watched Bemish and Bemish watched the horse.
"This is the tail," Kissur said, "this is the head and the driver's
seat is in the middle. What are you waiting for? Get in."
"I don't like," Bemish replied, "that it moves before I turn the
ignition on."
Kissur and his servants laughed agreeably.
Bemish, however, had to climb on the horse and trek through a crazy
forest where the power line poles entwined by lianas grew instead of the
trees. Bemish tired out, battered his butt and finally almost drowned in a
lawn which in reality proved to be a swamp inside a landing chute.
Kissur said, that he would cripple the horse riding this way, and
Bemish said that he would like to observe Kissur driving a car ten years
ago. Then, Kissur sent his people off with the horses and walked on foot
next to Bemish. Bemish enquired, where they were going, and Kissur explained
that the future owner of the spaceport should better get acquainted with the
local villages. "In ancient times, a good official always arrived to his
appointment region incognito, to learn the problems and difficulties of the
oppressed locals," Kissur said with admonition. Bemish wanted to point out,
that he was not an official and he was not going to solve the locals'
problems, but he was afraid of overdoing it and he shut up.
By the evening, they both departed from the spaceport through a hole in
the wall and walked in the dusk down a beautiful beaten dusty road, winding
by the neatly planted gardens and rice paddies. They were both unbelievably
dirty. Kissur braided a water lily wreath for himself and dashed around the
road, laughing.
"Kissur," Bemish said, "I have a request for you."
"Yes?"
"The spaceport is built on the peasant land, even though there is a lot
of state land around. But it was built on the communal land and the families
were handed shares in the way of compensation. I could buy them out."
"How much will you pay them?"
Bemish hesitated. He would happily buy them for a rice vodka jug but he
could still see the whip marks on the Krasnov's shoulders.
"These shares aren't liquid, Kissur. They cost no more than three
hundred isheviks each. I am ready to pay this money."
"And, when you build the spaceport, will each one cost three hundred
thousand? You will swindle this money out of the peasants."
"They will not cost three hundred thousand if I don't build the
spaceport."
"Shavash told me that you are not even going to build it."
Bemish shuddered.
"Shavash said," Kissur continued, "that you make money, buying a
company stocks, and then threatening the company management, till they buy
the stocks back at triple price, and that you are reputed to be such a man,
a greenmailer. Is it true?"
"Yes," Bemish said.
"So, are you going to buy Assalah?"
"I am."
"Why haven't you bought the other companies before?"
"I wanted to buy them. Only, the stock price increased so much during
the fight, that it would be stupid to buy them. As Shavash maybe told you,
two companies, whose management bought me off, went bankrupt."
"Has it happened because of you?"
"It was their choice to set a ludicrous stock price."
"The same will happen to Assalah, won't it? The price will seem too
high for you, you will sell the stocks and the company will go bankrupt."
I don't think so. You see, enormous amount of money was sunk in Assalah
and, despite all this view around us, - Bemish here gestured with his arm
encompassing the bamboo growth far away and the semicircular administration
center hulk, looking like an empty watermelon rind- despite all this, the
spaceport is more than three quarters built. If we try hard, the first ships
will start landing practically in six months. You heard, why it was
abandoned - to cost very cheap. Also, everybody has heard, that it's
dangerous to invest in a market like yours, but not everybody understands
that spaceports and, also, interstellar communication systems are the only
safe parts of your economy. This item will not be abandoned at any
government and it depends on the local communications, in the least, because
its main profits come from the sky. Assalah costs now less than two eateries
in the middle of Toronto but, really, it is impossibly under priced. So, the
stock price may increase tenfold but it will still be a good acquisition.
Kissur was silent for a moment.
"Are you buying the Assalah stocks now?"
"Yes."
"How much do you have?"
"The Empire Fund Committee requires registration of any company stock
acquisition of more than 5%. I have more now but I would ask you to keep it
confidential. I haven't registered it."
"How is it possible?"
"Several companies act as the dummy agent stockholders for me."
Kissur paused and asked then,
"What is this investment auction of yours?"
"Ffty one percent of government stocks will be divided in two blocks -
20% and 31%. As you see, I will have a controlling block of shares even if I
get only a 20% block at the auction."
"Wouldn't it be better to offer a good price at the auction?"
"I am not entirely satisfied by the tender conditions. They are defined
so cleverly that they allow, for instance, the government to raise the price
after the winner is selected."
"What, if you don't come out as a winner, and Shavash sells the company
to somebody else, will you sell these stocks with a multiple-fold profit?"
"I will buy Assalah."
Kissur was silent. The birds fluttered out of the grass, a lost cow
mooed far away in the field, and the sun, round like a pumpkin, rolled above
the Earthman's and the Empire ex-first minister's heads.
"What did the clerks do? The ones bankrupted by you?"
"What clerks?"
"Well, these..." Kissur clicked his fingers, "general directors."
"Nothing. They are civilized people."
"Now remember this, Bemish. I will help you. But, if you do as Shavash
said, I will shoot you."
Kissur got up and walked down the road.
Richard Giles, the IC company representative, found the finance
vice-minister, Shavash, performing a ceremony. Shavash walked stately around
the new building of Adako bank carrying in his hands a golden basin, with a
burning candle floating on a splinter, and two dozen children in the
identical silk clothes followed him with the same candles in their arms.
Numerous gapers enjoyed the view.
Shavash entered the building, sluiced water on the marble floor and,
with the proper words, handed the basin to the new bank's president - his
good friend's nephew.
When the ceremony finished in five minutes, Shavash withdrew to the
future director's office. Giles followed him. Shavash dropped the billowing
silk vestment and an impeccable white suit underneath revealed itself.
"Oh, that's you, Dick," he said. "Welcome here, how didn't I see you at
the ceremony start?"
"I flew to Assalah," Giles replied dryly. "Bemish was also there."
"He is in his right," Shavash shrugged his shoulders. "You have to
agree, if the company wants to participate in the auction, its general
director can visit a spaceport."
"We had an agreement that he would not take part in the auction."
"A man can't fulfill all his promises," Shavash explained, "especially,
if the other offer is better."
Giles swore glumly and said. "Damn it, if we pay a dinar per share, we
can't afford somebody else applying for the auction!"
"I regret, but you will have to raise the price. Terence Bemish is
offering seven point seven dinars - just raise the price."
"I didn't pay you, Shavash, to pay for the shares. Kick Bemish out."
"I am sorry," Shavash said, "but Bemish is a Kissur's protr
him in the corridor.
"So?"
"The damned briber!" the enraged Earthman hissed, "Kissur's prot wench -
Shavash was getting the signatures! He will now harry us with this Bemish
till we pay three dinars for a share."
By four o'clock, Bemish was fatigued. The road was dusty and covered
with potholes, the spaceport disappeared a long time ago behind the endless
flat fields and the rows of olive trees, planted next to the road so that
the dust settled on olives and they ripened faster. They made at least
twenty five miles, not including the morning spaceport trip. Bemish was
tired as a dog and was slowly getting nuts - what is Kissur trying to prove?
That he walks on foot better than Bemish? It comes as no surprise in a man
who fought in a country with motorized divisions consisting of one
horsepower units! The temptation to make it all clear to Kissur was pretty
strong. But Bemish still kept silence and dragged himself after the
ex-minister like a dog's tail.
By the evening, Bemish and Kissur reached a local village and came in a
tavern. Both wanderers were dirty up to their ears and looked so
unprepossessing, that the host didn't even move seeing them at the entrance.
Only, when Kissur sat at the table and bellowed, did he amble to the
visitors. Kissur inspected the geese the host offered, demanded to grill one
of them and ordered, additionally, mushroom sauce, appetizers and wine.
The goose soon appeared in front of the travelers in the grilled state
and it was impossible to recognize - such an appetizing crust covered it and
so cheerfully did the goose fat drip down in the steaming rice plate. The
travelers embarked on the food and, though Bemish was very hungry, he soon
realized that he had no chance holding his own with Kissur. They conversed
in English. Bemish noticed suddenly that Kissur was trying to not to bang
his spoon on the plate and was listening to the conversation between two
poorly dressed peasants - they were scraping rice quickly out of their
plates with their heads down. Finally Kissur couldn't hold it, he bid them
come to the table, handed over some goose and started to ask questions.
Bemish, being barely able to understand a few words, inquired what the
problem was.
"These are the peasants from the second village," Kissur said, "and
they are going to the manor's headman. Two years ago, their father became
sick and they borrowed money from the headman for medical treatment, at
first, and then for the funeral. In two years, the interest grew to match
the original loan size. At that point, the headman sent his servants to the
village and took their sister as a loan payment. The guys went to their
relatives to borrow money but it didn't work out and they are going to the
headman again." They were silent for a while.
"What about the shares," Bemish wondered. "Did you ask them about the
shares?"
"They don't know what shares are," Kissur replied, "if you mean the red
paper pieces they were issued for their land, they gave it to the headman as
a name day gift."
"But they cost ten isheviks a share even now!" Bemish exclaimed
involuntarily, totally forgetting a vodka crock.
The peasants swung their heads nervously, listening to two bums talking
- they were clearly speaking some thief's argot - the peasants couldn't make
a single word out! Kissur pulled a wad of money out of his pants, counted
two hundred isheviks and gave them to the older guy.
