Endurance

by Yoshiki Tanaka

  Maybe that part got a little too dogmatic. With a solemn look on his face, Yang thought it over, crossed his arms, and then uncrossed them.

  What then, specifically, should we do in the present? If we think of all the many ways in which the second method is more practical than the first, the conclusion will become self-evident. We must coexist with the new order within the Galactic Empire. The old order, dominated by the boyar nobility, was not just the enemy of the Free Planets Alliance; it was also the enemy of those whom it ruled in the Galactic Empire—in other words, the common class. And at present, the new order recently established by Reinhard von Lohengramm has the support of the commoners, through which it is rapidly being strengthened. The formation and administration of the new Lohengramm order stands in stark contrast to Rudolf von Goldenbaum’s dictatorship. The Goldenbaum system was created through democratic processes governing in an utterly undemocratic fashion. The Lohengramm order, on the other hand, was created through undemocratic processes but is beginning to govern in a more democratic manner. This is not government ‘by the people,’ but at least for now, it is government ‘for the people,’ or at least moreso than what came before it. Once we acknowledge that, coexistence with this new order will not be a matter of ‘if’ but of ‘when.’ What we must not do, on the other hand, is allow some malignant strain of Machiavellianism to draw us into collusion with the declining old order. The moment we join forces with an old system that is seen only as exploiters of the masses, the alliance will make enemies not only of the new order, but also of the twenty-five billion imperial citizens who support it …;

  Yang took a deep breath and stretched his arms. With a slightly irritated expression, he stared at the words he had written. He didn’t think the conclusion was wrong, but maybe he should advance it with a bit more demonstrative line of argument. Also, it felt a little rushed and might also draw criticism that he was siding with Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm.

  “Duke Reinhard von Lohengramm, eh …;?”

  The name had such an elegant ring. Yang thought about that young man, as beautiful as some demigod with his golden hair, ice-blue eyes, and porcelain skin. The talents and way of life of that man—a man nine years younger than he—held an undeniable charm for Yang. He was pushing through such drastic changes in the empire that he almost seemed the subject of an experiment to see just how huge an influence a single person could have in the world. Most likely, he would become emperor eventually. Not through bloodline, but through ability. When that came to pass, the peculiar political system known historically as “free imperial rule”—imperial rule without aristocracy, imperial rule supported by the commoners—might be born on a galactic scale.

  But if that were to happen, was it possible that the Galactic Empire, under its new emperor Reinhard von Lohengramm, could transform into some sort of tribalistic nation-state? If the citizenry were to conflate their emperor’s ambition with their own ideals, the FPA might face attacks by some fanatical “people’s army.”

  Yang felt as if the temperature in the room had dropped suddenly. Of course, it wasn’t as if every hunch he had hit the mark, but if he had to break them down into categories, he suspected his bad feelings hit the bull’s-eye more often than the good ones. He had felt a similar feeling before the Battle of Amritsar, and before the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic’s coup d’état as well. It was no fun at all watching events heading straight off in the direction of “Boy, I sure hope that doesn’t happen.”

  My life would’ve been so much easier if I’d been born in the empire, Yang had once thought. If he had been, he could have run straight over to Reinhard’s side, signed on with his organization, and participated gladly and wholeheartedly in wiping out the boyar confederacy and implementing the chain of reforms that had followed. But the reality was, he was alliance born and bred, forced to wage war unwillingly on Mister Trünicht’s behalf.

  In the end, Yang ended up filling his hours with reading, naps, and 3-D chess, while making no progress to speak of in his literary endeavor.

  Three weeks later, the cruiser Leda II reached the outer edge of the Balaat system, where Heinessen was located. The crew began to gather in the entertainment room. Several hundred commercial channels were broadcast from Heinessen, and on military and civilian ships alike, trouble would often break out once unlimited reception became possible—as the crew separated into sports fans and music fans.

  Yang had a private solivision tank in his office. It was a modest perk. On the first channel he picked, Aron Doumeck—one of the Trünicht faction politicians, just happened to be giving a speech in obnoxious, blustery tones.

  “—which is why we must protect our history and tradition. For which cause, we must not begrudge temporary expenditures and the petty lives of individuals. There is no word but ‘coward’ for those who emphasize only their rights as they make no effort to fulfill their duties to the country.”

  To those in power, nothing was so cheap as the lives of others. That gaffe just now about “petty lives” had probably demonstrated exactly how they thought, and that “temporary expenditures” bit was sure to encompass centuries. It was the average citizen who had to carry the load in either case; all the politicians did was look full of themselves while distributing other people’s money.

  When Yang couldn’t take any more, he changed the channel. In place of the politician’s haughty face, there appeared a young boy dressed in impractical-looking garb of some ancient style. It appeared to be some kind of children’s action-adventure program; the boy was being called “Prince” by the other characters.

  Tales of royal vagabonds—stories with a “wandering prince” theme—were the fountainhead of literature itself. Literature was the medium through which the myths and founding legends of many peoples were transmitted. Popularized versions of such stories existed in countless numbers in every age and in every place. They inspired many artists and had long been supported by a wide range of peoples.

