So far, being around Lo'ak hadn't made Neteyam feel small – but hugging him did. It was like being a child again, crying in Dad's arms over an insect bite or a skinned knee. Syulang had picked Neteyam up by one arm like he weighed nothing, and now Lo'ak could have easily crushed him or broken his neck, even by accident... but Neteyam didn't care. He held on as tight as as he could and thumped on his brother's back with one fist, and didn't complain even when Lo'ak squeezed his bruised ribs. He didn't let go until he was entirely confident he could do so without bursting into tears – and when he did, he found Lo'ak's eyes were also suspiciously watery.
Lo'ak grinned, though. "You can't call me baby brother anymore," he said. "I'm bigger than you."
"You may be bigger, but I'm still older," Neteyam replied, wishing he could wipe his nose. "That means you still owe me respect."
"Whatever you say, little big brother," Lo'ak said, putting a hand on top of Neteyam's head the way Neteyam had used to do to him... and then he withdrew it suddenly, his smile melting away . "Oh, man... Mom's gonna..."
"I know," Neteyam interrupted. He wasn't particularly worried about what Dad would say anymore, but Mother was a whole other matter. "What do you think she's gonna say?"
"I have no... she's going to freak ," Lo'ak shook his head.
"Yeah," Neteyam said. Even with time to prepare, Mother's reaction was going to be the worst. If Neteyam had died in a fight with humans, wouldn't that just make her all the more determined that she didn't want another such monster in her family? Maybe especially one who was an effigy of the son she'd lost.
Maybe it was because he really didn't want to think about that, but that was the moment when Neteyam remembered Prisha Patel was still with them. She had gotten up from the squishy moss and was now sitting on a rock, which was only slightly less damp, hugging her knees against her chest. There was a smile on her face, which quickly evaporated when she realized the boys were now looking at her.
"Before we do anything else, we gotta get Prisha somewhere safe," Neteyam said.
"We'll take her to the dragon," Lo'ak suggested. " Her dad's there, too."
Neteyam looked up. The last of the fog was beginning to disperse. Soon there would be blue skies overhead. "I don't think we can, at least, not right away. We're not gonna have any cover, and we don't know what's happening over there. I don't want to put her in any more danger."
"Why was she up there with you in the first place?" asked Lo'ak.
"A vine broke."
"Oe plltxe lì'fya Na'viyä," Prisha reminded them, rather sharply.
Neteyam winced – yes, she did speak Na'vi, and he had recent experience with how demeaning it was to be spoken about as if he wasn't present. "Sorry," he said, and re-framed the problem to include her. "We've got to find somewhere to go so we can wait until the fighting's over. Where do you think?" If anything had changed in recent months, she would know better than either of the brothers.
Prisha stood up. "You can take me to Rob and Keith's outpost, where they keep their avatars," she decided. "They've got a little habitat trailer for if they need to visit in person. I can stay there until things calm down, and the next time they link up they'll find me."
"How long will that be, though?" asked Neteyam. He didn't want to leave her there alone for days.
"Soon," Prisha promised. "They might have been already, even if only for a few minutes. Avatars are alive, remember. They have to eat and pee and stuff."
"So what if they're there when we arrive?" Lo'ak wanted to know.
Prisha shrugged. "Let me off and fly away again. What are they gonna do?"
Neteyam suspected they would shout a lot – especially Rob, who'd tried to keep them from leaving the compound in the first place. But the last time Rob had seen Prisha, Neteyam had been holding a knife to her neck, so they'd probably be relieved to see her safe and sound. She could tell her mother Neteyam had forced her to go with him, and Viraj would back her up. It would be okay.
"All right," Neteyam said. "We'll drop you there, and then Lo'ak and I will go find Dad. Sound good, big little brother?" he looked up at Lo'ak.
"Sounds like a plan, little big brother," Lo'ak replied. "Tìtstew! Nap time's over!"
The banshee was grouchy when Lo'ak linked with him, and took some convincing before he would allow the humans on his back again. Eventually, after a lot of reassurances from Lo'ak, he descended the last few metres of the Omputangek tree to let them climb on.
"He thinks you two are heavy," Lo'ak said, helping them up. "And Prisha hangs on too tight."
"Sorry," said Prisha. "I'll try to be gentler."
"We're not going far," said Lo'ak, although whether he was talking to her or to Tìtstew was hard to say. He got Prisha settled in front of him, and Neteyam climbed up behind again. "He doesn't like your shoes, either," Lo'ak added as Tìtstew started climbing the trunk again, getting the height needed for a heavily burdened takeoff. "They dig in. What are you wearing those for, anyway? They look heavy."
