The Prehistory
1. The Discovery
The date was one of note in the history of astronomy, April 3rd 2071. A space telescope named Herschel had been put in the orbit of the outer reach of Pluto only at another angle, so that radio-wave, heat, gravitation as well as any other interference became minimal. From this distant orbit cosmic radiation from various bodies of the solar system was studied, and here was a point where astonishingly precise measurements of neighbouring stellar bodies could be made. And it was from this satellite that the crucial measurement was made.
That Alpha Centauri A had planets had been know for decades, but earlier findings demonstrated that they were gas giants of not overly great interest. Searches for smaller and rocky planets had been fruitless. So the astronomers resigned themselves that there were no interesting planets in the Alpha Centauri system, being a double star such a planet would have to be very close to the star to not be torn out of its orbit by the B star, and so close to a star with stronger radiation than Sol life at those rocky planets would probably be fried and roasted.
With the space telescope Herschel in the plutonian orbit measurements were made not only of the three stars themselves but also of the gas giant. And at this date the astronomer student Roderick Kelly got readings that only could mean one single thing – the gas giant someone had named Polyphemous had aberrations in its orbit meaning that it had at least one more or less Earth–size moon… Calculations predicted that life on such a moon could be possible, the gas giant planet's gravitation and magnetic field protected this moon from the more aggressive radiation from Alpa Centauri A. He became a science celebrity overnight, his Ph.D.-degree was a foregone conclusion. The honour of naming the moon was awarded him as the discoverer of the tell-tale signs of the disturbings of Polyphemous' orbit, it was he who named the moon "Pandora".
Rocket propulsion science and its adjuncts meanwhile made great strides. Ion plasma reactors increased acceleration many times over, then technologists succeeded with alternating the currents and then they could increase acceleration many times over on top of that. In the end the 4.39 lightyears between the Sol and Alpha Centauri solar systems became possible to bridge in slightly less than six years. Life sustenance technologies made momentous advances too, the hard nut had been how to resuscitate higher life forms after flash freezing down to liquid nitrogen temperature, when that nut was cracked and higher organisms were successfully brought back to life without any apparent injury the problem of how to keep alive in space for so long period finally had a solution. And there were other advances too, like in stereolithography – it became possible to construct complicated machinery parts by filling various materials in and then letting a computer controlled laser beam shape them, micrometre by micrometre. It was no more necessary to bring every one part from home, parts could be made on the fly as they were seen to be needed, even without specialized furnaces etc. That even went for big parts like hulls of cars and aircrafts – they could be welded together by smaller components using specialized tools. The task still impossible to stereolitography was of course computer parts – because software programming was as important as hardware machinery as for them…
So a space satellite was sent there and the satellite sent down a probe. The satellite was as a matter of course unmanned but the programs had been designed for every eventuality methodical brains could imagine. Measurements were sent up to the satellite and then relayed back to the space station in the plutonian orbit and finally passed on down to Earth. When those images finally came back to Earth, they were downloaded and unpacked with great trepidation. There might have been some interference from a "nomadic planet", i.e. not belonging to any solar system, during the transfer, making the images and readings illegible, in spite of precautions taken by the legion …
Immense success! Almost all the images and readings were clear as day! Technologists who had taken part in the project named "The Taming of Chiron" – i.e. an expedition to the most important centaur – gained their degrees all of them. And heaps of moolah…
Images taken from space didn't merely prove the existence of Pandora, they even showed many details. The images presented a globe in many ways like Earth, with seas, land, clouds, atmosphere etc. The probe, when it had landed, showed forests and animals. Extra terrestrial life had been discovered – the date was 1st of April 2113 and it was no Fools' day joke either! But readings demonstrated significant differences too: The atmosphere would be poisonous to humans, containing massive amounts of carbon dioxide, some hydrogen sulphide and traces of carbon monoxide and cyanide, apart from more benign elements like nitrogen and oxygen. The moon was some 4 / 5 of the size of Earth so the pull of gravitation was likewise lower, but the atmosphere was a good deal more dense. And the geomagnetic field power was astoundingly strong. How could that be? They soon found out that the powerful magnetic field of Polyphemous had magnetized the rocks at Pandora mightily, and created a special mineral that according to calculations should have powerful conductive properties too.
Had 1st of April 2113 been a day of astronomical history, it still dwarfed compared with the day ten days later. Computer technician Melissa Poynings was that day sitting and scanning through images ready for delivery to the astronomers for analysis, to pick away superfluous images – powerful brains wouldn't want to waste their precious time with seeing the same forest over and over again... The images were numerous as it were, no use in wasting time with repetitive images. Most of those images showed green forest and not much more, some of them with some animals roaming around. But that image showed something at the forest end over there – something humanoid–like! Could this be possible? Really? She at once alerted astronomer-on-duty Dick Polley, he rose from the readings he was studying with an annoyed sigh – but when he saw that picture, and those following, all his annoyance instantly lay in pieces on the floor... He was rather too old for making handsprings but he took some clumsy waltz steps with Melissa and then declared that now we two are eternal names in science history!
To not stress it with even more significance… Extra terrestrial intelligent life discovered! The news made instant headlines everywhere between McMurdo Sound at Antarctica and Alert in the Arctic, and between Nome in west and Uelen in east – two villages at opposite sides of the Bering strait... Planning of a manned expedition started at once. But it took quite some time to build a space ship able to safely harness the powers developed in a laboratory – the parts had to be made by stereolitography in space, with materials and some few special parts delivered up with space ferries. Those gadgets they had built had to be checked thoroughly for what they claimed to be able to – could they really gain a speed this close to the speed of light without structural damage to spaceship parts? Not the least: Could they at that dizzying speed brake down to a standstill too without damage to anything on board? Was it really possible to resuscitate organisms as complex as human bodies without any body damage at all after flash freezing them down to 196 degrees below Celsius zero? So years lapsed until a manned expedition was ready.
That the signals from the probe came to an end after just two weeks, was lost in the scientific hubbub. And that they had been cut short by an alien's decision was a conclusion occurring to very few indeed!
Olo'eyktan Toruk'eme was old and had made happy plans to relinquish his dignity to his son Eytukan. He knew his son as an able hunter, a vigilant warrior and very respectful towards his ritual obligations. And Toruk'eme regarded himself lucky that he had found that healer girl Mo'at at the playground that day years ago, he had early on understood that she had an ability that went well beyond the healing she most probably would elect as her lifetime profession when she came of age. She had, on top of her obvious eminent abilities with healing, an ability to connect with the otherworld so strong that few could boast being her equal. He had with great care, up through all their upbringing, manouvered those two towards each other, so that they one day would as a matter of self evidence discover an interest in each other. He had gleefully received reports from youngsters seeing them that they obviously had eyes on each other, they would sometimes make themselves absent from the ordinary routine of the clan, that they did so to cultivate their growing interest in each other gave Toruk'eme no end of satisfaction. His long nurtured plan had worked to perfectly well. It would be good to have some restful years before going to the embrace of Eywa.
