"All my storage space is crammed," Bemish replied.
"Why don't you load it into 17B?"
17B storage was empty — it had been built for military equipment and its walls, covered with lead sheets, insulated all irradiation.
"What about Giles?"
"Giles won't object," Shavash snorted.
X X X
The next day, the phone rang in Bemish's office. It was Ashinik.
"A charter flight has arrived," Ashinik said…
"Is it Laissa?"
"Yes."
"Send them to 17B storage."
In half an hour Ashinik came to Bemish to get storage "keys" — its electronic locks required an ingenious system of codes and, additionally, it had a microprocessor that could recognize the owner's retina pattern. The lock could store ten retina patterns in its memory but it currently had only two — Bemish's and Giles'. Only Bemish, however, knew the password.
The cargo delivered by Laissa was registered as medical equipment. That was not surprising. Every day, three hundred tons of medical equipment passed the spaceport. Accordingly to Bemish's calculations, every Weian peasant had by now one and a half CAT scanner.
Medical equipment was the only hardware that could be imported without tariffs and a lot of stuff entered the planet registered as such. It would be pretty hard to transport an oil drill, even disassembled, in cardboard boxes from Pepsi-Cola.
This time the cargo was too heavy to be unloaded by a forklift. Bemish watched for a while loading platforms with huge cubes, sealed and painted in green color, moving inside the classified storage area.
"Who owns the cargo?" Bemish inquired.
"Ascon Company."
Having returned to his office, Bemish checked Ascon Company out. It had been registered two months ago and it was an IC offshoot. Out of its cofounders, two were anonymous — they were probably colonel Giles and Shavash.
That's our Giles, that's our fighter for democracy! No surprise here that he won't object about his offshoot company using his storage area!
X X X
In three days, a party took place in Lore's house that was located half an hour away from the spaceport. Lore, five longshoremen, and Kissur were at the party.
Lore said, "I don't have to introduce our old friend to you. I will only say that two thousand years ago, a man named Irshahchan achieved at his planet what Marx wrote about five centuries ago and Shrainer half a century… Of course, Irshahchan was limited by his epoch and culture but, generally, his actions were correct. And I don't think that anybody has achieved more for the recovery of Irshahchan's and Marx' ideals than Kissur has. Now, we — six Earthmen — should be proud that we are helping, albeit to a small degree, to fix the world that our countrymen, obsessed by the spirit of capitalism, have corrupted."
Everybody agreed that, generally, the sovereign Irshahchan had thought a lot in unison with Marx and Shrainer — half a century ago — even though he had been somewhat backwards compared to the abovementioned thinkers. He had still been a despotic ruler of a patriarchic society.
By the midnight the company had gotten pretty high and Kissur suggested driving around. They loaded in Lore's Dodge and rushed downhill on a mountainous road. At a zigzag turn Lore, driving the car, suddenly saw a beetle shaped truck blocking the road. Lore lost his wits for a moment and Kissur, sitting next to him, swerved the steering wheel to the right and having opened the door, jumped out of the car.
None of the other passengers had Kissur's reflexes. The car smashed through the guard rail, dived into the gulf, flew two hundred meters down to the rocks and exploded. The explosion wouldn't have happened all that easily, if Kissur had not put an extra hydrogen tank in the trunk. This tank went off.
Kissur looked beyond the torn guard rail, made sure that everything was fine, climbed into the beetle shaped truck and was gone. Khanadar the Dried Date was at the truck's steering wheel.
The death of Lore Sigel and his friends didn't cause any suspicions. He had had at least eight crashes before and he had been quite high every time. And now they also found LSD in the blood of the magnificent six.
Nobody found anything connecting this episode and an unfortunate accident that happened two days later on a provincial planet Issan. Denny Hill, a technician from Nordwest base, was on the vacation at a local resort. He swam too far out in the local ocean and drowned.