"Hold it," he said, "that's for your sister's bail." The peasant's eyes
bulged out at the bum, he fell down on his knees and started kissing the
earth in front of Kissur, till Kissur threw him outside.
"Where are we going now?" Bemish asked when the peasants left.
Kissur opened his dirty coat's flap, making sure that the gun was still
there, and said, "Let's spend a night in the manor where the sister was
taken to."
By the late evening, tired as a dog Bemish slogged after Kissur to a
hilltop crowned by a toothy tarred fence. Upon the travelers' arrival, a
gate appeared in the fence and a servant with a flashlight and an assault
rifle appeared in the gate.
"Talk," Kissur elbowed Bemish.
"I... our... sleep," Bemish started.
The servant raised his flashlight a bit, realized that he was dealing
with the foreigners that understood the human speech worse than dogs and let
them into the manor with hardly a word.
It's should be pointed out, that the headman, in the manor they came
to, was an awful man. He fleeced the peasants mercilessly, traded in girls,
purchased stolen goods and ruled a racketeering gang. He had a great
relationship with the regional authorities. At the same time, he attempted
to look honorable. Fleecing the peasants, he always referred to the manor
owner's merciless orders. Since the local peasants were really dumb, it had
never even come to their mind to complain to the manor's owner, living in
the capital and totally ignorant of all these depravities. In such a simple
way the headman persuaded the peasants that he was their protector.
So, Kissur and Bemish found a place in a hay bale inside the cattle
yard and watched the peasants come to the meeting hall. The headman even
came out to meet them.
"I am so sorry about this," he declared, "but I have already sent your
sister to the lord in the capital, so there is no way to get her back. If
the lord likes her, you are lucky - maybe he will agree to forgive you the
rest of your debt."
"But we managed to get the money," the peasant said happily and handed
the banknotes over.
Who could guess that the headman had quarreled with one of his servants
yesterday and bashed his head in with a stick? He stuck the body into the
trunk afterwards, got it out of the manor and threw it into the bushes next
to the construction. In the morning, he said that he had sent the servant to
buy some stuff in the capital. He was going to report the servant as having
deserted afterwards but an incredible idea came to him, when he saw the
money. He leafed through the bank notes again and, suddenly, he pulled one
of them out - it was a twenty isheviks note with a "200" ink bank mark.
"Hold them," he cried to the servants. "I gave this twenty isheviks
note to my servant Anai when I sent him out yesterday. Anai should have
returned this morning; they must have robbed and killed him. Otherwise,
where would they get the money?"
The servants grabbed the bewildered peasants.
"Where did you get the money?" the headman attacked them.
"Your grace," the elder begged, "a bum gave us the money; it looked
like he followed us here - he is sleeping now on the hay bale! How would we
know if he robbed somebody?"
The headman ordered the servants to take a look and they reported in no
time that, truly, one sturdy bum was sleeping on a bale and another one had
dug himself in it. The headman was pleased. "The prey comes to the hunter on
its own," he thought, "I will arrest these bums and accuse them of the
murder!" But then he changed his mind. "Who knows where these bums came
from? Only bandits carry this kind of money on them and they won't be
overjoyed, if I accuse an acclaimed gang member of murder and robbery! I
will meet my end this way. To the opposite, the bandits will appreciate my
tact if I don't get them mixed in this business."
And he assailed the peasants.
"It's such nonsense! Where would bums get this money? You don't even
stop at accusing innocent fellow travelers." And he ordered to bring whips
and canes.
Kissur was by no means sleeping in the bale at that time. He aspired to
see his philanthropy's results. To avoid attention, he took the boots off
and stuck them in the hay, so that they looked like a sleeper's legs,
noiselessly climbed on the barn roof and jumped from there to the main
house. He took off his belt with a hook on the end, snatched a post on the
roof with a hook and lowered himself down the belt, to a cornice encircling
the house. He walked down the cornice to the entry hall. Hanging down there,
he heard the peasants being accused of the servant's murder and he heard
them breaking down at the torture and confessing their guilt.
In a while, the prisoners were taken away, the headman locked the money
in the small metal safe in the corner and everybody left. Having waited for
half an hour, Kissur carefully pried the wooden frame open with a knife and
climbed inside.
Bemish woke up in the middle of the night - Kissur was missing. "Where
is he hanging his ass out?" Bemish got angry. The moon shined and the roofs
of wing houses and utility shacks were clearly outlined on the night sky
background. Just then, Bemish saw a man's silhouette sneaking along the main
house rooftop with a sack under his armpit. Bemish shuddered and rubbed his
eyes. The man jumped over to the garage roof and disappeared inside. "Hold
the thief!" a scream issued, and something glistened in the house. Bemish
jumped.
Something boomed in the garage, its gate was thrown wide open and a
truck rushed out puffing.
"Jump!" Kissur screamed.
Bemish leaped on the truck, tore the door open and fell on the seat.
The truck scurried around the yard, kicked out the gate and sprinted down
the slope. Awaken servants rushed after it but, since everybody was afraid
that the robbers could start firing and make some holes in the lackeys'
hides, - they limited their activities to the loud screams and flashlight
hustling.
The headman silently contemplated the stripped safe. "These robbers are
crummy people," he thought, "in my benevolence, I didn't prosecute them for
the murder and they thanked me in such a way!"
The truck swerved down the night road and, inside the truck Bemish
castigated the Empire ex-first minister. Bemish finished and Kissur asked,
"Terence, have you killed anybody at the construction?"
The Earthman only flapped his hands at such a question.
"I also think that you haven't killed anybody," Kissur agreed, "then,
how did the headman recognize this note?" and he started recounting, what
happened between the headman and the peasants.
"I think," the Earthman said, "the problem is, that the headman has
already sent the girl to his lord and he is afraid to call her back. That's
why he kicked this hoax with the money off; the servant ran away somewhere
or he will come in a week."
"You think well," Kissur said, "and the peasants likely think the same
way. Keep it."
And to the financier's horror, the Empire ex-minister handed him over a
wad of square notes that Bemish immediately recognized to be the Assalah
bearer stocks.
"My God," Bemish moaned, "what is this?"
"These are your stocks. Do you remember the peasants' story, how the
headman requested them as a gift?"
"Why?!"
"You said it yourself, that if you have these shares, you will be able
to control Shavash."
"Kissur! Firstly, I can buy low and sell high but I've never acquired
securities yet with a bandit's lock pick. Secondly, exactly five minutes
after this story comes out, not a single bank will agree to finance me.
Thirdly, this story will surely come out, since the headman will complain
about one of the robbers being a foreigner and there are not that many
foreigners..."
"He won't run to complain," Kissur said, "or he will have to explain,
how he got the shares as a gift."
Bemish gestured with his hand and became silent.
It took them an hour to drive back to the beginning of the destroyed
overpass, where Bemish and McCormick had abandoned the car in the morning -
the car was still there. Kissur got out of the truck, threw the stolen stuff
on the back seat and took the clean clothes out of the trunk.
"Change you clothes."
Kissur drove the car and Bemish grouched, kept silence and, looking at
Kissur, thought, "He is not a man, he is a walking scandal." They arrived at
a crumbly town and stopped in front of a red lacquered gate. Bemish realized
that it was a district precinct. It was probably the same precinct where
Krasnov was whipped for an attempt to acquire the shares.
"Are you going to rob another precinct head?"
Kissur, not responding, knocked in the gate. The district head, having
learned about the Emperor favorite's visit, put the clothes on and went out
to meet them. Kissur introduced Bemish to him.
"We were inspecting the construction till the nightfall and we were
barely able to get out," Kissur explained.
In the morning, even before Kissur and Bemish walked downstairs, a
bustle issued in the house. The official reported, bowing.
"Mr. Kissur! Your manor is located nearby, and a modest man named
Khanni is the headman there. Yesterday night, two bums robbed the house and
stole four hundred thousand! Probably, these two guys also killed his
servant and lifted his money - the servant's body was found today in the
riverside bushes!
Bemish understood some of the official's talk and froze.
They drove to the headman - a dozen Kissur's servants, that he called
that night from the capital, joined them on the way. The district head
entered the yard, with a large crowd already assembled, and Kissur stayed in
the crowd screened by his servants.
The murdered servant's body was delivered, two peasants were brought in
and the headman accused them.
"Everything is clear. These two made a deal with the bandits and robbed
and killed my servant - they didn't expect me recognizing the money. You
were going to rob the manor together next but, since you were arrested, the
bums went ahead on their own. Answer me - where did you bump into them?
Imagine it, I was trying to protect you before your lord, turned your sister
over to him, so that he would become lenient."
Here, the crowd moved and Kissur moved out of it surrounded by three
sturdy chaps.
"Hey, Khanni! What was this girl you turned over to me?"
The headman went gray in the face with horror. The crowd reacted.
"How much, are you saying, they stole from me?" Kissur continued.
"Four hundred thousand," the headman fretted. Here Kissur took the sack
of his shoulder and emptied it right out for everybody to see.
