The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [53]
They beat the men to death, then bit off limbs, heads, and genitals, and scattered the bloody pieces throughout the square, in an orgy of unleashed rage at their oppressors. Hightower Square looked like someone had gone at it with buckets of red paint. Women and children screamed. One cool-headed old gentleman thought to call for the gendarmerie, all unaware that the ten men dressed like pressgangers were the only gendarmes on duty. By the time additional authorities had shown up, the sharpsie laborers were gone.
The broadsheets all had their own sensational headlines for the incident. “Massacre at Hightower!” “Gendarmes Murdered!” But the Observer took in the most readers with a single word: “War.”
Eighteen: The Psychestorm
Wolfgang Rowan-Czarnecki had once been a great statesman. He’d served in Parliament for twenty years, and had served two memorable terms as Minister of the Exchequer. Never quite as charismatic as his brother Montgomery, who’d become Trowth’s youngest and most celebrated general, Wolfgang had been the quiet, competent, authoritative man that Trowth could turn to in a time of crisis. It had been Wolfgang Rowan-Czarnecki that had stabilized the Empire’s economy when the war with the ettercap threatened to bankrupt it. It had been Wolfgang that stood against the Corsay Trading Company when the financial giant had tried to wrest political control of the nation.
The erstwhile Minister of the Exchequer was never going to have seen his face printed on the money, but he had done well for his country in his own intelligent, patriotic way. Ministers of the Exchequer were never remembered by anyone but historians, but if a historian that specialized in Not Especially Glamorous But Still Very Important Government Positions ever decided to compile a list of the finest Ministers of the Exchequer that Trowth had ever seen, Wolfgang Rowan-Czarnecki would have definitely been on his way to the top.
Then, his brother had been killed. This was during the second Riehl Valley Action: Montgomery Rowan-Czarnecki had moved into the valley with his staff, thinking that the occupying ettercap had been eliminated. It had been a trap. Three thousand men had been killed trying to evacuate the command staff, and for nothing. The ettercap had sealed the valley. Suicide troops detonated their poison-sun weapons. Ironically, it had been the marines left behind to secure the retreat that managed to survive.
The life had drained out of Wolfgang after he’d lost his brother. He became listless, uninterested in politics, leaving important decisions to Vice-Ministers and Adjuncts. He no longer challenged the party leaders when they proposed ill-considered plans. Wolfgang Rowan-Czarnecki had become completely disaffected with the Empire, his primary political attitude became one of passionate unconcern.
The Emperor, concerned still about showing favor to the Rowan-Czarneckis, who controlled the production and distribution of that supremely useful panacea called ichor, offered Wolfgang the position of Director of the Royal Academy of Sciences. The position would serve to remove Wolfgang from any position of real influence, without actually removing him from public life.
At the Royal Academy of Sciences, Wolfgang Rowan-Czarnecki could be allowed to slowly die a quiet death, uninvolved in any decisions where his apathy might directly harm the Empire.
He sat at his desk, waiting for his guest, and stared up at the ceiling. He felt that he spent more and more time lately with nothing to do but wait. He’d been taking more naps, just letting the quiet weight of his loneliness and loss bear him down into sleep. It gave him something to do while he waited for the next meal. Or visitor.
Wolfgang took the small brass device on his desk and wound