ne branch floated in a silver
water bowl. Kissur kneeled in front of the altar and sipped a bit from the
bowl.
"Arfarra," he said quietly, "what should I do? My gods are silent. They
have been silent for seven years. You had been next to me before that. You
made decisions for me everywhere except war and I was free at war because
there is nobody between a warrior and god. Can't I do anything for my
country or can I only muck things up? Send me somebody! I have nobody. What
are these Earthmen? The best of their best have credit cards, where their
hearts should be, and the others are god knows what! Khanadar is like a
goldfinch, who can only sing silly songs, and this man, Nan, that I could
ask for an advice, would advise me to break my neck because it will be most
useful for the country and most pleasing for Nan."
Kissur prayed like this for a while and called Arfarra. Suddenly he
felt a draught coming from the door. Kissur froze. The door slowly opened
and somebody's shadow stretched at the doorstep
"Great Wei!" Kissur cried out jumping on his feet and turning around.
"Oh, it's you."
The Earthman stood in the door frame - Terence Bemish.
"Have you been waiting for somebody?" Bemish was concerned. Kissur
looked at the altar with his head bowed.
"No," Kissur responded, "he will hardly come."
Bemish sat in the armchair.
"You were right, Kissur," he said. "IC did give Shavash six million
dollars for this contract. But it was not IC money. This money belonged to
Federation Intelligence. IC is just a front. They wanted to cram the
spaceport with surveillance hardware and then with military equipment. They
want to watch Gera first, and then..."
"But then Weia," Kissur said, "will become an Earth's military ally."
"It will become a military ally for those who don't want to fight. And
when it all comes out, Weia will become a target for Gera and the
Federation, the first point to attack in the case of war!"
"A military ally," Kissur repeated. His eyes lit, he looked over Bemish
to the altar.
"Don't sprout crap!" Bemish cried out. "If Gera is not going to fight,
why would the Federation need military allies? And if it is - imagine what
your planet will be turned into. You will be the grass that elephants
trample as they fight! Your planet's destruction will be, of course, a great
rallying cry for the Earth's people indignation - Earth will wake up at your
expense."
"Military ally," Kissur repeated for the third time. And he laughed.
"And did Shavash charge your government six million for such a gift?"
"And so they wanted to cover me in mud with this tape - you understand,
Kissur, it was our Intelligence that made the tape for Shavash - and after
that they have the gall to come to me and offer me a dance at their tune!"
"I hope you said, yes."
"I refused. I make money out of air but not out of shit."
At this moment, the door squeaked again and Shavash entered the room.
"Just as I thought," he declared, taking a look at disheveled enraged
Bemish and Kissur, coldly baring his teeth at the altar.
Kissur approached Shavash, embraced and kissed him.
"I am sorry," he said.
Shavash gently freed himself from his embrace and turned to the
Earthman.
"So? Has Kissur persuaded you yet?"
"No," Bemish shouted, "you are both blockheads! You, Shavash, are ready
to sell you motherland for a fried chicken and, when this guy hears the word
"war" he's jumping out of his pants with joy."
"I...," Shavash started with dignity.
Bemish threw the folder at him.
You can have it! The contract is here. I am leaving for Earth.
Shavash picked up scattered papers and suddenly he gawked at them
fixedly. His eyes gaped wide in astonishment and his face assumed such an
astounded look that Bemish couldn't help but ask.
"What are you reading there?"
"Tomorrow newspapers," Shavash said sweetly, "it's written here that
the zealots from the Marked by the Sky sect killed Terence P. Bemish who had
been appointed by the sovereign to the Assalah construction director
position. Or... no, not Marked by The Sky but Following the Way. Yes, of
course! This sect has a branch next to Assalah and they also learned of the
dishonest ways that Bemish used to obtain the shares... These ways will of
course be published, too..."
"How dare you?"
"Mr. Bemish! I dared much more than that. And I saved you from a
certain death twice when Giles was ready to pay for your head! If the
zealots kill you, it will cause wide spread abhorrence. If you suddenly
decline the sovereign's appointment, it will cause a lot of false rumors and
your silence is not guaranteed."
"He doesn't look like a man who will keep silent," Kissur said.
Bemish came to the table where a phone was, picked up the receiver and
dialed a number.
"Is it Ravadan? When is the next Earth passenger flight? Is it in
twenty hours? No I don't want a stopover. Yes, I would like to buy two
tickets, please. Terence Bemish... hmm... Inis Bemish. Yes, damn it, your
Weian name - Inis. No, just one way, I don't need round trip tickets.
During the conversation, Shavash was whispering something at Kissur's
ear. Bemish finished the phone call, pulled a table drawer out and took out
Kissur's small laser that he knew Kissur tended to keep there. He stuck the
gun under his belt and left.
Kissur rose to follow him but Shavash grabbed him by his hand.
"Don't do it - let everybody see that he left this house alive and
unhurt."
X X X
At the night's wane Bemish appeared at the finance vice-minister's
mansion. The small official sat in the office sleepily checking some
numbers.
"Why didn't you take off?" Shavash asked.
"Why didn't you kill me?" Bemish snapped back.
He sat in an armchair on bird legs and said.
"I agree on one condition."
The official raised his eyebrows.
Bemish silently handed him a paper sheet. Shavash looked the text over
- it was an act abolishing ishevik bills of credit."
"Do you understand," Shavash said, "that without ishevik bills we would
spend three times more in subsidies?"
"Why don't you abolish subsidies together with ishevik bills."
Shavash grinned.
"Do you know how much money you, Terence Bemish, could make on it?"
"I would make nothing. I would make this money for one, two, three
years. Then, the Galactic Bank, where like in any other large company where
only idiots are employed, will finally realize that ishevik bills are pseudo
money printed personally by Mr. Shavash, all this shit will turn to
hyperinflation, your insurance rating will keel over and I will lose five
times more on my stocks than I'll steal on ishevik bills.
Shavash raised his eyebrows just a bit.
People like you, Mr. Bemish, used to come to a bad end in the old
times. They handed the sovereign reports about the importance of integrity
and..."
"And they had their heads cut off," Bemish grinned.
"Yes, sometimes they had their heads cut off. And sometimes the
sovereign would turn his ear towards their reports and they started to cut
the other people's heads off."
The Seventh Chapter
Where all investors' difficulties are solved in the best way.
The full transfer didn't take much time - less than five days.
Everything worked out in the end. Bemish became the Assalah president and
CEO. Richard Giles, who believe it or not had resigned from IC, became the
first vice-president. Shavash kept his appointment at the Board of
Directors.
Trevis, naturally, started financing the whole project again. The
financing layout developed by Bemish was not changed. 51% of the company,
meaning the whole state stock block, was sold by the Assalah company
director Terence Bemish to the ADO director Terence Bemish and the observers
commented acidly that the shares were sold at not such a high price. The
same day, Ronald Trevis sent out a note that his bank assured - it would be
possible to raise the money necessary for the investment through ADO bonds.
In a month, ADO issued junk bonds for two million dinars that made up the
first-round financing and big-league investors fought for the bonds like
starving hyenas.
The second-round financing was made of convertible bonds. These bonds
had 8% coupons and could be converted in stocks within one year at the
present stock face value. This operation promised to be incredibly
profitable - if everything worked out, the Assalah stock price could
increase hundred fold. Even technically, the stocks were available only to a
very small investors' circle - to those who were allowed to invest money in
the derivatives of, accordingly to the Galaxy business world virtuous choice
of words, "the third reliability category markets." Bemish, Trevis and
Shavash narrowed this circle down even more, having sold the bonds mostly to
the people they needed.
Additionally, there were warrants - the stock warrants acquired at
three dinars per warrant. In two years, they enabled the buyer to acquire
Assalah stocks at their present cost. In the worst case, the buyer would
lose three dinars, in the best he would acquire a share at a price hundreds
times less than the current one. The project, submitted to the sovereign,
pointed out that warrants were needed to encourage the biggest investors,
necessary to attract their attention to a remote and dangerous market.
Mudslingers claimed that 50% of the warrants ware shared among Shavash,
Trevis and Bemish. The mudslingers were wrong. These three shared 75% of the
warrants.
The relationship between Bemish and the state proved to be mutually
profitable. For instance, it was great to have a spaceport, of course, but
how would you pass the loads and passengers further? The highway from
Assalah to the capital was built in sovereign Irshahchan times, and though
in sovereign Irshahchan times it was a miraculous highway enabling
government informers to reach Assalah in two days and the troops, sent to
pacify the rebels, in four days, it didn't really satisfy contemporary
requirements. From the north - from Liss, the region promising to become one
of the Galaxy's largest mining areas - a modern highway stretched. But it
was cut off forty kilometers away from the spaceport by Orkh River, one of
the largest rivers in the Empire. These forty kilometers also needed to be
connected somehow.
Bemish spent this month delivering popular presentations at all the
Federation financial centers. Two air flights a day and three space flights
a week were normal for the new director and his team. The success thundered.
Really, junk bonds and developing markets seemed to be created for each
other. A fringe market company acquired by a small Federation company that
had passed Galaxy exchange listing; and this company later financed the
production issuing junk bonds - it was beautiful. It was bold.
Neither Kissur nor Shavash attended the presentations. Kissur could
frighten a Swiss mutual fond representative or a London insurer to death
with his escapades. Shavash's position - a finance vice-minister of some
dinky empire, or even the first vice-minister - wouldn't mean much for an
uninformed man.
Shavash asked the Empire first minister, Yanik, however, to attend and
the investors rightfully concluded that Bemish had good relations with the
Empire authorities. Shavash also asked an Empire ex-first minister, Nan, or
more precisely, David N. Streighton, to attend.
Having resigned after his adversaries ran a smear campaign - that a man
from the stars shouldn't be in charge of the Empire - Nan resided on Earth
and he didn't try to hide that his Weian appointment made him not just a
millionaire, but a billionaire. His knowledge of Weian current events was
unsurpassed and his active buying of Assalah securities boosted their
trading to a great degree. It is should be pointed out that Nan obtained 20%
of the warrants out of remaining 25%.
The only dark spot blemishing Bemish's triumph was headman Adini's
fate. There was no doubt that he had been the culprit in the trick with the
paintings and that he had acted on Shavash's orders.
