This story is written for entertainment purposes only. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Keep in mind that English is not my first language and so I do not claim to have corrected every mistake yet. As the story keeps getting bigger, it is possible that inconsistencies may appear. If they do, let me know and I will correct them.
My apologies for the long wait. Enjoy as always, and don't get any nightmares.
Chapter 16: The shape of the future, part I
Even though John did his best to learn the words Ney'ite taught him, he found it most difficult to recall their pronunciation exactly. He had never been great at learning new languages, especially ones which had no link to English whatsoever. Ney'ite found most of his pronunciations amusing and couldn't keep herself from laughing on multiple occasions. John wasn't bothered by this as much as he thought he would be. He liked seeing her smile. To his own amazement, he even began to think that she was actually pretty cute. But he had something else to tell her, that he deemed to be far more important.
He waited until Ney'ite decided to take a break in order not to spoil the mood too much. Then, he carefully asked her what she knew about the elders and the children who had returned to the village. She knew that most of them were alright and that they had been fortunate to have escaped. John asked her if she also knew who had released them. Ney'ite admitted that she had overheard some of the elders talk about one of the invaders who had apparently turned against the others of his kind. This being, to whom they referred to as 'the kind one', literally translated, had apparently helped them escape. Whether or not this was really true, Ney'ite didn't know for sure. She had some difficulty believing that one of the invaders could turn against the rest. After all, they all seemed to be mindless creatures with no real opinion of their own, unlike humans. On the other hand, she didn't want to doubt the elders so she concluded that there must be some truth to it after all.
John revealed that this being was actually named Joseph, and that he had been approached by him once. Joseph had told him about his intensions, that he was deliberately opposing MT-NET, the entity which controlled all the machines. He had even told him that he would release the captured Na'vi to make him understand that he meant everything he had said. John explained to Ney'ite that Joseph had made all these efforts in an attempt to get him to join him. However, he had refused to accept this offer, something which he now regretted. John just knew Joseph could help them. He could provide them with the kind of tactical information no-one else could. All he had to do was go to the place Joseph told him he would be, and they would be able to form an alliance against the machines.
Ney'ite had become quiet. She hadn't expected John to know so much about this situation. Nevertheless, she trusted her intuition that John merely wanted to help the Uvora clan in this struggle. She told John that she would support him, but that they had to explain all of this to the clan leader, if he was going to visit this Joseph. He couldn't just go without informing anyone, as Selyat was always watching every move he made. She wouldn't hesitate to spear him if she deemed it necessary. John, however, was already relieved that Ney'ite didn't seem to doubt his intensions. Then, they decided not to postpone it and go to the clan leader right away.
Meanwhile, on Shadow, Martin Herman had retreated back into the airlock, and was trying to pull himself together. He had no clue what was going on, and he even began doubting the fact that those things outside were real. His mind had played tricks with him before. But that had been a long time ago. He hadn't seen anything strange outside in years. After about a minute had passed, he dared to climb up the ladder again to see what they were doing now. A man, or what seemed to be a man, was now standing about a meter away from the hole in the ground. The man wasn't wearing any breathing equipment or mask and was simply staring at him with his pale blue eyes. Besides the fact that he should have already choked in the poisonous air, there was something very unnerving about him. It was his gaze; it was a dead gaze. The man wore a long grey overcoat with a high collar. Another noteworthy feature were the blue rubber gloves that the man was wearing.
The one with the blue gloves now began speaking. He politely asked Martin to invite him inside, as he had a lot of questions for him. Unable to say anything, Martin went back down and the man followed. After having closed the airlock and having initiated the air exchanging sequence, Martin removed his breathing gear and mushroom helmet, and went back to the living quarters. Just after he had taken a seat at his dinner table, the man entered the room. Finally able to speak, Martin attempted to ask the man who or what he was, but before he could finish, he was told not to speak, unless spoken to. The man politely explained that he would be the one to ask the questions and Martin would be the one to answer them, simple as that. When Martin asked why he should comply, he was interrupted again and the man explained that he had already thought up five different unpleasant ways he could kill him. Continuing on the subject, he explained that the most simple way was throwing him out of the airlock without breathing gear, but that this was too obvious and not nearly enough fun. He favored crushing his skull, either by himself, or by letting one of his 'pets' outside do it.
