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  Julian was not the only one wondering where Rubinsky was. The empire’s Ministry of Domestic Affairs and military police headquarters were running a manhunt of their own.

  As for the last landesherr of Phezzan himself, he lay on a sofa, fully dressed in a suit, in a small room somewhere in the galaxy. The sweat that beaded on his forehead was the fault of his physical condition rather than insufficient air-conditioning. His mistress, Dominique Saint-Pierre, sat at a table beside him, whiskey glass in hand, studying him with a gaze that belonged neither to an observer nor a spectator.

  “I didn’t know you were so sentimental,” Rubinsky said.

  He had just heard about the kindness she had shown to Elfriede von Kohlrausch, when Dominique had summoned a doctor for her and her newborn child, and sent her to Heinessen on a trading ship she owned to see the child’s father.

  “Where is the woman now?” he asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know.” Dominique calmly flicked the rim of her glass. As the sound propagated to Rubinsky’s ears, its ring was so clear and pure that the effect seemed almost contrived. Dominique changed the subject. “I understand why you are in a hurry, your health being what it is. But I wonder how much can be achieved through some minor increase in the disruptions to supplies and communications.”

  She knew that Rubinsky’s attempt to delete Phezzan’s navigational data had failed, and was happy to mock him for it.

  “Sometimes you have to play a hand that doesn’t have any trumps at all,” Rubinsky said. “This year is one of those times. What you think of the matter does not concern me.”

  “You are in decline, aren’t you? You never spoke in such trite clichés before. Your powers of expression are starting to fail you. How sad—you always used to know just what to say, too.”

  It is possible that a microscopic fragment of pity was mingled with her caustic tone. The two of them had accumulated a certain tangled history between them, insubstantial though it was. How many years had it been now? She reeled in the slender thread of memory. She had met Rubinsky when both of them were still young, creatures more of ambition than accomplishment. They had been too busy to reflect on the past then. Rubinsky had only been a secretary in Phezzan’s government, while Dominique had intended to scale society’s heights using nothing but her talents as a singer and dancer.

  Suddenly, Rubinsky’s voice closed the door on her memories.

  “Do you intend to sell me out, just as you sold out Rupert?”

  Dominique raised her eyebrows a fraction. With a sober, dispassionate gaze, she surveyed the form of the man to whom she had, indeed, once been joined in body and soul. But all she could see now was the rift between past and present, already vast and widening by the second.

  “Rupert went down fighting, in his way,” she said. “What about you? Do you ever plan to challenge the kaiser openly?” By now Dominique was speaking more to the afterimage of the man beyond that yawning crevasse than anything else. “After you die, others will decide how you faced Reinhard—whether you fought him, or whether you simply tried to trip him up. And you won’t be there to argue with their assessment.”

  There was no reply.

  IV

  March 20, year 3 of the New Imperial Calendar.

  As von Oberstein set foot on the surface of the planet Heinessen, his face betrayed no sentiment in particular. Wittenfeld, who had been forced to travel with von Oberstein despite his strenuous objections, muttered bitterly to his back, “I don’t fear death in the slightest, but I won’t go down with von Oberstein. If I had to share the ride to Valhalla with him, I’d kick him out of the Valkyries’ chariot before we arrived.”

  His staff officer, Rear Admiral Eugen, warned Wittenfeld that he was speaking too loudly, but the flame-haired fighter only scowled. He was only acting in accordance with a rule passed down in the Wittenfeld family for generations: be loud in your praise of others, but even louder in your denunciations. Then he sneezed twice. Heinessen was so cold it was as if the seasons had wound back a full three weeks.

  Von Oberstein himself coldly ignored the disparaging tune that the Black Lancers’ commander was playing. Elsheimer, the chief civilian bureaucrat, met them at the spaceport and accompanied him to the building that von Reuentahl had chosen as the seat of his governorate. Wittenfeld and Müller staked out their respective command centers in a hotel near the central spaceport, then got down to the matters of fleet and troop deployment. They did not go with von Oberstein to the governorate building. Only a handful did, including Commodore Ferner, head of von Oberstein’s team of advisors; Commander Schultz, his secretary; and Commander Westpfal, who led his security detail.

