* * * * *
The documentary’s final montage has been sewn together based upon conjecture. The cameras were turned off in respect to the sirens. Who could tell how those aliens may have reacted when upon our first meeting we rudely centered their faces in the lens? No one then knew how those sirens might have appeared. Governments worried how the Black Sun Temple might expand if the first broadcast of the sirens beamed alien faces that the populace judged to be horrible. Thus the details of how the calamity unfolded upon the Diana remain a mystery. I doubt it will be much longer until everyone mistakes the conjecture of that tragedy presented by Jackson Hardcase and his gameshow as fact.
The documentary shows the Starship Diana’s grand concert hall teeming with spectators. Musicians crowd beneath the overhead dome. The men wear fine suits. The women wear glorious dresses. A maestro in a fine tuxedo steps onto stage, and the air fills with the mumble of warming instruments. The maestro bows. The french horn players gather a breath. The violinists raise their bowstrings. The maestro raises his hands.
And in a blink, a hundred sirens materialize upon the front of the stage. The women and men gathered in the concert hall gasp. They are the first to look upon the alien race of the sirens. The sirens’ masks gaze at all of those gathered. The sirens bow. The audience erupts in applause and laughter. Men swoon and women weep. The sirens bring their slender hands together and mimic the applause that greets them. Quicker than you can count, more sirens blink into the hall.
The most incredible kind of music is about to be played.
The maestro lifts to his tip-toes. He pauses. A second later, he lowers his wand to command the orchestra to strike its first note.
And in the next wink, fire is summoned instead of song. In a wink, the Black Sun Temple strikes, and events are hurled into motion that eventual sentence us to our tables in Mic’s cafeteria upon one of Jupiter’s moons. In a wink, the song disappears, and all of us stationed upon Ganymede don our uniforms so we can administer to our killing.
The Sirens' Last Lament Page 7