Upheaval Page 7

  There is a legend. When von Reuentahl was in officer’s school, studying the rise and fall of a certain empire on ancient Earth, he encountered the story of a once-trusted minister who raised the flag of rebellion against his emperor. The emperor asked: What grievance has turned you against me? And the rebellious minister replied: I have no grievance. I simply wish to be emperor. At this, the heterochromatic youth had murmured to himself, “No other reason for rebellion could be as just.”

  Thus the legend—although it was not in circulation before year 2 of the New Imperial Calendar. Nor is it clear whether anyone was present to hear von Reuentahl’s words. Overall, it seems unwise to place too much store in it.

  As for Kaiser Reinhard’s view of von Reuentahl’s lifestyle, he had no intention of enforcing abstinence on those under him simply because his own physical desires were so weak. Violence against women on the battlefield was strictly forbidden, with offenders punished severely and without mercy, but this was to ensure that military discipline and general trust in the armed forces was maintained. Reinhard resolutely refrained from meddling in the private affairs of his admirals, which is perhaps further proof of his magnanimity as a ruler.

  And there were certainly grounds on which von Reuentahl’s private affairs might be attacked. Even excluding those who bore ill will toward him, like Junior Minister of the Interior Heidrich Lang, he did not lack for critics. There were many who felt that a high-ranking admiral of the New Galactic Empire should be of good conduct and high morals.

  Once, during a meeting in his office, the kaiser suddenly asked Mittermeier, “By the way, do you know the color of Marshal von Reuentahl’s current lover?”

  Mittermeier hesitated, turning the pages of his memory. Finally he offered the vague response, “I believe she had black hair, mein Kaiser.”

  “Wrong. Bright red. Apparently our marshal continues to monopolize the flower of the empire.” The kaiser laughed merrily at Mittermeier’s expression. He had gotten his information from his bodyguard Emil, who had noticed a single hair fall from von Reuentahl’s shoulder as he left following a report on the repositioning of forces in the Phezzan Corridor battle zone.

  Mittermeier was embarrassed on his friend’s behalf, but Reinhard only meant it as a fleeting jest, not an indictment of von Reuentahl’s private pursuits. The kaiser had no interest whatsoever in the romantic lives of others; furthermore, as a leader, he respected the individuality of each man he led.

  “Imagine a gloomy, reticent Wittenfeld, a celibate von Reuentahl, a talkative Eisenach, a philandering Mittermeier, a boorish Mecklinger, an overbearing Müller! Everyone has their own nature. If von Reuentahl were breaking the law or deceiving others, that would be a different matter, but we can hardly put only one participant in a love affair in the dock.”

  The Reinhard who said such things certainly had the magnanimity necessary to control his admirals. Under a more critical ruler, who ignored individuality and judged men only according to how closely they adhered to his ideal, a man like Wittenfeld could never have flourished. When Reinhard had first inherited the County Lohengramm, he had a tendency to link disappointment, anger, and admonishment directly together, punishing subordinates severely for their errors. After the death of Siegfried Kircheis, however, repentance for his intolerance seemed to have driven him toward self-control. And of course, as a practical matter, if every failure were punished severely, the famed upper ranks of the Galactic Imperial Navy would be empty. After all, virtually all of Reinhard’s admirals had tasted defeat at the hands of Yang Wen-li, as indeed had Reinhard himself.

  As the kaiser now saw it, his many tactical losses to the Magician had not been entirely without their positive side. They had served as a training ground for improving both his magnanimity as a ruler and his refinement as a general. And however miraculous Yang’s string of victories had been, he had never managed to overturn the immense strategic advantage that Reinhard had secured over the alliance at the outset of their conflict. For the commander of a navy rather than a fleet, tactics meant less than strategy, and winning the battle paled beside winning the war. Reinhard had known this intellectually, of course, but his struggle with Yang had proven it in practice.

  If the Free Planets Alliance had not had Yang Wen-li on their side, Reinhard’s victory would have been far easier—perhaps too easy even to learn from. His awareness of this, indistinct as it was, was why he felt the death of Yang so keenly.

  “And to think—when Kircheis died, I thought I had nothing left to lose,” Reinhard murmured. He himself only partly realized how serious the words he spoke were, and how deeply connected to the purity of his vital energy.

  Von Reuentahl was no rival to Yang Wen-li, but Reinhard rated his capacity and ability as a commander highly.

  “If we judge based solely on the balance between intellect and valor, Oskar von Reuentahl was a singular presence at the time, whether among friend or foe”—this was Ernest Mecklinger’s assessment of his colleague. In Mecklinger’s view, Yang had leaned toward the intellectual side, while Wolfgang Mittermeier by nature preferred valor. Even the kaiser, who had surely reached the human limits of strategic thinking, was drawn to offensive tactics. His tactical defeat in the Vermillion War had partly been caused by neglect of his defenses. Von Reuentahl was at present untroubled by that particular vice.

  III

  After the September 1 Incident, minor riots and acts of sabotage continued to break out across the Neue Land.

