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?"
"So it’s the only book translated from Drac into English; so it’s the explanation for how every Drac conducts itself; so it’ll make you a bundle of credits."
He leaned forward, scanned several pages, then looked up at me. "You know, Davidge, I don’t like you worth a damn."
"I can’t tell you what a relief that is. I don’t like you either."
He returned to the manuscript. "Why now?"
"Now is when I need money."
He shrugged. "The best I can offer would be around eight or ten thousand. This is untried stuff."
"I need twenty-four thousand. You want to go for less than that, I’ll take it to someone else."
He looked at me and frowned. "What makes you think anyone else would be interested?"
"Let’s quit playing around. There are a lot of survivors of the war—both military and civilian—who would like to understand what happened." I leaned forward and tapped the manuscript. "That’s what’s in there."
"Twenty-four thousand is lot for a first manuscript."
I gathered up the pages. "I’ll find someone who has some coin to invest in a sure thing."
He placed his hand on the manuscript. "Hold on, Davidge." He frowned. "Twenty-four thousand?"
"Not a quarter-note less."
He pursed his lips, then glanced at me. "I suppose you’ll be Hell on wheels regarding final approval."
I shook my head. "All I want is the money. You can do whatever you want with the manuscript."
He leaned back in his chair, looked at the manuscript, then back at me. "The money. What’re you going to do with it?"
"None of your business."
He leaned forward, then leafed through a few more pages. His eyebrows notched up, then he looked back at me. "You aren’t picky about the contract?"
"As long as I get the money, you can turn that into Mein Kampf if you want to."
He leafed through a few more pages. "This is some pretty radical stuff."
"It sure is. And you can find the same stuff in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, James, Freud, Szasz, Nortmyer, and the Declaration of Independence."
He leaned back in his chair. "What does this mean to you?"
"Twenty-four thousand credits."
He leafed through a few more pages, then a few more. In twelve hours I had purchased passage to Draco.
The peace accords, on paper, gave me the right to travel to Draco, but the Drac bureaucrats and their paperwork wizards had perfected the big stall long before the first human steps into space. Just to get a visa from the Drac consulate in New York involved enough calls to give my ear a cramp, not to mention wading through a cordon of angry demonstrators to pick it up. The consulate was located in a new concrete and glass thing whose windows looked as though they began somewhere above the twentieth floor, far out of the reach of flying bricks and such. When I took a moment to read the protest signs, I found that it wasn’t the Dracs they were protesting. Instead they were protesting the human diplomatic mission that signed the treaty quarantining Amadeen and ending what they called "the big war," leaving the humans on Amadeen cut off and stranded.
When I showed my pass to the human security guards on the gate, they let me in. In the lobby and the offices I got the impression that there were no Dracs at the consulate. It was a human who eventually issued me my visa. Tall, gray, and looking down her nose at everything. She reminded me of my eighth grade English teacher. As she held my passport in her hands, she said something curious. "With all the crap you had to wade through to get this visa, Mr. Davidge, you must have very important business on Draco."
"It’s important to me."
"On your application it says that your visit is for the purpose of attending a ceremony."
"That’s right."
"What kind of ceremony?"
It wasn’t any of her business, but I’d already learned rule one for working your way through the bureaucrats: unless you have a gun, a lot of money, or some compromising pictures with a goat, give the bastards whatever they want, and with respect. "The rites of adulthood."
She handed me my passport and asked, "Is it the child of a business associate ?"
As I put the booklet in my pocket, I shook my head. "No. It’s my nephew."
I left her chewing on that one while I left her office and moved on to the next level of administrative molasses.
It took threats, bribes, and long days of filling out forms, being checked and rechecked for disease, contraband, reason for visit, filling out more forms, refilling out the forms I had already filled out, more bribes, more waiting, waiting, waiting. I was wondering if Zammis was going to die of old age before I got to see it, when someone fouled up and I found myself on the ship with all my papers in order.
On the ship, I spent most of my time in my cabin, but since the Drac stewards refused to serve me, though, I went to the ship’s lounge for my meals. I sat alone, listening to the comments about me from other booths. I had figured the path of least resistance was to pretend I didn’t understand what they were saying. It is always assumed that humans do not speak Drac. One time, though, was one time too many.
"Must we eat in the same compartment with the Irkmaan slime?"
"Look at it, how its pale skin blotches—and that evil-smelling thatch on top. Feh! The smell!"
I ground my teeth a little and kept my glance riveted to my tray. Of the three Dracs at that table, only one was shooting off its mouth. The other two were trying to be polite, but looked embarrassed. The one with the mouth started up again.
"It defies The Talman that the universe’s laws could be so corrupt as to produce a creature such as that."
I turned and faced the three Dracs sitting in the booth across the aisle from mine. My eyes sought out the skinny one with the bad attitude. In Drac, I replied: "If your line’s elders had seen fit to teach the village kiz to use contraceptives, you wouldn’t even exist." I thanked Jerry for the wisecrack and returned to my food while the two embarrassed Dracs struggled to hold the third Drac down.
Later, in my quarters, I had a visitor. It was a Drac decked out in a midnight blue uniform with two light blue diagonal stripes on its sleeves. "Willis Davidge?" it asked in heavily accented English.
"That’s right."
"My name is Atu Vi. Ship’s second officer. May I enter?"