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CLOSEUP on the Na'vi girl. She sniffs the scent Josh has left behind him in the air.
AT THE CRASH SITE the rescue ship as arrived. Trudy climbs aboard the hovering Samson, but Grace and N'deh say there are going to look for Josh. The VTOL craft banks away. Grace looks to the west as she walks to the treeline. The twin suns are setting behind a black wall of alien trees.
DUSK IN THE RAINFOREST. Josh, moving through the quickly darkening forest, has got problems. In the deepening gloom he sees black shapes moving with liquid grace among the shadows behind him.
He is being stalked by a pack of VIPERWOLVES. Josh catches movement out of the corner of his eye and realizes one of the things is moving up to a flanking position. He sees a glint of eyes, a slinking black movement... then nothing. Darkness. And behind him more glints... pairs of eyes. Then a hideous sound, more like a hyena's maniacal laugh than a dog growl.
Josh starts to run along a game trail he has been following. He catches glimpses of the viperwolves bounding through the woods, staying with him.
His ru
The forest has come alive with bioluminescence as the day fades. Spots and patterns, ghosts and galaxies of blue- green light dance before his eyes, disorienting him... seeming to surround him with the glowing cat-eyes of the viperwolves. Their psychotic laughing barks become more intense as they signal each other, getting excited. He can see the shadows of the viperwolves moving through the undergrowth, leaving a tell-tale trail of flashes as they brush against the sensitive plants.
Finally one makes a run at him. He senses it angling in on his legs from behind and he whirls, whopping it with the flat of the spear. It yips and goes past him, but instantly another moves in. He jabs it with the business end of the spear and it yelps, retreating, baring its fangs. Josh realizes that he is making his final stand.
The viperwolves circle and Josh gets his first good look at them. He doesn't like what he sees. They are like wolves painted by Francis Bacon...
Hairless, with shiny skin that looks like overlapped leather armor. They are mostly black, banded with vermilion and thin lines of iridescent blue. Earless low- slung heads, with chitinous neck shields like a triceratops. Bright, intelligent eyes. And the same distending, snake-like jaws as the bansheerays, glistening with fangs that look like they are made of glass. Most disturbing are the creature's paws, which are like leathery black hands... almost human in shape, with a thumb for gripping. These things can hunt in the trees as well as on the ground.
There are half a dozen of them, maybe more in the shadows.
Josh feels a rush of adrenaline, or whatever does the same thing in his avatar body, like he has never felt in his life. It goes through him like a lightning bolt and the fear is gone.
JOSH: (shouting): You want me? Come on! Come and get: some!
With sharp snarls and a blur of motion they attack. Josh plants the spear in one, striking true, but the speed of its attack wrenches it from his hands. He draws the machete and chops at another, just as a third sinks its teeth into his arm. He yells in pain and fury, slashing across with the machete. It cuts deep into the throat of the one on his arm, and it lets go.
He sprints, trying to escape, but one of the viperwolves grabs him by the ankle with its powerful fore-hand. Josh tears away, but goes sprawling. He looks up in time to see four viperwolves lunging toward him. The nearest leaps at his throat. THUNK!! An arrow appears in its chest. It lands on him, already a dead weight. He pushes it off in time to see a blue figure wade in among the remaining wolves. It is the Na'vi girl.
She cracks her bow down on the skull of one of the wolves. Then grabs another and picks it up bodily, hurling it against a tree. The last one leaps at her and she drops under its weight, but rolls somehow, coming up on top of it with a knife in her hand. The knife flashes down, buried to the hilt in its heart.
The last two viperwolves, stu
Josh gets up, amazed to be alive... amazed by this girl... this vision. She recovers her arrow from one of the dead wolves. He speaks to her, not knowing if she understands him. Finally she speaks, in halting English. He knows she must be one of the Tsumongwi clan, the ones taught by Giese's people how to speak English.
Her name is ZULEIKA TE KAHA POLENOMA. Josh thanks her for killing the viperwolves. Zuleika's eyes flash with anger. This is not a thing to thank someone for, she says. It is a sad thing, and it is his fault.
She blames him for the u
What should I have done? He wants to know. She explains how sap from a certain leaf imitates the smell of a slinger dart... you rub it on your face... and it scares them. They think you are a slinger. They won't attack you.
Zuleika stands, walking away as if nothing has happened. Josh grabs his machete and sprints to catch up with her. She scowls at him, and says that you alien people do not understand this forest. You should not come here. You only cause problems.
Josh asks why she saved him, then. Why not let her wolves have a nice meal, if she loves them so much? What's the deal?
She stops, meeting his eyes for the first time.
ZULEIKA: Because you are brave.
He grins at the complement. She scowls, turning away again.
ZULEIKA: But you are ignorant as a child.
JOSH: Teach me, then.
She looks at him again.
JOSH: You don't want to leave me out here: alone to harm more animals. I'm a: menace. I need to be taught what to: do.
ZULEIKA: You aliens do not see. Never see.
JOSH: Teach me to see.
ZULEIKA: No one can teach to see.
Needless to say, she lets him go with her. First she binds his wound with some plant dressing that stops the bleeding and the pain.
As they walk he asks her questions. The first lesson is silence. They walk on. The sky is black and full of stars. There are two moons providing more than enough light for his large cat-eyes. The bioluminescence is everywhere.
A GHOSTBIRD flies through the trees above them. A glowing, transparent membrane, delicate as a blown-glass figurine. Elegant and insubstantial. Its song is eerie but quiet melodic.
There are other things wafting through the high branches, little points of light like fireflies. A couple drift near him and he sees that they are like glowing dandelion seeds, about the size of large butterflies, waving their silky cilia to move gracefully through the night air.
They cross a large bed of moss, which reacts to the pressure of their footsteps. Rings of blue-green light, like water ripples on a pond, expand outward from each footfall.
Josh sees movement in the trees ahead. Suddenly a glowing manta-shape banks toward them... a bansheeray. Josh raises his machete, bracing for a chop. He slashes at the shape and...
It dissolves. Into a swarm of MOONWRAITHS. These insects fly in a tightly patterned swarm, imitating the shape of a bansheeray to discourage insect-eating predators. The moonwraiths disperse like a mist and reform further on.