Part 8, The movie was quite potty mouthed so censors you cannot complain about the language before and after this. In the meantime things start to go wrong for our heroes.
The Colonel was displeased with Andrei when the news came in from Selfridge. The administrator had contacted the Colonel and Andrei simultaneously "Colonel Quaritch, Lieutenant Semyonov, get your asses up to my office right away, there's gonna be bloodshed."
Andrei had scarcely stood up when the Colonel stormed through looking like the god of death, and flashing Andrei a look of fury. Andrei knew he had to follow and did so with an impending feeling of doom. The moment of judgement came as they went into a narrow corridor and the Colonel rounded on him furiously, only the natural momentum kept Andrei moving forward, as the Colonel kept talking. "What the Hell did you do!" he barked.
Andrei found it difficult to find words "I..."
"You what?!" he screamed "Answer me goddamnit, Dr. Augustine is claiming you provoked a fight?! What the Hell?! You'd better explain yourself good boy when we get up there, or you're gonna be on the most dangerous assignment I can find for you by this time tomorrow, is this clear?!" the Colonel shouted.
Andrei was both terrified and angered. He had done nothing wrong, but he knew better than to argue. "Yes sir!" he said, trying to sound sharp, but it came out a more of a high pitched whimper. He abstained from saying 'Jawohl Herr Oberfuhrer!' as he was guaranteed to be in trouble then. He was having difficulty preventing tears of rage from coming to his eyes in any case.
Parker Selfridge was getting more and more annoyed as he listened to yet another Augustinian rant. He began to wonder why it was he tolerated her in the first place; her only virtues as far he could see were consistency and competence.
"You sticking your nose in my department is bad enough without Quaritch sticking his nose in my department. Can't you tell your dog where his boundaries are. Dr. Spellman here was provoked by one of Quaritch's pets. I mean give us a break! The last thing we need is another dumb musclehead who knows nothing but how to grunt, trying to micromanage us. You know I know you hate us, but some common courtesy..."
Selfridge had had enough "Doctor! Enough!" he managed to shout, rather feebly. He put his head in his hands and said "You speak of courtesy, but you lack it yourself..."
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" she interrupted, but was unable to say anything as Quaritch burst in with a look that could atomize the most fearsome opponent. The officer behind him and Selfridge were no match for it, but Doctor Augustine and Doctor Spellman were.
Miles Quaritch immediately felt two things. The first was a desire to snap she who could not be named's neck with his hands. She was always so impassive and dismissive towards him, and it especially annoyed him know, when even people like the administrator were afraid of him. It was her dismissiveness which bothered him so, he did fancy himself as being quite intimidating and important. It was not so much as she diminished him, as made him feel as if he were nothing, that the news of his death would not bring a moment's sadness to her, only that same dismissiveness. Especially considering that he knew what she had done, it made it all the worse.
The second was sorrow. He saw the science puke with the goatee, giving him the same look of contempt as Augustine, and he knew what had happened. If it was this guy who Andrei had provoked, Andrei had obviously not done much and therefore he owed Andrei an apology for the emotional damage he had dealt him. He wanted to turn round and apologize but he did not want to draw a mocking comment from either of the two scientists, as such a display of sensitivity inevitably would as they obviously believed him to be completely insensitive. So he compromised between apologizing to Andrei and throttling her by saying "Alright, what the hell is Andrei accused of?"
"Hey, GI Joe" she spat "your boy, was in my labs trying to interfere with my work, so Doctor Spellman stopped him." She was right in his face now being dismissive and haughty again.
Quaritch was initially afraid to turn to Andrei and ask him to tell his side of the story as he had not heard it and was concerned that the volte face in his attitude would alarm Andrei so he said without looking "Tell the administrator what really happened Andrei."
"Hey, you can at least speak to your poodle when..."
Quaritch became so angry that he felt his face morph into that mask of anger and he began shaking, and although it did not cause her to be afraid, it actually managed to shut her up.
Quaritch could tell that Andrei and the administrator had the same feelings about what was passing between him and Augustine as when he spoke he spoke to the administrator as if he was a friend "Well sir I have never been to the Avatar room. I wanted to see how it would work so I decided to accompany Mr. Sully there and watch. Therefore as I went towards the Avatar capsule he was going to use, Doctor Spellman blocked my way and told me I could not go through."
"Well of course I did!" the puke shouted "you were going to..."
"Be quiet" said Selfridge quietly and the puke shut up and had a sulk. Quaritch relaxed his face and body, then turned to look at Andrei. He was proper as always, he always wore the sleeves of his combat shirt at just above the elbows, and even though standing to attention and standing at ease was not enforced here on Pandora, Andrei out of instinct it seemed, stood to attention as he recounted his story. He made Quartich proud.
"So I tried to get around him", Andrei continued, unphased, he knew that morally he was in the right and that the administrator and even his until recently infuriated superior officer would support him "he moved to block me. He then told me he was not going to let me interfere. I told him I had the right to observe. Doctor Augustine then told him affirmatively not to let me through. So I turned as if to go, then tried to go by another way. Mister Spellman..." Quaritch and Selfridge smiled at the subtle insult "...came over to stop and told me that I was on my last warning."
Quaritch saw Selfridge hold out a hand to stop Andrei and said "Let me guess, you then got into an argument about whether what we're doing here is right or not, you said something insulting about him and wanting to bond with nature, and then he hit you?"
Quaritch observed Andrei close his eyes and his face became even more passive, as if he was an AI computing something and then opened them and said "Yes sir, it is like that."
