Bohan had mentioned that earlier – that she would have to return 'looking like she'd been rolled down a hill'. Nobody, however, had thought about how she would get that way, and Neteyam had an immediate objection.
"The Omatikaya don't torture prisoners!" he said. He'd been in skirmishes with other clans, but no matter how furious the disagreement had been, nobody had ever done such a thing. If enemies weren't killed in battle, they were kept for hostage trades and negotiations. It was true that as far as he remembered, they'd never taken a recom or a human prisoner – he could be wrong – but even then, surely they wouldn't...
... would they? This was a different kind of war, the kind that could not end in a treaty and a feast. The Sky People had to be either exterminated or made to leave forever. What would Dad have done with a prisoner?
"Maybe not," said Bohan, "but if I come back and tell them that, they'll worry I've gone double agent. I need two black eyes and maybe an ear ripped off. It'll play to everybody's prejudices. We need them sympathetic, not suspicious."
"We're not going to rip your ear off," said Lo'ak. "That's permanent."
"I don't care," Bohan told him. "I don't expect I'm gonna live much longer. My people don't want me back, and yours won't take me, so I figure after this, I'm out. I just wanna fuck up as much of the recom program's shit as I possibly can on the way, and maybe keep some kids from getting killed while I'm at it. So if you guys were going to torture a prisoner, how would you do it?"
Prisha made a movement, then hesitated.
"What?" asked Neteyam.
She put her hand up, although only as high as her shoulder. "I have, um, a pretty terrible idea."
Prisha was the one who'd suggested burning Konstopoulos' body. Neteym had a sudden awful feeling – but this didn't turn out to be that bad.
"There's all kinds of awful plants around here," she said. "People used to warn Spider about them constantly when we were kids. If the Omatikaya were going to torture somebody, I think that's how they'd do it. We could use a lightning vine, or one of those things that make your hands swell up and turn purple."
"Or even the plant I tried to use on my brui... no, never mind," Neteyam said quickly, embarrassed. It had burned him because he did not have a Na'vi body. It would be harmless to Bohan, because she did . What a mess this all was to think about!
"What do you think?" Bohan asked the boys. "Imagine... imagine we've got somebody you love locked up, and I know where they are, but I won't tell you. What would you do to try to force it out of me?"
Neteyam thought of seeing Kiri, Lo'ak, and Tuk in Quaritch's clutches, and felt something inside him harden. He could imagine doing almost anything .
"Lightning vines are really nasty," said Lo'ak, who'd fallen into one by accident once. Kiri had laughed at him, with his hair sticking out in all directions. "Dad said they're like a mix between a jellyfish and an electric eel. You find them over water sources. They trap creatures that come to drink."
They searched the surrounding woods, and found a place where a stream collected in a deep pool. The vine was growing over the tree branches above, trailing its stinging tendrils to snare insects and small flying creatures that blundered into them. Neteyam had brushed against them by mistake ones or twice, although he'd never been burned as badly as Lo'ak, who'd had welts for weeks. They confirmed it was the right plant by throwing a rock into it, watching the vines snap and spark as they touched.
"All right," said Bohan. "Here goes." She squared her shoulders, and waded out into the pond.
The rest of the day was horrible. All three of the young people could think of plants that were dangerous to Na'vi, and Bohan was distressingly enthusiastic about trying to them out. By the time they settled down for supper, her shoulders and the right side of her face were raw with burns from the lightning vines, and the venom of a txumtxim cactus was making her muscles twitch. Some of the stings were definitely going to leave scars, which not even Lo'ak's encounter had, and her t-shirt was torn and stained with blood.
Ukyom was quite upset about the whole thing, nuzzling Bohan and trying to lick her injuries, but Bohan herself remained stoic. She sat and ate her dinner, occasionally shaking out her arms when her shoulders began to twitch again. She had to be in pain, but she did not complain about it.
The kids, however, felt very bad indeed. "Do you..." Neteyam began. "Uh... I almost mentioned a plant earlier. It helps with pain."
"Nope," said Bohan. "If you wouldn't do it for an interrogated prisoner, don't do it for me. Honestly, it feels kinda good to ruin something they were so proud of." She glanced at a particularly deep welt on her right arm.
