"Sorry, Mr. Bemish. You are not allowed to leave."
"Who says so?"
"I do," a voice came from behind.
Bemish turned around.
Kissur stood next to the door leading into the inner halls. Two or three paratroopers lingered behind him.
Bemish silently, without thinking jumped at Kissur. This time he was even less lucky. Kissur locked his leg and Bemish tried twisting in the air. At this moment, the commando standing behind him connected his rifle's butt to Bemish's head. The latter barely heard Kissur screaming at the soldier, then, the walls and floor around him turned into thousands of fiery butterflies and flew at him. Bemish fainted.
He regained his senses much later — he sat in a military helicopter that had, probably, just taken off the villa's roof. Bemish's hands were handcuffed to a stand behind the pilot's chair and commandos guarded him on both sides. Bemish thought that he was unlikely to escape but here the helicopter jerked in the air. Bemish dropped his head on an Alom's shoulder and fainted again.
Next time, he recovered in the spaceport — in his own office, well known to him. His wrists were still handcuffed and somebody thoughtfully deposited him on a black leather sofa located behind his own working table. Having turned his head slightly, he could barely make out the tall back of his own armchair — the armchair that Ashinik had boorishly sat in two days ago. However, nobody was present in the armchair now. Kissur adroitly operated Bemish's own computer sitting slightly to the side, where a department's head would usually be.
"Well," Kissur said, "Who was right, you or me? I didn't loose a fight with the special forces' paratroopers, did I?"
"You knew," Bemish articulated. His tongue resisted him and lolled in his mouth like a swollen sausage.
"You knew how many Aloms served in Federal troops."
"Naturally I did."
"You are an idiot, Kissur. You took over one division and you think that you won the fight with Federation."
"Oh, are you going to send me more troops? Thank you, it's very kind of Earthmen."
"Cretin! How many of you, Aloms, are in the army — twenty or thirty thousand? Do you think that ten thousand — even if they are very well trained cutthroats — can win a fight with the Federation of twenty billion? With all our equipment? They will just press a button and eliminate you."
"How?" Kissur asked him, "Are you going to drop a nuclear bomb on us? Or is it going to be a meson one?"
Bemish bit his lip. It was true. To use standard shock troops against Kissur would be either dangerous — if there were Aloms among them- or simply useless. The troops would meet with at least equally trained Federation paratroopers. To use nuclear weapons against a tiny bit of barbarians on a backwards planet would demonstrate Federation's incredible military weakness. It went without saying, that such actions would violate all official and unofficial human rights regulations.
"You are free," Kissur said. "You can go to the capital. Tell them, that our conditions changed. We demand Federation representatives to come to Assalah — we would like to discuss the future relationship between Weia and the Federation. The Federation president or the first minister should come with the delegation."
Bemish suddenly imagined old Yadan conducting talks with the demons' president and this idea was so comical that he couldn't smother laughter.
"I would like to ask you one thing, Kissur," Bemish spoke unexpectedly.
"Everything that you ask for is yours," the Alom replied.
"Don't kill Shavash… He… In the end, you got your commandos thanks to him!"
A strange, almost laughing expression came over Kissur's face.
"He has already killed the little scoundrel…" Bemish thought. "He killed or disabled him with his own hands…"
At this moment, however, something moved on his side. Shavash entered the office and sat to the right of Kissur, in the director's armchair.
"I took it upon myself to overhear your conversation at the door," the official spoke, smiling. "Your request touched me, Terence. But as you see, Kissur was not going to kill me, to begin with."
"You? What are you doing in this office?"
Shavash, laughing, placed his hand on Kissur's shoulder.
"Why shouldn't I be in this office? You see, it's my armchair… Haven't you forgotten that I was the Assalah Company director? Do you think that could I request this state appointment back due to the company's bankruptcy?"
"Do you think, Terence," Kissur inquired, "that Shavash didn't know how many Aloms serve in your army? But even he had to sweat quite a bit, to get them called in! I've never thought that there could be a country that was so set against sending its troops anywhere!"
Bemish lowered his head. He could see already the scale of the swindling operation. Oh, my God! That's why such a careful official for the first time in his life insisted so decisively on taking an unpopular action. To think that the other Weians agreed to it to compromise Shavash! Still, something smelled fishy here…
"So," Bemish said, "was the quarrel between you and Kissur completely faked?
"I am sorry, Terence, I am so sorry. It was a complete and utter fake."
"But Yadan, you and Yadan, you and Ashinik — it's not possible, Shavash! The fanatics hate you."
Kissur left the room, smiling; he was probably going to give some orders. The official silently beckoned Bemish with his finger and the latter crawled off the sofa, fighting the pain. Shavash approached a window and pulled the blinds up. Bemish stretched his head over Shavash's shoulder and looked out of the window.
Out of the director's office windows, a beautiful view opened up at the landing field strewn with the black bodies of fighter helicopters and commandos in spotty camouflage. But the construction's director attention was pulled towards something else. They had used railroad tracks to pull a huge cargo crane RV-37 into the middle of the field. The crane was generally used to correct the positioning of rockets and to load containers heavier than 700 tons. This time, the crane's load was much smaller than the maximum allowed weight. The crane's jib pointed to the sky and twelve… no, thirteen bodies were swinging under it and Bemish recognized his ex-deputy — young Ashinik — hanging to the side. Two squeaking yellow vultures were already circling the crane…
"The zealots and rebels," Shavash said coolly, "disturbed the Empire, babbled too much and addled people's minds. It was not possible to catch them all at once — they hid, showed up only separately and threatened to avenge the deaths of their comrades. Now we gathered all of the zealots in one place and destroyed this filth once and forever. Now, when we are not bothered by the crazy gangs, we can negotiate with the Federation as a real state. The simple people that believed zealots will believe Kissur. The officials terrified by zealots will trust me."
Shavash turned away from the window. The setting sun was burning and melting in the small official's eyes, his half-opened lips were twisted in a smile…
"Why?" Bemish asked suddenly. "Why do you hate us, Shavash? I don't mean myself, I mean the Federation."
The official's face contorted.
"Why? Can't you figure it out, Terence? I hate you because you are so clean; I hate your sparkling cars, your gleaming wraps, your advertisement boards. I hate you because when you arrive at the dirtiest town, you build a hotel for yourself without dirt and poverty. A poor people hate a rich one, haven't you known that?"
"I didn't know that you were poor," Bemish muttered. "I thought that you stole enough from your own people."
Shavash laughed.