Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

I looked up and studied Aakva’s Children, and thought that the Sindie would lose much if Shizumaat’s idea was true. If it was true, then the child that was placed in the night sky by Aakva for me was neither placed in the sky by Aakva nor was it for me. I looked back at Shizumaat, and asked, "How will you argue this before the servants? What will you use for proof?"

"Short of growing the wings that can take me before Aakva and its Children, I do not know. I will keep myself open to an idea."

After nineteen day’s walking south, we met a Kuvedah hunting party. Its servant, Gatu, gave us directions to the tribal camp and the tent of Buna, the tribe’s chief of servants. Gatu said that the chief of the tribe, Kangar, Master of Masters, was near its death, and that Buna ruled in Kangar’s stead.

When we reached the camp, we saw the skin tents crowding both banks of a stream in a grove of menosa trees. We were directed to Buna’s tent, offered our respects, and were welcomed inside.

Buna was very old and wore skins instead of cloth. Its skins were hooded over its head as though it could not keep warm. The chief of servants listened as we related Varrah’s charge to us. "A very wise one, your teacher," said Buna. "The knowledge one acquires with the hands carries greater truths than the kind one acquires by exploring the inside of one’s own head."

We were shown where to put up our shelter, and when that was done, it was evening and we gathered with the others in the camp to watch the return of the hunters. Buna stood with us and in a low voice told us the significance of what we were seeing. "The tall hunter with the scar down its left arm, it is Haruda, the leader of the hunt and the greatest hunter of the Kuvedah."

"Haruda carries no game," Shizumaat observed.

Buna nodded. "That is because Haruda is the one who got the kills. It is for those who killed nothing to carry in Haruda’s kills."

"Buna, why is Haruda’s success at the hunt so much greater than the others this day?"

"It is the same all days, Shizumaat. Haruda is a great hunter."

"What does Haruda do differently?" I asked.

Buna held back the edge of its hood with one hand and peered at me. "Friend Namndas, it is a god-gift to Haruda."

"But," I insisted, "what does Haruda do?"

The old chief of servants grinned and said, "This is why you two are here, yes?" Upon that, Buna retired to a treegrove to meditate and give thanks to Aakva for the success of Haruda’s hunt.

I felt Shizumaat pull on my skins as it said, "Come, Namndas. Let us answer your question." Shizumaat and I followed Haruda and watched as the hunter barked orders at the less successful hunters and supervised the distribution of the game to the cookers and smokers. When Haruda was finished, it sat before its hut and began to clean its weapons and examine their stone points in case they needed dressing. Haruda looked up at the pair of us and said, "There are questions in your eyes, strangers."

"Yes," answered Shizumaat. My friend introduced both of us to the hunter and Haruda nodded at a place before it. We sat and the hunter said, "Let us hear your first question."

Then my friend asked a question that surprised me. "Haruda," began Shizumaat, "the size of the kill you return with every day; it could make you master of this tribe’s clan masters. Your ability to fill the mouths of the Kuvedah could fill your hands with power. Yet you remain a hunter. Why are you not the Kuvedah’s master of masters?"

Haruda studied Shizumaat, then laughed. "Is it your mind that my success at hunting would also make me a success at ruling the Kuvedah?"

Shizumaat thought. "No. It would not make you a success at ruling the tribe. Nevertheless, it is common to see those who turn the thing they can do into a means to force others to make them something they cannot do so well, but for which they will be well rewarded."

The hunter shook its head. "I do no such thing."

"Still, you could force your rule upon the tribe if you wanted. Is it simply that you do not want to rule?"

The great hunter looked up from dressing a stone point and frowned at Shizumaat. "I am what I want to be, young one. The path to my happiness does not cross that of either Kangar’s or Buna’s. I have no desire to rule."

Shizumaat thought some more. "Haruda, do you not think that one graced with a godly gift is meant to rule, rather than grub for food?" I looked at my friend as though Shizumaat had gone mad. Why was it baiting this great hunter?

Haruda stood and its skin changed from yellow to red-brown. "I hunt, young one with all the questions. I do not grub. And my skill at hunting I earned. It is no gift."

"One more question, Haruda." I was torn between wanting to run from the hunter’s presence and strangling my friend.

"Be quick," ordered Haruda.

"If your skill at hunting is no gift, what then do you do differently? Why do the other hunters bring in so much less game?"

"They have their ways, and I have mine. My ways are better." Tired of the questions, at last, the hunter stood, turned, and entered its hut.

Silently cursing Shizumaat for offending Haruda, I waited until we returned to our shelter. A food preparer brought us some cooked meat, and by the time we had finished eating, my anger had passed. Still, when we stretched out to go to sleep, I asked, "Why did you question Haruda in that manner? Most of the things you asked had nothing to do with hunting."

"No, Namndas, but they did have everything to do with the hunter."

"What do you mean, Shizumaat?"

"Now I know Haruda. I can now put aside studying Haruda and can concentrate my study upon what Haruda does."

Before Aakva’s light touched the sky, the hunters began stirring. We ate cold cakes and drank leaf tea with them and Shizumaat went to Buna and begged for us to be allowed to accompany the hunters. Buna laughed at Shizumaat. "The hunt is difficult enough without being burdened with two youths who never ran the grass."

"Namndas and I are to be denied this experience because we have no experience?"

"Yes," answered Buna.

Feeling as though I should say something, I said, "But to get experience don’t we need to experience the experience?" Each word that came out of my mouth sounded more stupid than the one that preceded it. I was cursing my mouth when Shizumaat nodded approvingly at me.

"Very well said, my friend."

"Impossible," said Buna, despite my pithy argument.

"I will take the pair of them with me," said Haruda. We turned and looked. The chief of the hunt had been listening to us.

Buna frowned, yet its lips seemed eager to smile. "Haruda, we rely upon your skill now more than ever that the game has thinned. These young ones would hamper you, would they not?"

Haruda turned from Buna and looked through the tent opening at the other hunters as they packed their food and weapons for the hunt. "Many times I have claimed to be able to teach my hunting ways to the other hunters. Just as many times, they have all said that it is a god gift, and continued to bring in less each season. It is my intention to take these two soft temple creatures with me on the hunt, and by dark the tribe will proclaim Shizumaat and Namndas next to me as the greatest hunters on the Kudah. Perhaps then the other hunters will allow me to show them what I know."

The hunters, when they were told Shizumaat and I were to become great hunters, laughed at what they thought was Haruda’s joke. There was Buna’s prayer for a good hunt, then, upon Haruda’s silent signal, the hunters began walking east toward the mountain of the morning sun.

By the time Aakva was above the mountain, its light making us shield our eyes, the hunters had broken into smaller parties and had gone in different directions. Shizumaat, Haruda, and I were left by ourselves. Shizumaat and I followed Haruda farther to the east until Aakva was a hand’s breadth above the mountain. It then stopped, turned about and faced us.