"I, Mengsk" - читать интересную книгу автора (McNeill Graham)

CHAPTER 12

ARCTURUS ADJUSTED THE DIALS AT THE SIDE OF the resonator, wiping a film of moisture from its screen as the green lines of the display shifted and danced. The gravimetric readings were fluctuating, and though he was sure there was a sizable deposit beneath his feel, the machines just weren't confirming what his instincts were telling him.

Looking up from the magnetic resonator, Arcturus cast his eyes over the dig site. Situated in one of the deep, mist-shrouded valleys of Pike's Peak, the cleared terrain was dominated by six tall drilling rigs that cored the dense rock at the base of the river canyon.

Battered hab-units and storage bins were scattered across the drier pans of the valley floor while men in SCVs worked the coring drills and chugging sifters worked night and day to separate what came up.

Which, so far, was absolutely nothing of worth.

Arcturus knew he was risking a lot with this venture, having sunk most of the money he'd made in the last two mines into this hunk of rock out in the far reaches of the rim. But so far his intuition—which had served him so well in the past—hadn't uncovered the vast seam of valuable minerals he felt sure was burled far below the regolith. The shallower valleys were paying out for other prospectors, but so far this deep one had failed to yield any treasures.

He swore and slammed his palm against the side of the machine as a voice behind him said. “I keep telling you, Arcturus, there's nothing in this valley worth a damn."

"It's here, Dia," said Arcturus, looking up to see Diamond de Santo watching him, her hands planted squarely on her hips. "I can feel it."

Like Arcturus, de Santo wore the heavy-duty work clothes common to most outer rim prospectors: heavy-weave trousers, a quilted jackel with numerous pockets, and a battered hardhat. She wore her dark hair in dreadlocks now and had them pulled in a tight ponytail at the base of her skull.

De Santo bent down to examine the resonator as a jerking sine wave wobbled across its display. At last, Arcturus gave up on the magnetic resonator and stood up straight, wincing as sharp pain flared in his lower back.

"Too much bending over," said de Santo.

"You're probably right," agreed Arcturus, rubbing his hand over his grimy face and then through his hair. There were strands of gray in it now and he knew there was only going to be more of them in the future. He'd seen Angus on the UNN yesterday and his father's hair had gone almost completely silver, so he at least knew he'd likely not be bald when he got older.

"You ain't a young man no more," said de Santo, with a smile. "Nearly thirty."

"I'm only twenty-eight," said Arcturus. "I'm not over the hill quite yet."

"Yeah, but you can see it from here. Soon it'll be all downhill for you."

"You're in a cheery mood today, Dia. What's the matter?"

De Santo shrugged, waving a hand at the work going on around them. "You need to ask?"

"Of course. What's the matter?"

"Look around you, Arcturus," said de Santo. "We've been here two months and we ain't found a damn thing worth sticking around for. I know you think there's a big score in this valley, but there's nothing here."

"There is, Dia, I'm sure of it," said Arcturus. "I can feel it."

"Oh, you can feel it, can you? Then how come the geological mapping, the gravimetric analysis, and the rock assay reports all say the same thing? There ain't nothing here, and you're going to lose everything if we don't cut our losses and move on soon."

Arcturus rounded on de Santo. “Our losses? I seem to remember it being mostly my money that started this venture—bought all these machines on credit and hired the workers to use them. We made a little on that first venture, enough to pay back our creditors, and a lot on the following one. You've done well for an ex-marine, Dia, but don't think for a minute that you are taking the same risks as me."

"Damn, but you are one selfish son of a bitch, Arcturus Mengsk," snapped de Santo. "I put all my share of those two mines into this one, and I stand to lose as much as you. Man, I figured once we got out of the Marine Corps you'd become less of an arrogant asshole, but you're getting worse, you know that?"

"Thank you for your candor," said Arcturus. "Now was there anything specific you wanted or did you just come out here to berate me?"

