It took only a few minutes for the banshee to reach High Camp, but that was enough time for a small crowd to gather outside the habitat modules where the humans lived, waiting for her. She brought her mount in for a landing, and a dozen pairs of hands reached out to receive Neteyam as the lookout let him down from the banshee's back.
"He's got no shoes on!" somebody exclaimed, as several sets of arms put him on his feet, then grabbed at him all over again to keep him from toppling. He could see a half-dozen faces behind breathing masks, but couldn't focus enough to recognize any of them. After what he'd been through over the past two days, his new and untrained body had no energy left even to see or stand up.
"What happened to him?" another voice asked, then switched to Na'vi. "How did he get up here?"
"A wild banshee attacked him," Pa'ay replied. "I'm surprised he was still alive when I got there."
"Not wild," said Neteyam. Between exhaustion and the pain in his ribs and back, his voice came out barely above a whisper. "Did you hurt her?
Nobody seemed to hear him, however. The humans continued to trade observations about his condition as they helped him up the metal steps and into the airlock, which hissed as it filled with the simulated Earth atmosphere. Once that was done, somebody pulled Neteyam's face mask off, and he could finally take deep breaths that didn't taste of sulphur.
The inner door opened, and the first voice that spoke was a child's. "What's going on?"
"Go back to bed, Viraj," replied a woman. That was Max Patel's wife, Reet. She was one of the medics.
The humans helped Neteyam into another room and lay him down on a medical bed, where he opened his eyes to find several faces gazing down at him. It reminded him violently of the moment he'd awakened at Site Nine surrounded by scientists, and in a moment of irrational terror he tried to get up and run, but several people forced him back down. Holograms lit up around him as they took a look at his injuries.
"I'm seeing cracked ribs and some kind of chemical burn," someone said.
Neteyam suddenly realized that one of the faces looking down at him was familiar. Without even really registering who it actually belonged to, Neteyam grabbed the man's arm. "I need..." he began.
From the other side of the bed, Reet pushed him back down again. "You need to lie down," she said firmly. "Prisha! Come and get your brother!"
Neteyam didn't let go of the arm he was holding. At Site Nine he'd begun to get used to being around humans that were the same height as him, but those had been strangers. The fact that he knew these ones made them seem like giants all over again. "Doctor Spellman!" he insisted.
Norm jumped, his skin twitching under Neteyam's fingers. "Yes" he asked.
"I need..." Neteyam repeated, trying to sit up again.
"No, no, lie down," said Norm firmly. He put his hands on Neteyam's shoulders and forced him, though gently, back onto the bed. "You need to tell us something. I understand that, but right now the most important thing is your injuries. You've got a broken wrist, three cracked ribs, first-degree burns..." h glanced at the nearest holoscreen. "And those bites on your hand are infected. Once we've taken care of that, you can talk to us, okay?"
"Can I help at all?" came the sleepy voice of Prisha Patel.
"You can take Viraj out of here," Reet replied.
"I'm going," Viraj complained.
"And wake up Suzette," Reet added. "And find out what's keeping your father."
"You heard Mom," Prisha said to her brother. "Come on."
"Did you see him? It's a booooooy," Viraj said to her, as she dragged him out of the room.
Norm's face appeared in Neteyam's field of view again. "Listen to me," he said. "We don't have an osteofabricator up here. We're going to have to drain the fluid from your wrist and set the bones surgically. In order to do that, we'll have to knock you out. Do we have your permission to do that?"
"Yes," said Neteyam.
"There are more chemical burns on his other hand," another man observed.
Reet Patel put a soft plastic mask over Neteyam's nose and mouth, similar to the ones the People used in the humans' air. He expected to smell something odd, but there was nothing.
"Breathe in and out," Reet ordered.
Neteyam obeyed. Almost immediately, the pain he'd been ignoring all day eased, and it was almost a shock. It was as if, without it, he wasn't even aware of his body anymore. He felt like he was floating...
