~~~
Soon, Lona came to visit me, and the Colonel invited her to dine with the family. She seemed astonished at how neat and well run all was, but also happy to be where all worked. Mom took to her at once; the Colonel was his most courtly and charming around her.
I, in turn, visited Lona's home, but never got used to the chaos in which Brenda, her boyfriend, her sister, and a host of hangers-on lived. As a Desert-child and the Colonel's daughter, I required discipline.
Inspired by Lona's outgoingness, I did develop a streak of daring. "Now that Dala and Lona have both been here," I said to the Colonel one night, "wouldn't it be nice for all eight of us Tani to get together?"
The Colonel gave me a sad-looking smile. "I understand what you want, Belle, but it can't happen. Delia needed your example to teach her self-confidence, and I'm happy for your meeting Lonnie by chance, but I can't bring the rest of you Tani together just yet. I'm bound by Sor-On's requirement that you children be reared apart so that you can stay safe, learn to function as members of human society, and develop independent judgment."
I sighed at the Colonel's quoting me the party line. I brightened, though, as he went on to say, "Still, I see no reason why you, Delia, and Lonnie can't all get together here."
Phone calls, text messages, and e mails went back and forth. Lona would run to Paducah, and Dala would be flown there, to spend a whole weekend with me. I marveled at Dala's getting to fly. The Colonel had told me that I could never travel outside the country or be a passenger on a commercial flight lest I show up on Homeland Security's computers. Yes, I did wonder why I was a secret from Homeland Security, and I did ask the Colonel that question. You can just guess how he answered it.
I marveled in a different way when I learned that Dala, by the Colonel's arrangement, would fly on a private jet -- a neat, if costly, way to avoid airport security. Still, I never heard the Colonel moan over money.
While he drove off to pick Dala up at a private airfield, I awaited Lona's coming. After a while, I glimpsed a blur of motion zigzagging from cover to cover. I smiled. When Lona made it to the front porch, I said, "You'd have got here just as soon if you'd jogged in a straight line."
Lona grinned. "I'm a Tana. I can never do anything simply."
After a while the Colonel drove up with Dala. Soon, three Tan girls were seated with him and Mom around the kitchen table.
Emily, Kendra, and Millie were there, too. I'd told them that two of my cousins from Afghanistan were coming to see me, and my three friends just had to see them.
"As Girl Scouts," Kendra had said to me, "we're supposed to be 'friendly and helpful, considerate and caring.'"
"I bet that Delia and Lonnie will have wonderful stories to tell us," Emily had said.
"Besides," Millie had said, "maybe they can help us earn the Global Awareness badge."
More like the First Contact badge, I'd thought, but kept my thought to myself.
The six of us girls could say nothing to each other over dinner. Talk at table consisted, as always, of the Colonel's asking everyone else questions on her life, and of her answering them. In the Gordon household, the difference between a debriefing and dinner was that dinner came with food. It was Mom's food, though, which made the debriefing worth while.
After dinner, we six girls ran upstairs and, to hide our talk from any listening devices, played music as loudly as the Colonel would let us play it. Given how the Colonel always knew what was going on in my mind, I'd begun to suspect that he'd bugged my room.
In e mails, I'd given Dala and Lona the heads-up that Ul was Afghanistan, crystal-ships were helicopters, and there were no such persons as Tan-i or an-i. I hoped that Dala and Lona wouldn't give away too much to my friends, who were Honor Roll students.
Emily, Kendra, and Millie did ask a few questions on Afghanistan and a few more on Bennettsville, South Carolina, and Urbana, Illinois. Mostly, though, my three friends talked of boys, whom they'd begun to date in the past year or so.
I felt disgust when Millie began giving a play by play of a snogfest with a boy named Roger. Emily, who, to the best of my knowledge, hadn't yet kissed a boy, said in an arch tone, "Too bad you can't get a badge in Kissing, Mil. You could give lectures to the Cadettes."
