"No," he shook his head, "no way, oats could smell like this. Khanadar, do you know what it is?"
Khanadar also picked a sack, tore it apart with his whip's claw, picked some weed up and stuck it under his horse's nose. It neighed and turned its head aside.
"No," Khanadar said, "I don't know what it is but it's not oats. Look, Striped is putting its nose up and it doesn't want it." At this point, Aldon the Lynx Cub joined the conversation.
"Hey, it's hemp," he said, "wolf's whisk." Weian zealots and local serfs have used it since old times to visit the skies and now people carry it to the Sky in plastic bags. I heard, they pay a lot of money for this weed on the sky. Earthmen always pay a lot of money for what a horse put its nose up away."
The only thing that Bemish couldn't understand was why they were all still alive.
Here, Ashidan's breaking voice sounded.
"Kissur," he said, "it's my fault. I failed to ask your permission."
Kissur span around.
"Are you trying to say," he spoke with a phony astonishment, "that you allowed my serfs to trade weed grown in my lands without asking for my consent?"
"But I was not sure…" Ashidan started.
"Tell me," Kissur inquired, "who is the senior in our clan, you or me?"
"You are."
"And who owns the land and everything above it and below it, the senior or the junior?"
"The senior does."
"Then, why are you breaking the law and pocketing the profit from this business?"
"I was afraid that you won't understand…"
"Of course, I won't understand," Kissur thundered, "my serfs on my land start a business and don't pay me two cents! Who should feed me, the sovereign or my own holding?"
"My Lord, my Lord," round eyed Lakhor hurried, "We didn't know that master Ashidan paid you nothing, I'll turn into a frog if we wanted to break the law!"
At this point, a man in a flying suit ducked out of the cargo hatch.
"I bring my apologies, Mr. Kissur," he said in Interenglish, "We really didn't know that you were not aware of our modest business."
Kissur looked him over from head to toes.
"How much do you pay my brother for a sack?"
"Ten."
"You will pay me twelve. I want money now."
"Do you think I have so much?" the pilot snapped.
"Don't cross him," Lakhor peeped in horror.
"I am waiting," Kissur said coldly, "or I will rip all the sacks apart."
"Don't pick a fight with him," another Earthman said, "he is livid."
"You would become livid here," Khanadar the Dried Date objected, "when your own serfs don't pay you their taxes fairly and you brother cheats you — hasn't Ashidan promised you Kissur's protection?"
Kissur and the pilot disappeared in the hatch opening. Ashidan sat on the log not raising his pale face. Bemish's mind was reeling. If Kissur hadn't known whom he would meet at the old altar house, why had he brought the assault rifle that he was now carefully hiding under his hunting coat? And if he had known, why had he dragged Bemish with him? Did he think that Bemish would keep silent? No, damn it, did he think that Terence Bemish would swallow even that? Or would he suggest landing these boats in Assalah spaceport?
Kissur and the pilot stepped out of the hatch again. The pilot was smiling. It was clear that in his opinion he got away cheaply and found himself such a protector that all Weian police would not be able to lay a finger on him. Kissur stuck the money in his pants pocket and, having bent his leg, placed it right in front of the pilot on a boarding ramp's aluminum stair.
The latter started looking around confusedly.
"Stupid," old Lakhor hissed, "Kiss the foot, the Lord's foot."
The Earthman shrugged his shoulders and bended down to the dusty boot. At this moment, Kissur kneed the pilot under his chin. The pilot squealed. His body flew upwards and Kissur's joined hands crushed his neck — his backbone crunched.
Out of the corner of his eye, Bemish barely managed to see how Aldon plucked Ashidan and threw him into the bushes. Kissur went flat behind a steel landing support, whipped his gun out and started firing at the confused people, Aldon and Khanadar joined the fray.
Three Earthmen with guns went supine, the fourth one, unnoticed by Kissur, leaped out of the altar house. Bemish jumped at him and kicked his gun away; both of them went to the ground. The gunman seized Bemish's throat and started choking him. Bemish rolled on his back and quite nimbly kicked the attacker in the place where legs grow from. The latter said "ouch" loudly and let Bemish go but he immediately recovered and butted him in the stomach and then punched him with the right hand. Bemish intercepted this punch, seized the gunman's sleeve with his left hand and, with fingers spread apart, hit him in the eyes. One eye burst and oozed down his cheek.
"Aaahhh!" the gunman screamed. In a tight embrace, they rolled down to the abyss over boulders and hummocks.
Bemish banged a rock with his back badly and he fainted for a moment. The gunman whipped an arrow out of the quiver, hanging behind Bemish's back. The arrow was sharp and firm, with white icy feathers. A hexagonal titanium tip gleaned in the moonlight above Bemish. "That's it," Bemish thought.
The smuggler dropped the arrow, however, and then he sighed and fell on Bemish's chest. Bemish shook himself up and climbed from under his enemy's body. A long knife was stuck in the guy's back and Khanadar the Dried Date stood over the knife.
Date extended his hand and helped Bemish get up. They climbed the loose rocks uphill to the lighted altar house and space boat.
Everything had already been done there. Bemish counted the corpses — sixteen people, five wore body suits or jeans and the others were locals. The gunpowder smell of shots mixed with the smell of fresh hemp and blood. Ashidan sat on a rock holding his head in his hands.
Following Kissur's orders they gathered the corpses and the sacks next to the altar house walls, poured gas over them and lit them on fire.
"I feel bad about the grave," Khanadar said.
"It's desecrated now, what can we do?" Kissur responded. Still, he untied the bear cub off the saddle and threw it in the fire.
Afterwards, Kissur tore off the emergency control seals, turned the safety block off and started clicking the switches till the main screen swelled red and screamed in an ugly voice.
"Mount," Kissur yelled, running out of the space boat. Khanadar had already leaped across the broken fence and he was prancing on his horse next to the forest.
"Should I repeat it for you?" Kissur screamed at Ashidan, "It will blow up in a moment."
Ashidan raced following the others.
It blew up in such a way that the moon almost dropped off the sky and fire imps leaped out of the mountains and danced over the altar house left behind; when people in the village found the remnants, they said, with astonishment, that old Aldis had dragged stupid travelers from the sky to him and nothing good, of course, had come out of it.