Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

"May the morning find you well, Joanne Nicole."

She nodded, the hand released her arm, and Leonid Mitzak led her from Tora Soam’s quarters.

After entering her guarded quarters, she quickly felt her way around the walls-noting each light fixture, each piece of cabin furniture-then she lowered herself upon the bed platform and stretched out, her arms over her head. She took two deep breaths, relaxed her muscles, and tried to clear her mind for sleep.

But there was something: uneasiness; questions hanging without answers; an overwhelming sense of dread. Her thoughts moved at random, the attempted suppression of a particularly demanding or disturbing thought only moving her mind to more demanding, more disturbing, areas.

Jetah Lita had delighted in inventing situations in which to place its students; each situation designed to remove mental blinders from the students, inflicting upon them the kind of mistrust that would allow the corner of a truth to be seen. And the mental blinders that were removed-fairness, right, honor, morality, good, evil, love, hate, duty, justice, freedom, oppression-were all malleable creatures composed of transitory rules.

Inventions.

And the student said, "Jetah, love is not a thing of rules; it is a thing of feelings."

Lita smiled. "And you do not see, Fa Ney, that feelings are creatures of rules?"

"I do not, Jetah."

"Do you love me, Fa Ney?"

"Of course, Jetah."

"Why?"

"I just do."

"And if all that I taught you were lies, if I constantly beat you, degraded you, and humiliated you, would you still love me?"

The student thought. "No."

"Then, Fa Ney, your feelings demand certain conditions they require that I be a certain way, and do certain things. Your love demands that I comply with certain rules-rules you invented."

Fa Ney began to cry. "Does this mean, Jetah, that I do not love you?"

"I comply with your rules, child. Therefore you do love me, as I love you. Did our discussion make you doubt that?"

The student nodded. "But you love me… because I comply with your rules?"

"Yes. But that does not diminish the feeling. Understand the event and the facts that govern the event Fa Ney. Understand your feelings and the rules that govern them. Place your trust In such an understanding, for this allows you to trust your feelings.

"Never place your trust in a word."

Joanne Nicole sat up, crossed her legs, and rested her face in her hands. "Peace" is a word representing the compliance with a malleable set of rules. And "war." When. the Tsien Denvedah and the USE Force fight, it is called "war." When the Amadeen Front and the Mavedah fight, it is called "terrorism," "civil conflict,"-

-or reach back in time for other words: "police action," "the troubles," "uprising,"-

-And "murder" is a word. The Drac children who died at the kovah in V’Butaan were not "murder victims." They were casualties. They died by a different set of rules than did Heliot Vant.

Nicole sighed, swing her legs to the deck, and stood up. She moved toward her compartment’s terminal and sat down before it. Lita had said: "All rules aim toward goals and all goals are rules aimed toward further goals "

"A circle-a chain."

Ditaar had said, "To understand the circle, break it and travel both directions until you meet yourself. To understand the chain, understand the closest link, then travel in both directions until you run out of links."

She sat back from the terminal. What goal was served by Heliot Vant’s death? She spoke out loud: "It prevented the signing of the Rafiki-Heliot Treaty, it renewed hostilities upon Amadeen, and it made possible different terms under the reopened negotiations." …And all goals are rules leading to further goals.

"What is served by changing the treaty terms?" She reached out her hand and felt the controls of the terminal. Finding the proper key, she pressed it and spoke: "Joanne Nicole voice-receive."

The terminal toned, and Nicole spoke again: "Play document, Amadeen orbiter treaty, initialed draft." She listened to the document.

While the USE Force and the Dracon Fleet stood only an order away from mutual destruction, and while the Amadeen Front and the Mavedah unleashed horror and suffering upon each other below, Heliot Vant and Ana Rafiki had reached an agreement.

The agreement ended the major conflict, made permanent joint USE-Drac institutions for returning captured territories, colonizing new planets, exploiting the undecided areas upon Amadeen, arbitrating war crimes and reparations, and policing in force a demilitarized zone upon Amadeen that divided human and Drac according to the territories each governed prior to the war-

Nicole stopped the terminal’s voice. The treaty did not satisfy the goals of either the Front or the Mavedah. She let her chin rest upon her chest. Tora Kia had said, the only goal to be satisfied upon Amadeen is death.

Whether the treaty were signed or not, the fighting would continue upon Amadeen. The treaty would have continued, for a time at least, the end of the major conflict between the USEF and the Dracon Fleet. Regular forces would have been withdrawn from Amadeen… but the fighting would have continued.

Neither the Front nor the Mavedah could be served by either Heliot’s death or the failure or renegotiation of the treaty. Both organizations were beyond diplomacy.

Who then? Whose goals are served by the failure of the treaty, or by the success of a different treaty? Neither the United States of Earth nor the Dracon Chamber could derive an advantage in continuing the war. The machines and sciences of both races showed them grinding each other down until…

A successful treaty would serve both Rafiki’s and Heliot’s diplomatic goals, as well as their personal career goals: Heliot Vant did not end its own life and Rafiki did not kill the Drac… unless there was something else-

What of the economic interests on Amadeen? Earth IMPEX, Dracon JACHE. Timan Nisak, and the dozen or so other companies?

Nicole shook her head. No one had made a credit out of Amadeen since the beginning of the war. Not only would the economic interests on Amadeen be served by ending the war, such service required, as well, an end to the fighting upon Amadeen. No one’s interests appeared to be served by Heliot Vant’s death.

"Perhaps Rafiki’s duty guard did it simply because he was a human and Heliot was a Drac."

Lita had said: "The first place to look for an answer is not upon the far mountain or up in the sky. First, clear the ground beneath your chin."

Ivor Kroag had been transferred to planetside duty soon after the Drac ambassador’s death…

But the human poured the drinks: the Drac, Chanji, supplied the glasses and carried them in…

"If Kroag did it, we’re talking about some improbable sleight-of-hand." And how could Kroag assure that the poisoned drink would reach its intended victim? Perhaps it didn’t matter which one died? The death of either ambassador would have interrupted the peace process.

Chanji?

In service of what? And if the Drac duty guard had done it, celebration would have been in order-not suicide. Dracs do not meet defeat, guilt, or shame with suicide. Suicide is the Drac talma to end unendurable pain.

-if it was suicide.

Kroag and Chanji in it together? How? Why?

She shook her head and deenergized the terminal. The negotiations were irrelevant to the terrorists upon Amadeen. Everyone else had a vested interest in the success of the treaty; and therefore in keeping Heliot Vant alive.

With her hand, she felt around the terminal for her compartment’s communications link.