Freedom has Many Faces

Chapter 2

It wasn't that humans attracted nothing more than the Na'vis' hatred; it was more that the Omaticaya had understandably remained wary of them. Their delicate bodies gave no indication of the destructive potential they harboured, and it was undeniable that as little as they knew about the Na'vi, the Na'vi knew even less about them. The incursion of humans into Pandora had been a relatively recent development, a matter of a few decades (by Earth standards) of direct contact, maybe a few years more of distant observation: nothing compared to the millennia the Na'vi had s pent alone in the universe. Inevitably, this lack of open contact had bred anxiety and uncertainty between the two species. For humans and Na'vi alike, what facts they had learned about each other had spun off over time into myths, wild superstitions and, as the Omaticaya knew only too well, simple contempt. The questions posed by both sides were only ever half-answered, and with each strange custom outlined, new questions and new fears were inevitably generated.

There was another, equally grave problem. At least from what the remaining humans related of it, Earth seemed irrelevant. For the Na'vi, who embraced life at even its smallest levels and who claimed to have felt the ceaseless and even flow of energy throughout every body and plant, a dead planet held little interest. Moreover, if the humans had already come to mine Pandora for a precious mineral, it was likely they had other developments in mind for the moon as regards the continuation of their species: potentially anything from taking other resources to the attempted terraforming and total colonisation of some areas. Considerations like this brought Matuei face to face with something she had always sought to deny. Maybe Suhaar was right, if not in what he did to her, then at least in what he had believed.

'So what were you talking to him about?'

Matuei noticed that Nikal was trying hard to sound curious in an off-hand way, rather than interrogative. It was their weekly day of rest, and like most of the other workers they were spending it at home base, lolling around in the branches. Matuei had brought her plough up into the tree in order to examine and repair the blunted blades.

'I need to fix this,' she murmured. 'There's no point breaking my back when the tools don't even work properly.'

'It looked pretty involved.'

Matuei glanced up irritably. 'What did?'

'Your conversation with that human yesterday. I just wondered what the two of you were chatting about.'

'Oh, he was just looking at the plants that are growing up around Hometree. Have you noticed the luxae around there? They're really blossoming.'

Nikal rested her chin on her hands and looked idly into space. 'I can't get used to it. Humans still wandering around, I mean. Especially one like him. It puts me on edge.'

'Mmm-hmm,' muttered Matuei, not really paying much attention.

'I was wracking my brains all last night trying to work out who that human was, and then I remembered. He was a dream-walker once. Not like Jake, though. Not even like that woman who established the school, Grace. Always sneaking around, collecting things, always keeping his distance.'

'He was not chosen as Jake was,' said Matuei, twitching a loose blade. 'He had no other choice. It was a mark of respect, staying away from the People.'

'It was disturbing, that's what it was.' Nikal shuddered. 'To see him now, and the others, as they really are: it makes my blood run cold. Just to think that there were these … mindless bodies wandering around out there that look like us. Hollowed-out things controlled from afar by something alien that was studying us, analysing us, making plans for us.'

'Ay me, you do have a bit of a taste for the melodramatic, Nikal. Hush.'

'I don't like knowing that something like that is still here. I don't like it one bit.'

Matuei might deny it, she might try to ignore it as she did now, but it was nonetheless true. It was impossible for a true Na'vi to look an avatar in the eyes and not feel at some level that they were looking at something that challenged their whole sense of being. The unease lay in the very accuracy of the replicated tissue, the too-familiar glow and texture of the large golden eyes, the perfect adaptation of the creatures' skin to Pandora's nightly cycles of bioluminescence before they had even set foot on the moon. The Na'vi's essence had somehow been distilled and distorted to accommodate the form of a completely different species. It made them look at their own kind in a new way. These hybrid imitations, at first little more than a mere biological curiosity, shook the foundations of everything they had once believed and experienced when an avatar emerged as the sixth Toruk Makto. Some of the clans felt as if their history was no longer their own, and the will of Eywa, though never entirely clear to begin with, seemed nearly impenetrable now. It was little wonder that a number of Omaticaya elders had deserted the clan, unable to accept the new Olo'eyktan. What were the Na'vi now, and what would they become? Had the calculated genetic tinkering of scientists from a species and culture they barely knew anything about made them obsolete somehow? At the very least, they seemed to themselves to have become an extension of – even a testament to the consequences of – the interfacing of alien minds and test tube-grown flesh. The avatar programme could create a body that was flawless and perfectly formed, but it was the bodies of the Na'vi themselves that would come to bear the psychological and physical scars of this process.

Matuei bore those scars more obviously than most. Though the scalpel had first been raised many light years away, it had touched down directly on her skin. Years before the sixth Toruk Makto arrived, its blade had inscribed across her flesh all the anxieties that the arrival of the avatars had provoked. Amongst the mangled remains of the nerves at the back of her head every horror, taboo and identity crisis suffered by the Na'vi was permanently written in scar tissue. When the new flesh had become so unmistakeably similar to their own that the Na'vi could not ignore or reject it, it was no longer the avatar that dwelled in the place where the eye did not see, but her own body, a body that bore witness to unspoken fears. Yet perhaps, she thought, in a world where ex-avatars in human skin walked among the Na'vi, she was not alone there.

Her eyes filled with fresh determination as she thought about the human she had encountered the day before. She couldn't let Suhaar be right.