THE TWELFTH CHAPTER
Where the Emperor of the Country of Great Light finds out the real purpose of the Assalah construction from the opposition press and expresses his confusion
In the beginning of May a large article filled a quarter of a page in one of the most influential newspapers — MegaMoney. A well known economy journalist and a Ronald Trevis' fan Christopher Blant figured out (or got a hint) to perform the simplest calculation — he took secondary balances that large banks had to publish and added up all the credits granted to the Empire of Great Light.
The result was that this year Weia had to pay off about one hundred forty million dinars on all its foreign and domestic loans; at the same time the total sum of all taxes collected this year would be only one hundred twenty million dinars. "The real total of all the Weian loans is probably higher," Blant wrote, "and it's clear that the only way Weia can make payments on its loans is to obtain more loans at a higher interest rate. It can't go on forever. Weian economy will crash and Weian ishevik will be devalued."
The investors clutched their heads. They demanded the Weian government to publish the real debt figures. During next week, the government published three different figures — eighty, hundred and hundred and thirteen billion — all of them signed by the finance minister.
It only spread the panic further.
Somebody started a rumor that the payments on the two billion dinars credit obtained by Weia from Galactic Bank would be postponed first — this credit had been turned into securities and distributed on the market after the bank had gone public.
The quotes went down by a factor of two and after that Weian government came out with a restructuring plan.
The two billion loan would be taken over by a new company BOAR that would obtain in exchange — at no cost — one of the largest nickel and other non-ferrous metals deposits in the Galaxy where the government had already built an ore enrichment facility. The concern and all the other companies registered at its territories would not have to pay anything towards the state's budget.
Three very influential Weian entrepreneurs and Terence Bemish were the company's cofounders. Even by the most modest estimate, the profit from the export of non-ferrous metals would be three times larger that the payments on the state's debt that the company would have to make. The bond prices skyrocketed at once to 97 % of their face value.
The bankers were tearing their hair out in shock. The newspaper article resulted — without any responsibility from the Weian government's side — in devaluation of the bonds. Their value could have dropped to even 30 % if somebody hadn't bought devalued securities through Ronald Trevis.
Inissa governor came, probably, the closest to the understanding of the true reasons behind the panic; he didn't really like Shavash and he sent him a birthday gift — a disinfectant can with a label "for avarice."
Bemish started visiting Earth often on BOAR business and every time he would wonder at a skyline awkwardly constricted by the buildings and a meager lonely moon. Once, in June, Trevis remarked that the calculations that Bemish held in his hands had been done by Ashinik and the lad had an internship in the head office during his holidays.
"How is he?" Bemish asked unaffectedly.
"He is trying hard," Trevis said, "but he is very disappointed."
"What is he disappointed with?"
"He is disappointed that nobody kisses his boots. They kissed his boots on Weia when he led the sect, didn't they?"
"No," Bemish answered, "they didn't kiss his boots. They gathered dust where he walked and gave it to the pregnant and to the sick to drink."<
br />
"Well," Trevis said, "he is disappointed that nobody gathers his dust."
"How is his wife doing?" Bemish asked unexpectedly.
"Is he married?" Trevis was surprised.
Bemish didn't answer.
Bemish had a bit of time after his meetings and before the ship's departure; he ascended to his hotel room and connected to the White Pages website via a computer. The computer thought for a while and then belched forth several green lines. On the black screen, they resembled a rim of meson irradiation formed around the exhausts of an interstar ship. Bemish sat on a coach motionless for a while and then he ordered a taxi and rode in it to the address that he got in the White Pages.
Ashinik was renting an apartment in an old building and there was no camera at the entrance, only intercom buttons bristled to the right. Bemish pushed the button number 27.
"Who is it?" Ashinik's voice replied.
Bemish let the button go. He expected that Ashinik wouldn't be at home at daytime, only Inis would be there. His expectations proved to be wrong. There were two more hours left before the ship's departure; Bemish turned and walked away.
