Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

I frowned as I faced Nev. "Poorzhab means insane. What does ashzhab mean?"

The Drac dropped its glance and placed its hand on Gothig’s shoulder. "Criminally insane, Davidge. The word means criminally insane."

It took two days for Gothig’s operatives to arrange the permissions to visit the colony, and to charter transportation. During that two days, I could not stand the pain of imagining what Zammis had gone through—was going through. The guilt was almost a physical presence. I would see Zammis in my mind, saying those very prophetic words: "Uncle, I can carry you. We shouldn’t separate."

We shouldn’t separate.

I told the kid I couldn’t make it. I told it to go and I watched as it ran across that purple plain.

Remember me, I had told Zammis.

Remember me .

I felt like running out and booking passage on the first ship off Draco, wherever it went.

Alone in the meditation chamber I would cry. Helpless, frustrated, needing to change the past and powerless to do anything about it. What if I had let Zammis carry me? Perhaps neither of us would have made it off Fyrine IV. We would have been together, though.

Deep within my darkness, Estone Nev came into my apartment and entered the meditation chamber. It waited a moment, then said to me, "Davidge, we are leaving for Sindievu to take a charter flight to Vakudin. Are you coming?"

I looked at Nev and said, "I should never have let Zammis go on without me."

"You had no alternative, Davidge."

"I did have an alternative, Nev. We could have stayed together."

"Davidge, that is a talma that would likely have achieved death for both of you." It lifted a hand and placed it on my shoulder. "Listen, human. You are assuming blame for something that was out of your control. It does not serve talma."

"What in the hell does serve talma?"

"Travel with us to the Sa Ashzhab Kovah, Davidge. That is where Zammis is. That is where a new talma, if one is possible, must begin."

It was dark through the windows of the plane as it hissed through the night across an ocean. Twice I saw lonely little lights below. Blue, cold, and all but lost within the depths of so much black. What were they? Ships? Signal lights? Was some poor lonely Drac up keeping watch in all that dark?

Those dangerous thoughts of suicide that used to tease me when I was stranded on Fyrine IV touched me again. All that Jerry and I were to each other, all that Zammis and I were to each other, gone, taken away like a leaf caught in a hurricane. How dark can it get, I asked the night.

Then the words of Namvaac in the Koda Sitarmeda drifted into my mind. It was a time of civil war and endless horrors. Between the weapons and the determination of the warring sides, all that had taken centuries to build had been swept away, leaving starving hoards picking among the rubble for enough food to last another day. In the darkness of a ruin, Namvaac had come upon one of its students, and the student was working a talma of self-death. The jetah took the student’s knife and demanded to know what was going on.

…the student said to Namvaac, "Jetah, the darkness covers all the Universe. It is such an all-powerful evil, I feel so small and helpless within it. Next to this darkness the black of death seems so bright."

Namvaac studied the hooked blade, then handed it back to the student. "Where you are now, child, Tochalla has been before you. It, too, was in darkness. It, too, had a knife. But Tochalla also had talma."

There are an infinite number of paths from the present to the desired future. Talma is both the most efficient path and the discipline for finding the path. Until the infinite number of paths have been exhausted, the Dracs look upon quitting—any kind of quitting—as a character defect.

The short version was what I used to tell Zammis: "Don’t throw dirt on it until it’s dead."

Something Grandpop used to say to wrestle down my projections about what might happen. I thought about the old guy and wished I had known him better. I only spent the one summer when I was eight with him; it took that long for my father to forgive his father for whatever it was and let me visit. The next winter, Grandpop had a stroke and died. When they read his will, Grandpop had left me an envelope. My father brought it home with him. I took the envelope to my room and opened it with trembling fingers. In it was a sheet of paper that contained only seven words: "Now you can throw dirt on it."

I laughed then and I kept the reason why I laughed a secret between me and Grandpop. I smiled at the memory and let it chase away the dark. Zammis was still alive. I was still alive. Talma was still possible.

As we met the sun, the ocean below still dark, Estone Nev sat next to me and asked in English. "Have you slept?"

"A little. How about you?"

"No sleep at all. I was thinking of Jeriba, how thrilled my sibling was when it became pregnant the first time. I used to tell it that, to hear Jeriba, one would think no one had ever been pregnant before." The Drac raised its brow and smiled. "I was an insufferable little… " Nev looked at me and held out a hand. "Gafu."

"Brat," I answered.

"Yes. I was an insufferable little brat. I was jealous, as well. Jeriba was getting so much attention. But nothing I could say or do diminished the joy my sibling was experiencing. When Jeriba miscarried, I thought my sibling would kill itself. I think that’s why it entered the flight denve and went to war. The last communication I had from Jeriba was the news that it had conceived. That was only a few days before the Battle of Fyrine IV." Estone Nev turned its head and faced me. "Did my sibling get to see Zammis before it died!"

"No," I answered in a whisper. "I had to tear Zammis from the womb."

Nev was silent for a long time. When it spoke, it said, "It must have been very hard for you, rearing a Drac child by yourself."

I thought on it for a bit, then shook my head. "No, Nev. It wasn’t hard. It was the most important part, the most fun of my whole life."

The airport was on an island that had two fishing villages and a dock. At the dock we took a sleek high-speed ferry to an even smaller island, Vakudin. The heavily forested island ringed with white sand sat like a jewel in the greenish-blue sea. We had to come much closer before we could see the powered fences, the watch towers, the guards, and the ruvaak, tireless trained guard animals that looked like a cross between a hairy alligator and a nightmare. When we reached land, a guard took us to the visitors' waiting room in the main administrative building, where we were, for all intents and purposes, forgotten. After an hour of this, Gothig’s patience evaporated. It said to Nev and me, "Come, children, it is time to cross the Akkujah."

We wandered hallways for a few minutes until, after turning a corner, we faced the records office. Gothig, with Nev and I backing it up, cornered the clerk of records. The clerk, Toccvo Leint, immediately began running off at the mouth about patient confidentiality, going through proper channels, and such, when Gothig placed its hand on the fellow’s shoulder and asked again. From the expression on the clerk’s face, I assumed it was making a choice between letting us know what we wanted or forgoing the continued use of its shoulder and arm. The clerk decided that it could help us after all.

First, Gothig wanted to know by what lights Zammis was considered insane. Second, it wanted to know by what lights Zammis was considered criminal.

Jetah Toccvo Leint called up the records, studied them, and then told us, "I remember this case. Jeriba Zammis, ever since it was rescued from Fyrine IV, professed to love humans." Toccvo Leint looked at us as though that explained all.