There was a long silence after Demarco was chastised, and Neteyam almost started to enjoy it before Nguyen attempted to rally. "Well," she said, "I think we can ask Bush to assign you a different bodyguard. Until then, let's do something a little more fun. Today I think I'll show you the recreation centre. Physical activity can be a good way to deal with stress, and it can also help reduce phantom pains."
"That's what the recoms were doing yesterday," Neteyam remembered.
"Partly, but they also have to stay in shape. That's important for soldiers."
"I'm a warrior," he reminded her. "I should 'stay in shape' too."
"Wonderful," Nguyen said. Perhaps she was pleased to have found a topic besides the local gossip.
After breakfast, she shooed Demarco away, telling him to report to his superior for reassignment, and escorted Neteyam to the recreation area. This was a set of rooms that included areas for running, for playing a couple of ball games, and even one full of heavy objects that people were just lifting and then setting down again. What was the point of that? And what was the point of the artificial lake for swimming? It contained no fish to catch, nor even an interesting rocks or animals on the bottom. It was as if the humans wanted to do the things the People did, but didn't understand why they did them.
There was one room, however, that caught Neteyam's eye. The far wall of it was covered with colourful lumps, and people in harnesses were using these as foot and handholds as they made their way up and down. Once again, there wasn't really any goal involved – there was nothing at the top to retrieve – but climbing was one of the things Neteyam knew he was good at.
Seeing his interest, Nguyen escorted him in. "Now, you'll want to go easy the first week or so," she cautioned him. "Your muscles are new, remember. The growth stims count for a lot but they're not used to doing actual work, and..."
Neteyam wasn't interested in hearing anything more from her. He'd been doing nothing for a couple of days now, and it was driving him nuts. This wouldn't even be particularly challenging. The wall was built for climbing, so the holds were easily visible and wouldn't need careful testing like clefts in tree bark or cracks in stone. He wouldn't even need any of that silly-looking gear the humans were wearing. He kicked his shoes off and removed his socks to have his toes free, and ran to grab the first set of holds.
Nguyen was calling to him. He ignored her, and went up the wall like a prolemur. The humans on either side of him stared as he surged past them, and he realized that for the first time since waking up here, he was smiling.
Part of the wall jutted out in an artificial overhang, but even this was easy to climb. The bottom was covered with the hooked holds that were easy to put his digs into. He reached to get his toes into one and push himself up and over the bump, and...
... and after a moment of freefall he was lying flat on his back on the mat at the bottom, gasping for air with fireflies dancing in front of his eyes.
"Medic!" somebody called out. "Get a medic!"
"Neteyam!" Nguyen's face appeared, divided into two ghostly images, and then came back together into one again. Her eyes were wide and frightened. "Can you see me? Can you hear me?"
Neteyam tried to reply, but didn't have enough air. He was still fighting to refill his lungs after the impact had knocked the breath out of them. His memory replayed the accident in slow motion: he'd tried to grab a hold on the bottom of the overhang, but his foot hadn't gripped, and he'd fallen. Now that he began to sit up and looked at his feet, he realized why. Human toes couldn't grip like Na'vi ones. They all pointed directly forward. Dad, Lo'ak, and Kiri had feet like that, but they'd all grown up that way and knew how to cope with the handicap. Neteyam... it just hadn't occurred to him, and now he'd made a fool of himself.
The medic was a plump woman with frizzy dark hair who prodded Neteyam's neck and back and felt his skull, checking for injuries. Like Nguyen, her hair was very short – a lot of humans seemed to wear it that way, or to shave it off entirely like a couple of the climbers who had gathered around to see what was happening. Clearly it was not the sign of disgrace it would have been among some tribes of the People... but the short hair also seemed almost designed to draw attention to the smooth domes of their heads, without queues. As if they were proud of it.
Still a bit dizzy, he wondered if that were how they were able to live in this sterile place, because even if they were out in the forest they would not be able to make a real connection with anything there. Maybe it all looked all the same to them.
When the medic felt at the back of Neteyam's head, where his own queue should have been, the lack made him shudder. He could only hope it wouldn't start hurting the way his equally nonexistent tail did.
Finally, the woman gave Neteyam a clean bill of health, and only then did she ask him his name.
