Neteyam was afraid they'd be on the game trail all day, but on her second attempt Bohan did much better. Once they caught up with the horses, it took much longer this time to persuade one of them to let her get close – but Bohan cooed and soothed, and Neteyam and Prisha taught her a few more Na'vi words that the animal might recognize if it had been around people in the past. This time, she knew to make the bond on the correct side, and once she climbed onto the animal's back, she looked at the kids for more instructions.
"New learners give orders out loud," said Neteyam. "Later you'll learn to think with the horse."
Bohan took hold of both mekuru , but then stopped herself and held her hands up on either side of her head. "Turn r..." she began.
The direhorse anticipated her and went in that direction, and Bohan nearly slid right off of it. Unwilling to touch the mekuru , she threw her arms around the animal's armoured neck instead.
"You can hold on to keep your balance!" Neteyam shouted to her. "Just don't yank ."
"Got it! Got it!" Bohan gingerly took hold of the appendages again. "The gait is weird. I have to keep adjusting my balance. Of course, it doesn't help that this is only the second time I've ever ridden bareback." She leaned left, then right, and got the horse to walk in a circle. It did this at a sort of exaggerated trot, lifting its hooves very high, and Neteyam wondered whether that was how Earth's horses moved.
Now the young people felt brave enough to approach again. "When was the first?" asked Prisha.
"Forty-five minutes ago, with the last guy," said Bohan, grinning.
From there she seemed to get the hang of it quickly. She already understood how to hang on with her knees, and although she started off with an unfortunate habit of trying to kick the horse in the ribs to give it commands, she quickly broke herself of that after stubbing her toe on the knee of its second set of legs. An hour after mounting, she was able to take a running start at a fallen log and have the horse clear it in leap before trotting to a stop.
"How's that?" she asked with a proud smile.
"Good!" Neteyam told her. Her experience with Earth horses was clearly both a help and a hindrance, but she was learning fast. If she were a young Omatikaya warrior, it would be years between learning to ride a direhorse and setting out to tame a banshee, but they didn't have that kind of time. They were just going to have to get on with it. "I think we can head up the mountains again." They would have to stay at the far end of the valley so the People wouldn't spot them, but banshees roosted throughout the range.
"Are we gonna have enough oxygen for that?" asked Prisha, who'd collected a handful of sticky syarvi berries to offer the direhorse. It trotted over and stuck its narrow snout in her palm.
Neteyam hadn't thought about that. When he'd made his escape from the party at Kilvanoro he'd gone with only the mask and tank they'd given him, and that had lasted a couple of days – but that equipment had been much newer than the ones they were using now. Humans weren't content to find a place where their machines were as good as they needed to be, like the People were. They were always working to make things better.
"That's right," said Lo'ak, worried. "Spider never stayed out longer than about a day... he always brought an extra bottle if he was sleeping over. You guys changed yours this morning, so you should be good until the same time tomorrow."
Prisha wiped the berry juice on her trousers and unzipped her backpack to count the bottles they'd taken from the archaeological site. "We've got three more. I don't think that'll get us to the mountains and then all the way back to this other place."
"And that's assuming Bohan completes iknimaya on the first try," Neteyam said. He had – but less than half the candidates did. "Do you know where we can get more oxygen?"
"There was a machine to filter the air and refill them on the samson," Prisha offered.
"There might still be enemies there," Lo'ak objected.
"We'll have to scout things out, then," Neteyam said. "If there's somebody there, maybe we can draw them off long enough to get more air."
"I'll need directions," said Bohan. "Where are we going, exactly? What's this other place ?"
"I'll explain on the way," said Neteyam. "Prisha, you stay with Lo'ak. I'll go with Bohan." That seemed the safest way... if Bohan wasn't as trustworthy as he hoped, then somebody needed to go with her and make sure she didn't wander off and cause trouble.
"Do I have to?" asked Prisha, looking sideways at Tìtstew, crouched among the foliage nearby so as not to scare the direhorses. Banshees did not have facial expressions, but he appeared to be regarding her with equal suspicion.
"Each group should have someone who knows where we're going," said Neteyam. And if worst came to worst, he'd be a lot harder to make a hostage of than Prisha would... he hoped.
