I've Seen the Future (I Will Never Be Repatriated)

In the decade since the end of the war, Schneider had returned to Odin only once, to give Merkatz’s ashes back to his family. That had been immediately after the war had concluded, and it had been a miserable and short visit. Merkatz’s wife and daughter had not been pleased to see him, and he had only gone out of a sense of obligation. After leaving— or running away— he had never thought of coming back.

Since then, he had spent his time on Heinessen, doing very little that he cared to think about. He had worked as a business strategist for some firms there. It was the kind of job that one fell into by happenstance and name recognition rather than talent, but he had done his part, in some small way, to get the economy of the planet moving again. He didn’t hate the work, but what he had said to Julian, years ago, rang true: it was the end of his journey. He moved around the planet a lot, stayed in contact with no one, and had been blown by the wind rather than putting down roots. He was forty-two, now.

He couldn’t say exactly why he was returning to Odin, after all this time. He had an excuse, but it was nothing more than that. Merkatz’s daughter had sent him a letter, asking for his assistance: her mother was dying, and she requested that both her and her husband’s ashes be interred together in the Imperial fleet cemetery, claiming that it was what Merkatz would have wanted. Since Merkatz had left the Empire and had died in the service of a foreign army, his daughter had run into bureaucratic red tape trying to fulfill this request, and Schneider had been the only person she could think of to ask for help. He, after all, had been given a full pardon when he returned to Odin for the first time. Perhaps he could use that to argue that Merkatz would have gotten one, had he not died before he had the chance.

Regardless, none of this necessitated him returning to Odin. He could have made pleas by ansible call or letter, and he was sure they would have been answered eventually. But instead, he had quit his most recent consulting job, cleaned out his sparse apartment, and gotten on a ship to Odin.

It was a crisp autumn there when he landed. The city, which had once been the capital of the Galactic Empire, was still bustling, and it was a strange sensation to stand on a street corner again and hear all the passers-by speak in his native tongue. He fumbled the words when he flagged down a taxi and asked to be taken to his hotel, like he had lost even that part of his homeland. 

On the surface, the city was unchanged. Unlike so much of Heinessen, it had been untouched by most of the ravages of war. It was pristine and beautiful, just as it always had been. The brick and stone buildings still held themselves up with an untouchable permanence, and figures of gods and goddesses still peered with marble faces and stately grace from atop fountains and in small alcoves. It was only when Schneider looked closely that he saw the subtle changes: familiar landmarks of statues of old nobility had been removed; street names had been changed; on buildings that had once borne the Goldenbaum crest, there were scars in the stone where it had been chiseled off. The Golden Lion decorated the official signage. And, in the bustling market areas of the city, some of the products and storefronts carried labels and advertisements in a second language, the one that was spoken in all the former Free Planets Alliance territories that had been ceded to the Neue Reich. 

The differences were subtle, but Schneider noticed them, and was discomfited by them. His childhood elementary school had been torn down, and his family, who had long-since disowned him, had moved out of the city. It wasn’t that he had any desire to return to the past that all of these things represented, but it was a stark reminder of his rootlessness. 

After several days of wandering the city alone, Schneider finally asked to see the person he had ostensibly come to Odin to speak to. His request was granted without fuss or delay.

The Muckenburger family manor was one thing that was hardly changed from the days of the Goldenbaums. It was just as imposing and austere as it had always been, in the days when Schneider had been working in the Ministry of War and had driven past it on his way to the building. Only, in those days, the Goldenbaum flag had waved in the wind on the flagpole out front. Now, like every flagpole everywhere else, the red and gold Lion emblem streamed out in the breeze. Schneider looked up at it as he walked up the gravel drive and rang the doorbell.