"Khanni," Kissur stated, "when I gave you this manor, I said, 'Don't
oppress the people, only take one tenth.' Yesterday, I was passing by, with
a friend, and I decided to check, how you obey my orders, and when you
arrested the people I gave money to, claimed this money for yourself, and
told them that I dishonored their sister that I haven't even met, it looked
to me, that you obeyed my orders like a pig you are - that you sucked on the
people's marrow and drank their blood. I decided to look in your safe and I
carried away from it not four hundred thousand but, rather, six and half
thousand and, secondly, I carried away from it the loan agreements signed
with my signature - and this is a fake signature. Then I realized that I
didn't waste my time poking into this safe, because you would doubtfully
have shown me these faked agreements!"
The headman could not speak - he bleated and crawled at Kissur's feet.
"Spit it out," Kissur barked. "How many girls have you sold to the
whorehouses in my name?"
"Twenty of them, at least," somebody in the crowd responded.
Here, Kissur leaped at the headman and crushed his nose and many other
parts, and then ordered to "hang this fucker on the gate" - Bemish could
barely persuade him to call the lynching off.
They still stuffed the headman in the stocks at the punishment pole. By
mid afternoon, hundreds of peasants drifted into the manor.
"That's what happened," the peasants were saying, "the damned headman
lied to us and cheated the master! Thanks to the master for coming here and
sorting things out!"
Kissur ordered to set a table across the pole, sat down at the table
and started to hand the loan agreements out to the peasants while the
district head, happy to still have his nose whole, was certifying that the
deeds were fake.
By the evening, the headman was taken away in the stocks and the
satisfied crowd dispersed.
Kissur and Bemish stayed in the orphaned manor overnight.
"So, how was I?" Kissur inquired Bemish at the dinner. He reminded
Bemish of a victorious fighting cock.
"If a society's fairness," Bemish said, "depended on the number of
squashed noses, then your Empire would be the fairest place in the Universe.
However, the situation is reversed."
Kissur frowned.
"The objective is," the Earthman said instructively, "not to break the
corrupted officials' noses. The objective is to position the officials in
such a way that they couldn't harass the people."
"How do you like this place?"
"Wonderful place," Bemish said, "one could build a heaven here or, at
least, a wondrous chicken farm."
Kissur burst out in laughter and slapped him on the shoulder.
"It's all yours, then!"
Bemish was astonished.
"I can't accept such a gift."
"Why? You just stated that the goal is not to kick a bad owner's butt,
but to find an honest one. You are all bark and no bite."
"But I don't even speak the language."
Kissur, however, wasn't even going to listen.
"Also, you need to live somewhere," he declared, "you will surely get
this company in your pocket, don't worry! I will wheedle it out of the
sovereign for you."
And he started enthusiastically treating Bemish with wine.
Bemish woke up late. The sun was pushing in the open window and dancing
on a deity's jade mug, grinning above the door, on an ancient silver lantern
where an electric light bulb bloated like a white bubble. With an effort,
Bemish recalled yesterday events. "There was a fight... We drank... Oh, my
God! He granted me the manor!" Bemish jumped up in the bed - the house deed
and a note from Kissur lay on the table - he returned to the capital.
In an hour, Bemish thoughtfully consumed breakfast on a veranda.
Frightened servants ran around. He could barely talk to the servants and was
absolutely unable to understand their replies. He thought for a moment, went
inside and called to Mr. Shavash's office.
"Mr. Shavash," the Earthman said, "could you recommend me a really
honest administrator?"
The first finance vice-minister assured him, in a slightly ironic
voice, that he would be happy to find for Mr. Bemish anything in the world -
an eternal phoenix, three-headed dragon, and even an honest administrator.
At the other end of the line, Shavash hung up the receiver. He pondered
for a moment and, then, he called the secretary and gave the necessary
orders.
Soon, a young man, with a round face and pleasant but sad azure eyes,
entered his office. The young man's face was unusually pale, a raw dough
color. An Earthman or another ignorant person would think that the face's
owner was unhealthy or hadn't left home for a while. A Weian would
immediately suspect that the guy had been in jail.
So, the young man named Adini, approached to the official's table and
froze three steps away, waiting for orders.
"Kissur," Shavash said, "bestowed to a Earthman, named Terence Bemish,
a manor next to Assalah and the Earthman is looking for a manor's headman. I
would like to bestow you to him."
"Yes, master," Adini said deferentially.
"You will watch him and report all his meetings and plans to me."
Shavash picked a sheet of paper with a personal seal out of a folder.
"The moment Bemish leaves the planet," Shavash said, "this sheet of
paper will be destroyed. It is in your best interests, to operate so that
Bemish leaves the planet quickly. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, master."
"Terence Bemish is a smart man and he, most certainly, expects me to
use this opportunity to send him a spy."
"Why did he ask you for a headman, then?"
"He hopes to allure the spy to his side. Once he has given you enough
favors, you may pretend that it indeed has happened. Remember, however, that
Bemish can give you money or a stipend but only I can get rid of this paper
for you. Also remember that, if Bemish had this sheet, he would not act as a
good Samaritan towards you. He will be kind to you only because he doesn't
have another weapon."
Bemish was enjoying the ancient mosaic overlaying the walls on the
second floor, when he heard a descending flyer's characteristic rustle. He
walked out to the gallery - a white flyer stood in the yard, the last
"rainbow" shimmers were beating above its wings. In a moment, the "rainbow"
dimmed, the flyer's roof opened up like a poppy flower carpel, and two
people got out of the car - a handsome lithe youth in a strict white suit
and another guy, more scrawny than slim, in a checked shirt with torn-off
sleeves and a red flower in his hair, following the contemporary rebel
fashion.
"You can live here two months and more," the youth in the strict suit
said loudly in English, evidently being sure that nobody could understand
him, "no one will say a word. The local headman has sinned quite a bit and
he won't even tell my brother about you."
"And how much has he sinned?"
"Not more than any damned bank director."
Here, the older youth turned around and noticed Bemish who was standing
openly at the gallery encircling the villa at the second store.
"Hey, who are you?" the youth called out in Weian.
"I am Terence Bemish and I am the villa's owner."
"That's nonsense! The villa belongs to my brother."
"That's true. However, Kissur threw out the manor's headman yesterday
and gave the manor to me."
The youth span his head nervously and Bemish said,
"You are welcome. I don't think that Kissur would be happy to know that
I showed his brother and his guest off."
Bemish ordered the servants to serve the terrace table and, soon, he
and his unexpected guests were devouring an ample breakfast. Kissur
brother's name was Ashidan and his companion introduced himself, not without
sarcasm, as John Smith.
"What do you do?" Ashidan asked.
"I am a financier."
"My brother makes strange acquaintances," Ashidan noticed.
"What do you do?" Bemish inquired from the new guest.
"It's none of your business, shithead."
Bemish was a bit flustered.
"Excuse me," he asked, "didn't we meet two minutes ago? I don't know
anything about you. What do you know about me to call me a shithead?"
"What class did you fly coming here?"
"First class."
"That's it. How can a man with enough money to fly first class not to
be a shithead?"
"Are you an anarchist," Bemish wondered, "a communist?"
"I am a sympathizer"
"Whom and what do you sympathize with? Esinole? Marks? Le Dan?"
"I sympathize with the people that the likes of you shit on with
money."
"Why do you sympathize with them on Weia?"
"This planet is interesting for me," Smith said. "People here haven't
choked on their money.
"Yes," Bemish agreed, recalling peasants, crawling in the fields, "they
haven't. But I hope to fix it."
"Eh?"
"I will help them to choke on their money," Bemish stated.
"It's nonsense! You don't care about anything except your profits!"
Bemish was unhurriedly eating the morning soup. Last time he heard the
same thing from the former ADO general director, whom he kicked out from a
comfortable for him, but burdensome for the company, armchair.
"Don't push it, Johnny," Ashidan said sarcastically, "or he will be
calling police in a second."
"I would certainly call police," Bemish said, "if I saw you making a
bomb. Since you are just yakking, why the heck should I call them?"
"Will you tell my brother?"
Bemish carefully looked at Ashidan. "What a brood," a thought passed
his mind, "one drives tanks down the foreign companies' facilities and
another reads Marx in Princeton... Why didn't Kissur give him the villa?"
Bemish fished a satellite phone out of his pocket and handed it to the
youth.
"Tell him yourself," Bemish suggested.
Ashidan got up and walked to the garden to make a call. Right then, the
servants rushed to the terrace to announce the district head's arrival.
The district head brought gifts with him - three dishes of grilled meat
with garlic, a suckling pig, salads in flat baskets and, also, a plate of
walnut shaped cookies and a round sweet quince pie decorated with the
Bemish's last name misspelled on top.
Bemish walked the guest to the garden gazebo. The official bowed to him
with the pie and said, "It's a great honor for us, Mr. Bemish that you will
now, in a way, live with us. I am happy to express my gratitude to you.
Thanks to your help and Kissur's courage, a crime of unimaginable magnitude
and horror was uncovered.
"I think you were aware of it," Bemish said.
"Hola, how can you say so?! I was shocked, squashed like a frog under a
wagon!"
Bemish shrugged his shoulders. A servant knocked and appeared in the
door with a steaming teapot and sweets in woven baskets.
The guest and the host treated each other with tea and, then, the
district head inquired,
"They say that you will be in the charge of our construction?"
"It's too early to say," Bemish said.