His hoarse whisper whistled through the chatter and squeaks of the birds above them. 'Careful, careful! Try to keep your elbow as still as possible. That a girl.'

Matuei strengthened her grip on her bow string and stretched out the toes of her right foot. As she felt around with the tips for a better foothold, she kept her sightline trained to the neck of the antelope-like creature before her. Among the rain-slicked rocks she found a reasonably flat moss-covered boulder and began to settle her foot down onto it silently. When her feet were firmly set, her pupils dilated, scoping out the clearing one last time, then they narrowed into two intense black points.

The yerik reared up onto its hind legs and flailed at the air. Its neck thrashed around wildly, streaming with blood from the wound that sliced into its carotid. A second arrow soon followed, flying through the air as soundlessly as the first and struck it in the eye. It fell to the ground and lay still.

Matuei heard the quiet groan of Suhaar's bow relaxing behind her. She turned, confused: she could have sworn she had fired the second arrow as well as the first. Suhaar returned her gaze apologetically and placed the arrow he had loaded in his bow for the killing shot in her hand.

'I shouldn't have second-guessed you,' he said, sealing her fingers over it. 'You had everything under control there. I have done your skill an injustice.'

Matuei placed the arrow in her quiver, handling it delicately, almost reverently. They crept forward and kneeled beside the body.

'Your spirit will now be with Eywa, brother, but your body will remain for the People. Thank you.' They spoke the words together. Suhaar ran his fingers over the top of the yerik's head.

'That was masterful,' he said. He lifted the head and thumbed down the lid of the undamaged eye.

'If I were any kind of master I'd have taken him down with the first arrow.'

'It happens to the best of us. What matters is that you didn't fumble around, you recovered. You got that second shot in clean and fast. The worst thing you can do is get an animal in the neck and spend so much time panicking that it manages to run away and suffocate itself to death. I should have believed in you. That second shot could have never been mine to make. This is a good kill.'

Matuei smiled proudly. Back in those days, when her queue still hung low about her waist, a single compliment from Suhaar was worth a hundred from the Tsahik. Suhaar was one of the most proficient hunters in the clan, and she had hardly been able to believe her own luck when he had agreed to teach her the more advanced tricks of the trade. She, Nikal and four other women had formed a regular hunting group a few months before she first got to know Suhaar, in response to an epidemic that had spread from a neighbouring clan to the Omaticaya. Whilst it claimed a relatively small number of lives, the illness was nonetheless surprisingly debilitating for those who caught it, and there was suddenly much more pressure on the younger clan members to replace the more experienced hunters and take on the majority of the hunting, planting and foraging necessary to keeping the entire clan fed. Working together as a small unit turned out to be an efficient strategy, but Matuei soon became aware that she was falling behind those who had a more natural talent for the hunt, like Nikal. Since Suhaar had frequently expressed his respect for their group, Matuei decided to take a running jump and ask for his help.

'In return for some of that old female intuition? I'd be honoured.'

Suhaar was two years older than her, with a fine build that hardly seemed to fit with the incredible skill he possessed in handling a wide range of weapons. Yet this basic contradiction was the key to his charm. At rest he was quite unassuming, and Matuei had often wondered if this was the reason he was not already mated with a female. The other men who came of age at the same time often strived to turn their bodies into an alluring display of thick musculature, tastefully pronounced with well-placed body paint. Suhaar, meanwhile, was subtler. When he moved, it was as if some mighty unseen force had suddenly animated his narrow limbs. He was so fleet of foot, so fluid in the way that he sprung between branches that he almost seemed to glide through the forest. In his work he was patient and cunning, surveying his surroundings for the most accessible vantage points, hiding places and areas of shelter before he even began to stalk his prey. He was able to creep along the ground without making any noise, even when he finally leapt forward to ambush an animal. Unlike most of the clan, he applied war-paint on his body that would blend in with the smell of the environment, rather than necessarily acting as visual camouflage or cosmetic enhancement.

'Any hunter can avoid being seen if they learn to move properly. That's not the point. How good are you at controlling your sweat glands? An obvious issue, almost always overlooked.'

Suhaar slung the yerik up onto his shoulder in one easy movement. He started to walk back into the cover of the trees. 'So … you've got a good aim, you can take on a talioang almost single-handedly, which believe me is rare, and your aerial combat has greatly improved since you first came to me.'

'It's not just a pair of wings, it's a set of teeth!' laughed Matuei, repeating Suhaar's earlier words to her during their sessions where they had practiced hunting from the air.

Suhaar grinned and shrugged. 'You laugh, but you'd be surprised how many people forget that. They get soft, treat the ikran like pets, or worse, take them completely for granted. They forget what passed between them and the creature in those moments before they made the bond. An ikran demands respect and understanding from the rider from the very first time they look into one another's eyes; otherwise, it'd find no need to put on such a fight. They know they have to mark out their boundaries before Tsahaylu is established. Accepting a rider is the ultimate sacrifice. Its future lies completely in the hands of another. You'll know you've broken an ikran in the worst possible way when you feel it forget it was once a proud and independent hunter. If you lose that terrible awe you had when you met it, Tsahaylu becomes profane and toxic to ikran. The queue of every creature on this moon carries with it a great responsibility. And only a fool would make Tsahaylu on an impulse.'

He draped the yerik's body over the low branch of a nearby tree and turned to face Matuei.

'You're an excellent pupil. There's nothing more I can teach you.'

