Jake Sully heard some muffled commotion outside the link unit. He squinted his eyes against the light as Doctor Augustine opened the cover, looming over him like an angry tiger. He automatically put a hand to his head, confused briefly about which body had been hit.
He groaned and let Grace and Norm help him to a sitting position.
"What the hell happened?" Grace demanded.
"Got hit," Jake grunted, shaking his head tentatively, instinctively expecting pain and finding none. "Neytiri swings a mean bow."
"She knocked you out?" Norm said, looking amazed. "What did you - "
"Where's the Avatar?" Grace cut in.
"You tell me, doc," Jake said. "Some clearing with this shot up old building in it."
Grace's face clouded, and she looked suddenly tired and gray. She reached for the cigarettes in her tshirt pocket. "That's the school," she said.
"Yeah, that's what Neytiri said, that it was where she learned English."
Grace lit a cigarette. "I think you better explain exactly what happened."
"What about the Avatar?"
"Doesn't matter. You won't be able to go back while the body is unconscious anyway." She chewed her lip and looked over at the other link units, as if contemplating going in herself. "We'll just have to hope it's alright on its own for a few minutes. Now start talking."
Jake recounted the exchange, how Neytiri's attitude had improved all day and then suddenly went south there in the clearing.
"This is all cause she's in heat, doc?" Jake asked when he was done.
"This is because you put your foot so far into your mouth you're tasting your knee," Grace said. "Jesus marine, you probably said the worst thing you possibly could in that situation. I guess we're lucky she used her bow and not her knife."
"Mo'at told her to teach him though," Norm said. "So this isn't so bad, right? She has to do what her mother said, so once she calms down...?"
Grace shook her head, finishing one cigarette and immediately jerking another from the package. "I don't know. Jake's partially right. The heat is affecting her judgment. Right now she's riding high on her emotions, and I don't know what she'll do."
"What's all this about her sister?" Jake said. "I didn't know she had a sister."
Norm rolled his eyes and walked away. "Why am I not surprised?" he said over his shoulder.
Grace ignored him. "Neytiri had an older sister named Sylwanin. She was killed by RDA soldiers at the school, right in front of Neytiri."
Jake looked stunned, opened his mouth to speak, closed it. He shook his head, looking down. "I didn't know that," he said. "If I had - "
"I know," Grace cut over him. "The Na'vi know every inch of that forest. She didn't bring you there by mistake. She might not know why she brought you there at all. You're the first soldier she's been able to have an advantage over, Avatar or not. She's still so angry about her sister's death." Jake could see Grace was still angry about it as well, see it in how she violently crusher her cigarette then crumpled the pack in her fist.
"So what do we do now?" Jake said. Norm rejoined them. "I mean, once I get back into my Avatar, what next?"
"If Neytiri is still there? Just business as normal," Grace said. "And we pray nothing else like this happens."
"What if she left? She was pretty pissed, doc, and nighttime didn't go over so well for me last time."
"We could send Trudy to pick him up," Norm suggested.
Grace and Jake both shook their heads.
"Out of the question."
"No way."
Norm raised his hands in surrender. "Just an idea, guys."
"I can't let the Na'vi see me just run back to base when I get in trouble," Jake said. He was also thinking about what Quaritch would think if he blew his chance at implanting with the Omaticaya.
"Right," Grace said. ""No, we've got this great opportunity here. We can't throw it away like that. It's worth a little risk. If Neytiri isn't there, you've got to do your best to get back to Hometree on your own, before it gets too dark."
Jake nodded. "Then let's go." He leaned back, pulling the interior cage down over his chest.
"You okay to go back in so soon?" Grace asked, as Norm calibrated the controls.
"Yeah, I got this. I can make it back."
"Alright," Grace said. "Good luck."
He reached up and pulled the lid closed.
Jake sat up in the clearing and coughed. One of those six-legged deer things bleated in fright a few meters away and bolted for the cover of the towering trees.
Groaning, Jake pulled himself to his feet. His face felt sticky on the side Neytiri had hit him, and his fingers came away with drying blood.
Red blood, he thought, abstractly interested. He'd never thought to wonder what color Na'vi blood was.
Neytiri was gone. She might have been watching him from the camouflage of the trees, but he doubted it. She was probably hoping another thanator – palulukan – came by and finished the job.
He made a mental list of his problems. At the top of the list was that he didn't know where Hometree was. Even the smallest trees stretched up hundreds of feet, blocking his view like a curtain all around. He couldn't even get on top of the school to look around.
An idea dawned on him slowly. But I could get on a tree.
He immediately set off back into the forest, back the way they'd come. His human body was strong, but his Na'vi body was something else entirely. Grace had amused him once by doing fifty one-armed handstand pushups back at Hell's Gate. He remembered how Neytiri had been able to easily hold him straight-armed out over the branch back at Hometree. He could climb a tree. He just needed to find one tall enough.
Or hell, any tree. The canopy above was so thick that even if the tree wasn't the tallest around, he figured he could just hop to the next one, and the next, until he was able to look out over the forest. Hometree wasn't more than ten miles away, he reasoned, and it would be literally impossible to miss, once he got his head above the leaves.
A few hundred feet in, he spotted a large, moss-chased tree with a tempting, low-hanging branch that he could use. It was really kind of amazing how easily he was able to pull his body up onto it. The Na'vi were really incredible.
With many scrapes and cuts, it worked. At the top of the tree, with the wind on his face, he could see above the leaves, see Hometree blotting out the horizon. There was already a glow amid its shadowy branches, lit by the bioluminescent insects the Na'vi held in skins, placed along the branches like street lights.
Night was sneaking quickly into the sky. He knew it would take him more than a few hours to get back to the village – he'd have to climb trees every now and again too, to check his course. His marine training came back to him. Better to stay concealed now when he was at a disadvantage. It would be different than the last time – he was in control this time. He could handle the night. So far the only things he'd seen much of in the tree tops were those lemurs, and Doctor Augustine had said they weren't aggressive. He knew there must be dangerous things in the tree tops – this was Pandora, after all – but his chances were better up here than down on the forest floor, with the viper wolves. He would have to ask Neytiri – or more likely Grace, as things stood now – how the Na'vi kept the packs away.
The Pandoran nights were mild, and he was comfortable enough in the open air. The tree's massive trunk had a deep deformity close to the top, and he was able to tuck himself into the space well enough. His limber Na'vi body was even fairly comfortable. He would sleep, and wait with Grace and Norm for morning before coming back. Maybe they could give him some tips on how to navigate the forest a little better, so he could get back to Hometree.
He closed his eyes, and his mind fled the Na'vi body for his human one hundreds of miles away. If he'd been awake, he might have heard Neytiri go hurtling through the forest beneath the tree like a gazelle, might have heard her wordless noises of frustration as she searched the school clearing for him. She called over and over his name into the night as it began to glow.
