"Has the anarchist dug it out or has it been your work?" Bemish inquired.
"It was the anarchist. He spent a month in your computer and then he tried hacking into our systems and he was uncovered. He was also likely to find out a lot of interesting stuff about the spaceport."
Bemish was silent. The guy could surely learn a lot of interesting stuff about the spaceport. Bemish clenched his teeth sometimes realizing what was happening at the spaceport. The "fan" approach to the formation of export-import companies that existed for two months only, till the deadline for the first tax declaration, was the most innocent trick out of what was happening.
But there was nothing else to do — so many gifts were required, so many unofficial expenses were needed on the top of official ones, and Bemish sadly realized that the larger was the embezzlement scale, the safer the embezzlement was.
X X X
The next day, the security department crew got together in Bemish's office again.
The size of the damage caused by the anarchist was quite large; Bemish's calls had most probably been tapped. Certainly, the anarchist had had access to the Assalah director's personal computer and therefore to the files dealing with the funds' operations.
"Frankly," Giles admitted after the conversation had been finished, "The theft itself bothers me less than the guy's contacts with Kissur. He is such an unpredictable man! He patronizes us and at the same time he patronizes the guy who would smear a launching chute with plastic explosives without any guilt whatsoever!"
"Would you like, Giles, to prevent Kissur from hanging out together with terrorists?"
"Well?"
"He applied to the military academy, didn't he? Accept him."
"It's impossible…"
"Why?"
"Firstly, this man started his acquaintance with our equipment kidnapping a military airplane that he immediately put to its intended use. Secondly, Kissur is a savage. He should learn algebra first."
"Come on, you are not going to make a rocket battle cruiser commander out of him. Eight years ago this man was an excellent war leader. War and freedom were the same for him because freedom was for him the right to kill. And when the sovereign asked him to eradicate separatists three years ago, he and his people appeared to manage rocket launchers pretty well."
"Are you asking this on your own volition," Giles inquired, "or has Kissur asked you?"
"I am asking this on my own. Kissur will die first before he asks Earthmen for anything. But I know, Giles, that he is capable of God knows what if he is not busy with something useful. He is not going to take bribes, he can't be a sovereign's lapdog, the only thing he can do is to fight. Earthmen came and destroyed his old war. He applied to the academy but they didn't let him into the new war. How can a man, who won more battles that our generals conducted maneuvers, take it?"
"The new war is not what Kissur thinks it is."
"That's exactly why it would be useful for Kissur make a closer acquaintance with it."
X X X
In two days, Shavash finally appeared at the spaceport. It was an official visit — Shavash accompanied a Joined Economics Assembly committee — and they were in public during the entire visit. At the second chute, Shavash leaned to the company director's ear and asked quietly,
"Where is your deputy, Ashinik, by the way?"
"He took a one week vacation," Bemish said.
"Ah, he took a vacation… You know something akin to a Following the Way meeting started in Inissa, in Gaddar. They are having a celebration of somebody's "resurrection" and working meetings of the circles' heads.
"Well?" Bemish said.
"These people are very dangerous," Shavash shook his head. "We have to smile and tell the world community that the people who consider Earthmen to be demons are no more important than the people on Earth who spend their time in mental institutions and claim themselves to be Napoleons — but I warn you, Terence, that even you don't know how dangerous they are."
"What are you whispering about?" a committee member asked.
Bemish turned to his countryman and said that they were whispering about local Dahan factory that supplied the construction with titanium supports and started explaining the problems they had with supplies.
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.
Giles returned from Earth in three days and he brought a bulky bundle of papers sealed with vacuum tape — for authorized personnel only. Giles handed the bundle to Bemish and locked the door, and Bemish mounted his legs on the table and engrossed himself in the papers.
In an hour, having looked through the documents, Bemish said,
"That's great but have you talked to your bosses about my request?"
"What request do you mean?"
"I mean Kissur and the military academy."
