"Yes," the sovereign said, "Reading him I understand that we and
Earthmen are very much alike. Or we were alike. You know this representation
of time that brings downfall to the best and the proudest, goes
backwards..."
The sovereign paused.
"Were you looking for someone?" he said suddenly, nodding at the folder
a corner of which was sticking out of the armchair.
"Yes, I was looking for Shavash. I need his signature."
"Maybe I could sign something here? I am sure you don't have
anything... reprehensible."
Sovereign Varnazd smiled shyly saying these words and Bemish had an
unpleasant feeling. What does he mean, "anything reprehensible?" Does he
mean that Bemish is not a swindler? Or that all the filth doesn't touch the
papers?
"So would you like me to sign anything?"
Bemish hesitated. On one side, two papers indeed required the
sovereign's signature - he would have to wait three weeks to get it. On the
other hand, what if Shavash gets displeased? He will think that Bemish crept
into the garden, found the sovereign behind the Shavash's back, told him God
knows what, left Shavash without rightly earned gifts and, to conclude,
acted improperly.
Bemish raised his eyes. The Emperor suddenly smiled bitterly and spoke.
"I am sorry. I know that my signature doesn't mean much but I often
forget that it can also cause damage."
Oh, my God! - Bemish was astonished - he understands everything! But
why...
"I would like to do something nice for you," the sovereign said.
"You... I have seen some of your paintings. May I see others?"
The sovereign smiled.
"Let's go."
In five minutes, they passed through the sovereign's bedroom into a
light room with eight corners. The guards gaped, if any Earthmen - Van
Leyven or Nan - had found themselves in the guarded halls, at least, it had
happened a long time ago.
Bemish wasn't mistaken - the sovereign's Varnazd drawings were
wondrously good. He probably wasn't a genius painter, he likely followed one
of the old masters - every single drawing was done in a traditional manner
with light watercolors, slightly faded from the beginning, - and there was
something sad and defenseless in all of them, something that resonated
surprisingly well with the face of the sovereign of Great Light Country. "I
wouldn't hire him even as a department head," Bemish thought.
Bemish stopped for a long while in front of a certain drawing. It
depicted a view out of a window - probably a palace one, judging by a curled
frame corner - a view of a winter garden. Huge wet snow sheets pushed dry
flowers to the ground, four commoner gardeners looking like sparrows with
ruffled feathers, were starting a fire in the middle of a large black
clearing. A forlorn spear was poised behind the fire. It was clear that the
painter felt bad for these people but he thought that he couldn't change
anything. It was winter coming year after year. Unfathomable sea whose waves
are years...
"Well," the sovereign Varnazd said, "Which one do you like the most?"
Bemish pointed at the drawing with the gardeners at the fire.
"What else?"
Bemish picked another one.
"You have an excellent taste," the sovereign said. "These are the
best."
"Have you painted them a while ago?"
"Yes, it was seven years ago when I was a Khanalai's prisoner. These
are my guards. Do you see the spear?"
Bemish paled. Yes, sovereign Varnazd was a Khanalai's prisoner seven
years ago and not just a prisoner - Khanalai did everything but starved him,
wiped his fingers at Varnazd's hair during his feasts, and just waited for
the full victory to execute an unworthy emperor...
"It's possible that to draw well, you have to suffer. I had a reason
then to pity myself."
"You seem not to pity yourself," Bemish dared. "You seem to pity the
peasants that guard you."
They left the eight cornered room for a terrace. A light armchair with
a golden head and spreading wings at the sides - it seemed to be flying -
stood next to the balustrade and several foot stools stood next to it. The
sovereign sat in the armchair and showed Bemish to a stool. They sat down,
the sovereign paused and asked.
"They write in your newspapers that I should have a parliament elected
and transfer the power to the people - that is, they say, the only way to
manage corruption and power abuse. And my officials keep pointing out that
the people are poor, lost and embittered and that there are a lot of
underground sects in the country. If only rich are allowed to vote, a
rebellion will fire up and if everybody is allowed to vote, crazy zealots
will make one half of parliament and the officials bribed by the criminals -
another half. They also say that an assembly can rule only during easy
times, and one man should rule during uneasy times. It is in assemblies'
nature to think slowly and in the uneasy times one has to make fast
decisions and any slow decision in uneasy times will be a wrong one. What do
you think?"
Bemish felt uncomfortable sitting on a gilded perch - he wasn't a
parrot, was he? He stood and said.
"I think that one can always find a thousand reasons why democracy is
not good. And I think that all these reasons are untrustworthy. I don't
think that people are as stupid as unscrupulous politicians picture them and
I bring you my apologies, sovereign, but I am sure that it is more difficult
to fool a million of stupid commoners than one smart emperor."
Varnazd paused.
"When I was Khanalai's prisoner, I thought a lot about it. I thought
that my own errors caused the civil war and the worst of it was that it
wasn't really my fault. It's just that if everything depends on one person,
the officials around him want to solve all their problems by fooling this
person and they, of course, succeed. And I decided that one man shouldn't
rule the country because perfect sovereigns don't exist and only the
sovereigns who consider themselves be perfect, exist."
Bemish grinned.
"I apologize, sovereign, but it's not really evident that you have
chosen this way."
"I was talked out of it," Varnazd said, "By the Earthmen - Nan and Van
Leyven. They started arguing that an election would cause anarchy, that the
people would consider it to be a shame and a concession to the Earthmen who
forced their decisions on the freed emperor, that even Khanalai realized
that the Empire of Great Light existence was based on worshipping God-king
while an elected assembly would be despised, not respected. It may all be
correct, but the real reason was that Nan and Van Leyven knew it would be
easier for them to rule in my name than in an elected assembly's name. Yes,
they talked me out of it."
"I don't think so," Bemish said. "You let yourself be persuaded. You
had shrunk away from power when you hadn't had it, but when you got it back
you didn't really want to refuse it."
Bemish expected anger or an emotionless "no" but the sovereign lowered
his head suddenly and tears showed at his eyelashes.
"It's so strange," Varnazd said. "I told myself what you've just said
many times. And now you told me the same words and I am ready to hate you
for it."
And he flapped his sleeves.
"Where is it, my power? You are even afraid to get your papers signed,
the same ones that Shavash will bring tomorrow for my signature! You are
afraid that Shavash will suspect you conniving something and will not let
you use the papers signed by me! And you and Shavash are friends!"
"Sovereign," Bemish said, "if you understand everything, why do you act
this way? Why wouldn't you set an election day?"
"Do you know," Varnazd asked, "who will become the Empire's first
minister after the election?"
Bemish shrugged his shoulders.
"Shavash! I don't believe that my people will elect a zealot or a fool!
They will elect a smart man. Shavash will bribe everybody and everybody will
like him, he will even find a path to the zealots' hearts using his spies -
but while I am alive, Mr. Bemish, I will not allow Shavash to rule my
people. We don't have a god similar to your Satan but believe me, if we did,
Shavash would be his son."
Before leaving Bemish, the sovereign Varnazd suddenly brought his guest
to a pavilion where the paintings drawn the previous centuries hung. The
paintings covered the wall like a spotty carpet - like an iconostasis -
small marble altars, braziers and gold basins with fresh pine branches
floating in them, stood in front of the most beautiful paintings.
Bemish saw a girl and a dragon immediately - an altar stood in front of
it - and Bemish thought worriedly whether the brazier smoke harmed the
drawing or, to the contrary, protected it.
"I would like to give it to you," the emperor said. Bemish bowed.
"Your Eternity, I can't accept such a gift."
"But I would like you to!"
"A man was killed because of this painting. It will always remind me
about his death."
"Who was he?"
"It was my headman, Adini. The man, who swapped the original and the
copy, following Shavash's orders."
Bemish hesitated, considering whether he was going to say something
that would be taken as an affront, and finished.
"I would prefer the gardeners around a fire."
The sovereign didn't give Bemish the gardeners, of course. Two days
later, he however bestowed a watercolor to the Earthman that depicted
mermaids, imps and people in a dancing frenzy around a fire soaring to the
sky. The colors were painfully bright, the people's pupils narrowed from the
blinding light and the fire itself was formed by a circle of the intertwined
transparent snakelike demons. One of the guests whispered to Bemish with a
smile that somewhere around fifth century, the god of wealth secret worships
had been depicted in such a way.
Terence Bemish had an overcoat, that such gifts were supposed to be
accepted in, put on his shoulders and he kneeled and kissed the emperor's
hand and the golden brush attached to the roll's right corner.
The very fact, that the emperor bestowed one of his own paintings to a
man from the stars, brought forth many rumors - Terence Bemish was the first
man born on the sky that received such a gift. The whispers started that the
foreigner would soon be offered a Chakhar governor or a minister of finance
position but better informed people shook their heads and said that nobody
would change a bill prohibiting people from the stars from taking Empyreal
appointments - this bill had been designed specially to kick Nan out of the
country.
The day that Bemish spent talking to sovereign Varnazd, his first
deputy Ashinik spent at the new site A-33. The place was barely developed -
a tractor path wove in the middle of it but it was enough to step ten meters
away to see birds fluttering out of the grass and lizards presenting their
green back to the sun on the spotty rocks. When lunch time came, the workers
climbed in a jeep and drove to the cafeteria. Ashinik wanted to spend some
time alone. He walked up a sunlit hillock, sat on the grass and uncovered a
rug his lunch was wrapped in - two flatbread pieces with sheep cheese and
butter.