When Bemish, Khanadar and Kissur flew to the villa the next day, the
young headman was bustling around there as if nothing had happened. Bemish
was especially surprised that Shavash hadn't even tried to warn his spy,
though he knew perfectly well that Adini wouldn't get out of it unscathed.
Kissur, who had never been noted for exquisite manners, threw Adini to
the floor and kicked him a couple times and, then, having snatched his
throat with one hand and lifted him to the knees with the other, demanded
all of the truth from him, "So that I knew whom to hang on the same log with
you."
Adini blurted everything out and, accordingly to his tale, Shavash and
Giles should have hung on the same log with him.
Having gotten attached to the young headman, Bemish started to ask him
how he, Bemish, had maltreated him and Adini covered with blood, sweat and
tears confessed that, having been young and silly, he had taken part in
palace pilfering a year ago - just a little bit, two Iniss rugs, not
particularly old, were the only things that he had peddled. A powerful gang,
probably connected to Shavash, ratted on the competitor or they decided to
write the stolen stuff off using Adini. Thus, he found himself in Shavash's
personal jail and he was freed only after he had admitted of being guilty in
three hundred million dinars worth of palace thefts.
Bemish ordered Adini to beat it but Kissur snatched the young guy and
said that the cad should be hanged and that to let him go would mean to lose
face. Bemish said that hanging Adini would be like an official, castigated
by his superior, venting his anger at his wife.
Kissur agreed with this argument but he claimed that he would keep
Adini and have some words with him about his pilfering - it's kind of
doubtful that Adini had stolen only two rugs. Bemish agreed and he shouldn't
have - the next morning they found Adini hung on the gate of Shavash's
luxurious mansion.
Everybody thought that the Assalah company director himself had gave
this order and they respected Bemish mightily for adhering to local customs;
Kissur proved to Bemish that it was crystal clear - the guy was rotten all
the way through, complete as a water putrefied nut. Hanged Adini visited
Bemish's dreams for a week or two and then stopped. The painting with the
dragon and the princess Terence, of course, returned to the palace the same
day with apologies.
Five carts and priests dressed in heavy brocade pallias came for the
painting.
X X X
In a month, Bemish arrived at Assalah accompanied by a large retinue of
investors. Shavash organized a brilliant reception for them in a temple
complex located about twenty kilometers away from the spaceport - the Black
Valley.
About two and half thousand years ago, one would have found there a
wonderful Temple of Isii-ratouph, who was depicted then not as a squirrel
but rather as a webbed snake and was considered to be not a woman but a man.
Nothing was left from the old temple besides the huge columns - and right
around here, about a kilometer away, the sacred gardens began with chapels
strewn here and there.
The reception was wonderful. Blooming rhododendrons stood as if dressed
in multihued fur coats, brocade leg and jasmine fragrances rode over the
aroma from the delicacies and tame squirrel-ratouphs with gilded tails
jumped amidst the invited guests. Assuming a certain ignorance of Weian
history, the dishes served to the guests could be taken for the exact copy
of the delicacies present here ten years ago at the province governor's
appointment celebration.
The guests were served with a wondrous lamb, just lanced and grilled
for a god (the gods were fed smells and the guests would be fed meat) and
Shavash stood and made a short speech. Shavash said that he was happy to
inform the guests that the territory belonging to the company had obtained
immunity by a sovereign's bill - it was now exempt from the local officials'
jurisdiction and the company had revenue and judicial rights within its
territory.
"However," Shavash immediately reassured, "the company won't really
have to pay taxes since the sovereign's bill gives it extensive tax deferral
for the next two years.
Once the dumbfounded guests had digested the pleasant news, that
somewhat compromised the state sovereignty in the company's favor, Shavash
continued that poor communications was one of the main Assalah drawbacks,
considered at the examination of the project - the direct highway to the
capital had been built in sovereign Irshahchan times and the road to the
rich Liss region was cut off forty kilometers away from Assalah by the
second largest Empire river. Shavash was happy to inform the guests that the
state had already allocated funds for the road and the bridge construction.
Why, would you think though, should the government bustle about? If
Assalah needs it, let Assalah build it, Assalah has loads of dough, why
would you spend budget money in a starving country?
Large investors are an intelligent crowd and they all took a note of
Shavash's part at the presentation and the very polite attitude displayed by
the first minister Yanik towards him. Five people or so asked Bemish if he
was going to limit himself to Assalah or to create a Weian stocks investment
fund.
After Shavash's speech, Trevis, having met Shavash in person for the
first time, approached him trying to clarify the tax referral situation.
Shavash, however, avoided a direct answer.
"Don't worry, either way this company will not pay taxes," he said
imperturbably.
Here, a cute girl appeared in front of Trevis, the girl held a silver
tray, of ram grilled with plants and roots, in her hands. The girl bowed and
sang that an ancient custom commanded to meet a guest with a black
sacrificial ram.
Trevis took a piece with pleasure.
"A great custom," he noted, trying tender meat out, "so coming back to
tax exempts..."
"The custom is great," Shavash replied, "but it's not exactly like
this."
Trevis raised his eyebrows.
"The ancient custom says to meet a guest with a grilled black dog," the
official explained.
Trevis almost dropped the plate and, then, he burst in laughter.
"Why doesn't he want to become a first minister?" Trevis asked Bemish,
when Shavash stepped aside.
"The Emperor will never allow it."
"He is an amazing man."
"Yes. Once he expressed his regret about the Earthmen not having
conquered the Empire and enslaved him. He said that by today he would have
been the Earth Emperor's senior trusted personage..."
Trevis grinned.
"I would like to have slaves," he said suddenly, "especially people
like Shavash. Do you have slaves, Bemish?"
Bemish frowned slightly. Adini was his first slave.
"Yes. These three, cleaning up the tables - but I haven't bought them,
I have obtained them as gifts from different people."
"We are investing money in a funky business," Ronald Trevis muttered.
Bemish nodded heedlessly.
"By the way," Trevis said, "when we were driving by your villa, I
noticed a tall peasant standing in the crowd, he was missing his left ear. I
am sure that I saw him next to the hotel in the capital and he was not
dressed as a peasant then, he sat deep inside a Hurricane."
"You are as watchful as usual, Ronald," Bemish said. "He is not a
peasant, he is one of the best known Weian criminals."
"Oh, my God! Does he want to fleece some foreign sheep?"
"To the contrary, doing a favor to some influential people, he is
protecting these sheep from some lice."
"What are you whispering about?"
Bemish turned around. Kissur stood in front of him, dressed in Earthern
clothing and not even a bit drunk. During the whole evening, Kissur hadn't
caused any disturbance yet - he hadn't broken a single investor's jaw and
hadn't washed anybody in a pool. The reason was very simple - Kissur was
with his wife, Idari.
"Let me introduce you," Bemish said, "Ronald Trevis, the head of LSV
bank. Kissur, an ex-owner of the same villa."
"Also an ex-minister of the Empire," Kissur finished with a grin. And
he added right away, talking to Bemish. "I didn't know that the sovereign
bestowed you with immunity."
"You see, Kissur, after you gave me the villa, the local official
herded the peasants to fix the road for free, to curry my favor. I don't
want the local officials to curry my favor this way. And I promise you to
fleece the peasants three times less and to hang five times less criminals."
"That's exactly wrong," Kissur stated. "In order to be respected, you
have to hang twice more, otherwise why do you need this immunity? What do
you think, Trevis?"
It was ten in the evening, when the temple abbot noiselessly approached
Bemish, standing on a lawn and encircled by the guests, and whispered in his
ear that Shavash wanted to talk to him in private. Bemish finished the
cocktail and left the guests unnoticed.
He found Shavash on the temple tower second floor - the small official
stood with a wine glass in his hand and he seemed to clink the glass with a
goddess dancing in the alcove. Having heard the Bemish's steps, he turned
around. Bemish brandished his hand welcomingly and sat in an oak-backed
armchair standing to the right of the window.
"Trevis says that you will raise twice more money than you need. People
really stand in lines to buy a piece of Weia if Bemish himself handles their
finances. What are you going to do with the extra money?"
"I could create a couple of funds," Bemish said.
Shavash, half turned to the window, gestured with the glass. Outside of
the window in the sunset light, the dense gardens' greenery and the even
squares of rice patties gleaned. Ivory imps danced above the window and
smiled mockingly at the official. Bemish noticed that Shavash was drunk -
not as much as he was at Weian feasts when everybody walked on their hands
and knees by a night's end, but much more that it was customary on
Earthmen's business meetings.
"This planet," Shavash said, "is a planet of mad opportunities. It has
the least developed natural resources in the Galaxy. It has human resources.
It doesn't have money."
Shavash turned around abruptly.
"You will bring this money in, Terence. How much can you raise for your
funds?"
Bemish contemplated.
"I could raise five hundred million in the first year. Then it depends
on the fund's profitability."
"You will sell what I say and buy what I say. First year your profit
will be seven hundred million. Your real profit will be one billion. But you
will give three hundred million to me. Do you understand it?"
Bemish paused.
"They jail you for such things."
Shavash leaned over the Earthman.
"You are mistaken, Terence. They jail you for such things on Earth. On
Weia, they cut your head off."
"Why are you risking your head for money?" The pale vice-minister's
face with mad golden eyes and raised eyebrows' tips moved right to the
Earthman.
"You understand nothing here, Terence. I don't need money. I need to
turn this country in something decent. It is possible only if I become the
richest official in this country. For that - I need money. I need huge
money, money that this country doesn't have. But, the Galaxy has this money
and you, Terence, will deliver this money from the Galaxy to here."
X X X
To conclude, the reception worked out great if not for an accident at
its very end. It was already midnight, the time when men liked to have fun
was getting closer and the wives of several higher Weian officials hurried
to take leave and disappear and women's laughter started to come out of the
temple gazebos. Bemish and Trevis walked down a garden path under falling
cherry petals by the gods cramped in the darkness. They had discussed
everything already and they simply enjoyed in silence the dark and tart
night, dusted by the fragrance of night flowers and the faraway singing of
expensive whores.
The road led them to a small pond, where a marble god in a brocade
caftan stood on the bank.
"Here is Shavash," Trevis said, "but it looks like the timing is
wrong."
Shavash half sat under the god's statue and fondled a midnight cowgirl.
