Reinhard moved with a reckless grace as he brought his wineglass to his lips. Watching him, Hilda noticed a kind of danger that this elegant young man carried within him. A wild, winged stallion had made its home inside him and become his driving force. And its reins—did Reinhard hold them himself, or were they in the hands of the late Siegfried Kircheis? That thought haunted Hilda and wouldn’t let her go.
III
“On the technical side, there’s no reason we can’t move the fortress. The problem we have to solve is the relationship between mass and engine output. That’s the only sticking point.”
Tech Admiral von Schaft concluded his speech confidently, leaving his listeners with no small cause for concern.
The mass of Gaiesburg Fortress amounted to approximately forty trillion tons. How much would it affect normal space when such an enormous mass warped into subspace and then warped back out again? Wouldn’t it be lethal if there were a quake in space-time? In the real world, was it even possible to activate twelve warp engines with perfect simultaneity? If they were activated with even a tenth of a second’s error, wouldn’t the million-plus personnel inside the fortress either be atomized or sent to wander subspace for all eternity?
Small-scale experiments were conducted over and over, and research vessels were deployed near the regions of space where the fortress was set to warp in and warp out. When the project had first been set into motion, Reinhard had demanded accuracy “as close to perfection as human beings are capable of,” and as Kempf and Müller were both excellent managers, they were employing every means they could think of to bolster the chances of success. Naturally, though, there was no guarantee that this would bring about a perfect result.
Meanwhile, Reinhard was also throwing himself into his work as imperial prime minister. He worked every day except Sunday, spending the first half of the day at the admiralität and the rest of the day at the imperial prime minister’s office. The late lunches he would eat at one o’clock marked the dividing point. Hilda often filled the role of luncheon date; Reinhard enjoyed talking to the beautiful young woman. He seemed more interested in Hilda’s intellect than her beauty. One day, when the conversation touched on the Lippstadt War of the previous year, Hilda said to him, “Duke von Braunschweig had a larger military force than Your Excellency, but he was destroyed because of three things he lacked.”
“Please tell me—I want to hear what those three things were.”
“Very well. His heart lacked balance, his eyes lacked insight, and his ears lacked the willingness to listen to the opinions of his subordinates.”
“I see.”
“Stated backwards, Your Excellency was able to secure victory over a great enemy because you were equipped with all of those things.”
Taking note of her use of the past tense, the glint in Reinhard’s ice-blue eyes hardened ever so slightly. He set a coffee cup made of paper-thin porcelain down on the table and gazed straight at his lovely secretary.
“It seems you would have words with me, fräulein.”
“Only the sort of talk one has over tea. It’s frightening to have you look at me like that.”
“You shouldn’t fear the likes of me …;” Reinhard gave a wry grin, and for an instant his face was that of a young boy.
Hilda pressed onward. “Nations, organizations, associations—call them what you will, but there’s something absolutely essential for binding groups of people together.”
“Oh? And what is that?”
“An enemy.”
Reinhard gave a short laugh. “You speak the truth. Sharp as always, fräulein. So, who might that enemy be whom my subordinates and I require?”
Hilda gave Reinhard the answer he had likely seen coming:
“The Goldenbaum Dynasty, of course,” Hilda said. She didn’t take her eyes off the young imperial prime minister. “The emperor is only seven, and his age, talents, abilities, and so on present no danger to you whatsoever at this juncture. As the current head of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, and as one who’s inherited the blood of Rudolf the Great, he could become a symbol of solidarity for the old forces to rally around. That’s the only problem with him—there is no other.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Reinhard said, nodding his head.
What qualities the seven-year-old emperor Erwin Josef might possess were still a matter of unexplored territory. Aside from being a bit irritable, he seemed an utterly ordinary boy at this point, displaying little in the way of sharp wits or reason. Compared to Reinhard at that age, he was lacking both in terms of appearance and of that glow that came from within. Still, even among the great there was such a thing as a “late bloomer,” so it was hard to predict how he might grow in the future.
