Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

I looked into Zammis’s face. "You want something to eat?"

"Guh."

Its jaws were ready for business, and I assumed that Dracs must chew solid food from day one. I reached over the fire and picked up a twist of dried snake, then touched it against the infant’s lips. Zammis turned its head.

"C’mon, eat. You’re not going to find anything better around here."

I pushed the snake against its lips again, and Zammis pulled back a chubby arm and pushed it away. I shrugged. "Well, whenever you get hungry enough, it’s there."

"Guh meh!" Its head rocked back and forth on my lap, a tiny, three-fingered hand closed around my finger, and it whimpered again.

"You don’t want to eat, you don’t need to be cleaned up, so what do you want? Kos va nu?"

The child’s face face wrinkled, and its hand pulled at my finger. Its other hand waved in the direction of my chest. I picked Zammis up to arrange the flight suit, and the tiny hands reached out, grasped the front of my snakeskins, and held on as the chubby arms pulled the child next to my chest. I held it close, it placed its cheek against my chest, and promptly fell asleep.

"Well. I’ll be damned."

Until the Drac was gone, I never realized how closely I had stood near the edge of madness. My loneliness was a cancer—a growth that I fed with hate: hate for the planet with its endless cold, endless winds, and endless isolation; hate for the helpless yellow child with its clawing need for care, food, and an affection that I couldn’t give; and hate for myself. I found myself doing things that frightened and disgusted me. To break my solid wall of being alone, I would talk, shout, and sing to myself—uttering curses, nonsense, or meaningless croaks.

Its eyes were open, and it waved a chubby arm and cooed. I picked up a large rock, staggered over to the child’s side, and held the weight over the tiny body. "I could drop this thing, kid. Where would you be then?" I felt laughter coming from my lips. I threw the rock aside. "Why should I mess up the cave? Outside. Put you outside for a minute, and you die! You hear me? Die!"

The child worked its three-fingered hands at the empty air, shut its eyes, and cried. "Why don’t you eat? Why don’t you crap? Why don’t you do anything right, but cry?" The child cried more loudly. "Bah! I ought to pick up that rock and finish it! That’s what I ought…"

A wave of revulsion stopped my words, and I went to my mattress, picked up my cap, gloves, and muff, then headed outside. Before I came to the rocked-in entrance to the cave, I felt the bite of the wind. Outside I stopped and looked at the sea and sky—a roiling panorama in glorious black and white, grey and grey. A gust of wind slapped against me, rocking me back toward the entrance. I regained my balance, walked to the edge of the cliff, and shook my fist at the sea.

"Go ahead! Go ahead and blow, you kizlode sonofabitch! You haven’t killed me yet!"

I squeezed the wind-burned lids of my eyes shut, then opened them and looked down. A forty-meter drop to the next ledge, but if I took a running jump, I could clear it. Then it would be a hundred and fifty meters to the rocks below. Jump. I backed away from the cliff’s edge.

"Jump! Sure, jump!" I shook my head at the sea. "I’m not going to do your job for you! You want me dead, you’re going to have to do it yourself!"

I looked back and up, above the entrance to the cave. The sky was darkening and in a few hours night would shroud the landscape. I turned toward the cleft in the rock that led to the scrub forest above the cave.

I squatted next to the Drac’s grave and studied the rocks I had placed there, already fused together with a layer of ice. "Jerry. What am I going to do?"

The Drac would sit by the fire, both of us sewing. And we talked.

"You know, Jerry, all this," I held up The Talman , "I’ve heard it all before. I expected something different."

The Drac lowered its sewing to its lap and studied me for an instant. Then it shook its head and resumed its sewing. "You are not a terribly profound creature, Davidge."

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

Jerry held out a three-fingered hand. "A universe, Davidge. There is a universe out there, a universe of life, objects, and events. There are differences, but it is all the same universe, and we all must obey the same universal laws. Did you ever think of that?"

"No."

"That is what I mean, Davidge. Not terribly profound."

I snorted. "I told you, I’d heard this stuff before. So I imagine that shows humans to be just as profound as Dracs."

Jerry laughed. "You always insist on making something racial out of my observations. What I said applied to you, not to the race of humans."

I spat on the frozen ground. "You Dracs think you’re so damned smart." The wind picked up, and I could taste the sea salt in it. One of the big blows was coming. The sky was changing to that curious darkness that tricked me into thinking it was midnight blue, rather than black. A trickle of ice found its way under my collar.

"What’s wrong with me just being me? Everybody in the universe doesn’t have to be a damned philosopher, toad face!" There were millions—billions—like me. More maybe. "What difference does it make to anything whether I ponder existence or not? It’s here; that’s all I have to know."

"Davidge, you don’t even know your family line beyond your parents, and now you say you refuse to know that of your universe that you can know. How will you know your place in this existence, Davidge? Where are you? Who are you?"

I shook my head and stared at the grave, then I turned and faced the sea. In another hour, or less, it would be too dark to see the whitecaps. "I’m me, that’s who."

But was that "me" who held the rock over Zammis, threatening a helpless infant with death? I felt my guts curdle as the loneliness I thought I felt grew claws and fangs and began gnawing and slashing at the remains of my sanity.

I turned back to the grave, closed my eyes, then opened them. "I’m a fighter pilot, Jerry. Isn’t that something?"

"That is what you do, Davidge; that is neither who nor what you are."

I knelt next to the grave and clawed at the ice-sheathed rocks with my hands. "You don’t talk to me now, Drac! You’re dead!"

I stopped, realizing that the words I had heard were from The Talman, processed into my own context. I slumped against the rocks, felt the wind, then pushed myself to my feet.

"Jerry, Zammis won’t eat. It’s been three days. What do I do? Why didn’t you tell me anything about Drac brats before you…" I held my hands to my face.

"Steady, boy. Keep it up, and they’ll stick you in a home." The wind pressed against my back, I lowered my hands, then walked from the grave.

I sat in the cave, staring at the fire. I couldn’t hear the wind through the rock, and the wood was dry, making the fire hot and quiet. I tapped my fingers against my knee, then began humming. Noise, any kind, helped to drive off the oppressive loneliness. "Sonofabitch." I laughed and nodded. "Yea, verily, and kizlode va nu, dutschaat."

I chuckled, trying to think of all the curses and obscenities in Drac that I had learned from Jerry. There were quite a few. My toe tapped against the sand and my humming started up again. I stopped, frowned, then remembered the song.

I leaned back against the wall of the cave, trying to remember another verse.