Through the clear yellow wall, I saw the buildings of Rainbow. Healers carried people to mud marshes, or let them walk to look at displays in the festival.
Tom slept peacefully, and I longed to share my day with him and all I saw! Why did people go pale when they mentioned Lisbaar? Why did Pirad make all the scientists come here? I thought all our worlds were in Alb. Aren’t they safe, like we’re safe? But, are we safe with Dosillians around? I wanted to go to the other cities tonight! But it took several hours to visit all the buildings in Rahn Estar. That’s our capital, though. It’s bigger than the other cities, isn’t it?
I looked at a map. Exactly the same size, in land area, but Rahn Estar the world still has 20,000 people. Rahn Estar the city has 650. Esta Faho has 400. Calladia has 502. Kin Para has 575. Sara Kia has 542. And a note says they all had 400 before Pirad started waking people up from Burial Chambers. They can do that? So why doesn’t Esta Faho have more people now?
Pirad’s work stopped. No explanation. He healed people, he talked to Ella with Via outside, hours ago, and he left. Suddenly.
That just made me nervous. And, they moved the weapons facility except for one little building. Why didn’t they move it to Rahn Estar, too?
Then, I noticed an outline on the bed. On our bed. The side where Farley and Ella were. Ella sat there with a frown of concentration, writing progs. Her blond waves had lavender ribbons holding them out of her face. Do I look that fat? Hope nobody heard me thinking! Farley slept. Occasionally, she held his hand or smoothed his blond curls. He wasn’t sweating now, if I can believe that a diplomat’s not hiding. Math~an was up healing people, and he didn’t look happy. His wife worked beside him.
But, that outline worried me. Didn’t they run hygiene on it? A curled-up body. An Xchou body. How do I—an Xchou girl was looking at it, but she didn’t see anything but lavender blanket. But she saw something.
Challet took his hand. “Be calm. The facility existed long before our worlds became part of Elshar Zheiea! Wasa Mai had grave concerns, but the Council insisted—and Mican was on it. O, if I knew! But what could any of us do, against a Councillor? He is gone, and Pirad, you were able to secure the weapons?”
“I destroyed them all! As the Council once decided all such weapons must be destroyed. I ported them all in a red portal, to a sun far from us. The sun is destroyed, but it was almost ready to nova. All the weapons are gone. The building is gone. All the scientists will now work on more peaceful pursuits. None of them understood the weapons, so they did not try to dismantle them. I got their permission to collect their memories, and they are going to my lab now. One is coming here to advise me on these terminals. They are not slaver terminals, but those for soldiers. They should be easy to remove, by design.”
I didn’t feel any better about this.
An Xchou came in and bowed.
Farley smiled. “Tasafier! It is good to see you, my friend.”
The man’s fire-engine red skin paled to white. “Friend? How do you know me? All of us had strict instructions from our queen, Gedda Dier, to have no contact with any colony that might come!”
Farley sweated. “But, you tutored me in weaponry, before I went to Sigan Mas! You took me into the weapons facility and showed me weapons and how to use them, every day for a year!”
Milly, our clone of Molly, helped the man get on the bed and he laid down! “How can this be? No one is allowed in our facility but myself, Father and Mother! We are Xchou Elders, from Vohl. Was our last recloning tampered?” He shivered.
She looked scared. “Pirad, can you heal an Xchou who’s not mixed with Elshar?”
He laughed. “Yes, I can—” The moment his five-fingered hand touched the man’s head, he clicked an expression of shock onto his face! “What species are you?”
“Chaonoi. We rose and left the Xchou. All our work. You destroyed it all. Why?”
“Because it is too dangerous for this tech level! You are from the 5th, and should know that!”
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“We left the Council when Rentappenen had ideas. You do not know what he is capable—”
“He is dead! I made Cubes and hid them. We combined all of them, to fight him, and we destroyed his Collective, then him. He was on Lisbaar when it exploded. Because we had a weapon to prevent porting, tied to his genetics.”
