n!"
     Bemish was astonished.
     "I can't accept such a gift."
     "Why?  You just stated that the goal is not to kick a bad owner's butt,
but to find an honest one. You are all bark and no bite."
     "But I don't even speak the language."
     Kissur, however, wasn't even going to listen.
     "Also,  you need to live somewhere," he declared,  "you will surely get
this company  in your  pocket,  don't worry! I  will  wheedle it out of  the
sovereign for you."
     And he started enthusiastically treating Bemish with wine.

        X X X

     Bemish woke up late. The sun was pushing in the open window and dancing
on a deity's jade mug, grinning above the door, on an ancient silver lantern
where an electric light bulb bloated like a  white  bubble. With  an effort,
Bemish recalled yesterday events. "There  was  a fight... We drank... Oh, my
God! He granted me the manor!" Bemish  jumped up in the bed - the house deed
and a note from Kissur lay on the table - he returned to the capital.
     In  an hour,  Bemish  thoughtfully consumed  breakfast  on  a  veranda.
Frightened servants ran around. He could barely talk to the servants and was
absolutely unable to understand their replies. He thought for a moment, went
inside and called to Mr. Shavash's office.
     "Mr.  Shavash,"  the Earthman said,  "could  you  recommend me a really
honest administrator?"
     The  first  finance  vice-minister assured  him,  in  a slightly ironic
voice, that he would be happy to find for Mr. Bemish anything in the world -
an eternal phoenix, three-headed dragon, and even an honest administrator.

        X X X

     At the other end of the line, Shavash hung up the receiver. He pondered
for  a  moment and,  then, he  called  the secretary and gave  the necessary
orders.
     Soon, a young  man, with a round face  and pleasant but sad azure eyes,
entered his  office.  The young man's  face was unusually pale, a raw  dough
color. An Earthman or another ignorant person  would think that  the  face's
owner  was  unhealthy  or hadn't left  home  for  a  while.  A  Weian  would
immediately suspect that the guy had been in jail.
     So,  the young man named Adini, approached to the official's table  and
froze three steps away, waiting for orders.
     "Kissur," Shavash said, "bestowed to a Earthman,  named Terence Bemish,
a manor next to Assalah and the Earthman is looking for a manor's headman. I
would like to bestow you to him."
     "Yes, master," Adini said deferentially.
     "You will watch him and report all his meetings and plans to me."
     Shavash picked a sheet of paper with a personal seal out of a folder.
     "The moment  Bemish leaves the  planet,"  Shavash said, "this sheet  of
paper will be destroyed. It is  in  your best interests,  to operate so that
Bemish leaves the planet quickly. Do you understand me?"
     "Yes, master."
     "Terence  Bemish is a smart man and  he, most certainly, expects me  to
use this opportunity to send him a spy."
     "Why did he ask you for a headman, then?"
     "He  hopes to allure the  spy to his side. Once he has given you enough
favors, you may pretend that it indeed has happened. Remember, however, that
Bemish can give you money or a stipend but only I can  get rid of this paper
for you. Also remember that, if Bemish had this sheet, he would not act as a
good Samaritan  towards you. He will be kind to you  only because he doesn't
have another weapon."

        X X X

     Bemish  was  enjoying the ancient mosaic overlaying  the  walls  on the
second floor, when he heard a  descending flyer's  characteristic rustle. He
walked  out to the gallery  - a white  flyer  stood in  the yard,  the  last
"rainbow" shimmers were beating above its wings. In a moment, the  "rainbow"
dimmed, the  flyer's  roof  opened up like a poppy  flower  carpel,  and two
people got out of the  car  - a handsome  lithe youth in a strict white suit
and  another guy, more scrawny than  slim, in a checked shirt  with torn-off
sleeves  and a  red flower in  his  hair,  following the  contemporary rebel
fashion.
     "You can live here two months and  more," the youth in the  strict suit
said loudly in  English, evidently  being sure that nobody  could understand
him, "no one will  say a word. The local headman has sinned quite  a bit and
he won't even tell my brother about you."
     "And how much has he sinned?"
     "Not more than any damned bank director."
     Here, the older youth turned around and noticed Bemish who was standing
openly at the gallery encircling the villa at the second store.
     "Hey, who are you?" the youth called out in Weian.
     "I am Terence Bemish and I am the villa's owner."
     "That's nonsense! The villa belongs to my brother."
     "That's true.  However, Kissur threw out the manor's  headman yesterday
and gave the manor to me."
     The youth span his head nervously and Bemish said,
     "You are welcome. I don't think that Kissur would be happy to know that
I showed his brother and his guest off."
