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Chapter One Thousand Two Hundred Seventy-Five
14th April 1958
Cam Ranh, Khánh Hòa Province, Vietnam
The good news was that Ilse didn’t immediately contact a solicitor, still the letter that Albrecht received when she learned that he had volunteered to command Dioscuri VI had suggested beyond the scathing words what she thought of that idea. There was evidence that she had done her best to shove the pen through the page as she had written it. Ilse admitted that she would be happy if he made it home by the start of June because Dioscuri VI was to splash down in the Atlantic. However, him getting blown to bits or incinerated on reentry leaving her a new mother and a widow would not be acceptable to her. Her opinion was that he had acted stupidly and impulsively. Hadn’t he watched any movies? He should know how these things ended.
That last part had puzzled him until he realized that Ilse was getting at the narrative cheap shot that screenwriters loved to use. The guy who has everything the live for is the one marked for death from the instant title appeared on the screen. It would be a punch to the gut except theater crowds had seen it dozens of times and cynically saw it coming from a thousand kilometers away.
“She does have a point” Sigi said when Albrecht had discussed it at the Raumfahrer club that had been established at Cam Ranh. That did put her at odds with the rest of the pilots, but most of them would give their left nut to be on an upcoming flight. As one of the few men in the Raumfahrer program who had already been in orbit, Albrecht had a leg up in getting assigned to be a Pilot Commander. What had to be worse from Ilse’s perspective, when Albrecht had volunteered for Dioscuri VI the Admiral had shown Albrecht the long-term planning beyond the Dioscuri project. The Taxidiotis project was planned to start when Dioscuri ended in a couple years. Taxidiotis was true exploration and the first real step towards what was the goal of the entire Space Program according to Wernher von Braun, cities in space.
Just looking at Taxidiotis, Albrecht had felt the rush of excitement that he felt whenever he looked at something that he knew would be great. He also knew that if he rushed to agree to get involved with the upcoming project without speaking with his wife then he wouldn’t need to worry about getting killed in an accident. That was because Ilse would murder him.
Berlin
“The Charlottenburg Palace is a tourist attraction run by the Hohenzollern trust” Kat said, “It is also where the hundred meets, while the Order is active. That is something that I figure you are already aware of.”
Kat watched as Charlotte looked around at the Eighteenth-Century finery that the palace was famous for. She had spent years working in Vienna on behalf of the welfare of children. She had actually gone into the working-class neighborhoods and seen the frequently difficult situations in families that arose when resources were stretched too thin or how sometimes people were cruel just because they thought that they could get away with it. A few questions from Kat had revealed that she was under no illusions about how such situations were limited to any one portion of humanity. Still, watching her look around the palace Kat was starting to think that there was a problem. Unless Charlotte had hidden depths, the Berlin Court was going to eat her alive.
Of all the women who could have caught Louis Ferdinand’s eye. Why did it have to be a Habsburg Archduchess? Kat thought to herself for what must have been the thousandth time. So far, the announcement of the engagement had upset the delicate balance that had been achieved in Eastern Europe. It was fortunate that the Austrian Government showed little interest in closer ties with Germany beyond trade and diplomatic concessions that were expected due to improved relations due to the marriage.
At the League of Nations, a massive circus was unfolding with way too many clowns. The long simmering dispute between Romania and Hungary had flared up. One would have thought that the Romanians would have had their hands full trying to contain the open revolt that was happening in Moldova. They apparently could divert from that long enough to saber rattle against the Hungarians over the border dispute that had been going on for decades. Then there were the Italians and the Slovenians who were once again making a diplomatic push for the seaport of Trieste that still belonged to Austria and against each-other. The French and British had never stopped worrying about an expansionist Germany. Now they were making noises about how they wouldn’t recognize any attempt of the German Empire to annex more territory in Europe. As if there were any plans in that regard.
Domestically, news of Louis’ impending marriage had also upset matters. While no one was discussing refighting the Thirty Years War, the division between the Catholic South and the Protestant North was something that had never gone away. It was a clearer line than Rural vs. Urban or Industrial vs. Agrarian that Demographers liked to use. Kat remembered there had been a few times she’d had Kira lecturing her about that after she had done something that could potentially upset the Catholic Church. Charlotte came from Austria, which was considered somewhat more conservative and homogeneous than Germany. The extremists among the far-right Nationalists sometimes in drunken, unguarded moments fantasized about what Germany would be like without all the Slavs, Danes, French or Jews depending on the part of the country in question. Kat knew it would look a lot like Austria, a place that wasn’t particularly exciting and even the urban centers traded on a heroic past rather than a vibrant present. Charlotte was also Catholic which pleased the Bavarians entirely too much. Who knew what the Slovaks or the Poles were thinking? It struck Kat that the Poles would probably remain fixated on Southern and Eastern Poland which many of them said was being colonized by Germany.
Louis had asked Kat to get Charlotte up to speed, to resume her role as the Dame Commander of the Order of Louise. Her old position as the Mistress of Keys or as Obersthofmeisterin was up for negotiation depending on what Charlotte wanted to do after the wedding. As pleasant as it was showing Charlotte around, Kat would feel the stress of this coiling in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to play the same role that she had under Kira, but what options was she being left with?