Neteyam shivered a little and looked at his hands. Would he do something like that just to spite his creators? He couldn't imagine he would. He didn't like this body, but he had to live in it, at least for a while. He wanted it in working order.
Prisha was quiet, fiddling with her shoelaces. This had been her idea. Did she need comfort? Neteyam didn't know, and didn't want to embarrass her by asking in front of the others.
Bohan would have made no effort to clean her injuries, but Neteyam insisted on doing so. He filled trumpet leaves with cold water from the stream, and poured it over her back and shoulders.
"We wouldn't leave it if we were torturing you," he explained. "If you died of infect, you couldn't tell us anything."
"I guess there's that," she said, and reached up to pinch at the inner corners of her eyes. "I really think we should do more with my face."
"No," he said. Bohan was his friend, or at least an ally – Neteyam wasn't going to ruin her face. Hopefully, she would someday be grateful that he'd spared it... someday when she'd figured out where and how she wanted to live.
They decided she would head for the base first thing in the morning. Somebody who was trying to make an escape would be willing to travel through the night, just as Neteyam had on his way to High Camp. The young people did their best to sleep, while Bohan sat awake so that she would be realistically exhausted.
"Are you all right?" he whispered to Prisha, as they tried to settle down.
"I didn't think she'd be that into it," Prisha replied, swallowing hard.
Neteyam gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You didn't do that to her. She did. She could have said no."
"I know. But it was still my idea."
"I think about horrible things a lot more than I let on," Prisha said quietly. "Sometimes for no reason at all I look at the airlock and think about how I could just bust it open and let everybody suffocate... things like that. I'd never do it, but... you know, I think about it."
For somebody who'd been indoors her entire life, Neteyam could see how that would be a tempting form of rebellion. "We're gonna get you an avatar, remember," he said. "You can go outside whenever you want."
"Yeah," she sighed, and closed her eyes.
With the first hint of the sun only a pink glow seeping through the canopy, Bohan was up and splashing cold water on her injuries. She pulled all her gear out of her backpack and stashed it in a hollow tree, then let Prisha climb inside. Prisha was small, and curled up with her knees clutched against her chest, she just barely fit. Bohan put her bloodied t-shirt on top, which made Prisha gag, then did up the zipper.
"Wish me luck, boys," she said, putting her arms through the straps so the bag would sit on her chest, rather than her mangled back. "We'll signal once the sun goes down. If you don't hear from us, we're probably dead."
Neteyam glanced up at Lo'ak, and saw his brother swallow. Bohan was a warrior among her people – she'd done plenty of dangerous things before, and she knew what her colleagues were capable of. But what had Prisha, crouched in the backpack, thought of that statement.
Although the brothers wanted to watch, Bohan told them that was not a good idea. They stayed in the tree branches, listening to her heavy footsteps get further and further away.
"She really needs to learn how to walk in the woods," Lo'ak remarked. "She sounds like a herd of sturmbeests."
"She doesn't think she's going to have to," Neteyam reminded him. "Do you think she's right? The Metkayina wouldn't let her live with them?"
"Probably not," Lo'ak admitted. "The Sky People did some ugly stuff out there while they were looking for us. They burned down half a dozen villages. Awa'atlu had to take in a few refugees, but what really pissed everybody off was them hunting the tulkun. The Sky People think tulkun are just big animals, but they're people . They've got a language and you can talk to them. I'm not very good at it yet, but Tsireya's been teaching me."
"You really like this girl, don't you?" asked Neteyam with a smile.
"What, am I supposed to be ashamed of it?" Lo'ak asked. He grinned back. "She's amazing. And gorgeous. What about you?" He used his fists to demonstrate two hard objects coming together. "Clunk!"
"Oh, you were awake," said Neteyam.
Lo'ak laughed. "Of course I was! I wasn't gonna embarrass Prisha with it."
"Whereas embarrassing me is just fine," said Neteyam.
"Of course it is. You're my little big brother." He ruffled Neteyam's braids.
Neteyam pushed his hand away with an awkward chuckle, and for a moment, everything was normal, just two brothers teasing each other about their girlfriends. But the conversation stopped there, leaving both of them to think about less familiar, less pleasant things.
