Insider

A phone call interrupted his calculations.

'I have news about Inis,' over the receiver he heard Giles' cold voice.

'Finally. Where is she?'

'You should better come to the villa.'

In half an hour Bemish stood in a far corner of his luxurious garden, next to a carved gazebo entwined with ivy. He stood near an ornamental well that was a necessary feature — together with a hermit's hut and tame deer — of a country manor. Nobody used it for the original purpose since running water available was available. But tame beasts started behaving strange next to the well and three hours ago a meticulous gardener had taken a look into it in case something was wrong.

Bemish stood and watched two security service guys, clad in tight rubber and leather, pulling a white swollen body over the well's edge. Far away in the sky among the stars, danced blue and yellow lights of the rising ships and a bold nightingale in a neighboring bush was singing a song accompanied by a chorus of night cicadas.

'Do you know what Blue Sun will publish tomorrow?' Giles moved nearby. 'It will write that a foreign vampire killed his lover and hid her body in an abandoned well.

Bemish turned and Giles saw with horror that the businessman's grey eyes were as empty as a safe that robbers had broken into. Then, the general director of Assalah Company swayed and, unconscious, slowly collapsed in Giles's hands.

THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER Where the nation expresses its will with unpredictable results

Two months passed by. Preparations for the elections were at their peak. Throughout the whole country, the officials had their precinct gates wide open and fed their future electorate with, square like Weia, rice pies and with, round like the sky, wheat pies. Throughout the whole country, zealots performed shows about iron people. Throughout the whole country, entrepreneurs and traders made donations to the officials' election campaigns instead of bribing them.

Bemish spent this time flying around the Galaxy. The people closest to him knew that he was horribly upset about Inis' death. The Earthman hadn't stepped out of his bedroom for the first two days and, then, he threw himself into his business like a fish dives into the ocean with an evident and almost hysterical desire to drive the recent events out of his mind.

Various suggestions were made about the murderer's identity, including the ex-first minister Yanik and the Following the Way; a number of people suspected them to be connected. Mr. Yanik, alike the zealots, didn't approve of the Empire being bought by the people from the stars. He wholeheartedly wanted his friends to buy the Empire but, unfortunately, the people from the stars had more money.

Shavash was also mentioned quite often; people said that the vengeful official had killed Ashinik in retaliation for the old assassination attempt and that he had killed the woman because once Bemish hadn't shared her with him and also to mislead the investigation. They said that the Earthman grieved so much because he knew who the man behind the murder was but he could avenge it only by destroying his business in the process. Frankly, the comments hit reasonably close to the truth.

Another rumor was also popular — the Earthman had knifed the woman to demonstrate his grief and to alleviate the suspicions about his love for another woman — they mentioned Idari quite loudly.

They searched for Ashinik very thoroughly, sometimes suspecting him of his wife's murder and sometimes thinking that he had been killed together with his wife as a traitor. But Ashinik disappeared without a trace. They, however, found the man who had handed the papers about the spaceport's military future to the zealots. It was the marxist technician who had arrived with Ashidan at Kissur's villa and spied on the spaceport later.

Bemish went to see what was what left of this man. The next day, during negotiations in Los Angeles Bemish would catch himself thinking occasionally about possible reactions of his polite colleague in tortoise glasses if this colleague knew that six hours ago the respectable director of Assalah Company had cold-bloodedly observed how an alive man had his flesh cut off him bit after bit and how this man screamed at the top of his lungs that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing about Inis.

X X X

Having traveled for a month, Bemish returned to Weia. He had practically finished the negotiations concerning BOAR. At the spaceport, he ran into a flock of journalists who arrived to monitor the fairness of the election preparations. One of the journalists asked him, 'What do you estimate Yadan's chances to win the elections are?'

Three hours before Bemish's arrival, the leader of the White Sect, a mortal foe of the Earthmen and, therefore a mortal foe of all their inventions such as democracy, credit cards and pizza, had declared that he would participate in the elections.

'What are Yadan's chances?' Bemish was astonished.

'He is a madman who believes that Earthmen are demons. He looks at my spaceport and says that I built a hole to hell. He says that he climbs a ladder to the sky every morning and there are no Earthmen here. It means that all our ships and equipment are phantoms and our spaceports are holes leading underground. He also says that he was born out of a golden egg.'

The journalist grinned and asked, 'Why, in this case, does Ashinik follow Yadan in the party's hierarchy? He was a vice-president in your company and he seems to have worked under the billionaire Ronald Trevis. Does he also think that the spaceport is a hole leading underground?'

Bemish froze. Ashinik is alive! The journalist pursed his lips and said, 'Aren't you ashamed to repeat the rumors spread by corrupted officials to discredit the people's leaders?'

The next day, Bemish read an article about Weia in an influential and, therefore, liberal newspaper Standard Times. The article was written by the abovementioned journalist. The article presented the election company on

Weia as the fight between the corrupted officials and the true democratic representatives of the people. Yadan was the true democratic representative of the people. The corrupted officials and certain Earthmen who had reaped off a lot of money robbing Weia tried all they could to smear the people's leader.

An interview with Yadan followed the article. The journalist asked Yadan, 'Is it true that you consider Earthmen to be demons?'

'I don't know where this crazy rumor came from. You see, Mr. Bemish doesn't speak Weian very well. You sometimes say 'Go to hell' and we say 'You are a demon, go home.' It could be that one of my friends swore at Bemish and he, not really understanding our culture, took this expression literally. I can give you another example. Some Earthmen started a rumor that Following the Way claimed that their leader had been born out of a golden egg. But it's just a metaphorical expression. 'To be born out of a golden egg' is equivalent to your expression 'to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.'

Having finished the article, Bemish ordered Ashinik to be delivered to him. It appeared to be a difficult task. Even though Ashinik was no longer in hiding, he appeared everywhere accompanied by a triple layer of bodyguards. Bemish had to limit himself to the zealot's satellite phone number which was known only to a dozen people. He called him and screamed at him in perfect Weian, 'I don't really speak Weian, do I? Was it your invention, Ashinik, to use Earth media to strengthen the sect's position? Was it your idea to persuade a passerby pen pusher that he knew the subtleties of local culture better than the Assalah Company director?'

'Ai-tana khari (Demon, go home),' Ashinik replied sarcastically and he dropped the receiver.

Bemish was pissed off to such a degree that he gave an order to fire Ashinik. The latter had still been formally a member of the Board of Directors.

Together with the majority of the Earthmen living and working in the Empire Bemish found himself facing a strange problem. On one hand, the local Earthmen understood perfectly well — better than the local officials — what exactly the so-called party of the people's freedom, led by co-chairmen Yadan and Ashinik, was about. It would not be difficult to start a large scale media campaign against these people. But such a campaign would crash the Weian stock market because nothing is as easy to scare away as money. At the same time, this