IV
Had this been an operetta, there would have followed a jovial song for chorus and then the final curtain falling to thunderous applause. But for Ulrich Kessler, the real work had yet to begin. Leaving the kaiserin, the prince, and the kaiser’s sister in the care of court physicians and officials from the Ministry of Palace Interior, he organized a guard on the hospital and headed for military police headquarters. Marika came as far as the hospital entrance to wave goodbye, but once her form had receded from view, Kessler changed his psychological wardrobe. In the back seat of the landcar, he transformed from kind and trustworthy “captain” to cold and stern police commissioner.
Six terrorists were being held in the infirmary at headquarters, and another twenty had been arrested and imprisoned during the decoy operations. The dead outnumbered the living six to one, and the Church of Terra’s ability to operate on Phezzan seemed to have been all but eliminated. But Kessler had a question that he was determined to find an answer to: where were the church’s leaders? Unfortunately, the captured fanatics were not inclined to answer.
“Use truth serum. If it kills them, it kills them.”
By nature, Kessler was a man of action—the kind of officer who strode boldly across the galactic stage. He was happiest when commanding a fleet, and had accepted the assignment of military police commissioner with mixed feelings. Nevertheless, his performance as commissioner—as well as commander of planetary defenses—had been so outstanding that during Reinhard’s reign he had been unable to leave the center of imperial administration, even as it was moved from Odin to Phezzan. Ironically, the very soldier’s nature that made him restless with these assignments only deepened the trust others placed in him.
There is no doubt that he was a just and noble individual in many ways, but he was also a military officer of the Lohengramm Dynasty, not a campaigner for the human rights of political prisoners. Accordingly, he did not shy away from torture when it seemed necessary to him. When dealing with fanatics, however, physical suffering often gave way to the intoxication of martyrdom, in many cases transforming into religious ecstasy. Kessler had learned this from previous experience rooting out the Church of Terra. This left truth serum as the only option. From Kessler’s point of view, it was only natural that it should be used.
The ferocity of the military police during the interrogations that followed would pass into legend. Eight subjects died during the process. The police, however, judged the results more than worth the effort. Comparing and contrasting several confessions extracted by force, they finally pinpointed the center of Terraist activities on Phezzan. Surreptitious surveillance revealed that a large number of worshippers were currently in hiding there, preparing for an armed assault on the hospital where Hilda was recovering.
Meanwhile, Kessler had cast a surveillance net over not just Phezzan Central Spaceport but every spaceport on the planet. Three Terraists were spotted attempting to flee; two were shot dead, but the third was captured alive. As an additional benefit, around ten more common criminals were also arrested, including thyoxin smugglers, black marketeers specializing in military supplies, and perpetrators of fraud.
On May 17, Kessler personally led ten companies of armed military police to 40 Ephraim Street, the center of the church’s activities on Phezzan. At 2200—the moment they had the building surrounded—the Battle of Ephraim Street began. The battle’s final outcome was never in doubt, but the fighting was grim and grueling because the losing side refused to surrender. “In that battle, there was not one iota of beauty,” Kessler would later observe. The fighting concluded at 0130 on May 18. Of the 224 worshipers who had been hidden in the building, all were now dead except three who had lost consciousness. Twenty-nine of the dead had committed suicide by self-administered poison. The military police also lost 27 men, but the Church of Terra had at last been fully uprooted from Phezzan.
Also on that day, the death sentence of Heidrich Lang, chief of the Domestic Safety Security Bureau and junior minister of the interior, was carried out just before dawn. Lang did not weep or beg for his life. He fainted when dragged from solitary confinement, and did not recover consciousness even when the lasers eradicated his medulla oblongata.
This death was, perhaps, a fortunate one for Lang. But this made no difference to the family he left behind. They had lost a husband and father, and begun a life of shame as the surviving family of an executed convict. Unlike the Goldenbaum Dynasty, the Lohengramm Dynasty did not visit the sins of political criminals on their families, but even so, records and memories still hounded them. As Lang’s coffin was hauled away in the darkness, Kessler rushed to the scene and silently saw it off. The sight of Lang’s widow dressed in mourning clothes and looking utterly adrift was one he did not think he would forget for some time.