     Bemish ordered the  servants to  serve the terrace table  and, soon, he
and  his  unexpected  guests  were  devouring  an  ample  breakfast.  Kissur
brother's name was Ashidan and his companion introduced himself, not without
sarcasm, as John Smith.
     "What do you do?" Ashidan asked.
     "I am a financier."
     "My brother makes strange acquaintances," Ashidan noticed.
     "What do you do?" Bemish inquired from the new guest.
     "It's none of your business, shithead."
     Bemish was a bit flustered.
     "Excuse me," he  asked, "didn't we meet two minutes  ago? I don't  know
anything about you. What do you know about me to call me a shithead?"
     "What class did you fly coming here?"
     "First class."
     "That's it. How can a man with  enough  money to fly first class not to
be a shithead?"
     "Are you an anarchist," Bemish wondered, "a communist?"
     "I am a sympathizer"
     "Whom and what do you sympathize with? Esinole? Marks? Le Dan?"
     "I  sympathize  with the people  that the  likes  of you  shit  on with
money."
     "Why do you sympathize with them on Weia?"
     "This planet  is interesting for me," Smith said.  "People here haven't
choked on their money.
     "Yes," Bemish agreed, recalling peasants, crawling in the fields, "they
haven't. But I hope to fix it."
     "Eh?"
     "I will help them to choke on their money," Bemish stated.
     "It's nonsense! You don't care about anything except your profits!"
     Bemish was unhurriedly eating  the morning soup. Last time he heard the
same thing from the former ADO general  director, whom he kicked  out from a
comfortable for him, but burdensome for the company, armchair.
     "Don't  push it, Johnny," Ashidan  said sarcastically, "or  he  will be
calling police in a second."
     "I  would certainly call police," Bemish said, "if I saw  you  making a
bomb. Since you are just yakking, why the heck should I call them?"
     "Will you tell my brother?"
     Bemish carefully looked  at Ashidan. "What a  brood,"  a thought passed
his  mind, "one  drives  tanks  down  the foreign companies'  facilities and
another reads Marx  in Princeton... Why didn't Kissur  give him the  villa?"
Bemish  fished  a  satellite phone out of his  pocket and  handed  it to the
youth.
     "Tell him yourself," Bemish suggested.
     Ashidan got up and walked to the garden to make a call. Right then, the
servants rushed to the terrace to announce the district head's arrival.
     The district head brought gifts with him - three dishes of grilled meat
with  garlic, a  suckling pig, salads in flat baskets and, also, a  plate of
walnut  shaped  cookies  and  a  round sweet quince pie  decorated  with the
Bemish's last name misspelled on top.
     Bemish walked the guest to the garden gazebo. The official bowed to him
with the pie and said, "It's a  great honor for us, Mr. Bemish that you will
now,  in  a way, live  with us.  I am happy to express  my gratitude to you.
Thanks to your help and Kissur's  courage, a crime of unimaginable magnitude
and horror was uncovered.
     "I think you were aware of it," Bemish said.
     "Hola, how can you say so?! I was shocked, squashed like a frog under a
wagon!"
     Bemish shrugged his shoulders.  A servant knocked and appeared  in  the
door with a steaming teapot and sweets in woven baskets.
     The guest  and the  host  treated each  other  with  tea and, then, the
district head inquired,
     "They say that you will be in the charge of our construction?"
     "It's too early to say," Bemish said.
     Here it seemed to Bemish that the district head winked his  eye at  him
in a coarse and canny way.
     "Well, say," the district head said, "there is no reason  to doubt now.
Believe me, I  and  the others around will be utterly happy to do everything
they can for Kissur's friend and their future colleague."
     "Did you whip Krasnov?" Bemish asked.
     "Eh?"
     "I mean the trader, who came to Assalah for  the stocks. You said, that
you wouldn't allow foreigners to rob the people."
     The district head nodded understandingly. His face became now important
and benevolent.
     "Unfortunately," he said,  "the people are like children  and officials
should protect them. How  can I  let them  sell invaluable  property for two
cents?"
     "You can't let them sell it for two cents but you  can let them sell it
for free? To pay for the taxes you invented?"
     "Hola!" the district head exclaimed, "how can you say so?"
     His round kind face reddened and tears appeared on the wide open eyes.
     "Do you have company shares? Did you pay a cent for them?"
     The district head's eyes looked at Bemis honestly and directly.
     "From now on,"  the district  head said, "the meaning of  my life is to
serve you! What would you like me to do? Tell me and I will carry it out."
     "I would like you," Bemish said, "to  sell me the Assalah shares at the
same price the peasants sold them to you - for free."
     The official choked.
     "Otherwise," Bemish continued,  "the sovereign will know how you chased
foreign  vultures from here  with a brined whip  to bleed the people on your
own."
