Becky's Gift

Lady For A King

Anfon went straight towards the musicians. There was a display of stringed instruments, but I looked past it to wind instruments. A young man played a kind of flute, and he was Thordes. "Ladies, would you like to try a kanafa?"

Ester smiled. "I-I play the flute, is it similar?"

"King Anfon asked us to study Earthan music, and I believe a kanafa is like an Earthan flute or recorder. Please, try."

His hand graced a display with five of varying lengths. She picked the one in the middle. Tried it. A sour note came. "Oh, you need a lot of air for this one!" She blew harder and played a bit of "The Magic Flute", one of the few classical pieces I'd recognize. Really good! His friends played complicated harmonies with her, and she did faster notes. Her face got red.

Anfon picked another up and played just as expertly as they did! What fun!

While they did that, an artist came to me. "Yea Becky, I paint plates and hear you are well with animals. Will you put an animal in my flowers?"

I waved up a holo of a ternimpan, and painted him holding onto the flowers, which were the kind on that bush! They look kind of like chameleons, but with huge, round eyes kind of like ours. I gave him light blue.

Anfon and Ester joined us. "Oh, I wish I could paint like that!" She was out of breath, but smiling.

"Try this one!" He gave her a plate with a finished border of flowers.

"Oh, no, I'm not good enough—"

"O, but watch! If I do this—" He made a very childish drawing of my ternimpan, then erased it with a vaporizer. "—is easy to start over. Will you try?"

"I suppose I can try, and you can erase it. Yes." She drew a colorful parrot. He showed her how to vary the brush sizes and how to get any color she could think of, and how to get a holo of a parrot from the Alb Library. Wow! I didn't know there was a library here! Her hand shook bad, but apparently the prog compensated.

While she worked on her parrot, I did a tapir, a chinchilla, a green snake, an elephant, and a giraffe. She reminded me of me working on my pitiful poster, so scared of making a mistake. We got therapy when Rilley didn't come home, and all of us needed it. All of us loved arts and music, so we'd paint as a family while listening to classical.

I was worried that I'd see something disturbing from Mican, but our day was a very pleasant visit. Ester's parrot was even more of a hit than mine! Good.

Anfon took us through the market, and copies of Ester's parrot went like hotcakes! She loved to watch parrots in Mexico as a child. I saw her memory of crossing the Rio Grande into the US with her family. A recent memory. Her uncle died on the way up. They nearly starved. She was very sick. But, at home, a gang was threatening to kill her father, a government employee. One man that threatened her was in the market, frowning her way.

I touched his record, and he had TS status. Provisional. Everyone on Earth has that! "I need a TS Inspector!"

Whoosh! "I am Terisch Paha, TS Inspector Of Elshar Zheiea. What is the problem, Yea Becky?"

"This man threatened to kill her family, and poisoned her uncle's water! That man beside him is a slaver!" I pointed.

The haughty Elshar with him laughed. "Her family crossed illegally into the United States! Some of the slopfahi are still living there!"

I showed him what I saw. Poor Ester cried.

"You will not live to tell them, Heden."

The man went white! Another man who wore that grayish-white stuffed herbs in his mouth before I even saw the portal he came from! He fell and convulsed. White light vaporized his clothes. The Hispanic man got a light blue portal.