We all took the same classes, so we knew what to do. we shut off her valves, took off her helmet, and tried to coerce her to do the scuba diver method, you know, sipping from the oxygen tube, holding your breath, like you were swimming instead of sitting outside.

We tried to calm her down, but she was panicking.

At last I gave up and said, "Lace, you're hyperventilating. Let's trade equipment.

Wide eyed, she gratefully agreed to the arrangement, donning my mask and breathing apparatus, while I resorted to taking calm, even puffs of oxygen like the tank were a sort of hookah.

"You're the bravest girl I know," Lacy said through her mask.

I took a drag of air, then breathed, I'm scared too, but it doesn't help anyone to panic."

I stared through the net, trying to discern what was going on down below. I saw bushes rustling, but nobody was making an appearance.

Well except maybe some floating jellyfish things, and a creature that looked like a combination of a wolf and a piece of landscaping sod. You know, animals.

Despite my difficulty breathing, I was experiencing strange feelings between my legs and other places.

Hanging there in that net, with Henry's body awkwardly pressed against me, made me warm and tingly in a way that reminded me of the unicorn.

The sensation of his warm breath, and the rubbing of his tail against me...uncomfortably erotic.

"Move over," I told him, but there really weren't that many places to go in this small net.

On my other side, Kamara had her elbow poking my ribs, and Buddy was weighing down my head.

Henry shuffled sideways a bit, but it wasn't much better.

"Sorry," he stammered. "That's the best I can do."

We silently stared out the net for a few minutes.

"You smell good," Henry said in my ear.

I blushed. "We are not having this conversation."

"What?" he cried. "Is it wrong to compliment you on your perfume?"

I swallowed. "I'm not wearing perfume."

I saw him turning purple. "Oh."

Instead of shutting up, he added, "Still, you smell nice."

"You're being creepy," I said.

I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that I liked it.

Lacy giggled.

I glanced at Kamara. "Can you reprogram Buddy Bear to get us out of here?"

She shook her head.

"Isn't there something in his body we could use to cut these ropes?"

She laughed. "Even if he did, would you really want to use them?" I mean, look at the ground!"

I sighed. "Fuck."

"Didn't your mama make you eat soap for that kind of language?" Kamara asked.

I squirmed as Henry's tail brushed my crotch.

"She did mention a soap eating ritual a few times," he said.

"She's not the boss of me." I shoved the tail away. "Will you please not do that?"

Kamara chuckled like she knew something, but didn't say what it was.

"I thought it was important for children to obey their parents," Henry said. "There's even a commandment..."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah..."

For a few minutes, we silently stared through the netting.

"Arrgh me hardies," Buddy Bear said. "Me thinks ye needs a cheerin' up. Hows abouts a jaunty seafaring song?"

"Sure," I groaned.

"From Boston harbor we set sail, when it was blowing a devil of a gale, with a ring-tail set all abaft the mizzen peak, and a rule brittania ploughing up the deep, with a big bow wow, tow row row, fol dee rol dee rye doh day..."

Before the next verse could be sung, Kamara hushed the bear by hissing, "Cannibals!"

When I glanced down, I saw why.

A crowd of blue figures had gathered below our net, arguing with one another as they pointed up at us.

"Here comes the welcome wagon," Lacy groaned.

After this had gone on for more than ten minutes, someone cut a rope and we found ourselves slowly descending to the ground.

"Uncle Nop!" I heard Henry exclaim in the Tamtiwa language as the net came open, and then he climbed out and hugged one of the creatures, jabbering excitedly about something.

`Uncle Nop' was tall and fat, with a braided beard. A female, about the same age, with spikes in her braids, clung to him so closely that I assumed her to be his wife.

"Prepare your cutlasses, lads," the bear said. "We've been overrun by savages!"

I and Kamara, of course, only ignored him, watching Henry interact with his kind.

Whatever Henry said to this group proved to be controversial.

"The procedure has never been done on a human before," I could have sworn one of them said.

"They're not going to make it," Henry persisted. "She's open to it. I think it's the only way."

I had learned some of the Tamtiwa tongue in classes. I guess it paid off.

"Legally, the mother has to give her consent, or they will charge our tribe with a criminal act. Their laws say a child has no right to make legal decisions."