Something made Bemish hearken and he stopped.
"Let's get out of here," Trevis restrained him.
Suddenly something gleaned in the woman's hand.
"Terence!"
Bemish didn't remember how he dashed across the lawn. He remembered
only Idari's voice and the dagger in her hands. The next second, Bemish
pulled the official to the side. A fish scale flash of the dagger tore air
right where Shavash had just sat. Idari leaped to her feet, lithe and agile
like a sand lizard.
Shavash stank with cognac and palm tree wine - a killer combination. He
was boozed up to the hilt - much more than he had been an hour ago in the
tower.
"What are you doing?" the official rasped.
Bemish silently pulled a short jab at Shavash's jaw. The official
closed his eyes and went down to the ground. Trevis rushed to Bemish, pale
as death.
"Bye-bye your fund," Trevis muttered.
"He will remember nothing," Bemish objected.
"I hope that you will also remember nothing," Idari said.
Bemish's heart was hopping like a mouse in a jar.
"Should I walk you?" he asked Idari.
But the woman only shook her head slightly and, in a moment, she
disappeared in the bushes. The dagger had vanished even earlier in her
blowsy sleeve folds. Shavash mumbled something, turned over on his back and
started snoring.
"Why did you have to beat him?" Trevis got angry. "Is she your lover or
what?"
Furious Bemish turned around. Trevis pulled back.
"Just forget it," Bemish muttered finally, "otherwise we will all get a
lot of problems."
They were almost at the house, when Bemish, having kept glum silence
all the way, suddenly said, "If a civil war starts in this Empire, it will
start on this woman's account."
X X X
The morning after the reception, some guests signed a treaty of intent
- about creating together with Shavash and Bemish several joint companies
specializing mostly in export-import operations. Weian tariffs were quite
high, but Shavash hinted to the people present that they probably wouldn't
have to pay them.
The official was pale after the yesterday's binge and a huge bruise
blossomed under his cheekbone, artistically masked by various powders.
Bemish didn't have to torture himself long about whether or not the official
remembered who socked him. Having returned to his room, Bemish discovered
there a gift basket full of soft turquoise figs and Shavash's note. "As you
see, I can be grateful," Shavash wrote in calligraphy. "You had given me one
fig and I gave you hundred." A bruise was called a fig in Weian.
****
The next day after the investors had left Bemish returned to the villa
and was stopped by a small peasant crowd.
"What's the problem?" Bemish asked.
A tall barefoot old man stepped out of the crowd.
"They told us," He said, "that the great Lord from the stars will build
a magic city in this place."
"More or less," Bemish agreed.
"They told us that this city will be built on our lands. What will
happen to us?"
"You will have the lands across the river," Bemish answered.
"We are happy that the Lord from the skies gives out part of our land
to us. But our old land was taken away from us without any payments."
"You were paid by company shares," Bemish said. "You squandered these
shares and you don't retain any rights to them."
"Does it mean that the Lord from the stars has money to treat
officials, but he doesn't have money to pay us for our land?"
"I will not pay you a cent," Bemish cut them off.
Having learned about this accident with the peasants, Kissur said.
"You acted like a man, Terence. Why do Earthmen act like men only when
it comes to money?"
The new headman approved of his boss altogether.
"These people are such," he said, "that if you show them a finger, they
will devour the whole hand. They are but spongers!"
"Don't you come from the same people?" Bemish cut him off and the new
headman shut up, offended.
X X X
Bemish had to see Idari quite often. A great number of the company's
contracts - lumber, concrete, tungsten glass - in a nutshell, everything
that was cheaper and more profitable to buy in the Empire, passed through
Kissur's estate and his wife was in charge of it.
Only gradually Bemish realized how important a part this graceful
fragile woman plays not only in the economics of Kissur's estate but in the
economics of the Empire. Thanks to her and only to her, not a single oil
well that the sovereign had bestowed on Kissur passed away or was sold to
cover debts - to the opposite, every gift was preserved, multiplied and grew
and this fragile woman controlled with an iron fist at least three banks and
the second biggest Weian aluminum plant. They said that the applicants for
the bank positions had interviews in front of a curtain - Idari didn't
consider it possible to talk in private with a male stranger and Bemish had
never seen her in anything other than Weian dress.
Idari had only one son and Bemish saw that it deeply hurt her, because
in her view, a good wife should bring a litter every year. To conceive more
children, she had even submitted to an Earthman physician but the physician
had only raised his hands and said that nothing could be done. Three boys
that Kissur fathered whoring around and a total orphan that Kissur extracted
from under his own tank tracks were being brought up in the house.
A lot of maligners told Kissur that the Earthman visited Idari somewhat
more often that the business contacts required but, since the people who
said that wanted very much to obtain everything Bemish had from the Empire,
Kissur ignored these words.
The Eight Chapter
Where Terence Bemish pays taxes with fallen leaves while the rock with
an ancient foretelling is dug out at the construction.
Ashinik was born into a peasant family that was ruined during the civil
war. His father was recruited into the local prince's army and killed there
and his mother died just quietly. In the last year, Ashinik was also
recruited, but by this time the prince's army had dwindled down to five
hundred people and the prince was called a prince no longer but he was
rather called a bandit. When the prince heard that nothing was left of
Khanalai's army, conducting a siege on the capital, but two barns of ashes
and that the new masters - the people from the skies - were giving orders in
the capital, he was scared and rushed in to beg for peace. The sovereign
forgave him and the people from the stars gave everybody a fancy can with a
picture of meat in sauce drawn on it. Ashinik hid the can under his head and
went to sleep and when he pulled the can out in the morning, he found out
that it didn't have the bottom and was empty. Ashinik rushed to his friends
that had just finished the breakfast and they burst in laughter and they
said that it had been this way from the beginning.
Ashinik dragged himself from the city back to the village, to the land,
but there was no land. A fence of brushwood and concrete was where the land
had been and the Earthman was behind the fence. It came out that Ashinik's
father bequeathed the land to the prince and the prince sold this land in
the capital to a trust that dug a hole in the ground. Having heard Ashinik
out, the Earthman went crazy and threw him out.
What happened was that the Earthman had long ago realized the prince
cheated him and he hadn't held the title for all of the land. He gave money
to the first petitioners and, having heard about it, all the locals rushed
picking up their relatives and friends and testifying that they had held
such and such piece of land. With their peasants' minds they instinctively
sized Earthmen up as a power-to-be and held it for a virtue to cheat the
trust that was so stupid that it was ready to pay for the land which had
already been sold to it, even if the people that sold the land didn't own
it. The Earthman had seen that he was being hoodwinked and now he kicked out
everybody who came with a complaint about the land as cheaters.
"I didn't get much from the Earthmen for my field - an empty can and a
kick in the butt," Ashinik thought. Ashinik left for his relatives in the
neighboring province, but he got sick on the way. An old couple picked him
up and ministered to him. Having learned that the total strangers washed him
and spoon fed him, the youth burst into tears - it was the fourth year he
lived as a snail without a shell, only a lazy man wouldn't step on him.
The people, who nursed Ashinik back to health, were tanners. Ashinik
started helping them with their work and with the house. At first, Ashinik
didn't notice anything except that they didn't eat meat in the house but
then, listening to the masters' conversations, he started to realize that
his hosts were some sect's members. This sect had existed for a long time
and it was based on a prophecy about iron people who would appear from
underground to destroy the Empire. On numerous occasions, they had taken
barbarians and rebels for iron men but then a rebel would become an Emperor
and it would become clear that the prophecy was not about him. The masters
hinted to Ashinik a number of times that Earthmen were these iron demons,
and that they wanted to destroy the Empire and that the mine, he was invited
to work on, was nothing else but a hole to hell - the demons would drag him
down there and eat him.
At first, Ashinik didn't really believe it. He had also heard some
really dirty gossip about zealots - they were rumored to entice people with
their lies, nurse the infirm, pick up orphans, and then preach stupid stuff
and engage them in orgies and even worse on their meetings. But he felt
uncomfortable arguing with the elders who had saved his life and he also had
nowhere else to go.
Soon, they took him to a meeting where they directly said that Earthmen
were demons and all the things they owned were either phantoms or had been
stolen from the gods. Then a teacher, clothed in white, in front of their
eyes grew a golden staircase out of a seed, climbed up it to the skies and
came back with a fancy pot that the gods gave him.
Ashinik started taking part in the weekly meetings but doubts assailed
him. "Of course, all I got from the Earthmen for my field was an empty can
and a kick in the butt," Ashinik thought. "But if I consider everybody I got
a kick in the butt from to be demons, there would be more demons than
people." Finally, these thoughts hurt him so unbearably that once in the
repair shop Ashinik fainted and crashed to the ground. When he came back to
his senses, people were crowded around him - it appeared that a great spirit
had seized him and he had been preaching.
Ashinik was taken to the teachers, they housed him with them. Since
Ashinik's words were always taken with great attention, the fits started to
happen more and more often but Ashinik never remembered what he was saying.
Thanks to his prophecy gift and natural cleverness, Ashinik suddenly started
to climb quickly up the hierarchical ladder. Ashinik was especially shocked
by the following. The zealots he found himself with at first believed that
Earthmen were really demons. On the second level, they told him that words
iron devil and demon with respect to Earthmen should be treated
metaphorically and Earthmen live on the sky rather than underground. He was
told that the stupider were the rumors about Earthmen, the easier the dumb
people would believe them. But on the third level, he was told that Earthmen
were demons! And they explained to him that the more metaphorical the
prophecies' interpretations were, the easier would silly officials believe
them since they wouldn't see the gut sense behind the false reasoning. And
on the fourth level, he was told again that the prophecy should be treated
metaphorically!
When he achieved the seventh level - there were ten of them all in all
- Ashinik couldn't distinguish anymore where a metaphor was, where the
reality was and where the deep meaning of both of them was. Talking to a
commoner, he spoke as if he was on the first level. Talking to an educated
man, he spoke as if he was on the second level. He believed what his
audience could believe. Thanks to that, his sermons gathered huge crowds. He
was also taught to prophecy right at the meetings and he usually remembered
what he had said.
