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Early summer, UC 800: a boy so drenched in blood and tears that he didn't know if the human body could contain anything else cried out: If only none of this had happened. None of it. None of it!
That night, while he slept, a man with no voice asked him, Do you mean it?
Yes, the boy said, and woke into another dream.
When Yang Wenli was five years old, he saw his parents for the last time. Later, when he went by a different name, he realized that he knew too little of them to find it sad. But growing up without his birth parents had surely influenced his life. As for what shape that influence took, it was impossible to conclude without a data set that no living human could obtain: how that hypothetical other Yang Wenli would have turned out, in an alternate universe.
He liked thinking about the hypothetical, though.
His mother’s parents took him in soon after she died. Yang’s father, who they referred to only as that man! in scandalized tones, was too shiftless and irresponsible to raise a child, and a merchant ship was no place to grow up. This, at least, was what his grandparents claimed. Yang’s own memory of his father was hazy. He had the barest impression of a loquacious, cheery man who tried to hold conversations with the boy of five as if he were an adult, a friend instead of a son. In later years he would wish he could recall what they had talked about.
There would have been a court battle, his grandmother told him later, but it turned out that man was in debt and had to flee the star system. (A proud sniff. You won’t turn out like him, will you?)
Perhaps to further remove him from his father’s shadow, perhaps to assert that his roots belonged with them alone, Yang’s grandparents registered him at school under their surname, Leclerc. There was a discussion in the principal’s office on whether his name was to be written in the Eastern or Western order. Wenli sounded enough like Henri, someone decided. His own opinion was not consulted.
The newly minted Henri Leclerc excelled in school, in his own odd way. He was a capricious bookworm of a child, hopelessly unathletic, and prone to procrastination and naps in unlikely places. His friends were few but devoted, though his closest friend Boris would move away a few years later. Henri was a troublemaker in spite of his calm appearance, questioning the rules in ways that could leave adults speechless. He quickly grew fascinated with history, in the long journey mankind had taken from their original planet to the present—to what he would see, as he grew older, as a troubled state.
His home life was placid and unremarkable. Aside from the unsolicited remarks about his father, his grandparents took a gentle and laissez-faire attitude towards him. He was the precious child of their precious child after all, poor dear Catherine who was lost too soon. There were reminders of his mother all around the house, so he never forgot her face. But aside from those photographs and trinkets, all he could remember of her was a kind voice, a reassuring softness from the very beginning of his life. It occurred to him that both his parents would soon be lost to history, that this too would be his own fate. Even if he had children and grandchildren (a thought he dismissed as unrealistic), the memory of his deeds and affectations would not survive long beyond them.
That suited him just fine. The thought of making something of oneself, of greatness, filled him with the slightest twinge of horror. Humanity was too in love with great men, too eager to force them into the narrative of history. He was content to observe.
It would be a shame if you didn’t apply yourself, the guidance counselor in high school told him. The military has use for someone like you. But Henri clung to his own course, and his grandparents, by now well into their old age, were only too happy their boy was not going to the front lines. They would easily finance his further education.
Henri Leclerc enrolled in Heinessen Memorial University as a history major. Living away from home for the first time was exhilarating, though not for his roommates, who had to deal with his slovenly habits. Within the first two weeks he entered a rebellious phase, incited by his grandparents’ increasingly frequent calls to him. Being too thoroughly lazy to dye his hair or stay out late, his primary act of rebellion was retaking his father’s name and appending it to his own.
Both his grandparents passed away during his first year at university, and Henri Yang-Leclerc felt genuine sorrow about it and regret for the nonsense with his name, which had caused more than one argument over the phone. He inherited the house, but did not find it a joy to return to, so he spent most of his holidays on campus, buried in his books.
The next few years passed quickly. In spite of sleeping through numerous classes and consuming entirely too much tea with brandy, Yang-Leclerc graduated as valedictorian. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to his graduation was his politically-charged writings for the student paper, which caused at least one government official to call the Dean in indignation. But in light of his stellar achievements, all this was swept under the rug.