Disgust became dismay when Millie, maybe to draw attention from herself, turned to Dala and Lona. "What of you two? Have you begun dating?"
Dala, as you might guess, clammed up and looked embarrassed. Lona said merely, "I have no time to date just now."
"Oh, I hope that you're not like Belle," Kendra burbled out. "She's so wrapped up in Scouting and church activities and trying to become valedictorian and get a National Merit Scholarship that she barely has time to breathe. Winning a scholarship and getting into a top school are good things, but not if you never have a life."
I bit my tongue. I was betrothed to Par-On, somewhere in the wide world. Having a relationship with an earth-boy, even if it were permissible or desirable, would be cheating. I could hardly tell my three friends, though, that I was betrothed to a space alien. If I'd tried to tell them that I was betrothed to an Afghan boy whom I hadn't seen in eight years, they'd just have chanted together, "Join the Twenty-First Century, Belle!"
To get my friends off of an uncomfortable subject, I suggested watching a DVD. They had to go home in the middle of the movie; but Dala, Lona, and I kept watching it till we fell asleep, three Tan girls innocently sharing a bed as we'd shared one on the Homeworld.
In the morning, after breakfast, we'd planned to view my memory-crystals in my room's privacy. Yes, even then, we knew that we Tani are unresponsive to the outside world while we're viewing them, but the Colonel and Mom were downstairs to keep watch over us, so I felt that it'd be safe for all three of us Tan girls to hold a crystal at the same time so that we could view it together.
While I was getting out the seven crystals that I had, Dala murmured, "Your friends are nice, Mira, but they're really obsessed with boys. Your friends do raise a big question, though. Where are the boys who came with us? I've often asked Daddy and Dr. Ventnor that question, but neither of them will answer it for me."
"I know what you mean, Dala," Lona said. "About Dr. Ventnor, that is. Brenda knows nothing but what he tells her."
Having met her, I could believe what Lona was saying of her. "How did you end up with Brenda, anyway?"
Lona shrugged. "I gather that Dr. Ventnor helped her and Don through crises in their lives and introduced them to each other, but the story changes each time that I hear it from Brenda, and Dr. Ventnor just says, 'Patient confidentiality.' I guess that Don and Brenda took me in because Dr. Ventnor asked them to take me."
"Your daddy knows where the boys are, doesn't he, Mira?" Dala said.
"Knows, yes; tells me, no."
Lona stroked her chin. "We can make a guess about where they are. The three of us got sent to small towns -- Battle Creek, Paducah, Bennettsville. I bet that the boys got sent to small towns, too."
Dala sighed. "America has lots of those."
Lona's eyes got big. "I've got it! I can't believe that I didn't think of it sooner. The three of us can stake out Dr. Ventnor's office. All of the others will come there in the end."
I was about to make objections when Dala made them for me. "How can we stake out his office if we don't know when the others will be there? Maybe, you can spend days away from home whenever you want to, but the Colonel and Daddy keep close tabs on Mira and me. Besides, I bet that Dr. Ventnor has thought of our staking out his office and is just waiting for us to try it."
Lona looked at me, and I nodded. Seeing her look of dejection, I decided to let out a secret. "I might have a lead on one boy," I said slowly. I told Dala and Lona of the strange crime-fighting events in Topeka and Kansas City.
Lona frowned at me. "Why haven't you checked them out?"
"Haven't had time. Maybe next summer."
In time, both Lona and I would scour northern Missouri and eastern Kansas for the crime-fig
hter. It'd take a better hunter than either of us, though, to find you, Un-Thor.
But to our tale. Dala murmured, "A fourth girl came, too, didn't she? I can't recall her name."
Lona nodded. "Me neither. She showed up at the last minute and married a boy who came at the last minute, too."
"Her name was Kuma," I said, "and his was Un-Thor."
Lona frowned at me again. "Kuma? I thought that she was an an-a, like the three of us."
I shrugged. "Her name means 'companion,' but she was of Crystal-Shaper ancestry. Don't ask me to explain things."
