~~~
As time passed, and the seven of us Tani still found no sign of Par-On, I took a course of action that troubled me.
I'd been uneasy about healing the crystal-ships even as I'd healed them. I could never forget that it'd been the great crystals that weakened the Homeworld till Nas-Ul's tidal pull could destroy it. Certainly, I didn't want to repeat Ul's destruction on the earth!
I figured, though, that it'd been the forces used to shape the great crystals, and the forces used to drive the crystal-ships from star to star, that'd done the bulk of the damage to Ul. I figured that the earth, not lying within a gas giant's Roche Limit, could take moderate use of crystal-ships. To save what one loves, one must sometimes risk it for the sake of greater reward.
When I told my thoughts to the six other Tani with me, they accepted them. On my authority as interim leader till Par appeared, I ruled that we'd use the crystal-ships only in the Work to prevent the earth-humans from developing or using technologies that threatened their and our world's survival.
I must confess to you all that I didn't seek special permission from the rest of you for specific uses of my crystal-ship. A strange lightning strike that kept a supercollider from going on line, an explosion in a wing of a factory developing black-budget weapons -- now you know the story behind the stories. No doubt, you'll soon make your own. Take care, though, not to get drunk on power. To fly through darkness like a bat, to come upon your target from above, to unleash on it energies to take a ship from star to star, to circle your target and fly off, unseen -- that power is heady.
As the time of the Message neared, I broke my own rule. I felt that all of the Tan should be together under Par's leadership when the Message came. Finding him, I told myself, was strategically necessary for the Work, and justified a crystal-ship's use.
I felt that for the search I should have someone beside me. I chose Kuma. She fits into a crystal-ship with me, and, as Un-Thor said, she's someone whom you want at your side if things get tight. When I called her and asked her to join me on the search, she didn't say no.
Where to search was a big question. I assumed that we girls had been placed east of the Mississippi, you boys west of it, but there was much of the West left to search. Texas and California alone are countries in themselves.
"I have an idea!" Kuma piped out. "Un-Thor lives in Nebraska; Sil-Tan, in New Mexico; Van-Dor, in Nevada. I bet that Par-On also lives in a state that starts with N. That means North Dakota!"
"That's silly, Kuma! I have a feeling about the Pacific Northwest, though. Let's start there!"
All right, laugh, all of you! Who knew that the answer would be as simple as a letter of the alphabet?
"OK," Kuma said, "but we could swing through North Dakota on the way there."
"Good idea. We could head up to Minnesota and swing west through North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho on the way to Washington."
Under cover of darkness, Kuma and I set out north in my crystal-ship. We heeded the speaking-crystal closely to learn how far off it could detect my memory-crystals. Sadly, just ten miles.
"It'd take forever to quarter the West in twenty-mile-wide strips," Kuma muttered.
"And we'd be harming the earth with the quartering," I said. "Listen, it's not far out of our way for us to swing by Lona's shelter. It'll show us how far we can really pick up memory-crystals."
Flying low over Illinois, Kuma and I swung through southern Michigan and over Lake Michigan. We found that ten miles really was how far we could detect memory-crystals.
"Maybe," Kuma said, "we could write messages on the landscape. 'Par-On, where are you?'"
I sniffed. "I hope that you aren't suggesting crop circles." Could earth-humans really believe that aliens would come from the stars to vandalize the earth's food supply?
"Maybe, we could spray-paint the messages onto overpasses. The police would take Tan signs for gang symbols, I bet. We --"
Kuma's words were drowned in a squeal of static from the speaking-crystal. She and I, hands over ears, were helpless just then.
When the static died, I called out, "What was that?"
"A static burst characteristic of a power-crystal's full discharge," the brain-crystal told me. "The burst's intensity indicates that it was about a thousand miles off."
"Who was using a power-crystal?" I muttered.
"Unknown."
Kuma asked the brain-crystal a useful question. "Do you have a fix on the burst?"
"Three degrees north of our present heading."
"Head for the burst's source," I said.
The ship flew on over Lake Michigan and Wisconsin. Twice more, bursts came; the brain-crystal triangulated on them. After the third burst, my ears were ringing. As even Kuma was showing signs of distress, I shut the speaking-crystal down. It'd be poor strategy for me to let myself be deaf when I met the power-crystal's wielder.
When the crystal-ship began to descend, the only lights in sight showed a ranch house and some barns. The crystal-ship hid itself in a grove of pines; Kuma and I got out. Using all of the cover available to us, we slunk through darkness towards the house's front porch.
When we eyed it from the shelter of a wellhead about twenty yards off, we saw a man sitting in a rocking chair. Astonishment flared through me as I recognized him. "The Colonel!" I gasped out.