Four years passed this way - Ashinik was now twenty. Once the White
Elder called and commanded him to leave for Assalah village on Chakhar
border. He said,
"The demons build their holes there. They call this hole a spaceport
and they say that they fly to the sky out of these holes, but, in reality,
these holes go underground all the way to hell. The Assalah demons wronged
our peasants mightily and we have a strong society there. But yesterday the
society head died. Go to Assalah and take his place."
X X X
This time the trip to the capital took eight hours instead of two
months - the next day's morning a yellow bus left Ashinik at the road fork
going to spaceport.
Ashinik threw his sack over his shoulder and started walking. The
trucks, looking like huge silk worms, flew past him to the construction, a
cloud of dust and bad smells hung over the road and in the fields, recoiling
from the curb, ripening rice ears were covered with a thick layer of cement
dust. It was a long walk and Ashinik tried waving a twig several times to
hitch a ride but nobody stopped. Even during the worst war years Ashinik
remembered always being able to get a ride from a passerby in a cart. They
could kill you once they had picked you up, but at least they would always
pick you up.
Suddenly a car slowed down. Ashinik nervously saw that it was not a
truck but rather a passenger car shaped like a tiny bug. The driver threw
open a door - after a brief hesitation Ashinik climbed inside. They drove in
silence for a while.
"Are you going to the construction site?" the driver asked. He spoke in
demon's brogue.
"No," Ashinik replied, "I am going to the village."
"Who are you going to?"
"My uncle called me in. His son died - maybe he will adopt me."
"There are a lot of zealots," the driver said, "in this village.
Following the Way. Are you one of them?"
"Yes."
"What level are you?"
"What do you know about levels?"
The driver looked the lad over - he had a round good-natured face, wide
lips and adjoining thick eyebrows over his beautiful brown eyes.
"A week ago," the driver said, "the local Following the Way man died.
You are coming to replace him, aren't you?"
"What do you do?"
"My name is Terence Bemish, I am the Assalah company director."
Ashinik swallowed.
"Do you pick all passersby up or did you know that I was coming?"
"I pick all the bums up," Bemish said. "The drivers at the construction
rarely give a ride to anybody and if you are a bum, they might even kill
you. They have already killed two people this way."
"Your workers aren't any good."
"It's difficult to get any worse. They drink, steal, and make the
newcomers do the same. There are gangs among them. Two of them were caught
yesterday - they sold an anti-corrosion paint box. How much do you think
they sold it for? They sold it for a rice vodka crock! Yesterday, one guard
shot at another guard - he was boozed up. They arrested him, started an
investigation and discovered that he was wanted in the capital for robbery
and murder. Everybody who wants to escape the capital after screwing
something up there, go here."
"Yes," Ashinik said, "it's not easy. I have never had to own people
that drink, steal and eat meat. A master is like a seed and his subordinate
is like grass that grows out of the seed. Grass follows seeds. It's not
surprising that the demons' servants steal anti-corrosion paint from them."
Bemish was so upset by this comment that he lost his self control. His
true nature emerged and Ashinik noticed at once that Bemish's head was
really just a meat egg. Ashinik felt himself very uncomfortable. "What if he
asks now - do you really think I am a demon?"
But Bemish didn't ask anything like this, he shook his meat egg and
said.
"The village is just beyond this hill. Would you be uncomfortable
entering the village in my car? Would you like to get out at the turn?"
"Not a problem at all," Ashinik said.
In the evening, the whole village listened to their new prophet's
stories about riding in the chief demon's car and seeing a meat egg on the
demon's shoulders.
X X X
Bemish was not exaggerating the problems in his conversation with the
future zealots' guru. The construction situation worsened every day. The
worsening, however, was reflected neither in the balance books nor in the
profits and expenses reports and the most meticulous auditor would not be
able to enter the locals' feelings into the company's debits column.
It was also partly Bemish's fault. As an ardent player who felt better
next to a computer screen rather on the construction site, Bemish visited
the latter only occasionally, being engrossed completely in the capital
business maelstrom.
He started up a hedge fund acquiring Weian stocks - it was quoted in
the intergalactic system. Trevis raised money for him, a sum unheard-off for
a developing market - five hundred million dinars. He acquired the broker
house DJ securities and used it to conduct the hedge fund operations; he
also acquired 12% shares of the bank that Assalah Company had an account in.
Together with Idari, Shavash and two other useful people, he founded a
local Assabank and soon, by a special sovereign's law, all the budget funds
allocated by the government for the construction of the roads,
communications and the other Assalah infrastructure passed this bank.
Bemish swam like a fish in the market where the quotes often fluctuated
30-40% a week, where even relatively liquid shares had an 8% spread and
where trading based on insider information was not a crime but a norm. He
had disposed of almost all the stocks a week before the government announced
the new tax regulations that caused a market crash and by the year's end his
fund was the only one showing a profit gain of 36% compared to the other
funds' losses fluctuating between 14% and 86%. The real profit was even
higher, but as it had already been agreed on, Shavash obtained one third of
it.
However, while Terence Bemish hung out in the capital, bought and sold
accordingly to Shavash's hints, opened new banks, had fun with Kissur and
gave an interview to Galamoney as the head of the company in charge of the
most successful fund of the year, other people controlled the construction,
most of all the company vice-president Richard Giles. Oh, of course, Bemish
received the construction and money flow reports every day. A minor
financial glitch, not even close to larceny, would not remain unnoticed.
"Why do you have this leftover at the active accounts?" angry Bemish
screamed at the receiver. "Couldn't you place an overnight credit?"
And the leftover was only five thousand dinars.
But the peasants and workers' attitude was not reflected in any way in
the financial reports and increasing theft was at first written off by
Bemish as the bad heritage of two thousand years of socialism.
As Bemish realized looking back, a lot of things would have been
different if the construction had started not when the peasants had been
planting rice and when every pair of hands had been precious. But the
construction started right in the spring - the peasants didn't let their
lads go to the construction site and the guys who came later met with a
construction lifestyle already in place - the lifestyle of lost city
dwellers, bums and simply bandits that stole watermelons from the fields,
trampled rice down, fought the village lads en masse and considered hard
porn with stereo effects to be the highest achievement of the alien culture.
At one point, Bemish ran into a ceremony of Following the Way on a road
and the sect's head, a tall old man with a grey beard, pointed his finger at
him and started calling him a sorcerer of the basest type. Bemish inquired
what exactly his sorcery was and received an answer.
"All your flashy labels and commercials, cigarettes and movies - they
are all your dirty magic and rituals. You use all this to get people
together."
Bemish objected.
"I am sick of these commercials no less than you are."
"This is even worse," the old man grinned. "It means that you have one
culture for small people and another one for big people. This is
ill-conceived because everything can be different for small people and for
big people - what they own and what they wear - but their culture should be
the same. The spring day is celebrated by a farm hand and in the palace. And
if your workers go to see The Triple Strike and you don't... What's the
point of talking about it?!"
He thought and added with curiosity.
"Is it true, that you live underground just like the wild people in the
North who change their ruler every four years and, having changed him, eat
him?"
"We change a ruler," Bemish admitted, "but we don't eat him."
The old man died then, Ashinik arrived to take his place and the
situation worsened. Whatever Bemish did, it came out wrong. They delivered a
worker to the hospital with appendicitis for surgery and Ashinik made
everybody believe that the demons from the skies cut the guy's corn off and
attached a goat's equipment instead and now only goats would be born from
him.
Bemish had loaned some money to the village, at the previous village
headman's time, and Ashinik started a rumor that they tricked the headman
using his poor knowledge of English and made him sign a paper permitting the
Earthmen to demolish the whole village. There was another rumor also
contrived by Ashinik that Bemish had a black cord. One end of the cord was
in a table drawer, in the villa, and the sovereign himself was tied to
another end. If the Earthman pulled on the cord, the sovereign would toss
and groan and hail would start coming down from the sky.
Slowly, bypassing official district authorities and official
construction management, underground organizations started to form in the
village and at the construction site. The sect grew quickly in the village.
The number of zealots increased from the starting few as quickly as a
crystal grows in a saturated solution once a seed crystal is submerged
there. As for the construction... let's be honest, mafia started to rule the
construction.
At some point, a name appeared among the private cofounders of new
import-export companies - O'Hare - the same O'Hare who had been introduced
to Bemish in the thief's tavern and who had taken care of the presentation.
Bemish crossed the cofounder's name out with red ink commenting that
such a company would end up selling drugs and that would be really
disgusting. Giles, as an Intelligence employee agreed with the company
director wholeheartedly.
Only now Bemish realized how horribly he had been tricked by the small
official Shavash when he agreed to take the construction out of the local
authorities' jurisdiction. The district officials were corrupted and
unceremonious. They could have managed both the bandits and zealots and
happily ignored any humanitarian issues. They could have relocated the whole
village to, say, Chakhar in three days or just burned it to the ground.
Unlike them, Bemish would not be able to drive a tank over the village
or land in the middle of it, "as a miss", a sixty thousand ton space freight
ship - as Shavash suggested to him altogether seriously. And not a single
international legal system existed that would ban planet dwellers from
singing songs and going nuts en masse.
Now, Bemish found himself in a classical chess fork - if he started
arresting the zealots himself, even the most pro-Earthmen officials would be
indignant. If he asked for the authorities' help, it would be a sign of his
utter powerlessness.
The tipping point for the village and construction confrontation was
the following. They started to dig the foundation pits for service buildings
on the northern hill and dug out old temple complex remnants.
Having checked it out with archives, they found out the remnants were
the old temples of Adera-benefactor goddess that had prospered almost two
thousand years ago when the capital officials hadn't dared to force their
way into these surroundings calling the local dwellers "bandits" but not,
however, making any attempts to eradicate them.
This Adera lady had quite an irritable disposition, she had a tendency
to appear in people's dreams extorting gifts and even human sacrifices,
threatening with floods; indescribable orgies took place at her
celebrations. The sovereign Irshahchan obliterated the temple mercilessly,
recognizing this cult to be a crime against humanity and disobedience to the
authorities.
Having being trained to respect any ruin, Bemish stopped all the
construction there and asked Shavash and Kissur what he should do. Kissur
told him to clean up the damned temple and recycle it for construction
materials, if needed. Shavash took a look at the altar where boys were
rumored to be offered as a sacrifice and said that the altar was not
impressive as a cultural monument since carving was too crude.
