“I’m a patriot. But that doesn’t mean I stand for going to war in every case. I want you all to remember that I was against this mobilization.”
That was the answer he gave to those who questioned him.
The very same day, Joint Operational Headquarters officially rejected the letter of resignation that Rear Admiral Yang Wen-li had submitted, issuing instead his letter of appointment to the rank of vice admiral.
VIII
“What you’re saying is you want to quit, right?”
Marshal Sitolet’s response when Yang had submitted his letter of resignation had not been a terribly creative one. Yang, however, hadn’t exactly expected him to take the letter in one hand while with a flourish of the other handing him his retirement allowance and pension card, so he gave him the friendliest nod he could manage.
“But you’re still just thirty years old.”
“Twenty-nine.” Yang put special emphasis on the twenty.
“But at any rate, you’re not even up to a third of your average life span. Don’t you think it’s a little early to be putting your life behind you?”
“Your Excellency, that’s not what I’m doing,” objected the young admiral. He wasn’t abandoning his life; he was getting it back on track. Everything up till now had been a detour forced on him against his will. From the start, he had wanted to be an observer of history, not a creator of it.
Marshal Sitolet laced the fingers of both hands and rested his sturdy-looking chin on top of them.
“What our military needs is not your erudition as a historian but your competence and capability as a tactician. And we need it desperately.”
Haven’t I indulged your flattery once already? Yang shot back in his heart. Any way he looked at it, he had to be doing some serious overlending in his credit-debit relationship with the military. Just for taking Iserlohn, I think I ought to have a little change coming my way, Yang thought. Director Sitolet’s assault was two-pronged, however.
“What’s to become of the Thirteenth Fleet?”
At this offhanded but effective question, Yang’s mouth opened just slightly.
“That’s your fleet, and it’s only just been formed. If you resign, what happens to them?”
“Well, they’ll …”
To have forgotten about that could only be described as a careless mistake. He’d screwed up the operation, he had to admit. Once you got tangled up in something, getting loose again was no easy matter.
In the end, Yang withdrew from the director’s office, leaving his letter of resignation with him, though it was clear as day it was not going to be approved. Indignant, he headed downstairs by way of a gravitational lift.
Sitting on a waiting room sofa, Julian Mintz had been glancing disinterestedly at the uniformed people passing this way and that, but when he spotted Yang at a distance, he rose energetically to his feet. Yang had told him to come by headquarters on his way home from school that day. “Why not eat out once in a while? Besides, I’ve got something I want to tell you.” That had been all he had said to the boy. He had wanted to surprise him: “Actually, I just quit the military. From now on, it’s the carefree life of a pensioner.”
But now, however, his plans were still up in the air, so that blissful dream had vanished in a single puff of reality’s bitter exhalation. Well, what do I tell him now? Unconsciously relaxing his pace, Yang was trying to come up with something when a voice from the side called out to him.
Captain Walter von Schönkopf was saluting him. Due to his recent exploits, von Schönkopf was now scheduled for promotion to commodore.
“I saw you coming out of the director’s office, Excellency. Did you perhaps come in to tender your resignation?”
“I sure did. No question it’ll be turned down, though.”
“I should say so. There’s no way the service is going to let you go.” The captain, once a citizen of the empire, was looking at Yang with an amused expression. “In all seriousness, though, I do want to see people like you staying in, sir. You’re always on target in your appraisal of the situation, and you’re lucky as well. Serving under you, I might not ever distinguish myself in battle, but at least the odds of survival seem high.”
Von Schönkopf was calmly rattling off an evaluation of a superior officer right in front of the man.
“I’ve made up my mind to close the curtains on my life by dying of old age. I want to live to be 150, turn into a doddering old man, and then as I breathe my last breath, hear my grandchildren and great-grandchildren weeping happy tears to finally be rid of me. I have no interest in going out in a blaze of glory. Please keep me alive long enough to do that.”
Having said his piece, the captain saluted again and smiled at Yang, who returned the salute with a demoralized demeanor.
“I’m sorry to have taken up your time. Look here, the boy can hardly wait for you.”
Caselnes and von Schönkopf alike possessed no small capacity for sarcastic barbs, but it made no difference when Julian was around; maybe there was something about him that made them simply supportive instead.
As Yang and Julian walked side by side, Yang glanced over at the boy, unable to suppress a degree of embarrassed bewilderment in his heart. It was such a strange thing … To experience emotions like those of a father, even without having ever been married.
The restaurant’s atmosphere was far more relaxed than one might imagine of a place called The March Hare. The old-fashioned decor tied all its furnishings together, and there were also candles set out on tabletops covered with handwoven cloths—Yang was delighted. However, his reward for having neglected the task of making reservations—hardly even worth calling a task, since a single call on the visiphone was all it took—was that he was not on good terms with the little fairies of luck that night.
“I’m terribly sorry, but we’re filled to capacity.”