"When I went barefoot I got blisters," said Neteyam.
Lo'ak snickered.
Tìtstew clawed his way up to where the canopy began to thin, but Lo'ak wouldn't let him go any further – the fog was gone now, and they were going to have to stay low to keep out of sight. After settling on the clearest route out of the tangle of branches, the banshee pushed off and brought his wings down with a thunderclap.
This got another startled yelp out of Prisha, and Lo'ak winced. "Can you stop yelling in his ears?" he asked. "We're not gonna drop you, I promise!"
"Sorry!" Prisha repeated. Neteyam couldn't see from where he was, but he suspected she'd closed her eyes again.
They climbed rapidly out of the treetops and then levelled out, their passage disturbing flocks of smaller flying creatures that whirled around them in a panic and then were gone. Neteyam kept his own eyes wide open, watching for anybody, friend or foe, who might be able to spot them. If Konstopoulos had been away from the main group for some reason, it wasn't unreasonable that somebody else might have been, too, and now that she'd vanished, they would probably come looking for her.
It didn't take long for something bright to catch his eye, flashing in the sunlight like Prisha's watch had earlier. "Lo'ak," said Neteyam.
"I see it," Lo'ak said. Tìtstew dipped a wing and turned, and they circled back to the place the flash had come from. The top of one tree had been broken and was now hanging off the rest of the trunk at an odd angle, and when they got closer they could see that tangled in the branches below were the limp bodies of a recom and a banshee. Lo'ak brought Tìtstew in to land on the next trunk over, and they took a better look.
Konstopoulos must have been killed instantly by the arrow through her neck, and it looked like her banshee had been disoriented by the pain and sudden severing of tsaheylu, and had broken its neck when it crashed into the canopy. The two of them hanging there was a gruesome sight, but one that wouldn't last long. The scavengers would find them quickly...
... unless somebody else found them first.
"We need to get rid of her," Neteyam realized.
"We do?" asked Lo'ak. He didn't like the idea.
"Yeah. I saw one of the others ones die in the caverns at Kilvanoro," Neteyam explained. "They went to a lot of trouble to take his body back, because they wanted to get the last memories out of before making him another one." Nobody had said it in so many words, but Quaritch and Bohan had both implied that O'Donnell would be replaced. "If the Sky People find her, they'll be able to see the last thing she saw, and they'll know we were here. They already know Dad's here because they followed the dragon, but they might not know about you, and they might think I'm dead. Again." He chewed on his lip as he looked up at the corpses. "And we can use her banshee saddle." It wasn't like the ones the Omatikaya made, but it would be easier on Tìtstew than all three of them riding bareback.
Lo'ak didn't reply.
"What do you think?" asked Neteyam.
"I think if I had suggested we loot a dead body, you would have said no way."
Neteyam gave Lo'ak's shoulder a squeeze. "Good thing it was my idea, then."
"That's what I'm telling Dad," Lo'ak promised. He swung himself out from between the two humans and landed like a cat on a branch. "Prisha, wait for us here."
"No problem," she sighed, hanging on tight to Tìtstew's mekuru. "We're practically best friends now."
The banshee snorted and shook his neck.
Neteyam reached for a branch to climb off after his brother, but his arms weren't long enough. He'd thought he was used to his size, but now Lo'ak was here, and Neteyam was used to being able to do anything Lo'ak could. When he rearranged his grip to try to reach further, he slipped, and had to grab Prisha to keep from falling. She, in turn, yanked on Tìtstew, who let out an annoyed bark.
"I gotcha!" said Lo'ak, helping Neteyam onto the branch. "Maybe I should carry you on my back, like you used to do for Tuk."
"No," snarled Neteyam. "I can do it." He'd just have to pay more attention.
Lo'ak was startled by his vehemence. "I was joking," he said, holding up his hands, but then he let it go and started climbing up to where Konstopoulos' body hung. Neteyam had to take a different route, but he managed to follow and was determined to keep up, even if he had to take some risks to do it. If he fell again, that would be really humiliating. He managed not to, though, and the two arrived together at the corpse in the branches.
"You get the gear off her banshee," Neteyam ordered. "I'll see what's in her bag." He slid down onto another branch to reach the zipper on her backpack.
"She's got a rifle," Lo'ak observed. He wrapped his legs around an upper branch and hung upside down to unbuckle its holster.