The newspapers did hear about the temple however. The newspapers
demanded the Earthmen to take their dirty hands away from the national
heritage. Bemish snapped back tactlessly that the Weians themselves had
destroyed the temple while the Earthmen actually found it.
Soon, the most unbelievable myths related to the temple riches emerged.
They had dug out a large two hundred meter deep well in the temple, and a
rumor emerged that every local dweller had thrown his most valuable
belongings down this well as a sacrifice to Adera for centuries. Half-drunk
construction workers and deranged religious peasants believed every inch of
it and were climbing over the fence built around the temple twenty four
hours a day. Bemish ordered an exploration of the well's bottom and, in the
presence of the authorities and the journalists, loads of flint arrowheads,
brass round handles and clay female figurines with huge bellies was
extracted. There was a possibility that the local denizens had indeed thrown
their most valuable belongings down the Adera well but, during these times,
flint arrowheads had been the most valuable things here.
That, of course, didn't hurt the myth. Everybody saw how much equipment
was thrown at the well and that a hundred men spent three days around it! No
need! The rumors assured that the well appeared to be empty because the
managers had robbed it earlier. The money amounts, the names of the
spaceships used to transport the treasure to Earth, the names of the
museums, the name of the construction director and Shavash's name were
specified.
The morning of the eighteenth, Bemish found himself in the capital at a
conference dealing with developing countries investments issues. Bemish was
presented there both as a speaker and an exhibition object.
Bemish conversed with the relevant people and, immediately after the
talk he left for the spaceport, having picked up a man named Born - a United
Galactic Fund representative who was observing the situation with the
stabilization credit allocated for the Empire.
A flock of local journalists waited for Bemish at the helicopter and
attacked him with their questions.
"Mr. Bemish, is it true that when an old catalpa was ripped out at your
construction, blood appeared at its roots? Doesn't this omen foretell
misfortunes?"
"No."
"Is it true that a she-goat nearby changed to a he-goat?"
"A she-goat didn't change to a he-goat."
"Is it true, that they dug out a rock that had been buried during White
Emperor's times and it had words written on it, "In a month after this rock
is extracted the construction will perish."
"It is true. The words were, however, written with phenyl paint
developed and set in production five years ago. If the zealots decide to
counterfeit the White Emperor's words again, I would advise them not to buy
paint in the nearest kiosk."
"Mr. Bemish, is it true that you paid taxes this year with Weian
National Bank bonds at their face value?"
Here, Bemish's escort - he, accordingly to a local custom, obtained
himself three beefy flatheads - socked the peppiest journalist on his jaw
and the newspapermen bolted.
On the return helicopter trip to Assalah, Born inquired why the
journalist's had been punched in his mug.
"He is from White Sky," Bemish answered. "This is a newspaper owned by
zealots who think Earthmen to be demons crawling out from underground. They
say that if we flew from the sky, we would meet gods on the way. He was
asking boorish questions."
"Ah, zealot," the satisfied banker drawled, "zealots aren't dangerous."
"It's not dangerous but it's annoying," Bemish agreed.
"What were they asking about taxes?"
Bemish paused deciding whether or not he should explain. But the whole
thing had raised a stink and they had mentioned about it in the newspapers
couple times.
"There was a bank," Bemish said, "that went bankrupt. The government
nationalized it, restructured its loans and turned them into bonds."
"And what is the bonds' value?"
"It's seven-ten percent of their nominal value."
"And at what value were your bonds appraised?"
"They were appraised at hundred percent of their nominal value."
The banker grunted with astonishment, but he controlled himself and
didn't say anything.
Bemish asked Born what Weian official he liked the most, and Mr. Gerald
Born named Shavash without hesitation. And he added, "What do you think -
would Mr. Shavash agree to resign from his Empire appointment and head the
developing markets department in our bank?"
Bemish almost gaped.
"Why do you think," He asked cautiously, "that Shavash may want to
retire?"
"Because of all this slander directed at him! I can tell you with total
frankness that not a single tranche of our credit would reach its
destination if it was not for Shavash! The local officials would have
embezzled everything! This is the only man who is doing something to save
the country's economy. And what does he get back? The best Empire economist
languishes under a dimwitted minister and the officials fling disgusting
slander at him being unable to endure one honest man in their midst. I think
that the best solution for him would be to leave this planet. Do you
disagree?"
"No, not really," Bemish said, "Shavash is an amazing man - you are
right."
Bemish wanted to pass Born into Giles's hands, so that the latter dealt
with the guest till the take off, but Giles vanished somewhere and even his
cell was off - Bemish resolved to thrash him soundly.
Bemish personally walked his old acquaintance to the boarding ramp. The
latter was pleasantly surprised having learned that the spaceport had an
extraterritorial status and the spaceport's management collected taxes and
had independent jurisdiction."
Bemish had barely returned to his office when a phone rang.
Bemish picked up the receiver.
"Hello, Terence," the fairest Empire economist told him. "What's the
story with Golden Deer Company? I heard that you detained their freight."
"There is no story," Bemish said. "It's just that there is forty tons
of electronics there and they paid tariffs for five tons only. Why don't
they pay everything required and pick it up."
"Terence, be so kind. Their guy will drop by - stamp his papers and let
him go." And Shavash put the receiver down not waiting for a reply.
Giles announced himself in half an hour. He shakily walked in the
office. His face was smashed and his expensive suit was splattered in mud.
"Oh, my God, Giles what's happened to you?"
"Somebody attacked me."
"Who was it?"
"Who was it? It was some hoodlums. It was all the damn hoodlums of this
planet who don't have anything better to do than to get hired at this
construction!"
"Security is your problem, Giles. If your crappy service can't pacify
two dozen crooks, how is it going to pacify two dozen dictators?
"We will pacify crooks," Giles exploded. "Security troops will be here
in a week."
"What? Have you sent a request?"
"I will send it today."
"I forbid you."
"Why?"
"Because, at the moment it becomes public, everybody will start selling
my securities! At first, Federation Special Forces will send their troops to
devaluate the construction and then they will buy it dirt cheap, won't
they?"
"Won't zealots and bandits devaluate it?
"Exchange market doesn't care about zealots! It doesn't know what they
mean. It perfectly well understands what the Special Forces mean!"
Giles touched his torn cheekbone.
Bemish picked up the receiver and called Shavash.
"Shavash, my deputy was assaulted today. Who? Crooks! Send your police
in and eradicate these hoods."
"Terence, only Federation laws are valid at the spaceport territory.
You can call your troops in but not our police."
"Call this stupid immunity off!"
"You grumbled about corrupted officials yourself..."
"Your corrupted officials, at least, will not overload themselves with
legalities bashing these hoods' teeth in."
"I am glad that you see some advantages of our officials."
"They have advantages only compared to your crooks."
X X X
On the other end, Shavash switched to another line and told his
secretary to summon a car. In an hour, a narrow silver car drove Shavash to
a decorated gate of a bawdy house, famous across the whole country. Having
ignored the welcoming girls who leaped up at his arrival, Shavash walked
upstairs.
In a secluded office, a fully dressed short fifty-year-old Weian was
cooling his heels off.
"You got it," Shavash said. "Bemish is going to cleanse Assalah of
crooks using federal troops."
"It's not good if Long Stick sends the troops," the short man said.
"I can't do anything here," Shavash spread his hands. "It's your fault.
Who robbed Giles?"
"I will find out," the man said.
"Find it out, please. It's useful to know sometimes what your people
do."
Shavash paused and added.
"You, O'Hara, are like a parasite at the construction. You suck but you
don't feed, you harvest and you don't plough. Why would Bemish love you?
While if you helped him..."
"How can I help him? Should I not steal? How will I make my living?"
"Why should you not steal? For instance, Bemish has serious problems
with zealots. If you step on the zealots' tails, you will help Bemish."
The guy looked at the vice-minister with animosity. Weian crooks didn't
attack zealots as a rule. The pickings would be slim, and the zealots would
go totally mad - if you touched them they wouldn't rest till they cut the
whole gang down and declare it to be gods' wrath.
"I have a feeling that the zealots blighted you, not Bemish," the thief
said, "and that I will do a favor to you rather than to Bemish."
X X X
Two hours later, Bemish's helicopter landed in Kissur villa's backyard.
"The master is not at home," a maid reported, "the mistress will see
you in a moment. Could you, please, step into Lake Hall?"
Idari met him dressed in a blue skirt with golden sable trim and a
jacket embroidered with peacocks and squirrels. Her hair was pulled up in a
large black bun and a silver hairpin in the shape of a Lamass rowboat
pierced the bun. Bemish looked at the hairpin and it seemed to him that the
hairpin was piercing his heart.
Bemish kissed the house mistress' hand and said.
"I am touched that you received me in Kissur's absence."
Idari sat on the couch and pulled a tambour with a partially knitted
belt onto her knees.
The belt was embroidered with clouds and rivers. She almost always had
needlework with her.
Two servants brought fruit and cookie baskets to the veranda and
departed. A tame peacock dropped by the veranda, unfolded his tail,
scratched the doorstep with his red foot and left for the garden.
"What are you upset about, Mr. Bemish?" Idari asked. "Do you have any
problems with the fund?"
"No," Bemish said. "It's just that while I bought and sold other
people's stocks, I possibly wasted my own company."
"I thought that you finished assembling the first line of landing pads
a week before you planned."
"I mean the mood at the construction - zealots and crooks. I can't
eradicate them. Shavash tricked me when he obtained legal immunity for the
construction." Idari was silent.
"Why did he do it?" Bemish cried out. "Did he need me to hang the
zealots? Does he need the Earthmen to butcher these idiots instead of the
Empire, so that his hands are clean and the Earthmen's hands are smeared
with shit?"
"What am I saying?" a thought passed in Bemish's mind. "I am sitting
with a woman that I would give all of Assalah away for - ok, not all of
Assalah but at least thirty percent of it - and I am talking to her about
god knows what and she considers me to be a greedy and cowardly Earthman."
"He is not fully satisfied with you," Idari said.
"What is he not satisfied with? The only thing I don't export is
drugs!"
"That's exactly right."
Bemish froze, as if he just collided with a wall.
"Are you...serious?"