"Neteyam te Suli Tsyeyk'itan," he replied formally.
His words made a picture and some writing pop up on a device the medic was holding. Neteyam could read a little, but not quickly – it had never been an essential skill. He wasn't fast enough to catch what this said before the woman started manipulating the display.
"I'm giving you a citation for not using safety equipment," she said sternly. "If I have to give you a second one, you'll be banned from the climbing wall for sixty days. Understand?"
"He understands," said Nguyen firmly.
That was it for the recreation area, at least for that day. Nguyen escorted Neteyam out, and set him to doing a bunch more strange and pointless tasks that she considered tests. He was shown a chart, like the one the recom had been reading off the other day, and was asked to identify in which direction rows of smaller and smaller arrowheads were pointed. This was supposed to tell them how well his eyes were working. A similar test involved quieter and quieter sounds. He was asked to count and do some simple mathematics, and to identify shapes and animals.
These were all easy things to do, which was good, because Neteyam was having a hard time concentrating on them. The image of the climbing wall flashing past him as he fell kept flickering in front of his eyes every time he blinked. He could he have forgotten something so obvious as how human feet worked? He knew that his father and siblings had to climb differently than he did, and yet he'd never even thought of it. He should have known better.
Next time, he vowed silently. Next time he'd stop and think first, and make sure he was prepared.
Before Neteyam settled down to sleep that night, Nguyen gave him another tablet and water to take it with. He wasn't sure whether to take it or not, but then he remembered waking up in so much pain the previous evening, and how he'd felt twitches and twinges in the nonexistent appendage all day, and he put the pill in his mouth and washed it down.
By morning, Neteyam felt like he was going to go mad. He woke up early, as he was used to doing, and lay there feeling like he wanted to roll out of it and just fall, just to feel the wind in his hair again. But it was only an arm's length to the floor, not enough for that, or for the thrill of catching the foliage on the way down. He'd just go thump, like he had at the climbing wall. Great Mother, what would his parents have said if they'd seen that?
Groaning, he reached up and rubbed at his face. The first thing he felt was the shape of his nose again, which made a shiver run through his insides again – but then he also felt something rasp on his chin. Something that shouldn't have been there.
Frowning, he sat up and ran a hand around the rim of his jaw. It was covered with tiny barbs, like a viperwolf's tongue. What was that?
Neteyam got up and went to the shiny black panel in the wall, the one Nguyen had said could be used to call her. The surface was a bit reflective, although it didn't give as clear or colourful a picture as the surface of a quiet pool. He didn't like looking at his new face, but he forced himself to examine the reflection as he ran a thumb across the strange sensation. It wasn't something stuck to his skin, because rubbing didn't seem to remove it.
It was hard to make out, but he could see a spattering of dark spots across his cheeks and upper lip. He touched it again, and finally figured out what it was – a growth of tiny, stiff hairs.
Neteyam swallowed a sudden mouthful of bile. Some humans had hairy faces – Max Patel did, and Dr. Spellman's came and went. It wasn't something he'd ever paid a lot of attention to, it was just what those particular individuals looked like, similar to how some people had darker stripes or more photophores than others. Now he suddenly had a dozen questions about it. Why did some have this hair and others not? Why did Dr. Spellman only have it sometimes? How long did it get? Did it get in the way while they ate? Could they be shaved away like head hair?
His first idea was to ask Nguyen – after all, she'd said he could ask her any questions he had. But that would be, in a way, letting her win, and anyway, only male humans seemed to have the problem so she might not even know. Demarco was male and kept his face bare, but he was no longer available, and after being told off once for providing information Nguyen didn't approve of, he might not be willing to say anything.
So Neteyam didn't speak during breakfast – but he couldn't ignore the new sensation. Over and over, he caught himself running his fingers over the little hairs. Nguyen seemed to notice this, but she didn't say anything – she was waiting for him to ask her. That made him all the more determined not to do so.
Shortly after the two of them had sat down, General Bush came and joined them. He pulled up a chair and put his own tray down on the table. "How are we doing?" he asked as he sat down.
Nguyen sighed. "I think we're bored, honestly. Would you like to go back to the recreation centre today, Neteyam? As long as you follow the rules this time, there'll be no problem."
