we faced were unique. They were for-years-I-doubted-you-and-thought-you-might-be-cracked challenges. And you-weren’t-cracked-after-all-but-the-truth-scares-me-even-more challenges. I have come to realize that my psychological scale tips gradually. Although I rarely talked to Peter about what had happened to him in New Guinea for fear of what he might say, there were certain unavoidable observations that incrementally tipped my scale from believing Peter might be delusional to believing I might be intolerant and small minded for having doubted him. Perhaps some people might argue that if the evidence is before your eyes, you must succumb to it. But I’m pretty sure those people have not faced evidence of what they had previously thought to be impossible. Miracles may sound good in stories, but they are hard to swallow in real life. For me, the tipping of this scale took many years.

And there was the little issue of the promise. Peter had made it the day he’d come home, the day my bags were packed. I was going to move out, so I suppose he would have promised anything. He had promised he would never leave me again and that we would grow old together.

By our thirteenth Yonks Day, we both knew he could keep only half of the promise.

On this day, as on every other Yonks Day, Peter was up before me. He had fallen into a pattern of dwelling excessively on his Kembalimo project in the days leading up to Yonks Day. As Peter described it, Kembalimo was a word used by the aboriginal tribe he had stayed with before coming home. It meant, to return. He insisted that the project’s name was symbolic of the architecture of the computer program he was creating and did not reveal a secret desire to return to the tribe. He endeavored to recreate the functions of the object he had found in the wilderness—the computer or whatever it was. If he could figure out how, his creation might help prepare others for when the object would be found again. And all his efforts were contingent upon his memory of this thing he had seen only a few times during only a few days thirteen years past. But apparently this wasn’t a problem, because his memory was just one more thing about him that had somehow become perfect while he was in the wilderness of New Guinea.

Many times over, he had shown me indisputable evidence of his perfect memory, but still my scale tipped at a glacial pace.

After getting out of bed I pulled on some clothes and gazed at my aging face in the mirror. I straightened my back and held my chin up, feigning courage. Today would be a Yonks Day like no other, because I was tired of hiding from the truth. Whatever that truth may be. Too many years had been spent not discussing what should have been discussed.

I took a deep breath and went straight to Peter’s office. All four of his computers were on, but he was huddled before his new Macintosh IIfx. I could hear the chuckity-chuck of its hard drive as it worked. Peter liked to say the IIfx was “wicked fast.” The damn thing had cost more than I made at Sylvia’s shop in five months.

He didn’t turn around when I walked in, so I sighed loudly.

“I know you’re there,” he said. “And I’m fine. I’ve had ample rest.”

I sat down next to him. When he finally turned to me, I said, “Happy Yonks Day.”

His eyes grew wide. Pretending he’d forgotten. “Uh…was that today?”

I slapped his shoulder. “Funny. I know you bought prawns, and I smell the fritters.” I nodded at the Macintosh. “You going to be able to leave this behind?”

He twisted his mouth in thought. “Every few months a new technology is announced somewhere. It’s as if I’m watching the pieces to this puzzle appear, one at a time.” He raised his hands as if trying to connect two objects. “If only I could put them together. Now the United States has managed to create the potential to bring the Internet to every living soul through telephone lines. They call it The World. Appropriate name, wouldn’t you say?”

“How is that going to help you with your Kembalimo software?”

“It might eliminate the need for distribution. Watch this.” He put a hand on the computer’s mouse and moved the virtual arrow about on a screen that displayed all 128 of the Kembalimo symbols. One at a time, he clicked on four symbols. The symbols disappeared and then reappeared in a box in the corner of the screen. He was sorting them into categories.

I waited for him to explain. Instead, he did the same thing with four more symbols.

I said, “I don’t see what’s so—”

“What’s so exciting about it is that I created this in a markup language called HTML Tags. Very few people even know it exists. It’s a hypertext system that is Internet-based. You don’t have to physically deliver a program to people. They can get to it using any computer connected to the Internet with a telephone line. This is where things are going, Rose!”

I frowned at him. On any other day I might have just nodded and let it go. But it was a day for breaking long-standing barriers. “You’ve spent years creating a program you can mail to people on disks. Now you want to put it on the Internet instead. You’re ignoring the real issue. Why would someone even want to go through all of the tasks? It’s not easy, and it’s not fun. And if you tell them the real reason you want them to learn to use your symbols, they’ll think you’re crackers.”

Peter put his hands on his knees and gazed at me. For a moment I saw desperation in his eyes, and I thought perhaps I’d pushed too hard. Kembalimo was so important to him. But his features gradually softened as he looked at me. His eyes seemed to wander over the landscape of my face, and I couldn’t help but feel that he was appraising the loose skin under my eyes, or perhaps the permanent lines framing my mouth. I was fifty-four, and he was the same age as the day he had come home.

I looked away and pretended to smooth my hair with one hand. “Don’t stare at me like that, Peter.” A discomforting idea suddenly accosted my thoughts. I turned to him. “Why is this so important to you now?”

He frowned. “It’s always been important.”

“Why do you want people to communicate with this thing so badly?”

“You know why. It’s important. Sometime soon, it’ll be discovered again. People need to know how to understand it. Then they can bring it to civilization and learn from it, perhaps use it.”

“Use it for what?”

He held both hands out, palms up, and shook his head. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

I looked him in the eye. “Do you want to use it on me?”

He blinked.

“Do you want it to make me stop growing older?”

He sighed and pursed his lips.

“You’re trying to save me, aren’t you?”

“Why would you say it that way?”

For the first time in years I felt tears coming. “Because I’m fifty-four and you’re not! At some point I’ll wither and die, and apparently you’re still going to look exactly the way you do now.”

