Julia Latynina. Insider --------------------------------------------------------------- © Copyright Julia Latynina © Copyright translation by Boris Itin (bitin@nysbc.org) Date: 08 Dec 2004 --------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENT The First Chapter Where Kissur the White Falcon gets in an accident while the first vice-minister of finance discusses the reasons for the dearth in the state treasury. The Second Chapter Where the sad history of the Assalah spacefield is told while the ex-first minister of Empire finds himself a new friend. The Third Chapter Where Kissur opens the Emperor's eyes to a foreign briber while Terence Bemish received a gift of a luxury villa. 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 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. The Sixth Chapter Where company AC declares its real name while Mr. Shavash shares some unusual thoughts about democracy's drawbacks. The Seventh Chapter Where all investors' difficulties are solved in the best way. The Eight Chapter Where Terence Bemish pays taxes with fallen leaves while the rock with an ancient foretelling is dug out at the construction. The Ninth Chapter Where the demons' boss makes a pact with the pious people. The Tenth Chapter Where Terence Bemish becomes familiar with provincial life of the Empire while Mr. Shavash offers an original plan for the restructuring of the state debt. The Eleventh Chapter Where Terence Bemish's assistant goes to the sectants' meeting in Imissa while Kissur the White Falcon looks around the Galaxy for abandoned warheads. 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. The Thirteenth Chapter Where the nation expresses its will with unpredictable results. The Fourteenth Chapter Or the first minister as an international terrorist. The Fifteenth Chapter Where the saviors of the Country of Great Light pull the biggest insider deal in the history of the Galaxy. THE FIRST CHAPTER, where Kissur the White Falcon gets in an accident while the first vice-minister of finance discusses the reasons for the dearth in the state treasury. The walls of the living room were covered with blue silk and the corners were overlayed with hexagonal tiles making the room an octagon, the shape guided its owner's success in life and smoothed all turns in his fate. Embroiderings grew over silk - blossoming lotuses with leaves lowered from heat, plum flowers opening up, a snow white duck in a pond and a sping sun. A light hung almost all the way down to the floor, looking like a transparent upside down mushroom and golden figures of animals ran over its rim. A small table with a frosted jar and an armchair were next to the light. A 30 year old man sitting in the armchair was dressed in the silk pants and a jacket, girdled with a belt made from large silver links. His face was very handsome but cruel, with blue eyes and eyebrows rising at the tips. Old rings of delicate worksmanship looked strange on his predator's hands with untrimmed nails. His hair was twisted in a bun and held with a tortoise comb. A 3D transvisor on a fat golden leg stood in the left corner. Periodically, the man would fill a small five walled cup from the jar, close the cup with a lacquered cap enclosing a straw, and stick the straw in his mouth. He was watching the transvisor. On his left hand, a small drawing hung in a sable fur frame - a beautiful drawing of a sick chickadee in snow. The picture bore the Emperor's signature. It was a personal gift from the Emperor. Two golden rings of orchids and clematis hang next to it. A sonar rabbit ear antenna stuck up above the transvisor and a silvered pot with a blooming flower was behind the antenna. The flower had a artful name "furled belle's eyebrows." The picture in the transvisor greatly differed from that on the silk paintings decorating the room. The transvisor was not showing either a sick chickadee or blossoming plums. The transvisor was showing a press-conference. A self-important patrician Earthman was talking and his piggish eyes were routinely squinting from camera flashes. A whole flock of microphones was gosseling out in front of the Earthman. He was earnestly attempting to look inside the room through the screen and he probably felt alien surrounded by blooming plums and golden flower rings. Somebody asked the man on the screen in a thin voice, and he answered benevolently, "While we are not interfering in any way with the independent nation and are not pressuring its government, the Federation of Nineteen would encourage the Emperor to conduct the first Parliament elections in the history of your country as a one more step in of your nation's integration into the galactic society." The man sitting in the chair poured the last remnants from the silver jar into the cup. He slightly raised his hand and threw the jar at the forehead of the smiling Earthman on the screen. The Earthman stopped smiling and disappeared. The screen squeaked and exploded in tiny pieces. The "furled belle's eyebrows" loudly crashed, and the nauseating smell of burning plastic intestines filled the room. The painted doors moved apart and a middle-aged majordomo in a blue caftan rolled into the room. "Take it away," the man in the armchair said without raising his voice. The majordomo threw his hands up and exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Kissur, that's the third one this week." Kissur jumped out of the chair, slammed the door and was gone. The majordomo in the room stuck his hand in the empty jar, scratched it and licked... The lord was not even drunk, or almost not drunk - there was a light palm wine in a jar, generously diluted by the apricot juice. Kissur could get drunk and get drunk to his eyebrows, drunk enough to fight, drunk enough to cut dogs or people cut in half. But, he could do it only at merry party with a dozen friends. Kissur never drank by himself. Kissur ran gasping down the staircase and leaped out into the inner yard. The night was already in. It smelled of mint from countryside gardens, gasoline and horses. A city mansion with a flat roof surrounded the yard on three sides. A left wing tower decorated with grape carvings rose gracefully like a reed leaf. In the past, high-ranking officials built towers like this, for them to touch the sky like little fingers. The towers would be like a staircase that Fortune walk down from the sky to the officials. In the past, people had said that only the Emperor's castle spires were higher. Now, one would not be able to say that, since a construction crane made from steel matches was showing up on the black sky background; the crane was touching the sky with its little finger. Enraged Kissur threw his fist to the sky and stomped flying down the moonlighted path. A servant in a short blue jacket stood in the backyard, in front of the gates wrapped by brass vines. The servant lovingly washed a long glossy car like he would be braiding a horse's tail. The black sides of the car gleamed in the moonlight and the silver gills of the hydrogen engine air intakes shined. Kissur ripped the hose out of the slave's hand and threw himself in a car. The tires screeched - the slave was barely able to jump away. The terrified booth guard hit the button on the keyboard, the gates bobbed up, and the car flew out on the deserted and wet night highway. "Once he won't be able to get the gates up in time", Kissur thought, "and I'll break my neck at my own wall." The car was purring and eating hydrogen - isn't it strange that a horse eats when it's resting while this black ironmonger eats only when it's moving, and when it's not moving it doesn't eat anything. Yes! Seven years ago when gloom was sometimes eating at his soul, Kissur would take a black stallion with a wide back and tall legs and race him in the Emperor's garden, in the gullies overgrown with bushes and grass, till the sunrise. Where is this garden now? They peddled it, sold it like a wench in the market, for some glass contraption. It was shameful, since Kissur himself sold it to some corporation . The highway ended abruptly at a flooded river; Kissur almost flipped over in the water on the sliver of the pontoon bridge. At least, this thing does race faster than a horse even if it stinks of iron. Only weapons smelled like iron in the past, while now in an every beaurocrat's house a barrel like this hangs out and stinks like iron. It's terrifying to think of the size of the motherland piece this beaurocrat sold for this barrel... Kissur turned around and slowly drove back. In a hundred yards, a cement road forked off the highway. Moon tatters floated in a little puddle at the road turn. "What road is that?", Kissur was curious and turned the car. The road ended in ten minutes. The car beams tore at the darkness and illuminated a tall concrete fence with barbed wire on top and a lonely guard getting bored at the watchtower. A dark open field could be seen on the left and a yellow light beam from the beacon was hitting the field. Kissur got out of the car and walked down the field to the excavator that was ascending like a clockwork mole over a not-yet-fully-eaten hill. Tracks and wheels bulldozed the field and water gleamed in the clay ruts. The excavator was huge, taller than a poplar. It was one of these huge machines that swallow clay with some additives delivered from afar and spit out finished construction blocks. Kissur climbed up a steep staircase to the top of the excavator. It was a long climb; the staircases twisted, went horizontal, changed in narrow paths between steel casings covering various mechanisms and finally finished at a tiny booth. The booth was locked; constellations of blue lights at the napping console looked at Kissur through the glass. At this moment, the moon peered out of clouds again; Drunken River gleamed far away with the multi-coloured tower of Seven Clouds Bridge above it. Kissur suddenly recognized this field; it happened here, next to Seven Clouds, eight years ago. Kissur caught up with the rebel Khanalai right when he was going to enter the capital; Kissur and his five hundred horsemen drowned four thousand rebels in the river. The commander wore a ruby necklace; Kissur remembered very well how he cut off his head with one hand and stuffed the necklace in his coat with the other. Kissur turned around and started to climb down the narrow staircase, smelling of oil and chemistry. His car purred quietly and complained about the open door. The guard hesitantly shifted from foot to foot in his nest. What's happening? Did some boss come in a luxurious barrel to look at the construction at night? It doesn't look like a robber... Take this excavator, such an insanely expensive machine that's tall like a cypress, walks by itself, digs earth by itself, piles the blocks behind by itself. They say that this machine costs three times more than the village that the guard was born and grew up in. They say even that it's more expensive than the Emperor's scepter covered with jewels and gold. That's probably bullshit; the Emperor's sceptor is the focus of the world and the buttress of power. When the Emperor knocks his scepter, flowers bloom and birds build nests; how can you compare it some ironmongery? You can't compare it to ironmongery and that's why people from the sky get angry and laugh at the scepter. Like it's all crap and the Spring comes not because the Emperor knocks the sceptor on the floor in the Hall of Hundred Fields but because Weia planet turns its side to the sun differently. But what if the people from the sky don't bullshit? What if their excavator is more powerful than the Emperor's scepter? "Hey," Kissur asked, "what are they building here?" " I don't know, sir", the frightened guard answered. "They say it will be a garbage plant." "Who is building it?" The puzzled guard was silent for a moment. "I knew, sir, but the name is such difficult..." "Earthmen?" "Earthmen." The beacon from the tower was blinding Kissur's