Chương 427: 201.Tense String 1

Back in my room, the door lock gave a soft click. A small sound, yet it had a strange knock-off-for-the-day flavor to it. Regrettably, I was clearly still on the clock. In fact, strictly speaking, it had the flavor of overtime.

After all, the average person's "evening itinerary" generally didn't include: slipping into the Imperial Hotel, getting press-ganged into champagne duty, quietly disposing of a baroness, eavesdropping on two noble factions falling apart, then coming home to sort out the political value of an artificial celestial fortress and a princess. I took off my coat and hung it over the back of the chair.

Then I laid out, item by item on the table, the signet ring and the dispatch card I'd taken from Baroness Letitia, along with the key phrases I'd replayed in my head several times. The tabletop was spotless. Too spotless to be worthy of tonight's contents. I sat down and looked at the signet ring first. In the suite, held in my palm, it had felt like power. Now, under the lamp, it looked more like some miniature instrument of torture.

The nobility liked to write blood beautifully, make orders elegantly, and narrate "this is all for the sake of order" as if it were dessert. The most frightening thing about civilized society was probably this: it never ran short of blades — only of the willingness to make the blade into jewelry.

"... All right." I pressed my forefinger to the tabletop and began reordering. First, Baroness Letitia was missing. Not "dead" — at least not yet. Officially, she was still only missing. That was better than a death announcement blowing up immediately. Because a corpse makes people lock things down, while a disappearance makes people argue first. The former tightens easily; the latter leaks. That nest of punctured hornets in the third west-side private room had already proven it in practice tonight.

Second, the south side's command was in paralysis. To be precise, not annihilation — a severed line. Baroness Letitia's people needed her signet to move; without her, at least the visible half wouldn't dare act on its own. That meant if someone moved against Hedwig tomorrow, their strength would be short one chunk first. Not a complete victory, but enough to buy me a few more minutes. And for me right now, a few minutes were already a high-end luxury. Third, what the two princes truly feared was not Hedwig herself.

I paused. This point mattered enough to warrant a pause. Plenty of things, knowing and understanding were two different things. The former was like picking up a single puzzle piece; the latter was like discovering you had to tear down the whole wall and rebuild it. Hedwig was not a mere princess. Not a pretty political ornament. Not that kind of exquisite symbol you put on propaganda posters so the subjects would feel the Empire still had a future. She was a key.

And the lock that key really fit wasn't herself — it was her mother, the Empress Elizabeth von Hohenlohe, and that artificial celestial fortress named Hohenzollern. I leaned back in the chair and pressed my fingers to my brow. Hohenzollern. That name no longer sounded like the propaganda in the textbooks — "the Empire's border defense symbol," "the shield of galactic order," the kind of phrases that worked fine for soothing children and soothing the parliament alike. It had become something closer to reality.

An artificial giant celestial body, one hundred twenty kilometers in diameter, with a mass of roughly six hundred trillion tonnes. An iron fortress that could shift space routes, defense lines, the military power structure, and the balance of imperial succession. A key draped in the skin of the nation, but actually held by the noble family and the Empress's faction. Lent to the Empire. Those four words alone were enough to keep anyone seated on the throne from sleeping soundly.

In ancient times there were border marquises. With land, soldiers, walls, banners — and, when necessary, the nerve to turn their backs on the center. And now? Now was the upgraded version. Not a marquis of some border planet. A border marquis holding an entire artificial celestial body, written into the Empire's own military doctrine.... No wonder. I thought to myself. No wonder both the Grand Prince and the Second Prince were afraid.

No wonder both sides wanted to choke Hedwig out before she ever truly got her footing. No wonder Colonel Wiesland had tossed me here with a crate of explosives to spare, as if to remind me this wasn't guarding a little princess on an outing — this was some kind of prelude to an imperial civil war, wrapped in the packaging of youth. I looked down at the signet ring on the table. Hedwig wasn't one person. At least, not to them. Hedwig equaled Hohenzollern. Equaled Elizabeth von Hohenlohe.

Equaled the legitimacy, should it ever become necessary, by which the Empress's faction could wrench the entire fortress from "commonly held by the Empire" back into "owned by the Hohenlohes." Hedwig was a princess. But the more troublesome thing was, Hedwig was also the doorway. Thoughts like that made me feel my earlier assessment of Her Highness had been somewhat rude of me.

Not that she was particularly innocent by nature — I'd never held high expectations of royal temperaments — but I'd originally pegged her as just a high-value target, and only now realized she was more like the switch that would set fire to the whole chessboard.

"... You really couldn't tell." I leaned back and let out a small breath. By daylight, Hedwig at most looked like the sort of student with excellent grades, strict upbringing, and a generally sour mood. Walking through the campus, she at most seemed hard to get close to — she wouldn't make anyone instantly think of an artificial celestial fortress one hundred twenty kilometers across. But that was the Empire for you.

It loved putting the things that could blow up the world inside the prettiest, most dignified, most promotional-ready boxes. I withdrew my hand and glanced at the time again. It was late. If I didn't sleep soon, when I ran to the embassy in the morning, my corpse-like expression might lead that plain-looking man to conclude Colonel Wiesland had finally worn me out.... Though from a certain angle, it wasn't entirely a misunderstanding. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen.

