The Legacy
By Scott Washburn
Author's Note: This is part of my "Aftermath" Stories. This story would fall between Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. If you have not read them I suggest you do before reading this.
2177 AD
Rhada Patel-Kosegan re-read her letter of resignation for about the twelfth time and finally forced her finger to press the send button. There! It was official: she no longer worked for the Resource Development Authority. It seemed like an enormous and scary step to take. She'd worked for the RDA her entire adult life, over twenty-five years—although six of those years had been spent in cryo getting to Pandora. But after all that had happened, after a lot of soul-searching, she had decided to take the leap. Actually, they had decided to take the leap, she and her husband, Ivan. He had sent in his resignation yesterday and he was kidding her about backing out and leaving him in the lurch. Now they had both jumped!
She got up from her desk and walked out of her office and down a corridor and in through another door. Her brother, Max, looked up as she entered "Okay," she said, smiling. "I am unemployed."
"Good!" he replied, smiling back at her. He tapped a few keys on his own computer and then said: "You are now un-unemployed! You are an official employee and member of the Heaven's Gate Clan. Welcome, little sister!" He got up from his desk and they hugged.
"Thank you, big brother. And thank you for authorizing the payment to the RDA for our avatars. I can't believe they demanded so much for them!"
"Worth every penny."
"But a hundred kilos of unobtainium?" she continued. "Two billion dollars? That's fifty times what it cost the RDA to make them!"
"Supply and demand," said Max. "Two quite literally unique items that you could not get anywhere else. They knew they could name their own price—and they did."
'We could have told them to go scratch! No one else can link to them! They are worthless to anyone but us!"
"And the unobtainium is worthless to everyone in this star system except for the RDA. It balances out. And it's not like this bankrupted us or anything, Rhada: we still have nearly twenty tons of the stuff in storage."
"Yeah, I suppose…"
"And the value of two additional avatars to the clan can hardly be counted in dollars," continued Max. "Like it or not, the first generation of avatars and drivers aren't going to last forever. We might end up buying a lot more from the RDA for the next generation."
"Really?" said Rhada raising her eyebrows. "Like for my precocious niece and nephew, perhaps?"
"It's a possibility Cynthia and I have discussed," admitted Max. "Now that relations between Pandora and Earth have been normalized we are thinking about sending them to Earth for schooling. The kids are against it, of course, but if we promised them Avatars on graduation, well…"
"Sheesh! All I asked Dad for was a car!"
"Yeah," chuckled Max. "Well, the decision is still a few years off yet. But back to the present! Cynthia is planning your initiation party for next Saturday. That work for you and Ivan?"
"Our what?" asked Rhada in confusion.
"Your initiation! You're members of the clan now and we need to celebrate. You know: take off all your clothes, have your body painted, drunken debauchery to follow."
"Be careful who you kid, brother!" said Rhada poking Max in the chest with her finger. "You might get more than you bargain for! Ivan and I are both quite comfortable in little or no clothing. I'm not so sure Cynthia or a lot of the others are!"
"Well, yeah, there is that. But seriously, we'd like to have a party. You are the first new members of the clan in… well, since we had a clan."
Rhada nodded. The negotiations to normalize relations had been very complicated and one of the trickier issues was how to treat the humans who were living at Heaven's Gate, the remains of the former RDA base on Pandora. They weren't Na'vi and yet they had cut their ties and burned their bridges with Earth during the war. They considered themselves citizens of Pandora, but what was their real status? The answer had been simpler than anyone had expected: make them into their own clan. So, they were now the Heaven's Gate Clan and the base was their 'hometree'. Max was the Olo'eyktan, the clan leader. The Na'vi had accepted it with surprisingly little problem. Apparently it fit very well into their world view. Any new humans to arrive on Pandora—and they were starting to arrive—would be considered guests of the clan. If any of them later wanted to be 'adopted', well, that was the business of the Heaven's Gaters.
"Okay, that sounds good," said Rhada. "But as for my new job, you still want me in charge of geology?"
"Sure, as our only geologist, that would seem to make sense. It's all right with you, isn't it?"
