Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

"Well, blast it out. Thaya. I think I have some of the answers the Ovjetah has been looking for."

"Wait please."

The link hummed for a moment, then Tora Soam’s voice answered. "Joanne Nicole?"

"Yes. Ovjetah. There are some arrangements you must make. First, is the Cueh still docked with the orbiter?"

"Yes."

"Then you must arrange for Ambassador Rafiki, Jetah Indeva, Tora Kia, Mitzak, and yourself to meet with me upon the Cueh."

"It would be easier to gather this assembly here in the orbiter-upon neutral ground."

"Ovjetah, there is no neutral ground."

"No neutral ground?"

"None. And, Ovjetah, you must have the central commercial and historical computers in the Talman Kovah tied into the screen room. The human equivalent to this information must also be tied in."

"I am certain Rafiki will resist. However, I will see what I can arrange. Do you know the factors governing Heliot Vanes death?"

"I have theories. Now they must be tested."

There was a pause. "I see… May the many mornings find you well, Joanne Nicole."

It knows. Tora Soam knows.

"Ovjetah, that too is a theory to be tested." She keyed off the communications link, reached out, and deenergized the terminal. She sat silent for a moment, thinking. Audio surveillance is undetectable. Therefore, anything said in the compartment, anything that went through the terminal or the communications link is known.

But visual surveillance still requires a lens. The Drac Mission’s security sweep team would have detected the equipment for visual surveillance.

Nicole stood up, moved to the nearest wall, and began feeling her way along its surface. Her hands touched the warmness of a lightbar, and she gasped and wrenched it from its receptacle. Gently placing the lightbar upon the floor, she moved on to the next.

After she had removed all of the compartment’s lightbars; satisfying herself that the room was dark, she placed the sleeping platform between herself and the compartment’s door. She bunched up the covers on the platform and felt the form of herself that she had made.

Crouching down behind the platform, she unsheathed her Blade of Aydan and tested its point and edges with her fingers.

"Be prepared to accept all. But test the truth by forcing it to lie; test the lie by forcing it to be true."

The sounds of talking came from outside the compartment, then her communications link crackled to life. "Joanne Nicole, this is Ninth Officer Eaatna, your duty guard."

Nicole reached back and keyed the link. "What is it?"

"I have been ordered to report to the commander of the watch. There are other guards in the corridor, your door is secured, and I should be back soon."

Nicole moistened her lips. "Very well."

As the guard’s footsteps moved away from the door, Nicole keyed off the link, squatted down behind her bed platform, and waited.

Hearing, smell, touch, memory.

Joanne Nicole tasted the degree of her powers as the hours passed in the dark compartment. If you can hear the fold of a single layer of cloth; if you can smell the difference between an empty room and one containing another being; if you have placed in your mind the position of everything with more accuracy than one who can see those things with light, who has the superior power in a dark room?

There was a sound in the compartment, and Joanne Nicole knew the answer. Her ears flooded her mind with data as her right hand grasped the hilt of her blade. She heard a hand brush the wall and try twice to make the wall switch illuminate the compartment. Then cloth-clad footsteps walked the compartment’s deck.

Cloth-clad footsteps. An atmospheric suit. There was no sound of the door opening!

There was a hiss, a sizzle, the smell of ozone filling the compartment, a wash of heat speeding over her head. The footsteps moved toward the sleeping platform as the smells of burned cloth filled the air.

"Ehhh?"

There were more sounds of hands moving through the scorched and ashed bedclothes.

Nicole moved silently to her left, around the bed platform, until she sensed the near presence of another being. She gently placed her left hand around the being’s suited right leg and, with her right hand, placed the point of her blade against the leg’s covering.

"Put down your weapon, or I will open you to the atmosphere."

There was a frozen moment, then Nicole felt the heat of molten steel lace through her right shoulder. As her mind dimmed from the pain, she shoved the blade with her right hand into the creature’s leg.

There was a scream, a blade of energy moving through her shoulder, a whiff of ammonia. then blackness.

The upper right quadrant of her body was numb. Her mind was filled with the scarlet vision of blood as bright heat washed her face.

Tora Soam spoke over her. "Natueh, the lights. The heat left her face "Tora Soam?"

"Yes."

"Who was it? The one who tried to kill me?

"Emmmm." An uncomfortable silence. "We do not know. As soon as I understood what you were going to do. I had your duty guard removed and another squad of guards prepared to apprehend whoever tried to enter your quarters. They saw no one entering or leaving."

Nicole frowned. "It was wearing an atmospheric suit. I punctured it. Whoever it was should have been dead in my quarters."

"There was no one."

Nicole let her memories pick at the problem. "Entrance was not made through the corridor. There is at least one other entrance. The body must have been removed in the same manner." She reached out a hand and grabbed at the air until she felt Tora Soam’s arm. "Ovjetah, when I punctured the suit, I smelled ammonia."

"Emmmm." Tora Soam remained silent for a moment. "Nicole, only one of the members of the Ninth Quadrant observation team would use an atmosphere containing a significant amount of ammonia. Darlass Ita of the planet Aus."

Nicole shook her head. "No. That makes no sense. Timan Nisak designed and built the orbiter. It had to be a Timan."

"Joanne Nicole, everyone on the orbiter knows that you are sightless. The one who tried to kill you could have been either Timan, human, or Drac, wearing a suit, attempting to convince you that the person was from Aus. Perhaps your assailant did not intend to kill you. The purpose of the visit might have been to cast suspicion on the Timans."

"Or a Timan trying to make it look as though someone else was trying to frame the Timans." Nicole shook her head. "Tora Soam, who else is in this compartment?"

Another voice spoke. "I am Natueh Gi, Chirn Jetah of the ship Cueh."

She turned toward Tora Soam. "Where are Ambassador Rafiki and Jetah Indeva?"

"At first they were both difficult about appearing here without assistants. However, both of them should be aboard by now with their guards."

Nicole nodded. "We must all meet in the screen room." She turned her head toward Natueh Gi. "Can I get up?"

"No. You should rest. Your body has suffered greatly."

She frowned at the Chirn Jetah, then felt with her left hand. Her right arm and shoulder were covered with a smooth plastic cast.

"I think I have saved the limb."

Nicole let her head fall back to the bed. "Natueh Gi, I must be moved to the screen room."