Neteyam didn't answer. The words recreation centre brought back that memory of losing his grip on the wall and hitting the floor, like a child climbing for the first time. He wanted to try again, but what if he fell? What if there were something else about this new body he'd forgotten? He put another piece of fruit in his mouth, and ran a finger along the edge of his jaw again.
"You're getting a bit whiskery there, son," Bush observed. "Need a shave? The locals don't grow beards, do they? You probably don't know how to do that."
Nguyen looked annoyed – she'd wanted Neteyam to be the one to bring it up. "He's right. I can take you to the barber today."
"No, he needs to learn how to do it himself," Bush said firmly. "It's a rite of passage."
That got Neteyam's attention. If shaving the hairs away were possible he could probably figure it out for himself, but a rite of passage might be an opportunity. He had been through the rites of passage for a member of the Omatikaya Clan. If he could learn this task, maybe the humans would treat him with less condescension. "I want to learn," he said.
"Good kid." Bush patted him on the back. "Finish your food, and come with me."
Once they'd eaten and put away their dishes and trays, Bush took Neteyam into one of the washrooms. These had been a strange idea to Neteyam at first, but he'd figured it out pretty quickly – humans lived indoors, so they had to make a place to deal with their bodily functions, not just find somewhere convenient. Bush set several implements on the edge of a sink, and then pointed to the spigot.
"Wash your face first," he ordered. "Nice hot water makes the hairs easier to trim."
Neteyam obeyed. The feeling of the whiskers brushing on his fingers and palms felt very unnatural. If they could be easily gotten rid of, why did anyone keep them?
"Now give this a good shake," Bush said, picking up a metal container. It rattled as he shook it. "Hold out your hands."
Neteyam did, and a button on the canister filled his hands with a white froth. It reminded him of the substance produced by certain fungi, which the Omatikaya used to clean fibres before spinning them into thread or wool.
"Smear it on where you're gonna shave," Bush instructed. "Push it up, against the grain where the hairs grow." The next tool he offered was the razor, which was a short blade on a stick, rather than the curved piece of obsidian the warriors used. "Short, light strokes. Start with your cheeks to get the feel of it before you try doing somewhere sensitive like your throat. You can puff up your cheeks to get a better surface."
The bones and flesh were going to be more difficult to navigate than a scalp. Neteyam had never shaved his own head, but he'd watched mother help Lo'ak with the sides of his. He took a deep breath and focused, using the same care as he would have applied to delicate beadwork, or pulling bark into fibre for rope. Humans did this all the time, he reminded himself, it couldn't be that difficult. There wasn't even any blood involved, as there would be in piercing an ear or a lip. Yet his heart was beating hard against his ribs as he dragged the blade over his skin. Why was this so scary?
It must be because of his fall yesterday, he thought. If he could fail at something so easy and obvious as climbing a wall that had been built to be climbed, he could certainly slip and cut his own throat with a razor. If that happened, would the humans let him die, or would they just make him another body and start over?
"Short strokes," Bush reminded him. "You're doing great."
That was reassuring, but what would happen if Neteyam tried something like the climbing wall again and couldn't do it? What if this new body was just clumsier than his old one? Nguyen had implied that they were worried they'd made mistakes in creating it. What if they had? What if he failed at the climbing wall no matter how many times he tried?
"Good, good," said Bush. "You missed a bit there, under your chin. Want me to get that for you?"
"No," said Neteyam. If this were a rite of passage, then he had to do it himself. He wouldn't have let somebody else capture a banshee for him. He found the place and raised his chin, carefully drawing the razor across the taut skin. "There."
His entire lower face looked redder than before, and it felt rather scraped, as if he'd taken a layer of skin off along with the whiskers. But when he ran his fingers along his jawline, it was smooth again. That was a relief.
"Good job!" Bush said. "Now rinse, and you're done. You're a quick study, Nate."
Neteyam was about to splash water on his face, but then he paused and looked at the man suspiciously. "'Nate'?"
"It's a nickname," said Bush. "Usually it's for the name Nathan or Nathaniel, but why can't it be for Neteyam?"
Neteyam bristled. Who was this man, to think he could address him by a shorter version of his name? That was reserved for close friends and family, the way they called Tuktirey 'Tuk'. "No," he said. "Don't call me that."
