Am I just too simpleminded? Mittermeier wondered. While his IQ was high, he didn’t really like using his brain for anything other than destroying enemies on the battlefield. Nothing disgusted him more than power struggles between allies. Suddenly, he thought about the enemy. They probably had worries of their own. He wondered what the man known as Yang Wen-li might be doing about now.
Dancing with some beautiful woman at a victory celebration, perhaps?
V
Mittermeier’s guess was wrong.
The hero who had once again saved the Free Planets Alliance from an existential crisis was lying in bed, sneezing over and over. Although overwork was probably to blame, he had become infected with an ineradicable disease: the common cold. Of course, there was a blessing in this—after leaving the victory banquet in the capable hands of Caselnes, Frederica Greenhill, von Schönkopf, Merkatz, and the others, he had been able to go back to his official residence and crawl into bed. Julian, who was set to be promoted to warrant officer, stayed with him. Following his first sortie, Julian had shot down enemy fighters in the string of battles that had followed and, most importantly, had seen through the Imperial Navy’s plans, providing his senior officers with ample grounds to recommend his promotion. As for Yang himself, there was the human resources balance among high-ranking officers to consider, so once again he was passed over for marshal and given only a medal instead.
“I’ll make you some hot punch. I’ll mix honey and lemon with wine and dilute it with hot water. That works best for a cold.”
“Can you leave out the honey, the lemon, and the water?”
“No!”
“It wouldn’t make that much difference, would it?”
“How about I leave out the wine instead?”
Yang was silent for a moment. “You were a lot more obedient when you came to my house four years ago.”
“Yes,” said Julian, not missing a beat. “Acting like this was also something I had to learn.”
Yang, at a loss for a good rejoinder, turned toward the wall and started grumbling.
“Ah, what a miserable life …; A job I can’t stand gets foisted on me, I’ve got no woman in my life, and if I so much as try to drink a little booze, I get snapped at …;”
“Don’t get all moody just because of a cold!”
Julian had yelled, but that had been to keep his expression from suddenly going soft. It had been more than two months since they’d had a conversation. He felt glad that they were finally able to talk like this again. It had been an essential tradition ever since he had first come to the Yang household. He made the hot punch in the kitchen, then passed it to his patient.
“You’re a good kid.”
Thoughtless though it was, Yang changed his tune the instant he took a sip. The hot punch that the boy had made him was practically unadorned, pure wine. For a while, the flaxen-haired youth watched the black-haired young admiral sitting in bed while wrapped in his blankets, contentedly sipping his warm cold medicine, but at last Julian spoke up in a tone of resolution.
“Admiral Yang?”
“What is it?”
“I …; want to enlist. Officially.”
For a long moment, Yang said nothing.
“May I have your permission? If—if you’re completely against it no matter what …; I’ll give up on the idea.”
“Do you want to join no matter what?”
“I do. I want to be a soldier who protects freedom and equality. Not the kind that turns into a pawn to be used in invasions and oppression—a soldier who’s there to protect the rights of the citizens.”
“You said you’d give up the idea, but what would you do if you gave it up?”
“I don’t know. No, wait. If it came to that, I’d become whatever you told me to become, Admiral.”
Yang twirled his half-empty cup of hot punch around and around between the palms of his hands.
“It never even occurred to you that you might be told no, did it?”
“That’s not true at all!”
“I’ve got fifteen years on you, kid—don’t think I can’t see through a bluff that thin.”
Yang spoke haughtily, but as he was dressed in his pajamas, Yang’s words didn’t carry quite as much dignity as he himself believed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, I guess I can’t stop you. How could I say no with you looking at me like that? All right. I don’t see you turning into a troublemaker, so be what you want to be.”
The boy’s dark-brown eyes lit up. “Thank you! Thank you so much, Admiral!”
After a moment, Yang added one more thing. “But do you really want to be a soldier that badly?”
Yang couldn’t hold back a wry smile.
In every kind of religion and in every system of law, there were certain points that had been fundamental since ancient times: Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness—
Yang thought back over his own life. How many enemies and allies had he killed? How many things had he stolen? How many times had he deceived his enemies? That those actions were exempted from censure in this present life was due only to the fact that he was following his nation’s orders. Truly, a nation could do anything and everything, except raise the dead. It could pardon criminals and throw the innocent into prison, or send them to the gallows, even. It could put weapons in the hands of civilians who were living peaceful lives and send them off to the battlefield, as well. Within its nation, a military was the largest violent organization.
