are from the left river, where the leather processing plant "flows" to."
"Got you," Kissur said, "let's go then."
They drove over the river across a blue lacquered bridge, loaded with
market stalls and people. Kissur stopped on the bridge in front of a wreath
shop, bought three of them, put one on his neck, another on Bemish's and
later left the third one in the temple of the Sky Swans.
After that, Kissur drove Bemish around the city.
The city, that Bemish hadn't seen yet, was both beautiful and ugly.
Temple turrets and muraled precinct gates mixed with astonishing five
storied shanty houses built from the stuff that Bemish wouldn't dare to
build a cardboard box; potters on the floating market sold enticing jars
painted with grasses and flowers and empty rainbow hued Coke bottles. Melon
peels and colorful wraps floated down the canal - the remnants of everything
that grew on Weia and came from the skies, everything that found a place in
the mammoth belly of the Sky City but didn't find a place in the weak bowels
of its sewage.
They watched a puppet show at the market based on a new popular TV
series demonstrating the mutual integration of the cultures; they fed holy
mice and dropped by the Temple of Isia-ratouph, where stone gods dressed in
long caftans and high suede boots nodded to visitors if they dropped coins
(bought here) down a slot in the wall.
Kissur showed the Earthman a wonderful town clock made in the very
beginning of the sovereign Kassia's rule. There were twenty three thousand
figurines next to the clock, a thousand for an every province, and they all
represented officials, peasants and artisans. They spun in front of the dial
displaying a blue mountain. Bemish asked why the mountain was blue and
Kissur answered that was the mountain that stood above the sky and had four
colors - blue, red, yellow and orange. The blue side of the mountain faces
the Earth - that's why sky is blue. The orange side of the mountain faces
the gods, hence the sky above the place where gods live is orange.
This was a standard cultural program except for the fact the director
of a modest company registered in the state of Delaware, USA, Federation of
Nineteen was accompanied by one of the richest people in the Empire.
Finally, Kissur stopped at a temple somewhere at the city outskirts.
He, probably, stopped there because of a two thousand step long staircase
leading to the temple. Kissur started running up the steps and Bemish
desperately tried to keep up. He was out of breath and his heart was
pounding in the chest, but the Earthman and the Weian got to the top of the
colonnade side by side, looked at each other and laughed.
"Like a pig race," Kissur said, gasping for breath, "Terence, have you
seen a pig race?"
"No."
"We must go there. I threw away twenty thousand last week on this Red
Nose bastard."
It was dark and cool inside the temple. A bronze god in a brocade
caftan and high suede boots sat amidst green and gold columns and his wife
sat in the next hall. Kissur said that Weians didn't put much stock in
bachelor gods. A god should be a good family man and an exemplary father,
otherwise what can he expect from people?
Bemish listened to the strange silence in the temple and perused the
face of the god and the family man.
"By the way, where did you learn to fight?"
"My father taught me," Bemish said, "he was a well-known sportsman. I
almost became one myself."
The ex-first minister's eyebrows, furled in contempt were visible even
in the temple dusk
"Sportsman..." he drawled, "it's a shameful business to fight for
plebeian delight. Why haven't you become a warrior?
Terence Bemish was amazed. To say the truth, it has never occurred to
him to join the army, not even in his wildest dreams.
"The army," Bemish said, "is for losers."
The ex-premier grinned.
"Yes," he replied, "for an Earthman, anything that can't procure wealth
is for losers. The Earthmen make money out of wars no longer; they make
money out of money.
"I didn't mean that," Bemish objected, "I want to be myself and not a
trigger pulling machine. The army means the loss of freedom."
"Crap," said Kissur, "the army is the only way to freedom. There is
nobody between a warrior and god."
"Maybe," Bemish agreed, "only our army hasn't fought for the last one
hundred thirteen years."
They left the hall, walked through a rock and flower garden and found
themselves in another temple wing - enticing smells wafted from there and
Bemish saw cars with diplomatic plate licenses through a twined lattice.
Bemish thought the temple rented this house out but Kissur told him that an
eatery had always been there.
They walked down into the yard. A fountain babbled in the yard
inconsolably and people sat at the tables under the swaying yellow tents.
Kissur seated Bemish at a table, grabbed a passing waiter, plucked two wine
jars from his basket and ordered food.
"So," Kissur said, pouring spicy palm wine down the clay mugs, "you
have never been to a war. What do you do then?"
"I am in finance. The company that belongs to me will possibly be
interested in buying some stuff here."
"Are you rich?"
"You don't have to be rich in order to acquire a company. You just have
to have a reputation of a man who can triple the stock price of this company
in a year and a financial company who can raise money for you."
"Aha. Do you have one?"
"Yes. My colleague Welsey represents it. It's LSV bank."
"Are foreign banks allowed here?"
"LSV is not a deposit bank. They are in investment business, "Bemish
said, feeling slightly offended for the fifth largest investment bank in the
Galaxy.
Here, Kissur astounded Bemish. The ex-first minister of the Empire of
the Great Light looked at Bemish and asked,
"Oh, do banks engage in anything beyond usury?"
Bemish was silent for a moment. Then he carefully inquired,
"Kissur, do you know what a stock is?"
"Hmm," the ex-minister said, "it's when you get a loan?"
Bemish almost choked.
"Am I not right?"
"When they loan money and issue securities it is called bonds."
"That's what I am saying. Isn't it the same thing?"
"No," Bemish said, "When a company issues stocks, whoever buys a stock
becomes a co-owner of the company and has a right to vote at a stock holder
meeting. He also gets dividends and their size depends on the company's
performance. On the other hand, when a company issues bonds, it means that
it borrows money and whoever buys bonds will have guaranteed payments till
the loan will be paid off, if the company does not go bankrupt, of course."
"Oh, how interesting," Kissur said; he snapped his fingers and shouted,
"Chief! Where is the jellyfish?"
Bemish had never eaten marinated jellyfish before and he wasn't
particularly curious about it; he sincerely wished that the place ran out of
them. However, the jellyfish arrived, looking like a pile of broken
plexiglass smothered in with red sauce, and Kissur continued,
"What company are you aiming at?"
"The company that received a concession for the Assalah spaceport
construction. Since the sovereign owns 65% of the company's capital,
accordingly to your laws he appointed the company director - Mr. Shavash."
Kissur, having some vague recollection that Shavash owned twelve more
companies like that including the Galaxy's second biggest (and rated one
hundred eighteenth in efficiency) uranium mine, silently nodded.
"Are you definitely buying it?"
"It depends on a number of factors."
"Such as?"
"It depends on the current state of the construction, the state of the
world stock market by the time of the IPO, the IPO volume and its prospects,
- you see, LSV can act as an underwriter and get a profit selling securities
but prices may go down after the IPO and then LSV will incur all the losses.
It is also important what kind of securities it will be, stocks, bonds, or
derivatives.
"Bonds would be better," Kissur said.
"Why?"
"You said it yourself - if anybody buys stocks, he also buys the
company. What if somebody buys the spaceport? All these ... trying to worm
their way in here..."
Bemish choked a bit, but it was probably caused by the unusual taste of
jellyfish.
"Tell me more about the company," Kissur demanded.
The Assalah Company was founded four years ago for the construction and
the industrial usage of a spaceport with a twenty five square mile landing
area that could potentially be increased. 15 square miles of peasant
communal land was appropriated for the construction. The company issued six
hundred forty million stocks with a nominal price of one hundred isheviks
each. The state kept 65% of the stocks and the management received five
percent. The community peasants got about seven percent. Instead of getting
cash for the appropriated lands, these people obtained a partnership in the
future construction. Fifteen percent of stocks was sold via the
over-the-counter market.
The construction was going along rapidly; the stocks were pretty high
up and their price reached three thousand isheviks or eighteen Galactic
dinars on the stock exchange. Then the director embezzled too much and a
scandal burst; it became apparent that only one third of planned
construction had been accomplished, the market crashed, almost all of upper
managers were arrested, the workers scurried away picking up everything that
the managers hadn't stolen yet; the construction halted on its own volition
and never started up again. Shavash was appointed the head of the company,
though I think that he had originally been on the Board of Directors.
"That's simple," Kissur said, "if Shavash was on the Board to begin
with, it means that he quarreled with his colleagues and had them
imprisoned."
"I don't know," Bemish said, "you see, this kind of stuff would not be
included in IPO prospects. Shavash tried to set up an international IPO and
he got in touch with "Merrill Roberto Darnhem." He almost pulled it off but
the investors refused to undersign the issue in the end."
"Why?"
"Because," Bemish gleefully explained, "a rebellion or something the
government considered a rebellion happened in Chakhar that month, and a
certain Kissur led his tanks among other things through the production
facilities of a soft beverage joint corporation, squashing under his tracks
a manager named Rodger Gernis. After this little trip, the securities of six
Weian companies that had passed the international certification plunged down
and bruised themselves and nobody wanted to talk about a new IPO. Didn't you
know about it?"
Kissur twirled his head thoughtfully.
"I've heard something about it," he said, "but I don't see anything
wrong if your sharks don't eat our carp."
"Your carp won't get smarter if nobody swallows it."
Kissur raised his head and looked thoughtfully at Bemish. His jaws
moved powerfully, crunching the jellyfish like it was not a jellyfish but at
least a lamb bone.