Somebody settled down on the grass next to him. Ashinik turned around.
Near him, a man sat in a rough hay overcoat and a yellow repairman belt - it
was not a repairman, however, but a man named Yadan. Yadan was the very same
zealot that had taught Ashinik and raised him to the third level. Yadan was
not the head of the zealots, there was one man above him who was not
supposed to be called by his name and whom everybody called White Elder.
White Elder was not a nickname - it was a position. If the White Elder died,
Yadan would become the White Elder. Yadan was the most uncompromising
Earthmen's opponent in the sect and he was the second in its hierarchy.
"Good day, Ashinik."
"Good day, teacher. Why didn't you say that you wanted to see me? It's
dangerous for you to come here. What if somebody identifies you?"
"Why is it dangerous? I thought that this is the safest place in the
whole Empire for me. Isn't everybody working at the construction devoted to
us?"
"What can you require from simple peasants, teacher? It's easy to tempt
a man with a high salary and a thick bun and this demon Giles stuck his
steel eyes everywhere and watches me all the time. All that he wants is to
use me to catch a big fish that will feed demons' Intelligence and that
Shavash will enjoy."
Ashinik was saying these words mechanically squeezing the unwrapped rag
with a bun and cheese in his hand. He felt fear shoving its sticky fingers
in his heart. What will Yadan ask from him? The teacher's voice didn't
promise anything pleasant. He will be punished now... Why? What rules has
Ashinik broken? He always followed all rituals and customs carefully. An
evening hasn't passed yet without Ashinik calling the workers in for a brief
prayer, a morning hasn't passed without him getting out of the bed and
splashing his left shoulder with water... And still Ashinik's heart
fluttered....
"You are afraid," Yagan said unexpectedly. "Why are you shaking,
Ashinik?"
Ashinik was silent.
"Oh, I am sorry my lad, that I am asking such a stupid question," Yadan
spoke suddenly. "It's difficult to live amidst demons and not be afraid,
isn't it?"
"Yes, of course."
They were silent for a moment. Yadan, dry and rangy, stared at the
uprooted patch and a covered with clay excavator immobilized at a huge
foundation pit.
"I am hungry," Yadan spoke suddenly.
Ashinik hurriedly broke the bun in half.
"Hola, my lad!" the zealot said quietly. "Do you eat demons' food
already?"
Ashinik looked at the bun in horror.
He picked up the snack at a road stand where a village matron was
selling cheap Weian food. The bun was frankly of the simplest kind, the same
one as women had baked here for the thousands of years and the cheese was
homemade sharp goat cheese rolled in small white balls. But red hot sauce
between cheese and onions - here Yadan was totally right - came not from the
local places but out of an imported demons' can. Ashinik went cold. Even a
month ago, he, Ashinik, would have noticed himself that it was demons' food
and here he just bought the bun and wrapped it in the rug automatically.
Gods, what's happening to him, Ashinik, that he doesn't notice so simple
things? Or, is it all that important what can this sauce comes from?
Ashinik blushed furiously and threw the bun in the pit filled with
water.
"How often do you eat their food?"
Ashinik kept guilty silence. Constantly having body cleanliness and the
teacher's admonitions in mind, he mostly tried to avoid the Earthmen's
dishes but it wasn't easy. The first time, he had to eat their food was at
that bank committee reception. Ashinik was seated with the other people at a
banquet table and, though Ashinik could handle hunger, he couldn't handle
the understanding and relaxed look that Terence Bemish glanced at Ashinik's
empty plate with.
Then - either a meeting after which Inis gets a pizza or working till
late night and a hamburger - it's difficult to live with the demons and not
eat their food. Forget about the food, it such a shame that Ashinik has a
suit hanging in his closet - made out of the same demons' cloth that he
frightened the believers with.
"Do you eat demons' food often?" Yadan repeated his question.
"I have to sometimes," Ashinik uttered.
"So, that's what is happening," Yadan grinned. "The gods addled the
demons' minds and turned them into the gods' tool - did we suppose that the
demons would handle their main construction over to us..."
And he stood suddenly.
"It's enough of demons' food for you; the time has come for you to eat
food for your soul. Come to Inissa by the sixth, you know, where you should
be."
He turned away and disappeared.
Ashinik sat unmoving for a while. He thought that everything could have
been way worse. Yadan could order him to kill Bemish or to set a bomb off
next to a passenger terminal. What would have Ashinik done then? He couldn't
refuse...
Instead of this, they just called him to Inissa for an all-round sect
meeting. What does it mean? Do they approve of his actions? Or are they
going to bring him to a trial and the sixth will become his life's last day?
Or he will be commanded to make up for his crime by killing the very same
man that tempted him away from the true road - Terence Bemish?
Ashinik stood up abruptly. He suddenly felt how his body became sticky
with sweat and he also felt horrible hunger pangs. Really, he hadn't eaten
since five am. He would have happily picked up the bun if he had thrown it
to the ground. Ashinik was a simple and resilient village lad and by the
war's end, during the famine, he had to eat not just buns covered in mud but
also live caterpillars. But he had thrown the bun away in the foundation
pit, should he swim after it?
Ashinik slowly lumbered west where the spaceport's hangars and
technical services started on the other side of the torn out fence's planks.
In five minutes, he entered the main building via an underground
tunnel. Weian and English words blinked on a board, alien words hang in the
air like flies and thousands of people scurried back and forth.
Ashinik spun his head around looking for the nearest Weian seller but,
then, he turned sharply and approached a huge gleaming fast food stand
covered with all kinds of hamburgers and bottles full of dyed water.
In half an hour, Ashinik ran right into Giles on the twelfth floor.
Ashinik didn't like Giles. He knew that the latter was Shavash's close
friend, and unlike Terence Bemish, who never grilled Ashinik about the sect
or the reasons behind his orders, Giles constantly wondered about customs
and meetings and more than once or twice he would start explaining pompously
to Ashinik why, accordingly to Earth scientific laws, nothing could get born
out of a golden egg.
"Hey, Ashinik, what do you need here?" Giles inquired.
"The report that I gave to Mr. Bemish yesterday," Ashinik answered. "I
need to fix some stuff."
"Ah, hm-hm," the security chief said mysteriously. Here, the elevator
doors opened finally, Giles jumped in and left.
Ashinik twitched his mouth and opened the door to Bemish's personal
office. He told Giles the truth and nothing but the truth - he did need his
yesterday's report. Leaving for the capital, Bemish said that he scribbled
some remarks on it and Ashinik needed to fix the report accordingly to the
remarks and hand it over to Bemish when the latter returned.
The report however was nowhere to be found. Ashinik cautiously searched
the papers strewn across Terence's table and found nothing. Ashinik
hesitated and, having approached a door at the far end of the office, he
pushed it and entered.
It was Terence Bemish's personal residence. A forty square meters
living room started right behind the office doors, its windows, made out of
soundproof glass, faced the landing pads. A personal elevator could deliver
the owner to the bedroom and the guests even higher, to the very tower top
where a rocky garden with cactuses and agaves was set out. Other plants
didn't take well to this height, either wind got in their way or it was the
nonstop roaring of the ships taking off - there was no soundproof glass
around the plants.
Going to his bedroom, Bemish generally used, instead of the elevator, a
wide and beautiful staircase that started right in the living room.
The report was not in the living room either. Ashinik thought that
Bemish had slept here yesterday and most probably he had left the report on
a table in the bedroom. Bemish had left papers there before occasionally and
he had sent Ashinik after them. Ashinik, after a brief hesitation, walked
upstairs.
Semi-darkness and cleanliness ruled the bedroom and Ashinik noticed the
blasted report at once - it lay under the bed, next to Bemish's slippers,
and one could see how mercilessly it had been scribbled over even all the
way from the door. Then, something moved to the side next to a mirror.
Ashinik turned his head and saw Inis.
"What are you doing here?" Inis said.
"I came to get the report," Ashinik answered, bending and picking up
the papers. "And you?"
"Don't you see? It's the new skirt!" Indeed, Inis stood next to the
mirror twisting around to see her own profile and, instead of a somber
business suit that she had had on in the morning, she was dressed in a
wraparound skirt.
Ashinik, still holding the report in his hands, sat on the bed edge
mechanically.
"Has Mr. Bemish bought it?"
"Silly! It's a surprise. It's a gift from Idari."
Inis picked the skirt edge with her fingertips and raised her hands and
suddenly swirled across the room. Entranced Ashinik looked at her white
legs.
He had never noticed before what Inis was dressed in. He had always
undressed her in his thoughts.
"It's beautiful. Isn't it beautiful, really?"
"It's very beautiful," Ashinik whispered.
Inis laughed and ran to the door on her toes. Her hand groped for a
switch. She turned the light off. However, it was still quite bright in the
bedroom, thanks to wide windows going across the whole wall. The windows had
no curtains - a layer of special compound inside them of them blocked
incoming light either partially or completely. Now, the windows were working
part way, softening blinding lights of the launching pads and, the lights'
positions told Ashinik that a ship in K1 pad was going to take off any
minute.
It should be howling outside by now, but the walls cut the sound off.
"Imagine, Mr. Bemish would sit like this, and I would appear here,"
Inis spoke.