     The official was silent for a moment and then bowed and pronounced, "It
will be my honor to serve you."
     "I should get him fired," Bemish thought, "so that a man grateful to me
for the appointment and not the  man hating me because of the shares is head
of the precinct.

        X X X

     When Bemish  walked  down in the garden, Ashidan  was standing  on  the
swimming pool edge and throwing thin well sharpened darts into a fat pot.
     "Well, did you talk to this mongrel? Ashidan asked, "How much money did
he give you, so that you didn't prosecute him?"
     "Don't be rude, Ashidan."
     "This district head is a real  weirdo, "the youth continued, "He is the
only local official who spends every day in the  office. Do you know what he
engages in in there?"
     "Well?"
     "He  locks himself with his  young  male secretary since his wife comes
from a much better family than he does, and she doesn't allow  these  little
tricks at home."


     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 next day after his return to the capital, Bemish found himself at a
party thrown by the  district  prefect  to celebrate the  plum blossoming or
some other divine occasion.
     The party was grand. All of the high society arrived.
     The  officials  discussed  the  inflation  and  the  importance  of the
preservation  of  the  customs.  The people from  the  stars  discussed  the
inflation and the importance of the preservation of the customs.
     In  a  corner,  the  foreign  entrepreneurs   shared   more  particular
impressions from the local business surroundings with each other.
     "So,  this  abbot comes to  me and offers  to bless the bank against  a
misfortune  and  he asks for two hundred thousand dinars for the ceremony. I
refuse and the next  night a fire  starts in  the  office. The next day this
vermin  comes to  me  again,  expresses its  condolences, and  asks  for two
hundred  thousand again. When  I complained to the police, they gave me  the
advice - don' buck and cough up the money - the abbot is connected to Horn's
gang."
     "By  the way,  speaking  about  banks  -  do  you  know that  only  the
companies, with accounts  in Shavash controlled banks,  received the  budget
financing this month? They say that Shavash had a ten percent kickback.
     And so on. And so forth.
     Bemish met the Federation of Nineteen  envoy, an elderly Malaysian, and
the envoy led Bemish into a  corner immediately and started telling him true
stories from local officials' lives.
     There were about dozen envoys present. Bemish was suddenly surprised by
the number. He thought that only fifteen... not even fifteen - ten years ago
- the envoys' number would  be way smaller. The Earth  colonies were leaving
the Federation  of Nineteen one  after another,  peacefully  or with  swords
drawn.
     Bemish  was also introduced to the Gera envoy. The envoy was talking to
two people that looked familiar to Bemish.
     "Mr. Lawrence Edwards," the envoy introduced one of them.
     "Mr. Jonathan Rusby," he introduced the other one.
     Bemish didn't bat an eyelid.
     Half the  Galaxy police have been looking for Mr. Lawrence Edwards. Mr.
Edwards  had  owned  one  of  the  Galaxy's  largest  and  most  respectable
businesses.  An airport  technician's  son,  he  made a five  billion  dinar
fortune by  the  age of  thirty. He  used land  allotments  he  acquired for
construction purposes, as collateral to obtain the bank loans, and the banks
trusted  him completely.  Unfortunately,  Mr.  Edwards  had  more  and  more
difficulties in the last several years and he created a network of companies
buying  these land  allotments  from each  other and  using  them  later  as
collateral  for bank loans. At the  fifth  act's end,  Edwards escaped. When
disappointed banks arrested the land allotments  and unfinished skyscrapers,
they found out their real  price was  very  different from the price paid by
the affiliated  companies,  and  it  didn't even cover  one twentieth of Mr.
Edwards loans.
     As  for  Mr. Rusby, he had also been a financial legend and the manager
of  a successful  offshore fund  investing citizens' savings  in  risk  free
government  securities. Unfortunately,  the  interest promised  by Mr. Rusby
exceeded the  possible  government  securities  trading  profits  by 3% and,
henceforth,  Mr. Rusby,  while promising the complete  safety,  invested his
clients' money using  much  more  profitable  but much less secure financial
instruments.  The clients,  lured by high risk free  profits, crowded at his
office, the modest retirees and dishwashers who would have never invested in
his fund if they had known the fund's structure, brought their money to him.
Rusby, with his incredible nose for trading, often  gleaned up huge pickings
buying a bankrupted  company's  shares at  5%  of the face value that  would
later rise to 90% and he had a great  time meanwhile with the margin between
his take-in and his payments to the clients.