'But-'

'But nothing. It was a pleasure and a privilege hunting with you, sister. I only hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.'

'Of course, of course!' Matuei's ears dropped. 'But … it feels like it ended so quickly. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little sad. So much has changed in me over these last few months. It's as if I've come to Pandora entirely anew. Your words have transformed this world for the better.'

Suhaar chuckled nervously. His earlier sternness had slipped away completely. 'I know I'm a little heavy-handed with the lecturing. It's not that I don't mean any of it. I'm just aware I have this tendency to sound a little bitter sometimes.' His eyes flashed up quickly to meet hers. 'But not with you, certainly not with you. Um … how can I explain this? …I … I get a little scared sometimes. As if we were losing our way. I know it's largely down to the sickness. The younger generation aren't bad in themselves, but they're being forced to rush something that cannot be rushed because the older ones are struggling to provide for the clan. Time is always against us at the moment – and I only wish we could make time, as you have done. For me. Thank you.'

He closed his arms around her. Matuei bent into his embrace, pressing her head against his shoulder. His chest softened as she leant against him, and she reached up her own arms to hug him closer. The forest around them seemed to grow quieter, almost as if it were melting away around her. A soft breeze carried a single Atokirina' into the clearing where the yerik had been feeding minutes before. The skirt of feathery white tendrils fluttered as the airborne seed sank to the ground. Matuei's fingers traced the long pale ridge of scar tissue ran down Suhaar's bicep. Wordlessly, Suhaar lowered his head and planted a nervous but tender kiss on the girl's shoulder. A light covering of dew that Matuei had knocked onto her skin whilst edging through the damp foliage transferred to his lips. He straightened up and saw Matuei looking into his face with wide, patient eyes.

'You are a good man, Suhaar,' she murmured. 'Not just a great taronyu. There is such compassion within you, love, vulnerability, apprehension. You are a hunter through and through … but it conceals so much else that lies in your heart.'

'Matuei-'

I only wish I could give you the faith and trust that you need. You have reshaped my world. I want to do the same for you. This isn't just about gratitude.' She reached up and brushed a few stray strands of hair from his face. Her hand settled on his brow. 'It's so much more.'

He took her hand and held it gently between his.

'Then your teacher submits himself entirely to your wisdom.'

The dew returned to her lips. She sunk into his kiss.

Back then, her love had felt like a blazing fire in her chest. At that time she never would have guessed that only fifteen years later the heap of ashes would sit cold and dead, weighing her down like a stone in her heart.

A week after her conversation with Nikal about Norm, Matuei walked out into the forest at dawn with the intention of collecting some materials for repairing her plough. Both her skin and the plants around her were dappled with the final traces of their bioluminescent patterning, producing a faint but ornate tapestry of crowded purples, greens and whites, into which her own body merged seamlessly. Gradually the presence of other Na'vi – night owls either by choice or accident – thinned out, and she found herself absent-mindedly cutting a random path across a maze of thick black creepers. She stopped and listened. It had once been almost impossible to get lost out here. All she needed to do was calmly find a pa'li or a suitable zooplant and 'feel out' her route back home with the aid of her neural queue. Without this appendage, the forest had become a more confusing and threatening space. She no longer moved through it by instinct, but by landmarks: a system which had taken her a long time to get used to once it became necessary. Usually she tried to avoid walking around at night. She soon learned after she lost her queue that the beautiful lights that burst out from every leaf and animal had a tendency to render a route by which she easily travelled out beyond Hometree whilst it was still light virtually unrecognisable when she tried to return.

Likewise, she regretted venturing out now. A distant chatter overhead gave a vague indication of which direction she should head in: the nocturnal birds in question usually flew east at sunrise, in the direction of the Omaticaya's refuge. Yet as she turned to follow their cries, a mangled scream rang out through the air from her left.

Matuei instantly dropped to her hands and toes. She felt the muscles of her scalp tighten and her hair stand on end. She grabbed at her hip, feeling for her stone knife. If the beast was as close and as large as it sounded, it was unlikely that slashing at the air in front of it would deter an attack, and what really amounted to a glorified paring knife would never be enough to take it down. Her only hope was to run away as fast as possible – but running blind might only prove more dangerous. She tensed her calves and waited for the opportune moment to escape unnoticed.

She heard a weak whine and cautiously looked down past the branch on which she was perched. About thirty feet below her, an ikran was lying on the forest floor. One of its broad green wings was stretched out beside it. The other was apparently crumpled underneath its body. Its head rested to one side, the yellow eye darting along her branch and staring into her face. It whined again and tried to lift its spine to allow its other wing to slip out from where it had been trapped by the reptile's bulk, and even in the half-light she could see the muscles strain and bulge under its skin and the legs scrabble feebly to support the torso. After a few seconds it slumped to the ground with a frustrated hiss.

'You're hurt,' Matuei said.

The translucent third lid closed partially over its eyeball, giving it a look that said, 'Really? I hadn't noticed!' Matuei smiled.

'-But then I suppose that's obvious. Will you let me examine you? I promise not to hurt you.'

The ikran stared back at her silently. She picked her way down the lower limbs of the tree and stepped out warily onto the ground. Her ears perked up on either side of her head, rotating slightly to scan the surrounding area for hidden dangers. Neither hearing nor scenting any, she carefully approached the ikran.

