shit on you."
"They will praise Kissur, won't they?!" the colonel was enraged. "Will
they praise a scoundrel who took eight thousand people hostage?!"
Shavash rushed towards Bemish right from the villa staircase. He hadn't
come to meet him - he was scared! The small official was deathly pale and a
sleeve of his velvet coat was dirty - it looked out of place on usually tidy
Shavash.
"What is he doing?!" Shavash cried out. "Has he demanded anything of
me, Terence?"
"He demanded exactly the same," Bemish replied, "as he did when you
suggested swapping wives."
Shavash grabbed his head.
"Terence Bemish claims," The colonel said, "that the cargo belonging to
Dassa Company was placed into 17B storage area accordingly to your orders.
Is it true?"
Shavash raised his crazy eyes.
"How does it matter?!" he shouted exasperated.
"Were those your orders or not?"
"Oh my God, I probably ordered it," the official screamed in fury, "Big
deal! They gave me two hundred thousand for a phone call and I called. It
was not my cargo!"
"It's clearly not yours!" the colonel spoke with unconcealed contempt
looking at the small official.
"Are you any better?!" Shavash screamed. "They go around shoplifting
your missiles in your base like chocolate bars in a supermarket, why do you
point your finger at me?"
Ten minutes later, in the main villa's hall - it was a charming hall
decorated with blue and pale yellow silk - the Assalah emergency committee
opened a session. The following people took place in the meeting: six high
Weian officials, Terence Bemish as the director of the company where this
whole disgrace was taking place, the Earth envoy, three military advisors,
also from Earth, and two colleagues of deceased Giles from the Intelligence
Service. Mr. Shavash headed the committee which was quite unusual. The small
official generally preferred to stay in the shadow during storms but this
time he didn't have enough patience for it. He presided over the meeting
looking like a corpse.
"Generally speaking, it's quite a surprising alliance," envoy Severin
said. "There is practically nothing in common between Kissur and the
zealots. Kissur didn't take part in the elections, the zealots won them.
Kissur is an ex-first minister of Weia; his political views are those of a
strong armed state supporter if not of an outright fascist. He hates
everything that weakens state's power. It's natural for him to hate sects
and heresies. Ignoring the liberal media's views, the zealots, even the ones
that studied at Hevishem - here the Envoy glanced at Bemish reproachfully -
consider Earthmen to be demons. Kissur doesn't think so. The demands of the
nationalization of the foreign companies clearly come from the zealots.
However extravagant Kissur's views are, the presence of Mr. Bemish here
demonstrates that Kissur is capable of a very good attitude towards a
foreign swindler... I think that it would be enough just to stall it for a
while and this coalition will fall apart on its own - they just don't have
anything in common..."
"Can't you see what they have in common?!" Shavash cried out in
desperation. "They want my head separated from my body!"
Everybody was somewhat shocked by this cowardice. The colonel, having
leaned towards Bemish, whispered at his ear, "If this is the case, I will
soon join the coalition."
"Are you trying to say, Mr. Shavash," the envoy inquired in an icy
voice, "that it was only the desire to hang you that made them organize the
massacre at the spaceport, take eight thousand people hostage, discredit our
military forces and demand the changeover of the Empire's government?"
"Gentlemen, let's stop bickering," Bemish said, "You should figure out
your response to Kissur's demands. And I would like to note that since these
demands concern the Weian government and its internal politics, it's quite
astonishing that half of our committee are Earthmen."
"Have you forgotten that Earthmen have been taken hostages at the
spaceport?" the colonel asked.
"The Earthmen are a minority of the hostages," Bemish replied. "As the
Assalah director, I should inform you that 80% of the passengers and 93% of
the personnel are Weian. Go ahead and calculate how many Earthmen are
currently at the spaceport."
"I can tell you, Terence, why the Earthmen are sitting here," Shavash
intervened. "Our government decided to request the Federation of Nineteen's
military assistance to quench the rebellion and free the hostages."
"So, you are not going to accept their demands, are you?" Bemish
inquired.
"It's simply impossible," the foreign affairs minister Khasha claimed.
"Aren't you of the same opinion, Mr. Bemish?"
"I would succumb to their demands," Bemish said.
Everybody went still for a moment.
"Oh," the minister spoke smirking. "Haven't you forgotten that one of
their demands is gratis nationalization of foreign companies? Do you have
another spaceport with one and a half billion isheviks annual profit stashed
somewhere, director?"
Bemish paused.
"I would prefer to get the spaceport back in two years," Bemish
replied, "after Kissur's policy crashes completely, rather than be a
murderer of eight thousand people."
"You have it easy, Earthman," the minister said. "You will lose the
spaceport while others will lose their heads."
"Don't you understand, Terence," Shavash cried, "he's a psycho, a
maniac! This man will grind you flat. What do you think will happen to the
country when they start sorting good businessmen from bad ones?! We should
annihilate him! We should call the Federation troops in and squash him like
a bug!"
"As the chairman of the Assalah Company's board of directors," Bemish
said, "I protest fully against allowing the Federation troops on its
territory. And I would like to remind the people present here that if they
start using Federation troops to solve their internal problems..."
"Don't teach us, Earthman," an enraged Shainna screamed - he was the
deputy chairman of Weia Central Bank and a buddy of Shavash's.
"I will teach you!" Bemish screamed just as loudly, "You don't give a
damn about Kissur's industry nationalization demands! You have been living
for two thousand years with nationalized industry! What you care about is
that Kissur demands to hang you personally, Shainna, and you, Shavash for
corruption! Here, a lot of people would agree with Kissur..."
Shavash stood.
"As the official inspector having full authority to deal with the
Assalah emergency situation, I request the assistance of the Federation of
Nineteen troops."
Bemish rose.
"Gentlemen, I refuse to take part in this abomination."
And he left.
The sunrise was starting somewhere far away. The fragrance of the
jasmine bushes was sharp and sleepy bulls mooed in the village having
returned from the late plowing.
Wrapping himself in an overcoat and shuddering from cold, Bemish walked
to an old gazebo. A servant, stepping softly, brought a basket with liquors
to the gazebo and asked what they should serve the guests for the dinner and
what they should do to the policemen. The latter started screaming already
and the servants had to give them twenty sacks from storage...
Bemish barked at him such that the slave ran away in fear. The basket,
however, came to be quite useful. Bemish grabbed a wooden bottle plaited
with bark, tore the plug out, threw his head back and started gulping palm
vodka.
He stopped only after having drunk half of it.
Far away, through a woven gazebo wall he could see the spaceport.
Unlike usual, t didn't gleam at night. The main buildings shined with a dull
light and where only yesterday the landing lights used to sparkle, darkness
and fog sprawled above the chutes. The monorail gleamed as a lonely horn
sticking out of the dark and posts of armed people swarmed every hundred
meters on the highway.
Somewhere far away, at the first gates blocking the access to the
villa, the whole crowd of journalists was throwing a fit. These idiots,
Weian officials, insisted on not letting them in... Bemish, however, didn't
want to see the journalists. He could imagine what questions they would ask
him. And he couldn't even tell them one tenth of what he had said at the
emergency committee meeting.
The gazebo door squeaked. Bemish turned his head and saw the envoy. The
latter's crazy eyes wandered around for a while and then he grabbed the
vodka bottle.
"I've drunk out of it already," Bemish warned him.
The envoy just waved his hand.
"You were correct when you left," Severin said. He finished the vodka
off and dropped heavily on a bench. "Everybody taking part in this accident
will be in shit up to their ears."
"Have they decided to call the troops in?"
"The commandoes will be here in two hours. It's the Eleventh Federal
Paratrooper Division. They are damned good. At the moment Kissur lets the
hostages go, they'll roll over him."
"In two hours?! How did they get here so fast?"
"They were being moved to their new positions."
"So, that they could be closer to Gera, right?"
The envoy smirked and nodded.
"Do you understand that this is Shavash's decision? The only thing that
he is afraid of is that Kissur will hang him on the tallest catalpa? He went
nuts from fear."
"That's right," the envoy said. "I have never seen it before in my life
- Mr. Shavash made a public statement supporting a certain decision and he
took all the responsibility. Can you imagine that - he signed the request
for the Federal troops himself! All the ministers there kindly passed this
honor to him..."
Bemish muttered something.
"Do you know why the officials agreed to invite the troops? They
understand that this will make Shavash a political nonentity... You,
however, were very brave. Don't you regret losing your company?"
Bemish paused. Then he added, smiling.
"My company is bankrupt. My stocks are worth less than rutabaga in a
farmer's market. I don't care whether my creditors get one cent or ten cents
for a dinar."
By the time sunrise came to Assalah spaceport and another working day
ended in Melbourne, the Federation capital, the news of the Assalah accident
had spread across the whole Galaxy. Assalah was photographed from above,
from below and from the side. This place used to be known only to a small
group of financiers as a great example of investment into a development
market. Now it occupied the front pages of newspapers. A number of channels
started delivering hourly news from Assalah. Everybody was waiting for the
broadcast that was assigned to start (after minor technical arguments with
Kissur) at fifteen thirty. Even if Kissur hadn't given his horrible
ultimatum - five shot hostages for every minute of delay - few people
would've missed such a possibility to peep at history.
