Chapter 4

"Rhada, you need to get some sleep," said Max looking at his sister. "You can't keep driving yourself like this."

Rhada looked up from her desk and nodded. But then she turned back to the ring of computer displays. "We're running out of time, Max. Mo'at will be back any day now and she'll probably shut us down."

"Yeah, but it won't do anyone any good if you collapse! You spend all day running your avatar and then when you disconnect you spend most of the night here, analyzing the day's findings. You get what? About three hours of sleep a day?"

"About. But I'm nearly ready to present my findings to Jake and the others. One or two more days and I should have it."

"Really?" said Max. "I've helped as much as I could with the diagrams and I do agree with some of your conclusions. But… but this is so momentous do you really want to release all this so soon? Shouldn't we take more time to re-evaluate the findings, try to find some alternate hypotheses?"

"Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you. But everyone saw those diagrams—or at least some of them. They are all drawing their own conclusions and the rumors are spreading like wildfire. The secret isn't going to keep much longer and if I don't give them something this could spiral completely out of control!"

Max nodded in reluctant agreement. There had been over a hundred diagrams carved into the wall of the… the… Max still didn't know what to call the structure. They told a story that was both inspiring and terrifying. He had no idea how the Na'vi were going to react to it. But Rhada was right: better to announce something than let rumor run riot. He pulled up a chair. "All right, show me what you've got."

[Scene Break]

Silwanin slid off her horse and then waited while Father, Mother and Grace did likewise. She was nearly bouncing with excitement. Today they would find out what this great, mysterious structure was all about! Rhada and Maxpatel were going to tell them all about what they had found. It had been almost sixteen days since she had discovered the body inside and those mysterious carvings. She'd puzzled over them herself, but she wasn't sure what they had meant. Rhada and her brother had used the human computers to make them give up their secrets.

Of course, she hadn't spent all this time just waiting. She and the others had explored the inside from top to bottom. Well, almost to the top, the space above the level with the body had collapsed completely and they couldn't get in there. But there had been three levels below the entry level and they had all been very large. Mostly empty, but still interesting. They had found the bones of a number of animals—some unlike anything she had ever seen before—and the dried remains of plants. There had been huge storage vats and several deep wells . It was impressive, baffling and kind of scary. But today the mysteries would be solved—she hoped.

"Are you all right, Grace?" asked Mother as they walked toward the camp that had grown up around the entrance. Silwanin looked back and saw that the woman was rubbing the side of her head. She smiled faintly.

"Just a headache," she said. "Come on let's hear what Rhada has to say."

A large tent had been erected and the presentation would be inside so that Rhada could use the marvelous human image projectors. Rhada and her brother and all the avatars from Heaven's Gate were already there. They all welcomed each other, but to Silwanin's satisfaction no time was wasted on meaningless pleasantries. Rhada activated the projector and began at once. Silwanin thought she looked very tired and even a bit nervous.

"I want to thank all of you for your help and hard work in this undertaking," she said. "I also want to thank you for your patience while the data was analyzed. My training is as a geologist and when I started this I never expected where it was going to take me. It has taken me to places both amazing and wondrous. Our conclusions, although still preliminary, have revealed a past epoch of Pandora that was unknown and both glorious and tragic. We've managed to clean up and enhance the images in the carvings, so these pictures will probably appear new to all of you even though you've seen them before.

"From the start we all speculated on the purpose of the great structure discovered here. Many guesses were put forth but I have to tell you that all of our guesses were wrong. It was not a crypt, it was not a temple and it was not a fortress." She paused and took a breath.

"It was an ark."

Silwanin wasn't exactly sure of the meaning of the word, but there was a surprised murmur among the others. Rhada continued:

"It was a refuge, a shelter from a terrible catastrophe that struck Pandora 50,000 years ago. I'm sure most of you noticed that a few dozen of the wall-carvings appeared to be astronomical charts and yes, that is exactly what they are. And they are not just whimsical approximations; computer analysis has confirmed that these are accurate and detailed descriptions of Polyphemus and its family of moons. The Builders were skilled and accomplished astronomers, at about the same level as humans were in the 17th or 18th centuries."

