Part IIa -The Trojan Horse
[Master Post]
Part Ic
Part II -The Trojan Horse
Jensen isn't sure what he was expecting to find. It's not like he had enough time to do more than skim the few books he was given on Pandora and the Na'vi in order not to go into the whole situation completely blind, so it's not like he's an expert, or anything. In fact, he doesn't remember giving any thought at all to what sort of lifestyle the Na'vi lead at all, except for remembering that they live in small groups scattered all over the continent. If he bothered to think about it, he figured that they probably lived like the hunter-gatherers he learned about in school, or like those Native Americans who had long houses and grew grains and whatever. So he's half-expecting to see scantily-clad women with babies strapped to their backs grinding maize in bowls, or scraping down animal hides, or doing whatever other domestic chores native women are supposed to do, while the men sharpen their spears or make arrows or do other stuff to prepare them for hunting.
Looking around now, though, he sees nothing of the sort. In fact, while the main compound was full last night and only a few minutes ago while the Omaticaya gathered to hear Mo'at's pronouncement concerning him, it's almost empty now that everyone has gone about their everyday business.
"Where did everybody go?" he asks, trotting after Jared, finding it an effort to keep up even though he thought he was in pretty good shape. Jared, however, is a good five inches taller than Jensen and impressively strong, with broad shoulders and a well-developed chest. The Na'vi are built along more slender lines than humans, something to do with the different gravity here, but even so Jensen gets the uncomfortable impression that Jared could snap his human body like a twig and probably seriously hurt him in his avatar body if he truly put his mind to it. The thought is more than a little distracting, especially when Jared turns those large eyes on him. In the light of day the gold ring is less visible, making the slightly-hazel irises more visible, and looking into them makes Jensen's mouth go dry. He remembers Grace's mocking words and swallows hard, tries very hard not to think about any of it. After all, that's not what he's here for, and he doesn't even know how the Na'vi even do... that sort of thing. It's probably not much different from what he's used to, but it's not something he should be thinking about anyway, even if Jared is incredibly beautiful by any standards -human or Na'vi.
"The children are at their lessons, they will not be out to play until later," Jared is saying over his shoulder. "Everyone else has work to do."
"Okay, so what sort of work do you do? I mean, where's everybody at?"
Jared points up. Following the movement with his eyes, Jensen starts to get an idea of just how vast this tree is. There are dwellings contained in the enormous trunk, winding their way farther up than he can even see, or at the very least chambers of some kind -it's impossible to tell what's going on inside without going in to take a closer look. He can't tell how the Na'vi even get up into those chambers, figures there must be passages within the trunk itself connecting them all, since it's obvious no one's climbing up the outside walls to clamber inside. He whistles, impressed.
"Some set-up you've got here. So what do you do? Are you a warrior?"
Jared shrugs, stopping at the entrance of what looks like it might be a chamber of sorts. "I am taronyu ―hunter. I learned from when I was young." He hesitates, as though he's about to say something else, then visibly changes his mind. "You said you are warrior?"
"Yeah, that's right. I'm a soldier, though, which isn't exactly the same thing."
"What is the difference?" Jared looks honestly curious.
"Soldiers just do what they're told. Go where they're told, say what they're told. I get the feeling warriors wouldn't exactly put up with that."
Jared tilts his head, considering. "Sometimes they have to. To win a battle, sometimes there must be..." he stops, visibly searching for a word, "a leader. Someone to bring all warriors together. One warrior can win a fight, but it takes tsampongu ―many warriors together- to win a battle."
"Huh." Jensen can't quite mask his surprise. "Guess we really aren't all that different."
Jared just rolls his eyes, and for a second Jensen feels incredibly stupid.
Jared spends the better part of the morning just showing Jensen around the village, making sure he gets his bearings. The structure is surprisingly complex, a strange mix of naturally-occurring root systems and tunnels right alongside obviously man-made additions (or Na'vi-made, he corrects himself) that allow for easy passage between the spacious chambers that line the inside of what Jared calls Home Tree, or kelku'tral. That's what it sounds like to Jensen, anyway.
"You speak no Na'vi," Jared says to him, pushing open a door made of what looks like some sort of stiff leather and showing him into what appears to be a small antechamber. Jensen can hear voices from the next room, murmuring musically together. It's not a question, but Jensen can tell Jared is expecting an explanation of some kind.
"No, there wasn't time for me to learn before I came here. I'm sort of a last-minute addition to the team."
"Explain."
So Jensen finds himself giving Jared the bare-bones outline of what happened, from his brother's death all the way to his recruitment by the Company so that Tommy's avatar could still be used. "So that's sort of why I'm here."
"You come to honour your brother."
"Something like that. It's a little bit more complicated than that, but it's a part of it, sure." Suddenly Jensen isn't sure he wants to explain that he's being paid more money than he's ever made in his entire life just to come out here and take his brother's place. He doesn't know how to begin explaining it to himself, never mind to a guy who probably doesn't even know what money is. "So what's in the next room?"
"This is where the stories are made." Jared screws up his face, as though that's not exactly what he meant to say. "With thread," he adds, as though that will somehow make it clearer.
"I don't get it," Jensen is about to say, until he follows Jared inside and finds himself surrounded by a dozen people all seated at what look like looms.
Jensen has never seen a loom before himself, so it's not like he's an expert, but these people are definitely weaving cloth in brightly-coloured patterns. He reaches out tentatively toward one, only to have it snatched away with a glare by the older woman working on it. He stammers an apology, feels a tug on his arm, turns to find a younger woman standing to one side. She holds out a bolt of blue cloth with a red design on it that he can't quite make out through the folds.
"This you may look," she says a bit shyly.
Jared gives him an encouraging nod. "You touch when finished, not before."
"Yeah, okay. Thank you," he says to the girl. "How do I say thank you?" he asks Jared. May as well start learning now.
"Irayo. "
"Irayo, " he repeats carefully, and the girl giggles. Jared shakes his head.
"No. Irayo," he rolls the 'r' exaggeratedly. "Again."
It takes several more tries before Jensen gets the word to Jared's satisfaction, but eventually he does get it, all the while admiring the weave of the cloth in his hands. It's not like he ever paid attention to things like cloth back on earth, but around here things are different, he figures, and this is obviously important.
"What did you mean about stories before? Or did you mean cloth?" he asks, once the girl has gone back to work. She told him her name, but it's pretty much unpronounceable as far as he's concerned, like Jared's real name. Maybe in a few weeks, he consoles himself, trying not to feel like too much of an idiot.
"You ask about books. These are how we make stories. With thread and paint. Here and in...we have place for paint," Jared fumbles. "I don't know the word," he says, obviously frustrated.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Jensen claps a hand on his shoulder. "Your English is, like, a hundred times better than my Na'vi, so you're way ahead of the game here. You can show me later, and then you'll teach me the right word for it."
Jared laughs at that, bright and open, dimples showing up for the second time since Jensen first met him. "You are very strange."
Jensen grins, finding the laughter contagious in spite of himself. "Yeah, I'm a real mystery. Just ask Dr. Augustine."
By the end of the day Jensen is exhausted, his mind swirling with new information that he can't even begin to parse. He hasn't spoken with anyone apart from Jared, except for a few fleeting introductions to other Na'vi whose names he forgot almost as soon as he learned them, the new syllables too alien for him to retain. He's learned a couple of new words, at least, and with any luck he'll be able to remember them tomorrow. The Omaticaya still haven't decided where he's going to sleep, although they are all agreed it seems that he's going to need some sort of permanent lodging where his avatar can 'sleep' while he's back at the human compound. He's not sure the Na'vi fully understand the whole psychic uplink thing, but then again, he's not sure he fully understands it either. They definitely don't view it as magic or anything-as far as Jensen can tell, the Omaticaya don't believe in that sort of thing.
"But you believe in this Eywa, right?" he'd asked Jared, only to be met with a scoff.
"Eywa does not perform tricks. Eywa is..." he'd made a hand gesture that suggested he didn't have the right words for what he was trying to say.
"God, right? Eywa is like your God?"
Jared shrugged, which Jensen took to mean 'yes.' "Okay, so where I come from God makes miracles and whatever, but we don't have proof that he exists. Is that it?"
Jared shook his head. "Eywa can't be explained like that."
He'd let the matter drop after that, figuring that they could get to the bottom of the mysteries of the Na'vi faith at another point in time. By then he was ready to drop from exhaustion anyway, and had no trouble falling asleep the moment he laid down on his makeshift pallet.
Once he's awake again he's relieved to discover that he doesn't feel nearly as much like warmed-over crap as he did yesterday when he first woke up in the link bed. He blinks as the shell gets lifted away with a swoosh of hydraulics, the bright light from the fluorescent bulbs overhead threatening to blind him, then wriggles a bit, testing the muscles in his arms and back. When nothing seizes or screams in pain he feels a grin spread over his face, pushes himself upright and leans on his hands. He's the only one out of the link so far, and one of the techs glances up from where she's checking a readout on a monitor. Her name tag reads 'Sasha.'
"Dr. Augustine and Norm are going to be a while longer, I'm afraid. They went back out with Trudy to gather samples from G Sector while you were getting the five-cent tour. What was it like?" she asks, curiosity evident in her face.
"I can't even begin to describe it," he shakes his head, still grinning a little incredulously. He looks around, spots his wheelchair tucked away by the wall. "A little help here, maybe?" he jerks his head at it.
Oh, right," she blushes crimson, dashes over to wheel it toward him. "Sorry, we just kept tripping over it while we were monitoring your link. We'll have to figure out a place to keep it so that it won't be in the way but you can still get to it if you need to."
"Yeah, we should get right on that," Jensen rolls his eyes, gesturing to the rest of the room, which isn't exactly bursting with extra space. "Wouldn't want to be in the way, after all."