Then one day a hunter requested some words with him. He told him that he had found some funny metal thing in the forest, half a day's walk away towards the northwest. Toruk'eme replied: "Would that be of any interest to us, that is probably not very far from the borderline with the Tipani." Well, he should better go and investigate. He mounted his ikran and flew along with the hunter.
They found the metal thing in a glen in the forest. It looked like a peeled fruit, or like a broken pot with the shards still hanging on to the main part. Some distance away they found a large sheet of textile with strings on (the parachute the probe had breaked the landing with…) There was a long rod pointing upwards, a slit looking like the holes a pa'li (direhorse) or an ikran (a flying dragon) is breathing with, and some holes with a transparent stone cover. This thing was something very peculiar – if only what it was the precursor of had been known… Well, Toruk'eme ordered it dug down and the pit filled with anemonid seed, when they grew to a mature plant the plant juice would devour the metal.
At somewhat the same time another player in the drama soon to unfold came into being.
Delbert Maddox was a lawyer in the US dept. of energy, tasked with surveying that raw materials providers didn't capture too heavy political clout. Lawmakers remembered the power of John D. Rockefeller with trepidation and didn't want any repetition of it. Problem was only that tasking mr. Maddox and his staff with this job had an inescapable side effect, it educated them in how to mount these law hurdles and how to sideline lawmakers trying to mend those loopholes in law. And Maddox had the required ruthlessness to use those loopholes for all their worth.
Resource logisticians had long said that the first raw material the civilization at Tellus would run out of, would be mercury. So when a mining company running one of the few profitable mercury mines left at Earth was taken under bankruptcy protection, he joined his knowledge of the raw material market with a bank's money and a mining company's extraction expertise. The new company Ressource Development Administration Inc. was formed and in not so long time, Maddox hired young Aubrey Cheever and made him CEO of the new company as his long arm in the company while he kept on in the US energy service, many subordinates in the department transferred to the new RDA. It didn't take long before mining company manager Ewald Siebert came to rue for helping with the creation of this entity, ten years after the incorporation of RDA Cheever had come into so much power that he managed to perform a hostile buyout of Siebert's mining firm.
Five years or so after that, in the spring of 2008, Delbert Maddox could retire with a well-filled pension fund and leave the operation to Cheever his until now right hand man. Mr. Cheever was almost the clone of Maddox in look and certainly in terms of business philosophy, he made sure to establish an intimate relationship with Maddox' successor in the job at US department of energy, the semi-public and semi-commercial character of RDA was a business model paying off...
And one day that autumn his R&D manager Collier came to him with a most audacious proposal to business plan.
2. Manned Surveying Expedition
The next year of note was 2103 and the day was 10th October. Commander of the expedition Guy Onslow gave his next-in-command Rupert Armstrong – a descendant of a remote relative of the first man to put his foot on a heavenly body other than Earth, Neil Armstrong – the great honour of being the first to put his foot down at a heavenly body of another solar system. "Try to think out some historical declaration, like another Armstrong: 'One small step for a human…'. Remember that you're creating history!"
So when the landing vehicle was firmly on Pandoran soil, Armstrong put down his foot and gave his declaration: "Mankind has been victorious and will conquer this world too! We have put down our flag in an all new solar system! All hail to the progress of science and technology making this possible!" He wasn't clairvoyant and could of course not imagine how very wrong future would prove him to be about the victory of mankind…
They took their samples of air, stones, plants, also from the tissue of a huge wolf-like animal of prey the size of a Clydesdale horse with fearsome fangs that came rather too close for their liking…
Eytukan was olo'eyktan by now, but he still had a talk with his old father for what to do now. He had heard reports how those small na'vi – like beings with bubble-like transparent masks had been seen coming out of that box that had landed in the glen where the funny thing had been landing some years ago. He ordered some warriors to go over and have a closer look at them.
They found some small na'vi – like beings, approached them and asked who they were and from where they had come. Those beings looked almost panic-stricken when they came close to them…
Armstrong suddenly saw those huge blue skinned humanoids coming out of the forest – oh my goodness how towering tall they looked! All the crew could feel a cold sweat. They came close and said something incomprehensible.
Armstrong behaved with his most polite manners and greeted. Not that a single word was understood by his counterparts… Gifts were warily exchanged – a cheap brass bangle, a small arm adornment was given in return – that armband easily fit as a necklace on a human... Those Pandorans then left for the forest again. But the crew could feel how eyes were kept on them from the forest. No matter, they needed to start taking samples from the ground. Commander Onslow had prevailed on them that they had to pick up some stones, preferably some that could give reasons for the strong magnetic field force, in this area too.
Eytukan's hunters kept up their vigilance with observing those humans. Once those observers saw a member of the crew cutting himself while he chiselled on a stone, some of the other crew then came and put some gauze around the wound. They understood well what had happened, Mo'at had done likewise to them when they had got cut on arrow stone splinters.
A hunt went terribly wrong one of the days later, a pack of ay'nantang struck at and seriously mauled five of a hunting team to drive them away from the game they just before had hunted, not far away from the landing site of the sky people, as they were by now called. The hunters Roro, Nitar and Key'tsu, and the two hunting girls Mamati and Fifo'at, had bad wounds and they had seen how the Sky People had bound up the wound of their comrade when cutting himself on an arrow stone splinter. So they walked over to them, showed their wounds and the medic of the team was most happy to assist them. So the five hunters walked happily home with their wounds tended to, having unwittingly given the little seed that one day would become the avatar program – for the worse at first but ultimately for the far better... Those hunters had no idea about the significance there was to what had happened, not until many, many years later. Doctor McKee took good care of the blood in the pads he had soaked up… He extracted the NVTtranscriptase, often called Na'vi DNA for the sake of simplicity, from them and stored it in his
Up at the orbiting space station commander Onslow read the reports from down there with satisfaction. He sent preliminary reports back to Earth – the sensation was immediate.
When the geological and biological material could be really studied in depth, the sensation was even greater. The strong magnetism of that rock was found to be due to a special mineral with magnetic force so energized that it took days to wane even when melted down, and for as long as its magnetic power was strong it had superconductive powers at room temperature. The sensation among electro-technicians was so immense that the stone immediately was named for that material of scientific mythology, the unobtanium. Those very powerful and highly special properties made it economically viable to establish a mining business over there, in spite of distance, hostile nature and a local population that probably wouldn't stay indifferent if wary to humans for ever.
