Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

Relaxed, focused, without resistance, I absorb the intellectual, philosophical, political, and spiritual saga of my species.

Rhada and the Laws of Aakva.

Daultha, Aakva’s lesson of no laws, and the division of the Sindie.

Uhe, its new law of war, and the unification of the Sindie.

Shizumaat and the discovery of universe and talma.

The three books of Mistaan who invented writing and recorded the life and words of Shizumaat and Vehya as well as its own.

Ioa and the founding of the first Talman Kovah.

Kulubansu, who destroyed the Talman Kovah, and Lurvanna, who hid The Talman in the memories of its students.

Aydan who fought in the War of Ages and made war a science to achieve peace.

Tochalla and the rebuilding of the Talman Kovah.

Cohneret who did for love what Aydan did for war.

Maltak Di who unified the problem-solving sciences into talma, the science of making rules to step outside of rules. Faldaam, Zineru and its truths, and there is the Koda Siayvida and Ro, the Ovjetah who took talma and applied it to crime and law. And now I understand what Davidge meant when he handed Zammis a rock and asked it if the rock was a shark.

"The tool of the one who acts becomes the one who acts. The one who murders is no more responsible for the murder than the one who ordered the killing or the one who provided the weapon or provided the compensation. If I throw a stone and it kills you, I am not exempt from responsibility because it was the stone that killed you, not I.

"Before the law, the stone and I are one. Before the law the assassin and its master are one…"

Avatu who left Sindie with the generation ships, Poma and the founding of Draco, Eam and the colonization of new worlds, Namvaac and the Thousand Year War, Ditaar, the end of the war and the Formation of the Dracon Chamber. It plays again and again, and each time I learn more. Each time, though, as I reach the story of Ditaar, I think of the missing book, the Koda Nusinda, The Eyes of Joanne Nicole.

A flash of warmth against my face, a wash of heat all over my body, sounds, words, garbled and dim. There is a yellow light and I reach to my eyes, the muscles of my arm, palm, and fingers tight and painful. There is a crusty substance along the edges of my eyelids that glues my eyelids shut.

"Slow down, Yazi Ro," says the voice of Reaper, the steward. "Let me do it." I feel something warm and wet on my eyelids, a little extra dribbling down the right side of my head. They are blotted dry as the steward says, "Okay, you can open your eyes now."

I can feel him move away as I reach my hand up once more and touch my eyelids. The gunk is gone. I pull my eyelids open and look to see a blur of shades and colors. They resolve into the brutal visage of Reaper. "Rise and shine, it’s maintenance time. Unass the box so I can change the filters."

I look over at Estone Falna, still motionless in its sealed pod. I have seen an abundance of death during my years, and Falna looks dead. I cough, clear my throat. "Why is Falna so still?" I whisper. I look and mine is the only pod open. I look at the human named after death. "All of them?"

Reaper grins and says, "It’s either a mass murder, one hell of an equipment failure, or we do the pod maintenance in rotation and this time it’s your turn." He makes a fist and gestures with his thumb. "C’mon, outta the box. Wash up, eat, get in some exercise, and take your suspension meds."

Every muscle protests as I pull myself into a sitting position. Reaper is checking the health monitors and he points me toward the shower booth where I wash myself down in the tepid water. Once I am dry, Reaper supplies me with a towel, a fresh vapor suit, and slippers. "It’s going to be a couple of hours before you go back in the box. Get some exercise and a bite to eat and do whatever you want."

"Reaper, would you mind if I ask a question?"

The big man shrugs. "You can always ask."

Taking that as assent, I look into his eyes, seeing there not the mind of a brute, but intelligence. I avert my glance and ask, "When you were in the Tsien Denvedah, what was your occupation?"

The man’s eyebrows jump up, then he grins. "Ilcheve. You know, a kind of cop―police officer." He shrugs again and screws his face up. "Not exactly. Look, the shadow jetahs in the squirrel palace would idee a black hat. Sometimes a sleeper, op, brass, a glad hander, or maybe an enemy ilcheve. Then they’d pull my trigger and shoot me after the mark. I’d have to sniff him out and pull his plug, most times in hot zones. Sometimes the shadow masters wouldn’t know the target and I’d have do a holiday and find out who the bad daddy is. After I fingered the perp, the regreta Jetah would give him the thumbs down and I’d do him with prejudice to the max."

I stare at Reaper for awhile and then say, "Your superiors would send you after someone they wanted killed and you would kill it."

"Yeah." The big man nods. "That’s what I said." He holds up a hand. "Gotta go back to work. Don’t forget your exercise and meds."

After the bland food and a run on the musclemill, I begin feeling Drac again. I watch Falna in its pod for a few minutes, letting my fantasies shadow my realities. Reaper tells me that everything is on automatic so I can go up to the cockpit and look at the stars if I want. Just don’t touch anything.

I sit in one of the acceleration couches watching the slightly distorted images of the stars pass by. As I lose myself in their hypnotic dance, the themes, lessons, and images from The Talman momentarily touch my awareness, presenting themselves like gems of unknown properties to he contemplated, observed, tested, and placed aside until more is learned.

My mind has been packed with words, phrases, chapters, ideas, and stories. I thought that once I had the words of The Talman in my mind, I would have its knowledge and wisdom there as well. All I have, though, are the words. Some of those words drift into my awareness: "Words are maps to existence. Once you travel a piece of reality it is possible to know the meaning of its words. If all you have before you are words, all you can consider are meaningless marks and sounds."

I smile as I acknowledge my first application of The Talman 's words to my life. Knowing that I do not know is knowledge, says Faldaam in the Koda Siovida.

To see stars and the worlds that orbit them gives a strange perspective. How many hundreds or thousands of wars, crimes, atrocities, disasters, and horrors does the Aeolus pass by each moment? If Amadeen is among those worlds I can say no more than I can to those others passing around me now. It is so unimportant, so insignificant. Come, rise to where I am. See the stars and the worlds pass and know that you are occupied with trifles.

Yet we are to walk one of those worlds orbiting one of those stars and see if our trifle of a war on Amadeen can be influenced by another trifle on the Planet Timan. I remember all too clearly that in the mud and blood of Amadeen there are no trifles.

It is so hard to know what is important. Is there anything important in itself without regard to some thoughtful pair of eyes and a mind? At times there seems so much to learn that the task of learning it seems impossible.

I hear a click, a series of audio oscillations, and another click. I turn to my left and see Eli Moss in the pilot’s couch, his face illuminated by the white, orange and blue instrument lights. Seemingly satisfied as to whatever he was checking, he quickly scans the instruments then settles back to watch the stars, his face grim and bitter. I do not intrude, for I know his expression. I have worn a similar one. I get up to leave the cockpit and Moss says, "Do you have any questions I can answer?"