Karin turned red in the face. The fever that had broken out in her heart had spread to her body, and the cells on her cheeks were burning up.
“You’re right, sir. I spoke out of turn. So let me ask it again this way: Did you love my mother, Rosalind Elizabeth von Kreutzer?”
“Life’s too short to sleep with women you don’t love.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Life’s probably too short to sleep with men you don’t love, too.”
Karin snapped to attention with such energy that it was a wonder her joints didn’t pop.
“Your Excellency, I’m grateful to you for giving me life. But for raising me, I owe you nothing, and can think of no reason why I should respect you. I’m speaking clearly, in accordance with your advice.”
Von Schönkopf and Karin stared straight at one another, and in the end it was her father who looked away first. The curtains of his identity as a public official hung over his face, but through their narrow gaps, the moonlight of embarrassment and a bitter smile were slipping through. He had not broken eye contact first because he had flinched, but because he didn’t acknowledge the need to construct a confusing labyrinth between themselves through conversation. Karin somehow understood this, though not through reason. She gave a perfect salute, which meant only that she’d been hijacked by formalities, turned around, and, suppressing competing impulses to both turn back around and take off running, she left her father’s office.
III
Walter von Schönkopf and Olivier Poplin were both leading members of the Yang Fleet’s “Enemies of Conscience and Family Morality.” If they were to be asked which of them was worse, both would have likely pointed at the other without hesitation. When at the end of SE 799 the two heroes met again for the first time in six months, Poplin greeted von Schönkopf, saying, “Well now, if it isn’t my senior officer of ill repute! There is no greater joy for this humble officer than to see a brother-in-arms still so stubbornly alive and well.”
In answer, von Schönkopf said, “Glad you’re back, Commander Poplin. When you’re not around, my taste in women is not nearly as mature.”
The ace pilot, having no intention of being reduced to a foil for von Schönkopf, stared his opponent down from across his office desk, feeling rather confident. The glint in his eye brazenly declared, I may sow the seeds, but I’m not so careless as to let ’em sprout.
“Anyway,” Poplin said at last, “I have a passing familiarity with the young lady’s situation, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
The special emphasis Poplin placed on the words “young lady” was of course unadulterated sarcasm, but as surely as the outer walls of Iserlohn Fortress defended its interior, so von Schönkopf’s expression protected his own inner self. Poplin came around to his side, and said, “Karin’s a good girl—nothing at all like her old man. Though not a good woman just yet…”
“Well, I think she’s a good girl myself. In any case, she never cost me a dinar in child support.”
“Compensation for mental anguish might start getting figured in from here on out, though. I’d brace myself.”
Once Poplin was finished raining his blades of cutting sarcasm upon von Schönkopf, though, his face and tone grew more formal.
“Vice Admiral von Schönkopf, if I could get a little serious here, that young girl has too much emotion to handle by herself, and she doesn’t know how to express it appropriately, either. Personally, I think somebody older than me needs to show her the way forward. I’m sorry if I’m overstepping my bounds.”
Von Schönkopf stared at his colleague, seven years his junior, with an inscrutable gaze. When he finally spoke, it was with a ripple of laughter. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that this year really is one to commemorate. As far as I’m aware, that was the first conscientious thing you’ve ever said.”
“I guess so. It’ll also be the first year your daughter doesn’t bear her father’s sins.”
For anyone else, that line might have been a finishing blow, but von Schönkopf gave only a calm nod of agreement, to which he impudently appended: “That’s certainly true. And if I can add one thing, see to it you don’t go soft on her just because she’s my daughter.”
“Tough paternal love, eh? Will do.” The young ace pilot had to admit he’d been put a bit on the defensive. If von Schönkopf could do that even to the great Olivier Poplin, then it was no wonder a greenhorn like Karin had gone down in defeat.
Von Schönkopf said one last thing to Poplin as he was leaving. “It looks like this matter is causing a lot of trouble for you, but there is one thing I’d like to correct.”