Please report the violation. I put the signet ring and the dispatch card away, then pressed the conclusions I'd sorted tonight, one by one, deep into my memory. Baroness Letitia: handled. South side command: temporarily paralyzed. The two princes fear not the princess, but the Empress and Hohenzollern. Hedwig is not merely a princess — she is a key. Good. The puzzle at least resembled a picture now. As for whether that picture would end up painting me into a coffin too — that was tomorrow's problem.

I switched off the desk lamp, leaving only the small light by the bed. The room grew dimmer, and more honest. That was probably the greatest difference between day and night. By day you could still pretend you were processing a routine; at night, you were only processing lives. I flopped onto the bed and closed my eyes. The last image to surface wasn't Baroness Letitia, wasn't Hohenzollern, and wasn't Colonel Wiesland's face — well suited for printing on denial-of-reimbursement forms. It was Hedwig.

That displeased gaze. That clean line of her jaw. And that quiet that seemed perpetually ready to find fault with the world.... A key, huh. In the darkness, I laughed softly.

"These days, even a princess can't simply be a princess." And then I fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up right on time. So on time I suspected my body had secretly signed some sovereignty-and-dignity-ceding work clause with Colonel Wiesland. But whether or not I wanted to admit it, a mission's internal clock was usually more reliable than one's character. That was probably one of the biggest side effects of training.

You could be lazy, tired, and mentally sculpt your superior into three hundred different shapes — but when it was time to wake, you'd still wake. I washed my face, changed into low-presence outing clothes — no school uniform, and none of those persona skins that had tormented me in the mirror last night. First stop of the morning: the embassy. However dull such a place was, it wasn't the school uniform's stage. Wear the wrong thing and it'd be as offensive as showing up to a wake in a swimsuit.

The morning of Copernicus Lunar City was artificially brightened by the light-shielding system. The sun hadn't really risen. The city had simply decided it was time to be bright now. Listening to this kind of civilizational progress long enough always reminded me of those adults who thought they were great at taking care of you — wanting to schedule even when you wake and when you sleep.

The only difference was that the light-shielding system was better-mannered than people: at least it didn't add a "it's for your own good" to the morning. The Galactic Federation Embassy in the Lunar City looked, by daylight, even more like an oversized filing cabinet than it had last night. Rectangular, clean, efficient, and carrying a sense of security utterly devoid of entertainment value. The virtue of such buildings was that they didn't attract attention; the flaw was that they weren't likeable either.

It was hard to develop feelings for a building that looked like it could staple an application form into your soul. I went in, followed the route I'd memorized the day before, passed through two layers of security checks and a corridor that always smelled of photocopy paper, and finally stopped in front of the office of a man who was unremarkable — a room not large, not well-lit, yet perfectly suited to housing him. I knocked. From inside came a quick:"Come in." I pushed the door open and stepped in.

The man was, sure enough, the same as ever. Plain-looking. Plain in a very earnest way. Not ugly, not distinctive — the kind of plain where even if you'd met him five minutes ago, you'd struggle to recall his exact features ten minutes later. A face like that would be cheating if it went into intelligence work. The intelligence community should pay a subsidy for faces like his.

He looked up, saw me, paused for a beat, and seemed to rapidly re-verify last night's handover data, this morning's schedule, and my entire reason for existing, before he spoke.

"Miss Ayase."

"Good morning." I stopped in front of the chair without sitting down first. The man gave me a look, apparently reading that I wasn't here to chat about the Lunar City's dining culture, and set down the document in his hand — whether official missive or life's last will was anyone's guess.

"Any supply items needed?" Direct. Good. I liked this kind of person. Not because he was charming, but because he knew what his function was in this kind of story.

"Yes." I said. The man rotated the tablet on his desk toward himself, ready to take notes.

"Please go ahead." I looked at him, my tone flat.

"I need three hundred units." The man's pen stopped.

"... Three hundred units of what."

"Those items." I said.

"The extended requirement I mentioned yesterday. I'll get you the size range and specifications later — just note the quantity down for now." The man looked up at me. On that face — plain enough to inspire respect — the first genuine emotion of the day finally appeared. Not shock. Confusion. A very reserved, very restrained, very bureaucratic-system brand of confusion.

In short, the expression that said: "I think something about this request is off, but my superiors told me to cooperate fully, so I'd better swallow my confusion and express it more politely."

"That's a large quantity." the man said.

"I know."

"It exceeds the original estimate."

"I know that too." He was silent for a moment.

"Was the situation on site yesterday really that bad?" I looked at him. That question sounded like an ordinary sentence, yet it happened to expose one thing: Colonel Wiesland's authorization to this man probably only went as far as "cooperate fully" — not "don't ask questions." That was reasonable. To most normal people, opening with a request for three hundred units, with the specifications asked to be kept classified, already sounded like preparing to host a slightly oversized school festival on the Lunar City.

A pity I wasn't in the mood to explain much today.

"If I said it wasn't bad, I wouldn't be standing here." I said. The man fell silent again. Then he nodded.