Now that she was level with it, she could see the body of the rider slumped a few feet away. Their queues were still connected, but there was a hint of either a struggle to disconnect or a solid blow to the point at which the two cords joined. The fleshy covering of the pink nerves had started to strip away, and the stringy tendrils underneath were torn and weeping. Edging round the ikran so as not to disturb it in this fragile state, Matuei knelt down beside the connected Na'vi and pressed her fingers to his neck. His skin was smeared with rings of blazing red war-paint, revealing that he was a member of the Eastern Sea Clan. She pressed her other hand flat on his chest, but couldn't find a pulse. Even though it could no longer feel the life-force of the rider, the ikran was clearly terrified at finding itself still bound to his corpse. The ikran looked to be young and quite small considering it had come from one of the mountain rookeries, and its relative inexperience had made it particularly anxious. At the very least Matuei had to break the link. It would be easier to hack off the tip of the Na'vi's queue and let the dead remains of his nerves drop off the ikran's queue naturally, but she decided instead to try to help the ikran relax into releasing its own grip. She looked around for anything – food, a distraction – that could help her settle it down. She found nothing. The forest was abnormally silent and still here, perhaps already acknowledging it as a place of death that would soon consume the ikran as well as its rider.

She laid her fingers on the end of the ikran's queue and began to caress the translucent grey flesh. To her relief, she saw that the desperate grip the reptile's nerves exerted on those of the dead Na'vi was loosening up with her rhythmic motions. The pink tendrils tentatively coiled back towards her hand, seeking reassurance and the touch of another living thing. Yet when she reached out and touched the tips of the cluster, the nerves recoiled into themselves like the eyes of a snail. A low moan of discomfort escaped the ikran's mouth. As the skin sealed over the bud of nerves, Matuei crawled backwards and brushed the warm bead of a single tear from her cheek.

The ikran curled its neck around to look at the fallen rider beside it. It sniffed at his queue, then nudged his body with its snout. After a few moments it looked back towards Matuei, then rested its head back down on the ground.

'I'm so sorry, brother. You-'

Suddenly, a twig snapped behind her and she swung around. The ikran reared its head up and hissed. Some of its strength seemed to have returned on being released from its bond, and it thumped the ground with the claws of its open wing, trying to drag itself towards the unseen threat.

'Who's there?' Matuei growled. Her eyes roved over the foliage. 'Answer me!'

'Oh crap…' A familiar figure edged out of the forest, hands raised on either side of his head. He caught sight of the wounded ikran and virtually tripped over his own feet trying to back away. It growled and snapped at the air. Matuei stroked its neck.

'Be calm, brother. You are not in any danger.'

The ikran withdrew reluctantly; she relaxed.

'Norm, yes? What are you doing out here?'

'There's a problem with our waterworks. The ones leading to the colony station, I mean,' said Norm, still staring at the ikran. 'I think maybe a pipe got knocked loose or something. We draw the water from a spring around here … somewhere … I … I think I'm a bit lost.' He looked at Matuei. 'I should probably go back and try again when it's lighter. Sorry I startled you.'

'Wait. Could you help me with something? I don't think I can manage it alone.'

'I don't think it'd go down too well if I got any closer to that thing,' said Norm, already turning back into the forest. 'You should probably leave it alone too. This place isn't safe for anyone.'

'He's hurt, Norm. I think his leg is broken, maybe his wing too. I know he doesn't look like it, but he's very weak.'

'But you can't-'

'He can put on a show, yes, but he's only straining himself further. He cannot fight in this condition. We need to help him.' Matuei stepped forward and grasped Norm's shoulder lightly. 'The rider who was flying with him is dead, but he can still survive. If he's left here, palulukan, thanator will get him, and it'll be for no good reason. No good reason at all.'

'Matuei, it's no good. Leave him be.'

'Five minutes could make all the difference.'

Norm shook off her hand. 'Matuei, trust me, this kind of thing has been really well-documented in the research that we've been doing through the avatar programme. In all the instances that researchers have tracked the lives of banshees after their Na'vi partner dies, it's the same sad story. It gets rejected when it tries to go back to its original rookery, it goes looking for a new home but it can't hunt by itself any more so it gets too weak to fly, and in the space of a month it dies. This happens every single time.'

'No…'

'I know it's sad. It's absolutely heart-breaking, but it's the best thing you can do for it. It's like releasing a pet dog into a pack of wolves. It's better this way. Look, I'm sorry, but when we're talking about something there's almost a hundred papers on by respected scho-'

'I don't care!' shouted Matuei. 'You know nothing! You pretend that you know the truth, but you're completely ignorant! How can you know anything – none of the People even cared that you walked among us on Pandora! How can you know anything of a world that rejects your kind! He's not some pet - he has every chance of living! He deserves a second opportunity! Everything deserves a second opportunity! You are nothing to him! You and your "researchers" are soulless parasites, crawling in the dirt – and you dare to wonder why this world ignores you!'

She crumpled to the ground and flicked the tears away from her eyes. She was furious at herself for crying – for letting some clueless human get to her so easily. Behind her, the ikran gave a quiet trilling coo, evidently unsettled by the volume of her outburst. When she looked up, she was surprised to see Norm still standing in front of her, but she did not see the guilt on his face, only his balled-up fists, held rigid at his sides. She gasped and stumbled backwards with a loud screech of pain.