So they were solemnly informed by an elderly waiter abounding in dignity, physique, and beautiful sideburns. Yang took in the restaurant’s smallish interior with a glance, and it was clear right away that the waiter wasn’t lying in order to angle for tips. Under the dim illumination, the glow of candlelight was flickering rhythmically on all of the tables. Candles were not lit for tables without customers.
“Oh well. Want to try somewhere else?”
As Yang scratched his head thoughtfully, someone stood up from one of the tables by the wall with movements so refined as to be called elegant. It was a woman. Her pearl-white dress shone in the candlelight, appealing to Yang’s eye with a dreamlike effect.
“Admiral?”
When she called him, Yang unconsciously froze where he stood. His aide, Sublieutenant Frederica Greenhill, responded with a light smile.
“Even I have civilian clothes. My father says he’d like you to come join us, if you don’t mind.”
While she was speaking, her father rose and stood behind her.
“Well, good evening, Vice Admiral Yang.”
In a friendly voice, Senior Admiral Dwight Greenhill, deputy director of Joint Operational Headquarters, called out to him. Inside, Yang felt a bit uneasy about sitting down with a superior officer, but at this point there was no refusing the invitation.
“It’s rear admiral, Your Excellency,” Yang said while saluting.
“You’ll make vice admiral by next week at the latest. You may as well go ahead and get used to the new title, right?”
“That’s wonderful! Is that what you wanted to talk about?” Julian’s eyes shone. “I’d expected that much, but still, that’s really wonderful news, isn’t it?”
“Ha, ha, ha …” With a simple laugh, Yang distracted himself from extremely complex emotions, pulled himself together, and introduced his ward to Greenhill and his daughter.
“I see, so you’re the famous honor student, are you? And you also won the gold medal for most points
scored in the flyball junior division. Doing well in the classroom and the dome alike.”
Flyball was a sport played in a dome where the gravity was set to 0.15 Gs. It was a simple sport in which the goal was to throw a ball into a basket that would at irregular intervals move at high speed along the wall. However, the same sort of charm also seen in dance could be seen in the figures that fought over the ball in midair, handling it as it slowly revolved.
“Julian, is that true?”
Julian’s irresponsible guardian looked at the boy, surprised, and the boy nodded, flushing slightly in the cheeks.
“The admiral must be the only one who didn’t know,” Frederica said in a lightly teasing tone that made Yang blush. “Julian’s something of a celebrity in this town.”
They placed their orders. With three glasses of a 670 vintage red wine and one of ginger ale, they toasted Julian Mintz’s award for scoring the most goals, and then the food was brought out. It was after many plates had been brought to their table that Senior Admiral Greenhill brought up an entirely unexpected topic.
“By the way, Yang, you still don’t have any plans about getting married, do you?”
Yang’s and Frederica’s knives both screeched against their plates simultaneously, and the elderly waiter, an aficionado of traditional chinaware, raised his eyebrows unconsciously.
“That’s right. When peace arrives, I’ll think about it.”
Saying nothing, Frederica was sawing away with her still-downturned knife and fork. There was an ever-so-slight element of violence in her handling of them. Julian was looking at his guardian with deep interest.
“I had a friend who died and left behind a fiancée. When I think about that, I just can’t … not right now …”
He spoke of Lieutenant Commander Lappe, who had died at the Battle of Astarte. Senior Admiral Greenhill nodded and then changed the subject again.
“You know Jessica Edwards, don’t you? She was voted in as a representative in last week’s special election. For the Planet Terneuzen electoral district.”
As with Marshal Sitolet, colorful, multipronged ambushes were also a strong suit of Senior Admiral Greenhill’s, it seemed.
“Oh? I can imagine the support she must’ve gotten from the antiwar faction.”
“That’s right. And there were naturally attacks from the prowar side …”
“Such as from, say, the Patriotic Knights Corps?”
“The Patriotic Knights Corps? Listen, now, those guys are idiots. They’ve never even been worth talking about. You agree, right? … Mmm, this jelly salad’s fantastic.”
“I agree,” said Yang, in reference to the jelly salad.
That the Patriotic Knights were idiots Yang was willing to allow, but one couldn’t say with certainty that their exaggerated and caricatured actions were not the result of skillfully planned direction. After all, hadn’t the young generation that had fanatically supported one Rudolf von Goldenbaum been greeted early on with grimaces and smiles of pity by the intelligentsia of the Galactic Federation?
Perhaps in the shadow of a thick curtain, outside the sight of the spectator seats, someone was wearing a satisfied smile even now.
IX
On the way back home, Yang was thinking about Jessica Edwards in the seat of a self-driving taxi.
“I want to keep going, to always continue asking those who hold authority: ‘Where are you? When you are sending our soldiers into the jaws of death, where are you? What are you doing … ?’ ”
That had apparently been the climax of Jessica’s speech. Yang couldn’t help remembering the scene at the memorial service held after the defeat at Astarte. Not even Defense Committee Chair Trünicht, who prided himself on his eloquence, had been able to resist in the face of her accusations. That alone must have been enough to make her the focus of all the hatred and hostility of the prowar faction. One thing was certain: the path she had chosen would be a road more treacherous than the Iserlohn Corridor.
