A Pale Blue Light

Chapter 4

The man looked up at her.

"Follow me." She exchanged a glance with Marek, and he made a head motion to one of the guards.

When he hesitated to follow her into the darkness under the trees, she halted and looked back.

"It is not far."

Finally he nodded, and followed. Neytiri walked slowly through the forest, allowing for the human's faltering steps in the dusk. One of the guards would be following at an unobtrusive distance as a backup measure. Not that she expected trouble out of this man.

Once they were further under the trees, where night had already fallen, the moss under her feet started to glow gently as she stepped, and he exclaimed in amazement, words she didn't understand. She halted a moment so he would too, and waited in silence as the moss trails on the trees began to emit their light, bathing the path ahead in a pale blue glow.

"This is... I've never seen anything like it," he said, sounding awed.

"Have you never been in the forest before?"

"Not at night, we're strictly forbidden," he said. "I went a few times to take mining samples, but my escort was really worried about predators, I did not have time to look around me."

"What is your name?"

The man shook himself out of his wide-eyed wonder.

"Hansdovitch"

"I am Neytiri."

She continued on the path, the human following more easily now that he could see. She paused once every while to make a high pitched 'keh' chirp, to forewarn the guards of her approach. Once, a family of Nytulsk answered, the creatures Jake had called Blue Lemurs.

The man froze in his tracks.

"Nytulsk. They eat plants," she grinned. "Not every creature on Pandora wishes to make you its dinner."

"Could have fooled me..." he muttered. Then, perhaps to distract himself; "Do you really want to know about mining?"

The glow of the Tree of Souls was visible now through the trees, and she led the man into the clearing. The assembled Na'vi there stared at him, a mixture of wariness and curiosity in their faces. They were not inclined to welcome Sky People easily, but had now seen enough that fought on their side that they did not instantly assume he was an enemy. Nonetheless, Hans Dovitch followed her closely enough that when she turned a little to acknowledge a friend, she smacked him with her tail.

"My apologies!" they both said at the exact same moment, and she suspected that the amused look they exchanged did more for his trust in her than anything so far.

Jake was sitting at the base of the tree, focus of a circle of clan leaders, as well as Mo'at, Siyje the Tsahik of the neighbouring clan, and Norm. His face was animated as he explained something. She smiled at how well he'd grown into this, had become a leader in more than just battle in such a short time.

While it was Toruk Makto who had captured the imagination of the clans, it was a small, wounded human man whom they were listening to now, and with no less respect.

He was speaking a mix of English and Na'vi – there simply weren't words for some of the Earth concepts in the Na'vi language. Norm was doing his best to explain and translate some of them for the clan leaders. Jake's ability to speak and understand Na'vi had grown impressively, but he was still more comfortable expressing complicated concepts in his own language. The others replied in Na'vi, and she smiled at the mixing and using words wherever they fit best.

"You see, allowing the scientific base to stay would help regulate... would keep the balance from tipping too far toward the importance of the mining. We could even insist that the colony is lead by a scientist, to stop someone like Quaritch from setting the tone ever again."

"We would prefer for the Sky People to leave and never return," O'hute, the leader of the Sea Clan said finally. Neytiri saw Hansdovitch look at her red warpaint and fierce headdress with awe. "But I understand what you say, that they will not remain gone. They know about us now, and will not simply give up."

"If they would agree to a small colony, with mining methods that are acceptable to us, and leave us alone apart from that – it would be acceptable to me," one of the other clan leaders said after a moment of consideration.

"I don't yet know what the options are with mining, apart from what they've been doing. I intend to-" Jake looked up and spotted her, gave her a look that lost none of its warmth through his mask, and then saw the man she'd brought along.

He was watching with wide eyed wonder, and she imagined that he had perhaps understood half of the conversation. She lead him toward the small circle.

"Jakesully, I have brought you... Hansdovitch," she introduced the man. "Who plans and oversees mining operations."

"Thank you," he said to her, with again that warm look. "Please join us, Hans Dovitch, and tell us about mining techniques."

