Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

Joanne Nicole had the sight to detect the hand behind the war. She caught Hissied 'do Timan by surprise and foiled his plans to secure Timan influence in the quadrant by destroying both Dracs and humans. Had he allowed himself to see the blind woman’s role in the negotiations, he could have prepared better. He did attempt to manipulate another into killing her, but the one who took on the mission to kill Joanne Nicole didn’t expect her to fight back. After all, she was blind and helpless. The attempt at murder failed.

In the village I see Davidge and Kita walking around the reflection pool in the common chamber. Among the strange trees and shrubs are several unfamiliar beings. Three are Dracs, one is human, and four are Vikaans, am curious about their reasons for being here, but I have no desire to meet anyone new. There is a refreshment lounge off the common and I enter it to get some brewed tea and to look for Falna.

Eli Moss and Reaper are sitting in comfortable chairs holding large glasses containing a beverage that resembles carbonated human urine. When he notices me, the captain turns off the newsscreen in the cubicle and points toward a chair facing his. I sit in the chair, a human waiter takes my order, and I am left looking at Eli Moss and Reaper. I am not much of one for making conversation, but that responsibility is lifted from me.

"What in the hell are you people doing here?" asks Moss. Before I can attempt an answer, he waves a hand and continues. "Murder investigations, wheeling and dealing with Timan Nisak, whatever it is that Estone Falna is doing besides patting your fanny, and you? Going to school?"

"You are drunk."

Moss nods. "That explains what I’m doing here. Now, what’re you people doing here?"

Reaper, not quite as intoxicated as his captain, leans toward me. "I tried to tell him about Amadeen―"

The waiter brings my tea and places it on the small table to my right. I forget to thank him as I look at Eli Moss’s smirking face. "What we are doing here is trying to stop a war."

"A war?"

"That’s right." I sip at my tea, noticing from my increasing anger that I have not quite achieved the ideal of Timan reserve.

Moss frowns as he looks at Brandt. "That’s what you said, Reaper." His eyebrows go up and he wags a finger at me. "What war? There hasn’t been a war here for hundreds of years."

"Amadeen. We’re here to stop the war on Amadeen."

Moss laughs out loud. "Amadeen?" He lurches to his feet, looks at the timepiece strapped to his wrist, then turns around and points toward a potted imitation tree. "Amadeen’s that way."

Davidge and Kita come up to the cubicle, and before they can say anything, Moss points again at the fake tree and says. "Amadeen is thataway." With that Captain Moss finishes off his beverage, puts down the glass on a table, and brushes past Davidge on his way to the quarters wing.

Kita looks down at me and says, "The good captain appears well medicated."

"He needs something to do," says Brandt finishing off his own beverage. He puts down his glass, wipes his mouth on a napkin, and looks around at all of us. "What the captain was saying is that if this expedition of yours ever gets moving toward Amadeen, he would be pleased to assist you in whatever capacity he can."

Davidge points with his thumb toward the entrance. "What’s he know about why we’re here?"

"Everything," I answer.

Kira sits in the chair vacated by Eli Moss and Davidge takes the chair to my left. "What do you mean, everything?"

"It, all of it, the works, the whole enchilada." I look at Reaper.

"It’s true. In between manuscripts, notes, link records, receipts, and so on, I’ve pretty much put together that you’re working a talma to bring an end to the war on Amadeen. The captain and I think it to be a worthy goal."

"No kidding," says Davidge.

The big man nods. "How you are to go about it is something I couldn’t figure out. I’m guessing that’s because you folks haven’t figured it out either."

"Well, hell. Welcome to the club." Davidge rests his elbows on his chair’s armrests and clasps his hands across his belly as he looks at me. "Ro, are you tired of Timan?"

"You said it yourself, Will. The war feeds off itself. The rest of the universe could vanish and the fighting on Amadeen wouldn’t pause for an instant. Whatever answer we are looking for, it is not on Timan. It is on Amadeen."

The waiter heads in our direction but Davidge waves him off, glances at Kita and me, then faces Brandt. "Okay, we’ve reached a dead end with the investigation. Timan Nisak has put incredible pressure on every government, public, and private institution on the planet. If there is anything, it should have surfaced by now. Just in case something was overlooked, Ty has been running Timan Nisak’s records, seeing if there’s a money trail of some kind from Timan Nisak leading to IMPEX, Hill, or someone else. When I left Ty, it was on the link working with the line’s bank on Friendship doing a quadrant-wide search. Ty’s sure it can come up with something, although it may take months." He nods at Kita and she faces me.

"Sanda got in touch again. Aakva Lua managed to track down a hovercraft capable of firing the marker missile that almost took you out. The owner is a Drac, as is the pilot. Sanda found both of them dead. Suicide, Sanda thinks. The hovercraft is a charter out of First Colony. Ty is running the charter service’s financial records, as well."

I hold up my hands. "Michael Hill, after he made his attempt, he fell to his death." I lower my hands and face Davidge. "We assume he just made a wrong turn in the dark. What if he, too, committed suicide? What if all three were under the influence of some sort of mind control? Between that neural amplifier that they use in mind fusion, and the Timan variety the Ri Mou Tavii uses in instruction, all kinds of things could be planted in an individual’s mind. What if whoever is behind this used Hill and those two Dracs like self-destructing robots?"

Davidge snaps his fingers as he fixes his gaze on a point in space. "Maybe that’s it," he says quietly. He moves his eyes slowly until he is looking at me. "Ro, what was it that changed you?"

"Changed me?"

"From what you told me, one minute you’re cutting up Front soldiers with an energy knife and the next you’re letting some human female run off with a Drac baby. What changed you?"

I think back to that moment when I first saw the Drac baby in the woman’s arms, both of them hiding beneath a bed in the smoke and filth of that shattered bunker. "It’s not human," I said to her. She answered by saying, "No. It’s mine."

"For a moment I saw the pain, the loss, the desperate fear of another." I look up at Davidge. "For a moment I could not think of humans and Dracs. I caught a view through her eyes. We were the same: frightened beings in the center of a firestorm. After that I could no longer carry a weapon for the Mavedah."

"Maybe that’s it," repeats Davidge once more. "Maybe we’re supposed to mind fuse everybody on Amadeen, give everyone a peek into the other guy’s skull, turn everybody’s enemy into just another frightened being. Maybe that’s what we’re here to learn how to do. Where’s Falna?"

"I don’t know, and how are you going to mind fuse an entire planet?"

"Details." Davidge gets to his feet. "Falna can tell me if what we want to do is possible."

Kita reaches out a hand and touches Davidge’s arm. "What about the investigation?"

"Let’s see if the mind fusion can be done, first. If that’s the way to go, though, you’ll have to continue here on your own―unless you want to come with us."

"To Amadeen?" she asks.

As she reaches out a hand to take Davidge’s, the waiter comes up to us carrying a tiny black comm link in his hand. "Mr. Davidge, there is a call for you."