A good many at Earth had wanted to put the commercial activity at Pandora on hold until later, until scientists had had their turn. But so was not to be, many resources were by now in so short supply at Earth that commercial operations like mining etc. at Pandora were economically sound, first of all that unobtanium mineral. Later on Pandora might provide other useful resources, it might even be an expansion room to ease the overpopulation at Earth, like America had fizzled the overpopulation of Europe during the 18th, 19th and early 20th Century, why not? Then and there the idea that this population export to the New World had only been possible by pushing aside the previous population and that the very same would have to happen at Pandora if it was to be colonized, didn't occur to too many… and certainly none with authority to decide… Terraforming the Pandoran atmosphere shouldn't be too much of a problem and then Pandora would be eminently viable for human colonization.
At Pandora things soon settled back to everydays when the Sky people left. Old Toruk'eme joined his ancestors in Eywa's embrace a few months afterwards, without ever seeing those aliens with his own eyes, so Eytukan was on his own now. However he was happy that he had such an intelligent councillor as he had in his mate Mo'at.
Some special eyes and ears were watching and listening in to the glowing reports at radio, TV and newspapers those autumn days of 2108, when the signals from Pandora had traversed the stretch of Outer Space.
A small dry man named Piers Collier had already read the news, well before it was unleashed on the whole press world. A material like the unobtanium described would be of smashing interest to his company, RDA Ltd. Only the limits of imagination would put a barrier to things that could be made or improved with this material. The report he submitted the Board of the company excited the gentlemen there to the sky, including CEO Cheever. Fetching unobtanium from Pandora instantly became a towering business priority. Liberal campaign donations to sufficiently many Congress candidates' election campaigns ensured that his company would have full commercial rights at Pandora, its mineral excavations in other words at first, then in the next rounds – who was to know?
With that concession in his pocket, elbowing aside those naïve scientists who intended to preserve this new world for science and discovery but not commercial activity was simple. Some of the academic fools could be won over by appending a research station to the mining site, so that the scientists in residence could have access to some Earth amenities during their studies. So who was to be named head of a mining operation there? Bernie Skinner could do but for a founding period only, he was rather too self-willed. Such a man could be the gung-ho personality to get the operation up and running, but for everyday use a more pliable type would be better.
At Wharton business college in USA there was a student about to graduate named Parker Selfridge who had some ideas when watching the news. He was a nephew of Morton Selfridge, the head of RDA company financial staff, so he knew that if he made good at the exams looming there might be an appointment for him in the RDA Ltd. company. Once in the company it was all up to him and his ability. Watching that program at TV made him ponder on an idea: That resource rich moon far away in Space might one day be his golden opportunity, he knew that the company management was planning an expedition to go there to do some mining of that valuable mineral. If he could court the right people then it might well one day be him who would be appointed to be manager of that operation… He delved into his curriculum books, connections were important but a good exam was still critically needed.
At University of Harvard there was a freshwoman student in cellular botany named Grace Augustine who watched this news with equally great interest. "I would give anything I could think of to go to some follow-up expedition! It is a whole new biological system to study! It is a chance of a life time!" So she started to court the academic powers that be for a place at the permanent research station she understood was planned there. And was finally granted it… Her institute had a deal struck with the RDA company that a research facility would be embedded in the mining complex planned. The university got a scientist team to the planet piggyback on the mining venture and so saved a huge outlay, the company would be privy to research results. Such is the stuff good compromises are made from, when both parts earn well.
There was another one who was also heard the news but with far less interest in it, Miles Quaritch was right then sitting in a tent in a military camp somewhere in the Niger delta, fighting an interminable guerrilla war. Whoever in the end would win wouldn't matter much, the corruption of the top people and the misery for all the rest would be the same anyhow, so he served the USA to support the part most amenable to US opinions. He heard the news but his attention was elsewhere, he had just heard the comment from his superior that slaughtering that village had been a great mistake, and on top of other bad decisions he would probably be convicted by a military tribunal should it come to that. However, he could still resign with full honours and seek military work otherwise… So he sat down at his computer to do office work he otherwise mostly disdained, in this case writing his resignation declaration from US Marines and an application for a job at the security service of RDA.
He was indeed subsequently hired by the RDA company and for a couple of years worked as a guard manager at various facilities of the company. To the satisfaction of the company – and then he was offered an independent command again, with very free hands and very far away from meddlesome superiors… to his immense satisfaction to not put it even more explicitly!
There were others who cared far more. Rose and John ("Jack") Spellman were neighbours at their student dormitory, and their emotions had just started to blossom. They were students in political science at Yale and listened to the news that evening with great interest. It might be amazingly interesting to learn about those people, their habits, traditions etc. Pity only that they would probably be too old for the voyage when the voyage to Pandora was ready to get started. Their marriage had been planned already and little Norman was born before the nine-month jubilee for the event…
Some people cared little for the news from Space due to a strenuous life in general. Kevin and Melina Sully (nee Anderson) had left their native Australia a short while ago, hand in hand. He had gained a residence permit in USA by marrying with Melina who already had it, they had met at a class reunion party in their native Melbourne prior to her departure to USA. Hand in loving hand they searched and found places to live, jobs to earn their livings and social acceptance in their suburb of the Californian city of Fresno. Life in California was hard but still not quite so miserable as in Australia nowadays. He worked at a car repair workshop, she washed floors. Honest, hard working and frugal people with little gumption for flashing luxury. Their everydays were rather too busy to care much about such quaint news as intelligent life far, far away. They heard the news and shrugged them off, their thoughts went to problems far more pressing. Like how much they would need for food and for garment out of the meagre monthly salary pot. This problem was mightily compounded when Melina gave birth to twins, named Jacob and Thomas respectively.
Another family of the same category was a family recently immigrated from the Dominican Republic, Mario Chacon Gonzales and his wife Conchita Chacon Garcia, resident in the city of New York after some years in Miami FL. He worked as a handyman at the janitor staff at the La Guardia airport, he saw the airplanes coming and going, and sometimes wished that he could simply cut and run and go airborne, away from his hardscrabble life. At home such dreams were always cut short by his down–to–earth housewife. If their children, so far Milt, Tim, Ricky and little infant Trudy were to have their longing to fly away to something else and probably better from their father, they had their sound moral principles of life from their ultra reliable mother. The news of the world for prospective colonizing far out in the Space ignited yet another bout of longing far, far away with Mario, and brought him a sharp rebuke from his Conchita: "Stop day–dreaming and get ready for your night shift, Mario! Many passengers depend on the utilities you keep up to shape!"
