V
Regarding the matter of that optical disc that Julian Mintz and Olivier Poplin had brought back from Earth, Yang had shoved it back into the innermost reaches of his nest of memories and put a lid on top of it for a time. No sooner had Iserlohn Fortress been successfully retaken than reports of Marshal Bucock’s and Lebello’s deaths had arrived in swift succession. The chance to inspect it had been lost. In any case, the Church of Terra’s headquarters had been destroyed by Admiral Wahlen of the Imperial Navy, and this had become one more reason for the loss of urgency with regard to gathering information about the Church of Terra.
In extreme terms, it can’t be denied either that Yang had simply been satisfied with Julian and Poplin’s safe return. Nevertheless, a voice of opposition from his mind’s hinterlands eventually got through to the center, and Yang took some time out of his busy schedule to examine the optical disc. Seven people—Frederica, von Schönkopf, Julian, Poplin, Boris Konev, Machungo, and Murai—joined in. And when they had learned just a little, they looked at one another with utterly shocked expressions on their faces. What was recorded there was the record of a relationship between the Phezzan Dominion and the Church of Terra going back a full century.
“So what this means is, ‘heads’ is Phezzan, and ‘tails’ is the Church of Terra?”
“If that’s the case, if we join hands with Phezzan’s merchants, we’ll be dancing cheek to cheek with that Terraist lot.”
Even if Poplin’s gaze lacked venom, there were still needles in it as it grazed the face of Boris Konev, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
“You’ve gotta be joking,” Konev said. “I didn’t know anything about this. If I have any relationship at all with the Church of Terra, ferrying pilgrims to Earth was the extent of it.”
Boris Konev’s insistence was only natural; inside the church’s headquarters, he himself had worked with Julian and even exchanged gunfire with the fanatics. To suggest he was in league with the Church of Terra just because they lurked in the shadows of Phezzan would be what they call “a bridge too far.”
Yang didn’t believe that Boris Konev was secretly in league with the Church of Terra. But what about Phezzan’s supreme leadership, going back generations? What about the “Black Fox of Phezzan”—Adrian Rubinsky—who was presently believed to be missing? What had he been scheming up until now, and what schemes did he intend to set in motion going forward?
Rubbing his slightly pointed chin, von Schönkopf said, “An obsession that’s spanned nine centuries, eh? That is pretty amazing. Still, with things the way they are, this isn’t something we can ignore. Have the Terraists really been wiped out? Is their ‘Grand Bishop’ or whatever he’s called confirmed dead?”
On hearing those questions, even the fearless Olivier Poplin frowned and fell silent. It wasn’t as if he had actually seen the Grand Bishop’s corpse himself; confirming that would have required going back to Earth and digging up tens of billions of tons of rock and dirt.
“All right, send me to Phezzan,” said Konev. “Either way, I still have to make contact with the independent traders there. While I’m at it, I’d like to see what I can dig up about that black fox Rubinsky.”
“You can’t go there, and not come back, Captain Konev.” Poplin’s tone of voice was controlled, but that did nothing to alleviate Boris Konev’s ire when the words themselves were that extreme. For a time, a pair of linguistic cyclones clashed, until at last Yang approved Boris Konev’s trip to Phezzan and ended the meeting. For his part, Yang could not feel very positive about this. If Phezzan and the Church of Terra had an abnormally close relationship, blithely joining forces with them might result in an ugly coalition of speculators and fanatics eating the substance of their democracy from the inside out. Jumping into the same boat as Phezzan was unlikely to end with a mere request for economic backing. One of the conditions necessary for Yang’s strategy was going to have to undergo some serious revision, it seemed.
The two Yangs and Julian remained in Yang’s office. For a while, the three of them were breathing in the fumes left by the optical disc’s content and the dregs of heated discussion, but at last Yang sat up straight on the couch, and said, “Julian?”
“Yes?”
“Ultimately, conspiracies and terrorism can’t make the flow of history run backward. They can make it stagnate, however. We can’t allow the Church of Terra or Adrian Rubinsky to do that.”