"A little of both," said de Santo wearily.

"Fine, so you have expressed your opinion," said Arcturus. "What else was there?"

"There's a message arrived for you on the vidsys console. Figured you'd want to know."

Arcturus took a deep breath, fighting down his annoyance at de Santo's interruption, but knowing, deep down, that she might be right.

"Fine," he said at last. "Keep working the resonator. I'll go see what it is."

De Santo sat behind the surveying equipment’s display as he set off toward the central hab-unit, where the crew gathered for meals and relaxation after the day's labors.

He turned back as he walked. "Any idea whom the message is from?" he asked, expecting it to be from either his mother or Dorothy.

"Signal origin code is Umoja," said de Santo.

"Umoja?"

"Yeah, some guy called Pasteur."

Arcturus shucked off his boots and jacket as he stepped into the entry hall of the hab-unit, letting the flow of dry air cool him down after the humidity of the dig site. As he hung up his hardhat, he saw that his palms were sweating and realized he was apprehensive.

Whal could Ailin Pasteur want with him after all these years?

It had been nearly a decade since he had seen the man, and their last words were not ones of abiding friendship. Was it perhaps Juliana using her father's console?

He hoped not. He'd taken Achton Feld's advice literally and made a clean break with his previous life when he'd left Korhal all those years ago. Through the hellish years of the Guild Wars, he'd not thought of Juliana or returned home on any of his infrequent periods of leave.

Instead, he had entered the Marine Corps study program, earning himself innumerable qualifications in prospecting and mineral exploration in preparation for the day he could stand before Brantigan Fole and resign his commission.

"Damn, but I hate to lose you, Mengsk," Fole had said when Arcturus slid his discharge papers across the commander's desk. "The Kel-Morians are on the run, and it's only a matter of time until they got no choice but to surrender. You sure you don't want to wait a while, son? You're a colonel now, but they're gonna be handing out promotions like party favors when this is all over. You could be a general if you wanted."

"No, sir," said Arcturus. "As appealing as that is, I've done my time and just want out."

"What you gonna do with yourself, Mengsk? You're a soldier. You were born to be a soldier. I don't think you've got it in you to be a civilian. Come on, son, the things we've done, the things we've seen... How can you go back to being an ordinary joe after that?"

"With respect, sir," said Arcturus. "It's because of the things we've done that I'm leaving."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Fole, all civility gone.

Arcturus sighed. "I suppose I just don't believe in what we're fighting for anymore."

Fole had glared up at him and, without another word, signed his discharge papers.

Arcturus shook off the memory and pushed open the door to the rec room. Inside, conditions were spartan, the meager furniture battered from the many times it had been shipped around the rim from potential claim to potential claim. In one corner sat an old cine-viewer where everyone caught up on the latest broadcasts from the UNN or their favorite holodrama. A number of mismatching chairs were gathered around a chipped Formica table, and a pool table—its felt faded and duct-taped—sat in the corner.

Beyond a bead curtain was a small kitchen unit, and a communal ablutions block lay at the far end of the quarters where Arcturus and a number of others slept and kept their few personal belongings.

Against the far wall was the vidsys console, a battered unit they'd bought secondhand and that had never quite functioned as the seller had promised. But it was serviceable enough, and Arcturus had enough technical savvy to keep it running and allow his prospecting crews some fleeting contact with their homes.

A blinking red light flashed on the grimy, oil-stained panel of the console and Arcturus set himself on the stool before it. Taking a moment to compose himself, he ran his hands through his hair once more and wiped the worst of the grime from his face as he always did before opening any communication. An unnecessary ritual, since the message would have been prerecorded, but Arcturus never liked to begin anything without looking presentable.

Satisfied, he punched the red button, and the screen fuzzed with static before a grainy image of a pair of three-pointed stars, locked together within a circle, flashed on the screen. For all his skill with electronics, Arcturus had never been able to get the color to work properly, but he knew that one of the stars was jet black, the other pure white.