"Maybe the crystals will help us understand," Dala said.
Compulsively, the three of us viewed crystals, one after another.
The first crystal was the one of the dance under Orion.
"I recall that dance," Lona said with a sigh. "It fell whenever Orion was high in the night sky. It seemed to me, though, that that dance fell every couple of weeks. How could Orion be high so often?"
"Thil-i An Om were high once every time that Nas-Ul went around Lus Im," I said. "Nas-Ul had to be really close to that star for the Homeworld to be warm enough for life, so years were really short there."
Dala sighed. "I bet that you got your Girl Scout badge in Astronomy."
I felt warm inside. "I did get it, thank you."
The second crystal showed Tani grooming, feeding, and riding the greyhound-like lex-i.
"Till now I'd forgotten what it was like to groom lex-i," Lona said. "They looked fearsome, but were gentle."
I nodded. "Sor-On's lex, Sandstorm, used to lick me when I groomed him. He also didn't mind letting little girls curl up by him and go to sleep. He kept us warm on cold Desert nights. You and I slept by him a few times, Dala. Do you remember him?"
"I wish that I did. Why did the Tan keep lex-i?"
"In the days before crystal-ships, the lex-i carried messages and urgently needed supplies from settlement to settlement." If only we'd kept to lex-i, we might be riding them still.
The third crystal showed Kan Tan Sor-On sitting on his throne and listening to advisors.
"What was Sor-On?" Dala says. "A king or a president?"
"I'd call him an emperor," Lona said, "since he ruled a world."
I shook my head. That world's population was less than Louisville's. "The word 'emperor' implies a ruler who rules by conquest. Sor-On couldn't be an emperor, as he never conquered anything."
As Dala and Lona gave me looks telling me that I'd been pedantic, I smiled wryly at them. "Sorry. I'm taking Latin, and, as the Colonel's daughter, I must know everything Roman. Sor-On was a king, as his title was hereditary, but he never acted on his own. He always consulted the other an-i, the heads of families, and the masters of guilds."
"Will Par-On be king of the Tani on the earth?" Dala said.
"If we ever find him," I murmured.
The fourth crystal showed schoolchildren, Lona and I among them, learning to read.
"Did you notice that tall, serious-looking boy standing by the teacher, Dala?" I said. "That was your ti-thar, your husband-to-be, Van-Dor."
Dala looked wistful. "Do you think that he'll like me?"
"No one couldn't like you, Dala," Lona said.
The fifth crystal, my favorite, showed an ensemble of bone-flutists, harpists, and drummers playing what sounded to me like a concerto.
"That was lovely," Dala said. "I've got a crystal showing a concert, too, but the music on it is all different from what's on your crystal, Mira."
"I've got a crystal of Queen Luna singing to a harpist's accompaniment," Lona said. "I've also got a songbook with what I think is musical notation for both voice and harp."
"I've got a book with illustrations for making musical instruments," Dala said. "I can't play or sing, though. Does either of you two have musical talent?"
"I tried to learn the recorder once," Lona said, "but didn't get far."
"I sing along in church," I said, "but Kendra and Millie tell me that I sound like a wasp caught in a windowpane. Still, maybe one of my children will be a musical genius who'll learn to play the old music again."
The sixth crystal showed Par-On's and my betrothal.
"What happened when babies betrothed to each other grew up?" Dala said. "Did they have to go through a wedding ceremony?"
I shook my head. "When a betrothed girl's parents felt that she and her ti-thar had become mature enough to handle adult responsibilities, they just began living together."
Dala frowned. "What they did may've worked on the Homeworld, but, here, won't we have to go through a wedding ceremony?"
Lona and I looked at each other and shrugged. "Let's find the boys before we cross the marriage bridge," I murmured.
The seventh crystal showed the three betrothals on the day before eight crystal-ships carried eight children to the earth.