The next thing Neteyam was aware of was lying on his back on a soft but uneven surface, with a blanket over him. He opened his eyes and at first saw only a blur, but after a moment it wavered into focus. He was looking at a low, flat ceiling. There were pictures fixed to it - photographs of humans, of Na'vi, and of avatars. The people and places were familiar. There was Dr. Spellman's avatar, with Prisha and Viraj Patel, both younger than they were now, sitting on his shoulders. There was Max Patel crouched between Dad and Grandmother at a ceremony. There was the old Omatikaya village on a festival night, with fires lit and dancers in costumes. Others featured people he didn't recognize, and there were places where scraps of adhesive showed other images had been taken down.
Neteyam lay there looking at these for what felt like a long time, although it was probably only seconds. He was brought sharply back to reality by the realization that he was about to throw up.
He rolled to lean over the side of the bed and retched. Somebody nearby cried out in surprise, and then a pair of hands gave him a plastic bucket to be sick into. The same hands, presumably, held his braids out of the way while he vomited a thin, sour fluid. The sound of it falling into the bucket was horrible.
When he'd finished, the hands offered him a tumbler of water. Neteyam took it and rinsed his mouth out, ignoring the metallic taste of the container as best he could, and spit into the bucket again. The hands patted him gingerly on the back.
"Mom said you might be sick," said a voice. "Morphine does that to some people."
Neteyam raised his head. He wasn't sure who he'd expected to see, but it turned out to be Prisha Patel.
He knew Prisha, and he knew she was small even for a human - but now he was sitting on a bed across from her, almost exactly on her eye level, and she seemed enormous. It made him wonder if she had, in fact, grown since he'd seen her last. She was around his own age, so it was possible. Other than that, however, she was reassuringly familiar. As before, she was mostly a cloud of curly hair around a pair of round glasses, set atop a body that was short and round, about as unlike a Na'vi as a human could possibly look.
She smiled at him, then quickly looked away and pressed a button on the wall.
"Mom?" she said. "He's awake. He threw up."
Okay, I'm coming, Reet's voice replied, the connection crackling. Give him some water.
"I did," Prisha promised. She let the button go and smiled shyly at Neteyam again. "Hi," she said.
"Hi," he replied.
"My name is Prisha Patel," she said. "Welcome to Kxayl Tì'awm... that's what the Omatikaya call this place. High Camp. I help maintain the life support systems and the link beds in the human habitats. Well, I say help," she added with a nervous giggle, "but since Dr. Przhevalsky died, I pretty much do it all by myself."
Neteyam nodded - he didn't remember if he'd met Dr. Przhevalsky. Maybe that was another gap in his memory, or maybe that particular human just hadn't made much of an impression on him. He took another swig of water, swallowing it this time, and then handed the empty tumbler back to Prisha.
She put it on the table next to her, and kept talking. "You know you've been asleep for thirty-six hours?" she asked. "They gave you fluids and some nutrient solution through an IV, but Mom and Dad figured you'd be hungry when you woke up. I can reconstitute something for you. Do you like macaroni and cheese?"
That was the name of the yellow stuff they'd tried to offer him at Site Nine, wasn't it? "No," said Neteyam.
"Oh," said Prisha. The answer had obviously surprised her, but she rallied. "Well, we've got lots of other stuff..."
She kept talking, which Neteyam registered as odd - he'd never thought of Prisha as chattery. Then again, he'd never spent a lot of time with her. Maybe she was and he'd just never noticed. He tried to listen to her while he took stock of his body.
His ribs still hurt, but not nearly as bad as they had. The same with his wrist. The latter was bound up in many layers of bandages with a hard coating on top to keep him from bending it. This wouldn't let him close his hand, but he could curl and uncurl his fingers with only minimal pain, and his elbow could rotate, though not as far as when it was not so encumbered.
He was wearing clean clothes. These were a pair of loose flannel trousers with a stripe pattern, and a dark blue henley shirt with the right sleeve rolled up above his cast. Both items were a bit too big for him. When he raised the hem of the shirt, he found his chest badly bruised. The skin had turned a dozen shades of purple, green, and yellow, and if Neteyam hadn't spent enough time with Spider to know that was how humans bruised, he might have worried something was seriously wrong to produce those colours. There were bandages on his lower ribs where the medicinal plant had blistered the skin, and more on his left hand where the eel had bitten him. His nonexistent tail hurt, but that was almost normal by now.
"You've been through a lot, huh?" Prisha asked, leaning forward a little for a better look. "Pa'ay said you got stepped on by a banshee. Did you really climb the floating mountains all by yourself?"