"I know where the samson is," said Lo'ak. "We can check that out first, and then head up into the mountains tomorrow morning."
That was a fair enough plan, but Neteyam couldn't help thinking that in simple terms of ground covered, they'd gotten absolutely nowhere today. He wondered what Dad was doing now that him and Lo'ak were both technically missing. Had he tried to get in touch with Mother? Not likely... she would be frantic if she found out he'd lost them. Dad would probably think he was doing her a favour by not telling her, only to realize his mistake later when she became furious with him for keeping something so important a secret.
Prisha allowed Lo'ak to help her back up onto Tìtstew's neck. Once settled, she reached tentatively forward to try to scratch the place Lo'ak had said he liked, but her arms weren't long enough, so she settled for a few awkward pats. Tìtstew allowed it, then gave his head and neck a shake.
Neteyam staying on the ground must've made enough of a weight difference to keep the banshee happy, because there was none of the dramatic laboured flapping he'd done before. He simply climbed a tree to a good takeoff point and sprang into the air, circling twice to gain altitude before turning towards the valley. Once they'd vanished, Bohan leaned down to pull Neteyam up onto the direhorse in front of her.
Sitting there was much less comfortable than standing behind Lo'ak on Tìtstew had been, even if it were also not as tiring. A direhorse's back was very wide, and being in front of Bohan pushed him uncomfortably up against the start the neck armour. A saddle would have been a great help, especially one with a child's seat built into it, but they didn't have one of those. Bohan turned the animal, no longer needing to give a verbal command, and set off in the direction Tìtstew had taken.
Riding a horse was also much less smooth than a banshee. Neteyam felt like his bones were rattling every time a hoof hit the ground. It got better when they progressed from a trot into a canter, but only a little.
"Okay," said Bohan. "What's the ultimate plan here? We get oxygen, find me a banshee, and then what?"
"We're going back to Site Nine to make me a new body," Neteyam told her.
The direhorse stopped dead. Neteyam quickly leaned to the left so he wouldn't hit his face on the ridge of armour down its neck, which instead struck the shoulder he'd bruised with the crossbow. The world flashed white with pain for a moment, and came back to gritted teeth and ringing ears. Curse it! Why couldn't he stop hurting himself?
"Say that again?" said Bohan.
It took Neteyam a moment to get enough air to do so. "We're going back to Site Nine," he repeated. "To make me a new body. A Na'vi body."
For a few seconds Bohan said nothing as she digested that. Then she informed him, "that is the worst idea I have ever heard in my life."
"I know," Neteyam admitted, "but it's something I have to try." He looked up. "We need to keep going."
The horse started moving again. "It's not anything you have to try," Bohan said. "I can tell you now, it's not going to work. You know it takes eight months to grow a recom to maturity, right?"
Neteyam had not known that. He'd been hoping it would be shorter, but... it wasn't as bad as it could have been. "I know it used to take five years for avatars," he said. Five years stuck in this human body would have been too much to take. Eight months still seemed like a lot, but it was much more survivable.
"What are you gonna do for eight months?" Bohan asked. "Assuming nobody notices there's an unauthorized recom growing in there and aborts it. You know what? No. You won't even get that far. You're gonna get thrown in a cell the moment they spot you coming."
"Not if you help," said Neteyam. "You know the place better than I do."
"Which is how I know this is ridiculous!" she insisted. "When I told Colonel Frownyface you'd committed suicide, I didn't think I was being literal!"
"I can't do anything else!" Neteyam told her. "Look at me!"
The horse stopped again, and he twisted in his seat to look back up at her. Two lost souls in the wrong bodies, he thought. Surely she , of all people, would understand. He saw her glance at her blue hands holding onto the mekuru , and her ears drooped.
"What did you expect me to do once I was out?" Neteyam asked.
"I don't know," Bohan admitted. "Honestly, I didn't think you did either." She nudged the horse into motion again. Neteyam felt the muscles in her legs tense as she prepared to give it a little kick, onto to stop just in time when she remembered she didn't need to. "What did you do?"
"I went looking for help," Neteyam said. "I found my way back to... to where the People are camped." Better not to name the place or hint where he was. He couldn't trust her that much. "They called my father."