"Fine by me. Is there anything in particular you want me to work on?"
Max shook his head. "Nope, investigate anything you find interesting. We have a scientist's paradise here: unlimited budgets, no deadlines, and an incredibly enlightened and understanding boss: me."
Rhada laughed. "Just so long as I change air filters on Tuesdays and pull weeds in the greenhouses on Fridays, right?"
"Well, everyone has their chores," said Max, shrugging.
"Okay, it's still the best deal on two worlds. But as for what I research, I think I know where I'd like to start…"
[Scene Break]
Silwanin followed her mother and Grandmother and Graceaugustine down the slope toward the Tree of Souls. She would rather have been off hunting or playing with her brothers, or riding with Father, but as the eventual tsahik of the Omaticaya the elders had insisted that she come along. It was part of her training. Part of her duty. Being a tsahik was all about duty…
"So, Grace," said her mother, "you have not tried to link with the tree since your… your… I'm not even sure what to call it."
Grace laughed. "I know what you mean, Neytiri! But no, I haven't. Frankly, I've been too afraid to."
"Afraid?" said Grandmother. "Afraid of Eywa?" The elderly tsahik seemed scandalized.
"I know it might seem silly, but…"
"I rather doubt that Eywa will try to suck you back in," said Mother. "She passed you through to your new body for some purpose. She wouldn't take you back against your will."
"But what if I've served Her purpose? Perhaps foiling Carla Pilsen's scheme was all She had in mind for me?" said Grace looking uneasy. "I know I should be grateful for even this brief time back here, but… but I love this world and I don't want to give it up. Not yet."
"From the brief descriptions you have given me of your time with Eywa, I would think you would be eager to return," said Grandmother, scowling a bit.
"I know, I know and it truly was wonderful and I look forward to returning to Her side someday, but still. It wasn't quite the same as this."
"How was it different?" demanded Grandmother. "I really want to understand—especially since I'll be going there myself soon enough."
"Oh posh!" said Mother. "You've got years and years!"
Silwanin rolled her eye as Grandmother began to list all her aches and pains. She'd heard this conversation a dozen times. She yawned.
"Run along and play for a while," said Grace to her suddenly.
"She really should hear all this," said Mother. "She will be tsahik someday."
"A long time in the future," replied Grace. "She has all the energy of her namesake, Neytiri, and forcing her to sit here and listen to a pack of old women like us is torture."
"You are hardly old anymore," said Mother gesturing to Grace's young dreamwalker body, but she nodded to Silwanin. "Go ahead, but not too far."
"Yes, Mother," said Silwanin, failing to not sound too eager to get away. She scrambled up the slope before they changed their minds. She returned to their camp where they had left the horses and got her bow. It had taken all day yesterday to ride here from Hometree. Only Mother had an ikran of her own and it could not carry all four of them. Grandmother had had an ikran when she was younger, but when it died of old age she had never gotten another. Graceaugustine was training as a hunter and someday hoped to bond with an ikran—just as Silwanin did. A few more years and it would be her time. How she longed for that! To fly! When she was younger her father used to give her rides on his ikran, but she was too large for that now. But she still remembered the thrill of it. Someday… someday…
After carefully checking both her bow and her arrows she set out in a spiral pattern moving outward from the Tree of Souls. She was not actually trying for a kill because they had brought enough food with them. She was practicing her tracking and stalking skills. The bow was just in case she found more than she bargained for and needed to protect herself. She completed the first circle, discovering nothing more interesting than a sleeping riti hanging from the underside of one of the stone arches. The second and third circuits were similarly dull, although they took longer as the spiral widened.
But halfway through the fourth time around Silwanin heard a strange noise and slowed her pace. Carefully making her way through the foliage she was surprised to see a pair of ikrans sitting quietly on the ground a few spans ahead of her. They wore flying harnesses so they weren't wild, but they were acting very strangely… oh. She suddenly realized what they were: the cloned ikrans that the dreamwalkers from Heaven's Gate flew. The humans could use their amazing technology to create copies of real ikrans just as the dreamwalkers used copies of Na'vi. That seemed like cheating to Silwanin. Still, she had a great interest in the humans and the things they could do. Indeed, she and her brothers would not exist except for them. Her own father had once been a dreamwalker until Ewya granted his wish to become fully Na'vi. But despite the great love that he and Mother had for each other, no children would have come from their mating without special help from the humans. Silwanin had spent quite a lot of time at Heaven's Gate as a young child undergoing their multitude of tests and she knew all of the humans who lived there.