Neteyam raised his head and found her gazing at him with big, bright eyes magnified by her glasses. She must have considered this an amazing feat. For a human, it probably was, and doubly so for somebody who'd been trapped indoors her entire life. He vaguely remembered Prisha saying she wished she had an avatar. Did she dream of climbing the stones and vines?
"Did you?" she repeated.
"Yes," said Neteyam. "It took all night." He let his shirt fall again, and reached down the back of it to feel at his injured shoulder. There were sutures in it now. Had he cut himself worse than he thought sliding down rocks in the caves, or had that been done by Pawk's talons?
"Wow," Prisha breathed. "Even the avatars think it's too dangerous to be out at night. Weren't you scared?"
He wanted to scoff that of course he hadn't. The forest was his home. But... that would be a lie, wouldn't it? There'd been times when seeing these familiar places from this new, lower, weaker, unwelcome vantage point had been terrifying. "Yes," he said, "but I knew if I gave up, I would die."
Prisha nodded, eyes wide with admiration.
It was a foolish thing to be thinking about at that moment, but Neteyam actually felt a little better knowing that somebody thought he was impressive. Maybe it was quite an accomplishment that he'd made it here alive, but his catalogue of injuries didn't exactly leave him feeling like a mighty warrior.
Prisha's cheeks went pink, and she lowered her gaze and cleared her throat. "Anyway," she said. "Maybe when you're feeling better, I can show you around! It's a lot less space than we had down in the jungle, but we make do. We're not really used to having visitors, but we've been talking about how to make room for you, and my brother and I... oh." She fell silent and sat up straight as the door opened, as if she were expecting an enemy.
It was, however, only her mother, Reet. Dr. Manpreet Singh liked to wear colourful blouses, sometimes with glittering beads sewn on them. Today's was brilliant green, with flowers embroidered around the neckline. Prisha and Viraj had inherited their curls from their father. Reet's hair was straight, with streaks of silver in it, and she had it gathered up in a loose bun at the back of her neck. She shooed Prisha out of the way with one hand, while the other held up a holopad to re-scan Neteyam's injuries.
"Good afternoon, young man," she greeted him. "I don't know if I like you sitting up just yet, but you've clearly survived everything so far so I guess it won't kill you." She leaned in to scan his abdomen. "Ribs are looking better. Our medtech is a little primitive up here, so you're going to have to go easy on that wrist for a couple of weeks while the bones knit on their own. You're hydrated again, which is good, but I'm afraid there's nothing to be done for the sunburn but anti-inflammatories and patience. Don't worry, we're gonna take good care of you until your uncle gets here. Max and Norm have gone to find him."
Neteyam sat up straight, or at least, he tried to - the action made a sharp pain flash through his bruises, and he quickly slouched again. His uncle? What was she talking about? Had somebody at Site Nine realized he'd gone here, and was now trying to trick the humans into returning him with a story about a lost relative?
"My uncle?" he asked.
"They ran your DNA while you were out," Prisha said.
"We're sorry for the invasion of privacy," Reet told him, "but we needed to know who you were and whether you have any allergies or conditions that might affect your treatment. It came back with a three sigma probability that you were Jake Sully's son, which was a little confusing because he wouldn't be able to have human kids your age. Then, of course, Norm remembered he had a twin brother. That's what you wanted to tell us when you arrived, isn't it?"
Neteyam was dumbfounded. He looked at Prisha and saw her nod, and for a moment he didn't know what to do. He had expected that the humans wouldn't recognize him and he would have to explain who he was and what he needed from them, though he hadn't put together a plan for how he would do that. It had never occurred to him that they might come to their own conclusions before he could even try.
For a split second he considered just agreeing with them. Then he wouldn't have to tell them who he really was, or deal with how they would treat him afterwards. People here would be as happy to help Jake Sully's nephew as they would his son, and they wouldn't try to test his memory the way he'd been worried about. When his parents arrived, Neteyam could get an idea how they felt about having a human in the family before he had to break the bad news. They wouldn't be judging everything he tried to do now against what he used to be able to do - and if they didn't want him, the rejection wouldn't be so personal.
But that moment of madness passed, and Neteyam quickly realized it was a ridiculous idea. Grandmother always said that telling the truth meant never having to remember what you'd lied about, and such a charade would require so many lies that he'd never keep them all straight. As for his family, they would see right through it as soon as they spoke to him.
