But there is the tribe. That is something.
Amadeen is cut up into tribes as primitive as anything on ancient Sindie, as obsessed as any on Timan, as vicious as anything on Earth. The tribe has only one commandment: the tribe comes first. Before right, before justice, before honor, before sanity, before survival, before self-interest, before love. Hissied ‘do Timan did not create the war on Amadeen that became a war of three hundred worlds. The old Timan simply pulled the trigger on a gun that was loaded on the plains of the Madah, the mountains of the Irrvedan, the Irnuz Steppe, the streets of Belfast and Sarajevo, and the deserts of the Middle East before either Timans, humans, or Dracs even knew there were stars to touch.
“Does Black October have this yet?” asks Kita.
Reaper nods. “So does the Front, the Mavedah, and all the little sons of bitches.” He glances at Davidge. “Raymond Sica ordered the retaliation. Before it could be carried out, Sally Redfeather took him on the dance. Sica’s guards took her down.”
Janice reaches out a hand to place it on Reaper’s shoulder, but he shakes his head and continues. “Message from October: Paul Ruche is running October now. He wants to meet with us face to face.”
“A setup?” asks Kita.
Reaper rubs his eyes and shrugs. When his hand comes down, his face looks very old. “Hell, I don’t know. The feeling I get is that he wants to know if we’re for real.”
“For real?” I ask. “What does that mean: for real?”
“Sincere,” answers Davidge. “Perhaps the new leader of Black October wants to know if we’re sincere.” He lowers his gaze to the center of the table. “Perhaps not.” He looks at Janice. “What about the Green Fire attack on Gitoh?”
“They’ve been looking at the numbers written on the wall and I think they’ve reconsidered.”
He nods, puts his hands on the table, and pushes himself up. Once he is standing he says, “Well, that’s something. That’s something.” He frowns for a moment and looks up at the screen. Several of the fires have gone out. “Whose hand-portable is that?”
“Fireball. It just got there from training.”
“Fireball,” Davidge repeats. “Tell Fireball we’ve had enough pictures. Tell it to put down its twenty-nine and get out of there.” He removes his headset and places it on the table as he looks back at Reaper. “Arrange a meeting with Ruche. Maybe we can show him we’re for real. See what we can do about getting Ali Enayat’s and Sally’s bodies returned to us.”
“Got it.”
“For the meeting, I want us all wired for pictures and sound with feeds to all the broadcasting stations who will take them.”
Reaper nods. “I’ll take care of it.”
Davidge looks down at the center of the table and speaks, it seems, to himself. “Bodies. There is doubt out there; doubt about us. After what we’ve done, after what they’ve paid, after what we’ve paid, there is still doubt.” He glances at me and asks, “How many bodies more will it take before we are considered for real?”
It is not a question with an answer. He puts his hands on the edge of the table and pushes himself to his feet. For the first time he looks terribly old to me. He reaches out a hand and places it on my shoulder. “I’m very proud of you, Ro.” One by one his gaze picks out all those in the comm center, “I’m proud of all of you, everyone in The Peace.”
He turns and walks from the comm center to his quarters, his steps slow and almost feeble, his back bent beneath the weight of his cares. Kita places her hand on mine. “If we’re needed I’ll have my headset with me.” She rises and follows Davidge out of the center.
Reaper, Janice, and Roger work with the screens, spreading the word, making arrangements, passing on graphics to the broadcasting stations. A meeting place and time is arranged with Black October and I feel the Aeolus swinging about.
I think of Ali Enayat’s two children, one human and one Drac, neither of them biologically related to him. They must be told. I think of Sally Redfeather in her dress at that terrible bar. Reaper will tell Cudak.
I especially think of that old Drac, Toack, the one who guarded her things, the one who never left its history behind and brought the war with it into the future, the one who kept repeating its mantra: “All my children. All my children.” I see Will Davidge doing the same.