"I mean that all the legal violations taking place at the spaceport
deal only with taxes. You have not broken any criminal laws yet, Terence,
and Shavash doesn't like that. If you break tax laws you can be prosecuted
only at this planet. If you break criminal laws, you can be prosecuted
across the whole Galaxy. The more crimes you commit, the more power Shavash
will have over you."
"Bastard," Bemish muttered glumly. "If only I had known..."
"Shavash is better than you are," Idari objected.
"Shavash? Better?!!"
"Shavash will be forgiven many things because he wants a lot. He wants
women, power, glory, while you want only money."
"I want you. I want you more than money," Bemish wanted to say.
"You are right, Idari," he said, "I like money more than anything
else."
X X X
The next evening, the phone rang in Bemish's office. Ross called - an
ex-colleague of Giles - now his deputy on security issues.
"We have an emergency," Ross said. "A packer boy was knifed. We got the
killer."
"Did he resist?"
"No. He is quite a lout."
"Bring him to me," Bemish ordered.
Murders happened quite often at the construction. Generally, the
killers could not be found. Even if a man was killed in broad daylight,
somehow nobody saw anything.
Bemish was leafing through a draft of the yearly company report
prepared by the PR department on Earth when two wide-angled guys from the
security department brought the killer in the office - an inconspicuous
sixty-year-old man in washed out jeans and a jacket with white trim showing
that he worked in the fifth roadwork team. The killer's hands were twisted
behind his head and locked with handcuffs.
The guys left and Bemish pointed the involuntary visitor to a chair.
"Sit down."
He sat silently. Bemish was leafing through the report's last pages.
"Why don't you let me go, boss. They say you have a right to do it."
Bemish was staggered by his gall.
"Why did you kill the lad?"
"I wanted to talk to you, boss," the visitor said. "See, it ain't easy
to speak to you. I made an appointment with you, see, three times and you
were just cooling it off. I make another appointment today, come in and they
tell me, "the boss ain't here for you, Weian peasant mug, the boss is
driving a big dog around the construction, it's not your lawn anymore, move
it - go back to your barrack. So, I went back and it put me out. Why won't I
do something that the boss notice me?"
Bemish didn't interrupt the man yet. He had realized a while ago that
sooner or later the bandits would visit him but he hadn't suspected that
they would choose such an original way. And this knave is also reminding in
a subtle way - I have no problem knifing a boy down or you, boss...
"That was not a good idea," Bemish grinned, "because they will cut your
head off now."
"Our authorities?" the bandit laughed out, "Boss, it's not my first
murder, and my head is still with me. Do you think you will find witnesses
against me?"
That was true. The witnesses were available when the bandit had to meet
Bemish. Concerning his head though...
"What did you want to offer me in person?"
"Let's get things in order."
"What order?"
"What's all this mess around? They pick up stuff, swear - you know
what's going on - steal materials, drink people away. Say, yesterday, a gang
came in and started to play, six people sold themselves into slavery. So
they are slaves and what happens next? They work and their owner rubs his
belly and gets paid. We, on the other hand, would tidy things up."
"And what do you want in return?"
"Appoint me the landing field security manager."
"Do you want to traffic drugs?"
"Why should I traffic drugs, people make fortunes just on cigarettes.
Say, you boss, made a company with Shavash and everybody says that the
company hauls everything it wants and doesn't pay any tariffs."
"Is that it?"
"Pay us ten million dinars."
"Why should I pay you exactly ten million dinars?"
"You carried away two hundred million worth of Adera treasure and this
treasure belongs to the people. The brothers think that if you return people
one twentieth part it would be fair.
Bemish froze.
"The Adera treasure," Bemish said, "doesn't exist. There is neither
gold nor silver in Chakhar, where could the treasure come from two thousand
years ago?"
"Don't bullshit me, boss," the bandit said, "and don't act like a
little white lamb. You hang around with Shavash, he stole half the country
and we only pick up the crumbs..."
"I won't collaborate with you."
"Aha, you can do it with Shavash but you can't do it with us."
"There is a certain intelligence gap," Bemish said, "that makes our
collaboration impossible. Shavash can pocket several million after a
financial trick but he will not believe that a well with emerald walls
exists in a God-forsaken hole."
And he barked into the intercom.
"Escort the prisoner!"
In a moment, the security department guys were dragging the thief out
of the chair.
"Remember," he turned around at the door, "you stole more than your
underling, boss, but it would be just as easy to knife you."
"Move it," a beefy guy, barbarian Alom, said and jabbed the thief in
his ribs.
Bemish turned the air conditioner on and opened the window wide to
clear the office of the thief's smell.
The night air was stuffy and soaked by the dust raised by the dozens of
excavators and the hundreds of trucks. Far away a compressor station rumbled
and the stars, large and jagged like the shards from a bottle that the gods
smashed at the stone firmament, were cooling off above him.
Bemish was dismayed. Life was a disgusting and useless thing. He was
building a military spaceport on a crazy planet with corrupted officials and
an illiterate population and, as if it was not enough already, mafia coming
to him and offering to transfer cars and cigarettes via the functioning
spaceport's sectors. At the same time, it was totally clear to Bemish that
the thief acted on Shavash's hints and all his castigations against the
vice-minister were probably staged by this same small official. Idari is
right this man will not stop pestering him till he starts exporting drugs
via the spaceport...
The door squeaked.
Bemish span around and darted to the table where a gun was stored in a
drawer. Needless to say, the thief's warning made a strong impression on
him.
The gun, however, would not be needed. On the doorstep, Kissur stood in
fancy velvet pants and a multihued shirt embroidered with kissing ducks.
"Oh, my God! What brought you here?"
"Ah," Kissur said, "I spent too much time at home. I thought, "I
haven't inhaled that gasoline smell at Bemish's for a while." But I should
get used to it. Soon, my whole country will stink like your spaceport."
Bemish was silent.
"Why are you so sad?"
"A thief today told me straight that if I didn't collaborate with
mafia, I would regret it. Do you know what he asked as a proof of our
friendship? He asked me for the Adera treasure."
"Hm," Kissur said, "Maybe you should give this treasure away to the
bandit? I've heard it brings misfortune to its owner, anyway."
Terence stared at Kissur with astonishment. The latter suddenly broke
into laughter and slapped the Earthman on his shoulder.
"I gotcha!" Kissur cried out, "I gotcha again! Don't you get jokes?"
A phone squealed. Bemish picked up the receiver and slammed it back
down.
"It's not that I just stopped getting jokes," Bemish screamed. "I will
start believing in this treasure myself tomorrow! I will believe in a field
witch that is born of a rotten pole, in a tin can witch that is born of an
old tin can and in a carburetor witch coming from a carburetor dumped in a
swamp. I will believe that I am building a hole to hell, put a white robe on
and go preaching to the Following the Way that Earthmen are demons and
everything made by them is a phantom because I am not able to prove it's not
true."
"Actually, it's very easy," Kissur said.
"What?"
"It's easy to prove that Earthmen don't send phantoms."
"Be so kind, tell me."
"It's a very old trick," Kissur said, "I used it myself eight years ago
when I ran across a gang of crazies in some province. Their chief assured
that he was invulnerable to arrows and I told him that if it was the case
why wouldn't he stand next to a wall and I would shoot at him with my bow.
And he believed what he was saying and he stood next to a wall. I struck him
so that my arrow entered his chest and stuck out of his spine for a full
elbow and he pulled his legs from under himself and hung from this arrow and
his followers ran away, disappointed. It would be enough for you to take an
assault rifle and suggest to their preacher to place his belly in the way of
a rifle burst. If you, say, stay alive than all our hardware is a phantom
and I promise you to leave, and if you die than you lied. Don't you like
it?"
"No."
"Why? Are you afraid the rifle will misfire?"
Bemish paused and asked.
"So, Kissur what should I do with the bandits? Should I make peace or
war?"
"How are you to make war with the bandits?" Kissur got angry. "I am
telling you - if you want to kill the zealots off, take a gun and shoot at a
zealot - he will approach you himself! You don't want to shoot at a zealot
that will stick his belly at you. Do you think that a bandit will stick his
belly at you?"
"What would be your advice then?"
"You are a chicken, Terence. You turned the construction in a
shithouse. Just recently Shavash was amazed how you accounted for some
equipment in such a way that you managed to shave the tax by half a million
and he was so amazed by this - even he didn't know this trick. And while you
were accounting your contraptions and books..." and Kissur grinned. "Well,
if gods didn't give you the ability to shoot, you will have to make peace."
"What if I asked you to kill the bandits off?"
"I won't do it."
"Why? Do you have a lot of good friends among them?"
Kissur paused. At this moment, the office door flung open and angry
Giles flew in.
"Why don't you answer the phone, Terence," he shouted, "what is this
habit of hanging the receiver!"
"Do you have something urgent?"
"Urgent? Do you know what's happening at the Adera Temple? This
preacher, Ashinik, brought a crowd in, they broke the fence, forced their
way into the temple and they are having a worship service."
Bemish turned and picked up a close-knit hemp overcoat that he often
wore at the construction to be less conspicuous.
"What are you going to do?"
"I am going to attend the worship."
"You're going nuts," Giles said. "Call Shavash. Call the troops in.
They have finally broken the laws!"
"Call the troops in and what? Should I jail the whole village?"
"You should jail the rabble-rousers."
"And I should turn the others from ill-wishers into terrorists,
shouldn't I?"
"Bemish was tying the overcoat's laces decisively."
"I know what Terence wants," Kissur said, "I will go with him."
"Where are you going? Just the two of you? Oh, my God!" the spy roared
and seeing Kissur and Bemish rushing out of the office, followed them.
The Ninth Chapter
Where the demons' boss makes a pact with the pious people.
Adera's temple floated in the night lit with torches from below. The
crowd was huge - people in woolen jackets and grass overcoats girdled with
red belts crowded in the broken hall where the sky instead of a roof covered
a hurriedly built stage. Kissur and two Earthmen, dressed in rural hemp
overcoats, were ignored. Only when Bemish, while elbowing energetically to
the stage, pushed somebody in the back a guy jammed him in return and said
rudely, "Don't push like a demon!"