"Are you okay?" asked Prisha.
"No." Neteyam swallowed. If he were going to tell the truth, then the best thing would be to just do it. "That's not right. Jake Sully is not my uncle."
The two women frowned. They'd been sure they were correct. Neteyam had only a vague idea what DNA was, but he knew humans considered it infallible.
"Who are you, then?" asked Reet.
"He's my father. I am Neteyam."
Prisha's eyes widened until the white was visible all around the brown. She turned bright red and sucked in her breath with an ugly squeaking sound. Reet glanced at her daughter, then turned back to Neteyam and scrutinized his face. What was she looking for? A sign that he was lying? Or was she just trying to match his new features to her memory of his face?
"The Sky People brought me back in this body," he explained. "They wanted to ask me where my family might go, and to help them find their way around the jungle. I don't remember anything after the evening my sisters and brother were taken hostage, although I've been told we went east." Neteyam swallowed. "I also know that I'm supposed to be dead."
There was a long silence.
"I see," said Reet.
"If you want me to prove it, I can probably answer questions," Neteyam offered, "but I've got gaps in my memory. Dr. Nguyen said their brain scan wasn't complete because it had to be done at a distance." He did know of one thing he was pretty sure had happened, though. "Prisha, I remember the day I brought the younger kids to visit. You'd been working on one of the link beds and you were trying to figure out who was using it. You thought I was one of the avatars, and you pulled my tail."
Prisha, astonishingly, managed to turn even redder. She bounced one knee for a few moments, then mumbled something and got up to leave the room. The door shut rather hard behind her.
Neteyam lowered his head. That wasn't a good sign, if even the humans thought he was some kind of monster.
"Oh, dear," sighed Reet. She stood up. "I'd better call Max and Norm... no, I can't do that. The RDA might intercept it and then they'll know you're here... but we can't bring your father here expecting a long-lost nephew and then finding you!" She pushed her fingers through her hair. "Oh, this is going to be such a mess! Not that I'm blaming you," she added belatedly, holding up a hand. "This is absolutely not your fault of all people's, but... ugh!"
"When will they be here?" Neteyam asked.
"We're not sure," said Reet. "We have to keep radio silence because we know the RDA are listening. They left yesterday night, and we're not expecting them back until tomorrow morning at the earliest. It'll depend on how quickly they manage to find him. You said you know they went out east. Do you know what happened after that?"
"No," said Neteyam. "I know there was a battle, but the Sky People talked about it like it wasn't important."
"To them it probably wasn't," said Reet. She sat down again. "You need to eat and sleep. I'm gonna get you a nutrient shake and we'll see if you can keep that down. Then I want to take a blood sample and do some antibody tests, to see if they gave you your vaccinations. I can't imagine why they wouldn't, but I'd like to make sure. Do I have your permission for that?"
"Yes," Neteyam decided. "I don't need to sleep, though. Prisha said I've already been sleeping all day."
"We want to see if you can do it again. Sit tight. I'll be right back."
Reet left the room, and Neteyam pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged on the bed and looked around. This was one of the habitat modules the humans lived in, obviously. It had once been a base for avatars working in remote places, like Dad, Dr. Spellman, and Dr. Augustine had used. This one was long and narrow, with four sleeping bunks - Neteyam was on the lower of one of these - along a wall but no link beds, so the people who lived here didn't use avatars.
Of course, he realized. This space belonged to the Patel family. He should have known that from the photos on the bottom of the upper bunk - Max, Reet, and their children were in almost all of them. The table across from him had a computer and various half-disassembled technology on it, as well as stacks of programming books and technical manuals. On top of one of the piles was the obsidian knife he'd taken from the Omatikaya village. Next to the computer display was a soft toy animal, something like a small striped Thanator, which had belonged to Prisha when she was small.
This must be Prisha's bed. She'd mentioned they'd had trouble making room. She must have offered the use of it. She'd been very kind when she thought he was a stranger, offering him food and a tour... only to suddenly flee when she found out who he was. Neteyam didn't know Prisha very well, but that rejection still hurt.