Here it seemed to Bemish that the district head winked his eye at him
in a coarse and canny way.
"Well, say," the district head said, "there is no reason to doubt now.
Believe me, I and the others around will be utterly happy to do everything
they can for Kissur's friend and their future colleague."
"Did you whip Krasnov?" Bemish asked.
"Eh?"
"I mean the trader, who came to Assalah for the stocks. You said, that
you wouldn't allow foreigners to rob the people."
The district head nodded understandingly. His face became now important
and benevolent.
"Unfortunately," he said, "the people are like children and officials
should protect them. How can I let them sell invaluable property for two
cents?"
"You can't let them sell it for two cents but you can let them sell it
for free? To pay for the taxes you invented?"
"Hola!" the district head exclaimed, "how can you say so?"
His round kind face reddened and tears appeared on the wide open eyes.
"Do you have company shares? Did you pay a cent for them?"
The district head's eyes looked at Bemis honestly and directly.
"From now on," the district head said, "the meaning of my life is to
serve you! What would you like me to do? Tell me and I will carry it out."
"I would like you," Bemish said, "to sell me the Assalah shares at the
same price the peasants sold them to you - for free."
The official choked.
"Otherwise," Bemish continued, "the sovereign will know how you chased
foreign vultures from here with a brined whip to bleed the people on your
own."
The official was silent for a moment and then bowed and pronounced, "It
will be my honor to serve you."
"I should get him fired," Bemish thought, "so that a man grateful to me
for the appointment and not the man hating me because of the shares is head
of the precinct.
When Bemish walked down in the garden, Ashidan was standing on the
swimming pool edge and throwing thin well sharpened darts into a fat pot.
"Well, did you talk to this mongrel? Ashidan asked, "How much money did
he give you, so that you didn't prosecute him?"
"Don't be rude, Ashidan."
"This district head is a real weirdo, "the youth continued, "He is the
only local official who spends every day in the office. Do you know what he
engages in in there?"
"Well?"
"He locks himself with his young male secretary since his wife comes
from a much better family than he does, and she doesn't allow these little
tricks at home."
The Fourth Chapter
Where Kissur tells investment bankers how to train a highwayman's horse
while Terence Bemish makes an acquintance with other contenders for Assalah
stocks.
The next day after his return to the capital, Bemish found himself at a
party thrown by the district prefect to celebrate the plum blossoming or
some other divine occasion.
The party was grand. All of the high society arrived.
The officials discussed the inflation and the importance of the
preservation of the customs. The people from the stars discussed the
inflation and the importance of the preservation of the customs.
In a corner, the foreign entrepreneurs shared more particular
impressions from the local business surroundings with each other.
"So, this abbot comes to me and offers to bless the bank against a
misfortune and he asks for two hundred thousand dinars for the ceremony. I
refuse and the next night a fire starts in the office. The next day this
vermin comes to me again, expresses its condolences, and asks for two
hundred thousand again. When I complained to the police, they gave me the
advice - don' buck and cough up the money - the abbot is connected to Horn's
gang."
"By the way, speaking about banks - do you know that only the
companies, with accounts in Shavash controlled banks, received the budget
financing this month? They say that Shavash had a ten percent kickback.
And so on. And so forth.
Bemish met the Federation of Nineteen envoy, an elderly Malaysian, and
the envoy led Bemish into a corner immediately and started telling him true
stories from local officials' lives.
There were about dozen envoys present. Bemish was suddenly surprised by
the number. He thought that only fifteen... not even fifteen - ten years ago
- the envoys' number would be way smaller. The Earth colonies were leaving
the Federation of Nineteen one after another, peacefully or with swords
drawn.
Bemish was also introduced to the Gera envoy. The envoy was talking to
two people that looked familiar to Bemish.
"Mr. Lawrence Edwards," the envoy introduced one of them.
"Mr. Jonathan Rusby," he introduced the other one.
Bemish didn't bat an eyelid.
Half the Galaxy police have been looking for Mr. Lawrence Edwards. Mr.
Edwards had owned one of the Galaxy's largest and most respectable
businesses. An airport technician's son, he made a five billion dinar
fortune by the age of thirty. He used land allotments he acquired for
construction purposes, as collateral to obtain the bank loans, and the banks
trusted him completely. Unfortunately, Mr. Edwards had more and more
difficulties in the last several years and he created a network of companies
buying these land allotments from each other and using them later as
collateral for bank loans. At the fifth act's end, Edwards escaped. When
disappointed banks arrested the land allotments and unfinished skyscrapers,
they found out their real price was very different from the price paid by
the affiliated companies, and it didn't even cover one twentieth of Mr.
Edwards loans.
As for Mr. Rusby, he had also been a financial legend and the manager
of a successful offshore fund investing citizens' savings in risk free
government securities. Unfortunately, the interest promised by Mr. Rusby
exceeded the possible government securities trading profits by 3% and,
henceforth, Mr. Rusby, while promising the complete safety, invested his
clients' money using much more profitable but much less secure financial
instruments. The clients, lured by high risk free profits, crowded at his
office, the modest retirees and dishwashers who would have never invested in
his fund if they had known the fund's structure, brought their money to him.
Rusby, with his incredible nose for trading, often gleaned up huge pickings
buying a bankrupted company's shares at 5% of the face value that would
later rise to 90% and he had a great time meanwhile with the margin between
his take-in and his payments to the clients.
It was not economical but rather political quandaries that destroyed
him - a new tax law on Aegeia, where his head office was, and a couple of
the adroit auditors. Rusby's assets were arrested, his wife divorced him
scandalously, the fund immediately bankrupted and Rusby escaped to Gera,
where he kept insisting that, all this time, he fulfilled his obligations
towards the clients and paid them exactly as he promised.
By the way, the federal committee didn't argue that.
It just claimed that if the Rusby investments' real risk level had been
known, he would have had to pay the investors five-fold.
"Eh, Mr. Bemish," Rusby said with a friendly smile, "I heard that you
were also taking part in the Assalah auction?"
"Also?" Bemish winced. "Wow! Would Shavash really let this man, wanted
by the Galaxy police, participate in an auction."
Next to a lighted pond with gold fish, a small man stood - Shavash.
"Thanks for the headman," Bemish said, "what salary should I pay him?"
"Nothing - he is your slave."
Bemish choked.
"I thought there is no slavery on Weia.
"Call it the way you want. This man owes me two hundred thousand
isheviks and he signed a contract that he would work this debt off any way I
choose. I will transfer the contract to you and send it tomorrow with the
courier."
Bemish was silent.
"By the way," Shavash asked suddenly, "they say, all the Assalah
documentation was transferred to you. What's your opinion?"
"What do you mean?"
"I meant just what I said. You just familiarized yourself with the most
detailed documentation, you are a financier. What do you say?"
Bemish hesitated.
I'd say that I realized how they make money on Weia. They make money
not on private profits but on state expenses. They fed off Assalah in two
ways. The first way was the inflated contracts and the second way was the
written-off equipment. For instance, the company Alarcon was in charge of
the land works. The same man was both the Assalah director and the Alarcon
founder. He owned 20% of the shares. There is the geological study's
conclusion, that Assalah stands on an excellent basalt foundation with a
forest situated above it. There are, also, seven million isheviks paid to
Alarcon for draining swamps that have never existed. There is construction
equipment paid for with the budget money at triple fold prices. And the same
equipment was sold to Alarcon in two weeks and 97% of the resource was
claimed to be exhausted. How can you exhaust 97% of the resource of a step
excavator in ten working days? I bet, it was still standing unpacked at a
warehouse, new and shiny! Any action was a financial pump that pumped state
budget money from the company a manager was in charge of, to the company the
manager owned.
Shavash listened to the Earthman with eyes half closed.
"You said that the director owned 20% of the Alarcon shares. Who owned
the other 80%?"
"I assume that you owned it, Shavash."
A deferential waiter stopped next to them and Shavash took a crystal
glass on a thin stem from the silver tray.
"However, I didn't understand certain things," Bemish continued, "what
is an "ishevik bill of credit"?"
Shavash spread his hands.
"We were forced to do this. When the ministry doesn't have money, it
has sometimes to issue short-term bills of credit maturing in three months.
You need to pay the contractors somehow."
"In other words, you, Mr. Shavash, issue your own money."
"Not exactly," the vice-ministry pointed out indifferently, "Money
costs as much as it costs. While, when you obtain "ishevik bills of credit",
you go to a bank to exchange them for money. The bank can pay you thirty
percent of the face value or it can pay you hundred percent. It depends on
how good friends you, I and bank are."
"I believe," Bemish enquired, "it's meaningless to ask you if you
approve of cutting the ineffective industry subsidies down."
"Theoretically speaking, I approve of it," Shavash said tiredly. "You
don't read local media. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the budget deficit
curbing. This Assalah thing swallowed two billion isheviks while the real
expenses were not even two million."
The official's voice didn't carry either cynicism or sarcasm in it.
Bemish kept silent - he didn't know how to snub a man who issued pseudo
money as the first finance vice-minister, received it on the Assalah's
account as a Board of Director's member, and ferried it to his personal
account as real money.