"I thought so" Selfridge sighed, obviously unhappy that his time had been wasted.
"Now hang on..." Augustine started
"Quiet Grace, okay?" said Selfridge. He turned back to Andrei "You were wrong about one thing though Andrei" the temporary worry disappeared from Andrei's face as the administrator said "The minimum he owes you if you wish to press charges is $5,000. Considering that he is a Doctor I'd say he can afford that easily." He turned to the sulking beatnik and said motioned with his finger "So Doctor pay up. If you don't by the end of this week, I'll ensure that you pay the maximum of $50,000, is this understood?"
The man tried protesting "Hey he..."
"Quiet!" barked Quaritch his face temporarily becoming that of Murder as he did. The puke shut up with extreme reluctance.
"Thank you Colonel" Quaritch heard the administrator say "We've wasted enough time on this petty dispute."
"Oh no you don't Parker, I'm not leaving until I get this pitbull" she said referring to Quaritch "out of my hair."
Quaritch was angry at having been referred to so dismissively by her yet again, especially considering what she had done. The administrator was exasperated by having to have yet another argument with her. "Alright but Spellman, Semyonov, clear out, there is no need for you two to have to suffer the moans of this harpie."
As the puke went out angrily, and Andrei followed him without any sulking or complaint, Quaritch wondered why Selfridge had suddenly been inspired to use old language instead of just cursing her.
"Parker, have you no sense of common decency?" Augustine demanded.
Quaritch could see the administrator was exhausted and that Augustine's voice got on his nerves, so he was not even bothering. "You know what I'm irrelevant here, the real argument is between the two of you, I'm just the referee, so have at it, let's get it over with."
Quaritch felt awkward being invited to have an argument, as if it was put that way it made the whole thing seem ridiculous. Augustine did not see it that way as she was right on top of it as soon as Selfridge was done speaking "I know what you've done Quaritch, you've been using Jake to spy on me and the Omaticaya, HOW DARE YOU!" she said.
Quaritch himself was fatigued by this argument and needed a break from it "You know what Grace" he said wearily, but also insisting on being familiar "I could not give a rat's ass about what you think is my bullying and perceived outrage in getting ready for a war."
"Hey, listen here you..."
Quaritch was suddenly in her face "No you listen here missy, they are not a peaceful people. Everyone in there from the age of six is trained how to be a warrior. I read your goddamned book, they are a warrior society and people, men and women get ahead by showing their skill at being a warrior. That means killing something, and as we both know, the more dangerous the game, the more honor for the warrior. On this planet, we're the most dangerous game." He now put his finger in her face "I was attacked by those savages on day, they didn't offer to help us get home, or show us around, it was twenty of them trying to kill us. Later after we'd been battling freaking viperwolves, they surrounded us, and demanded I give them a one on one battle to the death."
She forcefully jerked his hand from her face, and pushed him away, making him angry, but he was not going to strike her, much as he wanted to you. "Yeah and in doing say you soured relations with the Omaticaya, as you killed twenty one of their warriors that day Quaritch, you could have..."
"Could have what?!" he screamed "Let them kill me?! I don't think so!" he calmed down a bit then said "You just like the blue monkeys because you have no faith in mankind, you disgust me!"
"Oh yeah? What reason have I to have faith in humanity, we come from a giant urban slum, with barely any green, living off algae, seaweed, eggs, wheat, quorn. People die every day, we still wage wars over little scraps of land and metal. Also this beloved company made our planet mostly unbreathable because in the 21st century we pumped so much CO2 and H2S into our atmosphere that we killed ourselves by making the air unbreathable. We're dead Quaritch, we're merely on life support, at least the Na'vi are living a pure form of life."
Selfridge came in "Yellow card Grace, the company is now helping the air purification efforts, even company executives are not willing to live in a cesspit if it means greater profit. Proceed guys."
"You know what?" Quaritch said "I do not have to listen to this hippie crap. Just because the actions of your race disgust you, does not mean you give up on it. You try and change it for the better! But you know what? I am wasting my breath you; you couldn't stand up for your own family, much less humanity!"
Grace saw where he was going and said in a voice that would have frozen a lesser man "Don't you dare Miles!"
She could not stop him though "Yeah, go on, tell Selfridge here how you abandoned your husband and baby daughter to come here. Go on and tell him how the life of your baby girl was worth less to you than the study of plant life on this planet. Tell him" he said calmly.
Selfridge was now extremely attentive "What's he talking about Grace? You were married to someone when you came here?" he said disbelieving.
Quaritch grimaced, even Selfridge was bought in by her concern for the natives, as regard for life, instead of seeing through the vague fascism in her views. 'Purer form of life' 'good simple people' is how she referred to the Na'vi, obviously enjoying their world more than her own. He hated her, he knew what she had done.
"He's lying" she said fiercely "He's just inventing stuff cause he does not have any good arguments, for as to why we're entitled to take whatever we want. He knows its wrong, but wants to use a war to make himself more important and set up a military dictatorship" she said this with the same self righteous tone she always used. Quaritch smiled though, he could detect a hint of desperation, she was afraid of the 'good and pure Augustine' myth being blown apart.
"Oh don't be like that Grace. You know what happened and so do I. We were married after all" he said, smiling with malicious glee, that concealed his hatred for her and what she had to him and Anna-Lee.
Before Selfridge could ask the inevitable question or Augustine say something to defend herself. He walked out of the office. If anything more was said it would destroy the impact of the statement. In any case he had to get back to work, and worry about the enemy without, rather than the pest within.