But the ikran copies were a relatively new thing. They had only arrived two years earlier along with…
"Hello, I see you Rhadakosegan," said Silwanin spotting the dreamwalker. She did not know her all that well since she hadn't been her that long. But she was the sister of Maxpatel and she did know Max and his wife Cynthia quite well. Cynthia was the scientist who made mother's pregnancies possible. The woman looked up and smiled.
"Oh, hello, Silwanin, I see you." Her Na'vi was nearly perfect, with just a trace of an accent. "I should have expected to run into you: Mo'at mentioned that she and Neytiri would be here today."
"So, Grandmother knows you are here?" she asked in English. Her English was very good, even better than Mother's.
"Oh yes," said Rhada. "We wouldn't come here without her permission."
"That's for sure," added Ivankosegan, emerging from the bushes. Rhada's mate waved. "Hi Silwanin, how are you doing?"
"I am fine."
"She gave us permission to run some tests here on the edges of the area," continued Rhada, she gestured to a pile of equipment at her feet.
"What are you doing?" asked Silwanin, moving closer. The Sky People machines fascinated her.
"I'm trying to discover how these great arches formed," said Rhada, waving her arm at the immense stone formations that rose up all around the Tree of Souls. There were several dozen of them. Some were complete but many had been broken off.
"The songs say that Eywa made them," said Silwanin.
Rhada looked embarrassed. "Well, yes, of course. But I'm hoping to find out how she made them."
"Perhaps Grandmother could ask Her. Perhaps Graceaugustine knows."
Rhada smiled awkwardly. "That would be cheating. I want to find the answer for myself. Besides, I did ask Grace, but she's been very… reluctant to discuss her time with Eywa. Anyway, she's a botanist and I doubt she asked Eywa any questions about geology."
"Geology?" She'd heard the word, but she wasn't certain what it meant.
"It's the science of rocks and the ground beneath us. It studies how mountains and continents form. We know a great deal about Pandoran geology, even why the floating mountains—you call them the Thundering Rocks—float. But these arches don't fit into any of our theories. They are really… strange."
"Science," said Silwanin shaking her head. "The humans I have met all seem… obsessed with this thing you call science. Are all humans like that?"
"No," laughed Ivan. "Most of them back on Earth don't know anything about science and could care less. But all the humans at Heaven's Gate, the ones that decided to stay, were scientists. The group you have been exposed to is decidedly not representative of the whole species."
"I see," said Silwanin, not at all sure that she did see. "But what are you going to do today?"
"We are going to make some sensor probes of that arch right there," said Rhada, pointing. "We want to determine its chemical composition and physical structure. I'm also interested in what it looks like underground, how deep it goes and so forth."
"How can you see what it looks like underground? Won't you have to dig an awful lot? And I doubt Grandmother would approve of that. She doesn't like big holes in the ground."
"Oh no, no digging here!" laughed Rhada. "Mo'at made that quite clear! But we have sensors that can look under the ground without digging. Ivan was just placing some of them."
"Yeah," said Ivan. "I get to do all the fun stuff." He brushed dirt off his hands.
"May I watch you work?" asked Silwanin.
"Sure," said Ivan. "You can even help if you want."
Silwanin readily agreed and leaving her bow with the piled equipment spent the rest of the morning helping Ivan place the sensors in the ground. They consisted of thin tubes about as long as her arm with a few glowing lights on one end. They had to be inserted in the soil so that about half their length was under the ground. They placed them in a wide circle around the base of one of the stone arches. She asked Ivan how they worked but he admitted that his own understanding of the process was fairly limited. "They emit some sort of particles that interact with the rocks and then bounce back to a central receiver. It creates a picture of what's down there. If you want a more detailed answer, you'll have to ask Rhada."