"Oof." Bohan flinched at the thought. "Let me guess."
"No. I haven't seen him yet," said Neteyam. "I didn't try not to, but first there wasn't time because Quaritch was trying to draw him out, and then there was an accident when I tried to get down. I just missed him."
Had he, though? For the fisrt time, Neteyam wondered what he would have done if he'd made it to the samson on his own. What if he'd seen Dad there, with Lo'ak and Dr. Patel and Dr. Spellman, all four of them believing he was somebody else? Would he have been brave enough to approach them?
Maybe not. After all, he wasn't brave enough to approach them now . Neteyam could have decided against this plan and just gone back, but he didn't want to face Dad like this. He was... he was the good son, the one who always made them proud, the one who got things right on the first try. It wasn't what he looked like, or the fact that he would have had to crane his neck to look Dad in the eye. It was that he was covered in bruises and stitches and he would have to admit all the things he'd failed at.
"I don't want him to see this," Neteyam admitted. He reached up to rub his bruised shoulder and winced.
Bohan patted his other shoulder. "Your brother seemed okay with it," she said.
"That's different," said Neteyam. "If I'm not dead, then he doesn't have to feel bad about getting me killed."
"I see." Bohan sighed. "I don't know what to tell you, kiddo. I can't offer any reassurance... based on my experience all I've got is the opposite. And honestly, when I think about it, as much as I'd like to see my boys, I don't know if I want them to see me any more than Randy does. I wouldn't want them to be scared of me. Maybe it's better if they just think Mom's dead." She shrugged. "But there's no way they're gonna let you make yourself a new body. They monitor that whole place. You can't just slip something in. There's probably no room anyway. They start growing new recoms as soon as a volunteer signs the paperwork, so they can get us into action as quickly as possible."
A squawk from overhead made them both look up. They'd fallen sufficiently far behind that Lo'ak had doubled back to see what was keeping them. Bohan waved, and this time remember not to kick the horse to get it going again. It broke back into a jarring trot.
"You can at least get us in, right?" Neteyam tried. "You said the air gets in through a vent in the roof..."
"You'd have to get up there first," said Bohan. "They've got the same kind of anti-aerial guns they've brought to the falls, except about three times bigger. They can take out a banshee, no problem. But if you try to cross the open ground... hmm." She frowned, thinking. "Unless..."
"Unless what?" asked Neteyam. Did she think there was a chance after all?
"Let me mull it over for a while," Bohan said. "I'll let you know."
Soon they were back in familiar territory, as they found their way onto the same sturmbeest trail Neteyam had followed to the foothills – but this time, it was in use. A herd of wild direhorses were making their way towards the mountains, females and foals in a crowd behind the alpha male, with younger males bringing up the rear. Bohan stopped her mount to watch them go by, but then the sudden appearance of Titstew in the sky startled them into flight.
Bohan's horse reared up and squealed, and then leaped into motion along with the herd. Neteyam was afraid she'd lost control of the animal, but she hadn't. She leaned into the jump so that he had to duck, and laughed as they caught up with the herd. They jumped over stones and logs and splashed through the shallow stream, running with the wild animals for nearly a kilometre before coming to a halt. Bohan and the horse were both breathing hard, but there was a big grin on her face.
"Sorry, kiddo," she said. "I just... I haven't done that in years! Our last horse was put down when I was fourteen. You're not too shook up, I hope."
"No," said Neteyam, leaning back against her a bit to try to catch his own breath. He could feel her heartbeat racing under her ribs – and the horse's pounding in perfect time with it. "I'm fine." He'd raced wild direhorses, himself, when he was a kid. It felt a lot more dangerous when he wasn't the one in control of the animal, though.
Bohan looked skeptical. "In the kestrel I said this looked like fun," she remembered, "and it is, it's fun as hell. And you don't need to be reminded of that right now, so I'm sorry, I'll try to control myself." But her face was wistful as she watched the dust from the herd rise in the distance.
A short time after that, Lo'ak guided them to the wreckage of the samson.
It wasn't in as bad shape as Neteyam had been picturing – it certainly wasn't all twisted up and mangled like it would be if it had actually crashed . The windshield was spiderwebbed with cracks where the hail had hit it, and the rotor blades were in tatters, but the body of the aircraft was intact. Prisha slid down from Titstew's neck as they landed, not needing help this time, and went to try to turn the systems on. All she got, however, was a loading screen.
