Insider

calamari on the market if the calamari are from the left river, where the leather processing plant 'flows' to.'

'Got you,' Kissur said, 'let's go then.'

They drove over the river across a blue lacquered bridge, loaded with market stalls and people. Kissur stopped on the bridge in front of a wreath shop, bought three of them, put one on his neck, another on Bemish's and later left the third one in the temple of the Sky Swans.

After that, Kissur drove Bemish around the city.

The city, that Bemish hadn't seen yet, was both beautiful and ugly. Temple turrets and muraled precinct gates mixed with astonishing five storied shanty houses built from the stuff that Bemish wouldn't dare to build a cardboard box; potters on the floating market sold enticing jars painted with grasses and flowers and empty rainbow hued Coke bottles. Melon peels and colorful wraps floated down the canal — the remnants of everything that grew on Weia and came from the skies, everything that found a place in the mammoth belly of the Sky City but didn't find a place in the weak bowels of its sewage.

They watched a puppet show at the market based on a new popular TV series demonstrating the mutual integration of the cultures; they fed holy mice and dropped by the Temple of Isia-ratouph, where stone gods dressed in long caftans and high suede boots nodded to visitors if they dropped coins (bought here) down a slot in the wall.

Kissur showed the Earthman a wonderful town clock made in the very beginning of the sovereign Kassia's rule. There were twenty three thousand figurines next to the clock, a thousand for an every province, and they all represented officials, peasants and artisans. They spun in front of the dial displaying a blue mountain. Bemish asked why the mountain was blue and Kissur answered that was the mountain that stood above the sky and had four colors — blue, red, yellow and orange. The blue side of the mountain faces the Earth — that's why sky is blue. The orange side of the mountain faces the gods, hence the sky above the place where gods live is orange.

This was a standard cultural program except for the fact the director of a modest company registered in the state of Delaware, USA, Federation of Nineteen was accompanied by one of the richest people in the Empire.

Finally, Kissur stopped at a temple somewhere at the city outskirts. He, probably, stopped there because of a two thousand step long staircase leading to the temple. Kissur started running up the steps and Bemish desperately tried to keep up. He was out of breath and his heart was pounding in the chest, but the Earthman and the Weian got to the top of the colonnade side by side, looked at each other and laughed.

'Like a pig race,' Kissur said, gasping for breath, 'Terence, have you seen a pig race?'

'No.'

'We must go there. I threw away twenty thousand last week on this Red Nose bastard.'

It was dark and cool inside the temple. A bronze god in a brocade caftan and high suede boots sat amidst green and gold columns and his wife sat in the next hall. Kissur said that Weians didn't put much stock in bachelor gods. A god should be a good family man and an exemplary father, otherwise what can he expect from people?

Bemish listened to the strange silence in the temple and perused the face of the god and the family man.

'By the way, where did you learn to fight?'

'My father taught me,' Bemish said, 'he was a well-known sportsman. I almost became one myself.'

The ex-first minister's eyebrows, furled in contempt were visible even in the temple dusk

'Sportsman…' he drawled, 'it's a shameful business to fight for plebeian delight. Why haven't you become a warrior?

Terence Bemish was amazed. To say the truth, it has never occurred to him to join the army, not even in his wildest dreams.

'The army,' Bemish said, 'is for losers.'

The ex-premier grinned.

'Yes,' he replied, 'for an Earthman, anything that can't procure wealth is for losers. The Earthmen make money out of wars no longer; they make money out of money.

'I didn't mean that,' Bemish objected, 'I want to be myself and not a trigger pulling machine. The army means the loss of freedom.'

'Crap,' said Kissur, 'the army is the only way to freedom. There is nobody between a warrior and god.'

'Maybe,' Bemish agreed, 'only our army hasn't fought for the last one hundred thirteen years.'

They left the hall, walked through a rock and flower garden and found themselves in another temple wing — enticing smells wafted from there and Bemish saw cars with diplomatic plate licenses through a twined lattice. Bemish thought the temple rented this house out but Kissur told him that an eatery had always been there.

They walked down into the yard. A fountain babbled in the yard inconsolably and people sat at the tables under the swaying yellow tents. Kissur seated Bemish at a table, grabbed a passing waiter, plucked two wine jars from his basket and ordered food.

'So,' Kissur said, pouring spicy palm wine down the clay mugs, 'you have never been to a war. What do you do then?'

'I am in finance. The company that belongs to me will possibly be interested in buying some stuff here.'

'Are you rich?'

'You don't have to be rich in order to acquire a company. You just have to have a reputation of a man who can triple the stock price of this company in a year and a financial company who can raise money for you.'

'Aha. Do you have one?'

'Yes. My colleague Welsey represents it. It's LSV bank.'

'Are foreign banks allowed here?'

'LSV is not a deposit bank. They are in investment business, 'Bemish said, feeling slightly offended for the fifth largest investment bank in the Galaxy.

Here, Kissur astounded Bemish. The ex-first minister of the Empire of the Great Light looked at Bemish and asked,

'Oh, do banks engage in anything beyond usury?'

Bemish was silent for a moment. Then he carefully inquired,

'Kissur, do you know what a stock is?'

'Hmm,' the ex-minister said, 'it's when you get a loan?'

Bemish almost choked.

'Am I not right?'

'When they loan money and issue securities it is called bonds.'

'That's what I am saying. Isn't it the same thing?'

'No,' Bemish said, 'When a company issues stocks, whoever buys a stock becomes a co-owner of the company and has a right to vote at a stock holder meeting. He also gets dividends and their size depends on the company's performance. On the other hand, when a company issues bonds, it means that it borrows money and whoever buys bonds will have guaranteed payments till the loan will be paid off, if the company does not go bankrupt, of course.'

'Oh, how interesting,' Kissur said; he snapped his fingers and shouted,

'Chief! Where is the jellyfish?'

Bemish had never eaten marinated jellyfish before and he wasn't particularly curious about it; he sincerely wished that the place ran out of them. However, the jellyfish arrived, looking like a pile of broken plexiglass smothered in with red sauce, and Kissur continued,

'What company are you aiming at?'

'The company that received a concession for the Assalah spaceport construction. Since the sovereign owns 65 % of the company's capital, accordingly to your laws he appointed the company director — Mr. Shavash.'

Kissur, having some vague recollection that Shavash owned twelve more companies like that including the Galaxy's second biggest (and rated one hundred eighteenth in efficiency) uranium mine, silently nodded.

'Are you definitely buying it?'

'It depends on a number of factors.'