Julian nodded.
“Especially in the Church of Terra’s case, their only goal is to satisfy the ego of a selfish planet. It’s not to restore the authority of Planet Earth—it’s to justify the past, and drown themselves in the sweet nectar of privilege.”
Had the Church of Terra really been destroyed? If holdouts still remained, what were they plotting? Yang wanted to know.
Even so, Yang had to admit he had no time to look for those answers. First of all, Kaiser Reinhard was closing in right before his eyes; that was by far the greater menace. Furthermore, Reinhard was not a threat because of a bad reactionary agenda like the Church of Terra’s; he was a threat because he was using a system other than democracy to reform his generation, and succeeding. Honestly, there’s no system more efficient than a dictatorship when you set out to advance reforms. Don’t the people always say so, when they’re sick of democracy’s roundabout system?
“Give great authority to a great politician, and advance reform!” It’s paradoxical, but haven’t the people always been looking for a dictator?
And now, are they not on the verge of receiving a dictator of the very best kind? Reinhard von Lohengramm—a hero worthy of their respect and adoration. Compared to the gleam of that golden idol, is democracy nothing more than an idol of faded bronze?
No, that’s wrong. Flustered, Yang shook his head back and forth, swinging around his unruly black hair.
“Julian, we’re soldiers. And republics and democracies are often grown out of the barrels of guns. But while military power might give birth to democratic government, it can’t get away with being proud of that accomplishment. That isn’t unfair. That’s because the essence of democracy is in the self-restraint of those who hold power. Democracy is the self-restraint of the powerful, codified in law and systematized in its institutions. And if the military doesn’t restrain itself, there’s no reason anyone else has to, either.”
Yang’s black eyes burned with mounting passion. If no one else, he wanted Julian to understand this.
“We ourselves fight for a political system that fundamentally rejects what we are. That contradictory structure is something a democracy’s military just has to live with. The most that the military should demand from the government is paid leave and a pension. In other words, their rights as workers. Never anything more than that.”
Julian reflexively smiled at the word “pension,” but Yang hadn’t really said that to appeal to his sense of humor. Julian suppressed his smile in about two blinks of the eye, overcorrected and made his expression too serious, and then finally gave voice to something he had been thinking about for a long time.
“But I wanted you to act on your own feelings, and your own desires.”
“Julian!”
“And I know I deserve to get dressed down for that, but it really is how I feel.”
It’s an ironic situation, Julian thought, when someone with such immense talent can act with greater freedom in a dictatorship than in a democracy. If Reinhard and Yang’s circumstances had been reversed…If Reinhard had been a harmful man of ambition in a democratic government, he might have become the wicked second coming of Rudolf the Great. And it might have been Yang who had ended up with a golden crown.
Julian finished giving voice to these thoughts, and Yang said, “Julian, that’s one incredibly bold supposition.”
“I know it is, but still…”
“It’s not like I’ve completely eliminated my perso
nal feelings. When we fought at Vermillion, Julian, I didn’t want to kill Reinhard von Lohengramm. I say that in all seriousness.”
Even without Yang pressing the point, Julian understood that.
“Even if his character isn’t flawless, he’s still the most brilliant mind to appear in four or five centuries of history—I could feel nothing but terror at the thought of my own two hands destroying a man like that. Maybe I used the government’s order as an excuse to avoid doing it. Maybe it was loyalty to the government or to myself…maybe. But to all those soldiers who died in battle, it may have been an unforgivable breach of faith. There was no reason for them to die for the sake of saving the ruling authorities, or for my sentimentality.”
Yang laughed. It was a laugh that seemed to say that all he could do was laugh, and whenever Julian saw it, he felt keenly aware of the powerlessness of words, and could do nothing but fall silent.
“I’m always like this. Busy with stuff that never goes anywhere. Well, there’s not much time. How about we talk about something more positive?”
