Suma and I talked for a while. I agreed to a treatment plan for my bulimia, so I won’t damage my joints running too much. Healing the same thing over and over gets ineffective. Didn’t know that! All my physical damage from frequent vomiting, that’s healed now, but anxiety at mealtimes and getting out of habits like restricting what I eat, that will take time. Now I have a prog to let me know things I can try when I feel antsy. And, Suma’s my healer now. A new clone of her will work in Esta Faho in Galarsmen’s Chambers when we leave. She’ll stay in Rainbow for now.
There’s one Rainbow, this city of 7 buildings south of the Earthan Colony, and ours is the yellow one. Some of K’hasa Zha is in the red one, too. But many of them went to their healers chambers today. “It seems really weird to me that K’hasa Zha is in better shape than the rest of Elshar Zheiea.”
“What is that?”
“In the other future, people from there were poisoned from touching the mud! You know Zheien have to bathe, right? Elshars were poisoning the bathing muds with mine waste from Esta Faho, mixed with Exorbar.”
I gasped.
“I know, right? But they moved most of the Zheien. It also affects Elshars, but Science Service is involved, and Ih Esta. We’re hoping it never becomes widespread, like it did in 7840. It’s 7818 right now. You didn’t come to Rainbow until maybe, 7833? I can’t check it. If you remember how old you were in those future memories—I came to Rainbow with the Yeff—I don’t know how old I was. I can’t think about that much.” She shook her head and that long, brown hair fell in her face.
With the Yeff! They were already there when I came. After slavery. I wouldn’t want to remember that!
“What happened to the rest of Esta Faho?” I didn’t really want to know, but--
“We only knew about Prince Antomias, Jos Keil and Farley. Bedelia, you felt like you didn’t love Jos Keil because you didn’t die with him. Do you know that when a Zheien’s very unwell, sometimes his telepathy gives out? Your mindlink’s very strong. If I do this—” She waved her hand near my left ear, and I got very irritated, like fingernails on a blackboard! “Yeah, you’ve got a mindlink.
“But, Jos Keil had very damaged telepathy. He kept reaching for Prince Antomias, but he had to stay in a merite room and you did, too. So did Farley. All the Elshar Zheien did that, because they stayed terrified. Over time, it damages their telepathy more. Zheien telepathy isn’t like ours. Reaching with it is optional for us. Not for them. You love him. Don’t ever think that you didn’t die because you didn’t love him! You didn’t die because his telepathy was too damaged for him to reach.”
I swallowed. “So, if he dies now, I’ll die with him?”
“Yes. But, I don’t think anyone’s going to die. People in K’hasa Zha are already going to their provs. Some are going home with a healer there. I talked with Ashapat, he’s the Master Healer for Elshar Zheiea. He thinks people are getting less scared. Pirad says he can keep people from dying, and he did.”
“Micansen died.”
“Pirad brought him back. There’s a privacy containment, so you won’t see him until he’s better.”
“So he removed his terminals?”
She looked uncomfortable. “No, he’s still studying. Micansen is functional, like he was, but he’s Elshar now.”
“What did that Elshar Elder lady want?”
“She’s why he’s not dead. All she wants is to remind the Elshars that their heritage is good, that it’s not Mashai.”
“So, she’s not trying to replace Micansen?”
Suma laughed. “No! She’s not staying. Unless she falls in love with Micansen. That might be happening, I don’t know.”
“A lot of the Artisans were scared. Maybe I should talk to them!” We reached the Esta Faho commons and I looked over towards the festival.”
“She did before you woke up. They know now. Micansen’s having to sleep a lot. Even Elshars are affected by ‘the newness’ as they call it.”
“Then, I better go help the healers to heal more people. You know about people having twisted limbs, right?” I thought surely she did, she knows more things that I don’t.
But, I had to explain, and she was comfortable with letting me share memories. Sure does make long explanations fast!
“Be careful. A lot of us Earthans have Gifts—abilities from higher tech levels. Sounds like you have one. So do Becky and Ella. Use this prog.” Suma waved up a new one. It warned you if you thought about what happened when Earth got the New Tech and a certain Kajarian who fought interplanetary war in a certain yard. Yeah, I was worried about that. But on the list of people not to mention was Mican. Why, if he can’t even come here?
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“I shouldn’t be out here. I should be sitting by my husband, or taking healers around to check people.” Realized how long we’d been walking!
Suma took my arm. “Bedelia, you need to take walks. It’s okay to take care of yourself. When you have a talent like this, it’s easy to just get lost in it. So many people need me, I just have to force myself to take some time, like this little walk with you. This is my break from my routine.”