"Great! We'll find something, for sure. Oh, before I forget!" Sasha claps a hand to her forehead in a move that's practically a caricature, clearly oblivious to his sarcasm. "Colonel Quaritch stopped by while you were still in the link. He wants you to report to Mr. Selfridge's office as soon as you can for a debriefing. Dr. Augustine should be back by the time you're done."
He scrubs at his face with one hand, feeling the stubble of his five-o'clock shadow scrape at his palm. "Okay, got it. I hate it when they don't even give you enough time to shave. I don't smell bad, do I?"
The joke is lame, but she giggles. He tries not to let himself think she's humouring him. "No, you're fine. It's not like you do a lot of moving around in there, you know. But if you want to sneak off for a shower I can try to cover for you if you'd like. Tell them you're still in the link."
He shakes his head. "I wouldn't want to get you in trouble just over that, but thanks. I'll just go as I am."
He hoists himself off the bed, slides back awkwardly into his chair, settles onto the thin surface. It feels strange even now, having to move in a body that won't respond the way he wants it to. This is his real body, his real self, but his legs worked for a lot longer than they haven't, and now that he's had the chance to feel his avatar respond the way his body used to, well, it's just one more mind-fuck to deal with.
Selfridge's office is located on the uppermost level of the compound. It's a bit of a bitch to get to, even with the elevator going all the way up. The offices really aren't designed for wheelchair access, with good reason: no one in their right mind would come to this place unless they had four perfectly-working limbs. Jensen wonders just what the hell that says about him. Quaritch is already in the operations room, leaning one hip against a huge plexiglass console, Selfridge standing off to one side, staring out the huge bay windows, hands clasped behind his back.
"Ackles, glad you could join us," Quaritch nods in acknowledgement. "I hear you made quite the impression on the natives yesterday."
"Yes sir." Old habits die hard. "Ran into one of them by accident, but they seem to have taken a shine to me. Or something like that. So now they want me to stick around, learn from them. I think they want to study me, see what makes me tick."
Quaritch keeps nodding, obviously impressed. "Son, I wish I had ten more like you. That's what I call taking initiative. A few more men like you and we'd have this damned rock subdued in no time."
Selfridge turns away from the window, paces back toward them with slow, deliberate movements. Jensen is reminded a little bit of a Chihuahua trying to make its way around puddles in the street after a rainstorm.
"Ackles, right?" he asks, and Jensen nods. "Right, whatever. Look, you're the first foothold we've had with these blue monkeys in years. We tried before, offered them medicine and education. Hell, we offered to build them roads! But no; turns out they're really fond of their mud, or whatever. Now, I wouldn’t care, except that -here, let me show you," he steps toward the 3-D map that spreads over half of the room, presses a button, only to have the image flicker wildly. "Would someone please...?"
An assistant helpfully punches a few more buttons until the image comes back to life, and Jensen can see the guy trying not to roll his eyes at his boss' incompetence with the technology.
"Right, okay, there, stop! Jesus!" Selfridge flaps a hand at the assistant when the map scrolls right by the enormous image of Home Tree. "See right there? This is where we should be mining. There's a huge vein that runs from here to here," he pokes a stubby finger at two separate points on the map, "but they won't budge. I mean, there are thousands of trees in the damned forest, and they won't listen to reason!"
Jensen keeps his face schooled in a carefully neutral expression, though he notes Quaritch doesn't bother even with that social nicety. It's obvious what Quaritch thinks: that Selfridge is a self-important little man in a stupid monkey suit, but since he holds the purse strings they all have to make nice so that Quaritch can stay on Pandora in the long run. It's probably only a matter of time before the Colonel has Selfridge seeing things entirely his way and letting him keep doing what he wants to rather than pander to the corporation that's brought them all here. Selfridge doesn't want to get his hands dirty, that much is obvious, and Quaritch likes nothing more than to wallow down in the filth. It's a match made in heaven, Jensen thinks.
"Does Dr. Augustine know about any of this?" he asks.
"She knows what she needs to know," Quaritch says, and Jensen gets the message, loud and clear.
"She's been cock-blocking me on this from the start. Let me tell you something, Ackles," Selfrige says, puffing out his chest like a tropical bird showing off its feathers, "she might be all holier-than-thou about this and think her science is somehow above petty concerns like money, but it's the money that's keeping her little three-ring circus going. So she gets on her high horse one too many times, it will be my absolute pleasure to knock her out of her saddle and send the bitch packing back to earth if it suits me."
"So you want me to talk the Na'vi into moving out?"
"That's about the size of it. You think you can do that, son?" Quaritch gazes at him, blue eyes glittering intensely.
"No idea, sir. I barely got there. But I can try."
"Can't ask for more than that. Truth be told, I don't think you'll be able to, but that's because better negotiators than you have tried and failed. What I want from you, Ackles, is information. You're getting a look where no human has ever been before, right in the heart of enemy territory. So you're going to scout for me. I want to know everything there is to know about these people: what their living arrangements are like, what their defences are. I want to know what they have for breakfast and what sort of weapons they use, how many weapons they have and just how good they are at using 'em. You understand me?"
Jensen has to make an effort not to chew on his lip. "I understand, sir. You want a tactical evaluation of the site."
Quaritch grins, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Knew you were quick on the uptake. These savages won't play ball? That means we're going to have to get down in it, and sooner more likely than later. So when that time comes, I want to know exactly where I need to lean to exact the most leverage. I want them by the short and curlies, you hear me?"
"I hear you, sir."
"Look, kid," Selfridge breaks in, "Killing the indigenous looks bad, but there’s one thing shareholders hate more than bad press-and that’s a bad quarterly statement. Not to mention I got some very large, very important government contracts to uphold. There are bigger issues at stake than a village full of tree-hugging savages. We can find them a different tree, hell, we'll build them a new tree, so long as it means all the shipping runs leave for earth right on schedule. So you find me a carrot to get them to move, or it’s going to have to be all stick."
After that, there's really nothing else to say.
Jensen drags himself out of bed the next morning several hours before he's due to go back into the link. He's due to meet Norm for another tutoring session, since Grace figures the more Na'vi he learns on his own the easier it'll be. At this rate, he thinks, he's going to exhaust himself unless he can find some other way to catch up on his sleep. He wheels himself out of his room, shoulders aching a little from the strain. Somehow his body has grown disused to even the most rudimentary of motions after only a couple of days of being linked up to the avatar. Quaritch was right, he thinks, Pandora does make you soft. He's going to have to start making time to go to the gym and make sure he doesn't get too badly out of shape while he's here. After all, what's the use of going home and getting his legs back in a few years if his body is too weak to hold him up? Or if he's just grown too flabby and soft to make proper use of it? He's seen his share of retired soldiers, pot-bellied and resigned to their fates, like old horses too tired and lame to canter anymore, and he'll be damned if he lets that happen to him.
To his surprise, he finds Grace waiting for him in the laboratory. "Grab a seat, Jensen," she motions to the table.
"Way ahead of you," he rolls his eyes, and notes with some satisfaction that she looks a little embarrassed at her own slip-up. "Where's Norm?"
"Reassigned for today. I have him packing up equipment in the next room. He's got more familiarity with how things work than you, and we're going to be shipping out in a couple of days, four tops."
He pulls up by the table, locks the wheels on his chair, can't quite hide his expression of surprise. "Really? All of us?"
"No, just you, me, Norm and a couple of techs. I've got Selfridge breathing down my neck and I hate being micromanaged, especially during a culturally sensitive mission like this one. No offense, but I don't need them filling your head with corporate bullshit and trying to direct this like it's a bad 3D movie."
Jensen snorts. "Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. Last time I checked, I was still my own man."
Grace just shrugs. "None of us are completely immune to outside influence. It's what makes us human. Besides, I think you'll like it up there. We're going to a base in the Hallelujah Mountains."
In spite of himself, he feels a thrill travel up his spine. "The floating mountains?"
It's the only thing he really knows about Pandora, from an educational vid he and Tommy watched when they were still in high school. It's what got Tommy all excited about space travel and xenobiology to begin with.
She grins, and it takes ten years off her face. She looks, well, a lot like her avatar. Young and enthusiastic and really pretty, too. "The very same. We have a little set-up there. Nothing as comprehensive as what we have here, but there are enough link beds for all of us and a few to spare, and it'll let us all work without distractions."
"Human distractions, anyway," Jensen murmurs, thinking of Jared.
"I have to be honest, Jensen," Grace says, lighting up a cigarette and watching him as she blows a plume of smoke to the side, "I'm not thrilled at the idea that we're sending you in alone there. You're inexperienced except for earthside combat, which I have no doubt you excel at. Except this is neither earth nor combat, and I kind of feel like we're feeding you to the wolves, here."
"Don't worry about me, Doc, I can handle myself."
"I know, and that's part of what worries me. Even though they look a lot like us, the Na'vi aren't human in any way, shape, or form. Their brains are literally wired differently, and while there are similarities, we can't let ourselves fall into the trap of thinking that we have the same motivations. There are things about them we're never going to understand, because it's physically impossible, even for us avatar drivers. Do you get that?"
He shrugs. "Honestly? No. You're kind of speaking gibberish. But then, that's kind of been my entire world for the past week or so, so I'm getting used to it."
She barks a laugh, takes another drag off her cigarette, taps the ash into a tray by her computer pad. "Maybe you're not the worst choice after all. Okay. Enough with the aliens-aren't-people pep talk. I'm going to grill you on your basics, make sure you don't make a total idiot of yourself. Did you make a video log of your experiences yesterday?"
He shakes his head a little sheepishly. "No, sorry. I was too goddamned wiped out to do anything except go back to my bunk and lapse into a coma."