eyes, shamelessly eclipsing the moon. Kissur rolled on the heels, threw a coin to the guard, got in the car and left. He didn't care where he went, but the wheels drove him of their own accord to Jasper Hills, the most expensive suburb of the capital. Painted walls extended behind the sidewalk covered with blue cloth; trees and turnip shaped turrets flashed behind the walls, and traffic lights blinked in the intersections illuminating statues of gods and road signs with transparent lights. Kissur drove the wrong way down a one way street, turned the wrong way again and raced down night intersections not bothering to decrease his speed. He passed red lights twice without problems, but third time he was less lucky. Out of a white fence came a grey Daiquiri, looking like a gopher with a sharp snout, the last year model made by the Republic of Gera. Kissur wrenched the steering wheel left even before the slow biolectronic guts of the car smelled danger. The brakes of both cars sang an ugly song in the night. Grey Daiquiri swerved left. Everything would have been fine, if not for the wet road cover. The grey car spun like a top and hit Kissur's car right side head-on. Metal screeched desperately, like a chainlink mail parting under an old sword strike. Everything became quiet. The owner of Daiquiri jumped out of the car and rushed to the other auto; he jerked the driver's door open and looked inside. He was probably expecting to find a corpse or somebody severely wounded; he looked astonished when he discovered that the culprit was sitting in the car and getting his wallet out. Then, Kissur looked in rearview mirror, shifted from the collision, and noticed that his hair twisted in a bun was in disarray and the comb popped out of the bun like a button out of a safety switch. Kissur pulled the comb out and started to arrange his hair. The other driver's face contorted like an image in a transvisor with a bad tracking; he started pulling Kissur out and hissed awfully in the language of the people from the stars. "You, Weian monkey! Climb down a tree first, before you start driving." The smile slowly left Kissur's face. He left the comb alone, grabbed the Earthman's wrists with his hands, got out of the car, and with a slight swing punched the Earthman in the solar plexis with his knee. He went limp and said "Ouch." Red unglazed tiles that were covering the ditch caved in with a crunch and the Earthman tumbled down through the tiles with his legs sticking up. Kissur grinned, straightened up his shirt and started opening the car door. In the next second, something gleamed above his head and refracted in the long titanium oxide rib of the car. Kissur turned with lightning speed. Great Wei! The Earthman dragged himself out of the tiled ditch and was flying at Kissur prancing like a goose. Astounded Kissur avoided the first punch, but the second almost shattered his jaw. Kissur was hurled in the corner between the door and rearview mirror. The mirror crunched and Kissur noticed the Earthman's right foot an inch away from his ear. Kissur grabbed and twisted this leg, but the masterly Earthman instead of smashing his face in the road, let out a war cry, threw his body strangely in the air and punched Kissur's belly with another leg. Kissur even fainted for a second. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying on the road like a pod from an eaten bean and the Earthman was going to punch him again. Kissur threw himself to the side; Earthman missed, and Kissur adroitly punched Earthman right in the place where the Earthman's corn grew from. This time Earthman's cry was less warlike. Kissur jumped with his back, bounced on his feet and hit the foe in the face, once and again; he went limp. Kissur prodded him in the groin to check, lifted him and flang the Earthman at the grey Daiquiri's windshield. The layered glass cracked and started to break, the Earthman dropped his head and lost consciousness. Kissur stood breathing deeply and blinking with half mad eyes. He was trained to loose any self control during a fight; at times like this, Kissur's ancestors turned into wolves and bears. If Kissur had a sword, he would cut the scoundrel down. However, it would be stupid to wear a sword now and Kissur didn't have a liking for all these things with nulls, lights, gases - all having a hole in the middle like a wench. Though he had an automatic six pound laser and another very fashionable gadget in the car's trunk, Kissur didn't know even why he carried them. His friends did, so did he. Kissur stood and shook his head purposelessly, slowly coming back in this world. The Earthman was lying on the car hood like a squashed frog. His white shirt and tie were hopelessly soiled with cranberry juice. The traffic light at the intersection blinked and changed color - the fugurine of a god-protector of intersections sparkled with green light. Kissur finally came to his senses. He chewed his lips and retrieved his round wallet out of a pocket. Kissur didn't respect plastic. He got out everything that he had in the wallet - he vaguely remembered that it was twenty or maybe fifty thousand - rolled the money in a wad and stuck it in the Earthmans's split lips. He didn't want them to say that he beat people free of charge. Then he got in his car and left. X X X The car slowly rolled forward. Kissur felt slightly sick; blood dripped out of his nose. It wouldn't be proper to come back home looking like this. Kissur passed several more mansions and stopped in front of beautiful brass gates. Horses and peacocks intertwined in a dance on the gates; the blue enamel on the horsetails glistened in the beam lights. The beauty of gates was such they seemed to lead from earth to heaven. Night garden's sweet smells wafted out from behind the gates. The turnip shaped turrets of the side houses stuck out from the dark mass of trees. Melancholic gods sat on the flat roofing of the covered road. At the side of the gates, a small ivory plaque glimmered, "Shavash Ahdi. The first vice-minister of finance. Vice prefect of the Sky City." A small figurine of the god-protector of the gates was next to the plaque. The god had a small basket with fish in his hand. A marble cup stood under the figurine. A piece of dried oil saturated cow dung burned in the cup; it demontrated the owner's modesty and honored the cane-built huts of ancient officials. Surprisingly, the gates were closed - the vice prefect of the capital was not feeding either officials or paupers today. Kissur smirked. The mansion's owner could've had numerous titles written on the plaque - the Keeper of Piety, the Brocade of Truth, the Flower Garden of the Wisdom Beyond the Sky, the Meadow of the State Virtue, etc... etc... He regularly received these titles from the Emperor and was supposed to engrave them on gate plaques. However, the owner of the mansion has often had visitors from the skies and he probably realized that the Brocade of Truth and the Flower Garden of Wisdom were not titles that would impress the foreigners. Kissur blinked the lights; the gates suddenly moved to the sides without a call and Kissur drove in. The yard was brightly lit. Streams of water and light erupted from the fountains and multi coloured balls bounced on the streams. Rows of columns and rose bushes led to the open front entrance. The columns tops made from carved jade and inlaid silver pointed to the moon. The host was already running down the staircase rushing to the wide path. A bowing servant opened the car door and Kissur stepped out of the car. Mr. Shavash froze as if he had ran into a wall but he recovered at once, opened his arms and embraced Kissur. "Hello," he said. "Well," said Kissur, "I was driving and decided to drop by. Sorry that I didn't warn you... I don't like these - beep, beep," Kissur traced a sickly body of a T-phone with his hand. "Are you busy?" Mr. Shavash regarded the caved in car door and looked Kissur over from his head to his toes. "Give me your driver's license," said the vice-minister of finance and the vice prefect of the capital. Kissur bent his eyebrows, got the wallet out and handed his license over. The vice prefect waved the license, thought a bit, tore it apart and threw it in the lighted fountain. "Whom have you run over?" "I haven't run anybody over," answered Kissur, "I hit a pole." This lie would have a short life span. If the Earthman is dead, Shavash will learn everything tomorrow morning. If he is alive, Shavash may learn about it tonight. Kissur, however, didn't come to Shavash to avoid a scandal. Thank God, the time hasn't come yet for a foreigner wearing a tie to turn in a complaint about a personal friend of the Emperor. "The pole," mentioned Shavash, "had leaden fists." "Are you waiting for somebody," asked Kissur, "did I come at a wrong time?" Shavash became slightly embarassed. "You are always welcome." Shavash gave orders; Kissur followed to the guest chambers. A servant rushed along in mincing steps carrying a basket with clean sheets. Shavash said to Kissur's back, "You will not drive again. Otherwise you will die sometime." "It's ok," replied Kissur, "if Gods like a man, he dies young." X X X Twenty minutes later, bowing servants walked Kissur down the roofed path to the Pavilion of White Creeks. There were two pavilions for receiving important guests in the Shavash's estate - the Pavilion of White Creeks and the Red Pavilion. Pavilion of White Creeks was decorated in the traditional style, the floors were covered with knee deep white rugs, flower spheres swang under the ceiling, incense flowed from golden braziers, silken scrolls rimmed with fur hang on the walls, while the corners (corners are indeed atrocious things, everything bad in a house comes from the corners) were hidden well from a random glance by long ivy plants rising all the way to the ceiling. Red Pavilion was designed by an Earthman. Shavash usually received Weians in the Pavilion of White Creeks and Earthmen in the Red Pavilion. They claimed that these places had magical properties - when Mr. Shavash received Weians in the Pavilion of White Creeks he discoursed one way, but when he received Earthmen in the Red Pavilion his speeches were very different. For instance, when questioned about the reasons for the Empire's poverty in the Pavilion of White Creeks, he complained about the greed of people from the skies who only try to buy as much Weia as possible for a keg of marinated onions. However when asked the same question in the Red Pavilion, he complained about laziness and selfishness of Weian officials. Since these different speeches belonged to the same person, you have to agree, that the magical properties of these buildings had to be involved. The servants brought trays of roasted goose and baskets of picked fruit and covered the table with vegetable and meat appetizers.The melon floating in a silver basin was delivered the last. Shavash seated Kissur as the guest of honor and broke off the top of clay wine jar. Kissur caught the top and glanced at the stamp. "Good wine," Kissur, "if this stamp is not counterfeited." "There are no fakes in my house," Shavash replied, "it was made in Inissa in the fifth year of sovereign Varnazd rein." "It was made when the empire was still the empire. It was made when I was not a minister yet, when I was a brigand in Kharain mountains and when my wife was your fiancee. Shavash smiled slightly and poured wine in the cups. "I would," Kissur spoke, "drink a wine that was bottled in the times of sovereign Irshahchan. When there were no merchants and bribers and when all these barbarians from the mountains or from the sky didn't wave their swords or their science in front of our people's faces. "I am afraid," Shavash replied, "that no wine that ancient exists. And even if it's around still, it has turned into vinegar." The friends intertwined their hands and drank wine. After that, Shavash started on a young bamboo shoot and a river calimari