Ambition (3 page)

In any case, a proposal for a prisoner swap had arrived from the empire, and Yang needed to report it to the alliance’s capital of Heinessen, the planet named for the nation’s founding father. The government would likely accept the proposal gladly. POWs did not enjoy suffrage, but returning soldiers did. That amounted to two million votes plus the votes of their families. An empty but grand celebration would no doubt be held.

“Hey, Julian, it’s been a while, but it looks like we might be able to go back to Heinessen.”

His voice was cheerful, which Julian felt was a little strange. Heinessen would be full of ceremonies, parties, speeches, and all kinds of things Yang hated.

But now there was a reason that Yang needed to go to Heinessen.

The prisoner exchange was not carried out under the auspices of the two governments involved. Both nations held themselves to be humanity’s sole legitimate governing authority, and as such did not give official recognition to the other’s existence. That being the case, there was no way diplomatic relations could be established.

If such foolish hardheadedness had existed between a pair of individuals, people would probably have laughed at it with scorn. Between two nations, however, people accepted all manner of corruption in the name of dignity and authority.

On February 19 of that year, the prisoner exchange ceremony was carried out at Iserlohn Fortress. Representatives from both militaries came forward, exchanged lists, and signed certificates.

The Galactic Imperial Navy and the Free Planets Alliance Navy, in accordance with the principles of military regulation, do hereby determine to return all captured officers and soldiers to their respective homelands, and upon their honor shall do so.

Imperial Year 488,
February 19. Senior Admiral Siegfried Kircheis, Galactic Imperial Navy Representative.

Space Era 797, February 19. Admiral Yang Wen-li, Free Planets Alliance Navy Representative.

When Yang had finished signing, Kircheis turned toward him with a youthful smile.

“The formalities may be necessary, but at the same time, there’s something rather absurd about them, don’t you think, Admiral Yang?”

“Full agreement.”

Yang observed Kircheis. Yang was young himself, but Kircheis was even younger—still only twenty-one. He was a handsome young man—hair as red as if dyed in dissolved rubies, pleasant-looking blue eyes, unusually tall of stature—and although he was known to be one of the empire’s boldest and most powerful admirals, he seemed to have made a favorable impression on the women of Iserlohn. Yang had engaged him in direct combat at Amritsar, knew that he was the right hand of Marquis Reinhard von Lohengramm—and yet even so found the young man difficult to dislike.

It seemed that Kircheis had formed a similar impression of Yang. His handshake as they parted was more than just perfunctory.

Afterward, Julian expressed his impression: “Likable fellow, isn’t he?”

Yang nodded, but when he thought about it, it struck him as odd to feel more favor toward an enemy commander than he did toward the politicians on his own side. Of course, there was nothing unusual about the enemy in front being vastly more forthright than those scheming behind one’s back, and also, it wasn’t as though the present enemy-ally configuration were set in stone for all eternity.

In any case, the welcome ceremony for the returning soldiers had provided Yang with the public excuse he needed to make a temporary return to Heinessen.

Four weeks after departing Iserlohn, Yang and Julian arrived in the capital of Heinessen. Having avoided the central spaceport, which had become murderously choked by two million returning soldiers, the family members come to greet them, and huge throngs of journalists, they arrived by way of Spaceport 3—which exclusively served the local passenger and cargo lines—and immediately headed for the officers’ houses in a driverless taxi. As they were passing by the warehouses and working-class apartments on Hutchison Street, however, they encountered a roadblock. Police officers were sweating hard as they directed large crowds of people. It looked like they were trying to physically do the job of the malfunctioning central control system for ground traffic, but Yang and Julian couldn’t see why the road was closed. Yang got out of the taxi and approached an inexperienced-looking young officer.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Why can’t we go through?”

“It’s nothing. Please don’t come any closer—it’s dangerous.”

Speaking contradictions, the officer pushed Yang back, a tense expression on his face. Yang was in his civilian clothes, and the young officer apparently didn’t recognize who he was. For an instant, Yang felt a slight temptation to reveal his name and find out what was going on, but in the end he remained silent and went back to the taxi. His disgust for the exercise of privilege outweighed his curiosity.

The matter only became clear after they had made a wide detour and returned to the house on Silver Bridge Street, empty these past four months.

No sooner had they selected the all-news channel on the solivision than that scene came leaping into their living room.

“… At present, the outbreak of crimes committed by returning soldiers is ongoing. Also today, tragedy struck on Hutchison Street, and even now, the situation remains unresolved. At least three have been killed …”

The expression on the mournful-looking announcer’s face was at odds with the lively cadence of his voice.

Soldiers who used hallucinogens and stimulants to escape from the fear of death on the battlefield would often become addicts and then return to civilian life. One day, they would just explode. Fear and madness became an unseen magma that eventually overflowed, burning up everything around them.

A thought occurred to Yang. He called Julian and had him pull up and forward some materials related to crime statistics from the Data Service. He would have done it himself, except that he didn’t know how to search the databases very well; he wasn’t deliberately trying to push everything off on Julian.

It was just as Yang had expected. Criminal cases were up 65 percent compared to five years ago. On the other hand, arrest rates had fallen by 22 percent. As the ruin of the human heart progressed, the quality of law enforcement declined as well.

