"You will also," Kissur said, "tell them that you are an innocent victim of the dark machinations; that you wanted to buy land for twelve millions but the officials persuaded you to buy it for a million and a half with a knife at your throat."
"No," Kaminsky said.
I will not tell them what exactly has happened. But I wouldn't mind telling you about it, ex-minister, to improve your economics education. I arrive here and go to Khanida, "I would like to build a business center." Khanida is politeness personified. He pours lavish praise all over me. He has the utmost desire for future collaboration. He praises my unselfishness and is so overwhelmed with it that he offers me the land not for twelve million but for a million and a half. Reluctant to engage in doubtful dealings, I refuse. Well! Twelve million it will be. Mr. Khanida is so happy. He says that a base man cares about profit and an honorable man cares about fairness. He sees both of us belonging to the honorable people ranks. I start the construction and invest the money. Meanwhile, the land is still not bought yet — they assure me — it's a pure formality. On a nice day, I visit Mr. Khanida and he starts the million and a half talk again. I refuse politely. Khanida shrugs his shoulders and becomes as cold as a frog. He says that he is breaking the contract off. I lose it — come on, I've already sunk big money in! For an answer, Khanida utters through clenched teeth something about exploitators sucking on Weia's blood and liver. Then, I go to Shavash, your dearest friend. He offers me… it's enough to say, Mr. Kissur, that he offers me something similar but he wants twice more than Khanida. I made a mistake here. I should've turned away and left. Screw the expenses. But I felt bad about the lost money. I've already inhaled enough of your stink. I saw that Khanida would do what he promised and I signed the contract. My mistake was that I forgot about Shavash, who offered me the same deal as Khanida. Shavash was irritated that Khanida didn't share the loot with him. Naturally, the local customs code didn't allow him to rat on me directly. And so, having chosen a right moment, he tells you the story and you raise the buzz! And this buzz reverberates in Shavash's soul with coins jingling pleasantly. And the Empire is left empty-handed again, and Shavash is left in the full confidence that Khanida will give him half the money next time, just to avoid the problems!
Kissur got the checkbook out of his pocket and asked.
"How much money did you give to Khanida?"
Kaminsky was astounded, and then, laughed.
"I don't need your money."
"Money is the only thing the Earthmen need. That's why the Earthmen's destiny is suffering, since money not spent for friends and alms brings trouble."
"Where do you get money, Kissur, eh? You don't trade, you don't take bribes and you don't rob passers-by! Where does the money come from? The Emperor just gives it to you, doesn't he? And it doesn't cost anything to the Emperor — when the treasury runs out of money, he invents another tax. You call a man who sells and buys a criminal, and a man who collects the taxes for you, the cornerstone of the state! That's why you won't like it if a parliament forms and only parliament can authorize the taxes collected in this country."
"Do you want to swim again?"
Kaminsky took heed.
"No," he said bitterly, "I don't want to swim. You almost killed me that time. Since you don't have any arguments other than swimming, I would rather be silent. But I will advise all my friends on Earth and, by the way, Terence Bemish, sitting next to you, never, under no circumstances, do any business on Weia since nothing will come out of it besides debasement and shame. Believe me, Mr. Kissur — I could still patch everything together. But I am grateful to you that I lost this money; I recalled again that I have honor and self-respect."
He turned and walked away.
Kissur looked at Bemish.
"Well," Kissur asked, "is he correct?"
"Yes," Bemish said.
"Will you leave?"
"No," Bemish shook his head "I won't leave. You, however, should."
"Where?"
"Anywhere."
"Too late," Kissur replied. "I applied to the Federation Military Academy. They didn't accept me. I am not interested in any other place in your Galaxy, full of worms like a year-old fig."
X X X
The next day, Bemish flew to the villa, where several members of his team and two LSV employees arrived. They had a simple task — to develop the contract's financial shell by the week's end.
The bankers worked day and night. In two days, a helicopter arrived, carrying a cheerful and slightly drunk Kissur and a much more sober Shavash. Kissur barged in the central hall where the bankers, having pulled an all-nighter, were finishing the IPO prospectus.
"You are not asleep, too!" Kissur heartened. "Where did you ditch the girls? Let's drink!"
And he banged a jar of expensive Inissa wine on the table next to the printer, spitting out the financial projections. At this point, generally phlegmatic Welsey, scared to hell by Kissur, demonstrated a true greatness of the spirit.
"Kissur," he said, "I will drink with you only after you help me to calculate the cash flow in the company if the embargo on the Gera trade is enacted and the cargo flow decreases correspondingly."
Kissur was astounded. He was not able to calculate cash flows.
"C-cads!" he muttered drunkenly.
Bemish found him a girl in the village and returned to the office, where Shavash was waiting for him. Shavash sat in the armchair next to a window looking thoughtfully at the neglected garden.
"What's your price," Shavash asked.
"Eight fifty five for a share."
"Thirty four million total," Shavash noted. "What are your investment obligations?"
"Sixty million. I am going to land the first ships in six months after the construction starts."
"You don't have any experience building spaceports, do you?"