Reet returned with another metal cup, this one with a straw in it. "Here we go," she said, handing it to Neteyam. "This one's berry-flavoured. Most of us here prefer the chocolate but theobromine is slightly toxic to Na'vi, so I figured you'd like this better. I also put some more painkillers in it. They're likely to make you sleepy."
"Thank you," said Neteyam, and took a cautious sip. It didn't taste bad. The sharp, sweet flavour was reminiscent of berries, but not identifiable as any specific type. The texture, however, was very odd, thick and with a bit of grit in it. Neteyam wasn't sure he liked it, but now that his stomach had settled a little it felt achingly empty. He kept drinking.
Reet sat down again. "Give me a finger," she said, holding out a hand.
Neteyam gave her his bandaged right hand, and she pressed a small device against the end of his middle finger. There was a sharp prick, then a beep, and she withdrew it.
"So," she said, connecting the small device to the side of a holopad, "you know that your family moved out east to get away from Quartich... I guess you know he's back, too. You'll have heard your parents talk about him."
"I've met him," said Neteyam. "Why would Dad leave the People?" This question had been weighing on him.
"It wasn't so much that he left the Omatikaya as that he felt like he needed to keep you kids safe," Reet explained. "He felt like he couldn't protect both his family and his clan, so he chose family."
"What did Mother say?" Neteyam asked. He felt like there was no way she would have stood for that. Neteyam himself had surely argued against it. They were warriors! They were supposed to protect their family and their clan.
"I don't know," Reet said, "but she must have agreed to it eventually. They headed out to the eastern edge of the continent and joined a clan there. The RDA kept looking for him, of course... did they tell you what happened to Miles? To Spider?"
Neteyam felt his stomach twist. Nobody had mentioned that yet. "No..."
The story went on, and it got worse. The recoms were able to use banshees and direhorses because Spider had taught them how. That had allowed them to expand their search area looking for the Sully family. He'd also taught them the language, allowing them to question people, and what the People considered valuable, allowing them to threaten. What had he been thinking? Had Mother been right about Spider the whole time?
"They finally tracked you all down after Kiri fell ill," Reet said. "She had a seizure after a very intense communion with Eywa, and your father asked Norm and Max to come take a look at her. She's fine," she added, seeing Neteyam's worry, "she's just got to be careful with tsaheylu. But the RDA intercepted the signal, that's why I can't call Max and Norm now, and why they couldn't call ahead to let your family know they were coming. Quaritch drew your family out by threatening the locals. From what I understand, when things came to a fight you saved your siblings' lives, but you didn't make it."
"Neither did Bohan," Neteyam said.
"Who?"
"Emily Bohan. She's one of the new recoms. She told me we both died in the same battle."
"That recent?" This was news to Reet. "How many more have they made?"
"I don't know," said Neteyam. "Dozens. She talked about seeing lots and lots of them in tubes. Where is my family now?"
"We're not entirely sure," Reet admitted. "They may have moved on again... we didn't think it was a good idea to know about it in detail, in case any of us are ever captured and interrogated."
Neteyam nodded and finished the last of his nutrient shake. There was more of it than his stomach had really been prepared for, and he felt a bit uncomfortable, although not actually nauseous. He set the tumbler on the beside table and sat up straighter, waiting to see if Reet had more questions.
Evidently she did, but not urgently. "You're going to have to tell us more about what they're doing with the recoms," she said, "but not yet - when you're feeling better. We'll get things all sorted out with your family first." Her holopad made a musical noise, and she lifted it to see what it had to say. "Oh, good news... MMR, polio, hepatitis, full-spectrum influenza... looks like you're fully immunized."
Neteyam hadn't thought about the possibility of catching human diseases. It was good to know he wouldn't have to worry about it.
"Do you have any more questions for us?" Reet put the holopad down again.
He had lots, but many of them would have to wait for Dad to arrive. If the humans at High Camp were trying not to know too much, Reet wouldn't be able to answer them. The first thing Neteyam thought of that she would know was, "whose clothes are these?"
"The pajamas? They're Dr. Spellman's," said Reet. "We had to cut yours off you. We saved your jewelry... it's around here somewhere." She looked at the objects on Prisha's desk, then shrugged. "I'll look for it."
"It's not important," Neteyam assured her. The beads hadn't meant anything, he'd just wanted to be wearing something decorative. "Where's Spider now?"