"That's well said, financier, " Kissur mentioned, "it's frank, at
least. Do you own a construction company?"
"More or less."
"What kind of construction?"
"It makes automated doors for monorail subway cars."
Kissur pondered. He was evidently trying to figure out the relationship
between the automated doors and the Assalah spacefield and he just could not
fathom it.
"Have you inherited it from your father?" Kissur asked.
"No, I bought it a year ago."
"Why?"
"To use it as a tool to acquire a bigger company."
This statement was more frank and even scandalous compared to the
previous one about the carp. It would make the Galactic Reserve bureaucrat
twitch but Kissur clearly didn't care.
Kissur poured Bemish palm wine and they drank a mug and then another
one.
"What's so special about you, director?" Kissur asked suddenly.
Bemish was silent for a moment. He wouldn't mind having Kissur as an
ally. He realized that Kissur detested everything to do with Earthmen and
their money and he couldn't predict the Kissur's reaction to his next
statement.
"Most general directors," Bemish delivered , "slowly climb up the
corporate ladder, play golf with their equals and charge their own companies
for the their cats' space travels. They won't let me play golf with them.
They call me and my likes corporate raiders. We don't play by the rules. We
buy companies and fire ineffective management. We buy companies with other
people's money and pay off loans by selling half of what we bought."
Kissur sipped wine. He didn't care a fig that the Securities and Stocks
Committee was now discussing the legal issues of corporate raiders' actions
yet again, and that Terence Bemish's name was often being mentioned in not
the most favorable way.
"So," Kissur said, "the Assalah spacefield. It's in Chakhar, at the
border with the capital region... They grow great grapes in Assalah... Isn't
one hole in the sky enough for Chakhar?"
"No," Bemish said, "one hole in the sky appears not to be enough. It
was also supposed to be a temporary hole built in a swamp. The Chakhar
capital becomes as inaccessible in the rainy season, as a marsh village
during a flood. The landing blocks grow wet mildew and the spaceships hang
out there in space and charge so much for the delays, that cost as much as
ten spacefields or one palace. "
"How horrible!" Kissur exclaimed.
"Didn't you know that?"
"I am not a shopkeeper," the ex-first minister of the Empire was
offended, "everybody, interested in this, starts giving bribes or making
money sooner or later."
He was silent for a moment and then added, "so did you come to Shavash
about this ... hole in the sky? How much did he ask?" Bemish grinned
savagely.
"I am not in the habit of giving anything to the management of the
companies acquired by me accept for a kick in the butt. Assalah will be sold
on an investment auction. I will win this auction and that's it."
Kissur's blue eyes bored in the Earthman sitting in from of him.
"Something is funky here, "Kissur thought. "Either the Earthman is afraid to
confess about the bribe or Shavash is going to get foxy on him. One of them
is lying to me and I'll rub an onion in his eyes.
Bemish drove away in an unknown direction. Stephen Welsey shaved, took
a shower, ate breakfast, prepared related papers, visited an official named
Ishmik, who was connected to the state archive, where the financial
documentation of the Assalah company's previous stage was stored accordingly
to the Empire laws.
Next to the gates covered with silver curls and golden feathers, two
guards squatted and shelled earth nuts.
"Is it Mr. Ishmik's house?" Welsey asked in Interenglish, slowing down
and sticking his head out of the car.
"Yep," one guard answered.
Welsey got out of the car and barely stepped on a white sand path.
"Where are the gifts?" the guard said.
"What gifts?" Welsey was astonished.
"Gifts so that we announced you to Mr. Ishmik."
Welsey got back in the car, turned around and left. Five minutes passed
by. The guards still sat shelling the earth nuts and looked thoughtfully at
the empty road.
"Nissan 254, " one of the guards said, "last model."
"Such ignorance," the other said, "how can you visit a high official's
house without gifts. Such an uncultured man!"
Welsey's next visit was to the land rights precinct. He needed to find
out the exact status of the peasant and state lands acquired for the Assalah
landing strips. The IPO documentation that he studied on Earth, mentioned a
long term lease with a right to buy out, and Welsey needed to find out
whether or not the acquisition had already happened. A plump official
rumpled the papers in his hands for a while and even pretended to read
English while holding the document upside down.
"Why isn't the paper signed?" he proclaimed suddenly, returning Welsey
the sheet. "But this is the first page!" Welsey said, "The signature is on
the second page."
The official knitted his brows.
"What if the first page is a fake?"
"Are you going to force me fly back to Earth to get the signature, "
Welsey asked irritably, "why don't you pay for a ticket then?"
The official realized how ignorant the man was and did his best to get
rid of him.
In the third precinct, Welsey barely stepped in the office, where a
young official with smart penetrating eyes stood to meet him, when the door
opened quietly again and a Tserrina consulate courier darted in, holding a
large basket in his hands. The official looked desperately at Welsey and the
latter uttered, "I'll wait outside, " and stepped out. In a moment, Welsey
heard in Interenglish,
"Please accept this trifle from me and turn a benevolent face towards
me."
Welsey rushed out.
After the pub, Kissur dragged Bemish home. Bemish didn't find Kissur's
mansion to be entirely immured in the past - a closed circuit camera roved
its eye and the powerful neon lamps hung among the marble columns flanking,
customarily, the path to the main building. However, Bemish made out an
altar in the garden and a lamb, slashed wide open, lay on it.
Evidently, Kissur brought Bemish home for dinner and their food at the
pub was just the appetizing hors d'oervres. Bemish hiccuped. Kissur warned
Bemish away from the women's quarters and went away vociferously instructing
the proper preparation of pheasants.
The Earthman was left in one of the halls with windows facing the
garden and walls draped with archaic silks. A weapons collection was
arranged on the wall - an encrusted with mother-of-pearl and gold poleax, a
simple battle-axe, swords, one arrow-head covered in blood. When Kissur
returned, Bemish inquired about the strange collection theme.
"These are the weapons I was not killed with," Kissure answered.
He moved to the wall and picked a heavy spear with a blue pinecone at
the end.
"In a two day trip from your Assalah, the mountains begin and I was cut
off in the mountain woods with maybe a thousand people, and Kharan - that
was the scoundrel's name - had about fifteen thousand. But while Kharan
dawdled on the plains, I ordered the trees along the road to be axed part
way. When they finally entered the forest, the trees started falling on
their heads and we butchered the ones who were still alive. Still, it wasn't
such an easy feat and I was almost killed with this spear."
Kissur was silent for a moment.
"It's silly to kill somebody with it now, isn't it? A laser would be
way more reliable."
Kissur pivoted and threw the spear. It flew through the open window and
implanted itself in a decorated gazebo pole. Bemish walked out to look - the
spear had completely run through the pole. The pole was more than ten inch
thick.
Bemish wrenched the spear out and returned to the room.
Having eaten, Kissur hauled his new friend across the river, where the
Lower City shined and melted in the afternoon sunlight, thousand year old
dwellings of artisans, shopkeepers, and thieves, filled with crooked back
alleys making them impassable for cars and blocked by gates that the local
denizens used to defend themselves against bandits and, occasionally,
officials.
A market thundered deafeningly next to the river; it smelled of fried
fish and fresh blood; an old woman with a face like a dried fig was quickly
and deftly plucking a cock; passing by a cabbage cart while unloading,
Bemish noticed a small rocket launcher under the cabbage.
Slightly further, people crowded around a movable stage where a show
was taking place.
"Let's go, Kissur suddenly yanked the Earthman, "you have to see this."
Kissur and Bemish squeezed in closer.
A dignified oldster in a waving red dress manufactured two human
figurines with an incredible nimbleness - one out of clay and another out of
white rock - put them on the stage, covered them with a decrepit rag. He
passed his hands, took the rag off - and where the clay figurines had been -
two youths jumped up. The youths started to dance in front of the audience,
and soon a lively conversation between them and the oldster issued forth.
Intrigued Bemish asked Kissur what the play was about.
"The show is based on an old myth," Kissur said.
You see, when god was making the world, he made two people - one out of
clay, another out of rock. Both of them knew as much as the gods knew but
the clay man was simple and guileless while the iron man was envious and
crafty. The gods took heed and thought, "People walk among us and they
probably know as much as we do. We could get in trouble."
They called the iron man in and asked, "What do you know?" Since the
iron man was crafty and secretive, he answered, just in case, that he was no
smarter than the carp had in his basket. The gods dismissed him and called
the clay man in. They asked him, what he knows. "Everything," the guileless
clay man replied. The gods pondered and took half of his knowledge away.
After Kissur had explained the meaning of the play to him, Bemish
started to follow what was happening on the stage. Soon it became evident to
him, that nothing good came out of the man who lied to the gods and knew as
much as they did. This man cooked up a lot of schemes, stole stars from the
sky, made an iron horse plow fields for him and was caught when he took a
god's image and fornicated with his wife.
After that, the god in the red dress chased after the iron man with a
bundle of whips; the iron man squealed and flipped over into an open hatch.
The audience guffawed. The show came to an end and the god in the red dress
started to walk among the people with a plate.
Bemish enjoyed this folk show much more than the morning TV play.
"Did I get it right that the iron man died?" Bemish queried.