This was the planetary icon of Umoja, and Arcturus look a deep breath as the image faded and was replaced with the face of Ailin Pasteur.

The man had aged, his face deeply lined and his hairline having receded alarmingly. Arcturus saw the years had been a burden to Ailin Pasteur and that he carried their weight in his eyes.

"Hello, Arcturus," said Pasteur.

"Ailin," replied Arcturus, falling into the habit of most people when viewing such messages and thinking that the other person was actually on the other end of the link.

"It's been some time since we spoke, so I'll keep this brief."

The man might be looking aged, but his voice had lost none of its strength and Arcturus was quietly impressed as Pasteur continued.

"Your mother told me you'd left the Marine Corps and that you're working your way along the outer rim territories as a prospector. Well, you always said that's what you wanted to do, so I suppose that counts for something. But a lot of things have changed since you left your old life behind, Arcturus, things you need to face up to. I haven't contacted you before now, because Juliana asked me not to, but, like I said, things have changed."

Arcturus's brow furrowed at Pasteur's words. What had changed?

"I need you to come to Umoja," said Pasteur. "I know you probably won't want to, bul, I'm appealing yo any shred of humanity you might have left in you. Come to Umoja, Arcturus. As soon as you can."

The image of Pasteur faded from the screen and Arcturus chewed his bottom lip as he considered what he'd just heard. He replayed the message twice more, searching for the meaning lurking behind Pasteur's words, but he could detect nothing beyond their face value.

He shook his head and went into the kitchen to fix a hot drink, and armed with a tin mug of steaming, military-grade coffee, he made his way to his quarters.

Something had changed, and it was something he was going to have to face up to...

What in the world could it be?

The room Arcturus had taken within the hab-unit gave a narrow window into his personality. He kept it as clean as was possible in a prospecting camp, which wasn't very clean at the best of times. A narrow cot bed sat against one wall, with a gunmetal gray footlocker at its end. Bundles of clothes in need of washing were piled at the foot of the bed and a number of disassembled pieces of electronic kit lay strewn on a collapsible table in the corner. The walls were largely bare steel, though one wall had a gleaming gauss rifle hung on cloth-wrapped bolts, and another boasted a collection of curling holographic images lacked to it.

In one of these images, Dorothy waved to him and blew him a kiss. The image had been captured on her thirteenth birthday and a cake bedecked with candles flickered in the foreground. Dorothy was fast becoming the apple of every Styrling lad's eye, with boys from all the moneyed families queuing up to court her, only to be sent packing by her father and told to come back when she turned twenty-one.

He reached out and touched the image, as he always did, and scanned the other images: one of him at the graduation ball with Juliana, another of being presented his colonel's stripes by Brantigan Fole, and one of him standing heroically atop the glittering seam of minerals at his first strike.

A final image displayed the entire Mengsk family, standing on the balcony of the Mengsk Skyspire. In this picture, Arcturus had just turned thirteen and his parents stood proudly behind him, his mother holding baby Dorothy in her arms. Styrling's silver towers spread out in back of them. It was the last time Arcturus could remember being truly happy.

He cleared a space on the bed and sat on the lumpy mattress with his back resting on the wall upon which hung the rifle.

Arcturus sipped his coffee and winced as it burned his tongue. He put the cup down to let it cool and reached up to lift the gauss rifle from the wall.

Mayumi. Chun Leung's weapon.

He'd been reluctant to part with it after he'd left the Marines, feeling that it would be somehow wrong to simply get rid of it or pass it on to someone else. He'd kept the weapon clean, and maintained it as best he could, but he knew it was a far cry from the immaculate condition it had formerly known.

Arcturus worked the action and began to disassemble the weapon for cleaning as he thought back to the soldiers who had served under him in the CMC. Despite the constant reminder of de Santo's presence, he hadn't consciously thought of Dominion section for some time, their faces growing hazy in the labyrinth of his memory.