Then there was a quite young biomechanics pupil at a trade school by the name of Max Patel, who failed to hear the news at all. Born of immigrants still in India when he was a toddler, his father was a grocer who had settled in Galveston, Texas, after having worked for years for the US diplomatic services at their station in Kolkata. Jagjeevan Patel had for his services as a faithful servant of USA been granted a green card together with his wife Mary when riots had broken out in India, like they all too often did these days. With this card he could bring himself and his family to the US of A and he so did, in a great hurry! Once out of trade school, Max applied for all the biomechanical jobs in sight, the one he finally landed was at a RDA biological lab, at an algae farm.
He regarded himself lucky when he after some boring years of fastidious work with tending the algae managed to capture a job at a very special RDA lab, the avatar lab where Grace Augustine by then was the queen regnant. The pay was good yes but the lab was located so very, very far away – in another solar system… But the pay would provide his parents with a comfortable retirement when his father in not so long time would be ending his career, so…
Finally there was a bio-mechanic researcher at City College in London, dr. Cordell Lovecraft, who for some time had been toying with a project of how to put human minds in artificial bodies for special environments by remote psionic link. How about sending an oil researcher in a sperm whale body to make studies at the sea bottom at very deep drilling sites? Then one day he was contacted by a man in a suit who offered to fund his research, courtesy of the RDA Ltd. So he could advance his studies from lab rats to chimpanzees and finally to criminals with capital verdicts. It worked well, he could in the end rely fairly soundly on the psionic link connection. Lovecraft was a hardened workaholic who neither read, heard nor saw the news from the other world until long after. He probably could have cared less, the "avatars" he built were his single ambition in life with the NVTransferase samles he was given from the returned expedition from Pandora was the raw material he needed. But there were others who saw a good benefit for connecting Lovecraft's research with the mining colony Bernie Skinner had been asked to plan…
3. Putting up ESC 1
Life was hard at Earth during the early 22nd century. Large areas were lifeless wastelands destroyed by rampant pollution. Vital resources like water and fresh air were in many regions strictly rationed. Products formerly available as everyday fare of even lowly people were now luxury products for the stinking wealthy, like meat and fruit. Most people got by on a kind of rough jelly produced by algae cultures genetically manipulated to enhance the nutritious value of the goo. Residences were mostly cramped and claustrophobic apartments, of course unless you had more money than you knew how to waste. World population had soared to some 20 billions. In short, RDA Ltd. had no shortage of people wishing to go to a world with more room for expansion. The colonizing expedition was in other words big and with successive ISV arrivals it would grow still larger, a whole base would have to be established.
Bernie Skinner equipped a strong expedition, consisting of about a thousand systematically handpicked members and lots of equipment to keep them up and going, to be ferried from Sol to Alpha Centauri solar system in portions as ISV transportation capacity allowed. The scientific department was to be headed by that Augustine who would arrive when the colony had been built up sufficiently. He had occasionally met her in the RDA biomechanics research facility, he had sometimes as a student wondered what a nerd in a skirt might look like, all the able female students he had known at college were classy girls still. Miss Augustine was very evidently able in biology as nobody else but she had taken to a style in his eyes absolutely not attractive as a female. He liked 'em graceful, modest and domestic... His experiences told him to regard himself lucky that she wouldn't arrive until he was halfway into the final term of his stay here, he had signed on for a two period stint á six years each at Pandora before returning to Earth with a fat wallet. Then he could probably afford to retire to the posh bungalow at Fiji he was already paying mortgages for, complete with a farm of cattle and poultry for his own food and for earning a little subsidy to his retirement fund.
Skinner much preferred sharing the table with his chief of security Quaritch, this was a man of his own ilk! He had, by his mandate as head of the founding expedition, had a strong say in the choice of all important operatives, he liked this no-nonsense attitude he saw in him. No wonder that they were soul mates, Skinner had been a logistics officer in the air force before RDA hired him to put his administrative skills to use, first in managing a solar power facility and then with founding the colony and gearing up its ore production – fast!
He had read the resume of the man appointed to take over after him when his period at Pandora was up. Parker Selfridge, nephew of Morton Selfridge, so far of good standing as chief of staff at the electrical power division of the RDA company. Brilliant exams – but he suspected that family connections to the top at RDA was not unrelated to him capturing the top leadership at Pandora… Well, he would certainly get opportunity to show the material he was made of now! Reports on na'vi hostility were getting ever more of a nuisance…
One day a man in three-part suit, Grace knew him as Piers Collier, manager of the R&D department of the RDA Ltd., knocked at her office door. Her research program was just one out of very many managed by the company, so she didn't see him too often. He put a leaflet on her desk, asked her to read it and then get into touch with him if she might be interested in his offer. She opened it and delved into it, and was soon highly interested.
She was in the leaflet informed that the company for some years had supported research in remotely controlled bodies through psionic links. Then the grand boss CEO, the much talked about but hardly ever seen mr. Cheever, had noticed that since "Na'vi DNA" now was available, Na'vi-looking avatars could be created. Such bodies could be useful for mining work in the frankly hostile atmosphere of Pandora. But for such use they would need avatar bodies by the hundreds, and at a price tag of 50 billion dollars, even after all the inflation that had taken place still a hefty lump of money, such an expenditure was unthinkable. It was much, much cheaper to build remotely controlled mining vehicles and excavators. Cheever had been close to put the whole avatar project in a shelf and forget it.
But if a mining staff of hundreds of miners was out of the question, may be a scientific staff of a dozen or two of scientists to work in the environment could be a good idea? The idea of scientists with avatar bodies originally came from Collier and Cheever in the end bought the idea – the idea that new medicines and plants for lucrative cultivation might be hiding in those forests tasted well to the RDA management. Grace and Max wholeheartedly agreed with him too, and the avatar project was turned over to her scientific program, she had many a careful discussion with mr. Lovecraft about the finer details about avatars etc. But Wilcox couldn't see any use in sending in the machinery needed for avatar creation along with Grace to Alpha Centaury system, such an XGSS lab was expensive machinery to be controlled by more than two dozens of highly trained experts. Sending that techie Max Patel, to manage the psionic links, would be sufficient.
Grace didn't bond the least bit with neither Skinner nor Quaritch during the settler's crash course once landing at Pandora. They were gung–ho types both of them, their minds were not amenable to the nicer things in life. But she had been told by the RDA staff people receiving her work signed contract that if she could put up with Skinner for a term of six years at Pandora then he would be exchanged for another type, one to run the base day to day once it had been established. He had indicated unwillingness to take on more terms. Given that the coming station manager was out of the same commercial company as Skinner, she had few rosy-red illusions of what human material this guy Selfridge was made of, but he could hardly be more resistant to her good advices than Skinner! But alas, the spectre of Sknner was left at Pandora in the shape of that Miles Quaritch.
But that lab techie they had given her, that Indian named Max, that was really a man to her liking! Competent, merry, flexible, even-tempered and eminently trustworthy. When the main expedition took to space, he was the foremost of the scientist staying behind to plan and make ready for the experiments to be carried out. He arrived together with Grace, in the second batch of space-farers.