She swirled around the room and suddenly froze spreading the skirt at
the lighted window background. At that moment, the yellow take off lights
fired, the nose of a large freight Atlant shuddered and moved up, fire and
smoke beams started under its exhausts, bulky like hippopotamus legs, the
room was lit in a blinding blood red color and Ashinik saw Inis's black
silhouette standing out on this blood red light background.
"Ouch," Inis cried out, stumbling for a moment.
She fell on the bed and Ashinik pressed her to himself at the same
moment.
"Exactly," Inis spoke laughing, "Here, Mr. Bemish will embrace me like
this... let me go..."
Not answering, Ashinik was kissing her.
"Let me go!"
Ashinik and Inis had kissed several times before that, but now Ashinik
wasn't really controlling himself. He was madly frightened by the
conversation with Yadan, the darkness and the faraway light bursts excited
him and he was absolutely certain that Terence Bemish was in the capital,
two hours away, and nobody would enter his bedroom.
"Inis, I am leaving soon. I can't leave without that." Ashinik
whispered.
Inis was fighting him no more. The girl, having thrown her head
backwards, let him kiss her and moaned slightly. Ashinik pulled her closer.
"Hold on," Inis suddenly said, "I will take the skirt off or you will
tear it."
Ashinik relaxed his hands and looked at Inis unbuttoning her blouse and
pulling the skirt over her head in a lithe feline movement. Then, her hands
embraced the youth and before Ashinik figured out what's happening, the girl
unbuckled his belt and her thin nimble fingers slid down to his male
nature...
"Wow, what a python I have awakened," Inis whispered.
In half an hour, they were still lying completely naked in the Assalah
company director's wide queen size bed and Inis was thoughtfully gliding her
finger over Ashinik's flat boyish stomach. Going into the sky torches were
still blazing up and fading behind the window. Ashinik extended his hand and
having found the transparency regulator, made the window slightly darker.
"Where is the master sending you to?" Inis asked suddenly.
"Eh?"
Ashinik didn't immediately figure out what she meant.
"It's not the master. It's... I just need to go back to my place."
They were silent. Ashinik felt a strange fury thinking that tomorrow
night she would be lying with Bemish the same way and everything that she
was able to do - and she was able to do a lot and she had demonstrated it to
Ashinik - all of it she learned from the man from the stars.
"In the past," Insis said thoughtfully sorting Ashinik's hair, "they
put adulterous concubines in sacks and threw them alive into a river."
"Terence Bemish will hardly through you into the river," Ashinik
objected. "He is an Earthman."
"I wonder, what he would do to us," Inis pondered.
"He won't do anything to us if we tell him nothing."
"The workday is finished. Stay here," Inis suggested. "The master is in
the capital anyway and he won't return before the morning."
"I still need to fix the report," Ashinik said.
"You can fix it in the morning."
And Ashinik stayed.
Bemish indeed returned only the next day and not even in the morning,
but in the afternoon. Ashinik had managed to fix the report but Bemish
didn't even look at it. He called a meeting and demanded that work on the
fifteenth launch pad be temporarily frozen and all freed workforce to be
used at the new storage construction. Ashinik sat at the meeting not raising
his eyes. A full bookshelf hung behind Bemish's back and Ashinik remembered
that a Lassal's demolition manual was on the shelf. Ashinik needed this book
but he was afraid to take it out that morning because it seemed to him that
the security head Giles had indeed seen old Yadan and if Ashinik started
reading demolition manuals after Yadan's visit, then Giles would place
surveillance bugs even in Ashinik's pants.
"Ashinik, do you understand what you need to do?"
Ashinik raised his head bewildered. Bemish was telling him something,
but he missed it all. Ashinik nodded and only then he noticed the company
director's swollen cheeks and dark circles under his eyes - he had probably
had a lot of fun yesterday.
Yikes, bordellos - demons' pastime where corrupted officials put Weian
girls in the demons' beds...
"Yes, I got it."
"Ashinik, what's wrong with you? Are you sick?"
"I am all right. I'll go..."
"You will go and lie still in my bedroom. Do you understand?"
Bemish embraced the lad with one hand and flung the door to the inner
living room with the other. Out of the wide open office door, Inis caught
embarrassed Ashinik's glance and smiled at him slightly.
Of course, when in two hours, Bemish walked upstairs to the bedroom, he
found Ashinik not lying in bed but, to the contrary, sitting hunched on the
floor and reading a book. Bemish approached him and looked over his
shoulder. The lad shuddered. The book was a Lassal's demolition manual.
"It's an old manual," Bemish said. "Let's go - I'll try to find a
better book."
They walked to Bemish's office and the construction director having
rummaged around in the books, dug out a fundamental and intelligible
Feinstein's textbook.
"Here it is," Bemish said.
Ashinik held the book tightly like a shepherd would hold a sick lamb,
hunched and walked to the door. Bemish watched him carefully. It seemed that
Ashinik was expecting a question - why would he need a demolition manual,
though why would a manager at the construction that uses up three kilos of
TNT equivalent a week - not read this manual."
Ashinik pushed the door open.
"Hold on," Bemish said, "I need to talk to you."
Ashinik returned and sat down obediently. "Giles spied on me and Inis,"
a thought glanced in his mind. "Or he spied on Yadan. Great gods, let this
conversation be about Yadan!"
"Is it very difficult for you?" Bemish asked.
"Why should it be difficult for me?" Ashinik responded in a dull voice.
"Because you became my deputy to establish order in the company but you
could do it only as the head of the sect that considers the construction to
be demons' business. So, you could be my deputy only being the sect's head
and you can be the sect's head only not being my deputy."'
"I will manage, Ashinik said.
He was still looking down hunching.
"You almost fainted two hours ago."
"What do you want?"
"You could leave," Bemish said. "They send many people to study
overseas. It's not right that you work fourteen hours and then sit reading
books."
"He is throwing me out!" a thought lit in Ashinik's mind. "He used me
to establish order at the construction and now he is throwing me out at
Shavash's order!"
"May I go to Inissa for a week?" Ashinik asked.
"You don't have folks in Inissa, do you? Are you going to a sect's
meeting?"
Ashinik was silent.
"Of course, you can go, Ashinik," Bemish said.
Ashinik had barely stepped out of the office, when Giles took his
place. Strangely, Bemish and spy became good friends. The reason was that
Giles demonstrated good businessman qualities - he scurried around all the
country, looked for the best agreements, contrived, plotted, gave bribes and
pushed himself to the limit for the company. He, also, appeared to be an
amiable companion. He often slept over at the villa where he, like most
Earthmen employees, had his own room; he was a charming talker and got along
well with Inis. He never talked to Bemish about the good of the Federation,
having figured out that a businessman and a spy had absolutely opposite
views to what was the good of the Federation.
"What happened," Bemish inquired.
Giles threw a picture on the table.
"Do you know this guy?"
Bemish looked at the picture for a while. The guy on the photo sat near
a fire in ragged local clothing with his feet under him cramming gruel.
"Beats me... Maybe I've seen him somewhere at the construction..."
"You haven't seen him at the construction. You have seen him at your
villa with Kissur's brother, Ashidan." Bemish shuddered. Of course!
""Damn it! Does he work at the construction?"
"He worked here till yesterday."
"And what happened yesterday?"
"Yesterday, one of my people found out that somebody was trying to
crack the security software at five in the morning and at five in the
morning this guy was cleaning his room."
"And..."
"Somebody was able to warn the guy. He took off."
"I will ask Ashinik..."
"Nobody besides Ashinik's people could've warned him. It's a funny
combination - Following the Way sect and an anarcho-syndicalist demon, isn't
it?"
"It's totally unbelievable."
"There is something even more unbelievable - the guy came here from one
of Kissur's manors. And his reference letter was signed by Kissur. You know
- that he was a diligent worker and gathered hay just great...By the way, he
is an old acquaintance of Kissur's."
Bemish paused.
"What exactly was he ferreting out?"
"Oh, his interests were all-inclusive. Mostly, however, he was
interested in certain trading operations of Weian New Age fund. For
instance, he was interested in the situation when several hours before an
announcement about transnational Metal Uranium buying a totally non-liquid
uranium mine came out, you had bought two hundred thirty million worth of
this mine's shares. And you sold them in two days at three billion. Oh,
there is another strikingly interesting accident - Shavash's friend Igon who
was in charge of the country's international loans, claimed that Weia was
considering postponing paying off the interest on the international loan
known as Iron Bonds. Since, say, some bearer's bonds had been stolen at
Lamass bank robbery and they needed to find out how the current bonds'
owners had acquired them. The securities' rating collapsed almost by a
factor of two and in a day Shavash threw Igon out with a scandal, published
a denouncement and paid the interest off right on time so that practically
in a week the rating was back to normal. Remarkably, you bought forty
million worth of these securities right after Igon's announcement and sold
them in a week at, correspondingly, eighty million. You were also reckless
enough to transfer, at the same time, quite a significant amount of money to
Shavash's and Igon's accounts."
"Has the anarchist dug it out or has it been your work?" Bemish
inquired.
"It was the anarchist. He spent a month in your computer and then he
tried hacking into our systems and he was uncovered. He was also likely to
find out a lot of interesting stuff about the spaceport."
Bemish was silent. The guy could surely learn a lot of interesting
stuff about the spaceport. Bemish clenched his teeth sometimes realizing
what was happening at the spaceport. The "fan" approach to the formation of
export-import companies that existed for two months only, till the deadline
for the first tax declaration, was the most innocent trick out of what was
happening.