"She must have studied a long time to know so much."
"Oh yeah, years and years. And it never stops, she's always learning new stuff."
"I would like to know so much someday."
Ivan stopped and looked at her. "No reason you couldn't I guess. Now that relations have been normalized there will be a lot more Sky People coming to Pandora. Our clan is even talking about hiring teachers for the human children. Can't see any reason why Na'vi children couldn't join the classes."
Silwanin froze. It had been tried before. Her namesake, her mother's sister, had died in a terrible incident at that first school. She couldn't imagine either her mother or grandmother reacting favorably to such an idea. Still, so much had changed since then…
"Perhaps," was all she said in reply. "But you… you are not a scientist?"
"No," laughed Ivan. "I was a warrior…"
"A warrior!" exclaimed Silwanin. "My father was a warrior, too!"
"No, no, your father was a real warrior," said Ivan. "I was in one of Earth's armies, but I was just a rear-echelon-mo… er, that is, I helped take care of things so that other people could go out and fight."
"You mean like the people in my clan who make arrows and knives? Few of them ever actually go on a hunt, but their skills help the whole clan."
"Yeah, something like that," said Ivan. "It actually sounds better the way you put it. But anyway, no, I'm just a bureaucrat and paper-pusher. I was sent here because I was married to Rhada. Now I get to stick metal rods in the ground." He smiled and Silwanin saw that it was a joke.
They finished placing the rods and then went back to where Rhada was working with some other piece of equipment. "All done," said Ivan.
"Good. I'm just about ready here," she replied without taking her eyes off the glowing display screen. A short while went by and then she looked up. "Sorry to ask, but could you possibly move probe eight about 30 meters farther west?"
Ivan sighed, but shrugged and said: "Sure." He went off to tend to it but Silwanin remained with Rhada.
"When I was very young they did many tests on me at Heaven's Gate. They had machines that could look inside me without cutting me open. Is this the same sort of thing?"
"Yes," said Rhada with a grin. "The details are different, but the basic principle is the same. You are very smart to make that connection, Silwanin."
She shrugged. "Mother encourages me to ask questions. She says it is important for a tsahik to know as much as she can."
"Yes, that's right, you'll be your clan's tsahik someday. It is a great responsibility, isn't it?"
"Yes," sighed Silwanin.
"But you have many, many years before that responsibility will fall on you."
"So I pray."
Ivan returned and Rhada studied her machine some more and declared everything ready. "Okay, switching on." Silwanin somehow expected to see something happening, but there was nothing that she could notice.
"How long will it take?" she asked.
"Oh, a few hours," replied Rhada. "This is modified mining survey equipment. It's normally designed to make a more general survey of a much wider area looking for minerals. I've adapted this for a more detailed scan of a smaller area. Hopefully it will give us a real good picture of this arch."
"I see," said Silwanin. "It is very nearly midday, would you like to come and share a meal with me and the others?"
"Sounds good to me," said Ivan immediately.
Rhada looked uncertain for a moment but then nodded. "The equipment should be all right unattended for that long. Certainly, and thank you." Silwanin retrieved her bow and they walked back toward the Tree of Souls. She waved when she saw the other three.
"Guests for lunch, eh?" said Grace. "Hi, Rhada, Ivan, haven't seen you for a while."
"How could you have seen us?" replied Ivan. "You're always out doing your hunter training. How's that coming, by the way?"
Grace smiled and indicated Mother. "Ask the boss. Neytiri will have the final say about when I'm ready."
Mother tilted her head. "She is an attentive student, just as Jake was. She has more to unlearn than he did. Jake was already trained in many of the basics like moving quietly and taking cover before he came here. I estimate another season and she will be ready."
"You said another two seasons for me," grumbled Silwanin. "And I started much sooner."
"Patience, daughter! Grace's body is full-grown. Some of what will be required of you will take raw strength, and while you might be ready, your limbs are not."
Silwanin bit back any reply, knowing it would do no good. Instead she helped lay out the food for the midday meal. It was simple enough and soon all six of them were squatting in a circle, eating and talking.
