And then Kesselring had showed up.
Schumacher seemed to view their unexpected guest as nothing more than a troublesome intruder. When the landesherr’s aide said he had an important message regarding their homeland, Schumacher replied, “Please, sir, you need not concern yourself with me further.” His courteous tone couldn’t completely mask a ring of evasiveness. “Whatever’s happening with the empire and the Goldenbaum Dynasty has nothing to do with me. I’ve got my hands full building a new life for me and my friends—I don’t have time to spend thinking about a past I’ve thrown away.”
“Throw your past away if you wish,” said Kesselring. “But don’t throw your future away in the process. Captain Schumacher, you’re not the sort of man who should live out the rest of his days smeared in dirt and fertilizer. If you had the chance to change the course of history, wouldn’t you rather do that instead?”
“Please leave.” The captain started to rise from his chair.
“Wait, please. Calm down and hear me out,” Kesselring said. “You all can probably produce crops with your farm. Assini-Boyer is unused and abandoned, but it does have the potential to produce bountifully. Sadly, however, crops mean nothing if you can’t sell them in the marketplace. A sensible man like yourself understands, I’m sure.”
Kesselring was inwardly impressed that not a muscle in Schumacher’s face so much as twitched. The landesherr’s young aide realized what a strong and clever man Schumacher was. However, this game had been rigged against him from the start. Schumacher had only one pawn to play against an opponent with a full set of pieces.
After a long silence, Schumacher said, “So this is how you do things on Phezzan?” The note of anger contained in his voice was not directed at Kesselring; it was just ineffectual sarcasm aimed at his own powerlessness.
“Correct. This is the Phezzan way.” Kesselring showed not a trace of shame as he acknowledged his victory. “We bend the rules when the situation calls for it. Despise me if you must …; though a loser’s contempt for a winner is, I think, one of the most futile emotions in existence.”
“While you’re winning, you’ll probably think so,” Schumacher shot back offhandedly, fixing Kesselring with a discontented stare. The aide was almost exactly ten years his junior. “Well then, let’s hear it. What exactly do you want me to do? Assassinate Duke von Lohengramm or something?”
Kesselring gave him a smile.
“Phezzan has no taste for bloodshed. After all, peace is the only road that leads to prosperity.”
It was clear to see that Schumacher didn’t buy a word of that, but what the young aide needed was Schumacher’s compliance, not his belief. He gave him the same speech he’d given Count von Remscheid the other day, and noted with satisfaction the look of shock on Schumacher’s face.
Count Alfred von Lansberg was also on the main world of the Phezzan Land Dominion, complaining about his ill luck as a defector. Only twenty-six years of age, he was already experiencing vastly greater changes in his lifestyle than his great-grandfather had seen in a lifetime four times as long. His great-grandfather had enjoyed feasting, hunting game, and womanizing till his dying day, but before accumulating much experience in any of those areas, Alfred had gotten mixed up in that grand uprising that had split the empire in half, and as a result had lost every last mark of his inheritance. His only bit of good fortune was that he was still alive.
Alfred had just barely managed to withdraw from the battlefield without being killed, and afterward he had fled to Phezzan. There he had sold off his star sapphire cuff links—a gift from the previous emperor, Friedrich IV—to provide himself with temporary living expenses and then set about composing a volume entitled A History of the Lippstadt War. His poetry and short stories had always been well received in the salons of the aristocrats.
When he had finished up the opening section, Alfred had triumphantly carried the manuscript to a publisher, only to have it politely rejected.
“Your Excellency’s work certainly has a number of fine points,” the editor had said to an indignant Alfred. “But it’s too subjective, there are inaccuracies, and I have my doubts about what little value it has as a record of events …; Instead of using such an ornate style and writing down whatever your passion or romanticism dictates, you should adopt a more restrained style, write calmly and objectively …;”
The young count had snatched his manuscript from the hands of the editor, picked up the tatters of his self-respect, and gone back to his temporary residence. It had taken a lot of wine to get to sleep that night.
