Kissur turned around and stared at Giles. The IC representative feigned a yawn.
'It's time to go,' Giles claimed. 'I can give a ride to the capital to anybody except the jeep.'
'Terence will stay here,' Kissur said. 'We will ride horses together.'
Kissur nodded to one of his companions and he jumped of the horse. They walked the horse closer to Bemish and he stared in a large brown eye. The horse chewed on its mouthpiece and her sides rose and lowered. The horse watched Bemish and Bemish watched the horse.
'This is the tail,' Kissur said, 'this is the head and the driver's seat is in the middle. What are you waiting for? Get in.'
'I don't like,' Bemish replied, 'that it moves before I turn the ignition on.'
Kissur and his servants laughed agreeably.
Bemish, however, had to climb on the horse and trek through a crazy forest where the power line poles entwined by lianas grew instead of the trees. Bemish tired out, battered his butt and finally almost drowned in a lawn which in reality proved to be a swamp inside a landing chute.
Kissur said, that he would cripple the horse riding this way, and Bemish said that he would like to observe Kissur driving a car ten years ago. Then, Kissur sent his people off with the horses and walked on foot next to Bemish. Bemish enquired, where they were going, and Kissur explained that the future owner of the spaceport should better get acquainted with the local villages. 'In ancient times, a good official always arrived to his appointment region incognito, to learn the problems and difficulties of the oppressed locals,' Kissur said with admonition. Bemish wanted to point out, that he was not an official and he was not going to solve the locals' problems, but he was afraid of overdoing it and he shut up.
By the evening, they both departed from the spaceport through a hole in the wall and walked in the dusk down a beautiful beaten dusty road, winding by the neatly planted gardens and rice paddies. They were both unbelievably dirty. Kissur braided a water lily wreath for himself and dashed around the road, laughing.
'Kissur,' Bemish said, 'I have a request for you.'
'Yes?'
'The spaceport is built on the peasant land, even though there is a lot of state land around. But it was built on the communal land and the families were handed shares in the way of compensation. I could buy them out.'
'How much will you pay them?'
Bemish hesitated. He would happily buy them for a rice vodka jug but he could still see the whip marks on the Krasnov's shoulders.
'These shares aren't liquid, Kissur. They cost no more than three hundred isheviks each. I am ready to pay this money.'
'And, when you build the spaceport, will each one cost three hundred thousand? You will swindle this money out of the peasants.'
'They will not cost three hundred thousand if I don't build the spaceport.'
'Shavash told me that you are not even going to build it.'
Bemish shuddered.
'Shavash said,' Kissur continued, 'that you make money, buying a company stocks, and then threatening the company management, till they buy the stocks back at triple price, and that you are reputed to be such a man, a greenmailer. Is it true?'
'Yes,' Bemish said.
'So, are you going to buy Assalah?'
'I am.'
'Why haven't you bought the other companies before?'
'I wanted to buy them. Only, the stock price increased so much during the fight, that it would be stupid to buy them. As Shavash maybe told you, two companies, whose management bought me off, went bankrupt.'
'Has it happened because of you?'
'It was their choice to set a ludicrous stock price.'
'The same will happen to Assalah, won't it? The price will seem too high for you, you will sell the stocks and the company will go bankrupt.'
I don't think so. You see, enormous amount of money was sunk in Assalah and, despite all this view around us, — Bemish here gestured with his arm encompassing the bamboo growth far away and the semicircular administration center hulk, looking like an empty watermelon rind- despite all this, the spaceport is more than three quarters built. If we try hard, the first ships will start landing practically in six months. You heard, why it was abandoned — to cost very cheap. Also, everybody has heard, that it's dangerous to invest in a market like yours, but not everybody understands that spaceports and, also, interstellar communication systems are the only safe parts of your economy. This item will not be abandoned at any government and it depends on the local communications, in the least, because its main profits come from the sky. Assalah costs now less than two eateries in the middle of Toronto but, really, it is impossibly under priced. So, the stock price may increase tenfold but it will still be a good acquisition.
Kissur was silent for a moment.
'Are you buying the Assalah stocks now?'
'Yes.'
'How much do you have?'
'The Empire Fund Committee requires registration of any company stock acquisition of more than 5 %. I have more now but I would ask you to keep it confidential. I haven't registered it.'
'How is it possible?'
'Several companies act as the dummy agent stockholders for me.'
Kissur paused and asked then,
'What is this investment auction of yours?'
'Ffty one percent of government stocks will be divided in two blocks — 20 % and 31 %. As you see, I will have a controlling block of shares even if I get only a 20 % block at the auction.'
'Wouldn't it be better to offer a good price at the auction?'
'I am not entirely satisfied by the tender conditions. They are defined so cleverly that they allow, for instance, the government to raise the price after the winner is selected.'
'What, if you don't come out as a winner, and Shavash sells the company to somebody else, will you sell these stocks with a multiple-fold profit?'
'I will buy Assalah.'
Kissur was silent. The birds fluttered out of the grass, a lost cow mooed far away in the field, and the sun, round like a pumpkin, rolled above the Earthman's and the Empire ex-first minister's heads.
'What did the clerks do? The ones bankrupted by you?'
'What clerks?'
'Well, these…' Kissur clicked his fingers, 'general directors.'
'Nothing. They are civilized people.'
'Now remember this, Bemish. I will help you. But, if you do as Shavash said, I will shoot you.'
Kissur got up and walked down the road.
Richard Giles, the IC company representative, found the finance vice-minister, Shavash, performing a ceremony. Shavash walked stately around the new building of Adako bank carrying in his hands a golden basin, with a burning candle floating on a splinter, and two dozen children in the identical silk clothes followed him with the same candles in their arms.
Numerous gapers enjoyed the view.
Shavash entered the building, sluiced water on the marble floor and, with the proper words, handed the basin to the new bank's president — his good friend's nephew.
When the ceremony finished in five minutes, Shavash withdrew to the future director's office. Giles followed him. Shavash dropped the billowing silk vestment and an impeccable white suit underneath revealed itself.
'Oh, that's you, Dick,' he said. 'Welcome here, how didn't I see you at the ceremony start?'
'I flew to Assalah,' Giles replied dryly. 'Bemish was also there.'