The man went limp. “Then, our purpose is served. Father, Mother, we can go home now.”
They ported in and held him. I thought they died! The father held a hand on his forehead. “I did not tell you. Our home is destroyed. Rentappenen thought to take our tech, and disrupt many levels above ours. I destroyed it, so much so, we can never reconstruct it. Now our lab is destroyed, and all the weapons I hid from Mican. But, all of us, and the people we gave terminals to fight him, we are weapons. My last act is to take the terminals back, and die.”
Milly gasped, “You can’t! Wait!”
A flash of white light came! When I could see again, their bodies were gone! Farley held his temples and cried! So did Tom!
I was there! But—that girl wasn’t there. What just happened? I didn’t see that outline now. That wasn’t today. It hasn’t happened yet.
Who can I tell? Tom’s sleeping. Fa’s sleeping. Wasa Mai is on a bed near us, with Rasanos and his wife. Sleeping. Feronoras is also...sleeping.
But, Via came over. “Yea Becky. Is something wrong?”
I shuddered. But, I showed him what I saw.
His eyes turned light. “Child, we have hope. But we must na think of this. There are many who listen to us. Can you see them?”
I felt eyes on me and turned around. Then I remembered what Pas taught me. No, he taught Ella. To feel with her telepathy instead of looking with her eyes. Via taught me fast. I pretended to watch people on the beds. So many of our people, sleeping.
But, with my mental ‘eyes’ I saw a lot more. A healer with a vial of umar seg. Didn’t progs get rid of that?
Via ran a vaporizer. That Elshar reached out with his telepathy, at both of us, but Via stopped it. A red portal took him through the point at the ceiling! But no one saw that but us!
Red portals go to the nearest sun. Do na think. Mican must na hear.
I trembled, but tried to look normal. Pirad died--
We can na warn him. Mican can change what we know. He can prevent things in the past from happening. In the same way you prevented your parents’ death, because you saw your future, he can change things that already happened. Na think, Becky. Na think.
How do I stop thinking?
He took my hand, and we stood in a garden. I felt much, much heavier! The air had a flowery smell, but also a metallic smell. Via dug in the garden, but he was my age. Near this city, very much like Rahn Estar, buildings with spires, was a mountain range. A cave at the entrance had a lot of black rocks that had flat faces. A couple came out and waved. A white flash didn’t startle others who came out. They stepped over that rock and she grimaced.
“Oh, did it hurt you? Let me carry—”
“No, I have lesanie.” She ate a leaf.
Then, he hummed and a cut on her calf vanished. He wiped sweat off her face.
She wiped it off hers, and a cloud of yellow sparkles shone in the sun. Then she wiped his face and mixed them.
They were both pale, but walked to the garden. Via kept working and picked a lot of herbs. Put them in a golden bag, a red bag, and several royal blue ones. All of these, he stuffed in a white bag hidden in the folds of his robe.
“Via, you work too hard!” The man laughed and pulled at his arm.
Via leaned close. Mican knows, Fahie. I harvested all of our herbs of Leiea. They will na find them. The plants will die by tomorrow because I damaged them. Others have blight so they na know.
You are wise. Let us leave for Leiea tonight.
They went in their house, a black, square building where healers stayed when not working to heal workers of Moro’s mines.
But, Mican was there with 20 healers. “I want to take you all to another world—ah, Vicansen, you are late.”
His eyes turned black. “Ianie cut her leg on a rock.”
“Pah, Ishah are babies! There is a new mining world that Challet traded. He is a fool. He got 5 worlds and 3 have mines. The other two are for farming. One, Sara Kia, is in the 1st, far from here. It may grow food, but he has no fuel to bring it here.
“But, one will have a shipbuilding facility. Esta Faho. Such a name! He expects many of his people to die there. Let them. It has Tessite. I will send all of you there to heal my slaves.”