"You're doing what?" screeched Zha'nelle. A flock of roosting riti took flight in protest at the stridency of her raised voice.
Mìnkxetse said calmly, "Our olo'eyktan, Zhake'soolly, has asked me to accompany him on his visit to the Tipani clan. He wishes me to assist in negotiating a change in boundaries for our hunting range. We will be gone for two weeks." He gave a surreptitious glance towards the opening of the tent, and longed for the day the Omaticaya would decide on a new permanent home. Perhaps then his mate would become a little calmer if he wasn't around for a little while.
Zha'nelle's eyes flared with anger. She yelled, "You asked him for this duty, just to get away from me! Admit it, you four-fingered useless blue *!# ####!#! excuse for a mate!"
The formidable Na'vi warrior started to back away from his mate. She had used several tawtute 'Ìnglìsì words he had never heard before, and he suspected that they were not particularly complimentary. He then made a major tactical mistake by saying, "No, dear. How could you..."
Mìnkxetse did not get to finish his words. A sturdy pottery crock that Zha'nelle normally used for storing kali'weya for Uniluke flew through the air straight for his head, hitting him fair and square in the middle of the forehead and smashing into a thousand pieces. Fortunately for Mìnkxetse, its normal contents of an aggravated and very poisonous arachnoid was not in residence, otherwise the odds are that he would have been stung, and up for an unplanned journey into the spirit world.
He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing – not with his mate in her current mood. At least a trip into the spirit world would relieve him of a few hours having to put up with her temper, even if it was incredibly dangerous. Mìnkxetse made a speedy if somewhat dazed exit from the tent, to run into his brother Tsawlontu.
"Kaltxi," grinned Tsawlontu. "I hear your mate is not handling her pregnancy well."
"You and the rest of the clan," said Mìnkxetse tiredly. The last month had been torrid, putting up with her rages and tempers. "Zha'nelle was never like this with our daughter," he commented regretfully. "She had the sweetest disposition of any mother-to-be."
Both brothers flinched as more shrieks of rage came from the tent, along with the sound of something else breaking.
"I think Zha'nelle will bear a son," commented Tsawlontu. "The male humours in her womb must be conflicting with the female spirits in her blood."
"I don't know what it is," replied Mìnkxetse sadly. "I just want my mate back." He sighed, "I don't know what to do."
"I will talk to her, ma'tsmukan," said Tsawlontu. "I have some experience in these matters, unlike yourself. My mate Kalinkey is often like this."
"No," replied Mìnkxetse. "I cannot ask this of you."
Tsawlontu shrugged. "It's not like I have anything else to do."
Mìnkxetse involuntarily glanced down at the stump at the end of his brother's left arm. He had lost his left hand and half his forearm during the battle of Vitraya Ramunong against the tawtute seven months – no, almost eight months ago. His brother projected his normal, happy-go-lucky air, but deep down Mìnkxetse knew that Tsawlontu believed he was a burden on the clan. He was a hunter that could not hunt, and a warrior that could not fight. Even worse, his ikran was slain in the battle, so he could not even be used as a messenger or scout, and there was no possibility of him bonding with another ikran – he would be sure to die at the attempt.
Tsawlontu saw his brother look down, and the muscles in his jaw tightened. He hated receiving pity from anyone, even his younger brother. There were only two people he could bear allow to touch his stump – his mate Kalinkey, and Zha'nelle, the woman who had saved his life by amputating it in the first place. He forced himself to relax, and told Mìnkxetse, "It is alright, Mìnkxetse. I am used to not having an arm now."
His brother nodded, and said, "I must see to my ikran now, and make him ready for flight." He glanced towards the tent, which had fallen suspiciously silent, and back at his brother, saying, "Eywa ngahu."
"Eywa ngahu," echoed Tsawlontu, and watched his brother walk away. He took a deep breath, and entered the tent of Mìnkxetse and Zha'nelle.
The first thing Tsawlontu saw was Zha'nelle, curled up in a ball on her sleeping mat, silently weeping. His first impulse was to withdraw, and leave her to her sadness, but Tsawlontu had promised his brother that he would speak to her.
"Kaltxi, Zha'nelle," he said quietly.