"I have experience involving professionals and setting up financial contracts, Mr. Shavash. This company should start bringing in cash flow in less than a year, otherwise it will go bankrupt."
"How are you going to finance the deal?"
"The banks provide ten million out of ninety four. This is a ten percent loan, with the company property as collateral. Eighty four million are financed through the high interest bonds issued by my company ADO and placed by LSV on the intergalactic exchange market. Approximately four million belong to me and my friends."
"So, you risk only four million of your money out of ninety four."
"I risk the other people's money and my own head." Shavash reclined in the armchair.
"As far as I know, it's a standard way for buying the companies with existing cash flow used to pay interest. While you are buying a hole that you need to fill with piles of money."
"We will try to construct the contract's financial shell in such a way that we won't pay anything this year. We are planning to issue some zero-coupon bonds with a two year maturity time. It means," Bemish explained, "that the bonds will be sold at a discount to their face value and the difference between the selling bond price and the maturity price, equal to the face value, will make a profit."
"Don't take me for Kissur, Terence," Shavash pointed out. "I know what zero-coupon bonds are."
Bemish quacked in exasperation.
"We are also considering securities with the alternative coupon payments — they can be paid with money or with the new bonds."
Shavash paused. Trumpet sounds suddenly entered the room through the window — the shepherd was herding the cows back to the village.
"That's a risky affair, Mr. Bemish. I am not sure if your bond price will get to 70 % of its face value on the market. What will remain then, from your so-called eight and a half dinars per share?"
Bemish swallowed. He knew that the official was all too correct.
"The securities will cost dinar for a dinar," Bemish said. "The IPO prospectus has a condition, that the bond interest will be re-evaluated a year after the issue so that the securities cost will be equal to their face
value."
Shavash paused.
"It's quite an unusual decision," he said finally.
"This decision will allow me to lower the cost of financing the deal by three percent."
"What if, to the contrary, your securities price falls?"
"The price will only rise," Bemish said.
Terence Bemish was so sure of himself that he was not going to frighten the investors by a predetermined ceiling of the adjustable rate. As it came out afterwards, he had signed the death verdict to Assalah project.
Then, however, Shavash seemed to be positively impressed with Bemish's words.
"There are Weian banks," he said, "that would be glad to take part in this affair and buy your bonds on a big scale. However, the affair is quite risky and you need to sweeten it up a bit. I suppose that the large investors could have an opportunity to buy, besides the bonds, the stock warrants for three years — ten shares for a dinar. You could reserve 20 % of the shares for this purpose."
Bemish raised his eyebrows slightly. Shavash's idea meant that the warrant's buyer will be able to acquire the Assalah stocks at their current price in three years. Bemish hoped that, in three years, the Assalah shares will cost hundred times more.
"So, who will buy the warrants?" Bemish asked.
"The Weian banks which will acquire the bonds."
"Can you be more precise?"
"It will be I and my friends."
X X X
In an hour, Welsey and Shavash descended to the central hall. Bemish stayed on the upper floor to take a shower and change his shirt — he had broken a sweat. When he walked down, Kissur was sitting in the hall and instructing two young Trevis' aides how to train a highwayman's horse, so that it could find the road in the dark and didn't neigh in an ambush. The bankers listened attentively. Their young and honest faces expressed a sincere interest. The bankers were used to express a sincere interest to any client. One could suppose that setting up ambushes among rocky gorges was their primary occupation.
"If the path is rocky, you should wrap the hoofs with felt," Kissur said.
He turned around to the sound of steps.
"Why are you so glum, Terence," he said in Weian, "and why is it all so dirty?"
Kissur trailed his fingers in disgust down an expensive pink wood table — a banker dropped pizza on the table, hurriedly eating it.
"You don't have a woman — that's the problem," Kissur noted. "Idari says the same."
The headman, having noiselessly approached on the side, bowed and quickly popped in.
"If the lord needs a maid, I have a good candidate — a small official's daughter, a seventeen-year-old maiden, gentle as jasmine petals. Her father was caught stealing and he is currently under an investigation. To collect the money to butter the judges up and secure his daughter's future, he could sell her for fifty thousand."
Bemish glanced quickly towards his colleagues — the conversation was in Weian and they clearly didn't understand it.
"I'll think about it," Bemish said.
"There is nothing to think about," Kissur stated. "I'll check the girl out and, if she is as good as this scoundrel claims, she is yours."
A printer rattled at the table nearby and the last financial projections crawled out of it.
X X X
When the next night, deathly tired, Bemish walked up to his bedroom at two o'clock, he found that he was not the only one there. In the bed, coiled like a doughnut, a cute girl of about seventeen years age was sleeping tranquilly. Bemish pulled the blanket off her and found her to be quite naked — Adani probably brought her in the evening and he was afraid of bothering the master, busy with calculations — the girl waited and waited some more and fell asleep.
Once Bemish raised the blanket, the girl got cold — she woke up and stared at Bemish with her eyes, large and round like the moon. She had small budding breasts with tiny nipples, heavy thighs and long white legs. Her pubic hair was shaved off. The girl looked at Bemish unabashedly, as if unknown foreigners inspected her, naked, every day.
