She was the last of the Uniltìranyu, the five fingered ones, the last of the People who had once been human, born of another world and time. All of her kind had long since departed into the embrace of Eywa.
And she was old - very old.
Na'diakhudoshin didn't look old. In fact, she looked like a girl of the People who had just entered the first flower of womanhood. Her apparent age was a gift from her sensei, a palulukan old one who had bonded with her thousands of years ago - the palulukan who had taught her how to sense and influence the flow of life energy, including the life within her own body. That was why she had not aged a day since then.
A smile was rarely seen on her face.
Why should she smile, after all? Her mates Txep'ean and Ninat, and her precious daughter Tat'yana, had died long ago, leaving an empty place in her heart. It did not help that she could go to almost any Hometree on the face of Pandora, and see countless of her descendants, all the ultimate offspring of her daughter. Many of them looked like Na'dia – petite women of startling grace and beauty – and she was often mistaken for one or another of her many times great-granddaughters.
It was not until they saw the five fingers on her hands that the Na'vi realised who she was, for she was famous. All knew of the song of the palulukan girl from beyond the sky, the girl who had saved the Na'vi from the tawtute and been the instrument of their destruction. As soon as a Na'vi recognised her, invariably the same expression of awe would spread across their face, and Na'dia would be asked for her blessing.
She had long ages ago given up objecting that there was nothing holy or spiritual in her nature – in fact her natural inclination was to be a bitch. It was simply easier just to give her blessing, for whatever it was worth.
Pandora was a very different place now.
Oh, it looked the same as when the humans first arrived, at least on the surface – exploding with life of all kinds.
The Na'vi had achieved success where the humans had failed – creating a technologically advanced civilisation that had almost no impact on the planetary environment. Of course, the ability to connect directly to Eywa and their ancestors had helped, as well as having access to almost the entirety of human knowledge. It made it much easier to avoid making mistakes. Of course, the salutary presence of the palulukan keeping an eye on the Na'vi was a useful method of preventing any Na'vi from wandering from Eywa's path.
A human, had there been any still alive, would hardly have believed that the Na'vi were technologically advanced. They had little need of the trappings of human civilisation, the endless machines of metal and fire that the humans had needed to signal their might and power. Their unsurpassed knowledge of biotechnology meant that they did not manufacture computers, or machines of any kind – they grew them. That was not all the Na'vi had created through their cleverness – they had also grown a starship, high in orbit above Pandora.
That was why she had come to Hell's Gate, today of all days. The first Na'vi interstellar expedition had returned from its journey to Earth, and she wished to hear their tidings.
The hard tarmac of the apron had long since been replaced by soft grass, although the buildings constructed by the humans were still there, looking impossibly ancient and weathered. A few of the Na'vi that had disembarked from the shuttle craft – not a human Valkyrie shuttle, but a true product of the Na'vi – looked strangely at her. It was not often that one of the Na'vi that cleaved to the old ways came to this place, and by her clothing and gear that Na'dia was one of them. Even stranger, her face and body were painted as though she was about to embark on a war party. The only incongruous note was struck by her ancient short swords, made by human technology from an almost incorruptible titanium alloy, riding scabbarded high on her back in their harness.
Na'dia walked up to one of them, a male who was directing the unloading of the shuttle, his back turned to her.
She announced her presence by saying, "Kaltxì."
He turned around and smiled at her, causing her breath to catch in her throat. He looked so much like Txep'ean, she almost did not hear him greet her with the ancient words, "Oel ngati kameie."
She stared up into his face for several seconds, unable to speak.
His expression shifted slowly from one of polite curiosity to a frown. "Do I know you?" he asked. He was busy, and really did not have time to be at the beck and call of young women, no matter how attractive they were.
"No," Na'dia said finally. "You look like someone I used to know." It was more than likely that Txep'ean was one of his ancestors, she thought, either through Ninat or herself. "What are you called?"
"Ralu," he replied, "Son of Zhake." This woman spoke with the accents of the back country, only heard from those reactionaries that clung to the old clan ways with the tenacity of a shellfish clinging to a rock being pounded by heavy surf.
"Ralu, son of Zhake, I have a question for you," she said slowly. Many Na'vi were named in honour of the last Toruk Makto, so his father's name was by no means unusual, although the sound of it renewed an ache in her heart. "I wish to know if you found any tawtute on your journey."
"No," he replied. "We found their traces, but the tawtute were all departed, destroyed thousands of years ago in the ruin of their worlds."
"Srane," she said, and turned away.
"Wait!" he cried, grabbing at her upper arm. "Who are you?"
