Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

To a great degree, we are all having difficulty in finding out what I should do. I have neither the memory nor the audacity required to be an interrogator. Kita and Cudak joke that I would simply eat all the candy and tell the one I am screening everything. I have a suspicion as to what I should be doing. I have killed and there was a time when it was easy. But the easy killing takes place in a rage, and that is not how our agents do their work. As Reaper remarks, "They are not angels of vengeance destroying evil. They are surgeons removing a lump." It is something I think I can learn, but I avoid saying it in the hopes that no one else will mention it.

In another eight days we send out our first agents: two to Black October in the Western Dorado, one to Green Fire in the Drac-occupied tip of the Southern Dorado, three to Tean Sindie in three different locations in the Shorda, and fourteen others to work themselves back into their old communities as simple villagers. Ali Enayat and Mila Nin are both agents in this first group. In another eight days we send out an additional thirty-one agents. Once they are established, all of the splinters and several of the most infamous individuals with reputations for reckless behavior have at least some coverage. In another month we expect to have regional nets recruiting and training, ever expanding our information base and our ability to respond to threats.

Soon we develop our own language. Investigators are called "eyes," sleepers are "zees," and interrogators are "sweets." Code names become nicknames and nicknames become code names. Reaper stays Reaper, Davidge is Uncle Willy, Captain Moss is the Fly, Sally Redfeather is Tommy, as in Tommy Hawk, a joke that evades me, and so on. I name Kita Itchyboo from the thing she said in front of the cave back on Friendship: ichi-bu hachi ken, the phrase that means small errors can result in big mistakes. They refer to me as The Answer, but not to my face. They know I hate the name. The organization is known among ourselves simply as Navi Di, in Dracon. In English: The Peace.

Morning on the edge of the camouflaged site on the top of Mt. Rieka. I look away from the peaks at the reflection of an orbiting QF station, wondering if The Peace is now in the survey files, complete with names. We have done nothing for a hundred days except build the network, plant agents, and add to our data files. Nothing about us has been on the broadcasting stations, either Mavedah or Front. While the fighting continues around us, we learn, add information, and wait for the next attempt at a truce.

"Peaceful here, isn’t it?" I turn and see Davidge coming from the power platform concealed beneath some trees.

I nod and return my gaze to the mountains, their foothills obscured by the early morning mist. A large avian glides effortlessly above the mist on its way up the valley toward a tiny lake. "Reaper says there are places like this on Earth. He called them the Rockies. Have you ever been there?"

"Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth." He sees my puzzled look and smiles. "A very long time ago. My initial flight training was at a base in the Colorado admindis―administration district. That’s right in the Rockies. The Silver Mountains are as big. Here we’re closer to sea level, though. That’s why we have more vegetation. I got to see the Himalayan Mountains once on earth when I flew over them. They make the Rockies look like a row of bumps. Then there are the mountains on Mars that make the Himalayas look like grains of sand. None of them, though, are as beautiful as these." He is silent for a moment and stands next to me.

"Ro, it just came over the Mijii broadcast. The Mavedah has announced a new round of truce talks with the Amadeen Front. Mavedah invitations have gone out to the Tean Sindie, the Eye Killers, and the Sixteen to take part in the talks. No comment yet from the Front, but the Mavedah wouldn’t have announced it without some kind of understanding with the Front already in the works. We haven’t heard from any of the splinter groups either, but all of the investigators and sleepers have been put on notice."

I feel it coming and there is no longer a way to avoid it and be able to bear my own presence. "Will, there is nothing for me to do here. I train the few who are not familiar with all the available weapons, but that is something anyone can do. I cannot sit here on this mountain in safety while others take all the risks. I am going to become an agent, work my way back to Gitoh, and perhaps join Tean Sindie. It has a cell there. From there I can be much more useful."

I look at the human and Davidge’s gaze is fixed on the snow-covered peaks of the tallest mountains. "I respect your feelings, Ro, but I’ve got a much crappier job for you. I’m going to need help with it and I want you there."

"What is the job?"

"We’ve put together the means to investigate, identify, target, and execute truce violators and potential truce violators. To fulfill our part of the peace talma, the Navi Di must be able to act swiftly, decisively, and with certainty. We must be able to prove the ones we hit were involved in violating a truce or attempting to do so. We must act fast and we cannot afford to make a mistake. On the one hand, we can’t drag our feet so that, the execution comes so late that no one remembers why it’s done. On the other hand, we can’t have our hitters knocking off suspects as the mood strikes them. The hits have to be authorized, and that means there must be someone or some group to authorize them. I have that job right now. Zenak Abi is joining me. I want you there to share it with us and to break tie votes."

To order the deaths of others would be enough to fuel my nightmares for the rest of my life. To know, though, that one bad judgment would probably destroy the Navi Di and render the peace talma useless, that is responsibility sufficient to render risking my life as a happy assassin mere child’s play. Ichi-bu hachi ken .

"Hey, Will!" It is Kita’s voice calling from the ship’s entry ramp. "The Front just made the truce talks announcement. They’ve invited Black October, Green Fire, The Fives, and The Rose to the table, as well. No responses from any of the splinters yet, but two of the zees we have in the Tean Sindie report that the pure ones are beginning to foam at the orifices."

Davidge looks at me, his eyes steady but more sunken than I remember. "It’s starting, Ro."

I do not want it. I can think of nothing I want less than deciding who lives and who dies, risking everything on the judgment of Yazi Ro. I close my eyes and nod. The human claps a hand on my shoulder, squeezes it, and follows Kita into the ship. I look back at the mountains and the huge avian is skimming the tops of the mists, gliding back the way it had come.

In the Aeolus , far over the Shordan Sea, we are between the Shorda and Dorado continents. Kita, Reaper, three monitors, and I are in the information center, processing data and messages from the agents and monitoring the broadcasting stations, assessing the reaction to the upcoming talks. There is activity in all the splinters―angry voices, nutballs making speeches, endless meetings, two spontaneous demonstrations but nothing actionable. A few minutes later, Eli Moss reports over the headsets that we are being scanned. "I’m not sure, but I think it’s the quarantine force orbiters."

"Trying to figure out who we are," adds Reaper. "We’ll let them know, soon enough."

"I’m putting up the shields."

Janice Butler, one of the monitors, turns from her console and holds up her hand. "Station October coming through." She flips a switch and the screens around the overhead illuminate with a jagged signal that settles to an image of Raymond Sica, head of Black October. Raymond likes to call himself The Vindicator. All we can see is Raymond in front of a blank wall hung with a black flag with a blood-red X in the center, for the numeral ten. We do not see others, but we can hear crowd noises.