"Dr. Ventnor!" Kuma said beside me.
I should've expected the last of the Sethiparnen to be near a power-crystal. Rising, I walked towards him. After a second, Kuma followed me. Kneeling on my left knee, and crossing my arms over my chest as I bowed my head, I said to the man on the porch, "Please, sir, could you tell me the name of the people that once lived on a world of Tau Ceti?"
The man made his kind's deep, rich laughter. "Why do you ask me a question to which you know the answer, Mirabelle Gordon? Welcome to you and to your friend, Camille Delacroix."
Kuma and I looked at each other. "If it please you, sir," I said, "the two of us go by our Tan names."
"Ah. Well, then, welcome, Mira Das-Es and Kuma Tel-Nur. You may call me Bill. Are you hungry or thirsty? I wasn't expecting guests, but I could rustle up something for you in no time."
"Please, Bill," I said, "could you tell us where Par-On is?"
"At work just now, but he'll be along shortly. You two might as well be comfortable while you await him."
Kuma and I followed Bill inside, where he fried us up some omelets. While he ate these with us, he told us that he'd learned of our lives from the Colonel and Dr. Ventnor, and was deeply grateful to us for our retrieving and burying their bodies. He himself, for the past thirteen years, had been training Par, or Parker Baines, as he was known in those parts, to lead his people in peace or war. Parker just then was expanding underground chambers housing artifacts of the Tan and of the Sethiparnen. He was using a power-crystal for excavations --
"Excuse me, Bill," I said. "Is using a power-crystal safe? My grandfather told me that it was the great crystals that destroyed Ul."
"The earth is a sturdier world than your homeworld was," Bill said. "Besides, didn't you and Kuma yourselves use great crystals to get here in that crystal-ship that I heard fly up?"
"He has you there, Mira," Kuma said in an infuriating tone.
I nodded curtly, chagrined at having forgotten the Sethiparnen's power to hear brain-crystals. Still, I hadn't known that Bill would be there.
"Of course, you're right, Mira, in saying that the great crystals are dangerous to the earth in the long run," Bill went on to say. "You and Parker will have to set strict standards --"
As Bill spoke, I heard a door open behind me. Turning, I saw in the doorway one in whom Sor-On's majesty and Luna's beauty were reborn.
Going to my right knee before him, I crossed my arms over my chest and bowed my head. "Lon-al lu-es, Kan Tan Par-On," I said. "Su-in Mira Das-Es, ti-thar-a-es."
For the benefit of you whose nal Tan still needs work, I said, "Joy to you, Ruler of the Tan, Par-On. I'm your wife-to-be, Mira
Das-Es."
He gave me a smile of majesty and beauty. "Joy to you, my wife-to-be! I suspect that you and I need to discuss much."
After the late meal, he led Kuma and me into the underground chambers where he'd been working. There, he showed us wonders that still dazzle my eyes.
The underground chambers held artifacts of the Sethiparnen -- books, jewelry, sculpture, and strange tools and machines. Here, on a larger scale, was the niche in Gam Tol that had brought the Colonel to tears and won us Tani the Sethiparnen's favor. When I spoke aloud my hope that Bill could teach us to read the books and use the tools, Par-On said that he, too, hoped that Bill would have a chance to teach the rest of us Tani. If the Work took too long to give him that chance, though, Par knew some of the Sethiparnen's lore and could pass it on.
In the chambers, I learned what the crystal-ships had been doing in Ul's last days as I looked on artifacts of the Homeworld all around me. Paintings on paper and hide awaited walls for their display. Bone-flutes, harps, and drums awaited players. Brain-crystals, speaking-crystals, and power-crystals awaited crystal-ships to hold them. Pots of bu awaited a chance to turn dead organic matter into soil.
Most wonderful of all of the chambers' treasures, though, were not things, but persons. In the glow of sleeping-crystals, eight Kum-i, four male and four female, awaited a dawn when they could rise to work. It'd be the earth's crops that they'd water, and the earth's horses, cattle, and sheep that they'd feed and groom, but the Kum-i would find joy in service on the earth, I felt, as they'd found it on Ul. Their children could marry us An-i's children, and they and we could be one people again as we had been.
When I spoke my thought aloud, Par said, "They can find joy in service if we make this a world where they can live in peace."
He took Kuma and me farther to show us a last artifact, one that has lain at his feet tonight as it awaited its part in our ceremony of rebirth as a people. Together, Par, Kuma, and I viewed his memory-crystals and read his books. Together, the three of us spoke of a time of testing behind us, of a time of war before us, and of a time of hope beyond the war.