The Enemy Papers Page 17

  I nodded. "Take care of yourself."

  Zammis shook its head. "Uncle, I can carry you. We shouldn't separate."

  I weakly shook my head. "Give me a break, kid. I couldn't make it. Find somebody and bring 'em back." I felt my stomach flip, and cold sweat drenched my snakeskins. "Go on; get going."

  Zammis reached out, grabbed its pack, and stood. The pack shouldered, Zammis turned and began running in the direction that the craft had been going. I watched until I couldn't see it. "Remember me," I whispered.

  I faced up and looked at the clouds. "You almost got me that time, you kizlode sonofabitch, but you didn't figure on the Drac . . . you keep forgetting . .. there's two of us."

  I drifted in and out of consciousness, felt rain on my face, then pulled up the tent and covered my head. In seconds, the blackout returned.

  "Davidge? Lieutenant Davidge?"

  "Waa." I opened my eyes, watched the lights swim around for a bit then settle down into something I hadn't seen for four Earth years: a human face. "Who are you?"

  The face, young, long and capped by short blond hair, smiled. "I'm Captain Steerman, ship's medical officer. How do you feel?"

  I pondered the question and smiled. "Like I've been shot full of very high-grade junk."

  "You have. You were in pretty bad shape by the time the survey team brought you in."

  "Survey team?"

  "I guess you don't know. The United States of Earth and the Dracon Chamber have established a joint commission to supervise the colonization of new planets. The war is over."

  "Over?"

  "Yes."

  "How? What about Amadeen?"

  "The planet's quarantined. I don't know what they're going to do down on Amadeen, but the USE and the Dracs are out of it." Something heavy lifted from my chest.

  "Where's Zammis?"

  "Who?"

  "Jeriba Zammis; the Drac that I was with."

  The doctor shrugged. "I don't know anything about it. If there was a Drac with you when you were picked up, I suppose the Draggers are taking care of it."

  Draggers.

  I'd once used the term myself. As I listened to it coming out of Steerman's mouth, it seemed foreign: alien, repulsive. "Zammis is a Drac, not a Dragger."

  The doctor's brows furrowed, then he shrugged. "Of course. Whatever you say. Just you get some rest, and I'll check back on you in a few hours."

  "May I see Zammis?"

  The doctor smiled. "Dear, no. You're on your way back to the Delphi USEB. The, ah, Drac is probably on its way to Draco. That's where he belongs, right?" He nodded, then turned and left.

  God, I felt lost. I looked around and saw that I was in the ward of a ship's sick bay. The beds on either side of me were occupied. The man on my right shook his head and went back to reading a magazine. The one on my left looked angry.

  "You damned Dragger suck!" He turned on his left side and presented me his back.

  Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

  Alien Earth.

  As I stepped down the ramp onto the USE field in Orleans, those were the first two words that popped into my head. Alien Earth. I looked at the crowds of USE Force personnel bustling around like so many ants, inhaled the smell of industrial man, then spat on the ramp.

  "How you like, put in stockade time?"

  I looked down and saw a white-capped Force Police private glaring up at me. I continued down the ramp. "Get bent."

  "Quoi?" The FP marched over and met me at the end of the ramp.

  "Get bent." I pulled my discharge papers from my breast pocket and waved them. "Gavey short-timer, kizlode?"

  The FP took my papers, frowned at them, then pointed at a long, low building at the edge of the field. "Continuez tout droit."

  I smiled, turned and headed across the field, thinking of Zammis asking about how humans talk together. And where was Zammis? I shook my head, then entered the building. Most of the people inside the low building were crowding the in-processing or transportation-exchange aisles. I saw two bored officials behind two long tables and figured that they were the local customs clerks. A multilingual sign above their stations confirmed the hunch. I stopped in front of one of them. She glanced up at me, then held out her hand. "Votre passeport?"

  I pulled out the blue and white booklet, handed it over, then stood holding my hands as I waited. I could feel the muscles at the back of my neck knot as I observed an old anti-Drac propaganda poster on the wall behind her. It showed two yellow, clawed hands holding a miniature Earth before a fanged mouth. Fangs and claws. The caption read: "They would call this victory" in seven languages.