Right then, Bemish realized a very simple thing - Kissur can bequest a
villa to him, Kissur can secure Assalah for him - but only Shavash has the
"This is the tail," Kissur said, "this is the head and the driver's
seat is in the middle. What are you waiting for? Get in."
"I don't like," Bemish replied, "that it moves before I turn the
ignition on."
Kissur and his servants laughed agreeably.
Bemish, however, had to climb on the horse and trek through a crazy
forest where the power line poles entwined by lianas grew instead of the
trees. Bemish tired out, battered his butt and finally almost drowned in a
lawn which in reality proved to be a swamp inside a landing chute.
Kissur said, that he would cripple the horse riding this way, and
Bemish said that he would like to observe Kissur driving a car ten years
ago. Then, Kissur sent his people off with the horses and walked on foot
next to Bemish. Bemish enquired, where they were going, and Kissur explained
that the future owner of the spaceport should better get acquainted with the
local villages. "In ancient times, a good official always arrived to his
appointment region incognito, to learn the problems and difficulties of the
oppressed locals," Kissur said with admonition. Bemish wanted to point out,
that he was not an official and he was not going to solve the locals'
problems, but he was afraid of overdoing it and he shut up.
By the evening, they both departed from the spaceport through a hole in
the wall and walked in the dusk down a beautiful beaten dusty road, winding
by the neatly planted gardens and rice paddies. They were both unbelievably
dirty. Kissur braided a water lily wreath for himself and dashed around the
road, laughing.
"Kissur," Bemish said, "I have a request for you."
"Yes?"
"The spaceport is built on the peasant land, even though there is a lot
of state land around. But it was built on the communal land and the families
were handed shares in the way of compensation. I could buy them out."
"How much will you pay them?"
Bemish hesitated. He would happily buy them for a rice vodka jug but he
could still see the whip marks on the Krasnov's shoulders.
"These shares aren't liquid, Kissur. They cost no more than three
hundred isheviks each. I am ready to pay this money."
"And, when you build the spaceport, will each one cost three hundred
thousand? You will swindle this money out of the peasants."
"They will not cost three hundred thousand if I don't build the
spaceport."
"Shavash told me that you are not even going to build it."
Bemish shuddered.
"Shavash said," Kissur continued, "that you make money, buying a
company stocks, and then threatening the company management, till they buy
the stocks back at triple price, and that you are reputed to be such a man,
a greenmailer. Is it true?"
"Yes," Bemish said.
"So, are you going to buy Assalah?"
"I am."
"Why haven't you bought the other companies before?"
"I wanted to buy them. Only, the stock price increased so much during
the fight, that it would be stupid to buy them. As Shavash maybe told you,
two companies, whose management bought me off, went bankrupt."
"Has it happened because of you?"
"It was their choice to set a ludicrous stock price."
"The same will happen to Assalah, won't it? The price will seem too
high for you, you will sell the stocks and the company will go bankrupt."
I don't think so. You see, enormous amount of money was sunk in Assalah
and, despite all this view around us, - Bemish here gestured with his arm
encompassing the bamboo growth far away and the semicircular administration
center hulk, looking like an empty watermelon rind- despite all this, the
spaceport is more than three quarters built. If we try hard, the first ships
will start landing practically in six months. You heard, why it was
abandoned - to cost very cheap. Also, everybody has heard, that it's
dangerous to invest in a market like yours, but not everybody understands
that spaceports and, also, interstellar communication systems are the only
safe parts of your economy. This item will not be abandoned at any
government and it depends on the local communications, in the least, because
its main profits come from the sky. Assalah costs now less than two eateries
in the middle of Toronto but, really, it is impossibly under priced. So, the
stock price may increase tenfold but it will still be a good acquisition.
Kissur was silent for a moment.
"Are you buying the Assalah stocks now?"
"Yes."
"How much do you have?"
"The Empire Fund Committee requires registration of any company stock
acquisition of more than 5%. I have more now but I would ask you to keep it
confidential. I haven't registered it."
"How is it possible?"
"Several companies act as the dummy agent stockholders for me."
Kissur paused and asked then,
"What is this investment auction of yours?"
"Ffty one percent of government stocks will be divided in two blocks -
20% and 31%. As you see, I will have a controlling block of shares even if I
get only a 20% block at the auction."
"Wouldn't it be better to offer a good price at the auction?"
"I am not entirely satisfied by the tender conditions. They are defined
so cleverly that they allow, for instance, the government to raise the price
after the winner is selected."
"What, if you don't come out as a winner, and Shavash sells the company
to somebody else, will you sell these stocks with a multiple-fold profit?"
"I will buy Assalah."
Kissur was silent. The birds fluttered out of the grass, a lost cow
mooed far away in the field, and the sun, round like a pumpkin, rolled above
the Earthman's and the Empire ex-first minister's heads.
"What did the clerks do? The ones bankrupted by you?"
"What clerks?"
"Well, these..." Kissur clicked his fingers, "general directors."
"Nothing. They are civilized people."
"Now remember this, Bemish. I will help you. But, if you do as Shavash
said, I will shoot you."
Kissur got up and walked down the road.
Richard Giles, the IC company representative, found the finance
vice-minister, Shavash, performing a ceremony. Shavash walked stately around
the new building of Adako bank carrying in his hands a golden basin, with a
burning candle floating on a splinter, and two dozen children in the
identical silk clothes followed him with the same candles in their arms.
Numerous gapers enjoyed the view.
Shavash entered the building, sluiced water on the marble floor and,
with the proper words, handed the basin to the new bank's president - his
good friend's nephew.
When the ceremony finished in five minutes, Shavash withdrew to the
future director's office. Giles followed him. Shavash dropped the billowing
silk vestment and an impeccable white suit underneath revealed itself.
"Oh, that's you, Dick," he said. "Welcome here, how didn't I see you at
the ceremony start?"
"I flew to Assalah," Giles replied dryly. "Bemish was also there."
"He is in his right," Shavash shrugged his shoulders. "You have to
agree, if the company wants to participate in the auction, its general
director can visit a spaceport."
"We had an agreement that he would not take part in the auction."
"A man can't fulfill all his promises," Shavash explained, "especially,
if the other offer is better."
Giles swore glumly and said. "Damn it, if we pay a dinar per share, we
can't afford somebody else applying for the auction!"
"I regret, but you will have to raise the price. Terence Bemish is
offering seven point seven dinars - just raise the price."
"I didn't pay you, Shavash, to pay for the shares. Kick Bemish out."
"I am sorry," Shavash said, "but Bemish is a Kissur's protr
him in the corridor.
"So?"
"The damned briber!" the enraged Earthman hissed, "Kissur's prot wench -
Shavash was getting the signatures! He will now harry us with this Bemish
till we pay three dinars for a share."
By four o'clock, Bemish was fatigued. The road was dusty and covered
with potholes, the spaceport disappeared a long time ago behind the endless
flat fields and the rows of olive trees, planted next to the road so that
the dust settled on olives and they ripened faster. They made at least
twenty five miles, not including the morning spaceport trip. Bemish was
tired as a dog and was slowly getting nuts - what is Kissur trying to prove?
That he walks on foot better than Bemish? It comes as no surprise in a man
who fought in a country with motorized divisions consisting of one
horsepower units! The temptation to make it all clear to Kissur was pretty
strong. But Bemish still kept silence and dragged himself after the
ex-minister like a dog's tail.
By the evening, Bemish and Kissur reached a local village and came in a
tavern. Both wanderers were dirty up to their ears and looked so
unprepossessing, that the host didn't even move seeing them at the entrance.
Only, when Kissur sat at the table and bellowed, did he amble to the
visitors. Kissur inspected the geese the host offered, demanded to grill one
of them and ordered, additionally, mushroom sauce, appetizers and wine.
The goose soon appeared in front of the travelers in the grilled state
and it was impossible to recognize - such an appetizing crust covered it and
so cheerfully did the goose fat drip down in the steaming rice plate. The
travelers embarked on the food and, though Bemish was very hungry, he soon
realized that he had no chance holding his own with Kissur. They conversed
in English. Bemish noticed suddenly that Kissur was trying to not to bang
his spoon on the plate and was listening to the conversation between two
poorly dressed peasants - they were scraping rice quickly out of their
plates with their heads down. Finally Kissur couldn't hold it, he bid them
come to the table, handed over some goose and started to ask questions.
Bemish, being barely able to understand a few words, inquired what the
problem was.
"These are the peasants from the second village," Kissur said, "and
they are going to the manor's headman. Two years ago, their father became
sick and they borrowed money from the headman for medical treatment, at
first, and then for the funeral. In two years, the interest grew to match
the original loan size. At that point, the headman sent his servants to the
village and took their sister as a loan payment. The guys went to their
relatives to borrow money but it didn't work out and they are going to the
headman again." They were silent for a while.
"What about the shares," Bemish wondered. "Did you ask them about the
shares?"
"They don't know what shares are," Kissur replied, "if you mean the red
paper pieces they were issued for their land, they gave it to the headman as
a name day gift."
"But they cost ten isheviks a share even now!" Bemish exclaimed
involuntarily, totally forgetting a vodka crock.
The peasants swung their heads nervously, listening to two bums talking
- they were clearly speaking some thief's argot - the peasants couldn't make
a single word out! Kissur pulled a wad of money out of his pants, counted
two hundred isheviks and gave them to the older guy.