     It was not  economical  but rather  political quandaries that destroyed
him - a new tax  law on Aegeia,  where his head office was, and  a couple of
the  adroit auditors.  Rusby's assets were  arrested, his wife divorced  him
scandalously, the  fund immediately  bankrupted  and Rusby  escaped to Gera,
where he kept  insisting that, all this time, he  fulfilled his  obligations
towards the clients and paid them exactly as he promised.
     By the way, the federal committee didn't argue that.
     It just claimed that if the Rusby investments' real risk level had been
known, he would have had to pay the investors five-fold.
     "Eh, Mr. Bemish," Rusby said with a friendly smile,  "I  heard that you
were also taking part in the Assalah auction?"
     "Also?" Bemish winced. "Wow! Would Shavash really let this  man, wanted
by the Galaxy police, participate in an auction."
     Next to a lighted pond with gold fish, a small man stood - Shavash.
     "Thanks for the headman," Bemish said, "what salary should I pay him?"
     "Nothing - he is your slave."
     Bemish choked.
     "I thought there is no slavery on Weia.
     "Call  it the way you  want. This man  owes  me  two  hundred  thousand
isheviks and he signed a contract that he would work this debt off any way I
choose. I will transfer  the  contract to you and send  it tomorrow with the
courier."
     Bemish was silent.
     "By  the  way,"  Shavash asked  suddenly,  "they say,  all  the Assalah
documentation was transferred to you. What's your opinion?"
     "What do you mean?"
     "I meant just what I said. You just familiarized yourself with the most
detailed documentation, you are a financier. What do you say?"
     Bemish hesitated.
     I'd say that  I realized  how they make money on Weia.  They make money
not on private profits  but on state  expenses. They fed off Assalah in  two
ways.  The  first way was the  inflated contracts and the second way was the
written-off equipment. For instance, the company Alarcon  was  in charge  of
the land works. The same man was both the  Assalah  director and the Alarcon
founder.  He  owned 20%  of the  shares.  There  is the  geological  study's
conclusion,  that Assalah  stands  on an excellent basalt foundation  with a
forest situated above it. There are, also, seven  million  isheviks  paid to
Alarcon for draining swamps that  have  never existed. There is construction
equipment paid for with the budget money at triple fold prices. And the same
equipment was  sold  to Alarcon in  two  weeks and 97%  of the resource  was
claimed to be exhausted. How can you  exhaust 97%  of the resource of a step
excavator  in ten working days? I  bet, it  was still standing unpacked at a
warehouse, new and shiny! Any action was a financial pump  that pumped state
budget money from the company a manager was in charge of, to the company the
manager owned.
     Shavash listened to the Earthman with eyes half closed.
     "You said that the director owned 20% of the Alarcon shares. Who  owned
the other 80%?"
     "I assume that you owned it, Shavash."
     A deferential  waiter stopped  next to  them and Shavash took a crystal
glass on a thin stem from the silver tray.
     "However, I didn't understand  certain things," Bemish continued, "what
is an "ishevik bill of credit"?"
     Shavash spread his hands.
     "We  were forced to do  this. When the ministry doesn't have  money, it
has sometimes to  issue short-term bills of credit maturing in three months.
You need to pay the contractors somehow."
     "In other words, you, Mr. Shavash, issue your own money."
     "Not  exactly,"  the  vice-ministry pointed  out indifferently,  "Money
costs as much as it costs. While, when you obtain "ishevik bills of credit",
you go  to a bank  to exchange them  for money. The bank can pay  you thirty
percent of the face value or it  can pay you hundred percent. It depends  on
how good friends you, I and bank are."
     "I  believe,"  Bemish enquired,  "it's  meaningless to ask you  if  you
approve of cutting the ineffective industry subsidies down."
     "Theoretically  speaking,  I approve of it," Shavash said tiredly. "You
don't read local media. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the budget deficit
curbing.  This Assalah thing  swallowed two billion isheviks while the  real
expenses were not even two million."
     The  official's voice didn't carry  either cynicism or sarcasm  in  it.
Bemish  kept silent  - he didn't know how  to snub  a man  who issued pseudo
money  as  the first finance  vice-minister, received it  on  the  Assalah's
account as a Board  of  Director's  member, and ferried it  to  his personal
account as real money.
     Right  then, Bemish realized a very simple thing - Kissur can bequest a
villa to him, Kissur  can secure Assalah for  him - but only Shavash has the
life and death power over money in this country.
     "Who was the  man who visited the  manor with  Ashidan?" Shavash  asked
suddenly. "Did you recognize him?"
     "No," Bemish came to his senses.
     Shavash  silently opened the folder he  had  with  him and extracted  a
newspaper  article. The article showed the late Ashidan's companion and  the
title announced,  "The  main suspect  in the Menszel trading exchange center
escapes in an unknown direction."