The man looked up at her in surprise.
"You really do want to know about mining?"

"We want to know about mining that does not involve explosions and enormous vehicles. Mining that does not damage nature," Mo'at said.

Jake rolled his chair back a little to make space in the circle, and gestured for the man to join them.

"There must be ways to mine for Unobtanium that are friendlier to the environment, even if they are slower. Please tell us about that," he invited.

"Well, um, okay..." Hans Dovitch settled down and frowned a moment. "Well, there are a couple of options. The best here on Pandora would probably be to use mining bots. They're about this big," he made a shape with his hands that was about the size of a ze'ilu fruit, "and.. well you make a good area scan to locate the richest, purest veins of the material you're after, then you set the bot in a good location and it starts tunnelling toward it. You can program it so that it'll go around specific things, like tree roots – and there is always a controller there to adjust its course. When it gets to the material, it'll take as much as it can hold, then follow the same path back, filling it back up as it goes."

"If such methods are available, why use explosives at all?" O'hute asked when Norm had translated.

Hand Dovitch looked at Norm for the translation.
"I guess it comes down to economies of scale – you could use the bots, which is a slow process and yields small amounts of fairly pure material – or you could blow up half the mountain, transport the rubble to earth, and refine it there. At the scale they've been doing it, it's worth it financially."

"Okay," Jake said, "Now for the hard question. How much mineral could be mined in a year by say, 25 people with bots, and how does that compare to what has been mined this past year?"

"Whoa. That's... that would be hard to compare even if I did have figures...." he launched into an explanation, with Norm translating as fast as he could, trying to find words for concepts that didn't exist in the Na'vi language.

Neytiri left them to it. She knew what he intended, and supported his plan, but she had little to contribute to its execution right now; involving herself would have been more about curiosity. With her father gone and Tsu'tey not returned, it fell to her to organise the people for what needed to happen now.

Chief among them - if they were to return the captives to the human compound, they'd need to figure out a way to get them there.

Looking around, more Na'vi had gathered at the base of the Tree, gathered in small groups. Though it was well into the night, new warriors were still arriving, many with wounded others. Friends and clan members found one another, shared news of loved ones. Now and then cries of grief rose to the sky.

Neytiri took a deep breath, finding it hard to contain her own grief, still so fresh. Her father, felled long before his time. Hometree, the central point in her entire life, crashed to the ground. Her beloved ZeZe, fallen after flying so bravely. Tsu'tey, his fate uncertain.

She had felt like the world was ending, and had been so prepared to watch everyone she loved die in battle, to die herself. It still hadn't quite registered that they had been victorious. At least, victorious in the battle; if they would succeed in convincing the humans to leave, was another matter entirely.

If anyone could make that happen, it was Jake. And the best way to help it happen, was to focus and step into the shoes of her father.

She returned to where the humans were being held. Staying out of their sight, she found the group calmer, silent in the pale blue light of the surrounding forest. Some of them were still warily watching outward, but many were slumbering, either stretched out on the moss or leaning against one another's backs. All of the wounded were calm; the groans of pain had stilled, presumably with the help of the Ma'xeo resin.

Two Ikran screeched in the distance and a few heads jerked up, then lowered again.

Only five guards were clearly visible in the gloom of the night. She knew that more others were perched up high in the trees, invisible to the humans.

"They are calmer," Marek appeared next to her. "Most used the leaves. However I fear that one might not wake up again. He is very badly burned..."

"If he took the Ma'xeo, I suppose at least he goes calmly," she said after a long moment. She hated the idea that any would die while a captive, but realistically seen there was simply nothing more they could do for them – and it was highly doubtful that any of the Na'vi would have been met with equal care if the roles had been reversed.

"He would have died had we not taken them captive," she said plaintively, not quite convincing herself.

"Not only him – many of them. Many more than will now," Marek said after a long moment. "Eywa drew many Palulukan to the area. We've had to turn back two already."

Neytiri nodded. The Na'vi used blunted arrows to scare off predators that ventured too close to their settlements; it happened but rarely that they needed to resort to sharpened arrows.

