More often than not, the problem’s resolution cost the bearer nothing. And everyone knew that Eliem was no altruist; he did it for the sake of the problem. And he had taught her his fascination with problems-with the abstract problem of problems.
Long before he was appointed to the Baina Ya bench, the people of Kidege addressed Eliem Nicole as "Judge." And Tora Soam was Judge Nicole with a strange voice; a voice that was becoming less strange as the seconds passed.
The high-ranking Dracs that had been on the other side of the table sat in her mind as any greying, overweight collection of human officials would. Zigh Caida, the First Deputy of the Chamber, even had a face fixed in her mind. She thought for a long time, and then remembered: it was the Vice-commander of Storm Mountain, General Dell’s, face. Kindly, old General Dell.
Morio used to say that the General had adopted himself as my father. In a way, it had been true.
She shook her head and moved to the edge of the sleeping platform. She felt as though she were in the center of an enormous puzzle; a game with no rules, no objectives, no purpose. Lita teasing its students with its "I win" game; caught in the web of an unknown logos. And her mind felt the need of a purpose; a need to know the rules.
"Well, Nicole, you know at least one thing: these creatures are Dracs, not humans." The knotting in her gut as she made that statement told her more: they were not friends; they were deadly enemies.
If I could just see! Damn it, if I could just see!
She touched the edge of that well of self-pity, and backed away from it. And, from the pages of the Talman, Namvaac spoke to her.
And the student said to Namvaac, "Jetah, the darkness covers all the Universe. It is such an all-powerful evil, I feel so small and helpless within it. Next to this darkness, the black of death seems so bright."
Namvaac studied the hooked blade, then handed it back to the student. "Where you are now, child, Tochalla has been before you. It, too, was in darkness. It, too, had a knife. But Tochalla also had talma."
She sat straight up and strained her ears as a slight difference in sound touched the air. She turned her head right, then left, trying fruitlessly to determine the direction from which the sound was coming. Because of the curved, sound-absorbing walls of the sleeping room, the sound appeared to come from all directions.
Nicole pushed herself up, felt her way to the sleeping room door, and opened it. The sounds became slightly louder-something between glass air chimes and a guitar.
Music. The notes appeared to follow no familiar pattern. It was an incomprehensible wandering through minor scales. Sad, lonely wandering.
She pressed the control that opened all of the doors, then felt her way to the apartment entrance. The sounds came from her left. She hesitated. She had never been down that part of the corridor.
Nicole placed her left hand against the stones of the corridor wall and began feeling her way toward the sounds. As she walked along, several times the playing stopped, then resumed with a different but equally incomprehensible tune. She followed the sounds until the acoustic response to the instrument told her that she was across the corridor from a large, high-ceilinged chamber. She entered the room, leaned against the wall, and listened.
The music took on a mournful, haunting quality; and she let herself open to it devoid of comparisons or preconceptions. Then the music spoke to her, calling up familiar but strangely combined emotions. The music stopped, but Nicole let the memory of the dying notes stroke her thoughts.
"Who is that? Speak?" The voice was Tora Kia’s.
"Can you not see me, Tora Kia?"
"No. The chamber is dark. What do you want?"
"I heard you playing. I thought you could no longer play… because of your arm."
"I can still play with the other."
There was movement, then steps coming toward her. She tensed, but Kia only took her by her arm and led her toward a couch. Nicole sat down and listened as the Drac moved away and again took up its instrument and played an odd assortment of notes. The playing stopped. "In your apartment, Joanne Nicole, I heard you cry out."
"It was nothing but a dream."
"Baadek told me that you did not speak to my parent about what happened in the car. I should thank you."
"I kept silent more for Baadek’s sake than for yours, Kia."
A quiet laugh. "Of Course. Still, I apologize for my actions and thank you for yours."
She remained silent and Kia again began playing its instrument. The sounds were alien, but the instrument was the tidna: a harp with strings made of glass. But the music was different for another, indefinable reason. She let her head fall back upon the couch and listened, allowing the peculiar musical phrases to occupy her awareness. The music changed slightly, and, the patterns became something she could identify-feel familiar with.
"Kia, what is that?"
The music stopped. "A composition of my own. I wrote it upon Amadeen. Does it speak to you?"
"It incorporates human music; human themes. I recognize them."
"Joanne Nicole, a composition birthed in the blood covering Amadeen would be false unless it carried the sentiments of the Front as well as the Mavedah. Your composer, Tchaikovsky, did much the same for his composition on war. He used the themes of both his nation and that of the enemy."
"What… what do you know of human music?"
There was a silence, then she heard the tidna being placed non too gently upon the stone floor. "That human, Mitzak, spoke to me something that seems to be truth. After my parent’s game, Mitzak asked me what the difference is between ignorance and stupidity. Mitzak answered his own question by telling me that ignorance is self-inflicted stupidity. I had the feeling that Mitzak was talking about all of us. Both humans and Dracs."
"Your parent’s game? Kia, you knew it to be a game? Your performance was a part you played?"
"Of course."
"Why? Why did you cooperate?"
"We live by talma-games. That, and Tora Soam is my parent. It needed my hate for the game."
"But you knew it to be a game."
"It is all games, Joanne Nicole. Everything that exists. Did you not absorb anything from listening to The Talma when you were in the Chirn Kovah?" Nicole heard the tidna being picked up then came a series of rapid scales, and combinations of scales. As abruptly as the playing began, it stopped. "I know of Tchaikovsky for the same reason that my parent knows of human behavior and the behaviors of other races. All have been studied in detail. My study was music. My parent studied life. Humans studied us before the war; did they not?"
"Yes."
"Our means of information processing, because of the outgrowths of talma, are considerably superior to yours." The strange song birthed in Kia’s experience upon Amadeen filled the room. "My parent commands all that can be known about humans; what the humans know, and more."
"The USEF Intelligence Corps-"
"A joke. You see parts of surfaces. We see depths and beyond depths."
"But still you cannot avoid war."
"We cannot avoid it, Joanne Nicole: we cannot avoid it." She listened as Kia’s Amadeen song continued, the notes becoming almost visible in her mind. And there were gaps; places where notes should have been-would have been except for the musician’s missing arm. "And that is how I shall leave it." The tidna was replaced on the floor. "Could you hear where the missing hand should have played?"