     Bemish hadn't  heard about the explosion and he leafed through the text
quickly. The  explosion was indeed a small one - two  or three doors cracked
and  a computer  had its brains blown out. The  blast was small because only
one explosive  device performed -  a non-fragmentation demolition shell with
ten grams  of  trinex.  A  case  with the equivalent of three  kilograms  of
dynamite was next to it but, miraculously, it didn't detonated. If the  case
had exploded, the victim count would have been in tens or, even hundreds.
     "They left the villa," Bemish said, "the same day."
     "Ashidan has  nasty companions, " Shavash  said. "Though this  guy is a
friend of Kissur's."
     "Pardon  my  curiosity,  Mr. Shavash -  it's  surprising how  you  know
everything. You  know even what  happens at a  villa two hundred  kilometers
away from the capital. Are you a vice-minister of finance or of police?"
     "I am  simply a rich man," the small official said. "And a  rich man is
not the man who owns a personal villa or a personal spaceship.  It  is a man
who owns a personal jail."
     "A personal jail? Is that a joke?"
     Shavash smiled.
     "Would you like to see it? I can organize a trip."
     "One way?"
     "Never  joke about jail, Mr.  Bemish," calmly  and  coldly  the  Empire
official said. They were silent for a moment and, then, Bemish said,
     "How much is IC going to pay for the stocks? I can pay more?"
     "It  doesn't matter,  Terence,  whether  you pay  more or less  for the
stocks,"  Shavash grinned. "Imagine, that  you pay for  the  stocks more but
your application is not set up correctly."
     "How much does a correct application cost?"
     In  the uneven  light  by  the  lamps  outside  the window,  the  small
official's raised eyebrows were easy to see.
     "Come on," Shavash smiled.
     "Listen," Bemish  said quietly and clearly, "a  fantastic sum  given to
you by IC was mentioned to me.  I  don't know whether or not it's true. I am
not going to offer  you  this kind of money. If, however, I buy the  company
and  you buy the  stock options, in three  years,  your shares will be worth
eighteen times more than any of IC's pitches."
     Shavash only smiled.
     "You know perfectly well what IC is, Shavash. And you know that it will
bankrupt Assalah, and you know why it will do it."
     Shavash had a  perfect composure but Bemish noticed surprise  or, even,
horror passing in his eyes.
     Here, the Gera envoy with another man entered the hall and Bemish bowed
and walked away to the balcony.
     Giles sat at  a  corner table on the  balcony.  A glass of  palm vodka,
mixed with mango  juice, stood next to him and an open  magazine, that Giles
was probably reading, was under the glass.
     "Good day,  Mr. Bemish! They say that you already own half  the Assalah
with a cute villa on top?"
     Giles was drunk.  He lamented  probably that half  the  Assalah  didn't
belong to him.
     "I haven't asked for this gift,"  Bemish  said,  "and, anyway, I  found
myself in an idiotic position."
     "Especially, since  you  are not going  to buy the  company anyway, are
you?"
     Bemish was tempted to empty the glass of vodka in the Giles face.
     "Let me introduce you to  our  executive  director," Giles said lazily,
"James McFergson."
     Bemish turned  around  - behind  him, a stout short  man with unusually
lively eyes and a mole  on a pug nose was smiling and extending amicably his
hand.
     "Overjoyed to meet you," MacFergson declared, shaking Bemish's hand. It
really looked, as  if he was  overjoyed to meet Bemish, and, as if no Bemish
existed in this world, he would fall dead with sorrow.
     Here, the stage  in  the  garden under the balcony  was  lightened, the
harmonious  sounds of flutes and lute-shells poured forth and a  performance
started  below - in not too  prudish dresses, four  beauties  were dancing a
complex  dance with swords. Quite a  crowd surrounded the stage quickly and,
when the performance finished, a  guest -likely drunk- climbed the boards to
kiss the dancing girls.
     "Who is this bloke?" Bemish enquired.
     "The Adana envoy, " McFergson answered. "The envoy fits the country."
     "An Earthman?" Bemish said with surprise.
     "They are  no longer  Earthmen," McFergson smirked,  "the planet Adana,
for your  information, was settled by SD Warheim. So,  Warheim brought there
several  dozen  thousand  unemployed  people  -  subsidizing  their  one-way
tickets. In  just  a short while, the unemployed realized that there were  a
lot of jobs on  Adana and  no unemployment benefits.  So,  they all screamed
that it was slavery in disguise and demanded that the company transport them
back to  Earth. When the company offered the opportunity to  earn  money for
the  transportation  fees on their own, they called it Earth imperialism and
declared independence.  However, I heard that their current President  makes
them work way harder than the company did and in concentration camps  rather
than free."
