"Ashinik hasn't showed up, has he?" Bemish asked Giles.
"No," the latter said.
"Dick, run a check on the used explosives up to the last milligram," Bemish said quietly.
"If I was you, I would not address this issue," Giles answered just as quietly even though they were alone.
"Being me, I will not wait till Shavash addresses this issue."
In an hour Inis entered Bemish's office. Bemish raised his eyes and got a surprise — Inis was very serious, her eyebrows were furled and her face was pale. She even wore a skirt that almost reached to the ground though it was somewhat transparent.
"Terence," she said, lowering her eyes, "Ashinik has been arrested. He had just being sitting in a tavern and they jumped upon him and drove him away."
"How do you know this?"
"I got a phone call."
Bemish paused.
"Terence, I swear to you that he is not guilty! These people… they just used him as a dummy front! It's their technique — they decided to get rid of the man who is half Earthman already and they decided to do it with Shavash's hands!"
Bemish was astonished. Inis could well be correct. But how did this girl figure it out? Who suggested this to her? Bemish almost asked her this question and then he went pale. He understood what had happened. It was not "who" it was "what."
"You should go to Shavash," Inis said.
"Why?"
Inis suddenly put her hands on her hips.
"Three months ago you would not ask, "Why?" You would know that you couldn't control the workers without Ashinik. Now Ashinik has performed his function and you can give him away! He taught the workers to be rich and sated and nobody will betray you anymore!"
Oh my God! Inis was no longer a bedding girl, content with her dresses and sweets. Bemish leaped from his armchair and grabbed her by her shoulders.
"Why are you asking for him? Why do you care about my deputy? Why have they called you and not me?"
Then, Inis burst into tears. She kneed, embraced Bemish's legs and wailed confusedly, "I… I can't be without him…"
Bemish paled.
"Are you lovers?"
Inis was crawling next to his feet. Bemish ran his hands over the table and the woman cried out and leapt up. She looked at the intercom button with horror as if she was expecting Terence Bemish to push it and order the spaceport's security service director to find a jute sack somewhere, stick the unfaithful lover of the general director in it and sew it up.
Bemish turned and rushed out of the office.
When Bemish got to Shavash, the small official was eating a breakfast. "You've arrested my employee!" Bemish declared at the doorstep. "On what grounds did you do it?"
"He is a zealot and he was involved in yesterday's assassination attempt."
"Where is the proof?"
Shavash grinned.
"The arrest comes first. He will supply us with the proof later."
"If I were you, I wouldn't particularly trust to a testimony obtained under torture."
"And I would never," Shavash said, "trust a zealot's testimony obtained without torture. Why are you looking at me as if a live carp is stuck between my teeth?"
"You are a scoundrel!" Bemish shouted.
"You have said it before, Terence."
"And you are shaking with fright and rushed to arrest everybody left and right!"
"Terence," Shavash said, "we are now on one side. Look, Ashinik had run away from you and he never came back to you. Why? Because he was ordered to wring our necks."
"If he had returned to Assalah," Bemish noticed, "it would have been much easier."
"If he had returned to Assalah, Giles would take him apart in half a minute."
"Shavash, I know Ashinik a little bit. Listen, if he had set this assassination up, you would not have survived. He would have used three times more explosives. He would not let any accidents get in his way."
"It's possible," Shavash said, "but you see, if you arrest a fool that carried out the assassination, he can only tell you what a fool knows. If you arrest Ashinik who is not particularly strong in his faith, thanks to your efforts, he will tell us everything. Three days later, after Ashinik tells us everything, nothing will be left of the sect."
"Nothing will be left except the reasons for its existence — poverty of the people, embezzling officials and rude Earthmen."
Shavash grinned.
"You are a strange man, Terence. If I were you, I would thank a man who arrested my concubine's lover."
Bemish paled. Even that was out. Damn it, everybody, including the zealots, knew it except for him…
"You, of course, do not love Inis. You love another woman. But still it's not a reason to appeal on Inis' beau's behalf."
Shavash yawned and covered his mouth with his hand.
Bemish shouted in such a voice that the glass doors in a cabinet clanged.
"Either you will show me the proof that Ashinik's arrest is based on or you will go with me and free him!"
Shavash thought for a bit and then he rose, gestured at Bemish with his finger to follow him and stepped out of the office. They walked down a corridor with a beautiful hardwood floor, passed by two or three halls decorated with the utmost luxury and covered with ancient rugs. It was rumored that Shavash had ordered these rugs to be ripped off the walls of Isia-ratough temple in Chakhar (they had processed this robbery later as the sale of these rugs at some ridiculously low price). Having passed two or three more doors, they found themselves in a concrete corridor leading underground. Bemish suddenly remembered with a shudder how Shavash had boasted about his personal jail. He also recalled the words attributed to Shavash, "You are powerful not if you can afford a personal villa; you are powerful if you can afford a personal dungeon." So, they hadn't even taken Ashinik to a state prison…
A low desperate cry came from behind a door at the very end of the corridor. Shavash threw the door wide open.
Bemish noticed a pile of bloody rags in a corner, some pliers in a bowl and Ashinik's dead eyes. Completely naked, he was hanging head down on metal rings attached to a wall and Bemish's attention was pulled to his right hand — all the nails there had been torn out. Then Shavash stepped forward moving his friend aside and said in a tired and ironic voice, "The first set is finished. Take the pear off the branch."