For his part, Reinhard sensed what remained unsaid, but couldn’t bring himself to criticize Kessler. The sin was his own failure to make a decision. He dismissed Kessler with orders to bury the man in secrecy but with all due honor. He could not feel hatred for his would-be assassin. He had never stood a chance against Reinhard’s power.
If Fräulein von Mariendorf were there, she would surely offer her counsel. But her father had made clear that she would be absent from her duties for the time being. Nor was Reinhard sure what expression to wear when they did meet again. When the count had politely declined to let Reinhard see her, a fragment of his unconscious mind had twitched with something like relief.
“What Kaiser Reinhard sought from Countess Hildegard von Mariendorf,” wrote one historian, “was less sexual and romantic fulfillment than wise counsel and thoughtful advice in matters both public and private. The kaiser was free of the terrible prejudice that might have led another to undervalue her genius by reason of her being a woman…” Even this assessment, however, while praising Reinhard’s achievements and genius as a public figure, pointedly ignored his private immaturity.
“Regaling children with tales of ‘great men’ and ‘heroes’ is plain stupidity. It’s like telling a fine, upstanding human being to take lessons from a freak.”
Thus had Yang Wen-li once spoken to Julian Mintz, although of course Reinhard had no way of knowing that. If he had known, he might have nodded in agreement, albeit with an expression of unflattering bitterness. Even when it did not inconvenience anyone else in particular, he had not failed to notice how different he was from the vast majority of other people.
In any case, in his private life, Reinhard would experience major changes this year. And, for better or worse, the nature of autocratic governance means that a ruler’s private life cannot but affect the state and its history. Before these private developments, however, Reinhard and the Galactic Empire would face danger of unprecedented scale and severity. Later ages would refer to year 2 of the New Imperial Calendar as “the year of trouble and strife,” and its final season was yet to come.
I
THE EVENTS OF THE FIRST DAY of September on the planet Heinessen would go down in history as the Nguyen Kim Hua Plaza Disturbance—or simply the September 1 Incident.
Kaiser Reinhard’s immaturity in one facet of his private life may have been exposed, but his governance had lost not a whit of its justice or freshness, and as far as anyone could see he continued to tread the path from epic conqueror to great ruler, his pace unbroken. As a public figure, Reinhard was certainly making sufficient use of his talents for political construction.
Five thousand light years from the empire’s new capital of Phezzan, Marshal Oskar von Reuentahl had begun his administration of the planet Heinessen, invested with the full authority of the kaiser as its governor-general.
The Neue Land Governorate could not last forever as an administrative unit. Eventually, like the rest of the former empire’s territory, it would be ruled like any other region through the ministry of internal affairs, establishing a separation of powers over political and military affairs. On that day, the final unification of human society would be complete.
“The power and authority of the Neue Land Governorate were so great that they destabilized the empire’s very system of governance,” wrote one later historian. ”Appointing von Reuentahl to this position brought his latent ambition to the surface and sowed seeds of strife in what should have been peaceful soil. It must be admitted that this was one of the kaiser’s gravest errors.”
At the time, however, von Reuentahl was universally seen as a capable and effective administrator. First, he was commander in chief of the 5,226,400 members of the Neue Land Security Force. This would have permitted him to impose a brutal and militaristic rule, but instead he opted for elasticity and flexibility in his policymaking.
One example of von Reuentahl’s remarkable political instincts was his drastic correction of certain abuses that had gone unaddressed in the alliance’s time. Excising the rot that the ancien régime had permitted on this holiest of planets proved a superb opportunity for von Reuentahl’s administration to convince the people of its justice. Six hundred pork-barrel politicians and corrupt military contractors, who had hitherto gone unpunished by the law despite denunciation by journalists and anti-government forces, were rounded up in a single operation.