The woman sat up quickly – too quickly – and dried her eyes. "I'm sorry, Tsawlontu," she apologised. "You shouldn't have to see me like this."
"You are the mate of my brother, and my friend," said Tsawlontu. "If anyone has the right to see you when you are sad, it is me." He knelt on the floor so he could be comfortable talking to her, and not get a crick in her neck.
"Irayo," replied Zha'nelle. She took a deep breath, and sighed. "It's just that I feel so useless. There is nothing for me to do – I cannot work as a healer, and I get too tired to fly Äie'reypay for more than a few minutes, so I cannot hunt." She touched her enormous belly – it couldn't be too long before she would give birth, thought Tsawlontu. "All because of this monster. He never stops kicking me, so I never have enough sleep." She sniffled, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. "I can't seem to stop crying, and then I take everything out on Mìnkxetse. I was even horrible to Sylwanin yesterday." Zha'nelle started to sob, "I made my own daughter cry, and now she won't talk to me."
Tsawlontu nodded. His mate Kalinkey – the clan's main healer – wouldn't allow Zha'nelle to handle the drugs and potions because of a propensity for things to go wrong around her, and Zha'nelle's belly had grown too large for her to be able to perform her usual work of easing muscles and straightening bones. It was no wonder she was feeling at a loss.
"I know what it is to feel useless," said Tsawlontu, before he realised that he had opened his mouth. He shrugged internally, realising that Zha'nelle would never betray his confidence. He was her oldest friend amongst the Omaticaya, from the time when she had been a tawtute permanently trapped in her dreamwalker body. "All you need is something to keep you busy and active. It is natural to feel sad if you have nothing to do."
Zha'nelle shut her eyes, and forced herself to control her breathing and stop crying. Eventually, she managed to say in a shaky voice, "You are right, my brother. I need something to do, so I stop feeling useless."
"Good," he said, glad that Zha'nelle saw reason.
She opened her eyes, looking straight into his soul with her most penetrating gaze. "You need something to do too."
"No," he objected. Tsawlontu knew what she was referring to – replacing his missing arm with a tawtute machine."I will not do it. I will not have a machine replace a part of myself."
A tear trickled down her left cheek, as she whispered, "But I have nothing else that I can do than to teach you."
Tsawlontu felt his resolve begin to crack and weaken, and before he knew it, his mouth said the words, "Alright, I will do this thing – if only to keep you happy."
"Good," she said, wiping her eyes. "We will begin after the midday meal."
As the bemused brother of her mate left her tent, Zhan'elle whispered, "Finally."
She had collected the prosthesis two months ago from Hell's Gate, with the hope that she could persuade Tsawlontu to learn to use it. Zha'nelle had been stymied by his complete refusal to even attempt to learn how to use it. Even her suggestion that as the tawtute took his arm, so they should be responsible for replacing it bore no weight with him.
Therefore, she had determined on a strategy to make Mìnkxetse's life miserable, in the hope that he would ask his brother to intercede with her. Zha'nelle had not counted on how forbearing Mìnkxetse would be regarding her aberrant behavior before he finally cracked. Even then she had to persuade the olo'eyktan to take Mìnkxetse on the delegation to the Tipani, so she would have an excuse to escalate her behaviour.
Zhake'soolly had chuckled when she explained why she was doing this thing to her own mate, and called her a manipulative bitch.
Zha'nelle corrected the olo'eyktan by telling him she was a well-intentioned manipulative bitch. Zhake just shook his head and muttered, "Women..."
Still, the olo'eyktan had done as she requested. He was just as keen to see Tsawlontu recover his sense of self-worth as she was.
However, the main reason why she wanted to give Tsawlontu a replacement arm was due to her guilt at being the one who performed the amputation, not her desire to mess with his head. Although messing with his head was going to be fun.
At least now Zha'nelle could make some restitution. Although how she could make up for the hell she had put her mate through she had no idea. She could deal with that little challenge later.
It was at times like this that Zha'nelle missed Kelutrel, and her favourite rock overlooking the lake of the Omaticaya. It would have been a perfect place to introduce Tsawlontu to his new limb. This small, undistinguished grove would have to do, although it had a quiet beauty all of its own.