     "Mr. Bemish  knows that," Giles interrupted  his colleague.  "Just when
the trouble started, he bought United Ferrous  shares and sold them later at
triple fold price when the new Adana government transferred all of Warheim's
concessions to United."
     Several people from the group of Weian officials noiselessly approached
the conversing Earthmen. Among them, Bemish noticed Jonathan  Rusby with the
smiling Gera envoy.
     "Mr. Bemish has also provided a great assistance to Andjey Gerst. In my
opinion,  your decision to create a Gera-oriented portfolio  investment fund
made many financiers pay attention to Gera economics."
     "What's so bad about it?" Bemish enquired irritably.
     "Gerst is a dictator."
     "And how exactly does it show?"
     "So far, it  shows,  "  Giles  said,  "in  him  attracting  high  level
scientists  and  advancing  huge  loans  to local companies  for  the newest
technologies  development - our  government is forced to spend this money on
social expenses. And Gera banks are  reputed  to be the most reliable in the
Galaxy, though not due  to the government protection but  rather due to  the
very  strict  laws  specifying  the  total  personal  responsibility of  the
management."
     "Whose nails do they pull out?"
     "Nobody's."
     "And where is the dictatorship?
     "Eh," Giles said,  "in your opinion,  a dictatorship is when  they pull
the people's nails out and talk stupidly...  Only a weak  dictatorship pulls
the people's nails out, it's not a dangerous dictatorship, it will expire of
its own accord, it's  doomed because when  they pull the people's nails out,
the people don't  work  as much and the less they work, the  more nails they
have to pull out."
     "Do I  understand  you correctly,"  Bemish  inquired, "that any  state,
where they don't pull your nails out, is a strong dictatorship? I think  you
just envy that Gera is better off than your own eh...?"
     "Australia," Giles said, "I am an Australian. I understand you, though.
You have better opinion of Gera than of your own country  because Gera's Dow
index grows faster."
     He stood up.
     "It's a stupid argument," he said, "I've been to Gera and I could  give
you hundred proofs that its Leader is thousand times more dangerous than all
the psychopaths...  Why don't you think about this  - the Gera  army's total
military capabilities are  approaching  those  of Earth and  all  the  other
Federation  of  Nineteen members'  armies  combined,  and  every time,  when
somebody in the Federation Assembly proposes to  boost the defense spending,
the owners of  the accounts in the stable Gera banks start screaming that we
should  not  spend  money  on  war,  we  should spend  the money  on  social
assistance."
     Kissur came in after midnight - by his looks, he spent the evening in a
more interesting way - in a pub.  He ran  into Bemish on a garden path, next
to  a  grotto  that,  due  to an  evident reason, Bemish needed to  visit in
private.
     Kissur slapped Bemish on the shoulder and noted.
     "I haven't expected to meet  you at this zoo!  So, trader,  haven't you
yet changed your mind about buying Assalah?"
     "I will buy  Assalah," Bemish said, "no matter  what. At least, so that
Giles wouldn't get it."
     "What's the  difference  between Giles or  you  buying it?" Bemish  was
silent for a moment. Kissur was clearly drunk and Bemish wasn't a picture of
sobriety either.
     "The difference? I guess, I will explain  to you, Kissur, what Giles is
doing. Giles represents a company that nobody knows  anything about. He says
that a private financier stays hidden behind the IC initials and he is ready
to  invest ten billion in this business. That's bullshit.  There are no such
investors."
     "Why is he doing that?"
     This is  chicanery. Whoever is behind Giles gets Assalah and issues the
new shares. Your planet desperately  lacks  the space  infrastructure,  it's
generally a state property, and  private  spaceport  investments  should  be
fantastically  profitable. The  stocks prices  rise through the  ceiling, IC
makes  billions  on  the  price  differential and  gets  out.  Shavash  gets
millions,  IC gets billions and  the  Federation  investors with  the Empire
nationals get a fly speck. I spent this week making enquires about IC. It is
a phantom. This is a trickster company that had a couple of projects on some
planets that nobody  has heard anything about, -  and these planets had been
expelled from the United Nations. A  planet that's not a UN  member - from a
financial viewpoint  -  Kissur,  is  a planet where  the  public  companies'
accounting doesn't have to follow the Federal financial committee standards.
They  have  a  well  developed system  -  they  bribe an official, issue the
stocks, advertising their "connections  to  the  government",  peddle  these
stocks to fools through a phony company, the stocks grow, the company cleans
the cream off, and then - kabloom! Got it?
     "Got  it,"  Kissur  said. "I got  it, that  our  companies have a merry
choice -  they can choose  between a disreputable  greenmailer and a company
like IC."