Before that, though, it seemed that a little lubricant was necessary. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Julian unveiled his masterful skill, and the fragrance of Arushan tea stained every current in the air of the room.
Frederica reached for the console, and after her white fingers danced across it, a star chart appeared on the screen. After enlarging it two or three times, it displayed the Liberation Corridor connecting Iserlohn and El Facil.
“We’ve got two strongholds,” Yang said. “Iserlohn and El Facil. From the Imperial Navy’s standpoint, when there are multiple enemy bases, the obvious tactic is to cut them off from one another. I think the kaiser’s personal fleet will most likely target the Iserlohn Corridor in conjunction with a reserve unit launching from imperial space…”
“When do you think that will be?”
“Hmmm…not too far off, I’d say. The kaiser will probably think more of the minuses of taking his time than the pluses.”
Yang believed that, above all, that golden-haired youth could not countenance anyone other than himself making history. Taking his time meant giving others the chance to scheme and maneuver. Now that he had dissolved the Free Planets Alliance in fact as well as in name, he would come to wipe out Yang’s group with blazing cannons and an enormous, muddy river of warships. Space was about to be flooded by an angry wave of conquering spirit surpassing even that of Rudolf von Goldenbaum long ago.
In the face of that, Yang had to act as a breakwater, using what little strength he possessed, for the sake of a day when the angry swells would depart and the tide receded. He had no idea when that day would come. It would likely be in an age when Yang still existed only in records and recordings.
And so even as he hardened his determination like some “knight of democracy,” Yang would also carelessly relativize the position of his opponent. The one represented the shortest road to peace and unity; the other the long road toward mainline democratic government. If a single, supreme God existed in this universe, of which would he approve, when both waged bloody war?
I
IN FEBRUARY OF SE 800, and NIC 2, a report was sent from Planet Phezzan to the imperial headquarters on Heinessen which would later become known as the “letter that halted twenty million boots.” Had that report’s content become public knowledge prior to that time, however, it would surely have been laughed off as a tasteless joke and forgotten. It was little wonder that Fräulein Hildegard “Hilda” von Mariendorf, who received the report first, was left speechless for several seconds, and hesitated to report it to the kaiser.
“There are troubling signs surrounding von Reuentahl,” it said.
It would not have come as such a shock to Hilda if Marshal von Oberstein, the minister of military affairs, and Chief Lang, of the Ministry of Domestic Affairs’ Domestic Safety Security Bureau, had been the only signatories. This report, however, had come from Minister of Justice Bruckdorf. A man by the name of Odets had begun loudly spreading rumors after arriving on Phezzan. Though he claimed to be an envoy from the Free Planets’ government, he had not even met with the kaiser. According to him, Marshal von Reuentahl intended to rebel. Chief Lang of the Ministry of Domestic Affairs’ Domestic Safety Security Bureau had jumped on that immediately.
Odets had bet the fate of his nation on the tip of his tongue. Was he now a broken man, ready to die, just trying to spread confusion in the empire? Was he trying to recover—with rather extreme methodology—the confidence he’d had in his eloquence, lost when Mittermeier had brushed him off? Did he want to cause a societal uproar, and did he not care what happened to him? Was he counting on the effectiveness of eloquence coupled with fiction? Did he have psychological tendencies associated with delusions of grandeur? At the time, no one could say for sure. In any case, though, it was safe to say that he had extraordinary creativity and passion. Not even the sharp wit and logic of Kaiser Reinhard or the bravery and cunning of von Reuentahl and Mittermeier could have dreamed that this flippant chatterer could ever do them harm in such a manner. No human being was almighty. Thoughts, in particular, were subject to the restraining influence of temperament. Not even Mittermeier, who had met Odets in person, could remember the names of such small men, so it was certain that neither Reinhard, who had turned him away at the door, nor von Reuentahl, who had been there at his side, had given him even a corner seat in the halls of their memories.