The division arrived in Weian orbit by seven. They landed in Salgar
spaceport by eight and, in four hours, military helicopters unloaded most of
the commandoes next to Bemish's villa. Tanks, gleaming dully and looking
like huge beetles, spread in a large semicircle; indecipherable peeps of
coded signals filled ether; soldiers had already started setting hardy
camouflaged tents; bread and canned meat were being passed to the companies
off the helicopters.
At the same time, the first media conference finally took place. Weian
"yellow jackets" ran a body search on a dozen of journalists, crammed them
in a bus and drove them to the villa. There, Shavash, Bemish and Envoy
Severin sat decorously in a row, expecting them.
Shavash familiarized the media with Kissur's ultimatum and he kept
talking for a while. Accordingly to his words, the Weian government would
not allow any nationalization of private industry to take place. He also
said that as the Assalah emergency committee head, he had requested the
Federation's military assistance and that 11th space commando
division was currently disembarking next to Assalah.
"Are they going to attack the spaceport?" a journalist asked.
"Absolutely not," Shavash lied unabashedly. "We can't endanger the
hostages. We are going to blockade the spaceport so that we can negotiate
from a better position."
At fifteen thirty, Bemish and the other members of the emergency
committee gathered to watch the broadcast made by the hostage journalists.
One had to admit that the journalists did their best. They made it
clear that they were reporting at gun point. They made it clear that the men
who had them at gun point would sacrifice the other people's lives
unhesitatingly. They also made it clear that the terrorists would also
sacrifice their own lives unhesitatingly.
Their denunciations were horrifying. The cameras coldly stared inside
the reinforced chutes while, behind the screen, Kissur monotonously
commented that these particular types of boarding joints were built only for
military rockets. The dull sides of Cassiopeia missiles gleamed slightly.
The old accusations spread by zealots about the spaceport's dual purpose
were confirmed. The most fantastic rumors spread by Gera about the
Federation clandestinely breaking the non-proliferation treaties pompously
signed in the past were also confirmed.
Luxury cars had been imported labeled as assistance to the victims of
natural disasters and ancient Lamass vases had been exported as scrap brass.
Laws and regulations had been flouted at an incredible scale. The takeover
of the spaceport looked like a desperate attempt - however cruel and
despicable it was - to demonstrate the scale of current administration's
thievery, corruption and treachery. Several Earth auditors and financiers
unwillingly confirmed Ashinik's calculations of the chicanery that had taken
place at the spaceport.
Once the broadcast had come to an end, the party of people's freedom
started a media conference. It was relayed to Weia in real time and to the
Galaxy with a five minute delay.
Kissur and his cronies sat in the company's director office. Kissur
said that right after the conference, they would start releasing the
hostages.
"Aren't you afraid," a journalist asked, "that they will obliterate you
immediately after the hostages are released?"
Here Kissur answered that the party of people's freedom had acted out
of despair and had tried to reveal the ultimate corruption of the current
government. They also wanted to demonstrate that the military treaties,
catastrophic for Weia, did in fact exist in spite of blatant denials coming
from the government. Killing several thousand unarmed peasants would only
confirm the treaty's presence and it would be difficult to imagine the
government ready to compromise itself so much.
Ashinik spoke afterwards.
He said that certain corrupted Weian officials attempted to force the
Emperor to follow their policies. When the Emperor had refused to oblige
them, they forced him to declare the elections. They hoped to gain the power
that the Emperor refused them by lying to the people. When the bureaucrats'
party lost the elections, they refused to acknowledge their results.
Ashinik stressed that he was one of leaders of the party that had won
the elections and his demands were the demands of the people. He declared
that his party demanded the complete changeover of the government and that
the most corrupted officials should be taken to trial. He declared that
people wanted to see Kissur as the first minister and he listed the
remaining future cabinet. (Ashinik would become the finance minister.)
Ashinik said that the Weian government would have to stop payments on its
loans.
"The largest part of the country's debt consists of private bank loans
that the finance ministry had been bribed to take at a very high interest,"
Ashinik declared. "It's very difficult for me to say this but it's the only
way out for a country where the total taxation amount is smaller that the
debt payments. In any case, it's absolutely impossible that the most
profitable companies would use paying this debt off as an excuse to avoid
paying taxes and would turn into practically independent states inside our
country. At first Shavash received millions leading the country into a debt
trap and now he wants to receive billions getting the country out of this
trap."
Ashinik also claimed that in exceptional cases, related to the state
security or following ultimate abuses of the state's interests, foreign
companies should be nationalized. Assalah spaceport was such a case.
"The Assalah spaceport's director claims," a journalist said, "that you
would like to nationalize all Weian industry, throw the foreigners out and
ban private property. Is it true?"
"That's a monstrous lie," Ashinik stated. "I don't know where Bemish
got this idea."
The press conference with Kissur in Assalah spaceport and the press
conference with emergency committee at Bemish's villa, ten kilometers away,
took place practically simultaneously. Shavash, Bemish and Earth envoy
answered the journalists' questions.
They asked Bemish what he could say about the new government's demands
and Bemish stated, "The banishment of foreign businessmen would only be the
first step. Having obtained power, these people will start nationalizing
industry."
"How do you know this?" a journalist asked.
"Their leader, Ashinik, officially stated that at our last meeting."
"We have also received this information," the journalist said. "Ten
minutes ago, Ashinik, Yadan and Kissur claimed that they had never said such
a stupid thing. How would you explain, Mr. Bemish, the fact that during the
election campaign the party of people's freedom had been repeatedly and
falsely claimed to hold monstrous views and programs?"
Bemish gaped at such affront of the terrorists. "Oh-oh, I got it," a
thought glanced in his head.
"This party has never taken hostages either!" Severin exploded, "hasn't
it? They are practically saints!"
"Is it true that a secret military agreement signed during Assalah
construction included building a military base at the spaceport and delivery
and storage of Cassiopeia missiles?"
"That's a monstrous lie," the envoy said.
"How will you then explain the presence of the missiles at the
spaceport?"
"We are currently investigating how terrorists were able to steal these
missiles from one of our space military bases and transport them to
Assalah."
"Are you trying to say that they stole twelve missiles from our bases
in such a way that nobody noticed anything and that the best use of them the
thief was able to figure out was to hide them at a storage area that could
be unlocked only by two people in the Galaxy?"
"We are investigating it."
"Could you, please, tell us, if the fact that Earth troops have been
summoned here confirms that there was a secret military agreement? Does it
also confirm, indirectly, that the presence of missiles was a part of the
agreement?"
"No."
Kissur held his word. Immediately after the end of the press
conference, the journalists started taping buses and monorail trains leaving
the spaceport. The hostages cried, but were incredibly obedient. The
fighters screamed that they would shoot anybody who would cut the line
trying to get into a bus and nobody tried cutting the line.
Five LSV bank employees and Ronald Trevis - bearing some cuts and
biting his lips - left with one of the buses. Journalists ambushed him
leaving the bus but he blocked his face with his hands, bolted to a
helicopter and flew to Arvadan. Two hours later he left Arvadan for Earth
and became completely inaccessible. Journalists yearned to question the king
of the hidden market about his company's part in financing the most
scandalous construction of the century. The journalists didn't have their
yearning satisfied and they had to limit themselves with their own
commentaries. These commentaries were not particularly benevolent.
By 18:00 the last train with passenger hostages left the platform.
About eighty employees stayed in the spaceport - they were necessary for the
crucial spaceport's systems to function. Five hundred armed fighters and
several thousand Weian zealot peasants also stayed.
Also by 18:00, next to the spaceport the 11th division had
almost finished d disembarking. Heavy helicopters were landing right on the
fields behind the company director's villa, amphibian tanks were crawling
out of their bellies and sturdy guys in bulletproof uniforms were jumping
out.
Bemish walked down where the same two counter-intelligence guys were
meeting the division commander - colonel Rogov, short and sturdy like a ball
bearing.
"I think," The colonel said, "that Mr. Bemish should also take part in
the planning of the operation. As I understand, you have constructed this
spaceport and you should know how to infiltrate the buildings with minimal
losses."
"Yes," Bemish nodded, "I've already thought about it. For instance,
there is a place where the monorail station's ventilation chutes are right
next to a cave system. It wouldn't be difficult to enter the caves about
three kilometers away from here. We had to reinforce them during
construction."
"That's excellent," the colonel rejoiced.
"Unfortunately," Bemish continued, "a man named Ashinik was my closest
assistant. He is now heading the terrorists and he remembers this story with
the caves quite well."
One of counter-intelligence officers swore loudly.
"What do you think about toxic gases?" the colonel asked.
"I have to disappoint you. A possibility of chemical attack or, more
precisely, an explosion or damage of rocket elements emitting toxins has
been taken into account during the construction. A monitoring system would
automatically turn an alarm on, block buildings off and start
detoxification."
The colonel bit his lips for a while.
"I am not a military man," Bemish said, "but I think that if you want
to kick the terrorists out of the spaceport, the only way to do it is to
drive tanks in and shoot at everything that shoots or surrenders.
