Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

"―can they have in mind to invite the Front to a truce? What can the Dracs put on the table? Are they going to give us back our lands?"

"No!" shouts the crowd.

"Our murdered loved ones?"

"No!"

"Is it to restore the Dorado, and the Shorda to us?"

"No!"

As Raymond rants, half the screens change to another view of Black October’s boss. The images are much clearer than the original, but jumpy. It is one of Ghazi’s modified computer cameras. The new images sweep to the left until we see a row of humans dressed in black. The images expand to fill the screen and linger a moment on each of the faces.

"Who’s feeding us this?" calls Reaper to the monitor.

"Alley Cat."

Ali Enayat. I try to imagine the courage of the man with the big black mustache and the two children, taking the opportunity of the demonstration to get up in front of the entire rabid membership to give us up-to-date pictures of Black October’s leaders.

"He’s not holding that in his hand, is he?"

I turn around and see Davidge behind me looking up at the screens. Reaper shakes his head. "Ghazi made it so those button cameras will transmit to the computer. Alley Cat probably has it in his burnoose."

"What about signal emissions?"

Reaper leans back in his chair and scratches the back of his neck. "We’re using frequencies that are way out of the park for the thirty-year-old stuff anyone on Amadeen has."

As Zenak Abi comes into the information center, I glance at Davidge, and say to Reaper, "That presupposes in the past three decades no other smugglers have brought in modern communication or signal detection equipment." I look back at the screen showing Alley Cat’s feed.

There is Paul Ruche, Sica’s second in command, a tall blond man without facial hair, his eyes a stormy blue. Next to him, her long black hair waving as she shouts and moves her arms, is Akilah Hareef, head of the ideological department. Akilah is very beautiful for a human, with a small nose, absolutely black eyes, and lips painted to look like a wound. Her weapons include an automatic pistol, a brace of throwing knives, a fighting knife, and whatever she has concealed beneath her clothing. The image moves to Vatusia, Brooks, Pemba, and the rest. After the leaders, Alley Cat sweeps the crowd of about five hundred. Every one of them brandishes a weapon of some kind.

"That’s the old Catholic church in Obsidian, South Central Dorado," says one of the monitors. "That means October has a repeater station. The broadcast signal we’re getting is coming from Mt. Jazirah, East Central Dorado."

"Look at that weapon," says Abi, pointing at one of the screens. Reaper freezes one of the crowd images.

"Which weapon, Jetah?"

"The man wearing the talit about his shoulders."

"Talit?"

Zenak points up at the screen. "The white and blue prayer shawl."

The image fills the screen, centered on the shoulder weapon. It looks like a beam disrupter, but I do not recognize it. "That’s a Valmet M6600," says Reaper.

Abi shakes its head as it says, "I’m not familiar with it."

"Latest thing from Earth." Reaper nods toward the screen. "Fully charged and at close range, that thing can cut right through the hull of this ship by turning the metal and ceramics into powder. They’ve only been out for a couple of years."

Zenak looks away and faces me. "The smugglers have been getting through to Black October, then."

More pieces of the puzzle are added to the data banks.

"Priority!" shouts Janice. The images continue as the sound is cut, the center screen shows the view through the front window of a moving vehicle, the lower part showing the top of a steering wheel and the hands of the narrator. Each hand has three fingers. In the distance, beyond some dunes, we can see the ocean. "Go ahead," says Janice into her headset.

"This is Runner with the Sitarmeda just north of Mandit, East Shorda. I just finished a meeting with my cell and we have been advised to prepare to assist the central command by providing volunteers for a special raid. No details yet, but I made my best guess and volunteered―I am driving." For some reason the fact that it is driving seems to strike Runner as funny, and it laughs. Kita mouths the word "stress" at me. When it calms, Runner continues. "I and nine others are on our way south to report to the cell commander at Port Refuge."

Runner signs off and the sound returns for Black October out of Obsidian. "Raymond hasn’t threatened anything yet," Janice fills in, "except to boycott the talks."

"Alley Cat," says Reaper, "we’ve got enough pictures. It’s time to fade into the landscape. They’ve been getting smuggled supplies from off planet, so they might have some sophisticated detectors. Got that?"

The images from Alley Cat nod up and down, then go blank while we continue to receive from the Mt. Jazirah station. Raymond’s tirade against the Amadeen Front’s betrayal of the struggle against the yellow menace continues. The volume drops and Reaper faces Davidge. "You know, if Runner is onto something, if Sitarmeda is planning a unit-sized outrage someplace, we’re not ready for that. Right now we’re geared up to handle one or two, maybe five, hits at a time, but that’s really stretching it. We can’t take on a platoon or company attack until our regional rapid strike forces are operational."

Davidge bites at his lower lip. "If it looks like it’s corning from Sitarmeda, we’ll send what we have at region in Cohilak. Until then, Runner will have to do the best it can. Do we know the proposed site for the talks yet?"

"We just got it in," answers Reaper. "Silver City. It’s a town of about eighteen thousand just north of Douglasville on the Dorado. Up until the truce there was fighting in the area, so both the Front and the Mavedah have lines there. The talks themselves are supposed to begin any time now."

A computer map comes up on one of the screens and we can see Silver City. Blue lines indicating the Front and green lines indicating the Mavedah snake through the town. South of Silver City is Douglasville, completely under Front control. Sitarmeda has nothing near there, nor does Thuyo Koradar. There is, however, a large cell of Tean Sindie in a community a few minutes northwest of Silver City. Cells of Black October and The Rose are in Silver City itself, while The Rose has a cell in Douglasville. The Fives have nothing in the area.

I look at Reaper. "Do we have anything in Silver City yet?"

"Two sleepers."

"Nothing more?"

"That’s it. I’ll put 'em on standby."

"Priority!" calls one of the other monitors, a human named Roger Temple. One of the Black October screens changes to a scene of a small white masonry house next to a bombed-out apartment complex. The metal roof looks to be in good shape, but the windows are covered with boards.

This is the Red Crawler," came the voice of a human named Anita Northstar. "What you’re looking at is what’s left of the southwest corner of Galena and Eighth in Douglasville. I might have a live one: Jacob Drews."

The file on Drews comes up. The graphic shows a balding human male, forty-one years old, hard-rock miner, the sole family member surviving the Battle of Douglasville four years ago. After losing his family he joined Black October as a bomb maker, although October dropped him only a few months later because of fears concerning his lack of stability. Since then he has been a recluse who is known to have gone behind Mavedah lines at least three times on his own to plant bombs. All three bombings were successful, totaling over two hundred Drac lives.

As I see Jacob Drews’s file, I remember Min in that pit, the human with the flute, and Yazi Ro as I took my knife the next night with the Okori Sikov as we slashed our way through the city. Did I turn Jacob Drews into the hate-driven monster he is today? Did the man with the flute turn me into the same kind of monster? Are we all hate monsters: the bloodthirsty offspring of Hissied 'do Timan?