"What are you upset about, Mr. Bemish?" Idari asked. "Do you have any problems with the fund?"
"No," Bemish said. "It's just that while I bought and sold other people's stocks, I possibly wasted my own company."
"I thought that you finished assembling the first line of landing pads a week before you planned."
"I mean the mood at the construction — zealots and crooks. I can't eradicate them. Shavash tricked me when he obtained legal immunity for the construction." Idari was silent.
"Why did he do it?" Bemish cried out. "Did he need me to hang the zealots? Does he need the Earthmen to butcher these idiots instead of the Empire, so that his hands are clean and the Earthmen's hands are smeared with shit?"
"What am I saying?" a thought passed in Bemish's mind. "I am sitting with a woman that I would give all of Assalah away for — ok, not all of Assalah but at least thirty percent of it — and I am talking to her about god knows what and she considers me to be a greedy and cowardly Earthman."
"He is not fully satisfied with you," Idari said.
"What is he not satisfied with? The only thing I don't export is drugs!"
"That's exactly right."
Bemish froze, as if he just collided with a wall.
"Are you…serious?"
"I mean that all the legal violations taking place at the spaceport deal only with taxes. You have not broken any criminal laws yet, Terence, and Shavash doesn't like that. If you break tax laws you can be prosecuted only at this planet. If you break criminal laws, you can be prosecuted across the whole Galaxy. The more crimes you commit, the more power Shavash will have over you."
"Bastard," Bemish muttered glumly. "If only I had known…"
"Shavash is better than you are," Idari objected.
"Shavash? Better?!!"
"Shavash will be forgiven many things because he wants a lot. He wants women, power, glory, while you want only money."
"I want you. I want you more than money," Bemish wanted to say.
"You are right, Idari," he said, "I like money more than anything else."
X X X
The next evening, the phone rang in Bemish's office. Ross called — an ex-colleague of Giles — now his deputy on security issues.
"We have an emergency," Ross said. "A packer boy was knifed. We got the killer."
"Did he resist?"
"No. He is quite a lout."
"Bring him to me," Bemish ordered.
Murders happened quite often at the construction. Generally, the killers could not be found. Even if a man was killed in broad daylight, somehow nobody saw anything.
Bemish was leafing through a draft of the yearly company report prepared by the PR department on Earth when two wide-angled guys from the security department brought the killer in the office — an inconspicuous sixty-year-old man in washed out jeans and a jacket with white trim showing that he worked in the fifth roadwork team. The killer's hands were twisted behind his head and locked with handcuffs.
The guys left and Bemish pointed the involuntary visitor to a chair.
"Sit down."
He sat silently. Bemish was leafing through the report's last pages.
"Why don't you let me go, boss. They say you have a right to do it."
Bemish was staggered by his gall.
"Why did you kill the lad?"
"I wanted to talk to you, boss," the visitor said. "See, it ain't easy to speak to you. I made an appointment with you, see, three times and you were just cooling it off. I make another appointment today, come in and they tell me, "the boss ain't here for you, Weian peasant mug, the boss is driving a big dog around the construction, it's not your lawn anymore, move it — go back to your barrack. So, I went back and it put me out. Why won't I do something that the boss notice me?"
Bemish didn't interrupt the man yet. He had realized a while ago that sooner or later the bandits would visit him but he hadn't suspected that they would choose such an original way. And this knave is also reminding in a subtle way — I have no problem knifing a boy down or you, boss…
"That was not a good idea," Bemish grinned, "because they will cut your head off now."
"Our authorities?" the bandit laughed out, "Boss, it's not my first murder, and my head is still with me. Do you think you will find witnesses against me?"
That was true. The witnesses were available when the bandit had to meet Bemish. Concerning his head though…
"What did you want to offer me in person?"
"Let's get things in order."
"What order?"
