Hali tried to swallow in a dry throat, then: "What Waela said - the cradle of the sea. Does she know something abou.... ?"
"Life support has been activated," Bitten announced. "Does the sleeping one require additional attention?"
Hali jerked around and studied her patient. Waela lay in quiet sleep, her chest rising and falling evenly. Hali unstrapped, crept back to Waela's side and ran a test series: Everything read as normal as could be expected - blood pressure up a bit, adrenaline on the high side but dropping. No medication was indicated.
Ferry's voice intruded on Hali's thoughts then as he asked Bitten for their ETA to Pandora's atmosphere.
Hali turned and stared at the planet with a growing sense of wonder. Her shipboard life was ended. The only thing she knew for sure about her life now was that she still had it.
Bitten's metallic rasping filled the cabin: "Two hours, thirty-five minutes to atmosphere. Additional twenty-five minutes for entry and docking at Colony."
"We can't dock at Colony!" Hali said. She made her way back to her seat and strapped down. "What are our alternatives?"
"Colony is the only docking station approved for this vessel," Bitten intoned.
"What about a surface landing?"
"Certain conditions permit surface landing without damage to vessel and crew. But our departure destroyed all forward landing gear and docking valves. These are not necessary at Colony."
"But we can't land at Colony!" She stared at Ferry, who sat frozen either in fear or complete resignation.
"Survival of unprotected crew elsewhere on Pandora surface not likely," Bitten intoned.
Hali felt her mind whirling. Survival not likely! She had the sudden feeling that this whole thing was high drama, something staged and unreal. She looked at Ferry. He continued to stare out the forward plaz. That was it: Ferry was acting out of character - too far out.
But Murdoch's ea.... that hole in Shi....
"We can't go back to Ship and we can't dock at Colony and we can't land in the open," she said.
"We're trapped," Ferry agreed, and she did not like the calm way he said it.
***
Behold, these are a small troop, and indeed they are enraging us; and we are a host on our guard.
"WHAT YOU'RE talking about is war," Panille said, shaking his head. He sat on the warm ground, his back against a jungle tree, moon-shadowed darkness all around.
"War?" Thomas rubbed his forehead, looked at the shadowy ground. He did not like looking at Panill...naked Pan who seemed to flow in and out of contact with native life - touching a tree here, the tentacle of a passing hylighter there. Contact, physical contact: always touching. "Shipmen have had no experience of war for many generations," Panille said. "Clones and E-clones have no experience of it at all, not even stories or traditions. I know it only from Ship's holos."
With one moon full and another raising its pale face on the jagged horizon, Panille saw Thomas haloed against night sky, a hazy outline amidst the stars. A very disturbed man.
"But we have to take over the Redoubt," Thomas said. "It's our only hope. Shi.... Ship wil...."
"How do you know this?"
"It's why I was brought out of hyb."
"To teach us WorShip?"
"No! To acquaint you with the need to solve that problem! Ship insists w...."
"There is no problem."
"What do you mean there's no problem?" Thomas was outraged, "Ship wil...."
"Look around you." Panille gestured at the moon-shadowed basin, the gentle stirrings of the moist air in the leaves. "If you care for your house, you are sheltered."
Thomas forced himself to take a deep breath, to assume at least the outward appearance of calm. The jungle - yes, there did not appear to be any demons in this plac.... this nest, as the hylighters called it. But this place was not enough! No place was safe from Oakes or from Ship. And there was no escaping Ship's demand. Panille had to be made to understand that.
"Please believe me," Thomas said. "Unless we learn how to WorShip, we are through. No more humankind anywhere......don't want that to happen."
"Then why should we attack the Redoubt?"
"Because you say those are the last people groundside - Colony's destroyed."
"That's true, but what would you teach those people by attacking?" Panille's tone was maddeningly reasonable, a voice which kept its disturbing pace with the sounds of breeze-stirred leaves.
Thomas tried to match that tone: "Lewis and The Boss are destroying the 'lectrokelp and the hylighters. The native life is running out of time, too. Don't the.... ?"
"Avata understands what is happening here."
"They know they're being wiped out?"
"Yes."
"Don't they want to prevent that?"
"Yes."
"How do they expect to do that without controlling the Redoubt?"
"Avata will not attack the Redoubt."
"What will they do?"
"What Avata has always done: nurture. Avata will continue to rescue people when possible. Avata will carry us where we need to go."
"Didn't the kelp kill Colonists? You heard what Waela said...."
"Another of Lewis' lies," Panille said, and Thomas knew that he was right.
He stared off at the jungle beyond Panille. Somewhere in there, he knew, was a large band of survivors, E-clones and normals, all scooped from Pandora's surface and planted here as the hylighters planted the scavenged Earthside vegetation. Thomas had not seen this collection of people, but Panille and the hylighters had described it. The hylighters could do this thin.... but...Thomas shook his head in despair.
"They have so much power!"
"Who?"
"The 'lectrokelp and the hylighters!"
"Avata, you mean." Panille's voice remained patient.
"Why won't they use their power to defend themselves?"
"Avata is one creature who understands about power."
"What? What do yo.... ?"
"To have power is to use it. That is the meaning of possession. To use it is to lose it."
Thomas closed his eyes, clenched his fists. Panille refused to understand. Refusing to understand, he doomed them all. Such a loss! Not just humankin.... but this, this Avata.
"They have so much," Thomas whispered.
"Who?"
"The Avata!"
He thought about what the hylighters already had shown him, spoke the thought aloud: "That hylighter, the one that brought me, do you know what it showed me after we were fed?"
"Yes."
Thomas went on, not hearing: "Just in a few blinks of touching it, I hallucinated the development, very nearly complete, of the entire recent geological and botanical phenomena of Pandora. Think of losing that!"
"Not hallucination," Panille corrected him.
"What is it, then?" Thomas opened his eyes, stared at the passing moons.
"Avata teaches by touch, at first. A true, but sometimes overwhelming flow of information. As the student learns to focus, the information becomes discrete, discriminated. You separate the needed bits from the babble."
"Babble, yes. Most of it's babble, bu.... ."
"You know about focus," Panille said. "You select which noises to hear and understand. You select which things to see and recognize. This is just a different kind of focus."
"How can we sit here and discus.... discuss thi.... I mean, it's going to end! Forever!"
"This is the true flow of knowledge between us, Raja Thomas. Avata moves from the mastery of touch to direct communication, mind to mind. Precise identification with another being. You have seen demons eat scraps of exploded hylighters?"
Thomas was interested in spite of his frustration. "I've seen it."