"Understood." Good. A quick study.

"Also," I added, "for the official record, please write it as weapons, ammunition, communications supplies, and general logistical resupply. Split the quantity — don't concentrate it." This time the man didn't nod immediately. He looked at me for two seconds first. Those two seconds were brief, yet enough to convey a very low-key professional competence. He wasn't completely clueless. He simply never needed to understand to this depth in his daily work.

Now that someone had set a whole tangle of requirements too awkward to write into official reports on his desk, he could only rely on administrative instinct and self-preservation to package them into forms less likely to stop his heart during a future internal audit.

"... Understood." the man said. Only then did I sit down in the chair.

"Delivery time."

"The first batch can arrive by evening today." the man said as he wrote.

"For everything to be complete, no later than tomorrow noon."

"Too slow." He looked up. I met his eyes, my tone unchanged.

"By tonight, I want to see at least half." The man's Adam's apple moved, very faintly. Good. He was finally starting to feel that this was more than "school trip support."

"I'll find a way."

"Not find a way. Do it." The moment that line left my mouth, I thought it sounded a little familiar.... Damn. This tone — hang around Colonel Wiesland long enough, and you really did pick up bad habits. The man seemed choked by the line too, but he didn't argue. He just lowered his head, finished the last few lines, and set the tablet aside.

"Anything else？" I thought for a moment.

"Yes. Breakfast." The man froze.

"... Breakfast？"

"Do you have any here?"

"We do."

"Then that's settled." The man looked at me, and for the first time, something close to blankness crossed his face. I had a fair idea what he was thinking, roughly: this Miss Ayase had just asked for three hundred units of something he wasn't sure belonged on a résumé, and now she was sitting in his office asking about breakfast as if nothing had happened. That kind of whiplash was probably unhealthy for a typical administrator. But this was Colonel Wiesland's fault.

In that call yesterday, his obsession with breakfast had reached an almost cursed intensity. If I went back to class on an empty stomach now, I might actually end up saluting some teacher in the classroom. That scene would be too embarrassing to risk.

So ten minutes later, I sat at the embassy's shabby-but-surprisingly-earnest breakfast table, eating a meal whose texture said "an administrative unit doing its earnest best to prove it can also manage daily life," while watching the plain-looking man stand by the door, quietly arranging today's logistics into a terminal. Watching him, I suddenly felt like holding a moment of silence for him. This man probably thought today's job was supporting an attaché trainee on a school outing.

And by the end of the morning, his mission had become: helping someone whose face looked young but whose speech increasingly resembled a colonel's split three hundred unspeakable requirements across the books, with breakfast on the side. Life was hard. I finished breakfast and stood up. The man happened to end his call.

"I'll be temporarily back in the student group before noon today." I said.

"Any progress, use yesterday's channel."

"Understood." Looking at that face of his — so suited to being overlooked by history — I suddenly felt this man was actually rather impressive. Being able to live featurelessly inside a story of this caliber was itself a talent.

"Thanks for the work." I said. The man was taken aback for a moment, as if he hadn't expected the extra line. Then he bowed his head, very slightly.

"You're welcome." I turned and left the office. As I walked out of the embassy, the Lunar City's white light had grown brighter than the morning. The student group's convoy was scheduled to arrive around noon, and what I had to do next was, in a sense, even more tiring than carrying champagne last night. I had to go back and put on the school uniform.

Then fold Hoshino Shimo back into the shape of a mere second-year student, slip into the class, and take part in those school activities that ran on schedule, brimmed with educational significance, looked peaceful on the surface, and in reality came one step short of writing "bomb" on the itinerary.... Human society was sometimes so exquisitely nauseating. Back at the lodging, I put away the bits of material I'd brought from the embassy and my own things, then took out the school uniform.

Hanging in the room, the uniform even looked harmless. Dark, neat, youthful. A fabric assembly designed to reassure adults, photograph well for publicity, and let students mistake themselves for still having an ordinary daily life. I put the uniform on. The person in the mirror instantly got a few years younger. Not the face changing — the atmosphere.

Embassy, hotel, noble's suite, artificial celestial fortress — all of it seemed tucked into a pocket, leaving only a female student of school-trip age on the surface.... How convenient. And how disgusting. Convenient, the disguise. Disgusting, that the world genuinely permitted such a disguise to exist. I tidied my collar, stood before the mirror, and took another look at myself. Now, when I looked at Hedwig, I wouldn't just see a troublesome schoolmate. I'd see the key. I'd see Hohenzollern.

I'd see the Empress Elizabeth von Hohenlohe. I'd see the reason both the Grand Prince and the Second Prince wanted to strike first. I'd see how, one day in the future, that giant artificial celestial body might tip toward which side — and even decide how many people lived and how many died. And at noon, I'd be standing in formation in this uniform, together with the key, listening to roll call, to classmates chatting, to the activity briefing, pretending to be an ordinary student. Ordinary my ass.

I looked down and buttoned the last button.

"... All right." I said to the person in the mirror, who looked more harmless than her actual age.

"Time for class." And I picked up my bag and pushed the door open.