A man next to him that resembled him startled. It seemed strange to me, to see a Zheien startle! With all that telepathy, you'd think nothing would.

This man stood and raised his arms. I felt tingles from all the Zheien! Farley let me know this is Goes, 1st Prince Of MarKu, Zhea~'s largest and most prosperous Zheien colony! They all love the rulers of MarKu. "Everyone, we will be delayed for a time. Slavers started a slaver mine on Titan, moon of Saturn, just two weeks past. Pirad, a brilliant scientist, sent a ship and an army of holograms with containments to wrest it from them. He was successful. They will arrive in about an hour. We must be ready! Most of these slaves are of MarKu, but many have friends who need them. We fear to separate them. Most are terrified, and think they go to another mine. Many of you have memories of adopting former slaves and caring for them in your homes. Will you help us? We can nae bring more healers here quickly. Our healers are mostly those with nae experience healing slaves!

"I ask that those of you with children younger than 10, and those who fear seeing injured or fear for their children to see them, move to this chamber near us." He pointed , by rolling up the outside flat finger, and an arch showed an empty room.

"Those who wish to help us, please stay. Move now, my friends. We have little time to teach you the work of healer helpers."

Most everyone with small children moved. Several families knew each other and worked out who'd go and who'd stay. Jason and his sisters stayed. One lady had a large family. "Patty, can we leave our flock with you while we help out?"

She smiled. "Sure! Is that all right, Mama? I'm sorry I got mad."

"I am sorry for what I said, also. Go and help them. Jana, please go. I will sing for them." A Hispanic lady smiled.

Her little girl hugged her arm. "I want to stay and help, too! I'll be 10 next week! Please, Mama?"

She looked worried, but nodded. "Can you see difficult things? People with owies?"

"We watched 911, and I didn't get sick."

"Okay, stay with me. If you get scared, we'll go." I wasn't too sure kids that young could handle—Mama took Allison out. Daddy offered to stay, since Jo, Rose, and even Karl wanted to stay. Their holo-friends weren't there now. Elsie looked scared, but she didn't move to that room.

Steven ran in. "Oh, good! I'll stay and help, too."

Another boy came. "I will also help!"

"Puret, you're not ten yet, my friend."

Jana pulled at Puret's arm. "You look my age! I'm helping."

A dark-haired man ran in. "Oh, Puret! I'll stay with you. I can be brave. Our friends come—" He shook all over.

A blond man held his shoulders. "Derees! My friend, are you sure--?"

"I want to help! These poor people need us! All the diplomats and scientists come, too." They spoke with a German accent.

And a lady staggered in. "Rees, I want to help. Sonalina will stay with our younger children."

Derees put his arms around her. "Let us sit. Tasia, do not try to heal them. We will sit by them, ja?"

Pas went over there. "Patasia, child, you need more rest—"

"Are they resting? No, because they think they cannot be free, like I did! You said, Healing is healing. I need this, and they need it." She smiled and hugged Derees' arm.

"Then, listen carefully." He still looked worried, but smiled.

Everyone came in from the other ships. A few walked across to the other room, which was probably a ship. A lady with a baby and two boys that pointed at Puret went through, and several small Zheien children went with her. And a Zheien with a lot of pins led two older boys, but a younger one stopped him. "Fa, I wish to teach Eavia, Joean and Hav how to help a healer—"

"And I wish all of you to go! Bae, you are ne able to heal—"

"It takes ne strength to look, Fa! I have restraint." This fella had red curls. Golden eyes like a setting sun, and his dad did, too. But Dad had long, silver curls but not many lines on his face.

He sighed, and it rumbled on us! "Promise me you will ne heal. This is too much excitement for you, Bae!" Those golden eyes dripped yellow sparkles.

The eldest boy hugged him. He had dark curls and red-gold eyes like Pas. "Ne fear, Fa. I know how to block him if he tries to heal. See?" He touched the left side of the older man's face. This one looked maybe 15.

"We will ne let him, Fa." The next boy rubbed his father's arm. He had auburn curls like his older brother and golden eyes. They looked a lot alike. Looked Brian's age, about 12.