"Hold it," he said, "that's for your sister's bail." The peasant's eyes
bulged out at the bum, he fell down on his knees and started kissing the
earth in front of Kissur, till Kissur threw him outside.
"Where are we going now?" Bemish asked when the peasants left.
Kissur opened his dirty coat's flap, making sure that the gun was still
there, and said, "Let's spend a night in the manor where the sister was
taken to."
By the late evening, tired as a dog Bemish slogged after Kissur to a
hilltop crowned by a toothy tarred fence. Upon the travelers' arrival, a
gate appeared in the fence and a servant with a flashlight and an assault
rifle appeared in the gate.
"Talk," Kissur elbowed Bemish.
"I... our... sleep," Bemish started.
The servant raised his flashlight a bit, realized that he was dealing
with the foreigners that understood the human speech worse than dogs and let
them into the manor with hardly a word.
It's should be pointed out, that the headman, in the manor they came
to, was an awful man. He fleeced the peasants mercilessly, traded in girls,
purchased stolen goods and ruled a racketeering gang. He had a great
relationship with the regional authorities. At the same time, he attempted
to look honorable. Fleecing the peasants, he always referred to the manor
owner's merciless orders. Since the local peasants were really dumb, it had
never even come to their mind to complain to the manor's owner, living in
the capital and totally ignorant of all these depravities. In such a simple
way the headman persuaded the peasants that he was their protector.
So, Kissur and Bemish found a place in a hay bale inside the cattle
yard and watched the peasants come to the meeting hall. The headman even
came out to meet them.
"I am so sorry about this," he declared, "but I have already sent your
sister to the lord in the capital, so there is no way to get her back. If
the lord likes her, you are lucky - maybe he will agree to forgive you the
rest of your debt."
"But we managed to get the money," the peasant said happily and handed
the banknotes over.
Who could guess that the headman had quarreled with one of his servants
yesterday and bashed his head in with a stick? He stuck the body into the
trunk afterwards, got it out of the manor and threw it into the bushes next
to the construction. In the morning, he said that he had sent the servant to
buy some stuff in the capital. He was going to report the servant as having
deserted afterwards but an incredible idea came to him, when he saw the
money. He leafed through the bank notes again and, suddenly, he pulled one
of them out - it was a twenty isheviks note with a "200" ink bank mark.
"Hold them," he cried to the servants. "I gave this twenty isheviks
note to my servant Anai when I sent him out yesterday. Anai should have
returned this morning; they must have robbed and killed him. Otherwise,
where would they get the money?"
The servants grabbed the bewildered peasants.
"Where did you get the money?" the headman attacked them.
"Your grace," the elder begged, "a bum gave us the money; it looked
like he followed us here - he is sleeping now on the hay bale! How would we
know if he robbed somebody?"
The headman ordered the servants to take a look and they reported in no
time that, truly, one sturdy bum was sleeping on a bale and another one had
dug himself in it. The headman was pleased. "The prey comes to the hunter on
its own," he thought, "I will arrest these bums and accuse them of the
murder!" But then he changed his mind. "Who knows where these bums came
from? Only bandits carry this kind of money on them and they won't be
overjoyed, if I accuse an acclaimed gang member of murder and robbery! I
will meet my end this way. To the opposite, the bandits will appreciate my
tact if I don't get them mixed in this business."
And he assailed the peasants.
"It's such nonsense! Where would bums get this money? You don't even
stop at accusing innocent fellow travelers." And he ordered to bring whips
and canes.
Kissur was by no means sleeping in the bale at that time. He aspired to
see his philanthropy's results. To avoid attention, he took the boots off
and stuck them in the hay, so that they looked like a sleeper's legs,
noiselessly climbed on the barn roof and jumped from there to the main
house. He took off his belt with a hook on the end, snatched a post on the
roof with a hook and lowered himself down the belt, to a cornice encircling
the house. He walked down the cornice to the entry hall. Hanging down there,
he heard the peasants being accused of the servant's murder and he heard
them breaking down at the torture and confessing their guilt.
In a while, the prisoners were taken away, the headman locked the money
in the small metal safe in the corner and everybody left. Having waited for
half an hour, Kissur carefully pried the wooden frame open with a knife and
climbed inside.
Bemish woke up in the middle of the night - Kissur was missing. "Where
is he hanging his ass out?" Bemish got angry. The moon shined and the roofs
of wing houses and utility shacks were clearly outlined on the night sky
background. Just then, Bemish saw a man's silhouette sneaking along the main
house rooftop with a sack under his armpit. Bemish shuddered and rubbed his
eyes. The man jumped over to the garage roof and disappeared inside. "Hold
the thief!" a scream issued, and something glistened in the house. Bemish
jumped.
Something boomed in the garage, its gate was thrown wide open and a
truck rushed out puffing.
"Jump!" Kissur screamed.
Bemish leaped on the truck, tore the door open and fell on the seat.
The truck scurried around the yard, kicked out the gate and sprinted down
the slope. Awaken servants rushed after it but, since everybody was afraid
that the robbers could start firing and make some holes in the lackeys'
hides, - they limited their activities to the loud screams and flashlight
hustling.
The headman silently contemplated the stripped safe. "These robbers are
crummy people," he thought, "in my benevolence, I didn't prosecute them for
the murder and they thanked me in such a way!"
The truck swerved down the night road and, inside the truck Bemish
castigated the Empire ex-first minister. Bemish finished and Kissur asked,
"Terence, have you killed anybody at the construction?"
The Earthman only flapped his hands at such a question.
"I also think that you haven't killed anybody," Kissur agreed, "then,
how did the headman recognize this note?" and he started recounting, what
happened between the headman and the peasants.
"I think," the Earthman said, "the problem is, that the headman has
already sent the girl to his lord and he is afraid to call her back. That's
why he kicked this hoax with the money off; the servant ran away somewhere
or he will come in a week."
"You think well," Kissur said, "and the peasants likely think the same
way. Keep it."
And to the financier's horror, the Empire ex-minister handed him over a
wad of square notes that Bemish immediately recognized to be the Assalah
bearer stocks.
"My God," Bemish moaned, "what is this?"
"These are your stocks. Do you remember the peasants' story, how the
headman requested them as a gift?"
"Why?!"
"You said it yourself, that if you have these shares, you will be able
to control Shavash."
"Kissur! Firstly, I can buy low and sell high but I've never acquired
securities yet with a bandit's lock pick. Secondly, exactly five minutes
after this story comes out, not a single bank will agree to finance me.
Thirdly, this story will surely come out, since the headman will complain
about one of the robbers being a foreigner and there are not that many
foreigners..."
"He won't run to complain," Kissur said, "or he will have to explain,
how he got the shares as a gift."
Bemish gestured with his hand and became silent.
It took them an hour to drive back to the beginning of the destroyed
overpass, where Bemish and McCormick had abandoned the car in the morning -
the car was still there. Kissur got out of the truck, threw the stolen stuff
on the back seat and took the clean clothes out of the trunk.
"Change you clothes."
Kissur drove the car and Bemish grouched, kept silence and, looking at
Kissur, thought, "He is not a man, he is a walking scandal." They arrived at
a crumbly town and stopped in front of a red lacquered gate. Bemish realized
that it was a district precinct. It was probably the same precinct where
Krasnov was whipped for an attempt to acquire the shares.
"Are you going to rob another precinct head?"
Kissur, not responding, knocked in the gate. The district head, having
learned about the Emperor favorite's visit, put the clothes on and went out
to meet them. Kissur introduced Bemish to him.
"We were inspecting the construction till the nightfall and we were
barely able to get out," Kissur explained.
In the morning, even before Kissur and Bemish walked downstairs, a
bustle issued in the house. The official reported, bowing.
"Mr. Kissur! Your manor is located nearby, and a modest man named
Khanni is the headman there. Yesterday night, two bums robbed the house and
stole four hundred thousand! Probably, these two guys also killed his
servant and lifted his money - the servant's body was found today in the
riverside bushes!
Bemish understood some of the official's talk and froze.
They drove to the headman - a dozen Kissur's servants, that he called
that night from the capital, joined them on the way. The district head
entered the yard, with a large crowd already assembled, and Kissur stayed in
the crowd screened by his servants.
The murdered servant's body was delivered, two peasants were brought in
and the headman accused them.
"Everything is clear. These two made a deal with the bandits and robbed
and killed my servant - they didn't expect me recognizing the money. You
were going to rob the manor together next but, since you were arrested, the
bums went ahead on their own. Answer me - where did you bump into them?
Imagine it, I was trying to protect you before your lord, turned your sister
over to him, so that he would become lenient."
Here, the crowd moved and Kissur moved out of it surrounded by three
sturdy chaps.
"Hey, Khanni! What was this girl you turned over to me?"
The headman went gray in the face with horror. The crowd reacted.
"How much, are you saying, they stole from me?" Kissur continued.
"Four hundred thousand," the headman fretted. Here Kissur took the sack
of his shoulder and emptied it right out for everybody to see.
