Recombinant Bridgehead

Red

"Any damage to the queue can result in TBI—behavioural changes...mood swings...inhibited communication... Hmm..."

Quaritch rubbed his face with all of his hand as he lay on his bunk, gripping his book from the top as he dangled it in front of his face. Macabre interest had him spending his leisure time learning about the deeper meaning of the braid with that night still vivid in his mind. He continued down the page with her voice, as always, playing in his head.

So much can be said regarding the queue. What one might dismiss as an ostentatious braid is, in truth, the nucleus for thriving on Pandora. The Na'vi's very spiritual and physical well-being centres around the health of their queue, the loss of which is a fate considered worse than death. Denied the ability to connect to their deity, Eywa, some Na'vi would go so far as to perform a ritualistic suicide rather than live on without it.

Quaritch brought up his braid and inspected the pink filaments wiggling at the end, something he hadn't done since the day he was reborn. To him, the braid was just a keen advantage over Pandora, but was there something more? He flipped the page.

It does not simply link the Na'vi to the world; it weaves them into it—permanently. Nowhere is this more illustrated than in their love-making. The tsaheylu is an integral part of the Na'vi mating practice, for it enables them to not only share their exhilaration but create a life-long imprint on the other's psyche—a profoundly spiritual and highly erotic experience. We cannot begin to understand the magnitude of what such a transcended form of intercourse would feel like.

Quaritch's amused brows went up. His contemplations were interrupted when he saw a message coming in through his cabin's radio. He sat up and bobbed the field guide as he held the receiver to his ear.

"Go ahead, BH-3. Over."

His dull eyes were still running over the book when, all of a sudden, the dull eyes widened.

⊕

A flock of recombinants zipped over the jungles in the direction of River Styx. Quaritch, having recovered from the shock, was mentally rehearsing for the encounter. Seeing him in blue would, no doubt, have her howling at the delicious irony, and he would have to stomach the humiliation, but Quaritch still desired a meeting; she did, after all, have a hand in his resurrection, and he wanted to gloat about it.

There it was—the meeting point on the horizon. He waved to his men and brought them towards the grounds for their date with destiny. The shrieking banshees circled Sully's defectors being kept under duress in the centre of the fort. Perching on a spiked wall, both Quaritch and Gloria hissed at the insurgents in a show of force before coming in to land.

The SKEL suit operators gave a wide berth for the triangular formation strutting towards them, with #1 at the tip of the rack. Quaritch set his hands on his hip as he stood akimbo before the prisoners; his tail flowed from side to side, and his lips curled up in a fiendish smile. His entourage was just as smug.

"Hello, Quaritch," Norman greeted coolly from within the giant's shadow. "Wainfleet."

Lyle replied with a head cock and a purse of his smiling lips.

"Cute tails."

The colonel chuffed at the brazen remark, then, as if in reward, signalled the weapons to be lowered so Norman could stand. "When I got the call that Sully gave you all the boot,"—he readjusted his belt—"I almost didn't believe it. But then I remembered who it was we were dealing with. Looks like all your Na'vi sympathizin' didn't pay off in the end. So what happened?" He crossed his arms. "Have a little lover's spat?"