Zha'nelle opened the long plastic container. "This is your new arm and hand," she said to Tsawlontu.
Tsawlontu examined it suspiciously. It looked like a smaller version of the arm on the tawtute walking machines – the AMP suits. The gleaming black and metal hand had three skeletal fingers and an opposable thumb, perfectly matching the size of his right hand, while the short forearm ended with a long socket specifically designed to fit over his stump.
Zha'nelle said, "It will do some things better than your old hand, and some things worse. For example, you will have to learn how to shoot your bow with your other hand. If you try drawing your bow with your left, you will pull the socket off your stump."
"Oh," said Tsawlontu. He would be able to shoot a bow again?
"The hand is stronger than a natural hand, although touch is not as sensitive, and restricted to the palm and fingers," added Zha'nelle. "Pick it up."
Tsawlontu reached into the container. The prosthesis was heavier than it looked. Suddenly the wrist turned around and waved the hand at him. He shrieked and leapt into the air, dropping it to the ground. "It's alive!" he yelled.
Zha'nelle roared with laughter. While Tsawlontu had been examining the limb, she had surreptitiously double-tapped an icon on the battered data tablet resting in her lap, activating a program she had prepared specifically for this event. She giggled, "You scream like a little girl."
Narrowing his eyes at Zha'nelle, Tsawlontu opened his mouth, and then clamped it shut. He sat down on the grassy sward of the grove with an air of bruised dignity. "How does one put it on?" he asked coolly.
"Slide the socket onto your stump, and I will do up the straps that hold it on," said Zha'nelle.
Once that was done, Tsawlontu commented, "It feels odd, like a dead weight on the end of my arm. How does it work?"
"It is a very complicated machine," said Zha'nelle. "It would take twenty years of learning for you to understand how everything in it works, and even then you would not know how to make another one." She sighed, adding, "If we were on Earth, the tawtute could make you a hand that would be indistinguishable from the real thing. This is merely the best they can do at Hell's Gate."
"I see," commented Tsawlontu, and frowned.
"You don't believe me?" asked Zha'nelle. Tsawlontu shook his head, so she said, "Max Patel has an artificial hand – his right. He lost it in an accident when he was a child. He told me this when he started to do the design work on your hand, seven months ago."
Tsawlontu's mouth dropped open. He had met Toktor Max Patel on a number of occasions, and had never noticed anything different about his right hand. "The tawtute can really do such a thing?"
"Srane," she answered. "They can."
"Why then do they destroy so much, if they can make such a wonderful thing as a hand?"
"The tawtute themselves do not know why they are like they are," she replied. "They are full of contradictions. I remember..." Zha'nelle's voice faded out. She knew that she had once been tawtute, but could not really remember what it was like to be one. Her memories of that time were like reading a story book, reading a story that happened to someone else. She began again by saying, "This will not be an easy task. You must teach your hand how it is to move."
Zha'nelle explained how the sensors in the socket could read the muscles and nerve cells in Tsawlontu's stump, and interpret their actions into real movements. Tsawlontu would have to try to make his phantom hand move with every individual movement possible, while Zha'nelle matched that action with the learning program on her data tablet, and downloaded the results to the processor built into the arm.
The sense of touch was harder to master. The arm mapped the fingers and palm on to the skin of the stump, stimulating the skin in a predefined pattern with tiny electric shocks. Tsawlontu would have to learn how to interpret this sensation and how it matched what the hand felt.
"It will take some time and a great deal of patience to master the hand," said Zha'nelle. "Let us start by touching the tip of the thumb to the tips of each of the fingers." She watched the screen of the data tablet, and said, "Again."
That set the tone for the rest of the day – repetition, repetition, repetition.
A week later, Kalinkey came by the grove to see what Zha'nelle was teaching her mate. She did not interrupt them, merely watching the two friends from the edge of the grove. Their focus was total, ignoring everything around them as they worked through the teaching program.
She had not seen the hand before, and was curious. Zha'nelle had told her that she did not want to let Tsawlontu wear the hand unsupervised until she was happy with his progress. Kalinkey had expected to be repulsed by the tawtute machine, but instead found it looked just a little...odd.