The next day, his mood had been completely different. No mere chronicler of events was he! He was a man of action. Instead of copying down the past on sheets of paper, shouldn’t he be acting in the present and using his own hands to build the future?
It was with thoughts such as these swirling through his mind that he received a visit from Rupert Kesselring, aide to the landesherr of Phezzan. The aide, younger even than Alfred, spoke courteously: “Count von Lansberg, might you be of a mind to offer up your loyalty and passion for the sake of your homeland? If you are, Count von Remscheid is heading up a project I’d like Your Excellency to participate in …;”
When he heard what the project was, Count Alfred was both surprised and thrilled, and agreed on the spot to participate. Soon after, he was introduced to Schumacher, who was responsible for putting the plan into action.
The former imperial captain was well aware that Alfred had been a friend of the late Baron Flegel. This might get awkward, Schumacher worried, steeling himself for the worst.
Alfred, however, had met a lot of captains during the uprising and remembered nothing at all about this one.
“I understand you and I were comrades before,” he said, “and starting today we’ll be brothers-in-arms. I’m glad to meet you.”
The look on Alfred’s face was neither discriminating nor doubtful as he held his hand out to Schumacher. As Schumacher reached out to shake it, he could feel alternating bubbles of relief and unease rising to the surface of his consciousness.
Alfred von Lansberg was pleasant enough to be around and had energy and courage to spare, but he did have a tendency to conflate reality with speculation. When Schumacher thought through this scheme’s possible outcomes, however, it was hard for him to feel very optimistic.
Could this plan succeed? Schumacher couldn’t help but wonder. And even if it did, what was it supposed to accomplish? Would it do anything besides spread the flames of war and create a roadblock on the path to peace? But even as Schumacher was thinking over these things, he still had no choice but to participate, given the position he was in.
In this manner, Rupert Kesselring was making steady progress in assembling the people needed for the plan. He had all the time and money he needed. He was certain the plan would work. And when it was executed, the whole human race would fall over in stunned disbelief. He looked forward to seeing how Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm, a year Kesselring’s junior, would react.
When that day came, even Landesherr Rubinsky would have no choice but to recognize his ability …;
II
Hildegard von Mariendorf, or Hilda, was now assisting Reinhard in the role of secretary to the imperial prime minister. The wealth of political, diplomatic, and strategic sense she brought to the table was thought to be highly prized by Reinhard. However:
“It’s not just about her talent.”
That observation was the greatest common denominator in the thoughts of all of Reinhard’s subordinates—civil and military officials alike. The twenty-two-year-old Reinhard and the twenty-one-year-old Hilda were both rare sorts of beauties, and when they stood side by side, some even likened the sight to that of Apollo and Minerva from the myths of ancient Rome. They did not remark so in public, however—in the empire, the word “myth” was restricted to the ancient Germanic tradition.
Hilda did
n’t fit the image of the well-bred lady that might be imagined of a count’s daughter. Her dark-blond hair was cut short, and when she walked by with that light spring in her step, she looked so vibrant and full of life that onlookers felt more the impression of a young boy. To her father, Count Franz von Mariendorf, Hilda was something of a miracle. She had grown up unfettered by the conventions of the aristocracy, and this had furnished her with powers of reason far exceeding the bounds of her age and station. He felt no regret over having never had a son. It had been thanks to Hilda that even in the midst of the Lippstadt War the count had been able to accurately foresee what lay ahead and lead his family through that time to safety.
Hilda had neither elder nor younger brother. What she did have was a cousin, Baron Heinrich von Kümmel. His silvery-white hair, his attractive but wan facial features, the lack of muscle on his slender frame—he looked more than merely delicate; he looked feeble and fragile. His health was, in fact, quite poor, and as he had to spend most of each day in bed, he had not joined in with the Lippstadt Agreement—one result of which had been his escaping destruction.
