But looking around this peaceful place, I didn’t feel like I was really a warrior. People planted flowers by their front doors, or inspected cracks. How do houses get cracked in a containment? That really bothered me. Most people had happy expressions as they greeted friends or moved something around. For the most part, they carried things rather than using a containment to float them. Biehshah are very strong, so they won’t hurt themselves. Der had a house on our left and put statues of his family standing at the corner nearest us. He carried them over and rearranged them as we walked. On the right was Lisen and Reggie talking about which flowers they might want.

Walks had tiles in them that told stories. This walk led to our new house and Ir read them off. “Here is my family, Kia. My parents wrote this as they traveled on the ship from Bisillipia to Biehshah.

“We left at 14th moon. Pilots tell us we will only travel a day, so most of our friends are also making tiles for our new walkways. We hope our children will enjoy them. Our first tiles show our home in Leheren. There all is green obsidian buildings. Gardens are a long walk away. Our colony is planned so we have flowers all around our homes and big gardens to enjoy along our walkways. We are carrying all varieties of Biehshah flowers and many of Aryll as well. Zheien and Xchou are also generous with flowers, so Daklanm is painting flowers while I make the story and arrange them. Holos will be expensive, so art adds color and poetry for our eyes.

“Our house must also be simple, but we decided to build a new one since reminders of home are so very unpleasant. Many with us want new homes. We tired of living in buildings with the only windows in the top to show us only moons. These homes will have large windows to let in the light. How we changed, and we now enjoy more light on our soft skins. Warmth was very unpleasant to our hard bodies. These new ones are soft, and warm. All of us enjoy this newness. Those who did not changed back to their familiar.

“We are the new colonists with much hope for this home under a warm sun.” The last tile had a yellow sun in a blue sky.

“Biehshah looks like Earth, a little. Does it feel as weird to you as it does to me, Ir?” All the beautiful tiles led up to our house, about the size of Daddy’s 1200 square foot house in Clarkston. He didn’t like all the repair bills there.

“It does. I am trying to ignore that. Skies should be blue, but I saw many places in my travels. I will get used to this.” The house was sand-colored except for the tiles that made a portrait of his parents and him as a baby. He had platinum blond hair, even as an infant. His deep green coveralls were like baby clothes I saw in our colony in Rainbow. Stretchy, soft stuff except for the rubbery shoes. They both had the bright blue eyes many Biehshah have, like Ten.

Ir pushed the front door open. Inside, there was a single room with a double bed. Just like our room on the ship? “Kia, I left room for you to put anything you want, or I can trade for things for you.”

“I want you to put things in here, too. I can always rotate things out if I want something new.” It felt odd not to have a kitchen or a bathroom, but I don’t need ‘em now. My aandat will keep me clean. I can wave up food in our menus.

“Put your things first, then I can add something from mine that you choose.”

“Ok.” I looked through my stuff. Folding chairs? No. They had Trintiy Baptist Church in spray painted letters in black on them. One had a church bulletin taped in a pocket under the seat from 1955 and it was typed with plenty of errors. The letterhead of the church was misspelled that way, too. “You can trade these. Someone who went to that church might want them.”

That expression almost seemed disappointed. “But they are from the day we met.”

I hugged my husband. “I have you! And Biehshah remember things even better than Zheien do! You’ll remember every detail of telling me, Yes, I’m from out there! and pointing to my bathroom!”

He laughed. “I pointed to the horizon because Biehshah was rising!”

“Oh.” I giggled.

But I didn’t have anything I thought matched the sand-colored walls, which were bare. I had some paintings I did in high school that weren’t very good. One was a forest and I didn’t look at a forest picture to get it right. Another was a giraffe and he was very short-necked for a giraffe, with too-short legs and I put him in the wrong biome, anyway. The third one of Granddaddy’s house—

A knock startled me. There in our open doorway stood Mama! I stared at her and thought surely this can’t be her, but she ran in. “Kia? When did you get so much silver in your hair?”