What were they going to do with Bohan? If the Metkayina wouldn't take her in, what about the Omatikaya? Would they think it was too dangerous to adopt her – or would she think it was too dangerous to be so close to the Sky People's base, knowing they would try to recapture or kill her? There were other clans around, but it was doubtful whether many people there spoke English, and Bohan's Na'vi was not very good.
What was she planning on doing? She couldn't be planning on suicide, could she? She couldn't want to die, not now that she was partnered with Ukyom. The banshee was sitting over them, looking grouchy but obeying his mistress' orders to stay put. Tìtstew, who had much less to be concerned about, was perched in the crouch of two branches, napping. Bohan had barely even gotten to know her new mount, but she'd clearly enjoyed flying with him. Did she really want to give that up so quickly? When they'd got in, Neteyam would have to ask her. If she was planning something drastic, that might be a way to talk her out of it.
Lo'ak, it seemed was thinking about a different ending. "What are we gonna do if Prisha doesn't signal us?" he asked.
"We'll give her a couple of days," said Neteyam. "She might not be able to right away."
"No," said Lo'ak, "I mean what if it's a couple of days and still nothing. What if they both get captured or killed?"
Something inside Neteyam gave a squeeze. Prisha had said she was grateful he wanted her help, grateful he'd brought her along. If that had been her feeling, only for her to now get shot, or imprisoned and tortured, or whatever else it was the Sky people did with anyone they captured... Neteyam would never forgive him. It was bad enough knowing that Pa'ay had been killed after he'd told her he owed her his life, and he could do nothing to avenge her. If Prisha got hurt because of him...
"We'd have to try to rescue them," he said, his chest tight.
"I dunno if that would work, bro," said Lo'ak.
He was probably right. Their whole plan for getting in depended on having Bohan and Prisha. If the girls couldn't do it... they were stuck.
"Anyway, I meant what are you gonna do?" Lo'ak clarified. "Spider's been staying with us. You probably could, too. He knows what he can eat, and he's got one of the newer masks that can extract a little oxygen from the atmosphere to last him longer. If we can..."
"No," said Neteyam.
"So you're gonna stay with the humans at High Camp? There's only so many places you could go."
"I'll think of something," said Neteyam, but the idea made the tightness in his chest worse. When he'd thought about his future while recovering at High Camp, it had been almost like vertigo, like he was staring into the unknown abyss that was his future and seeing nothing there. Lo'ak had just offered an alternative, but that wasn't something Neteyam could picture. The longer he thought about it, the more sure he was that he just couldn't face Mother like this. He couldn't bear for her to look at him the way she looked at Spider.
He hadn't enjoyed feeling like a prisoner at High Camp... but now Neteyam realized he couldn't go back there, either – not if he'd gotten Prisha killed. Max and Reet would hate him for it. The humans who'd stayed with the Omatikaya were like a big family in themselves. None of them would forgive him.
If this didn't work, he'd have nowhere to go. Just like Bohan. Maybe the two of them could just live in the jungle together.
But then the comforting thought returned to him: "everything so far haw gone okay," he pointed out. "We haven't been caught, Bohan tamed a banshee on her first try, and we managed to learn something as we passed Kilvanoro. I even made it way back to High Camp all by myself, and it was you who found Prisha and me, rather than anyone else. Eywa is looking out for us." She had to be.
The sound of a flying machine made them both look up, as did Ukyom. They could not see the vehicle, but it circled a couple of times before landing somewhere out in the sterilized ground surrounding the base – they could hear the sound change as the engines idled.
Lo'ak's ears swivelled, trying to catch something to tell them what else was going on. He looked up at Tìtstew dozing in the branches.
"No," said Neteyam. "We can't risk being spotted, remember?"
"We need to know what's going on out there," Lo'ak protested.
"If you get shot, then I have to cross that open ground without a banshee," Neteyam said. "If that what you want?"
Lo'ak started to reply, then changed his mind and grudgingly settled down again. A few minutes later, the sound of engines picked up again, and the machine rose into the air and flew away. Neteyam hoped they'd picked up Bohan and taken her back without discovering Prisha.