By the time he was born, he had already been diagnosed with congenital metabolic disease. From birth, his body had lacked sufficient enzymes, and its development had been hindered by its inability to properly break down or absorb sugars and amino acids. By feeding affected babies a special kind of therapeutic milk for a period of several years, it was possible to cure this condition completely. However, that milk was extremely expensive.
According to the Genetic Inferiority Elimination Act promulgated by Rudolf the Great, children with congenital disabilities were not worth keeping alive. It followed then, that, legally speaking, producing this milk in order to save the weak was out of the question. The real problem, however, had been that children with physical handicaps were born into aristocratic as well as commoner families. A small amount of therapeutic milk had in fact been produced to meet aristocratic demand, but it had been sold at prices that outstripped the purchasing power of the commoners. To the Galactic Empire’s ruling class, commoners had no significance beyond their labor and the tax burden they bore to nourish the ruling class. Diligent workers were of course to be praised, but the weak and disabled—those who did nothing but burden others while making no contribution of their own to society—did not have any right to life.
Under ordinary circumstances, Heinrich would have died in infancy. The only reason his life had been extended was that he’d been born to a medium-income aristocratic family. Depending on external factors and the nature of the individual, those in such “privileged circumstances,” might find food for deep thought in this, or they might just complacently accept it without criticism. Paul von Oberstein, who had needed artificial eyes since birth, had contemplated it thoroughly and taken action to overthrow a system he viewed as evil, but Heinrich lacked the physical strength for such activity. When he was a newborn, the doctors had said, “He’ll live to be three,” and at age five they had said, “Another two years at most.” When he was twelve, they had said, “He probably won’t make it to fifteen.” His cousin Hilda—three years his senior—could never help feeling protective of him and did whatever she could to help her cousin.
To Heinrich, Hilda was not just an older cousin. She was not only beautiful, but also lively and wise—the object of an admiration from him that bordered on worship. Having lost both his parents as a child, he had succeeded to the head of his family with his uncle—Count Franz von Mariendorf—as his guardian. Intellect aside, he had been lacking in age, experience, and health, so his inheritance had been placed under Count von Mariendorf’s stewardship. If the count had been of a mind to do so, he could have embezzled the entire von Kümmel family fortune; however, there were very few among the imperial nobility who were as honest and trustworthy as Count von Mariendorf.
Heinrich’s tendency toward hero worship was probably only natural. He looked up to a number of people whose accomplishments over the course of a single lifetime had spanned numerous fields: Leonardo da Vinci; political reformer, warrior, and poet Ts’ao Ts’ao; soldier, revolutionary, mathematician, and technician Lazare Carnot; emperor, astronomer, and poet Rukn al-Dunya wa al-Din Abu Talib Muhammad Toghrul-Beg ibn Mikail.
One day, Hilda asked Admiral Ernest Mecklinger, a subordinate of Reinhard’s, to come and meet Heinrich. In Heinrich’s eyes, Mecklinger was, in one sense, an ideal human being.
Not unlike the Free Planets Alliance’s Yang Wen-li, Mecklinger had joined the military unwillingly. But unlike Yang—whose dossier had “taking naps” written in its “Interests and Hobbies” column—Mecklinger was gifted with fertile powers of artistic expression. In the Imperial Academy of Art’s annual art competition, he had won prizes in both the prose poem and watercolor categories, and his piano performances were lauded by critics as “a perfect fusion of daring and delicacy.” Moreover, he had displayed reliable ability as a military officer in conflicts such as the Battle of Amritsar and the Lippstadt War, in which he had shone with numerous impressive feats. As a commander, he was more the strategist who observed the tide of battle with a wide view, positioning and committing necessary forces in response to the dictates of circumstance. He could command a large fleet well, but the skill he possessed as an advisor was even harder to come by.
Accepting Hilda’s request, the “Artist-Admiral” called on the mansion where Heinrich was living, a watercolor painting of his own creation in hand, and, together with Hilda, spent about an hour with him in pleasant conversation. Heinrich got overly excited and broke out in a slight fever. A doctor was called for, bringing the chat to an end, but Hilda, who had gone to the atrium to see Mecklinger off, asked one question while she was thanking him. When the admiral had entered Heinrich’s sickroom, an extremely subtle expression of surprise had passed across his face, and she was curious to know the reason for it.