  That being said, Yang couldn’t help drawing certain associations from this tale: a young prince from a kingdom in space, his birthright stolen by a prime minister depicted as evil incarnate, trying to restore the rightful royal family.

  He decided to ask Frederica.

  “Lieutenant Greenhill, what company is it that sponsors this show?”

  “Some kind of synthetic-foods corporation, apparently. They’re backed by Phezzanese capital, but I don’t know the details.”

  “Is that so? For a minute there, I wondered if this was political advertising by the Galactic Empire’s old regime.”

  “It couldn’t be,” Frederica said with the beginnings of a laugh. Yang wasn’t laughing, though, and surprised at just how intent he looked, she put on her serious face as well. “The story could make you think that,” she said.

  In truth, she was patronizing Yang. If it had been Caselnes or von Schönkopf here, they wouldn’t have hesitated to laugh out loud.

  But the sound of the word “Phezzan” had been one of the things that sent Yang into deep thought. That name was always in the back of Yang’s mind. What was Phezzan thinking? What were they trying to do with all that wealth? Were they hoping for a unified galaxy, or did they want division and strife?

  There were a number of historical examples in which economic demands had encouraged unity of government.

  One of the primary factors that had allowed Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire to become a vast, unified nation had been the support he had received from merchants traveling back and forth along the Silk Road. Each of the individual oases along that route had been a small, independent nation, and so security had been hard to maintain across the full length of the trading route. In addition, each of those oasis nations had been able to levy trading taxes and passage tolls at will. For the merchants, this had created an untenable situation.

  For a time, they had hoped for relief from the Khwarezm Empire
, but finding its emperor both incompetent and greedy, they had eventually given up and thrown their support behind Genghis Khan, a man furnished with three valuable qualities: he was religiously tolerant, he had a powerful military force, and he was smart enough to understand the importance of trade between the East and the West. They had provided Genghis Khan with many things—funds, information, weapons and the techniques for producing them, foodstuffs, interpreters, know-how for the collection of taxes—and assisted him in his conquests. It was fair to say that, aside from his purely military actions, these merchants deserved the credit for allowing the Mongol Empire to rise. Among these merchants, the Uighurs deserved special mention for how they dominated the Mongol Empire’s finances and economy; they had in effect been the ones running the empire. While it was a Mongol Empire on the surface, it was a Uighur Empire underneath—that was why it was so renowned.

  Was Phezzan thinking of becoming the Uighurs of this unified “New Galactic Empire,” desiring political reunification of all humanity and working to advance that goal?

  That struck him as a more logical, convincing explanation than any other scenario.

  Still, people and the groups they formed didn’t act solely according to logic.

  Though he had no theoretical grounds to say so, Yang could sense a shadow of illogic of sorts in Phezzan’s movements. Last year, Yang’s prediction that Reinhard von Lohengramm would send agents to incite a coup in the alliance had been right on the mark. This had been because Reinhard’s actions had been perfectly reasoned and logical, and Yang had been able to trace his thinking step-by-step. But in the case of Phezzan, he was often unable to read what they were up to. Yang could have simply said that Phezzan had gotten the better of him, and that would have been that. But instead, Yang had a feeling that some unknown element was behind Phezzan’s actions—and it was not the kind of element that could be calculated rationally. If someone asked him what kind of element he was talking about, though, all he could say for now was, “Unknown.”

  “What a terrible mess,” Commander Zeno, the captain of Leda II, said to Yang while he was lost in thought. While monitoring commercial broadcasts from Heinessen, he had picked up news of an accident. On board a transport vessel carrying spartanian pilots, an elementary mistake by a rookie flight officer had caused air pressure within the vessel to plummet suddenly, and more than ten pilots had died in hard vacuum.

  “How much do you think it costs to train a single fighter pilot? We’re talking three billion dinars a head.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Yang said, mentally calculating that his own salary came only to about a twentieth of that. Back in Officers’ Academy, he himself had undergone training to be what might generously be called a pilot. In the simulator he must have been shot down thirty times, at least. How many times had he shot down his opponent? Twice? Three times, maybe? He remembered the instructor shaking his head and muttering, “Every year we get one or two who should’ve never enrolled here.” Since what he had said had been factually correct, there had been no way for Yang to defend himself.

  “You bet that’s a lot of money! A pilot is an accumulation of investment and technology. They’re a precious commodity, and we can’t afford to go losing them this easily. Honestly, if they plan on winning this war, the Rear Service is going to have to get its act together …;”

  Commander Zeno was practically grinding his teeth.

  His anger and grief are perfectly understandable, Yang thought, but …;

  Things had probably been screwed up at an earlier stage than this. After all, the act—the very idea, even—of pouring vast sums of money, knowledge, and technical expertise into a single individual for the sole purpose of murder and destruction could hardly be called a normal thing to do. All that had been pounded into Yang at Officers’ Academy, too—not that he’d been a star pupil by any stretch.

