Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

"And the remaining thing," I prompt.

"Ro, we know the Timans can manipulate other species into destroying themselves. Can they manipulate other species into healing, or at least mutual survival?" Davidge leans forward and rests his forearms on his knees. "One of us needs to know what the Timans know. I want you to enter the Ri Mou Tavii."

I lean back in my chair. "Falna graduated from the Ri Mou Tavii years ago, with honor."

"Ro, sooner or later this talma is going to lead us to Amadeen. I expect you and me to be there. I don’t want to have to tell Estone Nev that its line is finished because I got Falna killed."

"I am not eager to get killed myself," I point out.

Davidge wave, the comment away with a gesture. "There are some other things, too, Ro. You got into this because you want peace on Amadeen. That’s what I want right in the front of your head when you’re in the Ri Mou Tavii. Falna never fought on Amadeen and has different priorities. I think you already suspect how good I am in guessing what goes on in Falna’s head. You I think I understand. How about it?"

I shrug. "Why don’t I go to school, attend a few classes, and speak with the masters? Does it cost much?"

Davidge grins. "Tuition isn’t our problem. The trick is getting you in. Not many Timans make it into one of these schools. An alien, hardly ever."

It was my turn to smile. "Timan Nisak has moved planets. Perhaps they can move this little hill."

"Yeah, maybe." He looks at me, a puzzled expression on his face. "When I asked Falna what kind of qualifications you’d need to be accepted, all it said was: 'Be interesting."

A strange qualification that. Be interesting. Of course, what would interest a Timan? I am not certain that I care. What I know about Timans I do not like.

Lahvay ni 'do Timan, Dakiz of the Ri Mou Tavii, squats on its golden cushion before its crystal table and fills its white-eyed sight with my environmentally suited countenance. He speaks in Timan, the flattened translation coming through the link in my helmet. "I perceive a threat, Yazi Ro. Can you see it?"

"Perhaps," I answer as I look through my visor. Through the misty air I can see that the chamber is papered with penned writings in Timan. Letters from grateful students? A book the Dakiz is writing? Warning letters from creditors?

I see the Dakiz open and close his lips in a gesture of approval at my evasive answer. "You have had training in Ri Mou?" he asks, a slight tone of incredulity making it through the link.

"No," I answer truthfully. "I was born on a battlefield and reared within the bosom of a war, Dakiz. It develops certain skills."

"You have killed?"

"Yes."

Lahvay leans back from his table and looks at me, his white eyes hooded beneath dark gray lids. "Have you killed many?"

"How many would be many to a Timan, Dakiz?"

Again the Dakiz approves. I am a success. "Yazi Ro, we’ve never before had a killer as a student."

"As far as you know," I respond.

Lahvay leans to his left, adjusts his plain blue robe, and rests an arm on the table. "There have been no Timan wars for hundreds of years."

"I find that very strange, Dakiz."

"How so?"

"I am but seven, yet the war in which I was born and fought and that gave me the scars I carry was a Timan war."

The Dakiz taps the fingers of his right hand against his chin. Perhaps Davidge should have warned me not to be too interesting. "Yazi Ro, if no Timan fought in the war, no Timan died or suffered wounds, if no particle of Timan territory was lost or acquired, how then can this be a Timan war?"

I feel the anger coming on and I force it down. My mind goes blank as I try to remember the story of the sharks and the rock. Instead I use my own words. "Lahvay ni 'do Timan, who is responsible for an egg: the egg itself or the creature who laid it?"

The Dakiz narrows its white eyes and holds back its head. "Know that when Nisak applied its considerable influence to gain you admittance to the Ri Mou Tavii, my appreciation of the situation was as an impertinence, at best. At worst, a threat. Do you appreciate the threat?"

I take The Talman and add it to the wisdom of the battlefield. "If I know what I know, and I know what you know, I know more than you and therefore have the advantage."

"Then, make my decision for me, Yazi Ro."

I hold out my hands. "I am admitted."

The Timan’s face is slightly touched by a breath of disappointment. "That is not the product of the points discussed."

"Not all has been discussed," I answer. "What has been discussed misleads."

"How so?"

I point at the Dakiz. "Until I have walked your steps, breathed your breaths, and seen your seeing, I can never know what you know. I am admitted."

The Dakiz stands, smoothes its robe over its ample middle, and holds wide its arms. "Welcome to the Ri Mou Tavii, Yazi Ro. If you find here what you seek, that will be a treasure you will earn. Regardless of your success or failure, I trust I will be thoroughly entertained."

We are arranged in learning nests, circles of students linked by a form of mind fusion to the nest master, a more advanced student who passes down the lessons he has learned to us. Try as they might to appear indifferent, the other students in my nest seem uncomfortable with a suited alien in their midst.

As the fusion begins, the universe is made very small. In it, two creatures, multi-legged, black, and scaled, their powerful pinching claws slowly opening and closing, corner a third creature, smooth, soft, small, and slow.

The two clawed creatures are equal in strength and similar in form.

They do not, therefore, regard each other as threats.

The small creature looks to the creature on the right, points at it, and screams.

The clawed creature on the left faces the other to see the cause of the small creature’s reaction.

It sees only its companion and fellow hunter.

The clawed creature on the right, however, notices the other clawed creature facing it instead of the small soft one.

The creature on the right raises its claws, hisses, and moves its legs up and down in a menacing dance.

The creature on the left answers by arching its back, brandishing its own claws, hissing, and moving its legs in a menacing dance.

As the two clawed creatures attack and pull each other to pieces , the smooth, soft, small, and slow creature escapes.

In the village, we are seated in another circle. Kita, Davidge, Ty, Falna, I, and another. Our number has been increased by the addition of Captain Moss, who looks terrible. Beneres and Mrabet are still in the Zone. According to Moss, Reaper Brandt is in his quarters on the floor trying to get his heart started. As I half-listen, my head toying with the Ri Mou Tavii lessons, Kita holds out her hands in a gesture of frustration. "I don’t think Timan Nisak is giving us its complete cooperation."

"Why?" asks Davidge.

"The most recent theory from the Karnarak investigator is that the thermal drill used in the cave is a forgery. All of Nisak’s drills of that type are accounted for, he says."

"How do they explain the lack of markers in the chemical residue?" asks Jeriba Ty. "As I understand it, both JACHE and IMPEX explosives have chemical markers in their explosives."

Kita slowly shakes her head. "They have an answer for everything. Their scientists say that in the manufacture the chemical marker might have been purposefully left out. They also point out that the marker can be removed, given a lab with sufficient sophistication. As far as the Timans are concerned, it was an act performed by parties unknown with a fraudulent thermal drill designed to implicate Timan Nisak."

As I watch Davidge’s face redden in anger at the report, a memory of mine achieves a different perspective. My brief moments in the Ri Mou Tavii learning nests have already rearranged my view of everything. I am not yet certain whether I like or dislike my new view,