“You don’t know that! Maybe I’m just aging a little slower. And maybe I’d like us to age at the same rate.” His eyes were wide. He hadn’t seen me cry very often. “Am I supposed to just wait for you to wither and die? Shouldn’t I want to save you?”

“Maybe you should ask me if I want to be saved.”

“Okay. Do you?”

I was trembling at that point, and I glowered at him. I don’t know why, but I suddenly laughed. Maybe I just wanted to startle him one more time. It seemed to work.

Finally, I said, “I guess. Who wouldn’t?”

After all, who wouldn’t want immortality? For countless ages people had believed immortality would be the solution to their problems.

* * *

Two hours later we were hiking to Lumley Hill. Our picnic there had become a Yonks Day ritual. It was only mid-morning, but the day promised to be a December scorcher. The rainforest air smelled of eucalyptus. Locusts were already trilling, and this was punctuated by the occasional ‘walk-to-work’ call of noisy pitta birds. We had still seen no other hikers when we entered the branch off the Blue Arrow track that would take us up the last twenty-five meters to Lumley Hill’s summit. Reluctantly, I requested a rest stop. My endurance and balance weren’t what they used to be.

Peter looked fresh, even though he carried the pack. He eased it onto the ground, fished out a water bottle, and handed it to me. I was still flustered about my outburst that morning and needed to verbally process it. I was not typically a cry-because-I-feel-sorry-for-myself kind of girl.

“Damn you,” I said. “You’re not even breathing hard. You haven’t been sick in twelve years, and you haven’t aged a day.” I sat on the ground.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

I sighed and gazed up the trail to Lumley Hill. A certain dread began creeping into my mind, because I was about to delve into a subject that frightened me. And this time I wasn’t going to shut the discussion down. “So here we are. I am now forced to believe you that the object you found in Irian Jaya somehow gave you this perfect health.”

“For how long have you not believed me?”

“That’s not important.” Actually, it was important, and it was the reason I feared the subject. What kind of woman would go years harboring serious doubts about the subject that mattered most to the man she loved?

I took a long drink of water. “Let’s consider the possibilities. What if someone found it again? Today, for instance.”

He sat down next to me. “You sure?”

I nodded, although at that moment I wished I could take my question back. For years I had carefully avoided such questions, because I had feared the answers would be too outrageous to believe. I had feared they would plant seeds of doubt in my mind that would grow into something I could no longer control. I loved Peter and didn’t want to think of him that way, as crackers or as a liar.

“The tribesmen would kill them,” he said. “Or they would force them to try to communicate with the thing and then kill them when they failed. I stumbled upon their village. They took me in. They gave me medicine that I later learned they had extracted from this object. And then they forced me to try to communicate with the object. That’s when I discovered it behaved as a computer would. It was preternaturally intuitive, and I quickly made progress with it. But not fast enough to satisfy them. For some reason, they expected more, as if they understood that someone would inevitably appear who would be proficient with it. But I failed. I tried to run away. They attacked me, and I knew they intended to kill me. But then I woke up. I was lying on the forest floor, naked.” He looked down at his abdomen. “With this body.”

I studied his face. I had heard most of that before. And as before, he believed he was telling the truth.

“How did you even know what they wanted from you?” I asked.

He picked some mud off his shoes. “One of them spoke English.”

I’m sure I was angry with myself, but this answer caused some of my anger to spill over onto him. I coughed out a brief laugh. “That was convenient.”

He snapped his head up and looked at me sharply. “Okay, goddammit. You want to hear it all—what I haven’t told you? There was a man with them, a British man named Samuel. And he was over 150 years old. Crazy, right? But he had been an explorer—a naturalist—in the mid 1800s, a contemporary of Darwin and Alfred Wallace. He actually knew those men, Rose! He had convinced the tribe to let him live, even though he was barely capable of communicating with the object. He helped me talk to the tribesmen—I call them that because I never saw a woman among them. The tribesmen were much older than he was. In fact, Samuel thought a few of them might be as much as ten thousand years old. How could that be? Because they had used the same medicine they used on me. You want to know where the object came from? I can tell you, because it showed me. In a dream. The most vivid dream I’ve ever had. The object was created long ago—and I mean long—by some sort of creatures that lived on a distant planet. They had technology far beyond anything I could comprehend. I can still hardly process what was shown to me. The object had been sent out into space, along with millions of others. Somehow this one ended up here, on this planet. Out of all possible other places. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know all it can do. But I saw amazing things. And it gave me this body. My mind feels like it’s the same as before, except that I remember everything that ever happened to me. But this body…”

He stopped talking. He was breathing hard and staring at me. Waiting.

I chose my words carefully. “That is a lot to digest. I should have asked you years ago.”

“Yes, you should have.”

I hesitated, cautious. “This object, did it have a name?”

“The tribesmen called it the Lamotelokhai.” He pronounced it Lamb-oh-tell-oh-kī. “I’ve never wanted to use that name because I was told the literal translation was, the end of the world. I suspect what the tribesmen meant was that it would bring the end of their world when someone inevitably comes to take it away.”

I gazed into his eyes. I thought I saw in him the same fear that I felt. We had crossed a line in this conversation and couldn’t go back. From this moment forward, I would have to live with the knowledge that Peter believed an alien artifact had repaired his body. And he would have to live with the knowledge that I had harbored doubts regarding his sanity.

I could think of nothing else to say, so I turned away and looked up the trail. Something was walking down the trail toward us. I squinted at it. It was a cassowary. The bird appeared to be my height, and it almost certainly outweighed me. It approached us at a fast walk.