"That's not surprising, really, "said UncleNorm. "The Na'vi would have had a huge advantage over early human astronomers. With Polyphemus and the other moons right there in front of them they could easily see that Pandora orbited around the larger planet. They wouldn't have wasted centuries on any geocentric nonsense the way we did."

"Yes," said Rhada, nodding, "they were accurately able to chart the movements of the other moons and even calculate orbits—which was very lucky for them." She clicked on the display and began to show detailed images of the wall carvings. "As you can see here, their astronomers noted the approach of a large asteroid. We are guessing that it was about a hundred kilometers in diameter. Fortunately it did not strike Pandora or that would have been the end of everything. But it passed very close to Polyphemus and the gravitational forces tore the asteroid into a cloud of smaller fragments and swung them into a highly eccentric orbit around the gas giant. Every few years the fragments would sweep back through the orbits of the moons. On one of those passes a large chunk hit Jocasta, the fourth moon. The resulting explosion devastated it and left a crater you can still see with the naked eye. The Na'vi saw this and realized what a threat the other fragments posed. They made a careful study of the paths of the remaining fragments and came to the conclusion that in a few years Pandora would be struck as well."

Rhada paused and bowed her head slightly. "Deep radar probes from orbit have found a large crater under the ocean about eight thousand kilometers from here. Samples I've taken from the former mine excavation show a layer of dust consistent with an asteroid impact placed just about 50,000 years ago. There can be no doubt that Pandora was struck—and devastated—just as the Na'vi predicted."

"And they built this place as a shelter?" asked Jake.

"Yes," said Rhada. "That is the second half of this story. The man who left the record—I've come to call him 'Carver'—didn't just want to tell us what happened, he wanted to tell who his people had been. It was a remarkable effort and that we've been able to decipher it shows that he had a brilliant and logical mind. Or perhaps I should say They had a brilliant mind. Please take a look at the very first drawing." The image changed and showed a simple, but detailed drawing. Small figures that must have represented people were arrayed at the bottom. Near them were many different types of animals. Above them were ikrans and other flying beasts. To one side there were some wavy lines that must have meant water and beneath the lines fish and other creatures Silwanin could not recognize. But over all there was a large orb that looked very much like an eye. An outline in the shape of a tree surrounded it. Thin lines radiated out from the eye to connect with each and every person and animal.

"Eywa!' she gasped.

"Yes," said Rhada. "That surely depicts Eywa. An overseeing presence connected with every living thing on the planet. Now, look at these next drawings." A new image replaced the former one. It showed a number of large trees with people in them. It was stylized, but Silwanin could clearly recognize what they were: hometrees. But there were objects in the trees and more of them surrounding the trees. They looked a little like the structures the humans at Heaven's Gate lived in…

"A city?" asked Father.

"Yes, it certainly looks that way," replied Rhada. "Look at these others." More images followed and they showed a number of variations on the same theme: hometrees and buildings together with people all around. "Note what appears to be cultivated land in the clear areas. And always Eywa overhead."

"Is it just one city or several?" asked UncleNorm.

"Several. Look at these other ones." The next image showed two of the cities, carved much smaller and at the edges of the image. Ikrans with riders seemed to be flying between them and on the ground there were strings of horses with bundles on their backs being led by people.

"Cities trading with each other!" exclaimed one of the other avatars. The next image was like the last one but this time the two cities were separated by the wavy lines that represented water. Strange objects sat on top. "Boats! They could travel across the seas!"

"It would appear that this was a planet-wide civilization," said Rhada. "Not just a single city-state. We can't really estimate numbers from these images, but we can assume a much larger population than exists today. Now take a close look at this next one, this is the carving that comes just before the astronomical diagrams." The image shifted again and Silwanin blinked. It was unlike the earlier images in that there was a person seen close up. In all the other carvings the people had been so tiny that few details could be seen. But this one had a large figure, a male, wearing strange robes. He was standing on top of a platform or perhaps a building and he was looking up at the sky with a strange framework of sticks just in front of him. In the sky was a large arc which she supposed was the Sky Father, Polyphemus the Sky People called it.