"It looks like you are correct," the colonel said.
"What losses will you sustain?" the envoy asked the colonel.
"Well, I don't think that this party of people's freedom will fight all
that well. It's just civilians..."
Bemish got suddenly irritated at the military man.
"The zealots can't fight. But if I were you, I wouldn't be in a hurry
to classify Aloms as civilians..."
"Aloms?!"
Bemish looked at him, surprised.
"I mean Kissur's Aloms. It's a mountain people who... Listen, haven't
you been briefed about the Assalah takeover?"
"No," the commander said, "I don't know the details. The assistance
request said that it was a rebellion of Weian zealots who had won the
elections."
"Generally, it's correct," the envoy shrugged his shoulders. "The
majority of people in the spaceport are zealots."
"So, is the spaceport occupied by Aloms and not by the indigenous
people of the Empire?" the colonel specified with unnatural lack of
expression.
"What difference does it make for you?" the exasperated envoy shouted.
Bemish shuddered.
"Sorry, colonel, but how do you know about the difference between
Weians and Aloms?"
"Yes," the colonel said, "what's the difference? We follow orders."
It was already dark, when Bemish, having finished briefing colonel
Rogov on the spaceport's specific details, walked into the garden.
Bemish had never run into the Federation Army before even though he had
recently become acquainted to the Federation Counter Intelligence. He liked
colonel Rogov - Bemish had considered military people to be much more
stupid. One thing astounded him. There were dozens of populated planets in
the Galaxy. Weia was located in the backyard of the civilized world. How
could a Federal Army colonel know about the enmity between Weians and Aloms
who had conquered the former a number of times? When did they start teaching
galactic ethnography in military academies? Even he, Bemish, had needed
quite a bit of time to realize how deep was the gap between the peoples that
outsider observers considered to belong to the same race - the "Empire
people" and the "mountainous barbarians."
Bemish stood and looked at the night bustling with people. Somewhere an
engine yelped piteously like a cat that somebody kept stepping on the tail.
The crackling of cicadas mixed with rustling of faraway power stations.
That's it. Tomorrow this division would throw all its force at the
construction - he had dedicated the last two years of his life to this
construction and he had put his soul into it. They would hack the roadways
with their tanks, turn buildings and terminals into dust. Crazy zealots
would face the tanks with prayers and spells; they would be sure that all
this machinery was simply demonic phantoms and that their leaders would rise
into the air and turn the demonic fighting machines into paper and their
grenade launchers into beans...
Tomorrow Kissur would die. Because even if a termite shell's direct hit
didn't flatten him into the floor and a fan laser burst didn't find him and
a shock wave didn't roll over him, he would still kill himself. It would
happen because Kissur always lived as if he had died a long time ago. Never
would Kissur let himself be taken alive by commandos called in by Shavash.
And then somebody just to Bemish's left said in Alom,
"Do you have a fag?"
Bemish turned there in astonishment.
A Federation soldier sitting next to a fire silently flicked a pack of
cigarettes to his comrade.
Bemish rushed to the soldier. The latter was clicking his lighter but
having seen a civilian he stood up to attention hurriedly.
"What have you just said?" Bemish asked.
"I asked for a smoke, sir," the soldier was speaking English now. He
spoke it with a strange but quite familiar accent.
A horrible hunch entered Bemish's mind.
"Are you Alom?" he asked sharply in Alom. The soldier was silent.
"Are you Alom?"
Federation soldiers are forbidden to speak foreign languages, sir," the
private replied.
"To the hell with this! What's your name?"
"Khaina, sir."
Khaina, "wolf," was one of the most widely used names among the
fighting clans of the mountainous country.
"Whose vassal was your father?"
"He was a vassal of Sarvak clan."
Sarvak clan! Sarvaks were vassals of the White Falcon clan that Kissur
belonged to.
"How many Aloms are in the division?" Bemish asked trying to suppress
shudder in his voice.
"I can't know, sir. We are Federation soldiers and we swore an oath to
serve the Federation. Aloms do not break their oaths."
Bemish paused. Ten soldiers sitting around the fire looked at him with
curiosity. Almost everybody had blond or reddish hair, wide eyes and
eyebrows tips that were almost flying...
"What's your contract salary?" Bemish asked suddenly.
"Three hundred credits a year, sir," Khaina said.
Three hundred credits a year! The minimal yearly unemployment benefits
for a Federation citizen was eleven hundred twelve credits!
Bemish turned and walked away searching for the colonel. Now he
understood why the latter knew the difference between Aloms and Weians.
Bemish found Rogov in the living room. The colonel and several of his
officers watched the day's broadcast closely. The colonel was interested not
in the broadcast's content but rather in the layout of hangars, storages and
chutes. The officers were watching the broadcast for the third time and the
sound was turned off. It was difficult to guess, looking at their faces,
what they thought about the broadcast after having seen it the first time.
"Colonel! How many Aloms are in the division?"
The colonel and the officers turned around like one. It looked like
there were no Aloms among them except for this one, on the side... No, he
was not an Alom, he was a half-breed something like a mix of a Dane and a
Vietnamese...
"Nobody has counted them," the colonel said calmly, as if he had been
waiting for this question for a while, "but I think that it's about eighty
to eighty five percent."
"Eighty?!! Why?"
The colonel grinned.
"Mr. Bemish, have you ever served in the army?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because..." Bemish broke off. On the second day of their acquaintance,
Kissur had asked him why he had never served in the army and Bemish
remembered what he had said.
The colonel smiled as if he guessed what Bemish had answered then and
said.
"The majority of fully fledged Federation citizens share your attitude
towards the army, director. The army receives twenty times less budget
financing than medicine.
"And you enlist Aloms in the army!"
"We enlist anybody who agrees to serve in the army."
Here Bemish turned around and noticed that two more people entered the
living room attracted by the argument - the Earth envoy, Mr. Severin and the
emergency committee head, Mr. Shavash.
"But three hundred credits is four times less than unemployment
benefits!"
"The unemployment benefits are allotted to Federation citizens, not to
Aloms. You know very well that they are doomed to much greater poverty in
their mountains. For centuries they have been indoctrinated that war is the
only occupation worthy of a man, that man should kill, that death is the way
to glory. They are happy to join Federation forces. The ones who pass our
admission committees take it as a pass to heaven. They know that they will
obtain citizenship in ten years of service. By the way, having received it,
they don't leave the service. They are as happy to hold weapons in their
hands as others are to hold women or money... Where else will you find such
warriors? If a Federation citizen is born in a middle class family, he
graduates from a college and he makes money. If he is born in a garbage can,
he receives unemployment benefits and gobbles up hallucinogens..."
"But three hundred credits!"
"How much can we pay them? The military budget is one half percent of
the GDP!"
The envoy listened to their conversation in astonishment. Clearly, he
also hadn't known who exactly guarded the borders of his great motherland.
Probably, it was a delicate and not particularly popular subject. The
military command was not in a hurry to announce that foreign barbarians made
up eighty percent of the army, and that strong, healthy guys with excellent
muscles and decent brains got paid three times less than hereditary
unemployed saturated with drugs.
"So, your soldiers are happy, aren't they?" Bemish asked with certain
irony.
"They are very happy, businessman! They grew up without commercials,
human rights, credit cards and whores. They were taught that battle is the
road to God! When their contracts run out and they become Federation
citizens, they enlist again. They stay in the service!"
"Where else can they go to?" Bemish grinned, "Into an investment
company? You don't teach them anything but to how to kill. They are aliens
in the world of the Federation."
"They love the army! And they make twenty times more money here than
they would make in their mountains!"
"I think that they love the army in their first year, colonel. They
love the army when they come there out of a mountain hut where their fathers
had two sheep and where ten people slept in one room on a mud floor. In the
barracks they have their own bunk beds and they get good food and they see
3D TV first time in their lives. But half a year or a year passes and they
watch TV and learn our language. They start understanding that the country
that enlisted them into their army pays their soldiers four times less than
it pays its unemployed. They start understanding that three hundred credits
would be enough to buy a farm in the mountains but it would not be enough to
afford a bottle of beer every evening in a bar half a kilometer away from
the camp... And they start comparing their own bunk beds not with their clay
huts but with the cottages that they pass as they ride to training. And they
start thinking that it's not fair that brave and strong people sit in
barracks for three hundred credits a year while drooling weaklings sit on
boards of directors. Is it true?"
The colonel was silent.
"Do you know how the previous Weian dynasty fell?"
"Yes. Aloms conquered the Empire."
"Your soldiers misinformed you, colonel. The people of the Empire were
rich and lazy. They didn't like fighting and the government enlisted mostly
war-loving barbarians into the army. Aloms didn't conquer the Empire. They
simply served in its army and they came to own the Empire when no other
troops were left."
"How can you say so, Bemish?" the envoy was startled. "It's absolutely
impossible. We are talking about a totally different time; they are just
commandos, for God's sake!"
