The small official was silent.
'Damn you,' Bemish said, 'if, perchance, your Emperor had woken up in a different mood today, I could have been hanged for real. I should hate you for your tricks.'
'And I should hate you.'
'Me?'
'All of you, Earthmen.'
'Why? What have we done to you?'
'What? Do you know what it means to be an official of the Empire that owns the world, and suddenly this Empire appears to be a pebble on a beach, crummy and penniless as well?'
'We, at least, left you free,' Bemish noted, 'but would you, Mr. Shavash, like this country to be occupied by another empire and you being turned into a slave who rubs his owner's back?'
'That's exactly right. You left us free. If I became a slave and rubbed my owner's back, I would be a headman there in two years and I would be manumitted and appointed to a minister position in two more years. But you left us free and I can become the first minister on Weia with no problem but, you have to agree, that even if I emigrate — what is the chance of me becoming a Federation Assembly member?'
Bemish gaped. He had not met yet such an interpretation of the fatherland independence concept. They drove in silence.
Parting with Bemish at the hotel cabin gate, Shavash suddenly grinned.
'You have a guest, don't you? I will not hinder your meeting.'
Indeed, a white like goose down Volvo dallied next to trimmed bushes and a man with a colorless face dressed in a cream colored suit — Richard Giles — walked back and forth the terrace. Bemish drew himself together.
'Good day,' Giles rendered, 'I have been waiting for you for three hours.'
'Why did you come around?'
'I came,' Giles said smiling, 'to offer you a job in our company.'
'Why is that?'
'Why not? We have a history of several projects that were carried out quite successfully…'
'You are nuts,' Bemish said, 'three blown soap bubbles in countries kicked out of UN…'
'Oh-oh,' Giles interrupted him, 'Nika and Sadun have joined UN a while ago and the Lakhar situation has started to improve recently…'
'But at the time you were there, they were not UN members yet.'
'Exactly,' Giles said. 'When we came here, they had nutcase governments in charge. That's why I am saying, 'successfully carried out projects', in spite of their evident financial bust.'
'What do you do?'
Giles silently pulled a plastic card out of his pocket and handed it to Bemish. It was an ID of a senior Federal Intelligence and Counterintelligence Bureau officer.
'I can't believe it,' Bemish said. 'I had no clue that our spies made billions on fake stocks. And afterwards they collect taxes from us for democracy development!'
'Yes,' Giles agreed. 'We usually offer not exactly reputable financial projects to our partners in the government of the country that makes us nervous. And these officials, having pocketed several millions, find out that if they want to have more millions and not to have a scandal, they should push certain political decisions through.'
'Why does this country make you nervous?'
'Weia? This country doesn't make anybody nervous. This country, Mr. Bemish, is now located in the Galaxy backyard and it will be there for another two hundred years… Whatever political adventures happen here, they will not cause problems for anybody except the Weians themselves. It's Gera that makes us nervous.'
'Gera?'
'Yeah. Weia is located halfway between Gera and the Federation planets. It is a strategically important Galaxy location — an ideal base for the defense forces — and if it gets to a war between Gera and the Federation, it would be better if…'
'If the war happened around a corrupted planet in the Galaxy's backyard,' Bemish completed.
Giles nodded.
'And how are you going to transform a financial gamble in a military base?'
'Like a charm. We buy the company, we build as many bases as we can, we do the construction behind barbed wire, we do not publish financial reports and we arrange a leak claiming that the barbed wire is caused by the total absence of any construction. The company's shares plummet; the defense committee buys all the securities and announces that it has a military base for a scrap of the price. '
'Are you serious?'
'Come on! You can build a business center on this planet calling it a garbage processing facility. You can make narcotics using tax breaks reserved for the production of medical drugs! A military spaceport instead of a civil one — is nothing by local standards!'
'Why are you telling me this?'
'You upset our plans and became the company director. Now you are going to build the base.'
'Will you leave on your own,' Bemish inquired, 'or should I throw you over the rails?'
'Don't you want to help your own country?'
'You are out of your mind,' Bemish said. 'You wanted to drown me in shit! You made this mucky tape — now I understand why Shavash assured us it would withstand any examination — and when they sent you to hell, you have a gall to come to me with this talk.'
'That's your personal aggravation. What about the good of the country?'
'The good of the country!' the raider exploded. 'The good of the country is when the state doesn't stick its nose in corporate business! I guarantee you that, in half an hour, I will find in your project five incorrect decisions and ten less-than-optimal ones! I haven't seen a state project that was less than three times pricier than a private one! Why? Because, the more expensive the project is, the more important the official in charge of it feels! You can't save a penny and here you are, discussing the good of the country. Save money on this construction and this will be for the good of the country!'
'Is that all?' Giles queried.
'No, that's not all! This is only economics. As for the rest, what you call 'preventive actions' is what actually starts wars. You say, 'We don't want to fight but we should be able to defend ourselves!' Gerans say, 'We don't want to fight but they built a military base right under our nose!' Before five years pass, both sides will be armed to their teeth, the taxes that you collected from me will turn to vapor, and you'll raise your hands on TV screens and catechize, 'The Gerans wouldn't be so impudent if we invested five billion more in defense!' And the citizens squawk and give you five more billion!'
Having heard this, Giles, instead of leaving, sat in a low armchair, trimmed to the floor with feathers, leaned all the way back and asked.
'So, do you think that there is no difference between the democracy officials and the Weian ones?'
'There is a difference,' Bemish said. 'Here, the state is set up in such a way that the officials' pickings go directly to their pockets. Democracy doesn't give you this opportunity. You, however, have an opportunity to push through the projects that will require tripling the taxes I pay but will also enlarge your departments and demonstrate your importance. If you simply embezzled, it would cause less harm.'
'So, you won't work on our project.'
'No. If Gera is dangerous, try to push this project through congress.'
'One month before your arrival,' Giles said imperturbably, 'I talked to Mr. Shavash. I found out that we could pay the state a billion and a half, get the permit and build the military base ourselves. We could also pay the state a billion and a half, get the permit and build the civil spaceport. We could also pay seven million not to the state but rather to Shavash, and then the state will take care of the above mentioned construction. A dummy front company would get the spaceport, both sides would share the expenses and, if the reporters on Gera or Earth ferreted out anything about the construction, Earth would have nothing to do with it — see, the Weian officials, known for their ingrained tendency to cheat their own people, started quietly to make a military base out of a civil spaceport.'