"Yes. They are against it."
"Why?"
Giles paused.
"Terence, tell me, have you told Kissur what we are building here?"
"How does it matter?"
"It matters because five years ago, after Kissur had escaped from Earth, he found himself in a Gera training camp. It was there that he learned how to handle rocket launchers and all the other modern killing machinery that he manages now so well."
"Is that all?"
"No, it's not all. Haven't you forgotten the guy who came to the construction with Kissur's reference letter and hacked your computer?"
"It was not Kissur's reference letter. It was a reference letter from one of his bailiffs. These letters cost ten "pinkies" a piece on the local black market. Would you like me to get a dozen for you by tomorrow?"
"A month ago Kissur flew to Cassandra. He met an old acquaintance of his there — this guy."
And Giles fished a photo out of his pocket and put it down in front of Bemish.
"This man, by the way, led at some point anarcho-terrorist group ABC. He has on his account…"
"I am not interested in his account," Bemish cut off the spy.
"Really? Shavash was quite interested."
"I would recommend to you not to discuss these matters with Shavash — you and Shavash have different goals."
"What do you mean?"
"You want to figure out whether or not Kissur is connected to terrorists and Shavash wants to prove that he is connected to them. Of course, he will proove it."
"Will his conclusion be purely arbitrary?"
"Kissur is a thousand and one adventures. If a house next to him is on fire, he will run in and save a child. If a house is not on fire, he may start one. Of course, a terrorist visited Kissur. Kissur is too colorful a figure not to be visited. So what? I didn't see Shavash right when you were asking him this question but I could swear that he was dying of laughter. If he had answered you honestly, he would have said on the spot that a man who dared to compare the sovereign Irshahchan with this wasted Earthman Marx — this man was risking taking a bath in a swimming pool right there. But Shavash didn't say that because Shavash hates Kissur. You dished an idea out to Shavash — he will find the proofs. He will find terrorists' liaisons to Kissur and he will train them what they should say. Kissur is an unpredictable man but Shavash can predict even him. If a man approaches Kissur and says, "Let's bomb this bank for a glorious future's sake," Kissur will throw him out of a window. While a man instructed by Shavash will approach Kissur and say,
"Why don't we bomb this bank and feed these bribers with a dish they deserved?"
"What a wonderful idea!" Kissur will exclaim. It will enable Shavash to annihilate Kissur even though it would be proper to jail Shavash and not Kissur for the bank robbery."
Giles paused.
"I thought the same, Terence," he said. "I started shouting that it was all crap… To make the long story short, they introduced me to an investigator. Kissur traffics in drugs."
"What?!!"
/>
"Kissur sells drugs. They grow a lot of wolf's wisk on his lands in Upper Warnaraine. It happens with a full blessing of the landowner. I am very sorry Terence but we can't accept to the military academy one of Weian drug mafia bosses."
And the spy left the office, having carefully closed the door behind him.
In about five minutes, Ashinik walked into the office with a bunch of printouts.
"What's wrong with you, master? Are you crying?"
Bemish was not responding.
"Are you ok? Should I call a doctor?"
X X X
In three days, Kissur with Khanadar the Dried Date, Aldon the Lynx Cub and a couple of dogs dropped by Bemish and all five of them left for a horse ride.
The field they were riding over was already covered with concrete blocks. Tree stumps stuck out far away on a knoll like teeth leftovers in an old man's mouth and a cheerful red tractor was pulling them out of earth amidst din and screech.
The new road ended unnoticed — the riders raced down an old Empire track with yellowish stone ruts, wide palm trees and narrow pyramids of poplars planted along the road accordingly to the ancient laws… Green knolls and rice paddies covered with water flashed far away. Bemish spun his head excitedly — the beauty around seemed to be like a photo.
A squirrel sat on a poplar branch and ate a nut. Amusing himself, Khanadar the Dried Date shot at the nut and knocked it out of the squirrel's paws; it whisked up the tree in horror.