“Oh, so it showed on my face?” said Mecklinger, smiling gently beneath his brown, neatly trimmed mustache. At thirty-five, he was relatively old among the admirals under Reinhard’s command. “Actually, I know a few other people with conditions like his and have noticed that people who can’t move around freely often keep pets. Birds, cats, and so on. I didn’t see anything like that in Baron von Kümmel’s room, however, so I thought, ‘Oh, I wonder if he doesn’t like animals.’ That was all it was.”
It was true that Heinrich had never kept any small animals by his side. Did he not need the psychological compensation of enjoying—or envying—the sight of an animal moving about?
Mecklinger’s comment reminded Hilda of a doubt that she herself had had once before, though it took less than two hours for her to forget about it entirely.
Both Hilda and Mecklinger were equipped with unusual intelligence and sensitivity. That was probably why she had felt that doubt, although it had been too small a bud to grow into anything more. It would be much, much later that both the count’s daughter who served as secretary to the imperial prime minister and the Imperial Navy admiral who was a poet and painter would remember this fleeting conversation. When it came up again, it would come coupled with something bitter.
The plan to move Gaiesburg Fortress, concocted by Tech Admiral von Schaft and to be executed by Kempf and Müller, was not one that Hilda was necessarily in favor of. Put bluntly, she was unambiguously critical of it. What the universe needed now, she believed, were Reinhard’s skills as a builder, not his skills as a conqueror. Hilda was not an adherent of absolute pacifism. Like the confederacy of former aristocrats that had represented the late Duke von Braunschweig, there were enemies of reform and unity that must be defeated by military force. That said, military force was not all-powerful. Military force derived its potency from political and economic well-being; if a nation allowed either of these to weaken while only strengthening its military, lasting victories could not be expected. Put in extreme terms, military force was a last-ditch effort to reverse political or diplomatic
defeat and was most valuable when not put into action.
The thing that Hilda couldn’t understand was why, at this moment in time, it was necessary to invade the Free Planets Alliance’s territory. All she could think was that this invasion clearly lacked the element of inevitability.
The plan to move Gaiesburg Fortress was proceeding rapidly under the energetic direction of Karl Gustav Kempf. At the same time that repairs were being made to the fortress itself, twelve warp engines and twelve conventional navigational engines were being attached in a ring formation around it. The first warp test was scheduled for mid-March. At present, 64,000 military engineers were working on the project, and Reinhard had decided to approve Kempf’s request to mobilize an additional 24,000.
“I hadn’t realized just how tricky a thing warp is,” Reinhard said to Hilda over lunch one day. “If the mass is too small, you can’t get the engine output needed to warp, but if the mass is too large, the engine’s output will go over the limit. And even if you use multiple engines, they have to run in perfect sync—and not sputter out and die, of course—or Gaiesburg Fortress will either be lost forever in subspace or reduced to its component atoms. Von Schaft’s full of confidence, but the difficulty of this project is in the execution, not the planning. At this stage, von Schaft doesn’t need to be preening about like he is.”
“Admiral Kempf’s doing good work, though.”
“It’s not as if he’s been completely successful yet …;”
“I certainly want him to succeed. You’ll end up losing a capable admiral if he fails.”
“If Kempf dies like that, it will just demonstrate the measure of the man that he is. Even if he were to survive, he would be of no great use.” At that moment, Reinhard’s voice had gone beyond the bounds of the cool and appraising; it resonated with heartless cruelty.
What would you say if Siegfried Kircheis were alive? Hilda stopped just short of saying out loud. There was only one person in the world who could say that to Reinhard. That was the woman living at the mountain villa in Floren who had the same golden hair as her younger brother and a smile like autumn sunlight, and who bore the title of Countess von Grünewald.
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