But there was nothing else to do - so many gifts were required, so many
unofficial expenses were needed on the top of official ones, and Bemish
sadly realized that the larger was the embezzlement scale, the safer the
embezzlement was.
The next day, the security department crew got together in Bemish's
office again.
The size of the damage caused by the anarchist was quite large;
Bemish's calls had most probably been tapped. Certainly, the anarchist had
had access to the Assalah director's personal computer and therefore to the
files dealing with the funds' operations.
"Frankly," Giles admitted after the conversation had been finished,
"The theft itself bothers me less than the guy's contacts with Kissur. He is
such an unpredictable man! He patronizes us and at the same time he
patronizes the guy who would smear a launching chute with plastic explosives
without any guilt whatsoever!"
"Would you like, Giles, to prevent Kissur from hanging out together
with terrorists?"
"Well?"
"He applied to the military academy, didn't he? Accept him."
"It's impossible..."
"Why?"
"Firstly, this man started his acquaintance with our equipment
kidnapping a military airplane that he immediately put to its intended use.
Secondly, Kissur is a savage. He should learn algebra first."
"Come on, you are not going to make a rocket battle cruiser commander
out of him. Eight years ago this man was an excellent war leader. War and
freedom were the same for him because freedom was for him the right to kill.
And when the sovereign asked him to eradicate separatists three years ago,
he and his people appeared to manage rocket launchers pretty well."
"Are you asking this on your own volition," Giles inquired, "or has
Kissur asked you?"
"I am asking this on my own. Kissur will die first before he asks
Earthmen for anything. But I know, Giles, that he is capable of God knows
what if he is not busy with something useful. He is not going to take
bribes, he can't be a sovereign's lapdog, the only thing he can do is to
fight. Earthmen came and destroyed his old war. He applied to the academy
but they didn't let him into the new war. How can a man, who won more
battles that our generals conducted maneuvers, take it?"
"The new war is not what Kissur thinks it is."
"That's exactly why it would be useful for Kissur make a closer
acquaintance with it."
In two days, Shavash finally appeared at the spaceport. It was an
official visit - Shavash accompanied a Joined Economics Assembly committee -
and they were in public during the entire visit. At the second chute,
Shavash leaned to the company director's ear and asked quietly,
"Where is your deputy, Ashinik, by the way?"
"He took a one week vacation," Bemish said.
"Ah, he took a vacation... You know something akin to a Following the
Way meeting started in Inissa, in Gaddar. They are having a celebration of
somebody's "resurrection" and working meetings of the circles' heads.
"Well?" Bemish said.
"These people are very dangerous," Shavash shook his head. "We have to
smile and tell the world community that the people who consider Earthmen to
be demons are no more important than the people on Earth who spend their
time in mental institutions and claim themselves to be Napoleons - but I
warn you, Terence, that even you don't know how dangerous they are."
"What are you whispering about?" a committee member asked.
Bemish turned to his countryman and said that they were whispering
about local Dahan factory that supplied the construction with titanium
supports and started explaining the problems they had with supplies.
The Tenth Chapter
Where Terence Bemish becomes familiar with provincial life of the
Empire while Mr. Shavash offers an original plan for the restructuring of
the state debt.
Giles returned from Earth in three days and he brought a bulky bundle
of papers sealed with vacuum tape - for authorized personnel only. Giles
handed the bundle to Bemish and locked the door, and Bemish mounted his legs
on the table and engrossed himself in the papers.
In an hour, having looked through the documents, Bemish said,
"That's great but have you talked to your bosses about my request?"
"What request do you mean?"
"I mean Kissur and the military academy."
"Yes. They are against it."
"Why?"
Giles paused.
"Terence, tell me, have you told Kissur what we are building here?"
"How does it matter?"
"It matters because five years ago, after Kissur had escaped from
Earth, he found himself in a Gera training camp. It was there that he
learned how to handle rocket launchers and all the other modern killing
machinery that he manages now so well."
"Is that all?"
"No, it's not all. Haven't you forgotten the guy who came to the
construction with Kissur's reference letter and hacked your computer?"
"It was not Kissur's reference letter. It was a reference letter from
one of his bailiffs. These letters cost ten "pinkies" a piece on the local
black market. Would you like me to get a dozen for you by tomorrow?"
"A month ago Kissur flew to Cassandra. He met an old acquaintance of
his there - this guy."
And Giles fished a photo out of his pocket and put it down in front of
Bemish.
"This man, by the way, led at some point anarcho-terrorist group ABC.
He has on his account..."
"I am not interested in his account," Bemish cut off the spy.
"Really? Shavash was quite interested."
"I would recommend to you not to discuss these matters with Shavash -
you and Shavash have different goals."
"What do you mean?"
"You want to figure out whether or not Kissur is connected to
terrorists and Shavash wants to prove that he is connected to them. Of
course, he will prove it."
"Will his conclusion be purely arbitrary?"
"Kissur is a thousand and one adventures. If a house next to him is on
fire, he will run in and save a child. If a house is not on fire, he may
start one. Of course, a terrorist visited Kissur. Kissur is too colorful a
figure not to be visited. So what? I didn't see Shavash right when you were
asking him this question but I could swear that he was dying of laughter. If
he had answered you honestly, he would have said on the spot that a man who
dared to compare the sovereign Irshahchan with this wasted Earthman Marx -
this man was risking taking a bath in a swimming pool right there. But
Shavash didn't say that because Shavash hates Kissur. You dished an idea out
to Shavash - he will find the proofs. He will find terrorists' liaisons to
Kissur and he will train them what they should say. Kissur is an
unpredictable man but Shavash can predict even him. If a man approaches
Kissur and says, "Let's bomb this bank for a glorious future's sake," Kissur
will throw him out of a window. While a man instructed by Shavash will
approach Kissur and say,
"Why don't we bomb this bank and feed these bribers with a dish they
deserved?"
"What a wonderful idea!" Kissur will exclaim. It will enable Shavash to
annihilate Kissur even though it would be proper to jail Shavash and not
Kissur for the bank robbery."
Giles paused.
"I thought the same, Terence," he said. "I started shouting that it was
all crap... To make the long story short, they introduced me to an
investigator. Kissur traffics in drugs."
"What?!!"
"Kissur sells drugs. They grow a lot of wolf's wisk on his lands in
Upper Warnaraine. It happens with a full blessing of the landowner. I am
very sorry Terence but we can't accept to the military academy one of Weian
drug mafia bosses."
And the spy left the office, having carefully closed the door behind
him.
In about five minutes, Ashinik walked into the office with a bunch of
printouts.
"What's wrong with you, master? Are you crying?"
Bemish was not responding.
"Are you ok? Should I call a doctor?"
In three days, Kissur with Khanadar the Dried Date, Aldon the Lynx Cub
and a couple of dogs dropped by Bemish and all five of them left for a horse
ride.
The field they were riding over was already covered with concrete
blocks. Tree stumps stuck out far away on a knoll like teeth leftovers in an
old man's mouth and a cheerful red tractor was pulling them out of earth
amidst din and screech.
The new road ended unnoticed - the riders raced down an old Empire
track with yellowish stone ruts, wide palm trees and narrow pyramids of
poplars planted along the road accordingly to the ancient laws... Green
knolls and rice paddies covered with water flashed far away. Bemish spun his
head excitedly - the beauty around seemed to be like a photo.
A squirrel sat on a poplar branch and ate a nut. Amusing himself,
Khanadar the Dried Date shot at the nut and knocked it out of the squirrel's
paws; it whisked up the tree in horror.
"Hunting used to be good here," Khanadar told Bemish. "And now the only
big game here is your bulldozers."
"Hey," Kissur said, "Why don't we go to Black Nest? Hunting is great
there."
"When?"
"Why don't we go there right now?"
"Riding?"
"That's a great idea," Kissur said. "Let's ride!"
Khanadar laughed uproariously.
And they raced. Bemish felt as good as he had never felt in his life.
He wanted to cancel all the meetings in the world, he didn't give a damn
about the spaceport and the investment funds - he just wanted to ride down
this road where his car would get stuck and his bulldozer would just tear
up.
By the evening, Kissur pointed at an altar house overgrown with
burdocks and inquired,
"Will we sleep over here or in the field?"
Bemish came to his senses.
"Kissur," he said, "I have a business meeting tomorrow at eight in the
morning. Will we be able to return before sunrise?"
Khanadar almost fell off the saddle laughing.
"Terence," he said, "Black Nest is Kissur's clan castle in Mountain
Warnaraine. Old Elda lives there and Ashidan arrived there a week ago."
"Hold on," Bemish said. "It's fifteen hundred kilometers!"
"It's sixteen hundred thirty, if I haven't forgotten your damned
units," Khanadar chortled. Bemish turned his horse back.
"I am sorry gentlemen," he spoke, "but I don't have time for a ten day
ride next to good highways."
"Hey," Kissur said, "you can't go back on your word! You promised me a
hunt in Black Nest!"
"I didn't promise to ride a horse there," Bemish stormed.
"One can't," Khanadar said, "reach a real castle by a car. One has to
ride to the real castle for five days and five nights. And the Earthman's
butt is already sore."
The comment was unfair. It was especially unfair since Bemish had been
riding a horse around the construction in the morning for the last two
months, having admitted the advantage a horse had over a heavy-assed jeep
and a fleeting flyer. So, Bemish became quite a decent horse rider though he
was not in the same league with the barbarians whose fathers had put them on
horses before their mothers started teaching them to walk.
