Enemy Papers

by Barry B. Longyear

  In four days I feel fit. At our regular meeting, Davidge asks, “How do we get down on Amadeen’s surface?”

  Captain Moss dismisses the matter as no problem at all. “We’ve already recorded the orbiting stations’ positions and movements relative to the planet’s surface. We have the fighter patrol schedules, and we’re getting records of the movements of the quarantine force’s own band of smugglers. What it amounts to,” says Moss, “is we go in where no one is looking and quickly get down to an altitude below what they consider trying to leave Amadeen. The only thing we have to worry about then is getting pranged by a Front or a Mavedah ground-to-air missile.”

  There is some discussion regarding the accuracy of the quarantine force’s information on the location of such missile units when Ghazi Mrabet taps a finger on the table. “What about getting off Amadeen?”

  “Off?” I ask.

  He nods. “Yes. Say we make it down, get everything organized, whack the bad guys, the truce we hope for holds, and all of us aren’t dead. In other words, what if there is peace? Does anybody get off or is Amadeen quarantined until its sun goes red giant?”

  I look at Davidge and the human is nibbling at the skin on the insides of his lips’. “If the truce holds, if there is peace for a year between the warring sides, the quarantine will be reviewed and becomes eligible to be relaxed to the extent of allowing trade, communications, and passenger traffic. Once a formal peace is signed, the quarantine force loses its charter. That’s when we can all leave, go to the Talman Kovah, and present our talma to the Jetai Diea. Then we can watch them reaffirm their vote and publish the Koda Nusinda, Maybe.”

  Yora leans back in her chair. “Maybe?”

  The left side of Davidge’s mouth pulls back in a wry smile as he looks at me. “Ro, what was it that Michael Hill said to you on the ship from Draco?”

  “If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan,” I answer.

  Davidge nods, stands, and walks toward the cockpit.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Three months from Amadeen. The Ovjetah reports the computers, parts, tools, and equipment we requested are waiting for us at the A’ja Cou Station in orbit around Vikaan, thirty days from Amadeen. In the intervening two months, we can work on the USE-DC Quarantine Force data. All of the information we want from the quarantine force is already at the Talman Kovah, as it is at the USE Archives on Earth, complete with weekly updates. It may only be released to parties engaged in serious research on the subject of Amadeen, which puts us at the top of the list.

  We get it all: historical overviews, government, political history, economics, currency and finance, production, trade, demography, transportation, agriculture, forestry, fishing, industry and mining, culture and education, environment, natural resources, geography, geology, and so on. There is even a vast part of the data bank devoted to sports and recreation.

  My mind numbs at the wealth of information for which we have little or no use. The military and terrorism sections, however, have names of individuals and organizations, dates and places, methods of operation, individual relations and even some locations and addresses. On the Drac side, there is the Mavedah and three main splinter groups: the Tean Sindie or Children of Racehome; the Sitarmeda or Sixteenth, named for the Koda Sitarmeda in The Talman, which covers the Thousand Year War; and Thuyo Koradar or Eye of the Killer. Within and around these ungovernable organizations are numbers of much smaller uncontrollable factions and individuals with records of acting on their own without regard to any authority or organization whatsoever.

  On the human side, there is the Amadeen front and four main splinter groups: Black October, for whom the political party on Earth is named; Green Fire, named that for reasons of its own, possibly an early founder; the Fives, named for the number of fingers on a human hand; and the Rose, named for slain Front Chairman Gordon Rose. They, too, have their minor factions and rugged individualists. Of the most recent seven truce attempts over the past two years, four were undermined by Black October and the remaining three by Tean Sindie.

  Noncombatant groups aligned with neither side, I am surprised to see, form the majority of the population on Amadeen. Zenak Abi’s friends are just one of hundreds of such groups numbering from fifty to one island enclave numbering over a million men, women, and Dracs.

  Our planned structure is thrown out and done again based on the existing organizations, factions, and individuals it will be necessary to monitor and outguess. As the information is processed, Kita and Reaper make charts showing the location and extent of influence of each organization, the location of individuals, supply dumps, weapons caches, food, clothing, and weapon production facilities, hospitals, power plants, disposition of military units, and so on. At one point, Davidge hands me a sheet of paper. “A little something I squeezed out of the name bank.”

