A line of "yellow jackets" and Empire troops started soon after, a kilometer and a half away from the villa. Journalists lingered behind them.
The soldiers at the road block waved their hands and their assault rifles at him. A studded chain lay across the road, Bemish slowed down, turned across the chain and waited — a large pack of policemen, journalists and Earthmen was running towards him.
Strangely, there were many more journalists this time and Bemish could only blink at the camera flashes. The reasons for that were pretty simple. Most of the officials that had tried to keep the media away were now in Assalah.
"Are you all right, sir?" a guard asked. Another clicked the gun bolt. The assault rifle in his hands gleamed in the sun reflecting rice fields and clouds turned upwards down.
"Yes," Bemish said climbing out of the car. Five minutes later, a police helicopter with a yellow band on the side — the symbol of the Department of Serenity and Justice — was flying him to the capital.
The helicopter landed next to the sovereign's palace, right at Seven Grains Hotel. Here, the highest provincial functionaries used to await their award or execution; here, the head of the sect that wanted to make peace to Earthmen had been killed eleven months ago.
A whole flock of journalists rushed towards Bemish. The first among them was a guy wearing a square pattern sleeveless shirt. This guy had written a while ago that the Assalah Company director hadn't been proficient in Weian and had mistakenly taken metaphorical "demons" for a literate statement.
"Is it true that the Federation troops switched their alliance to Kissur?"
"It is true," Bemish replied.
"Why?"
"The division was 90 % Alom," Bemish replied. "At the same time, there was not a single Alom officer in it. So, the Federation soldiers decided to fight for the man who belonged to the clan that their ancestors swore fealty to. They didn't want to fight for the people that paid them three hundred credits a year. I was told that the other commando divisions had the same number of Aloms in them."
"About ten members of the emergency committee ended up in Kissur's hands. Kissur demanded their arrest and execution. What happened to them? Is it true that Shavash is dead?"
"Shavash is quite alive," Bemish said. "His quarrel with Kissur was an utter fabrication. He called the Federation soldiers in to provide Kissur with troops."
Everybody gaped — they didn't know anything yet and Bemish was the first one to openly state what had happened.
"What about the zealots?" a journalist shouted, "Are they also in?"
"No," Bemish said.
"The fight between Shavash and zealots could end only with one of the sides being destroyed. Once the Federation soldiers had switched their alliance to Kissur, he used them to exterminate the zealots. I saw the sect's leaders hanging on a cargo crane with my own eyes."
It was astonishing that nobody asked at that moment what happened to the rest of the zealots. Somehow everybody decided that "the extermination of zealots" was limited only to the execution of a dozen leaders.
"What does Kissur want?" somebody shouted. "They demanded that the corrupted government to step down and now half of the corrupted government is hanging out in Assalah! What's gonna happen next?"
"Kissur has no more demands for his own government," Bemish explained. "Kissur would like Weia and the Federation to conduct talks about their future relations. The negotiations are to be held at the highest possible level."
After this brief but shocking interview, Bemish entered the hotel where they were already waiting for him.
In the Hall of the Gifts from Afar, a table made in the shape of a grape bunch stood on gilded legs that resembled ram's hooves. At this table, provincial governors had officially delivered gifts to palace department heads. Now twenty people sat behind it. Bemish recognized half a dozen of them — Federation envoy Severin, general Stesh, the deceased Giles' boss, ex-first minister Yanik and a couple of high Weian officials. The others were Earthmen — five senators and three people with general insignias.
"They flew in here without troops," Bemish thought about the people in military uniforms. "They don't make generals out of Aloms, they only make soldiers out of them."
Bemish's story about his stay in the terrorists' nest was heard out in dead silence.
"Are you sure that there is not a single zealot left in the spaceport?" envoy Severin asked again.
"There is not a single alive zealot present," Bemish assured him.
"But it totally changes the situation," a delegate said. "We wouldn't have been able to conduct negotiations with zealots. Shavash's presence changes the picture. He is a normal person…"
"Shavash is a normal man, isn't he?!" Bemish shouted. "Would, in your opinion, a normal man get three thousand people together just to exterminate them all?"
"Well, you can't deny that it improved the situation in the country. Shavash's desire to get rid of destabilizing forces…"
"He wouldn't give a fig about them being destabilizing forces! Shavash would make a deal with destabilizing forces, demons, devils, Gera, with God knows whom. He just had a misfortune to have a personal quarrel with the zealots' spiritual head and so he killed them all."
"What are you suggesting we do?" it was Severin talking.
"There are no more hostages in the spaceport. There are only terrorists and soldiers that betrayed their oath. We have the right to destroy them by any means accessible to a superpower," Bemish said.
"Do you mean nuclear weapons?" Severin inquired.
"I suggest doing what Kissur would do in our situation. He would not think for a moment about negotiating with an enemy. He would not think about it even if there were three thousand hostages! We should not do what Kissur expects us to."
One general elbowed another quietly and asked him about the relationship between Bemish and the spaceport. Having found out that Bemish was certainly the owner of the property to be destroyed, he gazed at the businessman with satisfaction.
"I have a firm opinion," Bemish continued, "that we should not hold any negotiations with Shavash. This man doesn't even know what ethics is, whether is has wings or a tail. He treats people in the following way, "If one parrot keels over, we'll buy another one." He will cheat you because he will lie to you about the things that you take for granted. You wouldn't even consider checking them out as you wouldn't consider testing the gravitational constant."
"Unfortunately," a counter-intelligence officer spoke, "there are six large paratrooper divisions currently in Weian orbit. They had all been called in just before the commandos switched over to Kissur. There are about ten thousand commandos there and eighty five hundred of them are Aloms. These ships rotate around Weia and we don't really know whose side they are on. As long as the Federation agrees to negotiate with Kissur, they are certainly the Federal troops. If the soldiers learn, however, that an order came out to use nuclear weapons against Kissur…"
"What will happen then?"
"We have certain reasons to believe," the officer spoke surrounded by dead silence, "that in this case our own commandos may commit a series of terrorist attacks similar to Kissur's. They may do it on Earth, on Vain, on Tennox — on the largest Federation planets."
"So, we just don't have an alternative — we have to negotiate with Mr. Shavash," Bemish summarized.
"Yes. We have to do it at the highest level, as they demanded."
Truly, the delegation came out to be very impressive. It was led by the state secretary Khaime Khodsky, the third person in the Federation after the president. It also included the foreign affairs minister Camilla Leyson, the defense minister, two four star generals (one of them commanded the Fourth Space Army) and five senators.