Chris, a business student, has a prophetic visitor the day SETI found aliens.Unusual Day

I came out of my International Trading class awed. We spent the entire class just watching the United Nations Commission On International Trade Law discuss the implications of the Earth Alliance Treaty that aliens sent SETI! 

Almost ran into a man. But, his blue eyes turned light. Fluorescent lights played a trick on me. He's wearing a tunic and pants in white with cobalt blue robes. And, a diagonal sash with sparkling pins. What country wears an outfit like that? I just smiled at him.

"Chris, I need you to remember me." This time, I noticed his blue eyes turn noticeably darker. This man can't be from Earth!

And, I felt his mind touch me, a very gentle touch, and memories flooded me!

"Out! Go to the tents. They'll feed you." From under the ragged black tarp that covered the door-hole, a foot shoved an old man into the neighbor's flower bed. He didn't come out.

On Elshar Mashai, damaging a flower can get you put into prison. The old man wore a blue robe stained with yellow around the neck. He tried to get up and sank.

No one in the dusty streets. I ran over there and helped him up. Brushed yellow dust off the worn robe. Healed the broken flowers with a touch. They'll be dead when the next sandstorm comes. This man once had status I couldn't match. I gave him my hand, knuckle-side up as Elshars like, and smiled. My medium-blue eyes could pass for Elshar if I acted Elshar.

Before I opened my mouth to greet him, his eyes turned light. He looked up and down me, not the leers I usually got, but a quick scan of my deep blue uniform. "A DS man! I am Marin Mai, Trader, of Prov One." He shoved his hand under mine and barely moved it. A wrinkled, shaking hand. Then, he tried to put his feet together to bow, and fell into my arms.

"Marin Mai, I am Chris Martin, Diplomat of DS. Will you come to my ship and share amta with me?"

"I would find it an honor, to sit on a DS ship again!" He barely kept his feet as we walked. I used my telepathy to project an image of two burly Elshars walking fast. Both of us were short and thin.

He kept looking at the pins on my sash. "Your telepathy's mighty strong for an Elshar woman."

I flinched. A DS man isn't supposed to let it show. "Training."

Marin laughed. "Training? I trained lots of recruits at Sigan Mas Consortium! No amount of training can hide telepathy that strong! You must have white Tessite on you. A necklace, perhaps, from someone you did not marry?"

Elshars give a very expensive gift when they sign a marriage contract. I sighed. "No. I never had time to get serious about anyone. But, you are right about the Tessite. My aandat has it—"

"You wear an aandat? How do you ask for favors from Kishan, in the temple? You must ask for them often, to keep light hair at your age." His soft hand pulled at my blonde curls. Elshars go dark, not gray.

We passed more rows of houses. A dorna cart nearly hit us before I steered us to the side of the dusty road. The dorna snapped at Marin. I hugged him against me to get his arm away from the horse-like animal.

He laughed. "It is not often that a pretty woman holds an old cael like me. Ah, I once enjoyed the company of delightful women, with manners like yours, Martin."

I kept an arm around him. "It does not please me that your son put you out in the street. I cared for my father in my home until he died." The memory made me shudder. This man looked a lot like him.

I startled, as the dusty yellow streets faded and the crowd in GSU's Business Building came back. "Marin? They recloned you?" I hugged him. We got married on a planet two days from Earth. But, how can he see the future? I'm still in college! I felt very confused!

People stared at us. Marin laughed and pulled at my arm. "Let's find a place to talk. I have a limo waiting, from the Embassy."

I laid my hand on his arm and he took my heavy backpack as if it didn't weigh anything! I have a lot of explaining to do. Listen, as we walk to the street.

We walked, and I listened. There is a woman who leads our DS Team. I never joined one with hundreds of members! She can see futures. She showed me mine. In the future we shared, I had many injuries. In this one, Berto sent a diplomat for me, Sirah, Risch, my bahie, and many others. We moved to Elshar Zheiea, a planet they made for the Elshar Zheien, and my house is in Ferrimos. Did you ever visit—but we don't have stone homes. I am a clone of Marin Mar, and I want to marry you. I have all of his memories. Do I sound like him? Enough that you could love me?

His arm trembled under my hand, and tears streamed down his face.

A clone? But, his mind felt like his, and all that love I had for Marin Mar, I felt it, I shook with my heartbeats!

"Yes! I love you, Marin!"

He giggled as we took the escalator down into the lobby. Through the glass doors, I saw a limo. A purple limo!

"Purple? Don't tell me you have Thordes drivers—" And, two people jumped out, a man and a woman. To others, they appeared Black, but I could see through it. Dark purple skin, probably from Ka, they're formal. All my training flashed through my mind. I was a diplomat, one of the few Earthans that survived four years at Sigan Mas and got that title. Like stuffing years of life into my mind, in a couple minutes? I felt shaky!