A servant let him in to the dark and cool hallway, and showed him to a library. He looked around at the shelves of books and the memorabilia in glass cases. There was a small model of Muckenburger’s former flagship, the Wilhelmina , some dueling pistols in a velvet case, and various commemorative medals, trinkets, and photographs. On the wall was a portrait of Muckenburger’s father, staring down over the library with a hard expression. Schneider was looking up at it when the door opened, and Fleet Admiral Muckenburger walked in. Schneider turned on his heel and saluted crisply. They were both wearing civilian clothes, but even so, it felt only appropriate.

Muckenburger saluted back, but it was an action that revealed his age. He must have been almost eighty, and though he could probably expect to live another decade, the intervening years since his retirement from the fleet had taken their toll on him. He was no longer the broad shouldered man that Schneider remembered from tagging along with Merkatz to meetings of the Admiralty— he had become quite slender, and his formerly bushy grey sideburns had thinned and been trimmed quite close to his square jaw.

 “I’m sorry to disturb you at home, Fleet Admiral,” Schneider said. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”

Muckenburger raised an eyebrow (those, Schneider noted, were as thick as ever), and gestured to the couch for Schneider to sit. “Were you under the impression that I had much pressing on my time, Commander Schneider?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t presume, sir.” 

Muckenburger barked out a laugh. That, too, was like Schneider remembered. Not that he had ever been a particularly jovial man, but he was loud, and even his dry amusement filled a room. “No,” he said. “Very little occupies my days. A soldier having nothing to do in retirement is practice for the tomb, one of my superiors once told me. He was two years from retirement, and looking forward to it despite what he said, but he was killed in action. But that was many years ago.”

“Yes, sir.” It was strange, for a fleet admiral to be entertaining a commander, but Muckeburger was at ease, in a way he would not have been if they were in uniform. But Schneider couldn’t help but pay attention to these differences between them.

Muckenburger leaned forward. “I myself should be honored that the last soldier of the Goldenbaum Dynasty has come to pay my a visit in my retirement. I hope you’re not here to tell me that there’s an eighteen year old brat somewhere out there claiming to be king, who wants me to take up arms for him.”

“No, sir,” Schneider said. “I’m not that kind of man. And even if I was, the flag outside your door would have done enough to dissuade me.”

“Not that kind of man?” He leaned back on his velvet couch. “You fought for Erwin Josef once, but you wouldn’t again?”

“There are as many reasons for soldiers to fight as there are soldiers, sir,” Schneider said. “And I’m afraid relatively few of them are Kaiser and country.”

That also entertained Muckenburger. He pointed to the portrait of his father. “True. I became a soldier as his dying wish, and stayed because I was better at it than he was.”

“Better because you survived, sir?”

“My father let it become personal. I came close to making the same mistake, but I didn’t.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“My father chased his grudges to the grave.” Muckenburger turned, and looked out the library window, where the Lion flag was fluttering. “I certainly could have done the same. But I chose not to.” He looked off into the distance. “I was sorry to hear that Admiral Merkatz had died, in the end. There were very few talented men of our generation left, even then.”

“I don’t think he was chasing a grudge,” Schneider said.

“No? The second-to-last soldier of the Goldenbaum Dynasty didn’t hold a personal grudge against Kaiser Reinhard?”

“The only thing that he knew how to do was be a soldier,” Schneider said. “I don’t belive he ever could picture himself living in a world where he couldn’t continue to be one.”

Muckenburger was silent for a moment. “It’s a different world.” He turned back to Schneider, pulling his eyes away from the flag outside. “You have a longer time to live in it than I do. Since you’re alive, you couldn’t also have been motivated by the desire to stay a soldier forever.”

“No, sir,” Schneider said.

“And since you’re not here on the behalf of a once and future king, it must not be a personal grudge against the Lohengramm Dynasty.”

“No, sir.”

“Well?”

“There was only ever one man I wanted to follow,” Schneider said. “If he had died before the end of the war, I probably would have found a different reason. But he died, and I’m not a soldier anymore.”

“Picking a different man to pledge yourself to would have gotten you farther, Commander.”

“I know. But that had nothing to do with my reasons.”