  While Wittenfeld and Müller had good reasons for not joining them, they also had an undeniable lack of interest in dropping everything to accompany von Oberstein. Von Oberstein, for his part, had little interest in their company. The problem he wanted to get down to as quickly as possible was not the sort that required their abilities as battlefield leaders. It called rather for the unique talents of a man like Heidrich Lang, who was still in custody.

  The situation on Heinessen changed with blistering speed and intensity the very next day. Ground forces under the direct control of the minister immediately set about arresting “dangerous persons” resident on the planet.

  Huang Rui, former Human Resources Committee chair for the alliance. Vice Admiral Paetta, erstwhile commander of the alliance’s First Fleet. Vice Admiral Murai, who had once been chief of staff for Marshal Yang Wen-li. Over five thousand people in all were arrested in a single sweep. Virtually everyone who had held a position of any importance in the Free Planets Alliance was uprooted and imprisoned in the operation that came to be known as “Von Oberstein’s Scythe.”

  “I can’t understand what the minister’s thinking,” said Wittenfeld to Müller as news of this development reached them. “Can you?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “The way I see it, the best thing to do with those democratic republicans is let them say whatever they like. They can’t actually follow through on a single percent of it, after all.”

  Müller nodded, a thoughtful expression in his sandy eyes. “Locking up people for political offences and thought crimes does tie up resources that might have been used to hold regular criminals,” he said. “It might end up actually damaging public safety on the planet.”

  Neither Müller nor Wittenfeld agreed with the minister’s high-pressure approach to keeping the peace, but they had no authority to object to it, and in any case their mission was the assault on Iserlohn. Preparations for battle occupied all of their time. Senior Admiral Wahlen, too, received permission to bring the reorganized remnant of his fleet back from the Gandharva system to Heinessen, bringing the imperial forces to 40,000 ships. The necessary supply lines were also in place, and preparations for the assault on Iserlohn almost complete after just a few days.

  And so, despite the fact that von Oberstein and the three senior admirals were on the same planet, their divergent responsibilities kept them so busy that they barely saw each other for the entire month of March. Finally, on the afternoon of April 1, the three admirals went to visit the minister together.

  “We have a question, minister,” Wittenfeld said forcefully.

  Von Oberstein had kept them waiting forty minutes while he dealt with some paperwork. “Very well, Admiral Wittenfeld,” he said. “Let me hear it. But I ask that you keep it both brief and logical.”

  After being kept waiting, it took every ounce of Wittenfeld’s strength to control his anger at being spoken to that way. Still, he succeeded, and forced out his next words through gritted teeth.

  “I will come right to the point, then. Rumors both inside and outside the military claim that you have imprisoned all these political and ideological criminals as hostages so as to force Iserlohn to abandon its resistance. It is difficult to believe that an a
rmy as superior in strength as ours would resort to such underhanded measures, but we want to hear the truth from you personally. What say you?”

  “Am I to be criticized on the basis of a rumor?” asked von Oberstein.

  “The rumor is false, then.”

  “I did not say that.”

  “So you do intend to use the prisoners as human shields in the fight against Iserlohn?” asked Wahlen. He was as pale as Wittenfeld was red. Müller, too, although he had not spoken, was staring aghast at von Oberstein. Wittenfeld opened his mouth to speak again, but von Oberstein cut him off.

  “The bloody fantasies of military romantics are of no use to us on this occasion. If the alternative is to throw away a million more lives, I think it far preferable to use five thousand political criminals as a tool to extract a bloodless concession from the enemy.”

  Wittenfeld did not agree. “What about the honor of the invincible Imperial military?” he demanded.

  “Honor?”

