He flexed and posed in the mirror, enjoying the fantasy that he was some dashing interplanetary hero like his dad. Despite Master Miyamoto's words, Valerian was proud of what his dad was doing.
Valerian returned to his bedroom, a cluttered space filled with books, digi-tomes, an unmade bed, and sliver-skinned trunks full of clothes. His collections of fossils, rocks, and alien artifacts were proudly on show in a number of display cabinets and a number of antique weapons were hung on the wall.
They had belonged to the previous owner of the mansion in which they now dwelled— surely the most salubrious accommodation they'd stayed in since leaving Umoja—and Valerian had liked them so much, he had left them there. He'd asked Master Miyamoto if he could train with some of the more exotic-looking weapons—a falchion, a glaive, or a falx—but his tutor had forbidden him to touch any more weapons until he was competent with a sword at least.
Still, it did no harm to have them around, as many were plainly hundreds of years old and gave him a connection to times long gone. In a small way, they made it easier to hold on to the concept of alien civilizations existing in forgotten ages of the past. The concept of millions of years ago was almost impossible to grasp, but a few hundred years was easy, and by such small steps he could imagine larger spans of time.
Valerian cleared a space on his bed and dressed himself in loose-fitting trousers and a blue shirt of expensive silk. He settled back on the bed and lifted the copy of The Book of Virtues Master Miyamoto had given him and began to read. Unlike the majority of Valerian's other books, this was an old-fashioned one of paper pages bound together within a leather cover, which bore an inscription on the inside in letters he couldn't read.
Master Miyamoto had said his own father had written the words on the morning of his death. Only after much cajoling had Master Miyamoto told Valerian what the words meant.
Valerian's tutor had lifted the book, and though he clearly knew the inscription by heart, his eyes had nevertheless followed the path of the words on the page; his voice choked with emotion as he read his father's valediction.
"What is life?" read Master Miyamoto. "It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
Valerian had found the words wonderfully uplifting and looked down at the wolf head picked out in gold thread over the breast packet of his shin. The symbol was that of the Mengsk family, and Valerian bore it proudly whenever he was in a place of safely. On those rare occasions they ventured into public, he had been warned not to display anything that might link him to his dad.
Given how his dad was portrayed in the media, that was a sensible precaution.
It had been two years since he had seen his father, standing on the underground platform where his ship, the Kitty Jay, was berthed.
It was a moment of confused emotions for Valerian. He had been sad to see his dad leave, but, even as a youngster, he had sensed the tension between his mum and dad and grandpa. He sensed a familiarity to the drama before him: his dad leaving and his mother left behind, with his grandpa there to deal with the emotional fallout. Even though he hadn't thought of that moment in such terms, he'd sensed the reality of them as though they'd been spelled out.
His father had knelt beside him and fixed him with his gaze.
"I would have liked to spend more time with you. Valerian," said his dad.
"Yeah," agreed Valerian. "I'd have liked that."
"There is much to be done if you are lo be a worthy heir, but I have work to do and you cannot be part of it yet. You are not strong enough or wise enough, but you will be. You are going to hear a lot of bad things said about me in the coming years, but I want you to know that none of it will be true. What I'm doing is for the good of humanity. Always remember that."
And Valerian had remembered it.
Despite his mother's reservations, Valerian eagerly watched every report on the UNN concerning his dad. He saw bombings, assassinations, and the spread of revolution throughout the sector. Some of those reports were plainly so ridiculous that even a nine-year-old could see through them, but others appeared to be unvarnished truth that needed no embellishment.
Images of burned bodies and mangled corpses being carried from wrecked Confederate buildings that had been torn apart by explosives. Burning Confederate vehicles targeted by one of the many insurgent groups that were slowly, but surely, accreting under his father's banner and leadership.
Factories belonging to the Old Families were bombed, each target carefully chosen to cause maximum disruption to the economic infrastructure of the Confederacy. Of course, none of the news broadcasts spoke of this, but Master Miyamoto made Valerian always look to answer the most important question of all when looking at his dad's handiwork: Why?
Why was that particular factory destroyed? Why was that particular official killed?
Each question forced Valerian to think beyond the simple, bloody facts of the act itself and to search for deeper purpose than simply the causing of harm. Though it was hard watching so many images of death and suffering, Valerian fell sure it was for a higher cause. These people were part of the Confederacy and they had murdered his dad's parents and sister in cold blood.
Master Miyamoto had urged Valerian not to see things in these black-and-white terms, but such deeper considerations stood little chance of recognition in the face of a youngster's loss. High-minded ideals were all very well until you were put to the test of having to hold on to them in the face of personal tragedy.
The Confederacy had robbed his dad of his parents and his sister, and Valerian had lost two grandparents and an aunt he had never met, never got the chance to know, and now never would. If that wasn't worth some bloodshed, then what was?
Valerian knew that his dad was wanted throughout Confederate space, a wanted terrorist and murderer, but these were labels hung on him by his enemies, so Valerian didn't pay them much attention. He knew who his dad was and knew that when he saw him again—whenever that might be—he would not be the disappointment he now realizes he had been when they'd first met.
He recalled his mother tearfully telling him that his dad had called him bookish, effeminate, and weak, an admission she later regretted, but which could not be taken back. In that moment, Valerian had made a personal vow to himself that he would never be thought of that way again, and had thrown himself into physical exercise as though his life depended on it.
There had been some communication with his father, but it had all been done through his grandfather, and was sporadic at best. Icarus IV was the fifth place they had lived in two years and looked like it wouldn't be the last. Valerian tried not to get comfortable in any once place, knowing an imperious command could be delivered at any time, instructing them to move on.
Valerian's grandfather would sequester yet another outlying Umojan outpost or colony to hide them and the process would begin again.
The necessity of this was brutally demonstrated when Valerian had once complained about the need to move incessantly and begged his mother to not uproot them again. She had agreed not to move on for a little longer, but one night Valerian had woken to the sound of shouting soldiers, gunfire, and the flash of explosions.
"Not a word, not a whimper, Val my darling," said his mother, dragging him from his bed and handing him over to an Umojan soldier in battered combat armor. Valerian's memories of that night were confused and fragmented, but he remembered being carried through the night. Its darkness spilt with stuttering flashes of fire. He'd taken a tumble as the man carrying him collapsed, but was picked up again, realizing at the same time that the first soldier had been killed.