I hugged Mama and we cried and Ir waved up a soft sofa like I always wanted, emerald green with flowered square pillows.

Her hair was still light brown like mine used to be. “Mama, how did you get here?”

Those blue eyes, the same shade as mine, blinked at me. “Where’s here? And whose house is this?”

“This is our home, Mother! I married Kia and we live here in Biehshah Ye~. It is a moon of Areon in the Alb System.” He waved and a model of Alb appeared. Alb is a star cluster. Oh.

Mama startled when he waved that up. Looked at my husband, who sort of looks tan, then out of the big window past me on her right. “The sky’s purple! There’s 3 moons!” She shook all over.

“I will get you a healer, Mother!”

Before I could blink, an orange fella in white robes ported in and bowed at the waist. “Mrs. Garfield, I am Gio~, and I know healing for an Earthan. May I touch your head?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She looked at his orange skin and twin fingers. “You’re an alien? Can you cure cancer? Maybe you already did, ‘cause I don’t feel very bad.”

“Ea, we can cure cancer and many other ills of Earthans. May I touch your head?”

“Okay.” Her blue eyes studied him.

He spent a few minutes looking over her points and I shook. Ir held me. Mama saw that and smiled at us.

The healer smiled, too. “I find ne cancer or any other unwell with you, Lady. Shall I bring your husband?”

“Yes! I want to see Chevy.” She cried.

Their holo came up and Daddy stared. Let go of Camile, who startled. “You cannot be serious! You cloned her?”

Mama bristled. “Camile, I’m not a clone! What’re you doin’ hangin’ on my husband’s arm like that?”

Daddy frowned. “How’s this possible! I saw them bury your casket in Whitepoint Cemetery! That’s—” He waved up Mama’s headstone. There was a hole with red mud.

Molly leaned in the doorway. “Oh, my! Mrs. Garfield, I woke you up, but you were asleep and I had to heal someone else. I’m sorry! I came as fast as I could!” She pulled at a red ringlet. Binneas was there with her.

“You can wake up dead people? But, Pirad said he couldn’t!” He looked at Camila, who sobbed. “Oh, honey, Pirad can make clones of me—”

Another green portal roared. “Hi, I’m your uncle Chase! Camile, I know I’m just a clone but I have all Chevy’s memories an’ you called him Chase anyway. If you want me.” He walked over to her but she backed against the wall.

Molly ran to her and grabbed her arm. “Clones are like twins! If you had twin babies, you wouldn’t be scared of one because if they’re identical, they’re like a clone of each other, would you?”

“Twins are not made in a test tube!”

“Actually, some multiple births start out in a petri dish, then they transfer the embryos, so you could say that. People who did IVF like that mom on reality TV with 8 kids—”

“It’s wrong! I would never do that! I—”

Uncle Chase cried and started to walk out. I grabbed his arm. “I always wanted an uncle. Daddy said he wished he had brothers, when Mama died.”

Daddy grabbed his arm, too. “And, I am glad to have a brother. Don’t cry.”

“It’s like losing her twice! I can’t stand it!”

Mama got mad. “Everybody hold it! Let me understand what’s going on, here!” She held her arms up. “I died? I don’t remember much about that. I woke up in this green place and snuck out because I was scared, then a nice lady showed me where you live, Kia, and I came here. My husband remarried my care aide because I died. Now, Camila, you can’t have my husband! We’re still married, aren’t we?” She looked at Daddy.

He came over and hugged her. “Yes, we’re still married! Nobody told me they could bring you back!”

I looked at the Queen Of Rainbow. “Nobody told me Molly could bring people back from the dead! All the healers in Rainbow said it was impossible!”

“Well, I’m a clone of Molly, so I’m Maggie. She went to MarKu to live. My husband Ben is a clone of her husband. We have their memories and we’re very happy together. It was a shock to wake up and be told I wasn’t her. But, another of our sisters who’s living our Molly life at Emory, went to a hospital and woke up a person who just died that they couldn’t bring back, and healed her. Then she felt sorry for a couple whose baby died and she woke him up, and he was in the morgue at a children’s hospital. So she woke up every person in that morgue and in the first hospital’s morgue. Some of those people are here in Rainbow.