  “I could defeat Iserlohn with my fleet alone. But Müller’s fleet is here too, and now Wahlen’s. Forty thousand ships in all. Iserlohn will be crushed without any need for your underhanded tactics!”

  The more fiercely Wittenfeld blazed, the colder von Oberstein grew. The gaze from his famed bionic eyes assailed the three admirals like vaporized winter frost.

  “We cannot base our strategy on the hollow braggadocio of a man who has himself produced no real results. The point at which military force alone might have resolved the situation is far behind us.”

  “Hollow braggadocio?!” Wittenfeld’s face was now bright crimson, as if reflecting his hair. Shaking off the attempts of his colleagues to restrain him, he strode forward. “We have accompanied His Majesty Kaiser Reinhard to countless battlefields, defeating even his fiercest foes. How dare you dismiss our achievements?”

  “I am well aware of what you have ‘achieved.’ How many times did the three of you work together to serve Yang Wen-li the sweet liqueur of victory? Not just myself, but the enemy forces as well—”

  “Damn you!” roared Wittenfeld, springing toward von Oberstein. Shouts filled the ears of those present, and tumbling human forms crowded their vision. The unprecedented sight of a senior admiral straddling an imperial marshal and seizing him by the collar lasted just a few seconds. Müller and Wahlen together seized Wittenfeld’s muscular form from behind and dragged him off von Oberstein. The minister rose with a calm better described as mineral than mechanical, brushing the dust from his black and silver uniform with one hand.

  “Admiral Müller.”

  “Yes?”

  “While Admiral Wittenfeld is confined to his quarters, I place command of the Black Lancers in your hands. I trust you have no objection?”

  “If I may, minister.” Müller’s voice trembled with emotion, teetering right on the edge of what he could control. “I have no objection, but I do not believe the Black Lancers will accept it. The only commander they recognize is Admiral Wittenfeld.”

  “It is not like you to speak so thoughtlessly, Admiral Müller. The Black Lancers are part of the Imperial Navy. They are not Wittenfeld’s private army.”

  Unable to argue the point but still not accepting it, Müller looked at Wittenfeld, who was breathing with his shoulders, and Wahlen, who still held Wittenfeld by the arm.

  “You seem very confident of this, Minister, but do you think our proud kaiser will accept your plan? Is it not clear from the fact that he sent us here with our ships that he means for us to battle Iserlohn with honor? Do you intend to ignore his wishes in this regard?”

  “The kaiser’s pride has left Iserlohn Corridor littered with the bones of millions.”

  Müller was speechless.

  “If these measures had been taken one year ago, when Yang Wen-li escaped from Heinessen and fled to Iserlohn, millions of lives could have been saved. The empire is not the kaiser’s private property, and the Imperial Navy is not His Majesty’s private army. What law permits the kaiser to send troops to their deaths for no reason but personal pride? How does that differ from what was done in the Goldenbaum Dynasty?”

  Von Oberstein ended his speech, and the silence in the room was as heavy as vaporized lead. Even the intrepid admirals were taken aback by the intensity with which he criticized the kaiser. Frozen in place, struck dumb, they could not even offer counterarguments.

  Commodore Ferner watched this grave but silent performance with understandable apprehension. What the minister asserts is most likely true, he thought. But that truth will bring him nothing but enmity.

  The unmoving reflections of the three admirals gleamed in von Oberstein’s bionic eyes.

  “I command you as His Majesty the Kaiser’s representative. I was granted this status by imperial decree. If you have objections, perhaps you should take them up with the kaiser.”

  He was entirely correct, though the others might be forgiven for seeing this as an unjustified borrowing of the kaiser’s authority. But from von Oberstein’s viewpoint, it was simply the easiest way to cut short a fruitless debate. To Wittenfeld, though, he seemed a coward, criticizing the kaiser in the harshest terms one moment, and then invoking His Majesty’s name to shore up his own position the next. Wahlen felt the same way, and even Müller retained some reservations.