"Is that a telescope?" asked one person.

"No, looks more like a cross-staff, which was just a collection of rods with marks on them to plot the position of objects in the sky," said Maxpatel.

"And there's the approaching asteroid," said Ivan pointing to the upper-right part of the image.

"Yes," said Rhada. "And note that here again is Eywa. But look at the lines radiating from the symbol: one to the astronomer and one to the asteroid."

"Eywa knew!" cried Jake. "She knew what was coming!"

"It certainly appears that way." Rhada paused for a moment as if gathering herself. "I'm going to do something that any scientist hates: I'm going to speculate with very little supporting evidence. Based on the diagrams I've shown you and the ones that follow, I believe that this earlier civilization had a much closer relationship with Eywa than the Na'vi do now."

"What do you mean?" demanded Mother with an indignant tone in her voice.

"I'm sorry, Neytiri, I mean no disrespect to you or the People," said Rhada. "But what I mean is that for these people Eywa was an active partner in their civilization."

"We give praise to Eywa every day!"

Rhada sighed. "I'm not expressing myself very well. Yes, Eywa is always a part of your life, but you do not link to the Tree of Souls or the Trees of Voices every day, do you? You don't consult Eywa before making every decision."

"No, that is true," Mother said grudgingly.

"Well, I believe that these earlier people did. Perhaps not physically linking their queues, but I believe Eywa was far, far more involved in the day-to-day activities of the people than She is now. But let me show you why I think this. The next images in the series are the astronomical diagrams we've already seen so I'll skip them, but following them, watch." Rhada touched the controls of the projector and new images appeared. It was similar to an earlier one that had shown two of the cities, except this time it showed many small cities. In the sky was the symbol for Ewya and also the small shape that depicted the sky rock, the asteroid that threatened the world. Lines connected the cities and the rock to Eywa.

"Eywa is giving the alarm!" said UncleNorm. "Spreading the news!"

"Yes," said Rhada, "now pay special attention to this next one." The new image showed another city but in the center of the city was the symbol for Eywa: the eye and the tree. Except… "The tree is not just a symbol in the sky as in the other diagrams, here it is depicted as an actual tree, on the ground."

"The Tree of Souls!" gasped Mother.

"Yes. The Tree of Souls. Right… here."

"You're suggesting that the tree that's sitting just over the hill existed 50,000 years ago?" demanded UncleNorm.

"Far longer than that, apparently," said Rhada, nodding. "Why not?"

"Well because… well… uh… okay, why not?" said UncleNorm throwing up his hands.

"Indeed," said Rhada. "And if you need any further confirmation, notice that there are the floating mountains shown in the sky over the city. Clearly, this image is denoting a city that once stood where we are now. All right, I'm going to move through these next images rather rapidly. They will be self explanatory, I think." The next picture was much like the previous one except a crowd of tiny people was shown all around the Tree of Souls. And in the next one they were… what?

They are building this place!

Picture by picture the diagrams showed the people digging and building the great shelter. Tunneling under the hill that the tree stood on and building up walls and platforms around it. Step-by-step the place Silwanin had explored took shape. Then the pictures paused and Rhada said: "Now we get to the part of the story that originally set me to work on this." More pictures showed a series of great arches rising up to enclose the Tree of Souls. But not just arches…

"Domes!" cried Father. "They built domes to protect the tree!"

"Yes, a work of engineering that even today we would find daunting, something far beyond anything ever attempted by our Earthly ancestors." The look on Rhada's face was one of awe. Silwanin, though scarcely understanding all that had been said so far, found herself swelling with pride at the accomplishment of these distant ancestors. They gave everything to protect Eywa! Just as the tsahiks do today… The true meaning of her future role came through to her as it never had before.