“What’s that?”
“I hear you’re going around calling me a middle-aged delinquent. But I’m not middle-aged just yet.”
Half an hour later, Poplin’s elegant figure appeared before Karin. She was in the military port’s observation zone, staring off at the groups of warships with seemingly nothing to do, but she saluted as soon as she spotted the young officer. Several soldiers sitting with her got up and left. Were they deferring to him? Most likely, it was deference grounded in a very specific prejudice. Karin didn’t notice, and Poplin didn’t care.
“How’d it go? What did you think about meeting your father? You look let down.”
“No, not especially. I knew what kind of man he is, so at this point there’s no way I’d be disappointed.”
“Gotcha.” A pensive light shimmered in the young ace’s green eyes. “But if I can say one thing, Karin—as far as I know, when it comes to folks in this unit who are blessed with a stable family life, Miss Charlotte Phyllis of the Caselnes family is about it. Everybody else grew up in more or less bad environments.”
Meaninglessly, he took his black beret in hand.
“Take Julian Mintz. Were his folks alive and well, he wouldn’t have had to grow up in the home of a social misfit like Yang Wen-li. I can’t really say he’s had it all that much better than you.”
“Commander?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you bringing up Sublieutenant Mintz at a time like this?”
“Yeah, Walter von Schönkopf would’ve made a better example.”
Karin said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“He was a very young child when his family defected from the empire, and his situation wasn’t easy, either—”
Poplin broke off, interrupting his own speech. He seemed to have realized how incredibly absurd it was for him to be pleading von Schönkopf’s case.
“At any rate, Karin,” he said a moment later, “it runs counter to the spirit of our fleet to make merchandise out of misfortune, and it doesn’t look good on you, either. Even if there’s someone you can’t stand, it’s not like they’ll be alive forever…”
Breaking off again, Poplin had seemed to have unexpectedly remembered his old war buddy, who had departed the world they used to share.
“Ivan Konev, that lousy sonuva—he went and stabbed me in the back. Made me think he wouldn’t die even though they killed him.”
Unconsciously, Karin turned her eyes back to Poplin’s face, but the blinds were pulled down over the young ace’s expression, and her powers of insight still weren’t enough to penetrate them. Carefully correcting the angle of his black beret, Poplin rose to his feet.
“Assuming things go well, that middle-aged delinquent is gonna die about twenty years before you do. It doesn’t mean anything to make up with a headstone.”
Even as flattery, Poplin’s tone at the moment he said “middle-aged” could not have been called genuine.
Poplin was sitting in the officers’ club, planning a training regimen for after the end of the mourning period, when Julian came by and sat down at the same table. Of the alcohol vapor rising from his coffee cup, he said nothing, but as he knew about Poplin’s round of visits with the father
and daughter, he said, “You must be worn out from all the PTA conferences.”
Poplin lightly poked at the grinning Julian’s flaxen hair. Though it looked like Julian, too, had somehow recovered from his mental funk, the fighting ace could tell that he was probably still fighting to get over it.
“You’ve gotten as awful as Ivan Konev. At this rate, you’ll evolve to von Schönkopf class before long. What are we gonna do with you?”
“Sorry.”
“Forget about it—as long as you stay honest, there’s still hope for you.”
“Well? Do you have some kind of prescription for bringing peace to the von Schönkopf family?”
“A general pattern, at least: daughter’s life is put in danger, father rescues her personally, daughter opens her heart to father…”
“That certainly is a pattern.”
“Scriptwriters for solivision dramas have been using the same pattern for centuries now, and they’re not the least bit embarrassed. Fundamentally, the human heart hasn’t changed since the Stone Age.”
“So you’d have still been an infamous womanizer even if you’d been born in the Stone Age, Commander?”
While Poplin did have a comeback for that, Julian’s nervous functions, including those of his auditory nerves, had shifted in another direction.
