Farley looked at Konomai and started to say something, but Karl grabbed his arm. “They kill kids? Who was that man?” Karl had tears on his face!

My husband picked him up. “Quickly, let us go to the ship! Karl’s friends are there, and he needs them! Karl, ba, nae think!”

Daddy ran with us. “He’ll be all right—”

“None of us are all right after seeing Tommy get hit by that car!” Rose sobbed.

Mama put an arm around her. “Don’t start, Rose, just keep walking—”

“Don’t start?! We just saw 8 people killed without a trial, and one of them was a little boy!” She sobbed.

Berto came back over. “I’m sorry you’re upset, but that boy was wearing traders’ robes, and he earned those by passing a difficult test. He became a trader for the Alliance Traders Service. We have rules that no one can kill another trader or steal from one. He broke those rules. The men who passed judgment on him are judges. Andrisch is a TS Inspector, and he used his telepathy to see the boy’s memories. I am not happy to see someone that young die, but I saw his memories. He killed his mother and savaged her! That was not an innocent young boy who broke a rule. His father killed thousands of people, most on ships as large as this one, and he ported them into space. They died fast. But his father also used the same methods on his enemies. I do not want to upset you more, but most people in the Alliance would never hurt a child.” He spoke English to her, without an accent.

She nodded, but didn’t look at him. Rose has awful social anxiety.

Berto touched my arm and spoke Elshar to me. “Farnsworth, we have slavers on Earth who are from a higher tech level. You cannot tell her that! The Praefate said today that as on Elshar of old, we will now employ TS Eliminators to kill clones of notorious higher-level slavers and those who help them. That boy was one of Heden’s bahies, trained by him to kill.”

I gasped! Heden is the worst slaver, and his methods traumatize men.

Farley shook all over and Konomai took him off his feet. “You must nae, if a TS Inspector—”

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“He is gone, and think you I can nae hide us from traders? Let us go, quickly!” We all ran for a wallportal that showed Cevit Ion. And I yanked my sisters through it. Konomai’s son Nomo carried 8 year old Allison through.

Jirris and Amber led us all the way through to an orange ship. I recognized Goes, 1st Prince Of MarKu, sitting with a group that included Earthans. Farley knows a lot of these people.

Brian and two friends ran over. “Karl! What’s wrong?”

He sobbed. “You’re not gonna make fun o’ me for crying?” Like blond Jason, he worried his hair until it tangled, but his was a lot worse under his baseball cap.

Jason took his hand. “I’ve been in therapy for a long time. I used to get mad over stupid things. Well, I still do, but I’m working on it. Karl, you remind me of me sometimes. I used to tease my sisters and break their stuff, but look at this.”

He waved up a prog that brings up a containment around a person’s hands if they think about hitting or embarrassing touches. I looked at the code, and someone really skilled wrote it! We had this one in Rainbow and I used it, even though I never did that.

I waved mine up and set all the controls to the highest.

Karl frowned. “I’m not stupid! You don’t need to show me.” He rolled his light brown eyes.

“I’m not showing you. I’m running it.” With a final wave, I did.

Karl’s eyes got big. “But, you never hit anybody! Or, cuss. You’re Miss Perfect.”

“I feel like it a lot, and I’m scared, one of these days, that I will! Now I don’t have to worry about it.” I smiled, and I did feel weight drop from my shoulders! I caught a lavender ribbon before it fell off a curl. Wrote a quick prog to put ‘em back as I pulled on ‘em.

Karl slid all of his all the way and waved.

Then, my sisters did the same thing, and both my parents! I couldn’t believe it!

Daddy saw Karl staring at his. “I’m turning over a new leaf. They say you can’t change your Enneagram Type, and I’m a Type 3, but I’m gonna try. Maybe I can at least stop being so critical of my family. We always wanted a large family, but I never thought about how hard I might need to work at healthy communication.

“We might’ve taught Tommy better, if I’d paid for therapy sooner. Even as hard as he was to have at home, I loved him, and I didn’t want him to die.”

Farley took Daddy’s hands. “Fa, will you share him with me, that I can love him also?”

“I don’t think that’s a good—”

“Ella, I’m learning that Zheien are better than us. Maybe my new son can teach us a kinder, higher way of living. How do I share memories?”