Sunset

by Yoshiki Tanaka

  “Send another request to Iserlohn asking that they come to Heinessen. By Kaiser’s invitation. Müller, make contact with them in your name.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty. And if they refuse?”

  “If they refuse, they will bear responsibility for the bloodshed and chaos that follow,” Reinhard said darkly. Then raising his voice, he called, “Von Oberstein!”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “There are certain venomous insects who will squirm out of the woodwork to impede my meeting with the republicans of Iserlohn. They must be exterminated, and I am relying on you to do the job. I can rely on you for that, can’t I?”

  The assembled admirals sensed the kaiser’s sarcasm, but von Oberstein gave no sign of noticing it, and merely bowed as he accepted Reinhard’s orders. The kaiser ran a somewhat impatient hand through his blond mane and surveyed the others.

  “For now, this meeting is adjourned,” he said. “I wish to dine with everyone tonight. Gather here again at 1830.”

  After seeing the kaiser off, Mittermeier was about to leave himself when Wittenfeld fell into step beside him and said rather suddenly, “I wonder if this is the final act.”

  “The final act?”

  “The kaiser meeting with the Iserlohn republicans. If some kind of compromise is reached, peace will come to the galaxy. Something to be welcomed—and yet…”

  “You would not welcome it yourself?” It was already clear as day to Mittermeier that Wittenfeld would struggle even more than Reinhard to reconcile himself to peace.

  “In my experience,” said Wittenfeld, “a change of seasons is always accompanied by a storm. And the storm comes just when you think the change is already complete. A big storm is on its way—don’t you think, Admiral?”

  “A storm, you say…” Mittermeier cocked his head.

  Iserlohn’s fleet size was estimated to be just over ten thousand ships. This was not a force that could simply be ignored, but it was nothing compared to the Imperial Navy’s might. It certainly seemed unlikely that it could raise any kind of storm. Would the source of that storm, then, be the Church of Terra?

  Mittermeier felt a sudden flash of skepticism. Wittenfeld’s words likely contained more hope than prophecy. And that hope was not one held by Wittenfeld alone.

  In the first weeks of May, with Neidhart Müller as intermediary, diplomatic negotiations were opened with the Iserlohn Republic. Julian Mintz was the republic’s representative, vested with full decision-making authority.

  Julian requested proof that those on Heinessen with some connection to Iserlohn enjoyed a modicum of safety, and the imperial military complied. The only reason Kaiser Reinhard had not done this already was because it had not occurred to him. He had not intentionally sought to conceal their fates; to do so simply was not in his nature.

  Learning that Sitolet and Murai were among the living was a relief for Julian, and this was followed by another decree from the kaiser. On May 20, all political prisoners held at Ragpur Prison were to be released. With this decree, the anger and antipathy of Heinessen’s citizenry toward von Oberstein was transmuted quite naturally into affection for Reinhard. It also left the Iserlohn Republic with no choice but to accept Reinhard’s request for talks, lest responsibility for rejecting the path of peace and coexistence be made to lie with the republican forces—at least in the eyes of others.

  Could von Oberstein have anticipated and intentionally brought about even these developments? Julian shuddered at the thought. Whatever the reason, the kaiser had made considerable concessions, and it would be unwise to expect more. The next step was clearly to travel to Heinessen and seek opportunities for dialogue and negotiation with the kaiser. Even if this was exactly what von Oberstein wanted them to do, they no longer had any other choices. Or, to be more accurate, the path to their other choices was blocked by sixty thousand to seventy thousand imperial vessels.

  Julian made his decision.

  “To Heinessen it is, then. Not as a captive, but as an ambassador. Under our current circumstances, that’s the best we can reasonably hope for.”

  It seemed that both allies and enemies were being driven along by a mental function akin to prophecy. Malice and goodwill, ambitions and ideals, pessimism and optimism—even as all these things began to combine into one disorderly stream, the next unexpected incident occurred on distant Phezzan.

  It was the Stechpalme Schloß Inferno.

  I

  IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AD, more than a thousand years before Reinhard’s time, that corner of Terra known as the continent of Europe developed a short-lived passion for an intriguing but bizarre academic field: the study of genius. Scholars identified six elements that characterized those given the sobriquet of “genius”:

  1) Outstanding ability in multiple specific fields.

  2) Monumental achievements born of those abilities.

  3) Near-magical dominance over the sensitivities of others.

  4) Near-miraculously direct expression of ideas and creativity.

  5) In most cases, precocity, with no other individuals of note to be found in the family’s history.

  6) In most cases, close relatives with psychological or social deficiencies. A high percentage of geniuses also harbored feelings of loathing toward their relatives.

  Clearly, all six elements applied to Reinhard himself. If his life were viewed as a splendid palace, these elements would form the gates. He had unparalleled abilities in both military and political matters, and his exercise of those abilities had not so much burned like a flame as burst like an explosion. His abilities and his intentions were in perfect accord, and his very life had been an ongoing expression of both.

  Very well—what of Reinhard’s adversary in the pages of history, Yang Wen-li? In the case of Yang, the depth of the rift between his abilities and intentions complicates the assessment.