"Khanni," Kissur stated, "when I gave you this manor, I said, 'Don't
oppress the people, only take one tenth.' Yesterday, I was passing by, with
a friend, and I decided to check, how you obey my orders, and when you
arrested the people I gave money to, claimed this money for yourself, and
told them that I dishonored their sister that I haven't even met, it looked
to me, that you obeyed my orders like a pig you are - that you sucked on the
people's marrow and drank their blood. I decided to look in your safe and I
carried away from it not four hundred thousand but, rather, six and half
thousand and, secondly, I carried away from it the loan agreements signed
with my signature - and this is a fake signature. Then I realized that I
didn't waste my time poking into this safe, because you would doubtfully
have shown me these faked agreements!"
The headman could not speak - he bleated and crawled at Kissur's feet.
"Spit it out," Kissur barked. "How many girls have you sold to the
whorehouses in my name?"
"Twenty of them, at least," somebody in the crowd responded.
Here, Kissur leaped at the headman and crushed his nose and many other
parts, and then ordered to "hang this fucker on the gate" - Bemish could
barely persuade him to call the lynching off.
They still stuffed the headman in the stocks at the punishment pole. By
mid afternoon, hundreds of peasants drifted into the manor.
"That's what happened," the peasants were saying, "the damned headman
lied to us and cheated the master! Thanks to the master for coming here and
sorting things out!"
Kissur ordered to set a table across the pole, sat down at the table
and started to hand the loan agreements out to the peasants while the
district head, happy to still have his nose whole, was certifying that the
deeds were fake.
By the evening, the headman was taken away in the stocks and the
satisfied crowd dispersed.
Kissur and Bemish stayed in the orphaned manor overnight.
"So, how was I?" Kissur inquired Bemish at the dinner. He reminded
Bemish of a victorious fighting cock.
"If a society's fairness," Bemish said, "depended on the number of
squashed noses, then your Empire would be the fairest place in the Universe.
However, the situation is reversed."
Kissur frowned.
"The objective is," the Earthman said instructively, "not to break the
corrupted officials' noses. The objective is to position the officials in
such a way that they couldn't harass the people."
"How do you like this place?"
"Wonderful place," Bemish said, "one could build a heaven here or, at
least, a wondrous chicken farm."
Kissur burst out in laughter and slapped him on the shoulder.
"It's all yours, then!"
Bemish was astonished.
"I can't accept such a gift."
"Why? You just stated that the goal is not to kick a bad owner's butt,
but to find an honest one. You are all bark and no bite."
"But I don't even speak the language."
Kissur, however, wasn't even going to listen.
"Also, you need to live somewhere," he declared, "you will surely get
this company in your pocket, don't worry! I will wheedle it out of the
sovereign for you."
And he started enthusiastically treating Bemish with wine.
Bemish woke up late. The sun was pushing in the open window and dancing
on a deity's jade mug, grinning above the door, on an ancient silver lantern
where an electric light bulb bloated like a white bubble. With an effort,
Bemish recalled yesterday events. "There was a fight... We drank... Oh, my
God! He granted me the manor!" Bemish jumped up in the bed - the house deed
and a note from Kissur lay on the table - he returned to the capital.
In an hour, Bemish thoughtfully consumed breakfast on a veranda.
Frightened servants ran around. He could barely talk to the servants and was
absolutely unable to understand their replies. He thought for a moment, went
inside and called to Mr. Shavash's office.
"Mr. Shavash," the Earthman said, "could you recommend me a really
honest administrator?"
The first finance vice-minister assured him, in a slightly ironic
voice, that he would be happy to find for Mr. Bemish anything in the world -
an eternal phoenix, three-headed dragon, and even an honest administrator.
At the other end of the line, Shavash hung up the receiver. He pondered
for a moment and, then, he called the secretary and gave the necessary
orders.
Soon, a young man, with a round face and pleasant but sad azure eyes,
entered his office. The young man's face was unusually pale, a raw dough
color. An Earthman or another ignorant person would think that the face's
owner was unhealthy or hadn't left home for a while. A Weian would
immediately suspect that the guy had been in jail.
So, the young man named Adini, approached to the official's table and
froze three steps away, waiting for orders.
"Kissur," Shavash said, "bestowed to a Earthman, named Terence Bemish,
a manor next to Assalah and the Earthman is looking for a manor's headman. I
would like to bestow you to him."
"Yes, master," Adini said deferentially.
"You will watch him and report all his meetings and plans to me."
Shavash picked a sheet of paper with a personal seal out of a folder.
"The moment Bemish leaves the planet," Shavash said, "this sheet of
paper will be destroyed. It is in your best interests, to operate so that
Bemish leaves the planet quickly. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, master."
"Terence Bemish is a smart man and he, most certainly, expects me to
use this opportunity to send him a spy."
"Why did he ask you for a headman, then?"
"He hopes to allure the spy to his side. Once he has given you enough
favors, you may pretend that it indeed has happened. Remember, however, that
Bemish can give you money or a stipend but only I can get rid of this paper
for you. Also remember that, if Bemish had this sheet, he would not act as a
good Samaritan towards you. He will be kind to you only because he doesn't
have another weapon."
Bemish was enjoying the ancient mosaic overlaying the walls on the
second floor, when he heard a descending flyer's characteristic rustle. He
walked out to the gallery - a white flyer stood in the yard, the last
"rainbow" shimmers were beating above its wings. In a moment, the "rainbow"
dimmed, the flyer's roof opened up like a poppy flower carpel, and two
people got out of the car - a handsome lithe youth in a strict white suit
and another guy, more scrawny than slim, in a checked shirt with torn-off
sleeves and a red flower in his hair, following the contemporary rebel
fashion.
"You can live here two months and more," the youth in the strict suit
said loudly in English, evidently being sure that nobody could understand
him, "no one will say a word. The local headman has sinned quite a bit and
he won't even tell my brother about you."
"And how much has he sinned?"
"Not more than any damned bank director."
Here, the older youth turned around and noticed Bemish who was standing
openly at the gallery encircling the villa at the second store.
"Hey, who are you?" the youth called out in Weian.
"I am Terence Bemish and I am the villa's owner."
"That's nonsense! The villa belongs to my brother."
"That's true. However, Kissur threw out the manor's headman yesterday
and gave the manor to me."
The youth span his head nervously and Bemish said,
"You are welcome. I don't think that Kissur would be happy to know that
I showed his brother and his guest off."
Bemish ordered the servants to serve the terrace table and, soon, he
and his unexpected guests were devouring an ample breakfast. Kissur
brother's name was Ashidan and his companion introduced himself, not without
sarcasm, as John Smith.
"What do you do?" Ashidan asked.
"I am a financier."
"My brother makes strange acquaintances," Ashidan noticed.
"What do you do?" Bemish inquired from the new guest.
"It's none of your business, shithead."
Bemish was a bit flustered.
"Excuse me," he asked, "didn't we meet two minutes ago? I don't know
anything about you. What do you know about me to call me a shithead?"
"What class did you fly coming here?"
"First class."
"That's it. How can a man with enough money to fly first class not to
be a shithead?"
"Are you an anarchist," Bemish wondered, "a communist?"
"I am a sympathizer"
"Whom and what do you sympathize with? Esinole? Marks? Le Dan?"
"I sympathize with the people that the likes of you shit on with
money."
"Why do you sympathize with them on Weia?"
"This planet is interesting for me," Smith said. "People here haven't
choked on their money.
"Yes," Bemish agreed, recalling peasants, crawling in the fields, "they
haven't. But I hope to fix it."
"Eh?"
"I will help them to choke on their money," Bemish stated.
"It's nonsense! You don't care about anything except your profits!"
Bemish was unhurriedly eating the morning soup. Last time he heard the
same thing from the former ADO general director, whom he kicked out from a
comfortable for him, but burdensome for the company, armchair.
"Don't push it, Johnny," Ashidan said sarcastically, "or he will be
calling police in a second."
"I would certainly call police," Bemish said, "if I saw you making a
bomb. Since you are just yakking, why the heck should I call them?"
"Will you tell my brother?"
Bemish carefully looked at Ashidan. "What a brood," a thought passed
his mind, "one drives tanks down the foreign companies' facilities and
another reads Marx in Princeton... Why didn't Kissur give him the villa?"
Bemish fished a satellite phone out of his pocket and handed it to the
youth.
"Tell him yourself," Bemish suggested.
Ashidan got up and walked to the garden to make a call. Right then, the
servants rushed to the terrace to announce the district head's arrival.
The district head brought gifts with him - three dishes of grilled meat
with garlic, a suckling pig, salads in flat baskets and, also, a plate of
walnut shaped cookies and a round sweet quince pie decorated with the
Bemish's last name misspelled on top.
Bemish walked the guest to the garden gazebo. The official bowed to him
with the pie and said, "It's a great honor for us, Mr. Bemish that you will
now, in a way, live with us. I am happy to express my gratitude to you.
Thanks to your help and Kissur's courage, a crime of unimaginable magnitude
and horror was uncovered.
"I think you were aware of it," Bemish said.
"Hola, how can you say so?! I was shocked, squashed like a frog under a
wagon!"
Bemish shrugged his shoulders. A servant knocked and appeared in the
door with a steaming teapot and sweets in woven baskets.
The guest and the host treated each other with tea and, then, the
district head inquired,
"They say that you will be in the charge of our construction?"
"It's too early to say," Bemish said.