Chun Leung and Toby Mercurio had fallen on Onuru Sigma, killed as much by Duke's headstrong foolishness as the Kel-Morian trap, and Yancy Gray died on Artesia Prime when their convoy had been attacked by a chittering wave of spider mines erupting from the ground. The lad's legs had been vaporized in the blast, and not even the skill of the combat medics could save him. He'd died screaming in the back of a truck sloshing with blood.

Only Chuck Horner and Dia de Santo had survived to reach the end of their extended service along with Arcturus. As Arcturus had expected, Dia mustered out and chose to accompany him to the outer rim territories and help him pursue his dreams of becoming a prospector. She had invested what little money she'd saved while still in the service and had become a pretty damn good prospector, with a nose for when a find was going to pay out and when It wasn't.

"What else am I gonna do? Co back to Tyrador IX and work for rich folks? Not this lifetime," she'd said when he'd once asked her why she'd followed him out of the Marine Corps. He suspected that wasn't the full story, but hadn't pressed her for details.

Chuck Horner had chosen a civilian life, and Arcturus was glad his second in command—who'd reached a captain's salary by the time he left—had come through the wars unscathed. Horner had married a woman he'd met on leave and they planned to start a new life together.

Arcturus had shaken Chuck's hand and wished him luck.

"Thanks, sir," said Chuck as they parted on the docks above the gas giant Dylar IV. "I reckon we could all do with a little extra luck now. My own self, I done believe I used a whole lot more'n I could expect to see during this war, so any extra you got's gratefully received. Me'n Carlaare gonna head out to Mar Sara, see if we can't make a life for ourselves. She's a bit young and idealistic, but I guess we all were once."

Arcturus never saw Chuck Horner again.

Captain Emillian had,of course, remained with the Marine Corps, but Arcturus had no idea what had become of her since his departure. Despite her talk of hunting handsome doctors, Arcturus knew Emillian was a career soldier and would no doubt see out her days in the military, either dying on some nameless battlefield or mustering out on retirement.

The odds were vastly in favor of the former, but if anyone could buck those odds, it was Angelina Emillian.

Arcturus and Dia de Santo had taken a ship out to the outer rim territories and set up their prospecting and mining enterprise, taking jobs the bigger outfits didn't like the look for one reason or another, and had quickly made a name for themselves as skillful and dedicated players. Their first strike had enabled them to clear their debts and acquire bigger, more powerful drilling machines, as well as more advanced survey equipment.

Their second strike had been considerably larger and netted them a hell of a payday, but interference from both the Kel-Morian Combine and the Confederate Exploration Corps had become too onerous, and Arcturus had sold the claim for a small fortune and headed farther out into space.

The worlds al the very edge of the outer rim were less frequented and offered the potential for even bigger unclaimed strikes, but by the same token, they were more isolated and vulnerable to piratical bands or heavily armed competition.

With the money they'd made in their second strike, Arcturus and de Santo had bought an old starship named the Kitty Jay and filled her with fresh equipment, skilled workers, SCVs, and even a handful of ex-marines for protection. They had come to Pike's Peak on the strength of prospectors' tales and an old assayer's report Arcturus had found buried within the data architecture of a forgotten Confederate database.

De Santo had balked at risking everything on such scant information, but Arcturus had been insistent, and his instincts had never been proved wrong—yet. For as had been pointed out so bluntly to him not twenty minutes ago, they had found nothing of worth here, and unless they hit paydirt soon, their dwindling capital would soon be exhausted.

It was a depressing thought and Arcturus pushed it aside as he worked an oiled rag along the length of the gauss rifle. The weapon was as clean as it was going to get and he began reassembling it, wondering if he'd be called to use it to defend this claim.

The Guild Wars—as the UNN snappily called it—was entering its fourth year and from what Arcturus had seen of the fighting, he knew that Brantigan Fole was right.