Only when the ship pulled into the orbit and was almost out of the regular T-phone reception range, Bemish called Trevis.
"Listen," Bemish said, "I looked through the papers prepared by Ashinik and I found them to be pretty good. Send him to me."
Trevis said that he would like to have the young Weian in his office due to the growing number of Weian deals.
"This guy cost me ten percent of a company with a yearly export size of forty billion dinars," Bemish said, "and he will work it all off for me."
Trevis asked something else but then the receiver croaked and hissed and the connection broke off.
X X X
Ashinik returned to Weia in three weeks. He looked completely different. Instead of a skinny frightened young lad that had left the Empire eight months ago, a confident man with cold blue eyes and wide shoulders walked into Bemish's office.
"I am sorry that I pulled you out," Bemish said, embracing the youth, "but I need you. It concerns BOAR."
Ashinik lowered his head. When half a year ago, half-dead from torture he heard Shavash's voice offering his master to choose between him, Ashinik, and a twenty five percent controlling BOAR stock block, the company name couldn't tell him anything. Now the word BOAR decorated the financial newspapers' front pages and Bemish's share of the company was perfectly well known to be fourteen percent. Ashinik knew for sure that neither his direct boss nor Trevis nor even Ashinik himself would have exchanged the control of the deal of the century for a man.
"I…I…," Ashinik muttered. Bemish took the youth's hand.
"It doesn't matter. Where are you staying?"
"I am staying in a hotel," the lad replied turning to a window. There, behind the burned caramel color glass and sharp points of the ships, a huge glass body of a luxurious hotel was melting in the sun.
"You can move to my villa," Bemish said. "How is Inis doing?"
"She is with me," Ashinik replied. He paused and added, "I don't want to leave her alone. She shouldn't wave her skirt around.
It became quiet for a moment in the office, and then Bemish said,
"I left her alone often and nothing good came out of it. In three hours, Giles will meet people from Chakhar Trade Bank in the capital. Could you go with him?"
Ashinik went to the capital. He took part in the talks and stayed at a party celebrating the third year anniversary of Sadd Company. Giles introduced him to the economics minister.
Ashinik's hands went cold when, having approached a cluster of people, he saw in its center the beautiful, slightly corpulent face of Shavash.
"How is your health," Shavash asked abruptly, interrupting his conversation with an Earthman and nodding welcomingly to Ashinik.
"I am well, thanks," Ashinik heard his own voice as if it was coming out of a phone receiver.
"How is your wife doing?"
Ashinik uttered something about his wife being also fine.
"I recommend you this young man," Shavash said, "He helped us a lot with BOAR company."
The people who crowded around Shavash but stood to far to start a conversation with him moved slowly and started surrounding Ashinik.
In a while after Shavash had left, Ashinik realized suddenly with cold curiosity that he felt good about Shavash's nodding to him — the same Shavash that he had been trained in his previous life to exterminate like a mongoose exterminates snakes. In the hierarchy of his new life this nod immediately distinguished him out of the other young people and it was as if a small beacon lit above Ashinik's head and the guests flew towards this beacon as moths fly towards light.
The door slammed behind Ashinik and Bemish still sat the same way looking absent-mindedly at a field through the window. He picked up a lot of Empire's customs in his two years on Weia. One thing he hadn't apparently done yet — he had never killed a man because he wanted his wife.
Now, in seven months after their last meeting, Bemish didn't have any feelings towards ex-zealot Ashinik who started to resemble, frighteningly, a polished novice broker. He only felt quite annoyed thinking about the lost BOAR shares. On the other hand, the accident brought Bemish certain benefits. It had somehow leaked out — probably via Shavash who didn't find anything appalling there — and it improved Bemish's reputation tremendously. The biggest people on Weia knew that the Earthman hadn't turned his friend into for money and it was a Weian custom not to betray friends. It would be fine to send an innocent man to the gallows to help your friend or to embezzle money from the state treasury but to betray your friend was not nice.
