The descent was hard. The tape was sticky just to the right degree and it was unwrapping slowly under Ashinik's weight. Sometimes it got stuck and Ashinik had to pull the tape off jerkily with one hand while hanging from the other one.
In five minutes, Ashinik jumped down onto a sidewalk and ran at top speed across stiff and booming thermoconcrete. This spaceport's sector was relatively empty — two helicopters stood next to its border and a hefty trans-galactic liner was being loaded far away. With an open mouth, Ashinik stared at the containers floating into the cargo hatch for several moments. What if he just crept in the ship and flew away from this damned planet? At least, nobody would kill or betray him there.
Ashinik raced to the fifth sector, squeezed through a hole in the fence and ran down an unpaved road, illuminated by silvery moonlight, to a small jeep that was perched at the curb. Earlier, he had asked a worker to leave a car there.
Ashinik jumped into the jeep and stuck his hand under the driver's seat. Thank God — the car keys were right where they were supposed to be, wrapped in a dirty rag. Ashinik turned the ignition on and a cold gun barrel touched his temple and somebody said quietly, "Be nice and drive straight, cutie."
Ashinik glanced aside — he could see the speaker in the rearview mirror. Ashinik recognized him to be a personal bodyguard of Shavash's, one out of five that he was rumored to hold in his complete confidence.
"Go!"
The jeep started moving slowly. The guard got his radio out and quietly reported,
"The fish is on the hook. Meet us behind the bridge." Ashinik ground his teeth.
"Just wait," he uttered, "my master will learn that you seized me and you will get you butt kicked!" The guard laughed.
"Firstly," he spoke, "it would be difficult for Bemish to find out that we caught you because you escaped on your own. But if you are really interested in it, it was Mr. Bemish who handed you over to us. He told us where the jeep would be and suggested that we trapped you.
Ashinik's heart plummeted.
"You are lying! The master wouldn't do it!"
"Eh, my dear, the master didn't do it while he still hoped to make peace with the sect. And now he can only hope to find out where the Meeting of Choosing will occur and burn them all out with a laser or with DDT. We can learn where it is from you, right? Of course, Mr. Bemish could skin you himself but Bemish is a squeamish Earthman. Why should he get his hands dirty if there are other people around? That's why he sold you out, Ashinik."
Ashinik drove silently. Nearby, the spaceships' exhausts hissed warming up and signal lights blinked behind the spaceport wall. The unpaved road finally ended, the jeep climbed onto a six lane highway and rolled towards Lannah Bridge.
"So, where is the meeting?"
"I don't know."
The car raced over a ramp next to the spaceport eastern gates; a passenger car's lights blinked below.
"Ashinik, why are you so stubborn? Don't you understand that you are the third one on their extermination list, right after Bemish and my boss? You aren't crazy. You don't believe that Yadan was born out of a golden egg, do you? Tell us and we will let you go because my masters are normal people and yours are nuts!"
Ashinik suddenly swerved the steering wheel all the way to the right. The car hit the concrete sidewalk, jumped and hit the fence head-on. The guard shot and the bullet burned Ashinik's hair and made a neat hole in the windshield.
"Ouch! What are you doing, bastard?!"
The rail caved in, bursting. Ashinik threw the door open and rolled out. He was barely able to grab the poles at the ramp's edge.
The busted rail links glimmered on their way down and the car followed them spinning in the air. Ashinik heard it hitting the ground; the sound of a muted explosion came next.
Ashinik climbed onto the ramp and ran as fast as he could.
The next morning, barefoot Ashinik dressed in peasant clothing with a sack behind his shoulder stepped out of a bus three hundred kilometers away from Assalah.
In half an hour, he entered a village tavern on Mer Lake shore.
Five people in simple clothing sat in the tavern. It seemed that none of them paid any attention to Ashinik. It was as if not a man came through the door but just a bug flew in. "Why have I come," a thought desperately beat at Ashinik's mind, "Why have I come? They will kill me like they killed the White Elder." Ashinik sat on an unoccupied chair. Now all six chairs at the table were taken.
"Rashan is dead," one of the seated people stated quietly. "He is dead because he desired to make peace with the demons and the man who advised him to do so is responsible for his death."
Rashan was the White Elder's name and it was forbidden to say it while he held this position. Since this name was mentioned, it meant that the White Elder had already been elected and Ashinik's heart shuddered when he realized that it had been done without him.
All five people turned and started looking at Ashinik.
"Rashan's soul is lonely; those that defiled it should follow it," Dush said; he sat next to Ashinik.
Two small seven-year-old boys entered the room and started walking among the people with two goblets, a white and a black one. Everyone put his hand into one goblet and then into the other one.
Dush also lowered his hand into the white goblet and then into the black one. He had a dry bean in his hand — he was supposed to drop it in one of the goblets — nobody could see in which one. Ashinik didn't have any difficulties, however, guessing that Dush chose the white one.
The boys walked around all six people and then they turned the goblets over onto the table. There was nothing in the black one and there were five beans in the white one. Five out of six people sitting here voted for Ashinik's death. The sixth one abstained.
Ashinik observed himself with a cold curiosity. His mind separated in two halves and both halves were watching the current events independently. One half was Ashinik-Assalah vice-president, the youngest Weian manager, the man who earned ten times more money than all the other people here combined. Another half was Ashinik-zealot who put the Elder's orders above his death. What's the value of one life if there are so many of them? It's better to die with honor and come to your next life into a good family than to die as a coward and be reborn as a spider.
Two men in red hoods picked Ashinik up by his hands, dragged him for several steps and put him on a rug unrolled between two tripods. One of them threw a sturdy rope noose over Ashinik's neck quickly and efficiently. "No!" Ashinik wanted to cry out as an Earthman would have cried at his place.
"Let me put my hair in place," Ashinik heard his own voice and his hands rose and removed several hair curls from under the rope."
One executioner pushed him closer to the altar and the other one started unhurriedly putting the candles' flame out with a wooden board. Ashinik knew that he would be killed when the last candle dies.
Ashinik stood on his knees immobile and watched how darkness was slowly conquering the room. Soon only one flame tongue was left…
"Leave us alone," a voice spoke suddenly.
The rope on his neck was loosened up. Ashinik heard the chairs and door squeaking quietly. He turned his head slightly and saw that he was left alone with Yadan. He realized that Yadan was now the White Elder by how quickly his order had been obeyed.
"It's not right to kill a man," Yadan said, "who can serve our purpose still, however guilty he is. You want to serve our purpose, don't you?"
"I want it with all my heart."