Reinhard had deprived the emperor of nothing materially. It was a fact that he had slashed palace expenses and the number of chamberlains compared to the days of the previous emperor, Friedrich IV. Yet even so, there were still dozens of grown-ups there to wait on him: tutors, cooks, professional babysitters, nurses, dog walkers …; His food, his clothes, and even his toys were luxurious beyond the wildest dreams of any commoner’s child. Whatever he wanted was given to him, and no matter what he did there was no one to scold him. Perhaps this was in fact the best way possible to nip in the bud any future greatness he might develop. Even someone with the potential for great wit and reason would probably be spoiled by such an environment.
“Not to worry, fräulein,” Reinhard said gently. “Not even I wish to become a murderer of children. I will not kill the emperor. Like you said, I need an enemy. And for my own part, I’d like to be more generous than my enemies and as righteous as is possible …;”
“Well spoken, Your Excellency.”
Hilda had no sympathy whatsoever for the Goldenbaum Dynasty. She found it a little strange herself that she, born to an aristocratic family, should embrace the kind of thinking a republican might. Even so, she didn’t want to let Reinhard become a child killer. Usurpation was nothing to be ashamed of. It was a thing to be proud of, in fact—proof that one’s ability had triumphed over authority. But to kill a small child? No matter what the circumstances might be, that would never escape the criticism of future generations …;
IV
Before the test warp was to be carried out, Admiral Karl Gustav Kempf returned briefly to the imperial capital of Odin to make a progress report to Imperial Marshal Reinhard von Lohengramm, commander in chief of the Imperial Space Armada.
“Do you think it’ll work?”
A strong, soldierly reply answered Reinhard’s question: “It’s sure to work. You can count on it.”
Reinhard fixed ice-blue eyes on his tall, powerfully built subordinate, nodded, and, softening his expression, recommended he spend one night at home with his family. Kempf had planned on returning to Gaiesburg right away, but instead he changed his itinerary and returned to his official residence. Kempf had a wife and two sons. This was the first chance they’d had in several months to all be together, and with gratitude toward the young imperial marshal, Kempf said to his sons, “Your vati’s about to go way off into space to take care of some bad guys. Both of you are men, though, so I want you to be good and take care of your mutti.”
Kempf knew very well that the facts were not so simple, but he believed one should aim for clarity and simplicity when dealing with children. As they grew older, they would naturally learn to comprehend the complications and ugliness of the world. Maybe they would someday come to resent the simple, clear worldview that their father had imparted to them, but it was his belief that when they became parents themselves, the time would come when they would understand.
“Boys, won’t you say goodbye to your father?”
At his mother’s prompting, the elder of the two, eight-year-old Gustav Isaak, grabbed hold of his father’s big, strong body and, stretching up as high as he could, spoke these words to his father: “By
e, Dad. Come home soon.”
His five-year-old brother, Karl Franz, grabbed on to the older boy’s back. Unsurprisingly, he was stretching too.
“Bye, Daddy. Bring me a present, okay?”
At that, his older brother whirled around and scolded him. “You dummy! Dad’s going away to work. He doesn’t have time to buy presents!”
But their kindly father laughed, smoothing his younger son’s chestnut hair with a large palm as the boy started to sob.
“I’ll bring presents next time. But—oh wait, how about this? We haven’t visited your grandmother’s house in a while. Why don’t we go see her when I get back?”
“Darling, are you sure you should be making promises like that? They’ll hold it against you if you break them.”
“Huh? Oh, it’ll be fine. Once I’ve made this mission a success, I ought to be able to get a little vacation time. We should be able to start sending more money home to your folks, too.”
“That’s not what I’m—darling, just try to keep safe. Please come back to us safely. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“That goes without saying. I’ll be back.”
Kempf kissed his wife, easily scooped up both of the boys in his arms, and smiled once more. With a touch of rustic humor, he asked his wife, “Have I ever gone off to battle and not come back before?”