with a spicy Iniss sauce appetizers. Kissur, squinting, rolled a cup in his hands and looked at the man sitting across the table. Even among Weian officials that nobody would suspect to be excessively uncorrupted, Shavash had made himself quite a reputation. Shavash's servants took bribes, Shavash's assistants took bribes, Shavash's wife (by the way, Kissur's wife was her sister) took bribes; they took bribes with lands and stocks, with licenses and money, with options and thoroughbreds, with the newest financial tools and ancient paintings, took bribes from provincial and center worlds, took bribes from the Federation of Nineteen and the Republic of Gera - though the dictator of Gera didn't take bribes and didn't really give much. One official asked what kind of place a supermarket was; they told him that it was a place where one could by anything. "Oh, it's Mr. Shavash's house," the astonished official exclaimed. Kissur once, after some really offensive deal, grabbed Shavash by his shirt at the Emperor's soiree and asked what the current price was for a pound of motherland. "I love motherland and I charge a lot for it," Shavash leered. Mr. Shavash liked to state that if a man says that he doesn't like money, it means that money doesn't like him. Since the Earthmen came to the planet, seven years and four cabinets have passed. Every one of the cabinets fired all its predecessor's functionaries. Shavash was the only higher level official who worked for all the cabinets and survived. The first man he betrayed in order to survive was his teacher and lord, Nan, who had made him a big boss out of an street urchin thief. Thanks to such a long political life, Shavash was able to pull all the strings of power and influence in the country in spite of his relative youth - he was only two years older than Kissur. Shavash could help or hinder anything. Even the biggest country bumpkin Earthmen - who came to Weia to invest in a construction of some resort in the middle of untamed nature or in the development of a uranium mine that will sooner or later finish this untamed nature off - knew that they should introduce themselves to the first vice minister of finance and they should invest in Shavash first, and in a mine next. Kissur had just finished half of the goose, when a bowing servant slid in the room and handed Shavash a paper. "At the intersection of Spring Fires, the traces of a two car collision were found, the unglazed tile ditch cover was broken through, blood and fragments of headlights identical to the broken headlight of Kissur's car were present. The grey paint particles stuck to Kissur's car trunk match to the grey paint particles found at the collision place." That was the answer to the orders Shavash had given his secretary twenty minutes ago. Shavash folded the paper sheet and put it in his pocket. "What," Kissur asked, "are they building at the Seven Clouds field?" The official pondered. "Garbage processing plant," he said. "Who? Another of their corporations?" "The company CB Trade. The owner of company is Kaminski. What's the problem?" "Nothing. I was just passing by and got curious." "So, have they built the plant?" "No," Kissur said, "they haven't built it yet. They built a big road to the garbage plant." Shavash reflectively touched the paper in his pocket. Kissur sucked on a goose breast bone, washed it down with another wine cup and said, "Garbage plant! Our ancestors swept garbage out of their houses only at a full moon. They used to call a charmer, so that a warlock would not be able to pick up trash and put a spell on them. Imagine what would happen in Earthmen's houses if they threw garbage out only once a month? All their wraps and cans would rise above the ceiling even thought their ceilings are very high! How can a people that generates so much garbage call itself civilized? How dare these people teach us to manufacture goods only to dispose of them afterwards?! Shavash didn't react to this tirade in any way. Kissur silently finished wine and his eyes became even more desperate. "Why," Kissur asked, "does the capital need a garbage processing plant?" "Probably," Shavash supposed, "to process garbage." "Crap," Kissur objected, "Earthmen don't need plants to process garbage. They produce garbage, as an excuse to build garbage processing plants. Why don't we ask the sovereign to ban this construction? Almost in the center of the capital!" Shavash pressed his thumb in the armchair and looked thoughtfully at Kissur. It looked like he was pondering something. "Don't be afraid," Shavash said suddenly, "Kaminski will not built his garbage plant." "How so?" "As you mentioned, this is almost downtown. The status of the land will be reconsidered; industrial construction will be prohibited; the business and industrial land committee will submit a complaint; the sovereign will sign it and the garbage plant construction will be cancelled." "But the foundation is already there." "Mr. Kaminski will receive a compensation for the foundation - two million." "And then?" "Then, Mr. Kaminski will built a new business center instead of a garbage plant on the business zoned land." "I am probably very stupid," Kissur remarked, "but I don't understand what's going on." "Lands of the Empire that are sold to foreign investors as a private property," Shavash patiently explained, "can be divided in four categories - agrarian, residential, industrial and business lands. Industrial zoned land costs twelve times less than business zoned one. If Mr. Kaminsky had bought the land for a business center, it would have been too expensive for him." "And what about the foundation?" Shavash spread his hands. "I am not an engineer, of course, and they don't allow outsiders to visit the construction. If however, I was an engineer and I was allowed there, I would probably notice that the foundation and the underground communications confirm to a business center specifications and not to a garbage processing facility specifications." Kissur's face froze. "So," he said, "that's what Kaminsky will get two million compensation for?" "Kaminsky," Shavash responded, "will not get the compensation. The compensation will be procured by a Weian official who affirms the complaint and transfer land from one zoning category into another." "Hold on, this deal must have passed through your prefecture!" "In this case, the contract did not pass via the prefecture. It passed through Mr. Khanida's department." "I see. You can't forgive Khamida that it was him and not you to receive the money." "This money wouldn't hurt me" Kissur stood up and started pacing in the pavilion. "Mutual profit," Shavash talked, "is the basis of cooperation. Kaminsky will save four hundred million; Khamida will receive two million. Weian officials cost cheap." "What if everything falls through? If the sovereign fires Khamida before he changes the land zoning?" "Well, Kaminsky gave Khamida only a little bit, less than seven hundred thousand. The rest Khamida will get only upon a successful completion of the deal and he will not get it from the Earthman - he will get it from the state. Khamida is not the one who invented it, it's a well known setup." "What other setups are there?" Kissur asked quickly. The official spread his hands smiling like a porcelain cat. He evidently didn't want to tell Kissur about all the different ways of selling his own country, even though he was much more nimble than Khanida in this business. "Kissur, you haven't seen my watch collection in a while. Let's go and look at it." Standing up unhurriedly, Shavash approached a fifth dynasty cabinet that stood in the living room. Shavash' s collection of Weian pocket watches was filling the sparkling malachite shelves in the cabinet. The collection had indeed improved. A tiny sand watch in a tumbler braided with gold knots was added. Also new were three mechanical pocket watches that just started to appear in the Empire before the catastrophe and were luxury and therefore art, with fanciful ornament and decorations, with mother-of-pearl hands made in the image of the eternity god, hence they had nothing to do with this flat crap that even women now worn on their wrists. Other new additions were present: a tiny watch embedded in a lid of a jade powder box - it didn't have a glass cover, it had a twined filigree lattice and a single hour hand languished behind it as if in prison cell; an oval watch strewn with pearls had two faces - one face for the minute and another for the hour hand - and a long chain with jade pendants that high officials used to wear personal seals. A seal was at the botton and the watch covered with tiny jewels at the top. Kissur suddenly grabbed Shavash by his right hand - a homely watch with a simple platinum face was there and twenty six hours of Weian time were marked with Earthern numerals. "Yes," Shavash said thickly, "there are no more Weian numerals. Our time has been severed. Let my hand go now or you will break it again." Grinning Kissur released Shavash's hand, turned to the shelf and picked up an onion shaped watch with a crystal top. Agitation briefly ran over Shavash's face - he loved this onion more than any of his concubines and Kissur knew that. Kissur squeezed the onion in his fist and waved it in front of Shavash's face. "So," Kissur asked, "what other ways are there? How many of your monthly salaries did this onion cost?" Shavash suddenly twisted like a cat protecting its kittens. "Put it back now," he hissed. Nobody knows how Kissur woud have answered if a brass gong had not banged at the hall entrance and an incoming servant announced, "Mr. Bemish begs forgiveness for being late." "Let him in," Shavash cried desperately. Kissur's lips twitched; he put the onion back in place and for a second longer looked at the numerals in the hands of the eternity god twisted around the dial. Isn't it strange? A while ago this fashion for watches was started by this scoundrel, minister Nan, who later appeared to be a barbarian from the stars, - Kissur couldn't stand this fashion - how could it be that a watch hand commanded a Man like an owner his slave. And now his heart hurt when he saw the Weian numerals and a Weian device. When Kissur turned around, the official was already standing at the entrance and bowing ceremoniously to the Earthman. "Please," Shavash said, "let me introduce you to each other. Terence Bemish, the general director of ADO company and Mr. Kissur, an Emperor's personal friend...." The Earthman and Kissur looked at each other. Kissur's eyes popped out; it was the same man he had a fight with only two hours ago. Great Wei! Kissur thought the Earthman had died and the guy even managed to change his shirt! "We have met already," the Earthman reported in an even voice and added, "Mr. Kissur, I was just going to hand you over a letter." He stepped closer to Kissur and put a white envelope in his hand. Kissur felt a wad of crimpled money under the plastic paper. Kissur guffawed and slapped Bemish on the shoulder. Bemish bit his lips for a second, pondering if he should punch the guy in the face, but Kissur was laughing so merrily that Bemish couldn't help but join him. Shavash batted his eyelids apprehensively. The official had to solve several problems quickly and the most pressing one was where to receive the guests and what language to use. It was a very important question due to this strange quality of Shavash's soul; as we have discussed, a conversation in a different language seemingly transferred it to a different world. We have mentioned, that when somebody asked Shavash in Interenglish about the reasons for pauperism in the Empire, Shavash denounced passionately unbearable state expenses and the state budget that half of the country's banks made fortunes on. However, when somebody asked him the same question in Weian, he castigated the gluttony of the people from the stars who were buying the country for a wine jar. Hence, Shavash avoided