The rest of the day crawled by after that. The sun rose above the forest canopy and passed overhead, slipping behind the plant in Eclipse and then coming out again. Tìtstew and Ukyom flew off to find something to eat, then came back and perched again. Neteyam and Lo'ak prepared a meal and ate it, and took turns napping, since they'd had several days of interrupted sleep.
Finally, the evening came. The brothers ate another meal, then cleaned up and made their way to the edge of the open ground. The way the trees and vegetation just stopped , turning suddenly into pale, crumbly, dead soil, would have been distressing in its own right – it was a dozen times worse when connected to the memory of finding the same things at Hell's Gate, and Neteyam realizing just how badly his memory had been affected.
What would Lo'ak think of that? Neteyam had been pretty vague about it... what if he gave him the details? What would Lo'ak say if Neteyam asked him outright, am I still your brother ?
From the edge, they could see the domed upper levels of Site Nine rising above the ground, with the skylight that Neteyam remembered from the cafeteria. There were lamps burning around the edge, many of them in windows, but also lighting up sentry points where automated guns were moving back and forth as the machines scanned the sky. It looked like some gigantic living thing, like a big pale larva lurking in a burrow, ready to leap out at passing prey.
Lo'ak took out their little radio and turned it on. Prisha had promised to say something on a specific channel.
While he was listening, Neteyam decided to look , and got out the binoculars they'd taken from Konstopoulos. They were still much too big for a human, but he could hold them sideways and look through one eyepiece as if it were a telescope. From her,e he realized, he could see right into one of the hangars. There was a row of vehicles parked inside, with people moving around them, and there... yes, there was a recom, towering over the humans that surrounded him or her. If there were any banshees kept in the hangar, they weren't visible from here.
More time passed. The darkness deepened, although night on Pandora was never completely dark. The glowing aurora, the many moons, and above all the comforting blue light of the planet was enough for the Na'vi to navigate with ease. As before, it seemed darker than than normal to Neteyam, but he knew by now that was because human night vision was not as good.
The hangar eventually turned off all but the most essential lights. Sometime after that, the lights in the domed cafeteria also blinked out. All seemed quiet.
Lo'ak was now leaning on a tree, his eyes closed. Neteyam wondered if he were falling asleep again. It had been a long, busy few days. As long as one of them was awake and paying attention, it was probably okay. It might be a long wait, after all...
Then the radio crackled. There was no voice, just a burst of static. Neteyam glanced at it, then returned his attention to the shape of the base on the horizon. The lights began to flicker, not in the hangar directly facing them, but to one further to the right, just on the edge of the visible cure.
Neteyam reached over to give Lo'ak a thump.
"Wake up!" he said. "I think this is it."
"Huh?" asked Lo'ak. "What's it?"
The radio hissed again, then. Boys ? Asked the voice of Prisha Patel. Time to go, time to go !
Lo'ak blinked twice, but then came to life. "Tìtstew!" he called. The banshee swooped in, and he scrambled up on its back. Neteyam sat in front of him.
"Okay, Tìtstew," said Lo'ak, giving the animal's neck a slap " Salew ! Go!"
Tìtstew all but threw himself into the air, and they barrelled across the bare ground as fast as the banshee's wings could carry him. Neteyam could only hang on for dear life to the mekuru as terrain flickered by too fast to follow. He had a horrible feeling that something was following them, but didn't dare look back, focusing instead on the growing outline of the base in front of them.
They went so fast that it was all but impossible to slow down when they reached the hangar. Tìtstew's claws scrabbled on the floor as he tried to land on this unfamiliar surface, but he could not get a grip. They ended up sliding across the tile to crash into a Kestrel vehicle, much like the one that had taken Neteyam and the recoms to Kilvanoro. A line of other banshees, roosting on a specially-built shelf down one side of the big room, barked and flapped their wings at the disturbance.
Neteyam and Lo'ak both fell from Tìtstew's back and landed in a heap on the floor, as lights came on and airlock doors rumbled open. The boys had no choice but to rawl under the Kestrel and stay there while half a dozen people, both humans and recoms, trooped in to see what was going on. Tìtstew himself climbed up on top of the vehicle, spread his wings, and shrieked.