"So how goes your investigation of the arches?" asked Grace of Rhada.
"The probes are running right now. I'm eager to see what they tell us." She shook her head. "None of the existing theories I know of can account for them. Even basic questions like why they are arranged they way they are with the Tree of Souls in the middle are puzzling. I mean surely the Tree of Souls must have grown here long after the arches formed. Unless it was deliberately planted, how'd it end up here?"
Grace shrugged. "I'm afraid I didn't discuss that with Eywa. The only advice I can give you is not to make any assumptions about anything."
"So what did you discuss with Eywa?" asked Ivan.
"That is part of what we were talking about today," said Mother. "Nothing like what has happened to Grace has ever occurred before."
Grace chuckled, but it seemed like a nervous chuckle to Silwanin. "These two seem to think I'm some sort of prophet or emissary from Eywa. They keep trying to pick my brain. But there really isn't that much to tell."
"You spent twenty years with Eywa, didn't you?" asked Rhada.
"So the calendar says. It didn't seem nearly that long to me. I don't know if that's just an indication of the network's processor speed, or a subjective reaction on my part or… or…" Grave's smile vanished and her face became almost grim.
"Or what?" demanded Grandmother.
"Well, it has occurred to me that if Eywa is like some vast biological computer network then the information that was me, Grace Augustine, might still be in there. What if what's in here," she tapped a finger against her head, "is just a copy? And an edited copy at that. What if Eywa only sent as much of me as was needed to get the job done? Maybe the real me is still in there with Her. That me might have all the answers about your arches, Rhada."
"That's kind of… spooky," said Ivan.
"Yeah," said Grace. "It bothers me quite a bit—which is why I'm not all that keen to talk about it."
"But… but do you still have all your memories of your early life, before you… uh… died?" asked Rhada.
"How the hell should I know? I mean it all seems to be there, but how would I know if something was missing? I can remember the courses I took in college, all the papers I wrote, but maybe I had a passionate love affair at age nineteen. Just because I can't remember any such thing now doesn't mean it never happened."
"Well, somebody would know…" said Ivan.
"Oh and like I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life chasing down everyone who might have known me to cross-check my memories against theirs? No thanks!"
"I doubt that any of them would recognize you now anyway, Grace," laughed Ivan.
"True."
"It seems to me," said Mother, "that you should live the life that's been given you and not worry about the rest."
"And that's exactly what I intend to do," said Grace. "The past is past. I'm going to look to the future."
That seemed to close the subject and the conversation turned to other matters. The meal was finished and Rhada and Ivan said good-bye and returned to their studies. Silwanin would have liked to go with them, but the elders wanted her to stay with them and she reluctantly did as they wanted. Duty…
[Scene Break]
"So how did you make out today?" asked Max Patel.
"Fine—damn!" said Rhada.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. After a day in my avatar with only three fingers on each hand I find that I have trouble typing once I'm back in human form. My little fingers don't know what to do."
Max chuckled. "I guess there were a few advantages to the old-style avatars after all. But everything else went okay?"
"Yeah, Ivan and I bumped into Mo'at, Neytiri, Silwanin and Grace while we were there. Silwanin helped us place the sensors. What a sweet kid she is."
"Yeah," said Max. "I think it was her that finally convinced Cynthia that we should start our own family. So, you got some good readings?"
"I got some readings. I'm not sure how good they are."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there's nothing wrong with the raw data, but the big picture just doesn't make any sense. Do you remember that theory you had on how the arches formed?"
"It wasn't my theory, but yeah, I know which one you're talking about."
"Well, it's wrong. Or at least part of it's wrong. The theory said that while this area was still molten millions of years ago that unobtainium got mixed with harder rocks and the strong magnetic field twisted them into the arch shapes. Then, after the rock cooled, the softer rock got eroded away, leaving the arches. Well, there is definitely a high concentration of unobtainum in the arches, no doubt about that. It's so high, in fact that the arches are nearly ready to float away like the floating mountains."
"Good thing the RDA didn't know that," said Max. "They might have tried to haul the arches away."