Put in the baldest terms, this treatment was intended solely to send a message. But von Reuentahl knew that what was necessary at that juncture was not slow, steady progress but swift results. The suspects had taken certain precautions against the possibility of official action—destroying evidence, arming themselves with legal defenses, and buying off witnesses—but these were all predicated on a democratic republican system, and proved useless. Von Reuentahl’s administration brought the full power of the state to bear on the wrongdoers, showing not the slightest concern for democratic procedure. Every probe, every interrogation was authorized by a single order with the governor-general’s signature—and, what was more, every one was successful. These criminals who had mocked democracy were judged and punished for their wicked deeds by autocracy—an ironic turn of events indeed.
Von Reuentahl sought to lay bare before the citizenry the one unavoidable flaw of democracy—its glacial pace—in order to force that citizenry to acknowledge the positive side of imperial rule. Initially, he seemed to be successful in this.
And then came September 1.
The Free Planets Alliance’s government and military had long since been dissolved, but former civil servants and veterans had gathered together to organize a joint memorial service. Von Reuentahl had granted permission for the event, but neither attended nor sent a message of solidarity. Such insincere gestures were not to his taste. Unsurprisingly, Job Trünicht also chose to stay away. In the end, most of the two hundred thousand attendees on the day were everyday citizens of no special distinction. Even the speeches were given by veterans of relatively low rank.
The ceremony should have ended peacefully. If events had proceeded according to the plans of the Neue Land’s director general of civil affairs, Julius Elsheimer, who had specified the venue, it would have. But not everyone shared the desire for peace.
A crowd of two hundred thousand people can, by virtue of size alone, become hostile to order and discipline. Von Reuentahl had successfully commanded military units millions of soldiers strong, but controlling a crowd was a different matter. On the governor-general’s orders, Admiral Bergengrün had stationed a guard of twenty thousand armed soldiers around the plaza. Both men thought this measure excessive, but the soldiers at the plaza did not entirely agree.
We could feel the crowd growing more hostile with every passing second—more than one soldier present at the scene testified to this effect. Our formation was widely spaced at first, but we gradually gathered into a single location.
As the soldiers watched the ceremony with a vague sense of unease, cries began to arise from here and there within the plaza.
“Long live Marshal Yang!”
“Long live democracy!”
“Freedom forever!”
So passionate were these cheers that they would have made Yang Wen-li shrug helplessly at Julian without saying a word. But among the excited crowd, those who could maintain strict rationality in the way that Yang had were an absolute minority. The fervor of two hundred thousand individuals merged into a single, gigantic torrent of feeling that was soon expressed in song across the plaza. It was the anthem of the Free Planets Alliance.
My friends, someday, the oppressor we’ll o’erthrow,
And on liberated worlds,
We’ll raise freedom’s flag…
The anthem had originally been composed in protest against the despotism of the Goldenbaum Dynasty. No song could have been better suited to whipping the crowd to new heights of passion.
From beyond the darkness of tyranny,
With our own hands, let
’s bring freedom’s dawn…
As the crowd’s passion and intoxication swelled, the imperial soldiers around them exchanged uncertain glances. They had an intoxicating cry of their own: Sieg Kaiser! They knew what it was to let passion run wild, to feel tears stream down their faces as communal energy unaccompanied by reason rose up and outward toward a single focus—but they had never realized how ominous such a thing could look to those outside the group.
“Long live Yang Wen-li!”
“Long live democracy!”
“Down with oppressors!”
The cries began small, but multiplied in geometric progression until they set the very atmosphere ringing under the dome. The imperial soldiers called for order, for quiet, but they were already unsettled and glancing anxiously at each other.
According to official records, the first stone was thrown at 1406. By 1407, the imperial soldiers were being pelted by a veritable meteor shower.
“Get out of here, you imperial dogs!”
“Invaders go home!”
This was the first public expression of hostility the imperial forces had seen since the beginning of their direct rule. The citizens were supposed to have resigned themselves to their fate and accepted the rule of the powerful. But the thin ice of civility had concealed boiling waters beneath, and with that ice about to melt, the imperial soldiers who stood atop it were in danger of drowning.