speaking Interenglish next to a Weian and speaking Weian next to a person from the stars. His brain got muddled otherwise. Shavash carefully pulled a window curtain away and looked outside. A taxi stood far outside, behind the white wall. Oh, the Earthman flew in yesterday and rented a car - a grey Daiquiri. Hmm, to change a car is more difficult than to change a shirt. "Well, gentlemen," Shavash said, still undecided about the hall, "the night is divine, why should we sit inside eight walls, let's go into the garden." "I apologize," Kissur bowed, " but I need to go." "What..." Shavash started. "Gentlemen," Kissur said, "I'll only get in your way. Two respectable people are going to discuss an important business. It's not a place for a vagrant like me. You are not going to waste your time on small things like a garbage plant, are you?" THE SECOND CHAPTER Where the sad history of the Assalah spacefield is told while the ex-first minister of Empire finds himself a new friend. Next morning Terence Bemish sat in his room on the seventh floor of the local Hilton hotel nudging the back of his head and feeling annoyed. His head hurt as hell. A large peony-shaped bruise swelled on his cheekbone. Somebody knocked in the door - Stephen C. Welsey, an employee of one of the largest investment banks in the Galaxy and Terence's colleague on this stupid trip, walked in. "Wow," Welsey said, looking curiously at the peony bruise, "is it a local mafia?" "Ah, a guy shattered my car's headlamps." "And then?" Welsey asked with an undisguised curiosity knowing that a while ago the sixteen year old future corporate raider Terence Bemish got to the semi-finals of a youth kickboxing Galaxy championship. "To be honest," Bemish said, "I was a complete pig. These jerks charged me three times more for the rent than this tin can really costs. I grabbed the guy by his shirt and called him a Weian monkey or something like that. He punched me in the face." "Thank God, you were smart enough to hold back." "To the contrary," Bemish said bitterly, "I punched him back." Welsey's raised his eyebrows in astonishment. "To summarize," Bemish explained, "he drove away and left me sitting with my butt inside the crashed windshield." "What about Shavash?" "I changed my clothing and went to Shavash." "Well?" "Shavash is a very intelligent person," Bemish said, "and his education is impeccable. He knows everything about IPO, underwriters, cumulative privileged stocks, etc... You have to admit that in a country where most people are sure that when an Earth starship reaches the sky, the Earthmen knock in the sky and God opens them a brass door, that's pretty impressive. He is a very intelligent man who encompassed the best in the both cultures - Weian and Galactic ones." "What does it mean?" "He can bankrupt you without breaking a sweat like a vulture fund manager and he can personally cut your head off like a true Weian official. He is the most charming man." "So, what has the most charming man told you about your desire to buy Assalah?" "That to agree to our proposal means to sell the motherhood for a sour cream jar." "Well, should we pack our things and leave?" "Not necessarily. Mr. Shavash hinted that he would be ready to sell the motherhood for a sour cream jar, if the jar was big enough." Welsey hummed. "Don't I dream sometimes," he said, "that at some point the Securities and Stocks Committee will allow us to have an entry in a balance sheet - "for bribing of the developing markets officials" - and it will be tax deductible... How much does he want?" "We didn't get to particular numbers." Bemish was silent for a moment and continued, "The company stocks are unbelievably under priced. I am not going to give him any money. Let him buy stock warrants, this way it would be in his interest for the company to survive and prosper." "What is that you don't like?" "Shavash is not the director of the company." "Excuse me," Welsey was amazed, "what do you mean, he is not a director? All the forms say - Shavash Ahdi, the director of the state-owned Assalah Company." "Stephen, it is a poor translation. The company is not owned by the state, it is owned by the sovereign. Do you see the difference? "State" and "sovereign" are two different conjugations of the same word in Weian - nouns have conjugations here - what a language... When the translation says, the state appoints, it really means, the sovereign appoints. The sovereign personally appoints and revokes the company president; the sovereign personally accepts financial plans. What if the sovereign does not accept the IPO plan? Bye-bye sour cream..." "Hmm," Welsey said, "From what I've heard, you can't really say he spends all his time studying companies' IPO plans during the de-nationalization process. They say he has seven hundred concubines..." "Yes, but what's the guarantee that some official that can't stand Shavash doesn't go to the sovereign and tell him about the sour cream jar." "Giles from IC told me that we would not even be able to get papers for the space field preliminary checkup without bribing Shavash first." Bemish retorted, "What is the IC? I've never heard about this company." Somebody knocked in the door. "Come in," Welsey shouted. A boy with a card on a silver tray materialized at the entrance. As a local custom demanded, the boy kneeled down on a scrawny knee in front of the foreigner. Bemish took the card. The boy said, "A gentleman would like to have a breakfast with you. The gentleman is waiting down in the foyer." "I am coming," Bemish said. The boy backed away and left. Bemish hurriedly pulled on pants and a jacket. Welsey took the card. "Kissur," he read, "wow, isn't he the Emperor's favorite who filched a Van Leyven's bomber plane and slaughtered the rebels next to the capital? Didn't he later get on LSD and gang up with anarchists on Earth? Where did you pick this drug addict up?" Bemish checked his bruise out in the mirror. "Drug addicts," Bemish said, "don't fight like this." X X X Terence Bemish descended. Slim and smiling Kissur sat on the car hood. He wore soft grey pants girdled by a wide belt embroidered with silver sharks and a grey jacket. A wide necklace made of jade plates set in gold glistened under the open jacket akin to a collar. The attire was similar enough to the contemporary fashion to look unobtrusive, except for the necklace and the finger rings. Bemish winced involuntarily and touched his cheekbone where Kissur's ring tore the skin off. "Hello," Kissur said, "general director! Never in my life have I met a general director who fights like this. Are you special?" "I am special," Terence Bemish agreed. Laughing, Kissur embraced him, seated him in the car and started the engine. "What have you seen in our capital?" Kissur asked. "Nothing." "Have you seen nothing at all?" "Well, I saw cards in the hotel hall," Bemish said, "and I also saw a warning there - don't eat fried river calamari on the market if the calamari are from the left river, where the leather processing plant "flows" to." "Got you," Kissur said, "let's go then." They drove over the river across a blue lacquered bridge, loaded with market stalls and people. Kissur stopped on the bridge in front of a wreath shop, bought three of them, put one on his neck, another on Bemish's and later left the third one in the temple of the Sky Swans. After that, Kissur drove Bemish around the city. The city, that Bemish hadn't seen yet, was both beautiful and ugly. Temple turrets and muraled precinct gates mixed with astonishing five storied shanty houses built from the stuff that Bemish wouldn't dare to build a cardboard box; potters on the floating market sold enticing jars painted with grasses and flowers and empty rainbow hued Coke bottles. Melon peels and colorful wraps floated down the canal - the remnants of everything that grew on Weia and came from the skies, everything that found a place in the mammoth belly of the Sky City but didn't find a place in the weak bowels of its sewage. They watched a puppet show at the market based on a new popular TV series demonstrating the mutual integration of the cultures; they fed holy mice and dropped by the Temple of Isia-ratouph, where stone gods dressed in long caftans and high suede boots nodded to visitors if they dropped coins (bought here) down a slot in the wall. Kissur showed the Earthman a wonderful town clock made in the very beginning of the sovereign Kassia's rule. There were twenty three thousand figurines next to the clock, a thousand for an every province, and they all represented officials, peasants and artisans. They spun in front of the dial displaying a blue mountain. Bemish asked why the mountain was blue and Kissur answered that was the mountain that stood above the sky and had four colors - blue, red, yellow and orange. The blue side of the mountain faces the Earth - that's why sky is blue. The orange side of the mountain faces the gods, hence the sky above the place where gods live is orange. This was a standard cultural program except for the fact the director of a modest company registered in the state of Delaware, USA, Federation of Nineteen was accompanied by one of the richest people in the Empire. Finally, Kissur stopped at a temple somewhere at the city outskirts. He, probably, stopped there because of a two thousand step long staircase leading to the temple. Kissur started running up the steps and Bemish desperately tried to keep up. He was out of breath and his heart was pounding in the chest, but the Earthman and the Weian got to the top of the colonnade side by side, looked at each other and laughed. "Like a pig race," Kissur said, gasping for breath, "Terence, have you seen a pig race?" "No." "We must go there. I threw away twenty thousand last week on this Red Nose bastard." It was dark and cool inside the temple. A bronze god in a brocade caftan and high suede boots sat amidst green and gold columns and his wife sat in the next hall. Kissur said that Weians didn't put much stock in bachelor gods. A god should be a good family man and an exemplary father, otherwise what can he expect from people? Bemish listened to the strange silence in the temple and perused the face of the god and the family man. "By the way, where did you learn to fight?" "My father taught me," Bemish said, "he was a well-known sportsman. I almost became one myself." The ex-first minister's eyebrows, furled in contempt were visible even in the temple dusk "Sportsman..." he drawled, "it's a shameful business to fight for plebeian delight. Why haven't you become a warrior? Terence Bemish was amazed. To say the truth, it has never occurred to him to join the army, not even in his wildest dreams. "The army," Bemish said, "is for losers." The ex-premier grinned. "Yes," he replied, "for an Earthman, anything that can't procure wealth is for losers. The Earthmen make money out of wars no longer; they make money out of money. "I didn't mean that," Bemish objected, "I want to be myself and not a trigger pulling machine. The army means the loss of freedom." "Crap," said Kissur, "the army is the only way to freedom. There is nobody between a warrior and god." "Maybe," Bemish agreed, "only our army hasn't fought for the last one hundred thirteen years." They left the hall, walked through a rock and flower garden and found themselves in another temple wing - enticing smells wafted from there and Bemish saw cars with diplomatic plate licenses through a twined lattice. Bemish thought the temple rented this house out but Kissur told him that an eatery had always been there. They walked down into the yard. A fountain babbled in the yard inconsolably and people sat at the tables under the swaying yellow tents. Kissur seated Bemish at a table, grabbed a passing waiter, plucked two wine jars from his basket and ordered food. "So," Kissur said, pouring spicy palm wine down the clay mugs, "you have never been to a war. What do you do then?" "I am in finance. The company that