Insider

people's freedom, the ex-sect Following the Way.

The same day, the sovereign declared the results invalid and issued arrest warrants for Yadan and Ashinik, two best known leaders of the sect.

Yadan disappeared. Ashinik escaped to Earth. His arrival caused a huge sensation in the liberal media. He was a charming twenty two year old young man with perfect English, a year's working experience as a vice president in a large trans galactic company and a one year college experience in an elite business school. He totally didn't look like somebody accused by Weian authorities of terrorism, manipulation of people's minds, mass hypnosis and the literal understanding of the electoral campaign slogan 'Earthmen are demons.'

Two days after his escape, Ashinik gave a long interview on the seventh intergalactic TV channel. He explained all of the rumors attacking the party of the people's freedom in a very simple way. The officials had decided to run the elections hoping to obtain more power than they had before. When the people's party won the elections, the results were declared invalid and a huge incomparable libel campaign started against the party.

They asked Ashinik if his party was going to nationalize the foreign companies' property if it came to power.

'No,' Ashinik answered, 'but we were going to make businessmen and financiers of the Federation of Nineteen follow the Federation's laws.'

As an example, Ashinik referred to Terence Bemish. Mr. Bemish had created one of the largest industrial companies on Weia and Ashinik had worked for him for a year. Terence Bemish bought eighteen million dollars worth of Ichar non-ferrous metals facility stocks in an hour after his friend Shavash had cleared this facility's sale to MetalUranium Company and a day before the deal went public. Terence Bemish made thirty million.

Terence Bemish bought twenty million worth of gold loan bonds after Shavash's close friend Oshin had announced that the payments on this loan's interest would possibly be postponed; this announcement dropped the bonds' prices by forty percent. Oshin was fired in a week, the bonds' value grew back to the same level and Terence Bemish made sixteen millions. In a week, Bemish hired Oshin as a manager of one of his funds.

'These actions resemble insider trading too much; they would cause legal proceedings to happen anywhere else in the world,' Ashinik claimed.

'Clearly, Terence Bemish has bought securities knowing that their value would increase sharply. Persecution of these criminal activities doesn't threaten the market. On the opposite, it would guarantee equal opportunity for everyone. As for Assalah Company,' Ashinik explained, 'it hasn't only provided ships with landing opportunities; it also has allowed the ship owners to avoid paying import tariffs. A conveyor belt of export-import companies was created at the spaceport with every company's life time being two months. Accordingly to Weian regulations, a company should issue tax reports every two months and, if it exists less than that, it just doesn't pay any taxes. Of course, the local officials knew everything about it but they were browbeaten or bought off. The companies were used for two purposes. Mostly a successor company would fulfill its predecessor's obligations in full but sometimes, if Bemish or Shavash needed to punish somebody, the successor would not pay for the goods or, inversely, wouldn't deliver prepaid merchandise. It was not difficult since most freight didn't have accompanying documentation issued. That's why Assalah imports were thirty percent cheaper than imports via any other spaceport.'

'Does it mean,' a journalist inquired, 'that having gained power you will collect all the tariffs in full?'

'No,' the clever Havishem graduate answered, 'quite the opposite, we will lower tariffs. We are against protectionism and limiting foreign trade. But I would like to stress that Yanik's government charged some companies and didn't charge the others. This is not protectionism of domestic industry. They favor some importers at the price paid by the others and this is even worse than protectionism.'

The journalist inquired how conscientiously Assalah paid its taxes and Ashinik said that the year before last, Bemish had paid the taxes with the bonds of bankrupted Weian National Bank. The trick was that Bemish had bought the securities on Exchange at 7 % of their face value while the state budget accepted them at 100 % of their face value.

The last year they started experimenting issuing tax promissory notes on Weia. These promissory notes were securities based a company's debts to the treasury. Everybody knew that Bemish wouldn't pay anything on these promissory notes and they cost 3–4% of their face value. Bemish bought them at this price via dummy fronts and he didn't have to pay the taxes this year anymore. Bemish also acquired a lot of promissory notes of the companies that he had some designs for and the state helped him to exchange the notes into the stocks of these companies.

The Assalah securities didn't take this interview well — their price plummeted by thirty points.

Bemish ordered his employees to compile and send to Earth a small ethnographic report about the activities of Following the Way, so that the

TV audience could clearly understand that the political goals of the sect were not limited to the removal of protectionism and insider trading in stock market.

The next day, Ashinik made an official announcement that nuclear weapons were stored in Assalah spaceport including Cassiopeia nuclear missiles equipped with S-field that had been delivered there accordingly to a secret treaty between the Empire and the Federation governments. The proliferation of these missiles had been banned accordingly to the S-armament non-proliferation treaty signed by the UN countries.

Bemish called this statement a horrible lie.

Ashinik demanded the spaceport to be inspected by the people.

Bemish announced that he would not allow a people's inspection because a Weian peasant would not see any difference between a nuclear missile and a landing stabilizer support and he, Bemish, didn't want somebody to throw an explosive device in a landing chute during such an 'inspection.' All this 'people's inspection' was demagoguery anyway, why didn't experts just come in and inspect whatever they want to?

Ashinik claimed that Earth experts would be bought by Bemish and the Federation counter-intelligence.

Bemish announced that he didn't understand what a people's inspection was.

Ashinik promised to explain to Bemish what a people's inspection was.

X X X

Two days later, the spaceport security service informed Bemish that a crowd was moving towards the spaceport. Almost synchronously, two dozen zealots, that had infiltrated the lounge before, descended to the storage area to reclaim their luggage containing rocket launchers and other assorted killing utensils.

The luggage had been X-rayed earlier and the zealots were arrested in flagrant delicti. Bemish announced that it was an organized terrorist activity and, if the people's inspection was going to happen along the same lines, he wouldn't allow it. The zealots were taken to the capital and all the confessions were beaten out of them quite quickly.

Bemish issued to order to guard the whole spaceport's perimeter closely and to allow only ticket holders inside the port due to the emergency situation. The next day, he showed to the journalists two bombs extracted from an unknown man's luggage; the man arrived at the spaceport with a ticket to the planet of Gera and left the spaceport in an unknown direction.

Ashinik claimed that Bemish had engineered the whole thing himself just as he had with the zealots and rocket launchers. As for their 'confession' to the Weian police, Ashinik noted that Mr. Shavash could make an elephant confess that it was a mouse in disguise. Ashinik claimed that the protests were perfectly peaceful.

A huge crowd of zealots blocked the spaceport. The journalists from all over the Galaxy flew to Assalah in search of prize news.

New people arrived at the roadblocks every day. They introduced themselves to the journalists as 'simple peasants that didn't like their motherland being traded away for a jar of sour cream.' Bemish, on the other hand, claimed that they were not peasants but staunch zealots.

The traffic on the highway connecting Assalah to the capital was completely paralyzed. Two monorails, Assalah — Sky City and Assalah — I–Chakhar, were used for cargo transport. The blocked-off area in the vicinity of the monorails was controlled by the satellites launched specifically for this purpose; the satellites called alarm three times a day and the trains had to be stopped; the cargo transportation schedule went to hell.

Trucks traveled in groups accompanied by sharpshooters. Bemish announced that the spaceport's administration would not take any responsibility for the people's safety if they used passenger cars to get to the capital. The car rental agencies went hysterical. The helicopter drivers lived in the state of bliss. Three hundred