He opened the door for me. Oh, you make me quiver! Chris, from the moment I woke on Pirad's table, I wanted to find you! Marin is very happy for me! Feel his mind?

We got in and he hugged me. Yes, I enjoyed the feel of Marin's mind, but he's different. When we met, he had brain damage from a lot of injuries. They got to him before that happened, and he remembers a lot more.

This Marin is different, too, but I didn't want the other Marin, I wanted him! My Marin relaxed. He wanted to be sure that I loved him. I do!

When the door closed, he ported us to the ship. It's different, to remember it, than to experience it! We were sitting in the limo, then I saw the crowd before we ported, felt the warmth, then a cool breeze that lifted my long hair. And, suddenly, we're standing on a spaceship!

The rubbery floor was like my ship that I traded for years to get, but it was red-violet, not deep blue. And, huge! My ship was barely big enough to stand up in. I looked around, breathless. DS training kicked in and I closed my mouth. Smiled at all the diplomats standing around. Diplomats in DS blue, the standard bright medium blue that reminded me of NASA jumpsuits without all the pockets. Sashes filled with sparkling pins. That marks a diplomat. Some had white, they're treaty diplomats. Traders dressed like Marin with robes of cobalt blue, but most had the light blue like mine, regular traders not master traders.

I touched my terminal—I have one now, with a white Tessite aandat? I let it out on my feet. "Oh, it's—" I looked down.

When I got mine, on Earth, I had a cold and it zipped up me like—this one oozed up my legs. I felt sick. But, it's just an aandat. It'll get to my trunk—eventually.

"I wish I knew how to make them hurry! Healer, do you know?"

A light-haired healer with dark streaks in his hair laughed. "They take as long as they take! I never learned how to talk to aandats!"

I laughed, too. Finally it got there, but I didn't feel telepathy. How long did it take, then? A couple of days, then I felt like the whole room was shouting at me. I was in graduate school in statistics, and there were less than 10 of us. I had to leave and Molly's Ship wasn't in the Spaceport. I ported to Atlanta Zheien Embassy, well, the front of the building, and slavers nearly got me! But a diplomat taught me how to use it. He told me Sigan Mas was giving free school to a few Earthans like me. Suggested I had skills for Diplomatics, which shocked me!

"Is there any way to get telepathy faster?"

Marin laughed. "Marry me and let Pirad reclone you!"

Limo doors sprang open. Kanto helped Torie out. And there with Bern was Eileen Power, who had the same name as a famous historian who loved medieval economics and history. "Oh, are you Torie?"

"I guess so, if you're Eileen! What's going on?"

"Can't talk about it out here. Let's go to Pirad."

"Pirad's here?"

Bern laughed. "We need you ready to work. We have so much work to do! I think we will succeed, this time!"

"Just don't faint, when you marry her—"

Bern shoved him! "I did! You are pale, but you survived it, and so shall I!"

They both laughed. They took us to another group. Eileen held Bern's hand. I recognized Chris Martin who was in my classes when I went for my Ph. D. "Chris! You know Torie Atherton, don't you?"

She smiled. "Of course I do! We all loved studying Elshar topics on the Sleepshare, didn't we?" I squeezed Marin's hand.

"Yeah, once Earth had it and I could get the trade for it!"

Pirad led us all into his green lab. He's scary-looking to most Earthans, like a little green man but my height. Half my width. Very thin. Their muscles are very strong without being large. His shiny, dark green skin and large head in proportion to his body gave him a surreal childlike appearance. A very bony-looking body. And, his huge eyes had yellow whites, green irises with 3 sets of orange pupils. "You know things that slavers want, Torie Atherton. I must send you to Elshar Mashai now."

I grabbed his arm. "But, she was going to join DS as a historian! She can help Marin and I find all those half-Ty'nirrhans—"

"You will have the Link. Tell me she can use it!" He put my cold hand on my forehead. I felt her mind—oh, he lent me telepathy. No, she couldn't use the Link.

I waved, and an aandat fell out of the terminals in Eileen's and Torie's pockets. She felt it ooze to cover like a swimsuit. That didn't bother Torie. When Dad got his Elshar traders to bring aandats home, he was supposed to get the white one, but his drunk partner put it on me by mistake. It helped me a lot in my trading. I watched him trade and I watched Uncle Barry trade a lot.

Eileen stayed composed, but really squeezed Bern's hand!

Pirad watched Torie's memories. "I will send her on my ship with one of my clones. Her husband is not here, so I cannot reclone her here. My clone will use her memories to port Opseh there. Then he can reclone both of them."

Another Bisillip led her into a portal.

Then we went in Pirad's lab.