  "Avez-vous quelque chose à déclarer?"

  I frowned at her. Ess?"

  She frowned back. "Avez-vous quelque chose à déclarer?"

  I felt a tap on my back. "Do you speak English?"

  I turned and saw the other customs clerk, a man with a big black mustache, a potgut, and a pension. My upper lip curled. "Surda; ne surda. Adze Dracon?"

  His eyebrows went up as he mouthed the word "Drac." He turned to the other clerk, took my passport from her, then looked back at me. He tapped the booklet against his fingertips, then opened it, read the ident page, and looked back at me. "Come with me, Mister Davidge. We must have a talk." He turned and headed into a small office. I shrugged and followed. When I entered, he pointed toward a chair. As I lowered myself into it, he sat down behind a desk. "Why do you pretend not to speak English?"

  "Why do you have that poster on the wall? The war is over."

  The customs clerk clasped his hands, rested them on the desk, then shook his head. "The fighting is over, Mister Davidge, but for many the war is not. The Draggers killed many humans."

  I cocked my head to one side. "A few Dracs died, too." I stood up. "May I go now?"

  The customs clerk leaned back in his chair. "That chip on your shoulder you will find to be a considerable weight to bear on this planet."

  "I'm the one who has to carry it."

  The customs clerk shrugged, then nodded toward the door. "You may go. And good luck, Mister Davidge. You'll need it."

  "Dragger suck."

  As an invective the term had all of the impact of several historical terms—Quisling, heretic, fag, nigger-lover—all rolled into one. That, though, was only the beginning of my problems. Ex-Force pilots were a drag on the employment market, with no commercial positions open, especially not to a pilot who hadn't flown in four years, who had a gimpy leg, and who was a Dragger suck.

  Transportation to North America, and after a period of lonely wandering, to Dallas. Mistan's eight-hundred-year-old words from The Talman would haunt me: Misnuuram va siddeth; Your thought is loneliness. Loneliness is a thing one does to oneself.

  Jerry shook his head that one time, then pointed a yellow finger at me as the words it wanted to say came together. "Davidge ... to me loneliness is a discomfort—unpleasant, and a thing to be avoided, but not a thing to be feared. I think you would prefer death to being alone with yourself."

  Of course, I had a special gift: right in the center of the biggest crowd anyone ever saw, I could find loneliness.

  Mistan observed: "If you are alone with yourself, you will forever be alone with others." A contradiction? The test of reality proves it true. I was out of place on my own planet, and it was more than a hate that I didn't share or a love that, to others, seemed impossible—perverse. Deep inside of myself, I had no use for the creature called "Davidge." Before Fyrine IV there had been other reasons—reasons that I could not identify; but now, my reason was known. My fault or not, I had betrayed an ugly, yellow thing called Zammis, as well as the creature's parent. "Present Zammis before the Jeriba archives. Swear this to me."

  Oh, Jerry . . .

  Swear this!

  I swear it. . .

  Forty-eight thousand credits in back pay, and so money wasn't a problem. The problem was what to do with myself. Finally, in Dallas, I landed a job in a small book house translating manuscripts int
o Drac. It seemed that there was a craving among Dracs for Westerns:

  "Stick 'em up naagusaafi"

  "Nu geph, lawman." Thang, thang! The guns flashed and another kizlode shaddsaat bit the dust.

  I quit.

  There were a lot of us on Earth, and scattered throughout the rest of the quadrant as well, I suppose. Discharged vets, stumbling around, trying to make sense of things, trying to find where they fit, or if they fit. A news report on the vids said that newly discharged vets had the highest suicide rate among the groups studied.

  Yay, team.

  "You know how much yellow blood I got on my hands?" a vet asked me in a bar. I didn't venture a guess, but the guy, a USEF assault force warrant officer, didn't notice. He sat at the bar, staring at his hands and muttering something about having more in common with the Dracs than he did with the street slime back on Earth.