Bush looked startled, but then nodded. "All right. I won't."
Nguyen was waiting for them outside the washroom, and smiled when she saw them emerge. "How did it go?"
"Very well," said Bush. "He's a quick learner. Good thing, you're gonna be doing that every day for the rest of your life, kiddo," he added to Neteyam.
This was spoken as if it were meant kindly, as if he were proud of the fact that Neteyam was ready, but it felt like a slap. It felt like more of Quaritch's mockery: you're one of us now. It made him want to do something to emphasize that he was not one of them, and Nguyen immediately provided him an opportunity.
"You might also want a haircut," she said. "Or at least a trim."
"No," said Neteyam immediately. "The Omatikaya do not cut our hair short." Not unless they were in disgrace, or in medical emergencies like an injury requiring trepanation.
He had expected Nguyen to gently argue with him, but to his surprise, she backed down. "Well, maybe we can find another way to keep it neat."
"I want to braid it," Neteyam decided.
Nguyen seemed to like that idea. She nodded. "I'll take you to the barber."
The barber was a place where people sat in chairs to have their hair cut or their beards shaved. In many cases, head hair was being cut back to stubble with a buzzing machine, and Neteyam suddenly wondered if this were a trick. Were they going to cut it all off anyway? But Nguyen passed by all the chairs with the close cuts, and took Neteyam to a dark-coloured woman whose own hair was in many small braids, the way many of the Omatikaya wore it.
"This is Rosita," said Nguyen. "You want your hair like hers, right?"
"That's right," Neteyam said.
Rosita smiled and offered him a chair. "Have a seat."
She got to work, and turned out to be surprisingly good at it. The braids were even and tight, like the ones Neteyam's mother had used to do for him when he was little, and she knew how to do it without pulling too hard. She offered beads to put on the ends of them, but he refused because they would click as he moved. If he wanted to escape, he didn't want something making noise to give away his position.
When she was finished, Rosita let Neteyam look at his reflection in the mirror. He still didn't like what he saw there. It was uncanny, watching that human face mirror his expressions and movements. But with the whiskers shaved away, the braids in his hair, and the gold eyes, it was almost starting to look like Neteyam. He felt like if his parents or siblings saw him, they would... well, they probably wouldn't recognize him, but they would think he looked familiar. He thanked Rosita, and walked out of the barber's with something approaching his usual swagger.
Bush had gone off to do something else now, but Nguyen was waiting for him, and seemed pleased. "It looks good on you," she said, "and much tidier. Come on, I've got a few more things for you to try."
This turned out to mean returning to the recreation centre. Neteyam recognized hallways and signs on the way and realized that was where they were headed, and after a moment's internal turmoil he squared his shoulders, determined. This was his chance to make up for that embarrassing failure yesterday. This time, he was going to go right up that wall to the top.
As they passed the row of windows that looked in on the climbing room, however, his stomach turned inside out. Once again, the memory hung in front of his eyes: the feel of his toes slipping from the hold, the sudden acceleration of falling, the air forced out of his lungs as he hit the mat. What would his family have thought of him? Kiri and Lo'ak would have never let him forget it – their big brother, the overachiever, unable to climb a wall that was meant to be climbed! And Mother and Dad... he could almost see the disappointment on their faces as they turned their heads away.
He was therefore a little grateful when Nguyen didn't take him to the climbing wall. Instead, she went into a room with an open-bottomed net fixed to a hoop high on the wall at each end, and gave him a large orange ball. Another test.
"We're looking at your binocular vision and coordination," she said. "It's a game called basketball. The object is to throw the ball through the hoop."
That seemed easy enough. Neteyam took aim, and threw.
The ball bounced off the rim of the hoop and dropped to the ground.
Nguyen reached to retrieve the ball for him, but Neteyam ran after it and caught it himself. "I can do it," he said.
"You're allowed to try again," she assured him.
He tossed it again. Again, it bounced off the rim. Neteyam went to catch it again, fumbled it, and had to let it bounce before he could grab it again. He licked his lips.
"Neteyam, relax!" Nguyen told him, a hand on his shoulder. "It's not a test."
He pushed her hand away. "It is a test. You called it a test."
