"So, your soldiers are happy, aren't they?" Bemish asked with certain irony.
"They are very happy, businessman! They grew up without commercials, human rights, credit cards and whores. They were taught that battle is the road to God! When their contracts run out and they become Federation citizens, they enlist again. They stay in the service!"
"Where else can they go to?" Bemish grinned, "Into an investment company? You don't teach them anything but to how to kill. They are aliens in the world of the Federation."
"They love the army! And they make twenty times more money here than they would make in their mountains!"
"I think that they love the army in their first year, colonel. They love the army when they come there out of a mountain hut where their fathers had two sheep and where ten people slept in one room on a mud floor. In the barracks they have their own bunk beds and they get good food and they see 3D TV first time in their lives. But half a year or a year passes and they watch TV and learn our language. They start understanding that the country that enlisted them into their army pays their soldiers four times less than it pays its unemployed. They start understanding that three hundred credits would be enough to buy a farm in the mountains but it would not be enough to afford a bottle of beer every evening in a bar half a kilometer away from the camp… And they start comparing their own bunk beds not with their clay huts but with the cottages that they pass as they ride to training. And they start thinking that it's not fair that brave and strong people sit in barracks for three hundred credits a year while drooling weaklings sit on boards of directors. Is it true?"
The colonel was silent.
"Do you know how the previous Weian dynasty fell?"
"Yes. Aloms conquered the Empire."
"Your soldiers misinformed you, colonel. The people of the Empire were rich and lazy. They didn't like fighting and the government enlisted mostly war-loving barbarians into the army. Aloms didn't conquer the Empire. They simply served in its army and they came to own the Empire when no other troops were left."
"How can you say so, Bemish?" the envoy was startled. "It's absolutely impossible. We are talking about a totally different time; they are just commandos, for God's sake!"
A moan — or maybe a squeal — sounded next to Bemish.. The Earthman turned around. Shavash — the emergency committee's chairman, the official who called Federation troops in to Assalah to destroy his enemies — covered his face with his hands and was slowly sliding down the door frame to the floor. Shredding cloth crackled — Shavash's jacket caught on a brass decoration on the door frame, the jacket ripped apart and the official fainted and fell all the way to the floor.
Bemish stepped across his partner in export-import cooperative, Assako, and walked outside. Stars sparkled in the garden and the engine of an armored troop carrier still roared just as rhythmically as it had roared an hour ago — something was wrong with it. The army still bustled in the dark. It was not evident anymore, however, what side the army was on. Half of these people were White Falcons' vassals. The vassal oath was not inferior in any way to a military one! And nobody could claim that White Falcons would send them to fight for three hundred credits while they were sitting idle and getting rich. White Falcons didn't consider war to be an occupation suitable only for people who couldn't make money on the Exchange. Whatever else happened, when an Alom army entered a battle, White Falcons would ride in front.
Somebody moved behind Bemish. The latter glanced aside and saw the colonel. Simultaneously, they started slowly walking down a path.
"On what side do you think, your soldiers will fight?" Bemish asked.
"I was going to ask you the same question," the colonel answered.
They walked silently for a while.
"I've heard a lot about Kissur," the colonel said.
"Have you heard about him from the soldiers?"
"Yes. I mean, from their songs. They don't always go nuts about our bands. They often sing their own songs."
"Do they sing about Kissur?"
"They sing about Kissur, about his father, grandfather, great grandfather, and so on — all the way to the original clan founder who, if I am not mistaken, married a forest mermaid."
"You are mistaken. He didn't marry her, he raped her. And that caused some friction between him and a variety of forest and other outdoor fairies."
"Oh, yes, that's right. They sang something along these lines. By the way, these are the songs by their other idol, Khanadar."
"This villa is a gift of Kissur's," Bemish said.
Here the garden path finished and they found themselves next to a pond. A small altar to Buzhva stood on 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,