“But, Mrs. Garfield, you’re the first person who was actually in a grave someplace. Briahh wrote a prog to help Deb retrieve people from gravesites because a lot of people from Ry Pethe are here. They came on the ship with you. But, his prog misunderstood and brought bodies from graves with DNA of people here. I’m afraid we had to send all the ones who weren’t Earthan-Ty’nirrhan back except you. I tried to wake them all but you are the only one his prog reconstructed. I was worried you wouldn’t have any memories at all! Molly on Earth was only able to wake people who had been embalmed, not who were already buried. The Earthan-Ty’nirrhans weren’t decomposed because of how they do burials. Yours wasn’t.”

When she said Earthan-Ty’nirrhan, Camila paled. “I did a ceremony. Were there others?”

Five of her relatives were half Earthan-Ty’nirrhan, like her! Several people came and took her with ‘em. One had a very Aztec outfit, and two others were in worn peasant clothes. The two others looked like a man and a woman dressed in the 40s. Daddy and Mama dressed in outfits like that to have pictures made of a 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt, a very futuristic looking car. Uncle Chase walked after them.

That healer, Gi~o, changed their records so Daddy was married to Mama again. I hoped Camila would accept Uncle Chase!

Maggie started to say something but a healer’s holo called her back to Rainbow. “Oh, Kia, all the Biehshah have to sleep in Rainbow with me tonight.”

“But, we just got here! Can’t we stay in Ir’s house?”

She frowned. “I won’t make you, but you should know that a lot of Zheien got sick Monday night on Elshar Zheiea after the first night of the Alb Festivals. Every Zheien king is suggesting that all Zheien sleep in Rainbow until their healers release ‘em. I’m following suit. Last night they all slept in their healer’s chambers, and people still got sick.

“Ir, I don’t want to gamble with your people’s lives. Please, ask them all to sleep in Rainbow. It’s your colony, so do what you think is best, but I think Rainbow is safest for a few days. Zheien colonies die sometimes from the newness of a different home. Nobody but healers knew about that until today when Pas—he’s the master healer here—mentioned it to King Ishmarel—he’s King Of Zheiea, all 800,000 Zheien planets. He and Elder King Marel’vanrah asked all Zheien kings of Alb to do this. Thordes leaders also think it’s a good idea for their people. They lose new colonies occasionally, too, and everyone thought it was just the usual dangers of starting a colony.”

Ir looked at me. “Kia, I think we should ask our people to do this.”

“I agree! Grab ‘em with your telepathy and let’s go!”

He giggled at the way I put that, held his arm out, and we looked at Mama and Daddy.

“Where are we going to sleep? Should we go with you?” Daddy blew his nose.

Gi~o offered to design a house for them in the Earthan Colony.

“We can’t live next door to you?”

In all the years we had the Jujujean Colony, the only colonists we had were people married to a Biehshah or Bisillip, only 3 of us. Now, it’s 4. I didn’t think of a reason not to say yes. Telepathy’s not limited by distance. “You can live next door. Maybe they can juggle the houses.” I laughed.

“O, I asked of those near you. Lisen and Reggie can move to the next place, and VW and Veliatsheene were agreeable, as were twenty of your neighbors.”

I felt a little guilty, but Ir reassured me. With tech, it’s easy to move a house.

Camila’s relatives made a copy of their neighborhood in a new city in the Earthan Colony. As we walked down the path by Ry Pethe, they had some Earthan homes up, but we could still see the colorful oranges, yellows, and pinks of their walls through the trees.

We walked behind the shops. Earthan Colony had a replica of the entire Beltline, according to the map! We’d be walking for several hours to reach Rainbow! “Ir, let’s port!”