On the left and on the right of the stage, huge copper lanterns burned
and a round basin with fragrant water steamed on the altar. At the very edge
of the stage, Ashinik stood - the young preacher of Following the Way. His
face, thin as an onion peel, reddened, his eyes glistened in the torchlight
and the crowd responded with an ardent bellow to his every word. Ashinik was
dressed in a red hooded overcoat embroidered with red winged bulls reaching
all the way to the ground. His belt was made out of polished copper plates.
Black suede high boots looked out from under the overcoat. A bound white
goose lay at Ashinik's feet.
Ashinik preached about Earthmen. More precisely, he preached that the
clothing sewn by demons should not be worn.
"Two hundred years ago, in the last years of Emperor Sashar's rule,"
the man in the red overcoat gleaning in the torchlight was saying, "a
fashion spread among the people from the country of Great Light - a fashion
to wear the clothing made out of wool brought in by barbarians. It was a
clear omen that the barbarians would conquer the country. And now people
wear the clothing sewn by demons - a clear omen that the demons will conquer
the country. So, everyone wearing their foul jeans or jackets is, basically,
walking naked. You should know that everything that demons make is just
phantom and deceit. And they can't make anything but phantoms. Although they
are very powerful sorcerers, we are even more powerful than they are."
"Bullshit," Kissur said.
Everybody present turned facing him.
"Who are you?" Ashinik cried.
"My name is Kissur the White Falcon and this is Terence Bemish, the
construction boss, my best friend and we came today to see how you go nuts."
"It doesn't befit you, Kissur, to hobnob with demons," Ashinik spoke
harshly, "Since many people call you Irshahchan reborn but, truly, even a
white cloud dirties itself over an unclean mole."
Kissur unhurriedly ascended the stage and poked the youth in the chest.
Ashinik's bodyguards stirred agitatedly - didn't Ashinik see Kissur in his
last sovereign prophecy?
"You are a dog and you are a dog's bone," Kissur shouted with the same
voice he used to command an army of many thousand troops and the voice
carried above the quelled crowd without any speakers - you addle people's
minds and prattle a lot of nonsense and you say that white is black and mix
up hell and Big Galaxy and nothing but harm to the state comes from zealots.
And if you think that everything Earthmen make is phantoms - do you see what
this is?"
"It's a weapon of theirs," Ashinik said.
"Laser gun Star-M," Kissur thundered, "fan effect with improved
specifications. And you will stand at this gross shithouse that you call an
altar and I will shoot at you with this gun. And if Earthmen's weapons are
phantoms and you are a sorcerer, you will stay alive, and if the Earthmen's
weapons are weapons and you are a liar and a cheat, you will keel over and
go to hell that you say so much crap about."
Ashinik paled. He had never stood in front of a laser barrel. He heard
many times that the demons shot at the pious and it all came out to be a
phantom. But...
"Are you afraid?!" Kissur shouted. And he turned to the peasants. "Yes,
he is afraid; he knows that he is lying to you!"
"Shoot," Ashinik cried.
"Go to the altar!" Kissur shouted. "And all of you move aside and watch
with two eyes and don't tell people afterwards what didn't happen."
The crowd quieted and only breathed intensely. Ashinik snarled at his
bodyguards and they crawled aside hurriedly. Ashinik came to the altar,
raised his hands and faced Kissur.
"It's all stupidity and phantom," Ashinik said and you, Kissur, fell
prey to it. But when you shoot and I come back alive, your delusion will
disperse and you will not shame your name any more and will stand with us
against demons.
Kissur silently picked a fresh "doughnut" out of his pocket, recharged
the gun and turned off the safety switch with a clip. The eye on the
"doughnut's" top swelled with green light. Ashinik closed his eyes and
extended his hands forward. Bemish could clearly see the zealots' leader
young face covered with sweat and his chicken neck in the torchlight. "Good
lad," Giles whispered nearby. Kissur raised the laser.
"Don't you dare shoot, Kissur," Bemish said.
"What are you doing?" Giles hissed from the side.
Bemish pushed him away and leaped on the stage.
"Don't shoot!"
"Idiot," Kissur smirked.
"I can't allow you to kill a man right at my eyes, whatever this man
believes in!"
"You are demon!" Ashinik shrieked, "Look, people, he knows that he
can't kill me!"
The crowd clamored threateningly and rocked to the stage.
"Son of a bitch," Giles screeched, yanking a Kalet laser from under his
armpit.
"Kill them," Ashinik screamed. "They can't harm you!"
People were pushing at the stage.
"One more step and we will shoot," Giles shouted.
"Stop!" Bemish cried out.
Strangely, the crowd stopped for a moment.
Bemish turned to the crowd spreading his palms - a local greeting
gesture.
"What are you blaming me for?" he asked. "Not all the Earthmen, just
me, you know, I can't be responsible for every conman born on the other side
of the sky. What do you blame me personally for, Terence Bemish, the Assalah
construction director?"
Jumbled shouts came out of the crowd.
"They beat the villagers... Walk around drunk... Took the land away...
Make a lot of money..."
"Ah, make a lot of money!" Bemish shouted. "Why don't you make a lot of
money? Have I offered you a job? I have! I have hundreds of jobs for you!
Whose fault is it that you make less? Is it mine? Or is it those who don't
allow you to work at the construction?"
The crowd was getting restless. It was evident that the idea about the
sect being guilty of current problems had indeed popped in various minds,
especially the young ones but nobody had said it aloud and it's as if an
unsaid idea doesn't really exist.
"There is no order at the construction," a cry came out of the crowd.
Bemish raised his hand.
"You are right. I was not able to establish order at the construction."
And he turned to Ashinik.
"Will you be able to establish it?"
"The god is capable of everything and I am his servant here, in the
village," Ashinik said.
"Excellent," Bemish said, "Your adherents are right. I can't maintain
order at the construction. The sovereign, after all, can't maintain order in
this whole country, who am I to maintain order in the spaceport? Scoundrels
and cads trickled in to the construction and I can't figure out who the
culprits are. So, I am asking you, Ashinik, to become my vice-president,
fire everybody you would like to and hire everybody you would like to."
The zealot looked somewhat shocked.
"I can't serve demons," Ashinik said.
"In this case," Bemish said, "You will be responsible for the every
binge, fight and depravity happening at the spaceport. Since, if you worked
at the construction, you would be able to prevent this depravity. Why do you
refuse to do good for the people? Can't you do this? Why then do you muddle
people's minds calling yourself a man of power? Don't you want to do this?
Why do you call yourself a pious man then?"
The grey crowd looking like a huge centipede with burning eyes made of
the torches turned and moved and voices reached Bemish, standing on the
stage.
"If Ashinik became a boss, everything would be really different."
Ashinik was silent. Bemish waited - what kind of man is he and what's
stronger in him - the desire to hurt the people from the stars or the desire
to help the peasants.
"You know my beliefs, Mr. Bemish," Ashinik uttered. "Do you think I
will exchange them for your window they disburse money from?"
"I," Bemish said, "Believe in the freedom of conscience. The freedom of
conscience is not, when you let your employees believe in what you like,
it's when you let your employees believe what they want to. If you want to
consider me a demon - go ahead. If you are afraid that a close encounter
with me will weaken your beliefs, then they aren't worth much."
"All right," Ashinik said, "I accept your offer."
"You are nuts, Bemish," Giles said dismally.
Annoyed Kissur weighed the gun in his hand and threw it down the black
Adera well.
"You are a fool, Terence," he said, "and all of you, Earthmen, are
fools. It looks like your chicanery is of more use than your weapons."
The next day, the old bandit was taken to the capital in a truck. On
its way, a crowd of peasant zealots stopped the truck, pulled the bandit out
and dragged him to the village, somehow the bandit happened to be torn apart
on the way.
Not informing local police, Bemish called special troops in masks but
with an evident barbarian accent from the capital - mostly they were
Kissur's ex-warriors - and they scoured the hired workers' barracks
mercilessly fishing everybody suspicious out. They found about fifty such
people, beat them senseless, deposited them in a net and attached the net to
a freight helicopter. The helicopter made three triumphal circles above the
spaceport and flew to the capital.
Afterwards Bemish let Ashinik and his zealots into the barracks. He
gave full power to Ashinik and he proved to be right. The young fanatic was
a great manager and his intelligence service seemed to know the background
of each worker. They knew who in the barracks was a perspective zealot cowed
by the bandits and the thieves, who was an honest worker away from all these
catfights, who had robbed an Iniss bank last year and who had begged in
Upper Kharaine. Ashinik just brought Bemish the lists of workers to be fired
and Bemish initialed them without asking for any explanations that he
wouldn't get anyway.
The same day, Shavash called Bemish and insistently demanded the arrest
of all of the zealots. Bemish refused saying that they was necessary to
exterminate the bandits. Shavash said that he would give Bemish two weeks to
finish the bandits off and then Bemish should consecutively arrest all the
zealots for abusing their authority, lynching and sadistic treatment of
their subordinates. Actually, Shavash didn't suggest this plan out loud but
rather pretended that it had been Bemish's plan from the very beginning. To
destroy one infection using another one and then to write off all the
depravities that had happened during the extermination of the former to the
latter.
During that week, order and cleanliness came to rule the construction.
Bemish didn't entertain any illusions about the methods the zealots used to
attain this cleanliness - he saw how two janitors were whipping their
colleague for a rug that he hadn't washed at his shift's end - they whipped
him bloody with cries and brined whips.
For two weeks, Bemish wordlessly signed Ashinik's requests including a
request for buying, at the company's expense, three hundred meters of white
silk and three white geese even though Bemish was totally aware that white
silk would be used for belts the zealots covered with spells and wore on
their bodies and the three geese would be used for the divination about the
demons' fate.
In the beginning of the third week, Bemish found his new human
resources manager sitting and reading an acetylene welder construction and
repair manual that a zealot, considering acetylene welding to be a phantom
and illusion, was not supposed to do.
X X X
The next day, a highly placed committee from a Federation financial
advisory body arrived. The committee was supposed to study Weian economics
and collect data on the Galactic Bank target loan provided by the
Federation. From Bemish's point of view, this endeavor was pointless since
he hadn't seen a single target loan yet that was used for purposes other
than the construction of suburban villas for the officials in charge of the
credit distribution. The loans were humongous and the villas came out
luxurious. And since the loans were guaranteed by the state, the Federation
officials didn't give a damn what they were used for.