“You’ve earned your small place in the history books regardless,” Muckenburger said. 

“Nothing compared to yours, sir.”

“Oh, I can imagine what they’ll say about me when I’m gone,” he said. “‘Having built and maintained a disciplined military force, he was apolitical to the last, and gave the reins to the next generation as a matter of course.’ That’s what some will say.” He looked out the window again. “The less generous among them will argue that I couldn’t have stopped Lohengramm if I tried, even if I had kept all the fleets under my command.”

“Why didn’t you try, sir?”

“I found Baron Flegel to be a deeply distasteful man, and I didn’t think much of his uncle, either,” Muckenburger said. This may have been true, but it was not the full reason, and Muckenburger delivered it in a flat voice, fully expecting Schneider understand that he was lying.

“You could have joined Kaiser Reinhard instead.”

“I could have.” He paused, then said. “He would have liked to see me bow to him. He was that type of man.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I had wanted to die in battle, I would have followed him. None of the old guard fared well in his command: Steinmetz, Lennenkampt. He would have said they lacked the adaptability of youth, but they were good soldiers. Merkatz was right that if he wanted to be put to use, he would be more useful on the other side of the galaxy.” He let out a short breath. It could have been amusement or resentment— Schneider couldn’t tell. “He wasn’t wasted, anyway.”

“I’m glad you think so, sir.”

“Why does it matter what I think?” Muckenburger asked. And he looked in Schneider’s eye. “We never got along particularly well, Merkatz and myself.”

“I convinced him not to kill himself, at the end of the civil war, and to defect instead. I think he would have liked to know that his homeland didn’t universally hate him after that.”

Muckenburger chuckled, then waved his still-broad hand to encompass the room, the galaxy. “What homeland, Commander?”

“Has it been different?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Muckenburger said. “I’m living in the old world, and one more piece of it will die with me.”

Schneider wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be. Merkatz probably would have learned to find retirement as tolerable as I have, had he lived to see it.”

Schneider frowned. “I would have liked to been able to trick him out of dying twice. But he made up his mind too quickly, the second time.”

“Yes,” Muckenburger said. “That is how it goes.” They were silent for a moment. “But you, Commander. You’re young. You should tell me how it is to live in the new world.”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know.” The flat delivery called to mind the calm before the storm of some of Muckenburger’s famous reprimands. Even retired, he didn’t like that kind of an answer.

“I’ve been living on Heinessen. I never knew what it was like in the Free Planets Alliance before the very end. I think— Admiral Merkatz and I were some of the first people to really live in Kaiser Reinhard’s new world, though I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that before now..”

Muckenburger nodded. After a moment, he asked. “Are you here because you want to be repatriated?”

“As you said, sir, there’s no homeland to be repatriated too.” He paused. “But I don’t know. I haven’t done anything with the past ten years. Heinessen never was my home, even if I lived there.”

“It’s funny,” Muckenburger said. “So many people pledged to follow Kaiser Reinhard through any storm, and then he died with the universe at peace for the first time in over a century.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There are some men in this world who need a lodestar.” But his gaze sharpened on Schneider, who sat stiffly under it. “Those type of men are not the ones who would defect across the galaxy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Only the dead can truly be citizens of the past. You live in the new world. Figure it out, Schneider.” This was a command, barked in a way that made Schneider straighten his back.

“Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

“I doubt there’s much for you on Odin,” Muckenburger said. “The new world is on Phezzan. Or go back to Heinessen, if you prefer it.”

“You think I should swear allegiance to the young Kaiser?”

“A young Kaiser is easier to swear to than an old one,” Muckenburger said flatly. “An infant or a ten year old hasn’t had time to disappoint you, yet.”

Schneider laughed uncomfortably.

“But do what you like. I’m not your commanding officer.” Muckenburger stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “You didn’t come here to ask for advice, or talk about the past, did you?”

“Er, no, sir,” Schneider said, flustered by the sudden subject change. “I came to ask for your help on an administrative matter.”

