Insider ви-6

by Julia Latynina

  Kissur and the pilot disappeared in the hatch opening. Ashidan sat on the log not raising his pale face. Bemish's mind was reeling. If Kissur hadn't known whom he would meet at the old altar house, why had he brought the assault rifle that he was now carefully hiding under his hunting coat? And if he had known, why had he dragged Bemish with him? Did he think that Bemish would keep silent? No, damn it, did he think that Terence Bemish would swallow even that? Or would he suggest landing these boats in Assalah spaceport?

  Kissur and the pilot stepped out of the hatch again. The pilot was smiling. It was clear that in his opinion he got away cheaply and found himself such a protector that all Weian police would not be able to lay a finger on him. Kissur stuck the money in his pants pocket and, having bent his leg, placed it right in front of the pilot on a boarding ramp's aluminum stair.

  The latter started looking around confusedly.

  "Stupid," old Lakhor hissed, "Kiss the foot, the Lord's foot."

  The Earthman shrugged his shoulders and bended down to the dusty boot. At this moment, Kissur kneed the pilot under his chin. The pilot squealed. His body flew upwards and Kissur's joined hands crushed his neck — his backbone crunched.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Bemish barely managed to see how Aldon plucked Ashidan and threw him into the bushes. Kissur went flat behind a steel landing support, whipped his gun out and started firing at the confused people, Aldon and Khanadar joined the fray.

  Three Earthmen with guns went supine, the fourth one, unnoticed by Kissur, leaped out of the altar house. Bemish jumped at him and kicked his gun away; both of them went to the ground. The gunman seized Bemish's throat and started choking him. Bemish rolled on his back and quite nimbly kicked the attacker in the place where legs grow from. The latter said "ouch" loudly and let Bemish go but he immediately recovered and butted him in the stomach and then punched him with the right hand. Bemish intercepted this punch, seized the gunman's sleeve with his left hand and, with fingers spread apart, hit him in the eyes. One eye burst and oozed down his cheek.

  "Aaahhh!" the gunman screamed. In a tight embrace, they rolled down to the abyss over boulders and hummocks.

  Bemish banged a rock with his back badly and he fainted for a moment. The gunman whipped an arrow out of the quiver, hanging behind Bemish's back. The arrow was sharp and firm, with white icy feathers. A hexagonal titanium tip gleaned in the moonlight above Bemish. "That's it," Bemish thought.

  The smuggler dropped the arrow, however, and then he sighed and fell on Bemish's chest. Bemish shook himself up and climbed from under his enemy's body. A long knife was stuck in the guy's back and Khanadar the Dried Date stood over the knife.

  Date extended his hand and helped Bemish get up. They climbed the loose rocks uphill to the lighted altar house and space boat.

  Everything had already been done there. Bemish counted the corpses — sixteen people, five wore body suits or jeans and the others were locals. The gunpowder smell of shots mixed with the smell of fresh hemp and blood. Ashidan sat on a rock holding his head in his hands.

  Following Kissur's orders they gathered the corpses and the sacks next to the altar house walls, poured gas over them and lit them on fire.

  "I feel bad about the grave," Khanadar said.

  "It's desecrated now, what can we do?" Kissur responded. Still, he untied the bear cub off the saddle and threw it in the fire.

  Afterwards, Kissur tore off the emergency control seals, turned the safety block off and started clicking the switches till the main screen swelled red and screamed in an ugly voice.

  "Mount," Kissur yelled, running out of the space boat. Khanadar had already leaped across the broken fence and he was prancing on his horse next to the forest.

  "Should I repeat it for you?" Kissur screamed at Ashidan, "It will blow up in a moment."

  Ashidan raced following the others.

  It blew up in such a way that the moon almost dropped off the sky and fire imps leaped out of the mountains and danced over the altar house left behind; when people in the village found the remnants, they said, with astonishment, that old Aldis had dragged stupid travelers from the sky to him and nothing good, of course, had come out of it.