That surprised me. “Really? It isn’t like work to you, talking about all my problems?”
She laughed. “No! I mean it is work, but it doesn’t feel like it. Remember, I came from a public school environment. Teachers resented me because they thought my hours were 9 to 5 and I didn’t go home to do lesson plans. No, I went home and stressed about all the kids I didn’t get to talk to that day because I had 3 schools to spread myself over! And I had to limit what we talked about to mainly their schedules, and getting their work done.” Oh, she frowned!
“I can’t imagine—three schools to one person! Why didn’t you go back to school and get your degree so you could practice?”
Uht oh. That was the wrong thing to say. “School psychologists have everything practicing psychologists do, including my license, so I could have done that. But, I wanted to help kids. If I had known what was waiting for me in school systems—well, I did research it on social media—but when I actually did it, I realized how bad it really was! I’m so much happier talking to people here, and I can take all the time I want. If I need more time, I just get Pirad to make more clones of me!” She let me see how frustrated she was, kids who needed to talk whose parents would never take them to therapy, and she had to cut appointments short.
“But, how are you handling your fear of people dying? Your husband nearly died after your marriage, and Wulai died, too.” Her brown eyes seemed to see right through my tough facade.
Tears ran down my face again. I hate to cry, even when I’m alone, but she’s right. I need to deal with it. “I’m scared. I’m scared something’ll happen while I’m not there!”
“Did you see this prog?” Oh, one to zip me back if someone I’m close to has a crisis! I didn’t know about it. We talked about how to set it. I made it so even if Keiley got sick, I’d be there in less than a second! That helped a lot.
She showed me other progs I could run like that. And how to see new ones. They’re adding them all the time. “Molly used to fuss that they wouldn’t let her run progs like this. Why can we run ‘em?”
“The Alb Council saw memories of that! Pirad sees all the memories people share to those cylinders, but he saw his future when he met Adia. He showed them how frustrated he was that Fhiah’s Council didn’t want even a server invading people’s privacy, but later they changed their minds as people died. Alb Council decided the sacrifice of privacy is very small, and no one wants people to die, not even one! So, not only do the 25 worlds run them, but every world that comes has to agree to run them.”
“I’m so glad! This is better than Rainbow was!”
But, Suma got teary. “Pirad had a lot of memories of Molly and I complaining. We sat with her diplomats and shared every time someone died and progs could’ve warned us! Molly constantly went to Fhiah Council and showed ‘em. It took years to get changes because council members would visit other councils and Fhiah’s huge! Talking to that many of 6 decillion people took a lot of time, even for Zheien.
“The Alb Council decided to act fast because they were scared that people would die. They first ran it Monday. That night, a lot of people got sick when they went to their new homes, scared Elshars would invade. Healers got alerts and ported to ‘em. No one died. But that’s when all the healers moved people to healers chambers, but even there, people were very scared.
“They talked to Via, Master Healer Of Ishah, and Ahstam, Master Healer Of Zheiea. That’s when they decided to move everyone to the Rainbow Colonies. Because, Zheien are new to Rainbow, they don’t expect Elshars to invade there. They see it as a new place, not home, so they accept that it’s scary.”
“But, wouldn’t their home healers chambers be comforting?”
“That’s the thing. All these 20 Zheien worlds have different skies than Zheien are used to seeing. Even colonies that never got invaded have problems because it’s like a colony start. Healers didn’t tell people that in every new colony, they lost half their people because they couldn’t handle the newness. There are a lot of risks in a new colony because of unknown poisons or other things the scientists can’t predict. But Zheien need their homes to be safe. Fear killed most of them, but healers blamed that on the other things, including having to send troops to war. They were scared that Zhea~ wouldn’t send colonies out if they knew!”
I frowned. “Healers weren’t honest with their leaders?”
“They felt it was better to let them think other things killed people. No one lied about it. But, Pas told King Ishmarel, on Adia’s ship. He felt they should take precautions. Ahstam trained him. So, because Pas spoke up, Ahstam contacted Via and they talked to the Alb Council, because Ishmarel felt they should.”
“Was Ishmarel mad?”
Suma laughed. “No! He was very upset, but he and his father just talked to the Alb Council and they worked it out. Nobody’s mad at the healers! They all just want to help their people.”
Knowing about this made me even more happy to be part of a Zheien government. Here was something that could have torn it apart, but they just sat down and talked about the problem, without blaming people for it. If they don’t have to hide things, I don’t need to hide all my negatives. When I can learn not to do that.
Suma made me use a prog to remind me to take breaks. Then I ported back to healers chambers and got to work. Suma was right. I did need that break. It’s hard to see all the misery here.