Earthmen are very much alike. Or we were alike. You know this representation
of time that brings downfall to the best and the proudest, goes
backwards..."
The sovereign paused.
"Were you looking for someone?" he said suddenly, nodding at the folder
a corner of which was sticking out of the armchair.
"Yes, I was looking for Shavash. I need his signature."
"Maybe I could sign something here? I am sure you don't have
anything... reprehensible."
Sovereign Varnazd smiled shyly saying these words and Bemish had an
unpleasant feeling. What does he mean, "anything reprehensible?" Does he
mean that Bemish is not a swindler? Or that all the filth doesn't touch the
papers?
"So would you like me to sign anything?"
Bemish hesitated. On one side, two papers indeed required the
sovereign's signature - he would have to wait three weeks to get it. On the
other hand, what if Shavash gets displeased? He will think that Bemish crept
into the garden, found the sovereign behind the Shavash's back, told him God
knows what, left Shavash without rightly earned gifts and, to conclude,
acted improperly.
Bemish raised his eyes. The Emperor suddenly smiled bitterly and spoke.
"I am sorry. I know that my signature doesn't mean much but I often
forget that it can also cause damage."
Oh, my God! - Bemish was astonished - he understands everything! But
why...
"I would like to do something nice for you," the sovereign said.
"You... I have seen some of your paintings. May I see others?"
The sovereign smiled.
"Let's go."
In five minutes, they passed through the sovereign's bedroom into a
light room with eight corners. The guards gaped, if any Earthmen - Van
Leyven or Nan - had found themselves in the guarded halls, at least, it had
happened a long time ago.
Bemish wasn't mistaken - the sovereign's Varnazd drawings were
wondrously good. He probably wasn't a genius painter, he likely followed one
of the old masters - every single drawing was done in a traditional manner
with light watercolors, slightly faded from the beginning, - and there was
something sad and defenseless in all of them, something that resonated
surprisingly well with the face of the sovereign of Great Light Country. "I
wouldn't hire him even as a department head," Bemish thought.
Bemish stopped for a long while in front of a certain drawing. It
depicted a view out of a window - probably a palace one, judging by a curled
frame corner - a view of a winter garden. Huge wet snow sheets pushed dry
flowers to the ground, four commoner gardeners looking like sparrows with
ruffled feathers, were starting a fire in the middle of a large black
clearing. A forlorn spear was poised behind the fire. It was clear that the
painter felt bad for these people but he thought that he couldn't change
anything. It was winter coming year after year. Unfathomable sea whose waves
are years...
"Well," the sovereign Varnazd said, "Which one do you like the most?"
Bemish pointed at the drawing with the gardeners at the fire.
"What else?"
Bemish picked another one.
"You have an excellent taste," the sovereign said. "These are the
best."
"Have you painted them a while ago?"
"Yes, it was seven years ago when I was a Khanalai's prisoner. These
are my guards. Do you see the spear?"
Bemish paled. Yes, sovereign Varnazd was a Khanalai's prisoner seven
years ago and not just a prisoner - Khanalai did everything but starved him,
wiped his fingers at Varnazd's hair during his feasts, and just waited for
the full victory to execute an unworthy emperor...
"It's possible that to draw well, you have to suffer. I had a reason
then to pity myself."
"You seem not to pity yourself," Bemish dared. "You seem to pity the
peasants that guard you."
They left the eight cornered room for a terrace. A light armchair with
a golden head and spreading wings at the sides - it seemed to be flying -
stood next to the balustrade and several foot stools stood next to it. The
sovereign sat in the armchair and showed Bemish to a stool. They sat down,
the sovereign paused and asked.
"They write in your newspapers that I should have a parliament elected
and transfer the power to the people - that is, they say, the only way to
manage corruption and power abuse. And my officials keep pointing out that
the people are poor, lost and embittered and that there are a lot of
underground sects in the country. If only rich are allowed to vote, a
rebellion will fire up and if everybody is allowed to vote, crazy zealots
will make one half of parliament and the officials bribed by the criminals -
another half. They also say that an assembly can rule only during easy
times, and one man should rule during uneasy times. It is in assemblies'
nature to think slowly and in the uneasy times one has to make fast
decisions and any slow decision in uneasy times will be a wrong one. What do
you think?"
Bemish felt uncomfortable sitting on a gilded perch - he wasn't a
parrot, was he? He stood and said.
"I think that one can always find a thousand reasons why democracy is
not good. And I think that all these reasons are untrustworthy. I don't
think that people are as stupid as unscrupulous politicians picture them and
I bring you my apologies, sovereign, but I am sure that it is more difficult
to fool a million of stupid commoners than one smart emperor."
Varnazd paused.
"When I was Khanalai's prisoner, I thought a lot about it. I thought
that my own errors caused the civil war and the worst of it was that it
wasn't really my fault. It's just that if everything depends on one person,
the officials around him want to solve all their problems by fooling this
person and they, of course, succeed. And I decided that one man shouldn't
rule the country because perfect sovereigns don't exist and only the
sovereigns who consider themselves be perfect, exist."
Bemish grinned.
"I apologize, sovereign, but it's not really evident that you have
chosen this way."
"I was talked out of it," Varnazd said, "By the Earthmen - Nan and Van
Leyven. They started arguing that an election would cause anarchy, that the
people would consider it to be a shame and a concession to the Earthmen who
forced their decisions on the freed emperor, that even Khanalai realized
that the Empire of Great Light existence was based on worshipping God-king
while an elected assembly would be despised, not respected. It may all be
correct, but the real reason was that Nan and Van Leyven knew it would be
easier for them to rule in my name than in an elected assembly's name. Yes,
they talked me out of it."
"I don't think so," Bemish said. "You let yourself be persuaded. You
had shrunk away from power when you hadn't had it, but when you got it back
you didn't really want to refuse it."
Bemish expected anger or an emotionless "no" but the sovereign lowered
his head suddenly and tears showed at his eyelashes.
"It's so strange," Varnazd said. "I told myself what you've just said
many times. And now you told me the same words and I am ready to hate you
for it."
And he flapped his sleeves.
"Where is it, my power? You are even afraid to get your papers signed,
the same ones that Shavash will bring tomorrow for my signature! You are
afraid that Shavash will suspect you conniving something and will not let
you use the papers signed by me! And you and Shavash are friends!"
"Sovereign," Bemish said, "if you understand everything, why do you act
this way? Why wouldn't you set an election day?"
"Do you know," Varnazd asked, "who will become the Empire's first
minister after the election?"
Bemish shrugged his shoulders.
"Shavash! I don't believe that my people will elect a zealot or a fool!
They will elect a smart man. Shavash will bribe everybody and everybody will
like him, he will even find a path to the zealots' hearts using his spies -
but while I am alive, Mr. Bemish, I will not allow Shavash to rule my
people. We don't have a god similar to your Satan but believe me, if we did,
Shavash would be his son."
Before leaving Bemish, the sovereign Varnazd suddenly brought his guest
to a pavilion where the paintings drawn the previous centuries hung. The
paintings covered the wall like a spotty carpet - like an iconostasis -
small marble altars, braziers and gold basins with fresh pine branches
floating in them, stood in front of the most beautiful paintings.
Bemish saw a girl and a dragon immediately - an altar stood in front of
it - and Bemish thought worriedly whether the brazier smoke harmed the
drawing or, to the contrary, protected it.
"I would like to give it to you," the emperor said. Bemish bowed.
"Your Eternity, I can't accept such a gift."
"But I would like you to!"
"A man was killed because of this painting. It will always remind me
about his death."
"Who was he?"
"It was my headman, Adini. The man, who swapped the original and the
copy, following Shavash's orders."
Bemish hesitated, considering whether he was going to say something
that would be taken as an affront, and finished.
"I would prefer the gardeners around a fire."
The sovereign didn't give Bemish the gardeners, of course. Two days
later, he however bestowed a watercolor to the Earthman that depicted
mermaids, imps and people in a dancing frenzy around a fire soaring to the
sky. The colors were painfully bright, the people's pupils narrowed from the
blinding light and the fire itself was formed by a circle of the intertwined
transparent snakelike demons. One of the guests whispered to Bemish with a
smile that somewhere around fifth century, the god of wealth secret worships
had been depicted in such a way.
Terence Bemish had an overcoat, that such gifts were supposed to be
accepted in, put on his shoulders and he kneeled and kissed the emperor's
hand and the golden brush attached to the roll's right corner.
The very fact, that the emperor bestowed one of his own paintings to a
man from the stars, brought forth many rumors - Terence Bemish was the first
man born on the sky that received such a gift. The whispers started that the
foreigner would soon be offered a Chakhar governor or a minister of finance
position but better informed people shook their heads and said that nobody
would change a bill prohibiting people from the stars from taking Empyreal
appointments - this bill had been designed specially to kick Nan out of the
country.
The day that Bemish spent talking to sovereign Varnazd, his first
deputy Ashinik spent at the new site A-33. The place was barely developed -
a tractor path wove in the middle of it but it was enough to step ten meters
away to see birds fluttering out of the grass and lizards presenting their
green back to the sun on the spotty rocks. When lunch time came, the workers
climbed in a jeep and drove to the cafeteria. Ashinik wanted to spend some
time alone. He walked up a sunlit hillock, sat on the grass and uncovered a
rug his lunch was wrapped in - two flatbread pieces with sheep cheese and
butter.