The day of his graduation was bright but overcast. He held the diploma in his hand, felt the weightlessness of that piece of paper. A fleet of warships passed overhead, a cluster of black silhouettes that could almost be mistaken for birds. The future was an unknown, a blank off-white canvas like the sky, limitless and at the same time very small.
Without reason he remembered a tale his father used to tell him, something he thought he had long forgotten. A legend or a folktale from their ancestral culture, he wasn’t sure. In the story, a young man fell asleep and lived a lifetime of glory and turmoil, of great adventures and great losses. But when he woke up, he found that only a little time had passed, not even enough to cook a pot of rice.
How would you know? Little Yang Wenli had asked. How would you know you weren’t living in a story like that, that you weren’t living in a dream?
Well, his father had said, what I think is—
But blinking in the early summer sun, Henri Yang-Leclerc couldn’t remember what came next.
He entered graduate school because he did not know what else to do, or wasn’t sure there was anything else he wanted to do. The military was out of the question. Boris Konev, who had gotten back in touch with him after all those years, told him he should go into business. Then a laugh, distorted by static on the video phone: Nah, they’ll eat you alive.
Be serious, Yang-Leclerc said.
I think someone like you shouldn’t ever leave the ivory tower, Boris said.
Somehow I don’t think that’s a compliment, Yang-Leclerc said, scratching his head.
In the end he proved his friend right. The war with the Empire raged outside the small world of the university, and sometimes he was all too aware that he studied past wars to escape the realities of this one. But there was no escape, not really. Everything had its precedent. Every tragedy, to him, had already been foretold, if one only knew where to look. Everything was just so damn preventable.
But a doctoral student in the history department was hardly someone who could prevent it. No matter how brilliant his theories, they would never be put into practice. This life of obscurity was what he had chosen. It was not his own irrelevance that frustrated him, but the politicians who continued this war, but maybe that was just a tale he told himself.
Henri Yang-Leclerc completed his doctoral dissertation on the life of Bruce Ashbey, offering a surprisingly critical view of his effect on the Alliance. The dissertation was read—and praised—by more people than he expected, and a publisher offered him an eye-popping sum if he would turn it into a book. He said yes, he would work on it. He fully believed in his ability to write a book, and at the same time knew he would forget about it for at least two years.
He received several job offers. In the end, he became a professor of history at Central Autonomous Governance University in Heinessen. It was snowing when he moved his books into his new office. The room was weathered but comfortable, haunted by the scents of paper and ink and coffee, though soon the latter would be replaced by that of tea. Yang-Leclerc put down the last box of books and enjoyed a luxurious stretch. Like a cat, he thought. Maybe he should get a cat. For no reason he imagined himself dying a sudden death here, as an old man decades later, over another winter holiday. He would not be found until spring.
As a professor his contradictions were evident even to himself. He enjoyed teaching, but disliked speaking. He was late to class more often than any of his students. When he lectured, he would either pace or sit on top of the podium. Once he fell asleep in the middle of a final exam he was supervising, but no one in the class had dared to cheat. He had no patience for incurious students or those who parroted the government line, but genuine discussion excited him, and in spite of his distaste for hard work he could stay up half the night giving feedback on a particularly promising paper.
To half the students who took his classes, he was capricious and incomprehensible. To the other half, he was the most brilliant teacher they had ever had. Imagine if someone like you was running things, one student told him.
The problem with electoral government, Yang-Leclerc replied, is that the people who most want to run for office are those least suited to it.
He finished the book on Bruce Ashbey in exactly two years (though it had taken him an additional two to start). It made the nonfiction bestseller list. He was interviewed for various news outlets, a thoroughly miserable experience each time. He swore to never write a popular book again. Job Trunicht, at a campaign debate, was asked what he thought of the book and (politely) called it a load of shit. This Yang-Leclerc took as a badge of honor.
Working on another book yet? Boris asked him over the phone.
The problem, he replied, is with the first word in your question.