So at the date called May 2nd 2031 at Earth the fateful landing took place: The colonizing expedition aboard called at Pandora. Skinner made no attempt at pronouncing something for history, he had more important affairs on his plate and he let the hundred or so workers he had brought along for his founding expedition in not the slightest doubt about that. Buildings up, equip them with air scrubbers, finally clean up the air inside so that they could breathe in there. Furnish the rooms, install electrical systems to sustain life, build a hydroponic greenhouse so that food could be grown, the food brought along wouldn't last for long. Set up factory for ore refinement, workshops for serving all kinds of goings–on and labs of every kind, unobtanium extraction was after all their reason for being there. Putting everyone to work with what they knew how to do, providing them with what they needed and to the best of his ability what they liked, ironing out upstart disagreements – there is always some when taking off at a new expedition and this needed his mediation and his partner Quaritch' discipline to quell.
Skinner carried on like a steamroller, those not agreeing with his decisions had better seek cover on the insignificant sidelines – he didn't believe in democracy at the workplace... meaning nowhere at all at Pandora because he organized his colony as a working place in every sense and all contents of the term. He drove himself as hard as anyone else, the result of his energy was not to be denied: He got Extra-Solar Colony 1, abbreviated as ESC 1 in formal documents and in common speak at Pandora known as "Hell's Gate", up from its infancy to a viable state even in the face of hostile nature and passive resistance from the natives – increasingly turning active though…. Everyone appreciated that fact. But still very few regretted seeing him enter the space ferry when his double terms of six years each finally was at end, it is after all not comfortable to repeatedly being run over by a steam roller...
Skinner had a talk with his successor, he concluded that this Selfridge was a very competent administrator by all means but Skinner wasn't totally convinced about the power of the fire burning in his belly. Luckily he had managed to convince Quaritch to stay on for some periods further, if Selfridge's spine should wither during some crisis that man among half-men should be able to straighten him up still! Skinner had had reports about skirmishes between miners and aboriginals and if this trend would carry on and increase, it could become dangerous. He had decided that he better be out of responsibility well before it came to that so he had declined renewing his contract with RDA. That observation was part of his decision not to prolong his stay at Pandora. He had read between the lines of messages received from the board of RDA that CEO Cheever was soon about to resign too, presumably to a comfortable life in retirement too...
So it was with a sigh of relief that Bernhard Oliver Skinner signed his mandate over to Parker Selfridge that day, and then walked into the space ferry.
4. To Get the Business Going
Parker Selfridge opened his business log for the date May 20th 2043. It was his first whole day as manager of the Extra Solar Colony #1, by now the nickname "Hell's Gate" had become so commonplace that few thought about it as a nickname any more. Skinner had shown him around at the colony after Quaritch had given him the same crash course in dangers there were at this hostile place. He had met all the other significant people, like Noah Hewins the technical manager – for everdays that mostly meant head of mining. Like Norma Pottinger his office secretary and many more.
And before boarding the space ferry to go up to space, he had met his superiors. Big-bodied and formally elegant CEO Aubrey Cheever, about to retire his job in about half a year, big and fat technical manager Gilbert Sands – Selfridge knew the driven man hiding behind that cherubic face, the small and drably bureaucratic looking R&D manager Piers Collier, sporty-looking communications manager Gerald Barnwell, financial manager Morton Selfridge – hey, uncle Mort! – furthermore the "grey mouse" human resource manager Betty Smock, the very martial looking head of security Theo Rosenbaum and finally the very formally correct-dressed n-i-c Waldo Kingsley with his ominous gaze, the man groomed to take over the company command. Selfridge had been given an exhortation of what the company wanted of him and what was at stake for all of Earth in case of his failure to live up to expectations, he knew this already but a reminder was probably to be expected.
Two of the staff heads at "Hell's Gate" had personalities making them in particular standing out of the crowd, the one was the head of the scientific research department Grace Augustine, for her bad attitude from the outset. She kept pestering him with demands for roomier research budgets, more staff in general and more avatars in particular, and with curtailing some mining prospective projects. Selfridge was far from blind to the fact that industrial activity could erode nature, he had seen ample examples of it at Earth – but here was a whole planet worth of nature so why worry about some more dig sites? Furthermore, it wasn't home. He would probably have had more scruples with prospecting in the small core of what had once been the Yellowstone Reserve but this wasn't Yellowstone. Environmental concerns couldn't put a break to every one commercial venture, right?
The other person of note was the security operations ("SecOps") boss Miles Quaritch. Having a powerful guy at their head was what was needed to tame those hotheads in this gang but it seemed to Selfridge that the "old warhorse" Quaritch sometimes had to restrain himself from turning from defensive protection to aggressive conquest which was certainly not what his work contract with RDA specified. And had most SecOps members ever had any qualms about company activities at Pandora, Quaritch and his master sergeant Wainfleet made sure to weed out those attitudes.
Eytukan took from time to time his ikran and took off with some of his prominent people to the site where the Sky people had reappeared, and in much larger numbers than last time. And what was worse, they put up big buildings of stone and metal and these buildings soon started spewing out noxious smoke, they started to fell trees, dig huge holes in the ground and hunt for animals without the least regard for any quota. Highly provoking! Already it had come to loud protests and threats when they met them in the forest.
One thing that Eytukan wasn't was a clan leader without forethought. Mo'at had given him two daughters but no son. But those two girls gave a good impression after all, Sylwanin had an obvious nose for healing potions and benedictions and the studious attitude that went with a good healer. But Eytukan knew that she had a rather hot head, she would need a calming down mate in time. Ineki looked like one, they used to be together much of the time, whether in childish play or in more adult activity. The younger daughter Neytiri was of a more contemplative nature, she had an obvious eye for signs in nature expressing Eywa's desires. She would make good material for succeeding Mo'at as tsahik one day, but then she would need a more down-to-earth and extrovert sidekick as olo'eyktan. Eytukan knew one, the boy named Tsu'tey, so he did to her like his parents had once done to him, he made sure that they met each other often up through childhood. With time they would probably graft on each other and then mate, to become the next ruling couple upon the retirement of impending Eytukan and Mo'at.