Somebody settled down on the grass next to him. Ashinik turned around.
Near him, a man sat in a rough hay overcoat and a yellow repairman belt - it
was not a repairman, however, but a man named Yadan. Yadan was the very same
zealot that had taught Ashinik and raised him to the third level. Yadan was
not the head of the zealots, there was one man above him who was not
supposed to be called by his name and whom everybody called White Elder.
White Elder was not a nickname - it was a position. If the White Elder died,
Yadan would become the White Elder. Yadan was the most uncompromising
Earthmen's opponent in the sect and he was the second in its hierarchy.
"Good day, Ashinik."
"Good day, teacher. Why didn't you say that you wanted to see me? It's
dangerous for you to come here. What if somebody identifies you?"
"Why is it dangerous? I thought that this is the safest place in the
whole Empire for me. Isn't everybody working at the construction devoted to
us?"
"What can you require from simple peasants, teacher? It's easy to tempt
a man with a high salary and a thick bun and this demon Giles stuck his
steel eyes everywhere and watches me all the time. All that he wants is to
use me to catch a big fish that will feed demons' Intelligence and that
Shavash will enjoy."
Ashinik was saying these words mechanically squeezing the unwrapped rag
with a bun and cheese in his hand. He felt fear shoving its sticky fingers
in his heart. What will Yadan ask from him? The teacher's voice didn't
promise anything pleasant. He will be punished now... Why? What rules has
Ashinik broken? He always followed all rituals and customs carefully. An
evening hasn't passed yet without Ashinik calling the workers in for a brief
prayer, a morning hasn't passed without him getting out of the bed and
splashing his left shoulder with water... And still Ashinik's heart
fluttered....
"You are afraid," Yagan said unexpectedly. "Why are you shaking,
Ashinik?"
Ashinik was silent.
"Oh, I am sorry my lad, that I am asking such a stupid question," Yadan
spoke suddenly. "It's difficult to live amidst demons and not be afraid,
isn't it?"
"Yes, of course."
They were silent for a moment. Yadan, dry and rangy, stared at the
uprooted patch and a covered with clay excavator immobilized at a huge
foundation pit.
"I am hungry," Yadan spoke suddenly.
Ashinik hurriedly broke the bun in half.
"Hola, my lad!" the zealot said quietly. "Do you eat demons' food
already?"
Ashinik looked at the bun in horror.
He picked up the snack at a road stand where a village matron was
selling cheap Weian food. The bun was frankly of the simplest kind, the same
one as women had baked here for the thousands of years and the cheese was
homemade sharp goat cheese rolled in small white balls. But red hot sauce
between cheese and onions - here Yadan was totally right - came not from the
local places but out of an imported demons' can. Ashinik went cold. Even a
month ago, he, Ashinik, would have noticed himself that it was demons' food
and here he just bought the bun and wrapped it in the rug automatically.
Gods, what's happening to him, Ashinik, that he doesn't notice so simple
things? Or, is it all that important what can this sauce comes from?
Ashinik blushed furiously and threw the bun in the pit filled with
water.
"How often do you eat their food?"
Ashinik kept guilty silence. Constantly having body cleanliness and the
teacher's admonitions in mind, he mostly tried to avoid the Earthmen's
dishes but it wasn't easy. The first time, he had to eat their food was at
that bank committee reception. Ashinik was seated with the other people at a
banquet table and, though Ashinik could handle hunger, he couldn't handle
the understanding and relaxed look that Terence Bemish glanced at Ashinik's
empty plate with.
Then - either a meeting after which Inis gets a pizza or working till
late night and a hamburger - it's difficult to live with the demons and not
eat their food. Forget about the food, it such a shame that Ashinik has a
suit hanging in his closet - made out of the same demons' cloth that he
frightened the believers with.
"Do you eat demons' food often?" Yadan repeated his question.
"I have to sometimes," Ashinik uttered.
"So, that's what is happening," Yadan grinned. "The gods addled the
demons' minds and turned them into the gods' tool - did we suppose that the
demons would handle their main construction over to us..."
And he stood suddenly.
"It's enough of demons' food for you; the time has come for you to eat
food for your soul. Come to Inissa by the sixth, you know, where you should
be."
He turned away and disappeared.
Ashinik sat unmoving for a while. He thought that everything could have
been way worse. Yadan could order him to kill Bemish or to set a bomb off
next to a passenger terminal. What would have Ashinik done then? He couldn't
refuse...
Instead of this, they just called him to Inissa for an all-round sect
meeting. What does it mean? Do they approve of his actions? Or are they
going to bring him to a trial and the sixth will become his life's last day?
Or he will be commanded to make up for his crime by killing the very same
man that tempted him away from the true road - Terence Bemish?
Ashinik stood up abruptly. He suddenly felt how his body became sticky
with sweat and he also felt horrible hunger pangs. Really, he hadn't eaten
since five am. He would have happily picked up the bun if he had thrown it
to the ground. Ashinik was a simple and resilient village lad and by the
war's end, during the famine, he had to eat not just buns covered in mud but
also live caterpillars. But he had thrown the bun away in the foundation
pit, should he swim after it?
Ashinik slowly lumbered west where the spaceport's hangars and
technical services started on the other side of the torn out fence's planks.
In five minutes, he entered the main building via an underground
tunnel. Weian and English words blinked on a board, alien words hang in the
air like flies and thousands of people scurried back and forth.
Ashinik spun his head around looking for the nearest Weian seller but,
then, he turned sharply and approached a huge gleaming fast food stand
covered with all kinds of hamburgers and bottles full of dyed water.
In half an hour, Ashinik ran right into Giles on the twelfth floor.
Ashinik didn't like Giles. He knew that the latter was Shavash's close
friend, and unlike Terence Bemish, who never grilled Ashinik about the sect
or the reasons behind his orders, Giles constantly wondered about customs
and meetings and more than once or twice he would start explaining pompously
to Ashinik why, accordingly to Earth scientific laws, nothing could get born
out of a golden egg.
"Hey, Ashinik, what do you need here?" Giles inquired.
"The report that I gave to Mr. Bemish yesterday," Ashinik answered. "I
need to fix some stuff."
"Ah, hm-hm," the security chief said mysteriously. Here, the elevator
doors opened finally, Giles jumped in and left.
Ashinik twitched his mouth and opened the door to Bemish's personal
office. He told Giles the truth and nothing but the truth - he did need his
yesterday's report. Leaving for the capital, Bemish said that he scribbled
some remarks on it and Ashinik needed to fix the report accordingly to the
remarks and hand it over to Bemish when the latter returned.
The report however was nowhere to be found. Ashinik cautiously searched
the papers strewn across Terence's table and found nothing. Ashinik
hesitated and, having approached a door at the far end of the office, he
pushed it and entered.
It was Terence Bemish's personal residence. A forty square meters
living room started right behind the office doors, its windows, made out of
soundproof glass, faced the landing pads. A personal elevator could deliver
the owner to the bedroom and the guests even higher, to the very tower top
where a rocky garden with cactuses and agaves was set out. Other plants
didn't take well to this height, either wind got in their way or it was the
nonstop roaring of the ships taking off - there was no soundproof glass
around the plants.
Going to his bedroom, Bemish generally used, instead of the elevator, a
wide and beautiful staircase that started right in the living room.
The report was not in the living room either. Ashinik thought that
Bemish had slept here yesterday and most probably he had left the report on
a table in the bedroom. Bemish had left papers there before occasionally and
he had sent Ashinik after them. Ashinik, after a brief hesitation, walked
upstairs.
Semi-darkness and cleanliness ruled the bedroom and Ashinik noticed the
blasted report at once - it lay under the bed, next to Bemish's slippers,
and one could see how mercilessly it had been scribbled over even all the
way from the door. Then, something moved to the side next to a mirror.
Ashinik turned his head and saw Inis.
"What are you doing here?" Inis said.
"I came to get the report," Ashinik answered, bending and picking up
the papers. "And you?"
"Don't you see? It's the new skirt!" Indeed, Inis stood next to the
mirror twisting around to see her own profile and, instead of a somber
business suit that she had had on in the morning, she was dressed in a
wraparound skirt.
Ashinik, still holding the report in his hands, sat on the bed edge
mechanically.
"Has Mr. Bemish bought it?"
"Silly! It's a surprise. It's a gift from Idari."
Inis picked the skirt edge with her fingertips and raised her hands and
suddenly swirled across the room. Entranced Ashinik looked at her white
legs.
He had never noticed before what Inis was dressed in. He had always
undressed her in his thoughts.
"It's beautiful. Isn't it beautiful, really?"
"It's very beautiful," Ashinik whispered.
Inis laughed and ran to the door on her toes. Her hand groped for a
switch. She turned the light off. However, it was still quite bright in the
bedroom, thanks to wide windows going across the whole wall. The windows had
no curtains - a layer of special compound inside them of them blocked
incoming light either partially or completely. Now, the windows were working
part way, softening blinding lights of the launching pads and, the lights'
positions told Ashinik that a ship in K1 pad was going to take off any
minute.
It should be howling outside by now, but the walls cut the sound off.
"Imagine, Mr. Bemish would sit like this, and I would appear here,"
Inis spoke.
She swirled around the room and suddenly froze spreading the skirt at
the lighted window background. At that moment, the yellow take off lights
fired, the nose of a large freight Atlant shuddered and moved up, fire and
smoke beams started under its exhausts, bulky like hippopotamus legs, the
room was lit in a blinding blood red color and Ashinik saw Inis's black
silhouette standing out on this blood red light background.
