Insider ви-6

by Julia Latynina

  "It's a company located on Gera," Bemish replied gloating.

  "A company located on Gera? Why not a company located in a devil's arse? When did it come to being, yesterday?"

  Bemish looked at his watch.

  "To be precise, it came to being today, three hours ago."

  Meanwhile, Shavash finished his enlightened interview and led Kissur aside.

  "Did you," he asked, "loan Bemish money?"

  "Am I a usurer?" Kissur was offended, "to loan money? It was a gift."

  "You were born of a Barsharg goat!" Shavash swore. "This is the last you'll see of it."

  "Let's see," Kissur said, "who wins the auction."

  Here, another Earth journalist approached Shavash and the company director started repeating how only a scrupulous foreign investor could save Weian economics.

  By the evening, the bored journalists, hanging out at the cafe, could record in their notebooks that three companies were interested in the state's offer — Bemish's ADO, IC Corporation, and Rusby and C — were offering to buy the shares out first and to finance the construction out of the galactic company resources afterwards. Five or six large investment banks were also interested. They were not going to buy Assalah shares themselves. They mostly offered to the government various alternatives of convertible bonds that these banks would distribute to the Galactic investors — the bonds would be converted, at some date, to Assalah shares now belonging to the state. Such a large number of investment bank aspirants had surprised Bemish at first but he was told later that actually his modest person was the source. The players on the fund market ferreted out that Terence Bemish was going to buy some blip-blop limited in some banana republic, decided that it had to be a swell deal and followed him like the honey gatherers follow a bee.

  X X X

  A phone call from Kissur woke Bemish up at 3am.

  "Hello, Terence. The investment auction is cancelled. Two hours, after the applications had been submitted, Shavash sold 51 % of state-owned Assalah shares to IC Company at five and a half dinars per share."

  "What do you mean sold?" Bemish choked.

  The line went off.

  X X X

  Fifteen minutes later, a car stopped under the hotel windows and Kissur jumped out of it.

  "Dress," Kissur said. "We are going to the sovereign."

  "Why?"

  At this point, the phone rang again. Bemish picked up the receiver.

  "Terence, this is Shavash. Call your complaint off."

  "What complaint?"

  "Don't pretend. Call off the complaint that you wrote to the sovereign requesting to arrest me for bribery."

  "Have you lost your mind? I've never written this crap!"

  "Terence, if you go to the sovereign you will be squashed flat. You can forget about working in a bank — they won't hire you as a cashier in a supermarket. Got it?"

  "I haven't…"

  Shavash slammed the receiver.

  "I signed the complaint for you, Bemish," Kissur said. "The sovereign will examine it at this morning audience."

  Bemish grabbed his head.

  "Oh, my God, Kissur are you nuts? If you don't have mercy for me, have mercy for your own country!"

  "I have mercy for my country," Kissur said. "You explained to me, what IC is yourself. They will just rob us and that's it. Or, were you bulling me?"

  "I didn't bull you, Kissur. Just get it — the contract has been signed. That's it. Finita la comedia. These stocks are IC's property. If they find out that an international company can have its property taken away from it on your planet just because some authorities think that some bribes were involved, you will not need any spaceports anymore! No financier will ever come here! It's worse than tank trips over a joint company. "

  Kissur stuck out his lip stubbornly. Clearly, the threat that no more dinar and dollar fans appear in the Empire, didn't frighten him much.

  "Get it, you stupid idiot, that any losses resulting from Assalah sold off incorrectly won't even come close with the losses resulting from the cancellation of a completed contract. I will not even mention that nobody will let me back to LSV. I will not even mention that IC is totally in its right to sue me in arbitration court even if I get your complaint thrown back at my face!"

  "But I will say that it's my complaint."

  "And they will, of course, believe you on the spot," Bemish waved his hand. "Well, leave me alone for these three hours."

  "What are you gonna do?"

  "Think," Bemish said.