"No. He dropped underground and he had children and grandchildren
there. Since then, the iron people live underground and they are responsible
for all the calamities above ground. They cajole the mountain spirits to
start earthquakes and generals to rebel. Accordingly to the legend, at the
end of the world, the iron men will crawl out from underground in the flesh,
or more precisely, in the iron; will take the land away from the people, the
sacrifices away from the gods and will generally misbehave."
"Will there be the second act?" Bemish asked. He wanted to see how the
iron men cajoled generals to rebel.
"Inevitably," Kissur grinned.
Then, the god stopped in front of them with the tray full of jingling
coins; Kissur, grinning widely, put two large pink bills with a crane
picture on the tray. "Braggart," Bemish thought irritably. He didn't want to
appear miserly, and he looked in the wallet. He didn't find any large Weian
banknotes there but he had about hundred dinars in the passport just in case
- the Earthman had been warned that ATM machines didn't readily present
themselves. Bemish extracted two notes and put them on the tray.
The god in a ragged dressing gown took the gray interplanetary money
with rainbow water signs along the edge, waved them in the air, merrily
announced something to the crowd - and tore them apart. Bemish stupidly took
it for trick.
"What did he say," he asked Kissur.
"That he doesn't take iron men's money," Kissur replied.
The crowd parted quickly and menacingly and Kissur quickly dragged
Bemish out - several gibes and a rotten tomato flew at the Earthman.
In just a moment, they were crossing the gleaming river over the
lacquered pedestrian bridge covered with shops. Bemish was still upset. He
didn't care about money, but he just couldn't figure out how a man who
earned twenty coins for the performance tore apart a sum hundred times
bigger. Bemish would have never done it himself.
"Is he mad, this illusionist?" Bemish asked.
"They use the performances to draw people in."
"Who are they?"
"Well, you would call them an opposition, we would call them a sect."
"There is a large difference between a sect and an opposition," Bemish
noted irritably. "Why have I come to this planet?," a thought passed his
mind, "who claimed that the Federal Committee guys would be able to prove
anything in the RCORP stocks story? I just bought them, that was it..."
"The difference, " Kissur agreed , "is ample. An opposition hangs out
in a parliament and a sect hangs on the gallows. Don't worry about the
money. They are great tricksters; he certainly didn't tear it apart and he
is now buying vodka for the local trash with it, since the trash believes
the shows but it believes them even better when watered with vodka.
He waited a moment and then added,
"There are things on Weia that you, the Earthmen, will not understand.
You will never understand why this oldster calls your automobile a phantom
and why they call you iron imps when they see your spaceships. You can take
in account the copper in our mountains, but how will you take this oldster
in account?"
"We can take him in account perfectly well," Bemish objected drily.
"How so?"
"In the stock price. In your stock prices, Kissur, that cost cheaper
than toilet paper. The name for this oldster is country risk."
When Welsey returned to the hotel in the evening, angry and disheveled,
the porter handed him over a note from Bemish. Bemish announced that Welsey
shouldn't expect him in the evening since he flew to Blue Mountains for a
fishing trip.
Bemish was out of town all week, while Welsey continued knocking on the
state precincts' doors. It appeared to be absolutely impossible to get the
simplest things done, to sign papers for a permission to transport necessary
equipment to this damned planet with a discount tariff, or to gain access to
the spacefield's stinking ruins. Stephen filled forms and refilled them, he
paid the scribes and he paid the officials.
At the White Clouds street precinct, he said,
"I would be very grateful to you if you sign this form."
"May I know the size of your gratitude?" the official replied
immediately.
At the Fertile Valleys street precinct, he was told to fill all the
forms in Weian. Welsey found a scribe and filled everything. The official
leafed the papers through and said,
"It is not allowed to accept the papers from Earthmen that they didn't
fill out themselves."
"Be merciful!" Welsey said.
"Mercy is an honorable trait." the official agreed pompously.
At the Autumn Leaves street precinct, Welsey banged his fist on the
table and screamed,
"Aren't you afraind of prison?"
"In our world," the official objected, "fright follows tranquility,
tranquility follows fright and only the sovereign's well-being is always
serene."
Then he asked Welsey for a ten thousand isheviks bribe.
In a week, Welsey cracked a bit. He was not an innocent maiden, and he
had had to appear twice before the Securities Committee. Admittedly, the LSV
bank was not only the fifth biggest but also the most notorious investment
bank in the Galaxy. Welsey knew how to give bribes to influence an
election's results and he had been telling dirty stories about Federation
officials all his life. Verily, he had never ever heard a Federation
official reply to, "I am grateful to you," by explicitily asking about the
size of your gratitude.
On Friday evening, Welsey dropped by the central communication station
and called the work number of Ronald T. Trevis - the head of LSV bank - the
man that some people called the un-crowned king of the Galaxy finances and
the others called the un-crowned bandit.
"How is it going?" a normal voice from a normal planet reached Welsey.
"It's not going," Welsey replied, "I have not obtained a single
signature in a week. I've been twice in their central office - their
secretaries know nothing and there is nobody around besides them."
"And Bemish?"
"Terence Bemish is fishing in Blue Mountains," Welsey said with a
vengeance.
"Who wants bribes and how much do they want?"
"I don't know," Welsey said, "there is a man named Shavash, the finance
vice-minister and a local Talleyrand, considered by some to be the hope of
the evolving nation. My impression is that the hope of the nation received a
huge bribe from IC so that not a single serious IC competitor could take
place in the auction."
"Do you think that your difficulties were caused by Mr. Shavash
himself?"
"Yes."
Then, something clicked in the receiver and the connection disappeared.
Welsey was going back to the hotel down the evening streets when he
heard a siren coming from behind him. A police car made him pull over. A
guard in a yellow coat - national police uniform - and with an assault rifle
in his hands jumped out of the car and tore the driver's door out of the
Welsey's "environmental" car with a hydrogen tank looking like a swollen
cucumber.
"Your papers!"
"What's are you doing?.." the Earthman started extending his driver's
license out.
But the guard didn't even look at the celluloid rectangle. He bent over
Welsey, grabbed the yellow briefcase lying on the passenger's seat and
pulled it out of the car.
"How dare you?" Welsey clamored.
The guard elbowed the sky boor off.
"It is a personal order of the minister himself!"
Crappy tires screeched and the police car drove away.
Welsey sat in his cucumber on wheels and felt totally shocked. That was
not a minor bribe anymore. That... There could be only one explanation - the
connection with the Earth didn't break off accidentally. He was followed by
the Shavash's agents. The conversation was tapped.
The consequences were catastrophic.
As mentioned before, he was not a virgin child and certain sums of
money had transferred hands from him to the Empire officials. While he was
not able to obtain even the most trivial information in some places, he
obtained absolutely confidential information in other places - and some
confidential materials lodged in his briefcase. The rough drafts of the IPO
were also there, including various financial machination notes and even the
approximate numbers of kickbacks.
This information would not hurt the Empire officials but, oh my God,
what could it do to LSV bank! From the moment of Ronald's Trevis meteoric
rise, LSV bank has joined the ranks of the most profitable but not the most
ethical banks of the Galaxy. The financial establishment used any pretext to
set "these bandits" back; the managers of the companies, passing away under
LSV-staged hostile takeovers, complained about wiretapping and employees
being bribed; two of Travis clients' inner circle members were in prison -
for insider trading and stock parking.
Actually, Terence Bemish, young and promising upstart supported by
Trevis, got the hint that his presence at the civilized capital markets was
not appreciated - that's why he went to Weia. In this country of
de-nationalizing economy, there were many companies with poor management and
no stock exchange rules.
And now, the Federation newspapers had a great opportunity to grind
Terence Bemish, Ronald Trevis, and Welsey himself flat - all this caused by
the Welsey's bumble. His future appeared to the young banker darker than
night. Trevis had thrown people out for smaller blunders and a banker, fired
by Trevis, could expect a cashier's job in a supermarket at best.
Welsey drove slowly to the nearest police precinct, pushed a frightened
guard away and walked to the supervisor's office.
"My name is Stephen Welsey," he said, "I represent a financial company
LSV and I flew in here from Sydney to consult our client taking part in an
investment auction. I have just been stopped by a police car with a plate
number 34-29-57. The guards confiscated my papers and escaped. This is
probably a misapprehension. I hope to receive the documents back within
three hours, otherwise I will act with no holds barred.
A young police official squinted frightened at the Earthman, ran in a
next room and chattered away on a computer keyboard.
"Number 34-29-57," he finally said, "That's wrong. There is no car with
this license plate number registered in the police department. In fact,
there is no car registered with this license plate number at all.
Three hours later, Welsey came back to hotel feeling atrocious. If he
needed a final proof that there was no law in this country, he got it. He
washed the lip cut by the sharp policeman's (or fake policeman's) fist,
opened the case and started to throw his belongings in randomly. He called
the spaceport, found out that the next Earth flight would be in eleven hours
and reserved a ticket.
The case was packed in fifteen minutes. Welsey looked at his watch - he
had ten more hours before the flight's departure. The trip to the spaceport
would take two hours. Welsey shrugged his shoulders, walked to the draped
window, pulled the curtain away, and looked from the fifth floor down at the
street. Thank God, he will leave this planet in ten more hours! The country
of scoundrels! Bribers! Malingerers! Oh my God, why did he give a five
thousand bribe to this bug-eyed guy from the eighth precinct? Now, if
Shavash arrests Welsey, he would force the guy to claim that the bribe was
hundred thousand and the official promised... Ouch!