Norm stared. Matuei's sudden and incomprehensible shift from anger to wild fear appeared entirely unmotivated and spontaneous. She had leapt away from him as if stuck by lightning. He almost dreaded looking back over his shoulder, expecting to see a palulukan lurking behind him, thick black quills flared up around its head and its lips drawn back in the ghastly grimace of a flehmen response as it drank in his scent through its mouth … but there was nothing there.

'Matuei, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so harsh with you back there. I just thought you-'

'Forget it.' She was already back on her feet, brushing down her knees. She turned back to the ikran, who had watched this exchange with silent bemusement. Matuei stroked its head.

'Eywa is merciful. She would not let him suffer like this if she didn't mean him to go on. Please, Norm. I didn't mean to lose my temper like that. Almost everyday the burial teams return with nothing but bad news and haunted eyes. I just wanted to make a difference – but I can't do this alone. It's a two-man job and I can't abandon him now to look for someone else. He was calling to me with the last of his strength.'

Norm did not reply.

'The last time I spoke to you, you showed such love and fascination for the forest. I cannot believe the same man would give up on its creatures so easily. Please.'

Norm sighed. He dropped his rucksack off his back onto the ground and re-adjusted his breathing apparatus, shaking his head.

'This is sad, this is just sad.' He got to his feet. 'You'll have to cover its eyes first. I don't care how cuddly and fluffy you say this thing is; if we don't cover its eyes it won't even tolerate being examined, especially by the likes of me.'

He kneeled down again and eased the oxygen supply off his back before removing his khaki jacket. 'Here, we can use this.'

'It's worth a try, but be careful. Approach it slowly.'

'Right. Watch it closely. You may have bones like diamond, but one bite from this guy and I'd be saying goodbye to everything from my waist down. Okay, let's give this a shot.'

Norm held the jacket out in a flat sheet. Matuei trailed her hand down to the bony crest on the ikran's lower jaw and held it gently. She kept talking to the creature in a low whisper to ensure its attention was fixed on her, and tried not to look up to see how Norm was progressing.

Suddenly he flung the jacket over the ikran's eyes and pulled it down over both sides of the head. It squealed and tried to pull away from him, but Matuei tightened her grip on its chin and held it firm against her shin. If she relied too much on the human holding the head towards his body, it could shatter the bones of his legs or his glass mask in an instant. She tugged the jacket down over its jaws. Norm swung a hand free and grabbed at a rolled length of thick metal cable on the side of his bag.

'Tie this around his head!' he shouted. 'It'll hold the cover on. Quickly!'

With his help Matuei wound the cord about the ikran's jaws and pulled it into a knot.

'On the count of three, we'll release it together,' panted Norm. Matuei nodded. 'One … two … three!'

They leapt back from the ikran. It lifted its blanketed head, shook it from side to side in its confusion, then gradually laid it back down on the earth again.

'It worked,' murmured Matuei.

'Great. Now we have to set the leg and get it off that right wing. Fortunately it's not a compound fracture, so he doesn't seem to have lost any blood. See how its all wound up and bent funny? We have to pull it back into place before we tie it to a splint.' His manner was business-like and methodical, but he knew that he was acting this way primarily to suppress the terror he felt at having actually touched the gigantic beast. He glanced around. 'Can you find a piece of wood, about this long?' He measured out an invisible length between his forefingers. 'It has to be solid, but reasonably straight, and it'll need to be as dry and as free of any mould and fungus and bugs as possible.'

'I'll do my best,' said Matuei.

She ran her hand through the undergrowth, searching for fallen branches. She heard fabric being torn behind her and glanced back to see Norm ripping his shirt into a row of strips long enough to tie the splint around the ikran's leg. Eventually Matuei came across a slab of thick bark scraped from one of the trees. She carried it back and knelt beside the twisted leg. Cautiously she reached out and placed her hand on the narrow hip joint. Norm reached back into his bag and took out a small bottle of whisky. He poured all but the last mouthful of the liquid that was left inside onto his hand and rubbed the two together vigorously.

'Oh,' said Matuei. 'Was that the last of your water? Shall I get some more?'

Norm grinned. 'No, no, it's fine. It's not water. And trust me, this army-issue stuff tastes so bad, the only thing it's any good for is sterilising stuff.'

He laid his hands down slowly on the ikran's leg, and felt around for the break. The ikran gave a loud hiss and flung its wing weakly in his direction. He ducked and loosened his grip.

'Bingo. Okay, I need you to hold the hip and the foot as steady as you can. I'm going to try bending this loosely back into shape with the splint. We'll have to work really fast when it comes to tying it all together. Do you think you can calm him down somehow?'

'I'll do my best. He's very scared, but I think he knows we're trying to help him.'

'Well, that's good to know. At least now I can rest assured that if he kills me it won't be on purpose.'

Matuei ignored him and began to hum a gentle, lilting tune and slipped her hand down to the clawed foot. She nodded to Norm, who held the bark against the leg. Matuei looked over at the freed wing, preparing to dive forward and push Norm aside if it came down again to strike at them.

'Here goes,' whispered Norm.

The force with which he pushed the fractured leg caught Matuei by surprise. The ikran screamed and began to thrash about, scraping at the two of them with its other leg. It was trying to bend and swing its wing into a hard bludgeon aimed directly at Norm's head, but the human had already ducked safely out of range, and was wrapping the strips of his shirt around the splinted leg. Matuei's humming opened up into louder, more insistent singing as she knotted the strips into place. The struggle was over in less than a minute.