The ad was put up at a poster board at the camp at St. Thomas Island. Would there be any interest for a term of six years or more of military service at that exceedingly far off mining station? RDA needed soldiers of many kinds, weapon technicians, logisticians, helicopter pilots and astronauts alike. The pay offered was about double of that on offer at any military service at Earth, only that attracted lots of interest, that extra half was to be deposited at Earth, available upon returning to Earth. Pure love of adventure was a mighty lure too. And also an attraction to many, one not declared aloud by fully realizing recruiters and never admitted by any applicant either, a base "conquistador instinct" legitimizing plunder, rape, torture and other inspirations from the Nether World…
One helicopter pilot seeing the ad at the camp message board was named Trudy Chacon. She was finish with a tour in a combat zone at Papua New Guinea, that place was a hellhole to serve at if ever there was one – incessant rain, drug resistant tropical diseases galore, a plethora of poisonous snakes and spiders and other nasty bugs, and ickily primitive conditions everywhere around. Having done her tour with the helicopter squadron in action she was granted a small administrative job at the Marine helicopter base at US Virgin Islands. It was a comfortable place to serve and with homey Dominican Republic not awfully far away, she felt good at the base. But still, after some time the job started to irk her, she had to admit to herself that she longed back to action. She submitted an application to ESC 1 too and she was hired.
Likewise ads were put up at various learned institutions. Two graduate students in social sciences, named Thomas Sully and Norman Spellman, saw one such ad. They had been friends always since they were greenest of freshmen at Berkeley.
Norm wondered aloud:
"Wonder if they might need a social anthropologist?"
Tom carried the thought on:
"And a material anthropologist too, may be?"
Good friends they were even though their social backgrounds were totally different. Norm was out of an affluent academic family, his father had a degree in microbiology and his mother was an oral surgeon. Tom, on the other hand, was out of hard-working commoner background, he had earned the study grant enabling his study by hard academic work and a gifted brain. With parents recently dead there wasn't any more support to be expected from them, only some small money kept trickling in from brother Jake in the US Marines.
But that night, while Norm and Tom sat filling their application forms, Tom suddenly straightened up.
"What is it, Tom?"
"I can tell you Norm, what they say about telepathy between twins can't be totally unfounded. Somehow I simply know that something bad is happening to brother Jake right now…"
"Oh yeah? Well, I've heard about such cases…"
"You know, he is a US marine. Last I heard from him was that he had been posted to Venezuela, to help the national government put down that rebellion. He said that he was to be posted to a base protecting a cluster of oil drilling sites somewhere in the Llano plains. He has dodged many bullets before, both in Gabon in Africa and at boarding ferocious pirates in the Indian Ocean so he probably reckoned to be lucky this time too. But my twin telepathy is telling me that he has run into a nasty one this time…"
May be there really is something about the "twin sense", at the very moment Tom was sitting with Norm, pen in hand above application forms to the RDA company, Jake was being transported to a field hospital by a Samson helicopter. When landing, the surgeon inquired:
"What happened to him, sarge?"
"We had report on a gang of rebels approaching the drilling facility. But when we took up pos in front of the outermost rig, we found ourselves in an ambush. Suddenly they were shooting at us from any angle. Jake here got a bullet in his back, Paddy took a bullet in his arm and Rocky had another one in his jaw. And Cheryl we had no alternative but to leave behind, she looked simply dead with a bullet hole in her forehead and that dead gaze."
The surgeon gave Jake, now being transferred to a gurney, a cursorial gaze and his eyes stopped at a big, dark and wet spot where his combat trouser legs met. His eyes became painful and his voice rusty.
"He has wet himself, that most probably means that he doesn't have command over his bladder anymore. Which most probably also means that his spinal cord has been broken, he'll most probably become paraplegic."
"That so, doc?"
"I'm 90% sure."
Grace was by now well established at Pandora and she was rid of that bull-headed Skinner, thank goodness for that! But the problem was that Skinner might already have done irrepairable damage in relations with the aboriginals. So Grace had some hard bouts of confrontation with Quaritch and Selfridge. Did they really think that the company wanted a clash if peaceful coexistence could be arranged? Those aboriginals might have unknown measures available of unimaginable power if provoked!
She was thoroughly disappointed with the replacement for Skinner. Selfridge wasn't quite so ruthless and insensitive as the one he had succeeded but he was still rigidly fixated at the economical bottom line. And what was worse, it seemed to her that when – not if anymore – push would be coming to shove, he was likely to lend Quaritch' pushy words more attention than her thoughtful advices.
But she couldn't just put her hands down either. If she was to be able to do much biological research beyond the elementaries, she would need the aboriginals to at least acquiesce with the human presence. If she could gain their trust she would probably even be able to give her research a head start by drawing upon their knowledge of the nature they lived in. The mining venture could do without endless disturbings from hunters in the forest, and with some benevolent relationship a trading venture could probably be added to the mining, why not?
In short, everything was in favour of building a more amicable connection with those aboriginals. But how? The great idea came from Mildred Thorndyke, one of her lab assistants. Why not use the avatars she had available and was going to get to cultivate such a connection?
She had put out three avatars, the first ones were one for herself, one for Ernie Gumm the zoologist and one for Deke Gill the oceanographer. Inserting themselves into those bodies they could wander freely around, at least as far as the noxious atmosphere was concerned. Then came other scientists, one by one: Bobbie Mullins the pharmacologist, to search for medical properties of plants. Nick and Jenny Dixon, psychology and medical researchers. Shawn and Maeve O'Leary, geophysicist and geologist. Angie Cresson, meteorologist. Soon she would receive Tom Sully, material anthropologist and Norm Spellman, social anthropologist, at the station. And there would be more in the coming.
Some avatars were driven not by scientists but by administrators with a need for venturing outside the earthly atmosphere of Hell's Gate's indoors. Like Jeff Enright, the physical coach with a past in Royal Marines. Hal Nuñez, mechanic. Ella van Laare, gardener. Owen McGregor, R&D logistics manager. Todd Cresson, janitor and handyman, finally Penny Magennis the laundry manager and tailor of the station.
Jake had been through a new "beast barrack" period, beginning when he awoke from narcosis after the operation that had saved his life. The surgeon had congratulated himself with this success but apologized for not being able to save his spinal cord.
It took some seconds before the reality of what this meant sank in on Jake. A wild yell happened and a nurse specializing in soothing such shock took over. Jake had a profound need for her those days!
Some weeks later Jake had "graduated" in the art of living a crippled life, including how to get around in a wheelchair, how to manage at the restroom, how to rise from the bed in the morning and go to rest in the evening, how to change garment – everything without assistance demanding payment he couldn't afford on his veteran allowance.
Jake managed in a way. He couldn't complain about what they veteran administration did for him, they did whatever they could with their limited budgets – hey, they even got him a flat adapted for a wheelchair user! He even got a job in the US Marine Corps administration, earning him some small cash on top of his veteran allowance.
But his bitterness with his handicap often got the better of him, like when he – repeatedly – got himself involved in bar fights and thereby thrown out for that. And with no hope for improvement in his life either, as a cripple he had the view to a barren economy, a hopeless romantic life and on the whole a depressingly boring existence.
