Tense Future
Jake Sully stood high on the floating mountain called Tantalus, watching the sun disappear beneath the horizon. This was his favourite time, when the plants and animals of this world glowed with life, lighting up the black of night. Not that night was ever black here.
Every night, the first sight of bioluminescence never ceased to remind him of the moment when he fell in love with this world, when he first met the love of his life. That Ney'tiri had chosen him, an alien skxawng, was still a source of total astonishment to him. He was almost as astonished that both of them had survived the recent war with the tawtute, the Sky People, when so many had not.
"Ni'awve Mokri will see you now," said Beyda'amo.
The Tipani warrior didn't say much. He didn't need to. He had to be one of the biggest and toughest looking Na'vi that Jake had ever seen, making Jake's late Omaticayan brother Tsu'tey look like a stripling. The most surprising thing was that his English was much better than Jake's Na'vi, especially as the Tipani had a reputation for avoiding contact with other tribes. Just how in the seven hells had this scary brute learnt English?
Ney'tiri and Mo'at had been just as surprised when the drums of the Tipani had sounded, brusquely summoning him to a meeting with their spiritual leader, the Ni'awve Mokri – First Voice.
It had been an even bigger surprise when the Tipani had despatched almost three hundred warriors to battle with the RDA – despite receiving no messengers from the Omaticaya. None had been sent, for it had been thought that the Tipani would not answer any summons, even from Toruk Makto. Jake had been more than grateful for the assistance at the time, and had asked Beyda'amo how they had known to come. The war leader had merely replied that Ni'awve Mokri had asked him to come.
Rumours had spread amongst the clans two years ago that an unknown warrior of the Tipani had awakened the long lost Well of Souls, a gateway to Eywa as powerful as Vitraya Ramunong, but none of the Tipani would speak of those events, or of the warrior who became First Voice. Even in the celebrations after the battle, they had kept to themselves and said almost nothing.
The Tipani war leader stopped at the edge of the Well of Souls and pointed. There seemed no option other than to follow his direction, so he walked through the narrow opening into the sacred hollow. An unusually tall and muscular Na'vi female stood in rapture before the willow tree, with her back to the only entrance to the hollow. Her head was shaven in the distinctive style of a veteran male warrior, the only feminine touch the flowers woven into her braid.
"Oel ngati kameie, Toruk Makto," said the tall figure to the air. "Or should I call you Corporal Jake Sully?"
Jake stopped dead. He had never heard a Na'vi speak English with a So-Cal accent.
The Na'vi woman released her queue from the fronds of the willow tree and turned around to face him. In the half light cast by the willow he saw that her large hands had five fingers, not four. His mouth dropped open – he thought he knew all of the Avatars that remained on Pandora. She was not one of them.
"Yes, Jake," she said. "I was part of the Avatar program, just like you. Now, however, I am Ni'awve Mokri of the Tipani, and I have been for the last two years."
He didn't know what to say, when she laughed. "I should have expected a jarhead to be none too quick on the uptake."
When he finally found his voice, he demanded, "Just who are you?"
She walked towards him, and placed a gentle hand on his arm. "I was Sig. Spec. Cathy 'Able' Ryder, US Army Signals Corps. The Tipani name me Ableryder, or at least they do when I'm not here at the Well of Souls."
"Where is your link chamber?" asked Jake curiously. He saw that her body was pockmarked with many old bullet scars. Whoever she was, she had been badly wounded at least once, although her face was astonishingly beautiful, even for a Na'vi.
"I don't have one," replied the former Avatar. "Tsahik Sänume saved me into my Avatar when I died."
He looked into her golden eyes, and saw deep-seated grief and pain. She understood. She too had chosen this world over Earth, and had passed through the Eye of Eywa. Echoing her greeting, he replied softly, "Oel ngati kameie."
Her lips curved in a lovely smile. She must have been just as beautiful when she was a human.
"I suppose you are wondering why I asked you here," she commented. When he nodded, she continued, "I wanted to apologise to you."
At his quizzical look, she explained, "I chose you at Eywa's behest. She knew that only a human warrior could defeat the RDA, and I could not do it. I may be a soldier, but I am no leader, to inspire warriors to acts of bravery. She knew that, but still she asked for my aid. What else could I do? So I wanted to say sorry – sorry for what you have been through."
Jake laughed. "There is nothing to forgive," he answered, thinking that there was no way he would have given up the experience of becoming an Omaticaya, despite the anguish choosing them over his human heritage had given him. The love of the Omaticaya and Ney'tiri had been more than worth the price. "This is where I belong, among The People." He tilted his head to one side, and asked suspiciously, "Just when did you chose?"
Ableryder laughed back. "When you charged the titanothere, and did not fire your weapon, that's when I knew you were the right one." More seriously, she explained, "Only an insanely brave jarhead would have done that, and only a skxawng like you would have the courage to choose what was right over the fate of his own species."
"Was it all you and Eywa?" he wondered aloud.
