The Enemy Papers

by Barry B. Longyear

  Fragment: Cohneret

  Passion is a creature of rules. This does not mean do not love, do not hate. It means that where your passion limits talma, you must step outside of the rules of your love and hate to allow talma to serve you.

  KODA NUSCHADA

  The Story of Maltak Di

  Maltak Di and the codification of The Talman, the teachings, and the rituals: systematized problem-solving strategies, investigated truth, observation, and the method of the witness.

  Fragment: Maltak Di

  "The Talman does not contain all truth, and never will it. For this generation, and for all the generations of all the futures, newer and better truths exist. We must keep The Talman open to these truths, or see talma become another curious myth of the past. To all of those generations and futures, then: if you have such a truth, stand before the Talman Kovah, as did Uhe before the Mavedah, and speak it."

  Fragment: Maltak Di

  "Choice' is not an empty word that I use, Arlan; it is the nature of our race. To be alive is to have the ability to have goals; to be of this special life, is to have the ability to choose; and to choose anything is to choose goals.

  "Without a goal, Arlan, you are simply taking up space not only in this room, and this kovah, but in this Universe. Either find a goal, or turn the space over to one who does have a goal."

  Fragment: Maltak Di

  And Maltak Di said to the student: "I have sixteen beads in my hand. I'll give you six beads, how many beads will I have in my hand?"

  "You will have ten, Jetah."

  "Hold out your hand." And the student did so. Maltak Di then dropped six beads into the student's hand and opened its own hand to show that it was empty.

  "You lied, Jetah!"

  "Yes. Your response to my question should have been 'Jetah, open your hand and let me, first, see the sixteen beads.' Instead you answered from ignorance."

  "Jetah, that is not fair!"

  "Now you answer from stupidity."

  Fragment: Maltak Di

  Maltak Di drew upon the slate a circle and a square, and then it connected the two figures with two lines. Of the first student, Maltak Di asked: "Nyath, how many different paths are there from the circle to the square?"

  "There are two paths, Jetah."

  "Nyath, you may not stay; you cannot learn." Maltak Di faced the second student. "Oura, how many different paths are there from the circle to the square?"

  "Jetah, if the two paths are repeated turn-in-turn, there can be many."

  "Oura, you may stay; perhaps you can learn." Maltak Di faced the third student. "Irrisa, how many different paths are there from the circle to the square?"

  "A number without finite limit, Jetah."

  "Irrisa, you must stay. Perhaps one day you can teach."

  KODA OVSINDA

  The Story of Lita

  Lita's further investigations of truth and the realities of illusions

  Fragment: Lita

  The unintentional chain of events we call an accident describes paths as real as any path planned, diagrammed, and executed in principle with talma. And if the accident alters the present to the more desirable future, this special kind of path has the advantage of having already been proven valid.

  Fragment: Lita

  "Without a key, a door is a wall. Without a door, a key is but matter. A door with a key in the presence of mind is an opening. Without mind, neither the key, the door, nor the opening can exist.

  Fragment: Lita

  "Are we to ignore a truth revealed through crime because the method of obtaining the truth is somehow tainted? Nonsense. Truth is truth. The crime would be to ignore it."

  KODA SIOVIDA

  The Story of Faldaam

  Faldaam, first Ovjetah of the Talman Kovah, supervised the movement of the Talman Kovah from Butaan to the new city of Namndas's Mark. Faldaam investigated the problems of meaning and language.

  Fragment: Faldaam

  "Words are maps to existence. Once you travel a portion of reality, it is possible to know the meaning of its words. If all you have before you, though, are words, all you can consider are meaningless croaks and marks."

  Fragment: Faldaam

  The student asked, "Ovjetah, what is knowledge?"

  Faldaam studied the question, and the student. "Knowing that you do not know, bright light, is knowledge."

  KODA SINUVIDA

  The Story of Zineru

  Zineru taught talma through individual and team sports. Its principal work investigates communication and the casting of lessons.