The square in front of the hotel was brightly lit. A delicate
eight-columned temple stood slightly lower and across it. The garden beds
were arranged in front of the temple, and the spotlights hidden among the
flowers beamed right at the temple, illuminating marble columns and turnip
roof curls from below, scattering in a faraway fountain in the middle of the
temple yard, challenging large ripe stars. "Such beauty!", Welsey thought
suddenly.
Right then, a car appeared at the square's far end. It drove over a
flower bed edge, flattened a spotlight, swerved to the opposite lane and
stopped down there at the hotel entrance. Pulling in, it crashed into a
truck standing in front of it, but not too badly, no deeper than five
inches. Welsey's eyes popped out.
The car door opened and Bemish landed outside. Two valets rushed to him
from the glass entrance. Bemish stepped left, then right. Thence he lifted
his head and, swaying, started to contemplate the lighted entrance. He
sighed and sat on the curb. Even from the fifth floor, it was evident that
he was boozed up to the hilt.
Welsey shrugged his shoulders and walked down.
Two valets were already deferentially half carrying half supporting
Bemish towards him. Bemish resisted and assured everybody that he was
totally sober. He aspired to sing and invited both valets to fish in the
Blue Mountains. Valets quietly and with concentration dragged him up the
staircase to the room. They possibly couldn't understand him. They were
probably used to these sights.
Welsey felt himself blushing. Bemish was dragging the high status of
Earthman and beacon of civilization right down in the mud. Welsey stepped
towards him, grabbed Bemish by his tie and, with the valets' assistance,
dragged him to the room. Bemish was rolling his eyes around and opening his
mouth like a karaoke singer with the sound track turned off.
When Welsey threw Bemish on the couch, he swung his finger drunkenly
and said,
"Surprise."
And he fell asleep. A pig. A drunken pig.
Welsey tore his pants and jacket off, hung them on the chair and got
out. The jacket was too heavy - the chair tipped over and the jacket crashed
to the floor. Welsey returned and picked the jacket to hang it back. The
jacket inside pocket was crammed with rumpled papers. Welsey pried the
papers out and unrolled them. These were all the requests and
power-of-attorney forms that police in yellow jackets confiscated three
hours ago. Welsey leafed through them and found the right signatures on them
all. More than that, the forms were stamped with personal seals and that was
plain impossible.
Welsey went downstairs. He checked the Bemish's car out and found the
yellow briefcase, seized by the police, in the trunk. Mysteriously, there
was a grilled lamb lying next to the briefcase in the trunk. The lamb held a
thick gold ring in the mouth. The lamb was lying on a silver dish.
Welsey walked upstairs and put the recovered papers in the recovered
briefcase. He called the spaceport and canceled the reservation. He called a
boy valet and they hauled the lamb, the ring, and the dish upstairs.
The rest of the night, Welsey spent next to the window in his room
looking at the pink eight-columned temple, thoughtfully chewing on a grilled
lamb leg and washing it down with disgustingly warm carbonated water.
The most bewildering part of that all, was that Bemish couldn't even
recall how the signatures came to existence. He remembered perfectly well
the temple, two hundred kilometers away from the capital, that he and Kissur
drove to, and the manor, that belonged to a Kissur's friend, Khanadar the
Dried Date, next to the temple. They had fun in the manor - at first with
weapons, then at the table, and then with the chicks. Khanadar and Kissur
took turns making bets and shooting at a peach on each other's head at first
with a bow and then with a gun. The trick was to hit it right in a pit.
Bemish refused decisively to shoot the bow and, to assert his manhood, he
had a horrible fight with sinewy Khanadar, strong like a steam press.
Khanadar the Dried Date was the most extraordinary man - he was on of
the bravest Kissur's commanders and one of the best Empire's poets.
He plundered huge spoils during the civil war; he squandered money as
quickly as he got it and started looking for more. Piracy was the choice and
Khanadar wrestled a smugglers' space boat away from them . The boat was
designed with escape rather than attack in mind, but Khanadar decided that
the cowardly dogs from the skies wouldn't really notice this trifle if their
pockets were threatened. Unfortunately, Khanadar was not as good with a
photon reactor as he was with a Kharran sword and at the end of the second
trip the newly assigned pirate dinghy dug a three meter deep ditch in the
ground and was no longer in any shape to fly.
It was awfully fashionable to assist Weia then and Khanadar almost
received a literature Nobel Prize for his songs, full of wild beauty. So,
the information agencies are making two announcements in one day - that
Weian poet Khanadar is nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that
somebody named Khanadar is wanted for the transgalactic liner "Mekong"
robbery. This is how Khanadar did not receive a Nobel Prize first time.
Then, Khanadar became the Arakka governor and generously gave money to
the people and tax cuts to the entrepreneurs. The money was from the state
budget and it was quickly gone; and since the tax cuts were abundant, the
money didn't come back. Khanadar asked a local polymetallic factory for
money; an Earthman owned the factory. The Earthman gave money once, once
more, and stopped; the people loved their governor and laid waste to the
factory.
Meanwhile, the time for the next Nobel Prize approached. Hence, the
information agencies are making two announcements in one day - that Weian
poet Khanadar is nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that governor
Khanadar incited a mob and caused a three billion denars damage to
MetalPMOre company. This is how Khanadar did not receive a Nobel Prize
second time.
Then, the sovereign revoked Khanadar's appointment for overstepping his
bounds and Khanadar peacefully resided in a manor bestowed to him, next to
Shechen river in Inissa. Why did the head of the planet Gera trade mission
have to buy himself a villa nearby?
So, another year passes by and the Gera chief trade deputy sues
Khanadar for brawling on his land and burning his pig farm. Khanadar attends
the trial and asks the judge to give him a small paper cutting knife. The
judge offers him the knife and Khanadar attacks the trade deputy with the
knife right in front of the jury. The trade deputy escapes from the court
yard and does not return. Since it is a personal suit and the plaintiff is
not present in the court, the judge cancels the trial and Khanadar saves
bribe money.
Again, the Nobel Prize time approaches, and the information agencies
are making two announcements - that the famous Weian poet Khanadar is
nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that Khanadar well-nigh cut down
a representative of a civilized nation right in a court.
This is how Khanadar never received his Nobel Prize, but it's an old
story and we should come back to Terence Bemish.
The next day, Khanadar, Kissur, Bemish, and two servants loaded
themselves in a helicopter and flew to the Blue Mountains. They harpooned
large white fishes and had many fistfights. Sun and merriness were abundant.
The helicopter rotated its winglets next to a raspberry colored tent with
silver stakes; the slaves brought horses for the evening. Four days went by.
Khanadar asked Bemish what brought him to the Country of the Great
Light and Bemish told him what he had already told Kissur. Khanadar the
Dried Date said the foreigner would drown in the paperwork, and Kissur said
that they should help him.
On Friday afternoon they flew to the Kissur's palace - the first guests
were already crowding there. Kissur introduced Bemish to the Shavash's
direct boss - minister of finance - and to the minister of police and to
many other respectable people. Shavash was also there. The minister of
finance told Bemish that his - minister of finance's - friend had seen
Bemish's friend, Welsey, and he was the fairest and the most honest man. The
minister of police told Mr. Bemish that, from this moment on, the goal of
his life would be to do what Mr. Bemish tells him to. The foreign trade
minister invited Mr. Bemish to his mansion and told him that he would roll
his Iniss carpet out under the wheels of the Mr. Bemish's car.
Bemish didn't remember how exactly it all got to the signatures. By
that time the heads of the Empire were drunk and Bemish was drunk even more.
The minister of police called his secretary and commanded to find a man
named Welsey immediately, take the papers from him and bring them here. The
secretary was probably drunk too and he, moreover, had with him a girl that
was licking his ear. In an hour, the papers were delivered to Bemish.
Bemish didn't really remember the rest. He remembered how roses poured
down from the ceiling, how some drunk girl jumped across a golden ring
entwined with burning paper, how they waded in a large pond with the girls,
how he couldn't share a girl with somebody, in the God's name, how was it
possible not to share a girl if there were two of them per man? Wasn't he
pissed off at Welsey? He remembered perfectly well how he got pissed off at
Welsey. Puritan! Pig! He just handed the papers rudely over to the secretary
but he refused to come himself.
Bemish decided that he would drive to the hotel and get Welsey. They
were probably trying to stop him. But Bemish outfoxed them - he tore through
the grapevines, got in the car and went for the banker. Yes, he had the
papers with him and he knew for sure that they were signed.
But who collected the signatures? For God's sake, he couldn't remember.
Kissur was likely to get them - he was more sober than others and though he
drank he wasn't getting drunk. Or... No, it was not Kissur, it was Shavash -
Shavash, smiling gently, was handing a form over to the minister of finance
while Kissur, yowling horribly, was cutting some rag with a sword on a bet.
Bemish was splashing in the shower, when somebody knocked in the door.
Welsey opened it - a large basket stood by the door and an errand boy looked
from behind.
"The gifts from Mr. Ireda for Mr. Bemish, " he declared, unloaded the
basket and he was off.
Welsey carried the basket in the room but, before he arranged it on the
table, somebody knocked in the door again. Welsey opened the door - the
"Got you," Kissur said, "let's go then."