I got to my feet. “Peter, it’s Blue Arrow!”

Blue Arrow was the name given to one of the last living cassowaries in Mount Whitfield Park, a female. She had a reputation for chasing hikers on the Blue Arrow track, aggressively demanding scraps of food.

Peter got up and stood next to me. Normally, spotting a cassowary would make my day. But the bird wasn’t stopping or even slowing down. When it was five meters away, its imposing size was too much for me. I backed away. Peter had started to say something about holding my ground when I tripped. I went down hard on my butt and began sliding down the slope next to the trail. The next thing I knew, Peter was on top of me, shielding me from an onslaught of cassowary claws. Blue Arrow was in full attack mode. I felt a sharp pain in my leg and let out a shriek.

Seconds later the bird ran off, and it was over. Peter rolled off me.

“Jesus, you’re hurt,” he said. He used both hands to close a gash in the flesh above my knee.

I looked at his legs and saw that the backs of both his calves were bleeding. I pushed his hands away from my knee. “I’ll hold this. You tend to your legs. They’re both cut.”

Sitting on his butt, he put his feet together and spread his knees apart. I could see at least one cut on each calf. One of the cuts gaped at least a centimeter as he contracted his calf muscle.

“Goddamn bird,” he muttered as he inspected his cuts. “Mucked up our legs.”

“We’re miles from the car,” I said. “What if we can’t walk back?”

He ignored this, crawled up the slope to his pack, pulled out the ground blanket, and tore off three strips. He crawled back down to me and wrapped one of them around my knee. I sucked in some air and raised my butt off the ground with white-knuckled fists as he knotted the blanket strip tightly enough to stop most of the bleeding. He then tied the other two around his calves.

“Sit tight,” he said. He then crawled up again and brought back the pack and the remaining portion of the blanket. He spread it out between us and started pulling out the food.

“You’re not serious,” I said.

“You think Blue Arrow can stop us from enjoying our picnic? Think again, sweet Rose.”

I stared at him and almost decided to refuse to be part of such an antipragmatic and perhaps foolish decision. At that moment the gulf between our sensibilities seemed wider than ever. My mind was still reeling from his outburst of fantastical details of his experience in New Guinea. And now, at a time when any rational person would seek medical attention, he wanted to proceed with our picnic. Peter somehow exhausted and invigorated me at the same time. On that day, the unnatural and relentlessly spreading gap in our ages became thirteen years. And for the first time, I felt much older than Peter.

I forced a smile, gritted my teeth, and shifted my weight onto the blanket. We ate our fritters and salad and talked about everything except the object Peter was now calling the Lamotelokhai, and how we were going to get back down the trail. On the ground beside our blanket, Peter found a feather from Blue Arrow. Apparently it had come loose during the attack. He smoothed it out between his fingers and then stuck it in my hair above my ear. He said it was a fitting ornament for someone who had survived an encounter with Blue Arrow. I gradually relaxed, and for over an hour we simply enjoyed each other.

My wound had bled enough to saturate the strip of blanket, and I wasn’t sure I could even stand. We still hadn’t seen any other hikers, so we would have to walk out on our own. Reluctantly, I told Peter it was time to go. I tried getting up, but my knee had become swollen and stiff.

He jumped up to help me. When I was on my feet, he removed the wraps from both his legs. He then turned so that I could not see the cuts on the backs of his calves.

“Let me see,” I said.

He looked at me and hesitated. Finally, he turned. For what seemed like a long time, we both stared silently at his calves. He rubbed one of them with his hand, wiping away clotted blood. The gash appeared to be mostly healed. Pink, translucent skin covered the wound, having grown over it in the last hour. He wiped away the blood on the opposite calf. It was the same—mostly healed.

“What the hell, Peter?”

“No worries,” he said. “I guess they just weren’t as bad as they looked.”

In that moment the gulf between us widened.

4

Yonks Day – Year 22 – 1999

On the morning of our 22nd Yonks Day, I got out of bed early so I could go to work at the shop. Working helped keep my mind occupied. I showered, got dressed, put on my makeup, and sat down with black coffee and a bowl of Weet Bix in the tiny breakfast nook of my apartment. I gazed at the envelope I had left unopened on the table since it had arrived a month before. It was from Peter, but there was no postage on it, which meant he had come to my apartment to put it in my mailbox. A violation of our agreement.

It wasn’t that I had fallen out of love. Quite the opposite, I felt incomplete without him. But I couldn’t take it anymore—being uncomfortable whenever we were in public places, always being consumed by self-doubt. Everywhere we went we got that-nice-man-is-taking-his-mother-out-to-eat looks, and we-have-two-single-rooms-available-or-a-room-with-two-beds comments.

I was a young sixty-three. I used sunblock and walked five miles every day. I had a poster in my bathroom of a sleek swimmer in her seventies that said, ‘Growing old is not for sissies.’ Every day I stripped down and compared my body to the woman in the poster. I had worked my ass off trying to level the playing field with Peter. But it was a losing battle.

And there was another factor involved. Peter did not fight to prevent my leaving. It was important to him that I trusted and believed in him. But parts of his story were beyond my capacity to believe, no matter how much I wanted to. Perhaps because I had not seen what he claimed to have seen. Of course I couldn’t deny that something miraculous had happened to his body. But a computer sent by an alien civilization from a distant planet? Over time, my misgivings had chipped away at his determination to make our marriage work.