  Admiral Bergengrün delivered a report to his superior in his capacity as inspector general of the military. “Planned, systematic rioting accounts for half the total,” he said. “The rest appears to be happenstance, or copycat incidents.”

  “What does our director general of civil affairs have to say about this disturbance of the peace?”

  “Director Elsheimer feels that as long as travel and communications remain secure, there is nothing to fear from local unrest, and with luck it will remain at that level.”

  “He has pluck for a civilian officer. I suppose that we in the military should ensure that his modest request is granted. I leave the details in your hands.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency. By the way…”

  “What?”

  “A letter arrived at the governorate recently that I think you should read.”

  Von Reuentahl accepted the missive from Bergengrün and scanned it quickly before looking up with an ironic gleam in his mismatched eyes. “Well, well,” he said. “What have we here?”

  An hour later, Job Trünicht was summoned to the governor-general’s office. He met von Reuentahl’s unfriendly gaze with equanimity, being quite used to it by now.

  Without a word, von Reuentahl tossed the letter onto his marble desk. He watched Trünicht’s expression coldly as the high counselor began to read. When Trünicht remained uncharacteristically silent after finishing, von Reuentahl broke his silence.

  “Quite an interesting letter, don’t you think, High Counselor?”

  “If I may, Your Excellency, what is interesting is, regrettably, not the same as what is true.”

  “Gather together a hundred items of interest and they’d surely add up to at least one truth, I’d say. And there is no need for evidence if those with power are willing to forgo it. Particularly in the autocratic system of governance you and your fellows despise—I mean, despised.”

  The irony in his voice was searing.

  The letter was a denunciation of Trünicht. It alleged that the former head of the alliance was behind the wave of unrest that had rolled across the Neue Land since September 1, that his goal was to seize back the reins of power, and that he would eventually target the governor-general directly.

  “Conversely, the democratic republicanism you put your faith in makes the will of the people concrete—or claims to, at least.”

  “The people are a kite on the wind. Powerless, however high they may rise.”

  “Surely they don’t deserve such scorn from you. Weren�
��t they the ones who made you head of the alliance, and supported you in that position? Ingratitude will not endear you to them.”

  In all honesty, von Reuentahl despised both Trünicht and the people who had placed him in the seat of power. He had no quarrel with those who would praise Ahle Heinessen, father of the Free Planets Alliance, or the republicans who had shared the travails of his Longest March. But the descendants of the alliance’s founders had done nothing but live off their legacy for two hundred and fifty years. Finally defeated in war with the empire, some had even switched sides to preserve their comfortable lifestyles.

  Trünicht was in that last category too, and had no right to criticize the people so shamelessly. And yet, as he considered this, von Reuentahl felt an unusual displeasure stir within him anew. He had detected a peculiar sincerity in Trünicht’s dismissal of his supporters. Could the man truly have felt nothing but contempt for them all along?

  Compared to Kaiser Reinhard, the “revolutionary who sat on a jeweled throne,” von Reuentahl’s political imagination was a few steps behind. He could carry out the tasks assigned to him with nothing overlooked, but was more noted for efficiency than creativity.

  He had perfect respect for his superior and ruler as a public figure, but had not failed to notice Reinhard’s private flaws and weaknesses. However immature the kaiser might be in private, however, his achievements, ability, and valor as a public figure could not be denied. Von Reuentahl, at least, was neither petty nor unjust enough to take this line of criticism.

  Ernest Mecklinger’s assessment of von Reuentahl after their first meeting is of interest here. “Ultimately,” Mecklinger wrote, “I had the impression of a man who would never be satisfied under the authority of another.” The one man who outranked him was the kaiser himself, and von Reuentahl had willingly accepted his position as Reinhard’s retainer.

  In turbulent times, the relationship between an ambitious lord and a capable minister is often as perilous as riding a unicycle along the blade of a sword. Reinhard and von Reuentahl’s relationship conformed to this pattern, although special circumstances were also at work.

  It was often suggested in later ages that if Kircheis had survived beyond IC 488, if he had remained the unambiguous “second man of the empire,” the tension between Reinhard and von Reuentahl might have remained submerged. If nothing else, von Reuentahl would not have clashed so sharply with von Oberstein in the latter’s capacity as minister of military affairs. All speculation, of course, but because Kircheis died young, having attracted almost no criticism as a public or private figure, the rich possibilities that may have lain in his future, and the future of the empire itself, cannot be denied.

  After dismissing Trünicht, von Reuentahl summoned Bergengrün back to his office and issued a series of orders. Most concerned what remained of Yang Wen-li’s forces on Iserlohn Base. A few imperial ships had attempted an invasion of Iserlohn Corridor, despite the absence of orders to do so, and von Reuentahl made it clear once more that such ill-considered haste would not be tolerated from the military.

  The governor-general was not, however, fool enough to permit free movement of people, supplies, or information in the corridor itself. Bottling up and isolating the remnants of Yang Wen-li’s forces was the natural foundation of the Imperial Navy’s strategy. Iserlohn Corridor might be the very definition of a hard target for offensive maneuvers, but simple isolation was easier to achieve. By cutting off the republic’s access to information and supplies, the empire would increase the psychological pressure on its citizens.