"What's your name," Bemish asked, mangling Weian words.
"Inis."
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"Are you a maiden?"
"Of course, master. Mr. Kissur has chosen me himself."
Bemish jerked his eyebrows irritated.
"How did Kissur choose you?"
"He took me to Mrs. Idari," Inis said, "and the mistress said that you needed a woman for your body and your house. She checked that I was a virgin and that I cooked well, and she was satisfied."
When Idari's name was mentioned, Bemish's hands perspired suddenly. The girl smiled and added teasingly.
"She was afraid of leaving me to Kissur. She is a very good wife. Do you have a wife?"
Not answering her, Bemish released the blanket and it covered the girl again. The thought about Jane destroyed all the pleasure. And also Idari! He knew that, while caressing the Idari's gift, he would always think only about the gift bearer.
"Put your clothes on. Ask Adini to find a bedroom for you."
"Won't we make love?" the frightened girl asked.
"No."
"Why did you buy me?"
"So, that somebody else wouldn't buy you."
It could be a sixty-year-old sadist in the district head rank, who makes love to his secretaries in his office.
The girl was upset.
"If you made love to me," she said, "you would give me a new skirt and earrings but you won't give me anything now."
"What skirt do you want?"
"I've just seen one at a fair — a long blue silk skirt, with a "dancing flowers" embroidering and with three bands along the lap with pictures of fishes, animals, and birds."
Bemish grinned. "All they want is money for the skirts," he thought about Jane. "Blessed is the world, where they just ask openly for it."
He lay silently on the bed, in the pants and the jacket.
"Undress me," he ordered Inis.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER
Where Terence Bemish is being persuaded to drop out of Assalah stocks auction while Shavash reminds the visitors that he is not familiar with the financial term dictatorship
One and a half tons of the equipment (out of the three tons ordered by Bemish) arrived at the spaceport, and the Earthmen were spending days and nights there.
On the third day, the precinct head herded the peasants to fix the road with old concrete blocks so that the new White Villa master could drive his iron barrel from the villa to the construction site.
The next week Bemish started to search for the missing equipment and found it at Ravadan spaceport where it had been from the beginning. He had to go to Ravadan.
Passing by the nearest village, Bemish noticed an unhitched wagon — the peasants were gathering at the wagon and unloading the planks for the assembling stage. It seemed to Bemish that the oldster in charge of the construction was the same oldster, who played a god on the market in the capital and tore apart the banknotes Bemish gave him.
An inspector in Ravadan claimed that the equipment containers were emitting gamma radiation (it happened, rarely) and that they had to undergo an expensive treatment. Bemish silently gave five thousand isheviks to the inspector and, in half an hour, he was organizing the boxes being loaded in a rented truck. The containers didn't emit any radiation whatsoever.
The boxes rode to Assalah, while Bemish stayed at the capital for a reception given in the honor of the sovereign's ancestor, who had slept with a mermaid three hundred and forty years ago.
There were very few women at the reception and Bemish's heart skipped a beat when he saw Idari next to a lighted pool. She had a black dress with sparkles and black shoes on. Two heavy braids entwining her head were held by a butterfly shaped hairpin, strewn with the pink pearls, and a necklace of the same pearls encircled her neck. She was talking to Shavash and another man, unfamiliar to Bemish.
"Here you are, Bemish," Shavash turned ar
ound. "Let me introduce you — the Empire's first minister, Mr. Yanik."
Bemish had been looking at Idari till then; he quickly turned to the first minister. He was a neat senior man with a head, slightly flattened at the temples, and grey eyes, more clever than intelligent. He was dressed accordingly to Galactic fashion. Bemish didn't see anything striking in his face and he immediately recalled the rumors about Yanik being a temporary figurehead, a non-entity, put forth to the Emperor, till his patrons couldn't settle on a compromise; the non-entity stuck to his position, however, for a longer time, than the patrons had planned.
"Mr. Bemish would like to buy Assalah spaceport," Shavash said.
"Where will the money come from?"
"Mr. Bemish expects to collect the necessary money via the high-interest bonds, underwritten on the world market by the well known LSV bank."
At that point, a voice came from behind.
"It would be great, if Mr. Bemish explained where he will find the money to pay the interest if the spaceport doesn't give two cents in the first year."
Bemish turned around. Quite a number of people approached Yanik and the words belonged to Giles.
"Mr. Giles' company," Shavash explained, "is also participating in the auction,"
"The spaceport's owner," Bemish said, "will jump out of his pants to find money. What will you do, however, besides buying the shares at one price and offering them at the market at another? What will prevent you from washing your hands?"
"That's right," another voice came in. "Your company's reputation is not the best one."
"Mr. Rusby," Shavash introduced, "is another investment auction participant."
Bemish and Giles turned around almost simultaneously.
"It's not for you to talk about reputation," Giles cried out.
"Who, exactly, is financing your offer?" Bemish was surprised.
Standing next to Rusby, the Gera envoy inclined his head slightly and said.
"Several Gera banks support Mr. Rusby."
"Be careful," Giles grinned, "this man cheated the Galaxy investors out of one and a half billion."
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