"A man was killed because of this painting. It will always remind me about his death."
"Who was he?"
"It was my headman, Adini. The man, who swapped the original and the copy, following Shavash's orders."
Bemish hesitated, considering whether he was going to say something that would be taken as an affront, and finished.
"I would prefer the gardeners around a fire."
The sovereign didn't give Bemish the gardeners, of course. Two days later, he however bestowed a watercolor to the Earthman that depicted mermaids, imps and people in a dancing frenzy around a fire soaring to the sky. The colors were painfully bright, the people's pupils narrowed from the blinding light and the fire itself was formed by a circle of the intertwined transparent snakelike demons. One of the guests whispered to Bemish with a smile that somewhere around fifth century, the god of wealth secret worships had been depicted in such a way.
Terence Bemish had an overcoat, that such gifts were supposed to be accepted in, put on his shoulders and he kneeled and kissed the emperor's hand and the golden brush attached to the roll's right corner.
The very fact, that the emperor bestowed one of his own paintings to a man from the stars, brought forth many rumors — Terence Bemish was the first man born on the sky that received such a gift. The whispers started that the foreigner would soon be offered a Chakhar governor or a minister of finance position but better informed people shook their heads and said that nobody would change a bill prohibiting people from the stars from taking Empyreal appointments — this bill had been designed specially to kick Nan out of the country.
The day that Bemish spent talking to sovereign Varnazd, his first deputy Ashinik spent at the new site A-33. The place was barely developed — a tractor path wove in the middle of it but it was enough to step ten meters away to see birds fluttering out of the grass and lizards presenting their green back to the sun on the spotty rocks. When lunch time came, the workers climbed in a jeep and drove to the cafeteria. Ashinik wanted to spend some time alone. He walked up a sunlit hillock, sat on the grass and uncovered a rug his lunch was wrapped in — two flatbread pieces with sheep cheese and butter.
Somebody settled down on the grass next to him. Ashinik turned around. Near him, a man sat in a rough hay overcoat and a yellow repairman belt — it was not a repairman, however, but a man named Yadan. Yadan was the very same zealot that had taught Ashinik and raised him to the third level. Yadan was not the head of the zealots, there was one man above him who was not supposed to be called by his name and whom everybody called White Elder. White Elder was not a nickname — it was a position. If the White Elder died, Yadan would become the White Elder. Yadan was the most uncompromising Earthmen's opponent in the sect and he was the second in its hierarchy.
"Good day, Ashinik."
"Good day, teacher. Why didn't you say that you wanted to see me? It's dangerous for you to come here. What if somebody identifies you?"
"Why is it dangerous? I thought that this is the safest place in the whole Empire for me. Isn't everybody working at the construction devoted to us?"
"What can you require from simple peasants, teacher? It's easy to tempt a man with a high salary and a thick bun and this demon Giles stuck his steel eyes everywhere and watches me all the time. All that he wants is to use me to catch a big fish that will feed demons' Intelligence and that Shavash will enjoy."
Ashinik was saying these words mechanically squeezing the unwrapped rag with a bun and cheese in his hand. He felt fear shoving its sticky fingers in his heart. What will Yadan ask from him? The teacher's voice didn't promise anything pleasant. He will be punished now… Why? What rules has Ashinik broken? He always followed all rituals and customs carefully. An evening hasn't passed yet without Ashinik calling the workers in for a brief prayer, a morning hasn't passed without him getting out of the bed and splashing his left shoulder with water… And still Ashinik's heart fluttered….
"You are afraid," Yagan said unexpectedly. "Why are you shaking, Ashinik?"
Ashinik was silent.
"Oh, I am sorry my lad, that I am asking such a stupid question," Yadan spoke suddenly. "It's difficult to live amidst demons and not be afraid, isn't it?"
"Yes, of course."
They were silent for a moment. Yadan, dry and rangy, stared at the uprooted patch and a covered with clay excavator immobilized at a huge foundation pit.
"I am hungry," Yadan spoke suddenly.
Ashinik hurriedly broke the bun in half.
"Hola, my lad!" the zealot said quietly. "Do you eat demons' food already?"
Ashinik looked at the bun in horror.
He picked up the snack at a road stand where a village matron was selling cheap Weian food. The bun was frankly of the simplest kind, the same one as women had baked here for the thousands of years and the cheese was homemade sharp goat cheese rolled in small white balls. But red hot sauce between cheese and onions — here Yadan was totally right — came not from the local places but out of an imported demons' can. Ashinik went cold. Even a month ago, he, Ashinik, would have noticed himself that it was demons' food and here he just bought the bun and wrapped it in the rug automatically. Gods, what's happening to him, Ashinik, that he doesn't notice so simple things? Or, is it all that important what can this sauce comes from?