At least he had something to fill his hours now, instead of moping around. A definite improvement, even if this tawtute hand never worked properly.
It had taken two and a half weeks before Zha'nelle was happy with the mapping of the hand movements to muscle and nerve activity in the stump. She was ready to let Tsawlontu try something by himself. She placed a riti egg on the ground, and told Tsawlontu to pick it up.
Cautiously, Tsawlontu reached out with the hand, and lightly closed his fingers around the egg, and raised it into the air. He turned to look triumphantly at his teacher, only for the fingers to clench shut, crushing the egg.
"Pxasik!" he swore, as the scent of rotten egg wafted across the grove. "I suppose this was a lesson to show me not to be over-confident."
"Srane," she grinned. "But I'm letting you wear the arm home today. You know enough now to be careful, as long as you pick up this rock and squeeze it as hard as you can." She pointed to a fist-sized rock in front of him.
"That's flint," he objected. "I won't be able to do a thing to it. It's as hard as, um, well, flint."
Zha'nelle lifted a quizzical eyebrow at him, so he picked up the rock and tried to squeeze it as hard as he could. To his shock, the stone shattered like a piece of badly fired pottery. He murmured, "Wiya." There was no way any Na'vi could have broken flint with his bare hands.
"I want you to imagine that flint was your son's head," said Zha'nelle.
Tsawlontu looked at the fine dust and stone fragments in his palm and shuddered. He knew what lesson was being taught now – the lesson of responsibility.
"Now," she said. "We will work on your proprioception – your awareness of where your hand is in relation to the rest of your body. Shut your eyes, and touch your index finger to the end of your nose."
"Ow!" complained Tsawlontu, who had just poked himself in the right eye.
"Who would have thought you could have missed such a large target?" wondered Zha'nelle aloud. Tsawlontu had a magnificent example of a nose, larger than any other Na'vi nose she had ever seen. Indeed, the first time his mother saw his face, she gave him his name to match its most prominent feature.
"Shut up," he grumbled.
"Again," she ordered, after she made an adjustment on her data tablet.
"Ow!" It was the left eye this time.
"Today," said Zha'nelle, "You are going to learn to zhuggle."
"Zhug-gle?" he asked curiously. It was a tawtute word he had never heard before.
Zha'nelle grinned, picked up five round fruits of approximately the same size and stood up. She then commenced to throw them all in the air in a pattern that he couldn't follow - every fruit seemed to be in the air at the same time, rising and cascading down as she caught and threw. She said, "Change." The pattern changed to something else, and then Zha'nelle again said, "Change."
Tsawlontu watched with open mouth as she threw fruit from behind her back, between her legs, in seeming endless different ways, never dropping one. He had never seen anything like this dexterity. His heart filled with envy – he wanted to do this, this, this zhuggling.
When Zha'nelle caught all the falling fruit cleanly, she grinned happily at his amazed expression.
"Who taught you to do this thing?" he demanded.
Zha'nelle's smile slipped for a moment, but then recovered almost instantly. She answered cheerfully, "My father taught me when I was a girl."
Tsawlontu was determined not to let her mood slip into sadness at the memory of her dead tawtute father. Mìnkxetse had told him of the tragedy of her childhood, so Tsawlontu said, "This is a wonderful skill. I am very envious."
"If you zhuggle with fragrant fruit, your hands smell nice afterwards also," smiled Zha'nelle. It seemed that she had retained her happy mood. "I had forgotten how much fun it was, only."
"I wish to learn this zhuggling now," announced Tsawlontu.
"Very well," she said, and passed him one fruit. He looked at it puzzlement, clearly expecting to be given all five fruit, and she grinned even wider. "Throw this fruit in the air to just above your head height, and then catch it with the same hand, while standing in one spot."
By the end of the day she had Tsawlontu performing a simple juggle with three fruit, although the first few times he managed more than three or four changes he was sprinting across the grove chasing the fruit down.
When Tsawlontu returned to Kalinkey that evening, his mate could not help but notice his air of happiness – the first time he had been simply just happy since before the war against the tawtute.
It had been four weeks since Tsawlontu started learning to use his hand.