They drove over the river across a blue lacquered bridge, loaded with
market stalls and people. Kissur stopped on the bridge in front of a wreath
shop, bought three of them, put one on his neck, another on Bemish's and
later left the third one in the temple of the Sky Swans.
After that, Kissur drove Bemish around the city.
The city, that Bemish hadn't seen yet, was both beautiful and ugly.
Temple turrets and muraled precinct gates mixed with astonishing five
storied shanty houses built from the stuff that Bemish wouldn't dare to
build a cardboard box; potters on the floating market sold enticing jars
painted with grasses and flowers and empty rainbow hued Coke bottles. Melon
peels and colorful wraps floated down the canal - the remnants of everything
that grew on Weia and came from the skies, everything that found a place in
the mammoth belly of the Sky City but didn't find a place in the weak bowels
of its sewage.
They watched a puppet show at the market based on a new popular TV
series demonstrating the mutual integration of the cultures; they fed holy
mice and dropped by the Temple of Isia-ratouph, where stone gods dressed in
long caftans and high suede boots nodded to visitors if they dropped coins
(bought here) down a slot in the wall.
Kissur showed the Earthman a wonderful town clock made in the very
beginning of the sovereign Kassia's rule. There were twenty three thousand
figurines next to the clock, a thousand for an every province, and they all
represented officials, peasants and artisans. They spun in front of the dial
displaying a blue mountain. Bemish asked why the mountain was blue and
Kissur answered that was the mountain that stood above the sky and had four
colors - blue, red, yellow and orange. The blue side of the mountain faces
the Earth - that's why sky is blue. The orange side of the mountain faces
the gods, hence the sky above the place where gods live is orange.
This was a standard cultural program except for the fact the director
of a modest company registered in the state of Delaware, USA, Federation of
Nineteen was accompanied by one of the richest people in the Empire.
Finally, Kissur stopped at a temple somewhere at the city outskirts.
He, probably, stopped there because of a two thousand step long staircase
leading to the temple. Kissur started running up the steps and Bemish
desperately tried to keep up. He was out of breath and his heart was
pounding in the chest, but the Earthman and the Weian got to the top of the
colonnade side by side, looked at each other and laughed.
"Like a pig race," Kissur said, gasping for breath, "Terence, have you
seen a pig race?"
"No."
"We must go there. I threw away twenty thousand last week on this Red
Nose bastard."
It was dark and cool inside the temple. A bronze god in a brocade
caftan and high suede boots sat amidst green and gold columns and his wife
sat in the next hall. Kissur said that Weians didn't put much stock in
bachelor gods. A god should be a good family man and an exemplary father,
otherwise what can he expect from people?
Bemish listened to the strange silence in the temple and perused the
face of the god and the family man.
"By the way, where did you learn to fight?"
"My father taught me," Bemish said, "he was a well-known sportsman. I
almost became one myself."
The ex-first minister's eyebrows, furled in contempt were visible even
in the temple dusk
"Sportsman..." he drawled, "it's a shameful business to fight for
plebeian delight. Why haven't you become a warrior?
Terence Bemish was amazed. To say the truth, it has never occurred to
him to join the army, not even in his wildest dreams.
"The army," Bemish said, "is for losers."
The ex-premier grinned.
"Yes," he replied, "for an Earthman, anything that can't procure wealth
is for losers. The Earthmen make money out of wars no longer; they make
money out of money.
"I didn't mean that," Bemish objected, "I want to be myself and not a
trigger pulling machine. The army means the loss of freedom."
"Crap," said Kissur, "the army is the only way to freedom. There is
nobody between a warrior and god."
"Maybe," Bemish agreed, "only our army hasn't fought for the last one
hundred thirteen years."
They left the hall, walked through a rock and flower garden and found
themselves in another temple wing - enticing smells wafted from there and
Bemish saw cars with diplomatic plate licenses through a twined lattice.
Bemish thought the temple rented this house out but Kissur told him that an
eatery had always been there.
They walked down into the yard. A fountain babbled in the yard
inconsolably and people sat at the tables under the swaying yellow tents.
Kissur seated Bemish at a table, grabbed a passing waiter, plucked two wine
jars from his basket and ordered food.
"So," Kissur said, pouring spicy palm wine down the clay mugs, "you
have never been to a war. What do you do then?"
"I am in finance. The company that belongs to me will possibly be
interested in buying some stuff here."
"Are you rich?"
"You don't have to be rich in order to acquire a company. You just have
to have a reputation of a man who can triple the stock price of this company
in a year and a financial company who can raise money for you."
"Aha. Do you have one?"
"Yes. My colleague Welsey represents it. It's LSV bank."
"Are foreign banks allowed here?"
"LSV is not a deposit bank. They are in investment business, "Bemish
said, feeling slightly offended for the fifth largest investment bank in the
Galaxy.
Here, Kissur astounded Bemish. The ex-first minister of the Empire of
the Great Light looked at Bemish and asked,
"Oh, do banks engage in anything beyond usury?"
Bemish was silent for a moment. Then he carefully inquired,
"Kissur, do you know what a stock is?"
"Hmm," the ex-minister said, "it's when you get a loan?"
Bemish almost choked.
"Am I not right?"
"When they loan money and issue securities it is called bonds."
"That's what I am saying. Isn't it the same thing?"
"No," Bemish said, "When a company issues stocks, whoever buys a stock
becomes a co-owner of the company and has a right to vote at a stock holder
meeting. He also gets dividends and their size depends on the company's
performance. On the other hand, when a company issues bonds, it means that
it borrows money and whoever buys bonds will have guaranteed payments till
the loan will be paid off, if the company does not go bankrupt, of course."
"Oh, how interesting," Kissur said; he snapped his fingers and shouted,
"Chief! Where is the jellyfish?"
Bemish had never eaten marinated jellyfish before and he wasn't
particularly curious about it; he sincerely wished that the place ran out of
them. However, the jellyfish arrived, looking like a pile of broken
plexiglass smothered in with red sauce, and Kissur continued,
"What company are you aiming at?"
"The company that received a concession for the Assalah spaceport
construction. Since the sovereign owns 65% of the company's capital,
accordingly to your laws he appointed the company director - Mr. Shavash."
Kissur, having some vague recollection that Shavash owned twelve more
companies like that including the Galaxy's second biggest (and rated one
hundred eighteenth in efficiency) uranium mine, silently nodded.
"Are you definitely buying it?"
"It depends on a number of factors."
"Such as?"
"It depends on the current state of the construction, the state of the
world stock market by the time of the IPO, the IPO volume and its prospects,
- you see, LSV can act as an underwriter and get a profit selling securities
but prices may go down after the IPO and then LSV will incur all the losses.
It is also important what kind of securities it will be, stocks, bonds, or
derivatives.
"Bonds would be better," Kissur said.
"Why?"
"You said it yourself - if anybody buys stocks, he also buys the
company. What if somebody buys the spaceport? All these ... trying to worm
their way in here..."
Bemish choked a bit, but it was probably caused by the unusual taste of
jellyfish.
"Tell me more about the company," Kissur demanded.
The Assalah Company was founded four years ago for the construction and
the industrial usage of a spaceport with a twenty five square mile landing
area that could potentially be increased. 15 square miles of peasant
communal land was appropriated for the construction. The company issued six
hundred forty million stocks with a nominal price of one hundred isheviks
each. The state kept 65% of the stocks and the management received five
percent. The community peasants got about seven percent. Instead of getting
cash for the appropriated lands, these people obtained a partnership in the
future construction. Fifteen percent of stocks was sold via the
over-the-counter market.
The construction was going along rapidly; the stocks were pretty high
up and their price reached three thousand isheviks or eighteen Galactic
dinars on the stock exchange. Then the director embezzled too much and a
scandal burst; it became apparent that only one third of planned
construction had been accomplished, the market crashed, almost all of upper
managers were arrested, the workers scurried away picking up everything that
the managers hadn't stolen yet; the construction halted on its own volition
and never started up again. Shavash was appointed the head of the company,
though I think that he had originally been on the Board of Directors.
"That's simple," Kissur said, "if Shavash was on the Board to begin
with, it means that he quarreled with his colleagues and had them
imprisoned."
"I don't know," Bemish said, "you see, this kind of stuff would not be
included in IPO prospects. Shavash tried to set up an international IPO and
he got in touch with "Merrill Roberto Darnhem." He almost pulled it off but
the investors refused to undersign the issue in the end."
"Why?"
"Because," Bemish gleefully explained, "a rebellion or something the
government considered a rebellion happened in Chakhar that month, and a
certain Kissur led his tanks among other things through the production
facilities of a soft beverage joint corporation, squashing under his tracks
a manager named Rodger Gernis. After this little trip, the securities of six
Weian companies that had passed the international certification plunged down
and bruised themselves and nobody wanted to talk about a new IPO. Didn't you
know about it?"
Kissur twirled his head thoughtfully.
"I've heard something about it," he said, "but I don't see anything
wrong if your sharks don't eat our carp."
"Your carp won't get smarter if nobody swallows it."
Kissur raised his head and looked thoughtfully at Bemish. His jaws
moved powerfully, crunching the jellyfish like it was not a jellyfish but at
least a lamb bone.