That afternoon, with these dark and unpleasant tasks achieved, Kessler returned to his residence for the first time in four days. He undressed, tumbled into bed, and slept until evening. When he finally woke, a visiphone call came from the hospital as he was showering. Kaiserin Hilda was asking to see him.
He rushed to the hospital and was ushered into Hilda’s room. She was sitting up in bed attended by nurses, and greeted her husband’s capable subordinate with a smile.
“My son was saved by Her Majesty the Archduchess and you, Admiral Kessler. You have my sincere gratitude.”
“If I may, I do not deserve it,” Kessler said. “My fumbling caused grave trouble for Your Majesties. I should be reprimanded, not praised.”
Kessler’s mortification was twofold. Hilda, with her gown over her shoulders, was nursing her infant. Kessler had seen the new prince before Reinhard himself.
“One other thing…Captain Kessler.”
A pause. “Your Majesty?”
“Marika von Feuerbach is a close friend of mine. She has entrusted me with a message for the kindly captain she met. Do you have plans for dinner tomorrow?”
The veteran admiral and coldly competent commissioner of military police blushed like a little boy.
✦ ✦ ✦
V
The series of reports that soon arrived on Heinessen opened with rainbow-hued tidings of good fortune.
“His Majesty the Prince has been born! Mother and child are both in fine health and their august presence currently graces the hospital at Phezzan University School of Medicine.”
The last part was a bit oddly phrased, but no matter: the news was like six and a half tons of flower petals scattered in a joyous blizzard above those of the imperial military stationed on Heinessen.
The birth announcement, however, was followed by news of the Stechpalme Schloß Inferno, the firefight, the light wounds sustained by the Archduchess von Grünewald, and the rest of it. Finally, a message arrived for Reinhard from the kaiserin herself, assuring him that all was safely resolved.
Before even fully coming to terms with being a husband, Reinhard had become a father. He was mildly dazed for a brief time, until Vice Admiral von Streit reminded him that he would have to think of a name for the newborn prince. He had known this responsibility was coming, of course—but how he agonized over the decision! Later, his attendant Emil von Selle would be vexed by the sheer number of crumpled-up balls of paper discarded around the kaiser’s desk.
Reinhard had never been close to his own blood relatives, just as the six major elements of genius predicted. He had despised his father, and his mother had been lost to him before she could become a target of his enmity. But now he was a parent himself, with a family of his own to care for.
Family: to Reinhard, the word was more unsettling than soothing. Due to his mother’s early passing, she had left no deep impression on his memory or the foundation of his psyche. To Reinhard, a mother was a highly abstract concept, a presence that somehow made him think of warm distilled water.
In truth, Reinhard’s father had been lost to him at the same time as his mother. Physically, his father had survived, but his spirit had atrophied, and he had shown no interest in meeting his responsibilities to his children. Quite the opposite—he had sold his daughter to the nobility for a handful of coins. Reinhard had never really had any parents—or, to be more accurate, he had never really needed them. Not since they had given him life.
To Reinhard, family meant Annerose, who showered love like spring sunshine on her younger brother. The only other who joined her in his estimation was the tall, red-haired boy who had lived in the house next door. Reinhard and Siegfried would return home tired from playing outside, and be shooed into the narrow shower room by his sister. When they emerged, still in high spirits, she would wrap them up in bath towels as the aroma of hot chocolate rolled in from atop the battered old table, speaking of joys yet to come…
“Siegfried,” Reinhard muttered at these old memories. “What a vulgar name.” He took a pen and yet another sheet of paper, and with them wrote a single name:
Alexander Siegfried von Lohengramm
This was the name of the second kaiser of the Lohengramm Dynasty. Accordingly, the infant soon became known as “Prinz Alec.”