On May 2, Kaiser Reinhard landed on Heinessen. It was his third visit to the planet, and would also be his last. Müller and Wahlen met him at the spaceport. In the warm light and mild breeze of late spring, he cut an even more fragrant and dazzling figure than usual.
The museum where Reinhard had once issued the Winter Rose Garden Edict had already been designated as his headquarters. Marshal von Oberstein and Senior Admiral Wittenfeld awaited him there together, but with very different expressions on their faces.
Wittenfeld was known as the “Imperial Navy’s living, breathing destructive impulse.” Had he lost his temper, he might well have sprung at von Oberstein, even in the kaiser’s presence. Wary of unexpected developments, Marshal Mittermeier had told Senior Admiral von Eisenach, “If Wittenfeld flies off the handle, I’ll trip him up and you can punch him in the back of the head”—or so the rumors went; this was in fact nothing but irresponsible humor among the troops. Reinhard’s staff officers knew well that in the presence of the kaiser, that savage tiger became a meek housecat.
As expected, once he caught sight of the kaiser, the burly Wittenfeld seemed to shrink as he offered an apology. He expressed his remorse at the rift that had opened between himself and von Oberstein, creating discord within the imperial military that had been visible to outsiders. But he did not stop there. He also turned a hostile gaze to von Oberstein and denounced his failings, stridently decrying the minister’s insulting mockery of the imperial admiralty’s defeats at the hands of Yang Wen-li.
“That is nothing that should anger you,” said Reinhard. “After all, I myself was ultimately unable to achieve a tactical victory over Yang Wen-li. I regret this, but do not consider it a source of shame. Do you?”
Microscopic particles of laughter were present in Reinhard’s expression and voice, which mortified the commander of the Black Lancers even more. At the same time, a surprising thought came unbidden to him. As the imperial admiral who most frequently aroused Reinhard’s wrath, he was what one might call accustomed to the kaiser’s reprimands. In the past, Reinhard’s anger had assaulted him like a fiery dragon, seizing up his heart to crush it in its talons. But that was no longer the case, he realized. Whether or not the change boded well for the kaiser and his empire was not easy to say.
Before Reinhard had become kaiser, when he was still Imperial Marshal von Lohengramm, supreme commander of the Galactic Imperial Navy, his beloved friend Kircheis—by then a senior admiral himself—had expressed mild criticism over how Reinhard had treated one of his senior officers. Wounded, Reinhard had turned his ice-blue glare on Kircheis. “You say I mistreat him, but that would imply that he is a talented man who deserves better. This is not the case. He has no talent, and I am treating him just as he deserves. He should be grateful that I allowed him to keep his job at all.”
But, after Kircheis’s death, when Reinhard was reorganizing the military’s entire command structure after becoming de facto ruler of the entire galaxy, he had given that same man a position with a generous salary, if little real authority. This was clearly an act of compensation directed at his deceased friend; it was not until the final part of his short life that the flower of magnanimity would bloom in the soil of Reinhard’s psyche. That his true nature was rather to be found in merciless ferocity would soon be proven in bloodshed.
After Wittenfeld apologetically joined his colleagues in line, Reinhard was asked whether he wished to meet with Adrian Rubinsky, who was currently in prison. The young kaiser shook his head irritably. He had far less interest in Rubinsky—and a far lower appraisal of him—than he had had in Yang Wen-li. Rubinsky might be a brute, but he had never commanded a large army, and his capabilities were, in Reinhard’s view, vastly inferior to Yang’s.
“Send another request to Iserlohn asking that they come to Heinessen. By Kaiser’s invitation. Müller, make contact with them in your name.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty. And if they refuse?”
“If they refuse, they will bear responsibility for the bloodshed and chaos that follow,” Reinhard said darkly. Then raising his voice, he called, “Von Oberstein!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“There are certain venomous insects who will squirm out of the woodwork to impede my meeting with the republicans of Iserlohn. They must be exterminated, and I am relying on you to do the job. I can rely on you for that, can’t I?”
The assembled admirals sensed the kaiser’s sarcasm, but von Oberstein gave no sign of noticing it, and merely bowed as he accepted Reinhard’s orders. The kaiser ran a somewhat impatient hand through his blond mane and surveyed the others.
“For now, this meeting is adjourned,” he said. “I wish to dine with everyone tonight. Gather here again at 1830.”
After seeing the kaiser off, Mittermeier was about to leave himself when Wittenfeld fell into step beside him and said rather suddenly, “I wonder if this is the final act.”
“The final act?”
“The kaiser meeting with the Iserlohn republicans. If some kind of compromise is reached, peace will come to the galaxy. Something to be welcomed—and yet…”
“You would not welcome it yourself?” It was already clear as day to Mittermeier that Wittenfeld would struggle even more than Reinhard to reconcile himself to peace.
“In my experience,” said Wittenfeld, “a change of seasons is always accompanied by a storm. And the storm comes just when you think the change is already complete. A big storm is on its way—don’t you think, Admiral?”
“A storm, you say…” Mittermeier cocked his head.
Iserlohn’s fleet size was estimated to be just over ten thousand ships. This was not a force that could simply be ignored, but it was nothing compared to the Imperial Navy’s might. It certainly seemed unlikely that it could raise any kind of storm. Would the source of that storm, then, be the Church of Terra?
Mittermeier felt a sudden flash of skepticism. Wittenfeld’s words likely contained more hope than prophecy. And that hope was not one held by Wittenfeld alone.
In the first weeks of May, with Neidhart Müller as intermediary, diplomatic negotiations were opened with the Iserlohn Republic. Julian Mintz was the republic’s representative, vested with full decision-making authority.
Julian requested proof that those on Heinessen with some connection to Iserlohn enjoyed a modicum of safety, and the imperial military complied. The only reason Kaiser Reinhard had not done this already was because it had not occurred to him. He had not intentionally sought to conceal their fates; to do so simply was not in his nature.
Learning that Sitolet and Murai were among the living was a relief for Julian, and this was followed by another decree from the kaiser. On May 20, all political prisoners held at Ragpur Prison were to be released. With this decree, the anger and antipathy of Heinessen’s citizenry toward von Oberstein was transmuted quite naturally into affection for Reinhard. It also left the Iserlohn Republic with no choice but to accept Reinhard’s request for talks, lest responsibility for rejecting the path of peace and coexistence be made to lie with the republican forces—at least in the eyes of others.
Could von Oberstein have anticipated and intentionally brought about even these developments? Julian shuddered at the thought. Whatever the reason, the kaiser had made considerable concessions, and it would be unwise to expect more. The next step was clearly to travel to Heinessen and seek opportunities for dialogue and negotiation with the kaiser. Even if this was exactly what von Oberstein wanted them to do, they no longer had any other choices. Or, to be more accurate, the path to their other choices was blocked by sixty thousand to seventy thousand imperial vessels.
Julian made his decision.
“To Heinessen it is, then. Not as a captive, but as an ambassador. Under our current circumstances, that’s the best we can reasonably hope for.”
It seemed that both allies and enemies were being driven along by a mental function akin to prophecy. Malice and goodwill, ambitions and ideals, pessimism and optimism—even as all these things began to combine into one disorderly stream, the next unexpected incident occurred on distant Phezzan.
It was the Stechpalme Schloß Inferno.