"That's well said, financier, " Kissur mentioned, "it's frank, at
least. Do you own a construction company?"
"More or less."
"What kind of construction?"
"It makes automated doors for monorail subway cars."
Kissur pondered. He was evidently trying to figure out the relationship
between the automated doors and the Assalah spacefield and he just could not
fathom it.
"Have you inherited it from your father?" Kissur asked.
"No, I bought it a year ago."
"Why?"
"To use it as a tool to acquire a bigger company."
This statement was more frank and even scandalous compared to the
previous one about the carp. It would make the Galactic Reserve bureaucrat
twitch but Kissur clearly didn't care.
Kissur poured Bemish palm wine and they drank a mug and then another
one.
"What's so special about you, director?" Kissur asked suddenly.
Bemish was silent for a moment. He wouldn't mind having Kissur as an
ally. He realized that Kissur detested everything to do with Earthmen and
their money and he couldn't predict the Kissur's reaction to his next
statement.
"Most general directors," Bemish delivered , "slowly climb up the
corporate ladder, play golf with their equals and charge their own companies
for the their cats' space travels. They won't let me play golf with them.
They call me and my likes corporate raiders. We don't play by the rules. We
buy companies and fire ineffective management. We buy companies with other
people's money and pay off loans by selling half of what we bought."
Kissur sipped wine. He didn't care a fig that the Securities and Stocks
Committee was now discussing the legal issues of corporate raiders' actions
yet again, and that Terence Bemish's name was often being mentioned in not
the most favorable way.
"So," Kissur said, "the Assalah spacefield. It's in Chakhar, at the
border with the capital region... They grow great grapes in Assalah... Isn't
one hole in the sky enough for Chakhar?"
"No," Bemish said, "one hole in the sky appears not to be enough. It
was also supposed to be a temporary hole built in a swamp. The Chakhar
capital becomes as inaccessible in the rainy season, as a marsh village
during a flood. The landing blocks grow wet mildew and the spaceships hang
out there in space and charge so much for the delays, that cost as much as
ten spacefields or one palace. "
"How horrible!" Kissur exclaimed.
"Didn't you know that?"
"I am not a shopkeeper," the ex-first minister of the Empire was
offended, "everybody, interested in this, starts giving bribes or making
money sooner or later."
He was silent for a moment and then added, "so did you come to Shavash
about this ... hole in the sky? How much did he ask?" Bemish grinned
savagely.
"I am not in the habit of giving anything to the management of the
companies acquired by me accept for a kick in the butt. Assalah will be sold
on an investment auction. I will win this auction and that's it."
Kissur's blue eyes bored in the Earthman sitting in from of him.
"Something is funky here, "Kissur thought. "Either the Earthman is afraid to
confess about the bribe or Shavash is going to get foxy on him. One of them
is lying to me and I'll rub an onion in his eyes.
Bemish drove away in an unknown direction. Stephen Welsey shaved, took
a shower, ate breakfast, prepared related papers, visited an official named
Ishmik, who was connected to the state archive, where the financial
documentation of the Assalah company's previous stage was stored accordingly
to the Empire laws.
Next to the gates covered with silver curls and golden feathers, two
guards squatted and shelled earth nuts.
"Is it Mr. Ishmik's house?" Welsey asked in Interenglish, slowing down
and sticking his head out of the car.
"Yep," one guard answered.
Welsey got out of the car and barely stepped on a white sand path.
"Where are the gifts?" the guard said.
"What gifts?" Welsey was astonished.
"Gifts so that we announced you to Mr. Ishmik."
Welsey got back in the car, turned around and left. Five minutes passed
by. The guards still sat shelling the earth nuts and looked thoughtfully at
the empty road.
"Nissan 254, " one of the guards said, "last model."
"Such ignorance," the other said, "how can you visit a high official's
house without gifts. Such an uncultured man!"
Welsey's next visit was to the land rights precinct. He needed to find
out the exact status of the peasant and state lands acquired for the Assalah
landing strips. The IPO documentation that he studied on Earth, mentioned a
long term lease with a right to buy out, and Welsey needed to find out
whether or not the acquisition had already happened. A plump official
rumpled the papers in his hands for a while and even pretended to read
English while holding the document upside down.
"Why isn't the paper signed?" he proclaimed suddenly, returning Welsey
the sheet. "But this is the first page!" Welsey said, "The signature is on
the second page."
The official knitted his brows.
"What if the first page is a fake?"
"Are you going to force me fly back to Earth to get the signature, "
Welsey asked irritably, "why don't you pay for a ticket then?"
The official realized how ignorant the man was and did his best to get
rid of him.
In the third precinct, Welsey barely stepped in the office, where a
young official with smart penetrating eyes stood to meet him, when the door
opened quietly again and a Tserrina consulate courier darted in, holding a
large basket in his hands. The official looked desperately at Welsey and the
latter uttered, "I'll wait outside, " and stepped out. In a moment, Welsey
heard in Interenglish,
"Please accept this trifle from me and turn a benevolent face towards
me."
Welsey rushed out.
After the pub, Kissur dragged Bemish home. Bemish didn't find Kissur's
mansion to be entirely immured in the past - a closed circuit camera roved
its eye and the powerful neon lamps hung among the marble columns flanking,
customarily, the path to the main building. However, Bemish made out an
altar in the garden and a lamb, slashed wide open, lay on it.
Evidently, Kissur brought Bemish home for dinner and their food at the
pub was just the appetizing hors d'oervres. Bemish hiccuped. Kissur warned
Bemish away from the women's quarters and went away vociferously instructing
the proper preparation of pheasants.
The Earthman was left in one of the halls with windows facing the
garden and walls draped with archaic silks. A weapons collection was
arranged on the wall - an encrusted with mother-of-pearl and gold poleax, a
simple battle-axe, swords, one arrow-head covered in blood. When Kissur
returned, Bemish inquired about the strange collection theme.
"These are the weapons I was not killed with," Kissure answered.
He moved to the wall and picked a heavy spear with a blue pinecone at
the end.
"In a two day trip from your Assalah, the mountains begin and I was cut
off in the mountain woods with maybe a thousand people, and Kharan - that
was the scoundrel's name - had about fifteen thousand. But while Kharan
dawdled on the plains, I ordered the trees along the road to be axed part
way. When they finally entered the forest, the trees started falling on
their heads and we butchered the ones who were still alive. Still, it wasn't
such an easy feat and I was almost killed with this spear."
Kissur was silent for a moment.
"It's silly to kill somebody with it now, isn't it? A laser would be
way more reliable."
Kissur pivoted and threw the spear. It flew through the open window and
implanted itself in a decorated gazebo pole. Bemish walked out to look - the
spear had completely run through the pole. The pole was more than ten inch
thick.
Bemish wrenched the spear out and returned to the room.
Having eaten, Kissur hauled his new friend across the river, where the
Lower City shined and melted in the afternoon sunlight, thousand year old
dwellings of artisans, shopkeepers, and thieves, filled with crooked back
alleys making them impassable for cars and blocked by gates that the local
denizens used to defend themselves against bandits and, occasionally,
officials.
A market thundered deafeningly next to the river; it smelled of fried
fish and fresh blood; an old woman with a face like a dried fig was quickly
and deftly plucking a cock; passing by a cabbage cart while unloading,
Bemish noticed a small rocket launcher under the cabbage.
Slightly further, people crowded around a movable stage where a show
was taking place.
"Let's go, Kissur suddenly yanked the Earthman, "you have to see this."
Kissur and Bemish squeezed in closer.
A dignified oldster in a waving red dress manufactured two human
figurines with an incredible nimbleness - one out of clay and another out of
white rock - put them on the stage, covered them with a decrepit rag. He
passed his hands, took the rag off - and where the clay figurines had been -
two youths jumped up. The youths started to dance in front of the audience,
and soon a lively conversation between them and the oldster issued forth.
Intrigued Bemish asked Kissur what the play was about.
"The show is based on an old myth," Kissur said.
You see, when god was making the world, he made two people - one out of
clay, another out of rock. Both of them knew as much as the gods knew but
the clay man was simple and guileless while the iron man was envious and
crafty. The gods took heed and thought, "People walk among us and they
probably know as much as we do. We could get in trouble."
They called the iron man in and asked, "What do you know?" Since the
iron man was crafty and secretive, he answered, just in case, that he was no
smarter than the carp had in his basket. The gods dismissed him and called
the clay man in. They asked him, what he knows. "Everything," the guileless
clay man replied. The gods pondered and took half of his knowledge away.
After Kissur had explained the meaning of the play to him, Bemish
started to follow what was happening on the stage. Soon it became evident to
him, that nothing good came out of the man who lied to the gods and knew as
much as they did. This man cooked up a lot of schemes, stole stars from the
sky, made an iron horse plow fields for him and was caught when he took a
god's image and fornicated with his wife.
After that, the god in the red dress chased after the iron man with a
bundle of whips; the iron man squealed and flipped over into an open hatch.
The audience guffawed. The show came to an end and the god in the red dress
started to walk among the people with a plate.
Bemish enjoyed this folk show much more than the morning TV play.
"Did I get it right that the iron man died?" Bemish queried.
