Nachtgedanken

[Kingdom of Candanadium]

The answers are, of course, varied but always rest on understanding the shifting temporalities of deep-sea resource making. This means that at times it is the fluidity, voluminosity and dynamism of the sea and seabed that matter in shaping deep-sea mining’s geopolitical possibilities. At other times, however...

The Chancellor tossed the report, turned to the second page, across his desk, the stapled pages fanning out over yet another unopened blue box of official papers. His pen, clutched tightly in his left hand, had remained capped, for he was in the habit of marking down documents of particular importance as he read. Box four of six of the night. Usually, by this time he would've come across some topic of even marginal importance — the corruption crisis in Luxlein, allegations of troops in Trefjall tearing up farmers' fields, an Edofasian warship calling at a Hykkogwa port. And yet, tonight, it seemed as if the Civil Service had done an exceptionally good job at obscuring the relevant information from him, hidden amongst heaps of technical reports on the state of the Candanadian mining industry, recent happenings at the World Congress, and similar nonsense.

The clock on his desk read 11:17. That meant that the sun had set just under three hours ago on this New Konigstadt June evening. He had mentally promised himself to only stay an hour after dark today, but evidently the repeated attempts at identifying the main point and relevance to government policy in these prosaic, scholarly sagas had taken a lot longer than he thought. Whatever happened to the junior analysts who were supposed to make sure he never had to read anything written by an academic in the original? Or, even better, what gives those tweed-wearing doctors and professors in the Universities' Quarter the idea that the Chancellor of Candanadium wants to read thirty-seven pages on the possible implications of legalizing deep-sea mining on not-yet-explored deep-sea marine ecosystems? Alas, he was just frustrating himself now. He picked up his landline.

"Yes, sir?"

"I'll be walking home today, Henry. No need to bring the car around."

"Very well, sir. I'll have Protection Branch send someone."

"Fine. Tell them to give me some distance."

"Yes, sir."

Pieter von Juppertal, one of His Majesty's Privy Council for Candanadium, Member of Parliament, Chancellor of Candanadium, walked up King William Street and turned right onto Hohentalerallee, despatch box in hand. In the two years he had served as chancellor, he had walked the just under two kilometres from the Chancellor's Office to his official residence at Deepwood Hall, that country house in a small wood in the middle of Candanadium's largest city and capital, just three times. It wasn't because he was too old or too fat for it, though being chancellor certainly did not lend itself to maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle. It just wasn't practical for the country's busiest man. And somehow, at the age of forty-one, he had ended up in that position.

In a way he had been born into it. The "von" in his name was simultaneously a burden and a boost for his political career. Being a junior son in the landed Kanadiaans gentry certainly got him in to the right schools, the right sports, and the right regiment when it came time to do his national service, but alienated him from much of the traditional voter base of the Constitution Party, the urban and suburban middle class. And yet the Conservative Party, with all its pomp and stiffness, was equally alienating to him as was the Democratic Party, with its liberal indulgence. So he revived the nickname he'd earned while at school, Piet, for his resemblance to a dour portrait of a long-dead Caskhomirian poet that haunted the common room. Pieter von Juppertal certainly seemed a lot more like a cosmopolitan, mixed-background yuppie that a Constitution Party voter might relate to than Peter-Maria Theobald von Juppertal, of Schloss Juppertal, and his election to Parliament six years ago with 72 per cent of the vote in his New Konigstadt constituency seemed to prove it. Never mind that he had spent his time after the army managing his father's estate and writing a column in a newspaper owned by a cousin instead of working his way through hard and bloody work up the corporate ladder in one of Candanadium's big firms. He had gotten there in the end, and that's what mattered.

But what about everything else that mattered? His family was certainly pleased by his achievement. After all, appointment as chancellor all but guaranteed an earldom, or at the very least a barony, post-retirement, and the von Juppertals of Schloss Juppertal were not part of the titled nobility, despite the best efforts of generations of Juppertal men. Yet to pass on the title to a von Juppertal would necessitate his having an heir, and being unmarried at forty-one certainly did not lend itself to that prospect. Courtship and marriage was simply not something he had the time for, and he just was not someone who needed sexual and romantic attraction in order to lead a stable, fulfilled life. Surely ascetic self-denial for love of country was nobility in itself? But was it love of country or something rather more selfish that made him want to be the man to lead Candanadium into the second decade of the 21st century? He could not say, for his mind had not the time to decide for itself.

He rounded the corner of the Hohentalerallee, past the illuminated blue-and-white Deepwood Hall U-Bahn station sign, onto Deepwood Approach and the gilded wrought iron gate to the Hall. The pedestrian door opened, the army sentry presented arms and the police constable saluted the Chancellor. He gave them a nod in acknowledgement and set off down the winding forest path, the lights of the Hall glimmering through the pines and oaks. A church bell struck midnight.