End of Augustine Research Station

All the people at Augustine stood at the space ferry landing pad when the Valkyrie landed, and soon as landing formalities had been taken care of chatting with the space mariners got under way. Special for the occasion of this ISV call meant to be the last one, the message Angie had sent out before each ISV arrival had for this calling been amended as such:

"Notice to ISV Procyon: You are like all the preceding ISVs welcome down at Augustine Research Station, formerly Hell's Gate, to sell us spare parts and materials we can pay for with refined unobtanium ore. What is new this time round is that Your ISV will be the last one welcome down at Pandora. The reason is that Your ISV was sent out from Earth before our message of the eviction of RDA from Pandora arrived at Earth. All the coming ISV will have left from Sol Solar system after we sent the message that RDA had been banished from Pandora for ever, or they may have had a message sent to them from Earth and received it under way, before calling here. We can in other words not trust them so they will not be welcome down here. Furthermore, there is another reason for terminating the operation: We have very little ore left on stock to sell you. So when appliances and systems already from time to time malfunctioning start to really act up, it will be time for us to abandon the whole base. And it will, well before so happens, we who are going to stay here have taken our precautions. We have made ready for the event with care so You don't need to feel sorry for us.

It follows from these given facts that no further avatars will be accepted down here. Technical systems and key raw materials are the only merchandise we care to purchase, and those meant for life sustenance only. We will have to negotiate more in detail when Your representatives come down to us."

Jake kept in the background when the Valkyrie space ferry came down. His job in the event was after all to manage the na'vi warriors keeping watch over the embarkation, unloading and loading and at last debarkation processes. Skipper Beau Bascom came out to greet the negotiator of the station people, Norm, it was he who managed the human side of the affair. The skipper then said: "I also have the pleasure of introducing You to brigadier Neville Cox, who is to be head of security at the base we are about to install at the moon of Svarog up there. You can discuss what you want for you ore with him."

Trudy and Max stood at a distance and beheld the two spacefarers, the space seaman and the gruff military man. Trudy said: "That guy gives me the creepers, I could have sworn that evil, old Quaritch had come back from the dead! And that face expression of his, with clenched jaws and steely eyes, plus that tight fist, give me the impression that he is trying hard to keep his mask from falling off. I wouldn't be overly surprised if I find out that he is up to something ominous!" Max had a comment: "I get the same stony feeling in my belly when I watch him. And did you notice Trudy, the skipper makes no secret about it, that they are about to set up a base up there – that may some day be a grave threat against us!" Max and Trudy had just this small ominous premonition and were correct about that, Cox had actually gone down to Pandora to size up those he knew probably would be his opponents some day in the future…

Since many things were going to take place for the last time there were many affairs to be arranged special this time. Hal took a last turn at the stereolithographic plant, churning out parts needed to keep up the life sustaining appliances just some time more, before boarding the space ferry along with "Vyta" Iniskius and his Ewa, they on their part made up a splendid good bye party with the most exquisite food they were able to haul out of their pots and pans. But Hal had spent some time with Todd, explaining him how to produce some simple affairs, like some ammunition for firearms etc.

So the day came. Everything had been delivered, the Valkyrie was now about to leave to go up to Svarog. Everything was ready to start the complex closing process of Augustine soon as the cargo door slammed shut. The three to leave (and as brigadier Cox had secretly already decided, soon to end their lives) were greeted their good byes and given a document with Jakes best attestation for jobs well done to the utmost satisfaction of all the staff at Augustine Research Station and the Omatikaya clan. They entered the passenger cabin and took seats, the cargo door slowly closed, the engines ignited and the space ferry was airborne. Then they all walked into the main hall. Jake, Mo'at and Neytiri were already there, they were to hold a speech.

After their speeches Max walked to the avatar lab. Norm's avatar had been finish for some months already, he wouldn't need any lectures of language and customs, he was recently finish with his physical tests and could soon start the na'vi physical training course Jake had made ready. The other staff people with avatars had been lectured in and had trained for many details about the life they were to enter into, and were ready to start their tests as soon as their mentors thought them capable for it.

