Sunset

by Yoshiki Tanaka

  For a moment, Julian was unable to reply. Reinhard chuckled. But what began as a pointed, even caustic laugh seemed to change partway through. Reinhard, it seemed, was intrigued by Julian’s political tactics, which combined strength and toughness with a high degree of elasticity.

  “I will return to Phezzan soon,” Reinhard said. “Several people await me there. Enough to justify one final journey.”

  Again Julian had no reply. The kaiser had looked death square in the face and dismissed it as a matter of no importance. Julian knew only one other person who had been so free with respect to death. And that person had died a year ago.

  “You will accompany me there,” Reinhard said.

  “If Your Majesty so wishes.”

  “That would be best, I think. Your designs and your insight were better shared with the next ruler of the empire than me alone. The kaiserin is far more insightful as a politician. The specifics of your proposal should be discussed with her.”

  Later, it would occur to Julian that this was the closest Reinhard had come to the kind of fond boasting that characterized a besotted husband.

  The kaiser’s fatigue was already visible, and the meeting ended after around thirty minutes. Julian left without the satisfaction of feeling that he had achieved his goals.

  As he left the provisional headquarters, Julian turned back to gaze up at the Goldenlöwe hanging above the main entrance. It was the flag of the great conqueror who had subjugated all the galaxy. But, to Julian, the fierce golden lion on its crimson field seemed to hang its head.

  As if to grieve the death of its master.

  A conversation between Dusty Attenborough and Olivier Poplin unfolded that evening.

  “It’s going to be one thing after another, right to the end. No chance of a silent final curtain.”

  “That sounds more like a wish than a prediction.”

  “In any case, I’m going to Phezzan with Julian. I’ve come this far, and I want to see the final act.”

  “What about your military duties?”

  “I’ll leave them to Soon Soul. He doesn’t have my creative genius, but he’s 1.6 times more responsible. I’ll have Lao help him. How about you, Ace? Will you stay on Heinessen?”

  “Absolutely not. Even when I was a boy, I hated being left behind while the adults went out on business.”

  Poplin pointedly poked the bandage around his head with a fingertip. Seeing the vital gleam in his green eyes, Attenborough broke into a smile.

  “I hear that old man Murai’s about to relax into a comfortable retirement, but I don’t see that in our future just yet. Let’s stick with Julian until the curtain falls and we can confirm that ticket sales have put the theater in the black.”

  At almost that moment, Julian was saying farewell to Bernard von Schneider, Merkatz’s loyal aide. Von Schneider had decided to remain on Heinessen, first to heal his wounds, then to discuss what might be done for the handful of Merkatz’s fellow imperial defectors that still survived. After that, he would see to it that these measures were taken, and finally, when the time was right, return to the empire himself.

  “You’ll visit Admiral Merkatz’s family, I take it?”

  “Exactly. The admiral’s journey has ended. Once I inform his family, mine will end too.”

  Von Schneider offered Julian his hand. “Let’s meet again sometime,” he said as they shook firmly. Parting alive meant that another meeting should be possible. Julian wished from the bottom of his heart for a fruitful end to von Schneider’s journey.

  By June 27, Kaiser Reinhard’s flagship Brünhild had been completely restored to its original state. The kaiser boarded his craft and set out for the imperial capital of Phezzan. It would be his final interstellar voyage.

  I

  AFTER THE DEPARTURE of Kaiser Reinhard and his retinue from Heinessen, the planet’s security became the responsibility of Admiral Volker Axel Büro. Iserlohn’s fleet was left in the hands of Commodore Marino, who enlisted Rinz, Soul, and Lao, among others, to help him prepare for the dismantling of its military organization.

  By July, peace and order were more or less fully restored on Heinessen. This, incidentally, was how it was proved that the underground organizations that had previously plagued the planet had been operated through the late Adrian Rubinsky’s personal efforts.

  On July 8, the imperial military police discovered that one of the people who had been injured and hospitalized during Rubinsky’s Inferno was carrying false documents. His questioning would send new ripples across the galaxy.