She shook her head. "Eywa only intervened twice. When the palulukan stripped you of your human devices and weapons, to make you truly See this world, and then when she called her creatures to battle, in answer to your prayer. The rest...it was all you, and blind chance. It was a terrible gamble – you could have died at any moment, and the Na'vi would have lost. But then that is Eywa's way."
"Don't I know it," he replied ruefully.
"There was something else I had to tell you, that only the Tipani know," she said. "All the other clans have forgotten this, but Eywa needed one tribe to remember. That is why we hold ourselves apart." She paused meaningfully, and then pronounced, "The Na'vi are not native to Pandora."
"What!" he exploded.
Ableryder shrugged reflexively. "Grace suspected it. I have communed with her spirit many times since she died, and everything both her and Eywa have shared with me confirms that the Na'vi were brought here."
It sounded totally unbelievable, yet so right. Jake only half-heard the former human's next words.
"As near as I can figure it, about four thousand years ago someone or something brought a proto-Polynesian tribe here from Earth, genetically engineering their bodies to survive on this world, made them known to Eywa, and released them. That is why the Na'vi seem so familiar to us – their appearance, their culture, their language. The Na'vi were human once."
She continued relentlessly. "That is why it was relatively easy for our technology to build Avatars. The original genetic modifications made the Na'vi genotype readily adaptable to the changes required for the Avatar program. The real clincher, though, was what I found here at the Well of Souls."
Ableryder walked towards the smooth rock wall of the hollow, saying, "Follow me."
In a daze, Jake followed her. When she placed her hand on the rock surface, a section slid away to reveal a brightly lit corridor machined out of the rock, sloping down deep into the floating mountain, curving all the time to the left.
"I've spent the last two years deciphering the technology that they used. It hasn't been easy – it is hundreds of years in advance of where Earth is right now, and somehow they linked it with Eywa. If not for that I could never have learnt what I have."
They walked into a large chamber, filled with objects that looked vaguely like...Avatar gestation tanks. And one of them was occupied.
It seemed that this day was full of surprises for Jake Sully.
"Yes, Jake," said Ableryder. "Eywa told me where to find her. She was horribly burned when her Samson crashed, but she has an indomitable will to live. Eywa marks her as one of the great spirits of this world, and wished me to save her for the battles to come. But even then I only just managed to keep her alive long enough to tank her."
The Na'vi floating in the tank wore the strong Hispanic features of Trudy Chachon.
"Fuck me sideways," swore Jake. This was unbelievable.
The Ni'awve Mokri grinned, and said, "I thought you would like to be here for her birthday."
A few minutes later the chamber's amniotic fluid was pouring on to the floor, and Jake was helping Ableryder extract Trudy's limp body from the tank. As they lay her on a high tech version of a gurney, she coughed and spluttered, vomiting up more fluid.
"Easy, Trudy," said Jake. "You're doing fine."
The new Na'vi rolled on to her side and coughed again, clearing her lungs of the remaining fluid. "Shit!" she exclaimed weakly, as she collapsed on to her back again. "I feel like I've been sideswiped by an eighteen wheeler." Her eyes fluttered open, and slowly focused on the face above her. "Hey, Jake. Did we win?"
"Yes," he replied.
Suddenly Trudy realised that it was Jake's Avatar standing above her, not his human face. She began to struggle against him, and held her breath. "Exopack!" she gasped, desperate not to breathe any more of Pandora's toxic atmosphere.
Jake grabbed her wrist and held her hand in front of her face. "You don't need one."
Trudy's eyes focused on the blue-skinned four-fingered hand in Jake's grasp, and she abruptly stopped struggling. "Holy fuck!" she exclaimed.
"I'm afraid you won't fit in the cockpit of a Samson now," said Jake. "You'll have to choose an ikran if you want to fly again."
It appeared that was exactly the right thing to have said to her. A broad smile spread across Trudy's face as she said, "I was so jealous of you, Jake. Now I really will be able to fly."
Ableryder said, "Let us help you get up."
The two former Avatars helped the new Na'vi stand up. She swayed on her feet, drily commenting that it was a long way down to the ground now. Jake replied that she was lucky that Ney'tiri wasn't here, otherwise Trudy would find herself being thrown off the side of the mountain in expectation that she would bond with an ikran before she hit the forest below. Trudy laughed, having endured Jake's complaints about the deficiencies of Ney'tiri as a teacher for three long months.
Soon all three were on the surface, gazing up at the night sky dominated by Polyphemus.
"You know they will return," said Jake. "They have no choice. Earth's civilisation will collapse without the Unobtainium, unless we show them another way."
"Yes," answered Ableryder. "They will be planning their attack even now."
"Six years," echoed Jake. "It seems like hardly any time at all."
"Hey, guys," said Trudy. "Do you think I can get some clothes? I'm stark naked here."
Thinking of their own abrupt transition to the beads and feathers that the Na'vi regarded as high fashion, Jake and Ableryder chuckled together at Trudy's discomfort. She was in for a hell of a ride.