“Get them under control!”
Officers gave the orders and soldiers did their best to obey, but any hope of controlling the situation was long gone. Even armed and trained soldiers struggled to hold their own against the rioters—as the soldiers now saw them—when five or six leapt on them at once. Even as one rioter fell beneath the butt of an imperial blaster, another would attack the same soldier from behind, fingers scrabbling for the soldier’s eyes.
At 1420, the use of batons and incapacitating agents was authorized, but this was only ex post facto recognition of a state of affairs that already existed.
The governorate resisted authorizing the use of firearms for a few minutes longer, but at 1424 that restriction was broken too. With a single muzzle flash, two civilians were killed and a hundred hatreds ignited.
“Rioters wrenched firearms from soldiers’ hands, endangering their lives. Authorizing the use of weapons was the only choice. It was a valid self-defensive measure.”
This was the imperial army’s official version of events. As a partial view of the situation, it was even factual. But elsewhere one found other facts. Imperial soldiers facing the raging mob, overcome by a hysterical sense of peril, had fired on unarmed civilians.
Screams rang out. They ran through the overwhelming roar like a headwind, calling up reflexive terror which, in turn, provoked rage.
The disturbance spread.
At 1519, the incident was formally brought under control, with 4,840 citizens dead. The wounded numbered over fifty thousand, and most were taken into custody. The riot had been disastrous for the imperial side, too, with 118 soldiers killed.
“What fine subordinates I have,” von Reuentahl said. “Firing on unarmed civilians—what a display of courage and chivalry.”
His caustic tone might have been too harsh on the subordinates in question. But with all his efforts in the sphere of governance undone, he could not hold his anger inside.
“What I want to know,” he continued, “is who got the people riled up enough for this to happen.”
His sharp mind had immediately recognized the possibility that the riot in the plaza was not a protest against the empire itself but an attempt to undermine von Reuentahl’s authority as governor-general. It was an exceedingly distasteful idea to entertain, but it could not be ignored. Not von Reuentahl himself would deny that his personality was the type to make enemies.
Even if there had been an agitator, however, riots or unrest could not break out where there was no dissatisfaction or anger to begin with. To the former citizens of the Free Planets Alliance, Reinhard’s greatness and von Reuentahl’s abilities did not change the fact that they were invaders, plain and simple. The abuse hurled at the empire by the rioters might have been uncouth, but it was not unfounded.
“Good governance by an invader is nothing but hypocrisy, then? I suppose they have a point. But that leaves the question of how to take things in hand…”
Von Reuentahl was still irritably dealing with the complexities the riot had left in its wake when a message arrived for him. It seemed that one of the men arrested was an acquaintance of his.
“Sitolet?”
Von Reuentahl furrowed his brow, very slightly. In the past, Marshal Sidney Sitolet had been a high-ranking member of the Alliance Armed Forces, first as commander in chief of its space armada and then as director of Joint Operational Headquarters. Three or four years ago, however, he had resigned his post after the alliance’s rout at Amritsar. Reports were that Sitolet himself had opposed the alliance’s reckless adventurism in that case, but as the head of the military hierarchy, ultimate responsibility lay with him.
Von Reuentahl ordered Sitolet brought to him in his office. When the middle-aged marshal arrived, he was not at his beset. He was filthy, his clothes were torn, and there was still dried blood on his face. But his spirit was unbowed, and he drew himself up to his full six feet and met von Reuentahl’s heterochromatic gaze directly.
“Marshal Sitolet,” von Reuentahl said. “Am I to infer that it was under your leadership that the recent memorial ceremony ended in such tragedy?”
Sitolet was unshaken by von Reuentahl’s tone. “I was just an attendee like any other,” he said calmly. “If attendance was a crime, then I am guilty.”
“I admire your forthrightness. In that case, let me ask you this: do you know who was responsible for that ugly scene?”