  “Your name?”

  “Schumacher. Leopold Schumacher.”

  The man replied casually—carelessly, even—but the name he gave shocked the officers questioning him. It was the name of an enemy of the state—the man said to have helped Count Alfred von Lansberg abduct Erwin Josef II, boy emperor of the former dynasty. Schumacher’s hospital ward quickly became the venue of a formal interrogation, but, as he was quite willing to talk, neither violence nor truth serums were employed.

  Schumacher’s next claim was that the body discovered earlier in the year had not, in fact, belonged to Erwin Josef II.

  “Explain yourself.”

  “Erwin Josef II escaped from Count von Lansberg last March. Where he is now and what he is doing is anyone’s guess.”

  After the boy’s escape, Schumacher explained, the count had become psychologically unstable, stolen a cadaver of roughly the correct age from a morgue, and treated it as if it were that of Erwin Josef II himself. His account of the boy’s illness and death had been the product of pure delusion, despite being meticulous enough to completely convince the empire’s investigators. In all probability, that story had been the finest work Count von Lansberg ever created. Later, Schumacher’s testimony would form the basis of the imperial government’s official records on the topic, which noted only that Kaiser Erwin Josef II’s final destination remained unknown.

  “One other thing,” Schumacher said at the end of his interrogation. “The last remnants of the Church of Terra have not abandoned their designs on the kaiser’s life. From what I heard through Rubinsky, the last active cell infiltrated Phezzan itself. It should have about thirty people in it. Every other part of the organization has been destroyed, so taking them out will end the Church of Terra for good.”

  Asked what he intended to do with himself now, Schumacher answered coolly, “Nothing worth speaking of. I plan to keep a farm with my former subordinates in Assini-Boyer Valley on Phezzan. Permission to travel there once you’re finished with me is all that I ask.”

  In the end, these hopes were not realized. Schumacher did return to Phezzan after being pardoned and freed two months later, but the farming collective had already been dissolved, and his former subordinates were scattered to the winds. For a time he served as a commodore in the Imperial Navy, having been commissioned on Vice Admiral von Streit’s recommendation for his insight and experience as a man of the former dynasty. But eventually, he disappeared during a battle with some space pirates.

  Schumacher’s information was conveyed to Marshal von Oberstein, then en route to Phezzan. The marshal, so incomparably cold that he was also known as the “Sword of Dry Ice,” read the entire communiqué without so much as a cell in his face moving. He then sat in silent contemplation for a long while.

  Julian had many opportunities to converse with Reinhard as they traveled to Phezzan together aboard Brünhild. Reinhard enjoyed hearing Julian relate anecdotes about Yang Wen-li. Sometimes he nodded eagerly, sometimes he laughed aloud, but, according to Julian’s recollections, “great as the kaiser was, his sense of humor was somewhat underdeveloped. Two jokes out of every five left him baffled and struggling to understand where the humor lay.” We should note, however, that Julian’s grasp of Imperial Standard may not have been entirely what the kaiser would have preferred.

  Naturally
, the journey to Phezzan also saw serious debate on future governance.

  Iserlohn Fortress would be returned to the empire. In return, the empire would grant the right of self-governance to Heinessen and the rest of the Baalat System. On these two points, full agreement had been reached. There were many in the Empire’s Ministry of Domestic Affairs who had already concluded—based on the string of man-made calamities there—that Heinessen all but ungovernable. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Military Affairs would certainly be pleased to regain Iserlohn Fortress without bloodshed. Accordingly, both ministries were sure to welcome the agreement.

  However, on the matter of an imperial constitution and parliament, Reinhard would make no commitments. He would consider the merits of constitutional governance, he said, but he could offer no promises, and did not wish to lie to Julian.

  “If you and I settle everything ourselves, what would be left for later generations to do? ‘If only those two had minded their own business,’ they would grumble.”