belongs to me will possibly be interested in buying some stuff here." "Are you rich?" "You don't have to be rich in order to acquire a company. You just have to have a reputation of a man who can triple the stock price of this company in a year and a financial company who can raise money for you." "Aha. Do you have one?" "Yes. My colleague Welsey represents it. It's LSV bank." "Are foreign banks allowed here?" "LSV is not a deposit bank. They are in investment business, "Bemish said, feeling slightly offended for the fifth largest investment bank in the Galaxy. Here, Kissur astounded Bemish. The ex-first minister of the Empire of the Great Light looked at Bemish and asked, "Oh, do banks engage in anything beyond usury?" Bemish was silent for a moment. Then he carefully inquired, "Kissur, do you know what a stock is?" "Hmm," the ex-minister said, "it's when you get a loan?" Bemish almost choked. "Am I not right?" "When they loan money and issue securities it is called bonds." "That's what I am saying. Isn't it the same thing?" "No," Bemish said, "When a company issues stocks, whoever buys a stock becomes a co-owner of the company and has a right to vote at a stock holder meeting. He also gets dividends and their size depends on the company's performance. On the other hand, when a company issues bonds, it means that it borrows money and whoever buys bonds will have guaranteed payments till the loan will be paid off, if the company does not go bankrupt, of course." "Oh, how interesting," Kissur said; he snapped his fingers and shouted, "Chief! Where is the jellyfish?" Bemish had never eaten marinated jellyfish before and he wasn't particularly curious about it; he sincerely wished that the place ran out of them. However, the jellyfish arrived, looking like a pile of broken plexiglass smothered in with red sauce, and Kissur continued, "What company are you aiming at?" "The company that received a concession for the Assalah spaceport construction. Since the sovereign owns 65% of the company's capital, accordingly to your laws he appointed the company director - Mr. Shavash." Kissur, having some vague recollection that Shavash owned twelve more companies like that including the Galaxy's second biggest (and rated one hundred eighteenth in efficiency) uranium mine, silently nodded. "Are you definitely buying it?" "It depends on a number of factors." "Such as?" "It depends on the current state of the construction, the state of the world stock market by the time of the IPO, the IPO volume and its prospects, - you see, LSV can act as an underwriter and get a profit selling securities but prices may go down after the IPO and then LSV will incur all the losses. It is also important what kind of securities it will be, stocks, bonds, or derivatives. "Bonds would be better," Kissur said. "Why?" "You said it yourself - if anybody buys stocks, he also buys the company. What if somebody buys the spaceport? All these ... trying to worm their way in here..." Bemish choked a bit, but it was probably caused by the unusual taste of jellyfish. "Tell me more about the company," Kissur demanded. The Assalah Company was founded four years ago for the construction and the industrial usage of a spaceport with a twenty five square mile landing area that could potentially be increased. 15 square miles of peasant communal land was appropriated for the construction. The company issued six hundred forty million stocks with a nominal price of one hundred isheviks each. The state kept 65% of the stocks and the management received five percent. The community peasants got about seven percent. Instead of getting cash for the appropriated lands, these people obtained a partnership in the future construction. Fifteen percent of stocks was sold via the over-the-counter market. The construction was going along rapidly; the stocks were pretty high up and their price reached three thousand isheviks or eighteen Galactic dinars on the stock exchange. Then the director embezzled too much and a scandal burst; it became apparent that only one third of planned construction had been accomplished, the market crashed, almost all of upper managers were arrested, the workers scurried away picking up everything that the managers hadn't stolen yet; the construction halted on its own volition and never started up again. Shavash was appointed the head of the company, though I think that he had originally been on the Board of Directors. "That's simple," Kissur said, "if Shavash was on the Board to begin with, it means that he quarreled with his colleagues and had them imprisoned." "I don't know," Bemish said, "you see, this kind of stuff would not be included in IPO prospects. Shavash tried to set up an international IPO and he got in touch with "Merrill Roberto Darnhem." He almost pulled it off but the investors refused to undersign the issue in the end." "Why?" "Because," Bemish gleefully explained, "a rebellion or something the government considered a rebellion happened in Chakhar that month, and a certain Kissur led his tanks among other things through the production facilities of a soft beverage joint corporation, squashing under his tracks a manager named Rodger Gernis. After this little trip, the securities of six Weian companies that had passed the international certification plunged down and bruised themselves and nobody wanted to talk about a new IPO. Didn't you know about it?" Kissur twirled his head thoughtfully. "I've heard something about it," he said, "but I don't see anything wrong if your sharks don't eat our carp." "Your carp won't get smarter if nobody swallows it." Kissur raised his head and looked thoughtfully at Bemish. His jaws moved powerfully, crunching the jellyfish like it was not a jellyfish but at least a lamb bone. "That's well said, financier, " Kissur mentioned, "it's frank, at least. Do you own a construction company?" "More or less." "What kind of construction?" "It makes automated doors for monorail subway cars." Kissur pondered. He was evidently trying to figure out the relationship between the automated doors and the Assalah spacefield and he just could not fathom it. "Have you inherited it from your father?" Kissur asked. "No, I bought it a year ago." "Why?" "To use it as a tool to acquire a bigger company." This statement was more frank and even scandalous compared to the previous one about the carp. It would make the Galactic Reserve bureaucrat twitch but Kissur clearly didn't care. Kissur poured Bemish palm wine and they drank a mug and then another one. "What's so special about you, director?" Kissur asked suddenly. Bemish was silent for a moment. He wouldn't mind having Kissur as an ally. He realized that Kissur detested everything to do with Earthmen and their money and he couldn't predict the Kissur's reaction to his next statement. "Most general directors," Bemish delivered , "slowly climb up the corporate ladder, play golf with their equals and charge their own companies for the their cats' space travels. They won't let me play golf with them. They call me and my likes corporate raiders. We don't play by the rules. We buy companies and fire ineffective management. We buy companies with other people's money and pay off loans by selling half of what we bought." Kissur sipped wine. He didn't care a fig that the Securities and Stocks Committee was now discussing the legal issues of corporate raiders' actions yet again, and that Terence Bemish's name was often being mentioned in not the most favorable way. "So," Kissur said, "the Assalah spacefield. It's in Chakhar, at the border with the capital region... They grow great grapes in Assalah... Isn't one hole in the sky enough for Chakhar?" "No," Bemish said, "one hole in the sky appears not to be enough. It was also supposed to be a temporary hole built in a swamp. The Chakhar capital becomes as inaccessible in the rainy season, as a marsh village during a flood. The landing blocks grow wet mildew and the spaceships hang out there in space and charge so much for the delays, that cost as much as ten spacefields or one palace. " "How horrible!" Kissur exclaimed. "Didn't you know that?" "I am not a shopkeeper," the ex-first minister of the Empire was offended, "everybody, interested in this, starts giving bribes or making money sooner or later." He was silent for a moment and then added, "so did you come to Shavash about this ... hole in the sky? How much did he ask?" Bemish grinned savagely. "I am not in the habit of giving anything to the management of the companies acquired by me accept for a kick in the butt. Assalah will be sold on an investment auction. I will win this auction and that's it." Kissur's blue eyes bored in the Earthman sitting in from of him. "Something is funky here, "Kissur thought. "Either the Earthman is afraid to confess about the bribe or Shavash is going to get foxy on him. One of them is lying to me and I'll rub an onion in his eyes. X X X Bemish drove away in an unknown direction. Stephen Welsey shaved, took a shower, ate breakfast, prepared related papers, visited an official named Ishmik, who was connected to the state archive, where the financial documentation of the Assalah company's previous stage was stored accordingly to the Empire laws. Next to the gates covered with silver curls and golden feathers, two guards squatted and shelled earth nuts. "Is it Mr. Ishmik's house?" Welsey asked in Interenglish, slowing down and sticking his head out of the car. "Yep," one guard answered. Welsey got out of the car and barely stepped on a white sand path. "Where are the gifts?" the guard said. "What gifts?" Welsey was astonished. "Gifts so that we announced you to Mr. Ishmik." Welsey got back in the car, turned around and left. Five minutes passed by. The guards still sat shelling the earth nuts and looked thoughtfully at the empty road. "Nissan 254, " one of the guards said, "last model." "Such ignorance," the other said, "how can you visit a high official's house without gifts. Such an uncultured man!" Welsey's next visit was to the land rights precinct. He needed to find out the exact status of the peasant and state lands acquired for the Assalah landing strips. The IPO documentation that he studied on Earth, mentioned a long term lease with a right to buy out, and Welsey needed to find out whether or not the acquisition had already happened. A plump official rumpled the papers in his hands for a while and even pretended to read English while holding the document upside down. "Why isn't the paper signed?" he proclaimed suddenly, returning Welsey the sheet. "But this is the first page!" Welsey said, "The signature is on the second page." The official knitted his brows. "What if the first page is a fake?" "Are you going to force me fly back to Earth to get the signature, " Welsey asked irritably, "why don't you pay for a ticket then?" The official realized how ignorant the man was and did his best to get rid of him. In the third precinct, Welsey barely stepped in the office, where a young official with smart penetrating eyes stood to meet him, when the door opened quietly again and a Tserrina consulate courier darted in, holding a large basket in his hands. The official looked desperately at Welsey and the latter uttered, "I'll wait outside, " and stepped out. In a moment, Welsey heard in Interenglish, "Please accept this trifle from me and turn a benevolent face towards me." Welsey rushed out. X X X After the pub, Kissur dragged Bemish home. Bemish didn't find Kissur's mansion to be entirely immured in the past - a closed circuit camera roved its eye and the powerful neon lamps hung among the marble columns flanking, customarily, the path to the main building. However, Bemish made out an altar in the garden and a lamb, slashed wide open, lay on it. Evidently, Kissur brought Bemish home for dinner and their food at the pub was just the appetizing hors d'oervres. Bemish hiccuped. Kissur warned Bemish away from the women's quarters and went away