Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

I was doing my nightly reading of The Talman, absorbing the wisdom of Maltak Oi, who wrote its message to me, and to a few others: "The Talman does not contain all truth, and never will it. For this generation, and for all the generations of all the futures, newer and better truths exist. We must keep The Talman open to these truths, or see The Way become another curious myth of the past. To all of those generations and futures, then: if you have such a truth, stand before The Talman Kovah, as did Uhe before the Mavedah, and speak it—"

"Uncle?"

"What?"

"Existence is the first given?"

I shrugged. "That’s what Shizumaat says; I’ll buy it."

"But, Uncle, how do we know that existence is real?"

I lowered my work, looked at Zammis, shook my head, then resumed stitching the boots. "Take my word for it."

The Drac grimaced. "But, Uncle, that is not knowledge; that is faith."

I sighed, thinking back to my sophomore year at the University of Nations—a bunch of adolescents lounging around a cheap flat experimenting with booze, powders, and philosophy. At a little more than one Earth year old, Zammis was developing into an intellectual bore. "So, what’s wrong with faith?"

Zammis snickered. "Come now, Uncle. Faith?"

"It helps some of us along this drizzle-soaked coil."

"Coil?"

I scratched my head. "This mortal coil; life. Shakespeare, I think."

Zammis frowned. "It is not in The Talman."

"He, not it. Shakespeare was a human."

Zammis stood, walked to the fire and sat across from me. "Was he a philosopher, like Mistan or Shizumaat?"

"No. He wrote plays—like stories, acted out."

Zammis rubbed its chin. "Do you remember any of Shakespeare?"

I held up a finger. " To be, or not to be; that is the question. "

The Drac’s mouth dropped open; then it nodded its head. "Yes. Yes! To be or not to be; that is the question!" Zammis held out its hands. "How do we know the wind blows outside the cave when we are not there to see it? Does the sea still boil if we are not there to feel it?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"But, Uncle, how do we know?"

I squinted at the Drac. "Zammis, I have a question for you. Is the following statement true or false: What I am saying right now is false."

Zammis blinked. "If it is false, then the statement is true. But… if it’s true… the statement is false, but…" Zammis blinked again, then turned and went back to rubbing fat into the tent "I’ll think upon it, Uncle."

"You do that, Zammis."

The Drac thought upon it for about ten minutes, then turned back. "The statement is false."

I smiled. "But that’s what the statement said, hence it is true, but…" I let the puzzle trail off. Oh, smugness, thou temptest even saints.

"No, Uncle. The statement is meaningless in its present context." I shrugged. "You see, Uncle, the statement assumes the existence of truth values that can comment upon themselves devoid of any other reference. I think Lurrvena’s logic in The Talman is clear on this, and if meaninglessness is equated with falsehood…"

I sighed. "Yeah, well—"

"You see, Uncle, you must first establish a context in which your statement has meaning."

I leaned forward, frowned, and scratched my beard. "I see. You mean I was putting Descartes before the horse?"

Zammis looked at me strangely, and even more so when I collapsed on my mattress cackling like a fool.

Deep in winter, I saw a crack of sunlight come through the clouds. As I stood next to Jerry’s grave in the scrub forest, I watched the sunbeams touch the ocean and became overwhelmed at the beauty of it. Before I could take a few steps toward the cave to call Zammis out to see it, the sight had vanished in a snow squall, returning the world to whites and endless grays. I sat on the ice next to Jerry’s grave.

"Maybe it’s a good thing Zammis didn’t see it, Jerry. It’d have us dragging all our firewood outside for signal fires." I thought for a moment. "Maybe not. The kid doesn’t seem to hate the place like you and me. The way Zammis explores and collects rocks, maybe it’ll be a geologist. It collects plants and bugs, too. Did I tell you about that one bug Zammis dragged in at the end of last summer? It was dead, but it had an egg sac full of nasty little biters who were very much alive. We had to boil, crush, or shovel out damn near everything in the cave to get rid of the little bastards."

I laughed at the memory and imagined Jerry laughing, too. God, I wished that Jerry could see Zammis; that Zammis could meet and know its parent. Then words came into my head, Tochalla in the Koda Hiveda, The Talman. It was Tochalla who began the movement to reassemble the Talmani and to rebuild the Talman Kovah after its destruction half a millennium earlier. Tochalla faced a tougher problem than I had trying to tell Zammis about its parent. Tochalla was trying to tell the world about lessons and a discipline that had been crushed and forbidden five centuries before. In the intervening five hundred years, the surviving memories and fragments had taken on lives of their own, twisted by faulty memories and embellished by generations of imaginative, self-serving scoundrels. "We will take it all," wrote Tochalla. "We will gather in everything, much as Rhada did with all the many versions of the Laws of Aakva, and we will examine, test, discuss, and challenge everything. If we are honest and mean only to serve truth, then what remains will be the truth of it."

The truth of it.

All I had was a few memories and a lot of feelings. Perhaps, instead of hiding them, if I gave them freely to Zammis, some part of the truth of its parent and its line would come through.

I glanced up and saw another sunbeam reach the sea as a crack opened in the cloud cover. I raced to the top of the path to call down to Zammis, but, far below me, I saw the kid standing at the edge of the cliff, looking over the sea at the light from above. Its arms were outstretched. The opening in the cloud cover closed, Zammis lowered its arms, and went into the cave.

"Uncle, why does the line of Jeriba have only five names? You say that human lines have many names."

I put down my sewing and nodded. "The five names of the Jeriba line are things to which their bearers must add deeds. The deeds are important—not the names."

"Gothig is Shigan’s parent as Shigan is my parent."

"Of course. You know that from your recitations."

Zammis frowned. "Then I must name my child Ty when I become a parent?"

"Yes. And Ty must name its child Haesni. Do you see something wrong with that?"

"I would like to name my child Davidge, after you."

I smiled and shook my head. "The Ty name has been served by great bankers, merchants, inventors, and—well, you know your recitation. The name Davidge hasn’t been served by much. Think of what Ty would miss by not being Ty."

Zammis thought a while, then nodded. "Uncle, do you think Gothig is alive?"

"As far as I know."

"What is Gothig like?"

I thought back to Jerry talking about its parent, Gothig. "It taught music, and is very strong. Jerry… Shigan said that its parent could bend metal bars with its fingers. Gothig is also very dignified. I imagine that right now Gothig is also very sad. Gothig must think that the line of Jeriba has ended."

Zammis frowned and its yellow brow furrowed. "Uncle, we must make it to Draco. We must tell Gothig the line continues."

"We will."

"How do you know we will?"

"I made a promise to your parent, Zammis. I promised to teach you line and book and to stand with you before the Jeriba archives and see you into adulthood."

"How will you keep this promise, Uncle?"

"I don’t know. The Talman tells me to do the best I can and leave the rest to the event stream of the universe."