"What's all this mess around? They pick up stuff, swear — you know what's going on — steal materials, drink people away. Say, yesterday, a gang came in and started to play, six people sold themselves into slavery. So they are slaves and what happens next? They work and their owner rubs his belly and gets paid. We, on the other hand, would tidy things up."
"And what do you want in return?"
"Appoint me the landing field security manager."
"Do you want to traffic drugs?"
"Why should I traffic drugs, people make fortunes just on cigarettes. Say, you boss, made a company with Shavash and everybody says that the company hauls everything it wants and doesn't pay any tariffs."
"Is that it?"
"Pay us ten million dinars."
"Why should I pay you exactly ten million dinars?"
"You carried away two hundred million worth of Adera treasure and this treasure belongs to the people. The brothers think that if you return people one twentieth part it would be fair.
Bemish froze.
"The Adera treasure," Bemish said, "doesn't exist. There is neither gold nor silver in Chakhar, where could the treasure come from two thousand years ago?"
"Don't bullshit me, boss," the bandit said, "and don't act like a little white lamb. You hang around with Shavash, he stole half the country and we only pick up the crumbs…"
"I won't collaborate with you."
"Aha, you can do it with Shavash but you can't do it with us."
"There is a certain intelligence gap," Bemish said, "that makes our collaboration impossible. Shavash can pocket several million after a financial trick but he will not believe that a well with emerald walls exists in a God-forsaken hole."
And he barked into the intercom.
"Escort the prisoner!"
In a moment, the security department guys were dragging the thief out of the chair.
"Remember," he turned around at the door, "you stole more than your underling, boss, but it would be just as easy to knife you."
"Move it," a beefy guy, barbarian Alom, said and jabbed the thief in his ribs.
Bemish turned the air conditioner on and opened the window wide to clear the office of the thief's smell.
The night air was stuffy and soaked by the dust raised by the dozens of excavators and the hundreds of trucks. Far away a compressor station rumbled and the stars, large and jagged like the shards from a bottle that the gods smashed at the stone firmament, were cooling off above him.
Bemish was dismayed. Life was a disgusting and useless thing. He was building a military spaceport on a crazy planet with corrupted officials and an illiterate population and, as if it was not enough already, mafia coming to him and offering to transfer cars and cigarettes via the functioning spaceport's sectors. At the same time, it was totally clear to Bemish that the thief acted on Shavash's hints and all his castigations against the vice-minister were probably staged by this same small official. Idari is right this man will not stop pestering him till he starts exporting drugs via the spaceport…
The door squeaked.
Bemish span around and darted to the table where a gun was stored in a drawer. Needless to say, the thief's warning made a strong impression on him.
The gun, however, would not be needed. On the doorstep, Kissur stood in fancy velvet pants and a multihued shirt embroidered with kissing ducks.
"Oh, my God! What brought you here?"
"Ah,
" Kissur said, "I spent too much time at home. I thought, "I haven't inhaled that gasoline smell at Bemish's for a while." But I should get used to it. Soon, my whole country will stink like your spaceport."
Bemish was silent.
"Why are you so sad?"
"A thief today told me straight that if I didn't collaborate with mafia, I would regret it. Do you know what he asked as a proof of our friendship? He asked me for the Adera treasure."
"Hm," Kissur said, "Maybe you should give this treasure away to the bandit? I've heard it brings misfortune to its owner, anyway."
Terence stared at Kissur with astonishment. The latter suddenly broke into laughter and slapped the Earthman on his shoulder.
"I gotcha!" Kissur cried out, "I gotcha again! Don't you get jokes?"
A phone squealed. Bemish picked up the receiver and slammed it back down.
"It's not that I just stopped getting jokes," Bemish screamed. "I will start believing in this treasure myself tomorrow! I will believe in a field witch that is born of a rotten pole, in a tin can witch that is born of an old tin can and in a carburetor witch coming from a carburetor dumped in a swamp. I will believe that I am building a hole to hell, put a white robe on and go preaching to the Following the Way that Earthmen are demons and everything made by them is a phantom because I am not able to prove it's not true."