  Fragment: Zineru

  The learned student has much to contribute to the game. However, the hard truths, the ones that cannot be manipulated, will be told to us by the players.

  The players have seen and felt the metal; the students have only theorized about it.

  KODA SIAYVIDA

  The Story of Ro

  Ro extended the application of the principles of talma to crime and the law. A militant movement among a sect of the Talmani to remove the Myth of Aakva from The Talman was opposed and defeated by Ro.

  Students of Ro's were the discoverers of the projected death of the Planet Sindie.

  Fragment: Ro

  We place these words on paper and carve them into stone which gives them more authority than any words deserve. As future generations learn, these words may become less guides to truth and more objects of mindless reverence unless those future students retain the courage to amend the incorrect and discard the false. Truth above self; truth above family; truth above clan, tribe, and nation; truth above gods; truth above all.

  Fragment: Ro

  The tool of the one who acts becomes the one who acts. The one who murders is no more responsible than the one who orders the murder and provides the weapon and compensation—and no less.

  KODA SISHADA

  The Story of Atavu

  Atavu was Ovjetah of the Talman Kovah at the time of the civil war between the supporters of the Talmani and the Tieyki, those who would remain.

  Upon the end of the war and the victory of the Talmani, Atavu and the Jetai Diea of the Talman Kovah left with the generation ships.

  Fragment: Atavu

  Sometimes I contemplate this awful vastness of the space we travel through. Giant stars are but particles of dust in the scheme of this Universe. And we search for an even smaller particle upon which to refound our race. It is an awesome task. But is it as frightening a task as Uhe's vision set before it? In out hearts we only challenge the Universe as we know it, and we know it very well.

  Uhe challenged what it thought to be God.

  Fragment: Atavu

  Truth of nature and import of meaning are not matters determinable by a consensus. If only one being understands the meaning, the meaning is understood. If only one being sees the truth, the truth is seen.

  KODA SHITEDA

  The Story of Poma

  After seventy-one generations aboard the ships, Poma was the Jetah who discovered and chose the planet upon which the race was refounded. The planet was named Draco for the elderly Ovjetah who died as the ships made landfall. Poma became the first Ovjetah of Planet Draco's Talman Kovah set in the camp that eventually became the city of Sindie.

  KODA SIHIVEDA

  The Story of Eam

  As the explorers of Draco began the colonization of other planets, Eam formulated its talma of colonization.

  KODA SITAKMEDA

  The Story of Namvaac

  The Thousand-Year War, where thirty-one planets of the Rutaan Alliance combined to separate from Draco. Hundreds of years into the rebellion, Planet Draco under siege, the Ovjetah of the Talman Kovah chose Namvaac to take the Talman Kovah and its students and hide them within the vastness of space.

  Fragment: Namvaac

  And the student said to Namvaac, "Jetah, the darkness covers all the Universe. It is such an all-powerful evil, I feel so small and helpless within it. Next to this darkness, the black of death seems so bright."


  Namvaac studied the hooked blade, then handed it back to the student. "Where you are now, child, Tochalla has been before you. It, too, was in darkness. It, too, had a knife. But Tochalla also had talma."

  KODA SINUSHADA

  The Story of Ditaar

  The end of the Thousand-Year War under the stewardship of Ovjetah Ditaar, who designed and formed the Dracon Chamber to govern the seventy-two planets colonized from Planet Draco.

  "What are the goals? What are the intended goals? Whose goals are served by the event? Whose goals are intended to be served by the event?

  "The more of the truths you acquire that you need to satisfy these questions, the closer you will be to understanding the situations that arise between creatures. And understanding the event is but a particle away from controlling its nature and effects."

  "I have stood where the Kathni have stood, and the universe is a different thing through their eyes. Long ago Lurrvanna taught us that logic is a creature of context and invention. If this was true for beings inhabiting the same planet for uncounted thousands of years, can it be less true for beings evolving from separate environments, inhabiting different planets?"