Worst of it all was the aloof indifference and condescending pity he sensed among people he met – former brothers-in-arms not excluded. The only thing saving him from total despair was contact with his brother Tom, whether by letter, telephonic or sometimes personal. But Tom had a career of his own to tend to, like everyone else. So despondency and bitterness brooded on Jake. He came close to keeling over into alcoholism but may be it was the constant cheering by Tom that kept that spectre away…
5. Things Are Getting Complicated
Grace had a talk with her scientists. First words after convening formalities came from pharmacologist Bobbie.
"The na'vi are uniformly unfriendly or at least evasive. That makes it hard to approach them, to learn from them properties of life here. Since we then have to make all collection on our own, it takes far more time than would have been needed if we got on better with them. We should try to get on better terms with them."
Ernie the zoologist and Deke the oceanographer concurred. So did geo scientists Shawn and Maeve too. The idea for a remedy to the problem came from Nick the psychologist.
"What if we establish a club, a school, a meeting forum of some sort, where we can communicate with na'vi and demonstrate to them that we're not ogres. At least not most of us. An idea may be…?"
So an awning was erected at the forest end, at a distance from the station fence. The SecOps guys couldn't understand what the use was for it, it even made it harder to protect her from dangerous animals and arrows… But Grace insisted, along with Nick, Jenny and others of the scientists she took place there, looking at plants and animals they found. It took some time but after a while curious youngsters with blue skin started appearing. She received them with all the hospitality she could muster and picked up language from them, in time she became reasonably able in na'vi and some English terms became familiar to those huge kids.
Eytukan and Mo'at heard what the kids had to tell when they came back from hunting and gathering expeditions that became benevolent encounters with the Sky People. Reports about Sky People so far indicated brutes of a wanton behaviour but those they met at or near to that roof were absolutely not. Case in the point: The kids had brought them plants they had picked, then they were thanked for the flowers picked but also told that picked flowers were good but presented where they grew was better, and small forest critters they had been brought were released soon after – they in other words understood some of Eywa's demands for respect for everything alive… They behaved monumentally brainless all right but they were clearly receptive to learning. They walked around almost as unthinking as if sleep-walking, so the term "dreamwalkers" stuck to them.
Eytukan grudgingly allowed youngsters of the clan to go there, among them his own daughters with their playmates. He could see a certain advantage of it too, those Sky People were clearly ignorant as a slug in the soil and mostly too deep into their outlooks to understand the central idea about life here, but they were clearly not so harmfully intended as those others, and the na'vi on their part could learn from them what sort of people this Sky People was.
His secretary knocked on his office door and Collier looked up from his report on algae nutrition enhancement.
"Boss, I just got the message from Miami Beach PD. Avatar driver Tom Sully has been shot down at open street by an addict when he couldn't get out his wallet fast enough. I've already set aside funds for his cremation. Paying for his brother's participation in his funerary incineration."
Collier called a meeting of managers.
"Our avatar driver Thomas Anderson Sully has lost his life. That is a tragic thing, also a business loss since his avatar is now driver-less. Billions of dollars gone waste."
Nodding around the table and then Collier carried on.
"However, this doesn't have to be a total loss. The case is that mr. Sully has a twin brother and since they were identical twins the avatar should fit his brother perfectly well."
Faces around the table instantly brightened up.
"And now it is getting even better. That brother Jacob A. Sully is a US marine veteran, presently paraplegic after taking a bullet in the line of duty. Offering him the use of legs again at Pandora should be the best attraction imaginable…"
Head of security Rosenbaum gleefully nodded: "And imagine having a man with a military mindset driving an avatar! Quaritch has repeatedly applied for a such one but his request has never gained priority – but now one can come to him on a silver plate!"
Collier presented a grin of satisfaction: "So we offer him this job, it is agreed all right? Can I presume that that Max the psionic technician, Jenny the medic and Jeff the sport coach at the station can give him the necessary training to manage? Also that Ernie the zoologist can explain him about quirks of the nature? So that Grace won't have to do all the training all on her own, see."
The decision was taken, Jake accepted the charge and went to the space port three day after, he cleared out his small flat, collected his luggage and put his flat for sale at a realtor agency. The money for it was to be added to the fund he was earning while at Pandora. Before going into hibernation at the ISV he had a last glimpse of Earth as seen from the vessel, that this would be the last glimpse of his life he didn't realize then…
6. Tragedy
While Jake was on his way through Outer Space the burgeoning conflict between pink and blue skin erupted into an open skirmish.
Everyone of the Omaticaya clan abhorred what the Sky People were doing around the station, they cut down the forest, drove away the animals and dug up the ground. Already a good chunk of the hunting grounds of the clan had been destroyed and there didn't seem to be any end to their apetite for digging. Furthermore the smelters spewed out a noxious smoke, the station discharged various refuse in the river thus probably poisoning it for the downriver clans, and ever more of them kept arriving at the base. It had even started to rival the Omaticaya in population already. Finally, the kids had transmitted the misgivings of their parents to that female head of the "dreamwalkers" called "Ngreis" or something, she seemed to feel sad when they told her about the depredations but she didn't seem to be able to talk the majority of the big guys among the Sky People into their right mind. But still, Eytukan discouraged outright hostility towards the Sky People, for now at least, he knew that other clans in the neighbourhood were thinking in likewise manner.
And then tragedy struck.
Larrey was a teenager taking irritation more than most na'vi of Sky People depredations, but the drop that was one too many to him was when a rivulet was filled in to improve the road from "Hell's Gate" to the digging site. That was his favourite fishing place, his secret to supplying fish to this inlander clan. He drummed together four other teenagers, all of them angry with what the Sky People did to their nature. They were Kaukau'itan and Maue'ite. And Sylwanin along with her sidekick Ikeki, faithfully following her wherever she went almost like a most obedient dog.
They went to the road in the night and dug out a big part of the road. The shovel was automatic and the driver of them was managing a dozen of other vehicles too, remotely from the Command & Control Central tower at Hell's Gate. So the driver wasn't too attentive when the shovel came to the place, it turned over in the gully and was then beset by the five young na'vi, they managed to put it on fire. But crucially, the camera got a glimpse of the vandals, confirming that this wasn't any accident. And the face of three of them was recognized as belonging to youngsters frequenting Grace's school.
Vandalism like this had happened before but never until now on this scale. So a meeting of the big people at Hell's Gate was convened.
Selfridge:
"All this vandalism is now getting beyond the point of irritation, it is becoming a real hindrance to our work. Proposals for how to remedy this, please!"
Quaritch:
"We need to state an example, to instill in the na'vi clans respect for what we're able to. Fear of what is certain to follow if they deign to bother us."
