Disclaimer

I am not the owner of the persons of this story met with in the movie and I never will be, I am not making any money whatsoever from this little story and I will never expect to do it either. If anyone feel like building further stories on persons, localities and events here created then they can feel free to do it – provided only that they try to stay in the given pre-histories, given personalities etc., and keep from turning their stories into adult stories. R&R are welcome.

First Troublesome Omen

When the last ordinary ISV left six years after the Great Battle, everyone knew that now a strong date was approaching in the distance. An agreement never publicly declared developed among the drivers: Love stories should be kept for the avatar bodies when they became seriously intimate. Avatar creation was tricky without a specialized lab such as Max didn't have, so better not give him more struggle with new small pink-skinned ones than he already had at hand. New small blue-skinned ones would of course be less of a problem…

One day, some weeks before ISV "Canopus" came calling, Max announced that he had discovered a wormhole in space not far from Alpha Centauri C, that red dwarf star only faintly visible at Pandora. It just hung up there. Funny affair, Max thought but there are so many quirks in nature so why not.

Then suddenly one day ISV "Canopus" announced its arrival, not quite seven years after the Great Battle. It would be expected to be the last ISV to leave Pandora for Earth, the couple of Iniskius og Harold Nuñez took the opportunity to leave this world since it was inimical to their dreams. They never got further than the ISV but that wasn't known the Pandora people until long after.

While the ISV "Canopus" was still lingering in orbit Max and Norm held a speech, they announced that the day the people at the Augustine Research Station had been reminded about repeatedly was now coming close, it was time to get started in earnest to make ready for the life to come afterwards. The abandonment of the base was obviously drawing close – the buildings and many of the appliances sustaining human life were creaking already, the base was nearly swamped by jungle vegetation already and now that the last ISV to be expected was about to leave there would be no more spare parts coming from Earth that could be purchased. In other words: In a few years the whole base would collapse any how, so to get away safe and hale they would have to go into their avatars, go to the Omatikaya and ask to be kindly allowed to try a "body switch" of their own. There was always a small risk of not making it through and they would die, but those obviously incompatible with a life at Pandora had been weeded out – the Gehrken couple, the Iniskius couple and Hal Nuñez, they were gone from Pandora by now. The rest of them should stand a good chance.

Norm had lost his original avatar in the Big Battle but Max managed to extract some DNA from the mortally wounded avatar body, it was injected into a na'vi egg cell, grown and one day Norm had a new avatar once again. Max furthermore made an avatar ready for himself and one for Trudy, those avatars had been made by rather unorthodox techniques but they had been well tested so they stood good chances both of them. Those avatars were the last ones to be readied from Max's lab. That it had been possible to create avatars from rock bottom at all was due to the invention the newcomer Wayne Stuart Bell, Max' laboratory assistant these last years, had created in his leisure time.

What Bell's invention did was to mass clone a fertilized egg so that Max could run this mass through the DNA sequencer he did have, thus giving at least a minimal check-up of the fertilized egg cell. A complete XGSS set would have been much to prefer – it would for one thing have been a much less laborious analytical process with much less risk at destroying fragile egg cells. It would have completely eliminated the significant risk for not discovering a faint sign of some minor genetic abnormality like Trudy's stomach ailment – her stomach couldn't digest tiz oil, a squeeze from a plant root often used for na'vi food gravy, she got diarrhoea from it. And perfectly normal but not really desired effects of genetics would have been revealed, as Max came to discover himself – the Na'vi Y-chromosome looked in microscope almost precisely like an X-chromosome – Max' avatar was a perfectly well formed and completely normal na'vi female.

When the avatars showed such symptoms it was however already too late, too much precious time had gone into developing them already. They had to settle for what they could get and regard themselves lucky it wouldn't be more serious than that. Trudy was happy anyway – she got rid of the ugly scars that never ceased to itch, disfiguring the skin on her legs and torso since Quaritch shot down her helicopter during the Great Battle. By popular acclaim Max was renamed Maksine.

Now that the last regular ISV had left all knew that the days of the station were numbered. The scientific projects were written and submitted to Earth, with literature citations given and epilogues written, including a solemn good bye to humanity. The training for a na'vi life now began in earnest, the curriculum was all things at Pandora to improve their chances for making a sound and healthy life. They were provided with much literature about Pandora, nature and people; Norm held classes in culture and language, and Jake and some Omatikayas trained them in some necessary practical abilities like physical stamina, riding, archery, falling through air and flying, and in the profession they had chosen for their further life, so they should all be well prepared for it.

When Max and Norm were done with their speeches that day, the word was passed to the three high protectors of the avatar team, Mo'at, Neytiri and Jake Sully.

Neytiri intoned: "When inside the eye of Eywa I am sure She will see who is not good for life here, so you should do your best to make some rehearsals (Sideways glance at Jake: Was that the correct word, ma'Jake?) so train well these last months before you are going into the eye of Eywa, it is like you say an exam – I think 'exam' is the word – for you!"