Did we love each other? Love has endless definitions. Peter and I were drawn to each other in a very physical manner. His close proximity to me satisfied me in a way that felt primal, almost instinctual. Like huddling near a campfire to ward off the dangers of the night. But it went beyond the physical. His words soothed me and stimulated me and almost always seemed right for the moment. His opinions mattered, and I sought them out in order to solidify my own. It may sound cliché, but we truly were incomplete without each other.

My pride demanded that I should feel physically attractive. Peter’s pride demanded that he should feel trusted. And so, due to my pride and his, I had left him, and he had not stopped me.

I finished breakfast and picked up the envelope. I considered tossing it away once and for all. But it was Yonks Day, and I couldn’t. So I opened it and pulled out the letter.

Sweet Rose,

I know you wish for me to stay clear of your flat, but I felt compelled to deliver this myself, rather than trust the postal service. I’ll get straight to the point. Please read this entire letter before passing judgment and throwing it away.

Ten months ago, you left me. I do not blame you for leaving, as the challenges we face are unprecedented. I am not going to offer an argument for why you should come back. Instead, I simply wish to share my experiences of the last ten months. Writing helps me feel connected to you, even if you don’t read it.

The day I helped you move out was a Tuesday. The breeze off the Coral Sea was mild, and the sky was clouded although it wouldn’t rain. We didn’t converse much, and your things were positioned in your flat by early afternoon. You held me, and you cried. And then I returned to our empty house. Perhaps you know this, but an empty house has different degrees of emptiness. This house was always empty on the days you would work at the shop. But there is another degree of emptiness. There is an emptiness that penetrates my defenses and strikes down my will to maintain composure. And then the emptiness mocks me by echoing my sobs. The echoes continue, even late into the night. The next morning brings new light and optimism. But I cannot forgive the emptiness—I hate it. Ten months later it still endures.

One day in April I had a revelation. The SETI Institute had introduced SETI@home. This software allows everyone interested to put unused CPU cycles of their home computers to work helping in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And guess what, Rose. Thousands of people have downloaded the software so they can participate. There is a high level of interest in being the first person to discover coherent signals from intelligent alien life. If people understood that there is an alien artifact hidden in the wilderness of Irian Jaya, they would be willing to master my Kembalimo software. For days I worked on ideas, scenarios for convincing people. But the emptiness of the house closed in around me. Ideas faltered as I second-guessed them. Without your presence, they seemed hollow. They were ideas without substance, without passion.

I left the house to work elsewhere. I worked on a bench on the street near your shop. But the emptiness followed me, as if it were not anchored to the house at all. One at a time the ideas were discarded. I could see no viable plan to convince others of what I know. I thought perhaps if doctors examined me they might see some proof, so I went to a doctor for the first time in twenty-two years. He found nothing unusual and complimented me for taking care of myself. I explained that I was sixty-three and then asked him to cut my arm so he could see it heal. He told me to leave and that I needed a psychiatric specialist rather than a medical doctor. Had you been there, you would have known how to convince him. But you weren’t.

Two months later, in June, I flew to Irian Jaya with a backpack of survival gear. In Jayapura I bought food. The next morning I hired a minibus to Wor, where I had started my journey in 1977. I hardly recognized the village, but as soon as I had hiked a few kilometers into the bush, the forest was as raw and defiant as it had been twenty-two years before. The vegetation had changed in the last two decades, but my perfect memory served me well. It allowed me to retrace my steps using larger trees that were still in place as landmarks. After three days I found the site where I had discovered the hidden village. I was sure of it. But the village was no longer there. Apparently it had been moved. I considered persisting, searching for the village’s new location, but instead I turned back.

My reason for giving up was I had made a promise to you that I would never return there. I know we’re separated, but I could not forget the promise. And there was more. On the first day I spotted a King-of-Saxony bird of paradise. But you weren’t there to see its beauty. I slept in a net-covered hammock, but it seemed too spacious without you. I crossed a river on the second day but had no hand to hold. I came upon an aboriginal hunter who spoke a bit of English. He had collected pandanus nuts, and he shared them with me. He said he had a wife and she would not allow him to return home for three more days because that’s how long her mother was staying at his hut. I told him my wife was waiting for me at home. I could not will myself to tell him the truth. After we parted, I retraced my steps to Wor and returned to Cairns.

On a Saturday in October I met a girl. I was sitting in the park trying to work, as the emptiness of the house had been particularly cruel to me during the night. She had a beagle that seemed to fancy my right leg. She apologized profusely and we began conversing. Turns out she likes Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov—all the greats. So there was something to converse about. I asked if I could see her again. I needed a friend, Rose. We met on the Esplanade the next day. Walked and had a bite. It didn’t help. She was just a girl, in her thirties. Half my age. I was ashamed, and I’m not going to do it again.

And so it has gone, one day after another, month after month.

Yonks Day is in a few weeks. I fear the emptiness will destroy me if I stay home that day. And so I will make fritters and salad, and I will picnic on Lumley Hill. If you are feeling the same emptiness, perhaps you will join me. I cannot express the joy it would bring me.

Blue Arrow has died. She was the last known cassowary in Mount Whitfield Park. If you come, perhaps we can pay our respects.

With eternal love, Peter

As I stared at the letter, my fingers stroked the loose skin under my eye. I shifted my gaze to the age spots and blue veins on the back of my hand. Peter was right, the emptiness could be cruel, and at that moment my apartment seemed as hollow as an empty cathedral.

“Damn you, Peter,” I said aloud.

I got up and called Sylvia. She said she was already dressed and ready to drive to the shop. She had anticipated that I would decide at the last minute to take the day off.