“I do not. But I would not be able to tell you even if I did.”
Not the most original response, von Reuentahl thought, but he was not disappointed. Had Sitolet answered in the opposite way, that would have been disappointing.
“In that case, we are not able to set you free either.”
“If I were set free, I would only start a movement protesting your unlawful rule—this time with myself at the head. My only regret is that I allowed myself to be swept away by the mob.”
“I respect your bravery. But as the kaiser’s representative, I must protect public order according to the His Majesty’s laws. I am placing you under arrest once more.”
“As indeed you must. This, to you, is justice. Virtue. I sense no personal animosity in you whatsoever.”
There was no sense of triumph in his words. Quiet but aloof, the former leader of the alliance’s military allowed himself to be led away. Von Reuentahl watched his broad shoulders recede until the door closed behind him, then turned to his trusted lieutenant.
“Bergengrün, do you think a single death could awaken hundreds of millions of people?”
Bergengrün knew without asking that the “single death” his superior meant was that of the black-haired magician Yang Wen-li. “Perhaps, sir,” he said. “But I would rather not face such an awakening directly.”
Von Reuentahl nodded, eyes still fixed on the door. “Just so. If they were to mount a full-scale rebellion, we would have to put it down by force of arms. Matching wits with a mighty commander is an honor for a warrior, but suppressing a popular uprising is work fit only for dogs. What a miserable prospect.”
Bergengrün glanced in surprise at his superior. In profile, he saw only von Reuentahl’s right eye, with its deep, limpid black.
Could it be that elements lurked within von Reuentahl’s psychology, subtly different from his liege the kaiser’s, that rejected the prospect of life amid peace and prosperity? Even before September 1, the success of his masterful administration had not seemed to bring him contentment.
Marshal Yang, your untimely death may have been a blessing to you. What is a warrior in times of peace but a dog on a leash? What remains for him bu
t a life of tedium, indolence, and gradual decay?
On the other hand, on the memorial to his opponent, Yang Wen-li, was inscribed the following sentence:
The ultimate victors are those who can endure the indolence of peace.
Validity of this assertion aside, even von Reuentahl knew that the “indolence of peace” would likely prove unbearable to him. His opposite number, minister of military affairs Marshal Paul von Oberstein, had also apparently observed as much, presumably with cynicism.
“Marshal von Reuentahl is a bird of prey. He is not the kind of man who could spend his life singing songs of peace in a cage.”
Thus do the minister’s words come down to us, although sources differ on the second sentence.
It appears that von Reuentahl himself had been made aware of von Oberstein’s assessment through some route or other. But how he would respond to it was not yet clear.
II
Among the admirals of the Imperial Navy, von Reuentahl both maintained the most extravagant lifestyle and was most suited to the same. Ernest Mecklinger might surpass him in artistic refinement, but in the naturalness with which he wore his wealth and position von Reuentahl had no rival. It was difficult to believe that he could possibly be a colleague of Fritz Josef Wittenfeld, who still gave the impression of a young officer living in barracks and probably always would. (Of course, Wittenfeld’s disinterest in living the life of the nouveau riche could be considered one of his virtues.)
Some criticized von Reuentahl’s “aristocratic tastes,” but this was not entirely fair. How he lived was not a matter of taste at all. It was the natural expression of who he was.
Scholars of Kaiser Reinhard’s life seldom hid their astonishment at the simplicity and plainness of his private life in light of his breathtaking appearance, ambition, ability, and achievements. If anything, they would say, it was von Reuentahl who lived like royalty.
The foundation of von Reuentahl’s lifestyle was the property he had inherited from his late father, but he did not content himself with becoming just another industrialist’s son. Instead, he entered officer’s school without relying on his inheritance at all. As a military man, he was able to sleep in even the worst conditions as if slumbering in a four-poster bed, and accepted plain food and hard work without complaint. As a result, the luxury of his day-to-day existence did not arouse resentment among the troops.
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