A moan - or maybe a squeal - sounded next to Bemish.. The Earthman
turned around. Shavash - the emergency committee's chairman, the official
who called Federation troops in to Assalah to destroy his enemies - covered
his face with his hands and was slowly sliding down the door frame to the
floor. Shredding cloth crackled - Shavash's jacket caught on a brass
decoration on the door frame, the jacket ripped apart and the official
fainted and fell all the way to the floor.
Bemish stepped across his partner in export-import cooperative, Assako,
and walked outside. Stars sparkled in the garden and the engine of an
armored troop carrier still roared just as rhythmically as it had roared an
hour ago - something was wrong with it. The army still bustled in the dark.
It was not evident anymore, however, what side the army was on. Half of
these people were White Falcons' vassals. The vassal oath was not inferior
in any way to a military one! And nobody could claim that White Falcons
would send them to fight for three hundred credits while they were sitting
idle and getting rich. White Falcons didn't consider war to be an occupation
suitable only for people who couldn't make money on the Exchange. Whatever
else happened, when an Alom army entered a battle, White Falcons would ride
in front.
Somebody moved behind Bemish. The latter glanced aside and saw the
colonel. Simultaneously, they started slowly walking down a path.
"On what side do you think, your soldiers will fight?" Bemish asked.
"I was going to ask you the same question," the colonel answered.
They walked silently for a while.
"I've heard a lot about Kissur," the colonel said.
"Have you heard about him from the soldiers?"
"Yes. I mean, from their songs. They don't always go nuts about our
bands. They often sing their own songs."
"Do they sing about Kissur?"
"They sing about Kissur, about his father, grandfather, great
grandfather, and so on - all the way to the original clan founder who, if I
am not mistaken, married a forest mermaid."
"You are mistaken. He didn't marry her, he raped her. And that caused
some friction between him and a variety of forest and other outdoor
fairies."
"Oh, yes, that's right. They sang something along these lines. By the
way, these are the songs by their other idol, Khanadar."
"This villa is a gift of Kissur's," Bemish said.
Here the garden path finished and they found themselves next to a pond.
A small altar to Buzhva stood on the lawn in front of the pond and behind it
rhododendrons were blooming. Bemish noticed some food out of a trooper's
ration lying in the cup on the altar. If Aloms ate next to a god, they
always shared their food.
Seven or eight soldiers sat on the ground under the blooming
rhododendrons passing along a white plastic flask with local wine. Bemish
silently sat next to the soldiers and the colonel sat next to him.
"Is it true that they don't allow you to speak Alom?" Bemish asked a
soldier suddenly.
He leaped up startled.
"No... Why not..." He muttered in his native tongue.
The colonel lay on the ground and closed his eyes.
The soldier looked embarrassed; he stood up quickly and hurriedly
disappeared behind the bushes.
"This is the first man who talked to me in Alom," Bemish said.
"He didn't know the Earthmen's language," the colonel spoke quietly.
It took a bit for the colonel's words to soak into Bemish's mind.
"He didn't know the Earthmen's language... Are you trying to say that
it was not your soldier but rather a scout of Kissur's?"
"Be silent, Mr. Bemish. I am not going to make speeches for you
tonight."
The soldiers around the fire sat in silence as if they didn't hear the
conversation. The soldier that the spy had sat next to, handed the flask to
Bemish.
"Drink with us," he said in English.
Bemish didn't fall asleep till four am, he watched the camp's
inhabitants escaping it like rats running away from a sinking ship. He saw a
helicopter with the Federation envoy lifting - the latter suddenly decided
to visit the capital. A couple of officials left afterwards. Then the
counter-intelligence officers left. Strangely, Shavash was the last one to
sneak away to the capital. Three officials, whose names decorated the list
of the functionaries to be hanged, left with him. Now, only Federal troops
were left.
What's the deal, if you think about it? Why should it matter where a
soldier was born? In the end, all of them swore the oath of allegiance to
the Federation while only slightly more than one third of them were Kissur's
vassals.
The sentries stood guard perfectly but Bemish heard more and more of
Alom spoken around the tents. They switched back to English at his
appearance, however.
Bemish returned to the bedroom about four. Not taking his clothes off,
he crashed down on the bed and almost immediately fell asleep.
It was light, by the time Bemish woke up, wind out of the window blew a
gauze curtain inside and the sun beat and hopped on a marble table's
surface.
Bemish turned around still feeling groggy - something was lacking in
his attire. What was it, jacket or, excuse me, underwear? Bemish turned
around again, feeling the empty gun holder flatten under him. Everything was
there except for the gun.
Bemish jumped off the bed and ran to the entrance door. The door opened
wide and Bemish was relieved to see a commando wearing a Federation uniform
behind it. The commando, placed his feet wider apart, shifted his hands on
his assault rifle to a more comfortable position and declared,
"Sorry, Mr. Bemish. You are not allowed to leave."
"Who says so?"
"I do," a voice came from behind.
Bemish turned around.
Kissur stood next to the door leading into the inner halls. Two or
three paratroopers lingered behind him.
Bemish silently, without thinking jumped at Kissur. This time he was
even less lucky. Kissur locked his leg and Bemish tried twisting in the air.
At this moment, the commando standing behind him connected his rifle's butt
to Bemish's head. The latter barely heard Kissur screaming at the soldier,
then, the walls and floor around him turned into thousands of fiery
butterflies and flew at him. Bemish fainted.
He regained his senses much later - he sat in a military helicopter
that had, probably, just taken off the villa's roof. Bemish's hands were
handcuffed to a stand behind the pilot's chair and commandos guarded him on
both sides. Bemish thought that he was unlikely to escape but here the
helicopter jerked in the air. Bemish dropped his head on an Alom's shoulder
and fainted again.
Next time, he recovered in the spaceport - in his own office, well
known to him. His wrists were still handcuffed and somebody thoughtfully
deposited him on a black leather sofa located behind his own working table.
Having turned his head slightly, he could barely make out the tall back of
his own armchair - the armchair that Ashinik had boorishly sat in two days
ago. However, nobody was present in the armchair now. Kissur adroitly
operated Bemish's own computer sitting slightly to the side, where a
department's head would usually be.
"Well," Kissur said, "Who was right, you or me? I didn't loose a fight
with the special forces' paratroopers, did I?"
"You knew," Bemish articulated. His tongue resisted him and lolled in
his mouth like a swollen sausage.
"You knew how many Aloms served in Federal troops."
"Naturally I did."
"You are an idiot, Kissur. You took over one division and you think
that you won the fight with Federation."
"Oh, are you going to send me more troops? Thank you, it's very kind of
Earthmen."
"Cretin! How many of you, Aloms, are in the army - twenty or thirty
thousand? Do you think that ten thousand - even if they are very well
trained cutthroats - can win a fight with the Federation of twenty billion?
With all our equipment? They will just press a button and eliminate you."
"How?" Kissur asked him, "Are you going to drop a nuclear bomb on us?
Or is it going to be a meson one?"
Bemish bit his lip. It was true. To use standard shock troops against
Kissur would be either dangerous - if there were Aloms among them- or simply
useless. The troops would meet with at least equally trained Federation
paratroopers. To use nuclear weapons against a tiny bit of barbarians on a
backwards planet would demonstrate Federation's incredible military
weakness. It went without saying, that such actions would violate all
official and unofficial human rights regulations.
"You are free," Kissur said. "You can go to the capital. Tell them,
that our conditions changed. We demand Federation representatives to come to
Assalah - we would like to discuss the future relationship between Weia and
the Federation. The Federation president or the first minister should come
with the delegation."
Bemish suddenly imagined old Yadan conducting talks with the demons'
president and this idea was so comical that he couldn't smother laughter.
"I would like to ask you one thing, Kissur," Bemish spoke unexpectedly.
"Everything that you ask for is yours," the Alom replied.
"Don't kill Shavash... He... In the end, you got your commandos thanks
to him!"
A strange, almost laughing expression came over Kissur's face.
"He has already killed the little scoundrel..." Bemish thought. "He
killed or disabled him with his own hands..."
At this moment, however, something moved on his side. Shavash entered
the office and sat to the right of Kissur, in the director's armchair.
"I took it upon myself to overhear your conversation at the door," the
official spoke, smiling. "Your request touched me, Terence. But as you see,
Kissur was not going to kill me, to begin with."
"You? What are you doing in this office?"
Shavash, laughing, placed his hand on Kissur's shoulder.
"Why shouldn't I be in this office? You see, it's my armchair...
Haven't you forgotten that I was the Assalah Company director? Do you think
that could I request this state appointment back due to the company's
bankruptcy?"
"Do you think, Terence," Kissur inquired, "that Shavash didn't know how
many Aloms serve in your army? But even he had to sweat quite a bit, to get
them called in! I've never thought that there could be a country that was so
set against sending its troops anywhere!"
Bemish lowered his head. He could see already the scale of the
swindling operation. Oh, my God! That's why such a careful official for the
first time in his life insisted so decisively on taking an unpopular action.
To think that the other Weians agreed to it to compromise Shavash! Still,
something smelled fishy here...
"So," Bemish said, "was the quarrel between you and Kissur completely
faked?
"I am sorry, Terence, I am so sorry. It was a complete and utter fake."