  I finally called my parents. Why didn't you call before, Willy? We've been worried sick. We thought you were dead.

  Had a few things I had to straighten out, Dad.

  Things?

  I can't explain right now.

  Well, we understand, son . . . It must have been awful—

  Dad, I'd like to come home for a while.

  Home? Why, sure. Sure, son.

  Even before I put down the money on the used Dearman Electric, I knew I was making a mistake going home. I felt the need of a home, but the one I had left at the age of eighteen wasn't it. But I headed there because there was nowhere else to go.

  I drove alone in the dark, using only the old roads, the quiet hum of the Dearman's motor the only sound. The December midnight was clear, and I could see the stars through the car's bubble canopy. Fyrine IV drifted into my thoughts, the raging ocean, the endless winds. I pulled off the road onto the shoulder and killed the lights. In a few minutes, my eyes adjusted to the dark and I stepped outside and shut the door.

  Kansas has a big sky, and the stars seemed close enough to touch. Snow crunched under my feet as I looked up, trying to pick Fyrine out of the thousands of visible stars.

  Fyrine is in the constellation Pegasus, but my eyes were not practiced enough to pick the winged horse out from the surrounding stars. I shrugged, felt a chill, and decided to get back in the car. As I put my hand on the doorlatch, I saw a constellation that I did recognize, north, hanging just above the horizon: Draco. The Dragon, its tail twisted around Ursa Minor, hung upside down in the sky. Eltanin, the Dragon's nose, is the homestar of the Dracs. Its second planet, Draco, was Zammis's home, if Zammis was there. We called the snake-like string of stars Draco for the Dragon. The Dracs call their planet Draco for an all-but-forgotten Ovjetah. Coincidence! Why not?

  Zammis. Where was Zammis?

  Commitment. That's something the Dracs knew how to do. In the Koda Itheda, when Aydan was searching for the warmasters who would lead its armies and the world to peace, it wanted the warmasters to commit to peace. There was Niagat's little "test."

  "Aydan," spoke Niagat, "I would serve Heraak; I would see an end to war; I would be one of your warmasters."

  "Would you kill to achieve this, Niagat?"

  "I would kill"

  "Would you kill Heraak to achieve this?"

  "Kill Heraak, my master?" Niagat paused and considered the question. "If I cannot have both, I would see Heraak dead to see an end to war."

  "That is not what I asked."

  "And, Aydan, I would do the killing."

  "And now, Niagat, would you die to achieve this?"

  "I would risk death as does any warrior."

  "Again, Niagat, that is not my question. If an end to war can only be purchased at the certain cost of your own life, would you die by your own hand to achieve peace!"

  Niagat studied upon the thing that had been asked. "I am willing to take the gamble of battle. In this gamble there is the chance of seeing my goal. But my certain death, and by my own hand—there would be no chance of seeing my goal. No, I would not take my own life for this. That would be foolish. Have I passed your test?"

  "You have failed, Niagat. Your goal is not peace; your goal is to live in peace. Return when your goal is peace alone and you hold a willing knife at your own throat to achieve it. That is the price of a warmaster's blade."

  Niagat never did get its warmaster's blade, but Aydan did eventually fill its ranks with warmasters and warriors who placed peace before everything. Where in the universe to find such conviction, to find such commitment.

  Commitment.

  That was the thing that was crippling my life. I had made a promise to Jerry. It was a promise that sat on the other side of the bloody quadrant, but it was still waiting to be kept.

  Headlights from an approaching car blinded me, and I turned toward the car as it pulled to a stop. The window on the driver's side opened and someone spoke from the darkness. "You need some help?"

  I shook my head. "No, thank you." I held up a hand. "I was just looking at the stars."

  "Quite a night, isn't it?"

  "Sure is."

  "Sure you don't need any help?"

  I shook my head. "Thanks . . . wait. Where is the nearest commercial spaceport?"

  "About an hour ahead in Salina."