“Hey, Julian. It’s usually not my style to say this kind of thing, but if you say you’re going to become a soldier, there’s something I don’t want you to forget: the military is an organ of violence, and that violence comes in two types.”
“Good violence and bad violence?”
“No, not like that. There’s violence for the purpose of rule and oppression, and there’s violence as a means of liberation. A nation’s military …;”
Yang drank down the last of his considerably cooled hot punch.
“… is by nature an organization of the former. That’s unfortunate, but history proves it. When rulers have clashed with their citizens, it’s been rare for the military to side with the people. In fact, in a number of countries in the past, militaries themselves have turned into authoritarian organizations and even ruled the people through violence. Even last year, we had some people who tried to do that and failed.”
“But you’re a military man yourself, and you opposed that, didn’t you? I want to be a soldier like you, even if that’s only an aspiration.”
“Whoa, whoa! Hold it right there. You know good and well, don’t you, that my aspirations don’t actually have anything to do with the military?”
Yang believed that the pen was mightier than the sword. In a society where truths were such rarities, that was one of a scant handful of exceptions, he believed.
“Rudolf the Great could not be defeated by the sword. However, we know about the sins he committed against the human race. That’s the power of the pen. The pen can indict a dictator who lived hundreds of years ago—of tyrants who lived thousands of years ago. You can’t travel back through history with a sword, but with a pen, you can do that.”
“True, but doesn’t all that really mean is that you can confirm what happened in the past?”
“The past?! Listen, Julian, if we look at human history as something that’s gonna continue on from this point as well, then the past is something that goes on accumulating forever. History’s not just a record of the past, it’s also the evidence of civilization being handed down to the present day. Our present civilization stands on top of a huge mound of accumulated past history. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
After a brief pause, Yang breathed out a sigh and a gripe together. “That’s why I wanted t
o become a historian. But I had one little misunderstanding at the outset, and my life ended up like this.”
“Still,” said Julian, “without the people who make history, the ones who write it wouldn’t have much to do, would they?”
Yang smiled wryly once more and held out his cup toward the boy. “Julian, that hot punch just now—could you get me another cup of that? It was really good.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
Yang watched Julian as he headed off toward the kitchen, then shifted his gaze up to the ceiling.
“Well, things just don’t seem to be going my way—not in my life, and not in anyone else’s …;”
VI
After deciding to award medals to the leadership of Iserlohn Fortress and the Iserlohn Patrol Fleet—with Yang at the front of the line—the government of the Free Planets Alliance underwent some small-scale reshuffling. Defense Committee Chair Negroponte tendered his resignation, and Walter Islands took over in his place. Due to the strong influence of Chairman Trünicht on both of these politicians, it was safe to say that the chances of there being any changes in military policy stood at zero. The newly appointed Chairman Islands spoke highly of Negroponte for his graceful and willing exit and then declared his intention to continue the policies of his predecessor fully. Whether or not that made Negroponte feel any better was difficult to judge, but on the surface, at least, he had indeed vacated the seat of Defense Committee chair gracefully and then become president of a state-run hydrogen-energy corporation.
The first official act of the newly appointed chairman was to visit Commissioner Brezeli—dispatched to Heinessen from Phezzan—to do a little bid rigging by arranging for kickbacks on the import of military supplies. Once that matter had been safely put to rest, the talk turned to idle chitchat, and Islands told Brezeli about Negroponte’s failure when facing Yang Wen-li at the inquiry. As he was doing so, Islands tried to paint Negroponte in the best possible light, saying that his intention had been to stave off military tyranny.
“I’ve heard a number of different things about this,” Brezeli said, “and what it seems to boil down to is that you all would make Yang Wen-li resign if you could just find a reason. That said, it would be a problem for you if he were to go into politics after resigning—he might well start rattling your citadels of power. Does that about sum it up?”
Brezeli had made no effort to dress up his words, pointing out Islands’s true intentions with a frankness that seemed rather out of line. Islands, feeling slightly irritated, said he had nothing against Yang personally but did want to suppress soldiers’ entry into the political sphere.
