Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

Jeriba Shigan’s gaze falls to the floor, then climbs slowly until it looks into my eyes. "Your question has occupied Talman masters for thousands of years. My own teacher had a way of cutting through the layers of convoluted philosophical discourse―what he called mental meat-beating―to get to the core of a matter. To your question he might say that, just for spite, you can choose to prove everyone who thinks they know how you are going to choose wrong by doing the exact opposite." Shigan frowned a moment and added, "Actually, he’d probably tell you not to worry about it."

"He?" I ask.

The Ovjetah nods. "My Uncle Willy. That is to whom you are to deliver the package: Willis E. Davidge."

"A human."

"More so than most." The Ovjetah frowns for a moment, rubs its chin, and looks at me. "If you accept this mission, Yazi Ro, I should warn you: he really hates being called Uncle Willy."

Before I make the choice, I already know that I will go. My fear, though, is to spend my life for nothing. To achieve peace I think I could take Aydan’s test and feel complete as the blade drops from my hand. But what if my efforts―my life and death―amount to nothing more than Matope’s pointless demonstration outside the kovah in the belief that it might somehow contribute to the coming peace? Late that day I tell Jeriba Shigan my fear. It answers:

"I have seen Matope every day that I have attended the Kovah, as student, master, Jetah, and Ovjetah for over twenty-five years. Without him and those who used to be with him keeping the problem of Amadeen a festering sore in my side, I do not know how open I would have been to considering the reluctant mission of a rude illegal visitor from Amadeen, and the work of the traitor who sent the visitor to me. Matope has helped keep the problem of Amadeen present in my mind."

Before I get in the car that will take me and my package to a planet called Friendship, I stop by the park and tell Matope about the possible path to peace, my mission, and what the Ovjetah told me. The human’s eyes grow moist, but he does not leave. "Show me peace, Yazi Ro, and I’ll go home." I shake hands with him and get into the car.

The ship is the Venture , a new commercial freighter owned by JACHE. An English name on a Drac ship. Although designed to carry freight, there are several passengers, three humans and eleven Dracs. I do not have to work my way on the ship to Fyrine IV. Instead I have an individual compartment lined with endless luxuries and little to do. There is an information terminal in the ship’s passenger lounge, and I code for Fyrine IV.

The view from space at the planet’s closest point in its orbit around Fyrine shows a planet shrouded in an almost permanent cloud cover. With the cloud cover removed, I see ice caps, and in between, land masses separated by gray oceans. The closer aerial view of the planet shows that there is vegetation, brownish-green forests, vast plains covered with reddish-blue plants, everything constantly whipped by the planet’s ceaseless winds.

At the planet’s most distant point from the sun, the entire world is covered in ice and snow. I ask and the Planet Friendship is in the midst of its winter.

I had seen snow before, in the northern Dorado when the Mavedah attempted to invade the continent from an unexpected direction. We lost many when the force was trapped by an unexpected storm. Fyrine IV’s winter covers the planet and lasts throughout most of its year, which is almost two standard years long.

Both JACHE and Earth IMPEX attempted to seed the planet and make it productive, but the effort was abandoned both times because of the expense and because of the war. Despite its hostile environment, after the war it was settled by both Dracs and humans. The article ends with population, government, and economic notes that I skim through. A little under three million in population, every species I ever heard of and several I do not know exist live there. There is no coercive governmental body; such things as protection, disputes, criminal reparations, and insurance are handled by private commercial and voluntary organizations. For more information I am directed, among other places, to the article on Willis E. Davidge. The article on the Ovjetah’s Uncle Willy only states that he is a former USEF fighter pilot, he wrote the first English translation of The Talman , and that he currently resides on Friendship.

In the passenger lounge is a wide observation port through which the ship’s passage between the stars can be seen, their crisp brightness dulled slightly from the drive distortion. Few passengers seem to use the facility, and I kill the main illumination in the lounge and stand before the port, my reflection dim and ghostly red from the safety guide beacons mounted near the deck. Beyond the red ghost is the universe. As the parade of stars marches steadily by, deeply hidden thoughts steal into my awareness.

Were the woman and her Drac baby placed in my way to move me onto a particular path headed toward a certain goal? Am I free to change my direction, or does the path anticipate my question and my illusion of freedom? Was my meeting with this Davidge forged along with the creation of the universe? On its face it seems improbable. But I am far past the face of things. My guts tell me that something out there has already made my choices for me.

An image of Pina climbs in front of my eyes and is soon joined by Min and the Front killer with the flute outside Douglasville.

My parent.

As Yazi Avo’s image fills my sight, it blurs from my tears. A war between grief and rage fills my feelings and I find myself sobbing out loud. The compartment suddenly becomes very bright. I turn and see a human with his hand on the light panel. The human is smooth-headed, very pale, and wearing an expensive suit. "I apologize," he says in excellent Drac. "My name is Michael Hill. I heard what sounded like crying."

I turn away, dry my face with my palms, and say "I am Yazi Ro. Memories play with me. Nothing more."

A long silence, then the human says, "If you’ve never been in space before, Ro, staring at the stars from a dark compartment can be quite disturbing. It has a tendency to call out the shadows you least want to see. Have you been out before?"

"Once." I glance at the human and feel myself smiling. "I had no access to an observation port, though."

The human walks across the deck until he is next to me, both of us looking through the port. In the bright lights of the lounge our reflections mute the stars. "I find a star field humbling," says Hill. "What are the passions of an individual, a nation, or a single world against all of that? I represent the largest, most powerful industrial power in the quadrant."

"Earth IMPEX," I interrupt.

Michael Hill nods. "IMPEX has employed entire populations and transformed worlds across the galaxy. Billions of beings owe their fortunes and even their existence to IMPEX, yet I often wonder if there is anything that can be done by an individual, a corporation, or even an entire species, that would be noticeable next to that." Michael Hill nods toward the stars, faces me, and grins. "If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan." He nods at me, turns, and leaves the lounge.

After eating with the other passengers, I sit in my compartment thinking about the universe, war, and stopping a war. Does anything I, the Ovjetah, or this Willis E. Davidge do make any difference in a universe where countless stars are born and die every moment? Yet there is the ghost of that man I killed at Butaan Ji, the father of that dead little girl. He wasn’t awed by the infinite reaches of space. The universe was already done for him. The entire cosmos would have been saved had only one life been spared, yet the life was gone and the universe was dead.