"It's not a test of your abilities," she corrected herself. "I'm just watching your coordination and how your eyes and body work together. You've been doing very well the last few days and you're doing very well at this. Your muscles are doing what you tell them, and that's all I want to see."
Neteyam's muscles were not doing what he told them, because he was telling them to get the ball through the hoop. He tried again, and then again, and then again. Finally he thought it was going to go in, as it rolled around the edge of the hoop, but then it went over again and hit the floor, and he hissed at it in frustration.
That was enough to tell Neteyam that he had to calm down. He never did things like that. He was the oldest. He had to act like an adult, and adults didn't growl at inanimate objects. If they didn't get something right on the first try, they simply tried again. It had been a long time since Neteyam hadn't been able to do something on the first or second try.
No it hadn't. It had been yesterday.
"It's okay," said Nguyen. "Do you want to go now?"
"No," he said, scooping up the ball again. "I want to get it right." He took a deep breath, focused, and threw it again. Again, it bounced off the rim.
"It's not as easy as it looks on television," said Nguyen.
Neteyam picked up the ball again. He didn't want to ask her questions, because it was what she wanted him to do, but how else was he going to know? "You said this sometimes doesn't work very well, this new body thing," he said. "Do you think you got something wrong when you, uh..." he couldn't quite make himself say the words made me. He didn't want to think of himself as something the Sky People had made.
She reached for him again, then changed her mind and kept back. "From what I've seen so far, no. Your results are pretty normal for somebody who's never tried this before."
That was an answer, but how did he know it was true? He tried to get the ball in the hoop again. Again he failed.
"Your performance at physical tasks is very important to you, isn't it?" Nguyen observed.
"Sh..." Neteyam began, and then closed his eyes and stopped himself. He was not going to tell her to shut up. He was the oldest. He had to act like it. His parents weren't here, and he didn't know where they were, but he had to act in a way that would make them proud.
Especially after he'd also disappointed them by falling off the wall.
His hands were shaking as he threw it again. This time he missed entirely, and the ball bounced off the board and fell.
"You're too wound up now," said Nguyen. "IF you want we can..."
"No," said Neteyam. He was going to get it right. If he couldn't throw a ball through a hoop, how was he supposed to know he wouldn't just fall off again next time he tried to climb that wall.
Nguyen sighed and checked her watch. "Five more minutes," she said. "We've got other things to do today."
Neteyam took several deep breaths, trying to let the anxiety out. He could do this. He knew he could do this. It was such a simple task. He just had to remember that his arms were shorter than he thought. He could even use that extra finger to help stabilize the ball...
The device Nguyen wore on her wrist beeped, and she raised it to her ear. "This is Faye Nguyen," she said.
The watch played somebody else's voice. Neteyam couldn't make out what it was saying.
"All right, I'm on my way," she said, and lowered her arm. "I'm sorry, Neteyam, I have to go see about something." For a moment she looked like she would just go, but then she seemed to realize that would leave him all alone. "Oh... I was going to request a new guide for you from General Bush, but he took you off to learn to shave and I totally forgot. Do you remember the way back to your room?"
"No," he said. This place was a maze. He'd noticed enough landmarks to figure out where they were going, but he couldn't get back by himself.
"Then you'll have to come with me," she decided, clearly reluctant. "Just stay where I tell you, and please don't ask questions. We need to respect people's privacy."
Neteyam nodded once, and put the basketball back in the bin Nguyen had gotten it out of. He would come back and next time he would get it right. This one and the climbing wall, both.
Nguyen led the way through the halls, and Neteyam realized once again that he knew where they were going – back to the observation room above where the recoms exercised. They arrived to find a similar scene to the other day, with people jogging or doing other tasks under the supervision of Quaritch and another man whose head was totally shaved except for the hair braided around his queue. Was it Neteyams' imagination, or were there even more of them today? How many of their dead had the Sky People brought back in this form?
"Sit down," said Nguyen, pulling a chair over for Neteyam to use. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She went down a flight of steps and vanished.
Neteyam did not sit down. He didn't like chairs very much – crouching or sitting on the floor just felt more natural. When he looked around the room, he saw that the puzzle he'd started putting together was still on the table, which had been pushed to the back of the room to have more space. He could have kept putting that together. It would be at least one thing he could succeed at today... but maybe Nguyen had been thinking of that. Maybe she wanted him to be distracted so he wouldn't see what she was doing.
