The Enemy Papers

by Barry B. Longyear

  "Hey, Will!" It is Kita's voice calling from the ship's entry ramp. "The Front just made the truce talks announcement. They've invited Black October, Green Fire, The Fives, and The Rose to the table, as well. No responses from any of the splinters yet, but two of the zees we have in the Tean Sindie report that the pure ones are beginning to foam at the orifices."

  Davidge looks at me, his eyes steady but more sunken than I remember. "It's starting, Ro."

  I do not want it. I can think of nothing I want less than deciding who lives and who dies, risking everything on the judgment of Yazi Ro. I close my eyes and nod. The human claps a hand on my shoulder, squeezes it, and follows Kita into the ship. I look back at the mountains and the huge avian is skimming the tops of the mists, gliding back the way it had come.

  FORTY

  In the Aeolus, far over the Shordan Sea, we are between the Shorda and Dorado continents. Kita, Reaper, three monitors, and I are in the information center, processing data and messages from the agents and monitoring the broadcasting stations, assessing the reaction to the upcoming talks. There is activity in all the splinters―angry voices, nutballs making speeches, endless meetings, two spontaneous demonstrations but nothing actionable. A few minutes later, Eli Moss reports over the headsets that we are being scanned. "I'm not sure, but I think it's the quarantine force orbiters."

  "Trying to figure out who we are," adds Reaper. "We'll let them know, soon enough."

  "I'm putting up the shields."

  Janice Butler, one of the monitors, turns from her console and holds up her hand. "Station October coming through." She flips a switch and the screens around the overhead illuminate with a jagged signal that settles to an image of Raymond Sica, head of Black October. Raymond likes to call himself The Vindicator. All we can see is Raymond in front of a blank wall hung with a black flag with a blood-red X in the center, for the numeral ten. We do not see others, but we can hear crowd noises.

  "―can they have in mind to invite the Front to a truce? What can the Dracs put on the table? Are they going to give us back our lands?"

  "No!" shouts the crowd.

  "Our murdered loved ones?"

  "No!"

  "Is it to restore the Dorado, and the Shorda to us?"

  "No!"

  As Raymond rants, half the screens change to another view of Black October's boss. The images are much clearer than the original, but jumpy. It is one of Ghazi's modified computer cameras. The new images sweep to the left until we see a row of humans dressed in black. The images expand to fill the screen and linger a moment on each of the faces.

  "Who's feeding us this?" calls Reaper to the monitor.

  "Alley Cat."

  Ali Enayat. I try to imagine the courage of the man with the big black mustache and the two children, taking the opportunity of the demonstration to get up in front of the entire rabid membership to give us up-to-date pictures of Black October's leaders.

  "He's not holding that in his hand, is he?"

  I turn around and see Davidge behind me looking up at the screens. Reaper shakes his head. "Ghazi made it so those button cameras will transmit to the computer. Alley Cat probably has it in his burnoose."

  "What about signal emissions?"

  Reaper leans back in his chair and scratches the back of his neck. "We're using frequencies that are way out of the park for the thirty-year-old stuff anyone on Amadeen has."

  As Zenak Abi comes into the information center, I glance at Davidge, and say to Reaper, "That presupposes in the past three decades no other smugglers have brought in modern communication or signal detection equipment." I look back at the screen showing Alley Cat's feed.

  There is Paul Ruche, Sica's second in command, a tall blond man without facial hair, his eyes a stormy blue. Next to him, her long black hair waving as she shouts and moves her arms, is Akilah Hareef, head of the ideological department. Akilah is very beautiful for a human, with a small nose, absolutely black eyes, and lips painted to look like a wound. Her weapons include an automatic pistol, a brace of throwing knives, a fighting knife, and whatever she has concealed beneath her clothing. The image moves to Vatusia, Brooks, Pemba, and the rest. After the leaders, Alley Cat sweeps the crowd of about five hundred. Every one of them brandishes a weapon of some kind.

  "That's the old Catholic church in Obsidian, South Central Dorado," says one of the monitors. "That means October has a repeater station. The broadcast signal we're getting is coming from Mt. Jazirah, East Central Dorado."

