Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

Benbo’s face floating in front of her. "We lost the foothills, Major. But toadface paid for them."

"How much did we pay to collect, Sergeant? How much did we pay to collect?"

His confused expression disappeared in a flash of white…

It seemed as though she had been treading water endlessly; but she was not tired. Numb, detached; but not tired. And Joanne Nicole took notice of voices. Sound-any sensation-was something approaching a gift. The voices became louder.

"Jetah, the human master is in the corridor. She is a female."

"Send her in, Mitzak. And be restrained. She is Akkujah vemadah and owes us no favors."

Footsteps.

"Your name-ha! Your skin! It is yellow!"

"No shit, toadface. So is yours."

"Yes, but… I didn’t mean… your name?"

"Tokyo Rose. And who is this one?"

"Leonid Mitzak, Captain."

"No guts for the Madah, eh Mitzak?" A pause. "Where’s the patient?"

Pur Sonaan’s voice. "Here, then, is the human you were told of, Tokyo Rose."

More footsteps. Nicole felt a presence over her, then a gentle hand on her face.

"What is her name?"

"Joanne Nicole."

"Very well, you scumbuckets take off while I examine her."

"…You want us to leave the room?"

Silence, then soft footsteps, as the hand moved and a finger pulled at the skin above first the left, then the right eye.

"Damn…" The hand left Nicole’s face. "Nicole? Nicole? Can you hear me?"

As she answered, her mouth felt fuzzy. "Is that you, Tokyo Rose?"

Surpressed laughter. "Captain Tegara. I’m a doctor. What in the hell did they do to you?"

Nicole heard Tegara moving some objects around on a hard surface. "Fire. I was in a fire."

Again Tegara bent over Nicole and opened her right eye. "You must be someone pretty special, Nicole. Toadface pulled me out of the Madah on Akkujah to give you a checkup. Can you see anything with your right eye?"

"No."

A click. "Now?"

"No. Tegara, what’s happening with the war?"

Her hand moved to Nicole’s left eye. "Up until my unit was snagged, everybody seemed to be losing. Can you see anything with your left eye?"

"No."

"Where did they get you?" A click. "Anything now?"

"No. I was garrisoned on Catvishnu."

"Catvishnu?" She moved away; more objects clattering. "We didn’t think anyone lived through that."

"I’m about it." Nicole felt Tegara lift her left arm; "Well? What about my eyes?"

A pause. "There’s nothing anyone can do about your eyes, Nicole. Maybe if you can get to a USE hospital. I don’t have either the skills or the equipment. It looks as though they used some of their own burn ointment on you. The surfaces of both eyes have been burned and stained black. I think the damage might be repairable, but not here. A lot depends on how long the ointment was used."

"What do my eyes… look like?"

"Wall-to-wall black." She lowered Nicole’s left arm, then walked behind her head and picked up her right arm. "You’re going to look like a boiled beet for a while, but I think the scarring on your skin will be minor." She lowered the arm. "Are you in any pain?"

"No. None at all. In fact, I can’t feel much of anything. It’s like I’ve been swimming in morphine for a hundred years."

"Catvishnu was a while back. Can you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"How about that?"

Nicole felt something. "A pressure; scratching on my upper right arm?"

Tegara called out: "Hey, toadface!" There was the return of soft footsteps.

"Yes, Tokyo Rose?"

"Cut the amount of that d’nita anesthetic you are giving her by fifty percent. Understand?" Light scratching, then paper ripping. "Here. Do you understand what that says?"

"Yes. They are common chemicals."

"Make that up exactly as I have specified and spread it gently on the burned areas of her skin- not her eyes-every four hours… six times a day. Understand?"

"Yes. Can you do anything for her vision?"

"You don’t have the equipment; and you need a specialist-a special kind of health master, understand? I can’t do anything except to keep telling you kizlodes to stop using that burn ointment on humans."

The Jetah was silent as it absorbed the loathing in Tegara’s voice. "What equipment and what skills are necessary?"

Tegara laughed, ignoring the Jetah’s question. "Nicole, I have to go now."

"Can’t you stay?" Nicole’s hand grabbed at empty air, then fell back to the bed.

"No. I’m sorry, but the Madah on Akkujah is full of sadsacks that need me more than you do. Almost four thousand of them, and I’m the only doctor. Once you get to a USE hospital… Maybe not. Anyway, the war won’t last forever."

Her footsteps and a set of the soft footsteps left the room. One of the Dracs had remained behind. It was silent for a long time, then its footsteps left the room, stopped, and returned. "Joanne Nicole." It was the voice of the older Drac, Jetah Pur Sonaan. "Joanne Nicole."

"Yes?"

"The surgeon who treated you in V’Butaan… it had no way of knowing. Everyone has been warned now, but then… it had no way of knowing." Pur Sonaan’s footsteps faded from the room.

"Mitzak, are you here? Mitzak?"

"Yes."

"I’m not in V’Butaan?"

"No. The nearest city is Pomavu. You are on the home planet. Draco."

Draco? On the opposite side of the Drac empire from Ditaar? Why? "Why?"

"You have been made the ward of Ovjetah Tora Soam, first Master of the Talman Kovah. The Talman Kovah is here, near Pomavu."

"I… I don’t understand."

"In the fire at the V’Butaan kovah; one of the children you saved was the Ovjetah’s third child, Sin Vidak." The footsteps began leaving.

"Mitzak?"

The footsteps paused. "Yes?"

"The others that were with me in the Madah on Ditaar; Where are they?"

"Do you remember me telling you that all of your soldiers were killed?"

"Yes… I remember it. Benbo?"

"I don’t know. I left Ditaar with you."

"Mitzak, what are you doing here?"

"The Ovjetah insisted that you have some human company; I’m it."

"Are you happy in your work?"

Mitzak moved a few footsteps toward the door. "The Ovjetah is a very powerful person. And, as you know, rank has its privileges."

Mitzak’s footsteps left the room.

…That humming again…

Nicole continued smiling as dizziness lowered her into a non-caring half-sleep. The smile wasn’t an expression of anything; it was just left over from something before…

Blind.

With the reduced anesthetic, awareness returned. Awareness and pain.

Joanne Nicole began to have a sense of time-the eternal slowness of it-monotony. The limitations on her universe.

Blind.

It was an affliction from the previous century-harnessed dogs, bumpy paper, and red-tipped canes attempting to fill in the chasm left by the removal of sight. She would lie on her bed, her heart waiting for someone to turn on the lights; to wake her from the nightmare. But no one turned on the lights. No one awakened her from the nightmare.

Anger.

It was, first, anger; rage that would have blinded her if blindness had not already become her reality. There were other concerns. She was almost totally helpless, at the complete mercy of the Dracs. What would the Dracs do? How far did the protection of this Tora Soam extend? Who was it anyway?