Alarmed, I climbed out and hurried over to this little powwow.

They frowned as they watched me puffing from my oxygen tank.

"She is going to die," one of the blue guys said. "Look at her. The equipment is completely inadequate."

"She is a calm one," said Nop. "I do not think she will die quickly."

Henry nodded.

"Still, she may do better with a Bazrok."

"No," Nop said. "That is too dangerous. The Bazrok has not been tested on a human before."

"Are you talking about the Bazrok?" I asked in their language.

Henry's uncle and the others stared at me in astonishment. "You speak Tamtiwa!"

"Yes," Henry breathed. "She is amazing."

"So," I repeated. "Are you talking about the Bazrok?"

"Yeah," he said glumly. "We're uncertain if you'll survive without it, but we're not sure you won't die with it, either."

"I want to try it," I said.

"It's too risky!" he protested.

I wouldn't take no for an answer. "I don't care. If I die, so be it. If this Bazrok thing does what you say, I'll be able to breathe the air freely, without getting sick and dying. To walk around outside without a helmet! To feel the air blowing on my face...! I want this, Henry."

Henry communicated the message to the others.

There were concerned mutters among them, then at last Henry said, "Okay. They say if you die, it's your own fault."

"I'll sign a waiver if I have to," I replied. Already I was a bureaucrat.

I explained the situation to my two human friends.

"You can't!" Lacy cried.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," said Kamara.

I just shook my head. "I'm going to die anyway."

"No you're not," Lacy said. "Take my air."

"No, Lacy. You need it. If you ever want to get home, you'll have to use it. If there's a chance that this Bazrok thing works at all, I want it."

They just frowned at me.

The blue figures led me through a cover of dense foliage, to a wooden cage situated within a cluster of trees the size of redwoods.

We stepped inside, and one of my blue companions cranked a primitive pulley, raising us into the canopy.

"Look!" Henry said as he gestured to the row of massive redwood-like trunks surrounding us. "The Tree of Souls."

It was not a singular, but a singular plural, like `cattle.' It seems the movie director had neglected to include a lot of details in his story.

Henry's hometown reminded me of the Ewok village. Crude primitive huts connected by wooden platforms and rope bridges. We marched past several of these huts, enduring the stares of those who stood in the doorways, or sat sewing garments, or cooking.

We crossed bridges, traveling for several yards, to the point where Kamara had to sit down and rest, awkwardly in front of a surly weapon maker.

"Have no fear," the bear said as I dismissed him to her care. "If the savages come near, I'll be teaching them a thing or two with my cutlass, or my name ain't Captain Blackbearded Bear!"

Near the end of this twisting, turning complex, I discovered a hut bedecked with animal bones and leather packets on strings (charms of some kind), its walls painted with arcane symbols, apparently with clay and various naturally occurring substances, maybe blood, judging by the flies.

My guides opened the door, revealing a smoky room containing the most basic of cots, clay vessels full of weeds and various disgusting substances, and a boiling cauldron.

Henry and his uncle led me inside, and the door was shut.

A wrinkly Na'vi with one eye stepped out from behind a curtain, smiling at me. Her fingers were bony, her body clad in a dark red robe and a shawl that looked like a cargo net.

"Mo'at!" Henry said. "I want you to meet Grace!"

"Nice to meet you, honey" she smiled.

Her voice was shockingly black sounding. Like she was from The Projects, not a village on an alien planet.

She frowned as I sipped from my O2 unit. "You should go home, doll. What you're doing isn't safe."

I shrugged. "I want a Bazrok."

"You don't understand what you're asking for," she said. "We've never put `em in a human before."

"Then I will die," I said, sipping my air each time I spoke. "Either way, I'll die. I'd rather die in an experiment than die like this."

"You're a brave girl," she said. "You remind me of someone I met on another world."

"You've been off this planet?" I asked.

She nodded. "Oh yes. Mo'at Osmifa has been around, baby."

Osmifa pulled back a curtain, revealing a second hut, one that resembled a primitive sort of doctor's office. Crude wooden examination table with rudimentary gynecological stirrups, little clay pots containing medical supplies of questionable effectiveness, and a set of scary looking tools, to play Frontier Surgeon with.