"No. He dropped underground and he had children and grandchildren
there. Since then, the iron people live underground and they are responsible
for all the calamities above ground. They cajole the mountain spirits to
start earthquakes and generals to rebel. Accordingly to the legend, at the
end of the world, the iron men will crawl out from underground in the flesh,
or more precisely, in the iron; will take the land away from the people, the
sacrifices away from the gods and will generally misbehave."
"Will there be the second act?" Bemish asked. He wanted to see how the
iron men cajoled generals to rebel.
"Inevitably," Kissur grinned.
Then, the god stopped in front of them with the tray full of jingling
coins; Kissur, grinning widely, put two large pink bills with a crane
picture on the tray. "Braggart," Bemish thought irritably. He didn't want to
appear miserly, and he looked in the wallet. He didn't find any large Weian
banknotes there but he had about hundred dinars in the passport just in case
- the Earthman had been warned that ATM machines didn't readily present
themselves. Bemish extracted two notes and put them on the tray.
The god in a ragged dressing gown took the gray interplanetary money
with rainbow water signs along the edge, waved them in the air, merrily
announced something to the crowd - and tore them apart. Bemish stupidly took
it for trick.
"What did he say," he asked Kissur.
"That he doesn't take iron men's money," Kissur replied.
The crowd parted quickly and menacingly and Kissur quickly dragged
Bemish out - several gibes and a rotten tomato flew at the Earthman.
In just a moment, they were crossing the gleaming river over the
lacquered pedestrian bridge covered with shops. Bemish was still upset. He
didn't care about money, but he just couldn't figure out how a man who
earned twenty coins for the performance tore apart a sum hundred times
bigger. Bemish would have never done it himself.
"Is he mad, this illusionist?" Bemish asked.
"They use the performances to draw people in."
"Who are they?"
"Well, you would call them an opposition, we would call them a sect."
"There is a large difference between a sect and an opposition," Bemish
noted irritably. "Why have I come to this planet?," a thought passed his
mind, "who claimed that the Federal Committee guys would be able to prove
anything in the RCORP stocks story? I just bought them, that was it..."
"The difference, " Kissur agreed , "is ample. An opposition hangs out
in a parliament and a sect hangs on the gallows. Don't worry about the
money. They are great tricksters; he certainly didn't tear it apart and he
is now buying vodka for the local trash with it, since the trash believes
the shows but it believes them even better when watered with vodka.
He waited a moment and then added,
"There are things on Weia that you, the Earthmen, will not understand.
You will never understand why this oldster calls your automobile a phantom
and why they call you iron imps when they see your spaceships. You can take
in account the copper in our mountains, but how will you take this oldster
in account?"
"We can take him in account perfectly well," Bemish objected drily.
"How so?"
"In the stock price. In your stock prices, Kissur, that cost cheaper
than toilet paper. The name for this oldster is country risk."
When Welsey returned to the hotel in the evening, angry and disheveled,
the porter handed him over a note from Bemish. Bemish announced that Welsey
shouldn't expect him in the evening since he flew to Blue Mountains for a
fishing trip.
Bemish was out of town all week, while Welsey continued knocking on the
state precincts' doors. It appeared to be absolutely impossible to get the
simplest things done, to sign papers for a permission to transport necessary
equipment to this damned planet with a discount tariff, or to gain access to
the spacefield's stinking ruins. Stephen filled forms and refilled them, he
paid the scribes and he paid the officials.
At the White Clouds street precinct, he said,
"I would be very grateful to you if you sign this form."
"May I know the size of your gratitude?" the official replied
immediately.
At the Fertile Valleys street precinct, he was told to fill all the
forms in Weian. Welsey found a scribe and filled everything. The official
leafed the papers through and said,
"It is not allowed to accept the papers from Earthmen that they didn't
fill out themselves."
"Be merciful!" Welsey said.
"Mercy is an honorable trait." the official agreed pompously.
At the Autumn Leaves street precinct, Welsey banged his fist on the
table and screamed,
"Aren't you afraind of prison?"
"In our world," the official objected, "fright follows tranquility,
tranquility follows fright and only the sovereign's well-being is always
serene."
Then he asked Welsey for a ten thousand isheviks bribe.
In a week, Welsey cracked a bit. He was not an innocent maiden, and he
had had to appear twice before the Securities Committee. Admittedly, the LSV
bank was not only the fifth biggest but also the most notorious investment
bank in the Galaxy. Welsey knew how to give bribes to influence an
election's results and he had been telling dirty stories about Federation
officials all his life. Verily, he had never ever heard a Federation
official reply to, "I am grateful to you," by explicitily asking about the
size of your gratitude.
On Friday evening, Welsey dropped by the central communication station
and called the work number of Ronald T. Trevis - the head of LSV bank - the
man that some people called the un-crowned king of the Galaxy finances and
the others called the un-crowned bandit.
"How is it going?" a normal voice from a normal planet reached Welsey.
"It's not going," Welsey replied, "I have not obtained a single
signature in a week. I've been twice in their central office - their
secretaries know nothing and there is nobody around besides them."
"And Bemish?"
"Terence Bemish is fishing in Blue Mountains," Welsey said with a
vengeance.
"Who wants bribes and how much do they want?"
"I don't know," Welsey said, "there is a man named Shavash, the finance
vice-minister and a local Talleyrand, considered by some to be the hope of
the evolving nation. My impression is that the hope of the nation received a
huge bribe from IC so that not a single serious IC competitor could take
place in the auction."
"Do you think that your difficulties were caused by Mr. Shavash
himself?"
"Yes."
Then, something clicked in the receiver and the connection disappeared.
Welsey was going back to the hotel down the evening streets when he
heard a siren coming from behind him. A police car made him pull over. A
guard in a yellow coat - national police uniform - and with an assault rifle
in his hands jumped out of the car and tore the driver's door out of the
Welsey's "environmental" car with a hydrogen tank looking like a swollen
cucumber.
"Your papers!"
"What's are you doing?.." the Earthman started extending his driver's
license out.
But the guard didn't even look at the celluloid rectangle. He bent over
Welsey, grabbed the yellow briefcase lying on the passenger's seat and
pulled it out of the car.
"How dare you?" Welsey clamored.
The guard elbowed the sky boor off.
"It is a personal order of the minister himself!"
Crappy tires screeched and the police car drove away.
Welsey sat in his cucumber on wheels and felt totally shocked. That was
not a minor bribe anymore. That... There could be only one explanation - the
connection with the Earth didn't break off accidentally. He was followed by
the Shavash's agents. The conversation was tapped.
The consequences were catastrophic.
As mentioned before, he was not a virgin child and certain sums of
money had transferred hands from him to the Empire officials. While he was
not able to obtain even the most trivial information in some places, he
obtained absolutely confidential information in other places - and some
confidential materials lodged in his briefcase. The rough drafts of the IPO
were also there, including various financial machination notes and even the
approximate numbers of kickbacks.
This information would not hurt the Empire officials but, oh my God,
what could it do to LSV bank! From the moment of Ronald's Trevis meteoric
rise, LSV bank has joined the ranks of the most profitable but not the most
ethical banks of the Galaxy. The financial establishment used any pretext to
set "these bandits" back; the managers of the companies, passing away under
LSV-staged hostile takeovers, complained about wiretapping and employees
being bribed; two of Travis clients' inner circle members were in prison -
for insider trading and stock parking.
Actually, Terence Bemish, young and promising upstart supported by
Trevis, got the hint that his presence at the civilized capital markets was
not appreciated - that's why he went to Weia. In this country of
de-nationalizing economy, there were many companies with poor management and
no stock exchange rules.
And now, the Federation newspapers had a great opportunity to grind
Terence Bemish, Ronald Trevis, and Welsey himself flat - all this caused by
the Welsey's bumble. His future appeared to the young banker darker than
night. Trevis had thrown people out for smaller blunders and a banker, fired
by Trevis, could expect a cashier's job in a supermarket at best.
Welsey drove slowly to the nearest police precinct, pushed a frightened
guard away and walked to the supervisor's office.
"My name is Stephen Welsey," he said, "I represent a financial company
LSV and I flew in here from Sydney to consult our client taking part in an
investment auction. I have just been stopped by a police car with a plate
number 34-29-57. The guards confiscated my papers and escaped. This is
probably a misapprehension. I hope to receive the documents back within
three hours, otherwise I will act with no holds barred.
A young police official squinted frightened at the Earthman, ran in a
next room and chattered away on a computer keyboard.
"Number 34-29-57," he finally said, "That's wrong. There is no car with
this license plate number registered in the police department. In fact,
there is no car registered with this license plate number at all.
Three hours later, Welsey came back to hotel feeling atrocious. If he
needed a final proof that there was no law in this country, he got it. He
washed the lip cut by the sharp policeman's (or fake policeman's) fist,
opened the case and started to throw his belongings in randomly. He called
the spaceport, found out that the next Earth flight would be in eleven hours
and reserved a ticket.
The case was packed in fifteen minutes. Welsey looked at his watch - he
had ten more hours before the flight's departure. The trip to the spaceport
would take two hours. Welsey shrugged his shoulders, walked to the draped
window, pulled the curtain away, and looked from the fifth floor down at the
street. Thank God, he will leave this planet in ten more hours! The country
of scoundrels! Bribers! Malingerers! Oh my God, why did he give a five
thousand bribe to this bug-eyed guy from the eighth precinct? Now, if
Shavash arrests Welsey, he would force the guy to claim that the bribe was
hundred thousand and the official promised... Ouch!