Over the course of this long war, there had been millions of fatalities. The military filled the vacancies that were left behind. As a result, human resource shortages had appeared in every field in society. Doctors, educators, police officers, systems administrators, computer technicians … the numbers of seasoned workers had decreased across the board, their seats either filled by the inexperienced or simply left vacant. In this way, the military’s support structure—society itself—was being weakened. A weak society inevitably weakened the military, and a weakened military again lost soldiers and sought replacements from society …

One could say that this vicious cycle was an accumulation of contradictions woven together by the spinning wheel that was, in a sense, war.
I’d like to show this to all those prowar cheerleaders who say, “The corruption that comes from peace scares me more than the destruction that comes from war,”
thought Yang. What would they insist they were fighting to protect as they urged on the collapse of society?

What was all this to protect?

Tossing aside the materials he’d obtained, Yang turned over and lay faceup on his sofa. After mulling the question over, he couldn’t help wondering what meaning there was in what he himself was doing. For Yang, it did not fill the heart with cheer to think that it all might be meaningless.

The ceremony was held in the afternoon on the following day and ended with the usual content-free eloquence and hysterical militaristic frenzy.

“I feel like I used up a lifetime’s worth of patience in those two hours,” Yang grumbled to the waiting Julian when he came out of the auditorium.

He really did hold it in well this time,
thought Julian. In the past, Yang had displayed bald-faced antagonism at such ceremonies and had even remained seated when everyone else in the auditorium rose to their feet. This time, he had gone no further than murmuring “What are you even talking about? That’s ridiculous!” too low for anyone else to hear.

Yang breathed out a heavy sigh, as if venting poisonous vapors absorbed in the auditorium, and then noticed a group of about one hundred marching down the road ahead. They were wearing long white robes with red fringes and chanting something as they held aloft placards that read
The Holy Land, in Our Hands
as they walked leisurely along.

“Who are they?” Yang asked a young officer standing next to him.

“Oh, those are followers of the Church of Terra.”

“The Church of Terra?”

“You haven’t heard? It’s a religion that’s growing like crazy these days. Its ‘object of worship,’ if that’s the right term … is Earth itself.”

“Earth … ?”

“Earth, humanity’s birthplace, is in a sense the ultimate holy land. Right now, it’s under the control of the Galactic Empire. They want to take it back militarily and build a cathedral there to guide the souls of all humanity. To join in a holy war for that purpose, no matter what sacrifices might have to be made …”

Yang couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

“They can’t be serious. Something like that is utterly impossible.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Julian said, turning on him with unexpected vehemence. “We have righteousness on our side, and above all, Admiral Yang, we have a great warrior like you, so we
can
destroy the tyrannical Galactic Empire, and we can even recover Earth. Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know …” Yang replied, taking care not to let his ill mood come to the surface. “Nothing’s ever that easy, you know.”

The seeds of fanaticism existed in every generation. Even so, this latest iteration sounded exceptionally bad.

Earth was indeed mother to the whole human race. However, to put it in extreme terms, it was nothing more than an object of sentimentalism now. Eight centuries ago, Earth had ceased being the center of human society. When a civilization’s reach expanded, its center shifted. History had proven this.

Where had they gotten the idea that they could spill the blood of millions just to take back a worn-out old frontier world?

“Now that you mention it,” Yang said, “they remind me of another group. What’re the Patriotic Knights up to these days?”

“I don’t really know, though I hear quite a few of their members have joined the Church of Terra. At any rate, their ideas mesh rather closely, so it doesn’t strike me as unnatural.”

“Wonder if they’ve got the same backer,” Yang said, in a voice so low that the officer didn’t seem to have heard.

Yang, having decided to rest at home until it was time for the party that evening, got into a driverless cab with Julian and fell into a deep reverie.

Long, long ago, there had been people called crusaders on Earth. They had declared they would take back the Holy Land, and using God’s name, invaded other countries—laying their cities to waste, plundering their treasures, and slaughtering their people. Far from feeling shame for those inhuman acts, they had actually prided themselves on their achievements in persecuting unbelievers.

It was a stain on the historical record, brought about by ignorance, fanaticism, self-intoxication, and intolerance, and was bitter proof of the fact that those who believed, without doubting, in God and in justice could become the most brutal, the most violent of all people. Were these Terraists trying to re-create on a galactic scale a folly more than 2,400 years in the past?

There was a proverb that said, “He who works virtue does so in solitude, but he who works folly seeks companions.” Grief awaited anyone who followed after such people.

But was this movement to recapture Earth really nothing more than the foolishness it appeared to be on the surface?

Behind the Crusades, there had been seafaring merchants in Venice and Genoa who planned to weaken the influence of the unbelievers and monopolize trade between the East and the West. Ambition backed by cold calculation had been supporting that fanaticism. Supposing that bit of history were to repeat itself as well …

Could the third power, Phezzan, be behind this?

Yang was stunned at the thought as it came to him in a flash in the back of his mind. In the seat of the narrow taxi, he moved so suddenly that Julian’s eyes snapped open wide, and he asked him what was the matter. After giving him a vague answer, Yang sank into thought again.

From Phezzan’s standpoint, it would be most welcome for the empire and alliance to reach new levels of mutual hatred and killing in a dispute over Earth. That much he could see. However, if both sides were to fall, and there were a complete collapse of order, wouldn’t it be Phezzan—a nation dependent on commerce—that would be most distressed? Unless the activity were limited to a range that could be controlled by Phezzan’s will and calculations, fomenting something like this would be meaningless. And it was safe to say that the energy of a fanatical spirit would inevitably break free of control and explode. There was no way that Phezzan didn’t know that.