"Yeah, but as for the rest of the theory… I don't think so. If the theory was right, then the arches ought to extend a long way underground. The magnetic field would have continued to shape them without regard to where the ground level is today."
"You're saying they don't?"
"Nope. Or at least not the arch we scanned today. Look here," she said pointing to a display monitor. "The arch extends down about ten meters below the current ground level and then stops. There's about a meter of soil and then nine meters of broken up rock and debris and then it hits a solid mass of bedrock. The arch is resting right on that."
"Huh. Any theory on why?"
"No, it's way too early to start speculating. Especially based on just this one scan. I really need to do scans on the other arches. Do you think Mo'at will let us?"
"Well, if you didn't leave any empty beer cans lying around or spray paint graffiti on that arch I can't see why she'd object. I'll give Norm a call and have him ask her."
"Thanks, Max, I'd appreciate it."
[Scene Break]
Silwanin pushed the probe down to the proper depth and then touched the activating switch. The status light blinked green and she nodded in satisfaction. After weeks of helping Rhada she was getting as proficient at this as Ivan. She headed back to where Rhada was waiting with the central scanner. She arrived just as Ivan appeared. "All set?" asked Rhada.
"Yes," said Silwanin. Ivan just made a gesture with his fist with his thumb sticking straight up.
"Okay, here we go," said Rhada. She touched a few controls and the scanner went into operation. Silwanin peered over Rhada's shoulder at the display, but despite the number of times they had done this, she could still make no sense of what was on the screen. Rhada stepped back and nodded her satisfaction.
"Lunchtime?" asked Ivan.
"Yes, everything is working properly. We've got a few hours to wait." The threesome busied themselves for a few minutes getting out the food for their 'picnic' as the humans called it.
"So, do you think this will be the last one of these we have to do?" asked Ivan once they were settled.
"Maybe," said Rhada. "Can't really tell yet."
"But have you discovered anything?" asked Silwanin. Weeks of effort had not seemed to have produced any results.
Rhada smiled. "A good scientist doesn't start jumping to conclusions before she has all the data. But tell me, Silwanin, what does all your training to be a tsahik entail?"
Silwanin blinked at this sudden change of subject. "Well, right now it is mostly to attune myself to the… the melody of the forest. The tsahik's duty is to interpret the will of Eywa and Eywa rarely speaks plainly. She talks to us through the plants and animals all around us. Not literally talks, like we are doing now, but She sends messages that can be read by those who have the eyes to see. If something the clan is doing is not to Eywa's liking, She will find a way to tell us."
"'The melody of the forest', I like that," said Rhada. "But it sounds like a great responsibility."
"Yes."
"But then who is really in charge of the clan?" asked Ivan. "The Olo'eyktan, or the Tsahik?"
Silwanin shrugged. "Ideally they will work together to find the path that is best both for the People and for Eywa. Neither one can command the other."
"And someday you will be mated to the next Olo'eyktan?" asked Rhada. "How is he selected? I know it cannot be one of your brothers, even though they are the sons of the current Olo'eyktan."
"No, the new tsahik is always the child of the Olo'eyktan and the old tsahik. This is usually a girl, although not always. A mate is then selected who will become the new Olo'eyktan. Sometimes the person is selected from inside the clan and sometimes not."
"Really?" said Ivan in surprise. "You'd bring in a new leader from outside?"
"Why not? It brings in new blood and new points of view. It can help prevent conflicts between the clans. Right now, I believe, my mother is considering a male from the Lutapawni clan as a mate for me. His mother is someone my mother met during the war."
"Are all Na'vi marriages arranged like that?" asked Rhada.
"No, not usually. Most are free to pick as they will. And sometimes things… happen."
"Like with your own parents?" asked Ivan with a smile.
"Yes."
"It sounds like the Na'vi have a system that works very well."
"It has always been this way. For as long as anyone remembers."
"And how long is that?"
"A long, long time."
[Scene Break]
Max Patel rapped on the door frame of Rhada's office and then went in. His sister looked up from her monitor and smiled. "Hi Max, thanks for coming so quickly. Shut the door, will you?"
Puzzled, Max did as she asked and then sat down. "So what's up? You sounded… concerned over the com."
