The investors clutched their heads. They demanded the Weian government to publish the real debt figures. During next week, the government published three different figures — eighty, hundred and hundred and thirteen billion — all of them signed by the finance minister.
It only spread the panic further.
Somebody started a rumor that the payments on the two billion dinars credit obtained by Weia from Galactic Bank would be postponed first — this credit had been turned into securities and distributed on the market after the bank had gone public.
The quotes went down by a factor of two and after that Weian government came out with a restructuring plan.
The two billion loan would be taken over by a new company BOAR that would obtain in exchange — at no cost — one of the largest nickel and other non-ferrous metals deposits in the Galaxy where the government had already built an ore enrichment facility. The concern and all the other companies registered at its territories would not have to pay anything towards the state's budget.
Three very influential Weian entrepreneurs and Terence Bemish were the company's cofounders. Even by the most modest estimate, the profit from the export of non-ferrous metals would be three times larger that the payments on the state's debt that the company would have to make. The bond prices skyrocketed at once to 97 % of their face value.
The bankers were tearing their hair out in shock. The newspaper article resulted — without any responsibility from the Weian government's side — in devaluation of the bonds. Their value could have dropped to even 30 % if somebody hadn't bought devalued securities through Ronald Trevis.
Inissa governor came, probably, the closest to the understanding of the true reasons behind the panic; he didn't really like Shavash and he sent him a birthday gift — a disinfectant can with a label "for avarice."
Bemish started visiting Earth often on BOAR business and every time he would wonder at a skyline awkwardly constricted by the buildings and a meager lonely moon. Once, in June, Trevis remarked that the calculations that Bemish held in his hands had been done by Ashinik and the lad had an internship in the head office during his holidays.
"How is he?" Bemish asked unaffectedly.
"He is trying hard," Trevis said, "but he is very disappointed."
"What is he disappointed with?"
"He is disappointed that nobody kisses his boots. They kissed his boots on Weia when he led the sect, didn't they?"
"No," Bemish answered, "they didn't kiss his boots. They gathered dust where he walked and gave it to the pregnant and to the sick to drink."
"Well," Trevis said, "he is disappointed that nobody gathers his dust."
"How is his wife doing?" Bemish asked unexpectedly.
"Is he married?" Trevis was surprised.
Bemish didn't answer.
Bemish had a bit of time after his meetings and before the ship's departure; he ascended to his hotel room and connected to the White Pages website via a computer. The computer thought for a while and then belched forth several green lines. On the black screen, they resembled a rim of meson irradiation formed around the exhausts of an interstar ship. Bemish sat on a coach motionless for a while and then he ordered a taxi and rode in it to the address that he got in the White Pages.
Ashinik was renting an apartment in an old building and there was no camera at the entrance, only intercom buttons bristled to the right. Bemish pushed the button number 27.
"Who is it?" Ashinik's voice replied.
Bemish let the button go. He expected that Ashinik wouldn't be at home at daytime, only Inis would be there. His expectations proved to be wrong. There were two more hours left before the ship's departure; Bemish turned and walked away.
Only when the ship pulled into the orbit and was almost out of the regular T-phone reception range, Bemish called Trevis.
"Listen," Bemish said, "I looked through the papers prepared by Ashinik and I found them to be pretty good. Send him to me."
Trevis said that he would like to have the young Weian in his office due to the growing number of Weian deals.
"This guy cost me ten percent of a company with a yearly export size of forty billion dinars," Bemish said, "and he will work it all off for me."
Trevis asked something else but then the receiver croaked and hissed and the connection broke off.
Ashinik returned to Weia in three weeks. He looked completely different. Instead of a skinny frightened young lad that had left the Empire eight months ago, a confident man with cold blue eyes and wide shoulders walked into Bemish's office.
"I am sorry that I pulled you out," Bemish said, embracing the youth, "but I need you. It concerns BOAR."
Ashinik lowered his head. When half a year ago, half-dead from torture he heard Shavash's voice offering his master to choose between him, Ashinik, and a twenty five percent controlling BOAR stock block, the company name couldn't tell him anything. Now the word BOAR decorated the financial newspapers' front pages and Bemish's share of the company was perfectly well known to be fourteen percent. Ashinik knew for sure that neither his direct boss nor Trevis nor even Ashinik himself would have exchanged the control of the deal of the century for a man.
"I…I…," Ashinik muttered. Bemish took the youth's hand.
"It doesn't matter. Where are you staying?"
"I am staying in a hotel," the lad replied turning to a window. There, behind the burned caramel color glass and sharp points of the ships, a huge glass body of a luxurious hotel was melting in the sun.
"You can move to my villa," Bemish said. "How is Inis doing?"
"She is with me," Ashinik replied. He paused and added, "I don't want to leave her alone. She shouldn't wave her skirt around.
It became quiet for a moment in the office, and then Bemish said,
"I left her alone often and nothing good came out of it. In three hours, Giles will meet people from Chakhar Trade Bank in the capital. Could you go with him?"
Ashinik went to the capital. He took part in the talks and stayed at a party celebrating the third year anniversary of Sadd Company. Giles introduced him to the economics minister.
Ashinik's hands went cold when, having approached a cluster of people, he saw in its center the beautiful, slightly corpulent face of Shavash.
"How is your health," Shavash asked abruptly, interrupting his conversation with an Earthman and nodding welcomingly to Ashinik.
"I am well, thanks," Ashinik heard his own voice as if it was coming out of a phone receiver.
"How is your wife doing?"
Ashinik uttered something about his wife being also fine.
"I recommend you this young man," Shavash said, "He helped us a lot with BOAR company."
The people who crowded around Shavash but stood to far to start a conversation with him moved slowly and started surrounding Ashinik.
In a while after Shavash had left, Ashinik realized suddenly with cold curiosity that he felt good about Shavash's nodding to him — the same Shavash that he had been trained in his previous life to exterminate like a mongoose exterminates snakes. In the hierarchy of his new life this nod immediately distinguished him out of the other young people and it was as if a small beacon lit above Ashinik's head and the guests flew towards this beacon as moths fly towards light.
The door slammed behind Ashinik and Bemish still sat the same way looking absent-mindedly at a field through the window. He picked up a lot of Empire's customs in his two years on Weia. One thing he hadn't apparently done yet — he had never killed a man because he wanted his wife.
Now, in seven months after their last meeting, Bemish didn't have any feelings towards ex-zealot Ashinik who started to resemble, frighteningly, a polished novice broker. He only felt quite annoyed thinking about the lost BOAR shares. On the other hand, the accident brought Bemish certain benefits. It had somehow leaked out — probably via Shavash who didn't find anything appalling there — and it improved Bemish's reputation tremendously. The biggest people on Weia knew that the Earthman hadn't turned his friend into for money and it was a Weian custom not to betray friends. It would be fine to send an innocent man to the gallows to help your friend or to embezzle money from the state treasury but to betray your friend was not nice.