  X X X

  Exactly four hours later, Bemish, accompanied by Kissur walked down the sovereign garden's paths to a small six room pavilion. Above the pavilion entrance, a flag with an inscription Fairness and Concentration Hall was swaying. Two golden peacocks of wondrous craftsmanship guarded the inner hall entrance. The sovereign Varnazd sat in a down armchair next to a window. He wore a long white dress, with wide sleeves fastened at the wrists by pearl clasps and, uncovered, his face, thin as onion undergarment peels, looked somewhat lost and naeve. Shavash followed Bemish into the hall and first minister Yanik also came in. Shavash and Yanik were draped in the ceremonial kaftans with all their rank insignias — Bemish had never seen them before. A red fiery dragon, with rubies sewn in his claws, on the first minister's dress dazed him unexpectedly and Bemish suddenly felt something he had never suspected before — a certain meagerness of his impeccably made cashmere wool suite compared to the red dragon with the ruby decorated claws. As for Kissur, he was dressed the same way as he had been earlier, visiting Bemish, — in ragged leather pants.

  "You filed a complaint, Mr. Bemish," the sovereign said, "could you describe how you were mistreated."

  "I didn't file this complaint," Bemish said. "And, having certain business ethics views, I consider it impossible to request a re-consideration of a completed contract. However, I have a question to Mr. Shavash — what was your decision to cancel the investment auction based on and what was your decision to sell the company for a three times less money, than I offered, based on?"

  The sovereign turned to the vice-minister of finance.

  "I would like to hear your answer, Mr. Shavash."

  "We didn't cancel the auction," Shavash stated. "We just ran it on a shorter time scale. Considering Mr. Bemish's application, we judged it to be incomplete since LSV investment bank, which had been expected to underwrite the bonds, and several other large commercial banks, which had been expected to advance credit to Mr. Bemish, pulled out having realized that the offer had been overpriced.

  "After some investors pulled out, I found others!" Bemish cried out.

  "The company from Gera, that loaned money to you, doesn't have any credit history and is very suspicious. SC Trading that promised to distribute your bonds is a tiny investment boutique with absolutely no authority on the capital market. We doubt that the bonds distributed by it will be worth more than fifty cents for a dinar. Therefore, your application is comparable with that of IC."

  Shavash paused and continued.

  "Meanwhile, Mr. Bemish's actions clearly demonstrated that he was not going to acquire Assalah. Long before his arrival, he had been buying Assalah stocks through several companies. Violating the law, he didn't register the fact that he owned in reality more than 13 % of Assalah stocks. The only goal of his actions was to put pressure at the future company management so that they would acquire the stocks at a higher price. To achieve this purpose Terence Bemish didn't shrink from anything. A foreigner ignoring the ways and customs of our country, thinking only about his rake-off, — he abused his position as a manor owner forcing the peasants present him with their shares. Using his highly placed connections, he browbeat a local official into giving him the Assalah shares that the latter acquired when their price was forty ishevik a share; afterwards, he had the gall to fire the official. Since Terence Bemish violated the regulations regarding share block registration, I demand the companies Raniko, Alvisir Trust and LLA be removed from the Assalah st
ock owners list without any compensation. "

  The Emperor raised his hand.

  "These are serious accusations, Mr. Bemish. Can you answer them?"

  "Can I answer them? Of course! Shavash has just mentioned 13 % of shares that the peasants had received free of charge as compensation for the spaceport construction taking place on their land. Would you really believe that Shavash waited for me to seize the stocks from the peasants? Yes! I confiscated the stocks from the official and I didn't pay him anything — because I was going to return these stocks to the peasants. Shavash accuses me of violating the local securities regulations. It would have taken place if Raniko had owned more than 5 % of shares and hadn't registered it. Otherwise, there are no violations involved. Unlike me, Shavash can be accused of many things, most importantly, that when the stock price plummeted to the minimum, Shavash secretly issued more stocks and distributed them among his friends. Weian securities regulations are quite bizarre but those actions are criminal even here. I will be bold enough to claim that IC was aware of this outrage taking place and that nothing but this thievery caused Mr. Shavash to sell the company to the people that will not make any complaints.