'Stand back,' Matuei ordered. 'I'll try to lift his body off the other wing.'

With one strong push she held the ikran's mass up high enough for the crumpled wing to slip out. It was filthy and trembling, with two large round tears in the somewhat anaemic-looking membrane that had started to show signs of infection, but it appeared unbroken. Resuming her song, Matuei walked round to the wing and began massaging it with long, firm movements in an attempt to get the blood flowing through it again. Norm stood a little way off with his hands on his hips, examining the wounds.

'I might be able to cut away some of that bad tissue. The alcohol should help disinfect it for a while.'

Matuei passed her knife to him, and he set to work, applying the remainder of the whisky to the knife's tip and the edges of each tear. The ikran winced a little at the sting, but remained reasonably still, soothed by Matuei's massage and singing. After roughly ten minutes, the wing began to flex by itself. Norm cleaned the edge of the knife on his vest top and handed it back to Matuei. He breathed a sigh of relief. Matuei saw that there were tears running down his face.

'Thank you so much. I didn't realise you'd be so good at this,' she said, calmly trying to making amends for shouting at him earlier. 'Are you trained?'

'Well, if you go out on the field, you have to be. It's just basic medical training, nothing fancy.' Norm dropped his head and breathed out heavily. His mask frosted up briefly. 'I can't believe I just did that. Christ, I should be dead by now.'

'Eywa has protected you. She knows you have a good heart, Norm.'

Eywa, thought Norm, or just plain dumb luck? Na'vi anthropologist or not, he knew which of those two he would have considered more likely. His heart was thundering in his chest and his whole body seemed to grow warm with the thrill of survival. His head felt lighter than air: he didn't know if he was about to pass out or burst into a fit of hysteria.

Presently, he became aware of Matuei gently shepherding him away from the ikran. It was standing now, balanced on the knuckle of each wing and its good leg. Matuei had removed the jacket from its head. It hobbled towards them and lowered its nose to Norm's chest, snorting in the smell of his vest. He gulped. Yep, definitely going to faint. He hardly registered that the ikran was making a quiet purring sound and that the sniffing had been replaced with a few insistent but feather-light rubs of its snout against his chest.

'Find yourself a new home, brother,' said Matuei. 'You are still strong by yourself. Do not be afraid. I know there are others like you out there. This I promise.'

The ikran turned and began hauling itself up towards the canopy. The sunlight was streaming down now, illuminating the edges of its wings and blowing precious heat into the fiercely pumping blood vessels that were visible in each membrane. The ikran's progress was gradual but steady, and when it reached the top, they heard the bellow of the wind hooked under its wings. A triumphal shriek rang out across the forest.

Norm's mouth fell open. 'My god … it's already fit to fly again?'

Matuei leapt up with a shout of joy and clapped her hands together above her head.

'Fly high, brother, fly high!'

'It's okay,' panted Norm in total disbelief. 'The banshee's okay. It's … oh god, I had my hands all over that thing and I'm still in one piece. I have to sit down.'

He flopped to the ground and laughed to himself. His hands were trembling uncontrollably. The tears were streaming down his cheeks now. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and shook himself all over. Matuei's hand dropped to his shoulder and rubbed it reassuringly.

'Are you alright, Norm? You're shaking…'

'Nothing sixty gallons of that god-awful whisky wouldn't cure.'

The pale flesh of the teylu grubs crackled and spat from where they hung gouged on a skewer over the fire. Matuei slipped her arm from around Suhaar's waist and got to her feet.

'I think they're done,' she said, slipping the wooden stick from the two x-shaped supports on which it was resting. She blew on the hot meat and sat down beside her mate. Suhaar kissed her cheek and started to reach forward to pluck a grub off the stick.

'Careful!' warned Matuei. 'Don't burn yourself.'

Suhaar paused and opened the palm of his hand towards her. 'Have you seen the calluses on these things lately? A little burn wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. A collection like mine would be the pride of any archer, don't you think?'

Matuei took his hand in hers. She traced its outline and pads tenderly with her thumb. 'Mmm. But how can you feel anything? There must be no difference between bark and my skin to your touch.'

'Well, see, I was worried about that some time ago. You may not know this, but I have held hands with many girls. But none like you.'

'Awww.' Matuei smiled and rested her head against his chest.

'None of them could ever compare to you. Moist, soft, completely free of imperfections – no, no, no. I got just what I was looking for – the finest old wizened tree of the lot!'

'You beast!' squealed Matuei, slapping his chest playfully. 'Okay, that's it!'

Holding the skewer away from him, she jumped to her feet and barked at the morning sky. Suhaar stretched forward from where he was sitting and grabbed at her heels. She skipped away from his hands with a giggle and continued to crack short high-pitched barks off her palate with her tongue.

'What are you doing?' laughed Suhaar, rolling onto his side.

The sound of approaching wing beats thundered through the air as a purple ikran soared into view at Matuei's command. The ikran circled once above them, searching for the best place to land, and then swooped down to the cliff's edge. Matuei made the bond and climbed up on its back. She took a large, exaggerated bite from the roasted grub skewer and smiled broadly. The juices of the meat trickled down her chin.

'If you want a piece, you'll have to catch me first, taronyu,' she said. He wrapped her arm around the ikran's neck. 'Fly fast, Bej, a hunter's on our tail!'