  I look at it and I now have all of the names and all of the histories of my line, including the address in Gitoh where the Yazi line archives are supposed to be. Perhaps when we get to Amadeen, if we live long enough, and if we can maintain a truce, and if we can get to Gitoh, and if there is any of Gitoh left when we get there, perhaps Davidge will stand with me when I recite line and book and take on the robes of adulthood. It is still my fantasy.

  One of the charts shows where fighting is actually taking place. On the holographic reader in the cockpit it is a huge blue and white globe perforated and scratched with a few glowing red dots and lines. While I am studying it, noticing that in the Southern Shorda nothing much has changed during the past year, Yora Beneres leans back in her couch, stretches, and says in a loud voice, “I think we have a path down to the surface.”

  She leans forward and suddenly my holographic display is replaced with another: a smaller scale representation of Amadeen with the six orbiting stations of the quarantine force surrounding it. Yora gets up from her couch and stands next to me. “Look at this, Ro. Thirty years of sitting on their butts and not doing anything has made them very sloppy.”

  She reaches over and punches something into the keyboard. The surface of the planet turns bright orange at the equator, the color growing dimmer as it reaches the poles. At the poles themselves the surface is blue. She punches in another code and the orbiters begin leaving bright pink tracks as they circle the planet. With less than one orbit, the eccentric orbits of two of the orbiters become obvious. When they are below the equator, the patch of blue at the north pole increases on one side. “See that?”

  “Yes,” I answer, looking up at her. “What about the fighter patrols?”

  She taps in another code and tiny bright dots in motion begin leaving bright green tracks. A group takes a position thirty degrees above the equator and its sibling group takes a similar position thirty degrees below the equator. The entire surface of the planet is orange, including the poles. “Now watch this.”

  At that point in time when the two eccentrically orbiting quarantine stations and the northern fighter patrol are on opposite sides of the pole, a beautiful blue slot opens in the quarantine force’s coverage of the planet. “How long will it be open?”

  “Long enough.” She stands straight and glances toward the hatch. “I better let Eli know.”

  “Before you go, could you bring up the display I was observing?”

  Her eyebrows go up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had something in the works.” She taps in a code and my own display replaces the one showing the orbiters. With a long finger she points at one of the glowing red lines on the surface of Amadeen. “The battle charts! So that’s what it looks like on the reader.” She studies the display and nods her head. “Well, that’s encouraging. Most of the planet is at peace. All that’s left is to tidy up a bit.”

  I am certain she is joking.

  A day from the A’ja Cou Station, after much sifting, sorting, and eliminating, we arrive at a list of names and locations of likely truce violators and likely candidates for our infant organization. Now all we have to do is verify the information, find th
em, watch them, add the new names, catch the guilty, prove them guilty, and call upon them with prejudice to the max.

  Kita, Yora, and I are in the galley discussing the name of the organization. In my mind it has always been Aydan’s Blade. They have, though, other ideas. Yora leans on the table and says, “Aydan’s Blade is a great name, Ro, if you’re a Drac. It’s a story out of The Talman, the name of a Drac Jetah.”

  “The Front won’t think of us as neutral and independent with a name like that,” adds Kita.

  After some more argument I let go of the name in favor of the organization’s absolute neutrality in appearance as well as in fact. Reaper joins us and the four of us offer many names, reaching agreement on none of them as Captain Moss enters the galley.

  “Where’s Davidge?”

  “His quarters,” I answer. “What is it?”