So instead, he went to the window and looked for her. Nguyen was not in the big room where the recoms were working, but when Neteyam pressed his face to the glass he found there was a door into another room right below the observation area. He could just barely see the top of Nguyen's head, almost directly underneath him. He continued watching as Quaritch led a sulking female recom up to the doorway, and as they passed, this individual happened to look up, right into Neteyam's eyes.
It was the one named Bohan. Neteyam wasn't sure why he bothered, but he raised a hand in acknowledgement. She nodded to him, then lowered her head and continued into the room.
Neteyam couldn't see what happened after that, so he raised his head and continued to watch what was going on in the rest of the room. The other recoms seemed to be interested in what was happening with Bohan. Their heads had turned as she was led past them. Now that she was gone, they held quiet conversations among themselves until the people in charge scolded them for it – and then, even when they returned to what they were doing, there were a lot of furtive glances towards the door.
A few minutes went by. The humans in the observation room were also talking softly to each other. Neteyam could hear snatches of their conversation. It included phrases like post-traumatic stress syndrome and permanent psychological consequences, often accompanied by glances either at the window, or perhaps at Neteyam himself, as if checking if he understood. He kept his face turned towards the window, giving them no clue how much he might have heard or grasped.
So this process wasn't as smooth as Nguyen insisted. There were people who were damaged by it, like this Bohan. Neteyam wondered if his fall and his bad aim were part of that.
More time went by. Neteyam rocked back and forth on his feet, bored and a little hungry. He suspected Nguyen hadn't thought it would take this long. Would she send somebody to deal with him, or would he just have to wait here?
Another woman entered the room. This one had long hair in a braid at the back of her neck, not unlike a Na'vi queue. Most of her hair was yellow, but the roots of it were dark. Perhaps she had spent a lot of time in the sun until recently.
She approached Neteyam. "Are you, uh... Ne-Neteyam?" she asked, stumbling over the name.
"Yes," he replied.
"Dr. Nguyen wants you downstairs," she said. "Let me get you a breathing unit."
This was the same contraption he'd seen Sky People wearing in the past – a transparent shield that covered the whole face, with a strap that went tightly around the back of the head. When Neteyam put it on, this pushed his narrow braids uncomfortably into his scalp, and he had to lift them up and let them fall over it instead. The edges of the mask were a rubbery material that stuck to his skin, and the first few times he breathed the warm, stale-smelling air inside it, moisture condensed on the shield and blocked his view.
One that had cleared, the yellow-haired woman escorted him down a flight of steps and into a small room at the bottom, with white walls and no furniture. The woman put her own breathing unit on, then touched a panel on the wall. The door shut with a very heavy-sounding thud, and there was a hissing sound. A few seconds later, the door on the opposite wall opened, and they headed out into the exercise room.
Sounds in here were muffled by the breathing mask, which covered Neteyam's ears, but he could still hear how they echoed in the large open space. Two recoms were playing the game Nguyen had called basketball – the nearer one caught the ball, and both turned to watch as the yellow-haired woman and Neteyam passed by at their feet.
Neteyam tried not to show it, but it was a bad shock to be reminded just how big they were up close. Being surrounded by humans who were the same height as himself had started to feel almost normal, but the recoms towering over him was a sharp reminder of how small he really was. Was that the real reason he was having so much trouble with simple tasks like throwing a ball, because he just didn't have a good idea of his own size?
They entered the little room below the observation chamber. This was surprisingly comfortable, with couches and tables and even a refrigerator, and pictures of outdoor scenes on the wall. Everything in it was sized for the recoms, which made it seem gigantic from Neteyam's height. Quaritch was leaning in a corner drinking water out of a bottle. Nguyen was sitting on a human-sized chair in the middle of the room, facing the woman called Bohan, who was draped rather bonelessly over a sofa, legs spread and arms out across the back. It was a great contrast with the straight-backed, disciplined stances of the other recoms outside.
She sat up a bit when Neteyam came in, and Nguyen stood.
"There he is," the doctor said.
"Neteyam," he announced his name.
"Neteyam," Nguyen echoed with a nod. "This is Emily Bohan. She asked to talk to you."