"Leave it," said Neteyam, imagining Dad's reaction. He opened the bag and started pulling items out of it. Ammunition – didn't need that. Drinking water – did need that. Lighter fluid – might be useful. A few electronic items he didn't recognize – Prisha would know what they did, and could tell him which ones were worth keeping.
"I can use it," Lo'ak insisted. He pulled the rifle out and checked if it were loaded, in the exact motion Dad used to go through. "Dad's been teaching me."
That made Neteyam stop short. Dad had been very clear that using human weapons was a special skill he was teaching only to Neteyam, something Eywa disapproved of and reserved only for life-or-death emergencies. It did make sense that he might teach Lo'ak if Neteyam were dead, but it still made Neteyam feel... replaced.
Lo'ak put the weapon back in its holster and held out a hand. "She had more bullets for it."
Neteyam didn't know how to react. He wanted to go into big brother mode, to tell Lo'ak it wasn't a toy and needed to be left alone. But... maybe that wasn't what Dad would have wanted him to to anymore. Maybe Dad would think he didn't need Neteyam back.
After a moment's hesitation, he picked up the ammo box again and tossed it to Lo'ak. Lo'ak caught it and gave it a shake to determine how much was inside.
"We'll have to put her body somewhere they can't get to it, even if there's a beacon on it," Neteyam said, by way of changing the subject. "The first place I thought of was where part of the Noro goes underground, but there's probably Sky People all over it. They were looking for some explosives the People hid down there."
Lo'ak tied the clips of ammunition to the strap of the rifle holster, so he could carry them with his hands free. "If we take her back to High Camp, Tarsem and Grandma will know what to do, but that's no good if she's got a beacon." He turned himself right-side-up again and climbed higher to get to the dead banshee. "I wonder how many of these avatar soldiers there are now. When Dr. Patel called his wife on the way back, she confirmed that they were making more."
"Yeah. I'm the one who told them so," said Neteyam.
"Yeah?"
"They made me in the same place." Neteyam thought back. He didn't want to trust his memories too closely, but... no, wait. What Nguyen had said about memories being missing only applied to things they'd captured in the blue light. Anything after he'd awakened in this body ought to be fine. "There was a room where they had them exercising. I think there were half a dozen in there at a time, and it sounded like there were more. It was a big place, and Dr. Nguyen implied it had been set up just to manufacture recoms."
"Really?" Lo'ak looked down at him with wide eyes. "Dad's gonna want to know about that."
"I'm gonna tell him all about it," Neteyam promised. He pulled a few more objects out of the bag. These were mostly food and medical supplies, which would only be useful to somebody with a Na'vi body. Maybe Lo'ak could take them back to the People. Lo'ak, meanwhile, got the saddle off the banshee, and brought it down to put on Tìtstew. He lifted Prisha onto a higher branch to have access to the animal's back.
"Sorry, Bro," he told Tìtstew. "It's not what you're used to, but it'll make us easier to carry, okay?"
Neteyam returned with his own armful of loot, and Prisha pointed to one particular object. "Give me that scanner," she told him. He handed it over, and she turned it on and started running it over the saddle as Lo'ak strapped it in place. "There's two transponders," she announced. "There's an active one that transmits GPS and altimeter data, and a passive backup that will reply if it gets a signal from outside. We need to take the batteries out. Is there a screwdriver?"
"Here." Neteyam offered her a ring with miniature tools dangling from it, which had been clipped to a loop on the backpack. The objects would be small in the hands of a recom, but nevertheless a little large for Prisha. She accepted them anyway, and set to work. Tìtstew was still in a bad mood, so Lo'ak kept a hand on his neck, talking to him quietly.
Meanwhile, Neteyam was still thinking about what to do with Konstopoulos' body. "There are other entrances to the underground part of the Noro, right?" he said, with a sideways glance at Lo'ak to make sure he was remembering this correctly. He saw his brother nod. "We could throw her in one of those."
"We'd have to get her there first," said Lo'ak. "The three of us are already more than Tìtstew wants to carry, and I don't want to have to leave you guys behind. We could drop you two off at the archaeological camp and then come back for her."
"Somebody might find her in the mean time," said Neteyam. He'd been thinking as if Pawk were here, as she'd always been when he'd gone anywhere with Lo'ak and Tìtstew. Which made him wonder... "does Tìtstew know who I am?"
"Of course he does," said Lo'ak. "At least, he knows that I know. He just liked you better when you had your own ride."