"It's important that you record something every day, Jensen," she jabs her cigarette at him for emphasis. "You are our pipeline into these people's minds. Everything you see, every piece of knowledge you bring back, is going to help us understand them, and this whole moon, for that matter." She leans forward, one hand resting on the arm holding her cigarette. "There's something big happening here, Jensen, something bigger than anything we've ever seen before in all of human history, and I think you might be the guy to help us unlock it."
Jensen blinks. "But no pressure, or anything."
She laughs again. "Yeah, no pressure."
"Okay, I think this is working," Jensen fiddles a bit with the video feed, checks the screen to make sure the focus is on his face and doesn't make him look too stupid. "I'm supposed to be making a log of what happened yesterday, but I just realized I've been here for, like, over a week and I never sent word back to you guys. They explained it to me here, that I can send you messages and they'll go through the relays and only take, like, maybe a week to get to you. So I set up an account for you -well, Shirley in administration set up an account for me and I put your names on it, so you can send me messages anytime and they'll be charged to my account.
"So, uh, hi Mom, hi Dad, it's me. I know, I look good for having been gone six years, right? You don't really age in cryo, I guess... Anyway, I checked the records and it looks like you guys got all the back-pay I was owed, so that's good. Well, I guess it wasn't back-pay since you were getting it while I was asleep, but it feels like back-pay to me, you know? Uh, yeah. So, that's good. I hope prices haven't gone up too much, I couldn't keep track of things while I was under, but I want you to send word if you need anything, or if anything happens, okay?
"Grace, that's my boss, she's saying we're going to be heading up to a base in the Hallelujah Mountains -you remember them from the vid that Tommy used to watch all the time when we were kids? It's pretty far, but I'll still have access to my mail there, I think. If not, I'll get one of the guys to monitor my mail here for emergencies, just in case.
"Okay, so I think that's enough random crap for one message. I just wanted to get that out of the way so you wouldn't worry. I, uh," Jensen clears his throat a little, "I just want you to know that I miss you, and I wish that it was Tommy here the way it was supposed to be. He'd be telling you all about how awesome this place is. It really is, too. It's huge, for one. Everything back on earth seems so tiny compared to this. You guys would love it, there are just... trees, everywhere. Like, huge trees. Hundreds of feet tall, like taller than those sequoias you read about in history books and everything. Everything is big and green and fresh, like walking inside a greenhouse all the time, except, like, a hundred times as big.
"The good news in all this, actually, is that I'm pretty good at this whole avatar driving business. I can't tell you much about what I'm doing because I had to sign all these forms that said I wasn't allowed, but I think it's okay for me to tell you that I met with the aliens who live here. Well, I guess technically I'm the alien, but whatever. I'm going to be spending a lot of time with them, especially this one guy whose name I can't pronounce, but he said I can call him Jared. I think you'd like him, Mom, he kind of reminds me of...well, he doesn't take any shit from me and he's, I don't know. I don't get his sense of humour and he doesn't get mine, but I think that's because he doesn't speak very good English and I don't speak a damn word of Na'vi. We're working on that, though. I figure if I work hard enough at it I might be able to string a couple of words together by the time we're done, and his English is already pretty decent so it won't take much before he's speaking it better than I do.
"Anyway, I'm going to have to go soon, because Jared is waiting for me, back at the village, and I have to go do a whole bunch of complicated technical stuff to link up with my avatar, but I'm going to try to make sure I don't disappear or anything. I know how much you guys hate that. Worst comes to worst I'll record the messages while I'm up there and then send them when we come back here to resupply or something. Or, more likely I'll give them to someone to send when they come back. Somehow, I don't think Grace will be letting me come back here unsupervised too much, although I guess if they order me back she won't have much say in it. Sorry, I shouldn't even be talking about that, I guess. It's just backstage politics; you know how it is, right? It turns out that you get that everywhere you go around here.
"Everyone is pretty excitable around these parts, and that includes Grace and Selfridge. Selfridge is the guy who runs the place, but he's pretty much a stuffed suit like the rest of them, with no idea what's going on outside. All he's interested in is this ore that we've been mining out of here. You probably heard about it on the news back home, I know it was already starting to make headlines back when I was just about to leave. Is it really doing all the fantastic stuff they said it was going to do? It's been six years," Jensen rubs the back of his neck, "and I guess a lot can happen in that time. For all I know, people in the cities don't even need rebreather masks anymore, but I'm guessing that's way too optimistic even for me.
"I think you guys would get a kick out of the name the guys here have given to the ore, which all the serious people call Panderium. That's the official name for it, but the miners and the other soldiers -most of 'em ex-Marines like me- they all call it 'Unobtainium' because apparently it's a real bitch to get it out of the ground. I've seen one of the mining sites, real quick because we were just flying above it on our way somewhere else, and it looks like a war zone down there. All the trees, all the plants, everything is gone. It's..." Jensen stumbles over his words, remembering looking down on the devastation like an open wound in the moon's flank. "It actually looks pretty horrible. Like we transplanted part of our own planet right into this place which is crammed full of life. But I guess a few square miles of trees here is worth saving a whole planet, right?
He glances back over his shoulder. "Okay, I really gotta go, that's my call. I love you, and I'll talk to you again as soon as I can manage it. Let me know if you need anything. I've arranged for most of my paycheck to get directly deposited into your account -it's not like I have anywhere to spend it while I'm here anyway, so hopefully you'll be able to hang in there until I get back. It's going to be a while, but we'll be fine, I know it. Love you."
Jensen swallows a sudden lump in his throat, reaches over and switches off the monitor. He didn't feel the last six years go by, but suddenly the next five ones are looming overhead, long and vaguely menacing, and it occurs to him that even if he left tomorrow, it would still be another six years before he saw his parents again.
"Shit," he shakes his head, wheels determinedly back toward the link room.
Jared is waiting by his bedside when he opens his eyes. "You were asleep a very long time," he says a little accusingly. He's crouched on his heels, forearms resting easily on his knees, hands dangling between his legs, the very picture of relaxed ease.
"Sorry, I didn't realize you'd be waiting for me at the ass-crack of dawn," Jensen grumbles, uncurling himself from his bed. Apparently he's not a morning person even in avatar form, either. "Is the sun even up?"
"Yes," Jared answers the sarcastic question without batting an eye, and Jensen wonders if sarcasm just isn't a Na'vi trait, or if it's something specifically about Jared that makes him not get sarcasm, or whether Jared's just screwing with his mind. It could be any of the above, frankly.
Jensen gets to his feet, works out the kinks in his spine, scrunches his toes against the ground, still can't help the goofy grin that spreads across his face when he's able to move every single joint in his legs, feel the ground under the soles of his feet. He still can't get over it, isn't sure he ever will. Jared gives him a curious look, but says nothing.
"Today we will ride the pa'li," Jared says instead of whatever is obviously on his mind.
"The what?"
Jared looks a little exasperated at already getting off to a bad start.
"I will show you, and you will learn."
"That's the general idea, yeah," Jensen narrows his eyes. "Do we get to eat first?" he asks, as his stomach gives a sudden rumble. He may have had breakfast, but his avatar hasn't. Jared laughs.
"Tomorrow you come earlier. We eat with the sun, and it is already much..." he fumbles for his words.
"You mean I'm too late for breakfast?" Jensen supplies, and Jared smiles.
"It is late," he agrees, "but there is food."
Food turns out to be a sort of flatbread, a little dry but savoury, as though it's been baked with herbs or something, and Jared gives him a small container of a kind of brown paste to spread over it along with some sort of fruit nectar to drink. The Na'vi don't go much for utensils as far as Jensen can tell, although they do have bowls of every shape and size to go with their food. Each one, Jared explains as they go, serves a different purpose. The flat bread serves to scoop up a lot of the different foods, and Jensen gets his hand smacked a couple of times before he gets the hang of the table manners.
"Do all the Na'vi eat this way?" he asks, and gets a headshake in return.
"Omaticaya have different customs from the People of the Plains. All the tribes are different, though in many ways we are the same" he explains, carefully scooping paste onto a piece of bread and snacking on it while Jensen has his own breakfast. Jensen finds himself watching his hands, fascinated by the slender fingers, calloused at the tips and in patches from years spent perfecting the art of bow hunting. Jared's hands are beautiful, unscarred, although Jensen has seen scars on the hands of many of the other Na'vi in the village. He wonders if that means Jared hasn't been out hunting as much, or if he's just that much better than everyone else at what he does. "It is the same in some ways, different in others," Jared is saying, snapping him back to the present. "The People of the Plains make...flat bowls?" he turns it into a question.
"Plates?" Jensen suggests, and gets a nod.
"Plates. They eat with knives," he adds, making a face that suggests he finds the practice mildly distasteful.
"What's wrong with that?"
"Food should be cut before, not during eating."
Jensen tilts his head, considering. "Yeah, okay. Humans eat with knives, too. We don't see anything wrong with cutting our food while it's on our plates."
"You also eat things in pouches," Jared points out, as though that settles any argument about it, and Jensen has to concede his point. MREs are disgusting no matter how you put it.
"Only when we absolutely have to," he grins, popping the rest of the bread and paste into his mouth and washing it down with the last of his juice. He dusts off his hands. "So...what do I do with this?"
He gestures to the small bowl which contained the paste, and Jared patiently takes him through the motions of washing it out with a stiff-bristled brush and a kind of pasty soap mixed in with something granular like sand, though Jensen hasn't seen anything like sand anywhere in the forest, so he figures it must be something different. The word that Jared gives him to describe it could be anything as far as he can tell, like 'soap' or 'mud' or 'flying zebras' because he wouldn't put it above Jared to mess with his head a little bit when it comes to things like this.
"Come, Jensen. I show you the pa'li."
Jensen trots after him, looking around and still feeling like a damned gawking tourist as he tries to take it all in all at once. There's a flurry of movement off to one side, and all of a sudden he nearly trips over a tiny Na'vi kid, a girl by the looks of it, who has brazenly planted herself directly in his path.