  With his head low, Ashidan rode between Aldon and Khanadar and Khanadar held his horse's reins.

  Bemish rode behind everybody. He didn't feel all that good. A dull pain walked up and down where his spine had banged against the rock and his side was skinned in places. Kissur suddenly slowed his horse a bit and waited for his friend.

  Kissur jabbed Bemish with his elbow and said, with a laugh,

  "So, Earthman, admit that your feet got cold? Admit that you decided I would ask you to land this boat next time in Assalah spaceport?"

  "You should have called police in."

  "I," Kissur said, "am the master over this land's taxes and courts. What would have happened if I had called police? Firstly, I wouldn't have found this boat, because our justice is worse than a whore and they would be warned away. When the justice sells out, a man should take it in its own hands. Or do you think that I acted wrongly?"

  "Yes," Bemish answered, "I don't think that you acted right. It was not justice you cared about but rather shame besmirching your clan's honor. If you had executed people accordingly to their guilt, Ashidan would have been executed first since he knows perfectly well that selling drugs is a crime, unlike a stupid old serf who did what his master told him to and anyway he had no clue that it's illegal to eat this weed, since all the shamans in this village have been eating it for the last thousand years and so what? You would have given him couple lashes and sent him away."

  They rode down a broad dark path between the abyss and the cliff and the sky on the other side of the cliff was red and crackled.

  "Ashidan," Kissur quietly called out, "do you hear what Terence is saying? He is saying that your guilt is larger than that of people who are dead already and it's not fair."

  Even in the light brought by the moon and by the faraway fire one could see the youth's shoulders shaking.

  "Get off the horse, Ashidan," Kissur ordered. Ashidan dismounted. Kissur also jumped down and pulled the sword with the intertwined snakes handle out of the sheath fastened to the saddle.

  "Get on your knees," Kissur ordered.

  Ashidan wordlessly kneeled next to the abyss. The wind started playing with his golden hair and it glistened in the moonlight. Ashidan lowered his head and pulled his hair off the base of the neck with his own hand.

  "It would have been better," Kissur spoke, "if you had died of his sword eight years ago and not now," and he raised the sword over the brother's bowed head.

  Bemish jumped off his horse and seized Kissur's hand.

  "Isn't enough for today, Kissur? You are drunk with blood."

  "You said it yourself," Kissur objected, "that I acted unfairly. I don't want people to say that about me."

  "Damn it," Bemish said, "you did everything correct. Let the lad be."

  "Get in the saddle, Ashidan," Kissur spoke quietly.

  X X X

  In a week, Bemish returned to the capital. He was buried up to his neck in work, he had to attend a benefit dinner, a risk strategy and investment conference, a Fall Leaves celebration in the palace, and a negotiation round with the management of a Chakhar company that Bemish had plans for.

  Ronald Trevis was also at the conference, he gained some weight since they had met last time and, as Bemish learned, he had exchanged his third wife for a fourth one. Shavash invited both friends to join his retinue and visit Chakhar and after the vice minister had introduced the two Earthmen to the company director, the negotiations were concluded surprisingly quickly.

  In the evening, Bemish and Trevis suddenly found themselves at a villa with Shavash while the rest of his retinue hung out at another hotel. The guests were served an incomparable dinner but, when the girls that had circling around the guests left and a waiter from the security department brought a counter surveillance device wi
th the desert, Bemish realized that the serious conversation was just starting.

  "I would like," Shavash said, leaning back in his armchair and putting an empty bowl for the glazed fruits aside, "to discuss with you our state debt. We are stuck all the way to our ears. The interest payments alone are bigger that one third of our GDP."

  "I wouldn't say that you have a large state debt," Trevis mentioned, "You just have a very small GDP."

  "That's what I have in mind," Shavash nodded, "when I suggest restructuring the debt."

  Trevis bounced in his chair about to protest against this idea but Shavash's next words caused his eyes to pop out.