Hilda wasn’t the only one critical of the planned invasion. Wolfgang Mittermeier and Oskar von Reuentahl, deemed the “twin pillars” of the imperial forces, were of a similar mind. Although they had been disappointed at first to learn that someone besides themselves had been tapped to command the mission, regret had metamorphosed into shocked disbelief once they learned that this whole operation had come from the mind of Commissioner of Science and Technology von Schaft. It was plain to see that his motives were extremely personal.
One night at a club for high-ranking officers, the two of them carried a coffeepot into a private room. While playing several games of poker, they let fly with all manner of scathing invective regarding von Schaft.
“Even if he has come up with a new tactical theory,” said Mittermeier, “he’s got things spectacularly backward if he thinks that’s reason to press for an attack. This is a mumei-no-shi, and as a subject of his lord, he ought to be ashamed of himself for recommending it.”
Strong-willed, upright Mittermeier had delivered a stinging critique with those words. Mumei-no-shi, an ancient Chinese term that meant “a waste of 2,500 soldiers,” was reserved for lawless wars with no high purpose, and of all the terms used for criticizing war, this was the harshest.
Kempf had been named commander in chief for the dispatch, and Mittermeier had been holding back his criticism ever since he had begun working on the project. First of all, things had moved beyond the stage at which criticism was permissible, and secondly, he didn’t want people thinking he was jealous of any successes Kempf might have in the field. Still, to von Reuentahl only, he said, “We have to bring down the Free Planets Alliance eventually, but this deployment is pointless and unnecessary. It can’t be healthy for the nation to mobilize needlessly and become arrogant because of our military strength.”
Mittermeier was a valiant commander—so much so that he was called “the Gale Wolf” as a nickname—but that didn’t mean he was unnecessarily aggressive. Nothing could be further from him than to commit wanton acts of savagery or brutality, or to become unnecessarily proud of military strength.
“If Siegfried Kircheis were still alive, I’m sure he could talk Duke von Lohengramm out of this,” Mittermeier said with a sigh.
Everyone had been fond of that redheaded youth. He had been selfless to the extreme, and his death has come as a blow to many. With the passage of time, the grief and the shock had lessened, but the sense of loss had only deepened. For those who had known him, it was as if they had found an empty seat in their hearts that should never have been vacated.
And if even I feel that way, how much worse is it for Duke von Lohengramm? Mittermeier thought, unable to help feeling sympathetic.
He and his colleague Oskar von Reuentahl had first met Reinhard four years ago. Reinhard had been eighteen at the time and had already held the rank of commodore. The twenty-six-year-old Mittermeier and the twenty-seven-year-old von Reuentahl had both been captains, and Siegfried Kircheis, following Reinhard around like a shadow, had not yet moved past lieutenant commander.
Since Reinhard had not yet acquired peerage and the family name of von Lohengramm, he had been going by his old name of von Müsel at the time. He had just returned from the Van Fleet Stellar Region, where he had taken alliance officers captive in combat, and the soldiers had felt mildly shocked when they saw him. He was an unbelievably beautiful young man, on whose back white wings would have not been out of place. However, they had felt there was more intensity than kindness in his ice-blue eyes—more intellect than innocence, more sharpness that friendliness.
“What do you think?” Mittermeier had asked. “About the golden brat, or whatever he’s called?”
“There’s an old saying,” von Reuentahl had replied, “‘Don’t mistake a tiger cub for a cat.’ Most likely, that one’s a tiger. True, he’s the younger brother of the emperor’s concubine, but the enemy was under no obligation to lose to him just because of that.”
With a forceful nod, Mittermeier had signaled agreement with his colleague’s appraisal. The young man known as Reinhard von Müsel was at that time being underestimated by those around him. One reason was that his elder sister Annerose was the emperor’s concubine, which made it easy to think that all of his power came from her, but another thing—a slightly strange thing—was that his incomparably good looks were acting as a veil that concealed his true nature. People seemed to think that a sharp mind didn’t go together with an excess of physical beauty. Also, the idea of Reinhard’s getting ahead due to his own abilities was highly unpleasant to the envious aristocrats, and they had wanted to believe that his sister’s influence had gotten him promotions he didn’t deserve.