"You could burn her," said Prisha.
Both the brothers turned to look at her, not understanding what she was talking about. "What?" asked Lo'ak.
"Her," said Prisha. She put the transponder batteries in her pocket, and pointed at Konstopoulos. "To keep them from getting her memories out. We could burn her."
Neteyam's instinctive reaction to the idea was a visceral, revolted no, before he remembered that to Prisha, this was a perfectly reasonable suggestion: humans burned their dead as a matter of course. It was a horrible thing to imagine doing, but if it would accomplish what they needed...
"Don't you have special ovens for it, though?" Neteyam asked. He'd been to a human funeral once, but he'd been so young that he didn't really remember what had happened there. The only thing that had stuck was that everybody had draped themselves in black.
"Yeah, but you don't need..." Prisha grimaced. "You don't need to cremate her all the way, you just have to, uh..." she gestured awkward, then gritted her teeth and bounced her knees, forcing out words she really didn't want to say. "You just have to 'cook' her brain enough to break down the chemical structure of the memories." She held up crooked fingers to emphasize that the word cook was metaphorical.
Neteyam looked up at Lo'ak, and found his brother looking back at him in astonishment. Neither of them had any idea Prisha Patel had that in her.
"The smoke will attract attention," Neteyam said, "but that probably doesn't matter if there's nothing left when they get here."
Prisha nodded, and swallowed hard. She didn't like the idea much better than they did.
Lo'ak dragged Konstopoulos' body down from the tree, and they piled dry twigs and brown leaves all over and around it. Neteyam soaked the whole thing with the lighter fluid from her backpack, and Lo'ak used flint to strike the sparks and set it alight. The accellerant went up with a surprising whoosh sound that made all three stumble backwards, and Tìtstew opened his wings and cried out. The stink of the liquid was quickly replaced by the equally foul smell of burning flesh and hair.
Nobody wanted to watch while it burned. Prisha walked away a few yards to the base of a tree and leaned forward against it, so she wouldn't be able to see anything but the bark. Lo'ak climbed back up to adjust the straps on the stolen saddle and make sure Tìtstew was comfortable wearing it, while Neteyam tried to make himself busy sorting the rest of their salvaged items, figuring out what he could carry, but even with his back to the fire, he could feel the heat from it.
Burning a body meant that the soul could not return to Eywa, but then, Konstopoulos had never been a part of Eywa to begin with. Her human body would have been born on Earth or one of those other planets humans used, unthinkably far away and yet closer than any other star. That body would have certainly been burned when it died, and she had probably expected or even wanted the name to happen to her recom.
That was a bit of a comfort, but it also brought up another thing Neteyam hadn't yet thought much about... this body would die someday. It might be tomorrow, it might be another eighty years, but everything living eventually had to die. What would happen to him then?
He knew right away that he didn't want to be burned, even if humans considered it customary. He wanted to be buried among the roots of the sacred tree like the People were, so the moss could grow over his body and the worms could burrow into it, so that he could feed the forest as death was meant to. But what about his soul? His mind was in this body because the Sky People had made an artificial recording and duplicate of it. Could he rejoin Eywa when he, like Konstopoulos, hadn't actually started there?
If he were already dead, the Great Mother had probably already absorbed his mind and body both.
That made Neteyam feel kind of sick. He remembered the sapling of the Sacred Tree that he'd spent the night under, and the way the ghost lichen had tried to cover him, as if to make contact. If he had somehow been able to make tsaheylu or something like it, would he have found his own voice among those within Eywa? Would that other self have recognized him as a part of the same being, or would he have been rejected as an imposter, a mockery?
For the first time, Neteyam was grateful he could no longer make such a connection, because he didn't want an answer to that question. Being rejected by Mother or Dad would be terrible, but somehow not as bad as being rejected by himself.
"Have we got everything?" he asked his companions, forcing himself back to the present moment. They had to leave before somebody saw the smoke and came to investigate.
"I think so," said Lo'ak.
Neteyam nodded. "Prisha, you ready?"
"Yeah," she said. "Let's get out of here."
Once they were back in the air, they circled the valley so that Prisha could get a look at the landforms, and she pointed the way to the archaeological site – west, in the opposite direction from High Camp.
"It's a day and a half to hike there once you're on the ground," she explained. "That's why Rob and Keith keep their avatars there, instead of having to back and forth."
They set off in that direction, staying low so they could dive back into the canopy if any enemy spotted them. This meant taking a winding route, wending their way between the tallest of the trees and occasional rocks and vines dangling from the mountains above. It was slower than it might have been, but that gave Lo'ak a chance to talk, and he had lots to say.