  As a military man, Yang was a strategist by nature. This is evident in countless testimonies and records. However, while his actual achievements were without peer at the tactical level, he never managed to overcome the advantage that Reinhard had established at the strategic level. This is partly due to external factors: by the time the Alliance Navy collapsed, Yang was still a front-line commander, not yet in a position to contribute to strategy at all. On the other hand, there is no clear evidence that he sought to overcome those circumstances. As a result, Yang is sometimes viewed as indecisive and reactive, and Yang himself was hesitant to exercise his military abilities to their fullest. His values tended to reject the worth of those abilities. This psychological tendency itself may rule out any claim to genius. If so, the question of whether to view Yang as a genius or not has less to do with the man himself than those making the judgment.

  Perhaps the military confrontation between Reinhard von Lohengramm and the forces of republican democracy was, at the individual level, in some sense a contest between a genius and a possessor of some close relative to genius. This is only true, however, when considered at the individual level.

  When Julian edited and published the fragmentary memoirs left to posterity by Yang Wen-li, they included the following passage:

  Reinhard von Lohengramm was a foe of republican democracy in the gravest sense—not because he was a cruel and stupid ruler, but because he was just the opposite. The polar opposite of democratic republicanism is the longing for a savior—the idea that, because the people lack the ability to reform society, right its wrongs, and resolve its inconsistencies, they must await the arrival of a transcendental “great man.” It is an attitude of dependency—a belief that even if one does nothing for oneself, a legendary hero will one day appear to slay the dragon—and it is entirely incompatible with what Ahle Heinessen taught, namely, self-determination, self-governance, self-control, and self-respect. By the end of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, this dependency had achieved almost total dominance, and Rein
hard von Lohengramm was the savior legend made flesh. He toppled the dynasty in all its corruption, swept away the lords and nobles who monopolized wealth and privilege, and enacted countless policies for societal welfare. That all this was done by undemocratic means was not, under the circumstances, problematic. The citizens of the empire had no desire for democratic process to begin with. Thus, they were granted only the results of democratic governance, with no need for effort or awakening on their part…

  How Yang planned to develop this argument must remain an eternal mystery. His sudden death precluded a systematic written exposition of his philosophy.

  If the year had so far proven busy for Reinhard, it was no less so for the woman who had become his kaiserin. After Reinhard departed to the Neue Land with the imperial fleet, Hilda remained at Stechpalme Schloß, preparing for her expected delivery on June 1. In late May, she planned to move to a special wing of a hospital affiliated with Phezzan University School of Medicine.

  Those connected to the Ministry of the Palace Interior expected early summer to be rewarding, exhausting, and anxiety-inducing. And, as a matter of fact, Ulrich Kessler would experience all of this with the greatest intensity.

  Senior Admiral Kessler was commissioner of military police and commander of capital defenses. Guarding Imperial Headquarters and Stechpalme Schloß fell within his responsibilities. Considered on the personal level, this meant that Kessler had two and a half people to keep safe: the kaiser’s wife, his sister, and his unborn child. He hand-picked soldiers trained in first aid to guard Stechpalme Schloß, and visited daily to confirm that the kaiser’s little family was safe. Sometimes he played a game of chess with the kaiserin’s father, Count von Mariendorf, before leaving. He seldom returned to his official residence before midnight. The Lohengramm Dynasty’s present and future both seemed safe under his competent and diligent protection.

  When Kessler was appointed military police commissioner, he implemented drastic reforms of the organization’s structure and culture. Particularly searing was his decree urging imperial subjects to report any mistreatment by the military police. Anonymity would be protected, no evidence was required, reports based on misunderstandings or even outright falsehoods would not bring punishment, and if a subject who made such a report were harmed in any way, the military police with authority over the relevant district would be held responsible. Such a decree may seem beyond common sense, but in the days of the Goldenbaum Dynasty the military police had in fact held to an unwritten law that was the decree’s exact opposite, brutally oppressing not only republican agitators and enemies of the state but even innocent subjects.

  “If the arrest of a state enemy results in some collateral damage, so be it.” So they had bragged, but when it was their turn to suffer the “collateral damage” of justice, they found it intolerable. Some tried to sabotage Kessler’s efforts, but once the ringleaders had been arrested and sent to an isolated prison, their ill-gotten gains confiscated, and the ten worst offenders executed, the rest shuddered in fear and became an obedient pack of dogs.

  Kessler also overhauled the department’s staffing practices, taking on soldiers who had returned from the front lines after the end (more or less) of the war against the Free Planets Alliance. This method carried the danger of sparking conflict between old-timers and new recruits, but Kessler’s ingenious appointments and organizational reforms had so far been successful, expelling the old blood that had grown stagnant within the organization. It cannot be denied, however, that this success, like that of the empire as a whole, was due to the personal leadership of the man at the top of the hierarchy.