"I rode one," she said softly, remembering.

"Rode what?"

"A Palulukan."

His stunned expression was clearly visible in the dark.

"It was... I was trying to stay ahead of a line of Sky People warriors, and then suddenly a herd of Angtsik came my way.. I thought they would trample me, but they went past me and... they ploughed into the Sky People. Behind them were many nantang and a Palulukan. I thought she would kill me, but she..." she paused a moment, remembering how stunned she'd been. "I can't call it anything else. She offered to carry me."

"What was it like, riding her? Having tsahaylu with her?"

"She was..." Neytiri twitched her tail, unable to find words for what it had been like to bond with the giant predator. "Clear, and bright, and... sharp. You know how pa'li feel like they see everything, must keep track of everything? The palulukan was... focussed." She frowned. "Perhaps it was that something was driving her."

"And she let you walk away, after?"

"She died... the leader of the Sky People.. the battle leader – he killed her. He was in one of their walking machines and she leapt onto his knife..." she felt tears welled up as she remembered the feeling of that proud creature, one that had never before deigned to tsahaylu with a Na'vi, fade and die.

They were both silent for a long time, listening to the forest. Neytiri sent silent thanks to the spirit of the palulukan that had carried her, given her the chance to share a bond, no matter how short. She was certain she would never forget it.

One of the humans coughed, and her thoughts turned back to practical matters. She estimated that perhaps half of them were up for the twenty-mile march it would take to get to their base, though it would be slow going. What of the others? It was possible to carry wounded on pallets pulled by pa'li, but there was a big gorge on the route that was not suitable for such constructions.

"It will not be easy to return them all to the base," she sighed. "They will need to walk all day and into the night, and then we haven't even figured out how to move the wounded yet."

"Why would we have to deliver them to their base?" Marek asked. "If their leader wants them back, he can arrange it – they have flying machines."

Neytiri let out a chuckle. "I had not considered that! You are right. It is not our responsibility to delivery his men back to him."

"If anything we've already done them a kindness by gathering them together and protecting them," Marek grinned.

"Indeed. That takes one problem off my back."

"What is the other?"

"I think Jakesully will want to go to the base as soon as possible, to negotiate with the leader. I am not sure how I could get him there."

Marek said nothing. She knew he'd seen Jake in his wheelchair, but it seemed quite an uncomfortable concept for most of the people that the brave warrior they had followed into battle was the same person as this human that could not walk. A lot of them appeared more comfortable with simply not acknowledging it.

"If I still had SeZe..." she would have been able to... perhaps carry Jake in a sling on her back as she flew the Ikran. She was quite certain that Jake wouldn't like the idea of being carried like a child, but if there was no other option, he would deal. The only alternative she could see was to strap him onto a pa'li and ride the twenty miles, and that seemed even less doable.

But she didn't have SeZe anymore. There was no time to find another Ikran, and in any case she would never dare riding with an extra passenger on a new mount.

Perhaps a large, calm Ikran... its rider could carry Jake. No, that left her without a way to get to the base at the same time, and there was no chance she'd let him go off on his own to speak to the leader.

Frustrated, she said goodbye to Marek and returned to the Tree. On one side of the clearing many voices rose in a slow song of honour and remembrance, the song of the fallen. Jake was still sitting under the Tree, together with Norm and Hansdovitch. They were watching and listening, and she thought Jake might be mouthing along with the song.

The clan leaders had gone to speak to others of their clan, slowly moving between their people.

She went to greet him, and he smiled up – a long way up, happy to see her. Sitting down to bring them to a more equal height, she laid her hand along his face, and he reached out to do the same.

"Could you ask someone to bring Hans back to the others?" he asked her in Na'vi. "Then I can tell you what is happening."

TBC

Angtsik - Hammerhead Titanothere
Tsahaylu - bond

I'm having a hard time chopping this in chapters, since there are virtually no time-breaks in the events. You'll have to do with a slightly awkward chaptering!

Thanks for all the reviews – so much fun to write in an active fandom and get people reading along and commenting!