He wanted to fill Neteyam in on the things the family had been doing out east. He talked about learning to fish and to dive and how to ride a creature called an ilu, and making friends with the Metkayina kids. He had a lot to say about a girl named Tsireya – an awful lot – and a creature called Payakan. Kiri had been seriously ill, but had recovered with help from the Metkayina Tsahik. Tuk had a dozen little adventures of her own.
After Neteyam had spent his first few days at Site Nine terrified that his family were also prisoners in some form, this was all wonderful to hear – that they were far away and safe, learning new things and even having fun. But then Lo'ak started to talk about Neteyam himself. How he'd defended Kiri when some of the Metkayina boys had made fun of her. How he'd come to the rescue when Lo'ak was stranded at sea after a series of events he was rather vague about. And those did sound like things Neteyam would do, or at least how his little brother who looked up to him would describe his actions... but there was something chilling about the fact that Neteyam didn't remember them. Those were, quite literally, things that had happened to somebody else.
Lo'ak did not discuss the incident he'd referred to earlier, the one that had led to Neteyam's own death, and Neteyam did not ask him about it.
The sun was high in the sky when they arrived at the archaeological site. It was located on a steep slope, where People from some long-forgotten clan had once built a towering wooden palisade to keep part of a cliff from collapsing on their homes. On the flat below this, Rob and Keith had dug a roughly square trench, a metre deep and many metres on each side, exposing rings of stones that had once helped support tent-like marui similar to the one Neteyam and Lo'ak had grown up in. Next to this, in the shade of a row of zeswatral palms, was the metal trailer in which the two archaeologists kept their avatars. This was divided into two parts – one which easily opened to the outside, and one that was sealed off for use by visiting humans. Lo'ak landed Tìtstew in the trench, and Neteyam and Prisha slid off to go look in the windows.
There were no lights on, though the air conditioning could be heard humming, powered by the solar panels on the roof. Squinting into the dim interior, Neteyam could make out the bunks in the avatar half. Two bodies were just barely visible in there, Rob and Keith in the same bed, with Keith's arms around his partner from behind.
"They're not here," he said.
Prisha came up beside him and put her feet on the little ledge around the bottom of the trailer so she could climb up to see in. "They've been," she said, pointing to open food packaging on the table. "They didn't stay long, though."
"Then it might be a long time before they come back," Neteyam said.
"I'll manage. They'll have to come again tomorrow," Prisha told him. She hopped down and went to the other end of the trailer to activate the airlock.
"Wait for me," said Neteyam.
"Aren't we going to find Dad?" asked Lo'ak.
"Yeah, but I'm hungry," said Neteyam. He hadn't eaten breakfast and it was now past lunchtime. "They'll have human food, and if I eat here, I won't be starting in on supplies that I might need later." Dad might not have anything with him that Neteyam was still able to eat, and if Dr. Spellman and Dr. Patel were stuck in the dragon, kilometres from home, they would be worrying about their own supplies, never mind feeding another person.
"Good idea," Lo'ak decided. "I'll find something for myself, too."
Prisha nodded. "You can go in through..." she began, then realized Lo'ak was heading not for the trailer, but for the tree line, where he'd spotted some plants with edible berries. "Never mind."
Inside, they took off their masks. Prisha went straight to the sink to wash her face, and Neteyam blew his nose, which was crusty from nearly crying in front of Lo'ak. This section of the trailer clearly hadn't been used in months, except for storage. Every surface was piled with tools, soil samples, and trays of finds that hadn't yet been taken back to High Camp. There were even boxes on the beds. Neteyam got to work rearranging these so that Prisha would have somewhere to sleep, while she found packages of food and got the reconstitutor started.
"Have you tried Pad Thai yet?" she asked Neteyam.
"No. What's that?"
She turned the package over to read off the ingredients. "Rice noodles, tofu, scrambled eggs, and onions, mostly. Also peanuts and bean sprouts. If you want it spicy, I bet there's hot sauce here. Rob and Keith both like spicy food."
"As long as it's not that macaroni and cheese stuff," Neteyam said.
Lo'ak came back with berries and a few tubers he could wash and eat raw, and Prisha doled out helpings of reconstituted Pad Thai. There was an avatar breathing mask available, so Lo'ak kept that in his lap for the occasional whiff while all three of them sat down on the boxes and the edge of the bed to eat.