vociferously instructing the proper preparation of pheasants. The Earthman was left in one of the halls with windows facing the garden and walls draped with archaic silks. A weapons collection was arranged on the wall - an encrusted with mother-of-pearl and gold poleax, a simple battle-axe, swords, one arrow-head covered in blood. When Kissur returned, Bemish inquired about the strange collection theme. "These are the weapons I was not killed with," Kissure answered. He moved to the wall and picked a heavy spear with a blue pinecone at the end. "In a two day trip from your Assalah, the mountains begin and I was cut off in the mountain woods with maybe a thousand people, and Kharan - that was the scoundrel's name - had about fifteen thousand. But while Kharan dawdled on the plains, I ordered the trees along the road to be axed part way. When they finally entered the forest, the trees started falling on their heads and we butchered the ones who were still alive. Still, it wasn't such an easy feat and I was almost killed with this spear." Kissur was silent for a moment. "It's silly to kill somebody with it now, isn't it? A laser would be way more reliable." Kissur pivoted and threw the spear. It flew through the open window and implanted itself in a decorated gazebo pole. Bemish walked out to look - the spear had completely run through the pole. The pole was more than ten inch thick. Bemish wrenched the spear out and returned to the room. Having eaten, Kissur hauled his new friend across the river, where the Lower City shined and melted in the afternoon sunlight, thousand year old dwellings of artisans, shopkeepers, and thieves, filled with crooked back alleys making them impassable for cars and blocked by gates that the local denizens used to defend themselves against bandits and, occasionally, officials. A market thundered deafeningly next to the river; it smelled of fried fish and fresh blood; an old woman with a face like a dried fig was quickly and deftly plucking a cock; passing by a cabbage cart while unloading, Bemish noticed a small rocket launcher under the cabbage. Slightly further, people crowded around a movable stage where a show was taking place. "Let's go, Kissur suddenly yanked the Earthman, "you have to see this." Kissur and Bemish squeezed in closer. A dignified oldster in a waving red dress manufactured two human figurines with an incredible nimbleness - one out of clay and another out of white rock - put them on the stage, covered them with a decrepit rag. He passed his hands, took the rag off - and where the clay figurines had been - two youths jumped up. The youths started to dance in front of the audience, and soon a lively conversation between them and the oldster issued forth. Intrigued Bemish asked Kissur what the play was about. "The show is based on an old myth," Kissur said. You see, when god was making the world, he made two people - one out of clay, another out of rock. Both of them knew as much as the gods knew but the clay man was simple and guileless while the iron man was envious and crafty. The gods took heed and thought, "People walk among us and they probably know as much as we do. We could get in trouble." They called the iron man in and asked, "What do you know?" Since the iron man was crafty and secretive, he answered, just in case, that he was no smarter than the carp had in his basket. The gods dismissed him and called the clay man in. They asked him, what he knows. "Everything," the guileless clay man replied. The gods pondered and took half of his knowledge away. After Kissur had explained the meaning of the play to him, Bemish started to follow what was happening on the stage. Soon it became evident to him, that nothing good came out of the man who lied to the gods and knew as much as they did. This man cooked up a lot of schemes, stole stars from the sky, made an iron horse plow fields for him and was caught when he took a god's image and fornicated with his wife. After that, the god in the red dress chased after the iron man with a bundle of whips; the iron man squealed and flipped over into an open hatch. The audience guffawed. The show came to an end and the god in the red dress started to walk among the people with a plate. Bemish enjoyed this folk show much more than the morning TV play. "Did I get it right that the iron man died?" Bemish queried. "No. He dropped underground and he had children and grandchildren there. Since then, the iron people live underground and they are responsible for all the calamities above ground. They cajole the mountain spirits to start earthquakes and generals to rebel. Accordingly to the legend, at the end of the world, the iron men will crawl out from underground in the flesh, or more precisely, in the iron; will take the land away from the people, the sacrifices away from the gods and will generally misbehave." "Will there be the second act?" Bemish asked. He wanted to see how the iron men cajoled generals to rebel. "Inevitably," Kissur grinned. Then, the god stopped in front of them with the tray full of jingling coins; Kissur, grinning widely, put two large pink bills with a crane picture on the tray. "Braggart," Bemish thought irritably. He didn't want to appear miserly, and he looked in the wallet. He didn't find any large Weian banknotes there but he had about hundred dinars in the passport just in case - the Earthman had been warned that ATM machines didn't readily present themselves. Bemish extracted two notes and put them on the tray. The god in a ragged dressing gown took the gray interplanetary money with rainbow water signs along the edge, waved them in the air, merrily announced something to the crowd - and tore them apart. Bemish stupidly took it for trick. "What did he say," he asked Kissur. "That he doesn't take iron men's money," Kissur replied. The crowd parted quickly and menacingly and Kissur quickly dragged Bemish out - several gibes and a rotten tomato flew at the Earthman. In just a moment, they were crossing the gleaming river over the lacquered pedestrian bridge covered with shops. Bemish was still upset. He didn't care about money, but he just couldn't figure out how a man who earned twenty coins for the performance tore apart a sum hundred times bigger. Bemish would have never done it himself. "Is he mad, this illusionist?" Bemish asked. "They use the performances to draw people in." "Who are they?" "Well, you would call them an opposition, we would call them a sect." "There is a large difference between a sect and an opposition," Bemish noted irritably. "Why have I come to this planet?," a thought passed his mind, "who claimed that the Federal Committee guys would be able to prove anything in the RCORP stocks story? I just bought them, that was it..." "The difference, " Kissur agreed , "is ample. An opposition hangs out in a parliament and a sect hangs on the gallows. Don't worry about the money. They are great tricksters; he certainly didn't tear it apart and he is now buying vodka for the local trash with it, since the trash believes the shows but it believes them even better when watered with vodka. He waited a moment and then added, "There are things on Weia that you, the Earthmen, will not understand. You will never understand why this oldster calls your automobile a phantom and why they call you iron imps when they see your spaceships. You can take in account the copper in our mountains, but how will you take this oldster in account?" "We can take him in account perfectly well," Bemish objected drily. "How so?" "In the stock price. In your stock prices, Kissur, that cost cheaper than toilet paper. The name for this oldster is country risk." X X X When Welsey returned to the hotel in the evening, angry and disheveled, the porter handed him over a note from Bemish. Bemish announced that Welsey shouldn't expect him in the evening since he flew to Blue Mountains for a fishing trip. Bemish was out of town all week, while Welsey continued knocking on the state precincts' doors. It appeared to be absolutely impossible to get the simplest things done, to sign papers for a permission to transport necessary equipment to this damned planet with a discount tariff, or to gain access to the spacefield's stinking ruins. Stephen filled forms and refilled them, he paid the scribes and he paid the officials. At the White Clouds street precinct, he said, "I would be very grateful to you if you sign this form." "May I know the size of your gratitude?" the official replied immediately. At the Fertile Valleys street precinct, he was told to fill all the forms in Weian. Welsey found a scribe and filled everything. The official leafed the papers through and said, "It is not allowed to accept the papers from Earthmen that they didn't fill out themselves." "Be merciful!" Welsey said. "Mercy is an honorable trait." the official agreed pompously. At the Autumn Leaves street precinct, Welsey banged his fist on the table and screamed, "Aren't you afraind of prison?" "In our world," the official objected, "fright follows tranquility, tranquility follows fright and only the sovereign's well-being is always serene." Then he asked Welsey for a ten thousand isheviks bribe. In a week, Welsey cracked a bit. He was not an innocent maiden, and he had had to appear twice before the Securities Committee. Admittedly, the LSV bank was not only the fifth biggest but also the most notorious investment bank in the Galaxy. Welsey knew how to give bribes to influence an election's results and he had been telling dirty stories about Federation officials all his life. Verily, he had never ever heard a Federation official reply to, "I am grateful to you," by explicitily asking about the size of your gratitude. On Friday evening, Welsey dropped by the central communication station and called the work number of Ronald T. Trevis - the head of LSV bank - the man that some people called the un-crowned king of the Galaxy finances and the others called the un-crowned bandit. "How is it going?" a normal voice from a normal planet reached Welsey. "It's not going," Welsey replied, "I have not obtained a single signature in a week. I've been twice in their central office - their secretaries know nothing and there is nobody around besides them." "And Bemish?" "Terence Bemish is fishing in Blue Mountains," Welsey said with a vengeance. "Who wants bribes and how much do they want?" "I don't know," Welsey said, "there is a man named Shavash, the finance vice-minister and a local Talleyrand, considered by some to be the hope of the evolving nation. My impression is that the hope of the nation received a huge bribe from IC so that not a single serious IC competitor could take place in the auction." "Do you think that your difficulties were caused by Mr. Shavash himself?" "Yes." Then, something clicked in the receiver and the connection disappeared. Welsey was going back to the hotel down the evening streets when he heard a siren coming from behind him. A police car made him pull over. A guard in a yellow coat - national police uniform - and with an assault rifle in his hands jumped out of the car and tore the driver's door out of the Welsey's "environmental" car with a hydrogen tank looking like a swollen cucumber. "Your papers!" "What's are you doing?.." the Earthman started extending his driver's license out. But the guard didn't even look at the celluloid rectangle. He bent over Welsey, grabbed the yellow briefcase lying on the passenger's seat and pulled it out of the car. "How dare you?" Welsey clamored. The guard elbowed the sky boor off. "It is a personal order of the minister himself!" Crappy tires screeched and the police car drove away. Welsey sat in his cucumber on wheels and felt totally shocked. That was not a minor bribe anymore. That... There could be only one explanation - the connection with the Earth didn't break off accidentally. He was followed by the Shavash's agents. The conversation was tapped. The consequences were catastrophic. As