The line went off.
Fifteen minutes later, a car stopped under the hotel windows and Kissur jumped out of it.
"Dress," Kissur said. "We are going to the sovereign."
"Why?"
At this point, the phone rang again. Bemish picked up the receiver.
"Terence, this is Shavash. Call your complaint off."
"What complaint?"
"Don't pretend. Call off the complaint that you wrote to the sovereign requesting to arrest me for bribery."
"Have you lost your mind? I've never written this crap!"
"Terence, if you go to the sovereign you will be squashed flat. You can forget about working in a bank — they won't hire you as a cashier in a supermarket. Got it?"
"I haven't…"
Shavash slammed the receiver.
"I signed the complaint for you, Bemish," Kissur said. "The sovereign will examine it at this morning audience."
Bemish grabbed his head.
"Oh, my God, Kissur are you nuts? If you don't have mercy for me, have mercy for your own country!"
"I have mercy for my country," Kissur said. "You explained to me, what IC is yourself. They will just rob us and that's it. Or, were you bulling me?"
"I didn't bull you, Kissur. Just get it — the contract has been signed. That's it. Finita la comedia. These stocks are IC's property. If they find out that an international company can have its property taken away from it on your planet just because some authorities think that some bribes were involved, you will not need any spaceports anymore! No financier will ever come here! It's worse than tank trips over a joint company. "
Kissur stuck out his lip stubbornly. Clearly, the threat that no more dinar and dollar fans appear in the Empire, didn't frighten him much.
"Get it, you stupid idiot, that any losses resulting from Assalah sold off incorrectly won't even come close with the losses resulting from the cancellation of a completed contract. I will not even mention that nobody will let me back to LSV. I will not even mention that IC is totally in its right to sue me in arbitration court even if I get your complaint thrown back at my face!"
"But I will say that it's my complaint."
"And they will, of course, believe you on the spot," Bemish waved his hand. "Well, leave me alone for these three hours."
"What are you gonna do?"
"Think," Bemish said.
Exactly four hours later, Bemish, accompanied by Kissur walked down the sovereign garden's paths to a small six room pavilion. Above the pavilion entrance, a flag with an inscription Fairness and Concentration Hall was swaying. Two golden peacocks of wondrous craftsmanship guarded the inner hall entrance. The sovereign Varnazd sat in a down armchair next to a window. He wore a long white dress, with wide sleeves fastened at the wrists by pearl clasps and, uncovered, his face, thin as onion undergarment peels, looked somewhat lost and naeve. Shavash followed Bemish into the hall and first minister Yanik also came in. Shavash and Yanik were draped in the ceremonial kaftans with all their rank insignias — Bemish had never seen them before. A red fiery dragon, with rubies sewn in his claws, on the first minister's dress dazed him unexpectedly and Bemish suddenly felt something he had never suspected before — a certain meagerness of his impeccably made cashmere wool suite compared to the red dragon with the ruby decorated claws. As for Kissur, he was dressed the same way as he had been earlier, visiting Bemish, — in ragged leather pants.
"You filed a complaint, Mr. Bemish," the sovereign said, "could you describe how you were mistreated."
"I didn't file this complaint," Bemish said. "And, having certain business ethics views, I consider it impossible to request a re-consideration of a completed contract. However, I have a question to Mr. Shavash — what was your decision to cancel the investment auction based on and what was your decision to sell the company for a three times less money, than I offered, based on?"
The sovereign turned to the vice-minister of finance.
"I would like to hear your answer, Mr. Shavash."
"We didn't cancel the auction," Shavash stated. "We just ran it on a shorter time scale. Considering Mr. Bemish's application, we judged it to be incomplete since LSV investment bank, which had been expected to underwrite the bonds, and several other large commercial banks, which had been expected to advance credit to Mr. Bemish, pulled out having realized that the offer had been overpriced.
"After some investors pulled out, I found others!" Bemish cried out.
"The company from Gera, that loaned money to you, doesn't have any credit history and is very suspicious. SC Trading that promised to distribute your bonds is a tiny investment boutique with absolutely no authority on the capital market. We doubt that the bonds distributed by it will be worth more than fifty cents for a dinar. Therefore, your application is comparable with that of IC."
Shavash paused and continued.
"Meanwhile, Mr. Bemish's actions clearly demonstrated that he was not going to acquire Assalah. Long before his arrival, he had been buying Assalah stocks through several companies. Violating the law, he didn't register the fact that he owned in reality more than 13 % of Assalah stocks. The only goal of his actions was to put pressure at the future company management so that they would acquire the stocks at a higher price. To achieve this purpose Terence Bemish didn't shrink from anything. A foreigner ignoring the ways and customs of our country, thinking only about his rake-off, — he abused his position as a manor owner forcing the peasants present him with their shares. Using his highly placed connections, he browbeat a local official into giving him the Assalah shares that the latter acquired when their price was forty ishevik a share; afterwards, he had the gall to fire the official. Since Terence Bemish violated the regulations regarding share block registration, I demand the companies Raniko, Alvisir Trust and LLA be removed from the Assalah stock owners list without any compensation. "
The Emperor raised his hand.
"These are serious accusations, Mr. Bemish. Can you answer them?"
"Can I answer them? Of course! Shavash has just mentioned 13 % of shares that the peasants had received free of charge as compensation for the spaceport construction taking place on their land. Would you really believe that Shavash waited for me to seize the stocks from the peasants? Yes! I confiscated the stocks from the official and I didn't pay him anything — because I was going to return these stocks to the peasants. Shavash accuses me of violating the local securities regulations. It would have taken place if Raniko had owned more than 5 % of shares and hadn't registered it. Otherwise, there are no violations involved. Unlike me, Shavash can be accused of many things, most importantly, that when the stock price plummeted to the minimum, Shavash secretly issued more stocks and distributed them among his friends. Weian securities regulations are quite bizarre but those actions are criminal even here. I will be bold enough to claim that IC was aware of this outrage taking place and that nothing but this thievery caused Mr. Shavash to sell the company to the people that will not make any complaints.
"Can you answer these accusations, Mr. Shavash?" the Emperor asked.
"Of course," Shavash said. "I will, however, need a computer with a CDROM."
It took a moment, for a CD player (instead of a computer) to be delivered to the room. Shavash fished a disk out of his pocket, inserted it in a slit and pressed a button.
An open tavern veranda appeared on the screen, together with a table and a window. Bemish sat at the table with a small man — tensing, he recognized the palace official offering him the paintings from the Empire treasury on sale.
The official pulled several photographs out and Bemish started to leaf through them. The camera zoomed in on the photographs where Bemish suddenly saw the Koinna's painting. Then, Bemish pointed at a girl and a dragon with his finger and he chose several more photographs. The official nodded.