  Reinhard spoke in a jocular tone, but it was clear he had no interest in allowing democracy to continue to exist without conditions or regulations to govern it. This was a reminder for Julian that the kaiser had not lost his cold realism as an administrator.

  Achieving self-governance for Baalat was a major concession. But Heinessen would first have to rebuild after the devastation of Rubinsky’s Inferno. In astrographical terms, too, the planet would be easier to attack and harder to defend than Iserlohn Fortress. Furthermore, since the entire system tended toward consumption rather than production, food and other supplies had to be imported from other systems—and those other systems would remain entirely under imperial control. Viewed in military terms, their situation would actually worsen. The magnanimity Reinhard had shown Julian was a double-edged sword, and both of them knew it.

  Incidentally, there was good reason why the disease that claimed Reinhard’s life so early became generally known as “the Kaiser’s Malady.” Few could pronounce or even remember its proper name, “Variable Fulminant Collagen Disease.” In fact, when Wittenfeld had first heard it, he had flared with rage and accused Reinhard’s physicians of mockery.

  High fever, inflammation and hemorrhaging of the internal organs with the resultant pain, loss of energy, degradation of hematopoietic function and the resultant anemia, mental confusion—these are given as the disease’s main symptoms, though Reinhard had thus far shown little mental confusion even when feverish. Aside from his refusal to leave his sickroom during Rubinsky’s Inferno, he had not done anything to suggest psychological instability. His appearance, too, was all but unchanged, with only a hint of gauntness and a tinge of unhealthy color in his porcelain-white skin. If there was a Creator, He was permitting Reinhard to remain beautiful until the very end in exchange for his early death—evidence, perhaps, that the kaiser had enjoyed more of His favor than others. Julian left detailed notes on Reinhard’s condition every day. Had Yang Wen-li been alive, he would surely have envied Julian, and knowing this was precisely why Julian did not take his mission as recordkeeper lightly.

  On July 18, Brünhild reached Phezzan. The place Reinhard had chosen as the center of the galaxy would be the place where he ended his life. A landcar furnished with medical equipment was waiting when he arrived to carry him to his wife and child.

  With Stechpalme Schloß burned down by the Church of Terra, Kaiserin Hilda and Prinz Alec, after being discharged from the hospital, had taken the residence once used by the high commissioner of the Goldenbaum Dynasty. The building came to be known as the Provisional Palace of Welsede, named simply after the area in which it stood, and it was to become the unassuming terminal station where Reinhard’s vast, sweeping life came to an end. The first floor overflowed with civilian and military officials, the second was staffed by physicians and nurses, and the third was where the kaiser’s family awaited him.

  Julian was surprised by the modest simplicity of this provisional palace. Compared to the average commoner’s residence, of course, it was sprawling and lavishly appointed. But for a conquering king who ruled the entire galaxy, it was extremely reserved, a thousand times smaller than the Neue Sans Souci Palace of the Goldenbaum Dynasty. Of course, Julian had only ever seen Neue Sans Souci from outside, and that only once.

  Julian and his companions Dusty Attenborough, Olivier Poplin, and Katerose von Kreutzer checked into the Bernkastel Hotel, located about ten minutes’ walk from the temporary palace, “guarded” by a company’s worth of imperial army troops stationed around the hotel. Julian accepted this as unpleasant but understandable.

  “I think we can let this one slide,” agreed Attenborough, with an uncharacteristic lack of bellicosity.

  If the Galactic Empire adopted a constitutional system and a parliament in the future, Julian thought, Dusty Attenborough might show his triumphant face there as leader of the progressive faction. Oddly, the Attenborough who lived in Julian’s imaginary world was always in the opposition. Julian simply could not imagine him occupying a seat of power in the ruling party. As leader of the opposition, he would denounce corruption among the powerful, criticize failings of governance, and take a firm stand on protecting the rights of minorities. That would suit him best—even if, once or twice a year, he might start a brawl in the debate chamber.

  In a way, Kaiser Reinhard had imposed a painful trial on democratic republican governance. Your values have survived war, he seemed to say; now let us see if they can escape corruption in peacetime. Attenborough would spend his life fighting to prevent that corruption, and do so with no regrets.

