'Mr. Shavash,' Yanik asked, 'what is your monthly salary?'
'It is three hundred isheviks,' Your Eminence.
Is it true that your last toy, a private space yacht of the Emerald class cost four hundred fifty thousand isheviks?'
'It was a friends' gift,' the official smiled.
'Mr. Shavash,' Yanik said, 'Tas'Salim is the our country's most important construction. We must find money for it. Otherwise, we will take care of your yacht. Do you understand me?'
'Quite.'
Shavash returned to his luxurious office sincerely upset. He snapped at the secretary, flung a fashionable jacket on the chair's back, threw himself in the armchair, and sat immobile for a while. Those, who knew Shavash superficially, would be certain that he was upset by the first minister's open threat — the beautiful yacht clearly aggravated some people. However strange it may sound, Shavash was upset due to totally different reasons. In any case, in the absolute quietude of his office equipped with a dozen counter-tapping devices, he allowed himself to wrap his hands around his head and quietly utter,
'What are they doing? Do these fuckers understand what they are doing?'
He turned the office speaker on and ordered. 'Daren! Could you find Stephen Sigel for me, quickly?'
Stephen Sigel was a representative of Naren and Lissa Joint Bank, the twelfth largest bank in this Galaxy sector; he had showed up on Weia a week ago hoping to start joint projects.
Stephen Sigel appeared in the first finance vice-minister's office in two hours.
'Mr. Sigel,' Shavash rushed head-on, 'the Weian government would like to obtain a seventy million galactic dinar loan immediately from the Naren and Lissa Joint Bank for six months at a nineteen percent interest. Could we do it?'
Stephen Sigel swallowed. 19 % interest was a very sweat deal. The Federation bonds had 7 % interest rate, the Earth Bonds — 7.5 %. Though, the Weian Empire finances were, no doubt, in a way worse state than the Earth's finances, the bank would've considered 16 % to be quite a decent number.
'Yes,' Stephen Sigel said.
'Great,' the official replied, 'the credit agreement will be signed one hour after one half of a percent from the loan appears on my table, in an envelope.'
Next morning, one hour before the government meeting, the first vice-minister of finance Shavash put on the first minister Yanik's table the credit agreement with the Naren and Lissa Joint Bank.
'Here is your seventy million,' he said, 'I assume there is no point including it in the budget revenue. The money is allocated as an out-of-budget industry support fund.
He turned away and left the office.
'He is such an incredibly deft man,' the touched first minister thought, 'How has he managed to procure money so quickly?'
Of course, the first minister understood vaguely that there was some connection between Shavash's ability to obtain galactic credits quickly and his buying trinkets like a private space yacht. On the other hand, the first minister enjoyed the thought that the money Shavash grabbed on this deal, paled next to the rake-off his twice removed grandson would make buying the galactic equipment for his company from the front intermediaries at doubled prices.
The same day, when the budget problems for the Galaxy's fourth largest aluminum facility were happily solved, McCormick, Welsey, and Bemish drove to another construction — also state-owned and also humongous.
Halfway to their destination, they almost drowned in a huge pothole — the road started again in seven meters after the rut. An oldster, living nearby, gathered the people and they dragged the jeep across the pothole on a sledge. They charged so little that Bemish even relinquished his suspicions about the old guy digging the hole himself to make money on it. Later Bemish learned that two districts joined at that point and their heads could not agree on who would fix the pothole.
At the ruins, Bemish felt such sadness as he had never felt in his life before — from the inconceivable waste of nature and construction equipment. The black gate on the landing field lonely stuck out on the blue sky background like a victory arch, it was decorated by various appeals to gods and demons. Ponds, yellow and round like owl eyes, bloomed in the landing chutes. The giant overpass had fallen apart, grass and flowers grew on the poles and the blocks, ants dashed back and forth on the road designed for multi-ton trucks.
An even and incredibly thorny hedge with little blue flowers and half inch barbs covered exactly half the space field making it look like a forest surrounding the Sleeping Beauty's castle. Alas, the thorns didn't disappear with Bemish's arrival.
The spaceport administration wing was cleaved at the first floor level and an elevator chute pointed right in the sky. There was no way, somebody could work here but Bemish remembered clearly an office expenditures entree in a company report and it was about this building. There was something horrifying in this place that ceased to be a part of nature but didn't become a part of the industrial world.
'However, the construction' expenses will be twice lower here,' Bemish noted.
The sun was hurrying up to noon, when Bemish and McCormick left the building for a small bamboo grove rattling in the background of the bright stainless steel hangar. Bemish saw that they were not the only ones here — a helicopter stood on the fanned out paws behind the bamboo grove and the wind, raised by its wings, entangled gentle green grass stuck to the landing field. Bemish walked down to the helicopter. Under its belly, a man, in washed out jeans, laid out a napkin and was eating a ham sandwich. Having recognized Giles from IC, Bemish smirked. Another man stood nearby, petting on the back a red horse with white stockings — Kissur.
'Good day,' Bemish said, approaching. 'Did you fly in together?'
'No,' Kissur said, 'I am riding.'
And he pointed to the side, where two more riders were circling — Khanadar the Dried Date and a servant.
'Did you ride here from the capital?' Welsey was shocked.
'I have friends nearby, and they have a private airport,' Kissur explained.
'Yeah, they know how to build here,' Welsey said, 'they juiced five billions in and nobody even mows the hay down. Why don't they, do you have any idea?'
'They are afraid of ghosts,' Bemish supposed.
'Exactly right,' Kissur said, 'Do you know how a witch gets born?'
None of the Earthmen was a witch genesis specialist and Kissur explained.
Sometimes, a temple or even a simple house is built at a road intersection and then the world changes its masters, the temple gets forgotten or a house owner moves away, God knows where to. The house cries, grows older, grass grows on the roof and a hat of moss covers the gate poles. Water starts to cut doodles and lines on the pole and a crow builds a nest there. In the evening, the locals get frightened passing by the pole — they think, somebody is standing guard in the dark. The fear grows into the pole, covers its features and seeps in its soul. The pole's soul gets born of fear and wind, it starts to watch the moon and walk in the rain and slush — that's how a pole witch appears.
Kissur pointed at the wide open gate on the summer field and added. 'Who knows, maybe these poles also stroll around at night?'
Giles chortled. Kissur turned to Bemish and asked.
'So, does it cost a lot?'
'You should ask McCormick,' Bemish replied. 'I am not a specialist here. My field is finance.'
'They abandoned the construction to sell it cheaper afterwards,' McCormick said. 'They built it for a while and abandoned in three years.'
'Why was it exactly three years?' Kissur wondered.
'Because, accordingly to your laws, a start-up company is salary tax-exempt and can import equipment with half the custom tariffs for three years,' Bemish replied.
'Ahh,' ex-minister drawled, 'and whom are they going to sell it to?'
'Not to me,' Bemish noted.
