Enemy Papers

by Barry B. Longyear

  Yora Beneres, according to Reaper, is a hero waiting for a cause worthy of her ideals. After years of looking for some sort of meaning, she had given up her quest and was filling in the time left before death, until we came along seeking an end to war on Amadeen. She is a good pilot and an even better small arms expert. Reaper reports seeing her take out with three rapidly fired shots three guards who were surrounding her with weapons drawn. “Very frugal,” Reaper added. “She hates to waste ammunition.” Before joining the USEF to fight in the Buldahk Insurrection, she was a video actress with a fairly impressive list of credits. It was not enough.

  When I study Kita Yamagata’s face, I am puzzled about her reasons for being on this ship. With the arrest of Estone Falna, her job with us is over. She has no stake, mental or otherwise, in what happens on Amadeen. Reaper says he and Kita have had long talks about police work, intelligence, and police procedures, and he is seriously impressed with her mind. Reaper is not certain why Kita is riding on this bullet to Amadeen, but the reason, he suspects, is in the next pod: Willis E. Davidge.

  I look through the clear plastic canopy at his face, tiny crystals of ice on his eyebrows and upper lip. Kita Yamagata loves this man and I wonder if he even has a clue. I think I love him, as well, but as a strange sort of surrogate parent. Not a parent. An uncle, in fact.

  His war was over three decades ago with the signing of the USE-Dracon Chamber Treaty. I know that he would not trade those thirty years on that hellishly cold planet for any other being’s time or place in the universe. He said once that my comrades and I had helped buy him that thirty years and it was time for him to put something down on account.

  Remembering the old human joke, I said, “On account of what?”

  Without acknowledging the joke, Davidge said cryptically, “I shave my face these days. That still requires a mirror.”

  Captain Moss is up in the cockpit, thrashing himself with his losses, Reaper is in his quarters reading, and it is time for me to begin my meditation. In my quarters, I take the kneeling position most Dracs take when meditating, but the unfamiliar position is too distracting. Before the Aeolus left Timan space, Kita had shown me a pose she uses called the lotus position, and I simply stared in horror at that tangle of legs, feet, and ankles.

  After the manner of Mistaan on its ledge above the forest, I lie down on my bunk, my hands at my sides, close my eyes and breathe, opening myself to all of myself, the universe.

  —Falna enters my awareness first, its sleek thighs, that miracle of a face, its gentle embrace, its passionate touch as it spread the lips of my womb and entered me.

  A great well of loss.

  Other lovers, other touches, other losses.

  A lonely child, its dead parent’s hand cold and limp. When it was warm, that hand had little time to stroke the child. There were enemies to avoid, shelter to acquire, clothes to mend, food to steal, the endless demands of the Mavedah. The child still craves that touch, though, seeking always to fill the void that touch’s absence left.

  —The Dakiz’s face, eyes white, purplish lips pulsing in and out. “Welcome to the Ri Mou Tavii, Yazi Ro. If you find here what you seek, that will be a treasure you will earn.”

  —The Amadeen Front prisoner held outside Fort Lewis, his hands upraised, “Love! We have to love one another!” Two guards were laughing at him. The third was listening. “There can he no peace until we kill hate. Let us be of one family.”

  All three guards died as the prisoner suddenly leaped at the one who was listening, wrested the energy knife from its hands, and killed them before another guard could bring the human down with a single pistol shot.

  Love one another.

  A few days later, guarding a new batch of Front prisoners, one of them rises to one knee and is hit at the same time by two guards with disrupters. I stand there watching as a female sitting on the ground next to the dead man cries and asks, “Why? My god, why?”

  “Love one another,” I tell her.

  — two creatures, multi-legged, black, and scaled, their powerful pinching claws slowly opening and closing, corner a third creature, smooth, soft, small, and slow―

  —Graduation day.

  “The threat is an ongoing war in a closed system between two species neither of which has the ability to forget or forgive an injury. Each side’s goal is the elimination of the other side. The end of the threat requires peace.”

  ―My very first graduation day.

  My time at the Nokbuk Kovah is near its end. Soon I and my fellow fighters will join the ranks of the Mavedah. There is a test, though, its nature a closely guarded secret. One says it is a torture we must suffer without complaint. Another says it is a demonstration of arms. Another says it is a shameful hideous task we must perform to show how much we want to be Mavedah.

  All of them are correct.

  In my hand is a knife. When the door to the pit in front of me opens, I see a live human male tied with his arms behind him to a pole set into the hard-packed ground of the tiny combat arena. In the seats above the pit are Jetah Dekaban Lo and the Selector, Choi Leh.

  There are no instructions. I am supposed to know what to do, and I am supposed to do it.

  The human looks at me, its voice low and pleading. “No. Please. No. Please.”

  I raise my knife and walk toward the man, my mind racing. In our communications training we were shown a holographic receiver. Perhaps this is not a real human.

  —In combat training we were shown some of the mechanical men some of whom were used by the USEF early in the war. They say there are still a few in the ranks of the Front. Perhaps this is not a real human.

  —Its eyes are gray, the perspiration beaded on its forehead, its throat dry from fear. “Please, God, no. Please, God, no.”

