Stratagem
Page 23
“You say Phezzan had wind of this beforehand? I can’t believe what I’m hearing! And yet they couldn’t even forecast an imperial invasion?”
“And what have those jackasses down at the commissioner’s office in Odin been doing all this time, sending all those useless reports about parties and the weather? I guess government officials are useless after all.”
“Are you really so surprised? I don’t know about other nations, but here on Phezzan we’ve got talentless morons running the show. It would be pointless to expect any beneficial reports from their end.”
These insults lacked luster, and the ones spouting them knew better than most that trying to improve the present situation by cursing out other people was never going to turn back time. Dark clouds were hovering in the background of each of their hearts as they spoke of the day when they would no longer use the calendar they had always known.
“But where the hell do we go from here?”
“Where to go from here, you say? History will change. The Goldenbaum Dynasty, Phezzan, the Free Planets Alliance—all of it will disappear. Then that golden brat will become emperor of the entire universe.”
“He’s not satisfied with just bringing down the Goldenbaum Dynasty? It’s pure greed, I tell you. There’s nothing endearing about him.”
“Endearing or not, can a moron ever succeed? In that respect, our nation’s dignitaries are just as despicable.”
Their banter inspired laughter, despite a certain ring of desperation.
“Remember, we’re free citizens, not some idiots who proudly call ourselves the Free Planets Alliance, or whatever it might be. We’re a free people. A benevolent emperor is the last thing we need.”
As one of them launched into his speech, another pulled at his sleeve. Among the group was a senior member, an elderly merchant who was respected as the oldest among them. He opened his mouth.
“I wish I’d never lived so long. Then I’d never have to see the imperial fleet profaning our streets with their fancy military shoes.”
The old merchant heaved a sigh, and the younger men around him were silent, devoid of consolation.
“Since this era held out for a hundred years, I only expected it would continue for a hundred more, but when you think about it, no such precedent exists. Even when I saw the Goldenbaum Dynasty, which lasted for five centuries, turned into a wretched version of its former self, I never once thought Phezzan would perish. How stupid of me.”
At the word “perish,” the silence deepened, broken by a lone voice.
“It’s a frightening prospect, yes, but it may only be temporary. Phezzan will rise again. We’ll rebuild our fortress of independent merchants for free citizens. As I was just saying, we don’t need some emperor to order us around.”
The man who said this was Kahle Wilock, more renowned as an astrogator than a merchant.
There was applause, and everyone turned around, their pessimism fading. A newcomer standing by the door clapped again.
“That was a great speech, Wilock.”
Wilock smiled at his old friend.
“Why, if it isn’t Marinesk of the Beryozka. And to what ulterior motive do I owe the pleasure of this rare appearance?”
“I’ve come with a job for you. That is, unless you’d prefer giving speeches to piloting a ship.”
“Sure, count me in.”
“I’m surprised. You accept without even asking the terms of the job?”
Marinesk smiled wryly at Wilock’s blind determination.
“I’d accept a request from the devil himself just to get out of this rut. And I’ll take you over the devil any day.”
Wilock smiled boldly.
V
On December 30, at 1650 Phezzan Standard Time, Reinhard von Lohengramm stepped foot on Phezzanese soil together with his closest aides.
Senior Admiral Mittermeier and Admiral Müller, accompanied by forty thousand guards, welcomed the imperial marshal. It was the moment when the day handed over its sovereignty to the night. It grew dark steadily, and beneath the sky, in which a bottomless blue was transitioning into a rose-colored band, the young blond figure looked like something out of a poem. Even those who despised him couldn’t help but recognize his overwhelming magnificence. Until the day they died in battle or of old age, the soldiers watching Reinhard stand on the spaceport would boast to their wives, children, and grandchildren of the time they saw that golden-haired young man towering in the twilight. The soldiers arose in songlike jubilation, their fervor and power strengthening with every cheer.
“Long live the emperor! Long live the empire!”
Mittermeier leaned in toward the young marshal.
“They’re calling you their emperor.”
“They’re eager.”
Reinhard’s officers caught his exact meaning. He wasn’t denying being called emperor. As he waved to the soldiers, another round of cheers erupted into the evening sky.
“Long live the emperor! Long live the empire!”
Reinhard wouldn’t be crowned emperor until the following year. But on Planet Phezzan, this day would be remembered as the first on which he came to be officially known among his soldiers as “our emperor Reinhard.”
Reinhard set up a makeshift marshal’s office in a commandeered high-class hotel. His first declaration was that the imperial occupation would in no way harm the many civil rights that the Phezzan people had always enjoyed. He further stated his hope to see the imperial mainland and the self-governing dominion of Phezzan in one airtight unification, and this was no lie. He simply failed to mention that this was one step toward his ultimate ambition of conquering the Free Planets Alliance and that everything would be carried out under his strict leadership.
Mittermeier offered his apologies to Reinhard for failing him on three counts: not being able to apprehend Landesherr Rubinsky, failing likewise with Commissioner Henslow of the alliance, and finally, not being able to extract any data of use from the commissioner’s office computer. Reinhard shrugged his shoulders, his face calm.
“There’s no such thing as total perfection. If you couldn’t do it, then I doubt anyone else could. There’s no need to apologize.”