The taxi screeched to a sudden halt. Normally, this should have never happened. Cars never moved in such a way as to let inertia exert unnecessary force on the human body—at least as long as the control system was running. Something very out of the ordinary had just happened.
Opening the door manually, Yang stepped out into the street. A police officer in a blue uniform came running up, his massive body swaying ponderously. He recognized Yang’s face, and after expressing at length how moved he was to be able to meet a national hero, explained the situation.
“An anomaly’s occurred in the traffic-control computer at the Municipal Traffic Control Center,” he said.
“An anomaly?”
“I don’t know the details—apparently it was simple human error that occurred during data entry. Anyway, just about every workplace is short on experienced people these days, so this sort of thing’s nothing unusual.”
The police officer laughed, but then, faced with Julian’s direct and unfriendly stare, forced himself to pull together a solemn expression.
“Ah, ahem, but this is no time to be laughing about it. Because of this, every public transportation system in this district is going to be stopped for the next three hours. Even the slidewalks and maglev roads are at a total standstill.”
“Total?”
“Yes, total.”
From the officer’s attitude, it almost seemed like he was proud of it. Although Yang found it humorous, this was no laughing matter. This accident and the officer’s words added up to something that sent a chill through his heart. The system that was controlling and running their society had grown alarmingly weak. The war’s negative influence was steadily eroding their society, more softly and yet more surely than the devil’s footfalls.
From his side, Julian looked up at Yang. “What shall we do, Admiral?”
“Nothing else we can do—let’s walk,” Yang said, and so it was decided. “It’s nice to do this every once in a while. On foot, we’ll get back in an hour. It’ll be good exercise.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
The policeman’s eyes opened wide at this. “Oh, I couldn’t let you do that! Making the hero of Iserlohn walk home on his own two feet? I’ll send for a landcar or an aircar. Please use that instead.”
“I can’t let you do that just for me.”
“Please, don’t be shy about it.”
“No, I think I’m gonna be shy about it,” Yang said.
It took a bit of an effort to keep his displeasure from showing in his face or voice.
“Let’s go, Julian.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
With that cheerful answer, the boy started out at a nimble skip, then came to a sudden halt. Yang looked back at him suspiciously.
“What’s the matter, Julian? You don’t like walking?”
Perhaps his voice was just a little sharp from his residual displeasure.
“No, it isn’t that.”
“Well then, why aren’t you coming?”
“That’s … the wrong direction.”
Yang turned on his heel without a word. As long as a space fleet commander doesn’t get the fleet’s heading wrong, there’s nothing to worry about. He considered saying that, or something similarly unsporting, then decided against it. Truth be told, his confidence even failed him on that point from time to time. That was why Yang prized the precision-tuned fleet management of Vice Commander Fischer so highly.
Long rows of stopped maglev cars stretched out to form long walls on the streets, and people who could do nothing about it were walking aimlessly around. Yang and Julian calmly threaded their way between them.
“The stars are really beautiful tonight, Admiral,” said Julian, lifting up his gaze to the starry sky above. The gleaming lights of countless stars formed patterns too complex to take in, testifying with their continual twinkling to the existence of the
planet’s atmosphere.
Yang was unable to completely clear his mind of ill feelings.
Everyone was reaching up toward that night sky, trying to grasp the star that was given them. But people who knew their own star’s exact position were few and far between. And what about me—Yang Wen-li? Have I clearly determined where my own star is? Swept along by circumstance, have I lost sight of it? Or could I have been wrong all along about which one is mine?
“Admiral?” said Julian in a crystal clear voice.
“What is it?”
“Just now, you and I were both looking at the same star. Look, that big blue one.”
“Hmm, that star is …”
“What’s it called?”
“It’s on the tip of my tongue …” Yang said.
If he had started tracing back that thread of a memory, surely he could have arrived at the answer, but Yang didn’t feel like forcing himself to do it. There’s not even the slightest need for this boy at my side to look up at the same star as me, Yang thought.
A man should grab hold of a star that’s for him and him alone. No matter how unlucky a star it may be.
I
In the Phezzan Land Dominion, the interests of the Galactic Empire were represented by the imperial high commissioner. Count Jochen von Remscheid was the holder of that office.
This white-haired aristocrat with near-colorless eyes had been sent there from Odin around the same time that Rubinsky had been sworn in as landesherr and was spoken of as the “White Fox” behind his back. It went without saying that this name was playing off of Rubinsky’s “Black Fox.”
That night, the site to which Rubinsky had unofficially invited him was neither the landesherr’s office nor his official residence, nor was it even his private residence. It was a place that until four and a half centuries prior had been a bowl-shaped dip in a mountainous region with heavy salt deposits, but was now an artificial lake. On its shore, there stood a mountain cottage that had no legal connection to Rubinsky. Its owner was one of Rubinsky’s many mistresses.
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