"They will praise Kissur, won't they?!" the colonel was enraged. "Will
they praise a scoundrel who took eight thousand people hostage?!"
Shavash rushed towards Bemish right from the villa staircase. He hadn't
come to meet him - he was scared! The small official was deathly pale and a
sleeve of his velvet coat was dirty - it looked out of place on usually tidy
Shavash.
"What is he doing?!" Shavash cried out. "Has he demanded anything of
me, Terence?"
"He demanded exactly the same," Bemish replied, "as he did when you
suggested swapping wives."
Shavash grabbed his head.
"Terence Bemish claims," The colonel said, "that the cargo belonging to
Dassa Company was placed into 17B storage area accordingly to your orders.
Is it true?"
Shavash raised his crazy eyes.
"How does it matter?!" he shouted exasperated.
"Were those your orders or not?"
"Oh my God, I probably ordered it," the official screamed in fury, "Big
deal! They gave me two hundred thousand for a phone call and I called. It
was not my cargo!"
"It's clearly not yours!" the colonel spoke with unconcealed contempt
looking at the small official.
"Are you any better?!" Shavash screamed. "They go around shoplifting
your missiles in your base like chocolate bars in a supermarket, why do you
point your finger at me?"
Ten minutes later, in the main villa's hall - it was a charming hall
decorated with blue and pale yellow silk - the Assalah emergency committee
opened a session. The following people took place in the meeting: six high
Weian officials, Terence Bemish as the director of the company where this
whole disgrace was taking place, the Earth envoy, three military advisors,
also from Earth, and two colleagues of deceased Giles from the Intelligence
Service. Mr. Shavash headed the committee which was quite unusual. The small
official generally preferred to stay in the shadow during storms but this
time he didn't have enough patience for it. He presided over the meeting
looking like a corpse.
"Generally speaking, it's quite a surprising alliance," envoy Severin
said. "There is practically nothing in common between Kissur and the
zealots. Kissur didn't take part in the elections, the zealots won them.
Kissur is an ex-first minister of Weia; his political views are those of a
strong armed state supporter if not of an outright fascist. He hates
everything that weakens state's power. It's natural for him to hate sects
and heresies. Ignoring the liberal media's views, the zealots, even the ones
that studied at Hevishem - here the Envoy glanced at Bemish reproachfully -
consider Earthmen to be demons. Kissur doesn't think so. The demands of the
nationalization of the foreign companies clearly come from the zealots.
However extravagant Kissur's views are, the presence of Mr. Bemish here
demonstrates that Kissur is capable of a very good attitude towards a
foreign swindler... I think that it would be enough just to stall it for a
while and this coalition will fall apart on its own - they just don't have
anything in common..."
"Can't you see what they have in common?!" Shavash cried out in
desperation. "They want my head separated from my body!"
Everybody was somewhat shocked by this cowardice. The colonel, having
leaned towards Bemish, whispered at his ear, "If this is the case, I will
soon join the coalition."
"Are you trying to say, Mr. Shavash," the envoy inquired in an icy
voice, "that it was only the desire to hang you that made them organize the
massacre at the spaceport, take eight thousand people hostage, discredit our
military forces and demand the changeover of the Empire's government?"
"Gentlemen, let's stop bickering," Bemish said, "You should figure out
your response to Kissur's demands. And I would like to note that since these
demands concern the Weian government and its internal politics, it's quite
astonishing that half of our committee are Earthmen."
"Have you forgotten that Earthmen have been taken hostages at the
spaceport?" the colonel asked.
"The Earthmen are a minority of the hostages," Bemish replied. "As the
Assalah director, I should inform you that 80% of the passengers and 93% of
the personnel are Weian. Go ahead and calculate how many Earthmen are
currently at the spaceport."
"I can tell you, Terence, why the Earthmen are sitting here," Shavash
intervened. "Our government decided to request the Federation of Nineteen's
military assistance to quench the rebellion and free the hostages."
"So, you are not going to accept their demands, are you?" Bemish
inquired.
"It's simply impossible," the foreign affairs minister Khasha claimed.
"Aren't you of the same opinion, Mr. Bemish?"
"I would succumb to their demands," Bemish said.
Everybody went still for a moment.
"Oh," the minister spoke smirking. "Haven't you forgotten that one of
their demands is gratis nationalization of foreign companies? Do you have
another spaceport with one and a half billion isheviks annual profit stashed
somewhere, director?"
Bemish paused.
"I would prefer to get the spaceport back in two years," Bemish
replied, "after Kissur's policy crashes completely, rather than be a
murderer of eight thousand people."
"You have it easy, Earthman," the minister said. "You will lose the
spaceport while others will lose their heads."
"Don't you understand, Terence," Shavash cried, "he's a psycho, a
maniac! This man will grind you flat. What do you think will happen to the
country when they start sorting good businessmen from bad ones?! We should
annihilate him! We should call the Federation troops in and squash him like
a bug!"
"As the chairman of the Assalah Company's board of directors," Bemish
said, "I protest fully against allowing the Federation troops on its
territory. And I would like to remind the people present here that if they
start using Federation troops to solve their internal problems..."
"Don't teach us, Earthman," an enraged Shainna screamed - he was the
deputy chairman of Weia Central Bank and a buddy of Shavash's.
"I will teach you!" Bemish screamed just as loudly, "You don't give a
damn about Kissur's industry nationalization demands! You have been living
for two thousand years with nationalized industry! What you care about is
that Kissur demands to hang you personally, Shainna, and you, Shavash for
corruption! Here, a lot of people would agree with Kissur..."
Shavash stood.
"As the official inspector having full authority to deal with the
Assalah emergency situation, I request the assistance of the Federation of
Nineteen troops."
Bemish rose.
"Gentlemen, I refuse to take part in this abomination."
And he left.
The sunrise was starting somewhere far away. The fragrance of the
jasmine bushes was sharp and sleepy bulls mooed in the village having
returned from the late plowing.
Wrapping himself in an overcoat and shuddering from cold, Bemish walked
to an old gazebo. A servant, stepping softly, brought a basket with liquors
to the gazebo and asked what they should serve the guests for the dinner and
what they should do to the policemen. The latter started screaming already
and the servants had to give them twenty sacks from storage...
Bemish barked at him such that the slave ran away in fear. The basket,
however, came to be quite useful. Bemish grabbed a wooden bottle plaited
with bark, tore the plug out, threw his head back and started gulping palm
vodka.
He stopped only after having drunk half of it.
Far away, through a woven gazebo wall he could see the spaceport.
Unlike usual, t didn't gleam at night. The main buildings shined with a dull
light and where only yesterday the landing lights used to sparkle, darkness
and fog sprawled above the chutes. The monorail gleamed as a lonely horn
sticking out of the dark and posts of armed people swarmed every hundred
meters on the highway.
Somewhere far away, at the first gates blocking the access to the
villa, the whole crowd of journalists was throwing a fit. These idiots,
Weian officials, insisted on not letting them in... Bemish, however, didn't
want to see the journalists. He could imagine what questions they would ask
him. And he couldn't even tell them one tenth of what he had said at the
emergency committee meeting.
The gazebo door squeaked. Bemish turned his head and saw the envoy. The
latter's crazy eyes wandered around for a while and then he grabbed the
vodka bottle.
"I've drunk out of it already," Bemish warned him.
The envoy just waved his hand.
"You were correct when you left," Severin said. He finished the vodka
off and dropped heavily on a bench. "Everybody taking part in this accident
will be in shit up to their ears."
"Have they decided to call the troops in?"
"The commandoes will be here in two hours. It's the Eleventh Federal
Paratrooper Division. They are damned good. At the moment Kissur lets the
hostages go, they'll roll over him."
"In two hours?! How did they get here so fast?"
"They were being moved to their new positions."
"So, that they could be closer to Gera, right?"
The envoy smirked and nodded.
"Do you understand that this is Shavash's decision? The only thing that
he is afraid of is that Kissur will hang him on the tallest catalpa? He went
nuts from fear."
"That's right," the envoy said. "I have never seen it before in my life
- Mr. Shavash made a public statement supporting a certain decision and he
took all the responsibility. Can you imagine that - he signed the request
for the Federal troops himself! All the ministers there kindly passed this
honor to him..."
Bemish muttered something.
"Do you know why the officials agreed to invite the troops? They
understand that this will make Shavash a political nonentity... You,
however, were very brave. Don't you regret losing your company?"
Bemish paused. Then he added, smiling.
"My company is bankrupt. My stocks are worth less than rutabaga in a
farmer's market. I don't care whether my creditors get one cent or ten cents
for a dinar."
By the time sunrise came to Assalah spaceport and another working day
ended in Melbourne, the Federation capital, the news of the Assalah accident
had spread across the whole Galaxy. Assalah was photographed from above,
from below and from the side. This place used to be known only to a small
group of financiers as a great example of investment into a development
market. Now it occupied the front pages of newspapers. A number of channels
started delivering hourly news from Assalah. Everybody was waiting for the
broadcast that was assigned to start (after minor technical arguments with
Kissur) at fifteen thirty. Even if Kissur hadn't given his horrible
ultimatum - five shot hostages for every minute of delay - few people
would've missed such a possibility to peep at history.
