Doe’s brown eyes studied me. “Lady, we need all occupations in our colony! You may choose, and all are more well because of it. I can provide a tutor from Jovia, if Zheien history interests you. Ophanarsen knows MarKuan history back to our founding, and MarKu Prov of Zhea~ to his founding.”
“Really? How many years is that?”
“A Zhea~ year is roughly an Earthan year, so we measure all colonies’ time so. This year is 7818. MarKu was founded in 5530. We have space travel since 4825. MarKu and Ye~ are two of our oldest provs, and date from year zero.”
“Almost 8000 years? The oldest book of the Bible dates from about 8,000 years ago, as far as written history. So did your dates begin with written history?”
His brown eyes opened very wide. “Lady, our history is telepathic. Our historians share memories of the first Zheien to walk Zhea~. Our race began with year zero. Father Of All created us in that year. Our Father and Mother created us telepathically and raised us. From them came all Zheien. When our foreparents learned all we needed, Father and Mother of All left us to create other worlds. Some of our historians believe they created S’ai next.”
I felt peaceful as he talked about this. “So in 4825 years, you learned how to make spaceships? Did you have help?”
“Nae. Once we flew, we met the Jain, and they are a race of Elshars. They had a trade network and we joined. Later, it became the Unified when we sent colonies. The Elshars abandoned the Jain and suggested to Bisillipians and Aryllans that they should combine their trade networks, and this became the Alliance. This is the first trade network we invited Earth to join.”
Meg looked a bit disappointed. Zheien don’t need to dig up artifacts. But, she was a very good healer.
“When do we have to leave?” Anne looked ready to cry.
Doe hugged her. “We wish nae to rush you, but we fear for your family. A ship waits to fly all of you to your new home. Wish you to take your house?”
Austin startled. “We can’t! It’s on the National Register Of Historic Places.” Megan and Tom nodded. Austin and Tom were about the same height, but Austin had a build like an athlete. Tom looked strong, too, but narrower in the shoulders. Megan’s just a little taller than me, so next to Tom she almost looked little. Had a lot of lines in her face, though. She and Mom looked a lot alike, now that I knew we were related!
“Nae fear, we can make an exact replica, and one can sell it for you. Mr. Links, we have a legal question.”
Tan came out of a nearby room. It had a tapestry of a place with giant flowers the size of trees! It wasn’t the place Adia remembered with the blocky buildings. These houses had painted carvings of flowers and window boxes for smaller ones that looked like wood. He had a nice three-piece suit on in navy pinstripe and a blue tie. “I can help you. Tan Links.” He offered his hand to Austin and they shook. Then, to Anne.
“Can you help us with real estate? We need to sell our home, and we’ve never done this! Anne inherited our house from her parents.”
“I can learn it from a real estate lawyer here. Have you got a realtor?”
Anne got a thoughtful look. “There’s Miranda Pruitt of Northside Realty. She helped friends of ours who sold their home in Inman Park six months ago. They were really happy. Like us, they inherited their house. One of my co-workers suggested her. Turns out she’s related to us. Well, to me.” Austin squeezed her hand.
He nodded. “But, you might want to wait. If you wish clones, they might want to live in the house.”
Anne smiled. “What do you think, Austin? She could work in the library, and he could do construction, or even go back to school!”
He laughed. “Oh, Atlanta, you’re in for it!” So glad he won’t die! She’s so happy with him. Cev’ll have Sara Ionic.
Ryee—the host—took Anne and Austin’s hands. “Are you ready for your recloning? Pirad can provide clones if you share memories for them in perhaps, two hours. His lab is this way. He has a different appearance than most of us.”
She shivered, but nodded. “I remember him. He was nice.”
They walked to a tapestry that showed a cavernous green place. With green obsidian walls! Austin kept an arm around her. Even her dark hair shook. I felt bad for her.
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Tom sighed. “Can we go with them? Are there other Earthans in the colony yet?”
Brian and Jason came from a group of kids. “Tom, can we wait until Sara’s family comes?” That’s Sara, Steven’s mom. Brian looked upset. Looked at Jason, whose lips were quivering. Another boy was with ‘em. Where’s Steven?
“His mama just married Vonn, so they’re all going to Ye~.”
“Married? How’d we miss that?”
“It happened on the Wedding Ship, and it’s still going. I didn’t know that was a thing, but all the Thordes are marrying there. Even the Areonian preacher knew about it.” Jason laughed.
