…drowned. They said that the storm came up out of nowhere. Surprised everybody. His corpse was pale and puffy from the water where it hadn’t been gnawed on by the crab-worms…
…Both his family and hers offered to help with the baby once it came. But she left Baina Ya and traveled to Earth before the baby was born. She never saw it; never knew its sex or name. Even the idea of possessing this knowledge horrified her. She wanted no more risks; no more surprises; no more attachments.
She went to school and filled a chair while driving everything out of her head by filling it with numbers. One year, two, then a USEF recruiting team came on campus. And what they promised was a life of absolute predictability; no surprises. So much time in, plus so much experience, education, and training equaled such-and-such a rank and assignment. While that was being done, there are all of those neat puzzles you can have to fill your hours; to fill your mind.
And if everybody gets killed, both the killing, the killer, and the disposal of the remains will be predictable.
It’s all in the contract…
Mallik’s death had been predictable. Dozens of fishers drown every year on Raina Ya.
Rut they had been nineteen, and immortal-
“Mallik, damn you-”
“Irkmaan?”
Nicole lowered her hand from her eyes and stood as she saw a Drac’s face peering at her through the bushes. “Benbo?” She looked around for the sergeant, but he was gone.
The Drac pushed the branches aside and stepped through. Its white robe was torn and filthy. It squatted several paces away, its thin arms cradled in its lap. In Drac it asked, “You are human?”
“Yes.”
“Of the Madah?” Nicole didn’t answer, and the Drac nodded its head. “The Madah. I heard the rumor of humans entering Ditaar’s Madah.” It studied her for a long moment.
“Do you have any food to share?”
“No. Why are you here?”
“Searching for food.”
“I mean, why are you in the Madah?”
The Drac wearily pushed itself to a standing position. “I am only looking for food; not conversation -” A frightened look came into its eyes as the sounds of someone crashing through the brush came from behind. Nicole turned just as Benbo came into view.
“You all right, Major?”
“So far.” She turned back to the Drac. “Who are you?”
Its yellow eyes looked down. “I am but another face.”
Sergeant Benbo walked up to the Drac. “You wouldn’t fight?”
“I would fight,” it looked up at Benbo, “if fighting were talma. It is not.”
“The path? Talma to what?”
“The path, human. Talma…” The Drac waved a hand. “Do you have any food to share?”
Benbo shook his head. “No.”
The Drac turned and walked into the bushes. In moments the sounds of its walking died away. Benbo rubbed his chin and frowned as he turned and faced Nicole. “I wonder how many Dracs there are wandering around here.” He nodded toward the crest of the hill. “Major, I found something on the other side of the hill.”
“What?”
“It’ll be easier to show you than to explain it.” He glanced back in the direction of the departing Drac. “We’d better watch it.” He removed his hand from his chin and pointed uphill. “This way.”
The other side of the hill was barren. That it had once been covered with vegetation was indicated by the remains of a few blackened stumps. At the foot of the hill began the ruins of an obliterated community.
The blackened streets and remains of walls extended for a kilometer. Parallel to their position, the damaged area looked to be six or eight kilometers long, narrow toward the right, fanning out to the left in the shape of an enormous teardrop.
Benbo squatted and pointed. “There’s only one thing I know of that makes a shape like that.”
“A USEF sonic warhead. Because of the small impact area. it was probably a fighter-mounted missile.”
“There’s only one impact, Major. The pilot must have been on a for-the-hell-of-it run.”
Nicole shielded her eyes and examined the area beyond the blast. “I wonder what the pilot was trying to hit. That’s one hell of a miss if he was aiming for the V’Butaan field.”
Benbo picked up a small stone and toyed with it. “I don’t think the pilot missed.” He stood and tossed the stone down the hill. “I think that shooter hit exactly what he was aiming at.” The sergeant turned and began walking back up the hill.