  "I think that it would be possible to create a private company that will be responsible for paying interest on certain state debt tranches and this company will obtain Chakhar."

  "What do you mean, Chakhar?" Trevis was astonished.

  "I mean Chakhar or any other province where this company would be able to collect taxes, make laws and build factories. If a province frightens you, you can limit yourself with some mining deposits."

  A long silence ruled the table.

  "Shavash, aren't you afraid that someday they will arrest you for treason?" Trevis finally inquired.

  The small official shrugged his shoulders.

  "Why? It's just a way to decrease budget expenses. If a company doesn't pay the state debt out, it will, of course, loose the license. I've already talked to Dachanak and Ibinna and they are ready to be the company's co-founders. Mr. Bemish will fit perfectly there and as for you," here Shavash smiled charmingly at the banker, "I would like you, Ronald, to handle the negotiations with the bonds' owners."

  Ronald Trevis leaned forward — his eyes reflected the lights from the candles burning on the table and the green illumination coming from the counter surveillance device. "He will never stop," a thought passed Bemish's mind, "He will handle the most fantastic deals for Shavash because Shavash can offer him what nobody has ever done in the Galaxy yet. He will be a consultant if Shavash asks him to privatize the ministry of finance."

  Three days later, Bemish dropped by Assalah, for a couple of hours — he was accompanying a Galactic Bank committee.

  The committee was shown a new section of finished launching pads, numbers seven to seventeen, and was escorted down the unfinished but already working spaceport building with twelve underground service floors and a fifteen story tower that housed Bemish's office on its very top.

  Bemish entered his office with the bank vice president and contemplated, smiling slightly, his table covered with a barely perceptible layer of dust.

  After the committee had left, Giles walked into the office.

  "How is Kissur's castle?" the spy inquired.

  Bemish mumbled something vague.

  "By the way," Giles said, "satellites observed a space boat explosion in this area. It was something like a Colombine or a Trial with a boosted up engine — they use them to traffic drugs. By any chance, have you heard about it?"

  "I witnessed it," Bemish said. "Kissur blew up the boat. Before that, he torched ten million worth of drugs and killed sixteen men. Afterwards he almost cut his own brother's head off. Ashidan was involved in the business."

  "Did you memorize the space boat's license plate number?"

  "It was D-3756A Orinoko, if the plate wasn't a fake."

  Giles paused.

  "Do you think that Kissur took you with him on purpose? Did he know that we suspected him in drug trafficking and that they had refused his application to the military academy exactly because of this?"

  "Yes. Only, Kissur is a proud man and he will die before he says it out loud."

  Giles was biting his lips.

  "Where is Ashidan now?" he asked finally.

  "Ashidan stayed in the castle. More precisely, he stayed in the castle's cellar." Bemish specified.

  He paused and added,

  "You said that you had proof of Kissur's connection to drug dealers. Where did you get this proof?"

  "Make a guess."

  "Shavash?"

  Giles nodded and spoke,

  "But he could just be mistaken."

  Bemish blew up and banged his fist on the table,

  "There is no way this bastard could be mistaken!" he screamed, "You can fool the Earthmen from a sky far away and tell them that Kissur traffics in drugs! You can't fool Shavash! He has better spies that all the local gangsters combined! He knew for sure that Kissur had nothing to do with it! But he also knew that Kissur, if cornered, would sooner or later break his head!"

  "But Shavash is Kissur's friend…"

  "Friend? The only thing he wants is to get into Idari's bed! If Kissur keels over, before a year goes by, Idari will have a choice — either to go bumming or to marry Shavash!"

  Giles looked at Bemish and said suddenly,

  "I think that Mrs. Idari will also have the third alternative — to marry the Assalah spaceport director. Not that a barbarian from the stars could really allure her…"

  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

  Two days later, Ashinik returned to the spaceport and he didn't drop a word about the Inissa meeting. It could not be ruled out that the zealots had made certain decisions and that these decisions could include an order for Ashinik to plant a bomb for Bemish or to throw it down a launching chute. But Bemish didn't have time to think about it.

