"Go!"
The jeep started moving slowly. The guard got his radio out and quietly reported,
"The fish is on the hook. Meet us behind the bridge." Ashinik ground his teeth.
"Just wait," he uttered, "my master will learn that you seized me and you will get you butt kicked!" The guard laughed.
"Firstly," he spoke, "it would be difficult for Bemish to find out that we caught you because you escaped on your own. But if you are really interested in it, it was Mr. Bemish who handed you over to us. He told us where the jeep would be and suggested that we trapped you.
Ashinik's heart plummeted.
"You are lying! The master wouldn't do it!"
"Eh, my dear, the master didn't do it while he still hoped to make peace with the sect. And now he can only hope to find out where the Meeting of Choosing will occur and burn them all out with a laser or with DDT. We can learn where it is from you, right? Of course, Mr. Bemish could skin you himself but Bemish is a squeamish Earthman. Why should he get his hands dirty if there are other people around? That's why he sold you out, Ashinik."
Ashinik drove silently. Nearby, the spaceships' exhausts hissed warming up and signal lights blinked behind the spaceport wall. The unpaved road finally ended, the jeep climbed onto a six lane highway and rolled towards Lannah Bridge.
"So, where is the meeting?"
"I don't know."
The car raced over a ramp next to the spaceport eastern gates; a passenger car's lights blinked below.
"Ashinik, why are you so stubborn? Don't you understand that you are the third one on their extermination list, right after Bemish and my boss? You aren't crazy. You don't believe that Yadan was born out of a golden egg, do you? Tell us and we will let you go because my masters are normal people and yours are nuts!"
Ashinik suddenly swerved the steering wheel all the way to the right. The car hit the concrete sidewalk, jumped and hit the fence head-on. The guard shot and the bullet burned Ashinik's hair and made a neat hole in the windshield.
"Ouch! What are you doing, bastard?!"
The rail caved in, bursting. Ashinik threw the door open and rolled out. He was barely able to grab the poles at the ramp's edge.
The busted rail links glimmered on their way down and the car followed them spinning in the air. Ashinik heard it hitting the ground; the sound of a muted explosion came next.
Ashinik climbed onto the ramp and ran as fast as he could.
The next morning, barefoot Ashinik dressed in peasant clothing with a sack behind his shoulder stepped out of a bus three hundred kilometers away from Assalah.
In half an hour, he entered a village tavern on Mer Lake shore.
Five people in simple clothing sat in the tavern. It seemed that none of them paid any attention to Ashinik. It was as if not a man came through the door but just a bug flew in. "Why have I come," a thought desperately beat at Ashinik's mind, "Why have I come? They will kill me like they killed the White Elder." Ashinik sat on an unoccupied chair. Now all six chairs at the table were taken.
"Rashan is dead," one of the seated people stated quietly. "He is dead because he desired to make peace with the demons and the man who advised him to do so is responsible for his death."
Rashan was the White Elder's name and it was forbidden to say it while he held this position. Since this name was mentioned, it meant that the White Elder had already been elected and Ashinik's heart shuddered when he realized that it had been done without him.
All five people turned and started looking at Ashinik.
"Rashan's soul is lonely; those that defiled it should follow it," Dush said; he sat next to Ashinik.
Two small seven-year-old boys entered the room and started walking among the people with two goblets, a white and a black one. Everyone put his hand into one goblet and then into the other one.
Dush also lowered his hand into the white goblet and then into the black one. He had a dry bean in his hand — he was supposed to drop it in one of the goblets — nobody could see in which one. Ashinik didn't have any difficulties, however, guessing that Dush chose the white one.
The boys walked around all six people and then they turned the goblets over onto the table. There was nothing in the black one and there were five beans in the white one. Five out of six people sitting here voted for Ashinik's death. The sixth one abstained.
Ashinik observed himself with a cold curiosity. His mind separated in two halves and both halves were watching the current events independently. One half was Ashinik-Assalah vice-president, the youngest Weian manager, the man who earned ten times more money than all the other people here combined. Another half was Ashinik-zealot who put the Elder's orders above his death. What's the value of one life if there are so many of them? It's better to die with honor and come to your next life into a good family than to die as a coward and be reborn as a spider.
Two men in red hoods picked Ashinik up by his hands, dragged him for several steps and put him on a rug unrolled between two tripods. One of them threw a sturdy rope noose over Ashinik's neck quickly and efficiently. "No!" Ashinik wanted to cry out as an Earthman would have cried at his place.
"Let me put my hair in place," Ashinik heard his own voice and his hands rose and removed several hair curls from under the rope."
One executioner pushed him closer to the altar and the other one started unhurriedly putting the candles' flame out with a wooden board. Ashinik knew that he would be killed when the last candle dies.
Ashinik stood on his knees immobile and watched how darkness was slowly conquering the room. Soon only one flame tongue was left…
"Leave us alone," a voice spoke suddenly.
The rope on his neck was loosened up. Ashinik heard the chairs and door squeaking quietly. He turned his head slightly and saw that he was left alone with Yadan. He realized that Yadan was now the White Elder by how quickly his order had been obeyed.
"It's not right to kill a man," Yadan said, "who can serve our purpose still, however guilty he is. You want to serve our purpose, don't you?"
"I want it with all my heart."
"Do you agree that you are responsible for Rashan's demise?"
"Yes."
Ashinik answered automatically. He knew what he would be told to do now. He would be commanded to kill Shavash or his master.
"The demons taught you a lot. Can you return to Terence Bemish?"
"No. Bemish betrayed me."
"It's not important that Bemish betrayed you," Yadan noticed sarcastically. "It's important that Bemish betrayed Rashan. He will answer for that."
Two days later, when Bemish flew to hunt with Khanadar, he heard that yet another assassination attempt had been made on Shavash's life. This time, it was no longer amateurs. A car packed with serit explosives had been parked in Shavash's car path and it exploded exactly when the cars were next to each other. The assassination attempt had been organized very well; the criminals had clearly studied all of the vice-minister's possible routes and they had maintained constant radio communication. Once it became clear that Shavash would drive by Azure circle, the corresponding order had been given. The car with explosives had been parked literally five minutes before the official drove by.
Shavash was saved by a freaky accident. Just a moment before the explosion, a doll rolled onto the road and an eight-year-old girl rushed out there after it. The driver stepped on the brake sharply trying not to hit the girl and the car spun across the road.
Right then the explosion hit. Since the car faced the blast with its back instead of its side, it was hurled forward for several meters and it hit a glass shop window (while it was already disintegrating) head on. It bounced backwards, jumped and its trunk hit a small electric auto that was quietly hurrying to the Cheese Precinct.
The car leaped quite nimbly on the electric auto with its rear wheels, jumped from its hood onto its roof, froze there for a second, tipped over and banged into the road cover face on.
The driver banged his forehead on the steering wheel and hurt himself quite a bit. Shavash obtained a minor concussion and got the driver's blood all over his excellent suit. The bodyguard had been sitting in the back seat, against the regulations, and he was not so lucky — he sustained a rib fracture and a lacerated spleen.
Having learned about serit explosives, Bemish went cold. This particular explosive had been used often in the earlier stage of the spaceport's construction.