The man could see that he had gotten Martin's full attention. He asked his first question, concerning the purpose of the human outpost on this moon. Martin explained everything as clear as he could. The outpost had been established by a subdivision of the RDA to investigate the existence of Unobtanium on this moon. After the initial scanning and mining operations, it became fairly clear that the superconductor was not to be found on this world. When Martin stopped, the man asked the next question, concerning the whereabouts of the rest of the crew. Martin explained that they had left, because the installation no longer served any purpose. However, the man began to suspect that Martin was hiding something, or at least bending the truth. He pointed out to him that it would seem unlikely the RDA would spend so much money and time on this outpost, only to abandon it when they couldn't find what they wanted. Secondly, it would seem strange that the RDA would allow him to stay here by himself, as this clearly was a corporate facility, and not a private estate. Realizing that his lie wasn't going to convince this man, Martin told him that the rest of the crew had fled and left him behind.
With the third question, the man demanded to know why they had fled. According to Martin, it was because they had been frightened by something. He stopped for a second, not wanting to reveal what it was, but quickly decided he liked living more than keeping secrets. He continued by explaining that instead of unobtanium, they had found something else entirely. But this was not just a rare compound or element. It was something fairly sophisticated and completely out of place on a desolate world like this one. They had found it during one of the scans they had made of the soil. It showed a large concentration of Uranium in one spot underground. Once they had set up a mine, and digged their way to it, they could finally see what it was. Unable to describe it, he instead told the man that he had a photograph of it, which he could see for himself. Martin grabbed a folder out of a drawer and handed it to the man.
MT-NET had been directly controlling the one with the blue gloves since its machines had noticed movement near the outpost. When it had seen the human near the outpost, which was supposed to be abandoned, it concluded that it had an undocumented history worth checking out. And it had been right about that. The photograph in the folder depicted a relatively smooth wall of brown rock. In it had been carved various symbols, which couldn't be found in any of MT-NET's databases. In the middle, there was a depiction of what appeared to be two separate creatures or entities. The left one somewhat looked like a spider with many legs. It wasn't really clear if the simple straight lines running from the central body to several smaller bodies even represented legs, though. It almost seemed as if they represented connections of some kind. The depicted entity on the right side looked like a worm or snake with the head of a doglike dragon. Unlike the central body of the entity on the left, which had been drawn with a curved line to form an oval shape, the body of this entity was drawn with a zigzagging line. It seemed as if it was meant to represent the fact that its body was always in motion.
The photograph intrigued MT-NET to such an extent that it commanded Martin to take them to the actual location immediately. Martin thought to himself that even though his colleagues had left him stranded here by taking the only escape vehicle, he had grown to accept his world as it now was. He had grown to love his surroundings and the landscape, which belonged to a moon he didn't have to share with anybody. However, he had also accepted the fact that there were some places which should be left alone. He expressed to the one with the blue gloves that he was willing to take him there, but warned him that strange things were known to happen around there. He asked for permission to stay outside of the mine once they had gotten there. The permission was denied.
After having prepared himself, Martin went back outside, while the man followed. He went to the back of the entrance building and pulled away a grey canvas. An old yet still functional electrical moon rover was revealed to be underneath it. Moments later, Martin was driving his passenger to his destination, using one of the dirt roads. About half an hour later, when they had arrived at the worksite, they continued on foot towards the entrance of the mine. The doors of the entrance were securely locked. It would take a while to remove all the chains. When he was removing the lock of the second chain, he quickly backed away from the entrance as he heard a shrill cry above him. It went through bone and marrow. No creature he knew made such a sound. But then again, he wasn't sure if it even was a creature, or if it was even real for that matter. Martin desperately hoped that he had just imagined it, because that would mean that there was nothing up there. He then looked behind him. The man had apparently heard it as well, as he was looking up at the rock slope. This unsettling revelation meant that there was indeed something up there. Before they could see what it was, a different rumbling sound could be heard. Seconds later, a large boulder rolled down the slope and narrowly missed the man as he jumped aside. When the boulder had come to a halt, the man calmly commanded Martin to continue. After having removed all the chains, he opened both doors. Behind them was a corridor, but it was so deep and dark that it appeared to be a black hole from where Martin was standing. He took out his flashlight and took a deep breath before venturing inside…