"Like they said on the radio, they formatted everything," she affirmed. She opened a panel and inspected what was beyond it, then smiled. "Oxygen reclamation should be functional, though, and I can run that off a tablet if you give me a minute." She closed the panel and stepped back down to the grass, where she looked around as if searching for a sign of her father.
"Those boulders," Lo'ak said, pointing to the remains of a landslide in the trees, perhaps fifty metres away. The rocks must have fallen from one of the floating mountains long ago. "I bet there's gaps in there that could shelter a couple of humans from the hail, no problem."
Prisha nodded. "I need a computer," she said.
Neteyam unzipped his own backpack and took out the holopad they'd got from Konstopoulos. The first thing Prisha did with this was to sit down on the floor and begin taking it apart as she'd promised to do, removing the transponders from it. These were tossed aside into the grass, and she put the case back on the device before hooking it into the wall with a cable.
When she turned it on, something chimed, and a message came up on one of the samson's screens.
You have priority mail ! a cheerful voice said.
Prisha tried to flick the message aside, but it wouldn't budge. After trying several ways to dismiss it, she grumbled and selected the icon.
A video file opened and began to play. It showed a group of half a dozen recoms with their banshees, arranged around this same samson craft as if getting their picture taken. Many of them were waving to the camera.
Everybody say, hi, Sully! said the voice of Quaritch.
Hi, Sully! the group chorused.
Foliage went by as the image turned around, and there was Quaritch himself, looking into a recording device held in his hands. You're getting sloppy , he said. You burned Konstopoulos but you didn't take your arrow back – the anthropology guys say it's Metkayina, and you're the only one of them with any business being in this neck of the woods. We got some pictures to show you.
They began to flash by. The first few were of the mountains being blown up – they hadn't brought the firepower to take out any of the really big ones, but the smaller peaks they'd destroyed were enough to scatter dead trees and boulders across the landscape blow, along with the corpses of banshees and other high-roosting animals. Then it got worse.
There were pictures of the waterfall at Kilvanoro, with people dragging things out of it. Closer images showed what these were – the bodies of dead N'avi. Neteyam recognized several of them. There was Eanrìk, and that was Äniheya... and sure enough, there was Pa'ay, her skin grey with death. Some human weapon had put a substantial hole in her chest that Neteyam could only hope had killed her instantly, without too much suffering.
If Neteyam's statement that he owed Pa'ay his life had been a formal oath, he would now be bound to avenge her. He probably wasn't going to be able to do that, either.
There were still more pictures, though, and the next set were personal . The first was of Neteyam's human body, floating unconscious in a tube of fluid, like Grace's avatar at High Camp. The second was of him lying on the table in the hospital gown while the scientists prepared to bring him around. The third... the third was of Bush teaching him to shave. Neteyam in the image was staring intently into the mirror, trying not to cut himself, while Bush had a paternal hand on his back. And then the fourth, of Neteyam dressed as a soldier the day they'd gone to the falls. The day he'd looked in the mirror and thought how little he looked like anything he'd recognize as himself.
Somebody whistled a line of music – the same thing Quaritch had been singing under his breath the day Neteyam had awakened. Hey you, with the pretty face, welcome to the human race.
What was it the wife said? Quaritch mused. A son for a son. Seems a fair trade to me.
The message ended. An icon showed that the device was thinking, and then the genderless machine announced, one message deleted.
For half a second Neteyam couldn't form a coherent thought. The first one he managed was that this message had been meant for Dad. They thought Dad was the one who'd killed Konstopoulos. Quaritch was doing the same thing as when he'd started blowing up the mountains – he was trying to make Dad mad enough to come find him. Of course, Dad was too smart to fall for that, but what would he have thought about the message? Would he have believed, as Quaritch clearly wanted him to, that Neteyam didn't belong to him anymore? That he'd joined the Sky People, just as Dad himself had joined the Omatikaya?
With the screen gone dark, Neteyam was now looking over Prisha's shoulder at his own reflection – at the alien face that had sort of started to feel like his. He turned away from it, and found himself looking at Bohan.