It is quiet on the Dorado for the rest of the night. I go to sleep and dream that I am a child in Willis Davidge’s cave. There I learn to love, to be loved, to become love. I am a part of this wonder that is the universe, only to find that it is a trap set for me by Falna. I reach for Uncle Willy’s hand and find death. I awaken screaming and cry myself back to sleep.
FORTY-THREE
Soon after sunrise, in the hills north of Obsidian, Davidge, Kita, and I go to meet with the new leader of Black October, Paul Ruche. From the right front corner, Reaper pilots the power platform because he refuses to let us go without him. He has enough weapons concealed about his person to make it possible to sink him to the bottom of a lake of quicksilver. The Aeolus is in its usual position over the Shorda Sea, our backup authorization team―Yora, Janice, and Cudak―in place. Reaper, Kita, and I carry hand-portables and our cameras are sending, the ship relaying the feeds to the Front, the Mavedah, and to all of the splinter groups.
Hanging onto the cargo braces, we stand silently watching Ruche and his two bodyguards standing in the clearing. At their feet are two litters, a shroud-wrapped body upon each. The ship’s sensors show that Ruche has at least a company of Octoberists hidden in the woods. A trap for us? Perhaps it is only Ruche’s precaution in case the trap is ours.
As we land I look away from the Octoberists and watch Davidge. His expression is strangely calm. Last night I heard he and Kita arguing. He insisted that she remain behind. She insisted that he remain behind. The meeting though is with all of us, the ones who “run things,” as Paul Ruche had put it. They at last accepted that they both would go and I hear them making love as though for the last time.
I no longer question this love between this young woman and this old man. I am learning to see beyond surfaces; a skill Will and Kita knew back on Friendship. As I listened to them, I ached for Falna’s touch. At that moment I could have forgiven it anything, just to have its arms around me.
The platform lands and I force myself into the present moment. Reaper shuts down the controls, releases his straps, and steps down onto the grassy surface of the clearing. The three of us follow, instinctively placing distance between each of us so that we cannot all be taken out with one shot.
We stop five paces from the three Octoberists. Now that we are closer, I see that one of his bodyguards is the head of Black October’s thought police, the woman Akilah Hareef. The third one I do not recognize. Ruche fixes Davidge with a stare and says, “The agreement was that we are to be unarmed. The three of us are unarmed, and the three of you are unarmed.” The Octoberist I do not recognize holds up a hand scanner. “That one,” Ruche says nodding toward Reaper, “is armed.”
Kita smiles and says, “He balances out those hundred and forty-two armed soldiers you have watching us from the edge of the woods.” As I listen, I remember the knife in my boot. I guess Ruche doesn’t consider my blade a weapon next to the pistols and disrupters Reaper has tucked here and there.
Ruche’s expression does not change. He nods at the bodies of Ali Enayat and Sally Redfeather. “As we agreed, here are your assassins.”
Without looking away from Ruche, Davidge says, “Reaper.”
Reaper moves until he is between the litters. He kneels down next to one and uncovers the face of the Alley Cat, the first to volunteer. It is stained with dried blood, the hair matted with it. The eyes are open and Reaper closes them. Turning to face the other litter he pulls the wrapping from the face of the corpse. It is Sally Redfeather, eyes closed, her face waxy yellow, her mouth hanging open. Reaper covers her face, stands, and looks at Paul Ruche, “She was no assassin, squid. She saved all of your lives.”
&nb
sp; “She killed Raymond,” says Akilah Hareef.
“Raymond Sica was an asshole who gave an order that, had it been followed, would have done for Black October what firing those missiles did for the Tean Sindie.”
“They were killing us; killing our people!”
“And now they are dead.” Reaper squats down, picks Sally’s body up in his arms, and takes her back to the platform.
“What is this meeting about?” asks Davidge.
The head of Black October frowns as he seems to have difficulty arriving at a decision. The decision postponed, he continues to watch as Reaper stands from placing Sally’s body on the platform and returns for Ali Enayat. As he picks up the remains of our first volunteer, Ruche looks into Davidge’s eyes. “I needed to see you face to face. I don’t trust these broadcast images.”