Hah. You never change. Listen, you ever consider moving to Phezzan? Things are looking kind of bad in your neck of the woods.
Maybe kind of bad is what we need, Yang-Leclerc said. Maybe we deserve the government we chose.
That’s kind of dark, Boris said.
Well, it won’t be relevant soon, he replied.
He had sold his grandparents’ house years ago, moved to a smaller, more humble residence close to the university. The house was in a perpetual state of disorganization, but after a literary journalist tried to interview him at home, he realized that even he had to clean up his act. It was too extravagant to hire someone to clean for him, and he was not going to marry or have (adopt?) a child. And besides, wasn’t there something wrong with him if his first thought about adoption was whether the child would be old enough to do housework for him?
So Henri Yang-Leclerc did the only thing he thought would motivate him: he got a cat.
The animal was an enormous poofy Himalayan cat, which he named Professor. Amazingly, out of sheer desire to not allow an innocent animal to live in squalor, Yang-Leclerc could now bring himself to clean the house on occasion, and he never missed a veterinary appointment. There was the added bonus that the next time a pesky journalist entered his house and called him professor, the cat would come running and add to their confusion. On slow evenings, with a book and a cup of tea that was mostly brandy, the cat next to him, he thought that life was good after all.
Daylight would bring more complaints. There was the matter of getting up earlier than he wanted to, the news that was always bad, and the distasteful parts of academia that had nothing to do with the pursuit of knowledge. Yang-Leclerc kept out of office politics, which made his colleagues think he was aloof, though there were a few who understood. His head ached every time he had to write a performance review or grant application. Why did he have to justify what he did? Was not the substance of it enough? Worse yet, the departmental chair was pestering him about that second book. His ability to get tenure, it was insinuated, hung in the balance.
But soon enough something happened to distract them both.
The Free Planets Alliance surrendered unconditionally to the Galactic Empire at the start of the new year. Yang-Leclerc was among the few who were not surprised. He had seen the rise of Reinhard von Lohengramm from the start, had assessed the state of the FPA and found no one who could equal that great tactical mind. While waves of disbelief and sorrow washed over the populace, he felt a subtle vindication without bitterness. The grand experiment of democracy had evaporated overnight, and there was no telling how much time would pass before it was ever attempted again. At least, he thought, the final years of the conflict had been decisive and brief.
Very little changed in his day-to-day life in the months that followed. The names of public institutions changed, the faces on the news now proclaimed loyalty to the Kaiser, and the economy was depressed for a time, but his work at the university continued. The currency changed, but not the units of measurement, much to his relief. The biggest change was that the military was disbanded, the soldiers returned home to other occupations, the news no longer filled with incredible tolls of death.
He was satisfied with that, he supposed. He had predicted another page in history, and even if his warnings had fallen on deaf ears, defeat was not so terrible when it came to pass. But at the time, yes, hadn’t he told anyone who would listen that the war was unsustainable? That he had better ideas? This was the substance of his fieriest lectures, the times he felt the most alive. If they would just do this or that differently in battle, in diplomacy, in everything—as if he was invested in the victory of the Alliance after all.
(—But what would you have done, if you were in the commander’s chair?)
The memory of that enthusiasm was unbecoming, as if he had some secret reason to be ashamed. He tried not to think about it, and then tried to think more about it, and a few weeks later he had the backbone of the second book.
The core of it was simple. Many people had lamented that the Alliance had lacked for talent in the war. If only they had a strategic genius, someone the people could rally behind, then they would not have lost. Yang-Leclerc’s argument was the opposite. If the FPA had been blessed with a heroic genius, an inspirational figure, then things would have been infinitely worse.