Bruckdorf, the Galactic Empire’s minister of justice, was just past forty—a lawyer in early middle age, with an intricate mind and an impartial political stance. That was why he had been chosen by Reinhard while still a lowly public prosecutor, and he was extremely faithful to both his kaiser and his position. At the same time, he was furnished with the ambition and aspiration to be expected of one who had become the first minister of justice in a new dynasty. His weaning foods he had seasoned with ethics and awareness of the public order. As he had grown to adulthood, knowledge of the law had been his wine and clerking for judges his food. It was certainly true that on a personal level he had never thought well of Oskar von Reuentahl’s womanizing; nevertheless, his participation in von Reuentahl’s impeachment did not arise from any personal animus.
He was, for his part, feeling a need to enforce discipline on high-ranking government officials—certainly not loosely, and of course just strictly enough—and furthermore wanted to establish an advantageous position for the Ministry of Justice in relation to the military. The Lohengramm Dynasty had been under a military kaiser from the beginning, and had a strong tendency toward military dictatorship. That may have been permissible at the time of its founding, but unless the law, the bureaucracy, and the military could all reach a state of equilibrium, there was no way the empire could develop as a healthy nation. That being the case, there was sure to be some value in denouncing the military’s most influential figure, Imperial Marshal von Reuentahl, and busting the noses of those military men.
Publically criticizing von Reuentahl’s womanizing was in fact not an easy thing to do. Almost without exception, the women had approached him first, and at the end of their one-sided infatuations, been one-sidedly cast aside. In fact, the rumors about von Reuentahl suggested that on the inside he might well be the polar opposite of what his womanizing might seem, in isolation, to imply: a man with a very deep-seated hatred of women. In the absence of any evidence, though, the only one Bruckdorf was aware of who might know the truth was Wolfgang Mittermeier, von Reuentahl’s best friend, who had long faced life and death with him. As there was no way Mittermeier was going to speak of such things, the matter had come to rest as gossip, not especially to be trusted.
In any case, Bruckdorf put no stock in rumors. What he believed in were facts that fit circumstances—only therein did evidence exist. For another thing, rather than return to the imperial capital of Odin, which was gradually being abandoned, he perhaps wanted instead to secu
re a place for himself on Phezzan, the future hub of the entire universe.
With the permission of Minister of Military Affairs von Oberstein and the cooperation of Chief Lang of the Domestic Safety Security Bureau, Bruckdorf had set up a temporary office on Phezzan, and set about investigating von Reuentahl’s background. Then, with an ease that left him slightly dumbfounded, he had found out about the woman named Elfriede von Kohlrausch.
“Imperial Marshal von Reuentahl is hiding a member of the late duke Lichtenlade’s family at his private estate. This is clearly in defiance of His Majesty’s will, and it’s no overstatement to call this a form of high treason.”
Lang had tried to hide his excitement, failed at it, and with eyes filled with burst capillaries, incited the minister of justice to act. Bruckdorf felt a bit uncomfortable with this; he also had a conscience as a lawyer, and so he decided to question this Elfriede woman and hear the situation from her directly. Since he had found out about her so easily, he had also wondered if this might all be a setup orchestrated by someone who had it in for von Reuentahl. However, Elfriede had answered his questions without even trying to refuse, and the result had sent Lang into a fit of ecstasy.
“That woman is pregnant with the child of Imperial Marshal von Reuentahl. She testifies that when she informed him, the marshal was congratulatory, and said that for the child’s sake, he would set his sights even higher.”
In his heart at least, Lang had probably danced a joyful waltz. The next thing he had done was wrest the authority to impeach von Reuentahl from the minister of justice. Von Reuentahl might be in defiance of His Majesty’s will, but since he wasn’t in violation of any written law, the matter was outside the purview of the Ministry of Justice—that was the reason he had given. Bruckdorf had been furious when he had learned that only his name had been used on the official report, and in the end, he realized what a stupid mistake he had made, getting his foot caught in the law’s ultimate trap. The most he could do at that point was withdraw gracefully.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Volume 7 Page 24