     Kissur left soon, having loud-mouthed the Federation envoy and publicly
promised some official to set the dogs at him, "If you, bastard, demonstrate
your disdain to the sovereign again  by parking  your ill-gotten with bribes
Rolls-Royce next to the Nut Pavilion."
     He  did, however, invite Bemish  for a dinner at Red Dog restaurant the
day after tomorrow.

        X X X

     The next day, Bemish returned to the city and went, first  thing, to DJ
securities.  The flower pot  with  summer hyacinths, right  in front  of the
office entrance, was bent  in by bulky jeep tires and people bustled through
the wide open office doors like ants in a smashed anthill.
     "What's going on?" Bemish inquired from Krasnov coming out to meet him.
     "Tax  police  visited  us,"  Krasnov  said.  "They  locked up  all  the
paperwork."
     "What laws did you break?"
     "You should  better ask  what laws we  didn't break! What laws  can you
avoid breaking in a country where the regulations are made not with the goal
of paying the taxes to the state but  with the goal of paying the hush money
to the tax collectors!"
     "Haven't you tamed the tax collectors?"
     "We? Come on, Bemish, every  month... They apologized - we  wouldn't do
it but we were ordered to..."
     "Who exactly signed the order?"
     "A man named Danisha. He is a protg of Shavash's, by the way."
     "Is it because of Assalah?"
     The broker shrugged his shoulders.
     "Have you seen the article?"
     ` "What article?"
     Krasnov took a battered yellowish newspaper from a desk drawer and gave
it to  Bemish. The  newspaper was local and Bemish was only able to make out
Shavash's picture and he was barely able to get the paper's name - Red Star.
On the picture, Shavash appeared from the waist up, presenting an outrageous
sight  with a girl,  dressed only in  a  band, coquettishly  tied around her
neck.
     "What is it about?"
     "It is  about the Assalah company investment auction, where a corrupted
and lewd official Shavash settled with  a foreign shark  Bemish to  sell him
Assalah for the price of a rotten melon."
     Bemish took  the newspaper with  him and, in  half  an  hour, he  drove
through Kissur's mansion gate.  The  majordomo  wordlessly walked him to the
living room; excited voices were coming from it. Bemish  entered. The voices
stopped. A  very  beautiful  thirty-year-old  woman, with the eyes, black as
boysenberries, and a black braid tied  around her head, rose to meet him. On
the  coach, dismayed  Shavash pressed  himself  against the pillows. Shavash
hurled the bundle of papers, he held in his hands, to the floor and said,
     "Let  me  introduce you - Terence Bemish - the house mistress."  Bemish
realized that Mrs. Idari, Kissur's wife, was in  front of him  and he  bowed
awkwardly. The woman laughed. Her laughter was akin to a silver bell.
     "Where is Kissur?" Bemish asked stupidly.
     "Kissur is not here," the official answered. "He will fly in tomorrow."
     Bemish suddenly felt himself blushing furiously.
     "I ... I will go... I didn't know..."
     "Please stay," Idari said politely, "I will leave. It is not  befitting
for a woman  to  stay  too long with a  man her husband hasn't introduced to
her."
     She  bowed  and  left  -  only the black braid  tied  around  her  head
glistened in the door. Bemish was looking after her  and blinking piteously.
Then, he turned to the official.
     "Sit down, " Shavash waved his hand, "sit down and eat. Every time this
obnoxious majordomo sees me with his mistress, he would even bring a peddler
to the room."
     The peddler comparison didn't please Bemish.
     Shavash took him by his  hand and walked him to a veranda where a round
table  covered for  two people stood next  to the gold-gilded rails. A plump
maid was  already standing next to a silver hand washing  jar. Bemish washed
his hands and dried them carefully  with an  embroidered towel and, when  he
turned around, the servants were already loading on the table a flat leather
dish with an aromatic mound of chopped steaming meat.
     Having propped himself on the pillows, Shavash watched the Earthman.
     "What is, "Shavash asked, "sticking out of your pocket?
     "The Red Star article."
     "Ahh," Shavash drawled. "These nutcases... Where did you get it, by the
way?"
     "My  broker  showed  it  to  me. Tax  police  busted  him. A  man named
Danisha."
     Bemish got used to Shavash enough to be ready now for an ugly snub from
him. He could  easily imagine Shavash smiling and saying, "Oh, Terence, what
should we do! The Earthmen  allow themselves  so  much  on Weia, it's scary!
These people had three different sets of books and didn't pay any taxes this
year. They can loose the license."
     But Bemish didn't expect to see what happened next.
     Shavash's eyebrows levitated in astonishment.