  KODA NUSINDA

  The Eyes of Joanne Nicole

  Written by the first Ovjetah of Earth's Talman Kovah, Tessia Lewis, it is the story of Joanne Nicole, a USEF soldier captured during the USE-Draco War, and who became part of a talma to peace. Its publication for human audiences was under the title, The Tomorrow Testament.

  The Drac's three-fingered hands flexed. In the thing's yellow eyes I could read the desire to have those fingers around either a weapon or my throat. As I flexed my own fingers, I knew it read the same in my eyes.

  "Irkmaan!" the thing spat.

  "You piece of Drac slime." I brought my hands up in front of my chest and waved the thing on. "Come on, Drac; come and get it."

  "Irkmaan vaa, koruum su!"

  "Are you going to talk, or fight? Come on!" I could feel the spray from the sea behind me—a boiling madhouse of white-capped breakers that threatened to swallow me as it had my fighter. I had ridden my ship in. The Drac had ejected when its own fighter had caught one in the upper atmosphere, but not before crippling my power plant. I was exhausted from swimming to the grey, rocky beach and pulling myself to safety. Behind the Drac, among the rocks on the otherwise barren hill, I could see its ejection capsule. Far above us, its people and mine were still at it, slugging out the possession of an uninhabited corner of nowhere. The Drac just stood there and I went over the phrase taught us in training—a phrase calculated to drive any Drac into a frenzy. "Kiz da yuomeen Shizumaat!" Meaning: Shizumaat, the most revered Drac philosopher, eats kiz excrement. Some thing on the level of stuffing a Moslem full of pork.

  The Drac opened its mouth in horror, then closed it as black anger literally changed its color from yellow to reddish-brown.

  I had taken an oath to fight and die over many things, but that venerable rodent didn't happen to be one of them. I laughed, and continued laughing until the guffaws in combination with my exhaustion forced me to my knees. I forced open my eyes to keep track of my enemy. The Drac was running toward the high ground, away from me and the sea. I half-turned toward the sea and caught a glimpse of a million tons of water just before they fell on me, knocking me unconscious.

  "Kiz da yuomeen, Irkmaan, ne?"

  My eyes were gritty with sand and stung with salt, but some part of my awareness pointed out: "Hey, you're alive." I reached to wipe the sand from my eyes and found my hands bound. A straight metal rod had been run through my sleeves and my wrists tied to it. As my tears cleared the sand from my eyes, I could see the Drac sitting on a smooth black boulder looking at me. It must have pulled me out of the drink. "Thanks, toad face. What's with the bondage?"

  "Ess?"

  I tried waving my arms and wound up giving an impression of an atmospheric fighter dipping its wings. "Untie me, you Drac slime!" I was seated on the sand, my back against a rock.

  The Drac smiled, exposing the upper and lower mandibles that looked human —except, that instead of separate teeth, they were solid. "Eh, ne, Irkmaan." It stood, walked over to me and checked my bonds.

  "Untie me!"

  The smile disappeared. 'Ne!" It pointed at me with a yellow finger. "Kos son va?"

  "I don't speak Drac, toad face. You speak Esper or English?"

  The Drac delivered a very human-looking shrug, then pointed at its own chest. "Kos va son Jeriba Shigan." It pointed again at me. "Kos son va?"

  "Davidge. My name is Willis E. Davidge."

  "Ess?"

  I tried my tongue on the unfamiliar syllables. "Kos va son Willis Davidge."

  "Eh." Jeriba Shigan nodded, then motioned with its fingers. "Dasu, Davidge."

  "Same to you, Jerry."

  "Dasu, dasu!" The toad face began sounding a little impatient. I shrugged as best I could. The Drac bent over and grabbed the front of my jumpsuit with both hands and pulled me to my feet. "Dasu, dasu, kizlode!"

