~~~
As the hue and cry over missing alien girls died, and as time moved on into what should've been my freshman year of college, and as the coming of the Message drew ever nearer, I turned my mind to the Work. "Save the earth," Kan Tan Sor-On had told me the night before his own world would end, but he'd given me no instructions on how to save it. I pondered the Colonel and Dr. Ventnor. They'd given me hints and training, but no clear plan of action.
In the end, as both of my Sethiparnen tutors had told me, we Tani would have to decide for ourselves how to do the Work.
I asked my fellow Tani as individuals and as a group what they felt the Work should be. Dala and Lona argued for doing anonymous random acts of kindness; Kuma and Un-Thor, for fighting crime and corruption.
I shook my head. "Those are good deeds, and they may be part of the Work, but they won't keep the earth from going the way of Ul or the nine other ruined worlds."
Still, lacking a better plan, I let Dala and Lona pick up litter, and Kuma and Un-Thor break up muggings. I myself, alone or teamed with Kuma and Un, struck the kind of targets to which the Colonel had once sent me. I feared, though, that I was spinning my wheels.
One night, after a raid, Un-Thor was in a meditative mood. "When the Message comes, we'll really have to step up our activities. The earth-humans, though, will come after us with all that they've got. We may be able to take bullets --"
"One bullet," I said. "I wouldn't have liked my chance against a whole clip, and the earth-humans have weapons worse than bullets. RPG's, Hellfire missiles, Daisycutters --"
Un grinned. "You're going where I am, Mira. One of the ways for the earth-humans to destroy the earth is with weapons. If the earth-humans didn't have them --"
Kuma looked excited. "Are you talking of taking them from cold, dead fingers?"
I knew that she was joking, but, sometimes, the girl's bloodthirstiness scares me. Before I could address it, Un shook his head. "I'm talking of keeping weapons out of warm, live fingers."
I shook my head. "The weapons that could destroy the earth, the NCBW technologies, are beyond the reach of three of us jumping over walls."
Un shrugged at my negativism. "Those weapons are guarded by guys with guns and security cams. If we take those away, the big weapons are vulnerable."
Kuma nodded. "As the Colonel said, 'If you do what you can, you'll learn that you can do more than you thought you could.'"
I held in a sigh. I hate for someone to quote the Colonel to me, especially when that someone might just be right.
After more talk, I approved Un's plan. He, Kuma, and I began a campaign of disarmament. One night, a warehouse filled with killer ammunition -- dum-dum bullets, hollow-point rounds, flechettes -- went up in a series of spectacular explosions. Another night, a factory for manufacturing automatic rifles burned to the ground.
The Press went wild. Speculation centered on domestic terrorism or industrial sabotage. Television screens showed grainy images from security cameras that had caught persons dressed as Ninjas moving about doomed sites. None of the speculation spoke of missing alien children. Did innocent-looking, doll-like faces work in our favor again?
When things go well, one gets cocky. One night, as the three of us were trashing a factory for plastic armor and munitions, and fires had already broken out there, one of us -- I won't shame him or her by saying who -- knocked the relief valve off of a tank car filled with isopropylene. As highly flammable gas jetted out, I screamed, "Get out of here now!" Adding motion to emotion, I grabbed Kuma and Un-Thor and dragged them with me.
I stopped some distance from the factory to look back at it. Lying with me behind a ridgeline's partial shelter, Kuma giggled, while Un said in an infuriating drawl, "Mira, I think that you're overreac--"
The horizon went off like the flashbulb of the gods. Automatically, I counted. "One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi --"
Shortly after five, I went deaf. My companions and I bounced around like things that bounce around a lot. When we lay still again, and afterimages of a fireball had begun to fade on my retinas, Un gave me a stricken look. I'd have said to him, As you were saying? but he wouldn't have heard me.
After a while, as legions of flashing lights began converging on the factory, the three of us Tani rose and ran off through darkness. When hearing returned, Un said to me in a weak voice, "Can we call this, 'Mission accomplished'?"
I glowered at him. "Don't expect style points!"
Daughter of Orion Page 36