I looked over at the guy that had called it 'mumbo jumbo' and shook my head. After seeing Amory's ship I would never accuse anybody that had dealt with the Panna of trying to make something sound impressive. To me, it was amazing that the thing would fly, let alone go into space and attack enemy ships. So to get away from that I raised my hand and the woman from the Air Force nodded my way. Are they going to rebuild by locale or by project. I mean, go to a town and do everything that needs done there, or go around and say repair all the bridges that need fixed first then go around the region and do something else?
Excellent question. I believe what we will do will be a little of both. The woman answered.
The Panna leaned in toward each other until they touched, then one of them looked my way and the other one moved a couple of its tentacles in a circle in front of it.
We like doing bridges, do you know of some that need fixed? One of them asked through the disk.
Yes. I said.
But there are other priorities, Becca said to them.
We like doing bridges. One of the Panna repeated with its eye turned toward the Air Force woman.
She looked at them then gave up, I guess we'll start with bridges.
I stood next to Becca between Old Man Willis and a group of five Panna, with everybody in town on the bank of the river and watched one of the Panna's construction machines fly over, and then under, the bridge over the Potomac, then it landed on our end of the bridge, and sat there next to two other larger ones.
It says that the main support member on the downstream side has been severely damaged, Becca read off a handheld device while the Panna did something to the machine.
Can it be fixed? Mister Willis asked her.
Yes, they just have to make an adjustment to the metal fabrication unit.
They're amazing to watch, I said as the Panna worked on the machine.
It is ready, the communicator Becca was holding said in the Panna voice.
It's best if you don't look directly at the unit, the fabrication field can be as bright as a welder.
Then the Panna all turned and looked at us at once, which was a disturbing thing to see.
What color do you want the rebuilt bridge to be? They asked us through the communicator.
I knew better than to answer, so I turned to my wife and asked Sammi what she thought.
She looked down at our daughter Autumn and asked her.
Amory likes blue. Can we make it blue for him?
We looked at Mister Willis and some of the others.
Blue's nice, somebody said.
Sure, blue. About the color of that car over there.
Becca spoke into the translator thing and the Panna all turned and looked at the car that I'd pointed to. Then two or three of them held up various control devices and did something to them.
In a second the machines lifted back into the air and went to work with the smaller one guiding the two larger ones with one above and the other below the bridge.
There was a deep throbbing hum, and some high pitched buzzing, and a lot of very bright flashes of light, as the machines worked. At times the ground shook or we had to cover our ears when something made a very loud cracking noise. I had expected it to be quick, like you'd have seen in a TV show or movie, but it wasn't. I didn't time them, but it easily took over an hour.
Then finally the entire bridge was consumed in a bright green haze of energy as the two larger machines hovered over it.
And it was done.
The bridge looked brand new, and every inch of the thing, including the road across it was blue.
While we are here, we will fix the other bridge, the Panna said.
We like bridges, one of the other ones added.
What other .... I started to ask and Mister Willis stopped me.
If the squid guys want to fix something else for us, let'em.
Yes sir.