“If that’s the case, you should just make a law, then. What do you think power’s for? It’s to make everyone obey laws and regulations that you yourself have created …; When you feel the pleasure of that—a pleasure that money can’t buy—you’ll do whatever it takes to gain more power, even if you have to pour a ton of money into doing so. Or am I mistaken?”
“No, it’s as you say …;”
Islands took out a handkerchief and wiped at sweat that had not appeared on his face. This was to conceal a disgusted scowl. What was bothering him so much was that the man’s tone was so bald-faced, and that in spite of that, he was on target with regard to a part of the truth. Both of those things nagged at him.
In any case, the Phezzan commissioner’s proposal itself had its attractions, so Islands expressed his gratitude and hurried off to inform Trünicht.
Waiting in the next room over, Boris Konev couldn’t quite bring himself to spit on the floor, being as it was polished so nicely. Abandoning the urge, he swallowed.
What words could describe a world that was so filled with corruption? While the world he had lived in up to now as a free merchant certainly did have its own brand of bargaining strategy, Konev still believed it was a more straight-talking, fair-and-square kind of world—one where anyone who relied on political power to hobble an opponent would be nothing but a target for insults. This was because he had encountered nothing but this kind of talk ever since he had come to work at the office of the commissioner. He had never planned on putting up with this job for very long, and now he might be about to reach his limits.
One day, as May was drawing to a close, Landesherr Rubinsky handed down a decision on Phezzan.
“Kesselring!” called the landesherr.
The young aide soon appeared and bowed respectfully.
“I take it everything’s in place now for that project I mentioned earlier.”
Kesselring responded with a slight smile that was bursting with confidence. “I’ve left nothing to chance, Excellency.”
“Very well. In that case, I’m activating the plan. Inform your team.”
“As you wish. If I may ask, Your Excellency: when this plan has succeeded and Duke von Lohengramm and Yang Wen-li have brought all their arms to bear against one another, which do you think will emerge the victor?”
“I have no idea. Still, that’s what makes it so interesting. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Absolutely. Well then, I’ll go and relay your orders to the team.”
Relations between the father and son had not warmed in the slightest since that earlier night. Both of them were self-consciously trying to preserve their relationship as supervisor and employee. After retiring to his own office, Kesselring punched the switch on his visiphone, and with video transmission disabled, passed along the orders as soon as reception was confirmed.
“This is Wolf’s Den. Fenrir is off the chain. Repeat. Fenrir is off the chain.”
What juvenile code words, thought Rupert Kesselring, although his own linguistic sense was irrelevant on this occasion. As long as the message got through to its intended listeners and no outsiders figured out who sent it, that would be enough.
Well now, who’s going to be eaten when the unleashed Fenrir opens up his great red maw? The young aide’s countenance was colored by a bitter smile. If he had been a wolf and not a dog, he might have even turned on his master.
Leopold Schumacher, formerly a captain in the Galactic Imperial Navy, checked the fake passport he had been given one more time. While it had been officially issued by the Phezzan Dominion, the name on it was not his own.
If this plan succeeded, he was promised not only citizenship and the right to live permanently on Phezzan, but plenty of material wealth as well.
Naturally, though, Schumacher didn’t fully trust in the young Phezzanese aide’s promises. In fact, he felt an intense skepticism of both the Phezzan Dominion’s government and of Kesselring himself, and had no intention whatsoever of changing his mind about that. However, when he thought of the punishment that would be brought to bear on his men rather than himself, there was nothing he could do for now except go along with what they wanted. If Phezzan intended to use him as a tool, he would just have to use Phezzan himself in return. Even so, to think that his doing so would mean walking on Odin’s soil once again …;
“Ready to go, Captain?”
Count Alfred von Lansberg, who was accompanying him on this journey, spoke in a cheerful voice. Answering him with a nod, Schumacher slowly started walking toward the office at the Phezzan spaceport.
SE 798, or 489 of the imperial calendar, was as yet only halfway finished. Another month yet remained until the event that would send shock waves through both the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance.
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 carrier 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.
www.haikasoru.com
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.
Endurance Page 29