“You’re being televised right now,” says Kita.
Akilah holds up Sally’s hand-portable, her own image on the tiny screen. “We know.”
“There are no screens between you and me right now,” Ruche says to Davidge. “I want to see you—your face, your eyes―when you tell me what you are doing here, on Amadeen, in this fight that has nothing to do with you.”
I nod as I realize that Black October gets prohibited communications from the quarantine force orbiters. How many other groups do the same, I wonder.
“Tell me now,” Roche orders. “Why are you here? What do you get out of this?”
“We are here to police the truce,” Davidge repeats. “What we get out of it is the chance for the truce to work. Possibly we get peace.”
I can see all of Paul Ruche’s thinking displayed on his face: Do you think I am a fool? I have seen a hundred thousand instances where Dracs have lied, betrayed, set up good men and women, and tortured and killed them. You are standing there with a Drac as your equal, your so-called police force even has a Drac name, and you had Raymond Sica murdered because he was only trying to defend us against the Tean Sindie’s bloody attack.
Reaper places his burden down on the platform next to Sally. Ruche studies him for a moment, then faces Davidge. “So, little Niagat,” says Ruche, “you’re after Aydan’s blade, are you?”
In surprise I blurt out, “You know The Talman?”
“To defeat an enemy, one must know its thoughts,” he answers without looking away from Davidge. “I know the story of Aydan and its search for peace.” He drops his gaze for a moment, and thinks. Once he finds his Mind, he looks first at Kita, then me, then Davidge. “Aydan put together an army to end the war between the nations on Sindie; an army whose only purpose was peace.”
He holds out an arm toward the woods. “I’ll tell you what those men and women want. They want every last Drac in the universe dead. I’ll tell you what those Dracs in the Mavedah, Tean Sindie, Sitarmeda, and Thuyo Koradar want. They want every last human in the universe dead. And you want a truce. Tell me, Aydan, what can be gained from truce talks?”
Davidge smiles and shakes his head. “Perhaps what the Dracs say is true: to get a human’s attention takes a mirror, a loud voice, and a sharp stick.” He takes a deep breath and nods. “I guess it’s not as obvious as I thought. The point of the truce, Paul Ruche, is the truce itself.”
“What does that mean?”
“If the Front and the Mavedah, and all of the human and Drac splinter groups do make it to the table, they will talk, and swear, and bellow, and curse, and threaten, and will reach no agreement, but the truce will hold. Then, in time, children will grow and your replacements will come to the table. Perhaps they too will talk, swear, bellow, curse, and threaten and reach no agreement, but the noise level will be lower and the truce will hold. All this time humans and Dracs will be venturing farther and farther from their weapons. They will be rebuilding their lives, their towns and cities, their schools, farms, and businesses. The young, not burdened with memories, will see where money might be made by selling to the other side. Money might be saved by employing them, putting them through the same schools that ours attend, and the truce will hold. Eventually, the ones who show up at the talks will be men, women, and Dracs who really don’t understand why so many old ones are so insanely attached to the past. The talks will be populated by those who no longer want to waste time on talks that don’t do anything or go anywhere. They will sign the peace.”
“For me, then,” says Ruche, “it is a pointless gesture. I get nothing I want. Black October gets nothing it has fought and sacrificed for all these years.”
“You asked me what would be gained from truce talks. I answered.”
“And this is all you want: the truce to hold so that at some point in the future there will be a signed peace?”
Paul Ruche turns away, looks at Akilah Hareef, and she nods in return. “Willis Davidge,” she says, “the only Drac I ever heard about who wanted only peace was Aydan, who, if the story is to be believed, killed millions of its enemies before it adopted its noble goal.”
“Say what you will,” remarks Ruche’s bodyguard with the scanner, “we and the Dracs have at least accomplished that.”
After dosing him with a withering glance, Akilah Hareef looks back at Davidge. “In the story of Aydan, Niagat is told how to pass the test for a warmaster’s blade.”