Well, hi there," he looks down at her determined-looking expression. "Aren't you meant to be in school or whatever?"
She clearly has no idea what he's saying, glances to one side where he suddenly catches sight of a small group of children, all obviously urging her on. She puts out a hand, manages to just barely poke him in the hip, then dashes off at top speed amidst squeals of delighted horror from her friends. Jensen rolls his eyes.
"Great. I'm the town freak, apparently."
Jared is grinning back at him. "They are children. They are curious about the Dreamwalkers. They think you are not real."
"Oh, I'm plenty real. I don't suppose the Omaticaya believe in spanking?"
Jared gives him a puzzled look. "I don't know this word."
"It's a punishment for human children. When they misbehave, we give their bums a swat," Jensen swings one hand in demonstration, which provokes an incredulous laugh.
"Yes, but not when they are so old. Only... babies?"
"Toddlers. When they're still small but already walk?"
"Yes," Jared thinks about it for a moment before replying. "When they are older, such punishment is not... not considered right."
"So how do you punish your teenagers?"
"They are made to help with work, with tasks they do not usually do. It helps for learning. This way, come."
He leads Jensen down along the beautifully-carved passageways of the enormous tree, which lead to the ground in an elaborate spiral. There aren't any steps carved into the wood the way Jensen might have expected, but otherwise it feels like any other human gallery in a large building back on earth.
"I've never seen anything like this," he says, trying to keep his footing on the smooth surface while still watching Jared and yet trying to crane his neck to see up as far as possible. "Did you do this, or do the trees do it naturally? I mean, this is a huge tree, even by your standards. The trees back where I come from aren't like this at all. Not that I know of, anyway. You can't live in the trees on our world -what's left of them, anyway. They're too small, and I think their, uh, physiology or whatever, isn't right for it."
Jared doesn't turn back, but Jensen gets the impression he doesn't quite know how to begin answering the barrage of questions Jensen just launched at him. "We don't make the trees, but Home Tree is not like this when we find it. Our ancestors made Home Tree so that we could live here. You see the stories on the walls," he points to the pictograms that Jensen's been trying to read, except that every time he stops paying attention to his feet he either slips or trips and has to catch himself in order not to fall. "There is no time now, but we come back, and you may see the stories."
"Okay, yeah, I'd like that. You think there's any chance I could take pictures or something? Like, bring a camera? Dr. Augustine would give her eye teeth to be able to document all of this, I'll bet."
Jared shrugs, as though it's of no importance to him one way or another. "I will ask my mother, but I think maybe not yet."
"Yeah." Jensen suddenly gets the impression that this might be a whole lot trickier than he first thought. "You guys don't have problems with cameras, do you? I mean, when they first got invented on Earth there were people who, like, thought that getting your picture taken would steal your soul, but that's totally not true."
Jared stops so abruptly that Jensen practically breaks his nose on his shoulder blade. He turns, expression scornful. "A soul cannot be stolen here, Jensen. They belong to Eywa, and you cannot steal what is hers. It always returns."
Jensen winces. "Sorry."
Jared just takes him by the arm, leads him out into the forest and into a nearby clearing. "Here," he says. He puts two fingers to his lips, gives a piercing whistle. Almost immediately two of the hexapedal mounts that Jensen saw Tsu'tey and the other warriors riding a couple of days before come trotting slowly into view. Direhorses, he remembers. Jared nudges his shoulder. "Today, you ride."
"Super," Jensen mutters.
The direhorses are just as big as Jensen remembers, though slightly less intimidating in the clear light of day. Their heads are strangely-shaped, reminding him more of ornately-carved chess pieces than of real horses, except that their eyes roll a little wildly as they come near, and one of them gives a fearful snort and stamps its hooves, backing up as it gets a nose-full of his scent.
"I don't think he likes me much," he says to Jared.
"A'lai is female. And she does not like you much, it is true. That is because she can smell that you are unnatural," Jared assures him blithely.
"Oh, that totally makes me feel better. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"
"You ride," Jared says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Right. Naturally. Uh, I've never ridden a horse in my life."
"I teach you. P'ali are not dangerous. The Omaticaya learn to ride when we are very small children. You will ride A'lai, because she is old and gentle. Stand to her side, and put your hand like this," Jared nudges him forward, moves Jensen's left hand to rest on the direhorse's neck, his right against her flank. "Then you mount."
Jensen's seen enough cowboy movies in his time that he at least knows the basics of how to mount a horse. He figures a direhorse can't be all that different, so he gives himself a bit of momentum and swings up onto the direhorse's back, although it turns into one of his clumsier attempts at anything in his life. He kind of feels like he's trying to shimmy his way up a haystack, ends up sprawled halfway across the direhorse's back before he finally rights himself. At least he's still facing the right way, he consoles himself once he's upright. Jared is grinning up at him, not bothering to hide just how damned amusing he finds the whole situation.
"Oh, I know, it's hilarious. Laugh it up," he says, though he can't bring himself to put any malice into his tone. "I'd like to see you try riding a motorcycle back home. Actually, you probably couldn't, it would be way too small... whoa!" he flails a little as the direhorse shifts nervously under him with a loud nicker. "Uh, easy girl," he pats its neck in what he hopes is a reassuring fashion.
"A'lai cannot sense what you want," Jared strokes the direhorse's neck with his large hand, and she quiets down almost immediately. "You must form tsaheylu with her."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Tsaheylu," Jared repeats, and motions to somewhere near Jensen's back.
"I don't understand."
Jared looks at him, perplexed. "I think in your language it is...bond?"
"You want me to bond with the direhorse."
"P'ali cannot be ridden except if you form bond. It is how they know what you wish them to do."
"Okay, I'm going to pretend that forming a bond with the horse doesn't sound way dirtier in my head than it probably is in real life. How do I do that?"
There's a moment of hesitation. "You do not have this where you come from?"
"No, otherwise I wouldn't be asking."
Jared looks at him like Jensen has just grown an extra head, or has just confessed that he doesn't know what colours are, or something equally as bizarre and unnatural. "You do so with your tswin," he says, like he's explaining something to a really dimwitted child.
"Tswin? "
To his surprise, Jared actually blushes. Then he reaches up a little diffidently, and gently grasps Jensen's braid between his thumb and forefinger. Even through the protective layer of hair, Jensen feels the same small jolt of electricity run through him as before. "Tswin," Jared says succinctly, and suddenly things start to make a lot more sense.
"Oh. Oh, okay. I, uh, kind of wondered what that was... yeah, okay," Jensen blushes a little bit when he suddenly gets that this is probably a much more intimate gesture than is warranted for two guys who've known each other for only a couple of days. Even if Jared did save his life. He clears his throat. "Okay, uh, so what do I... how do I do this?" He has to force himself not to squeeze his eyes shut in embarrassment.
Jared looks away quickly, then reaches over and pulls one of the direhorse's long antenna-like things back from its head. "You make to join with her, like this," he gestures, and once he does that it all becomes kind of obvious.
Jensen nods, takes the antenna gently in his hand, and luckily for him the avatar body seems to know what it's doing all on its own, because the small tendrils emerge from his braid of their own accord in order to twine with the ones that have emerged from the direhorse's antenna. He feels a jolt as the two connect and interweave, like an electrical shock except...he can't begin to describe it. His mind is suddenly awash with conflicting signals, with sights and smells and sounds, feelings that aren't his own. He gasps, lets go of the direhorse's neck, and the next thing he knows he's face down in the grass in a tangle of arms and legs. Somewhere behind him he hears Jared burst into gales of laughter. He pushes himself up onto his arms, spits out a mouthful of grass, flips over onto his back.
"Oh, it's hilarious, I'm sure," he rolls his eyes, but clambers to his feet. "I guess this is what they mean by getting right back up on that horse when you fall off."
Jared is still snorting with laughter, but he shows Jensen a couple of quick tricks to mount the direhorse while making less of an ass of himself this time around. For a split-second Jensen allows himself to think that it's going better than he expected it to, until he tries to 'bond' with the direhorse again and finds himself landing back on his ass on the ground, thoroughly winded and with Jared's laughter ringing in his ears. This time, though, Jared's isn't the only laughter he hears. Looking up, Jensen catches sight of Tsu'tey, the guy who Grace told him would be clan chief one day, whooping it up along with some of the other warriors. He yells out something in Na'vi, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that whatever he's saying, it's pretty unflattering.
"Hey, why don't you tell your buddies over there to can it?" he snaps, good mood evaporated.
There's an accompanying string of shouted Na'vi back and forth, mostly good-natured barbs from what little Jensen can tell from their body language, although the comments directed at him are definitely more hostile. Jared seems kind of outnumbered, but he's giving as good as he's getting thus far. If Jensen's memories of schoolyard bullies are any good, he figures it's probably not a good idea to try to 'help' Jared with this little situation. Besides, for all he knows Jared is agreeing with them and he just can't tell. The conversation gets a little more heated after that, with Tsu'tey apparently losing his temper and gesticulating emphatically in Jensen's direction. For a while it seems like Jared is trying to placate him, but eventually he loses his temper too, and the whole thing ends in a stand-off, with Tsu'tey taking off with his friends in another direction with a few last bits of invective thrown over their shoulders.
"So... friends of yours?" Jensen asks, rubbing at what's probably going to be a spectacular bruise on his hip later on.
"Yes," Jared answers, much to his surprise.
"Really? From what I could see, I kind of assumed you weren't friends at all."
"Tsu'tey and I grow up together. We attend the school of dok-tor Grace. He and I are very close."
Jensen feels his eyebrows rise right up to his hairline. "Hell, with friends like that, who needs enemies?"
Jared glares at him, and when he speaks again his tone has turned ice cold. "You should not speak of things you don't know. Try again," he jerks his head toward the direhorse, and just like that, the subject is closed.