  “Two messages from Atruin ‘do Timan. First, he’s seen a general report issued by the USE-DC Quarantine Force that the Front and the Mavedah are both putting out feelers for another truce. The other message is that Estone Falna was found guilty. It got the long sleep.” Moss holds my gaze for a moment, then turns and heads toward the passenger quarters. With joints made of water, I stumble to my quarters to be alone in the dark.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The A’ja Cou Station. The Planet Vikaan fills the blackness above us with its greenish-blue surface broken by bands and whorls of delicate white clouds as the station, looking like thick spokes of a wheel with no rim, comes into view. Illuminated by the sun, each spoke looks like a stack of thin white wafers, the bottom of each stack joined together at the hub. There are eight stacks, three of which are only partly completed. They seem to have a strange radiance. As we move closer the sheen I thought I saw resolves into thousands of illuminated window ports revealing that each one of those wafers is at least fourteen stories thick.

  While Ghazi Mrabet is busy with Reaper, Kita, and Davidge, I sit in the engineer’s couch in the cockpit watching while the Aeolus prepares to dock. Eli and Yora flip switches and mutter unintelligible chatter at each other and into their headsets which prompts additional gibberish from the station port traffic controller into the headset I am wearing. Their instrument panel screens fill with numbers, diagrams, and attitude views of the ship as countless colored lights flash between blue and green. Despite this chaos of information, the Aeolus moves smoothly toward the most outside wafer on one of the eight spokes. The white edge of the wafer is broken with innumerable slots, each slot being a docking bay capable of handling one or more freighters or large passenger ships. As the ship follows a trail of five other ships around the spoke, bays illuminate. Each bay preparing to accept a ship has docking codes displayed. One by one the ships turn from the pattern into their respective bays in a silent, dreamy dance. At last the Aeolus turns and moves smoothly toward one of the bays. In moments the ship is swallowed by the cavernous interior and is brought to a halt so quietly I fail to notice when we actually stop. Eli and Yora shut down their panels and get up from their couches. Yora stops next to me. “Well, what did you think?”

  I am so stunned by the scale and beauty of it all I cannot think of anything to say. Eli pushes past her and looks out of the cockpit’s ports at the interior of the landing bay. “It was kind of monotonous, wasn’t it?” He looks back at me. “Dockings and landings are lot more entertaining when the reception committee is shooting at you.”

  After disembarking, Yora and the captain go to the port director’s office while Davidge, Kita, Reaper, and I move through crowds of Vikaans, humans, Dracs, and some others to take a tram to Ekst 98, the cargo holding level, one wafer toward the hub from the docking level, Ekst 99. As the brightly illuminated car drops down and slows at the almost deserted level 98 boarding platform, Davidge and I see a familiar personage waiting for us. It is Estone Nev. The old Drac is clad in dark maroon trousers and boots and a black robe. I look at Davidge and his skin is pale.

  As the doors open, Reaper heads straight for the cargo transfer office while Kita and I stand and watch Davidge approach Estone Nev. Neither of them say a word. Nev looks sadly at the human while the human cannot look into the old Drac’s eyes at all. Nev reaches out a hand, places it on Davidge’s cheek, and pulls the human toward itself. Nev embraces him and Davidge’s shoulders begin heaving. “It was not your responsibility, Will. You did not fail the child. Falna made its own choices.”

  Kita takes my hand and holds it. I look down at her and her eyes are filled with tears. I look away from them all before I too burn my eyes with tears. There is too much killing and dying in our futures to begin crying now, especially to cry for such as Falna. I feel another hand touching my shoulder, I turn to look and it is Estone Nev. The words tumble from my lips, “Forgive me, Nev.”

  It pulls me close and embraces me, its words gentle on my ear. “There is nothing to forgive, child.”

  “But Falna! If I―”

  “I do not judge you, Yazi Ro. If I do not, who are you to judge yourself?”

  Much later, alone in my quarters in the station, I am again sitting in the dark entertaining my demons. Why does the permanent suspension of a murderer―a murderer who once aimed death at me―act upon me harder than the death of any of those who loved me? I think on it and the only reason that makes sense is, with the exception of my parent, all of the others I expected to die. I never believed any of the others truly loved me because we all held something back. All of us expected ourselves and the others to die. Falna, though, had the most wonderful past and future I had ever seen—could even imagine. Blessed by the universe, it had to live for it was destined for a life of peace, love, prosperity, and fulfillment. That is why I believed Falna loved me. That is why I loved Falna. That is why some perverse part of me still loves Falna.

