Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

"You are silent, human."

"I didn’t think, Tora Kia, that you would appreciate conversation coming from my direction."

"Dah!"

They rode in silence a moment longer.

"Tora Kia, your parent doesn’t seem to carry your weight of hate."

"My parent! My parent has all of its limbs. To Tora Soam, the war is… an immense puzzle to be solved; a fascinating problem. I think my parent basks in the size and complexity of the puzzle. You and I are nothing more than two factors among the trillions that comprise this puzzle."

"You seem bitter."

"And they say that you are blind." Heavy sarcasm.

They seemed to go higher, the road twisting left and right. The silence in the compartment was oppressive. The sharp smell of happy paste again assaulted her nostrils and the one called Baadek spoke. "Kia, your parent-"

"Mind the road, Baadek! When Tora Soam has carried its butcher ax against the enemy on Amadeen, then its views upon my medications will be of interest to me." The sharp smell remained in the compartment. "Ah, human. What an ugly thing you are."

"It would concern me more, Tora Kia, if I could see."

The Drac laughed, then that sharp smell grew sharper. "It is true. The war has treated us both badly, human. Was your life’s work dependent upon your eyes? That is my sincere wish."

"Why?"

"I am looking for an equality of disaster."

"I’ve seen Drac soldiers with artificial limbs before. Those soldiers seemed to function adequately."

"Emmmm. True, it takes little skill to fry a human. But I am a musician, Joanne Nicole. The machine the fleet will pay to have hammered onto this stump will find the strings of a tidna difficult to master."

The tidna: a kind of harp. "I am sorry."

"Sorrow is a cheap fee." A pause and more of that sharp smell. "Baadek! Stop here!"

"Tora Kia, your parent will have my skin for a cape if it should find out-"

"Stop here, you miserable fungus, or I will reach up there and pull off your head."

The vehicle slid to a stop and Nicole heard the door on Tora Kia’s side open as a blast of icy air entered the compartment. The Drac’s hand pulled at her left arm. "Come. Come with me, Joanne Nicole."

She slid across the seat and stepped out into ankle-deep snow. Tora Kia dragged her along until she had lost both of her sandals and stood barefoot.

"Baadek! Baadek, turn off the car!"

The whine of the car died, and on the gentle wind Nicole heard… music. Strange, haunting notes coming from below. "Down there, in the Valley, Joanne Nicole. That was my kovah."

They listened for a time to the sounds. It felt as though knives were being thrust again and again through her feet. "Tora Kia, I am cold."

"The Universe is cold." The breeze brought her that sharp smell again. "My parent. You think it feels gratitude to you for pulling Sin Vidak from the oven?"

"That is what Tora Soam-"

Torn Kia’s laugh seemed to be aimed at more than its words revealed. "Tora Soam feels nothing! The Ovjetah of the Talman Kovah would have you at the estate as an object of curiosity-experimentation. Sin Vidak-that is the excuse my parent uses to make housing you acceptable in the eyes of… aaaah!"

A strong hand slapped her face, sending her reeling into the snow. Geometric shapes flashed before her eyes as the snow covered and burned her face. As though it were far away, Nicole heard a door slam, then soft footsteps. A hand pulled at her right shoulder, lifting her face from the snow.

Nicole pushed the hand away, sat back upon her legs, and wiped the snow from her face. There were still the mournful sounds of music on the air as the one called Baadek spoke softly to her. "I ask you a favor, human. If you do it, I will always be in your debt." Baadek put its hands beneath her arms and lifted her to a standing position. Nicole’s face still burned from the snow and the force of Kia’s blow.

"What’s the debt of a Drac worth?"

"Human, Tora Kia carries the Tora line. Its behavior here would shame its parent. I ask you to be silent about what Kia did."

Nicole waved a hand in what she thought to be the direction of the car. "First, get me out of the snow; second, find my sandals; third, I will think about it." Baadek began leading her toward the car and Nicole stopped dead in the snow. "But I will tell you one thing right now, Drac: if that child of a kiz hits me again, I will take off its remaining arm and stuff it down its throat!"

"There is nothing to fear from Kia now. Kia is asleep."

"My feet hurt. The cold."

Baadek moved to her right side, placed her arm around its neck, and lifted her. As it carried her, Baadek muttered, "The war. Everything has changed since the war."

Nicole was too weary to answer. She was placed into the car, the door slammed, then a second slam, and the car whined to life and moved down the twisting road. They rode for a long while, then Nicole heard Tora Kia move.

"Unh. You. Your robe is wet. Your face is red." That sharp smell again filled the compartment.

"Don’t you remember? You hit me."

"I did?" That smell grew stronger, then the voice became very quiet. "I wish I had killed you."

And then Nicole found out something she never knew before: Dracs snore. "Baadek?"

"Yes, human?"

"My name is Nicole. Joanne Nicole."

"Yes, Joanne Nicole?"

"Why is Tora Kia hitting that drug?"

"Many of the Tsien Denvedah that fought on Amadeen have the same habit. Tora Soam disapproves."

Nicole pulled her legs up upon the seat and rubbed her feet. She felt warm air being directed upon them, and in moments they were dry. "Thank you, Baadek."

"When we get to the estate, we will stop at the gate house and I will get you a dry robe to wear."

She continued rubbing her feet. "Baadek, what is it to you if Tora Soam finds out that its child chews happy paste."

There was a long silence from the front of the car. "Nothing, I suppose. I have spent my life serving the Tora estate, probably from habit. Habit is very safe. The war soils everything, however. Perhaps I should change my habit, too."

Nicole’s weight was thrown from one side of the car to the other as her stomach evidenced a sickening skid, the whine of the car’s motor rising and falling in rapid succession. "It is only a guess, Baadek; but are you driving too fast?"

The motion of the car slowed as the whine from the motor decreased. "Yes… Thank you. And my apologies."

She leaned her head against the back of the seat. Baadek, the long-suffering family retainer coming home to its master hauling a drug-blitzed child and a backseat driver. Nicole yawned from the drying heat blowing on her legs. Perhaps I could take some of the weight from Baadek’s already overburdened shoulders. "Baadek?"

"Yes, Joanne Nicole?"

"I will say nothing to Tora Soam concerning what happened today."

"Thank you. I will remember this."

"How much longer will we be riding?"

"We are almost a third of the way to the estate."

The warm air and sleep tugged at her. She moved her shoulders into the upholstered corner between the door and seat, her face leaned against something soft to her left. Vaguely she felt the gentle rocking of the car…

…Happy paste.

There had been reports that a large percentage of USEF personnel coming back from Amadeen had the habit.

How long had it taken Ted Makai to kick it? He never did, really. He just substituted other things.

In the Storm Mountain officers club that time, Ted at the bar tossing down doubles. He was an island of dead gloom in a sea of laughter, trying to numb the nervous system that made him a rare exception among the Universe’s life forms.

He ordered another.

"Ted, aren’t you nailing those things down pretty fast?"