mentioned before, he was not a virgin child and certain sums of money had transferred hands from him to the Empire officials. While he was not able to obtain even the most trivial information in some places, he obtained absolutely confidential information in other places - and some confidential materials lodged in his briefcase. The rough drafts of the IPO were also there, including various financial machination notes and even the approximate numbers of kickbacks. This information would not hurt the Empire officials but, oh my God, what could it do to LSV bank! From the moment of Ronald's Trevis meteoric rise, LSV bank has joined the ranks of the most profitable but not the most ethical banks of the Galaxy. The financial establishment used any pretext to set "these bandits" back; the managers of the companies, passing away under LSV-staged hostile takeovers, complained about wiretapping and employees being bribed; two of Travis clients' inner circle members were in prison - for insider trading and stock parking. Actually, Terence Bemish, young and promising upstart supported by Trevis, got the hint that his presence at the civilized capital markets was not appreciated - that's why he went to Weia. In this country of de-nationalizing economy, there were many companies with poor management and no stock exchange rules. And now, the Federation newspapers had a great opportunity to grind Terence Bemish, Ronald Trevis, and Welsey himself flat - all this caused by the Welsey's bumble. His future appeared to the young banker darker than night. Trevis had thrown people out for smaller blunders and a banker, fired by Trevis, could expect a cashier's job in a supermarket at best. Welsey drove slowly to the nearest police precinct, pushed a frightened guard away and walked to the supervisor's office. "My name is Stephen Welsey," he said, "I represent a financial company LSV and I flew in here from Sydney to consult our client taking part in an investment auction. I have just been stopped by a police car with a plate number 34-29-57. The guards confiscated my papers and escaped. This is probably a misapprehension. I hope to receive the documents back within three hours, otherwise I will act with no holds barred. A young police official squinted frightened at the Earthman, ran in a next room and chattered away on a computer keyboard. "Number 34-29-57," he finally said, "That's wrong. There is no car with this license plate number registered in the police department. In fact, there is no car registered with this license plate number at all. X X X Three hours later, Welsey came back to hotel feeling atrocious. If he needed a final proof that there was no law in this country, he got it. He washed the lip cut by the sharp policeman's (or fake policeman's) fist, opened the case and started to throw his belongings in randomly. He called the spaceport, found out that the next Earth flight would be in eleven hours and reserved a ticket. The case was packed in fifteen minutes. Welsey looked at his watch - he had ten more hours before the flight's departure. The trip to the spaceport would take two hours. Welsey shrugged his shoulders, walked to the draped window, pulled the curtain away, and looked from the fifth floor down at the street. Thank God, he will leave this planet in ten more hours! The country of scoundrels! Bribers! Malingerers! Oh my God, why did he give a five thousand bribe to this bug-eyed guy from the eighth precinct? Now, if Shavash arrests Welsey, he would force the guy to claim that the bribe was hundred thousand and the official promised... Ouch! The square in front of the hotel was brightly lit. A delicate eight-columned temple stood slightly lower and across it. The garden beds were arranged in front of the temple, and the spotlights hidden among the flowers beamed right at the temple, illuminating marble columns and turnip roof curls from below, scattering in a faraway fountain in the middle of the temple yard, challenging large ripe stars. "Such beauty!", Welsey thought suddenly. Right then, a car appeared at the square's far end. It drove over a flower bed edge, flattened a spotlight, swerved to the opposite lane and stopped down there at the hotel entrance. Pulling in, it crashed into a truck standing in front of it, but not too badly, no deeper than five inches. Welsey's eyes popped out. The car door opened and Bemish landed outside. Two valets rushed to him from the glass entrance. Bemish stepped left, then right. Thence he lifted his head and, swaying, started to contemplate the lighted entrance. He sighed and sat on the curb. Even from the fifth floor, it was evident that he was boozed up to the hilt. Welsey shrugged his shoulders and walked down. Two valets were already deferentially half carrying half supporting Bemish towards him. Bemish resisted and assured everybody that he was totally sober. He aspired to sing and invited both valets to fish in the Blue Mountains. Valets quietly and with concentration dragged him up the staircase to the room. They possibly couldn't understand him. They were probably used to these sights. Welsey felt himself blushing. Bemish was dragging the high status of Earthman and beacon of civilization right down in the mud. Welsey stepped towards him, grabbed Bemish by his tie and, with the valets' assistance, dragged him to the room. Bemish was rolling his eyes around and opening his mouth like a karaoke singer with the sound track turned off. When Welsey threw Bemish on the couch, he swung his finger drunkenly and said, "Surprise." And he fell asleep. A pig. A drunken pig. Welsey tore his pants and jacket off, hung them on the chair and got out. The jacket was too heavy - the chair tipped over and the jacket crashed to the floor. Welsey returned and picked the jacket to hang it back. The jacket inside pocket was crammed with rumpled papers. Welsey pried the papers out and unrolled them. These were all the requests and power-of-attorney forms that police in yellow jackets confiscated three hours ago. Welsey leafed through them and found the right signatures on them all. More than that, the forms were stamped with personal seals and that was plain impossible. Welsey went downstairs. He checked the Bemish's car out and found the yellow briefcase, seized by the police, in the trunk. Mysteriously, there was a grilled lamb lying next to the briefcase in the trunk. The lamb held a thick gold ring in the mouth. The lamb was lying on a silver dish. Welsey walked upstairs and put the recovered papers in the recovered briefcase. He called the spaceport and canceled the reservation. He called a boy valet and they hauled the lamb, the ring, and the dish upstairs. The rest of the night, Welsey spent next to the window in his room looking at the pink eight-columned temple, thoughtfully chewing on a grilled lamb leg and washing it down with disgustingly warm carbonated water. X X X The most bewildering part of that all, was that Bemish couldn't even recall how the signatures came to existence. He remembered perfectly well the temple, two hundred kilometers away from the capital, that he and Kissur drove to, and the manor, that belonged to a Kissur's friend, Khanadar the Dried Date, next to the temple. They had fun in the manor - at first with weapons, then at the table, and then with the chicks. Khanadar and Kissur took turns making bets and shooting at a peach on each other's head at first with a bow and then with a gun. The trick was to hit it right in a pit. Bemish refused decisively to shoot the bow and, to assert his manhood, he had a horrible fight with sinewy Khanadar, strong like a steam press. Khanadar the Dried Date was the most extraordinary man - he was on of the bravest Kissur's commanders and one of the best Empire's poets. He plundered huge spoils during the civil war; he squandered money as quickly as he got it and started looking for more. Piracy was the choice and Khanadar wrestled a smugglers' space boat away from them . The boat was designed with escape rather than attack in mind, but Khanadar decided that the cowardly dogs from the skies wouldn't really notice this trifle if their pockets were threatened. Unfortunately, Khanadar was not as good with a photon reactor as he was with a Kharran sword and at the end of the second trip the newly assigned pirate dinghy dug a three meter deep ditch in the ground and was no longer in any shape to fly. It was awfully fashionable to assist Weia then and Khanadar almost received a literature Nobel Prize for his songs, full of wild beauty. So, the information agencies are making two announcements in one day - that Weian poet Khanadar is nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that somebody named Khanadar is wanted for the transgalactic liner "Mekong" robbery. This is how Khanadar did not receive a Nobel Prize first time. Then, Khanadar became the Arakka governor and generously gave money to the people and tax cuts to the entrepreneurs. The money was from the state budget and it was quickly gone; and since the tax cuts were abundant, the money didn't come back. Khanadar asked a local polymetallic factory for money; an Earthman owned the factory. The Earthman gave money once, once more, and stopped; the people loved their governor and laid waste to the factory. Meanwhile, the time for the next Nobel Prize approached. Hence, the information agencies are making two announcements in one day - that Weian poet Khanadar is nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that governor Khanadar incited a mob and caused a three billion denars damage to MetalPMOre company. This is how Khanadar did not receive a Nobel Prize second time. Then, the sovereign revoked Khanadar's appointment for overstepping his bounds and Khanadar peacefully resided in a manor bestowed to him, next to Shechen river in Inissa. Why did the head of the planet Gera trade mission have to buy himself a villa nearby? So, another year passes by and the Gera chief trade deputy sues Khanadar for brawling on his land and burning his pig farm. Khanadar attends the trial and asks the judge to give him a small paper cutting knife. The judge offers him the knife and Khanadar attacks the trade deputy with the knife right in front of the jury. The trade deputy escapes from the court yard and does not return. Since it is a personal suit and the plaintiff is not present in the court, the judge cancels the trial and Khanadar saves bribe money. Again, the Nobel Prize time approaches, and the information agencies are making two announcements - that the famous Weian poet Khanadar is nominated for a literature Nobel Prize and that Khanadar well-nigh cut down a representative of a civilized nation right in a court. This is how Khanadar never received his Nobel Prize, but it's an old story and we should come back to Terence Bemish. The next day, Khanadar, Kissur, Bemish, and two servants loaded themselves in a helicopter and flew to the Blue Mountains. They harpooned large white fishes and had many fistfights. Sun and merriness were abundant. The helicopter rotated its winglets next to a raspberry colored tent with silver stakes; the slaves brought horses for the evening. Four days went by. Khanadar asked Bemish what brought him to the Country of the Great Light and Bemish told him what he had already told Kissur. Khanadar the Dried Date said the foreigner would drown in the paperwork, and Kissur said that they should help him. On Friday afternoon they flew to the Kissur's palace - the first guests were already crowding there. Kissur introduced Bemish to the Shavash's direct boss - minister of finance - and to the minister of police and to many other respectable people. Shavash was also there. The minister of finance told Bemish that his - minister of finance's - friend had seen Bemish's friend, Welsey, and he was the fairest and the most honest man. The minister of police told Mr. Bemish that, from this moment on, the goal of his life would be to