Na'dia slid out of his grip, pivoting on one foot as she drew one of her shortswords and held it against his throat, sliding it through his defences as though they were not there. She hissed, "Si ke'ampi oe." This male might have been pleasing to the eye, but no-one – no-one forced Na'dia to do anything against her will. How dare he touch her!
Ralu swallowed once. He had never seen anyone move with the speed and lethality of this young woman. It spoke of long practice and the absence of any restraint against the letting of blood. This woman was a warrior, the like of which no longer existed amongst the Na'vi. He did not have to look at the hand gripping the hilt of her sword to know who this was. "You are Na'diakhudoshin," he said, slightly proud of the fact that his voice did not shake.
"That is my name," she admitted, without moving her blade.
"I meant no offense," he apologised stiffly. "I merely wished to know who was asking a question of me."
She nodded, and withdrew her blade, sheathing it in one single smooth action, and turned to leave again.
"Wait!" he repeated.
Na'dia turned back, and said in an amused voice, "You are a glutton for punishment, aren't you?"
He grinned boyishly, looking even more like Txep'ean than he had previously. "There are many questions I would like to ask my ancestor."
"Boy," she said, making him wince. He was a full-grown man, and with that single word she had made him feel like a naughty child being scolded by his mother. "Almost every Na'vi alive could claim me as an ancestor. If I stopped to answer all the questions my descendants might ask, I would never have time for myself."
"You asked a question of me, so you owe me one in return," he bargained.
"No, I don't," she argued. "I told you my name when you asked. That was your question."
"You didn't tell me your name," he said, disputing her statement. "I guessed it. You merely confirmed my guess."
Na'dia's eyes narrowed. It appeared that his appearance was not all he had inherited from Txep'ean. He too had been a rules mechanic, and difficult to best in an argument. "Very well," she conceded reluctantly. "You may ask one question."
"Why did you come to ask me of the tawtute?"
She sighed. Ralu was smarter than he looked, but then she supposed that no idiots would have gone on the first interstellar expedition. "Eywa gave me a task," she replied. "My task was to defend the Na'vi against the tawtute. I have to be sure that my task is complete, and only when I can be sure that there are no more tawtute will my travail be over." She hardly noticed that a ring of Na'vi surrounded them, listening to them talk.
"But you killed them ages ago," objected Ralu. "We have all heard the songs."
"No, I did not," she said. "My friend Tania died to destroy them." She smiled wrily. The sneaky bitch had drugged Na'dia and taken her place at the helm of the tawtute starship that had destroyed human civilisation on Earth.
"You still haven't really answered my question," prompted Ralu.
He really was like Txep'ean, the gorgeous hunk of man-flesh that he was. "I am tired," admitted Na'dia. "The years have been long, and I no longer wish to be alone. I have only stayed to keep my promise. Now I want to go home."
Ralu understood. This was Eywa's gift to the palulukan old ones – to leave the embrace of Eywa at a time of their own choosing. His brow creased as he tried to gain an understanding of watching everyone he loved age and die, while he stayed young and vital. A rash of goosebumps ran over his skin and he shivered briefly. Ralu would not wish a fate like that on anyone.
Na'dia's face twisted in an attractive half-smile. "You are not as stupid as you look, I see," she commented drily. "Now, if you do not object, I go to Vitraya Ramunong."
"I do object!" he stated firmly.
She raised an eyebrow quizzically. He really was like Txep'ean. Give him an inch and he would take a mile.
Ralu continued, "I would hear your story, for none have heard it in its entirety."
Na'dia tilted her head to one side, considering his request. It would not take that long, and what was time to her? Besides, she had always had a weakness for pretty men, so it would not hurt to do this one last favour.
"Very well," she repeated, and knelt on the grassy sward.
She talked. For two days and two nights without cease, and well into the third day she recounted her story. Of how she was born a tawtute and came to Pandora a wounded person, burnt by the fires of the sun, and linked with her Avatar. She told of the strangeness of passing through the Eye of Eywa, and abandoning her tawtute body, and of how she was healed and changed through bonding to her palulukan sensei. She spoke calmly of the terror she felt in the wars against the tawtute, and the pleasure she felt in killing her enemies. When she related the savagery she felt at the kill and her exultation at the taste of hot fresh blood, many of the listening Na'vi shuddered in horror.
Na'dia recounted the love of her mates and her child, and the pain of their loss, and the emptiness of the countless generations spent since. She spoke of the joy she had found in the ecstasy of dance, and how she lost that simple bliss after the death of her daughter Tat'yana. In the depths of the night, she spoke of her guilt and anguish, for being responsible for the extinction of a sentient species, and for watching others age and die while she stayed young.
Na'dia hid nothing, for what was there to hide?
It was dawn on the third day when her voice finally fell silent.