"Actually, it's very easy," Kissur said.
"What?"
"It's easy to prove that Earthmen don't send phantoms."
"Be so kind, tell me."
"It's a very old trick," Kissur said, "I used it myself eight years ago when I ran across a gang of crazies in some province. Their chief assured that he was invulnerable to arrows and I told him that if it was the case why wouldn't he stand next to a wall and I would shoot at him with my bow. And he believed what he was saying and he stood next to a wall. I struck him so that my arrow entered his chest and stuck out of his spine for a full elbow and he pulled his legs from under himself and hung from this arrow and his followers ran away, disappointed. It would be enough for you to take an assault rifle and suggest to their preacher to place his belly in the way of a rifle burst. If you, say, stay alive than all our hardware is a phantom and I promise you to leave, and if you die than you lied. Don't you like it?"
"No."
"Why? Are you afraid the rifle will misfire?"
Bemish paused and asked.
"So, Kissur what should I do with the bandits? Should I make peace or war?"
"How are you to make war with the bandits?" Kissur got angry. "I am telling you — if you want to kill the zealots off, take a gun and shoot at a zealot — he will approach you himself! You don't want to shoot at a zealot that will stick his belly at you. Do you think that a bandit will stick his belly at you?"
"What would be your advice then?"
"You are a chicken, Terence. You turned the construction in a shithouse. Just recently Shavash was amazed how you accounted for some equipment in such a way that you managed to shave the tax by half a million and he was so amazed by this — even he didn't know this trick. And while you were accounting your contraptions and books…" and Kissur grinned. "Well, if gods didn't give you the ability to shoot, you will have to make peace."
"What if I asked you to kill the bandits off?"
"I won't do it."
"Why? Do you have a lot of good friends among them?"
Kissur paused. At this moment, the office door flung open and angry Giles flew in.
"Why don't you answer the phone, Terence," he shouted, "what is this habit of hanging the receiver!"
"Do you have something urgent?"
"Urgent? Do you know what's happening at the Adera Temple? This preacher, Ashinik, brought a crowd in, they broke the fence, forced their way into the temple and they are having a worship service."
Bemish turned and picked up a close-knit hemp overcoat that he often wore at the construction to be less conspicuous.
"What are you going to do?"
"I am going to attend the worship."
"You're going nuts," Giles said. "Call Shavash. Call the troops in. They have finally broken the laws!"
"Call the troops in and what? Should I jail the whole village?"
"You should jail the rabble-rousers."
"And I should turn the others from ill-wishers into terrorists, shouldn't I?"
"Bemish was tying the overcoat's laces decisively."
"I know what Terence wants," Kissur said, "I will go with him."
"Where are you going? Just the two of you? Oh, my God!" the spy roared and seeing Kissur and Bemish rushing out of the office, followed them.
THE NINTH CHAPTER
Where the demons' boss makes a pact with the pious people
Adera's temple floated in the night lit with torches from below. The crowd was huge — people in woolen jackets and grass overcoats girdled with red belts crowded in the broken hall where the sky instead of a roof covered a hurriedly built stage. Kissur and two Earthmen, dressed in rural hemp overcoats, were ignored. Only when Bemish, while elbowing energetically to the stage, pushed somebody in the back a guy jammed him in return and said rudely, "Don't push like a demon!"
On the left and on the right of the stage, huge copper lanterns burned and a round basin with fragrant water steamed on the altar. At the very edge of the stage, Ashinik stood — the young preacher of Following the Way. His face, thin as an onion peel, reddened, his eyes glistened in the torchlight and the crowd responded with an ardent bellow to his every word. Ashinik was dressed in a red hooded overcoat embroidered with red winged bulls reaching all the way to the ground. His belt was made out of polished copper plates.
Black suede high boots looked out from under the overcoat. A bound white goose lay at Ashinik's feet.