The creature lay dormant in a cage fashioned from a bamboo-like material. A bow of insects lay near its head, apparently its food supply.

"You might want to strip down for this," the female said as she opened the little gate in the front, drawing the creature out with a dried beetle millipede. "Your mama's going to ask questions if she sees a bunch of Bazrok slime on your clothes. You'd better take them off."

I glanced around to make sure I had privacy.

The windows were covered in thatched screens, and the curtain had been closed the moment we passed through it. I frowned uncomfortably at the withered blue figure. "This is so awkward."

"Think of me as a doctor. That's essentially what I am. Doctor patient confidentiality and all that."

What a strange Tamtiwa, I thought. So oddly human.

Anyways, I unzipped my jumpsuit and stripped to my underwear.

A second after I had done this, I heard the curtain rustling, and I could see Henry's head peeking in.

I gave him the iciest glare I could manage, making him disappear.

I climbed up on the examination table, my legs dangling over the end as I poised my fingers beneath the respirator, ready to take it off.

The curtain moved, and I saw Kamara stepping in, Henry trailing close behind.

"Don't do it, Grace," Kamara said. Even behind the helmet, I could see the worry.

"I don't have a choice," I said. "My O2 is down to twenty percent, and it took twenty to get here. If I get this creature in my body, you can take my air, and we can both go home. Otherwise, one of us will have to die."

I scowled at Henry. "This is a private moment. I'm in my underwear. Girls only."

He shook his head. "I'm here as a friend," he said. "I'm worried for you. This might be the last time we see each other."

I swallowed. "Fine, but I promise, if I survive this thing, this will be the only time you'll see me in my underwear."

Henry grinned. "That's fair."

Then I blushed. Did I just promise to be naked? I decided to pretend like this conversation never happened.

Mo'at instructed me to lay down, so I did. My friends gathered around the table, watching me with wide eyed fascination and fear.

"This is going to be weird," she muttered. "This Bazrok is heavy, and I have no equipment, so I have to let it move itself."

And then she's pouring dead bugs all over my body, from my chest to the stirrups near the floor. I grimaced in disgust.

"I don't get it," I said. "What's with the bugs?"

"I'm too old, and it is heavy. Be patient."

I waited.

The beast was slug-like, but it had legs, and I found it oozing across my bellybutton before I even knew what was happening. The slime numbed my skin on contact.

I shuddered.

She touched her hand to my shoulder. "I sure hope this works," she said. "You're such a sweet girl. Are you sure you really want to go through with this?"

"Get it over with," I said. "Before I lose the nerve."

The old Na'vi grabbed the thing's tail, coaxing it to turn around backwards, and then I watched, with fascination, as she dragged its hind legs closer and closer to my helmet, massaging the creature's sphincter and a swelling lobe until it started making lazy backwards rocking motions.

"Etowah has smiled on you this visit," Mo'at said. "This female has only recently been fertilized, and it just so happens that the larvae is undeveloped, inadequate for the body of an adult subject."

A tentacle groped at my face and hands as I puffed from the tank.

"You're going to put that aside, honey. I'm sorry."

With a sigh, took one last puff and set the tank beside me.

I held my breath as long as I could, but I felt something bite me, and I accidentally expelled oxygen.

I gasped like a novice swimmer someone had pushed off a deep end, but the air was not breathable.

"Grace!" Kamara cried.

"Grace! No!" Henry shouted. "Mo'at! Hurry!"

The Na'vi unplugged a cord from my helmet, blasted a puff of O2 into my airways, then dragged the creature over my face, the slime numbing my chin and lips like Novocaine.

What happened next was like slow suffocation. The Bazrok made an oozing seal around my mouth, squeezing a crawling slimy blob through my mouth, Mo'at giving me puffs in my nostrils as my friends clasped my hands, muttering confused prayers and promising they were there for me.

When my throat turned numb, I could feel the creature swelling, filling the entire opening, strangling me.

I panicked, thrashing on the examination table, inhaling frantically through my nostrils. I wanted to scream, but couldn't.

"You're killing her!" Kamara yelled, her voice obscured by the helmet.

I could no longer breathe. I saw stars, a sure sign of oxygen deprivation.

Everything went dark.