  It is just a test. Lo and the Selector just want to see if I am hard enough to kill. No one would really use prisoners this way. I think I see a crack in the flesh of the man’s neck, just above the collar of his sweat-stained shirt. It is a mechanical and I have hesitated too long already. As I reach up with my blade and draw it across the throat of the man, I see that the crack is only a loose thread. Then I am sprayed with human blood as Dekiban Lo and Choi Leh grunt their approval.

  As I walk toward the door, wiping the blood from my face, I hear them dragging another human into the pit. “No!” the human cries. “Please, no!”

  I am led to a different place. I see my blood-spattered comrades sitting and standing by a tracked vehicle. They avoid looking into my eyes and I avoid looking into theirs. By late afternoon the last of us has graduated and is led to the tracked transport. We all climb in, the doors are closed behind us, and the transport’s motor whines as the walls and floor lurch on our way to the Okori Sikov in the Southern Shorda. “We are the twelve,” says a bitter voice in the dark.

  “The front twelve,” we whisper in response. “Mavedah. “

  “A truce, then,” offers the Timan student. “Resolve what can be resolved, and have peace,”

  “Every time there is a truce,” I begin, “uncontrollable factions and individuals from each side attack and perform atrocities that ignite again the larger war. Truces that once lasted weeks and months are now reduced to hours or a day. Neither side can police its uncontrollable factions for neither political leadership can survive the prosecution of its own kind for the crime of killing those of the other side.”

  —Pria presents its problem to the nest.

  —The Dakiz calls for a test of my solution.

  ―Pria throws wide its fleshy arms, takes a step toward me, and says, “I am going to crush you to death!”

  I say, “If you take another step toward me, Pria, I will break every bone in your body.”

  The beginning of a new Timan parable.

  As if from an incredible distance I hear someone calling my name: “Ro! Ro! Ro!”

  That human children’s song works its way into my mind and I hear my voice croak, “Row, row, row your boat, gently down
the stream―” Before I can get to my first merrily, I gag, then cough, then double up with a coughing fit.

  The fit passes, I lie there like a wet rag. No strength, my middle hurts, a horrible odor assaults my nostrils. With effort I open my eyes and see Kita’s face looking down at me. “How long has Yazi Ro been lying here?” she asks.

  “A little shy of twenty-one standard days,” answers Reaper.

  “Why didn’t you bring me up sooner? A little longer and it would’ve died from dehydration. My god, couldn’t you smell it in here?”

  “Dracs don’t need that much water. Besides, Ro said that Mistaan did a meditation for six years,” he explains lamely.

  “Reaper, that was a parable. Even so, it was on a cliff, in the open, its disciples bringing it food every day!”

  I see Reaper’s face next to Kita’s. His nose wrinkles. “Um. I suppose the occasional rainstorm hosed off the ledge, too.” He grins at me and says, “Hey, Ro! You alive?”

  I nod and croak out, “I am.”

  “Next time you want to do a marathon meditation, maybe you should get together first with someone who knows what he’s doing.”

  “You may be right.”

  Kita holds up my head and places the end of a squeeze bottle between my lips. “This is just some juice.”

  The sugary liquid splashes into my dry mouth and it is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Three squirts and I nod my thanks. Kita removes the bottle and lowers me back down, “Reaper, get Ro into the shower and get it cleaned up. I’ll find a clean robe.”

  “One thing, first.” Reaper bends over until his face fills my vision. “Did you get the answer you were looking for?”

  I shake my head. “Not the one I was looking for. Instead I saw one that will work.”

  Reaper turns to Kita. “Aroma is high but the sight is keen.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  In the galley, a small bit of solid food in me, I sit wrapped in a blanket looking at the others seated around the table. Kita sits at my right, Reaper to my left. Mrabet, Davidge, Moss, and Beneres sit across the table from us. “There will be another attempt at a truce between the Mavedah and the Amadeen Front,” I begin. “There always is.” I look at Davidge.

  He cocks his head to one side. “Then one of the splinter factions, either human or Drac, will do something to torpedo the peace process.”

  “And then the whole thing blows up,” says Yora Beneres.

  I shake my head. “No. One of the splinter factions will do something to try to disrupt the peace process. We find out who it is and either stop them or punish them if they violate the truce conditions.”

  Captain Moss frowns in confusion, looks around the table, and asks, “We? Who’s we?”

  “For a beginning, the seven of us.” Six pairs of raised eyebrows face me. Undaunted, I continue. “I think we can build our numbers by first presenting our talma to Zenak Abi, and then to its people, as well as to anyone else who has defected from the fighting. Once the word gets out that a neutral force will police the truce, I think more will join. We will need fighters and investigators in our ranks,” I look at Reaper, “and those secret members who collect information in the Drac territories and in the human territories and those who lie in wait to take Aydan’s Blade to the violators. Every time there is a violation, those who order the violation and those who take part, die. We leave our mark to let others know that to violate the peace is to die, and it is us, not their opposition, doing the killing.”

  Ghazi Mrabet taps a finger on the table. “Then you see Dracs killing Dracs.”