"What the hell is... how'd you get in here?" asked a voice that gave both boys chills. It belonged to Quaritch. "Shoo! Get out!"
His feet moved towards them. Lo'ak put a protective arm over Neteyam. This was already going wrong. The inhabitants already knew that Tìtstew didn't belong here, and once they took a close look, they would surely realize that the saddle he was wearing had come from Konstopoulos and Maverick. From there they would know that somebody was trying to sneak in, and...
But Quaritch went right past the Kestrel, waving his arms and shouting at something. It couldn't be Tìtstew – he was still perched on top of the Kestrel, squawking in distress. Neteyam propped himself up a bit, trying to get a look, and realized something had been following them. Ukyom had accompanied them on their frenzied flight to the hangar, and was now in the opening, flapping and trumpeting as the recoms tried to shoo him out.
Another person got on the radio. "Yeah, you know that black banshee Bohan was going on about? It's gotten into the hangar somehow and upset the others. Get somebody up here with some ordinance!"
Lo'ak gripped Neteyam's arm tight. Bohan would be devastated if they killed Ukyom. She'd only just tamed him. It would be like Neteyam seeing Pawk shot right in front of him.
There was another vehicle on Ukyom's left, so he moved to the right, closer to the other banshees on their perches. They snapped at him, but he wasn't interested in them. He stuck his neck out and hissed at Quaritch.
To Neteyam's surprise, Quaritch hissed back. That wasn't something humans did. Maybe this version of Quaritch had more Na'vi in him than anyone thought.
Another airlock opened, and a crowd of humans entered. One of them shouted orders to the others, and they spread out and arranged themselves between Ukyom and the boys' hiding place, readying large weapons. For a moment Neteyam had a crazy thought of tackling one of them from behind, but he knew that was madness. It would only end in him and probably Lo'ak being killed, as well as Ukyom.
It turned out to be unnecessary, anyway. Confronted by this, Ukyom shrieked at them, then took wing and dived out into the night. A few shots were fired at him, but the interior of the hangar was so much brighter than the outside that he quickly vanished.
"What the hell was that?" a woman's voice asked.
"I'm guessing he was just looking to get laid," said Quaritch. It looked around at the recoms' banshees, several of which had left their roost and were now crawling around the room, distressed and agitated. He found the one he called Blackbird and made tsaheylu with her.
"Go back to bed," he said, patting her on the snout. "We won't lt that happen again."
They broke the bond, and Blackbird climbed back onto her perch. The others began to do the same, following her example – all except the one who could still be heard moving on top of the Kestrel. For a moment Neteyam was terrified again, thinking Quaritch would count them and realize there was an extra.
All the man said, however, was, "you, too, sport."
Lo'ak whispered very quietly, hoping the banshee's sensitive ears would pick it out. "Do what he says, Tìtstew. Go sit with them."
Tìtstew climbed down from the roof of the vehicle and, somewhat grumpily, crawled up to roost with the recoms' banshees. They hissed at him, but this was perfectly normal banshee behaviour, and nobody made anything of it.
"How'd he get in here?" a voice asked.
"Damned moonshiners again," was Quaritch's response. "He just had really good timing." There was a long pause, and then he said, "have a look around, just to be sure."
The two boys held their breath and watched as boots tramped around the room. The door of the Kestrel slid open, and somebody had a look inside. Looking under the vehicle would be the next logical step. Neteyam looked around for somewhere to go, but they were surrounded on all sides.
So he looked up .
Above them in the bottom of the Kestrel was a hatch with a yellow arrow painted on it, and a word in all capitals: RESCUE . The arrow curved, showing how to turn a handle to release people who might be trapped inside with the vehicle upside-down. Neteyam grabbed and turned it, gritting his teeth and hoping it wouldn't set off an alarm. It opened silently. He set it down gently so it wouldn't make a noise on the floor, and sat up to peek through the opening.
He found himself looking across the floor at a human soldier who was just closing the door, having satisfied himself that there was nobody inside. Neteyam squirmed through the opening, and then helped Lo'ak up after him. They stayed low, out of sight of the windows, and gently closed the escape hatch behind them.