Julian had remembered hair the color of lightly brewed tea, violet-blue eyes, a face whose expressions overflowed provocatively with energy and life. To a young man, that was no unpleasant thing. Up until now, no girls his age or younger had ever caused this kind of emotional response in him.
However, Julian was still not of a mind to color in the sketch he had made in his heart. Just half a year ago, he had looked on with some pain as Frederica Greenhill had married Yang; it felt superficial to him to just immediately pour his feelings into a new vessel. And to begin with, he wasn’t even confident Karin liked him.
IV
Internal emotion notwithstanding, at the end of the three-day mourning period, Yang Wen-li became once again capable of sitting up straight and keeping his head up while walking. As Caselnes asked, “Could this mean that it’s finally dawned on him that he’s the one standing at the top?”
In fact, Yang had not been spending all of that time lamenting the beauty of a sunset’s afterglow. A new sun, even more powerful and intense, was rising on the opposite horizon, and he couldn’t afford to stand idly by waiting for its blistering heat to arrive. Now that the firm embankment that was Marshal Bucock had collapsed, Kaiser Reinhard’s conquering spirit had become a blazing, violent swell that had swallowed the whole alliance, and dissolved the old system.
At the same time that the mourning ended, Yang also removed the bandage from his left hand. Electron therapy had energized the cells of his damaged skin, and Yang’s brain cells, as if inspired by this process, had also leapt out of their dark bedroom. Frederica was glad to see that Yang had recovered his powers of intelligent activity, and felt as if Marshal Bucock himself had grabbed him by the collar and dragged him up from his basement of confusion.
Between strategic planning, organizing units, and keeping in touch with El Facil, Yang was extremely busy, but even so, he never sacrificed the time he spent drinking tea. It was what made Yang Yang.
One day, with the aroma of Shillong leaves against his chin, Yang said to his wife: “Frederica, I’m worried. It just hit me that if opportunists in the military try to curry favor with the empire, Chairman Lebello could end up being assassinated.”
Frederica was speechless. Her hazel eyes reflected her husband’s figure, both his hands playing with his doffed black beret.
“They wouldn’t really go that far, would they?”
Frederica was not trying to argue, but to draw a detailed explanation out of her husband. Yang’s hands stopped messing around with the beret.
“Chairman Lebello showed them how to do it himself, didn’t he? Naturally, he had his own justifications, and it wasn’t like he was planning on securing peace for just himself. Still, there are sure to be some people who’ll just copy the outward appearance.”
Kaiser Reinhard was magnanimous with those who surrendered or were defeated, but if that generosity were mistakenly thought unconditional, people would be lining up to empty their pockets of shame and self-respect, to prepare welcoming gifts, and to try to ingratiate themselves.
Several days went by, and a report arrived from Captain Bagdash of conditions in the capital. Due to the danger of eavesdropping, he had forgone electronic transmissions, instead mobilizing an intelligence-gathering vessel that had departed El Facil and headed toward Heinessen.
“Former Free Planets Alliance head of state João Lebello has been assassinated by elements within the military. The rebel group offered to surrender to imperial forces, and the Imperial Navy successfully occupied Heinessen without resistance.”
On receiving that news, Yang made a further prediction to his wife and Julian.
“And with that, those assassins have just signed their own execution orders. There’s no way Kaiser Reinhard is going to tolerate an act as brazenly shameless as that.”
Two or three days later, there came another report, to the effect that Lebello’s assassins had all been executed by firing squad. Yang, however, no longer showed any concern. This was likely because the ideals of the founding father, Ahle Heinessen, had grown weak, and were just about to die. That much had become clear at the time he had fled Heinessen. Also, during the shock he’d experienced at the news of Marshal Bucock’s death, he had also come to terms with his emotions regarding the death of the state known as the Free Planets Alliance. Additionally, there were any number of more pressing tasks to attend to.