Bemish didn't need Ashinik. But he realized with a surprise that he needed Inis. While his concubine had been next to him and he could take her any minute, could walk upstairs with her or simply lock the office door, caress her soft body and think about another woman — unavailable and forbidden — then it seemed to Bemish that talking about love would be stupid. Do you love your car? You just use it and if you crash it, you buy another one.
But buying another car proved to be difficult. Bemish tried three or four concubines during that time and threw them out, wincing. The sluts called in by Bemish didn't help either. Kissur seeing the Earthman suffering once took him to such a place that… yikes, it's better to forget all about it…
Then, there was some celebration at Shavash's palace where, besides everything else, they presented an ancient play about an Inissa prince. Watching it, Bemish suddenly realized that in this world it had always been considered normal for a man to desire two women simultaneously and that he, Terence Bemish, had turned Weian to a greater degree than he expected.
A penetrating beep of the phone interrupted Bemish's contemplation. Having answered the call, Bemish stood up abruptly. It was time to face the truth — he called Ashinik to Weia to take his wife away from him. It would possibly not work on Earth. But here, on Weia, where Bemish was no longer a man that would be called "businessman" on Earth but rather became a man that would be called "prince" — nobody would dare refuse him.
When Bemish with a large wrapped gift package entered a hotel room, Inis sat next to a mirror. She turned around and froze seeing the Earthman. Bemish, without taking his light overcoat off, approached her and kissed her silently. The woman didn't resist.
"It's for you," Bemish said, gently pushing her away in several minutes.
Blushing with joy, Inis started unwrapping the package. In a moment, she cried out happily admiring a necklace of large bluish pearls.
Bemish carefully took the necklace out of her hands and put it on her neck. Inis tried to turn away.
"What's wrong?"
Bemish tenderly turned her face towards him. It was only then that he noticed an ugly round bruise on her cheekbone.
"What is it?"
"Ashinik hit me."
"Ashinik?"
"He beats me often."
"Why?"
"He
doesn't like anything," Inis said. "He doesn't like my dresses, he doesn't like that I was his master's concubine, he doesn't like that people don't kowtow in front of him, and he doesn't like it when I dance with anybody else. At first he works day and night closing a deal and then he gets a bonus and says that it's a sugar lump that they gave to a trained Weian dog for jumping through a hoop."
Bemish sat on the bed. He suddenly didn't have anything to say. Two people in the room were silent and the setting sun, melting in the sky, was rapidly floating to the west following a rising freight ship.
"You didn't buy yourself a new concubine, did you?" Inis suddenly asked.
"No," Bemish said.
"Why?"
"I don't know. I think I didn't stop loving the previous one enough."
Inis carefully sat down next to Bemish's feet. Her eyes, large and green, were almost like Idari's eyes and they looked at Bemish with admiration and hope.
X X X
When Ashinik returned to the hotel room in the evening, the bedroom door was slightly open and an immobile silhouette sat on the bed.
"Inis!" Ashinik called opening the door and stopped short.
It was not Inis sitting on the bed, it was Yadan.
It was difficult to recognize the zealots' leader — he wore a well-tailored suit with a fashionable standing collar and a wide tie.
"Are you back?" Yadan asked.
Ashinik felt cold fury rising inside him.
"What do you want from me?"
"I saved you ten years ago, my boy. I gave you a gift of your life after my predecessor's death. It's time to pay back."
"I paid you back. It's a miracle that I survived."
"You didn't pay back well and a lot of people could not understand why your bomb was not as good as the demons promised."
"I don't owe you anything, Yadan. I owe Terence Bemish who made a man out of me."
"They bought you, my boy."
"No."
"Yes. The demons buy some people for a gold piece, others for a thousand gold pieces, others for a million. They say, you were bought for a billion, for a piece of the demon's company that you called BOAR and for an opportunity to live like demons. You even got a concubine that her owner was bored with…"
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