The delegation to the Tipani had not returned as planned. A message had been received from their olo'eyktan that Zhake, Ney'tiri and Mìnkxetse had been asked to help mediate in a border dispute between the Autìrol and Pa'li clans on the plains.
Zha'nelle was worried that Mìnkxetse would not return to her in time for the birth of their son. Had she been too cruel to him? Perhaps he did not want to return. While some of her behaviour had been a playact, not all of it was, and she was missing her mate terribly. Most nights Zha'nelle cried herself to sleep on her empty sleeping mat.
The clan had noticed that Tsawlontu had been wearing the tawtute hand, and most were happy for him. He had always been popular, and many had felt empathy at his loss of self-esteem.
However, as with any large grouping of intelligent beings, there were some who struggled to be included in that category, particularly amongst the young men just before they came to adulthood. It was an unfortunate fact of life that many of them should have good sense hammered into them with a very large club until they learnt to think before they spoke or acted.
A group of young men were walking to the swimming hole when they encountered Tsawlontu coming returning from the privy, one of them, a particularly obnoxious male named Yeytukru called out, "Hey Leftie! What does your mate say when you touch her with that thing? Does she like doing it with a machine, like a tawtute? Ooooo, it's so big and cold..."
There was a gust of laughter. Tsawlontu's skinned darkened, but he said nothing. They were nothing but stupid young men. He had been one once, until he had mated with Kalinkey and grown up. How she had ever seen anything in him he had no understanding, but Tsawlontu was eternally grateful to Eywa that Kalinkey had accepted him. So he said nothing and just walked past the group of skxawng.
"Bet it is all show and no go," shouted Yeytukru. "Can you pick your nose with it? Your nose is big enough to shove the whole damn thing up there. You could scoop out the snot like a tawtute digging machine!"
Tsawlontu kept on walking.
Yeytukru yelled, "Catch this!"
Out of the corner of his eye, Tsawlontu saw something coming directly for his head, or so it seemed. He half-turned, and without even thinking put his left hand up to protect his face. There was a dull sound of stone hitting metal as the fingers of his hand closed around the rock, and there was sudden silence from the young men.
Tsawlontu smiled thinly at the young men, and then slowly gripped his fingers. Hard. When he opened them and tilted his hand vertically, a stream of dust flowed to the ground. He nodded politely at the young men, turned around and kept walking.
The last thing he heard was the slap of a hand against the back of a head, and one of the young men hissed, "You are such a total skxawng, Yeytukru. Are you going to arm-wrestle him next?"
Zha'nelle was showing Tsawlontu how to change out power cells for his hand when she mentioned, "I heard about what happened on the way back from the privy yesterday."
Tsawlontu grunted to acknowledge her words. It wasn't like he made a big fuss about it. He changed out the power cell for a fresh one, just as he had been shown, when he said, "Yeytukru is a skxawng."
"I don't think that is in dispute," said Zha'nelle. "The entire clan is aware of that little fact." She checked out the connections and the seating of the new cell, and said, "I'm referring to your facility with the hand."
"It was good," commented Tsawlontu. "I didn't even think about moving – it just did."
"In that case," said Zha'nelle, "I think it might be time to try your bow." She pointed her chin at a bow leaning against a tree. "I asked Kalinkey to bring it here today."
He tried stringing the bow – it took him three attempts to slip the bowstring over the tip of the bow. Tsawlontu muttered something about being out of practice, and cautiously wrapped the artificial fingers around the haft of the bow. "It feels a little odd," he commented, before he drew the bow with his right hand. "Very odd," he added. "I think it will take some getting used to, shooting off-hand." Tsawlontu tried again, released the string with a 'twang', and said, "I can do this."
He turned to look at Zha'nelle, who had a strange expression on her face, and one hand rested on her pregnant belly. "I think you will have to leave it until another time, Tsawlontu," she said quietly.
"Is the baby coming?" he asked anxiously, dropping his precious bow on the ground without a thought.
"Srane," she said. "He is coming now. There is no time to take me to the camp."
"I will bring Kalinkey," said Tsawlontu.
"No!" snarled Zha'nelle. "I said there is no time. You must deliver this child."
Now her brother looked very nervous. He stammered, "It is s-secret women's b-business...my hand...it is wrong."
