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.
They'd been hustled onto the dropship that was always prepped nearby, and as it lifted off in a screaming, rocking ascent, Valerian clung to his mother and said. "Mommy? Will Daddy ever come for us?"
"Yes, honey," she'd replied. "He will. One day."
As the pilot flew them to safety, Valerian had lain with his head in his mum's lap for hours, letting her stroke his golden hair and soothe away his worries. He heard her crying and pretended to be asleep, letting her think she had succeeded.
Valerian never again complained about their need to keep on the move.
It was hard to be always on the move, but as hard as it was for him, with no real friends and no sense of stability to his life, he knew it was harder still for his mum.
She tried to hide it, and denied it whenever he brought it up, but Valerian knew she was quite ill. Exactly what was wrong with her he didn't know, but he could see the gray pallor of her skin and the way the weight seemed to melt from her bones, no matter how much she ate—which wasn't very much at the best of times.
Al night, he heard her racking coughs and cried as he thought of her pain and his inability to do anything about it. Through all of this, Valerian's most pressing question was Why. Why did his dad not come to see her?
He knew his grandfather must have sent word to him that Juliana was ill, but the weeks and months passed with no sign of his dad. Didn't he care?
It was hard for Valerian to reconcile the mounting evidence of his dad's indifference to their plight against the image he'd cultivated since a youngster.
The subject of his mum's illness was always quietly dismissed whenever he brought it up, but Valerian knew that if whatever was wrong with his mum was serious enough to warrant its being kept from him, it must be extremely serious indeed. A succession of physicians had come and gone, but none of them appeared to offer anything that stopped his mum's terrible, hacking cough or enabled her to put on weight.
He'd heard words like “long term," "inoperable," “terminal," "nonviable," "immedicable, "and yet others he didn't understand, but the meaning was all too clear. As each doctor arrived, Valerian felt a flutter of hope, but as each one left, that hope was crushed. Evidently, his grandfather was not about to give up, even if it seemed his dad already had.
Valerian fell his anger grow and tried to suppress it.
One of the few teachings of his dad that had stuck was that anger was a wasted emotion.
"Angry people do stupid things, Valerian," his dad had said. "Speak when you're angry and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. So when your anger rises, think of the consequences before you act."
He put down his book and closed his eyes, trying to calm his seesawing emotions, but finding it difficult with all the noise coming from downstairs. It took a second to dawn on him that the noises from downstairs were not normal for this time of day, and he sat up as he caught a measure of the urgency in them.
Valerian heard the sound of someone crying and made his way quickly to his bedroom door. Something was definitely going on, so he made his way downstairs, heading toward the large room at the rear of the house that served as a warm gathering place in the evening.
He heard shouted oaths and more crying, and a cold hand seized his heart as he suddenly wondered if something had happened to his mum. Valerian broke into a run and skidded into the room from which the sounds of crying were issuing. The room was full of people, all staring in rapt attention at something displayed on the flickering holographic image of the cine-viewer in the corner of the room.
Valerian's first feeling was relief as he saw his mum standing in the center of the room: but then he noticed that there were a lot of people here who looked as though they'd just been given the worst news imaginable.
A few heads turned to face him, their faces streaked with tears, then quickly turned back to the unfolding drama on the cine-viewer. The image was fuzzy and dark, but from here it appeared to be showing a large black ball.
"What's going on?" he asked. "Why is everyone so sad?"
"Oh my darling, Val," said his mum, rushing to him and sweeping him up in a hug. "Oh honey, it's Korhal."
"Korhal? The planet dad comes from? What about it?"
His mum pulled back, as though not sure she should tell him what was going on. "It's okay, Mum," he said. "Just tell me."
"Korhal's gone, honey."
"Gone? How can a planet be gone?" said Valerian. "It's too big to be gone."
His mother struggled with her words, her eyes streaming with tears. "I mean...not gone, exactly, but..."
"The Confederacy has launched a thermonuclear strike against Korhal," said Master Miyamoto, appearing at his mum's side. "A thousand Apocalypse-class nuclear missiles, according to a military press release."
Valerian felt his stomach lurch and terrible fear freeze his limbs. "Korhal's destroyed? Dad? Is Dad dead?"
"No! No, he's alive," said his mum. "We had word from your grandfather not long after the first news reports came through. Your dad's fine."
Relief flooded him and he disengaged himself from his mum's arms as everyone in the room continued to watch the image on the cine-viewer. He stood before the flickering image of Korhal, watching the black disc of the world as nuclear firestorms raged across its surface with elemental fury. The once bountiful and green world was now a superheated sphere of blackened glass and phantoms.
Even with his limited understanding of the physics of nuclear detonations, Valerian knew that a thousand missiles was an inordinate amount of overkill. Such an overwhelming attack would have killed every living thing on the planet's surface.
"How many people lived on Korhal?" he asked.
"More than thirty-five million," said Master Miyamoto. "All dead."
The thought of such devastation was humbling. That so many people could be wiped from existence in such a short period of time was unbelievable.
What manner of madman could ever think to unleash such wanton destruction?
"The Confederacy did this?" asked Valerian.
"Men without honor did this," replied Master Miyamoto.