Ashinik preached about Earthmen. More precisely, he preached that the clothing sewn by demons should not be worn.
"Two hundred years ago, in the last years of Emperor Sashar's rule," the man in the red overcoat gleaning in the torchlight was saying, "a fashion spread among the people from the country of Great Light — a fashion to wear the clothing made out of wool brought in by barbarians. It was a clear omen that the barbarians would conquer the country. And now people wear the clothing sewn by demons — a clear omen that the demons will conquer the country. So, everyone wearing their foul jeans or jackets is, basically, walking naked. You should know that everything that demons make is just phantom and deceit. And they can't make anything but phantoms. Although they are very powerful sorcerers, we are even more powerful than they are."
"Bullshit," Kissur said.
Everybody present turned facing him.
"Who are you?" Ashinik cried.
"My name is Kissur the White Falcon and this is Terence Bemish, the construction boss, my best friend and we came today to see how you go nuts."
"It doesn't befit you, Kissur, to hobnob with demons," Ashinik spoke harshly, "Since many people call you Irshahchan reborn but, truly, even a white cloud dirties itself over an unclean mole."
Kissur unhurriedly ascended the stage and poked the youth in the chest. Ashinik's bodyguards stirred agitatedly — didn't Ashinik see Kissur in his last sovereign prophecy?
"You are a dog and you are a dog's bone," Kissur shouted with the same voice he used to command an army of many thousand troops and the voice carried above the quelled crowd without any speakers — you addle people's minds and prattle a lot of nonsense and you say that white is black and mix up hell and Big Galaxy and nothing but harm to the state comes from zealots. And if you think that everything Earthmen make is phantoms — do you see what this is?"
"It's a weapon of theirs," Ashinik said.
"Laser gun Star-M," Kissur thundered, "fan effect with improved specifications. And you will stand at this gross shithouse that you call an altar and I will shoot at you with this gun. And if Earthmen's weapons are phantoms and you are a sorcerer, you will stay alive, and if the Earthmen's weapons are weapons and you are a liar and
a cheat, you will keel over and go to hell that you say so much crap about."
Ashinik paled. He had never stood in front of a laser barrel. He heard many times that the demons shot at the pious and it all came out to be a phantom. But…
"Are you afraid?!" Kissur shouted. And he turned to the peasants. "Yes, he is afraid; he knows that he is lying to you!"
"Shoot," Ashinik cried.
"Go to the altar!" Kissur shouted. "And all of you move aside and watch with two eyes and don't tell people afterwards what didn't happen."
The crowd quieted and only breathed intensely. Ashinik snarled at his bodyguards and they crawled aside hurriedly. Ashinik came to the altar, raised his hands and faced Kissur.
"It's all stupidity and phantom," Ashinik said and you, Kissur, fell prey to it. But when you shoot and I come back alive, your delusion will disperse and you will not shame your name any more and will stand with us against demons.
Kissur silently picked a fresh "doughnut" out of his pocket, recharged the gun and turned off the safety switch with a clip. The eye on the "doughnut's" top swelled with green light. Ashinik closed his eyes and extended his hands forward. Bemish could clearly see the zealots' leader young face covered with sweat and his chicken neck in the torchlight. "Good lad," Giles whispered nearby. Kissur raised the laser.
"Don't you dare shoot, Kissur," Bemish said.
"What are you doing?" Giles hissed from the side.
Bemish pushed him away and leaped on the stage.
"Don't shoot!"
"Idiot," Kissur smirked.
"I can't allow you to kill a man right at my eyes, whatever this man believes in!"
"You are demon!" Ashinik shrieked, "Look, people, he knows that he can't kill me!"
The crowd clamored threateningly and rocked to the stage.
"Son of a bitch," Giles screeched, yanking a Kalet laser from under his armpit.
"Kill them," Ashinik screamed. "They can't harm you!"
People were pushing at the stage.
"One more step and we will shoot," Giles shouted.
"Stop!" Bemish cried out.
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