The Kel-Morians were going to lose.

It remained to be seen what that meant for smaller outfits like his, but Arcturus suspected that it wouldn't take long for the Confederacy to turn its attention to the unclaimed resources of the outer rim.

Arcturus snapped the last piece of the weapon into place and clicked the magazine home.

He laid the rifle across his knees and leaned his head back against the wall, looking over at the holographs opposite him. He looked at the image of Juliana and himself smiling for the holocam and smiled at the memory, wondering what Ailin Pasteur could want with him.

It likely wouldn't be anything to do with his family or he'd have heard from his mother or Dorothy. Perhaps something had happened to Juliana, but then why would Pasteur turn to Arcturus?

He didn't yet know whether he'd even heed the request to travel to Umoja. He owed Ailin and his daughter nothing and had no obligation to make such a journey, but a nagging curiosity gnawed at the back of his mind.

His train of thought was interrupted as he heard running footsteps along the corridor outside and the sound of Diamond de Santo calling his name. He lifted the rifle and placed it beside him on the bed as de Santo burst into his room, her eyes alight with excitement and the breath heaving in her lungs.

"Holy hell, Arcturus, you need to get your ass outside. Now!"

"What is it? What's going on?"

"You were right," gasped de Santo. "Goddammit it, but you were right. It's unbelievable."

"Slow down, Dia," said Arcturus, swinging his legs off the bed and standing up.

De Santo threw herself at him, embracing him in a crushing bear hug.

Arcturus prized her grip from around his neck and held her at arm's length. "Listen to me, Dia. Slow down. What are you talking about? What's unbelievable?"

She took several calming breaths before speaking, but Arcturus saw the thrill in her eyes and felt an electric sense of excitement pass between them.

"The claim," said de Santo. "You were right—there's minerals right below us, but we couldn't see them. Turns out the resonators were getting some backscatter from a higher stratum of banded ironstone."

"Are you sure?" demanded Arcturus. "Have you checked?"

"Yeah, one of the drills brought up a core sample that showed a layer of magnetite and shale. Once I adjusted the resonator to filter that out... Oh, man, you gotta see it. It's the biggest deposit I've ever seen. We're rich, Arcturus!"

"Okay, you need to calm down, Dia."

"No way, man. This is big, Arcturus. I never even heard of a seam this huge: it's still gonna be paying out when our grandkids are drawing their pensions!"

Four days later and the party still hadn't stopped.

If anything, de Santo had underplayed the scale of the find, and with the resonator properly calibrated to reach beyond the banded ironstone layer, there seemed no end to the length, breadth, and depth of the mineral seam. With Arcturus's confirmation of the veracity of the find, and the first samples brought to the surface, the assembled workers and marines had broken out the alcohol and the party had begun in earnest.

Heavier drilling rigs were even now being built to more quickly exploit the enormous find, and Arcturus knew that this strike was going to make him a very rich man indeed. Richer than any prospector in the history of the Confederacy had ever managed after a lifetime of exploration and digging.

The rec room was filled with people: miners, assayers, and soldiers. The heavier drilling rigs were due to go online tomorrow and the SCVs had made a good start on the construction of an extraction refinery, but tonight everyone was relaxing. This was likely to be the only time off anyone was going to get in the next few months as they established a more permanent facility on the claim, and everyone was making the most of it.

Arcturus sat on one of the chairs around the table, listening to the excited banter of his staff and letting them congratulate him on the intuitive instinct that had led them to this windfall. Everyone expected to get rich from this find, and for once it looked as though that might actually be the case.

Bottles of alcohol were passed around and toasts raised to future fortunes. Arcturus listened to his men's grand plans about how they were going to spend their money and took a proffered mug of lethally strong hooch.