"Hunting used to be good here," Khanadar told Bemish. "And now the only big game here is your bulldozers."
"Hey," Kissur said, "Why don't we go to Black Nest? Hunting is great there."
"When?"
"Why don't we go there right now?"
"Riding?"
"That's a great idea," Kissur said. "Let's ride!"
Khanadar laughed uproariously.
And they raced. Bemish felt as good as he had never felt in his life. He wanted to cancel all the meetings in the world, he didn't give a damn about the spaceport and the investment funds — he just wanted to ride down this road where his car would get stuck and his bulldozer would just tear up.
By the evening, Kissur pointed at an altar house overgrown with burdocks and inquired,
"Will we sleep over here or in the field?"
Bemish came to his senses.
"Kissur," he said, "I have a business meeting tomorrow at eight in the morning. Will we be able to return before sunrise?"
Khanadar almost fell off the saddle laughing.
"Terence," he said, "Black Nest is Kissur's clan castle in Mountain Warnaraine. Old Elda lives there and Ashidan arrived there a week ago."
"Hold on," Bemish said. "It's fifteen hundred kilometers!"
"It's sixteen hundred thirty, if I haven't forgotten your damned units," Khanadar chortled. Bemish turned his horse back.
"I am sorry gentlemen," he spoke, "but I don't have time for a ten day ride next to good highways."
"Hey," Kissur said, "you can't go back on your word! You promised me a hunt in Black Nest!"
"I didn't promise to ride a horse there," Bemish stormed.
"One can't," Khanadar said, "reach a real castle by a car. One has to ride to the real castle for five days and five nights. And the Earthman's butt is already sore."
The comment was unfair. It was especially unfair since Bemish had been riding a horse around the construction in the morning for the last two months, having admitted the advantage a horse had over a heavy-assed jeep and a fleeting flyer. So, Bemish became quite a decent horse rider though he was not in the same league with the barbarians whose fathers had put them on horses before their mothers started teaching them to walk.
"All right," Kissur said, "You can go back but I will be waiting for you in Black Nest on the twenty third."
"What do you mean twenty third? Are you going to ride your horse to the castle in five days?"
"Seven years ago," Khanadar said, "I made this trip in five days and I had two hundred shield and spear horsemen with me and we had a skirmish every day."
"All right," Bemish said," I will take a car and drive to your Nest, whether it's black or white, and I am sure that I will get there before you."
X X X
The guests came in the next morning — the Federation envoy, Mr. Liddell, Shavash and his direct boss, the finance minister Sarjik. The finance minister was in really bad shape — his bald head shook and his watery eyes kept running. Shavash extracted this man from somewhere in Chakhar province where he had been sitting since sovereign Neevik's times. Accordingly to the non-confirmed rumors, the finance minister didn't have credit cards and, seeing other people using them, he would shake his head, "Nothing good will come out of it I assure you! Say, Shakunik Bank had also issued private money and then the bank was confiscated and the money was lost! What if the Federation government runs out of money and confiscates your bank?" The old minister firmly grasped in his youth the following rule
— the richer is an entrepreneur, the more the state covers his riches — and he couldn't change himself.
They abandoned the minister in a room and Shavash drove examining the construction.
"Where is Kissur," he asked. "And why are you so disheveled?"
"Kissur," Bemish said, "rode to Black Nest with his friends, on a horse back."
Shavash grinned.
"And what's happened to you?"
"And I rode back all night. There was not a single phone in the villages around and I was dumb enough not take a satellite phone with me."
Bemish was exhausted, since he rode slowly, afraid of tiring the horse out, and he couldn't sleep in saddle and he wasn't going to learn this skill.
"I see," Shavash said, "Khanadar the Dried Date is going to ride down the glorious battles' path. These people live in the previous century."
