Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

The world turns so slowly, the figures about me moving like insects through resin. Davidge does not ask what the woman means, or if she is serious, or argue that the goal of Aydan’s test was peace not the dubious agreement of a fraction of one side, or point out that it is probably nothing more than a meaningless bluff.

Davidge does none of these.

In one liquid movement the old human bends down, pulls the knife from my boot, and stands holding the knife above his head. I reach to stop him, but Kita throws her arms around me, immobilizing my arms with a strength I did not know she possessed. When I break free and can see, Davidge’s hand is at his side, the blood is flowing down the front of his jacket, and he is sinking to his knees, his eyes open, his gaze fixed on Akilah Hareef. His words, other words, parade before me.

"How many bodies more will it take before we are considered for real?"

"All my children. All my children."

I rush to his side, and am there only in time to lower him gently to the ground. Peace? Can any peace be worth this?

Yes. Of course. Only one life.

Only one.

I look at Akilah Hareef. Her mouth is open in a parody of astonishment. Paul Ruche is studying Davidge, waiting still for a trick. The Octoberist with the scanner takes a hesitant step forward. As he squats down next to Davidge, he looks at me and I see the confusion, the tears in his eyes. Reaper rushes up, pushes Ruche out of the way, and drops to his knees next to me.

"What in the hell happened?" He glares at me, then Ruche, then Hareef. "Who―"

I point at Davidge’s hand, my knife still clutched in his fingers. I pry the knife from his hand and hold it. Kita stands there next to Davidge, her eyes closed, the tears on her cheeks. I want to rip the blade across Hareef’s guts, cut off Ruche’s suspicious face, gouge out all the crying eyes around me.

I do none of it. Instead I thrust the blade into the ground, leave it, and pick Davidge up in my arms. As I stand I face Kita. "You knew."

Her lips form the word "yes," but there is no sound.

The Ovjetah, Zenak Abi, Kita Yamagata, Davidge. Aside from myself, who did not know this talma? There is so much anger I need to throw at someone, but the only one who deserves it is dead in my arms. It was his hand. I swing Davidge’s body around and look at Paul Ruche, the head of Black October, All I do is look and keep looking until he turns and begins walking toward the tree line, followed a moment later by Akilah Hareef. The remaining Octoberist looks from my face to Davidge’s body. He shakes his head, turns slowly and follows the others to the tree line.

"Let’s go, Ro." Reaper is standing there, his arms out, offering to help carry Davidge. I turn away from him and, holding Davidge close to me, I walk toward the platform. "You were to be my parent," I whisper to the still shape in my arms. "I am alone once more." I lower him and place his body next to his dead comrades.

When all of us are aboard, the platform lifts off, I face into the wind, and try to believe that I am in a dream in which I know I am in a dream, which means I can change it at will. But I can will no changes, for I am not in a dream, and the pain will never end.

The truce still holds.

As I stand in the shadows looking down at the night mists, the truce still holds.

Thuyo Koradar and The Fives make some noise and some plans. The noise is just noise and the plans―well, if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan. Bombers, suicide attackers, nutball war chiefs, and everyone else begin seeing twenty-nines wherever they go. There are more twenty-nines than The Peace has either time or personnel to inscribe. The Mavedah’s own people, the Front’s own people, are marking the sign of The Peace everywhere.

Many saw on their monitors what happened when Hareef made her offer and Davidge earned his Aydan’s blade. The story spreads. Through Black October, through the Front, The Fives, The Rose, and Greenfire. Through the Mavedah, the Tean Sindie, Sitarmeda, and Thuyo Koradar. Through all of the peoples of Amadeen.

The truce holds. Black October comes to the table to talk. Tean Sindie comes the next day. By the end of the dry season, the last of the splinter groups, The Rose, sits at the table. They talk, and swear, and bellow, and curse, and threaten, and they reach no agreements, but the truce holds.

In twenty days another faction forms among discontented humans, but a galaxy of twenty-nines appears on land, forest, streets, and buildings before they can perform their first atrocity. They are frightened off. Eight days later, a lone Drac suicide bomber lets its pain drive it north of Douglasville where The Peace stops it dead. The executioner found it unnecessary to leave a twenty-nine. Those who live on the street marked it with the numbers.

More come forward to join The Peace, the Mavedah donates two additional ships to the Navi Di, and the Front retaliates by setting up Navi Di offices and observers in all their units. Four months after Davidge earned his blade, Green Fire officially disbands.

Cudak, Kita, and I are the authorization team, and I hardly look at her. Of all of those I blame for Will Davidge’s death, second only to myself, I blame Kita. It makes no sense, but in my entire life, where had sense ever been a part? I do not accept his death, although the entire planet of Amadeen seems to have accepted it, taking it on as an icon.

There are things I wanted to do.

There are things I wanted Davidge to be there to see.

That foolish child inside me, the one who cries "unfair!" is still there.

From the shadows I watch the mists and find so much of my purpose for peace gone; so much of my purpose for life gone. As I watch the night avians race through the haze below, I feel a hand on my arm. Without looking I know it is Kita. "What is it?"

"There is someplace we have to go."

I look at her and notice for the first time how puffy her face seems. "Where?"

"Gitoh."

"Why?"

"The Mavedah has opened it up."

I look back at the fog. "What is in Gitoh?"

"Something Will wanted you to see. It was his last wish."

The thin scab across the wound of my grief is scraped clear with a few words. Numbly I follow her across the clearing and into the Aeolus .

In less than an hour the ship puts down in Gitoh. At first the inhabitants look upon us with suspicion, until they see the twenty-nines marked on our armbands. There are waves, a cheer. There is a Drac who meets us and it leads the way between the bombed-out buildings of the city. The streets are cleared of rubble and the bomb craters filled in. There is a small business repairing appliances in a burned-out building. Another business sells seeds and food plants. A third business sells old clothes. At the end of one street is a pile of rubble that once must have been a huge building. When we reach it, there are twenty or so local Dracs there, all wearing their shabby best. Part of the bottom of the building has been painfully excavated and there is a concrete stairway going down. There is no electricity and the stairs are illuminated with candles. I look at Kita. "What is this place?"

She nods. "These are the archives of about sixty lines here in Gitoh. It has been over twelve years since they’ve been used. The Yazi archives are here."

We enter one of the sub-basements. The candles fill the huge room with a warm yellow light. The room is filled with Dracs and a few humans. Some I recognize, most I do not. There is an open armored shelf containing ornate books of various thicknesses. A blue-robed Jetah takes a very thin book from this shelf and places it on a podium.

I stop dead and face Kita. "I cannot do this! I am not prepared." I lower my gaze to the floor mosaic and speak to her in a whisper. "He is not here. I wanted him to be here for me the way he was there for so many others."