* * *

The Blue Arrow track was not intended for sixty-three-year-old hips. My lung capacity was adequate, but the steep inclines tested my pain tolerance. The trail was busy that day. It had become a popular route for trail runners, and they passed me with their athletic legs and smooth-skinned arms. Two twenty-something girls with glistening faces stopped and asked if I needed help. I smiled and said, “Thanks, but I’m fine.” Bitches.

I’d seen Peter’s car in the parking lot, so I knew he was ahead of me somewhere. I didn’t find him until I crested the summit of Lumley Hill, nearly three hours after I’d started. He was sitting on the blanket that had been diminished to make bandages nine years prior. He sprang to his feet.

“Rose, my God, you came! Here, take a load off.” He gripped my arm until I had settled onto the blanket. I didn’t protest.

We sat in silence and gazed out at the Coral Sea as I caught my breath. I watched the waves moving toward shore near Machans Beach. Each wave seemed to be pursuing the one before it but was never able to join it.

“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 within 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.

And I did it for years. My eightieth birthday came and went, and my trainer and doctors told me I should stop. I told them all to go to hell. We hired a new trainer. I fired her, and we hired yet another.

But they were right. I was not capable of climbing the Blue Arrow to Lumley Hill.

And so Peter stepped in. At that time, SouthPacificNet employed a hundred engineers, with another three hundred contracted for specific jobs at any given time. Kembalimo had become a global phenomenon, but ironically it generated no revenue because Peter insisted on offering it for free. But the company’s other products ranged from inventory-tracking software to satellite phones and were quite lucrative. Peter pulled a handful of engineers from current duties, paired them up with some of the world’s leading prosthetics engineers, and tasked them with designing a robotic exoskeleton customized to assist my body from my hips to my feet. It was a marvel of electromechanical implementation. Even more impressive was its use of neural control signals and extraction of intent. It understood my intent at a time when it seemed many of the real people in my life didn’t.

After another five months of grueling, painful therapy and training with the exoskeleton, I could competently climb multiple flights of stairs. I vowed to use the monstrous device on our forty-second Yonks Day and then never set eyes on it again.

Fortunately, the trail was dry and rain was not forecasted. The exoskeleton was actually fairly sleek, and if it weren’t for the heat I could have pulled loose jogging pants on over it. But still, as I extracted myself from our van, I felt like a cyborg. A handful of hikers stopped what they were doing and came closer to observe. Peter’s security gals simply asked them to abstain from taking photos or video. I blocked them out and forced my mind to command my will. My exoskeleton responded, and I walked to the trailhead.

“Good luck, ma’am!”

The voice had come from my left, and I turned and smiled at a much younger woman who had kind eyes.

I hadn’t seen the trail in six years. It now seemed more menacing, dotted with protruding rocks and roots. It was a gauntlet of hazards. I took a few steps and then hesitated. Buzzing, clacking cicadas. A heady aroma of damp soil and dry eucalyptus. Leaves whispering in the wind. Noisy pitta birds calling, ‘walk-to-work.’ And Peter right behind me, laden with a pack containing prawn salad and fritters.

Servomotors whirred, pneumatic lift rods contracted, metal and muscle worked as one for the next four hours, until finally I stood at the top of Lumley Hill.

* * *

My world changed seven months later on a cool, windy night in July at 1:14 AM. That’s when a call came in on Peter’s smartphone. It was his corporate office. He answered the call and after a few seconds abruptly sat up in bed. He then got up and left the bedroom.

I was nearly asleep again when he came back. He sat on the edge of the bed and turned on his lamp. A tear streaked one of his cheeks.

“It’s been found, Rose—the Lamotelokhai.”

I sat up, which was a painful process. “What?”

“Americans. On a plane that crashed in the bush. Survivors found the hidden village.”

I turned on the light on my side of the bed and blinked a few times.

He let out a laugh, nothing more than a huff. “A boy called me. Only fourteen! And then I talked to his teacher. The boy is a Kembalimo user.” His tears were flowing freely now.

“And he could communicate with it?”

He nodded. “Because of Kembalimo—our Kembalimo—he could talk to it. And the tribesmen allowed the Americans to take it with them. They took it to the United States, Rose! The boy knew our company had created Kembalimo, so he tracked me down. He mentioned the word ‘Lamotelokhai’ to one of our people, which prompted her to call me immediately.” Peter spoke like he was trying to convince himself it had really happened.

I put my hand on his. “I don’t even know what to say.”

He wiped his cheeks. “The boy was able to talk to it because of Kembalimo.” He then shook his head. “All those years.”

I was happy for Peter, but a wave of uncertainty washed over me. I had no idea what this really meant. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” I said.

He smiled. “There were times I started to doubt it myself.”

“So, what’s next?”

He shook his head. “Hard to say. They asked for my help. It seems they are in some kind of trouble. They’re trying to avoid American government officials because they fear it might be used in ways that are harmful.”

“Do you think it’s dangerous?”

“In the wrong hands, maybe. I know it’s like nothing the world has seen before. They want to arrange a live media event to inform everyone about it. They need my help to do that.” He looked at me intently. “I’m going to help.”

I held his gaze. “This is starting to scare me.”

He got up and paced. “If the entire world knows it exists, no government can hide it away and do God-knows-what with it. There’s logic to that, right?”

“Do you want me to answer that, or—”

“It’s something that should belong to the entire human species.”

“It was found in Indonesian Papua. Doesn’t it belong to Indo—”

“That doesn’t matter. It didn’t originate there.”

I watched him pace for a moment. “You still believe that?”

“It’s true! It’s always been true. Forty-four years ago, the Lamotelokhai put a dream into my head. Somehow. I don’t know how. I saw the planet it came from, where it was created. And in this last week I’ve had two more dreams. After forty-four years! They were vivid dreams, Rose, more than just dreams. So I’ve suspected something important might be happening.”