  But von Oberstein had no time for what they felt. “This discussion is over,” he said. “Commodore Ferner, see the admirals out.”

  And so in this manner, the situation on Heinessen was advancing in a direction that Julian and the others had not even imagined.

  I

  IT WAS APRIL 4 when Kaiser Reinhard was informed of the confrontation that had occurred on Heinessen between von Oberstein and the three admirals. Coincidentally, April 4 would also have been Yang Wen-li’s thirty-fourth birthday, although this was not, of course, designated as a holiday by the empire. Reinhard himself had turned twenty-five on March 14. His birthday was an important holiday in the imperial calendar, with troops receiving leave and a special bonus. Out of consideration for the kaiser’s condition, a planned garden party was canceled, but an oil painting by a well-known artist depicting linden trees, wallflowers, and strawberries arrived as a gift from the Archduchess von Grünewald. These plants represented love between spouses, bonds of affection, and long life, respectively—an expression of Annerose’s wishes for her younger brother and his wife.

  The unpleasant report from Heinessen arrived after all this, however, when Reinhard had more or less fully recovered. In the bedroom at Stechpalme Schloß, Hilda sat up in the canopied bed while Reinhard sat on its edge.

  “Fräulein—no, kaiserin—what do you think of this matter?”

  As it turned out, the two of them spent far more time discussing matters of state and war than murmuring sweet nothings to one another. Their residence was separated from Imperial Headquarters only by geography. In practice, even their bedroom at Stechpalme Schloß was an extension of headquarters.

  “May I hear Your Majesty’s thoughts first?”

  “It was I who granted von Oberstein the authority he wields. To evade responsibility for this would be unseemly. But I never thought he would adopt methods such as these.”

  Reinhard was surely angry, but the weight of the problem von Oberstein had forced on him seemed to be cooling his rage somewhat. Even Reinhard had to hesitate when asked directly whether he meant to shed the blood of millions to satisfy his personal emotions. Minister von Oberstein was no ordinary man.

  Could this be added to the handful of examples where Reinhard had chosen the wrong person for the job? Hilda was not quite sure. Reinhard was not, of course, unaware of the incompatibility in character between von Oberstein and Wittenfeld. Despite this, however, he had made his decision assuming that they would keep their private emotions in check as they dealt with matters of state.

  “But it appears I was mistaken. Von Oberst
ein always, no matter what the situation, puts his responsibilities as a public figure first. Even though this is exactly why he is so despised.”

  Von Oberstein is potent medicine—clinically efficacious, but with significant side effects. Whose words had those been? Marshal Mittermeier’s? The late Marshal von Reuentahl’s?

  “Do you intend to recall Minister von Oberstein from Phezzan, Your Majesty?”

  “Hmm. That might be for the best.”

  This somewhat indecisive reply was unlike Reinhard. But Hilda saw what was in the young conqueror’s heart, even if his concern for his new wife—who was, moreover, with child—made him hesitant to speak it aloud.

  “Perhaps, Your Majesty, you would rather go to Heinessen to resolve the situation yourself?”

  Reinhard’s cheeks reddened, very slightly. Hilda’s insight had struck the mark. “I can hide nothing from you, mein Kaiserin. It is just as you say. Only I can effect such a resolution. But even if I were to leave this very day, the dishonor of taking hostages in order to demand surrender would not be erased…”

  If Reinhard’s way of thinking and of living were “military romanticism” crystallized, von Oberstein was surely the only one of his high-ranking officers utterly unaffected by that tendency. Independent thinkers were indispensable to any organization. Without them, they risked becoming bubbles of complacency and blind faith. Von Oberstein was therefore an important presence, but Hilda would have preferred it if his role had been played by someone more like Yang Wen-li, for example. For now, however, the task before her was to lighten the burden that Reinhard felt pressing down on his sense of honor.

  “Your Majesty, what if the demand were not for surrender but for negotiations?”