Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

I look at Jeriba Zammis. "Jetah, I cannot pretend to know anything about business, but naming one of his ships after a pilot who died in a wreck and naming another ship after another wreck seems needlessly morose."

"It does tend to open one’s mind on the subject of travel insurance." Zammis nods and hold out his hands. "I’d prefer waiting the extra time and using one of the off-planet charters, but it’s up to Uncle."

When we return to the estate, Ty is directing a scarcely controlled chaos. Undev Orin, Mizy Untav, and the other retainers race from floor to floor and wing to wing, their arms piled with things. When I reach my rooms, all my things are packed.

I return to the main hall and track Jeriba Ty to its office, where Zammis is on the link issuing instructions and jumping from address to address. Ty is on the com finishing off some last minute instructions to someone. As it pauses to take a breath, I ask, "What is happening?"

For a moment Ty looks at me as though it is has no idea who I am or where I am located in the enigma of its current activities. When the eyebrows rise, signifying recognition, Ty says, "The Aeolus leaves tonight for Timan. There are approximately half a million things that need doing before boarding." Ty immediately begins punching a number into its corn.

"Why so soon?" Suddenly I am angry and touched by panic. "No one asked me when I wanted to go!"

"Quite correct," Ty responds as it finishes punching in the number.

"Well, what if I refuse to go?"

Ty studies me for a breath and says, "If you refuse to go, you do not go." Frowning, Ty leans forward and speaks quietly so that Zammis cannot overhear. "Yazi Ro, it is not my habit to give out unsolicited advice, but in your case I am making an exception. You really ought to get to know your Talman." With that, Jeriba Ty leans back and begins talking into the com.

For some reason I feel that I need to talk to the human. On the fly, Undev Orin tells me that Davidge is in the cave. The walk to the cave under the approaching night overcast confuses me. Friendship seemed like such a cold, forbidding place. Now that the prospect of Planet Timan looms before me, the melting ice, the blue strip between the blankets of gray in the sky above, the raging sea seem like indispensable luxuries.

Before, when Davidge and I discussed the possibility of following Zenak Abi’s talma to Planet Timan, I made up my mind to go. If peace is truly possible, that is where I have to be to make life with myself bearable. My outburst at Jeriba Ty had more to do with feeling caught in a current, powerless to influence the events before me. The fear, though, is real.

As I reach the entrance to the cave, I hear a seductive, haunting voice singing in a language I do not know very well. I think it is Japanese, the human tongue spoken by most of the prisoners we took after the Battle of Butaan Ji. The singing man and his dead daughter.

The song coming from the cave, though, is not sad. It reminds me of the song Pina would sing at times before we loved. I wonder if I might interrupt Kita Yamagata and Davidge in a human love-making, but then I hear Davidge bellow "Shit!" This well known human sentiment is followed by the sound of pottery being smashed. Yamagata is no longer singing her song.

I enter the cave and see the woman, seated on one of the chemical-glass-covered firewood logs. She is wearing a deep purple suit that covers everything except her head. Around her neck is a golden chain and suspended from it is an amulet similar to a Drac Talman. As she sees me, she nods a little bow and smiles.

The interior of the cave is black from the flames and condensed vapor, the odor of chemicals strong in the air. Balanced on the rocks of the fireplace, there is a battery-powered lamp casting everything in a harsh blue light. Before either she or I can say anything, Davidge’s voice comes from one of the back chambers. "Esha may be able to divest itself of material possessions, but we don’t live in a tropical paradise!" He emerges from the entrance on my right holding a small pair of boots, blackened and gummy-looking. "Look at these. Haesni worked so hard on them."

"And what is the lesson Haesni now has an opportunity to learn from this?" asks Yamagata, her face quite serious, but her eyes filled with mocking laughter.

Davidge aims a brief scowl at her, then softens his face and sits next to the investigator, holding the boots before him. "Fairness is an illusion. Neither effort nor intention holds title to the nature or form of either the present or the future." His lips crack in a tiny smile. "And if sincere effort has no title, what interest can the bellow or the lamentation hold?"

"The humans on Amadeen have a different way of saying it," I observe.

Davidge faces me and asks, "What’s that?"

"Tough shit."

Both of them laugh at that and Davidge gets to his feet, tossing the boots aside. "Well, after Yazi Ro’s abbreviated version of the Koda Ovsinda, about the only thing left to do is to find another cave." He waves a hand at the walls. "It’ll be decades before this will be a safe place to bring up a youngster."

I walk over to him and ask something that has bothered me since I first met Willis E. Davidge. "Why bring up a youth in a cave? Why do you do this?"

Davidge frowns at me as he puts on his hooded coat. "As to why I rear the children here, I find meaning in it. It’s the first meaning I ever found in my life. There is nothing more important." He grins. "As to why I do it in a cave, Ro, of all the persons I have ever met, you are the one I thought would understand without explaining." With that, he turns, picks up his coat, and heads for the opening.

In a flash I shout at his back, "I am not one of your students!"

Kita Yamagata stands, places a hand on my arm, and says, "If that is so, you may want to ask yourself why you are here."

"The talma. The path to peace on Amadeen. That is why I am here."

She nods, her eyes looking up at me. "What is the point of putting you together with Will if he learns nothing from you, if you learn nothing from him? We are all students, Yazi Ro; and we are all teachers." She pauses as though weighing something she might say.

"What is it?" I ask.

She weighs it once more, purses her lips, narrows her eyes, and says, "Learn your Talman, Ro. It’s not only the peace on Amadeen that may be at stake." She pats my arm. "At stake as well is the peace of your own being."

I want to shake her hand off my arm, but I do not, for I fear she is right. A burdensome thing to hear from a Drac; more burdensome still from a human. I look at the golden locket hanging from her neck. It is her Talman, carrying the strange sign of a dragon. At the battle of Butaan Ji, I saw a similar sign. It was a tattoo on the back of one of the dead defenders. I watched as a Mavedah soldier cut the skin from the dead man’s back, saving the tattoo for a trophy. I watched and felt nothing.

Kita Yamagata smiles at me and turns to put on her hooded coat.

"Yamagata," I say.

"Kita," she corrects. "With humans the line name comes last." She smiles widely. "Which is funny, because that is not always true. With my people the given name does come last, Of course, with my people my name is not Kita Yamagata; it is Yamagata Kita."

"Kita, then. Do you know The Talman ?"

"My father and mother reared me within Earth’s Talman Kovah." She continues fastening her coat.

Old myths, cryptic lessons, they seem to make no difference on Amadeen. The only one on Amadeen I know who memorized its Talman was Zenak Abi, traitor, fugitive, and gunslinger. Too, Abi is the only person I met on Amadeen who appeared happy. Strangely enough, Abi also lives in a cave, if the Jetah still lives.