"Ouch," Inis cried out, stumbling for a moment.
She fell on the bed and Ashinik pressed her to himself at the same
moment.
"Exactly," Inis spoke laughing, "Here, Mr. Bemish will embrace me like
this... let me go..."
Not answering, Ashinik was kissing her.
"Let me go!"
Ashinik and Inis had kissed several times before that, but now Ashinik
wasn't really controlling himself. He was madly frightened by the
conversation with Yadan, the darkness and the faraway light bursts excited
him and he was absolutely certain that Terence Bemish was in the capital,
two hours away, and nobody would enter his bedroom.
"Inis, I am leaving soon. I can't leave without that." Ashinik
whispered.
Inis was fighting him no more. The girl, having thrown her head
backwards, let him kiss her and moaned slightly. Ashinik pulled her closer.
"Hold on," Inis suddenly said, "I will take the skirt off or you will
tear it."
Ashinik relaxed his hands and looked at Inis unbuttoning her blouse and
pulling the skirt over her head in a lithe feline movement. Then, her hands
embraced the youth and before Ashinik figured out what's happening, the girl
unbuckled his belt and her thin nimble fingers slid down to his male
nature...
"Wow, what a python I have awakened," Inis whispered.
In half an hour, they were still lying completely naked in the Assalah
company director's wide queen size bed and Inis was thoughtfully gliding her
finger over Ashinik's flat boyish stomach. Going into the sky torches were
still blazing up and fading behind the window. Ashinik extended his hand and
having found the transparency regulator, made the window slightly darker.
"Where is the master sending you to?" Inis asked suddenly.
"Eh?"
Ashinik didn't immediately figure out what she meant.
"It's not the master. It's... I just need to go back to my place."
They were silent. Ashinik felt a strange fury thinking that tomorrow
night she would be lying with Bemish the same way and everything that she
was able to do - and she was able to do a lot and she had demonstrated it to
Ashinik - all of it she learned from the man from the stars.
"In the past," Insis said thoughtfully sorting Ashinik's hair, "they
put adulterous concubines in sacks and threw them alive into a river."
"Terence Bemish will hardly through you into the river," Ashinik
objected. "He is an Earthman."
"I wonder, what he would do to us," Inis pondered.
"He won't do anything to us if we tell him nothing."
"The workday is finished. Stay here," Inis suggested. "The master is in
the capital anyway and he won't return before the morning."
"I still need to fix the report," Ashinik said.
"You can fix it in the morning."
And Ashinik stayed.
Bemish indeed returned only the next day and not even in the morning,
but in the afternoon. Ashinik had managed to fix the report but Bemish
didn't even look at it. He called a meeting and demanded that work on the
fifteenth launch pad be temporarily frozen and all freed workforce to be
used at the new storage construction. Ashinik sat at the meeting not raising
his eyes. A full bookshelf hung behind Bemish's back and Ashinik remembered
that a Lassal's demolition manual was on the shelf. Ashinik needed this book
but he was afraid to take it out that morning because it seemed to him that
the security head Giles had indeed seen old Yadan and if Ashinik started
reading demolition manuals after Yadan's visit, then Giles would place
surveillance bugs even in Ashinik's pants.
"Ashinik, do you understand what you need to do?"
Ashinik raised his head bewildered. Bemish was telling him something,
but he missed it all. Ashinik nodded and only then he noticed the company
director's swollen cheeks and dark circles under his eyes - he had probably
had a lot of fun yesterday.
Yikes, bordellos - demons' pastime where corrupted officials put Weian
girls in the demons' beds...
"Yes, I got it."
"Ashinik, what's wrong with you? Are you sick?"
"I am all right. I'll go..."
"You will go and lie still in my bedroom. Do you understand?"
Bemish embraced the lad with one hand and flung the door to the inner
living room with the other. Out of the wide open office door, Inis caught
embarrassed Ashinik's glance and smiled at him slightly.
Of course, when in two hours, Bemish walked upstairs to the bedroom, he
found Ashinik not lying in bed but, to the contrary, sitting hunched on the
floor and reading a book. Bemish approached him and looked over his
shoulder. The lad shuddered. The book was a Lassal's demolition manual.
"It's an old manual," Bemish said. "Let's go - I'll try to find a
better book."
They walked to Bemish's office and the construction director having
rummaged around in the books, dug out a fundamental and intelligible
Feinstein's textbook.
"Here it is," Bemish said.
Ashinik held the book tightly like a shepherd would hold a sick lamb,
hunched and walked to the door. Bemish watched him carefully. It seemed that
Ashinik was expecting a question - why would he need a demolition manual,
though why would a manager at the construction that uses up three kilos of
TNT equivalent a week - not read this manual."
Ashinik pushed the door open.
"Hold on," Bemish said, "I need to talk to you."
Ashinik returned and sat down obediently. "Giles spied on me and Inis,"
a thought glanced in his mind. "Or he spied on Yadan. Great gods, let this
conversation be about Yadan!"
"Is it very difficult for you?" Bemish asked.
"Why should it be difficult for me?" Ashinik responded in a dull voice.
"Because you became my deputy to establish order in the company but you
could do it only as the head of the sect that considers the construction to
be demons' business. So, you could be my deputy only being the sect's head
and you can be the sect's head only not being my deputy."'
"I will manage, Ashinik said.
He was still looking down hunching.
"You almost fainted two hours ago."
"What do you want?"
"You could leave," Bemish said. "They send many people to study
overseas. It's not right that you work fourteen hours and then sit reading
books."
"He is throwing me out!" a thought lit in Ashinik's mind. "He used me
to establish order at the construction and now he is throwing me out at
Shavash's order!"
"May I go to Inissa for a week?" Ashinik asked.
"You don't have folks in Inissa, do you? Are you going to a sect's
meeting?"
Ashinik was silent.
"Of course, you can go, Ashinik," Bemish said.
Ashinik had barely stepped out of the office, when Giles took his
place. Strangely, Bemish and spy became good friends. The reason was that
Giles demonstrated good businessman qualities - he scurried around all the
country, looked for the best agreements, contrived, plotted, gave bribes and
pushed himself to the limit for the company. He, also, appeared to be an
amiable companion. He often slept over at the villa where he, like most
Earthmen employees, had his own room; he was a charming talker and got along
well with Inis. He never talked to Bemish about the good of the Federation,
having figured out that a businessman and a spy had absolutely opposite
views to what was the good of the Federation.
"What happened," Bemish inquired.
Giles threw a picture on the table.
"Do you know this guy?"
Bemish looked at the picture for a while. The guy on the photo sat near
a fire in ragged local clothing with his feet under him cramming gruel.
"Beats me... Maybe I've seen him somewhere at the construction..."
"You haven't seen him at the construction. You have seen him at your
villa with Kissur's brother, Ashidan." Bemish shuddered. Of course!
""Damn it! Does he work at the construction?"
"He worked here till yesterday."
"And what happened yesterday?"
"Yesterday, one of my people found out that somebody was trying to
crack the security software at five in the morning and at five in the
morning this guy was cleaning his room."
"And..."
"Somebody was able to warn the guy. He took off."
"I will ask Ashinik..."
"Nobody besides Ashinik's people could've warned him. It's a funny
combination - Following the Way sect and an anarcho-syndicalist demon, isn't
it?"
"It's totally unbelievable."
"There is something even more unbelievable - the guy came here from one
of Kissur's manors. And his reference letter was signed by Kissur. You know
- that he was a diligent worker and gathered hay just great...By the way, he
is an old acquaintance of Kissur's."
Bemish paused.
"What exactly was he ferreting out?"
"Oh, his interests were all-inclusive. Mostly, however, he was
interested in certain trading operations of Weian New Age fund. For
instance, he was interested in the situation when several hours before an
announcement about transnational Metal Uranium buying a totally non-liquid
uranium mine came out, you had bought two hundred thirty million worth of
this mine's shares. And you sold them in two days at three billion. Oh,
there is another strikingly interesting accident - Shavash's friend Igon who
was in charge of the country's international loans, claimed that Weia was
considering postponing paying off the interest on the international loan
known as Iron Bonds. Since, say, some bearer's bonds had been stolen at
Lamass bank robbery and they needed to find out how the current bonds'
owners had acquired them. The securities' rating collapsed almost by a
factor of two and in a day Shavash threw Igon out with a scandal, published
a denouncement and paid the interest off right on time so that practically
in a week the rating was back to normal. Remarkably, you bought forty
million worth of these securities right after Igon's announcement and sold
them in a week at, correspondingly, eighty million. You were also reckless
enough to transfer, at the same time, quite a significant amount of money to
Shavash's and Igon's accounts."
"Has the anarchist dug it out or has it been your work?" Bemish
inquired.
"It was the anarchist. He spent a month in your computer and then he
tried hacking into our systems and he was uncovered. He was also likely to
find out a lot of interesting stuff about the spaceport."
Bemish was silent. The guy could surely learn a lot of interesting
stuff about the spaceport. Bemish clenched his teeth sometimes realizing
what was happening at the spaceport. The "fan" approach to the formation of
export-import companies that existed for two months only, till the deadline
for the first tax declaration, was the most innocent trick out of what was
happening.