  As a result, for Julian Mintz and the other leaders of the Iserlohn Republic, the quality and quantity of the information they could gather would determine their very chances of survival.

  IV

  Julian Mintz, too, spent his days buried under the tasks and responsibilities that had been placed upon him.

  Every day he put his materials in order a little more, preparing for the eventual writing of his biography of Yang Wen-li. Yang himself had not written any substantial works before his death. Had that death not come so early and after such a turbulent career, and had the length of his remaining years matched the scale of his youthful achievements, he would surely have been able to generalize his vast intellectual activities in written form. These rich possibilities, however, had been closed off by the end forced upon him.

  Even so, he had left a mass of memorabilia behind, albeit fragmentary. The material covered many topics: strategy, tactics, history, contemporaries, politics and society, tea and alcohol. Julian was taking these disordered scraps of thought, speech, and action, putting them in order, and reconstituting them along with commentary of his own. In the brief moments where his responsibilities as leader of Iserlohn’s military did not intrude, he sat at his desk and worked on his project of conveying the individual that Yang Wen-li had been to future generations. He did not find the work lonely. It felt like speaking to the dead.

  The fragments of verbiage were also shards of the memories and moments that had made up the past six years for Julian himself. A single word could summon up rich background in his mind. And in every scene, Yang was there. He grew taller and shorter depending on the occasion—the memories were all viewed from the perspective of Julian, who had grown more than a foot taller since their first meeting, and the scenes did not come in chronological order.

  “There are certainly things that can’t be said in words, but you can only say that once you reach the limits of speech yourself.”

  “Words are like icebergs floating on the sea of our heart. Only a fraction of each is visible, but through them we perceive and feel the larger things beneath the surface.”

  “Use words deliberately, Julian. That lets you say more, more accurately, than you can with silence alone.”

  And:

  “The right judgment depends on the right information and the right analysis.”

  All these things Yang had said to Julian.

  Three years earlier, when the Alliance’s military had fractured after the coup d’état by the Military Congress for the Rescue of the Republic, Yang had been forced to battle the powerful Eleventh Fleet. Because the two sides were fairly evenly matched in strength, and because Yang’s defeat would have meant the end of the faction that opposed the coup, he had searched for the enemy desperately. When he received firm information that the Eleventh Fleet had divided its forces, as well as the locations of each individual division, he had thrown his reports into the air with joy, dancing clumsily and singing off-key with Julian as partner. Such was the value of accurate information.

  As a result, Julian sought it through every avenue he could think of, and some more suggested by his deputies. It was only a matter of time before there was political and military upheaval at both ends of Iserlohn Corridor. Kaiser Reinhard was currently ignoring them as he built a new galactic order. But when cracks began to show in the glorious armor of his authority, the upheaval would begin.

  Having made this strategic prediction, Julian’s next task was to come up with countermeasures—he was not a historian of later ages, after all, but an active contemporary participant. The difficulty was that their best options in that moment would not necessarily remain optimal as their situation changed.

  Who could have predicted what the galaxy would look like today just five short years ago? In SE 795, the Goldenbaum Dynasty’s Galactic Empire had been locked in endless war with the Free Planets Alliance. When there were lulls in the fighting, squabbles on Phezzan filled the gaps. It had seemed as if the situation would roll sluggishly and monotonously on forever.

  But even the calmest river has the occasional waterfall along its length. Might they be going over the edge of such a waterfall at that very moment? If so, the upheaval might come even earlier than expected. If only Marshal Yang had been alive, Julian could have sat back and let him captain the boat. Was it small-minded of Julian to miss Yang on one hand and hate those who had murdered him on the other?

  At this th
ought, Yang Wen-li spoke in a whisper that came from some obscure corner of Julian’s memories.

  “No, Julian, I don’t think so. You can’t love unless you can also hate. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.”

  He was right. Yang, the people in his orbit, the microcosm they had made—how Julian had loved and treasured them all! It was inevitable that he would hate those who had soiled and smashed what he loved.

  In the same way, precisely because Julian held the principles of democratic republican governance in the highest esteem—no doubt partly due to Yang’s influence—he loathed the autocratic system that stood against them. To love everything was an impossibility.

  But Yang’s words should not be interpreted too broadly. They were not an encouragement of hate. They simply pointed out the fundamental contradiction in platitudes like “love conquers all.”

  This introspective side of Julian was clearly part of his inheritance from Yang. The risk was that it might undermine his enterprising dynamism, or take him from a conservative position to a reactionary one.

  This was a source of mild concern for Alex Caselnes and certain others among Julian’s self-appointed “guardians.” But their younger fellows mocked them for fretting.

  “Don’t you think it’s his talent you should be worried about?” asked Poplin with a grin.

  “Or he might get mixed up with some femme fatale and meet with disaster,” said Attenborough.

  Not everyone in their generation had reconstructed their psyches as well as these two. One example was Lieutenant Commander Soon “Soul” Soulzzcuaritter, who had fought valiantly to protect Yang from his assassins. When reunited with Julian at the hospital in Iserlohn, he could barely force his words through the pain.