'Wait!' Suhaar shouted as the ikran leapt back into the air. He started to summon his own ikran, remembered that the fire was still blazing, and raced towards it, kicking the ring of stones placed around it onto the flames in a frantic jig. A large blue ikran landed behind him. He held up his queue.

'After her, Wi'sne! Catch that thief!' He patted the reptile's head. 'But treat her gentle.'

They swung off the cliff, diving forty feet in a matter of seconds. The treetops crashed and swayed below as the ikran's wings sucked up vast swells of air. Suddenly it exploded upwards and raced after Matuei's ikran. Suhaar's mate looked round and waved. Suhaar lowered his head and bore his teeth in a wide grin.

'Mmm-mmm! Suhaar, this is delicious, you really should have some!' Matuei chewed the second grub off her skewer and threw its tail to Bej, who gulped it up enthusiastically. She leant closer to the ikran's head and whispered, 'Girl, if you lose him I will give you half of what's left.'

Bej screeched and spun into a tight turn, sling-shotting around a cliff face. She beat her wings violently and dipped one towards the ground. She rolled steadily until her body has tilted ninety degrees, and Matuei had just enough time to realise what her mount was aiming for: a narrow rupture between two parallel pillars of rock, about a quarter of a mile in depth. As they drew closer and closer, it seemed to slim down into an ever tighter crack, the walls on either side becoming increasingly visible till they gave the illusion that the space was closing up before Matuei's eyes. She clung as closely to Bej's neck as she could. Apparently sensing her sudden uncertainty and fear, Bej gave a long, purring trill and dived into the crevice.

When Matuei opened her eyes again, she was shocked to find that they had landed securely on a horizontal surface, banked on either side by a curving rock face, each slumping towards the other like the two planes of a roof. She clasped to the bony ridges of Bej's shoulder-blades and peered down. Bej was contentedly chewing on the skewer of teylu grubs where it had fallen to the ground.

'Where are we?' Matuei asked. She hopped down off Bej's back and released her queue.

The space around them was not so much a cavern as a long corridor with a thin stream running down its middle. She spotted a bush some twenty feet away at the opening where daylight strained into the passage and ran towards it. The roof of the gap opened up before her, and she realised that Bej had arced straight down into a hollowed-out tunnel at the foot of the two rock pillars that was overgrown and thus virtually invisible from the outside. She looked back towards the ikran still munching away contentedly on the last of her snack.

'Not just a pretty face, I see. I didn't realise you were such an adventurous type, Bej.'

'Matuei! Where are you?'

She jumped at the call. She'd momentarily forgotten that Suhaar was still pursuing her. His ikran was hovering in front of the pillars and angling its head this way and that, trying to peer into the gap.

'I'm down here!'

Suhaar leaned over the side of the ikran and squinted at the foot of the crevice. 'How did you get down there?'

Matuei laughed and looked back at Bej. 'I don't really know! I'll meet you up there.'

The response was an ear-splitting scream. She looked up just in time to see Wis'ne reel towards the cover of the canopy, a toruk right on his tail. It had managed to catch the hovering ikran unaware and had swooped down soundlessly from its perch on the rock pillar to her left. Wis'ne jetted around the treetops, searching frantically for an opening. The larger predator powered after him till its body eclipsed Suhaar's mount, blocking him from sight.

'Suhaar!' screamed Matuei. She leapt out into the forest and ran as fast as her legs would carry her towards the spot where she had last seen the two reptiles. She was barely halfway there when she heard another screech. Her blood ran cold: it was the cry of an ikran. A bellowing roar followed, and she saw the toruk lurch off back to its perch. Its claws were empty.

'Damn it, marine, I told you to hold your fire!'

'Doctor, those two monsters were about to attack us. We all saw it coming.'

'Oh yeah? Care to explain why you fired on the wrong one!'

A strange party rushed out of the surrounding cover. One appeared to be a Na'vi in a style of dress Matuei had never seen before. A beige garment completely covered her torso, combined with a pair of knee-length black shorts. It was the other two creatures, however, that were the strangest members of this trio. They were bipeds, slightly less than half the size of an adult Na'vi, with pale skin broken only by a thin covering of dark hairs on their exposed forearms. Both wore clothing crudely decorated with irregular shapes and murky colours that Matuei assumed were intended to break up their outlines and help them blend in with the forest. They carried curious long weapons in their hands, and their heads were entirely encased in transparent shells that seemed roughly analogous to the visors ikran riders wore to protect their eyes from the rushing winds and any debris and insects flying around in it.

Matuei instinctively dropped to her hands and lashed her tail from side to side in a defensive manner. The smaller creatures looked down at her quizzically, as if they didn't really understand the gesture. Her lips skinned back over her teeth to reveal her fangs, and her tongue jetted out between her jaws. It flicked against the underside of her top lip in an aggressive upward curl, then slipped back into her mouth.

One of the figures began to back away, muttering in a strange language: 'Uhh, Dr. Augustine, I thought you said these things probably wouldn't eat people…'

'Well, I speculated as much. But right now I wouldn't mind if you were the one to disprove my theory,' the strange Na'vi responded in the same language. 'Pipe down, both of you. It's a standard display – she's trying to avoid a confrontation, not start one.'

The clothed Na'vi took a slow step backwards and kept her head and tail low as she tried to avoid looking directly into Matuei's eyes. When she next spoke, it was in fluent Na'vi.