Ashinik blushed furiously and threw the bun in the pit filled with water.
"How often do you eat their food?"
Ashinik kept guilty silence. Constantly having body cleanliness and the teacher's admonitions in mind, he mostly tried to avoid the Earthmen's dishes but it wasn't easy. The first time, he had to eat their food was at that bank committee reception. Ashinik was seated with the other people at a banquet table and, though Ashinik could handle hunger, he couldn't handle the understanding and relaxed look that Terence Bemish glanced at Ashinik's empty plate with.
Then — either a meeting after which Inis gets a pizza or working till late night and a hamburger — it's difficult to live with the demons and not eat their food. Forget about the food, it such a shame that Ashinik has a suit hanging in his closet — made out of the same demons' cloth that he frightened the believers with.
"Do you eat demons' food often?" Yadan repeated his question.
"I have to sometimes," Ashinik uttered.
"So, that's what is happening," Yadan grinned. "The gods addled the demons' minds and turned them into the gods' tool — did we suppose that the demons would handle their main construction over to us…"
And he stood suddenly.
"It's enough of demons' food for you; the time has come for you to eat food for your soul. Come to Inissa by the sixth, you know, where you should be."
He turned away and disappeared.
Ashinik sat unmoving for a while. He thought that everything could have been way worse. Yadan could order him to kill Bemish or to set a bomb off next to a passenger terminal. What would have Ashinik done then? He couldn't refuse…
Instead of this, they just called him to Inissa for an all-round sect meeting. What does it mean? Do they approve of his actions? Or are they going to bring him to a trial and the sixth will become his life's last day? Or he will be commanded to make up for his crime by killing the very same man that tempted him away from the true road — Terence Bemish?
Ashinik stood up abruptly. He suddenly felt how his body became sticky with sweat and he also felt horrible hunger pangs. Really, he hadn't eaten since five am. He would have happily picked up the bun if he had thrown it to the ground. Ashinik was a simple and resilient village lad and by the war's end, during the famine, he had to eat not just buns covered in mud but also live caterpillars. But he had thrown the bun away in the foundation pit, should he swim after it?
Ashinik slowly lumbered west where the spaceport's hangars and technical services started on the other side of the torn out fence's planks.
In five minutes, he entered the main building via an underground tunnel. Weian and English words blinked on a board, alien words hang in the air like flies and thousands of people scurried back and forth.
Ashinik spun his head around looking for the nearest Weian seller but, then, he turned sharply and approached a huge gleaming fast food stand covered with all kinds of hamburgers and bottles full of dyed water.
In half an hour, Ashinik ran right into Giles on the twelfth floor. Ashinik didn't like Giles. He knew that the latter was Shavash's close friend, and unlike Terence Bemish, who never grilled Ashinik about the sect or the reasons behind his orders, Giles constantly wondered about customs and meetings and more than once or twice he would start explaining pompously to Ashinik why, accordingly to Earth scientific laws, nothing could get born out of a golden egg.
"Hey, Ashinik, what do you need here?" Giles inquired.
"The report that I gave to Mr. Bemish yesterday," Ashinik answered. "I need to fix some stuff."
"Ah, hm-hm," the security chief said mysteriously. Here, the elevator doors opened finally, Giles jumped in and left.
Ashinik twitched his mouth and opened the door to Bemish's personal office. He told Giles the truth and nothing but the truth — he did need his yesterday's report. Leaving for the capital, Bemish said that he scribbled some remarks on it and Ashinik needed to fix the report accordingly to the remarks and hand it over to Bemish when the latter returned.
The report however was nowhere to be found. Ashinik cautiously searched the papers strewn across Terence's table and found nothing. Ashinik hesitated and, having approached a door at the far end of the office, he pushed it and entered.
It was Terence Bemish's personal residence. A forty square meters living room started right behind the office doors, its windows, made out of soundproof glass, faced the landing pads. A personal elevator could deliver the owner to the bedroom and the guests even higher, to the very tower top where a rocky garden with cactuses and agaves was set out. Other plants didn't take well to this height, either wind got in their way or it was the nonstop roaring of the ships taking off — there was no soundproof glass around the plants.
Going to his bedroom, Bemish generally used, instead of the elevator, a wide and beautiful staircase that started right in the living room.