Davidge quotes, Return when your goal is peace alone and you hold a willing knife at your own throat to achieve it. That is the price of a warmaster’s blade.
As I hear Akilah Hareef make her offer, the talma is clear to me from beginning to end. I am stunned by it: its simplicity, its beauty, its horror. “We will put down our weapons and come to the talks if we see the Navi Di earn its Aydan’s blade.”
The world turns so slowly, the figures about me moving like insects through resin. Davidge does not ask what the woman means, or if she is serious, or argue that the goal of Aydan’s test was peace not the dubious agreement of a fraction of one side, or point out that it is probably nothing more than a meaningless bluff.
Davidge does none of these.
In one liquid movement the old human bends down, pulls the knife from my boot, and stands holding the knife above his head. I reach to stop him, but Kita throws her arms around me, immobilizing my arms with a strength I did not know she possessed. When I break free and can see, Davidge’s hand is at his side, the blood is flowing down the front of his jacket, and he is sinking to his knees, his eyes open, his gaze fixed on Akilah Hareef. His words, other words, parade before me.
“How many bodies more will it take before we are considered for real?”
“All my children. All my children.”
I rush to his side, and am there only in time to lower him gently to the ground. Peace? Can any peace be worth this?
Yes. Of course. Only one life.
Only one.
I look at Akilah Hareef. Her mouth is open in a parody of astonishment. Paul Ruche is studying Davidge, waiting still for a trick. The Octoberist with the scanner takes a hesitant step forward. As he squats down next to Davidge, he looks at me and I see the confusion, the tears in his eyes. Reaper rushes up, pushes Ruche out of the way, and drops to his knees next to me.
“What in the hell happened?” He glares at me, then Ruche, then Hareef. “Who―”
I point at Davidge’s hand, my knife still clutched in his fingers. I pry the knife from his hand and hold it. Kita stands there next to Davidge, her eyes closed, the tears on her cheeks. I want to rip the blade across Hareef’s guts, cut off Ruche’s suspicious face, gouge out all the crying eyes around me.
I do none of it. Instead I thrust the blade into the ground, leave it, and pick Davidge up in my arms. As I stand I face Kita. “You knew.”
Her lips form the word “yes,” but there is no sound.
The Ovjetah, Zenak Abi, Kita Yamagata, Davidge. Aside from myself, who did not know this talma? There is so much anger I need to throw at someone, but the only one who deserves it is dead in my arms. It was his hand. I swing Davidge’s body around and look at Paul Ruche, the head of Bl
ack October, All I do is look and keep looking until he turns and begins walking toward the tree line, followed a moment later by Akilah Hareef. The remaining Octoberist looks from my face to Davidge’s body. He shakes his head, turns slowly and follows the others to the tree line.
“Let’s go, Ro.” Reaper is standing there, his arms out, offering to help carry Davidge. I turn away from him and, holding Davidge close to me, I walk toward the platform. “You were to be my parent,” I whisper to the still shape in my arms. “I am alone once more.” I lower him and place his body next to his dead comrades.
When all of us are aboard, the platform lifts off, I face into the wind, and try to believe that I am in a dream in which I know I am in a dream, which means I can change it at will. But I can will no changes, for I am not in a dream, and the pain will never end.
FORTY-FOUR
The truce still holds.
As I stand in the shadows looking down at the night mists, the truce still holds.
Thuyo Koradar and The Fives make some noise and some plans. The noise is just noise and the plans―well, if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan. Bombers, suicide attackers, nutball war chiefs, and everyone else begin seeing twenty-nines wherever they go. There are more twenty-nines than The Peace has either time or personnel to inscribe. The Mavedah’s own people, the Front’s own people, are marking the sign of The Peace everywhere.
Many saw on their monitors what happened when Hareef made her offer and Davidge earned his Aydan’s blade. The story spreads. Through Black October, through the Front, The Fives, The Rose, and Greenfire. Through the Mavedah, the Tean Sindie, Sitarmeda, and Thuyo Koradar. Through all of the peoples of Amadeen.
Enemy Papers Page 65