"Notice, too," continued Rhada, "how they make use of the floating mountains themselves." The image got larger to show some of the details. "Not only do they lower ropes from above to help with the work—the legendary 'sky hooks' made real—but much of the sheathing of the domes is material so rich in unobtainium that they actually have to be held down to keep them from floating away. You'll see why they did that shortly."

"But… but…" stammered one of the other avatars, "why make it so big? It's vastly larger than the tree! They could have just extended the step-pyramid a few more levels to put a roof over the tree, couldn't they?"

"Yes," said Rhada, "but they weren't just working to protect the tree. The project was far, far more ambitious than that. Look." A new image appeared and it showed… what? Animals. Animals of every kind walking and flying into the dome, into the underground spaces…

"'And the animals came into the ark two-by-two'…" whispered UncleNorm. "Good God, it really was an ark!"

"Yes. It was an attempt to preserve not just the Tree of Souls, but all the types of life of Pandora. Those huge storage pits we discovered weren't just to hold food for the Na'vi. The domes were filled with plants and animals. Presumably, Eywa could make them all behave themselves." Rhada paused again and gave a long sigh. "There is one diagram missing from this story. Clearly, only a tiny fraction of the Na'vi population could be sheltered here. We can speculate that other, smaller shelters might have been built in other cities, but even so, the vast majority of the people would have had to remain outside. We have no idea how those who went into the shelters were chosen. We can speculate that Eywa had a say in it, but we do not know and nothing here sheds any light on it." Rhada shook her head.

"Speaking of light," said one of the others, "what about light? How did they keep all the plants alive under the domes?"

"You saw the lanterns we found," said Rhada. "We are theorizing that they made use of similar ones to light the domes. Some of the storage vats had traces of plant nectar. If they could have used that to feed luminous insects they might have provided enough light to keep the plants alive."

"It's all a matter of energy," nodded UncleNorm. "If they could store enough energy in the form of food, they could have maintained a viable eco-system—at least for a while."

"There are only a few more diagrams to show you," continued Rhada. "The next couple, I'll admit, don't seem to make much sense. I'm assuming they depict the impact of the asteroid and the immediate aftermath." She touched the controls again, but as she'd warned the next images were just a jumble of lines and specks. Faintly, the outline of the domes could be seen near the bottom, but that was all.

"The impact, even striking the ocean, would have thrown up an enormous cloud of dust," said Maxpatel, quietly. "It would have blanketed the whole planet and blotted out all sunlight for months. Temperatures would have fallen and Pandora would have experienced its first winter. Plant and animal life would have mostly perished. We can only guess at how long it would have been before the dust settled and temperatures returned to normal. Probably several years." Silwanin tried to imagine such a thing, but it was hard. During her times at Heaven's Gate she'd seen and touched the stuff the humans called ice. Water so cold that it was hard as rock. They had shown her pictures of their world with places covered by the stuff. But to think of her own world covered with it, all the trees and plants, all the animals dying… she couldn't grasp it.

"There's only one picture showing the long wait for the skies to clear," said Rhada. She showed it now and it was a drawing of the shelter with tiny people and animals inside. "But look here." The picture zoomed in on one very small part and it showed…

"Carver!" exclaimed Father. Yes, it was true, a tiny figure appeared to be hammering at the wall.

"Yes, a self-portrait of sorts. During the construction there was no time to add any decorations. Only what was needed to meet the crisis was included. But during the wait, at least one person had the time to think about leaving this record. Whether this had been planned or it was something he thought up on his own—or it was something that Eywa wanted—we'll probably never know. But we're all in his debt. He must have spent nearly all his time working on this.

"Now we come to the second-to-last picture," said Rhada. "The skies have cleared and the shelter is open and the people and animals are moving out. The genius of the planners can be seen here: the domes, which might have been a danger to the tree and the other occupants if they had collapsed on them, can be seen actually floating away, pulled up by the strong magnetic field, just as the floating mountains are. They knew that there would be only a few of them left after the catastrophe and they designed it so that just a few could dismantle the critical sections. What's left today are mostly just the parts they didn't think necessary to remove."

"Incredible," hissed UncleNorm. Most of the others were shaking their heads in admiration.