Liz shook her head. “Ryee and Adia will need Laura’s help, and diplomats have to stay until the Treaty votes. First the Alliance Treaty, then the Unified one. We might be here for weeks, or months! I don’t know if Sara and her folks will leave until they do. No one’s talked to them yet, have they?”
Blond-headed lady got up. “I heard you mention Sara. I wish to meet her. We wanted to attend the wedding, but since Sara does not know me, we did not go.” She wore an old-fashioned navy dress to her ankles with lost of pretty lace. Boots that laced all the way up.
Liz startled. “You know Vonn Links?”
“Ja, I am Tanda Weiss. Here is my husband, Kol. I worked with Adia in Fuels Research.” She smiled. “I was there when she discovered the new fuel that enabled all of us to travel here and bring our worlds! It is called Adiarayalite for her. And, Joleon, her father, sits by her. Gutenabend!”
They smiled. He came from our study group. My chemistry homework, spread out in holos, and floating molecule models. Well, my clone’s homework. I’m done with that! She’s—that’s advanced chemistry! Nothing that I was studying! I mentally touched her Alliance record. She’s in med school! That’s graduate organic chemistry!
Laura brought her father to get healing earlier and her mother tried to shoot Adia! Yikes! But all of her family are on the ship now. Liz caught me up. They plan to take their ranch with Tennessee Walking Horses and Jersey cattle! Her uncles and aunt have other kinds, too!
Aunt Meg smiled.
“Guten abend!
They talked a bit about science, then he changed the subject. “Do you know history of Cleveland, Ohio in 1840?”
Meg laughed. “My family came from there, about that time period! My branch moved to New Jersey at the turn of the century and worked for Nikolai Tesla!” And tried to steal some of his patents. Figures! “But before that, they lived in Cleveland. What do you want to know?”
“Are you familiar with the Links family?”
“Let me take a look in my family tree.” Meg waved up her familysearch.org tree and she had Gertrude Linksch, b. 1769, Cannstatt, Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, but no death date. There were 12 kids listed and none of ‘em had a death date, but one male child was a Links and his huge family lived in Cleveland until our sorry ancestor moved to New Jersey. Lots of Linkses still up there.
But Be~saech, another orange Zheien came close. He wore orange lighter than him in a tunic and pants. Bowed. “I am Be~saech, and I write progs. What do you here?” His gray eyes opened wide.
“Oh, I love family history! This is familysearch.org and they have lots of historical records--”
“Cool, but you can run this one, and get items people threw away! Try it!” I pointed it out. Megan did, and photographs came up. Names and dates filled in.
“Did you write this, Be~saech? Amazing!” She bounced on her heels. I’d seen Mom do that. I did, sometimes.
“Many Areonians wished to find relatives here. We can trace by genetic material, and infer relationships by items and proximity, as well as similarity of faces in photographs and carvings. But your work interests me!”
Meg talked about time periods and artifacts of the 1800’s and waved up her notes from an urban archaeology project in Cleveland she did years ago. On the fly, he found data that wasn’t published and added it to the prog. A lot of history sources got added! Wow! Pictures and negatives, underground, some of them paved over for a hundred years, appeared in places as they were back then. Cleveland got reconstructed into a 3D model from rubble that’s been buried from the time when it was just a swamp!
We talked 1840’s on Earth. Nothing in my school textbook about Cleveland, Ohio where they all came from, in 1840. Work is set in London, England, and my Lit class just talked about it. My history class talked about immigration in very general terms. William Henry Harrison. John Tyler. James K. Polk. Zachary Taylor. Not exactly the most famous presidents. Harrison died after a month, Tyler was almost impeached, his presidency saw Texas annexed, Polk saw Texas and Florida become states, and Taylor was there when the Gold Rush began.
Once Be~saech did it for Cleveland, he did it for Atlanta! On the map, Megan marked construction site after construction site that she was slated to inspect, and retrieved artifacts for City Of Atlanta! The prog let us know, as soon as we have a signed treaty, these items will go to the cities involved.
And, he did Hamburg, Germany! A lot of Germans from Württemberg came through this port, and there are Areonians descended from people who were on a ship that sunk in 1764. Wow! Artifacts from that shipwreck also rose.
“Anne will be creating the Earthan Colonies Library, and copies of all of this will go into it for all to see! Earth will also have it.”
Such a wonder! Meg looked really happy!