"If the path is rocky, you should wrap the hoofs with felt," Kissur said.
He turned around to the sound of steps.
"Why are you so glum, Terence," he said in Weian, "and why is it all so dirty?"
Kissur trailed his fingers in disgust down an expensive pink wood table — a banker dropped pizza on the table, hurriedly eating it.
"You don't have a woman — that's the problem," Kissur noted. "Idari says the same."
The headman, having noiselessly approached on the side, bowed and quickly popped in.
"If the lord needs a maid, I have a good candidate — a small official's daughter, a seventeen-year-old maiden, gentle as jasmine petals. Her father was caught stealing and he is currently under an investigation. To collect the money to butter the judges up and secure his daughter's future, he could sell her for fifty thousand."
Bemish glanced quickly towards his colleagues — the conversation was in Weian and they clearly didn't understand it.
"I'll think about it," Bemish said.
"There is nothing to think about," Kissur stated. "I'll check the girl out and, if she is as good as this scoundrel claims, she is yours."
A printer rattled at the table nearby and the last financial projections crawled out of it.
When the next night, deathly tired, Bemish walked up to his bedroom at two o'clock, he found that he was not the only one there. In the bed, coiled like a doughnut, a cute girl of about seventeen years age was sleeping tranquilly. Bemish pulled the blanket off her and found her to be quite naked — Adani probably brought her in the evening and he was afraid of bothering the master, busy with calculations — the girl waited and waited some more and fell asleep.
Once Bemish raised the blanket, the girl got cold — she woke up and stared at Bemish with her eyes, large and round like the moon. She had small budding breasts with tiny nipples, heavy thighs and long white legs. Her pubic hair was shaved off. The girl looked at Bemish unabashedly, as if unknown foreigners inspected her, naked, every day.
"What's your name," Bemish asked, mangling Weian words.
"Inis."
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"Are you a maiden?"
"Of course, master. Mr. Kissur has chosen me himself."
Bemish jerked his eyebrows irritated.
"How did Kissur choose you?"
"He took me to Mrs. Idari," Inis said, "and the mistress said that you needed a woman for your body and your house. She checked that I was a virgin and that I cooked well, and she was satisfied."
When Idari's name was mentioned, Bemish's hands perspired suddenly. The girl smiled and added teasingly.
"She was afraid of leaving me to Kissur. She is a very good wife. Do you have a wife?"
Not answering her, Bemish released the blanket and it covered the girl again. The thought about Jane destroyed all the pleasure. And also Idari! He knew that, while caressing the Idari's gift, he would always think only about the gift bearer.
"Put your clothes on. Ask Adini to find a bedroom for you."
"Won't we make love?" the frightened girl asked.
"No."
"Why did you buy me?"
"So, that somebody else wouldn't buy you."
It could be a sixty-year-old sadist in the district head rank, who makes love to his secretaries in his office.
The girl was upset.
"If you made love to me," she said, "you would give me a new skirt and earrings but you won't give me anything now."
"What skirt do you want?"
"I've just seen one at a fair — a long blue silk skirt, with a "dancing flowers" embroidering and with three bands along the lap with pictures of fishes, animals, and birds."
Bemish grinned. "All they want is money for the skirts," he thought about Jane. "Blessed is the world, where they just ask openly for it."
He lay silently on the bed, in the pants and the jacket.
"Undress me," he ordered Inis.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER
Where Terence Bemish is being persuaded to drop out of Assalah stocks auction while Shavash reminds the visitors that he is not familiar with the financial term dictatorship
One and a half tons of the equipment (out of the three tons ordered by Bemish) arrived at the spaceport, and the Earthmen were spending days and nights there.
On the third day, the precinct head herded the peasants to fix the road with old concrete blocks so that the new White Villa master could drive his iron barrel from the villa to the construction site.
The next week Bemish started to search for the missing equipment and found it at Ravadan spaceport where it had been from the beginning. He had to go to Ravadan.
Passing by the nearest village, Bemish noticed an unhitched wagon — the peasants were gathering at the wagon and unloading the planks for the assembling stage. It seemed to Bemish that the oldster in charge of the construction was the same oldster, who played a god on the market in the capital and tore apart the banknotes Bemish gave him.
An inspector in Ravadan claimed that the equipment containers were emitting gamma radiation (it happened, rarely) and that they had to undergo an expensive treatment. Bemish silently gave five thousand isheviks to the inspector and, in half an hour, he was organizing the boxes being loaded in a rented truck. The containers didn't emit any radiation whatsoever.
The boxes rode to Assalah, while Bemish stayed at the capital for a reception given in the honor of the sovereign's ancestor, who had slept with a mermaid three hundred and forty years ago.
There were very few women at the reception and Bemish's heart skipped a beat when he saw Idari next to a lighted pool. She had a black dress with sparkles and black shoes on. Two heavy braids entwining her head were held by a butterfly shaped hairpin, strewn with the pink pearls, and a necklace of the same pearls encircled her neck. She was talking to Shavash and another man, unfamiliar to Bemish.
"Here you are, Bemish," Shavash turned around. "Let me introduce you — the Empire's first minister, Mr. Yanik."
Bemish had been looking at Idari till then; he quickly turned to the first minister. He was a neat senior man with a head, slightly flattened at the temples, and grey eyes, more clever than intelligent. He was dressed accordingly to Galactic fashion. Bemish didn't see anything striking in his face and he immediately recalled the rumors about Yanik being a temporary figurehead, a non-entity, put forth to the Emperor, till his patrons couldn't settle on a compromise; the non-entity stuck to his position, however, for a longer time, than the patrons had planned.
"Mr. Bemish would like to buy Assalah spaceport," Shavash said.
"Where will the money come from?"
"Mr. Bemish expects to collect the necessary money via the high-interest bonds, underwritten on the world market by the well known LSV bank."
At that point, a voice came from behind.
"It would be great, if Mr. Bemish explained where he will find the money to pay the interest if the spaceport doesn't give two cents in the first year."
Bemish turned around. Quite a number of people approached Yanik and the words belonged to Giles.
"Mr. Giles' company," Shavash explained, "is also participating in the auction,"
"The spaceport's owner," Bemish said, "will jump out of his pants to find money. What will you do, however, besides buying the shares at one price and offering them at the market at another? What will prevent you from washing your hands?"
"That's right," another voice came in. "Your company's reputation is not the best one."
"Mr. Rusby," Shavash introduced, "is another investment auction participant."