Jake concurred: "Before you will be going to the Tree of Souls for your appointment with Her we will, when your teachers and profession mentor declares you ready for it, test your ability in such practical abilities you will need to master, and your knowledge of such subjects you will need to know, starting in about a year. All of you have chosen a profession among those common among the Na'vi and you have been educated for it, a master in that craft will come to formally test your ability in that craft. If you train and study well these coming months you should pass with flying colours, then you will go to the Iknimaya and catch your own ikran, only then are you ready for your meeting with Eywa in person. Young na'vi take about two years with learning such abilities, you (winking) are professional at learning new stuff so you will probably do it faster…"

Mo'at concluded: "We hope You will be learning and understanding well about our life, our traditions, our ways. Open your eyes, teach yourselves to see and you will live happy lives ever after!"

Careful preparations paid off, one by one all the avatars passed through all the tests with only a few hitches. Because the time delay due to those avatar creation processes not starting until Bell had found his invention, Max and Trudy were the last to pass through the Eye of Eywa. When doing the "body switches" there were some apprehension but it worked out fine in the end for all of them. Everything was in short now set to allow the building complex to go to pieces on its own accord. But radar surveillance, arms production and a few other functions were kept up for as long as possible at the station, it would be good to get an early warning and be well armed when things were up…

Most of the avatars took up some profession among the na'vi which was roughly translatable to their old practical or scientific background. For instance doctor Jenny Dixon and her psychologist husband Nicholas (nicknamed "Nicky"), known at the Augustine Research Station for their stormy marriage and his casanova habit, went to the healing profession. Roberta Mullins ("Bobbie") and the excessively prude spinster Ella van Laare, respectively biochemist / pharmacist and botanist / gardener in the hydroponic lab, went into the gathering profession.

Some few had trouble though. Maksine of course, but luckily she soon found herself a girl friend among the na'vi, coming from the Ikran clan and settled with them, making a most happy healer couple highly useful to the Ikran clan. Most problems of all had the geophysician Shawn and his geologist wife Maeve O'Leary, they would be cut off from hacking stones and using computers always hereafter. But their computer wizardry was useful for eavesdropping at space, assisting Angela Cresson in her watch-keeping. And as good Irishman and Irishwoman they had good sense for lively music and dancing – Shawn made many of the musical instruments himself. With a little assistance from MacGregor the Scotsman they could really enliven parties, and when Shawn played a reel or a hornpipe they even made it ripple in very stolid American and English feet. Even na'vi people were astonished when Maeve did her little "Riverdance".

After the speeches of Max, Norm, Mo'at, Neytiri and Jake; Angie Cresson (nee Stennis) walked back to her main assigned task. She sat down at the radar consol to keep on her watch for abnormal activity up in space. She and her husband Todd were matter-of-fact minded people, not given to hysterics and euphoria, they were unassuming everyday people with little flare and elegance to them, but Max and Norm would have trusted them with their lives. She had been meteorologist by study and was tasked with being satellite manager, radar watchkeeper, traffic controller when space ferries was landing and in general the "switchboard lady" at the base. Todd had been the utility worker at Grace's avatar team, always readying and repairing outstations and maintaining all the scientific tools, now he was the janitor at the Augustine Research Station, all the time fighting a battle he knew he was going to loose in the long run, to keep the jungle at bay. They always kept aloof from the romantic intrigues that soon ran all over the Augustine Research Station, they married at a ceremony which Norm arranged and Neytiri officiated, and witnessed by all the staff at the station. She took training for scouting, the na'vi respected her for her uncanny (in their eyes) ability to predict coming weather, while Todd took training for toolmaking.

Angie sat down at the radar screen and played recorded radar images in double speed so that she could see what had taken place while she listened to the speeches. She eyed the familiar dots of the now sputtering weather satellites, she decided to save electrical power by closing them down, in not so long time she wouldn't be able to contact them any longer, whether by satellite decay or by the wear and tear of the receiving systems down at Pandora. The big dots blinked dutifully some times and then went small. She saw the rather familiar dot of the ISV hovering up there, probably soon to be leaving the orbit of Pandora heading back to Earth.

Suddenly she remarked something extraordinary: A small dot separated from the ISV. The small dot caught speed and took course down towards Pandora – she sounded the alarm, this was a suspicious case. Norm came hurrying. But the space ferry course headed east, out in the eastern ocean and beyond the horizon, so nothing further was seen of it until the radar screen detected it taking off and leaving for space again. But obviously they had been doing something out there.

Jake soon started from time to time hearing reports from clans at Namana Land who had been visited by na'vi saying that they had come from the Zakali clan overseas, a clan nobody had heard about before. They came just to make a visit, talk and listen and then pass on. Jake found it funny and sent out scouts to locate them, and if possibly bring one such wanderer back to the Omatikayan New Hometree. But the scouts never found any of them, they had always left just before. Jake started thinking that something was going on, he just couldn't imagine what. It certainly didn't look like a full invasion.

Jake didn't know but they were actually the RDA agents permanently transferred to fully na'vi – like avatars sent out by the the PR department, scouting out the diplomatic landscape. Which clans were part of the confederation and which not, how was the confederation governed, what was the level of loyalty of the various clans, they were furthermore if opportunity allowed it without undue risk to spread rumours and support views undermining the position of Jake. Over the next years their reports were patiently collected and sent up to the main base at the moon of Svarog, and then passed on through the wormhole to Earth. That device gave the base at Svarog ability to instant communication with the RDA head office at Earth.