Part IIb
Part Ic
Part II -The Trojan Horse
Jensen isn't sure what he was expecting to find. It's not like he had enough time to do more than skim the few books he was given on Pandora and the Na'vi in order not to go into the whole situation completely blind, so it's not like he's an expert, or anything. In fact, he doesn't remember giving any thought at all to what sort of lifestyle the Na'vi lead at all, except for remembering that they live in small groups scattered all over the continent. If he bothered to think about it, he figured that they probably lived like the hunter-gatherers he learned about in school, or like those Native Americans who had long houses and grew grains and whatever. So he's half-expecting to see scantily-clad women with babies strapped to their backs grinding maize in bowls, or scraping down animal hides, or doing whatever other domestic chores native women are supposed to do, while the men sharpen their spears or make arrows or do other stuff to prepare them for hunting.
Looking around now, though, he sees nothing of the sort. In fact, while the main compound was full last night and only a few minutes ago while the Omaticaya gathered to hear Mo'at's pronouncement concerning him, it's almost empty now that everyone has gone about their everyday business.
"Where did everybody go?" he asks, trotting after Jared, finding it an effort to keep up even though he thought he was in pretty good shape. Jared, however, is a good five inches taller than Jensen and impressively strong, with broad shoulders and a well-developed chest. The Na'vi are built along more slender lines than humans, something to do with the different gravity here, but even so Jensen gets the uncomfortable impression that Jared could snap his human body like a twig and probably seriously hurt him in his avatar body if he truly put his mind to it. The thought is more than a little distracting, especially when Jared turns those large eyes on him. In the light of day the gold ring is less visible, making the slightly-hazel irises more visible, and looking into them makes Jensen's mouth go dry. He remembers Grace's mocking words and swallows hard, tries very hard not to think about any of it. After all, that's not what he's here for, and he doesn't even know how the Na'vi even do... that sort of thing. It's probably not much different from what he's used to, but it's not something he should be thinking about anyway, even if Jared is incredibly beautiful by any standards -human or Na'vi.
"The children are at their lessons, they will not be out to play until later," Jared is saying over his shoulder. "Everyone else has work to do."
"Okay, so what sort of work do you do? I mean, where's everybody at?"
Jared points up. Following the movement with his eyes, Jensen starts to get an idea of just how vast this tree is. There are dwellings contained in the enormous trunk, winding their way farther up than he can even see, or at the very least chambers of some kind -it's impossible to tell what's going on inside without going in to take a closer look. He can't tell how the Na'vi even get up into those chambers, figures there must be passages within the trunk itself connecting them all, since it's obvious no one's climbing up the outside walls to clamber inside. He whistles, impressed.
"Some set-up you've got here. So what do you do? Are you a warrior?"
Jared shrugs, stopping at the entrance of what looks like it might be a chamber of sorts. "I am taronyu ―hunter. I learned from when I was young." He hesitates, as though he's about to say something else, then visibly changes his mind. "You said you are warrior?"
"Yeah, that's right. I'm a soldier, though, which isn't exactly the same thing."
"What is the difference?" Jared looks honestly curious.
"Soldiers just do what they're told. Go where they're told, say what they're told. I get the feeling warriors wouldn't exactly put up with that."
Jared tilts his head, considering. "Sometimes they have to. To win a battle, sometimes there must be..." he stops, visibly searching for a word, "a leader. Someone to bring all warriors together. One warrior can win a fight, but it takes tsampongu ―many warriors together- to win a battle."
"Huh." Jensen can't quite mask his surprise. "Guess we really aren't all that different."
Jared just rolls his eyes, and for a second Jensen feels incredibly stupid.
Jared spends the better part of the morning just showing Jensen around the village, making sure he gets his bearings. The structure is surprisingly complex, a strange mix of naturally-occurring root systems and tunnels right alongside obviously man-made additions (or Na'vi-made, he corrects himself) that allow for easy passage between the spacious chambers that line the inside of what Jared calls Home Tree, or kelku'tral. That's what it sounds like to Jensen, anyway.
"You speak no Na'vi," Jared says to him, pushing open a door made of what looks like some sort of stiff leather and showing him into what appears to be a small antechamber. Jensen can hear voices from the next room, murmuring musically together. It's not a question, but Jensen can tell Jared is expecting an explanation of some kind.
"No, there wasn't time for me to learn before I came here. I'm sort of a last-minute addition to the team."
"Explain."
So Jensen finds himself giving Jared the bare-bones outline of what happened, from his brother's death all the way to his recruitment by the Company so that Tommy's avatar could still be used. "So that's sort of why I'm here."
"You come to honour your brother."
"Something like that. It's a little bit more complicated than that, but it's a part of it, sure." Suddenly Jensen isn't sure he wants to explain that he's being paid more money than he's ever made in his entire life just to come out here and take his brother's place. He doesn't know how to begin explaining it to himself, never mind to a guy who probably doesn't even know what money is. "So what's in the next room?"
"This is where the stories are made." Jared screws up his face, as though that's not exactly what he meant to say. "With thread," he adds, as though that will somehow make it clearer.
"I don't get it," Jensen is about to say, until he follows Jared inside and finds himself surrounded by a dozen people all seated at what look like looms.
Jensen has never seen a loom before himself, so it's not like he's an expert, but these people are definitely weaving cloth in brightly-coloured patterns. He reaches out tentatively toward one, only to have it snatched away with a glare by the older woman working on it. He stammers an apology, feels a tug on his arm, turns to find a younger woman standing to one side. She holds out a bolt of blue cloth with a red design on it that he can't quite make out through the folds.
"This you may look," she says a bit shyly.
Jared gives him an encouraging nod. "You touch when finished, not before."
"Yeah, okay. Thank you," he says to the girl. "How do I say thank you?" he asks Jared. May as well start learning now.
"Irayo. "
"Irayo, " he repeats carefully, and the girl giggles. Jared shakes his head.
"No. Irayo," he rolls the 'r' exaggeratedly. "Again."
It takes several more tries before Jensen gets the word to Jared's satisfaction, but eventually he does get it, all the while admiring the weave of the cloth in his hands. It's not like he ever paid attention to things like cloth back on earth, but around here things are different, he figures, and this is obviously important.
"What did you mean about stories before? Or did you mean cloth?" he asks, once the girl has gone back to work. She told him her name, but it's pretty much unpronounceable as far as he's concerned, like Jared's real name. Maybe in a few weeks, he consoles himself, trying not to feel like too much of an idiot.
"You ask about books. These are how we make stories. With thread and paint. Here and in...we have place for paint," Jared fumbles. "I don't know the word," he says, obviously frustrated.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Jensen claps a hand on his shoulder. "Your English is, like, a hundred times better than my Na'vi, so you're way ahead of the game here. You can show me later, and then you'll teach me the right word for it."
Jared laughs at that, bright and open, dimples showing up for the second time since Jensen first met him. "You are very strange."
Jensen grins, finding the laughter contagious in spite of himself. "Yeah, I'm a real mystery. Just ask Dr. Augustine."
By the end of the day Jensen is exhausted, his mind swirling with new information that he can't even begin to parse. He hasn't spoken with anyone apart from Jared, except for a few fleeting introductions to other Na'vi whose names he forgot almost as soon as he learned them, the new syllables too alien for him to retain. He's learned a couple of new words, at least, and with any luck he'll be able to remember them tomorrow. The Omaticaya still haven't decided where he's going to sleep, although they are all agreed it seems that he's going to need some sort of permanent lodging where his avatar can 'sleep' while he's back at the human compound. He's not sure the Na'vi fully understand the whole psychic uplink thing, but then again, he's not sure he fully understands it either. They definitely don't view it as magic or anything-as far as Jensen can tell, the Omaticaya don't believe in that sort of thing.
"But you believe in this Eywa, right?" he'd asked Jared, only to be met with a scoff.
"Eywa does not perform tricks. Eywa is..." he'd made a hand gesture that suggested he didn't have the right words for what he was trying to say.
"God, right? Eywa is like your God?"
Jared shrugged, which Jensen took to mean 'yes.' "Okay, so where I come from God makes miracles and whatever, but we don't have proof that he exists. Is that it?"
Jared shook his head. "Eywa can't be explained like that."
He'd let the matter drop after that, figuring that they could get to the bottom of the mysteries of the Na'vi faith at another point in time. By then he was ready to drop from exhaustion anyway, and had no trouble falling asleep the moment he laid down on his makeshift pallet.
Once he's awake again he's relieved to discover that he doesn't feel nearly as much like warmed-over crap as he did yesterday when he first woke up in the link bed. He blinks as the shell gets lifted away with a swoosh of hydraulics, the bright light from the fluorescent bulbs overhead threatening to blind him, then wriggles a bit, testing the muscles in his arms and back. When nothing seizes or screams in pain he feels a grin spread over his face, pushes himself upright and leans on his hands. He's the only one out of the link so far, and one of the techs glances up from where she's checking a readout on a monitor. Her name tag reads 'Sasha.'
"Dr. Augustine and Norm are going to be a while longer, I'm afraid. They went back out with Trudy to gather samples from G Sector while you were getting the five-cent tour. What was it like?" she asks, curiosity evident in her face.
"I can't even begin to describe it," he shakes his head, still grinning a little incredulously. He looks around, spots his wheelchair tucked away by the wall. "A little help here, maybe?" he jerks his head at it.
Oh, right," she blushes crimson, dashes over to wheel it toward him. "Sorry, we just kept tripping over it while we were monitoring your link. We'll have to figure out a place to keep it so that it won't be in the way but you can still get to it if you need to."
"Yeah, we should get right on that," Jensen rolls his eyes, gesturing to the rest of the room, which isn't exactly bursting with extra space. "Wouldn't want to be in the way, after all."