Here it seemed to Bemish that the district head winked his eye at him
in a coarse and canny way.
"Well, say," the district head said, "there is no reason to doubt now.
Believe me, I and the others around will be utterly happy to do everything
they can for Kissur's friend and their future colleague."
"Did you whip Krasnov?" Bemish asked.
"Eh?"
"I mean the trader, who came to Assalah for the stocks. You said, that
you wouldn't allow foreigners to rob the people."
The district head nodded understandingly. His face became now important
and benevolent.
"Unfortunately," he said, "the people are like children and officials
should protect them. How can I let them sell invaluable property for two
cents?"
"You can't let them sell it for two cents but you can let them sell it
for free? To pay for the taxes you invented?"
"Hola!" the district head exclaimed, "how can you say so?"
His round kind face reddened and tears appeared on the wide open eyes.
"Do you have company shares? Did you pay a cent for them?"
The district head's eyes looked at Bemis honestly and directly.
"From now on," the district head said, "the meaning of my life is to
serve you! What would you like me to do? Tell me and I will carry it out."
"I would like you," Bemish said, "to sell me the Assalah shares at the
same price the peasants sold them to you - for free."
The official choked.
"Otherwise," Bemish continued, "the sovereign will know how you chased
foreign vultures from here with a brined whip to bleed the people on your
own."
The official was silent for a moment and then bowed and pronounced, "It
will be my honor to serve you."
"I should get him fired," Bemish thought, "so that a man grateful to me
for the appointment and not the man hating me because of the shares is head
of the precinct.
When Bemish walked down in the garden, Ashidan was standing on the
swimming pool edge and throwing thin well sharpened darts into a fat pot.
"Well, did you talk to this mongrel? Ashidan asked, "How much money did
he give you, so that you didn't prosecute him?"
"Don't be rude, Ashidan."
"This district head is a real weirdo, "the youth continued, "He is the
only local official who spends every day in the office. Do you know what he
engages in in there?"
"Well?"
"He locks himself with his young male secretary since his wife comes
from a much better family than he does, and she doesn't allow these little
tricks at home."
The Fourth Chapter
Where Kissur tells investment bankers how to train a highwayman's horse
while Terence Bemish makes an acquintance with other contenders for Assalah
stocks.
The next day after his return to the capital, Bemish found himself at a
party thrown by the district prefect to celebrate the plum blossoming or
some other divine occasion.
The party was grand. All of the high society arrived.
The officials discussed the inflation and the importance of the
preservation of the customs. The people from the stars discussed the
inflation and the importance of the preservation of the customs.
In a corner, the foreign entrepreneurs shared more particular
impressions from the local business surroundings with each other.
"So, this abbot comes to me and offers to bless the bank against a
misfortune and he asks for two hundred thousand dinars for the ceremony. I
refuse and the next night a fire starts in the office. The next day this
vermin comes to me again, expresses its condolences, and asks for two
hundred thousand again. When I complained to the police, they gave me the
advice - don' buck and cough up the money - the abbot is connected to Horn's
gang."
"By the way, speaking about banks - do you know that only the
companies, with accounts in Shavash controlled banks, received the budget
financing this month? They say that Shavash had a ten percent kickback.
And so on. And so forth.
Bemish met the Federation of Nineteen envoy, an elderly Malaysian, and
the envoy led Bemish into a corner immediately and started telling him true
stories from local officials' lives.
There were about dozen envoys present. Bemish was suddenly surprised by
the number. He thought that only fifteen... not even fifteen - ten years ago
- the envoys' number would be way smaller. The Earth colonies were leaving
the Federation of Nineteen one after another, peacefully or with swords
drawn.
Bemish was also introduced to the Gera envoy. The envoy was talking to
two people that looked familiar to Bemish.
"Mr. Lawrence Edwards," the envoy introduced one of them.
"Mr. Jonathan Rusby," he introduced the other one.
Bemish didn't bat an eyelid.
Half the Galaxy police have been looking for Mr. Lawrence Edwards. Mr.
Edwards had owned one of the Galaxy's largest and most respectable
businesses. An airport technician's son, he made a five billion dinar
fortune by the age of thirty. He used land allotments he acquired for
construction purposes, as collateral to obtain the bank loans, and the banks
trusted him completely. Unfortunately, Mr. Edwards had more and more
difficulties in the last several years and he created a network of companies
buying these land allotments from each other and using them later as
collateral for bank loans. At the fifth act's end, Edwards escaped. When
disappointed banks arrested the land allotments and unfinished skyscrapers,
they found out their real price was very different from the price paid by
the affiliated companies, and it didn't even cover one twentieth of Mr.
Edwards loans.
As for Mr. Rusby, he had also been a financial legend and the manager
of a successful offshore fund investing citizens' savings in risk free
government securities. Unfortunately, the interest promised by Mr. Rusby
exceeded the possible government securities trading profits by 3% and,
henceforth, Mr. Rusby, while promising the complete safety, invested his
clients' money using much more profitable but much less secure financial
instruments. The clients, lured by high risk free profits, crowded at his
office, the modest retirees and dishwashers who would have never invested in
his fund if they had known the fund's structure, brought their money to him.
Rusby, with his incredible nose for trading, often gleaned up huge pickings
buying a bankrupted company's shares at 5% of the face value that would
later rise to 90% and he had a great time meanwhile with the margin between
his take-in and his payments to the clients.
It was not economical but rather political quandaries that destroyed
him - a new tax law on Aegeia, where his head office was, and a couple of
the adroit auditors. Rusby's assets were arrested, his wife divorced him
scandalously, the fund immediately bankrupted and Rusby escaped to Gera,
where he kept insisting that, all this time, he fulfilled his obligations
towards the clients and paid them exactly as he promised.
By the way, the federal committee didn't argue that.
It just claimed that if the Rusby investments' real risk level had been
known, he would have had to pay the investors five-fold.
"Eh, Mr. Bemish," Rusby said with a friendly smile, "I heard that you
were also taking part in the Assalah auction?"
"Also?" Bemish winced. "Wow! Would Shavash really let this man, wanted
by the Galaxy police, participate in an auction."
Next to a lighted pond with gold fish, a small man stood - Shavash.
"Thanks for the headman," Bemish said, "what salary should I pay him?"
"Nothing - he is your slave."
Bemish choked.
"I thought there is no slavery on Weia.
"Call it the way you want. This man owes me two hundred thousand
isheviks and he signed a contract that he would work this debt off any way I
choose. I will transfer the contract to you and send it tomorrow with the
courier."
Bemish was silent.
"By the way," Shavash asked suddenly, "they say, all the Assalah
documentation was transferred to you. What's your opinion?"
"What do you mean?"
"I meant just what I said. You just familiarized yourself with the most
detailed documentation, you are a financier. What do you say?"
Bemish hesitated.
I'd say that I realized how they make money on Weia. They make money
not on private profits but on state expenses. They fed off Assalah in two
ways. The first way was the inflated contracts and the second way was the
written-off equipment. For instance, the company Alarcon was in charge of
the land works. The same man was both the Assalah director and the Alarcon
founder. He owned 20% of the shares. There is the geological study's
conclusion, that Assalah stands on an excellent basalt foundation with a
forest situated above it. There are, also, seven million isheviks paid to
Alarcon for draining swamps that have never existed. There is construction
equipment paid for with the budget money at triple fold prices. And the same
equipment was sold to Alarcon in two weeks and 97% of the resource was
claimed to be exhausted. How can you exhaust 97% of the resource of a step
excavator in ten working days? I bet, it was still standing unpacked at a
warehouse, new and shiny! Any action was a financial pump that pumped state
budget money from the company a manager was in charge of, to the company the
manager owned.
Shavash listened to the Earthman with eyes half closed.
"You said that the director owned 20% of the Alarcon shares. Who owned
the other 80%?"
"I assume that you owned it, Shavash."
A deferential waiter stopped next to them and Shavash took a crystal
glass on a thin stem from the silver tray.
"However, I didn't understand certain things," Bemish continued, "what
is an "ishevik bill of credit"?"
Shavash spread his hands.
"We were forced to do this. When the ministry doesn't have money, it
has sometimes to issue short-term bills of credit maturing in three months.
You need to pay the contractors somehow."
"In other words, you, Mr. Shavash, issue your own money."
"Not exactly," the vice-ministry pointed out indifferently, "Money
costs as much as it costs. While, when you obtain "ishevik bills of credit",
you go to a bank to exchange them for money. The bank can pay you thirty
percent of the face value or it can pay you hundred percent. It depends on
how good friends you, I and bank are."
"I believe," Bemish enquired, "it's meaningless to ask you if you
approve of cutting the ineffective industry subsidies down."
"Theoretically speaking, I approve of it," Shavash said tiredly. "You
don't read local media. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the budget deficit
curbing. This Assalah thing swallowed two billion isheviks while the real
expenses were not even two million."
The official's voice didn't carry either cynicism or sarcasm in it.
Bemish kept silent - he didn't know how to snub a man who issued pseudo
money as the first finance vice-minister, received it on the Assalah's
account as a Board of Director's member, and ferried it to his personal
account as real money.
Right then, Bemish realized a very simple thing - Kissur can bequest a
villa to him, Kissur can secure Assalah for him - but only Shavash has the