     "What are you saying!" the small official said. "Verily, if you send an
idiot to bring you water, he will revert a spring to your house!"
     He grabbed a T-phone off his belt.
     "Danisha," Shavash started speaking in the receiver in several seconds,
"what happened to DJ securities?"
     The receiver quacked.
     "I'll  show you three sets  of books," Shavash screamed. "I'll show you
taking the  license away!  You  will  bring  me  the fine,  they  paid  you,
personally. And you will bring me, what Giles paid you! You will bring it in
an hour or you can go away to Inissa as a cheese inspector in two hours."
     Shavash threw the receiver down.
     "Not convincing," Bemish said.
     "I have nothing  to do  with  it,"  Shavash snorted. "I just introduced
Danisha to this scoundrel of Giles."
     "And the Red Sun article is not yours."
     "Come on!" Shavash drawled. "That's disgusting sleaze. I would sue them
but I don't want to get my hands dirty."
     "Well, this article came out just right  for you. Now, you can refer to
the article to  say,  'if I  sell this company to Bemish,  I  will  lose  my
reputation."
     Shavash shrugged his shoulders.
     "I don't even want to listen  to you, Terence. Red Star is the zealots'
newspaper. They tried to assassinate me twice."
     "What zealots?"
     "You saw them yourself while walking with  Kissur -  remember  the iron
people show?"
     Bemish shuddered slightly. As if it's not enough, that  Shavash already
knew  who and when anyone visited Kissur's villa in Assalah! What's he doing
- does he follow Bemish's every step?
     "Where did this iron men story come from?"
     "It  was an old book," the finance vice-minister smiled,  "with an iron
braggart story.  There  was  a prophecy  at the end of the book, that at the
world's  end, plagues, hail and  dishonest officials will come, and the iron
men will crawl  out from  the  underground. I have  to say that  every  time
rebellions  or barbarian invasions happened in the Empire,  the rebels  were
thought to be the iron men. However,  once the rebels  took power, everybody
would  immediately realize  that they  were  not the iron  men.  As  for the
Earthmen -  you don't grab  the power and don't hang your enemies. Can't you
be anybody else but the iron men?"
     "The ones that crawl out from underground?"
     "The ones that crawl  out from the underground, eat  children's brains,
and carry nave  peasants and officials underground,  down  their  bewitched
halls, to inflict visions on them."
     "And how many people believe it?"
     "A lot of people," Shavash said, "peasants, officials, artisans. Hey, I
fired my secretary, Akhhar, because of that, right after our US tour."
     Bemish finally realized that Shavash was making fun of him.
     "Well," he said, smiling,  "you secretary,  having flown to  Earth,  is
unlikely to think that we crawled out of hell."
     "My friend," Shavash said, "Akhhar just considers it to be an allegory,
the wisdom of our ancestors who possessed the hidden knowledge and warned us
about  the  danger.  You  see,  when you  talk  about  science,  you  either
understand how a nuclear reactor works, or you don't. A myth,  meanwhile, is
capable of joining together the  most different people's groups and minds. A
simple peasant  understands the prophecy literally,  while an  educated  man
interprets it metaphorically."
     "And how," Bemish asked, "do the preachers understand the prophecy?"
     "Oh, while  talking to the authorities, they claim  it  is an allegory!
Are they idiots to admit that they know the real truth about the iron men?"
     "It's incredible," Bemish muttered. "Can't  you explain to your crazies
what's really going on?"
     "It's impossible to explain to them, it's only possible to hang them. I
think, however, that if we start hanging people for believing Earthmen to be
demons, than you, the demons, will raise a horrible buzz."
     Bemish lowered his head.
     "Don't feel bad. These  people have  a special  gift of quarrelling not
only with the state but also with each other.  Take cars, for  instance. One
sect will believes  that cars don't exist,  that they are  demonic phantoms,
and that  you are  not moving in a car  but rather  are  moved by  a demonic
force. Another one believes that the ancestors themselves sent  us the cars,
but the iron demons grabbed the gift on the way and used it illegally."
     Shavash picked the newspaper up, waved it at Bemish's nose and said.
     "I am  explaining all  this to you, Bemish, so that you  understand how
difficult it would be for me to get an article published in Red Star, where,
on the top of  it,  they christen me," Shavash squinted slightly and started
translating the text, "a foul dung beetle, "a cockroach with a sack  of gold
instead of the heart," and "the foam of sacrilege..."
     Shavash paused for a moment and unexpectedly added.
     "You know, what my conclusion from the article is?"
     Bemish  couldn't  help  but glance.  The dirty article, as it  has been
mentioned,  was  accompanied  by  the picture  of  Shavash naked  and Bemish
i