The division arrived in Weian orbit by seven. They landed in Salgar
spaceport by eight and, in four hours, military helicopters unloaded most of
the commandoes next to Bemish's villa. Tanks, gleaming dully and looking
like huge beetles, spread in a large semicircle; indecipherable peeps of
coded signals filled ether; soldiers had already started setting hardy
camouflaged tents; bread and canned meat were being passed to the companies
off the helicopters.
At the same time, the first media conference finally took place. Weian
"yellow jackets" ran a body search on a dozen of journalists, crammed them
in a bus and drove them to the villa. There, Shavash, Bemish and Envoy
Severin sat decorously in a row, expecting them.
Shavash familiarized the media with Kissur's ultimatum and he kept
talking for a while. Accordingly to his words, the Weian government would
not allow any nationalization of private industry to take place. He also
said that as the Assalah emergency committee head, he had requested the
Federation's military assistance and that 11th space commando
division was currently disembarking next to Assalah.
"Are they going to attack the spaceport?" a journalist asked.
"Absolutely not," Shavash lied unabashedly. "We can't endanger the
hostages. We are going to blockade the spaceport so that we can negotiate
from a better position."
At fifteen thirty, Bemish and the other members of the emergency
committee gathered to watch the broadcast made by the hostage journalists.
One had to admit that the journalists did their best. They made it
clear that they were reporting at gun point. They made it clear that the men
who had them at gun point would sacrifice the other people's lives
unhesitatingly. They also made it clear that the terrorists would also
sacrifice their own lives unhesitatingly.
Their denunciations were horrifying. The cameras coldly stared inside
the reinforced chutes while, behind the screen, Kissur monotonously
commented that these particular types of boarding joints were built only for
military rockets. The dull sides of Cassiopeia missiles gleamed slightly.
The old accusations spread by zealots about the spaceport's dual purpose
were confirmed. The most fantastic rumors spread by Gera about the
Federation clandestinely breaking the non-proliferation treaties pompously
signed in the past were also confirmed.
Luxury cars had been imported labeled as assistance to the victims of
natural disasters and ancient Lamass vases had been exported as scrap brass.
Laws and regulations had been flouted at an incredible scale. The takeover
of the spaceport looked like a desperate attempt - however cruel and
despicable it was - to demonstrate the scale of current administration's
thievery, corruption and treachery. Several Earth auditors and financiers
unwillingly confirmed Ashinik's calculations of the chicanery that had taken
place at the spaceport.
Once the broadcast had come to an end, the party of people's freedom
started a media conference. It was relayed to Weia in real time and to the
Galaxy with a five minute delay.
Kissur and his cronies sat in the company's director office. Kissur
said that right after the conference, they would start releasing the
hostages.
"Aren't you afraid," a journalist asked, "that they will obliterate you
immediately after the hostages are released?"
Here Kissur answered that the party of people's freedom had acted out
of despair and had tried to reveal the ultimate corruption of the current
government. They also wanted to demonstrate that the military treaties,
catastrophic for Weia, did in fact exist in spite of blatant denials coming
from the government. Killing several thousand unarmed peasants would only
confirm the treaty's presence and it would be difficult to imagine the
government ready to compromise itself so much.
Ashinik spoke afterwards.
He said that certain corrupted Weian officials attempted to force the
Emperor to follow their policies. When the Emperor had refused to oblige
them, they forced him to declare the elections. They hoped to gain the power
that the Emperor refused them by lying to the people. When the bureaucrats'
party lost the elections, they refused to acknowledge their results.
Ashinik stressed that he was one of leaders of the party that had won
the elections and his demands were the demands of the people. He declared
that his party demanded the complete changeover of the government and that
the most corrupted officials should be taken to trial. He declared that
people wanted to see Kissur as the first minister and he listed the
remaining future cabinet. (Ashinik would become the finance minister.)
Ashinik said that the Weian government would have to stop payments on its
loans.
"The largest part of the country's debt consists of private bank loans
that the finance ministry had been bribed to take at a very high interest,"
Ashinik declared. "It's very difficult for me to say this but it's the only
way out for a country where the total taxation amount is smaller that the
debt payments. In any case, it's absolutely impossible that the most
profitable companies would use paying this debt off as an excuse to avoid
paying taxes and would turn into practically independent states inside our
country. At first Shavash received millions leading the country into a debt
trap and now he wants to receive billions getting the country out of this
trap."
Ashinik also claimed that in exceptional cases, related to the state
security or following ultimate abuses of the state's interests, foreign
companies should be nationalized. Assalah spaceport was such a case.
"The Assalah spaceport's director claims," a journalist said, "that you
would like to nationalize all Weian industry, throw the foreigners out and
ban private property. Is it true?"
"That's a monstrous lie," Ashinik stated. "I don't know where Bemish
got this idea."
The press conference with Kissur in Assalah spaceport and the press
conference with emergency committee at Bemish's villa, ten kilometers away,
took place practically simultaneously. Shavash, Bemish and Earth envoy
answered the journalists' questions.
They asked Bemish what he could say about the new government's demands
and Bemish stated, "The banishment of foreign businessmen would only be the
first step. Having obtained power, these people will start nationalizing
industry."
"How do you know this?" a journalist asked.
"Their leader, Ashinik, officially stated that at our last meeting."
"We have also received this information," the journalist said. "Ten
minutes ago, Ashinik, Yadan and Kissur claimed that they had never said such
a stupid thing. How would you explain, Mr. Bemish, the fact that during the
election campaign the party of people's freedom had been repeatedly and
falsely claimed to hold monstrous views and programs?"
Bemish gaped at such affront of the terrorists. "Oh-oh, I got it," a
thought glanced in his head.
"This party has never taken hostages either!" Severin exploded, "hasn't
it? They are practically saints!"
"Is it true that a secret military agreement signed during Assalah
construction included building a military base at the spaceport and delivery
and storage of Cassiopeia missiles?"
"That's a monstrous lie," the envoy said.
"How will you then explain the presence of the missiles at the
spaceport?"
"We are currently investigating how terrorists were able to steal these
missiles from one of our space military bases and transport them to
Assalah."
"Are you trying to say that they stole twelve missiles from our bases
in such a way that nobody noticed anything and that the best use of them the
thief was able to figure out was to hide them at a storage area that could
be unlocked only by two people in the Galaxy?"
"We are investigating it."
"Could you, please, tell us, if the fact that Earth troops have been
summoned here confirms that there was a secret military agreement? Does it
also confirm, indirectly, that the presence of missiles was a part of the
agreement?"
"No."
Kissur held his word. Immediately after the end of the press
conference, the journalists started taping buses and monorail trains leaving
the spaceport. The hostages cried, but were incredibly obedient. The
fighters screamed that they would shoot anybody who would cut the line
trying to get into a bus and nobody tried cutting the line.
Five LSV bank employees and Ronald Trevis - bearing some cuts and
biting his lips - left with one of the buses. Journalists ambushed him
leaving the bus but he blocked his face with his hands, bolted to a
helicopter and flew to Arvadan. Two hours later he left Arvadan for Earth
and became completely inaccessible. Journalists yearned to question the king
of the hidden market about his company's part in financing the most
scandalous construction of the century. The journalists didn't have their
yearning satisfied and they had to limit themselves with their own
commentaries. These commentaries were not particularly benevolent.
By 18:00 the last train with passenger hostages left the platform.
About eighty employees stayed in the spaceport - they were necessary for the
crucial spaceport's systems to function. Five hundred armed fighters and
several thousand Weian zealot peasants also stayed.
Also by 18:00, next to the spaceport the 11th division had
almost finished d disembarking. Heavy helicopters were landing right on the
fields behind the company director's villa, amphibian tanks were crawling
out of their bellies and sturdy guys in bulletproof uniforms were jumping
out.
Bemish walked down where the same two counter-intelligence guys were
meeting the division commander - colonel Rogov, short and sturdy like a ball
bearing.
"I think," The colonel said, "that Mr. Bemish should also take part in
the planning of the operation. As I understand, you have constructed this
spaceport and you should know how to infiltrate the buildings with minimal
losses."
"Yes," Bemish nodded, "I've already thought about it. For instance,
there is a place where the monorail station's ventilation chutes are right
next to a cave system. It wouldn't be difficult to enter the caves about
three kilometers away from here. We had to reinforce them during
construction."
"That's excellent," the colonel rejoiced.
"Unfortunately," Bemish continued, "a man named Ashinik was my closest
assistant. He is now heading the terrorists and he remembers this story with
the caves quite well."
One of counter-intelligence officers swore loudly.
"What do you think about toxic gases?" the colonel asked.
"I have to disappoint you. A possibility of chemical attack or, more
precisely, an explosion or damage of rocket elements emitting toxins has
been taken into account during the construction. A monitoring system would
automatically turn an alarm on, block buildings off and start
detoxification."
The colonel bit his lips for a while.
"I am not a military man," Bemish said, "but I think that if you want
to kick the terrorists out of the spaceport, the only way to do it is to
drive tanks in and shoot at everything that shoots or surrenders.