Just as in the case of Ashbey, he argued, strategic victories would only lead to hubris and a redoubling of war efforts. More battles, more deaths, and perhaps even something so disastrous as an invasion of the Empire. If this hypothetical genius had been able to seize Iserlohn, that would have instilled a false sense of security too. An impenetrable Iserlohn Corridor would have forced someone as relentless and inventive as Lohengramm to think of other measures. Perhaps—and this was the most shocking part of his speculation—Phezzan itself would have fallen. And ultimately every effort would be for naught. The FPA was still at an incredible disadvantage in terms of numbers and resources, and defeat was all but certain at the hands of an opponent like Lohengramm. The only difference was that in this hypothetical universe, it would have come a little later, at the cost of millions more lives.
His editor called and told him that the manuscript was too pessimistic. Yang-Leclerc, sitting cross-legged on his desk, replied that on the contrary, it was more optimistic than anything he wrote before. After all, he’d said that they were living in the best possible outcome.
He didn’t know if such a book would ever be published, but he felt an immense satisfaction that it was finished. There was a certain mischief to it, the same delight he had felt when he wrote seditious articles for the student paper. It was summer, and classes were out for the next few months. He expected he would have plenty of time to read and not do anything in particular.
Hey, I read that draft you sent me, Boris told him over the phone. Pretty wild stuff. But I expect nothing less from you.
What’s that supposed to mean? Yang-Leclerc asked, intentionally obtuse.
I think you should write a novel. It’d be an instant hit. Use a pen name—maybe the name you were born with, Wenli, yeah? That’ll be a good one.
Hah. Truth is stranger than fiction, you know.
And yet there you were, indulging in the craziest fictions possible. Phezzan subjugated? You have it out for me or something? (There was laughter in his friend’s voice.) But hey, you’re always welcome to move here. With what they’re saying about Reuenthal these days, maybe you should do it sooner than later. Come to the one place in the galaxy outside of the Empire’s reach. How does that sound?
Like it’s in name only, Yang-Leclerc replied, and imagined the sour look on his friend’s face.
You need some fresh air to cleanse your head of evil thoughts. So, now that you finished another big project. What’s next for you?
Good question, he said.
What was next for him, in this long dry summer? He looked out the window and thought about the story his father told him, the young man who had lived another life in a lazy afternoon’s dream. He had an ordinary life to return to when he woke up, one he treasured much more than before, once he had tasted the greatness and sorrows of the extraordinary. But what of the other people he had met in the dream? Did they simply vanish when he woke? Did they know, did they ever suspect that they were the supporting cast to someone else’s life, that their own joys and sufferings existed only to teach a lesson?
He shook his head, a small smile at the corner of his lips. Really, he was getting too fanciful. He wasn’t suited to writing fiction after all.
The editor called him back. The book was getting published, but with strings attached: he had to add more content to it, ground it in the real world. In fact, they wanted him to interview people who had been involved in the war, show them his work, ask their opinions on his crazy theories. Yang-Leclerc felt the onset of a headache. That sounded like entirely too much work, and his interview subjects would probably find his opinions offensive. And it was going to cut into his summer holiday. But his agent (when did he become someone who had an agent?) had already arranged the first interview for him.
So on a bright summer day, Henri Yang-Leclerc met the newly retired Admiral Dustin Attenborough at a café. Immediately his misgivings evaporated. Attenborough was a surprisingly young man with a pleasant, irreverent face and hair two shades lighter than his own. “First of all,” he said, before Yang-Leclerc had even sat down, “you have to promise me something very important.” He held a finger to his lips, as if this was a matter of great secrecy.
“Hmm…I can try. But only if it’s not too much trouble.”
“You have to call me Dusty.”
They held each other’s gaze for one long deadpan moment, and both burst into laughter. Soon enough they were drinking tea and talking like they were old friends. Dusty largely agreed with his writings: the war was a bad business, the former government of the Alliance not worth defending. “But you know what I think? There’s one flaw in your theories,” he added, eyes glinting with mischief.
“Oh? I’d like to hear it.” Yang-Leclerc was not averse to dissent, and the opinion of this man interested him.
“Your hypothetical genius commander. What’s stopping him from taking power? If he had the support of the military and the civilian population, he could easily stage a coup. And then—all bets are off! He wouldn’t be hampered by those windbags any longer. He could negotiate a suitable peace—or, if he plays things right, he could even win against the Empire.”