Because von Reuentahl and Mittermeier had accurately evaluated Reinhard’s qualities from the start, they had never been surprised afterward, no matter how many successes the golden brat achieved or how many times he was promoted. But even for them, it had taken some time to understand the true worth of Siegfried Kircheis. Kircheis had always been following one step behind Reinhard. That redheaded young beanpole’s presence had usually been drowned out by Reinhard’s brilliance, even though his own looks had been sufficiently eye-catching.
“That is what you call a loyal subject,” von Reuentahl had said, though what he had meant at that time was that Siegfried was an ordinary man whose loyalty was his one saving grace. In von Reuentahl’s case, it was probably fair to say that his judgment excelled that of the aristocrats only in its respect for loyalty. Whenever the aristocrats hadn’t simply ignored Kircheis, they had made fun of him, saying things like, “If the sister is a star, then the brother is a planet …; and look—there’s even a satellite, too.”
Without strongly asserting himself, Kircheis had silently played the role of Reinhard’s shadow, helping and supporting him. When he had run operations independently during the Kastropf system uprising, many people had learned for the first time of his outstanding abilities …;
Von Reuentahl may have even been more harshly critical of this mobilization than Mittermeier. To hear him tell it, there was nothing new about von Schaft’s proposal at all; it was nothing but a revival of “big ship, big gun” warfare, trotted back out with a new coat of paint.
“What’s harder to kill? One giant elephant or ten thousand mice? Obviously, the latter. But what can we expect of a nincompoop who doesn’t see the value of the group when it comes to conducting a war?” The young heterochromiac admiral’s words were dripping with contempt.
“Still, they might succeed this time. Even if things go as you say in the futur
e.”
“Hmph …;” Von Reuentahl scratched his dark-brown hair, looking unhappy.
“I’m more concerned about Duke von Lohengramm than that snob von Schaft,” Mittermeier said, taking a sip of his coffee. “I can’t help feeling he’s changed a little since Kircheis passed away. Where and in what way I can’t say, but …;”
“When people have lost the one thing they can’t afford to lose, they can’t help but change.”
Nodding at von Reuentahl’s words, Mittermeier wondered, How would it change me if I ever lost Evangeline? Then, hurriedly, he drove that ominous and unpleasant thought from his mind. He was a man of fortitude—one praised in times past for courage on and off the battlefield and for the good judgment that upheld it. In times to come, that praise was likely to continue. But even he had things he didn’t care to think on.
The young heterochromiac threw a glance at his colleague’s profile, a mixed look that held neither affection nor irony. He held Mittermeier in high esteem, both as a friend and as a soldier, but he couldn’t understand the feelings of a colleague who, despite his own personal charm and status, had actively sought to bind himself to only one woman. Or perhaps von Reuentahl only told himself he couldn’t understand it. Maybe he just didn’t want to understand.
V
On the day the test warp of Gaiesburg Fortress was to be held, there were twelve thousand military personnel on board, most of them technicians. The two admirals, Kempf and Müller, were with them, naturally, but people had latched on to some peculiar theories regarding whether or not Tech Admiral von Schaft, commissioner of science and technology, would be joining them. One story was that von Schaft had been hoping to be at Marshal von Lohengramm’s side at first, looking on with him the moment the experiment succeeded, but instead the handsome young imperial marshal had coolly said, “The command room of Gaiesburg Fortress is the most fitting place for you to sit,” and ordered the reluctant von Schaft to board the fortress. Many of those who had heard that story believed it. There wasn’t a shred of supporting evidence, but in light of von Schaft’s character, they could easily see him saying that he would watch his dangerous experiment from a seat near the VIPs, far from harm’s way. Of course, if the experiment failed, the seat next to Reinhard could hardly be called a safe place for von Schaft either.
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