Chapter Forty-Eight: Epilogue
How the world has changed.
Three months ago, we fought for the future of humanity. My love was injured, paralyzed below the waist. But we have been working with Eywa to determine a treatment that will restore her spine. Using Gaia's medical database, it shouldn't take long to create a biological treatment. Norm is also recovering well. His broken leg has healed straight and true with help from Mo'at and the medical team at Hell's Gate.
I wish Jake had survived, but within Eywa, he came around to see the potential of humans to collaborate with Eywa and the na'vi to create a new world. A world that isn't dependent on nonrenewable resources, of killing their planets to sustain their life for another day. Eywa has extended her reach into the Omaticaya's new home tree, so that he can watch his daughter growing up.
There were other casualties...my friend, Li Siyu. I can hear him in Eywa's chorus, too. One day, he hopes to travel to Gaia to search for his parents. He doesn't think they survived the rebirth, but he wants to try. I reassured him, saying that Hell's Gate has received multiple transmissions from survivors living in underground bunkers. Some of them have even been receiving limited solar power from Gaia. Imagine their surprise when they saw the thick, insulated tendrils of biomodified vines wrapped around their generators and energy supplies.
Humans spent so much time trying to emulate processes that already happened in nature. If we had had a bioconsciousness like Ewya, we could have told her what we needed from the beginning. The the power of thousands of minds and the ability to be aware of and alter the design of the plant and animal life around her, Ewya is integrating our technological advances into her sustainable ecosystem every day. Even the mountain clan told us that they've spotted huge fields of solar-generating flat-leaved grasslands, shining silver in the jungle light.
Onu and I visit Queen Neytiri from time to time. Her child still has that intense stare. We wonder who is in there - it's not Grace, we still hear her. Maybe it's Trudy? Another human lost in the rebirth? Since we shared the code for replicating avatars with Ewya, more and more hunters have stumbled across avatars, lying in the fetal position, a plantlike umbilical cord attached. They say the same will happen with Gaia, once she's grown to envelop the Earth. Almost all of the remaining humans at Hell's Gate have performed the consciousness transfer. Once all of them have become na'vi, Lucas plans to flood the centre with Pandoran atmosphere and kill the unobtanium generators.
I can't imagine what the world will look like five, ten, twenty, a hundred years from now. Maybe we'll find a way to make it back to space, spread Eywa's seeds so that her sisters can flourish on a hundred different worlds. An interconnected living network that spans the constellations.
For now, all I can do is join the other scientists in discovering new and wonderful ways to use the human influence to help in the new technological advances that both of our mothers are making. That, and try to repay the kindness that Onu first offered me in as many ways as I can. Speaking of which, we have a date at her favourite oasis coming up, so I'd better stop writing for now.
Hayley out.