  "Look at that weapon," says Abi, pointing at one of the screens. Reaper freezes one of the crowd images.

  "Which weapon, Jetah?"

  "The man wearing the talit about his shoulders."

  "Talit?"

  Zenak points up at the screen. "The white and blue prayer shawl."

  The image fills the screen, centered on the shoulder weapon. It looks like a beam disrupter, but I do not recognize it. "That's a Valmet M6600," says Reaper.

  Abi shakes its head as it says, "I'm not familiar with it."

  "Latest thing from Earth." Reaper nods toward the screen. "Fully charged and at close range, that thing can cut right through the hull of this ship by turning the metal and ceramics into powder. They've only been out for a couple of years."

  Zenak looks away and faces me. "The smugglers have been getting through to Black October, then."

  More pieces of the puzzle are added to the data banks.

  "Priority!" shouts Janice. The images continue as the sound is cut, the center screen shows the view through the front window of a moving vehicle, the lower part showing the top of a steering wheel and the hands of the narrator. Each hand has three fingers. In the distance, beyond some dunes, we can see the ocean. "Go ahead," says Janice into her headset.

  "This is Runner with the Sitarmeda just north of Mandit, East Shorda. I just finished a meeting with my cell and we have been advised to prepare to assist the central command by providing volunteers for a special raid. No details yet, but I made my best guess and volunteered―I am driving." For some reason the fact that it is driving seems to strike Runner as funny, and it laughs. Kita mouths the word "stress" at me. When it calms, Runner continues. "I and nine others are on our way south to report to the cell commander at Port Refuge."

  Runner signs off and the sound returns for Black October out of Obsidian. "Raymond hasn't threatened anything yet," Janice fills in, "except to boycott the talks."

  "Alley Cat," says Reaper, "we've got enough pictures. It's time to fade into the landscape. They've been getting smuggled supplies from off planet, so they might have some sophisticated detectors. Got that?"

  The images from Alley Cat nod up and down, then go blank while we continue to receive from the Mt. Jazirah station. Raymond's tirade against the Amadeen Front's betrayal of the struggle against the yellow menace continues. The volume drops and Reaper faces Davidge. "You know, if Runner is onto something, if Sitarmeda is planning a unit-sized outrage someplace, we're not ready for that. Right now we're geared up to handle one or two, maybe five, hits at a time, but that's really stretching it. We can't take on a platoon or company attack until our regional rapid strike forces are operational."

  Davidge bites at his lower lip. "If it looks like it's corning from Sitarmeda, we'll send what we have at region in Cohilak. Until then, Runner will have to do the best it can. Do we know the proposed site for the talks yet?"

  "We just got it in," answers Reaper. "Silver City. It's a town of about eighteen thousand just north of Douglasville on the Dorado. Up until the truce there was fighting in the area, so both the Front and the Mavedah have lines there. The talks themselves are supposed to begin any time now."

  A computer map comes up on one of the screens and we can see Silver City. Blue lines indicating the Front and green lines indicating the Mavedah snake through the town. South of Silver City is Douglasville, completely under Front control. Sitarmeda has nothing near there, nor does Thuyo Koradar. There is, however, a large cell of Tean Sindie in a co
mmunity a few minutes northwest of Silver City. Cells of Black October and The Rose are in Silver City itself, while The Rose has a cell in Douglasville. The Fives have nothing in the area.

  I look at Reaper. "Do we have anything in Silver City yet?"

  "Two sleepers."

  "Nothing more?"

  "That's it. I'll put 'em on standby."

  "Priority!" calls one of the other monitors, a human named Roger Temple. One of the Black October screens changes to a scene of a small white masonry house next to a bombed-out apartment complex. The metal roof looks to be in good shape, but the windows are covered with boards.

  This is the Red Crawler," came the voice of a human named Anita Northstar. "What you're looking at is what's left of the southwest corner of Galena and Eighth in Douglasville. I might have a live one: Jacob Drews."