"It looks like you are correct," the colonel said.
"What losses will you sustain?" the envoy asked the colonel.
"Well, I don't think that this party of people's freedom will fight all
that well. It's just civilians..."
Bemish got suddenly irritated at the military man.
"The zealots can't fight. But if I were you, I wouldn't be in a hurry
to classify Aloms as civilians..."
"Aloms?!"
Bemish looked at him, surprised.
"I mean Kissur's Aloms. It's a mountain people who... Listen, haven't
you been briefed about the Assalah takeover?"
"No," the commander said, "I don't know the details. The assistance
request said that it was a rebellion of Weian zealots who had won the
elections."
"Generally, it's correct," the envoy shrugged his shoulders. "The
majority of people in the spaceport are zealots."
"So, is the spaceport occupied by Aloms and not by the indigenous
people of the Empire?" the colonel specified with unnatural lack of
expression.
"What difference does it make for you?" the exasperated envoy shouted.
Bemish shuddered.
"Sorry, colonel, but how do you know about the difference between
Weians and Aloms?"
"Yes," the colonel said, "what's the difference? We follow orders."
It was already dark, when Bemish, having finished briefing colonel
Rogov on the spaceport's specific details, walked into the garden.
Bemish had never run into the Federation Army before even though he had
recently become acquainted to the Federation Counter Intelligence. He liked
colonel Rogov - Bemish had considered military people to be much more
stupid. One thing astounded him. There were dozens of populated planets in
the Galaxy. Weia was located in the backyard of the civilized world. How
could a Federal Army colonel know about the enmity between Weians and Aloms
who had conquered the former a number of times? When did they start teaching
galactic ethnography in military academies? Even he, Bemish, had needed
quite a bit of time to realize how deep was the gap between the peoples that
outsider observers considered to belong to the same race - the "Empire
people" and the "mountainous barbarians."
Bemish stood and looked at the night bustling with people. Somewhere an
engine yelped piteously like a cat that somebody kept stepping on the tail.
The crackling of cicadas mixed with rustling of faraway power stations.
That's it. Tomorrow this division would throw all its force at the
construction - he had dedicated the last two years of his life to this
construction and he had put his soul into it. They would hack the roadways
with their tanks, turn buildings and terminals into dust. Crazy zealots
would face the tanks with prayers and spells; they would be sure that all
this machinery was simply demonic phantoms and that their leaders would rise
into the air and turn the demonic fighting machines into paper and their
grenade launchers into beans...
Tomorrow Kissur would die. Because even if a termite shell's direct hit
didn't flatten him into the floor and a fan laser burst didn't find him and
a shock wave didn't roll over him, he would still kill himself. It would
happen because Kissur always lived as if he had died a long time ago. Never
would Kissur let himself be taken alive by commandos called in by Shavash.
And then somebody just to Bemish's left said in Alom,
"Do you have a fag?"
Bemish turned there in astonishment.
A Federation soldier sitting next to a fire silently flicked a pack of
cigarettes to his comrade.
Bemish rushed to the soldier. The latter was clicking his lighter but
having seen a civilian he stood up to attention hurriedly.
"What have you just said?" Bemish asked.
"I asked for a smoke, sir," the soldier was speaking English now. He
spoke it with a strange but quite familiar accent.
A horrible hunch entered Bemish's mind.
"Are you Alom?" he asked sharply in Alom. The soldier was silent.
"Are you Alom?"
Federation soldiers are forbidden to speak foreign languages, sir," the
private replied.
"To the hell with this! What's your name?"
"Khaina, sir."
Khaina, "wolf," was one of the most widely used names among the
fighting clans of the mountainous country.
"Whose vassal was your father?"
"He was a vassal of Sarvak clan."
Sarvak clan! Sarvaks were vassals of the White Falcon clan that Kissur
belonged to.
"How many Aloms are in the division?" Bemish asked trying to suppress
shudder in his voice.
"I can't know, sir. We are Federation soldiers and we swore an oath to
serve the Federation. Aloms do not break their oaths."
Bemish paused. Ten soldiers sitting around the fire looked at him with
curiosity. Almost everybody had blond or reddish hair, wide eyes and
eyebrows tips that were almost flying...
"What's your contract salary?" Bemish asked suddenly.
"Three hundred credits a year, sir," Khaina said.
Three hundred credits a year! The minimal yearly unemployment benefits
for a Federation citizen was eleven hundred twelve credits!
Bemish turned and walked away searching for the colonel. Now he
understood why the latter knew the difference between Aloms and Weians.
Bemish found Rogov in the living room. The colonel and several of his
officers watched the day's broadcast closely. The colonel was interested not
in the broadcast's content but rather in the layout of hangars, storages and
chutes. The officers were watching the broadcast for the third time and the
sound was turned off. It was difficult to guess, looking at their faces,
what they thought about the broadcast after having seen it the first time.
"Colonel! How many Aloms are in the division?"
The colonel and the officers turned around like one. It looked like
there were no Aloms among them except for this one, on the side... No, he
was not an Alom, he was a half-breed something like a mix of a Dane and a
Vietnamese...
"Nobody has counted them," the colonel said calmly, as if he had been
waiting for this question for a while, "but I think that it's about eighty
to eighty five percent."
"Eighty?!! Why?"
The colonel grinned.
"Mr. Bemish, have you ever served in the army?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because..." Bemish broke off. On the second day of their acquaintance,
Kissur had asked him why he had never served in the army and Bemish
remembered what he had said.
The colonel smiled as if he guessed what Bemish had answered then and
said.
"The majority of fully fledged Federation citizens share your attitude
towards the army, director. The army receives twenty times less budget
financing than medicine.
"And you enlist Aloms in the army!"
"We enlist anybody who agrees to serve in the army."
Here Bemish turned around and noticed that two more people entered the
living room attracted by the argument - the Earth envoy, Mr. Severin and the
emergency committee head, Mr. Shavash.
"But three hundred credits is four times less than unemployment
benefits!"
"The unemployment benefits are allotted to Federation citizens, not to
Aloms. You know very well that they are doomed to much greater poverty in
their mountains. For centuries they have been indoctrinated that war is the
only occupation worthy of a man, that man should kill, that death is the way
to glory. They are happy to join Federation forces. The ones who pass our
admission committees take it as a pass to heaven. They know that they will
obtain citizenship in ten years of service. By the way, having received it,
they don't leave the service. They are as happy to hold weapons in their
hands as others are to hold women or money... Where else will you find such
warriors? If a Federation citizen is born in a middle class family, he
graduates from a college and he makes money. If he is born in a garbage can,
he receives unemployment benefits and gobbles up hallucinogens..."
"But three hundred credits!"
"How much can we pay them? The military budget is one half percent of
the GDP!"
The envoy listened to their conversation in astonishment. Clearly, he
also hadn't known who exactly guarded the borders of his great motherland.
Probably, it was a delicate and not particularly popular subject. The
military command was not in a hurry to announce that foreign barbarians made
up eighty percent of the army, and that strong, healthy guys with excellent
muscles and decent brains got paid three times less than hereditary
unemployed saturated with drugs.
"So, your soldiers are happy, aren't they?" Bemish asked with certain
irony.
"They are very happy, businessman! They grew up without commercials,
human rights, credit cards and whores. They were taught that battle is the
road to God! When their contracts run out and they become Federation
citizens, they enlist again. They stay in the service!"
"Where else can they go to?" Bemish grinned, "Into an investment
company? You don't teach them anything but to how to kill. They are aliens
in the world of the Federation."
"They love the army! And they make twenty times more money here than
they would make in their mountains!"
"I think that they love the army in their first year, colonel. They
love the army when they come there out of a mountain hut where their fathers
had two sheep and where ten people slept in one room on a mud floor. In the
barracks they have their own bunk beds and they get good food and they see
3D TV first time in their lives. But half a year or a year passes and they
watch TV and learn our language. They start understanding that the country
that enlisted them into their army pays their soldiers four times less than
it pays its unemployed. They start understanding that three hundred credits
would be enough to buy a farm in the mountains but it would not be enough to
afford a bottle of beer every evening in a bar half a kilometer away from
the camp... And they start comparing their own bunk beds not with their clay
huts but with the cottages that they pass as they ride to training. And they
start thinking that it's not fair that brave and strong people sit in
barracks for three hundred credits a year while drooling weaklings sit on
boards of directors. Is it true?"
The colonel was silent.
"Do you know how the previous Weian dynasty fell?"
"Yes. Aloms conquered the Empire."
"Your soldiers misinformed you, colonel. The people of the Empire were
rich and lazy. They didn't like fighting and the government enlisted mostly
war-loving barbarians into the army. Aloms didn't conquer the Empire. They
simply served in its army and they came to own the Empire when no other
troops were left."
"How can you say so, Bemish?" the envoy was startled. "It's absolutely
impossible. We are talking about a totally different time; they are just
commandos, for God's sake!"