"Ahhhh," she groaned, and reached for her knife, to cut off her loincloth. "If you do not do this thing, I will kill you myself." Zha'nelle drew her knees up to her chest and growled, "Arrrggh."
Tsawlontu swallowed. He could see the head of the child was already crowning. There was no option but to help the mate of his brother. After all, she still had her knife firmly gripped in her right hand.
The delivery was very quick and easy, as such things go. When Tsawlontu caught the child and cleared its face of mucus, the baby took in its first breath and gave a hefty bellow. He passed the child to its mother and as she passed the afterbirth, observed, "There is much blood. Is this normal?"
Zha'nelle's face wore a soft, gentle expression as she looked upon her son, cradled in her arms. "Srane, it is normal, my brother," she whispered, smiling up at Tsawlontu. Zha'nelle took his hand and gently squeezed it, bringing tears to his eyes. He did not realise that she had taken his left hand.
"What is his name?" he asked. The boy, for that was what the child was, reached with one tiny hand for the nearest object, touching the titanium alloy and carbon fibre thumb of his artificial thumb.
"Ftär'tsyox," was her answer – left hand – the hand the child reached out – the hand that first caught him as he entered the world.
Mìnkxetse returned two days later, to see his new son and his mate.
"He is not as good looking as Sylwanin," said his father doubtfully. Actually, Ftär'tsyox was not a pretty baby. His nose was much too large for his face, and he was very wrinkled.
"He looks like you, my love," said Zha'nelle. "So of course he isn't pretty. Boys aren't supposed to be pretty, they are supposed to be handsome."
Tsawlontu looked over his younger brother's shoulder and said, "My sister is right. Ftär'tsyox looks like you."
"Actually," said Mìnkxetse, "I think he looks more like you than me."
"You might be right," admitted Tsawlontu. "He does have a prominent nose."
"No doubt he will grow into it, just like you," grinned Mìnkxetse. He turned and slapped his brother on the shoulder. "Ma'ite Sylwanin tells me that you can do something called zhuggling that is most impressive. Perhaps you could show me while we drink to the health of ma'itan."
"I would like that," said Tsawlontu, and the two brothers left Zha'nelle to perform their men's business, which no doubt would result in much snoring and a sore head tomorrow morning.
Zha'nelle sighed, and looked down at her son. "You could do worse than turn out like your father or his brother, I suppose," she muttered. At least she had sorted out Tsawlontu, and brought him out of his misery and properly to heel.
She just had to do the same to Mìnkxetse now - something appropriately harmless.
Why, you could hardly see the scar the crockery pot left on his forehead, so what did he have to complain about?
The two brothers sat under a tree, passing a bowl back and forth, occasionally filling it with a clear liquid from a pottery jar.
"My brother," said Mìnkxetse, "You know that Zha'nelle engineered her bad behaviour just to get you to agree to learn how to use your hand?"
Tsawlontu exclaimed, "She did what?"
It was fortunate that Tsawlontu was holding the bowl in his left hand, otherwise he may have slopped some of the precious liquid on to the ground.
"Srane," said Mìnkxetse. "She figured you were so stubborn you wouldn't do it any other way. Zha'nelle knows that you always look out for me."
Tsawlontu took a large swig and returned the bowl to his brother. "You mean it was all an act?"
Mìnkxetse nodded.
"Did you know this? Did she tell you?" he demanded.
"I've been mated to her for many years now," answered Mìnkxetse. He took a mouthful of the fiery liquid, and touched his forehead gingerly. It was still a little sore, even four weeks or so later. The kali'weya pot had been thrown very hard. "She didn't have to tell me." He sighed.
"Give me that," ordered Tsawlontu, taking the bowl and draining it. "You are a braver man than I," he said admiringly, refilling it from the jar.
"Zha'nelle is mostly harmless," admitted Mìnkxetse. "There is only one thing that worries me."
"What's that?" asked Tsawlontu.
"Right now she is coming up with a plan to apologise for being bad to me," said Mìnkxetse, and shuddered.
"Oh," replied his brother. He looked down at the full bowl and passed it back to Mìnkxetse without taking a drink. "My brother, I think you need this more than me."
THE END