In the end, Bemish asked, where the story of Kissur trafficking in drugs came from, but smiling Shavash claimed his total ignorance.
X X X
Upon serious consideration, Bemish decided to drive and he was very proud that he would see the Country of Great Light not through an airplane window but through a windshield.
He chose an old 4WD jeep with large wheels and he put in the trunk the second spare tire, high hunting boots, a whole battery of drinking water bottles and several tinned food cans. He welded steel supports to the rack and fastened a light motorcycle to them. Bemish remembered how Khanadar had smiled saying that it was impossible to reach Black Nest by a car and one had to ride there on a horse. Knowing Khanadar, he suspected that he had been a butt of a dirty joke and a car road to the castle existed only on the map.
Bemish was driving out of the Empire's center to its barbarian outskirts and it seemed that every kilometer, put between him and the capital, was transposing him backwards in time. Cute manors with satellite dishes disappeared first, foreign goods on the road stands disappeared next, factory-made shirts on people around him disappeared last. A different landscape stretched around him — rice paddies covered with water, clay villages where dogs barked and drums boomed in precincts and where peasants in hemp pants sang thousand-year-old songs while collecting the harvest, and only a perfect highway, like a bridge spanning over time for a curious observer, connected a sprightly rolling jeep with the faraway world of glass and steel.
In thousand kilometers the road finally ended — the jeep started hopping down a rocky mountain path — the highest achievement of the construction methods in sovereign Irshahchan's times. The animals became more audacious and began crossing the road. Occasional people, however, dashed away from a weird cart into the woods. Rice paddies disappeared; the few villages existing in these mountains still lived by hunting and gathering and by robbing occasional travelers.
In the second day's evening, Bemish saw five familiar horses at a roadside tavern and stopped there.
Kissur and his companions were sitting at a plank table and gobbling up a wild boar. Bemish joined them.
"I'
ll leave you behind," Bemish said.
"Hmm," Kissur said, "By the way, I could order to puncture your tires." Bemish bantered back, "And I can sue you."
Kissur was chewing greedily on the boar.
"This is my land. I am the master of taxes and jurisdiction here. So, if you sue me, I may as well sentence you to hanging for perjury."
"Do you judge this way often?"
"Never," Kissur said. "If you sentence a man to death, his relatives will start hunting you in a vendetta. Who will avenge you?"
"Nobody will avenge an Earthman," Khanadar the Dried Date agreed. "Earthmen think that their government should avenge them. Soon, their government will sleep with their women for them."
Bemish was assigned the best den in the tavern and Kissur sent him a girl. The girl had been washed and she was quite cute. She stood shyly tugging at a mat with her bare toes. Bemish seated the girl on his knees and started fingering her necklace. There were numerous coins on the necklace — several heavy silver asymmetric coins with a hole inside and a partially rubbed off Gold Sovereign's seal, a dozen of dimes and quarters, a Swiss frank and even as far as Bemish could decipher German, one Cologne subway nickel token.
Bemish pushed the girl off his knees, dug in his wallet and spilled all the change on his hand. He found there a dime that had spent a long time in the wallet, showed it to the girl and tapped with his finger a silver "unicorn" the size of a chicken egg, square shaped and with a round hole in the middle and an encryption glorifying sovereign Meenun on the girl's necklace.
"Let's exchange," he said.
The girl's eyes blossomed with joy. She quickly started pulling the necklace off her neck. Bemish grabbed her hand.
"Listen, stupid," he said. "If you take this dime and one more and a hundred more and a thousand more and fill this coffer in the corner with all these dimes, the whole coffer will be worth less than this silver coin. Got it?"
The girl nodded.
"And now get out," Bemish said. The girl's eyes saddened.
"Won't we exchange?" she asked looking at the dime with an unconcealed longing. Bemish gave her the dime and kicked her out.
When Bemish woke up next morning, Kissur and his retinue were no longer there, they had ridden away at the crack of dawn.
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