"Great! We'll find something, for sure. Oh, before I forget!" Sasha claps a hand to her forehead in a move that's practically a caricature, clearly oblivious to his sarcasm. "Colonel Quaritch stopped by while you were still in the link. He wants you to report to Mr. Selfridge's office as soon as you can for a debriefing. Dr. Augustine should be back by the time you're done."
He scrubs at his face with one hand, feeling the stubble of his five-o'clock shadow scrape at his palm. "Okay, got it. I hate it when they don't even give you enough time to shave. I don't smell bad, do I?"
The joke is lame, but she giggles. He tries not to let himself think she's humouring him. "No, you're fine. It's not like you do a lot of moving around in there, you know. But if you want to sneak off for a shower I can try to cover for you if you'd like. Tell them you're still in the link."
He shakes his head. "I wouldn't want to get you in trouble just over that, but thanks. I'll just go as I am."
He hoists himself off the bed, slides back awkwardly into his chair, settles onto the thin surface. It feels strange even now, having to move in a body that won't respond the way he wants it to. This is his real body, his real self, but his legs worked for a lot longer than they haven't, and now that he's had the chance to feel his avatar respond the way his body used to, well, it's just one more mind-fuck to deal with.
Selfridge's office is located on the uppermost level of the compound. It's a bit of a bitch to get to, even with the elevator going all the way up. The offices really aren't designed for wheelchair access, with good reason: no one in their right mind would come to this place unless they had four perfectly-working limbs. Jensen wonders just what the hell that says about him. Quaritch is already in the operations room, leaning one hip against a huge plexiglass console, Selfridge standing off to one side, staring out the huge bay windows, hands clasped behind his back.
"Ackles, glad you could join us," Quaritch nods in acknowledgement. "I hear you made quite the impression on the natives yesterday."
"Yes sir." Old habits die hard. "Ran into one of them by accident, but they seem to have taken a shine to me. Or something like that. So now they want me to stick around, learn from them. I think they want to study me, see what makes me tick."
Quaritch keeps nodding, obviously impressed. "Son, I wish I had ten more like you. That's what I call taking initiative. A few more men like you and we'd have this damned rock subdued in no time."
Selfridge turns away from the window, paces back toward them with slow, deliberate movements. Jensen is reminded a little bit of a Chihuahua trying to make its way around puddles in the street after a rainstorm.
"Ackles, right?" he asks, and Jensen nods. "Right, whatever. Look, you're the first foothold we've had with these blue monkeys in years. We tried before, offered them medicine and education. Hell, we offered to build them roads! But no; turns out they're really fond of their mud, or whatever. Now, I wouldn’t care, except that -here, let me show you," he steps toward the 3-D map that spreads over half of the room, presses a button, only to have the image flicker wildly. "Would someone please...?"
An assistant helpfully punches a few more buttons until the image comes back to life, and Jensen can see the guy trying not to roll his eyes at his boss' incompetence with the technology.
"Right, okay, there, stop! Jesus!" Selfridge flaps a hand at the assistant when the map scrolls right by the enormous image of Home Tree. "See right there? This is where we should be mining. There's a huge vein that runs from here to here," he pokes a stubby finger at two separate points on the map, "but they won't budge. I mean, there are thousands of trees in the damned forest, and they won't listen to reason!"
Jensen keeps his face schooled in a carefully neutral expression, though he notes Quaritch doesn't bother even with that social nicety. It's obvious what Quaritch thinks: that Selfridge is a self-important little man in a stupid monkey suit, but since he holds the purse strings they all have to make nice so that Quaritch can stay on Pandora in the long run. It's probably only a matter of time before the Colonel has Selfridge seeing things entirely his way and letting him keep doing what he wants to rather than pander to the corporation that's brought them all here. Selfridge doesn't want to get his hands dirty, that much is obvious, and Quaritch likes nothing more than to wallow down in the filth. It's a match made in heaven, Jensen thinks.
"Does Dr. Augustine know about any of this?" he asks.
"She knows what she needs to know," Quaritch says, and Jensen gets the message, loud and clear.
"She's been cock-blocking me on this from the start. Let me tell you something, Ackles," Selfrige says, puffing out his chest like a tropical bird showing off its feathers, "she might be all holier-than-thou about this and think her science is somehow above petty concerns like money, but it's the money that's keeping her little three-ring circus going. So she gets on her high horse one too many times, it will be my absolute pleasure to knock her out of her saddle and send the bitch packing back to earth if it suits me."
"So you want me to talk the Na'vi into moving out?"
"That's about the size of it. You think you can do that, son?" Quaritch gazes at him, blue eyes glittering intensely.
"No idea, sir. I barely got there. But I can try."
"Can't ask for more than that. Truth be told, I don't think you'll be able to, but that's because better negotiators than you have tried and failed. What I want from you, Ackles, is information. You're getting a look where no human has ever been before, right in the heart of enemy territory. So you're going to scout for me. I want to know everything there is to know about these people: what their living arrangements are like, what their defences are. I want to know what they have for breakfast and what sort of weapons they use, how many weapons they have and just how good they are at using 'em. You understand me?"
Jensen has to make an effort not to chew on his lip. "I understand, sir. You want a tactical evaluation of the site."
Quaritch grins, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Knew you were quick on the uptake. These savages won't play ball? That means we're going to have to get down in it, and sooner more likely than later. So when that time comes, I want to know exactly where I need to lean to exact the most leverage. I want them by the short and curlies, you hear me?"
"I hear you, sir."
"Look, kid," Selfridge breaks in, "Killing the indigenous looks bad, but there’s one thing shareholders hate more than bad press-and that’s a bad quarterly statement. Not to mention I got some very large, very important government contracts to uphold. There are bigger issues at stake than a village full of tree-hugging savages. We can find them a different tree, hell, we'll build them a new tree, so long as it means all the shipping runs leave for earth right on schedule. So you find me a carrot to get them to move, or it’s going to have to be all stick."
After that, there's really nothing else to say.
Jensen drags himself out of bed the next morning several hours before he's due to go back into the link. He's due to meet Norm for another tutoring session, since Grace figures the more Na'vi he learns on his own the easier it'll be. At this rate, he thinks, he's going to exhaust himself unless he can find some other way to catch up on his sleep. He wheels himself out of his room, shoulders aching a little from the strain. Somehow his body has grown disused to even the most rudimentary of motions after only a couple of days of being linked up to the avatar. Quaritch was right, he thinks, Pandora does make you soft. He's going to have to start making time to go to the gym and make sure he doesn't get too badly out of shape while he's here. After all, what's the use of going home and getting his legs back in a few years if his body is too weak to hold him up? Or if he's just grown too flabby and soft to make proper use of it? He's seen his share of retired soldiers, pot-bellied and resigned to their fates, like old horses too tired and lame to canter anymore, and he'll be damned if he lets that happen to him.
To his surprise, he finds Grace waiting for him in the laboratory. "Grab a seat, Jensen," she motions to the table.
"Way ahead of you," he rolls his eyes, and notes with some satisfaction that she looks a little embarrassed at her own slip-up. "Where's Norm?"
"Reassigned for today. I have him packing up equipment in the next room. He's got more familiarity with how things work than you, and we're going to be shipping out in a couple of days, four tops."
He pulls up by the table, locks the wheels on his chair, can't quite hide his expression of surprise. "Really? All of us?"
"No, just you, me, Norm and a couple of techs. I've got Selfridge breathing down my neck and I hate being micromanaged, especially during a culturally sensitive mission like this one. No offense, but I don't need them filling your head with corporate bullshit and trying to direct this like it's a bad 3D movie."
Jensen snorts. "Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. Last time I checked, I was still my own man."
Grace just shrugs. "None of us are completely immune to outside influence. It's what makes us human. Besides, I think you'll like it up there. We're going to a base in the Hallelujah Mountains."
In spite of himself, he feels a thrill travel up his spine. "The floating mountains?"
It's the only thing he really knows about Pandora, from an educational vid he and Tommy watched when they were still in high school. It's what got Tommy all excited about space travel and xenobiology to begin with.
She grins, and it takes ten years off her face. She looks, well, a lot like her avatar. Young and enthusiastic and really pretty, too. "The very same. We have a little set-up there. Nothing as comprehensive as what we have here, but there are enough link beds for all of us and a few to spare, and it'll let us all work without distractions."
"Human distractions, anyway," Jensen murmurs, thinking of Jared.
"I have to be honest, Jensen," Grace says, lighting up a cigarette and watching him as she blows a plume of smoke to the side, "I'm not thrilled at the idea that we're sending you in alone there. You're inexperienced except for earthside combat, which I have no doubt you excel at. Except this is neither earth nor combat, and I kind of feel like we're feeding you to the wolves, here."
"Don't worry about me, Doc, I can handle myself."
"I know, and that's part of what worries me. Even though they look a lot like us, the Na'vi aren't human in any way, shape, or form. Their brains are literally wired differently, and while there are similarities, we can't let ourselves fall into the trap of thinking that we have the same motivations. There are things about them we're never going to understand, because it's physically impossible, even for us avatar drivers. Do you get that?"
He shrugs. "Honestly? No. You're kind of speaking gibberish. But then, that's kind of been my entire world for the past week or so, so I'm getting used to it."
She barks a laugh, takes another drag off her cigarette, taps the ash into a tray by her computer pad. "Maybe you're not the worst choice after all. Okay. Enough with the aliens-aren't-people pep talk. I'm going to grill you on your basics, make sure you don't make a total idiot of yourself. Did you make a video log of your experiences yesterday?"
He shakes his head a little sheepishly. "No, sorry. I was too goddamned wiped out to do anything except go back to my bunk and lapse into a coma."