"Well, yes, I am concerned. I find that I have a problem."
"What sort of problem? Technical?"
"No, ethical."
"Ethical?" What sort of ethical problem could a geologist be facing?
"Yes. My research on the stone arches had taken a really unexpected turn and I'm not sure how to handle this."
"So what's the problem? You were trying to explain how the arches formed naturally…"
"And that is the problem! I can't explain how they formed naturally—because they didn't!"
[Scene Break]
Max's mouth was hanging open. Rhada almost wanted to laugh. Almost.
"What… what do you mean they didn't form naturally?" he asked in a voice almost too faint to hear.
"I mean that they are not a natural formation. They were constructed. Built—by someone."
"Who?"
"Well, the most obvious choice would be the Na'vi. Who else?"
"But… but the Na'vi are basically at a Neolithic stage of development! How could they possibly have built structures like that?"
"I don't know," said Rhada. "My working theory is that there must have been a more advanced Na'vi culture in the distant past that has since fallen. The arches, by the way, are at least 50,000 years old."
"You… you're sure of all this?"
"As sure as I can be with my current data. Here, look." She swung a monitor around so they could both look at it and brought up a 3D image. "Here is the Tree of Souls. It's sitting in a well, a well that if you remove all the tree roots and miscellaneous debris is almost perfectly circular. Then if you step out about twenty meters we see that this well is sitting inside an even bigger well that is also circular—except for this area here which seems to have collapsed. The rim of this second well is about twenty meters wide and then it starts to step back down again. A lot of this is buried now so it's hardly visible from the air."
"It… it looks like a step pyramid, except the steps are circular instead of square!" exclaimed Max.
"Yes, exactly," said Rhada. "It steps down eight times, with each step being about ten meters high and varying in width from thirty to fifty meters. Notice how all of the arches have their bases resting precisely in the middle of one of the steps. These three were broken off and are completely buried now so, again, the pattern isn't so obvious from the air."
"This… this is incredible!" cried Max. "It will completely change our view of the Na'vi!"
"Yes. And there's my ethical dilemma."
"What do you mean?"
"Should we tell them?"
"Well of course…! Why wouldn't… Er, well…" Max mumbled something and then stopped.
"You see the problem," said Rhada nodding grimly. "How do you tell someone: 'you were great once'? How would they react? The Na'vi seem very happy right now, I'd really hate to mess things up for them."
"But… but we can't keep this a secret!" said Max. "As scientists we have to report this!"
"Yes, but to who? If we tell the Na'vi it might anger them, demoralize them, or maybe just bore them. Maybe they already know, although nothing we've learned about them would indicate it. If we report this back to Earth it could send waves of archeologists and xeno-anthropoligists coming to Pandora with all sorts of unforeseeable consequences. We have to move very carefully, Max."
"Yes… yes, I can see that."
"And you also realize that my conclusions here are extremely preliminary, based solely on remote sensor readings. I'm not ready to make this public without a lot more confirmation."
"So what's your next step?"
"I think there are two avenues of approach. First we need to get some detailed deep-radar probes from orbit of the rest of Pandora. If there really was a prior civilization, I can't believe that these are the only remains. There have to be others. The other avenue is to take a look inside what we've found here."
"Inside?" exclaimed Max. "You mean…?
"Yes, the scans indicate a series of open spaces within and beneath the structure. Some of them are quite extensive. There appear to be two entrances. One here," she indicated a spot on the display, "is buried very deeply, so we can rule that out. But this one here, looks to be only about a dozen meters down and is well away from the Tree of Souls itself. We might be able to get in there without arousing the Na'vi."
"Rhada, we cannot go snooping around in there without the Omaticaya's permission! We just finished convincing them that they can trust the humans. This could ruin all that. As your Olo'eyktan, I will not permit it."
"Oh, throwing your weight around are you, Big Brother?" said Rhada. "I was wondering how long it would be until all that power went to your head." But then she laughed. "No, you're right. But I was thinking that perhaps we could approach the three Omaticaya who most likely won't go nuts over this news."
To Be Continued