Was it possible? Had some USEF pilot gone against orders to wipe out an entire civilian community? Or had the orders excluding civilian targets changed? Perhaps this was only one of several destroyed populations. It had been done recently. And that might explain why the Drac Fleet had leveled Catvishnu’s cities. Tit for tat. What had that Drac in the dirty robe said? “I would fight if fighting were talma. It is not.”
Nicole noticed the movement of two Dracs picking through the ruins. They were looking for food. Madah. She turned away and followed Benbo’s trail.
After an hour of walking. they came down the hill into a part of the Drac village that had not been destroyed. They squatted on a high bank overlooking the streets and structures.
The homes were large, with vast expanses of lawn and woods around them. The distances between homes almost made each home look like a tiny village in itself. One of the streets led to what appeared to be a park or village common.
Half under his breath, Benbo muttered. “This must be the high-rent district.” He lifted an arm and pointed. “Look.”
She looked in the direction indicated and saw alone Drac standing in one of the streets. It wore a ragged white robe and a light blue stripe that went around its neck and looped down its back almost to the ground.
“It isn’t the same one we saw on the hill.”
“I guess it’s another one of our Madah buddies, Major. Why’s it standing there?” Benbo’s answer came soon enough. One of the silent Drac vehicles turned a comer and moved slowly down the street. The Drac in the blue and white rags lowered its glance and held out its hands toward the moving car. The vehicle hurried past, and the Drac lowered its hands and again stood motionless in the gutter. Nicole heard the sergeant spit on the ground. “I don’t think I’m going to fit very good in the Madah.”
“Sergeant, let’s go down and talk to that Drac. It’s about time we got an accurate reading on this Madah business.”
Benbo frowned as he studied the terrain. “I’d hate to be a Drac wandering into a human town right after some Dracon Fleet pilot had fried the hell out of the place.” He looked at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Let’s go.” She stood and began walking down the bank, Benbo’s footsteps close behind.
As they approached the Drac, it turned and looked at them. At first its expression was confused, then its face settled into an expression of dull-eyed resignation. Before they could speak, it spoke to them. “Do you have food to spare?”
Nicole stopped in front of it. “We don’t have food. What is your name?”
The Drac seemed to study upon the question for a moment. Then it looked up at the treetops. “In the Madah…” It looked at Nicole. “You may call me Shalda.”
She pointed at herself and the sergeant in turn. “Joanne Nicole and Amos Benbo.”
Shalda looked puzzled. “You carry your line-names into the Madah?”
“Our family names? Why not?”
“The shame of it. Dah! Something humans wouldn’t understand. You speak Dracon adequately; that should help.”
Another vehicle came along and stopped next to the three. The driver stuck its yellow head out of the window, giving Benbo and Nicole only a passing glance. “Chova, vemadai! You may beg here, but do not hold conventions! Move off! Chova!”
The driver waited until all three turned and walked toward the hill. When they had walked a few paces, they heard the car hiss away. Shalda continued toward the hill.
>
Nicole looked at the Drac’s face.
“If it is so shameful, Shalda, why are you here?”
“I have nowhere else to go. The Madah is now my land.”
Benbo walked faster and pulled up on the Drac’s other side. “We met a Drac on the hill. It said that war isn’t talma. What did it mean ?”
Shalda stopped and closed its eyes. “It is talma, human.”
“The other Drac said it wasn’t. What is talma?”
They both looked at the Drac as Shalda appeared to struggle with something inside itself. “Talma.” It lifted a hand and touched the thick blue stripe that looped its neck. “Did this other vemadah wear a blue mark such as this?”
Nicole shook her head. “No. Its robe was plain white.”
Shalda’s hand tightened around the fold of its robe containing the blue stripe. “This, humans, is the mark of Jetah ve Talman. I am a Master of the Talman, master of paths. The one you describe must be very young, as well as very ignorant. To follow talma, one must follow the war against the United States of Earth. I have constructed the diagrams myself.” Shalda released its robe and held the same hand out, first toward Benbo, then toward Nicole. “Are you males or females? Except for pictures, I have never seen humans before.”
“Benbo is male; I am female.”
