'Nissan 254, ' one of the guards said, 'last model.'
'Such ignorance,' the other said, 'how can you visit a high official's house without gifts. Such an uncultured man!'
Welsey's next visit was to the land rights precinct. He needed to find out the exact status of the peasant and state lands acquired for the Assalah landing strips. The IPO documentation that he studied on Earth, mentioned a long term lease with a right to buy out, and Welsey needed to find out whether or not the acquisition had already happened. A plump official rumpled the papers in his hands for a while and even pretended to read English while holding the document upside down.
'Why isn't the paper signed?' he proclaimed suddenly, returning Welsey the sheet. 'But this is the first page!' Welsey said, 'The signature is on the second page.'
The official knitted his brows.
'What if the first page is a fake?'
'Are you going to force me fly back to Earth to get the signature, ' Welsey asked irritably, 'why don't you pay for a ticket then?'
The official realized how ignorant the man was and did his best to get rid of him.
In the third precinct, Welsey barely stepped in the office, where a young official with smart penetrating eyes stood to meet him, when the door opened quietly again and a Tserrina consulate courier darted in, holding a large basket in his hands. The official looked desperately at Welsey and the latter uttered, 'I'll wait outside, ' and stepped out. In a moment, Welsey heard in Interenglish,
'Please accept this trifle from me and turn a benevolent face towards me.'
Welsey rushed out.
After the pub, Kissur dragged Bemish home. Bemish didn't find Kissur's mansion to be entirely immured in the past — a closed circuit camera roved its eye and the powerful neon lamps hung among the marble columns flanking, customarily, the path to the main building. However, Bemish made out an altar in the garden and a lamb, slashed wide open, lay on it.
Evidently, Kissur brought Bemish home for dinner and their food at the pub was just the appetizing hors d'oervres. Bemish hiccuped. Kissur warned Bemish away from the women's quarters and went away vociferously instructing the proper preparation of pheasants.
The Earthman was left in one of the halls with windows facing the garden and walls draped with archaic silks. A weapons collection was arranged on the wall — an encrusted with mother-of-pearl and gold poleax, a simple battle-axe, swords, one arrow-head covered in blood. When Kissur returned, Bemish inquired about the strange collection theme.
'These are the weapons I was not killed with,' Kissure answered.
He moved to the wall and picked a heavy spear with a blue pinecone at the end.
'In a two day trip from your Assalah, the mountains begin and I was cut off in the mountain woods with maybe a thousand people, and Kharan — that was the scoundrel's name — had about fifteen thousand. But while Kharan dawdled on the plains, I ordered the trees along the road to be axed part way. When they finally entered the forest, the trees started falling on their heads and we butchered the ones who were still alive. Still, it wasn't such an easy feat and I was almost killed with this spear.'
Kissur was silent for a moment.
'It's silly to kill somebody with it now, isn't it? A laser would be way more reliable.'
Kissur pivoted and threw the spear. It flew through the open window and implanted itself in a decorated gazebo pole. Bemish walked out to look — the spear had completely run through the pole. The pole was more than ten inch thick.
Bemish wrenched the spear out and returned to the room.
Having eaten, Kissur hauled his new friend across the river, where the Lower City shined and melted in the afternoon sunlight, thousand year old dwellings of artisans, shopkeepers, and thieves, filled with crooked back alleys making them impassable for cars and blocked by gates that the local denizens used to defend themselves against bandits and, occasionally, officials.
A market thundered deafeningly next to the river; it smelled of fried fish and fresh blood; an old woman with a face like a dried fig was quickly and deftly plucking a cock; passing by a cabbage cart while unloading, Bemish noticed a small rocket launcher under the cabbage.
Slightly further, people crowded around a movable stage where a show was taking place.
'Let's go, Kissur suddenly yanked the Earthman, 'you have to see this.'
Kissur and Bemish squeezed in closer.
A dignified oldster in a waving red dress manufactured two human figurines with an incredible nimbleness — one out of clay and another out of white rock — put them on the stage, covered them with a decrepit rag. He passed his hands, took the rag off — and where the clay figurines had been — two youths jumped up. The youths started to dance in front of the audience, and soon a lively conversation between them and the oldster issued forth. Intrigued Bemish asked Kissur what the play was about.
'The show is based on an old myth,' Kissur said.
You see, when god was making the world, he made two people — one out of clay, another out of rock. Both of them knew as much as the gods knew but the clay man was simple and guileless while the iron man was envious and crafty. The gods took heed and thought, 'People walk among us and they probably know as much as we do. We could get in trouble.'
They called the iron man in and asked, 'What do you know?' Since the iron man was crafty and secretive, he answered, just in case, that he was no smarter than the carp had in his basket. The gods dismissed him and called the clay man in. They asked him, what he knows. 'Everything,' the guileless clay man replied. The gods pondered and took half of his knowledge away.
After Kissur had explained the meaning of the play to him, Bemish started to follow what was happening on the stage. Soon it became evident to him, that nothing good came out of the man who lied to the gods and knew as much as they did. This man cooked up a lot of schemes, stole stars from the sky, made an iron horse plow fields for him and was caught when he took a god's image and fornicated with his wife.
After that, the god in the red dress chased after the iron man with a bundle of whips; the iron man squealed and flipped over into an open hatch. The audience guffawed. The show came to an end and the god in the red dress started to walk among the people with a plate.
Bemish enjoyed this folk show much more than the morning TV play.
'Did I get it right that the iron man died?' Bemish queried.
'No. He dropped underground and he had children and grandchildren there. Since then, the iron people live underground and they are responsible for all the calamities above ground. They cajole the mountain spirits to start earthquakes and generals to rebel. Accordingly to the legend, at the end of the world, the iron men will crawl out from underground in the flesh, or more precisely, in the iron; will take the land away from the people, the sacrifices away from the gods and will generally misbehave.'
'Will there be the second act?' Bemish asked. He wanted to see how the iron men cajoled generals to rebel.
'Inevitably,' Kissur grinned.
Then, the god stopped in front of them with the tray full of jingling coins; Kissur, grinning widely, put two large pink bills with a crane picture on the tray. 'Braggart,' Bemish thought irritably. He didn't want to appear miserly, and he looked in the wallet. He didn't find any large Weian banknotes there but he had about hundred dinars in the passport just in case
— the Earthman had been warned that ATM machines didn't readily present themselves. Bemish extracted two notes and put them on the tray.
The god in a ragged dressing gown took the gray interplanetary money with rainbow water signs along the edge, waved them in the air, merrily announced something to the crowd — and tore them apart. Bemish stupidly took it for trick.
'What did he say,' he asked Kissur.
'That he doesn't take iron men's money,' Kissur replied.
The crowd parted quickly and menacingly and Kissur quickly dragged Bemish out — several gibes and a