  "Can you answer these accusations, Mr. Shavash?" the Emperor asked.

  "Of course," Shavash said. "I will, however, need a computer with a CDROM."

  It took a moment, for a CD player (instead of a computer) to be delivered to the room. Shavash fished a disk out of his pocket, inserted it in a slit and pressed a button.

  An open tavern veranda appeared on the screen, together with a table and a window. Bemish sat at the table with a small man — tensing, he recognized the palace official offering him the paintings from the Empire treasury on sale.

  The official pulled several photographs out and Bemish started to leaf through them. The camera zoomed in on the photographs where Bemish suddenly saw the Koinna's painting. Then, Bemish pointed at a girl and a dragon with his finger and he chose several more photographs. The official nodded.

  Then, the camera glanced over a group of people delivering several boxes to Bemish's villa and zoomed in on a girl and a dragon in his office.

  "This man talks about ethics," Shavash said, "buying, meanwhile, for a thousand dinars the paintings that cost millions — the paintings from the forbidden chambers that a mere mortal could not put his eyes on! The Koinna's painting is a national treasure, this painting numbers among the palace's first hundred sacred objects, the Emperor's ancestors brought bloodless sacrifices and prayed for the dynasty fortune in front of this painting — in his gall, this man hung this painting above his table — so that the two founders of the Alom dynasty could look at the doughnuts that the Earthman eats at his table assessing the Empire value at his computer! I don't know, what punishments fit the exchange brokers, but nobody has yet rescinded the law about palace thieves having their guts torn out! And nothing is written there about exceptions being made for Earthmen, since the law was enacted four hundred fifty years ago when the Empire was the center of the world and nobody heard a whisper yet about all these people from the skies!"

  The first minister Yanik even clicked his tongue in admiration listening to Shavash. Unlike the Earthmen, he knew very well that the sovereign was indifferent to securities and uranium mines, that he knew very little about, but that he was enraged to the utmost by palace robbery; almost everything stolen had not only artistic value but was also sacred, and the ignorance of the Earthmen buying invaluable objects for a penny hurt the sovereign to his heart.

  "You gave me this painting!" Bemish shouted.

  "I gave you a copy, while you arranged it with the thieves to substitute it for an original!"

  "You are a piece of shit and a scoundrel," Kissur screamed at Shavash. "And this tape is a fake."

  "I am ready to submit this tape to an international examination," Shavash claimed, smiling, "with experts' opinions published in all the newspapers."

  Giles quietly leaned towards Bemish and whispered.

  "They warned you, Bemish, that they would flatten you into the ground. That they would make egg powder out of you and send it as humanitarian aid to Ganaya lizards. Do you understand that you stand a chance to be hanged?"

  "Can I have your complaint, please, Mr. Bemish?" the Emperor said.

  Bemish sat completely dismayed. He was close to bursting into tears. Shavash smiling impudently pulled the folder out of his hand and handed it to the sovereign. The sovereign took an ancient quill dusted with gold powder and signed the complaint. Then, he took the seal, showing a dragon catching its tail, off his neck, pressed the seal to a pad saturated with incensed phoenix's blood ink and stamped it on the paper. He handed the sheet over to Bemish and said.

  "Accept my congratulations, Mr. Bemish — I relieved Mr. Shavash from the company director position and appointed you at this post."

  "But sovereign," Shavash exclaimed with indignation. The sovereign spun and his embroidered sleeves cuffed Bemish in the face.

  "Be silent, vice-minister. I do not need foreign experts to tell me who is the scoundrel — you or the Earthman! And if you dare show your tape even to a frog in a road ditch, you will lose more than Assalah!"

  Bemish picked the paper sheet with a lifeless hand, glanced at it and noticed with astonishment that the order was dated with yesterday's date. The papers asserted that Shavash had been fired before he signed the contract with IC.

  Pale with spite, Shavash silently stood up and left the room.

  "Could you, kindly, leave me, gentlemen," the sovereign said smiling sadly. "You tired me out. Kissur, visit me tomorrow morning."