'I'm sorry that I've crossed into your territory. I mean you no harm. I am an envoi from another clan, a doctor, a teacher. My name is Grace. I came so that I might seek a consultation with your Tsahik. It is a matter of some importance-'

All of a sudden Suhaar marched into view, a hand cupped over one eye and his face wracked with pain. He jerked his bow towards the newcomer angrily.

'Are you insane? What do you think you are doing! Firing arrows like a maniac - we could have died!'

'We were trying to hit the toruk, not you,' said Grace. She reverted back to her own language. 'Christ, I told them a million times, no trigger-happy dumb-shit human escort! If it weren't for that damn research grant I swear I'd have turned Selfridge's fat head into a hood ornament by now. Shoulda' known they were handing me a poisoned chalice the moment they-'

Suhaar swiped an arrow from his quiver and lunged forward. He kicked away one of the smaller animals with a low blow to the stomach and held the tip against the newcomer's neck. She lifted her palms in surrender, but her face remained calm.

'I'm unarmed. Please-'

'You are not one of the People!' Suhaar barked. 'This is not the language of the People. Your eyes lie too close together. And you smell strange – not even of the forest.' His eyes passed to her raised hands. At the sight of the extra finger on each, he snarled. 'What are you? What kind of creature steals the skin of a Na'vi and wears it for its own! Speak, impostor!'

'I mean you no harm.' She spoke slowly and firmly. 'I come from another clan, with good intentions. I will send these two away and submit to your custody without any weapons. If I could just talk to your leaders, you'll see I am no threat to the Omaticaya.'

Matuei stepped forward and grasped the arrow's shaft, pushing it gently back towards Suhaar.

'What are you doing-?'

'She's telling the truth.'

'How do you know? Don't you find it at all suspicious that someone … something like her just crops up and requests, even expects an audience with the Olo'eyktan?' Suhaar paused and breathed out heavily. 'Matuei, I remember our vows. I remember how you swore to teach me to trust in the world and see it through an open heart. Nothing is more important to me than honouring your wishes, but I cannot ignore my instincts!'

'Even if she's lying, we have no other choice. We have no right to judge or execute these strangers. We have to bring them to Eytukan and Mo'at. Only they will know what to do.' Suhaar's strong hold on the arrow yielded, and she pressed its head down towards the ground. 'Eywa gave us the responsibility of being their first point of contact for a reason. We must deliver them. This is her will.'

Suhaar nodded slowly and uncertainly. He retreated.

'Tell your companions to hand their weapons to us,' Matuei said to Grace. 'We will take all three of you to meet with our clan leaders. They will decide how best to deal with you and your … "matter of some importance".'

'It's too far to walk,' said Suhaar. 'We'll have to fly back to Hometree. I'm afraid Wi'sne is still in shock. You'll have to carry them on Bej.'

'Somehow I get the impression that has more to do with me than Wi'sne.'

Suhaar grunted. 'We'll talk about this later. Be sure to make sure I can keep you in sight when you're up in the air. I want to make sure these intruders don't get any ideas.'

Grace held the two guns out to him with their butts turned to the ground as he turned back into the forest. He snatched them from her and stalked away.

'Come. It's okay, we won't hurt you,' said Matuei. She started back towards Bej's concealed resting place.

Grace nodded to the two human soldiers and jogged forward a little to keep up pace with Matuei.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause any trouble between you and your mate.'

Matuei sighed. 'He's naturally suspicious. It's nothing new, he's been that way for a long time.'

She looked over at Grace. She did look strange – a bit 'off', somehow. Her nose was much narrower and her face slightly longer than an ordinary Na'vi's. Her eyes, though, conveyed a sense of honesty, a benign expression which suggested a curious mixture of humbleness and excited fascination.

'I am Matuei. I'm sorry, I didn't really get your name.'

'It's Grace.' The strange Na'vi's ears perked up. 'I may have been hearing things wrong, but did you say something about flying just then?'

'Yes. You have flown before, yes?'

Grace looked up at the birds wheeling in the sky. 'Not like this.'

'But surely you must be of age! What clan are you from? Is it based very far away from these parts?'

'Further than you know, Matuei. Much, much further.'

Author's note: First off, thanks very much to those people who commented/faved/added a story alert after reading the last chapter – all greatly appreciated!

Secondly, I rushed this chapter out in a couple of slow weekday evenings and I'm sure it shows, especially in some of that ridiculously cheesy dialogue and the parts where I obviously forgot how to write in proper sentences – *bites fist in embarrassment* … gnah…

I did originally plan to set aside the flashback-esque scenes in a separate chapter, but I thought that might be a bit too torturous (and, of course, less conducive to some good old-fashioned completely over-stated thematic mirroring!). I hope this non-linear approach works for anyone who's reading. In case I managed to confuse anyone along the way, the first scene is set in the present of the story, the second in the past a good few years before the time period covered in the film, the third in the present again, and obviously the fourth takes place in the past. Easy peasy, pudding and pie.

Y'know, as much as Avatar itself feels like a really derivative film 90% of the time, I'm starting to appreciate how easy it is to nab elements from other texts. I've already caught myself riffing on Invasion of the Body-Snatchers and Forbidden Planet (granted it's a very obscure reference to one of that film's more amusing scenes featuring Robby the Robot that I just couldn't resist) in this chapter alone. It has crossed my mind that I'm more in love with wonderful, wonderful 1950s sci-fi/horror films than is really healthy.