"It's important that you record something every day, Jensen," she jabs her cigarette at him for emphasis. "You are our pipeline into these people's minds. Everything you see, every piece of knowledge you bring back, is going to help us understand them, and this whole moon, for that matter." She leans forward, one hand resting on the arm holding her cigarette. "There's something big happening here, Jensen, something bigger than anything we've ever seen before in all of human history, and I think you might be the guy to help us unlock it."
Jensen blinks. "But no pressure, or anything."
She laughs again. "Yeah, no pressure."
"Okay, I think this is working," Jensen fiddles a bit with the video feed, checks the screen to make sure the focus is on his face and doesn't make him look too stupid. "I'm supposed to be making a log of what happened yesterday, but I just realized I've been here for, like, over a week and I never sent word back to you guys. They explained it to me here, that I can send you messages and they'll go through the relays and only take, like, maybe a week to get to you. So I set up an account for you -well, Shirley in administration set up an account for me and I put your names on it, so you can send me messages anytime and they'll be charged to my account.
"So, uh, hi Mom, hi Dad, it's me. I know, I look good for having been gone six years, right? You don't really age in cryo, I guess... Anyway, I checked the records and it looks like you guys got all the back-pay I was owed, so that's good. Well, I guess it wasn't back-pay since you were getting it while I was asleep, but it feels like back-pay to me, you know? Uh, yeah. So, that's good. I hope prices haven't gone up too much, I couldn't keep track of things while I was under, but I want you to send word if you need anything, or if anything happens, okay?
"Grace, that's my boss, she's saying we're going to be heading up to a base in the Hallelujah Mountains -you remember them from the vid that Tommy used to watch all the time when we were kids? It's pretty far, but I'll still have access to my mail there, I think. If not, I'll get one of the guys to monitor my mail here for emergencies, just in case.
"Okay, so I think that's enough random crap for one message. I just wanted to get that out of the way so you wouldn't worry. I, uh," Jensen clears his throat a little, "I just want you to know that I miss you, and I wish that it was Tommy here the way it was supposed to be. He'd be telling you all about how awesome this place is. It really is, too. It's huge, for one. Everything back on earth seems so tiny compared to this. You guys would love it, there are just... trees, everywhere. Like, huge trees. Hundreds of feet tall, like taller than those sequoias you read about in history books and everything. Everything is big and green and fresh, like walking inside a greenhouse all the time, except, like, a hundred times as big.
"The good news in all this, actually, is that I'm pretty good at this whole avatar driving business. I can't tell you much about what I'm doing because I had to sign all these forms that said I wasn't allowed, but I think it's okay for me to tell you that I met with the aliens who live here. Well, I guess technically I'm the alien, but whatever. I'm going to be spending a lot of time with them, especially this one guy whose name I can't pronounce, but he said I can call him Jared. I think you'd like him, Mom, he kind of reminds me of...well, he doesn't take any shit from me and he's, I don't know. I don't get his sense of humour and he doesn't get mine, but I think that's because he doesn't speak very good English and I don't speak a damn word of Na'vi. We're working on that, though. I figure if I work hard enough at it I might be able to string a couple of words together by the time we're done, and his English is already pretty decent so it won't take much before he's speaking it better than I do.
"Anyway, I'm going to have to go soon, because Jared is waiting for me, back at the village, and I have to go do a whole bunch of complicated technical stuff to link up with my avatar, but I'm going to try to make sure I don't disappear or anything. I know how much you guys hate that. Worst comes to worst I'll record the messages while I'm up there and then send them when we come back here to resupply or something. Or, more likely I'll give them to someone to send when they come back. Somehow, I don't think Grace will be letting me come back here unsupervised too much, although I guess if they order me back she won't have much say in it. Sorry, I shouldn't even be talking about that, I guess. It's just backstage politics; you know how it is, right? It turns out that you get that everywhere you go around here.
"Everyone is pretty excitable around these parts, and that includes Grace and Selfridge. Selfridge is the guy who runs the place, but he's pretty much a stuffed suit like the rest of them, with no idea what's going on outside. All he's interested in is this ore that we've been mining out of here. You probably heard about it on the news back home, I know it was already starting to make headlines back when I was just about to leave. Is it really doing all the fantastic stuff they said it was going to do? It's been six years," Jensen rubs the back of his neck, "and I guess a lot can happen in that time. For all I know, people in the cities don't even need rebreather masks anymore, but I'm guessing that's way too optimistic even for me.
"I think you guys would get a kick out of the name the guys here have given to the ore, which all the serious people call Panderium. That's the official name for it, but the miners and the other soldiers -most of 'em ex-Marines like me- they all call it 'Unobtainium' because apparently it's a real bitch to get it out of the ground. I've seen one of the mining sites, real quick because we were just flying above it on our way somewhere else, and it looks like a war zone down there. All the trees, all the plants, everything is gone. It's..." Jensen stumbles over his words, remembering looking down on the devastation like an open wound in the moon's flank. "It actually looks pretty horrible. Like we transplanted part of our own planet right into this place which is crammed full of life. But I guess a few square miles of trees here is worth saving a whole planet, right?
He glances back over his shoulder. "Okay, I really gotta go, that's my call. I love you, and I'll talk to you again as soon as I can manage it. Let me know if you need anything. I've arranged for most of my paycheck to get directly deposited into your account -it's not like I have anywhere to spend it while I'm here anyway, so hopefully you'll be able to hang in there until I get back. It's going to be a while, but we'll be fine, I know it. Love you."
Jensen swallows a sudden lump in his throat, reaches over and switches off the monitor. He didn't feel the last six years go by, but suddenly the next five ones are looming overhead, long and vaguely menacing, and it occurs to him that even if he left tomorrow, it would still be another six years before he saw his parents again.
"Shit," he shakes his head, wheels determinedly back toward the link room.
Jared is waiting by his bedside when he opens his eyes. "You were asleep a very long time," he says a little accusingly. He's crouched on his heels, forearms resting easily on his knees, hands dangling between his legs, the very picture of relaxed ease.
"Sorry, I didn't realize you'd be waiting for me at the ass-crack of dawn," Jensen grumbles, uncurling himself from his bed. Apparently he's not a morning person even in avatar form, either. "Is the sun even up?"
"Yes," Jared answers the sarcastic question without batting an eye, and Jensen wonders if sarcasm just isn't a Na'vi trait, or if it's something specifically about Jared that makes him not get sarcasm, or whether Jared's just screwing with his mind. It could be any of the above, frankly.
Jensen gets to his feet, works out the kinks in his spine, scrunches his toes against the ground, still can't help the goofy grin that spreads across his face when he's able to move every single joint in his legs, feel the ground under the soles of his feet. He still can't get over it, isn't sure he ever will. Jared gives him a curious look, but says nothing.
"Today we will ride the pa'li," Jared says instead of whatever is obviously on his mind.
"The what?"
Jared looks a little exasperated at already getting off to a bad start.
"I will show you, and you will learn."
"That's the general idea, yeah," Jensen narrows his eyes. "Do we get to eat first?" he asks, as his stomach gives a sudden rumble. He may have had breakfast, but his avatar hasn't. Jared laughs.
"Tomorrow you come earlier. We eat with the sun, and it is already much..." he fumbles for his words.
"You mean I'm too late for breakfast?" Jensen supplies, and Jared smiles.
"It is late," he agrees, "but there is food."
Food turns out to be a sort of flatbread, a little dry but savoury, as though it's been baked with herbs or something, and Jared gives him a small container of a kind of brown paste to spread over it along with some sort of fruit nectar to drink. The Na'vi don't go much for utensils as far as Jensen can tell, although they do have bowls of every shape and size to go with their food. Each one, Jared explains as they go, serves a different purpose. The flat bread serves to scoop up a lot of the different foods, and Jensen gets his hand smacked a couple of times before he gets the hang of the table manners.
"Do all the Na'vi eat this way?" he asks, and gets a headshake in return.
"Omaticaya have different customs from the People of the Plains. All the tribes are different, though in many ways we are the same" he explains, carefully scooping paste onto a piece of bread and snacking on it while Jensen has his own breakfast. Jensen finds himself watching his hands, fascinated by the slender fingers, calloused at the tips and in patches from years spent perfecting the art of bow hunting. Jared's hands are beautiful, unscarred, although Jensen has seen scars on the hands of many of the other Na'vi in the village. He wonders if that means Jared hasn't been out hunting as much, or if he's just that much better than everyone else at what he does. "It is the same in some ways, different in others," Jared is saying, snapping him back to the present. "The People of the Plains make...flat bowls?" he turns it into a question.
"Plates?" Jensen suggests, and gets a nod.
"Plates. They eat with knives," he adds, making a face that suggests he finds the practice mildly distasteful.
"What's wrong with that?"
"Food should be cut before, not during eating."
Jensen tilts his head, considering. "Yeah, okay. Humans eat with knives, too. We don't see anything wrong with cutting our food while it's on our plates."
"You also eat things in pouches," Jared points out, as though that settles any argument about it, and Jensen has to concede his point. MREs are disgusting no matter how you put it.
"Only when we absolutely have to," he grins, popping the rest of the bread and paste into his mouth and washing it down with the last of his juice. He dusts off his hands. "So...what do I do with this?"
He gestures to the small bowl which contained the paste, and Jared patiently takes him through the motions of washing it out with a stiff-bristled brush and a kind of pasty soap mixed in with something granular like sand, though Jensen hasn't seen anything like sand anywhere in the forest, so he figures it must be something different. The word that Jared gives him to describe it could be anything as far as he can tell, like 'soap' or 'mud' or 'flying zebras' because he wouldn't put it above Jared to mess with his head a little bit when it comes to things like this.
"Come, Jensen. I show you the pa'li."
Jensen trots after him, looking around and still feeling like a damned gawking tourist as he tries to take it all in all at once. There's a flurry of movement off to one side, and all of a sudden he nearly trips over a tiny Na'vi kid, a girl by the looks of it, who has brazenly planted herself directly in his path.