  X X X

  Bemish was too shocked to think coherently. Having departed the pavilion, he dragged himself to a rocky pond, where white-bellied seals splashed, and slumped on a flower hill, probably breaking all the etiquette rules. The question was — what should he do next? Next, Terence Bemish, the Assalah state company director, will sell this company to Terence Bemish, the ADO director. Dammit, Assalah has to be sold to ADO so that intergalactic, instead of Weian, securities land on the market… What will the business ethics committee say? Having watching the tape… A shadow stood above his shoulder and Kissur slumped on the grass nearby.

  "It's very clear," Kissur said, "that you haven't smelled shit. They used to say that I had fish scales on my sides and my ears grew together at the back of my head — big deal, a spliced tape."

  "He was ready to submit the tape to any examination," Bemish said. "He was not bluffing. Do you understand what it means? Where did he get the hardware to bake a forgery that can withstand any examination? Do you understand that this hardware was not acquired for a single usage, that this hardware was not acquired for me, it was acquired for you, for Yanik, for the other local officials…"

  "Well," Kissur said, "we need to wash this deal down. Let's go to a pub."

  And they went to a pub.

  X X X

  It was dark when they left the pub, and large constellation bundles shone in the sky faded like an old watercolor, so alien to Bemish, and a man in a summer silk suit and white jacket dallied leaning on a long car shaped like a water droplet.

  "I will give Mr. Bemish a ride," the silky man said. He raised his head and Bemish recognized the small official.

  They sat silently on the back seat. The car started. Shavash dug a fat package from under his feet and handed it over to Bemish.

  "What is it?" Bemish said.

  "This is the company documentation. You have seen most of it, new director. This is the original tape; you can throw it in a brazier tonight."

  And the small official handed the laser disk box to Bemish.

  "Are you sure that it's really documentation," Bemish inquired, "and not a remotely controlled bomb, two hundred thousand in Gera currency or a drug load I will be arrested tonight for possession?"

  The small official was silent.

  "Damn you," Bemish said, "if, perchance, your Emperor had woken up in a different mood today, I c
ould have been hanged for real. I should hate you for your tricks."

  "And I should hate you."

  "Me?"

  "All of you, Earthmen."

  "Why? What have we done to you?"

  "What? Do you know what it means to be an official of the Empire that owns the world, and suddenly this Empire appears to be a pebble on a beach, crummy and penniless as well?"

  "We, at least, left you free," Bemish noted, "but would you, Mr. Shavash, like this country to be occupied by another empire and you being turned into a slave who rubs his owner's back?"

  "That's exactly right. You left us free. If I became a slave and rubbed my owner's back, I would be a headman there in two years and I would be manumitted and appointed to a minister position in two more years. But you left us free and I can become the first minister on Weia with no problem but, you have to agree, that even if I emigrate — what is the chance of me becoming a Federation Assembly member?"

  Bemish gaped. He had not met yet such an interpretation of the fatherland independence concept. They drove in silence.

  Parting with Bemish at the hotel cabin gate, Shavash suddenly grinned.

  "You have a guest, don't you? I will not hinder your meeting."

  Indeed, a white like goose down Volvo dallied next to trimmed bushes and a man with a colorless face dressed in a cream colored suit — Richard Giles — walked back and forth the terrace. Bemish drew himself together.

  "Good day," Giles rendered, "I have been waiting for you for three hours."

  "Why did you come around?"

  "I came," Giles said smiling, "to offer you a job in our company."

  "Why is that?"

  "Why not? We have a history of several projects that were carried out quite successfully…"

  "You are nuts," Bemish said, "three blown soap bubbles in countries kicked out of UN…"

  "Oh-oh," Giles interrupted him, "Nika and Sadun have joined UN a while ago and the Lakhar situation has started to improve recently…"

  "But at the time you were there, they were not UN members yet."

  "Exactly," Giles said. "When we came here, they had nutcase governments in charge. That's why I am saying, 'successfully carried out projects', in spite of their evident financial bust."