Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

—The Dakiz calls for a test of my solution.

―Pria throws wide its fleshy arms, takes a step toward me, and says, "I am going to crush you to death!"

I say, "If you take another step toward me, Pria, I will break every bone in your body."

The beginning of a new Timan parable.

As if from an incredible distance I hear someone calling my name: "Ro! Ro! Ro!"

That human children’s song works its way into my mind and I hear my voice croak, "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream―" Before I can get to my first merrily, I gag, then cough, then double up with a coughing fit.

The fit passes, I lie there like a wet rag. No strength, my middle hurts, a horrible odor assaults my nostrils. With effort I open my eyes and see Kita’s face looking down at me. "How long has Yazi Ro been lying here?" she asks.

"A little shy of twenty-one standard days," answers Reaper.

"Why didn’t you bring me up sooner? A little longer and it would’ve died from dehydration. My god, couldn’t you smell it in here?"

"Dracs don’t need that much water. Besides, Ro said that Mistaan did a meditation for six years," he explains lamely.

"Reaper, that was a parable. Even so, it was on a cliff, in the open, its disciples bringing it food every day!"

I see Reaper’s face next to Kita’s. His nose wrinkles. "Um. I suppose the occasional rainstorm hosed off the ledge, too." He grins at me and says, "Hey, Ro! You alive?"

I nod and croak out, "I am."

"Next time you want to do a marathon meditation, maybe you should get together first with someone who knows what he’s doing."

"You may be right."

Kita holds up my head and places the end of a squeeze bottle between my lips. "This is just some juice."

The sugary liquid splashes into my dry mouth and it is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Three squirts and I nod my thanks. Kita removes the bottle and lowers me back down, "Reaper, get Ro into the shower and get it cleaned up. I’ll find a clean robe."

"One thing, first." Reaper bends over until his face fills my vision. "Did you get the answer you were looking for?"

I shake my head. "Not the one I was looking for. Instead I saw one that will work."

Reaper turns to Kita. "Aroma is high but the sight is keen."

In the galley, a small bit of solid food in me, I sit wrapped in a blanket looking at the others seated around the table. Kita sits at my right, Reaper to my left. Mrabet, Davidge, Moss, and Beneres sit across the table from us. "There will be another attempt at a truce between the Mavedah and the Amadeen Front," I begin. "There always is." I look at Davidge.

He cocks his head to one side. "Then one of the splinter factions, either human or Drac, will do something to torpedo the peace process."

"And then the whole thing blows up," says Yora Beneres.

I shake my head. "No. One of the splinter factions will do something to try to disrupt the peace process. We find out who it is and either stop them or punish them if they violate the truce conditions."

Captain Moss frowns in confusion, looks around the table, and asks, "We? Who’s we?"

"For a beginning, the seven of us." Six pairs of raised eyebrows face me. Undaunted, I continue. "I think we can build our numbers by first presenting our talma to Zenak Abi, and then to its people, as well as to anyone else who has defected from the fighting. Once the word gets out that a neutral force will police the truce, I think more will join. We will need fighters and investigators in our ranks," I look at Reaper, "and those secret members who collect information in the Drac territories and in the human territories and those who lie in wait to take Aydan’s Blade to the violators. Every time there is a violation, those who order the violation and those who take part, die. We leave our mark to let others know that to violate the peace is to die, and it is us, not their opposition, doing the killing."

Ghazi Mrabet taps a finger on the table. "Then you see Dracs killing Dracs."

"And humans killing humans," adds Kita.

"Yes."

"A war to end war?" asks Davidge. "Is this just taking a two-sided conflict and making it three-sided?"

Reaper leans his elbows on the table and clasps his hands together. "I see what Ro’s getting at. We’re not talking war, Will. Yazi Ro here is talking cops." He looks at me and raises his eyebrows. "Police?"

I think for a moment and nod. "Police. Very special police, out to prevent only one crime."

Eli Moss shrugs and holds up a hand. "This isn’t going to change the goals of any of these nutball factions."

A moment of light-headedness brushes me and floats away. I take a sip of juice, swallow, and look at the captain. "We will not attempt to change goals, educate, mediate, or have the peoples of Amadeen love one another. Until at least one generation can grow up in peace, all of those are out of reach. Our only goal will be peace. Making violating the peace pointless is how we will do it."

I look at Davidge. "Our goal is different from the Front and the Mavedah and from all of their factions. Our goal is peace. Any two groups that come together to make peace, we are there in both the light and the shadows to keep the peace from being violated."

"Why would anyone take us seriously?"

Reaper shakes his head and wags a hand back and forth. "At first, they won’t." He lowers his hand and raises an eyebrow. "After the first hit, though, we will have credibility."

Davidge leans back in his seat and ponders while Reaper and Kita talk about how to set up a network of clandestine local information and investigation centers from which can come accurate information to identify, target, and hit particular violators. In Davidge’s face I see objections present themselves and get resolved one by one, his face saddening with each resolution.

It is argued, pulled apart, and argued again from different positions. Davidge, Captain Moss, Yora Beneres, and Ghazi Mrabet hang back and frown as they listen. Reaper and Kita almost appoint themselves my sales agents. Kita talks about the information system used by the Asian Regional Police on Earth where she was an interrogator and later circuit troubleshooter for the East Asian Administrative District. An organizational outline is drawn, amended, changed again, the outline redrawn time and time again. Where to do this, how to do that, who to do this, what to do it to. Nearing the end of the discussion, Davidge is the only one still hanging back. With the others, I can see that what we are going to do has been resolved. How to do it is detail.

I am exhausted by the time Davidge is finished with his pondering. "Two things," he says. "First, I think we can get two years' head start on building the information files if we can get access to the quarantine force’s data banks. They’ve been out there going around in circles for thirty years and I’ll bet for all that time the sociologists and government paper wizards have been observing Amadeen, taking notes, and writing papers and reports no one is ever going to read. I’ll use the subspace link and see if the Ovjetah can get the information and send it on to us." He smiles and shakes his head.

"And your second thing?"

"I guess there is no second thing. I was going to have Shigan run this through the Talman Kovah’s projection computers, but it would only say the same thing that it’s been saying for months: 'Knowledge of the path might close the path, Uncle." He looks at me, the sadness in his eyes heartbreaking. "If we do this with even a slight degree of success, we will be in a war: killing theirs and burying our own." He clasps his hands and looks off into the distance. "In the only war I ever saw, I jockeyed a long-range fighter. When I killed someone it was a blip on a screen. When a friend died, his blip just disappeared and there was another vacancy in the base ship. All very neat and clean. There wasn’t time to think, only to react. If you took time to think, you died." He brings his gaze back to my eyes. "The kind of war you’re talking about, Ro, is a lot dirtier. I don’t want it." He pauses for moment and says again, "I don’t want it, but no one has a better alternative. You did good work."