  The file on Drews comes up. The graphic shows a balding human male, forty-one years old, hard-rock miner, the sole family member surviving the Battle of Douglasville four years ago. After losing his family he joined Black October as a bomb maker, although October dropped him only a few months later because of fears concerning his lack of stability. Since then he has been a recluse who is known to have gone behind Mavedah lines at least three times on his own to plant bombs. All three bombings were successful, totaling over two hundred Drac lives.

  As I see Jacob Drews's file, I remember Min in that pit, the human with the flute, and Yazi Ro as I took my knife the next night with the Okori Sikov as we slashed our way through the city. Did I turn Jacob Drews into the hate-driven monster he is today? Did the man with the flute turn me into the same kind of monster? Are we all hate monsters: the bloodthirsty offspring of Hissied 'do Timan?

  "I've been following him all day." A recording runs on one of the screens showing the man walking into a bombed-out industrial complex. "He went down to the old IMPEX mines east of the city, spent about three hours, then came back to his house carrying a shoulder bag full of something heavy. He just got back to his own place a couple hours ago, then ate lunch at a sort of soup line the Front runs a block from here. He heard the Amadeen Front's announcement, left his soup on the table, and rushed back to here. Call me Crazy Horse, but I figure the man is getting ready to blow up something."

  "Stay on it," says Reaper. The Red Crawler's signal goes blank and I see that I am standing. Taking a chair, I sit in it and think. What if it is the Sitarmeda mounting an air assault against the Silver City talks? What if Jacob Drews takes his pain to the talks and blows himself and everyone else to pieces? What if both of them do it at the same time? What if they are joined by other nutballs, both Drac and human? What can we do about it! I look at Davidge. He is leaning against the bulkhead studying the screen of his hand-portable.

  I get up from my chair, stand next to him, and look down. The screen shows a single frame from Alley Cat's feed from the Black October rally. It shows the man in the prayer shawl holding the new beam disrupter above his head. "What do you see?" I ask.

  Davidge points with his finger. "See this guy? Look at those strings hanging from his middle."

  "Arba kanfot," says Zenak Abi. "The four fringes."

  Davidge touches the portable's pointer and the point of view moves to another figure standing next to the first. He is a large, muscular man with a black beard. He is wearing an ornate knitted skullcap and is also brandishing one of the new weapons. Davidge points at the image. "I recognize this guy from the files: he's a Moslem. These two are old enough to have fought each other on Earth. That church is full of former enemies―Jews and Moslems, Irish and English, Catholic and Protestant, black, white, red, yellow, and here they all are together, united against the Dracs."

  Abi nods and smiles. "Were you thinking that if they got what they want, if all of the Dracs Amadeen vanished, in a few days they would be once more at each other's throats?"

  "Perhaps." Davidge looks up at the Jetah. "What I was wondering is if we could get the Dracs and the humans together by uniting them against something else."

  Abi nods and looks up at the screens. "That's what we are going to do: unite them against futility." It points up toward the screens. "Something else coming in."

  For the next two hours we hear the reports come in from eyes and zees, on the line and from regional nets. The patterns emerge after awhile. It appears that the truce caught all of the splinter groups by surprise. Among the other reports, Alley Cat lets us know that the rally isn't going anywhere, but a Black October central committee meeting is scheduled for three hours from now.

  Runner reports that it looks as though the Sitarmeda strike is something that had been planned before the announcement of the truce and once they got to Port Refuge they were told to turn around and go back to their home cell to await further developments. In Douglasville, the Red Crawler is still watching the house of bomber Jacob Drews.

  From all reports, the cease fire is holding. I know from the cease fires I have seen that on the lines no one is thinking of peace, a treaty, or even a lasting truce. Their highest hope is for a few days without fighting. They know it will start again, some horror will bring the smoldering fire flashing back to life, but for the moment all sides are cherishing the quiet.

  Reports from The Rose, The Fives, Thuyo Koradar, and Tean Sindie show all of the groups have called special meetings to decide what to do. Nightwing, whom we know as agent Rudy Klass, reports that Green Fire, working out of the Front-held territories in the Northern Shorda, seem to be preparing something. They have a number of operational missiles and may be preparing to send a little something into the main Mavedah headquarters in the Southern Shorda.