But there was nothing else to do - so many gifts were required, so many
unofficial expenses were needed on the top of official ones, and Bemish
sadly realized that the larger was the embezzlement scale, the safer the
embezzlement was.
The next day, the security department crew got together in Bemish's
office again.
The size of the damage caused by the anarchist was quite large;
Bemish's calls had most probably been tapped. Certainly, the anarchist had
had access to the Assalah director's personal computer and therefore to the
files dealing with the funds' operations.
"Frankly," Giles admitted after the conversation had been finished,
"The theft itself bothers me less than the guy's contacts with Kissur. He is
such an unpredictable man! He patronizes us and at the same time he
patronizes the guy who would smear a launching chute with plastic explosives
without any guilt whatsoever!"
"Would you like, Giles, to prevent Kissur from hanging out together
with terrorists?"
"Well?"
"He applied to the military academy, didn't he? Accept him."
"It's impossible..."
"Why?"
"Firstly, this man started his acquaintance with our equipment
kidnapping a military airplane that he immediately put to its intended use.
Secondly, Kissur is a savage. He should learn algebra first."
"Come on, you are not going to make a rocket battle cruiser commander
out of him. Eight years ago this man was an excellent war leader. War and
freedom were the same for him because freedom was for him the right to kill.
And when the sovereign asked him to eradicate separatists three years ago,
he and his people appeared to manage rocket launchers pretty well."
"Are you asking this on your own volition," Giles inquired, "or has
Kissur asked you?"
"I am asking this on my own. Kissur will die first before he asks
Earthmen for anything. But I know, Giles, that he is capable of God knows
what if he is not busy with something useful. He is not going to take
bribes, he can't be a sovereign's lapdog, the only thing he can do is to
fight. Earthmen came and destroyed his old war. He applied to the academy
but they didn't let him into the new war. How can a man, who won more
battles that our generals conducted maneuvers, take it?"
"The new war is not what Kissur thinks it is."
"That's exactly why it would be useful for Kissur make a closer
acquaintance with it."
In two days, Shavash finally appeared at the spaceport. It was an
official visit - Shavash accompanied a Joined Economics Assembly committee -
and they were in public during the entire visit. At the second chute,
Shavash leaned to the company director's ear and asked quietly,
"Where is your deputy, Ashinik, by the way?"
"He took a one week vacation," Bemish said.
"Ah, he took a vacation... You know something akin to a Following the
Way meeting started in Inissa, in Gaddar. They are having a celebration of
somebody's "resurrection" and working meetings of the circles' heads.
"Well?" Bemish said.
"These people are very dangerous," Shavash shook his head. "We have to
smile and tell the world community that the people who consider Earthmen to
be demons are no more important than the people on Earth who spend their
time in mental institutions and claim themselves to be Napoleons - but I
warn you, Terence, that even you don't know how dangerous they are."
"What are you whispering about?" a committee member asked.
Bemish turned to his countryman and said that they were whispering
about local Dahan factory that supplied the construction with titanium
supports and started explaining the problems they had with supplies.
The Tenth Chapter
Where Terence Bemish becomes familiar with provincial life of the
Empire while Mr. Shavash offers an original plan for the restructuring of
the state debt.
Giles returned from Earth in three days and he brought a bulky bundle
of papers sealed with vacuum tape - for authorized personnel only. Giles
handed the bundle to Bemish and locked the door, and Bemish mounted his legs
on the table and engrossed himself in the papers.
In an hour, having looked through the documents, Bemish said,
"That's great but have you talked to your bosses about my request?"
"What request do you mean?"
"I mean Kissur and the military academy."
"Yes. They are against it."
"Why?"
Giles paused.
"Terence, tell me, have you told Kissur what we are building here?"
"How does it matter?"
"It matters because five years ago, after Kissur had escaped from
Earth, he found himself in a Gera training camp. It was there that he
learned how to handle rocket launchers and all the other modern killing
machinery that he manages now so well."
"Is that all?"
"No, it's not all. Haven't you forgotten the guy who came to the
construction with Kissur's reference letter and hacked your computer?"
"It was not Kissur's reference letter. It was a reference letter from
one of his bailiffs. These letters cost ten "pinkies" a piece on the local
black market. Would you like me to get a dozen for you by tomorrow?"
"A month ago Kissur flew to Cassandra. He met an old acquaintance of
his there - this guy."
And Giles fished a photo out of his pocket and put it down in front of
Bemish.
"This man, by the way, led at some point anarcho-terrorist group ABC.
He has on his account..."
"I am not interested in his account," Bemish cut off the spy.
"Really? Shavash was quite interested."
"I would recommend to you not to discuss these matters with Shavash -
you and Shavash have different goals."
"What do you mean?"
"You want to figure out whether or not Kissur is connected to
terrorists and Shavash wants to prove that he is connected to them. Of
course, he will prove it."
"Will his conclusion be purely arbitrary?"
"Kissur is a thousand and one adventures. If a house next to him is on
fire, he will run in and save a child. If a house is not on fire, he may
start one. Of course, a terrorist visited Kissur. Kissur is too colorful a
figure not to be visited. So what? I didn't see Shavash right when you were
asking him this question but I could swear that he was dying of laughter. If
he had answered you honestly, he would have said on the spot that a man who
dared to compare the sovereign Irshahchan with this wasted Earthman Marx -
this man was risking taking a bath in a swimming pool right there. But
Shavash didn't say that because Shavash hates Kissur. You dished an idea out
to Shavash - he will find the proofs. He will find terrorists' liaisons to
Kissur and he will train them what they should say. Kissur is an
unpredictable man but Shavash can predict even him. If a man approaches
Kissur and says, "Let's bomb this bank for a glorious future's sake," Kissur
will throw him out of a window. While a man instructed by Shavash will
approach Kissur and say,
"Why don't we bomb this bank and feed these bribers with a dish they
deserved?"
"What a wonderful idea!" Kissur will exclaim. It will enable Shavash to
annihilate Kissur even though it would be proper to jail Shavash and not
Kissur for the bank robbery."
Giles paused.
"I thought the same, Terence," he said. "I started shouting that it was
all crap... To make the long story short, they introduced me to an
investigator. Kissur traffics in drugs."
"What?!!"
"Kissur sells drugs. They grow a lot of wolf's wisk on his lands in
Upper Warnaraine. It happens with a full blessing of the landowner. I am
very sorry Terence but we can't accept to the military academy one of Weian
drug mafia bosses."
And the spy left the office, having carefully closed the door behind
him.
In about five minutes, Ashinik walked into the office with a bunch of
printouts.
"What's wrong with you, master? Are you crying?"
Bemish was not responding.
"Are you ok? Should I call a doctor?"
In three days, Kissur with Khanadar the Dried Date, Aldon the Lynx Cub
and a couple of dogs dropped by Bemish and all five of them left for a horse
ride.
The field they were riding over was already covered with concrete
blocks. Tree stumps stuck out far away on a knoll like teeth leftovers in an
old man's mouth and a cheerful red tractor was pulling them out of earth
amidst din and screech.
The new road ended unnoticed - the riders raced down an old Empire
track with yellowish stone ruts, wide palm trees and narrow pyramids of
poplars planted along the road accordingly to the ancient laws... Green
knolls and rice paddies covered with water flashed far away. Bemish spun his
head excitedly - the beauty around seemed to be like a photo.
A squirrel sat on a poplar branch and ate a nut. Amusing himself,
Khanadar the Dried Date shot at the nut and knocked it out of the squirrel's
paws; it whisked up the tree in horror.
"Hunting used to be good here," Khanadar told Bemish. "And now the only
big game here is your bulldozers."
"Hey," Kissur said, "Why don't we go to Black Nest? Hunting is great
there."
"When?"
"Why don't we go there right now?"
"Riding?"
"That's a great idea," Kissur said. "Let's ride!"
Khanadar laughed uproariously.
And they raced. Bemish felt as good as he had never felt in his life.
He wanted to cancel all the meetings in the world, he didn't give a damn
about the spaceport and the investment funds - he just wanted to ride down
this road where his car would get stuck and his bulldozer would just tear
up.
By the evening, Kissur pointed at an altar house overgrown with
burdocks and inquired,
"Will we sleep over here or in the field?"
Bemish came to his senses.
"Kissur," he said, "I have a business meeting tomorrow at eight in the
morning. Will we be able to return before sunrise?"
Khanadar almost fell off the saddle laughing.
"Terence," he said, "Black Nest is Kissur's clan castle in Mountain
Warnaraine. Old Elda lives there and Ashidan arrived there a week ago."
"Hold on," Bemish said. "It's fifteen hundred kilometers!"
"It's sixteen hundred thirty, if I haven't forgotten your damned
units," Khanadar chortled. Bemish turned his horse back.
"I am sorry gentlemen," he spoke, "but I don't have time for a ten day
ride next to good highways."
"Hey," Kissur said, "you can't go back on your word! You promised me a
hunt in Black Nest!"
"I didn't promise to ride a horse there," Bemish stormed.
"One can't," Khanadar said, "reach a real castle by a car. One has to
ride to the real castle for five days and five nights. And the Earthman's
butt is already sore."
The comment was unfair. It was especially unfair since Bemish had been
riding a horse around the construction in the morning for the last two
months, having admitted the advantage a horse had over a heavy-assed jeep
and a fleeting flyer. So, Bemish became quite a decent horse rider though he
was not in the same league with the barbarians whose fathers had put them on
horses before their mothers started teaching them to walk.