"With the rest of your family."
That was a bit of a surprise. Maybe Spider hadn't actually meant to betray them. Another thing to ask Dad about. "Are the rest of them all right? The Sky People at Site Nine said I was the only one they brought back because the others were all still alive, but I don't trust them." And just because they were alive didn't mean they were okay.
"As far as I know, they're all fine. You can ask your father when he arrives."
Neteyam nodded, and then one more question blurted itself out before he could stop it. "What are they going to think about this?" He gestured with his left hand to indicate his new body.
Reet didn't answer right away, and Neteyam was immediately sorry he'd asked. She wouldn't know the answer. There were people here who'd been closer to the family and might be better able to guess, but they wouldn't really know, either, would they? The only people who knew what the Sully family was going to say were the Sully family themselves.
"I don't know," Reet said finally. "What I do know is they're your family, and I think they'll be happy you're okay. They'll be proud that you made it this far."
Would they, though, when they knew he'd once been able to do so much better? What if Mother would rather he have died than have to live like this? Neteyam wanted to believe what Reet said, but he knew he'd just have to wait and see.
"I think that's enough for now. You've got a lot of healing to do," said Reet. She picked up the cup the nutrient shake had been in, and put a hand on Neteyam's shoulder to make him lie down.
"I'm feeling much better," he protested through an involuntary yawn.
"Good. If you lie down again, you'll feel better still." Reet pushed him down and pulled the blankets up over him. Her manner, gentle and reasonable but insistent, reminded him unpleasantly of Nguyen at Site Nine. That was probably something all human medics learned, he realized - how to talk to patients so they would obey instructions even when they didn't want to. And that, in turn, reminded him of something.
"Do you have any medicine for my tail?" he asked.
Reet stopped short. "Your tail? I... I'm not sure how to tell you this, but..."
"I know," Neteyam said. "It still hurts. Dr. Nguyen at Site Nine had some medicine for me. She said it was phantom pain."
"Oh!" said Reet. "It was probably a benzodiazipine... I'll see what's in the synthesizer menu. Anything else?"
"Thank Prisha for letting me use her bed."
"I will. You'll have to forgive her," Reet added with a sigh. "Her whole life the only boy her age on the whole planet has been Spider. She was excited to meet a stranger."
She had - only to be horrified when that stranger turned out to be a familiar person in a new form. Would Dr. Spellman do the same when he learned who he'd loaned his pajamas to?
"If you need anything else, you can call somebody," Reet said. "For now, just rest, and we'll sort this out as best we can."
"Will you wake me when Dad arrives?"
"Of course."
He closed his eyes as she shut the door. A warrior really ought to be able to press on despite injuries... but Neteyam was tired and sore and the medicine was starting to make him drowsy again. After two days of constant hardship and danger, this place was safe and quiet - and it was kind of nice to have a bed again. It wasn't a hammock with the familiar sounds and smells of the forest and his family around him, but it was more comfortable than sleeping sitting up against a sapling, and more welcoming than the one he'd been given at Site Nine. His bed there had been a bit bigger and less lumpy, but it had been part of a prison cell. Here he was a guest in somebody's home, even if the bed's owner was having some second thoughts about letting him sleep here.
Neteyam woke up again with the lights out and the shutters over the window closed. When he sat up and figured out how to open them, he found it was light out, and he could see people moving around. An avatar was speaking to one of the People, and there were children playing with a black-spotted ball the humans had given him.
He stood, unsteady on his feet, and stretched his neck, turning his head from side to side. Things still hurt, but he felt clearer-headed and he could smell something cooking in oil. Yesterday he'd felt unpleasantly full after nothing but that nutrient shake. Today, he was starving. Neteyam rolled his shoulders, wincing as the injured one twinged, and then shuffled towards the door. The bottoms of his feet were still all blistered and cut from climbing over sharp rocks, and he couldn't go quickly.
As he reached for the door handle, somebody knocked on the other side.
"Neteyam!" The voice belonged to Viraj Patel. "Mom wants to know if you want breakfast!"
"Yes, thank you," Neteyam replied.
The door opened, and Viraj, ten years old but another giant compared to how Neteyam remembered him, grinned up at him through curls in need of a trim. "Come on," he said. "This way."