She was sitting apart from the rest of them, just watching quietly. When she realized Neteyam was looking back at her, she quickly turned her head, as if fascinated by the pincushion slug making its way up a nearby tree trunk.
"You see why I have to get my body back?" Neteyam asked her.
"Yeah," she said. "I do."
Prisha got the computer booted up and installed the necessary software, and the equipment started to hum as it removed the toxic chemicals from the Pandoran air. She searched the samson for spare oxygen bottles, but found none – Max and Norm had doubtless taken as many with them as they could, since they didn't know how long they would be in the jungle. While Prisha watched the machines, the boys made camp, and Bohan climbed a tree to lower a flowering vine for her horse. The animal happily slurped up the nectar, and as each flower was emptied, Bohan moved along to the next one.
"Must be hard work carrying us," she said, stroking the horse's neck. "Either that or you're just a greedy bastard, huh?" The words were an insult, but spoken with affection.
Neteyam remembered that Konstopoulos had also spoken lovingly to Maverick, suggesting that she, too, appreciated the experience of bonding with an animal. Even Quaritch had at least given his banshee a name. There was nothing in Bohan's behaviour to suggest how they could feel that and yet still hate Eywa and her creatures.
Lo'ak finished building a firepit, and let Neteyam arrange the fuel in it. "Okay, time to find something to eat," Lo'ak declared.
Neteyam looked at Prisha, sitting in the pilot's seat of the samson while the oxygen bottles filed, and waved to her. "Prisha! Time for another lesson!"
She hopped down and approached them. "Okay, what is it?"
"You know how to start a fire," Neteyam told her. "Now you need something to cook on it. You've seen some of the fruit and tubers we can eat, but if you're going somewhere in the forest, you also need protein. The easiest way to get it is from fungi, because you don't have to chase them – but that doesn't mean they can't hurt you."
He brought her over to the remains of the landslide, where the boulders were mixed with trees that had been crushed when they fell. Old wood was a perfect place. "Here," he said, crouching down to point out some mushrooms whose caps had split into petals. "These are mìfrrpa spxam. You can fry them and eat them like meat, but you have to be careful because there are poisonous types that look very similar. The way you tell..." he lifted one of the petals and stroked the gills underneath. "When you touch them, they don't light up."
Prisha nodded. "We can't eat those, though. They're still poison to humans. I don't think there are actually any Pandoran mushrooms we can eat."
"I'll try them," Bohan volunteered.
"I've got something better!" Lo'ak announced. He'd turned over a piece of rotten wood, and was beaming as he pointed to what he'd found underneath it. "Ayteylu!"
The rest of the party gathered around to see. Sure enough, the organic matter under the stone was swarming with fat brown grubs, which Neteyam knew were one of Lo'ak's favourite foods. Even more important, they were also... but could he trust that memory?
"Spider likes these, right?" Neteyam asked.
"Sure does," Lo'ak nodded.
"Then we can eat them, too!" Neteyam took out his obsidian knife. "Okay, Prisha – here's how you catch a teylu."
This time, he stopped and thought about what he was planning to do. The grubs had a lot of muscles under their thin skins, and powerful mandibles for chewing through rotting wood. Neteyam himself was not as big or as quick as he'd once been, so he had to be like a child doing this for the first time. He repositioned himself, and then grabbed one using his whole hand instead of trying to use just his thumb and forefinger – and it worked.
"There!" he held up the squirming creature. "You have to get them right behind their heads, so they can't turn and bite you, and then hold on tight. They're more powerful than they look."
It was only then that he realized the blood had drained from Prisha's face. "Oh, my god," she said, trying to put both hands over her mouth before remembering that her mask was in the way. "I can't believe you're touching that!"
Neteyam stared at her, uncomprehending, before remembering that some humans didn't like insects or worms. Prisha was clearly one of them. "It won't hurt you if you know how to handle it," he promised, moving towards her to let her get a better look.
She leaned away with gritted teeth, but then licked her lips and forced herself to sit up straighter. "Is it slimy?" she asked suspiciously.
"No. It's soft and smooth," Neteyam promised. "You want to feel?"