Reinhard hardly cared what became of someone like Commissioner Henslow. And for now, even Julian Mintz was far from his mind. While the incident involving the commissioner’s office computer was indeed regrettable, they had managed to get all the data from the Navigation Bureau, so it was far from an unrecoverable failure. What he could not shut his eyes to, however, were Rubinsky’s unknown whereabouts.
“What do you think, Fräulein von Mariendorf, about the Black Fox’s intentions?”
“At this point, I think he has accepted defeat and burrowed back into his hole. On the other hand, he probably foresees that Commissioner Boltec will never control Phezzan. He might very well believe his turn will come again when Boltec fails miserably. Whether it’s Your Excellency or the people of Phezzan, it doesn’t matter who he courts.”
“So it’s come to that, has it?”
Reinhard accepted Hilda’s analysis. Rubinsky had spent time trying to bait Reinhard with the emperor’s abduction and passage through the Phezzan Corridor, but it had worked utterly against him.
Reinhard detected something other than total victory lurking within his neural pathways. For the time being, it was a mere seed of suspicion, but if nourished with time, it could blossom into a flower of anxiety. Boltec and Rubinsky were hiding something. Whatever it was would become clear sooner or later.
After finishing dinner with his officers, Reinhard headed for the Navigation Bureau with his imperial guards in tow. When he was led to the computer room by Commodore Klapf, head of defense operations, Reinhard left even his personal guard Captain Kissling to wait outside and entered the room alone.
The empty computer room was so mechanical that the
very air smelled of electricity. Reinhard walked silently between the machines and stopped before a display screen, looking up at its giant, shining blank surface.
“Yes, this is what I wanted.”
His voice had the tone of someone dreaming. He put his hands on the console and without hesitation started booting up the computer.
His manipulations were more than deliberate, like those of a pianist inspired to play an impromptu. But what he played was, of course, not music. He brought up a star map on the screen—a galactic system of two hundred billion fixed stars. He enlarged it. The Free Planets Alliance territory appeared before him. The name of each fixed star system appeared, along with the routes connecting them: the alliance’s capital planet of Heinessen; the Astarte Stellar Region, where he had once consigned an enemy fleet twice the size of his own to oblivion; the Dagon Stellar Region, where, 158 years ago, the Imperial Navy had suffered a crushing defeat; and countless other fixed star systems, stellar regions, and battlefields besides. He pined for the day when he would conquer them all.
Reinhard became a living sculpture before the screen. After a while, he took the silver pendant hanging from his neck in his palm and, opening it, stared at the small lock of red hair concealed inside.
“Let’s go, Kircheis. The universe is ours.”
Even after Siegfried’s death, Reinhard spoke to his redheaded friend.
Reinhard brushed back his golden hair, lifted his shoulders proudly, and with a gait that no one could imitate, left the computer room.
SE 798, year 489 of the imperial calendar, had shrugged off the yoke of the past amid confusion and turmoil. Humanity was aware of what it should do and what kind of pedestal it would occupy in the grand museum of history. Could one count a few among the total of forty billion people?
Cries of “Long live Emperor Reinhard!” now overwhelmed the entire universe. Only time flowed impartially for those who heard them as good omens or evil ones.
SE 799, IC 490, was knocking at their door…
about the author
Yoshiki Tanaka was born in 1952 in Kumamoto Prefecture and completed a doctorate in literature at Gakushuin University. Tanaka won the Gen’eijo (a mystery magazine) New Writer Award with his debut story “Midori no Sogen ni…” (On the green field…) in 1978, then started his career as a science fiction and fantasy writer. Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which translates the European wars of the nineteenth century to an interstellar setting, won the Seiun Award for best science fiction novel in 1987. Tanaka’s other works include the fantasy series The Heroic Legend of Arslan and many other science fiction, fantasy, historical, and mystery novels and stories.
Haikasoru
The Future is Japanese
Travel Space and Time With Haikasoru!
Usurper of the Sun—Housuke Nojiri
Aki Shiraishi is a high school student working in the astronomy club and one of the few witnesses to an amazing event—someone is building a tower on the planet Mercury. Soon, the Builders have constructed a ring around the sun, threatening the ecology of Earth with an immense shadow. Aki is inspired to pursue a career in science, and the truth. She must determine the purpose of the ring and the plans of its creators, as the survival of both species—humanity and the alien Builders—hangs in the balance.
The Ouroboros Wave—Jyouji Hayashi
Ninety years from now, a satellite detects a nearby black hole scientists dub Kali for the Hindu goddess of destruction. Humanity embarks on a generations-long project to tap the energy of the black hole and establish colonies on planets across the solar system. Earth and Mars and the moons Europa (Jupiter) and Titania (Uranus) develop radically different societies, with only Kali, that swirling vortex of destruction and creation, and the hated but crucial Artificial Accretion Disk Development association (AADD) in common.
Ten Billion Days and One Hundred Billion Nights—Ryu Mitsuse
Ten billion days—that is how long it will take the philosopher Plato to determine the true systems of the world. One hundred billion nights—that is how far into the future Jesus of Nazareth, Siddhartha, and the demigod Asura will travel to witness the end of all worlds. Named the greatest Japanese science fiction novel of all time, Ten Billion Days and One Hundred Billion Nights is an epic eons in the making. Originally published in 1967, the novel was revised by the author in later years and republished in 1973.
WWW.HAIKASORU.COM