  Davidge frowns and glances first at Abi and then at me. "While the talks are on, there is no place to fire one of those missiles that won't be a violation. Can Nightwing take out the missiles?"

  "It would be better if he was four guns instead of one," answers Reaper. "He's got a beam disrupter, so he can bring them down. The first trick is going to be getting close enough through Green Fire's security. The next trick is going to be taking the missiles down between the fire command and when they take off." He glances at Kita.

  "We have one more zee in the area. Let's call him up. If the site fires one or more missiles, have them take out the missiles, the site, and the personnel."

  She looks up at Abi, Davidge, and me. Abi nods at Davidge and so do I, although it seems that we have given Nightwing and his hypothetical partner an impossible, probably suicidal, task.

  Davidge nods at Reaper and Reaper passes on the orders, finishing with, "Keep on it."

  Keep on it. Keep on it. After awhile I find it curious that I confuse the human with the Drac and the Drac with the human. Our agents seem to be of a family and the forces and factions upon which they report seem to be of another family. Perhaps the Navi Di is just another tribe.

  "Priority!" shouts Janice. "It's the Red Crawler!"

  A screen shows the dark interior of a small room, the point of view jumping and swinging about wildly. "He's gone. Drews. He's gone."

  Her hand reaches out and pulls some paper boxes away from a wall. Behind the boxes is a hole. The point of view goes into the hole, meets a solid concrete wall, and looks down. A ladder leads down into a sewer. "Damn. I'll chase him from this end, Peace. You better wake up a couple of zees in Silver City to head him off. His graphic's on file. Crawler out."

  Reaper immediately issues instructions to the Central Dorado regional net and the two Silver City zees report in less than a minute. The first to report in is a woman, code-named Lilly. The other zee is a man, code-named Peaches. They already have the graphic of Jacob Drews and know where the talks are taking place. They sign off and get moving.

  "Keep on it," says Reaper.

  Keep on it.

  I am too tired to stand and too nervous to sit. If the sides had put off their truce for another six months we would have more coverage in greater depth, and our fully trained strike forces in place and ready to go. But as a man once said to me, if yo
u want to hear God laugh, make a plan.

  The matter of Jacob Drews preys on my mind. We do not know that he is carrying a bomb. We do not even know for certain that he is still making bombs. I call up the complete record of Red Crawler's last transmission on my hand-portable. Crawler did not linger, but there are some frames I can freeze. Drews's workshop has tools, wires, and bits of this and that. Some boxes and other containers. "Reaper, I have the inside of Drews's house on channel twenty-one. Show me something that proves Jacob Drews has a bomb."

  Davidge frowns at me then looks at his own screen. I look at mine and watch as Reaper runs a pointer around the contents of the workshop showing how this or that could be used in making a bomb, or repairing a radio; this or that container might have held explosives, or food, or just about anything.

  "We know he could have made a bomb," adds Kita. "We know he has made bombs in the past."

  Reaper nods. "And he's got plenty of reasons not to want a truce. If he isn't up to something, why'd he go to the mines? Why's he traveling through the sewers?"

  Motive, opportunity, past history, suspicious behavior. When the time comes to judge whether I am to live or die, I hope that my potential executioner will have more evidence than that upon which to decide my demise.

  "Priority Red," calls Janice. "Peaches has Drews in sight."

  The screens change to show a relatively steady image of a large plaza seen from the top of a building. There are only a few persons standing on the multicolored blocks of concrete, all of them human. There is a Front security line around the entrance to a large building on the far side of the plaza.

  "The battle lines go right through that building," says Peaches. "The Mavedah controls the approaches to the opposite side of the building. Lilly is watching that side just in case, but here he is. I have a clear shot."

  The image grows until we see a shot of Jacob Drews walking across the square, his hands empty except for a walking stick. His steps are steady and slow, the expression on his face sad. Half the screens fill with another view seen from the level of the square. "It's Lilly," says Kita.