And there was his and Trudy's own avatars. They had studied nature and customs like the rest of them but they had never before had their own avatars… and there was a small but undeniable risk that their avatars simply wouldn't graft on to their brains. Well, in about a year's time they would finally come to find out! Trudy had stated quite explicitly that she wouldn't want to get asphyxiated by the noxious atmosphere if so was to happen, in so case she would take a pistol and turn it on her own head… Max didn't allow himself to think thoughts like that, he had given his best efforts in developing these avatars and had his own life at stake in them so he couldn't allow despair to creep in on him. Of course those two avatars would be in perfect shape!

Those who already had their own avatars got their ay'ikran one by one. Some took to their flying mount with more ease than others; Melanie, Ernie and Deke took to them like fish to water (or like birds to the air…) Finally they were allowed to lay down in their two shapes under the Tree of Spirits, and soon after rise up with just one. For some time Nick seemed to be verging on disaster, it took some time before he woke up to his new life but in the end he came up like all the rest of them. Eywa had probably had some words with him in the limbo… Only Max and Trudy were left, but of course some former avatars came to them from time to time, delivering them food, keeping the life-sustaining systems up and running to the best of their abilities etc. It was still a lonely life after all…

And then one day it was their time to give it a try! Max had geared up the avatar maturation process to the maximum speed he could dare, it still took a year or so more after the rest of them until their own, new avatars were in ready shape. So Max and Trudy laid down in their cells, and tried to think about nothing at all while Wayne and Jenny managed the terminals, sitting in their blue bodies. A colourful and cacophonic chaos erupted, they opened their eyes, looked up and saw Jake, Neytiri and Mo'at standing at the gurneys.

"We are just checking your senses now, to make sure that your dreamwalking bodies are working well. Then later today you are going to the Tree of Spirits." Neytiri said. "We go to the hallowed tree soon because Todd has said that the air scrubbers are very evidently just limping along by now, they could start malfunctioning any day, so we better transfer you to your permanent bodies as soon as possible. We dearly well want you among us, both of you!" Jake added.

Max had some new experiences he had been expecting for quite some time, first of all he knew that he from now on had to get used to the name Maksine te Kolkata Mary'ite (after his Indian home city Kolkata and his mother Mary Patel), she soon found out about her new body – she could feel her bust move when she rose from the gurney, and some time into the physical tests nature demanded her to take a leak – another experience of a new kind!

Trudy on her part was overjoyed to be rid of the ugly, itching and occasionally inflamed scars from the Great Battle. That she had received something else along with her "body update" she wouldn't come to discover until some days after her "transfiguration", when an aching stomach would end in an awful bout of diarrhoea. It was discovered after some time and further bouts of diarrhoea that she couldn't digest tiz beets and the oil squeezed from them. Well, she was still happy, not being able to eat food with ingredients of tiz was a good bargain for being rid of those scars, not to speak about surviving at all without technological support in this environment!

That very evening the former avatars, plus Max and Trudy, had an audience they were unaware of. Cox had sent down at Pandora quite a few PR agents and spies roaming around, agitating for New RDA and its opportunities for na'vi clans not cooperating with Jake and his federation. One of those spies kept an eye on Augustine. Agent Rodney Gorman could report that twenty-something avatars were now leaving the base, carrying two naked female avatars on stretchers, and a naked man with a big beard and a small naked woman on another pair of stretcher, into the forest. At the forest end he saw them harness the stretchers to some direhorse teams and mount some other direhorses, and finally the whole procession trotted into the forest and vanished.

He clearly noticed a certain solemnity about the procession – total silence and slow strides with obvious gravity – but he couldn't know that he was beholding the last hours of human welcome at Pandora for some sixty years to come: The procession carrying Max and Trudy, and their avatars, to the Tree of Spirits for their appointments with Eywa. So he noted in his report that there had to be something special to this procession, hard for him to say what.

The day afterwards he came down to Augustine and found the whole place deserted. But not for long, he made a hasty retreat when he saw some avatars coming flying by ikrans down at the building complex, it was Angie who was going to take a look at recordings of the space activity during the past day, and Todd who was to switch off the air quality control and cannibalize all its parts to produce some parts for her radio lab and some few rockets and bullets more for the army Jeff was training for Jake. So there was still life at the station but as a colony of humans it was no more.