Shalda studied them, each in turn, then shook its head. “I suppose there is a purpose in it.” It held its hand out toward the hill. “I must hurry. There is food to find before the night comes.”
Benbo grabbed the Drac’s arm. “If you think the war is right, why are you in the Madah?”
Shalda pulled its arm from the sergeant’s grasp. “It is none of your concern.” Which answered the question. The Drac turned and walked toward the hill.
“Hoorah for Johnny Zero.” Benbo turned toward Nicole. “Funny thing; I never thought of the Dracs having cowards.”
She studied the sergeant’s face. The wall of anger and contempt he hid behind enabled him to function when others crouched in their holes, paralyzed with terror. That and his fear of being called a coward-thinking himself to be a coward.
There was Colonel Nkruma eating pronide capsules in the name of duty; a duty that was so much easier for him than facing humiliation. Nicole studied herself. She could keep fighting when everything in her head was screaming because on some lower level she was simply following her own rules. My precious, predictable rules. And I fear losing those regulatory reference points to reality more than I fear the Dracs.
“There are all kinds of cowards, Sergeant. It’s only the honest ones that have to carry the name.”
Nicole glanced after the departing Drac, then turned to see Sergeant Benbo looking up at the sky. He pointed a finger. “Major! Major! It’s a raid! Hell, but it’s the Force!”
Nicole looked up, and after a second or two, she could make out the black spots of a USEF fighter squadron in formation-no, a full fighter-bomber wing! It seemed as though she was rooted in that street for hours-but only a second could have elapsed. Then those specks were on top of them. Benbo leaped, hit Nicole in the stomach, and sent her gasping to the ground.
In the next few moments, the world of Ditaar went up in heat and flame.
The forces of the sound explosions picked her up, shook her, and tossed her back to the ground. Slightly above the thunder of the blasts and howls of flying shrapnel, she heard Benbo screaming a curse. As repeated concussions numbed her mind and body. for an instant she saw Mallik’s face.
Then there was nothing.
FOUR
Tocchah walked toward the fires of its people, the footsteps of the enemy warriors close behind. Tocchah looked up to the night sky, praying silently: Aakva, Parent of All, strike this Uhe and its army down! Strike them down in flame and thunder!
Tocchah. receiving no response, looked back down at the path and continued walking, but spoke to the darkness that followed it: “Have you ever noticed, Uhe, that you can never find a god when you need one?”
“Yes, Tocchah. I have noticed.”
The Talman
The Story of Uhe. Koda Ovida
…Her head in a vise… lungs filled with oil-soaked cotton, her ears ringing so loudly…
…At some point she realized that she was walking; stumbling down some road through the smoke and silence.
She stopped, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, and looked at the blood on her hand. It was dark red and thick; almost dried. She wiped her face again. The blood had been coming from her nose, and the flow had already stopped.
“Benbo?”
She lowered her hand and stood, weaving in the street, looking for the sergeant. He was nowhere in sight. She closed her eyes, her head shattering with pain. There was nothing but smoke, and she sank down upon her knees and sat on her ankles. Confused; sleepy. There was something she knew she should be doing, but couldn’t force herself to remember what.
She opened her eyes to tiny slits. The smoke drifted to one side, letting her see the fuzzy outline of a structure. She closed her eyes, rubbed them, and looked again.
A large building… half of a large building. The land surrounding the ruined portion was swept clean save for a few uprooted smoking trees. The bright lemon-colored patches in the other side of the building eventually resolved into images of bodies.
Mauled, broken, crushed bodies. They were Dracs… Drac children. The flames were just beginning to lick at them.
“Sergeant! Benbo, where in the hell are you?”
The pain of her shout doubled her over until her forehead almost rested upon the ground.
There was a weak cry. Almost like a treed kitten. She sat up, lowered her hands, and listened.
More cries. There were several of them. From behind her came the sounds of shouting, cursing, wreckage being moved. The cries came from in front of her. From the crushed building. Nicole pushed herself to her feet and fought against waves of nausea as she stumbled toward the horror of the half-building.