  "All right! So dasu is 'get up.' What's a kizlode?"

  Jerry laughed. "Gavey 'kiz'?"

  "Yeah, I gavey."

  Jerry pointed at its head. "Lode." It pointed at my head. "Kizlode, gavey?"

  I got it, then swung my arms around, catching Jerry upside its head with the metal rod. The Drac stumbled back against a rock, looking surprised. It raised a hand to its head and withdrew it covered with that pale pus that Dracs think is blood. It looked at me with murder in its eyes. "Gefh! Nu Gefh, Davidge!"

  "Come and get it, Jerry, you kizlode sonofabitch!"

  Jerry dived at me and I tried to catch it again with the rod, but the Drac caught my right wrist in both hands and, using the momentum of my swing, whirled me around, slamming my back against another rock. Just as I was getting back my breath, Jerry picked up a small boulder and came at me with every intention of turning my melon into pulp. With my back against the rock, I lifted a foot and kicked the Drac in the midsection, knocking it to the sand. I ran up, ready to stomp Jerry's melon, but he pointed behind me. I turned and saw another tidal wave gathering steam, and heading our way. "Kid" Jerry got to its feet and scampered for the high ground with me following close behind. With the roar of the wave at our backs, we weaved among the black water and sand-ground black boulders until we reached Jerry's ejection capsule. The Drac stopped, put its shoulder to the egg-shaped contraption, and began rolling it uphill. I could see Jerry's point. The capsule contained all of the survival equipment and food either of us knew about. "Jerry!" I shouted above the rumble of the fast-approaching wave. "Pull out this damn rod and I'll help!" The Drac frowned at me. "The rod, kizlode, pull it out!" I cocked my head toward my outstretched arm.

  Jerry placed a rock beneath the capsule to keep it from rolling back, then quickly untied my wrists and pulled out the rod. Both of us put our shoulders to the capsule, and we quickly rolled it to higher ground. The wave hit and climbed rapidly up the slope until it came up to our chests. The capsule bobbed like a cork, and it was all we could do to keep control of the thing until the water receded, wedging the capsule between three big boulders. I stood there, puffing.

  Jerry dropped to the sand, its back against one of the boulders, and watched the water rush back out to sea. "Magasiennal"

  "You said it, brother." I sank down next to the Drac; we agreed by eye to a temporary truce, and promptly passed out.

  My eyes opened on a sky boiling with blacks and greys. Letting my head loll over on my left shoulder, I checked out the Drac. It was still out. First, I thought that this would be the perfect time to get the drop on Jerry. Second, I thought about how silly our insignificant scrap seemed compared to the insanity of the sea that surrounded us. Why hadn't the rescue team come? Did the Dracon fleet wipe us out? Why hadn't the Dracs come to pick up Jerry? Did they wipe out each other? I didn't even know where I was. An island. I had seen that much coming in, but where and in relation to what? Fyrine IV; the planet didn't even rate a name, but
was important enough to die over.

  With an effort, I struggled to my feet. Jerry opened its eyes and quickly pushed itself to a defensive crouching position. I waved my hand and shook my head. "Ease off, Jerry. I'm just going to look around." I turned my back on it and trudged off between the boulders. I walked uphill for a few minutes until I reached level ground.

  It was an island, all right, and not a very big one. By eyeball estimation, height from sea level was only eighty meters, while the island itself was about two kilometers long and less than half that wide. The wind whipping my jumpsuit against my body was at least drying it out, but as I looked around at the smooth-ground boulders on top of the rise, I realized that Jerry and I could expect bigger waves than the few puny ones we had seen.

  A rock clattered behind me and I turned to see Jerry climbing up the slope. When it reached the top, the Drac looked around. I squatted next to one of the boulders and passed my hand over it to indicate the smoothness, then I pointed toward the sea. Jerry nodded. "Ae, gavey." It pointed downhill toward the capsule, then to where we stood. "Echey masu, nasesay."