But Anfon went straight towards the musicians. There was a display of stringed instruments, but I looked past it to wind instruments. A young man played a kind of flute, and he was Thordes. “Ladies, would you like to try a kanafa?”

Ester smiled. “I-I play the flute, is it similar?”

“King Anfon asked us to study Earthan music, and I believe a kanafa is like an Earthan flute or recorder. Please, try.”

His hand graced a display with five of varying lengths. She picked the one in the middle. Tried it. A sour note came. “Oh, you need a lot of air for this one!” She blew harder and played a bit of “The Magic Flute”, one of the few Classical pieces I’d recognize. Really good! His friends played complicated harmonies with her, and she did faster notes. Her face got really red.

Anfon picked another up and played just as expertly as they did! What fun!

While they did that, an artist came to me. “Yea Becky, I paint plates and hear you are well with animals. Will you put an animal in my flowers?”

I waved up a holo of a ternimpan, and painted him holding onto the flowers, which were the kind on that bush! They look kind of like chameleons, but with huge round eyes kind of like ours. I gave him light blue.

Anfon and Ester joined us. “Oh, I wish I could paint like that!” She was very out of breath, but smiling.

“Try this one!” He gave her a plate with a finished border of flowers.

“Oh, no, I’m not good enough—”

“O, but watch! If I do this—” He made a very childish drawing of my ternimpan, then erased it with a vaporizer. “—is easy to start over. Will you try?”

“I suppose I can try, and you can erase it. Yes.” She drew a colorful parrot. He showed her how to vary the brush sizes and how to get any color she could think of, and how to get a holo of a parrot from the Alb Library. Wow! I didn’t know there was a library here! Her hand shook really bad, but apparently the prog compensated.

While she worked on her parrot, I did a tapir, a chinchilla, a green snake, an elephant, and a giraffe. She reminded me of me working on my pitiful poster, so scared of making a mistake. We got therapy when Rilley didn’t come home, and all of us needed it. All of us loved arts and music, so we’d paint as a family while listening to classical.

I was worried that I’d see something disturbing from Mican, but our day was a very pleasant visit. Ester’s parrot was even more of a hit than mine! Good.

Anfon took us through the market, and copies of Ester’s parrot went like hotcakes! She loved to watch parrots in Mexico as a child. I saw her memory of crossing the Rio Grande into the US with her family. A recent memory. Her uncle died on the way up. They nearly starved. She was very sick. But, at home, a gang was threatening to kill her father, a government employee. One man that threatened her was in the market frowning her way.

I touched his record, and he had TS status. Provisional. Everyone on Earth has that! “I need a TS Inspector!”

Whoosh! “I am Terisch Paha, TS Inspector Of Elshar Zheiea. What is the problem, Yea Becky?”

“This man threatened to kill her family, and poisoned her uncle’s water! That man beside him is a slaver!” I pointed.

The haughty Elshar with him laughed. “And, her family crossed illegally into the United States! Some of the slopfahi are still living there!”

I showed him what I saw. Poor Ester cried.

“You will not live to tell them, Heden.”

The man went white! Another man who wore that grayish-white stuffed herbs in his mouth before I even saw the portal he came from! He fell and convulsed. White light vaporized his clothes. The Hispanic man got a light blue portal.

“I find in your favor.” Terisch Paha waved towards crying Esther, and a cloud of terminals floated in front of her eyes. He vanished into a portal and was gone.

Esther fainted into Anfon’s arms. “Ejis nae! Pah~!”

Healers ran here from their deep green building. The eldest put a hand on Ester’s forehead. “I need help! Who let this one walk? What did she today?”

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Anfon wept and showed him.

They sang for a long time. Finally, he carried her into the deep green building. Anfon bowed to Tom. “I am sorry to leave you—” He wept, and Tom hugged him.

“Fon, nae this regret! Sit by your lady. You nae knew!”

A healer carried him in.

What’s wrong?

Her heart nae stands upsets! She refused healing, on the ship and they had few healers with them. Nae knew she had fragile health. Her healer says she was starved, and this is why. Pirad can regrow her heart, if they can protect her from upsets. This fear for her family will finish her!

Hispanic people have strong families. Send ‘em diplomats! If they know she’s dying, maybe they will come!

Tom contacted friends on Earth, and they ported. But, I felt Mican laughing. He wanted revenge on Anfon, too.

Feronoras came out, pale. Anfon offered to marry her, and did so. They went to privacy, and the entire Council is upset! Will you speak to them?

Eae! I shall defend my friend!

We all ported to the medium green building to its main room. Light shone down from the point of this building and made rainbows on the walls. A very haughty Elshar came to us. “We already decided that I should rule Calladia! Our king is obviously unsound!”

Nine people sat around the nine-sided table. All Elshars.

Tom frowned. “I see nae members of this council I knew! Micanhah, your bahie was sent to Ih Esta for judgment today! I wish a TS Inspector!”

Terisch Paha whooshed in. “I will inspect all of your trades!”

“I am Micanhah, King Of Calladia, and I—”

Anfon ported in. “What evil is this, that you—”

“You married that Earthan fasut that none of us know! Is that not evil, to put a strange queen to rule us?”

“My entire Council is poisoned! All of them had visits with all of you this day!”

The Inspector looked over all their records. And all of them were elsewhere when they were supposedly in the meetings Anfon remembered on their schedules.

But, I saw each meeting, and showed Terisch Paha. Showed their healers the poisons, and antidotes, because they were each a different mine poison made of 9 different substances, each, by itself, harmless. Over days, each of these new council members slipped one of these substances into a pastry they shared at their festival. Their healers weren’t happy they weren’t in Rainbow!

Terisch Paha called that fella in white to each of these men, and Mican seethed.

Tom sent healers to all his Stationed Diplomats in each city. One came to Feronoras and gasped. “My son, nae hide from me!”

“Strengthen me, Fa, I must work—” He groped at his temples!

Pirad came. Touched his forehead. “I apologize, my son.” A wave, and he held a green cylinder and put it against his head. Clicked his face into frozen shock! “I cannot remove them?”

He gasped. “Mican will have his revenge, on all of you! See me, and you see how all of you will die!”

I put both hands on his head, and time stopped. I stayed like that for hours. The sun set. The sky turned red, then dark red. Moons rose. The smallest streaked across the other four.

The sun rose. All day, and it set again.

I blinked. Pirad startled. In the cylinder, two metal buttons clinked.

Feronoras went limp. That healer brought 8 more and they sang!

I fell against Tom, panting. Sweat—yellow powder—streamed onto the sand from my arms and legs.

Pas came in a green swirl. Gasped! “I need my ennead! Yea Becky, ne move!”

I wanted to cry! Scream! But, laugh! Because I saved him. I saved Feronoras. I saved Anfon’s Council! On a table in Pirad’s lab were 81 cylinders. For each of our 5 worlds. Poisons, collected by Mican. With this, Pirad can save our peoples. And, 11 of those cylinders held pairs of metal buttons.

But, he put that icy hand on my forehead. “Show me what you did!”

I let him see. But, he moaned. Mican’s on Esta Faho, and he has access to that lab. Until the 31st, he can’t port it into the sun. Mican’s still alive. He’s still able to use the Black Cube. And now, he knows about me. Up until now, he didn’t know who was blocking him! Right now, he’s building up a surge that’ll destroy Elshar Zheiea!

This is just a tiny moment in the sea of time. In his pocket, he keeps umar seg. He’s used it a lot today, on Lisbaar.

“You can’t think to do that!”

“You think she can survive not doing that?” I felt a furry paw on my head.