A moan - or maybe a squeal - sounded next to Bemish.. The Earthman
turned around. Shavash - the emergency committee's chairman, the official
who called Federation troops in to Assalah to destroy his enemies - covered
his face with his hands and was slowly sliding down the door frame to the
floor. Shredding cloth crackled - Shavash's jacket caught on a brass
decoration on the door frame, the jacket ripped apart and the official
fainted and fell all the way to the floor.
Bemish stepped across his partner in export-import cooperative, Assako,
and walked outside. Stars sparkled in the garden and the engine of an
armored troop carrier still roared just as rhythmically as it had roared an
hour ago - something was wrong with it. The army still bustled in the dark.
It was not evident anymore, however, what side the army was on. Half of
these people were White Falcons' vassals. The vassal oath was not inferior
in any way to a military one! And nobody could claim that White Falcons
would send them to fight for three hundred credits while they were sitting
idle and getting rich. White Falcons didn't consider war to be an occupation
suitable only for people who couldn't make money on the Exchange. Whatever
else happened, when an Alom army entered a battle, White Falcons would ride
in front.
Somebody moved behind Bemish. The latter glanced aside and saw the
colonel. Simultaneously, they started slowly walking down a path.
"On what side do you think, your soldiers will fight?" Bemish asked.
"I was going to ask you the same question," the colonel answered.
They walked silently for a while.
"I've heard a lot about Kissur," the colonel said.
"Have you heard about him from the soldiers?"
"Yes. I mean, from their songs. They don't always go nuts about our
bands. They often sing their own songs."
"Do they sing about Kissur?"
"They sing about Kissur, about his father, grandfather, great
grandfather, and so on - all the way to the original clan founder who, if I
am not mistaken, married a forest mermaid."
"You are mistaken. He didn't marry her, he raped her. And that caused
some friction between him and a variety of forest and other outdoor
fairies."
"Oh, yes, that's right. They sang something along these lines. By the
way, these are the songs by their other idol, Khanadar."
"This villa is a gift of Kissur's," Bemish said.
Here the garden path finished and they found themselves next to a pond.
A small altar to Buzhva stood on the lawn in front of the pond and behind it
rhododendrons were blooming. Bemish noticed some food out of a trooper's
ration lying in the cup on the altar. If Aloms ate next to a god, they
always shared their food.
Seven or eight soldiers sat on the ground under the blooming
rhododendrons passing along a white plastic flask with local wine. Bemish
silently sat next to the soldiers and the colonel sat next to him.
"Is it true that they don't allow you to speak Alom?" Bemish asked a
soldier suddenly.
He leaped up startled.
"No... Why not..." He muttered in his native tongue.
The colonel lay on the ground and closed his eyes.
The soldier looked embarrassed; he stood up quickly and hurriedly
disappeared behind the bushes.
"This is the first man who talked to me in Alom," Bemish said.
"He didn't know the Earthmen's language," the colonel spoke quietly.
It took a bit for the colonel's words to soak into Bemish's mind.
"He didn't know the Earthmen's language... Are you trying to say that
it was not your soldier but rather a scout of Kissur's?"
"Be silent, Mr. Bemish. I am not going to make speeches for you
tonight."
The soldiers around the fire sat in silence as if they didn't hear the
conversation. The soldier that the spy had sat next to, handed the flask to
Bemish.
"Drink with us," he said in English.
Bemish didn't fall asleep till four am, he watched the camp's
inhabitants escaping it like rats running away from a sinking ship. He saw a
helicopter with the Federation envoy lifting - the latter suddenly decided
to visit the capital. A couple of officials left afterwards. Then the
counter-intelligence officers left. Strangely, Shavash was the last one to
sneak away to the capital. Three officials, whose names decorated the list
of the functionaries to be hanged, left with him. Now, only Federal troops
were left.
What's the deal, if you think about it? Why should it matter where a
soldier was born? In the end, all of them swore the oath of allegiance to
the Federation while only slightly more than one third of them were Kissur's
vassals.
The sentries stood guard perfectly but Bemish heard more and more of
Alom spoken around the tents. They switched back to English at his
appearance, however.
Bemish returned to the bedroom about four. Not taking his clothes off,
he crashed down on the bed and almost immediately fell asleep.
It was light, by the time Bemish woke up, wind out of the window blew a
gauze curtain inside and the sun beat and hopped on a marble table's
surface.
Bemish turned around still feeling groggy - something was lacking in
his attire. What was it, jacket or, excuse me, underwear? Bemish turned
around again, feeling the empty gun holder flatten under him. Everything was
there except for the gun.
Bemish jumped off the bed and ran to the entrance door. The door opened
wide and Bemish was relieved to see a commando wearing a Federation uniform
behind it. The commando, placed his feet wider apart, shifted his hands on
his assault rifle to a more comfortable position and declared,
"Sorry, Mr. Bemish. You are not allowed to leave."
"Who says so?"
"I do," a voice came from behind.
Bemish turned around.
Kissur stood next to the door leading into the inner halls. Two or
three paratroopers lingered behind him.
Bemish silently, without thinking jumped at Kissur. This time he was
even less lucky. Kissur locked his leg and Bemish tried twisting in the air.
At this moment, the commando standing behind him connected his rifle's butt
to Bemish's head. The latter barely heard Kissur screaming at the soldier,
then, the walls and floor around him turned into thousands of fiery
butterflies and flew at him. Bemish fainted.
He regained his senses much later - he sat in a military helicopter
that had, probably, just taken off the villa's roof. Bemish's hands were
handcuffed to a stand behind the pilot's chair and commandos guarded him on
both sides. Bemish thought that he was unlikely to escape but here the
helicopter jerked in the air. Bemish dropped his head on an Alom's shoulder
and fainted again.
Next time, he recovered in the spaceport - in his own office, well
known to him. His wrists were still handcuffed and somebody thoughtfully
deposited him on a black leather sofa located behind his own working table.
Having turned his head slightly, he could barely make out the tall back of
his own armchair - the armchair that Ashinik had boorishly sat in two days
ago. However, nobody was present in the armchair now. Kissur adroitly
operated Bemish's own computer sitting slightly to the side, where a
department's head would usually be.
"Well," Kissur said, "Who was right, you or me? I didn't loose a fight
with the special forces' paratroopers, did I?"
"You knew," Bemish articulated. His tongue resisted him and lolled in
his mouth like a swollen sausage.
"You knew how many Aloms served in Federal troops."
"Naturally I did."
"You are an idiot, Kissur. You took over one division and you think
that you won the fight with Federation."
"Oh, are you going to send me more troops? Thank you, it's very kind of
Earthmen."
"Cretin! How many of you, Aloms, are in the army - twenty or thirty
thousand? Do you think that ten thousand - even if they are very well
trained cutthroats - can win a fight with the Federation of twenty billion?
With all our equipment? They will just press a button and eliminate you."
"How?" Kissur asked him, "Are you going to drop a nuclear bomb on us?
Or is it going to be a meson one?"
Bemish bit his lip. It was true. To use standard shock troops against
Kissur would be either dangerous - if there were Aloms among them- or simply
useless. The troops would meet with at least equally trained Federation
paratroopers. To use nuclear weapons against a tiny bit of barbarians on a
backwards planet would demonstrate Federation's incredible military
weakness. It went without saying, that such actions would violate all
official and unofficial human rights regulations.
"You are free," Kissur said. "You can go to the capital. Tell them,
that our conditions changed. We demand Federation representatives to come to
Assalah - we would like to discuss the future relationship between Weia and
the Federation. The Federation president or the first minister should come
with the delegation."
Bemish suddenly imagined old Yadan conducting talks with the demons'
president and this idea was so comical that he couldn't smother laughter.
"I would like to ask you one thing, Kissur," Bemish spoke unexpectedly.
"Everything that you ask for is yours," the Alom replied.
"Don't kill Shavash... He... In the end, you got your commandos thanks
to him!"
A strange, almost laughing expression came over Kissur's face.
"He has already killed the little scoundrel..." Bemish thought. "He
killed or disabled him with his own hands..."
At this moment, however, something moved on his side. Shavash entered
the office and sat to the right of Kissur, in the director's armchair.
"I took it upon myself to overhear your conversation at the door," the
official spoke, smiling. "Your request touched me, Terence. But as you see,
Kissur was not going to kill me, to begin with."
"You? What are you doing in this office?"
Shavash, laughing, placed his hand on Kissur's shoulder.
"Why shouldn't I be in this office? You see, it's my armchair...
Haven't you forgotten that I was the Assalah Company director? Do you think
that could I request this state appointment back due to the company's
bankruptcy?"
"Do you think, Terence," Kissur inquired, "that Shavash didn't know how
many Aloms serve in your army? But even he had to sweat quite a bit, to get
them called in! I've never thought that there could be a country that was so
set against sending its troops anywhere!"
Bemish lowered his head. He could see already the scale of the
swindling operation. Oh, my God! That's why such a careful official for the
first time in his life insisted so decisively on taking an unpopular action.
To think that the other Weians agreed to it to compromise Shavash! Still,
something smelled fishy here...
"So," Bemish said, "was the quarrel between you and Kissur completely
faked?
"I am sorry, Terence, I am so sorry. It was a complete and utter fake."