  What can permanent conscious suspension be like? Unlike the pods on board ship, where time, even conscious time, is compressed, months seeming like hours, suspension in Timan’s Karnarak cells is in real time, every instant filled with endless repetition: the trial, the trial notes and materials, lectures and object lessons on morality, the trial, over and over until the only hiding place is madness. Falna is strong-minded, though. Perhaps it will not quickly give into insanity. It might take years, decades. It might only take a few months, though. A mind as brilliant as Falna’s needs stimulation. The monotony coupled with the prospect of forever being imprisoned in a cell the exact size of its own body―Falna might be screaming in silence this very moment. Falna is so young. If it lives as long as its parent’s nameparent, Estone Nev, it will be suffering for another five decades.

  I look at the darkness around me and suddenly it no longer provides a hiding place. Instead a thousand invisible threats lurk in the shadows. I rise from the meditation dais, go to the door, and step into the main salon of the suites Estone Nev arranged for us. The aged Drac has done much for us. After hearing the talma from Jeriba Shigan, Nev added something to the cargo for us it accompanied to the A’ja Cou Station. In addition to the computers and the supplies, tools, and equipment for repairing and manufacturing computers, are eight power platforms packaged together in a stack. Separated and assembled, each platform can carry up to sixty soldiers in full battle gear. More important than that, however, it can carry an equal weight of tools and equipment. Nev had said, “Remember the words of our old deceased enemy, Hissied do Timan: ‘The enemy who believes it has an investment in a particular site will fortify that location, and in so doing fashion its own trap.” Our entire operation, including Ghazi Mrabet’s small computer factory, is air mobile.

  Davidge and Nev are seated in plush couches facing each other. Kita is in third couch looking at one of the hand-portable comm-linked computers the crew of the Aeolus was having loaded into the ship’s cargo bays. Kita sees me and smiles. “You must see the computers, Ro. They are exactly what we need.”

  “Good.” I sit next to her, and as Davidge and Nev discuss the Amadeen talma, I look at the instrument and am surprised how smal
l and light it is. While Kita points out the features, Davidge asks the old Drac, “Why are you here, Nev? Anyone could have supervised delivery of the cargo.”

  “Well, there were the power platforms, and some special equipment.”

  “Orin or any cargo agent could have handled that.”

  Nev’s eyes search Davidge’s for a moment, then they look elsewhere. “This thing you plan to attempt on Amadeen, it is very dangerous.”

  “Granted.”

  “Will, would you begrudge me a last meeting and embrace with you?”

  Davidge sighs and looks down guiltily. “Of course not. I am very glad to see you.” His gaze slowly rises until he is once more looking into Nev’s eyes. “That isn’t all, though. You…you’re going from here to Timan, aren’t you?”

  Nev wrestles with a thought, then discards it. “Yes, I am.”

  “Why?”

  Estone Nev shows its palms and says, “It is not sufficient that my namechild’s child is being held there?”

  Davidge leans forward, his expression one of fear and concern. “Don’t do this, Nev. An army couldn’t break Falna out of the Karnarak security center.”

  “I have no such plans,” answers Nev. “To attempt to do that I would have to disagree with the Timan verdict, and I do not. Falna is a murderer and among its murders is dear Ty, the child of Jeriba Zammis.” The old Drac seems stunned for a moment by its own words.

  “Why go to Timan, then?”

  “I know about conscious suspension, the way they are keeping Falna.” Nev nods toward Kita. “Her partner at Aakva Lua, Mirili Sanda, told me that according to the Timan law, there is an alternative to permanent suspension. I had the estate’s attorney investigate the matter, and it is true. There is an alternative.”

  Estone Nev looks up and its eyes are haunted by its chosen mission. “Falna may be put to death. As its sole living ascendant, according to the law, only I have the right to take Falna’s life.” It raises its hands and looks down at them. “With these,” it whispers. “I am allowed no medications, weapons, or surrogates. I must use these.” Nev looks up and its gaze meets mine. “I am traveling to Timan to strangle the life from my namechild’s child.”