Every colour instantly left Grace's face and she stuttered:
"But… Do you really think that … it is possible to… frighten away those of bitter emotions? You'll only… manage to inflame them even more! As a military man… you should remember from military history how… brutal retribution totally failed to keep… Palestinians from attacking Israel – and ever more viciously!"
Quaritch replied with a contemptuous glee in his face:
"The difference is that we're not dealing with a people of advanced culture, the difference in cultural level between Israelis and Arabs simply wasn't broad enough to make Arabs react the way Israeli warhawks wanted."
An icy chill came over his voice when he carried on:
"And are you, dear miss Augustine, able to come up with another and better remedy to our problem, so that we can keep up production without any further na'vi vandalism and preferably extend it too?"
It took some seconds until she managed to put in a protest:
"We should try to see it from their side too… We destroy the forest that is their livelihood and we expect them to take it without protest! To earn their compliance we should talk with them, how they want us to extract this mineral."
Technical manager at Hell's Gate, Evan O'Scanlon, shook his head.
"A mineral extraction as slow-moving as that would demand would render all this enterprise uneconomic. I say, mr. general manager, go for mr. Quaritch' proposition!"
Selfridge nodded and gave his fateful words:
"All right, please go ahead SecOps manager!"
When then Quaritch took up his cell phone, Grace could hear him talk:
"Sandburg, come to my office ASAP. We got things to do now!"
Major Sandburg was the next in command of military services at the station and chief of staff. That meant that action was imminent. Grace rose from the table and she ran! To the psionic link and threw herself into it, passing a perplexed Max.
Well into her avatar body she ran to the school awning. She met some twenty young na'vi there – among them three of those who had taken down that shovel. She screamed at them:
"Sky warriors are coming here, now! They're angry for that working machine somebody destroyed… They want revenge for it!"
Sylwanin retorted, not caring to hide her sly grin:
"Served those evil diggers well!"
"Sylwanin, you don't understand. Those men are dangerous! They can…"
But then Grace froze, she heard heavy boots behind her. She turned and saw three SecOps men, and actually a SecOps woman too, coming marching with Wainfleet at the head, with submachine guns in hand. She screamed to the kids: "Run away from here! Run for your lives!"
The startled na'vi rose, and then heard Wainfleet roaring to Grace to get aside. She screamed all the abusive words she could think of at them, including some she invented at the spot:
"Stop, you imbecile guards! Half-men with half brains! You're not soldiers, you're just mindless barbarian fossils from the very darkest of Middle Ages, of the worst repute right out of military police's dungeons…"
Utter pandemonium broke out in the awning. Everyone ran while Wainfleet used the butt of his gun to beat Grace away. And then all the soldiers started spraying bullets after the fleeing na'vi. Seven fell down.
Grace rose up, shivering with rage.
"Do You have the foggiest idea about what you've done, idiot? You've torn to pieces the goodwill I've strenuously built up the last three years! This is a war declaration against the Omaticayas!"
Wainfleet replied with a light-hearted shrug:
"Sorry ma'am, orders are orders."
And they left.
Grace sat left on the ground with a numbed feeling. It wasn't a whole life effort destroyed but not far from it. She could see out of bloody tracks on the forest path that more had been wounded, too. Then she tottered back to her lab, convened her lab staff and avatar drivers, and told them what had taken place. In the fullest, gruesomest and horrible details.
Psychologist Nick was the one breaking the ensuing, lingering silence after Grace had done her talking.
"Very, very, veerryyy bad! Now we avatars will be in mortal danger too in the forest!"
The meeting was adjourned, there simply wasn't more that could be said. Grace went to her own room, to depress. Tears fell from her eyes that night, it took days before she could sleep well in the nights again! Meanwhile the other avatars took stretchers and carried the dead na'vi into the forest. Some distance in they suddenly heard somebody calling out in na'vi:
"Stop! Dreamwalkers are from now on strictly forbidden to walk into the forest! On pain of death! Put the stretchers with our dead down, we'll take over. But then you must run back to your big huts as fast as you can!"
Eytukan stood above the stretcher with his dead daughter on, crying bitterly. So did his tsahik mate. Many other families did too, apart from Sylwanin also her obedient sidekick Ikeki lay dead, and so did Ohoni, Wokatx'ite, Tatiri, Zizo and Maue'ite.
There were those three more who had escaped but not without wounds, including Larrey and Kaukau'itan with flesh wounds in arms and legs, and Wum with a broken arm – Mo'at would have a hard struggle to keep him alive, cripple was his inevitable destiny.
And finally, nineteen more had escaped bullets but not scot free. Neytiri had lost her big sister, Tsu'tey his beloved cousin Zizo and there were many more. Even those who had not seen family or friends dead or wounded had had a most harrowing experience, with bullets whizzing around.
That humans and dreamwalkers were banished from the forest as soon as the news about the massacre came to Eytukan's ear was a foregone conclusion. Before long the same mindset had spread to many other clans in the vicinity too, many of the dead and wounded ones had relations in other clans. But Mo'at calmed down his bitterest aggression.
"It should be clear to you, Eytukan, that the dreamwalkers are not of the same material as those warriors. Grace tried her best to warn and protect our youngsters, and the other dreamwalkers carried our dead to us. So the warriors and diggers we should take on whenever we can and the dreamwalkers we better simply avoid. How about that?"
Eytukan didn't say a word, he just nodded in concurrence, jaw still clenched.
So in the coming time soldiers and miners had a risky time in the forest but they were mostly hard to attack, they almost always kept inside their helicopters and digging machines when they ventured outside Hell's Gate. The avatars were mostly left in peace but arrows were sometimes loosened against them by bitter relatives like Neytiri, Sean O'Brien the assistant of Ernie the zoologist got one, he returned to Earth with the first ISV calling since he couldn't do much more zoology without an avatar. Deke the oceanographer resigned himself to working with the results he already had and with satellite photographs.
Neytiri wasn't seriously hurt by the shots fired by the merceneraries, not externally at least, a bullet had missed her skull with some centimetres – she had sensed the bullet whizzing by. But the shock of the attack and of course even more the loss of her big sister was a brutal shock indeed to her. Her natural taciturnity became a sullen moodiness and she got a desire for stalking dreamwalkers when she happened to see them in the forest.
Loosing his favourite cousin was hard on Tsu'tey too, he became aggressive and inflexible of mind. To her dismay Mo'at could see that they didn't graft on each other with time, to the contrary they slowly drifted apart. Neytiri understood her duty to the clan but that her hart didn't beat in tune with his was clear for every with a psychological eye to see…
7. Main Story Startup
And then, two years and something more later this took place.
Up came the day when ISV "Procyon" called at Pandora. Among those coming down the day after in a space ferry, piloted by lance corporal Trudy Chacon, was a soldier veteran in a wheel-chair with an avatar arriving together with him.
But here this prehistory comes to an end.