After viewing the last crystal, Dala, Lona, and I hugged each other and cried awhile. Dala wiped her nose and said, "The Homeworld was peaceful. Despite the Desert, I always felt safe there, as I've never felt safe here. Whenever Daddy watches the news, there are wars and riots and murders and genocides. My older brother, Mommy and Daddy's birth-child, is going on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. There were no wars on Ul, were there?"
Lona and I looked at each other. "None in the histories that I've read," I said. "Have you read of any, Lona?"
She shook her head. "I have read of a few crimes, but the criminals got sent into the Desert."
"Did they return from there?" Dala said, wide eyed.
"Not all of them. The ones who did return generally acted better than before."
Dala nodded. "I'm glad of our having come here, as bad as this world is, but I don't know what I'm doing here. What am I supposed to do with my life?"
Lona looked at me. "Mira can tell us. She seems to have life figured out. Winning a scholarship, going to a big school -- isn't that what Kendra said?"
"Those are my plans. Keep in mind, though, that in my junior year of college the Message will come."
I had to explain to Dala and Lona that, three days before the crystal-ships had left Ul the last time, Grandfather Dor-Sad had begun to broadcast a radio message to the earth. Who knew how it would affect the earth-humans to get a message from a dying world?
Lona stroked her chin. "I guess that, when the Message comes, we'll start the Work, whatever it is. What do you know of it, Mira?"
I told her and Dala what Sor-On had told me the night before he sent me to the earth. Lona shook her head. "What he said is beautiful, but vague. What did he mean by, 'Save the earth'?"
I sighed. "I've often asked myself that question. I've decided that he might not fully have known what he meant. I gather that he, Dor-Sad, and the other explorers had come here just a few times and met in secret with a small contact group. What they learned of the earth came largely from that group --"
"That being Dr. Ventnor, the Colonel, Captain le Mars, and the others who took in alien children?" Lona said.
"I don't see who else it could've been."
"Then they must know how we're supposed to save the earth!" Dala piped out. "I bet that the Colonel is training you how to, Mira."
"Training me, but not telling me."
Lona pursed her lips. "I wonder for whom we're really working?"
Dala looked puzzled. "For the government, don't you think? The Colonel and Daddy are both army officers, and Dr. Ventnor --"
"I don't think so," Lona said. "The Colonel and Captain le Mars are both retired, and none of the three of us has ever met a potential higher-up. Our caretakers do all in their power to keep us away from doctors, the police, and any other government officials. I think that there's a hidden agenda around us."
"What kind of agenda?" Dala said.
The three of us talked of the question till lunch, and after lunch till supper, but came up with only conjectures.
After supper, we talked of our daily lives, and watched more DVD's. In the morning, we went to chu
rch with the Colonel and Mom; then Dala and Lona left for home, and I returned to preparing for a future in which I'd never live.
In the light-crystals' glow, dour, brooding Un-Thor shakes his head at me. "Didn't you ask the Colonel of the secret agenda?"
"Not in so many words. He'd never have answered a question on something like that. After Dala and Lona left, as soon as I found the Colonel alone, I did ask him, 'Sir, what does what I'm doing have to do with Sor-On's command to save the earth?'
"The Colonel didn't even look up from his newsmagazine. 'You're destroying sensitive information that in wrong hands could imperil later, more aggressive phases of your operation.'
"Military-speak at its best! 'I don't understand, sir.'
"He did look up then, giving me a level gaze. 'A time will come for you Tani when Dr. Ventnor and your adoptive parents will no longer guide you. You'll then have to determine for yourselves how to implement Sor-On's command. Till then, you need to learn obedience and discipline, along with basic skills and knowledge of the earth.'
"I held in most of a sigh. 'When will that time be?'
"The Colonel looked sad. What he said next astonished me. 'Don't rush that time, Belle. I don't know what you'll go through once you start the Work, but your life will never again be as simple as it is now. Don't waste this time. You have a chance for happiness that may never come again. Spend it with your friends.'"