the lawn in front of the pond and behind it rhododendrons were blooming. Bemish noticed some food out of a trooper's ration lying in the cup on the altar. If Aloms ate next to a god, they always shared their food.
Seven or eight soldiers sat on the ground under the blooming rhododendrons passing along a white plastic flask with local wine. Bemish silently sat next to the soldiers and the colonel sat next to him.
'Is it true that they don't allow you to speak Alom?' Bemish asked a soldier suddenly.
He leaped up startled.
'No… Why not…' He muttered in his native tongue.
The colonel lay on the ground and closed his eyes.
The soldier looked embarrassed; he stood up quickly and hurriedly disappeared behind the bushes.
'This is the first man who talked to me in Alom,' Bemish said.
'He didn't know the Earthmen's language,' the colonel spoke quietly.
It took a bit for the colonel's words to soak into Bemish's mind.
'He didn't know the Earthmen's language… Are you trying to say that it was not your soldier but rather a scout of Kissur's?'
'Be silent, Mr. Bemish. I am not going to make speeches for you tonight.'
The soldiers around the fire sat in silence as if they didn't hear the conversation. The soldier that the spy had sat next to, handed the flask to Bemish.
'Drink with us,' he said in English.
Bemish didn't fall asleep till four am, he watched the camp's inhabitants escaping it like rats running away from a sinking ship. He saw a helicopter with the Federation envoy lifting — the latter suddenly decided to visit the capital. A couple of officials left afterwards. Then the counter-intelligence officers left. Strangely, Shavash was the last one to sneak away to the capital. Three officials, whose names decorated the list of the functionaries to be hanged, left with him. Now, only Federal troops were left.
What's the deal, if you think about it? Why should it matter where a soldier was born? In the end, all of them swore the oath of allegiance to the Federation while only slightly more than one third of them were Kissur's vassals.
The sentries stood guard perfectly but Bemish heard more and more of Alom spoken around the tents. They switched back to English at his appearance, however.
Bemish returned to the bedroom about four. Not taking his clothes off, he crashed down on the bed and almost immediately fell asleep.
It was light, by the time Bemish woke up, wind out of the window blew a gauze curtain inside and the sun beat and hopped on a marble table's surface.
Bemish turned around still feeling groggy — something was lacking in his attire. What was it, jacket or, excuse me, underwear? Bemish turned around again, feeling the empty gun holder flatten under him. Everything was there except for the gun.
Bemish jumped off the bed and ran to the entrance door. The door opened wide and Bemish was relieved to see a commando wearing a Federation uniform behind it. The commando, placed his feet wider apart, shifted his hands on his assault rifle to a more comfortable position and declared,
'Sorry, Mr. Bemish. You are not allowed to leave.'
'Who says so?'
'I do,' a voice came from behind.
Bemish turned around.
Kissur stood next to the door leading into the inner halls. Two or three paratroopers lingered behind him.
Bemish silently, without thinking jumped at Kissur. This time he was even less lucky. Kissur locked his leg and Bemish tried twisting in the air. At this moment, the commando standing behind him connected his rifle's butt to Bemish's head. The latter barely heard Kissur screaming at the soldier, then, the walls and floor around him turned into thousands of fiery butterflies and flew at him. Bemish fainted.
He regained his senses much later — he sat in a military helicopter that had, probably, just taken off the villa's roof. Bemish's hands were handcuffed to a stand behind the pilot's chair and commandos guarded him on both sides. Bemish thought that he was unlikely to escape but here the helicopter jerked in the air. Bemish dropped his head on an Alom's shoulder and fainted again.
Next time, he recovered in the spaceport — in his own office, well known to him. His wrists were still handcuffed and somebody thoughtfully deposited him on a black leather sofa located behind his own working table. Having turned his head slightly, he could barely make out the tall back of his own armchair — the armchair that Ashinik had boorishly sat in two days ago. However, nobody was present in the armchair now. Kissur adroitly operated Bemish's own computer sitting slightly to the side, where a department's head would usually be.
'Well,' Kissur said, 'Who was right, you or me? I didn't loose a fight with the special forces' paratroopers, did I?'
'You knew,' Bemish articulated. His tongue resisted him and lolled in his mouth like a swollen sausage.
'You knew how many Aloms served in Federal troops.'
'Naturally I did.'
'You are an idiot, Kissur. You took over one division and you think that you won the fight with Federation.'
'Oh, are you going to send me more troops? Thank you, it's very kind of Earthmen.'
'Cretin! How many of you, Aloms, are in the army — twenty or thirty thousand? Do you think that ten thousand — even if they are very well trained cutthroats — can win a fight with the Federation of twenty billion? With all our equipment? They will just press a button and eliminate you.'
'How?' Kissur asked him, 'Are you going to drop a nuclear bomb on us? Or is it going to be a meson one?'
Bemish bit his lip. It was true. To use standard shock troops against Kissur would be either dangerous — if there were Aloms among them- or simply useless. The troops would meet with at least equally trained Federation paratroopers. To use nuclear weapons against a tiny bit of barbarians on a backwards planet would demonstrate Federation's incredible military weakness. It went without saying, that such actions would violate all official and unofficial human rights regulations.
'You are free,' Kissur said. 'You can go to the capital. Tell them, that our conditions changed. We demand Federation representatives to come to Assalah — we would like to discuss the future relationship between Weia and the Federation. The Federation president or the first minister should come with the delegation.'
Bemish suddenly imagined old Yadan conducting talks with the demons' president and this idea was so comical that he couldn't smother laughter.
'I would like to ask you one thing, Kissur,' Bemish spoke unexpectedly.
'Everything that you ask for is yours,' the Alom replied.
'Don't kill Shavash… He… In the end, you got your commandos thanks to him!'
A strange, almost laughing expression came over Kissur's face.
'He has already killed the little scoundrel…' Bemish thought. 'He killed or disabled him with his own hands…'
At this moment, however, something moved on his side. Shavash entered the office and sat to the right of Kissur, in the director's armchair.
'I took it upon myself to overhear your conversation at the door,' the official spoke, smiling. 'Your request touched me, Terence. But as you see, Kissur was not going to kill me, to begin with.'
'You? What are you doing in this office?'
Shavash, laughing, placed his hand on Kissur's shoulder.
'Why shouldn't I be in this office? You see, it's my armchair… Haven't you forgotten that I was the Assalah Company director? Do you think that could I request this state appointment back due to the company's bankruptcy?'
'Do you think, Terence,' Kissur inquired, 'that Shavash didn't know how many Aloms serve in your army? But even he had to sweat quite a bit, to get them called in! I've never thought that there could be a country that was so set against sending its troops anywhere!'
