~~~
After Kuma had shown up with Un-Thor, I kept pestering Dr. Ventnor about where the other boys were. "What if, God forbid, something should happen to you?" I said. "How could Dala, Lona, and I find our ti-thar-i, our husbands-to-be?"
Dr. Ventnor looked solemn. "If you mean, Belle, 'What if I die before you find the rest of the boys?' I could die. Keep in mind, though, that someday, sooner or later, I will; then you Tani will have to go on on your own. The Colonel always meant for you to find each other as an exercise in self-reliance. He made an exception in bringing Delia to meet you only because she needed your help to adjust to this world. Par-On, Sil-Tan, and Van-Dor, you other Tani must find yourselves."
I may've pouted. "I assume that, since they don't need my help to adjust to this world, they're doing fine wherever they are."
Dr. Ventnor gave me a wry smile. "Your grandfather once told me that a Crystal-Shaper can track down lost crystals with a speaking-crystal."
I frowned. I assumed that Dr. Ventnor was telling me that, if I found the boy's crystal hordes, I'd find the boys. "The crystal-shaping manuals that I've read don't describe how to make speaking-crystals, and all of them on the earth are broken. Are you saying that I can heal them?"
Dr. Ventnor chuckled. "You're asking me? I have some power over human minds, but none over your crystals. You must answer your question on your own."
Paranoid sneak that the Colonel had trained me to be, I'd told no one, not even Dr. Ventnor, of my having awoken my crystal-ship's brain-crystal. I thought of testing whether I could heal my ship's other crystals; then I thought of security, something about which I'd worried much lately, now that the Colonel wasn't overseeing it for me.
I felt that I should bring up the plan that I'd discussed with my fellow Tani. "Dr. Ventnor, I worry about the ships. They were hastily hidden, and a number of earth-humans know where they are. What if someone finds one of the ships by accident, or someone slips up, or turns against us Tani? Shouldn't the ships be moved to safer places?"
Dr. Ventnor gave me a level gaze. "I trust your judgment on them, Belle."
My judgment, wise or un-, was to move them. I asked Dala, Kuma, Lona, and Un-Thor to seek secure sites where we Tani could hide our cultural treasures. While, by day, I kept acting the part of a high-school senior, Girl Scout, and churchgoer, by night, I checked out potential secure sites that my scouts reported to me, and approved some of the sites.
I also, still telling no one else, slipped out to my ship's hiding place and re-awoke the brain-crystal. As I healed it further, it gave me specs on how healed power-crystals, sleeping-crystals, and speaking-crystals should look.
I debated whether I should first heal the ship's speaking-crystal so that I could use it to track down the boys' crystals; then I decided that hiding the ships whose locations I knew was most urgent, and I began to heal the ship's power-crystals.
Healing them was no one-night job! As I poured my crystal-shaping gift into the shattered power-crystals, the brain-crystal briefed me on how to use them. They could put out thrust to lift the ship into interplanetary space; a warp, for lack of a better word, to blink the ship from star to star; a force-field to protect the ship in flight; and an energy beam to deflect or destroy things in the ship's path.
Idly, I wondered what the beam could do to a typical two-story house. The brain-crystal gave me a sound-and-light show. Flash! Bang! Smoking crater!
"Oh, my!" I murmured. I decided not to tell my fellow Tani just then of the power-crystals' last feature.
Came a night when the power-crystals were fully healed and had fully recharged themselves from the earth's magnetic field. I ordered the brain-crystal to raise the ship's upper hull, gingerly sat among crystals healed and unhealed, and ordered the hull closed. Heart pounding, eyes streaming tears at memories of my two earlier flights on crystal-ships, I bade the ship rise.
Its flight was long and circuitous, exploiting an overcast night and every patch of darkness, but it was a crystal-ship's flight, a hopeful event for the Tani, but salvation or death for the earth. Laughter and tears warred on my face, joy and grief in my heart, till it was a wonder that I could safely steer the ship.
Still, I did, till it was stowed in an abandoned bunker that Kuma had found in a remote corner of the Purchase. I sealed the bunker's door till I needed the place again -- all too soon, as things would turn out.
Having secured my own ship, I pondered whose next to secure. I decided on Lona's. Her divorced adoptive father's being out of touch in California and her adoptive mother's Bohemian household in Illinois struck me as the greatest security risk just then. I was prescient, as many of you already know. Whether my prescience helped or harmed us Tani, only Holy Light can say.
To move Lona's ship, I called together Dala, Kuma, Lona, and Un-Thor. Together we slipped off to the abandoned farm near Battle Creek, Michigan, where Lona's ship had been hidden nearly twelve years. With the combined crystal-shaping gift of five Tani, the ship's brain-crystal and power-crystals were healed and charged in a few hours.
I let Kuma, the smallest of us, ride with me in the ship while Dala, Lona, and Un ran point below it. The five of us Tani brought it safely to its hiding place deep under a pine barrens near Lake Michigan's shore. We jumped up and down and hugged each other at our mission's success.
"Who's next?" Kuma asked me.
"You, Dala, and Un are in stable situations. Let's put off moving your ships while I work on another project." I told my companions of what Dr. Ventnor had said speaking-crystals could do; then I went on to say, "Lona, you're the most advanced besides me in crystal-shaping. Could you slip away this weekend and help me heal my ship's speaking-crystal?"
Lona snorted. "Slip away? You've seen my household. I'll come with bells on."
Lona ran to my house on a Friday night. The next day, we read our two crystal-shaping manuals and talked of what we'd learned from healing brain-crystals and power-crystals. On Saturday night, we slipped through darkness to my crystal-ship's new hideout and healed its speaking-crystal. Tired from our work, we decided not to try to track down the three missing boys that night, but to come back the next night and try then. We had no idea that, before the next night had come, both Lona's personal world and mine would've ended.