  “And humans killing humans,” adds Kita.

  “Yes.”

  “A war to end war?” asks Davidge. “Is this just taking a two-sided conflict and making it three-sided?”

  Reaper leans his elbows on the table and clasps his hands together. “I see what Ro’s getting at. We’re not talking war, Will. Yazi Ro here is talking cops.” He looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “Police?”

  I think for a moment and nod. “Police. Very special police, out to prevent only one crime.”

  Eli Moss shrugs and holds up a hand. “This isn’t going to change the goals of any of these nutball factions.”

  A moment of light-headedness brushes me and floats away. I take a sip of juice, swallow, and look at the captain. “We will not attempt to change goals, educate, mediate, or have the peoples of Amadeen love one another. Until at least one generation can grow up in peace, all of those are out of reach. Our only goal will be peace. Making violating the peace pointless is how we will do it.”

  I look at Davidge. “Our goal is different from the Front and the Mavedah and from all of their factions. Our goal is peace. Any two groups that come together to make peace, we are there in both the light and the shadows to keep the peace from being violated.”

  “Why would anyone take us seriously?”

  Reaper shakes his head and wags a hand back and forth. “At first, they won’t.” He lowers his hand and raises an eyebrow. “After the first hit, though, we will have credibility.”

  Davidge leans back in his seat and ponders while Reaper and Kita talk about how to set up a network of clandestine local information and investigation centers from which can come accurate information to identify, target, and hit particular violators. In Davidge’s face I see objections present themselves and get resolved one by one, his face saddening with each resolution.

  It is argued, pulled apart, and argued again from different positions. Davidge, Captain Moss, Yora Beneres, and Ghazi Mrabet hang back and frown as they listen. Reaper and Kita almost appoint themselves my sales agents. Kita talks about the information system used by the Asian Regional Police on Earth where she was an interrogator and later circuit troubleshooter for the East Asian Administrative District. An organizational outline is drawn, amended, changed again, the outline redrawn time and time again. Where to do this, how to do that, who to do this, what to do it to. Nearing the end of the discussion, Davidge is the only one still hanging back. With the others, I can see that what we are going to do has been resolved. How to do it is detail.

  I am exhausted by the time Davidge is finished with his pondering. “Two things,” he says. “First, I think we can get two years’ head start on building the information files if we can get access to the quarantine force’s data banks. They’ve been out there going around in circles for thirty years and I’ll bet for all that time the sociologists and government paper wizards have been observing Amadeen, taking notes, and writing papers and reports no one is ever going to read. I’ll use the subspace link and see if the Ovjetah can get the information and send it on to us.” He smiles and shakes his head.

  “And your second thing?”

  “I guess there is no second thing. I was going to have Shigan run this through the Talman Kovah’s projection computers, but it would only say the same thing that it’s been saying for months: ‘Knowledge of the path might close the path, Uncle.” He looks at me, the sadness in his eyes heartbreaking. “If we do this with even a slight degree of success, we will be in a war: killing theirs and burying our own.” He clasps his hands and looks off into the distance. “In the only war I ever saw, I jockeyed a long-range fighter. When I killed someone it was a blip on a screen. When a friend died, his blip just disappeared and there was another vacancy in the base ship. All very neat and clean. There wasn’t time to think, only to react. If you took time to think, you died.” He brings his gaze back to my eyes. “The kind of war you’re talking about, Ro, is a lot dirtier. I don’t want it.” He pauses for moment and says again, “I don’t want it, but no one has a better alternative. You did good work.”

  It is one thing to suggest a theory. There is a special terror in having those you know take it seriously and act upon it. I nod my thanks, and give in to my weariness.

  “Get some rest, some food, and some exercise. We’re only at the beginning of this.” Davidge looks around at the others. “I don’t see going back into suspension. I
f we can get that data from the quarantine force, we’re all going to be up to our ears making plans, training, sorting information, and studying.” He looks around the room one last time. “Anyone else?”

  The Reaper makes a fist and knocks on the table top. “Computers. We need lots of small hand-portables for on the surface. We can get started with the ship’s computers, but once we’re planetside, we’re going to have to check and cross-reference all of our information, with each station adding and updating info for each area. I can’t believe they have anything left on Amadeen that’s working and we can get our hands on.”

  “How many?”

  Reaper glances at Kita and she frowns as she does a little calculating in her head. “Two or three hundred with extra power packs to begin. We’ll need comm portables so they can transmit and receive updates.”

  “Something else,” interrupts Mrabet. “Components and tools for repairs and for manufacture. If we can develop the capability to make our own we’ll be able to keep up supplies and adapt the newer ones more closely to our needs without having to depend on off-planet supply.”

  Davidge nods. “I’ll see what the Ovjetah can do for us. Anything else?”

  “Yes,” answers Yora. “It seems like the Front is going to be mortally bent if we hit a human and the Mavedah is going to be equally hacked if we whack a Drac.” She nods at Moss. “The captain and I used to belong to an outfit that everybody on a particular planet hated. It got pretty hairy and we weren’t even on the planet’s surface.” There is a long silence then she smiles broadly and says, “Just an observation.”