I turn away, dry my face with my palms, and say "I am Yazi Ro. Memories play with me. Nothing more."
A long silence, then the human says, "If you’ve never been in space before, Ro, staring at the stars from a dark compartment can be quite disturbing. It has a tendency to call out the shadows you least want to see. Have you been out before?"
"Once." I glance at the human and feel myself smiling. "I had no access to an observation port, though."
The human walks across the deck until he is next to me, both of us looking through the port. In the bright lights of the lounge our reflections mute the stars. "I find a star field humbling," says Hill. "What are the passions of an individual, a nation, or a single world against all of that? I represent the largest, most powerful industrial power in the quadrant."
"Earth IMPEX," I interrupt.
Michael Hill nods. "IMPEX has employed entire populations and transformed worlds across the galaxy. Billions of beings owe their fortunes and even their existence to IMPEX, yet I often wonder if there is anything that can be done by an individual, a corporation, or even an entire species, that would be noticeable next to that." Michael Hill nods toward the stars, faces me, and grins. "If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan." He nods at me, turns, and leaves the lounge.
After eating with the other passengers, I sit in my compartment thinking about the universe, war, and stopping a war. Does anything I, the Ovjetah, or this Willis E. Davidge do make any difference in a universe where countless stars are born and die every moment? Yet there is the ghost of that man I killed at Butaan Ji, the father of that dead little girl. He wasn’t awed by the infinite reaches of space. The universe was already done for him. The entire cosmos would have been saved had only one life been spared, yet the life was gone and the universe was dead.
From my couch my gaze finds the locker in which I placed Jeriba Shigan’s package to its teacher on Friendship. A piece to a puzzle, the solution to which might keep the universe alive for some parent. Perhaps for a child.
I open the package to the human. It is a manuscript made of paper hastily bound with flash film. Its title is the Koda Nusinda, The Eyes of Joanne Nicole. I start to read and I find myself pulled into an alien mind. It is the story of a human soldier, her command shattered by a superior enemy, taken prisoner, and made vemadah. Blinded in a raid where she saves some Drac children, her darkness is manipulated by Tora Soam until she sees neither as human or Drac but can see how the United States of Earth and the Dracon Chamber are rulebound into the war.
I see it before me, The Timans have an instinct which is to manipulate more powerful species into destroying themselves. They led the humans and the Dracs to Amadeen where a war was started that would be impossible to end short of the elimination of one race or the other. Yet this human soldier found how to step outside the rules and end the war by detaching the combatants from the problem of Amadeen, and from the influence of the Timans.
The principle is to determine the rules governing a situation and then devise new rules, a talma, that encompass and nullify the old set of rules. I wonder how to step outside the horror of Amadeen’s rules and encompass them with a set that would bring peace. Joanne Nicole, with her special sight, could not see a way to peace on Amadeen. What can this Davidge find?
Too much of it, though, is burdened by my own sight. Joanne Nicole abandoned her child, yet it was this child who wrote the Nusinda and brought it before the Jetai Diea as the first Ovjetah of Earth’s infant Talman Kovah. Joanne Nicole was a very lonely woman, and I feel as alone. Is it the fate of all soldiers, I wonder, to be lonely?
The warbling sound that signals the ship converting to normal speed tears me from my reflections. The signal halts and a voice informs us that the ship’s destination is now within visible range. I go to the passenger lounge and look through the observation port at the tiny white disk of the Planet Friendship, my head mired in thoughts of freedom, war, and significance.
TWELVE
As the Venture descends through the atmosphere toward the port of First Colony, I can feel the powerful winter winds buffeting the hull being met by the slightly delayed reactions of the steering jets. Eventually the buffeting ceases and the roar of the landing jets grows for a moment, then the ship is motionless and silent. We are down.
I see Michael Hill as we disembark. He is talking to another human and three Dracs on the apron of the underground landing bay. He sees me, nods, and returns to his conversation. I shoulder my bag and look at the underground port.
There are three other ships in the brightly illuminated enclosure and spaces for eight others, each space separated by transparent walls. I look around and everything is expensive, new, clean. The ground crew servicing the Venture wears crisp orange uniforms. Another crew wearing green moves lifts into place to unload the ship’s cargo containers. I see several species on both crews.
The passengers not pausing to talk move toward an open blast door. Next to the door is a Drac in a pale blue suit and robe combination. When I reach the hatch, the tall Drac smiles, bows, and says to me, "Yazi Ro?"
I stop. "I am Yazi Ro."
The smile grows wider. "I am Undev Orin, retainer to the Jeriba estate. Through this door into the terminal area Jeriba Zammis, child of Shigan, awaits you. I will notify Zammis that you have arrived and guide you there."
I nod my thanks. "Where are the customs officials?"
"We have no customs prohibitions or duties on Friendship, hence," Orin holds out its hands apologetically, "no officials."
The terminal waiting area is a mix of strange rhythmic music and banks of flowers and potted trees. The open area is filled with comfortable couches, each couch complete with computer, entertainment, communication, and refreshment facilities. Orin leads me toward a private enclosure located behind opaque dividers near the center of the waiting area. Inside the enclosure Jeriba Zammis stands with its back toward us watching a transparent column of opaque red plastic blobs flow and change shapes as they ascend the column through a translucent yellow medium. Zammis is tall and clad in a strange combination of clothes: trousers and soft leather boots after the fashion of the humans, yet an abbreviated Jetah robe for an upper garment.
Undev Orin bows and says, "Apologies for interrupting your meditation, Jetah, but Yazi Ro is here."
"Meditation?" Jeriba Shigan’s firstborn turns, its brow touched by a momentary confusion. The brow ascends as the confusion terminates. "You mean this," Zammis says as it gestures toward the column of blobs. "Hypnotism, perhaps, Orin, but not meditation. It’s something new from Earth added by the port administration. I may acquire one for the estate. Look into it."
"At the first opportunity," responds Orin as it holds out its hand toward me.
Jeriba Zammis’s gaze snaps from Undev Orin to my face as it issues an almost imperceptible bow. In return, I do not bow at all, a gesture Zammis ignores as though it expected the attitude. Although partially hidden by its strange attire, I can see that Zammis is a physically powerful individual. "My parent has charged me with bringing you to see Willis Davidge, The Ovjetah neglected to inform me as to the nature of your visit, but it did mention the planet from which you originate."