do what Mr. Bemish tells him to. The foreign trade minister invited Mr. Bemish to his mansion and told him that he would roll his Iniss carpet out under the wheels of the Mr. Bemish's car. Bemish didn't remember how exactly it all got to the signatures. By that time the heads of the Empire were drunk and Bemish was drunk even more. The minister of police called his secretary and commanded to find a man named Welsey immediately, take the papers from him and bring them here. The secretary was probably drunk too and he, moreover, had with him a girl that was licking his ear. In an hour, the papers were delivered to Bemish. Bemish didn't really remember the rest. He remembered how roses poured down from the ceiling, how some drunk girl jumped across a golden ring entwined with burning paper, how they waded in a large pond with the girls, how he couldn't share a girl with somebody, in the God's name, how was it possible not to share a girl if there were two of them per man? Wasn't he pissed off at Welsey? He remembered perfectly well how he got pissed off at Welsey. Puritan! Pig! He just handed the papers rudely over to the secretary but he refused to come himself. Bemish decided that he would drive to the hotel and get Welsey. They were probably trying to stop him. But Bemish outfoxed them - he tore through the grapevines, got in the car and went for the banker. Yes, he had the papers with him and he knew for sure that they were signed. But who collected the signatures? For God's sake, he couldn't remember. Kissur was likely to get them - he was more sober than others and though he drank he wasn't getting drunk. Or... No, it was not Kissur, it was Shavash - Shavash, smiling gently, was handing a form over to the minister of finance while Kissur, yowling horribly, was cutting some rag with a sword on a bet. X X X Bemish was splashing in the shower, when somebody knocked in the door. Welsey opened it - a large basket stood by the door and an errand boy looked from behind. "The gifts from Mr. Ireda for Mr. Bemish, " he declared, unloaded the basket and he was off. Welsey carried the basket in the room but, before he arranged it on the table, somebody knocked in the door again. Welsey opened the door - the messenger had a blue caftan on instead of a yellow one and had a casket entwined with bands instead of a basket. "Let Mr. Bemish accept these trifles from Mr. Ranik and a portal to the heaven open in his soul, " the messenger said. Welsey put the casket on the bed and noticed something leaking from the basket. He hurried to the basket. Right then, wet and sad from the hangover Bemish looked out of the shower. The phone rang and somebody knocked in the door the same moment. "Come in," Bemish said and picked up the receiver. "Yes." "Mr. Bemish," a soft caressing voice said in the receiver, "it's Shavash speaking, vice-minister of finance. I would be happy if you could visit me at 2pm." "Of course, " Bemish said and put the receiver down. The door slid open. "Let me introduce you, Welsey, " Bemish said, "to Kissur. Kissur, this is Welsey. As I have told you before, he is represents LSV bank here." Kissur and Welsey looked at each other. Kissur saw a skinny young Earthman with a face white and round like a headache pill. Welsey saw a blue-eyed rascal, a bit above thirty, with a real golden chain on his neck descending all the way down to the belt on the narrow washed down jeans. In the open shirt neck there was a tattoo - a bird of prey crossed by a pink scar. Welsey learned later that this was a falcon and this way of tattooing was an old custom of the barbarian aloms. If they cut a war chief head off in a battle and undressed him, how else would it be possible to recognize the body? Kissur looked at Welsey and said, "Listen, Terence, you want to buy the spaceport but what is this whey-faced fish doing here?" "I explained it to you," Bemish replied, "I don't have money. LSV gets money for me." "Will they loan it to you?" "They will underwrite the bonds." Kissur pondered it and asked then, "What interest do these usurers charge you?" "The interest on the bonds will be sixteen percent." "Why is it so expensive?" Kissur was aggravated. "Because there is no collateral," Welsey gave voice, "if the company goes bankrupt, it won't have any property it could sell off to cover the debts." "Shut up, leech," Kissur recoiled, "nobody is asking you. By the sovereign Irshakhchan laws, usurers were boiled in oil and the Golden Sovereign forbade interest rates higher than 3%" "What was the inflation rate at the Golden Sovereign?" Welsey inquired. "I don't know what the heck the inflation is," Kissur declared, "but I do know that the Golden Sovereign would hang the first official, who tried to arrange it, so high that nobody would even dream of it afterwards." Welsey kept a shocked silence. "Well, let's go? Kissur told Bemish. "Stephen?" "I would rather take a nap," Welsey uttered nervously - he didn't want to get himself deeper in a capital market discussion with Kissur. In a moment, Kissur and Bemish were downstairs, missing another basket of gifts on the way. They got in a car and Kissur dished out a wad of money to Bemish. Bemish was dumbfounded, "What the heck?!" "We, " Kissur said, "are going to Mr. Ireda. The man was nice to you - you should express your gratitude." "But..." Bemish started. They arrived to Ireda's palace in half an hour and gave him money. Ireda's palace was located right next to the sovereign's palace wall. The wall was huge and thick; wooden silvered geese stood on the top lowering their heads and looked down with disapproval. Coolness flowed from the yawning gate in the middle of the wall oozed like from a well and all the space in front of the gates was crammed with multi-hued cars. "The Gate of the Barbarians," Kissur said. "Eh?" "In the ancient times, there were four gates facing four sides of the world.the Gate of the Emperor's Paramount Appearance, the Gate of the Officials, the Gate of the Commoners, and the Gate of the Barbarians. Dumb illiterate chiefs in loincloths entered the palace through the Gate of the Barbarians. I was ten year old when they brought me to the palace via the Barbarians Gate and all my friends teased me and laughed at me." Kissur was silent for a moment. "Now, only Earthmen enter the palace through the Barbarian Gate." Their car was slowly crawling by a colorful crowd of parked vehicles. "What about the present sovereign? How did he feel when our presence ended the war?" "An insignificant Emperor's subject does not dare to consider his sovereign's thoughts," Kissur answered. Bemish jerked. "What about you?" "I was quite impressed," Kissur answered after a pause. Bemish couldn't help but smile - during the day that Kissur first met the Earthmen, he called them vultures, hijacked a military plane and, having massacred the rebel camp, finished the civil war. "What impressed you? Our weapons?" "No, your weapons didn't faze me. I thought that in six months our sovereign would buy the same stuff, maybe slightly older and cheaper. Then, I saw the houses your commoners reside in and the vehicles they drive and I thought that there was no way our sovereign would buy our people the same houses and cars either in six or in sixty months. "Haven't anything shocked you?" Bemish asked, "our pop culture, our commercials... A lot of people say that Earthmen have too much material life and not enough existence. They use Weia as an example." "If somebody is unhappy, they can visit us. I 'll send them to my Iniss mines and they will have a lot of ... existence." He grinned and added," "Good-bye for now, Terrence. I need to go to the palace and it's time for your visit to Shavash." Bemish appeared at Shavash's place right on time. Mr. Shavash received the Earthman in the Red Office. The host and the visitor bowed each other ceremoniously. A polite servant poured tea in the porcelain cups and disappeared behind the gold-gilded doors. Bemish noticed no paintings drawn and signed by the Emperor hanging on the office walls, otherwise decorated with the utmost grace. Bemish didn't know yet that a roll signed and bequested by the Emperor costs more than a rank and a title, and that Shavash offered half a million to the Emperor's suckling brother, Ishim, to persuade the sovereign Varnazd to bequest him a gift. Ishim, however, had to return the money - somehow, the sovereign did not like Shavash. "I am very grateful to you," Bemish mentioned at the desert, "that you signed all these papers yesterday and agreed to help me." Shavash smiled gently, "Verily, everybody at the court can only talk about your great success. How can such an insignificant person as me, assist you with anything." Bemish lowered his eyes. "Are you and Kissur old friends?" "We met just before the end of the civil war." "Where?" "In a duel," Shavash said calmly, "Kissur rushed at me with a sword and I shot at him with a revolver." Bemish thought for a moment and wondered "What revolver? The Earthmen hadn't..." "It's a long story," Shavash waved his hand, "and a revolver was jury-rigged." "What happened then?" I almost missed and Kissur's friends charged at me and started to teach me how to conduct duels. Then, they tied me to a rope and dragged me all the way through the city. My back and ribs were broken... Then, the Earthmen appeared and managed to heal me. I've been limping slightly since. And my hand... Bemish noticed a while ago that Shavash was holding the cup with the left hand while his right palm was shriveled and the fingers were slightly twisted. "What were you fighting about?" "A woman. Lady Idari, Kissur's main wife had been my fiancee before Kissur became the first minister and I became a roadside pebble. Kissur arrested a man that I owed my carreer to and obtained his position and my fiancee." Shavash suddenly followed Bemish's glance and hid the right hand under the table, but Bemish managed to notice his twisted fingers shaking. "Now we are married to two sisters. My wife is the Lady Idary's younger sister." "Why is he telling me this?" Bemish was horrified. Shavash put a peach morsel, soaked in honey, in his mouth and said after a brief hesitation, "Mr. Bemish! I would like to warn you as a friend. Kissur is the sovereign's favorite. He can obstruct you easily, but he can't really help you. A lot of officials hate Kissur for being Kissur. For the disdain Kissur has towards bribers and entrepreneurs, while he lives by the sovereign's benefactions. For the Kissur's opinion that no fortune is more disgraceful than a merchant's profit. For the feasts he throws for the people; for the zealots and heretics calling him the sovereign Irshakhchan reborn... Mr. Inada promised to roll Iniss carpet under your car's wheels when a friend of Kissur visits his villa... Mr. Inada will roll Iniss carpet under your wheels and he will plant a plastic bomb under the Iniss carpet. The offiicials will be signing your papers and playing foul behind your back. Kissur will praise you to the sovereign - they will prove to the sovereign that Kissur is mistaken. My advice to you is to keep your distance from him. Bemish chewed on his lip. "Mr. Shavash," he said, "I would like to remind you that if LSV is interested in acquiring your company, we will just buy it at an open-access auction. I guarrantee you that we will offer higher price that IC will, and that nobody will be able to kick us out of the auction due to some invented technicalities. Regarding the access to the financial documentation, I am sure that without Kissur I would have spend two more years obtaining it and I know probably the reasons for it. Also, if I may advise you, when you fake the reports, pay more attention to secondary indicators. You know, it's impossible that the construction rate increased by 300% while the energy consumption stayed the same. The official was silent for a moment and he closed his eyes. "Of course. Good-bye, Mr. Bemish, and I wish you the best