  Perhaps nations were nothing more than expedients created to justify human madness. No matter how ugly, no matter how despicable, no matter how cruel the act might be, it could easily be excused once the nation had become preeminent. By claiming, “I did it for my country,” deeds as vile as invasions, massacres, and human experimentation could sometimes even be lauded. Someone who criticized those actions, on the other hand, might come under attack for “insulting the fatherland.”

  Those who held fantasies about the things called nations believed them to be guided by brilliant, or intelligent and moral, individuals of surpassing excellence. In reality, however, that just wasn’t the case. In the center of a nation’s government, any number of people could usually be found who had less developed powers of thought, worse judgment, and lower moral standards than the average citizen. Where they most certainly did surpass the average citizen was in their passion for the pursuit of power. If such passions could have been channeled in constructive directions, they could have reformed government and society, and become the impetus for establishing the order and prosperity of a new age. But were even a tenth of the people in government like that? Whenever he had examined the history of a dynasty, there was nearly always a process at work in which whatever was built in the first generation was eaten away over the next dozen or so succeeding generations. To put it another way, dynasties and nations were extremely tenacious, unyielding organisms that could extend their life spans into the hundreds of years if even one great individual arose every few generations. If they became as corrupt and as weak as the Goldenbaum Dynasty had in the present-day Galactic Empire, however, there was no saving them. If the reforms of Manfred II had been realized a hundred years ago, the empire might have been able to go on for another several centuries, though.

  As for the Free Planets Alliance, Yang couldn’t equate it with the empire. This was because the very idea of leaving reform up to great individuals who might or might not appear once every few decades ran against the principles of democratic government. Democratic and republican governments were systems designed to make heroes and great men unnecessary—but when would that ideal win out over reality?

  The cruiser Leda II arrived without fanfare at a military spaceport on Heinessen. “Top Secret” had been the order from the chair of the Defense Committee. Yang would’ve liked to have contacted Cubresly, director of Joint Operational Headquarters, and Bucock, commander in chief of the space armada, but that would have not only gone against orders, it might also have provoked a clash between the civil and military authorities. In any case, he was never given the chance. The men who came to pick him up at the spaceport had their orders directly from the chairman of the Defense Committee, and no sooner had he landed than he was escorted by them to a landcar and told to get in.

  Frederica and Machungo were about to protest, but armed soldiers stopped them, and Yang disappeared from the spaceport. Neither Yang nor Frederica had predicted that such high-pressure tactics would be used in taking him away.

  After a ride of about twenty minutes, Yang was let out at one of the military facilities in the area, at which a lone officer in late middle age came out to meet him.

  “I’m Rear Admiral Bay. I serve as head of security for His Excellency, High Council Chairman Trünicht. At present, I’m charged with your personal security, Admiral Yang. I promise to take good care of you.”

  “Much appreciated,” Yang replied apathetically. Bay had called his work security, but even a grade-schooler could have guessed it was really surveillance. Bay introduced Yang to a personal assistant or some such who was assigned to his quarters—a hulking junior officer with aquamarine eyes as vacant as orbs of glass.

  Yang felt immensely let down. It looked like the first thing this court of inquiry had done when selecting his assistant had been to eliminate softness in all its forms—no beauty, no loveliness allowed. There was an extreme emphasis on function over form—and no doubt whatsoever that the functions desired were intimidation and the prevention of Yang’s escaping.

  Even so, this lo
oks like a pretty unimaginative bunch, Yang thought. Treat a fellow like this, and any goodwill he might have had toward this court of inquiry goes out the window. As does any chance of him letting his guard down. The only thing left for the subject to do is to assume a defensive posture.

  After he had been shown to his quarters and left alone, Yang looked out the window, but there was nothing to see outside but the building that stood on the far side of a small courtyard. It had only a few windows and was an uninviting bluish gray. Not only had no consideration been made for the appreciation of scenery, contact with the outside world itself had been made impossible. About a squad’s worth of soldiers were hanging around in the concrete-fortified courtyard. They appeared to be loitering, but each had a particle-beam rifle slung across his shoulder. That was combat equipment. Yang tried tapping the windowpane. It was about six centimeters thick and made of a special hardened glass. If a brown bear in its prime were to run headlong into a window like that, it would probably do no more than put a hairline crack in it.

  The room’s furnishings were first-rate, at least, although lacking in personality: a bed, a writing desk, a sofa, and a table. None of them felt like they had been used, though. Yang couldn’t even summon up the will to check for bugs and surveillance cameras. Of course they were present, and of course they were well hidden. Hunting for them would just be a silly waste of energy.

  “This is house arrest,” he said to the empty room.

  So what exactly had happened here? He sat down on the bed and sank into thought. The bed cushions were not too soft and not too hard, but that was hardly enough to put Yang in a pleasant mood. On the empty floor, he could see Torture, Brainwashing, and Murder all join hands to dance a gloomy jig. Their choreographer, naturally, was Job Trünicht.