  In year 3 of the New Imperial Calendar, Kessler would be 39, but he was still single. No doubt he had known his share of romance and passion, but with regard to his private life he maintained perfect secrecy. Driven by resentment, long-serving military police officers had tailed him and bugged him, hoping to learn something they could release to damage his reputation, but came up utterly empty-handed. On the contrary—such rebellious elements were captured, punished, and expelled, eliminating sources of discontent and securing Kessler’s position even further.

  The day was May 14. It was hot and slightly humid, as if the seasons had gotten ahead of the calendar. The air was still, the sky covered by a thin membrane of cloud. Many were the citizens who wiped their brow with a remark on the heat, and some, it is said, even had premonitions of some violence or commotion. In later days, a solid majority would claim to have felt this way.

  At 1115, an anonymous visiphone call with the screen blacked out was placed to Military Police Headquarters. The caller said that the Church of Terra, though dealt a critical blow during the Kümmel Incident, had in the intervening two years almost fully recovered, and was now extending new roots throughout the Phezzan underground. The church, claimed the caller, was planning to strike in mid-May, starting riots and seizing control of key locations across the planet while the kaiser and most of the imperial military were absent. The caller insisted that swift action would be required, noting the particular vulnerability of supply, communication, and energy provision systems. Then the call was cut.

  To the imperial security forces, the mere mention of the Church of Terra was like a red flag to a bull. Supply and communications systems had faced repeated difficulties this year already, and the resultant social and economic unrest still smoldered.

  At 1130, before preparations for mobilization were complete, an explosion at an oil storage facility in the Loften district covered the entire area in black smoke and flames. The casualty count kept rising, and the firefighters rushing to the scene hindered and were hindered by fleeing residents, creating a confusion which soon became unmanageable. Communications with the outside world were also impaired, and water pipes were damaged, flooding the roads in the Vierwald district. The water seeped into the power cables underground, blacking out the entire region. Chaos continued to spread.

  In this way, over the course of the afternoon, the military police and capital defense forces were scattered to no fewer than fourteen different locations around the city where some incident had occurred.

  May 14 had been chosen for an important reason as the date to execute this plot. On this day, Kessler was away from the capital city on an inspection tour of planetary defense facilities. Meanwhile, Count von Mariendorf, still unable to resign as minister of domestic affairs, was also outside the city for inspection of the artificial lake and water resource management system recently constructed by the Ministry of Works.

  Nevertheless, at 1500 contact with Kessler was finally made. As soon as he learned of the situation, he barked out a reprimand: “Don’t let your guard down! This is only a feint!”

  As an experienced leader of men in battle, he sensed the strategic objectives in play. It was not a question of where, but who.

  The true target of the terrorists, he knew, must be Kaiserin Hilda and her unborn child. He tried to explain this to the military police, but he had always been such a strong leader that his subordinates had come to depend on him, and had developed a tendency to simply address issues as they arose during his absence. Kessler canceled his inspection tour and boarded a jet-copter back to the capital city as fast as possible, ordering that reinforcements be found for the military police. These measures were taken with lightning speed, but by the time he arrived at Stechpalme Schloß, events were already in motion.

  II

  Stechpalme Schloß was a temporary imperial palace. Its name came from the holly trees planted on either side of the gate; a holly design was also carved above the front entrance. The Ministry of the Palace Interior had suggested altering this design to the Goldenlöwe, but Reinhard had let the matter go unaddressed, reasoning that it was only a temporary residence. Annerose had explained all this to Hilda with a laugh. “If you tell him you plan to renovate the house,” she added, “he’ll surely tell you not to waste your time on such things. But if you perform th
e renovations first and then tell him afterward, he’ll simply say ‘I see,’ and that will be the end of it. Reinhard has no interest in events below the light-year scale.”

  In any case, as far as the Ministry of the Palace Interior was concerned, the building required at least some maintenance both inside and out. Work on the sprawling gardens was not yet complete.

  On May 14, Stechpalme Schloß had a guest. Annerose was there to visit her sister-in-law.

  Annerose herself had never experienced pregnancy and childbirth, but she had helped other women deliver their children several times, both before and after entering Friedrich IV’s inner palace. She had, therefore, assisted women of widely differing social rank, though all had been of basically the same physical and mental constitution. Hilda was disappointed that Reinhard would be absent for the birth, but her relief that Annerose would be present was stronger. Even if Reinhard had been by her side, he wouldn’t have been any use. It was precisely because his genius was a world apart from this universe that none could follow where it led.

  Hilda half sat, half lay on the sofa in the second-floor library, with multiple cushions supporting her back. Annerose was just brewing her a cup of cream coffee when they heard a terrible commotion and overlapping cries from downstairs.

  “What that can be?”

  The two women looked at each other. Hilda, at least, should have been used to the fires of war. But space combat, excluding operations conducted within an enemy ship’s hull, occurs entirely without sound. As a result, Hilda’s instincts with respect to sound were not as honed as those with respect to light. Of course, being eight months pregnant, her agility was limited in any case.

  The walnut door burst open. The disrespect of the act was unthinkable. Flung into the wall’s unwanted embrace, the door groaned its displeasure, even as a man appeared standing in the doorway.