Dia de Santo sat next to him, smiling broadly and flicking through the few channels they received on the cine-viewer. Various images flickered in the corner of the room, adverts mainly, but Arcturus sat up as a familiar face ghosted into focus onto the projection.

He read the caption that scrolled along the bottom of the image and said. "Wait," as he saw de Santo reaching to change the channel. "Turn it up."

The speakers crackled and spat, but eventually Arcturus heard his father's voice, though the sound of revelry in the rec room all but drowned him out.

"Quiet!" barked Arcturus, and the room was instantly silenced.

He stood and walked over to stand right In front of the viewer as the caption repeated across the bottom of the screen.

Martial Law on Korhal as Senator Angus Mengsk Declares War on the Confederacy! Tarsonis Promises Stern Measures of Retaliation!

On the viewer, Angus stood addressing a thousands-strong crowd from a podium erected on what Arcturus recognized as the Martial Field. A sea of adoring faces stared up at his father as he held forth on his favorite subject, the rampant corruption of the Confederacy. Though the UNN had muted his words, Angus's fist hammered the air as he spoke, his call to arms answered by deafening cheers from the crowd.

Arcturus saw his mother and Dorothy standing proudly behind his father as the announcer spoke disgustedly of planetwide riots, the capture of the UNN tower, and attacks on Confederate outposts that had seen thousands dead.

The view rotated between Confederate barracks on fire, vast crowds of people on the streets with brightly painted banners, and Angus shouting to the gathered followers like the fiery demagogue of some ancient fire-and-brimstone faith.

Was this the reason Ailin Pasteur had wanted him to travel to Umoja?

What did Pasteur know that the UNN wasn't reporting?

"Stern measures of retaliation," he said. What did that mean?

Arcturus turned from the cine-viewer and marched down the corridor to his room. He pushed open the door and began packing a bag, stuffing in the few clean clothes he had left.

Dia de Santo pushed into his room seconds later, her face betraying her worry. "What are you doing, Arcturus?"

"I'm leaving," said Arcturus. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Tell me you're joking. You can't leave now!"

"Just watch me."

"We're on the verge of digging out the biggest mineral strike this side of the Long Sleep and you wanna leave? Damn it, Arcturus, we need you here, I need you here."

"Don't worry, Dia," said Arcturus, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'll be back soon. I'm going to take the Kitty Jay to Umoja, but I will be back, I promise."

"Umoja? Why the hell do you need to go there?"

"I need to see Ailin Pasteur," said Arcturus. "Then I need to make sure my family is safe."

Arcturus stepped through a haze of steam and oilsmoke onto the surface of Umoja. Or at least onto the heat-resistant ceramic landing platform that had just descended a few hundred meters into the surface of Umoja. A drizzle of moisture clung to his skin like humidity and the heat bleeding from the Kitty Jay’s engines warmed the air.

Traveling between worlds always made Arcturus uneasy. The unknown dimensions of deep space and all that might lurk in its vast emptiness fired his imagination with images of as-yet unknown aliens and piratical corsairs.

As master of his own destiny, the placing of his fate in the hands of another, even one as qualified as Morley Sanjaya—the pilot he'd hired when he'd bought the Kitty Jay— unsettled him greatly. Though he could not fly a starship, Arcturus felt sure that if he were to try, he would master it quickly enough.

And make better time than the two weeks it had taken them to get here...

Ailin Pasteur's private landing platform was empty and its underground walls were a mixture of rock and metal, scorched black by the comings and goings of orbital craft. A flashing amber light rotated above a shuttered blast door, and a low buzz of static poured from a speaker recessed In the wall.

The light flicked off and the blast door began to rumble upward.

A squad of men clad in combat suits of pale blue plate and carrying gauss rifles marched out onto the platform, followed by a man wearing a dark suit and a foul-weather cloak.

Ailin Pasteur.

The last time Arcturus had seen Pasteur had been at the Close of Session of the Коrhal Senate, where the man had berated him for how he had just treated his mother. With the benefit of hindsight, Arcturus now accepted that his actions might have been a little rash that day, which bought Pasteur some goodwill.