Prisha swallowed hard, then shut her eyes and extended a hand. Neteyam took her wrist and guided her fingers to stroke the teylu's back. The grub convulsed under the touch, and Prisha snatched her hand back. Neteyam decided to give her some more distance, and moved around to the other side of a flat stone.
"You catch them behind the head, like I did," he explained. "Then cut it off, like this." He waited for Prisha to open her eyes again, then held the grub against the stone and demonstrated how to remove the mandibles and radulla. "Then you slit the skin down the back," he showed her, "so the flesh can expand when it's cooked."
"Oh my god," Prisha whispered again. She gulped again, then nodded. "Okay. I guess it's my turn."
Neteyam was startled. She was horrified by these creatures, yet she was going to try to cut one open? Maybe she was worried he'd think less of her if she didn't. "You don't have to if you don't want to," he said.
"I wanted to learn," Prisha said firmly, though with a tremor in her voice. "If you'd asked me I would have told you I didn't wanna ride on Tìtstew's back, either, but I did that, and it wasn't so bad when I got used to it. I can do this."
He pointed out the smallest grub. "Try that one. Right behind the head."
Prisha reached out gingerly.
"Go fast. It'll move," said Neteyam.
She snatched at it, then yelped and pulled her hand back as the insect made a sudden movement. Neteyam went to get it for her, but she shook her head.
"No! I have to do it myself!" she told him fiercely. "It's not like lighting the fire, where it'd be dangerous. Here goes."
She tried again, and this time managed to catch hold of one of the teylu. It thrashed its head from side to side, its mandibles making an audible clicking as it wriggled. Prisha gagged a bit before getting control of herself. "I got him! I got him!" she announced, but then the grub wiggled free and fell onto the ground. It landed on its back and rolled over to get its spindly legs back under itself, but in the process it moved towards Prisha, who shrieked and scrambled away in horror.
Lo'ak burst out laughing. "It can't hurt you!" he said. "Look how much bigger you are than it!"
"It's okay! That was your first try," said Neteyam, shooting a glare at his brother. He picked up the grub himself and dispatched it. "It's okay to have to try again. You're learning. The first time this skxawng tried to tame a banshee he fell off the mountain and Mother had to catch him." He pointed at Lo'ak. "It's okay to have to try again."
Lo'ak rolled his eyes. "That's what he always says after he's gotten it right the first time. He always does."
This was just teasing, but it made Neteyam wince. He could still do things if he thought them through first, as he'd just proved with the grubs – although that was hardly on the level of climbing a wall or shooting a crossbow – but it wasn't going to be as easy as it had always been. He was getting resigned to that, but he still didn't like it. Another reason to make himself a new body, as fast as he could.
"Then I'll try again," Prisha said, and crept closer to the grubs.
"I think I need a lesson, too," said Bohan. "I figured out the horse, but I'm betting a banshee isn't gonna stay still and let me come closer just because I tell it it's pretty. How do you get them to come to you? Do you use bait?"
"Bait?" asked Lo'ak, offended by the idea.
"Yeah. Like shoot one of those deer-looking things or something and try to feed it to them," said Bohan. She took in his expression and guessed, "No?"
"You're the bait," Lo'ak told her.
"Oh. That's fun," said Bohan.
Prisha reached out and grabbed a second grub. "Aha! Got him! Oh, god, he's so squirmy!" she whimpered as it writhed in her grip. "Give me the knife! Quick! Give me the knife!"
Bohan sat up a straighter. "Okay, tell me about it. I want to get this right," she said.
Neteyam handed the knife to Prisha and pointed out where to cut. She applied too much force the first time, and the teylu's guts burst out and sprayed on her borrowed t-shirt. This left her too shocked and horrified even to scream. She just stared straight ahead into space blankly.
"We can still use that one," said Neteyam. "Cut the back open and we'll wash it. Just be gentler next time."
As he guided Prisha through how to prepare and cook teylu, and Lo'ak repeated to Bohan the lessons both boys had been given in taming banshees, Neteyam remembered something Nguyen had said to him. Dad had been human once... this was an opportunity to understand him better. But it wasn't Dad whose footsteps Neteyam was following in now. Instead, he was being like Mother, teaching clueless aliens how to survive in Eywa's world.