I felt my chest starting to tighten. “In the last week? And you didn’t tell me?”

I think he finally sensed my growing alarm. He sat on the bed again. “I didn’t tell you because you’ve never taken the extraterrestrial idea seriously. And I don’t blame you for that.” He put a hand on his chest. “But I’ve seen it.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“Now! I’m telling you now. Because of what’s happening. And I’m glad it’s happening. Because now you don’t have to…” He trailed off awkwardly.

“Now I don’t have to die?”

He looked me directly in the eye. “Yes.”

“You still want this thing to fix me, don’t you?”

“I’m trying to save you, Rose!”

I sighed loudly. “People grow old and die. That’s the way it is.”

“Perhaps that’s about to change.”

I grunted and shifted painfully in the bed. I wanted to jump up and shake him by the shoulders and demand that he understand what it was I had always needed from him. But my body was no longer capable of doing that.

“Why?” I asked. “Why don’t you want me to die?”

He furrowed his brows. “What?”

“Is it for you? Or is it for me?”

He shook his head, bewildered.

I took a deep breath. It seemed as if the last fifty years were spiraling down into this one moment. “I need to know this. I need an honest answer. But listen to me first. I’ve always loved you. But I’ve had time to realize certain things.”

Peter brought one knee up onto the bed, settling in to listen. The gesture didn’t reduce my agitation.

I went on. “I know you’ve lived through every year I have. But your body hasn’t changed. Your mind hasn’t started to fail, as mine has. I get it—you are superior to me.” He started to protest, but I held up a finger to stop him. “You love me. You tell me so every day. You dote on me, make sure I’m comfortable. If there’s something I need or want, you have someone design and make it for me. You’ve given me a life most women could only dream of. But I think, fundamentally, I’m different from you. I’m here for me. I want what you give to me. Not just financial security, but everything else. I’m here because you kiss me every morning. You remember my birthday and Yonks Day, and you make them memorable. You have made me part of your Kembalimo project, even though I’ve been more of a hindrance, believing you might be quite mad. I’m here because I’m happy when I’m with you. My passion for you is so primal it frightens me. You see, Peter, I’m here for me.”

He gripped my hand. “Rose—”

“I’m not finished. Peter, I’m an observer of people, did you know that about me?”

Wisely, he didn’t respond to this.

“I’ve observed countless people, especially couples. I know what makes people feel secure or insecure in their relationships. I can see it in their expressions and hear it in their words. You know what I’ve observed? People feel more secure when their partner has less money than they do, or when their partner is less attractive. Nine times out of ten, if you see a man with a more attractive woman, it’s because he has some other quality that makes him feel secure. Perhaps he’s a sports star or celebrity.” I nodded toward Peter. “Perhaps he’s a CEO of a company.”

He couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “You don’t think women do the same thing?”

“Of course they do. I’m just saying it happens more often with men, because our society favors wealth in men. But my point is that the scale is usually balanced. A man with wealth feels secure with a woman who does not have as much wealth. And that woman happens to be more attractive than the man, in turn making her feel secure. But look at me, Peter. What do I have to offer you that could make me feel secure?”

He shook his head like he was disappointed in me. “You think I would leave you or cheat on you?”

“No! You wouldn’t, because you’re a devoted husband who wants his wife to be happy. But are you devoted to me because of a burning, life-sustaining need within you? Perhaps that was true at one time, but is it true now?”

Peter gazed at me without expression.

“I know where this is going,” I said. “You’ll help those Americans. And then you’ll try to figure out a way to take that object created on some far-away planet you saw in your dreams—that Lamotelokhai—and have it do something to me. Because you want to fix me. But I don’t want to be fixed, my love. Not now. When you first encountered it, you were forty-one. As a result, your body remained in that state. But I’m not forty-one, I’m eighty-three. Perhaps the Lamotelokhai could put a hold on my aging. But that wouldn’t make me the woman I once was. You will never think of me the way you once did.”

He started to speak, but I cut him off.

“I’ve had a wonderful life with you, Peter. But now it is time I did something for you, rather than for myself. I’m ready to let go.”

7

Yonks Day – Year 51 – 2028

It is commonly said that time passes more quickly as you grow older, and I used to think so. But the last nine years have changed my thinking on this. So much has happened that I now partition my life into two parts: the years before Peter got that phone call, and the years after. I think many other people of this world would agree.

I was up before sunrise and did my stretches. Relatively little pain from my hip. Good, considering the busy day I had planned. I entered the kitchen and heated some porridge the old-fashioned way. I pulled milk and fruit from the fridge. Then I realized there was no butter. That would not do. I slammed the fridge shut.

“Romulus! Where are you?”

A moment later I heard soft thumping approaching from the back rooms of the house. Romulus skidded to a stop on the tile floor. A tree kangaroo, or at least he was made to look like one. I have no idea what he is really made of. He eats and bleeds, but he isn’t a real animal. Most people call them roobots, and everyone has one now. It would be foolish not to.

“We’re out of butter,” I said.

Romulus took a standing jump and landed on the table next to my porridge. Roobots are about the size of housecats and just as agile. He scratched at his belly with a clawed paw and suddenly pushed the paw right through the skin into his abdomen. The paw came back out holding a chunk of glistening flesh. I closed my eyes for a moment and shook my head. Someday, someone should program the damn things to generate materials in a more visually appealing way. But within seconds, the chunk of flesh faded to gray and then more gradually transformed into about a dessert spoon of butter.

