Bemish didn't need Ashinik. But he realized with a surprise that he needed Inis. While his concubine had been next to him and he could take her any minute, could walk upstairs with her or simply lock the office door, caress her soft body and think about another woman — unavailable and forbidden — then it seemed to Bemish that talking about love would be stupid. Do you love your car? You just use it and if you crash it, you buy another one.
But buying another car proved to be difficult. Bemish tried three or four concubines during that time and threw them out, wincing. The sluts called in by Bemish didn't help either. Kissur seeing the Earthman suffering once took him to such a place that… yikes, it's better to forget all about it…
Then, there was some celebration at Shavash's palace where, besides everything else, they presented an ancient play about an Inissa prince. Watching it, Bemish suddenly realized that in this world it had always been considered normal for a man to desire two women simultaneously and that he, Terence Bemish, had turned Weian to a greater degree than he expected.
A penetrating beep of the phone interrupted Bemish's contemplation. Having answered the call, Bemish stood up abruptly. It was time to face the truth — he called Ashinik to Weia to take his wife away from him. It would possibly not work on Earth. But here, on Weia, where Bemish was no longer a man that would be called "businessman" on Earth but rather became a man that would be called "prince" — nobody would dare refuse him.
When Bemish with a large wrapped gift package entered a hotel room, Inis sat next to a mirror. She turned around and froze seeing the Earthman. Bemish, without taking his light overcoat off, approached her and kissed her silently. The woman didn't resist.
"It's for you," Bemish said, gently pushing her away in several minutes.
Blushing with joy, Inis started unwrapping the package. In a moment, she cried out happily admiring a necklace of large bluish pearls.
Bemish carefully took the necklace out of her hands and put it on her neck. Inis tried to turn away.
"What's wrong?"
Bemish tenderly turned her face towards him. It was only then that he noticed an ugly round bruise on her cheekbone.
"What is it?"
"Ashinik hit me."
"Ashinik?"
"He beats me often."
"Why?"
"He doesn't like anything," Inis said. "He doesn't like my dresses, he doesn't like that I was his master's concubine, he doesn't like that people don't kowtow in front of him, and he doesn't like it when I dance with anybody else. At first he works day and night closing a deal and then he gets a bonus and says that it's a sugar lump that they gave to a trained Weian dog for jumping through a hoop."
Bemish sat on the bed. He suddenly didn't have anything to say. Two people in the room were silent and the setting sun, melting in the sky, was rapidly floating to the west following a rising freight ship.
"You didn't buy yourself a new concubine, did you?" Inis suddenly asked.
"No," Bemish said.
"Why?"
"I don't know. I think I didn't stop loving the previous one enough."
Inis carefully sat down next to Bemish's feet. Her eyes, large and green, were almost like Idari's eyes and they looked at Bemish with admiration and hope.
When Ashinik returned to the hotel room in the evening, the bedroom door was slightly open and an immobile silhouette sat on the bed.
"Inis!" Ashinik called opening the door and stopped short.
It was not Inis sitting on the bed, it was Yadan.
It was difficult to recognize the zealots' leader — he wore a well-tailored suit with a fashionable standing collar and a wide tie.
"Are you back?" Yadan asked.
Ashinik felt cold fury rising inside him.
"What do you want from me?"
"I saved you ten years ago, my boy. I gave you a gift of your life after my predecessor's death. It's time to pay back."
"I paid you back. It's a miracle that I survived."
"You didn't pay back well and a lot of people could not understand why your bomb was not as good as the demons promised."
"I don't owe you anything, Yadan. I owe Terence Bemish who made a man out of me."
"They bought you, my boy."
"No."
"Yes. The demons buy some people for a gold piece, others for a thousand gold pieces, others for a million. They say, you were bought for a billion, for a piece of the demon's company that you called BOAR and for an opportunity to live like demons. You even got a concubine that her owner was bored with…"
Yadan paused and then cried out,
"You, a man who could become the White Elder and rule the millions of hearts, were bought for an opportunity to have a house in Los Angeles suburbs and to work eight hours a day!"
"Get out!" Ashinik squealed.
"Have you forgotten how you talked to the gods, Ashinik? Have you forgotten how they took you alive to the sky, how thousands of ears listened to you in the way that nobody listens to anybody in this whole stupid Galaxy?"
"And what have the gods spilled out to me? That you were born out of a golden egg? That one could stop a laser ray with a spell? That Earthmen were demons? Great things your gods have told me!"
"You are a fool, Ashinik," Yadan grinned, "and Earthmen are demons. Do you know that they built this spaceport for a war between Gera and Earth and that when this war commences, it will start raining bombs on our planet. They made our world a lawn where elephants will tread and nobody will get two cents for it except Shavash who collected six million out of it! Wouldn't you call it demons' work?"
"Bullshit," Ashinik replied, "there is as much bullshit here as there is in the fable about you hatching out of a gold egg."
"Do you know that Giles works for Federal Intelligence?"
"I built this spaceport and I know that it's a civil port!"
"And do you know how much they steal there? Do you know how much of our Motherhood they rob via this spaceport?
Right then, light steps sounded in the corridor and Inis flitted into the room.
"Get out of here," Ashinik told Yadan quietly but furiously, "I am not afraid of all of you anymore."
"You don't talk to the gods anymore, do you?" Yadan grinned.
Having risen quietly, he slid by Inis to the door. Ashinik didn't notice how Yadan covertly threw a grain of yellow substance into a barely smoking brazier while leaving.
He sat on the bed with his hands wrapped about his head. Yadan's last words stung him sharply. He really didn't speak to the gods anymore. And though today's Ashinik new very well that only mad people talked to the gods, he remembered these conversations deep in his mind and he remembered that it had been a proof of him being chosen.
Inis approached him and stroked him on his head and Ashinik was surprised to see an antique necklace of bluish Assaisse pearls.
"Where have you been?" irritated Ashinik asked her.
"Well, I walked around the town."
"Where did you get this necklace?"
"It's a gift from Idari," the woman replied quickly. "I received it today in a basket."
Such a quick answer put Ashinik on his guard.