The circle of Na'vi about her had swelled into a crowd, silent and respectful. They had not made a sound of complaint, or asked questions, or interrupted her in any way. Na'dia reflected that the Na'vi were still so very different to humanity, and she was glad of that.
"Irayo," said Ralu, speaking for all the Na'vi. He had stayed throughout the entire tale, absolutely still.
"No," she corrected. "I thank you, for making me do this thing." Telling her story had lifted a weight off her shoulders, a weight that she had not realised she had been carrying for thousands of years.
Na'dia stood, and the surrounding crowd stood with her, a gap appearing between the myriad numbers of her respectful descendants. None would stop her.
She was about to leave this place for the last time, when she turned again towards Ralu. She said, "A favour for a favour. I do not wish to go to Vitraya Ramunong alone." She offered her hand for him to take.
There was only one thing Ralu could do. He took her delicate hand, her slim fingers intertwining with his. Na'dia's five fingers felt a little strange to him, but they also felt very right.
The journey to Vitraya Ramunong was slow, for Na'dia was in no hurry to get there. Ralu was not taronyu, a hunter, for he had followed the way of science and knowledge. What he knew of the forest was only what he had been taught as a child. Na'dia delighted in telling him of the plants and animals that they saw, and what part each had played in the life of the Na'vi of old. She almost danced from one to the next in her excitement.
He could see in the brightness of her eyes that she loved this world, the world she had Chosen over that of her birth, and wished to tell of her love to one who would listen.
Ralu saw her stalk and kill an immature yerik that had been separated from its herd. She moved like the blackness of the darkest night, like the palulukan that she was. She only took what she needed to feed them that night, leaving the rest of the carcass on the ground. When he questioned her actions, thinking that she was not following the edicts of Eywa, she laughed and called out. A pack of nantang slunk out of the undergrowth, watching her carefully, waiting for her to desert her kill. He had not even smelt them approach. She told him the nantang had been following for half a day, waiting for her to decide what prey she would take.
She took him to a small Hometree. There were signs that it had been sporadically occupied for many years, and inside there were many ancient Na'vi artifacts, all beautifully made.
"Yes," said Na'dia, when she saw him wondering while she readied the firepit to cook. "This is the place where I first joined in tsahaylu with my beautiful Ninat – or rather where she Chose me. I often dwell here."
The words that she left unspoken were clear to Ralu. She wished to be alone with her memories most of the time.
"You knew many of the heroes of the tawtute wars," commented Ralu. "What were they like?"
"They were of the People," she replied with a smile, teasing him a little. "If you wish to know them, you need only seek them in Eywa." When she saw that he would not be dissuaded she spoke of the beauty and fire of her sister of the tsumuke'awsiteng, Ney'tiri, and the kindness and good humour of Zhake'soolly, the Toruk Makto and uniltìranyu that led the war against the tawtute. "Many of them I did not know in life, to my regret, for they fell in the first battle of the tawtute wars, before I passed through the Eye of Eywa."
Ralu was struggling to stay awake. He had not slept for three days. He knelt on the grassy floor, and let his eyes shut as he listened to Na'dia's quietly voiced words.
Na'dia heard his breathing slow, and watched with amusement as his chin sank lower and lower until it rested on his chest. Ralu had well and truly slipped into the land of nod. She busied herself, roasting the yerik joints in fragrant bark, and cooking some root vegetables in a pottery crock. When they were ready, she placed a hand on Ralu's shoulder and called out softly, "Ftang hahaw."
He almost leapt out of his skin.
"You need to eat, Ralu, and then sleep," she told him, and placed a large leaf bearing food before him.
His nostrils twitched. The food smelled good. And as he soon discovered, it tasted even better. Ralu was so hungry that he did not notice that Na'dia ate sparingly. Much of the time, she watched him eat, her chin resting on her clasped hands. She had missed the simple pleasures of living as part of a clan, and the sight of Ralu eating brought forth memories of her long-dead mates.
While Na'dia slept that night, she dreamed of when she was young and in love, and the world was fresh and new. In her dream, she could no longer feel the ache in her heart.
The following day, as they departed the place that had been her home, she asked Ralu what he had seen on Earth.
"There are many volcanoes on Earth now," he said. "The breakup of the moon caused many impact craters, although most of the lunar material has reformed into a smaller world, or into a ring system. There are very few traces of the cities of Man left on the Earth."
"Earth's atmosphere is like that of our world now – so much that Na'vi do not need exo-packs to breathe. The greenhouse gases vented by the volcanoes have increased global temperatures so much that the ice caps have melted, and all the coastal cities have been swept away. Outside the volcanic fields, the forests have returned, but there are few large animals. We found no trace of any living tawtute."