The weak cries seemed to come from there. Closer and she stepped inside the stones of the crumbled wall, realizing that the bodies that she could see weren’t the ones doing the crying. She sagged against the stones. Even a Drac needs a mouth, throat, lungs, and life-all of the above-to cry out. The scraps of flesh exposed by the destruction were all missing too many things.
Again the cries. She pushed from the wall and forced her way through the wreckage into the relatively undamaged portion of the building.
More cries. Louder.
“Where are you? Where in the hell-”
Damn. She held her head until the pain subsided. “Wake up, Nicole. Drac. Speak in Drac.”
“Adze Dracon. Gis… Gis nu cha?” She screamed it as loudly as she cold: “Gis nu cha?! Tean, gis nu cha?!”
She went to her knees with the pain in her head. A thousand demons smashing their mallets on the insides of her skull. The smoke became thick and hot, and she half-heard the pop of intense heat cracking rock and exploding glass. “Echey nue cha! Echey viga!” She cursed, trying to remember what the words meant. She just couldn’t remember…
Echey viga: here look. That’s a big help. She spoke out loud: “Echey means here, and cha is to be. I am ni and we are nue.”
God, it rhymed.
“Mary had a little ram, never went back to men… Stick the bleeding verb on the end, except… except…”
“Echey nue cha! Benga nu!”
There was an exception. Hurry. Always hurry.
She moved toward the dim outline of an oval window, then smashed her face on the floor. Her legs were across something soft. She reached back and felt an arm and a body. She pulled her legs off of it, knelt and faced it.
Gingerly her hands went to her left. “Be alive, kid.” She felt legs, then bent over to her right. “Can you hear me? Dasu. Get up!” She placed her hands on its narrow shoulders. “Dasu. Gavey nu? Come on, kid; get the hell up, Please get up.” She moved her right hand up to the child’s face to feel for its
breath. But there wasn’t any breath. There wasn’t any face.
Again the voice called: “Benga! Benga nu!”
Nicole sat back upon her ankles and turned her head in the direction of the voice. “Ni benga,” she whispered.
The light from the oval window dimmed slightly, then a louder, deeper voice came from the window. “Hada! Hada! Talma hame cha?”
Is there life inside?
“How quaint. Is there life inside? Well, not a whole bunch, toad face. She shook her head, mumbling “Damn… damned if I know.”
“Ess? Adze nu!”
Nicole shouted at the window. “Ae! Talma cha! Teani!”
She stood up, lurched, climbed up on something shaky, until she was against the wall next to the window. “Gavey nu? Hey, sucker! Did you hear me? Talma cha! Talma cha!”
“Ae!”
She faced the window, reached deep within the opening, and felt solidly planted bars. A heavy grillwork was over the opening. She tried shaking it, but it didn’t even rattle. “Go around to the other side!”
The wall suddenly glowed with yellow light. Nicole looked behind and saw that the fire had cut off her escape route. Her gaze was drawn down by the sight of countless dismembered children. There was no time to react. The tiny voice called again: “Benga, Echey benga.”
It seemed to come from beneath her feet. She looked down and saw a heavy floor grill next to a winding stairwell. Pulling some of the trash from the grill, she knelt down next to it.
“Tean! Hada, tean!”
“Echey…”
She pulled at the floor grill, and when it refused to budge, she ran at a crouch toward the stairs, climbed over the wreckage, stumbled down the steps, and soon was in a huge room, fire dripping from the ceiling.
To her right, large wooden cases filled with rolled documents-huge books, rolled and flat papers-covered the floor. Beneath where the fire had eaten through the ceiling, the paper was blazing away. To her left was a wall lined with more book-filled cases, one of them tipped over in front of a heavy door.
Nicole put her shoulder beneath the obstruction, pushed with her legs, and righted the case. She pulled open the door and two young Dracs slumped against her legs. A third leaned against the far wall of the tiny windowless room and looked at her through half-closed eyes. Its lips formed the word “Irkmaan.”
Enemy Papers Page 22