Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

Commitment.

That was the thing that was crippling my life. I had made a promise to Jerry. It was a promise that sat on the other side of the bloody quadrant, but it was still waiting to be kept.

Headlights from an approaching car blinded me, and I turned toward the car as it pulled to a stop. The window on the driver’s side opened and someone spoke from the darkness. "You need some help?"

I shook my head. "No, thank you." I held up a hand. "I was just looking at the stars."

"Quite a night, isn’t it?"

"Sure is."

"Sure you don’t need any help?"

I shook my head. "Thanks… wait. Where is the nearest commercial spaceport?"

"About an hour ahead in Salina."

"Thanks." I saw a hand wave from the window, then the other car pulled away. I took another look at Eltanin, then got back in my car.

There was a rathole motel in Salina that had all I needed for a reasonable price. I went to a market and an office supply center, then posted my "do not disturb" notice on the room’s computer and got to work. What was strange was that I couldn’t write it. I needed to recite it. I switched the computer to voice input, did the calibration, and then began speaking in English, the translation moving automatically through my mind:

I, Mistaan, who created the marks-that-speak, set down before you the words of Shizumaat who recited before me the Myth of Aakva, the Story of Uhe and the First Truth.

Sindie was the world.

And the world was said to be made by Aakva, the God of the Day Light.

And Aakva was said to make on the world special creatures of yellow skin and hands and feet each of three fingers. And it was said to make the creatures of one kind, that each could bear its young, or the young of another. And it was said to make the creatures make thought and give voice that the creatures could worship the Parent of All…

I spoke and watched as the words appeared on the monitor: the Myth of Aakva and the formation of the law, the world without the law, and again, a law of peace that could only last if nothing in the universe ever changed.

…the clouds over the Madah were barren, and those lands west of the Akkujah saw no water, and the ground cracked and turned to fine powder. The noon sky burned with a blinding blue, while the morning and evening skies were the reds and yellows of cooling iron. The lakes and rivers became mud and dust, and the creatures that swam within them died. The Ocean of lce became a black sea of putrid oil. The wild creatures of the land fled from the Madah to the mountains, and from there to the lands of the Diruvedah and the Kuvedah.

The proud hunters of the Mavedah could not blood their spears, and so they watched their children cry and grow thin. The hunters clawed at the land, gathering roots, insects, and the skins of the few trees that still lived. But in time even these were gone. And the hunters watched their children scream and stare. The hunters clawed at the bottoms of streams and wellbeds, chasing the precious water as it left the ground below. But the water ran more swiftly than the hunters could dig. And the hunters watched their children die…

And then one of the hunters, as the tribe ate its only child, rose to proclaim a new vision, a new law of war. The great Uhe led the Mavedah out of the scorching desert of death and crossed the Akkujah Mountains into a war that saved its people and unified the Sindie.

As I recited, I felt the tears on my cheeks, because I was back in the cave, Jerry watching me as I recited, its eyes caught between the force of the stories and the sight of a human telling them in formal Dracon.

…a Sindie shaper of iron, in Butaan to perform its duty to Aakva through labor, gave birth to a child. The shaper of iron’s name was Caduah, and Caduah named its child Shizumaat.

…Caduah was a dutiful child of Aakva, and the parent instructed its child in the ways and truths of the God of the Day Light…

There was the ever faithful Namndas, whose story always made Jerry smile.

…I had entered the Aakva Kovah the year before Shizumaat, and was placed in charge of Shizumaat’s class. I drew this duty because the servants of the temple considered me the least worthy of my own class. While my companions sat at the feet of the servants and engaged in learned discourse, I would chase dirt.

There was, as well, the book that always made Jerry cry, the third of Mistaan’s books, which begins with the trial and the execution of Shizumaat:

"You are young, Mistaan. To brave this wall of hate and warriors' iron that surrounds me shows me your youth. When you are older you shall call this youth foolishness."

By the end of three weeks, I was finished. While the computer printed our a hard copy, I stretched out on my bed and thought about what I was going to do. It might do some good. Eleven thousand years of wisdom—even alien wisdom—cannot be absorbed and not leave behind a truth or two. Then again, perhaps I was raising casting pearls before swine to new heights. In any event, it was all I had of value. I went to the computer, called up my motel bill, and paid it.

Three days later I was in Dallas standing before the little gray man who ran Lone Star Publishing, Inc. He looked up at me and frowned. "So, what do you want, Davidge? I thought you quit."

I threw a thousand-page manuscript on his desk. "This."

He poked it with a finger. "What is it?"

"The Drac bible; it’s called The Talman."

"So what?"

"So it’s the only book translated from Drac into English; so it’s the explanation for how every Drac conducts itself; so it’ll make you a bundle of credits."

He leaned forward, scanned several pages, then looked up at me. "You know, Davidge, I don’t like you worth a damn."

"I can’t tell you what a relief that is. I don’t like you either."

He returned to the manuscript. "Why now?"

"Now is when I need money."

He shrugged. "The best I can offer would be around eight or ten thousand. This is untried stuff."

"I need twenty-four thousand. You want to go for less than that, I’ll take it to someone else."

He looked at me and frowned. "What makes you think anyone else would be interested?"

"Let’s quit playing around. There are a lot of survivors of the war—both military and civilian—who would like to understand what happened." I leaned forward and tapped the manuscript. "That’s what’s in there."

"Twenty-four thousand is lot for a first manuscript."

I gathered up the pages. "I’ll find someone who has some coin to invest in a sure thing."

He placed his hand on the manuscript. "Hold on, Davidge." He frowned. "Twenty-four thousand?"

"Not a quarter-note less."

He pursed his lips, then glanced at me. "I suppose you’ll be Hell on wheels regarding final approval."

I shook my head. "All I want is the money. You can do whatever you want with the manuscript."

He leaned back in his chair, looked at the manuscript, then back at me. "The money. What’re you going to do with it?"

"None of your business."

He leaned forward, then leafed through a few more pages. His eyebrows notched up, then he looked back at me. "You aren’t picky about the contract?"

"As long as I get the money, you can turn that into Mein Kampf if you want to."

He leafed through a few more pages. "This is some pretty radical stuff."

"It sure is. And you can find the same stuff in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, James, Freud, Szasz, Nortmyer, and the Declaration of Independence."

He leaned back in his chair. "What does this mean to you?"

"Twenty-four thousand credits."

He leafed through a few more pages, then a few more. In twelve hours I had purchased passage to Draco.

The peace accords, on paper, gave me the right to travel to Draco, but the Drac bureaucrats and their paperwork wizards had perfected the big stall long before the first human steps into space. Just to get a visa from the Drac consulate in New York involved enough calls to give my ear a cramp, not to mention wading through a cordon of angry demonstrators to pick it up. The consulate was located in a new concrete and glass thing whose windows looked as though they began somewhere above the twentieth floor, far out of the reach of flying bricks and such. When I took a moment to read the protest signs, I found that it wasn’t the Dracs they were protesting. Instead they were protesting the human diplomatic mission that signed the treaty quarantining Amadeen and ending what they called "the big war," leaving the humans on Amadeen cut off and stranded.