“Go on, drop it in the bowl.”

The butter plopped onto the porridge and began to melt. I scratched the back of his head. “Thanks, love. I’m going to need my pain meds today. Do you mind?”

Romulus started to scratch his belly again.

“You don’t have to make them. I have some in the bathroom.”

He hopped to the floor and bounded off to the bathroom. The pain pills are the only meds I take now. Disease and disorders may be prevented, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get sore hiking the Blue Arrow track.

After breakfast I changed into the blouse and hiking shorts I had carefully prepared the night before. I paused to stare at myself in the mirror, something I rarely do, but this day was exceptional. I’m ninety-two, but I stopped aging nine years ago so the face of an eighty-three-year-old woman stared back at me. Granted, I am a young eighty-three. Age spots are gone. Skin is fairly tight, but not without wrinkles. Silver hair. Eyes that sparkle but don’t hide a lifetime of experiences. I could pass for a healthy seventy, but no one would doubt me if I told them my real age. Not any more.

I slung a small pack onto my shoulders and walked north on the Esplanade with Romulus at my heels. I walked past my shop—my own beach shop—without going in. The girls could handle things, and I didn’t want to get distracted. Mount Whitfield Park is five kilometers from the house, an hour’s walk. I quickly got into a rhythm, enjoying the sensation of my powered titanium endoskeleton working in tandem with the bone and muscle it is fused to. Whereas my exoskeleton of nine years past was an imposing monstrosity, my new endoskeleton is not even visible to onlookers. Its structure is formed in the exact size and shape of the original bones it has replaced, including its embedded lamotelofiber tendons and forever-powered nano-motors. It provides a powered boost when I need it, and it forces me to work enough to stay fit.

I don’t mind that certain parts of me have been modified. And I don’t mind that the Lamotelokhai’s mysterious particles have halted my aging, in spite of what I had told Peter nine years ago. In fact, sometimes I wish it had happened much earlier. I am ninety-two, living in a body that stopped aging at eighty-three. If the artifact had been found when I was sixty, I would have stopped aging at sixty. For that matter, if only I had gone with Peter on his adventure to New Guinea when we were both forty-one…

But of course that’s not what happened.

The pleasant weather apparently had enticed others to Mount Whitfield. When I started up the Red Arrow track, numerous hikers and runners were coming and going, many of them followed by roobots paired to their physiological systems, monitoring their conditions and needs.

The Red Arrow was a breeze. The Blue Arrow tested my joints and endoskeleton. But I was damned determined. Because it was Yonks Day. Because it was this particular Yonks Day. Halfway around the Blue Arrow circuit, I paused to watch a nearly silent helicopter pass over me just above the treetops. I sighed and shook my head. Shortly after that, a steep side trail took me up twenty-five more meters in altitude to the top of Lumley Hill.

A crowd of people had gathered there. A few were curious hikers. Others were friends, some who looked like they could not have walked there without help. Powered endoskeletons, I suppose, although none of them had ever mentioned they’d had one installed. I stood up as straight as I could and walked to the center of the gathering, careful to avoid kicking anyone’s roobot.

I stopped when I was at Peter’s side.

“You’re only slightly late, Mrs. I-want-to-do-everything-by-myself Wooley.”

I patted my thigh. “I’m in tip-top shape, Mr. I’m-too-busy-to-walk-so-drop-me-off-with-a-helicopter Wooley.”

For a moment, we stared out at the view of north Cairns and the blue-green water of the Coral Sea. But the crowd’s presence made it hard to relax, so we faced each other and joined hands. It was to be a renewal, and we had opted to do our vows without an officiant, so we could start the ceremony whenever we wanted. I was to go first, and I was ready.

“Peter, when we first joined hearts and hands sixty-three years ago, we did not know where life would take us. You promised to love, honor, and cherish me through all things. Our life together has brought both wonderful blessings and difficult challenges. But here you are today, having fulfilled your original vows in wondrous ways I could never have imagined. I have loved you always, and I have always needed you. Much more than you have needed me, I fear. Ninety-two years have passed since you and I entered this world, only months apart. Due to a wondrous and somewhat cruel miracle, the people here today see a man of forty-one years and a woman of eighty-three years. What they don’t see are two minds that have together experienced the wonders of every day that has passed, growing ever more intertwined and attuned.

“Peter, as you reflect back over all the years as my husband, do you now wish to reaffirm the vows you took sixty-three years ago?”

He smiled. “Yes, Rose, I do.”

“Then I will love, honor, and cherish you forever,” I said. I then eagerly waited.

He gripped my hands tighter. “Rose, on our wedding day those many years ago, I made a choice. I chose you to be my wife. I thought then that such a decision, once made, was final and irrevocable. Now I know that choosing a life partner is not a one-time decision but an ongoing process. Many times in the years since, I have chosen you again. As you have chosen me. A marriage lasts only so long as both partners desire each other above all others.”

Peter took a small step closer to me.

“On our wedding day, and in the sixty-three years since, I made promises. Some of them I kept, some I did not. But today is a new beginning. My vows to you are based upon something you have taught me. It is something I could never have learned on my own. You taught me that love and compassion are not one and the same. Compassion is when we devote ourselves to helping others because we want them to be healthy and happy. Love involves compassion, but love is much more internal. Love is when a person has a deep and undeniable need to be with another. So there is an element of love that is self-serving. In fact, it is the most powerful element. Oddly, we are often taught to mask this element, as it is construed as selfish. But you, Rose, have always seen it for what it is, and you have taught me to open my eyes to it.