  Regarding Olivier Poplin, however, Julian’s imagination could only admit defeat. What kind of future was the green-eyed ace preparing for himself?

  “Space piracy might not be bad. I used up all my obedience and patience under Yang Wen-li. I don’t intend to bow my head or tie my fate to anyone else until the day I die.”

  Poplin always kept his true feelings obscured, but Julian suspected that he may have been serious about the gravestone inscription of “Died June 1” that he had chosen. Long ago, when the calendar in use had been AD rather than SE, Chao Yui-lin, one of the elder statesmen of the Sirius Revolution, had turned his back on public office and taught singing and organ playing to children instead. It seemed to Julian that this kind of second act might suit Poplin surprisingly well.

  What about Karin’s future? No doubt it would be intertwined in large part with his own. The thought made Julian feel something difficult to put into words. If Yang Wen-li and Walter von Schönkopf were watching from the next world, what kind of expressions would they wear?

  In any case, it was good to be able to plan for the future. There had been a real chance of things going badly enough to leave them with no interest in the future at all.

  Among the facts brought to light by Adrian Rubinsky’s death and Dominique Saint-Pierre’s confession, one revelation had made Julian shudder. It seemed that Job Trünicht had hoped to create something that, outwardly, was exactly the same as what Julian sought—a constitutional system within the empire. Furthermore, with Rubinsky’s assistance, his personal and financial influence within the empire’s halls of power had been gradually expanding.

  If von Reuentahl had not shot him dead at the end of the previous year, it might have been Trünicht who proposed to Reinhard a transition to constitutional governance. Then, after ten years or so of quiet patience, he might have risen once more to become prime minister of the Galactic Empire. He would have been in his fifties, still young for a politician, with a rich future ahead of him. After selling out his country, its people, and democracy itself to autocratic governance, Trünicht might have become a “constitutional politician” ruling not half but all of the galaxy.

  The prospect was chilling. Job Trünicht was a master of self-interested political art, and his vivid vision of the future had been partly realized by the time of his untimely death. It was not the law that had i
nterrupted his machinations, or even military action. A single beam of light, fired out of pure emotion rather than sober reason, had banished Trünicht and his future beyond the horizon of reality. Von Reuentahl’s private feelings about the man had made that correction to the map of humanity’s future.

  Fate, Julian realized, was a marvelously convenient word. Even circumstances as involved as these could be explained to the satisfaction of others if fate was invoked. Could that have been why Yang had tried to never use it?

  II

  July 25, one week after the return to Phezzan.

  Reinhard’s condition was rapidly worsening. His temperature would not drop below 40 degrees Celsius, he drifted in and out of consciousness, and he showed symptoms of dehydration. Hilda and Annerose took turns watching over Reinhard and caring for Prinz Alec. Had either of them been forced to do both alone, she would surely have collapsed from worry and overwork.

  On the 26th, things grew even worse. At 1150, Reinhard’s breathing actually stopped. Twenty seconds later, however, it started again, and he regained consciousness at 1300.

  A powerful low pressure system swept in from the north that day, colliding with another low pressure system from the south and making the imperial capital cold, damp, and windy. From early afternoon, dense, low-hanging clouds sealed everyone’s vision up in gray, giving an impression of diluted night.

  As the afternoon wore on, the lower fringes of the cloud turned to rain that bombarded the ground. The temperature dropped still further, and the citizens of Phezzan began to whisper to one another about the strange weather, wondering if the kaiser might take the very light of the sun with him to the next world.

  At 1620, the senior admirals of the Imperial Navy arrived at the provisional palace, finally freed from the duties that had occupied them up until that hour. Minister of Military Affairs Paul von Oberstein and commander in chief of the Imperial Space Armada Wolfgang Mittermeier were shown into the parlor on the ground floor of the east wing, along with the six senior admirals. Von Oberstein, however, left five minutes later, saying that he had business to attend to.