whispered at his ear, 'If this is the case, I will soon join the coalition.'
'Are you trying to say, Mr. Shavash,' the envoy inquired in an icy voice, 'that it was only the desire to hang you that made them organize the massacre at the spaceport, take eight thousand people hostage, discredit our military forces and demand the changeover of the Empire's government?'
'Gentlemen, let's stop bickering,' Bemish said, 'You should figure out your response to Kissur's demands. And I would like to note that since these demands concern the Weian government and its internal politics, it's quite astonishing that half of our committee are Earthmen.'
'Have you forgotten that Earthmen have been taken hostages at the spaceport?' the colonel asked.
'The Earthmen are a minority of the hostages,' Bemish replied. 'As the Assalah director, I should inform you that 80 % of the passengers and 93 % of the personnel are Weian. Go ahead and calculate how many Earthmen are currently at the spaceport.'
'I can tell you, Terence, why the Earthmen are sitting here,' Shavash intervened. 'Our government decided to request the Federation of Nineteen's military assistance to quench the rebellion and free the hostages.'
'So, you are not going to accept their demands, are you?' Bemish inquired.
'It's simply impossible,' the foreign affairs minister Khasha claimed. 'Aren't you of the same opinion, Mr. Bemish?'
'I would succumb to their demands,' Bemish said.
Everybody went still for a moment.
'Oh,' the minister spoke smirking. 'Haven't you forgotten that one of their demands is
Bemish paused.
'I would prefer to get the spaceport back in two years,' Bemish replied, 'after Kissur's policy crashes completely, rather than be a murderer of eight thousand people.'
'You have it easy, Earthman,' the minister said. 'You will lose the spaceport while others will lose their heads.'
'Don't you understand, Terence,' Shavash cried, 'he's a psycho, a maniac! This man will grind you flat. What do you think will happen to the country when they start sorting good businessmen from bad ones?! We should annihilate him! We should call the Federation troops in and squash him like a bug!'
'As the chairman of the Assalah Company's board of directors,' Bemish said, 'I protest fully against allowing the Federation troops on its territory. And I would like to remind the people present here that if they start using Federation troops to solve their internal problems…'
'Don't teach us, Earthman,' an enraged Shainna screamed — he was the deputy chairman of Weia Central Bank and a buddy of Shavash's.
'I will teach you!' Bemish screamed just as loudly, 'You don't give a damn about Kissur's industry nationalization demands! You have been living for two thousand years with nationalized industry! What you care about is that Kissur demands to hang you personally, Shainna, and you, Shavash for corruption! Here, a lot of people would agree with Kissur…'
Shavash stood.
'As the official inspector having full authority to deal with the Assalah emergency situation, I request the assistance of the Federation of Nineteen troops.'
Bemish rose.
'Gentlemen, I refuse to take part in this abomination.'
And he left.
The sunrise was starting somewhere far away. The fragrance of the jasmine bushes was sharp and sleepy bulls mooed in the village having returned from the late plowing.
Wrapping himself in an overcoat and shuddering from cold, Bemish walked to an old gazebo. A servant, stepping softly, brought a basket with liquors to the gazebo and asked what they should serve the guests for the dinner and what they should do to the policemen. The latter started screaming already and the servants had to give them twenty sacks from storage…
Bemish barked at him such that the slave ran away in fear. The basket, however, came to be quite useful. Bemish grabbed a wooden bottle plaited with bark, tore the plug out, threw his head back and started gulping palm vodka.
He stopped only after having drunk half of it.
Far away, through a woven gazebo wall he could see the spaceport. Unlike usual, t didn't gleam at night. The main buildings shined with a dull light and where only yesterday the landing lights used to sparkle, darkness and fog sprawled above the chutes. The monorail gleamed as a lonely horn sticking out of the dark and posts of armed people swarmed every hundred meters on the highway.
Somewhere far away, at the first gates blocking the access to the villa, the whole crowd of journalists was throwing a fit. These idiots, Weian officials, insisted on not letting them in… Bemish, however, didn't want to see the journalists. He could imagine what questions they would ask him. And he couldn't even tell them one tenth of what he had said at the emergency committee meeting.
The gazebo door squeaked. Bemish turned his head and saw the envoy. The latter's crazy eyes wandered around for a while and then he grabbed the vodka bottle.
'I've drunk out of it already,' Bemish warned him.
The envoy just waved his hand.
'You were correct when you left,' Severin said. He finished the vodka off and dropped heavily on a bench. 'Everybody taking part in this accident will be in shit up to their ears.'
'Have they decided to call the troops in?'
'The commandoes will be here in two hours. It's the Eleventh Federal Paratrooper Division. They are damned good. At the moment Kissur lets the hostages go, they'll roll over him.'
'In two hours?! How did they get here so fast?'
'They were being moved to their new positions.'
'So, that they could be closer to Gera, right?'
The envoy smirked and nodded.
'Do you understand that this is Shavash's decision? The only thing that he is afraid of is that Kissur will hang him on the tallest catalpa? He went nuts from fear.'
'That's right,' the envoy said. 'I have never seen it before in my life
— Mr. Shavash made a public statement supporting a certain decision and he took all the responsibility. Can you imagine that — he signed the request for the Federal troops himself! All the ministers there kindly passed this honor to him…'
Bemish muttered something.
'Do you know why the officials agreed to invite the troops? They understand that this will make Shavash a political nonentity… You, however, were very brave. Don't you regret losing your company?'
Bemish paused. Then he added, smiling.
'My company is bankrupt. My stocks are worth less than rutabaga in a farmer's market. I don't care whether my creditors get one cent or ten cents for a dinar.'
By the time sunrise came to Assalah spaceport and another working day ended in Melbourne, the Federation capital, the news of the Assalah accident had spread across the whole Galaxy. Assalah was photographed from above, from below and from the side. This place used to be known only to a small group of financiers as a great example of investment into a development market. Now it occupied the front pages of newspapers. A number of channels started delivering hourly news from Assalah. Everybody was waiting for the broadcast that was assigned to start (after minor technical arguments with Kissur) at fifteen thirty. Even if Kissur hadn't given his horrible ultimatum — five shot hostages for every minute of delay — few people would've missed such a possibility to peep at history.
The division arrived in Weian orbit by seven. They landed in Salgar spaceport by eight and, in four hours, military helicopters unloaded most of the commandoes next to Bemish's villa. Tanks, gleaming dully and looking