  Three days later, Bemish wandered into his office for half an hour to dictate a whole pile of documents, Ashinik interrupted him calling from somewhere in the port.

  "Mr. Bemish, could you find an hour for me? There is a man here who would like to meet you. "

  "What man?" Bemish asked.

  "It's an… old man."

  Bemish was quite impressed. He cleaned up his office and changed his jacket, just in case; he hung his regular one in the closet and picked out a light grey jacket that had one very useful feature — it could resist a laser burst at a three meter distance.

  Ashinik led into the office an eighty-year-old man in peasant clothing, with white and bushy eyebrows, straight back and a square cap on a seemingly bald head. The old man looked at the Earthman with scary bulging eyes.

  "You," the old man said, "are the boss of this place. And who am I?"

  "You are probably," Bemish said, "the boss of the people who don't like this place."

  "We don't have bosses," the old man declared, "We have students and teachers."

  Bemish had nothing to reply, so he asked, "Would you like some tea?" Strangely, the old man agreed. Bemish ordered it and soon Inis entered the office carrying a tray with a teapot, cups, and several baskets filled with sweet cookies.

  The old man disapprovingly stared at Inis' skirt. It was exactly one meter shorter than what he would consider decent. Even Bemish, in the back of his mind, disapproved of Inis strolling in this skirt anywhere outside of his bedroom. But what could he do? Inis enjoyed very few things besides skirts and earrings and Bemish felt sorry for her and never contradicted her about her skirts.

  The main demon and the arch foe of the demons silently drank tea for a while.

  "How are you going to scamper from here to the sky?" the White Elder asked. "I walked around your construction and I saw holes going down but I haven't seen any ladders going to the sky."

  "We don't use ladders," Bemish explained patiently, "to go to the sky. We use space ships. Before starting, these ships stay in underground chutes, like pigeons resting in a pigeon house between flights."

  The White Elder looked at him with interest and Bemish started explaining where to and why ships flew. He tried very hard. He even got to the concept of an escape velocity when the old man interrupted him and asked, "Ok, I believe that you fly to the sky and not underground. But why wouldn't you still build a ladder so that people don't get confused?"

  Bemish suppressed a desire to b
urst into hysterical laughter. Then he recalled the stories about the zealots' cunning and how they enjoyed placing a man in absurd situations and watching his actions. What if the old man understood everything about space ships? He knew exactly that Bemish would be able to explain to him what an escape velocity was but he didn't know what Bemish would do after such a question.

  Bemish hadn't exactly shown himself in the best light and he stuck his nose in the tea cup.

  "Listen," the old man said, having realized that he wouldn't get an answer, "you talked to this puppy and to Kissur and to the great sovereign and even to this briber Shavash and you managed to find the common ground with everyone. How have you managed it?"

  "I don't know," Bemish said. "It probably happened because I always try to speak truth. People rarely tell the truth to each other. They either flatter each other and think that they are lying or they are rude to each and think that they are telling the truth. But they tell the truth very rarely."

  "What truth will you say about yourself? Will you admit that you are a demon?"

  "No," Bemish said, "I will not lie and say that I am a demon and I will not say that you are wrong. You see, I grew up in a country where they think that the people are always right. If so, many people feel themselves slighted, they must have reasons for it. If so many people hate Earthmen they must have reasons for it. I think that the main reason is that you are poorer than Earthmen. And I think that the only way to change it is to help you to become as rich as Earthmen. That's why I am building this spaceport."

  "You are connected to some very bad people," the old man said, "For instance, to a man named Shavash. He is a backside of the world, a jerboa turned into a man, a filthy duck with seven tongues and no soul. His black shadow found its way into our counsel and his black shadow stretches over the construction. Think upon my words."

  Having said this, the old man stood and left without bowing. Ashinik rushed out with him.