Well, hi there," he looks down at her determined-looking expression. "Aren't you meant to be in school or whatever?"
She clearly has no idea what he's saying, glances to one side where he suddenly catches sight of a small group of children, all obviously urging her on. She puts out a hand, manages to just barely poke him in the hip, then dashes off at top speed amidst squeals of delighted horror from her friends. Jensen rolls his eyes.
"Great. I'm the town freak, apparently."
Jared is grinning back at him. "They are children. They are curious about the Dreamwalkers. They think you are not real."
"Oh, I'm plenty real. I don't suppose the Omaticaya believe in spanking?"
Jared gives him a puzzled look. "I don't know this word."
"It's a punishment for human children. When they misbehave, we give their bums a swat," Jensen swings one hand in demonstration, which provokes an incredulous laugh.
"Yes, but not when they are so old. Only... babies?"
"Toddlers. When they're still small but already walk?"
"Yes," Jared thinks about it for a moment before replying. "When they are older, such punishment is not... not considered right."
"So how do you punish your teenagers?"
"They are made to help with work, with tasks they do not usually do. It helps for learning. This way, come."
He leads Jensen down along the beautifully-carved passageways of the enormous tree, which lead to the ground in an elaborate spiral. There aren't any steps carved into the wood the way Jensen might have expected, but otherwise it feels like any other human gallery in a large building back on earth.
"I've never seen anything like this," he says, trying to keep his footing on the smooth surface while still watching Jared and yet trying to crane his neck to see up as far as possible. "Did you do this, or do the trees do it naturally? I mean, this is a huge tree, even by your standards. The trees back where I come from aren't like this at all. Not that I know of, anyway. You can't live in the trees on our world -what's left of them, anyway. They're too small, and I think their, uh, physiology or whatever, isn't right for it."
Jared doesn't turn back, but Jensen gets the impression he doesn't quite know how to begin answering the barrage of questions Jensen just launched at him. "We don't make the trees, but Home Tree is not like this when we find it. Our ancestors made Home Tree so that we could live here. You see the stories on the walls," he points to the pictograms that Jensen's been trying to read, except that every time he stops paying attention to his feet he either slips or trips and has to catch himself in order not to fall. "There is no time now, but we come back, and you may see the stories."
"Okay, yeah, I'd like that. You think there's any chance I could take pictures or something? Like, bring a camera? Dr. Augustine would give her eye teeth to be able to document all of this, I'll bet."
Jared shrugs, as though it's of no importance to him one way or another. "I will ask my mother, but I think maybe not yet."
"Yeah." Jensen suddenly gets the impression that this might be a whole lot trickier than he first thought. "You guys don't have problems with cameras, do you? I mean, when they first got invented on Earth there were people who, like, thought that getting your picture taken would steal your soul, but that's totally not true."
Jared stops so abruptly that Jensen practically breaks his nose on his shoulder blade. He turns, expression scornful. "A soul cannot be stolen here, Jensen. They belong to Eywa, and you cannot steal what is hers. It always returns."
Jensen winces. "Sorry."
Jared just takes him by the arm, leads him out into the forest and into a nearby clearing. "Here," he says. He puts two fingers to his lips, gives a piercing whistle. Almost immediately two of the hexapedal mounts that Jensen saw Tsu'tey and the other warriors riding a couple of days before come trotting slowly into view. Direhorses, he remembers. Jared nudges his shoulder. "Today, you ride."
"Super," Jensen mutters.
The direhorses are just as big as Jensen remembers, though slightly less intimidating in the clear light of day. Their heads are strangely-shaped, reminding him more of ornately-carved chess pieces than of real horses, except that their eyes roll a little wildly as they come near, and one of them gives a fearful snort and stamps its hooves, backing up as it gets a nose-full of his scent.
"I don't think he likes me much," he says to Jared.
"A'lai is female. And she does not like you much, it is true. That is because she can smell that you are unnatural," Jared assures him blithely.
"Oh, that totally makes me feel better. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"
"You ride," Jared says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Right. Naturally. Uh, I've never ridden a horse in my life."
"I teach you. P'ali are not dangerous. The Omaticaya learn to ride when we are very small children. You will ride A'lai, because she is old and gentle. Stand to her side, and put your hand like this," Jared nudges him forward, moves Jensen's left hand to rest on the direhorse's neck, his right against her flank. "Then you mount."
Jensen's seen enough cowboy movies in his time that he at least knows the basics of how to mount a horse. He figures a direhorse can't be all that different, so he gives himself a bit of momentum and swings up onto the direhorse's back, although it turns into one of his clumsier attempts at anything in his life. He kind of feels like he's trying to shimmy his way up a haystack, ends up sprawled halfway across the direhorse's back before he finally rights himself. At least he's still facing the right way, he consoles himself once he's upright. Jared is grinning up at him, not bothering to hide just how damned amusing he finds the whole situation.
"Oh, I know, it's hilarious. Laugh it up," he says, though he can't bring himself to put any malice into his tone. "I'd like to see you try riding a motorcycle back home. Actually, you probably couldn't, it would be way too small... whoa!" he flails a little as the direhorse shifts nervously under him with a loud nicker. "Uh, easy girl," he pats its neck in what he hopes is a reassuring fashion.
"A'lai cannot sense what you want," Jared strokes the direhorse's neck with his large hand, and she quiets down almost immediately. "You must form tsaheylu with her."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Tsaheylu," Jared repeats, and motions to somewhere near Jensen's back.
"I don't understand."
Jared looks at him, perplexed. "I think in your language it is...bond?"
"You want me to bond with the direhorse."
"P'ali cannot be ridden except if you form bond. It is how they know what you wish them to do."
"Okay, I'm going to pretend that forming a bond with the horse doesn't sound way dirtier in my head than it probably is in real life. How do I do that?"
There's a moment of hesitation. "You do not have this where you come from?"
"No, otherwise I wouldn't be asking."
Jared looks at him like Jensen has just grown an extra head, or has just confessed that he doesn't know what colours are, or something equally as bizarre and unnatural. "You do so with your tswin," he says, like he's explaining something to a really dimwitted child.
"Tswin? "
To his surprise, Jared actually blushes. Then he reaches up a little diffidently, and gently grasps Jensen's braid between his thumb and forefinger. Even through the protective layer of hair, Jensen feels the same small jolt of electricity run through him as before. "Tswin," Jared says succinctly, and suddenly things start to make a lot more sense.
"Oh. Oh, okay. I, uh, kind of wondered what that was... yeah, okay," Jensen blushes a little bit when he suddenly gets that this is probably a much more intimate gesture than is warranted for two guys who've known each other for only a couple of days. Even if Jared did save his life. He clears his throat. "Okay, uh, so what do I... how do I do this?" He has to force himself not to squeeze his eyes shut in embarrassment.
Jared looks away quickly, then reaches over and pulls one of the direhorse's long antenna-like things back from its head. "You make to join with her, like this," he gestures, and once he does that it all becomes kind of obvious.
Jensen nods, takes the antenna gently in his hand, and luckily for him the avatar body seems to know what it's doing all on its own, because the small tendrils emerge from his braid of their own accord in order to twine with the ones that have emerged from the direhorse's antenna. He feels a jolt as the two connect and interweave, like an electrical shock except...he can't begin to describe it. His mind is suddenly awash with conflicting signals, with sights and smells and sounds, feelings that aren't his own. He gasps, lets go of the direhorse's neck, and the next thing he knows he's face down in the grass in a tangle of arms and legs. Somewhere behind him he hears Jared burst into gales of laughter. He pushes himself up onto his arms, spits out a mouthful of grass, flips over onto his back.
"Oh, it's hilarious, I'm sure," he rolls his eyes, but clambers to his feet. "I guess this is what they mean by getting right back up on that horse when you fall off."
Jared is still snorting with laughter, but he shows Jensen a couple of quick tricks to mount the direhorse while making less of an ass of himself this time around. For a split-second Jensen allows himself to think that it's going better than he expected it to, until he tries to 'bond' with the direhorse again and finds himself landing back on his ass on the ground, thoroughly winded and with Jared's laughter ringing in his ears. This time, though, Jared's isn't the only laughter he hears. Looking up, Jensen catches sight of Tsu'tey, the guy who Grace told him would be clan chief one day, whooping it up along with some of the other warriors. He yells out something in Na'vi, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that whatever he's saying, it's pretty unflattering.
"Hey, why don't you tell your buddies over there to can it?" he snaps, good mood evaporated.
There's an accompanying string of shouted Na'vi back and forth, mostly good-natured barbs from what little Jensen can tell from their body language, although the comments directed at him are definitely more hostile. Jared seems kind of outnumbered, but he's giving as good as he's getting thus far. If Jensen's memories of schoolyard bullies are any good, he figures it's probably not a good idea to try to 'help' Jared with this little situation. Besides, for all he knows Jared is agreeing with them and he just can't tell. The conversation gets a little more heated after that, with Tsu'tey apparently losing his temper and gesticulating emphatically in Jensen's direction. For a while it seems like Jared is trying to placate him, but eventually he loses his temper too, and the whole thing ends in a stand-off, with Tsu'tey taking off with his friends in another direction with a few last bits of invective thrown over their shoulders.
"So... friends of yours?" Jensen asks, rubbing at what's probably going to be a spectacular bruise on his hip later on.
"Yes," Jared answers, much to his surprise.
"Really? From what I could see, I kind of assumed you weren't friends at all."
"Tsu'tey and I grow up together. We attend the school of dok-tor Grace. He and I are very close."
Jensen feels his eyebrows rise right up to his hairline. "Hell, with friends like that, who needs enemies?"
Jared glares at him, and when he speaks again his tone has turned ice cold. "You should not speak of things you don't know. Try again," he jerks his head toward the direhorse, and just like that, the subject is closed.
Part IIb