“I’m going to recognize the right of Kaiser Reinhard and the Lohengramm Dynasty to rule over all the universe. And based on that, we’re going to secure for one star system the right to self-governance in its internal affairs. That’s how we’ll keep democratic republican government alive, and prepare for its future rebirth.”
When Yang Wen-li explained that basic plan, the eyes of Dr. Romsky, the head of El Facil’s independent government, didn’t exactly light up with excitement.
“You mean compromise with the kaiser’s autocracy? I can’t believe those are really the words of democracy’s fighting champion, Yang Wen-li.”
“The coexistence of diverse political values is the essence of democracy. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Inside, Yang just wanted to sigh at the absurdity of a soldier lecturing a politician about democracy. They were able to converse like this because the Yang Fleet had complete control of the FTL net between Iserlohn and El Facil—not that that guaranteed any fruitful discussions.
Dr. Romsky was working energetically as prime minister of the independent government. It was certain that this revolutionary politician had both a strong conscience and sense of responsibility, but when Walter von Schönkopf had acidly opined, “No matter how high up the ball may go, you still don’t score on a foul,” Yang had been left with little choice but to nod in agreement. With Heinessen under the empire’s complete control and the alliance’s final head of state having met an unexpected demise, Romsky’s shoes had developed an anxious set of wings. He summoned Yang and spoke emphatically of the danger that the Imperial Navy would invade El Facil.
Yang’s tone of voice had included a dash of malicious spice as he said, “I’m sure you’ve thought ahead and given plenty of consideration to such a scenario.”
It looked like they were in a panic now that Kaiser Reinhard’s all-out offensive was fast approaching; it took a lot of nerve to be able to shout about “independent government” and “counterrevolution” now. On the other hand, they nonetheless showed reluctance when it came to tolerating Reinhard’s rule. They wanted to have their ideals fulfilled without actually facing any danger.
In essence, dreams of Yang defeating Reinhard in b
attle and of a democratic state uniting the universe were ingredients that they were now trying to get Yang to cook. They themselves were waiting with knife and fork in hand at a table with an embroidered tablecloth. But democracy was not some VIP staying in an expensive hotel called Politics. First, you had to build the log cabin and start the fire yourself.
“When you think about it,” said Dr. Romsky, “everything would’ve gone smoothly if you had destroyed Kaiser Reinhard in the Vermillion War. After all, the alliance government was doomed in any case. If you’d done that, we would have at least avoided the greatest crisis we’re facing now. It’s a shame you let that moment pass.”
That remark hacked Yang off, but he didn’t answer him. Even under a thick coating of jocular makeup, it was clear what the unadorned face of Dr. Romsky’s comment looked like. Seeing Yang’s expression, Romsky unnecessarily said, “I’m kidding!” which only made Yang feel more uncomfortable. But when he shared the anecdote and saw discomfort in the face of an acquaintance as well, Romsky mentioned to him, “Marshal Yang has less of a sense of humor than I had expected.” Yang’s mental state could be summed up by the phrase I’ve had it with you people! but it was already too late to reeducate Romsky.
“Yang Wen-li abandoned Lebello of the alliance government and in his place chose Romsky, of El Facil’s independent government. Ultimately, we must conclude that Yang was a terrible judge of character.”
This verdict, pronounced by some scholars in future generations, was probably lacking in fairness. Yang had very nearly been purged by Lebello; he had never of his own accord cast him by the wayside. To satisfy the minimum requirements of his political thinking and strategic plan, he’d had no choice but to turn to the independent government of El Facil; it wasn’t as if he had sworn allegiance to Romsky personally. If Yang had wanted to lead as easy and relaxing a life as he claimed, then he would have likely become a vassal of Reinhard von Lohengramm’s, based on the sort of “judge of character” he was. And maybe that decision could have contributed not only to peace in Yang’s personal life, but to peace in the universe at large—albeit under a dictatorship, of course. For as long as he lived, Yang would never be free of that deep-seated contradiction and his own self-doubt.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Volume 7 Page 23