"I will help him to ne let him, Fa." He had a shape like maybe a ten-year-old, and had light brown curls, but those same golden eyes.

The men laughed.

That older one kissed each forehead. "Ea, stay with me, my bae. Let us sit there."

Their mother had a time getting the other kids to go with the others, but they went and she sat by Vonn and Derees and Puret sat by Bianca and Jana. I smiled at them. Easy to remember all these names, with my husband's elephant memory. That term amused him as I thought about how elephants remember when to migrate.

"O, Liz!" That younger man reached a hand for a young girl.

The man with her sure had a lot of pins--he startled. "Indoe, 3rd Prince Of MarKu!" He tried to jump up and bow, and the prince held his arm down. Everyone carried on about the royalty of MarKu, especially how talented Goes is! I didn't know much about his brothers.

"Nae bow, dear friend! I nae expect it. Please, rest! Your color is light, very light! Pas—"

Pas frowned at him and put him on his fa's lap. "You must ne exert so! When they come, I shall choose your unwell, for all four of you."

"Ea, Pas." He sighed, and it rumbled on us.

The Prince hugged him and his fa, too. "I am very happy to see you. Every time I visited, I nae saw you, but I looked for you. All of us. Please forgive me, to speak of it."

"I wish to know you, all of you, ea. If Laura can bear, I wish to come and visit MarKu." Laura! People spoke in whispers about her, in Rainbow, how she talked about things openly that brought slavers to Ye~!

That prince glanced at Pas, who frowned. He just rubbed J~oie's head. He doesn't want him to visit them?

J~oie took a breath, as if to say something else, and leaned his head against his father's shoulder. Fell asleep.

His father acted like that was normal! The misery on his face told me he still worries about his son.

Goes looked worried, but he raised his arms again. He had dark curls and brown eyes. A very muscular body and broad shoulders. "Now we are ready to learn how to help friends who have been slaves. I fear to shock many of you, but here is a presentation Berto made to turn leaders in the Alliance against slavery." Such a deep voice! A very skilled speaker.

A holo came up, life-sized, of a cave. "I wish you to know what slaves know. Many who own them have never set foot in a mine. This is a bluemetal mine recently liberated. Walk with me." I recognized Berto, who sent us on a lot of missions. Another very skilled speaker, but he's Elshar. He walked in, and the floor had rocks of various sizes. It wasn't easy to keep his balance. "If you had an injury to your foot or leg, walking on this might cause you to fall and get injured worse. Or, if you had a hurt head and your balance was not good. Slavers believe slaves are cheap, that they can simply trade for more. They do not even try to make work easier for an injured man. If he is injured, he can easily die from a fall that would not hurt one of us."

He went into a room with boots. These were crude leather boots of various sizes.

"Slaves are taken to a place like this. They must remove all of their clothing and put on tunics like these." He got one from a pile. It was stiff enough to stand on its own. "These are woven from metal fibers, and they scratch." He held out his hand and blood dripped from cuts on it! "These are not sturdy enough or long enough to provide much protection. Slavers do not care if their workers get infections or poisonings from these cuts." A strong man, not to flinch, getting a deep cut like that! I couldn't imagine--

"Boots and tunics are reused, so poisons are from all parts of this mine. They also get embedded with sharps from obsidian. Bluemetal and obsidian have veins beside each other." He cut one open. Glass shards poked up through the sole, and some were in the sides, too. He turned the boot inside out so we could see. They cut him in a dozen places while he did that! Not a flinch.

"They do not provide pocket doctors like this one." He waved, and a golden ball listed poisons from the tunic and remedies and Berto let it seal the cuts and shoot a dot on his neck. "If I did not run my doctor just now, I would not be able to finish this holo." And, he still made it. He's very brave.

He went down a ramp. A room cut out of the rock had slots cut into the walls. "Sleeping arrangements are different in each mine. Some have bunks, as you see here, just large enough for one slave to squeeze in. If he is too large to fit, he must sleep on the rock in the open." He pointed in one of the slots and light shone. Rats poured out. "These are fia. Slaves can die of their bites, which are poison, especially to Zheien. My terminal protects me, here." An unseen barrier kept them off his feet. There were dozens trying to get to them. All over the floor there were bones among rocks. Oh, I felt sick! I volunteered at a slave rescue place, but never knew they had to work in places like that! Horrible!

