"What's happened to you, Terence, have you fallen in love with him? I haven't noticed you leaning this way before."
Bemish choked.
"I am kidding. Since you love a different — woman," Shavash said heavily and with a hidden meaning. And he dropped the receiver.
This evening, when Ashinik was having a dinner in the common cafeteria, Bemish sat next to him. After tea, Bemish asked.
"Why does your sect dislike Shavash so much?"
Ashinik paused.
"Shavash is a briber and a scoundrel."
"Ashinik, sonny, all Weian officials are bribers and scoundrels. You, however, dislike Shavash much more than, say, Khanida or Akhaggar — while they cause just as much harm."
"Khanida hasn't tried to destroy us."
"That's why. And has Shavash tried?"
"Yes. He filled our circle with spies and dissidents. He bribed those who were not firm in their convictions and they started preaching a lot of nonsense and many people let themselves be lured."
"What kind of nonsense did they preach?"
"He bribed Dakhak and Dakhak started saying that it's wrong to deny salvation to demons and that they would not be damned forever. And he bribed Amarn and Amarn started teaching…" Ashinik suddenly stopped. "Our teachings are none of your business," he finished.
Bemish couldn't conceal his smile.
"Are you sure that every zealot that doesn't believe the same things you do, is necessarily bribed or seduced?"
"These people were bribed by Shavash," Ashinik cut him off.
Bemish paused. Really, Ashinik's words could be true. Shavash himself told the Earthman that nothing was more efficient at killing the zealots than discords among the sects. And the whole thing just looked like Shavash's doing. Yes, this official stole, embezzled and it was not an accident that a joke about him traveled around — out of all gods Shavash envied ten handed Khagge the most — imagine how much you can steal with ten hands? At the same time, only Shavash among all the bribers surrounding him could be seriously concerned with the future danger of Following the Way.
Yes. It makes sense that Shavash tried to take care of the sect in a way that wouldn't cause an international scandal. It would be one thing to hang the zealots publicly pissing off all the human rights committees and another thing to make them throttle each other.
At the end of the third week, Bemish found Ashinik on the border of an unfinished sector. The lad was holding Bemish's gun that he had probably picked up in a drawer in the office and, having extracted the battery, was contemplating the "doughnut" thoughtfully. Ten meters away from Ashinik, a huge basalt rock arose; it had been left on the field since it was too heavy to transport. Now, a regular Atari could drag the rock away in two trips — it was cut in half and black basalt foam bubbled at the jagged wound's edges.
The light on the "doughnut" top blinked red — the battery was dead. When Bemish approached, the zealot threw the gun on the grass and asked.
"Why didn't Kissur shoot me?" Bemish rolled on his feet.
"I've already told you. I can't let a deliberate murder happen right in front of me even if the victim doesn't mind."
"I thought that this thing couldn't shoot me. At that moment, I thought that you didn't allow Kissur to show that I was right."
Bemish silently looked at the youth. It would be interesting to know how much time it took him to quarter the rock. Star's "doughnut" is specified for forty eight minutes of uninterrupted shooting.
"It's very difficult," Ashinik said, "when you had seen that something was black and then it appeared to be white."
"Have you really had visions, Ashinik?"
"I still have them."
"What are they about? Are they about Earthmen being demons?"
"Yes," Ashinik remarked, "Tell me, could a man be born out of a golden egg?"
"Read a biology textbook," Bemish dryly suggested.
The next day, Ashinik was managing the forest clearing in a new area and he fainted in the workers' view. He regained his senses in ten minutes and continued working even though Bemish told him on the radio to go and rest.
Ashinik felt fine for two days and he fainted again on the third one. Then, he told the workers that he would turn them into cockroaches if they told Bemish about the fits and Bemish didn't know anything till, in two weeks, Ashinik fainted at a morning business meeting.
He recovered quickly but Bemish, not letting him open his mouth, dragged him to the health services — to Isaak Malinovskii who was in charge of influenza, accidents and malaria at the construction and who also kept terrorizing Bemish with the possibility of a cholera epidemic.
Malinovskii took the youth's blood pressure, put him on the couch, wrapped him with wires and ran a tomography on him. Ashinik didn't resist. He didn't seem to care.
"What problems do you have?" Malinovskii finally asked, having covered the youth with a blanket and sitting next to him.
"Am I fine?"
"You have a bad case of nervous exhaustion. What happens to you before you faint?"
"I see different pictures. I was sitting, for example, at the today's meeting and then everybody around started growing horns and snouts and a wall tied around me and began choking me."
Ashinik paused.
"Tell me, doctor, am I crazy?"
"Why are you asking this question?"
"I have visions. I read this thick book — a psychiatry textbook. It said that if a man saw what others didn't, it meant that something was wrong with his brains."
"If an Earthman came to me and told me what you had just described, I would definitely recommend him a psychiatrist. But the specific subculture you belong to is very different. For Following the Way a trance is normal and the ability to fall in a trance is one of the ways to prove your leadership skills. You are a very nervous and excitable man, Ashinik, but you are mentally normal. And I think that your visions will disappear soon because here, working for the company, you've found another way to be a leader.
Malinovskii attached a plastic drug vial to a syringe and said, "And now you need to sleep long and well."
When Ashinik woke up, it was already day time. The fiery snouts that had buzzed in his mind yesterday disappeared. He lay in a wide bed in a room with carved pink wood walls and a wide open window. A cardinal sat on the windowsill and studied him with eyes that looked like mercury droplets and far away, behind the bird's red feathers and bush greenery two hundred meters of Assalah spaceport control tower soared in the sky.
Ashinik realized that he had probably been moved to Terence Bemish's villa. He hadn't been to the villa yet because there was a lot of work at the spaceport and because Bemish either slept at the spaceport or flew to the capital on business.
Ashinik turned his head and saw a girl sitting next to him. The girl was dressed in a velvet jacket and a long bell shaped skirt sewn with flowers and grasses. A hazy silk belt tied with a five-petal knot fluttered behind her back like butterfly wings.
The girl smiled at Ashinik shyly and Ashinik suddenly smiled back. Something scurried between them — Ashinik imagined for a moment a furry little animal jumping out one smile into another.
"Mr. Bemish said that you should stay in bed and should not get up."