“So these are my vows from this day forward. I will be at your side, not only because I wish to take care of you, but because I also wish to take care of me. I will strive to make myself happy, because my happiness is inextricably linked to yours. There cannot be one without the other. I will love you, not only because you need me, but because I also need you. And this need I have for you is elemental. I cannot exist without you.” He pulled my hands to his chest. “I will desire you above all others. I will desire your mind, because it stimulates mine. I will desire your body, because it satisfies mine. I will be your best friend—with benefits.”

A twitter of laughter came from the crowd around us.

He went on. “If we live to be a thousand—which now seems entirely possible—I will be at your side for the entire journey. Rose, as you reflect back on the years as my wife, do you now wish to reaffirm the vows you took sixty-three years ago?”

I disengaged one of my hands and wiped both my cheeks. “I do, Peter.”

“Then I will love, honor, and cherish you forever.”

Peter fished a small box out of his pocket, held it in front of me, and opened it. I saw the contents and inhaled sharply. It must have cost a fortune. In the box were two lumps of Lamoteloplast—at least six grams total. Unlike the substance roobots generate to assist their owners, which can only be modified in limited ways by the roobots themselves, Lamoteloplast is completely responsive to the very specific thought patterns of a person—one specific person only. Gingerly, Peter pulled one of the gray masses from the box. He took my left hand and removed the ring he had given me in this same location exactly fifty years ago. He then molded the clay-like Lamoteloplast around my ring finger.

I looked at him questioningly.

“Go ahead,” he said. “That one’s linked to you. Remember when we both went to the Lamo-interface lab in Brisbane to be wave-patterned?”

Of course I did, because my memory was now perfect. “This is why you wanted me to do that?”

He smirked. “Surprise!”

I gazed at the clay around my finger for a moment and then visualized in my mind what I wanted. The substance shifted its shape into a thin gold band with a large lavender-tinted diamond. I frowned. This ring was just a more imposing version of my other one. It wasn’t right for the occasion.

“You can change it any time you want to,” Peter said.

But I wanted it to be perfect at that moment, on that day. I formed another vision. The ring’s band widened, and the diamond receded into the band, broke apart, and formed an elegant inlay depicting a long, wispy feather. I held it out for Peter to see.

“A feather?”

“A cassowary feather,” I said. “It’s a feather from Blue Arrow.”

He smiled and pressed his portion of Lamoteloplast to his finger. A moment later it looked just like mine.

Did you enjoy BLUE ARROW? You can make a big difference.

Reviews are by far the best way to help out authors like myself. They really help to get attention for my books.

If you've enjoyed Blue Arrow, I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave an honest review (even a short review would be wonderful) on the book's page on Amazon and/or Goodreads. You could post a review for this entire box set, or you could post a review for the individual Blue Arrow book.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Acknowledgments

I am not capable of creating a book such as this on my own. I have the following people, among others, to thank for their assistance.

When it comes to editing, my son Micheal Smith is extremely talented, and his tireless and meticulous suggestions are invaluable. If you find a sentence or detail in the book that doesn’t seem right, it is likely because I failed to implement one of his suggestions.

My wife Trish is always the first to read my work, and therefore she has the burden of seeing my stories in their roughest form. Thankfully, she kindly points out where things are a mess. Her suggestions are what get the editing process started. She also helps with various promotional efforts. And finally, she not only tolerates my obsession with writing, she actually encourages it.

About the Author

Stan Smith has lived most of his life in the Midwest United States and currently resides in Warrensburg, Missouri. He writes adventure novels and short stories that have a generous sprinkling of science fiction. His novels and stories are about regular people who find themselves caught up in highly unusual situations. They are designed to stimulate your sense of wonder, get your heart pounding, and keep you reading late into the night, with minimal risk of exposure to spelling and punctuation errors. His books are for anyone who loves adventure, discovery, and mind-bending surprises.

Stan’s Author Website
http://www.stancsmith.com

Feel free to email Stan at: stan@stancsmith.com

He loves hearing from readers and will answer every email.

Sign up for my Email Newsletter

If you haven’t already signed up for my email newsletter, I encourage you to do so. I send a newsletter every two weeks, and each newsletter will include one of my popular Awesome Animal features, as well as fun information on my books and special offers.

Sign up for my Emails

Wait, there’s more!

If you enjoyed the Diffusion series, I know you’re going to love the BRIDGERS series. Here’s a brief description of Bridgers 1: The Lure of Infinity:

Some worlds are better left alone.

Infinity Fowler has been fighting all her life. As a child, she had to fight for survival. Then she fought professionally. But when humans obtained the technology to bridge to alternate versions of Earth, she saw a chance for a new life. She signed up to become a bridger—an elite fighter and survival expert who protects tourists bridging to alternate worlds.

Desmond Weaver is a tourist making a last-ditch effort to complete his PhD in evolutionary biology. He has booked the excursion of a lifetime, a data collection mission to a vastly different version of Earth. If he fails, his career will be over.

Infinity is Desmond’s assigned trainer and bridger. She is one of the best, willing to die protecting tourists. And also willing to kill. When it’s time to bridge, Desmond and his two college roommates feel well prepared.

But they aren’t. Naked and weaponless, on an extraordinary world teeming with lethal predators, the team becomes entangled in a life-and-death struggle more terrifying than anything they could ever have imagined.

Also by Stan C. Smith

The DIFFUSION series

Diffusion

Infusion

Profusion

Savage

Blue Arrow

The BRIDGERS series

Bridgers 1: The Lure of Infinity

Bridgers 2: The Cost of Survival

Bridgers 3: The Voice of Reason

Bridgers 4: The Mind of Many

Stand-alone Stories

Parthenium’s Year