"Here are holos of legal mines with tech." He ran one with slaves in metal tunics, walking down to a lower level. Then the scene changed. Some used pocket cutters to cut a seam of ore out of a rock face. When he finished, a crew with picks came to hit the seam and crack the ore out. As they moved down, other workers picked up large rocks in trays and carried them to an area to dump them out. Another group waited to scrape pebbles onto trays with flat scrapers and took them to an area next to the fist-sized area. Others scraped dust onto trays and took that carefully to another area for sorting.

"You will notice that these slaves wear the same clothing, but they have healers waiting when they finish a few hours' work. They are paid well for this work. When they earn what they want, they may leave. So there is a very high turnover.

"In a slaver's mine, only slaves who can't get up will have a healer. A very overworked healer who cannot heal much. Healing in those mines is mostly slaver herbs that sacrifice intelligence for strength. Death rates are very high.

"There is pach protection for a man's head, as these workers enjoy." He held out a hand, and a man handed him his helmet. "Notice, there is soft cloth padding the inside of this helmet, so the fit is good. Helmets are made for each worker, to fit him, so his helmet does not fall off or slip so he is not protected. Even with this, men can get hurt." He gave the helmet back to the man. He was careful to put it on so it was even and cinched the straps tight.

Then he played another holo of men in a healer's room. Here, slabs of rock made beds. Each worker had a blanket of rough fibers.

Many of them had cuts and scrapes, and doctors worked on them. Cheap automated doctors that didn't take many readings. We practiced on those, to improve them or use them to escape, if we were captured.

Healers went to men with crushing injuries, broken arms, legs, and unconscious men. They were in the background. A healer spoke. "We see many very severe injuries from falling rock. If it is too severe for a man's doctor to treat, we tire quickly. In this mine, in Fertallas, we have many enneads of healers who heal one, then go to rest. Because there are so many healers who cannot find work, we can have fresh healers constantly. This mine is extremely productive because of this. It justifies the cost of healers because this is a Tessite mine. Workers come here to earn much trade, and we study the effects of poisons on them to learn better treatments. Unfortunately, people believe brief exposure to mepergutes is harmless. We have many with one day's exposure who had an injury that ended their work. We send a healer home with them to observe." They warned us about mepergutes. You can get enough exposure to end your career just inspecting a shipment of ore on a ship!

"One man thought he was well for ten years, and his personality changed. His healer noted that this man could work as a server instructor, and his employer praised his ability. Until the day mepergutes became active in his body. A friend went to him to ask a question and found him sitting in his chair, staring. Called his healer, who verified it was mepergutes affecting him. He took him and trained him for menial work. He has not spoken since that day, though he responds to any kindness. His family grieves him as if he died. The loving husband and father they knew is gone, though his body is unchanged.

"This is a grave danger in any Tessite mine. Mepergutes can change a person on the first day of exposure, or it can take years. If exposure is known, a person can be given ae when he shows signs of effect. This allows him to be trained for simple work. But, he is not the same after ae, so we only give this treatment to those who show signs of forgetfulness or vague pains not caused by injury. Some are affected immediately by mepergutes, and some do not show effect for many years, and we na know why. There are too many substances that can also affect a person in a mine." We went to Esta Faho many times, but we saw none of the Tessite mines. Some of the other mines' entrances, just a cave, were visible from the Spaceport there.

The holo went on to list common mine poisons, and which of those were common in which known slaver mines. The mine on Titan is a bluemetal mine, and those have not got a lot of poisons that don't have cures. Vek ea is enough, if they only worked there. They'll be running hygiene on all the slaves before they leave the ship they're coming here on. So we won't get any contamination from poisons in their tunics or on their skin.

But a lot of the slaves on Titan went to other mines first. Healers made notes. Now all the healers on our ship had 'em.