The committee landed in Assalah spaceport and expressed a desire to
examine the finished buildings and also the construction's next stage,
separated from the spaceport's operating part by steel mesh.
The committee was absolutely impressed with the order at the
construction site. Parting with Bemish, the committee head, the Galactic
Bank of Development Assistance vice-chairman, told him that he had a
brilliant trade union leader.
"It's incredible! Terence, where have you found this treasure? Have you
seen how the workers listen to him? They listen to him holding their breath
as if he was a prophet, and he is not even twenty yet!"
The vice-president said that this guy should immediately get a
scholarship and go to Havishem or Harvard and promised to write him a
reference letter.
Upon the committee's departure, Ashinik asked Bemish why Shavash hadn't
arrived with the Earthmen, since he had mostly been responsible for the
distribution of the above mentioned loans. Bemish answered that Shavash had
been busy. In fact, Shavash had called an hour before the flight and said
that he would come on one condition only - if he could take back with him
Ashinik's head in a sack. Shavash expressed himself exactly this way -
"head."
"Do you know," Shavash asked, "That these Following the Way guys
organized the last attempt at my assassination?"
"How would I know," Bemish snapped back, "If you hanged completely
different people for it?"
X X X
The next day, Bemish saw the Okuri company stock price skyrocketing and
it happened since Okuri perchance had secured from the sovereign the rights
to develop copper deposits recently found in the Chakhar mountains. Bemish
called Shavash to find out if Okuri had really gobbled this chunk or if
somebody was spreading the rumors to pick some dough and to find out if
there really was any copper ore in the Chakhar Mountains to begin with.
"I will exchange information about Okuri on Ashinik's balls," Shavash
said.
"No," Bemish said.
"What's happened to you, Terence, have you fallen in love with him? I
haven't noticed you leaning this way before."
Bemish choked.
"I am kidding. Since you love a different - woman," Shavash said
heavily and with a hidden meaning. And he dropped the receiver.
This evening, when Ashinik was having a dinner in the common cafeteria,
Bemish sat next to him. After tea, Bemish asked.
"Why does your sect dislike Shavash so much?"
Ashinik paused.
"Shavash is a briber and a scoundrel."
"Ashinik, sonny, all Weian officials are bribers and scoundrels. You,
however, dislike Shavash much more than, say, Khanida or Akhaggar - while
they cause just as much harm."
"Khanida hasn't tried to destroy us."
"That's why. And has Shavash tried?"
"Yes. He filled our circle with spies and dissidents. He bribed those
who were not firm in their convictions and they started preaching a lot of
nonsense and many people let themselves be lured."
"What kind of nonsense did they preach?"
"He bribed Dakhak and Dakhak started saying that it's wrong to deny
salvation to demons and that they would not be damned forever. And he bribed
Amarn and Amarn started teaching..." Ashinik suddenly stopped. "Our
teachings are none of your business," he finished.
Bemish couldn't conceal his smile.
"Are you sure that every zealot that doesn't believe the same things
you do, is necessarily bribed or seduced?"
"These people were bribed by Shavash," Ashinik cut him off.
Bemish paused. Really, Ashinik's words could be true. Shavash himself
told the Earthman that nothing was more efficient at killing the zealots
than discords among the sects. And the whole thing just looked like
Shavash's doing. Yes, this official stole, embezzled and it was not an
accident that a joke about him traveled around - out of all gods Shavash
envied ten handed Khagge the most - imagine how much you can steal with ten
hands? At the same time, only Shavash among all the bribers surrounding him
could be seriously concerned with the future danger of Following the Way.
Yes. It makes sense that Shavash tried to take care of the sect in a
way that wouldn't cause an international scandal. It would be one thing to
hang the zealots publicly pissing off all the human rights committees and
another thing to make them throttle each other.
X X X
At the end of the third week, Bemish found Ashinik on the border of an
unfinished sector. The lad was holding Bemish's gun that he had probably
picked up in a drawer in the office and, having extracted the battery, was
contemplating the "doughnut" thoughtfully. Ten meters away from Ashinik, a
huge basalt rock arose; it had been left on the field since it was too heavy
to transport. Now, a regular Atari could drag the rock away in two trips -
it was cut in half and black basalt foam bubbled at the jagged wound's
edges.
The light on the "doughnut" top blinked red - the battery was dead.
When Bemish approached, the zealot threw the gun on the grass and asked.
"Why didn't Kissur shoot me?" Bemish rolled on his feet.
"I've already told you. I can't let a deliberate murder happen right in
front of me even if the victim doesn't mind."
"I thought that this thing couldn't shoot me. At that moment, I thought
that you didn't allow Kissur to show that I was right."
Bemish silently looked at the youth. It would be interesting to know
how much time it took him to quarter the rock. Star's "doughnut" is
specified for forty eight minutes of uninterrupted shooting.
"It's very difficult," Ashinik said, "when you had seen that something
was black and then it appeared to be white."
"Have you really had visions, Ashinik?"
"I still have them."
"What are they about? Are they about Earthmen being demons?"
"Yes," Ashinik remarked, "Tell me, could a man be born out of a golden
egg?"
"Read a biology textbook," Bemish dryly suggested.
X X X
The next day, Ashinik was managing the forest clearing in a new area
and he fainted in the workers' view. He regained his senses in ten minutes
and continued working even though Bemish told him on the radio to go and
rest.
Ashinik felt fine for two days and he fainted again on the third one.
Then, he told the workers that he would turn them into cockroaches if they
told Bemish about the fits and Bemish didn't know anything till, in two
weeks, Ashinik fainted at a morning business meeting.
He recovered quickly but Bemish, not letting him open his mouth,
dragged him to the health services - to Isaak Malinovskii who was in charge
of influenza, accidents and malaria at the construction and who also kept
terrorizing Bemish with the possibility of a cholera epidemic.
Malinovskii took the youth's blood pressure, put him on the couch,
wrapped him with wires and ran a tomography on him. Ashinik didn't resist.
He didn't seem to care.
"What problems do you have?" Malinovskii finally asked, having covered
the youth with a blanket and sitting next to him.
"Am I fine?"
"You have a bad case of nervous exhaustion. What happens to you before
you faint?"
"I see different pictures. I was sitting, for example, at the today's
meeting and then everybody around started growing horns and snouts and a
wall tied around me and began choking me."
Ashinik paused.
"Tell me, doctor, am I crazy?"
"Why are you asking this question?"
"I have visions. I read this thick book - a psychiatry textbook. It
said that if a man saw what others didn't, it meant that something was wrong
with his brains."
"If an Earthman came to me and told me what you had just described, I
would definitely recommend him a psychiatrist. But the specific subculture
you belong to is very different. For Following the Way a trance is normal
and the ability to fall in a trance is one of the ways to prove your
leadership skills. You are a very nervous and excitable man, Ashinik, but
you are mentally normal. And I think that your visions will disappear soon
because here, working for the company, you've found another way to be a
leader.
Malinovskii attached a plastic drug vial to a syringe and said, "And
now you need to sleep long and well."
When Ashinik woke up, it was already day time. The fiery snouts that
had buzzed in his mind yesterday disappeared. He lay in a wide bed in a room
with carved pink wood walls and a wide open window. A cardinal sat on the
windowsill and studied him with eyes that looked like mercury droplets and
far away, behind the bird's red feathers and bush greenery two hundred
meters of Assalah spaceport control tower soared in the sky.
Ashinik realized that he had probably been moved to Terence Bemish's
villa. He hadn't been to the villa yet because there was a lot of work at
the spaceport and because Bemish either slept at the spaceport or flew to
the capital on business.
Ashinik turned his head and saw a girl sitting next to him. The girl
was dressed in a velvet jacket and a long bell shaped skirt sewn with
flowers and grasses. A hazy silk belt tied with a five-petal knot fluttered
behind her back like butterfly wings.
The girl smiled at Ashinik shyly and Ashinik suddenly smiled back.
Something scurried between them - Ashinik imagined for a moment a furry
little animal jumping out one smile into another.
"Mr. Bemish said that you should stay in bed and should not get up."
"Are you Bemish's concubine?" Ashinik asked. His voice suddenly
acquired the cold confidence that he preached to hundreds of people with.
"Yes."
"I heard about you. You are Inis. How much did he pay for you?"
Inis shuddered.
"He paid for me as much as they asked."
"Does he love you?"
"Mr. Bemish likes me quite a bit." Inis said.
"Why haven't I seen you at the construction?"
Inis smiled guiltily.
"Mr. Bemish really wanted me to be at the construction," Inis said.
"He taught me himself how to work with accounting software and make
accounting reports. He made me his secretary. And then this crap happened...
I was once sitting in the office in the evening when three workers came in.
They were going to file a complaint about their manager but when they saw me
sitting there alone, they assaulted me and... I was just able to call for
help. After that, I asked Mr. Bemish to let me stay in the villa and he
agreed."
Inis straightened up and added proudly.
"But I do a lot of stuff here. I check all the bills and last month I
saved Mr. Bemish two hundred thousand when I noticed one local official
running fake accounts through the company."
She sighed and added.
"We still had to give this official a fifty thousand bribe."
"What software do you use," Ashinik asked.
He had practically no experience with computers and, frankly, he was
afraid of these scary answerers that Earthmen always carried with them like
handkerchiefs and at every third word took them out of their pockets and
spread open. Seeing them always reminded him one of the most popular sect
myths - that demons took their souls out and put them in these organic
silicon handkerchiefs or iron boxes and the demons' souls felt lonely and
blinked on the monitors with multicolored lights.
Inis started saying something but Ashinik had drifted off. "The demon
is not very jealous if he leaves his concubine alone with a young man," he
thought.
X X X
Ashinik returned to the construction in three days and Bemish was very
happy since it was quite difficult to manage things without him. Bemish
happened to send Ashinik to villa several times for important papers or with
some orders and Ashinik always drove there with a visible delight.
Soon Inis appeared in Bemish's office again as a secretary and
Ashinik's frequent trips to the villa came to an end. Ashinik and Inis were
quite a bit younger than Terence Bemish - she was seventeen, he was twenty -
but Bemish just didn't notice how Inis' blushed when his young deputy
entered the company director's office and how often Ashinik and Inis ate
together in the company cafeteria or in one of the port's restaurants that
had grown around like mushrooms.
Although