Muckenburger raised an eyebrow, and so Schneider explained the situation, with Merkatz’s wife wanting to be buried with her husband in a fleet cemetery. Muckenburger listened carefully.

“Why did you come to me?” he asked. “I have no formal power at all.”

“No one in the government on Phezzan would care at all, sir. They might say yes to get me out of their hair. But I wanted to make sure—”

“That it was approved, to bury a traitor in a fleet grave?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, with some hesitation.

“I’ll take care of it,” Muckenburger said. “I’m surprised they want to bury him after a decade. I assumed they would have already done something with the ashes by now.”

“I couldn’t explain it, sir.”

“It will be good to put him to rest, after all these years.” He smiled, grimly, for the first time. “I’ll see if there’s any military surplus tombstones with the eagle on them. They might not have all been broken up for gravel yet. He’ll have the last one.” The morbid question that Schneider wanted to ask, Muckenburger answered without him needing to open his mouth. “As the von Muckenburger heir, I’ll have the family crest on mine.” He chuckled. “It will be the last of those, too.”

---

Schneider attended the small funeral for Merkatz’s wife, among rows and rows of white headstones, most without bodies beneath them. The few weeks of delay between his conversation with Muckenburger and the last of the paperwork going through meant that it was now much deeper into autumn, and the wind was whipping over the treeless plain, pulling at the petals of the fake silk flowers that some headstones gathered. 

The single coffin— box, really— held the two urns of ashes, and personal mementos chosen by family for Merkatz’s wife. They were enigmatic objects to Schneider, since he did not know her. He felt deeply out of place as he brought his own offering up to place in the coffin: a single, depleted energy pack from a handgun. He tucked it next to the ashes he had once carried across the galaxy, which were once the body of a man he had followed further than that.

The wound was still fresh, even after a decade, and when they lowered the coffin into the ground, beneath the headstone with the raised Goldenbaum crest, Schneider clenched his fists and tried to stop wondering what it would have been like to follow Merkatz to the grave, as well.

His daughter Cora, a pretty woman in her thirties, spoke to him briefly, as they were the last ones standing around the grave, the fresh dirt.

“Thank you for arranging this,” she said. “I think it’s what he would have wanted.”

“It was no trouble. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s alright.” She looked across the graves. “I should apologize to you.”

“What for?”

“My mother and I were angry at you, when you came to speak with us after the war,” she said. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“I understand. It was probably my fault that he didn’t ever come home to you alive.”

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t that.”

“What was it?”

“We had been told that he was dead, after Vermillion,” she said, swiping some stray brown hair that had blown into her eyes. “It was a shock to find out that he wasn’t, and when you came to tell us that he was dead again— there was a part of me that hoped…”

“I understand,” Schneider said. “It was hard to accept myself.”

She nodded. “I think it took my mother almost to the end to give up hope.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. I think I did most of my grieving when he left with Prince Braunschweig. The rest was just echoes.” She shook her head. “I’m sure you were closer to him than I was.”

“There’s a part of me that’s still listening for him to give me orders.”

She laughed, but it was a sad little sound. “I understand.”

Schneider didn’t know what to say to that, so just nodded. “Have you been alright on Odin?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “The way he left, he made sure we would be. And the Lohengramm government was merciful to us. And you— are you doing well?”

“Yes,” he said, but he wasn’t sure that she believed him in the least.

“Are you going to stay on Odin?” she asked. “If you are—”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think I could really ever feel at home here. It’s different than it used to be.”

“Back to Heinessen, then? That’s where you’ve been living, right?”

“I was living there. But recently, it was suggested to me that I go to Phezzan,” he said.

“Phezzan?” she asked. “Why there, of all places?”

Schneider looked up into the sky. “It’s a place that only the new generation seems to call home. Everyone else there is an expat, or at least a citizen of a new government. I’d fit in.” He smiled. “I think it’s time for me to try living in the new world, if I can.”