  "Thanks." I saw a hand wave from the window, then the other car pulled away. I took another look at Eltanin, then got back in my car.

  There was a rathole motel in Salina that had all I needed for a reasonable price. I went to a market and an office supply center, then posted my "do not disturb" notice on the room's computer and got to work. What was strange was that I couldn't write it. I needed to recite it. I switched the computer to voice input, did the calibration, and then began speaking in English, the translation moving automatically through my mind:

  I, Mistaan, who created the marks-that-speak, set down before you the words of Shizumaat who recited before me the Myth of Aakva, the Story of Uhe and the First Truth.

  Sindie was the world.

  And the world was said to be made by Aakva, the God of the Day Light.

  And Aakva was said to make on the world special creatures of yellow skin and hands and feet each of three fingers. And it was said to make the creatures of one kind, that each could bear its young, or the young of another. And it was said to make the creatures make thought and give voice that the creatures could worship the Parent of All ....

  I spoke and watched as the words appeared on the monitor: the Myth of Aakva and the formation of the law, the world without the law, and again, a law of peace that could only last if nothing in the universe ever changed.

  ... the clouds over the Madah were barren, and those lands west of the Akkujah saw no water, and the ground cracked and turned to fine powder. The noon sky burned with a blinding blue, while the morning and evening skies were the reds and yellows of cooling iron. The lakes and rivers became mud and dust, and the creatures that swam within them died. The Ocean of lce became a black sea of putrid oil. The wild creatures of the land fled from the Madah to the mountains, and from there to the lands of the Diruvedah and the Kuvedah.

  The proud hunters of the Mavedah could not blood their spears, and so they watched their children cry and grow thin. The hunters clawed at the land, gathering roots, insects, and the skins of the few trees that still lived. But in time even these were gone. And the hunters watched their children scream and stare. The hunters clawed at the bottoms of streams and wellbeds, chasing the precious water as it left the ground below. But the water ran more swiftly than the hunters could dig. And the hunters watched their children die ....

  And then one of the hunters, as the tribe ate its only child, rose to proclaim a new vision, a new law of war. The great Uhe led the Mavedah out of the scorching desert of death and crossed the Akkujah Mountains into a war that saved its people and unified the Sindie.

  As I recited, I felt the tears on my cheeks, because I was back in the cave, Jerry watching me as I recited, its eyes caught between the force of the stories and the sight of a human telling them in
formal Dracon.

  ... a Sindie shaper of iron, in Butaan to perform its duty to Aakva through labor, gave birth to a child. The shaper of iron's name was Caduah, and Caduah named its child Shizumaat.

  ... Caduah was a dutiful child of Aakva, and the parent instructed its child in the ways and truths of the God of the Day Light ...

  There was the ever faithful Namndas, whose story always made Jerry smile.

  ... I had entered the Aakva Kovah the year before Shizumaat, and was placed in charge of Shizumaat's class. I drew this duty because the servants of the temple considered me the least worthy of my own class. While my companions sat at the feet of the servants and engaged in learned discourse, I would chase dirt.

  There was, as well, the book that always made Jerry cry, the third of Mistaan's books, which begins with the trial and the execution of Shizumaat:

  "You are young, Mistaan. To brave this wall of hate and warriors' iron that surrounds me shows me your youth. When you are older you shall call this youth foolishness."

  By the end of three weeks, I was finished. While the computer printed our a hard copy, I stretched out on my bed and thought about what I was going to do. It might do some good. Eleven thousand years of wisdom—even alien wisdom—cannot be absorbed and not leave behind a truth or two. Then again, perhaps I was raising casting pearls before swine to new heights. In any event, it was all I had of value. I went to the computer, called up my motel bill, and paid it.

  Three days later I was in Dallas standing before the little gray man who ran Lone Star Publishing, Inc. He looked up at me and frowned. "So, what do you want, Davidge? I thought you quit."

  I threw a thousand-page manuscript on his desk. "This."

  He poked it with a finger. "What is it?"

  "The Drac bible; it's called The Talman."

  "So what?"