The square in front of the hotel was brightly lit. A delicate
eight-columned temple stood slightly lower and across it. The garden beds
were arranged in front of the temple, and the spotlights hidden among the
flowers beamed right at the temple, illuminating marble columns and turnip
roof curls from below, scattering in a faraway fountain in the middle of the
temple yard, challenging large ripe stars. "Such beauty!", Welsey thought
suddenly.
Right then, a car appeared at the square's far end. It drove over a
flower bed edge, flattened a spotlight, swerved to the opposite lane and
stopped down there at the hotel entrance. Pulling in, it crashed into a
truck standing in front of it, but not too badly, no deeper than five
inches. Welsey's eyes popped out.
The car door opened and Bemish landed outside. Two valets rushed to him
from the glass entrance. Bemish stepped left, then right. Thence he lifted
his head and, swaying, started to contemplate the lighted entrance. He
sighed and sat on the curb. Even from the fifth floor, it was evident that
he was boozed up to the hilt.
Welsey shrugged his shoulders and walked down.
Two valets were already deferentially half carrying half supporting
Bemish towards him. Bemish resisted and assured everybody that he was
totally sober. He aspired to sing and invited both valets to fish in the
Blue Mountains. Valets quietly and with concentration dragged him up the
staircase to the room. They possibly couldn't understand him. They were
probably used to these sights.
Welsey felt himself blushing. Bemish was dragging the high status of
Earthman and beacon of civilization right down in the mud. Welsey stepped
towards him, grabbed Bemish by his tie and, with the valets' assistance,
dragged him to the room. Bemish was rolling his eyes around and opening his
mouth like a karaoke singer with the sound track turned off.
When Welsey threw Bemish on the couch, he swung his finger drunkenly
and said,
"Surprise."
And he fell asleep. A pig. A drunken pig.
Welsey tore his pants and jacket off, hung them on the chair and got
out. The jacket was too heavy - the chair tipped over and the jacket crashed
to the floor. Welsey returned and picked the jacket to hang it back. The
jacket inside pocket was crammed with rumpled papers. Welsey pried the
papers out and unrolled them. These were all the requests and
power-of-attorney forms that police in yellow jackets confiscated three
hours ago. Welsey leafed through them and found the right signatures on them
all. More than that, the forms were stamped with personal seals and that was
plain impossible.
Welsey went downstairs. He checked the Bemish's car out and found the
yellow briefcase, seized by the police, in the trunk. Mysteriously, there
was a grilled lamb lying next to the briefcase in the trunk. The lamb held a
thick gold ring in the mouth. The lamb was lying on a silver dish.
Welsey walked upstairs and put the recovered papers in the recovered
briefcase. He called the spaceport and canceled the reservation. He called a
boy valet and they hauled the lamb, the ring, and the dish upstairs.
The rest of the night, Welsey spent next to the window in his room
looking at the pink eight-columned temple, thoughtfully chewing on a grilled
lamb leg and washing it down with disgustingly warm carbonated water.
The most bewildering part of that all, was that Bemish couldn't even
recall how the signatures came to existence. He remembered perfectly well
the temple, two hundred kilometers away from the capital, that he and Kissur
drove to, and the manor, that belonged to a Kissur's friend, Khanadar the
Dried Date, next to the temple. They had fun in the manor - at first with
weapons, then at the table, and then with the chicks. Khanadar and Kissur
took turns making bets and shooting at a peach on each other's head at first
with a bow and then with a gun. The trick was to hit it right in a pit.
Bemish refused decisively to shoot the bow and, to assert his manhood, he
had a horrible fight with sinewy Khanadar, strong like a steam press.
Khanadar the Dried Date was the most extraordinary man - he was on of
the bravest Kissur's commanders and one of the best Empire's poets.
He plundered huge spoils during the civil war; he squandered money as
quickly as he got it and started looking for more. Piracy was the choice and
Khanadar wrestled a smugglers' space boat away from them . The boat was
designed with escape rather than attack in mind, but Khanadar decided that
the cowardly dogs from the skies wouldn't really notice this trifle if their
pockets were threatened. Unfortunately, Khanadar was not as good with a
photon reactor as he was with a Kharran sword and at the end of the second
trip the newly assigned pirate dinghy dug a three meter deep ditch in the
ground and was no longer in any shape to fly.
It was awfully fashionable to assist Weia then and Khanadar almost
received a literature Nobel Prize for his songs, full of wild beauty. So,
the information agencies are making two announcements in one day - that
Weian poet Khanadar is nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that
somebody named Khanadar is wanted for the transgalactic liner "Mekong"
robbery. This is how Khanadar did not receive a Nobel Prize first time.
Then, Khanadar became the Arakka governor and generously gave money to
the people and tax cuts to the entrepreneurs. The money was from the state
budget and it was quickly gone; and since the tax cuts were abundant, the
money didn't come back. Khanadar asked a local polymetallic factory for
money; an Earthman owned the factory. The Earthman gave money once, once
more, and stopped; the people loved their governor and laid waste to the
factory.
Meanwhile, the time for the next Nobel Prize approached. Hence, the
information agencies are making two announcements in one day - that Weian
poet Khanadar is nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that governor
Khanadar incited a mob and caused a three billion denars damage to
MetalPMOre company. This is how Khanadar did not receive a Nobel Prize
second time.
Then, the sovereign revoked Khanadar's appointment for overstepping his
bounds and Khanadar peacefully resided in a manor bestowed to him, next to
Shechen river in Inissa. Why did the head of the planet Gera trade mission
have to buy himself a villa nearby?
So, another year passes by and the Gera chief trade deputy sues
Khanadar for brawling on his land and burning his pig farm. Khanadar attends
the trial and asks the judge to give him a small paper cutting knife. The
judge offers him the knife and Khanadar attacks the trade deputy with the
knife right in front of the jury. The trade deputy escapes from the court
yard and does not return. Since it is a personal suit and the plaintiff is
not present in the court, the judge cancels the trial and Khanadar saves
bribe money.
Again, the Nobel Prize time approaches, and the information agencies
are making two announcements - that the famous Weian poet Khanadar is
nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that Khanadar well-nigh cut down
a representative of a civilized nation right in a court.
This is how Khanadar never received his Nobel Prize, but it's an old
story and we should come back to Terence Bemish.
The next day, Khanadar, Kissur, Bemish, and two servants loaded
themselves in a helicopter and flew to the Blue Mountains. They harpooned
large white fishes and had many fistfights. Sun and merriness were abundant.
The helicopter rotated its winglets next to a raspberry colored tent with
silver stakes; the slaves brought horses for the evening. Four days went by.
Khanadar asked Bemish what brought him to the Country of the Great
Light and Bemish told him what he had already told Kissur. Khanadar the
Dried Date said the foreigner would drown in the paperwork, and Kissur said
that they should help him.
On Friday afternoon they flew to the Kissur's palace - the first guests
were already crowding there. Kissur introduced Bemish to the Shavash's
direct boss - minister of finance - and to the minister of police and to
many other respectable people. Shavash was also there. The minister of
finance told Bemish that his - minister of finance's - friend had seen
Bemish's friend, Welsey, and he was the fairest and the most honest man. The
minister of police told Mr. Bemish that, from this moment on, the goal of
his life would be to do what Mr. Bemish tells him to. The foreign trade
minister invited Mr. Bemish to his mansion and told him that he would roll
his Iniss carpet out under the wheels of the Mr. Bemish's car.
Bemish didn't remember how exactly it all got to the signatures. By
that time the heads of the Empire were drunk and Bemish was drunk even more.
The minister of police called his secretary and commanded to find a man
named Welsey immediately, take the papers from him and bring them here. The
secretary was probably drunk too and he, moreover, had with him a girl that
was licking his ear. In an hour, the papers were delivered to Bemish.
Bemish didn't really remember the rest. He remembered how roses poured
down from the ceiling, how some drunk girl jumped across a golden ring
entwined with burning paper, how they waded in a large pond with the girls,
how he couldn't share a girl with somebody, in the God's name, how was it
possible not to share a girl if there were two of them per man? Wasn't he
pissed off at Welsey? He remembered perfectly well how he got pissed off at
Welsey. Puritan! Pig! He just handed the papers rudely over to the secretary
but he refused to come himself.
Bemish decided that he would drive to the hotel and get Welsey. They
were probably trying to stop him. But Bemish outfoxed them - he tore through
the grapevines, got in the car and went for the banker. Yes, he had the
papers with him and he knew for sure that they were signed.
But who collected the signatures? For God's sake, he couldn't remember.
Kissur was likely to get them - he was more sober than others and though he
drank he wasn't getting drunk. Or... No, it was not Kissur, it was Shavash -
Shavash, smiling gently, was handing a form over to the minister of finance
while Kissur, yowling horribly, was cutting some rag with a sword on a bet.
Bemish was splashing in the shower, when somebody knocked in the door.
Welsey opened it - a large basket stood by the door and an errand boy looked
from behind.
"The gifts from Mr. Ireda for Mr. Bemish, " he declared, unloaded the
basket and he was off.
Welsey carried the basket in the room but, before he arranged it on the
table, somebody knocked in the door again. Welsey opened the door - the