"In the records from Hell's Gate mention was made of a colony on the fourth planet. After much searching, we found it, although it was almost entirely buried in dust. There was no life inside, and the computer systems were long since dead, but we found some hand-written records dating from after the strike of the Dog Star. The colony was smaller than that at Hell's Gate. It struggled on for almost fifty years, until there was a catastrophic failure of their fusion power plant. The limits of their life support system could not sustain a self-reproducing population with the skills they needed."
Na'dia nodded slowly. The human colony at Hell's Gate had been heading the same way after the RDA were expelled. It was only the capture of a gene splicing chamber and transformation of the remaining humans into Uniltìranyu that had saved them, although doing so meant the end of the human race on Pandora.
Ralu continued, "It was clear that they knew the Na'vi had destroyed them. The writings we found were full of hate." He fell quiet, and Na'dia did not press him for more. It was enough to know that humanity was extinct.
Instead, she said, "The humans were like palulukan. Once they fixed on a prey, only death could stop them. I had no choice, not if the Na'vi were to survive."
They walked in silence for many hours, when he asked, "Why did you never mate again?"
She laughed. "Why? Are you offering?"
"N-no, I didn't mean that," he stammered, suddenly confused and embarrassed. Ralu took a deep breath, and said, "I meant to stop your loneliness."
Na'dia smiled wistfully. "I experienced the perfect love of two of the People. None could wish for more than that." She brushed at her face, as though to wipe away a non-existent tear, adding simply, "There was one other reason, a selfish reason. I could not bear to lose another mate."
Ralu sighed. He could understand this, but the scale of Na'dia's sacrifice was almost beyond comprehension. To have assumed the responsibility for protecting the Na'vi from humanity, and to merely wait for thousands of years in solitude in case they returned – Na'diakhudoshin truly was one of the txan'tirea, one of the great spirits of Eywa.
They were coming close to Vitraya Ramunong now as the sun dropped below the horizon. Atokirina started to appear, and hovered about Na'dia. Ralu had never seen so many in one place before.
The path down into the depression of the Tree of Souls was guarded by an ancient pamtseowll plant, its trunk gnarled and twisted by time. Na'dia paused, and briefly touched one of the bell-like leaves. "My tawtute body is buried below this place," she told Ralu.
The strangeness of her words brought a concerning thought to him. "Where should I..."
Na'dia interrupted, "All will become clear." She slipped off her shoulder harness, passing her blades to him. "I would like you to keep these for your daughter," she told him. "I don't need them any longer."
"But I don't have a daughter," he protested, taking them reluctantly. He had not even taken a mate yet.
"You will." Suddenly, she embraced him fiercely, and whispered, "Thank you for walking with me."
Na'dia ran down the pathway down into the depression that held the Tree of Souls, scattering atokirina behind her. Somehow, Ralu knew that he was not to follow her.
The twisted roots of the Tree of Souls began to pulse with light, growing ever brighter, as Na'dia almost danced her way to the platform at its base, where she sat cross-legged. Tendrils of light emerged from the ground to link with her queue, binding her to Eywa. Incredibly, Ralu saw her body start to glow and pulse with light, matching that of the Tree of Souls, until he had to shield his eyes from the brightness. In the last sight he caught of Na'dia she was smiling, until there was a tremendous flash of light, totally overwhelming his vision.
When his eyes cleared, the glow of the Tree of Souls was fading rapidly, and Na'diakhudoshin was gone.
Slowly, he walked down into Vitraya Ramunong, and stood beneath its fronds. There was no sign of Na'dia's passing. Taking his queue, he went to link with the Tree, but then changed his mind. It was not his place to spy upon Na'dia's reunion with her loved ones.
"What do you do here?" cried a voice from behind him. "Do you not realise where you are?"
He spun around to face the intruder, and was suddenly confused. "I thought you had gone," he told the angry young woman – and then he saw that her hands had four fingers, not five. Apart from that difference, she looked exactly like Na'diakhudoshin.
She was confused at his words. "I felt a disturbance in the life flow of Eywa," she told him. "There was a great light, when there should be none."
"What are you called?" he asked curiously.
"I am Na'dia, daughter of Tat'yana of the Omaticaya," she said proudly. "I am guardian of Vitraya Ramunong."
"I See you, Na'dia of the Omaticaya," he replied, smiling at the beautiful young woman. Despite her anger, Na'dia smiled shyly back at him, for he was a very handsome male, and she was not yet mated. "I am Ralu, son of Zhake. Come, sit with me, and I will tell you of the passing of our ancestor, Na'diakhudoshin, last of the Uniltìranyu."