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Trudy was staring at Eywa, when she heard a voice call out from behind her.

"Trudy, move away from the...thing," said Norm coldly.

She had never heard her mate use a voice that was so threatening. Trudy spun around and saw him pointing a huge assault rifle at Eywa. "No!" she shouted, waving her arms. "Don't shoot. This is Eywa. She's not real – she's a hologram."

"Dr Spellman, I presume," said Eywa, tilting her alien head to one side. "I admire your work, especially your paper on the role of pseudo-algae in biological signal propagation between Pandoran xenocotyledons. I thought your conclusions were particularly insightful."

"How?" said Norm, slowly lowering his weapon. His face wore a strange expression, a mix of puzzlement and caution.

Eywa laughed. "I'm afraid I have a backdoor into the Hell's Gate network. The protocol conversion was tricky, and I found overcoming the security protocols and encryption was quite tiresome, but once I obtained superuser access there was some very interesting material to absorb. I do have to say I found Grace Augustine's work fascinating. Some of the approaches she took to analysing my signal traffic I had never considered, and she and I have had many interesting discussions since."

Norm said excitedly, "Something that has been puzzling me is the method used to filter signal noise from adjacent nodules. I could see that there was some mechanism that was suppressing harmonics but I couldn't determine the method, at least not from a preliminary analysis."

By now Norm's gun had been placed carelessly on the floor, and his arms were waving about like the sails on a windmill. What followed was a furious conversation between Eywa and Norm of which Trudy was lucky to understand one word in ten – and those words tended to be words like 'a', 'the' and 'and'. She understood now why she had detected a little sadness in Norm when they had made tsahaylu – she could see that he had been missing the intellectual cut and thrust of his human profession – and why he was still mourning Grace's death.

Trudy carefully picked up his gun and clicked on the safety, before replacing it on the floor. She coughed significantly, and said, "I'm sure this is all fascinating to you both, but we were discussing some life and death matters."

Something in the way Eywa moved her hands indicated that she was slightly discomforted. "I'm sorry, my chica. I did tell you I got distracted easily, especially if it is in my area of interest."

"Norm," said Trudy, "Eywa said that both Earth and Pandora will die if I won't do as she asks, but if I do many people will die anyway."

"Can I see your evidence?" asked Norm.

Eywa waved an arm and masses of equations appeared to float in mid air. An unintelligible conversation ensued, leaving Trudy nervously pacing up and down for what seemed like hours, but was probably no more than thirty minutes. Eventually Norm said, "I can't fault her logic, Trudy. Not to do something will result in the death of both Pandora and Earth. If you can't do it for the People, or even for us, you should do it for our child. I think she deserves a chance at a full life."

"What did you say?" Trudy couldn't quite believe what Norm had said.

Her mate suddenly looked uncomfortable. "You're pregnant," he blurted out. "Your freckles changed colour a couple of days ago – it's the first sign of Na'vi pregnancy. I thought you knew, and just didn't want to talk about it."

"I'm going to have a baby?" she said weakly.

"No," said Norm. "We're going to have a daughter."

"How?" she whispered.

Despite her alien appearance, somehow Eywa managed to smirk as she said, "It tends to happen if you have wild, passionate sex with your mate."

Trudy sprang at Norm, knocking him to the ground. Straddling his torso, she started to bang his head against the ground, snarling, "Why. Didn't. You. Tell. Me. You. Bastard."

In self-defence, Norm grabbed the sides of her head with his large hands, and gazed into her golden eyes. He said quietly but firmly, "Trudy, I love you, and I am very proud that you are bearing the token of our love. Now get off me, unless you want me to make love to you right now, in front of Eywa."

Trudy sprang into the air as though she had been scalded. "You," she said angrily, accusing Eywa, jabbing her index finger at the hologram. "You did this. You knew."

"Of course I knew," admitted Eywa. "I didn't say anything because I didn't want to use your pregnancy to manipulate you into doing what I want, if I could avoid it. But you should be happy. I want you to be happy, both of you. You are happy, aren't you?"

At Eywa's question Trudy stopped. "I am happy," she said slowly, as though she wasn't really sure she truly believed it, a whole range of emotions washing over her. She felt the imperatives of her body, and realised she no longer had a choice. "I don't have any option, do I?"

Eywa shook her head sadly. "Now you know how I feel. My children the Na'vi are threatened with extinction, and I would do anything to save them, just as you would do anything to protect your child."