Yang-Leclerc made a face like his tea had just been replaced by coffee. “The military taking political power has never ended well. If not immediately, then in the long run, the effects on the nation would be detrimental. Ideally, this person would understand that and strive to avoid such an outcome.”
“Ideally, huh? So this guy you made up, he’s larger and better than real life after all. I thought you didn’t believe history needed great men, professor.”
He felt faintly embarrassed, though for no logical reason. “He isn’t great or ideal. At any rate, he’s not real.”
“Well, of course not. Don’t take it to heart—I think you’ve written a fine book. Not like my friend—okay, so don’t tell anyone, but I maaaaybe shared my advance copy with a friend…or two…anyway, this guy talked at me for like two hours about it. Said it was the most frustrating thing he ever read. If you ever meet a guy named Walter, my advice is, don’t.”
Before Yang-Leclerc could protest this unprofessional sequence of events, Dusty launched into another topic. They both had a second cup of tea, and Dusty went on to share some anecdotes about his service in the war. The man was a capable commander and even more capable storyteller, and Yang-Leclerc found himself enraptured with these tales of history as it was lived. “Well, see,” he interjected at the end of one story, “I think you would have won that battle decisively if only you’d changed your formation—”
“Hey now.” Dusty put his hand on his heart in exaggerated offense. “You had to be there, alright? Don’t go giving me pointers like you’re my upperclassman or something. Actually, that’s the vibe you give off. You’re like everyone’s upperclassman. I mean that in a good way, I swear.”
“That would be a problem,” Yang-Leclerc said, scratching his hair, “because I’m supposed to be their professor…”
“Hah! I’m sure your students like that you’re not above a little foppery and whim. Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you a favor. I know someone who wants to meet you.”
“Meet me? Why?”
“He’s been a fan of your work ever since your first book. Okay, so he’s technically my son. No, don’t give me that look! I’m a bachelor for life, and I’m dedicated to never personally contributing to the repopulation of the universe. I had to adopt him under Travers’s Law, see. He’s a good kid. Way too responsible for me, and I’m supposed to be the older one, but then he enlisted and gave me a heart attack every day for two years…anyway. Now that the war’s over, he wants to go back to school and study history, and you’re like, his idol or something.”
“Seriously?” Yang-Leclerc almost wanted to apologize for misguiding some impressionable young mind. All he had done was write what occurred to him. How did that make him worthy of anyone’s admiration? But then again, there was something hopeful about meeting an inquisitive mind from the next generation. Maybe it was just the teacher in him talking, but he wanted to do the best he could for this boy as a mentor. “Well, I’ll give it a shot. What’s his name?”
“Julian.”
When Yang-Leclerc met Julian for the first time, the younger man burst into tears.
A summer storm had just ended, and the sky above the public park was thick with towering clouds giving way to sun. Yang-Leclerc had only a moment to get a first impression of Julian—clean-cut and polite-looking, standing at attention as if he was still in the military—before his face collapsed into a sorrow entirely unexpected and out of place. “Are you okay?” Yang-Leclerc asked, though Julian obviously wasn’t. “I, ah…we can do this another day. Do you want me to call Dusty to pick you up?”
“No, I’m fine!” Julian shook his head, wiped his eyes as he tried to compose himself. “I’m…I’m so sorry about this. I didn’t think that…I’m sorry. Admir—Professor Yang. Could we just walk around a little first?”
They walked slowly. Yang-Leclerc was never good with handling the emotions of others, did not quite know what to say, but perhaps his presence was enough. After a while, Julian seemed to calm down. “Do you want to talk about it?” Yang-Leclerc asked.
Julian seemed like he both desperately did and did not want to. These emotions battled it out on his face, and he appeared to come to a decision. “Admiral. Uh. When I said…Admiral was my cat. My cat just died. That’s why I was sad. I’m sorry, it was immature of me.”