"The last picture," said Rhada. "The last picture I debated with myself whether I should show that to you. Some of you have seen it on the wall, but without computer enhancement I doubt you really saw what it was showing. And before I show it to you I'm going to apologize to Neytiri and Silwanin. This is not going to be easy for you, but I think you have to know." Silwanin tensed. What could it be? So far this story, while sad, had also been very inspirational. The last picture was displayed and she looked hard at it. The image showed people and animals streaming away over hills and valleys. But… but the animals were attacking each other. And the people, some had their arms up over their heads while they were running. The images were too small to see facial details, but something was… something was wrong.

"I… I don't understand," said Mother. Silwanin didn't understand either.

"Notice the symbol for Eywa in the sky," said Rhada with a grim expression on her face.

"It's so small!" said Silwanin. Indeed, it was tiny compared to the earlier images, almost too small to see.

"And there are no lines drawn from the symbol to the people or the animals," said Rhada.

"What does this mean?" demanded Mother.

Rhada actually seemed to be shaking slightly and her eyes glistened with tears. "Right from the start we wondered how there could be no record of this place. That you had never heard of it. Mo'at had no knowledge of it from her shared memories from past tsahiks. Eywa had never told you of it when you linked to the Tree of Souls or the Trees of Voices. How could that be? A few years back, while we were negotiating the treaty, Ivan and I were allowed to witness a Tireafya'o, The Path of the Spirit, at the Tree of Souls. Max tried to explain Grace's theory about the vast planetary network that made up Eywa. How it consisted of all the trees connected to each other. Ivan asked the question of what would happen if a lot of the trees were destroyed? At the time we were just worried about future problems with the Sky People, but Max, do you remember what you told us?"

Maxpatel seemed startled. "Why I said… I said it would be the equivalent of a human having a massive stroke…" his face turned pale and he looked stricken.

Rhada nodded. "And that's exactly what happened to Eywa. And I believe that the network that existed prior to the catastrophe was far, far more extensive than what we see today. It extended to every plant, every animal, and to all the Na'vi. It was a storehouse of information, data, memories, and wisdom that the Na'vi depended on the way humans depend on computer networks today. She was their guide and counselor, truly the All Mother of Pandora. Somehow she managed to hold herself together long enough to get through that terrible winter, to keep order in the shelter, but once that task was done the network collapsed. Too many of the connections, too much of the network had been destroyed."

"Are you saying… are you saying that Eywa died?" exclaimed Mother. Silwanin swallowed down panic. The very thought was terrifying.

"I think… I think that she died in childbirth," stammered Rhada and now tears did start down her cheeks. "She died giving life to her daughter, to a new Eywa. Your Eywa."

"Can this truly be?" gasped Mother, her hands to her face. Silwanin pressed herself against her mother and clutched her arm, more frightened than she'd ever been in her life.

"I believe that this is the truth," said Rhada. "You can understand why I hesitated so long to tell you. When the Na'vi find this out…

"Rhada!' said Max suddenly. "You have a much bigger problem than that!"

"What? What do you mean?"

"The question isn't do you tell the Na'vi! The question is: Do you tell Eywa?"

Rhada's mouth fell open and utter silence filled the tent. Silwanin was so stunned she could hardly draw a breath.

Silence…

Despite her shock, Silwanin suddenly became aware that it was silent. Completely silent. But the forest was never silent. The multitude of animals and insects created a never-ending background of noise.

But not now. She could hear her heartbeat, her breath, but nothing else.

The others began to notice it, too and looked around uneasily. The tension that filled the tent was like the instant of time between the flash of a very close lightning bolt and the deafening roar of the thunderclap.

Suddenly the silence ended. It seemed like every animal and insect was making as much noise as it could. Howls, roars, shrieks filled the air. They all rushed out of the tent only to see their horses galloping wildly off into the forest. Swarms of insects and small flying animals darted in every direction. They all stood and stared at the chaos. Graceaugustine came up behind them, holding her head.

"Max… Max, I think She figured it out on her own."

To Be Continued