Outside, the soldier called, "this one's secure."
Neteyam and Lo'ak lay down flat on the vehicle floor, and stayed there until finally, Quaritch told everybody to get out. The airlocks hissed as they closed, and Neteyam started to get up – but then he caught a flash of motion in the windshield. Quaritch had put his face right up against it, using his hands to block out reflections as he squinted inside. Neteyam froze. Lo'ak ducked behind the seats, his photophores glowing faintly in the shadows.
Then, at last, Quaritch also left.
Since he was the one who did not glow in the dark, Neteyam slowly raised his head to look over the seat. He watched Quaritch step into the airlock and put his breathing mask on, and then the door shut behind him. A few moments later, the light in the airlock brightened, as the interior door opened – and then went out, when Quaritch left.
Somebody breathed a sigh of relief, but it wasn't Neteyam or Lo'ak. It was somebody in the cockpit, crouched on the floor below the control panel. Neteyam looked between the two seats.
"Prisha?" he whispered.
There was a gasp, but then she must have realized it was him. She grabbed the seat to pull herself out, and Neteyam reached for her hand to help her. Prisha squeezed between the pilot's and gunner's seats into the passenger compartment, and gave Neteyam a hug. He hugged back, and a moment later, Lo'ak joined in from behind.
"I can't believe we really did that," Prisha said.
"Of course we did," Neteyam said, although he knew it had been a close call. "Like I told Lo'ak earlier, Eywa's looking out for us. We're gonna be fine. We just have to be careful."
"Grandma always says, Eywa will help, but she won't do it for you ," Lo'ak agreed.
"Dr. Dulac says, God helps those who help themselves ," said Prisha.
They held the group embrace for a few more moments, and then reluctantly released it, the three of them kneeling in the dark on the cold metal floor of the Kestrel.
"Where's Bohan?" asked Lo'ak.
"She's in medical," Prisha replied. "They're treating her injuries. She managed to sneak me this, though," she held up her left wrist, where she was wearing a watch. It had been made for a recom – the band was very loose, even though it was buckled through the smallest hole, and the face was nearly as big as the whole palm of her hand. "It's got a map and a couple of access codes. You two need disguises first, though."
While the boys had been sitting idle in the forest all day, Prisha must have been very busy. She'd changed her own clothes, and was now wearing a light pink blouse and black trousers – not a soldier's clothing, but not casual either. Both items were too big for her, and she'd had to cuff the sleeves and cinch in the trouser waist with a couple of safety pins. They did make her look more grown-up and professional, though, like somebody who worked in the base.
She had also stashed spare clothing for the boys in a compartment under the Kestrel's passenger seats. For Lo'ak there was a recom's black t-shirt and green trousers with the letters PHNX stencilled down the leg. She'd also brought a military-style hat for him to hide his braids under. Neteyam got civilian clothes like her own, a pale blue button-down shirt, and trousers in light brown. He had to keep wearing shoes, even now that they were indoors, because that was what the humans at Site Nine did. Lo'ak was allowed to go barefoot like the recoms.
Prisha surveyed the results with a frown. "I think it still just looks like you two," she said, "but I know you."
Neteyam glanced at his reflection in the windows of the Kestrel, and remembered thinking how much his yellow eyes contributed to still making him look like himself. The pilot had left a pair of sunglasses hooked over the Kestrel's rearview mirror. He took those down down and put them on, and tied his own braids back into a bun at the nape of his neck, where his queue should have been but was not. Touching the place still made him shudder a little, but it was getting better.
"How's that?" he asked.
Prisha snorted. "You look like a weirdo who wears sunglasses indoors," she said.
"Then I don't look like me," Neteyam said.
They slipped into the airlock. Prisha tossed Lo'ak one of the small masks the recoms used indoors, similar to the ones the Sully kids had used during their childhood visits to Hell's Gate and later to the science shacks at High Camp. Lo'ak hung it around his neck.
The outer door closed. Air hissed as the atmosphere exchanged, and Neteyam saw Lo'ak wrinkle his nose at the smell of it. A light turned green, and Neteyam and Prisha removed their masks as the inner door opened. It was time to enter Site Nine.