“No, no, it’s perfectly understandable. Animals can be like family to us.” Yang-Leclerc felt relieved that it was something he could offer comfort about, though he did not quite believe that was all.
“Yeah. Losing part of one’s family is…” Julian trailed off. They had come to a park bench, and both sat down.
“Do you want to talk about something else? To take your mind off it?”
“I was ready to ask you all about college applications and stuff and…I just can’t bring myself to do it right now.” A rueful smile appeared on Julian’s face. “But tell me about the book that you’re writing. Where did you get the idea?”
“I’m not sure,” Yang-Leclerc answered honestly. “It just came to me like it had already been written. In some version of events it might have been true. I like thinking about the hypothetical, I suppose.”
“I did too. I guess that’s why we tell stories. We try to make the hypothetical real.” Julian looked at some distant point in the sky. “Thank you for being patient with me, Professor Yang. For sitting here and talking like this.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Yang-Leclerc said, and that was the truth. He felt at ease around the youth in spite of his strange outburst, and was only too happy to guide him through whatever troubled him. “So tell me, what hypotheticals do you think about?”
Julian’s face tensed for a moment. “Suppose I made a very important decision,” he said. “Suppose I decided things for other people, without considering how they felt about it. Did I do something very terrible and wrong?”
“Well, I can’t say much without more information. It depends on how things turned out for them, and for you.”
“As well as I could hope for, I suppose. …Professor Yang. Do you believe that to avoid a great sadness, it’s better to give up a great joy?”
“You’re too young to talk about giving up a great joy. Whatever it is, I assure you, you can start again.”
“That’s true. We can start from the beginning.” For a flicker there was more hope than sorrow in the younger man’s smile, a touch of sun from behind the clouds before they closed in again. “You wrote that…we live in the best possible version of events.”
“Ah, so Dusty has been giving out my manuscript again.”
“Pff. He’s born to break the rules. But do you believe it, Professor Yang? Are you happy with this being the best possible version of events? The story of the last century is still a sad one, no matter how you look at it. Are you happy being the one to document it, instead of…”
He wants you to say yes, Yang-Leclerc realized. He desperately wants you to say yes. He has a terrifying, irrational certainty that you’ll say no.
He had never been quite content in his life, no. Something about it fit as ill as his oft-changing name. But he was well aware the professorship and all its trappings were the best he could hope for. A life in pursuit of knowledge, albeit an imperfect one, was the only thing he could imagine wanting. The discontent he felt—about the war, about human folly doomed to repeat itself—was just the natural state of someone who saw things too clearly. And if he lacked the company of those who understood him, well, it was never too late to start from the beginning.
And yet—the immense presence of the otherwise had always been there, the gravitational force exerted by an invisible stellar mass. He had written that story instead of living it. He could not possibly want to live it. (But maybe that wasn’t up to him.)
“There’s a story my father used to tell me,” he said. “A young man was dreaming—”
“No,” Julian said.
“You don’t want to hear it?”
“I don’t want to hear it! Do you know?”
Julian stood and turned to face him, the glint of fresh tears in his eyes. The wind was picking up, more autumn than summer by its chill.
“Tell me what you really wanted to say, Julian.” His voice was warm, without the slightest hint of admonishment, but firm enough to leave no room for doubt.
“Admiral Yang.”
The first drops of rain, from a sky half clouded and gray.
“Is it better to continue dreaming? Even if I’ll know. Even if the future is smaller and the past cannot be forgotten. Even if I lost many bright things too, along with what I tried to avoid. I’m sorry, Admiral, I should have asked you sooner. What do you want?”
Half clouded and gray, yes, but the other half of the sky was blue, warm with a tentative sun. What a strange, fickle thing this day was turning out to be. It could go either way.
For a moment he closed his eyes, turned his face upwards toward the gentle touch of the sunshower. When he opened his eyes again he met Julian’s gaze with a calm, almost sheepish smile.
"Well," Yang Wenli said, "what I think is–"