"Are you gonna be okay in here?" Lo'ak asked Prisha through a mouthful. He looked around at the mess. "I mean, there's not really anything to do."
"I'll find something," she promised. "Half the equipment in here is probably broken. I can fix it or tune it up or just take it apart and put it together again." She sighed heavily and looked down at her food – it had been in storage too long, and Neteyam was finding it rather soggy and tasteless. That wasn't what was on Prisha's mind, though. "Like I said, I'm good at machines. Take me outside, and I'm hopeless."
"You told me once that you wished you had an avatar," Neteyam remembered.
"Yeah." Prisha squirmed a little, embarrassed. "I thought if I had one, I could be better at outside stuff. That was dumb. Your dad didn't automatically become good at it when he got his. He still needed your mom to teach him."
A thought tickled at the back of Neteyam's mind. It was one that had occurred to him earlier, while he'd helped Prisha fix the hologram projector. Now it came back, with new force. "Prisha," he said, "you remember we talked about... they must have a faster way to make the recoms now, because they're making so many, and it only took them a few months to make me."
"Yeah?" she said.
"So... if we could get back into Site Nine where they've got all the equipment, do you think you could make yourself an avatar there?"
Prisha frowned. "Maybe? The process has probably changed a lot. They've had sixteen years for additional research. But," she added, "if they're making so many recoms then a lot of it has probably been automated. I'd need to see what they're doing exactly, before I could say yes or no." She looked at him for a moment. "You're not talking about me, though, are you?"
"No," Neteyam admitted.
If Site Nine could make him this body, and replacements for people like O'Donnell, then surely they could make him an avatar. Even better than an avatar, they could probably take his mind from this body and put it permanently in a new Na'vi one. Nguyen had all but said they could have done that but had chosen not to. It might not be exactly like his old one – it might have extra fingers and such like the avatars and recoms did... but so did Lo'ak and Kiri, and that wasn't so terrible. It would still be easier to face Mother and Dad that way than like this.
"What are you thinking?" asked Lo'ak warily. "Stupid ideas are my job, remember?"
"Bohan – she's one of the recoms – she told me there's a way to get into Site Nine through the roof, where they have to bring in outside air for the recoms," Neteyam said. "And I think she said they keep all the equipment down in the lower levels, so that won't be hard to find, we just head straight for the bottom. If Prisha can figure it out, then we can make me a proper body, and her an avatar. Right?" He looked at her for an answer.
Prisha swallowed, her food now forgotten in her lap. "I don't know," she said "I'd have to look. I can't promise. I'm not even sure I want an avatar anymore. Like I said, I know that won't make me good at this."
"Then I'll teach you," Neteyam said. "Like Mother taught Dad. In return, you can teach me about machines."
"I can try," said Prisha.
Neteyam grinned. "Lo'ak," he said, "you go back to Dad and tell him I'm fine, but there's something I have to do first. And tell him I already called you an idiot for disobeying him, so he doesn't need to do it again. Maybe he'll go easier on you."
"Um, no ," said Lo'ak. "I'm not just leaving. For one thing, how do you two think you're getting to this place?"
Neteyam hadn't thought of that. They could walk, but it was a long way. He didn't even know exactly how long, but easily over twice his own journey from the village site to High Camp. Having a banshee would help... but what would happen when they got there?
"You can't go into the facility," he pointed out. "There's so many humans there nobody will notice me or Prisha, but they'll sure notice you."
"We can pretend I'm one of the recoms," Lo'ak suggested, and held up his five-fingered hands. "I already look like them."
"It's not safe," said Neteyam.
"Not for you, either," Lo'ak told him. "I'm helping and that's final. Sullys stick together."
Sullys stick together. Neteyam couldn't argue with that. "I guess we do at least need the ride," he said.
Lo'ak smiled and held up a hand. "High five?" he asked.
That was a gesture of triumph, one Dad had only ever done with the avatars or with Lo'ak or very rarely Kiri... if the other person only had four fingers it just wasn't the same, he'd joked. Neteyam knew it was because he'd wanted the two kids everybody else saw as weird and different to have something that was only theirs. Now he looked at his own hands, grinned, and held one up.
Lo'ak gently slapped it.
"Let's get some more supplies," said Neteyam. "The archaeologists obviously aren't using them, and more of us can carry more." His heart was pounding, and he realized that for the first time since he'd woken up in that lab in Site Nine, he actually felt hopeful. The rest of his life wasn't an empty hole. There was a way to fix this.