Pasteur slopped al the base of the steps that led up to the landing platform.

"Hello, Ailin," said Arcturus, slinging his suit-bag over his shoulder. "I'd say good morning or good evening, but I don't know which it is."

"It's evening, Arcturus," said Pasteur. "Welcome to Umoja."

Though the words were said with formal politeness, Arcturus sensed the rancor behind them. Was this some charade for the soldiers standing at Pasteur's back?

"Thank you," said Arcturus, stepping down from the platform and waving a hand in the direction of the opened blast door. "Shall we?"

Pasteur nodded and turned on his heel, clicking his fingers al the soldiers, who quickly followed, marching in lockstep behind them.

Pasteur led him into a series of rock corridors that looked as though they had been bored through with fusion cutters. Arcturus noted the quality and type of the rock, smiling as he found himself calculating the density of the rock and rate per hour that it could be excavated.

Walking alongside him, Pasteur saw the smile and said. "Something funny?"

"Not really," said Arcturus. "I still have my prospecting head on. Look, tell me what this is all about, Ailin. My outfit's just struck a huge mineral deposit and we need to get our operation up and running before the Confederate Exploration Corps gets wind of it. So come on, what's going on?"

"It's better if you see for yourself," said Pasteur.

Arcturus sighed. "If this has something to do with my family, then I want to know now."

"Oh, it has something to do with your family all right," snapped Pasteur, "but I promised I wouldn't say anything. And I am a man of my word."

This last comment appeared to be particularly barbed, and Arcturus wondered what he had done to deserve such animosity. But Pasteur would not be drawn on the subject, and Arcturus left him to his silence as they made their way deeper into the complex. They arrived at an elevator and traveled to the surface within its gleaming, silver-steel interior.

The elevator emerged into the wide hallway of a sizable dwelling, not unlike that of the Mengsk summer villa. The walls were white marble and the floor was a mixture of gleaming hardwood and expensive-looking rugs. An iron screw stair led back down into the rock and a wide set of carpeted stairs led up toward a second story.

A shining dome pierced with panels of stained glass surmounted the hallway, and a chandelier of flickering candles floated beneath its curve.

"Very nice," said Arcturus as Ailin Pasteur led him toward a thick wooden door.

Pasteur opened the door and indicated that Arcturus should step through.

Arcturus swept past and entered a long room set with expensive furniture and a crackling fire that burned beneath a wide mantel. The smell of hot coffee and sweet fruits hung in the air, and Arcturus saw Juliana sitting in a large chair beside the fireplace.

She looked up as he entered and her face transformed, surprisingly, with genuine pleasure at the sight of him. In the intervening years, Juliana had grown up. Features that were girlish and coqueitish when he'd last seen her were now womanly and strong. Juliana had lost nothing of her figure, and when she stood and straightened her dress, Arcturus was again reminded of the poise and grace of his mother.

Arcturus stepped farther into the room, then pulled up short as he saw a young boy sitting on the floor in front of the fire. Dressed in dark trousers and a matching shirt, his shoulder-length golden hair was pulled back in a small ponytail. Arcturus was no expert in such matters, but he guessed the boy's age at around six or seven.

The boy sat in the midst of a pile of colored plastic bricks, built as though he had decided to construct a ruined city. Tiny toy soldiers were scattered through these ruins and Arcturus watched the child move them while making shooting noises with his mouth.

"We have company," said Juliana, and the child looked up.

Arcturus received a dazzling smile from the boy—and felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach.

Startlingly handsome, the child was blessed with high cheekbones, wide gray eyes, creamy skin, and just the hint of a hawkish curve to his nose.

"What's going on here?" hissed Arcturus as Ailin Pasteur shut the door behind him.

"Valerian," said Juliana. "Say hello to your father."