Valerian played dumb, but for all that he did not trust Whittler: the man was a capable valet who attended to Valerian's needs with alacrity and competence.
“Good morning, sir," said Whittler. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."
"Not at all," said Valerian. “I was just about to go for a run."
“Ah, then I fear 1 may have come with a summons that might inconvenience you."
"What is it?"
"Your mother asks to speak with you," said Whittler.
Valerian made his way along the steel-walled corridors of the orbital, the fluorescent strips set into the ceiling and walls bleaching everything of life and color. It had once been a mining installation, and on such a facility visibility was more important than aesthetics, a concept Valerian could understand, even if he didn't subscribe to it.
Everything on board Orbital 235 was simple and functional, as was to be expected where space was at a premium and burly, largely unskilled men were expected to spend great deal of their time.
The air had a dry, recycled quality to it, and Valerian found himself wishing for the hundredth time to be back on Umoja, with its scented air and copper skies. He walked at a brisk pace, his body now in the throes of its teenage development and changing dally.
He was still handsome to the point of beauty, his skin flawless and his hair golden. His features were in transition from boy to man, but he could already visualize the form they were going to take and knew they would be perfect.
Whittler walked alongside him, his legs seeming to move at twice the speed of Valerian's just to keep up with him. He was slender and apparently fit, but there was little vigor to the man, a trait Valerian was blessed with in abundance.
"How was she when you spoke to her?" asked Valerian.
"Much the same, sir. Though there was a certain animation to her today."
"Really? That's good. Any idea why?"
"No, sir," replied Whittler. "Though she did receive a communique from her father."
"How do you know who it came from, Charles?" asked Valerian. "Did you look at it first?"
"I most certainly did not," replied Whittler. "The very idea! Your grandfather always sends a communication at the beginning of the month. It is the beginning of the month: ergo, it is from your grandfather."
"Beginning of what month? We're in space, Charles."
"I keep a record of the diurnal rotations on Umoja and Tarsonis to keep track of our time relative to them. In such dislocated circumstances, I find it helps fix oneself if there is a predetermined point of reference to cling to."
"You've traveled a lot in space?"
"More than I have cared to," was Whittler's noncommittal answer.
Valerian wanted to ask more, but felt he would get little in the way of an answer that meant anything, so let the matter of Whittler's previous travels go and concentrated on the summons issued by his mother.
Juliana Pasteur was not a well woman, and her health had only deteriorated over the last six years. After his fifteenth birthday, Valerian had demanded to know what was wrong with her, and at last she had told him the truth of what the doctors had discovered, though sometimes he wished she hadn't.
His mother had been diagnosed with a carcinoid tumor, a rare cancer of the neuroendocrine system. The cancer had arisen in her intestine and grown slowly over the years, which was why it had taken so long for her to suspect there was more wrong than she realized.
By the time she'd consulted a physician, the cancer had already spread to her liver and begun to attack other parts of her body with unthinking biological relentlessness. Its progress had been slow, but steady, robbing her of her vitality and stripping the meat from her bones. Not even the most advanced surgical techniques could defeat the cancer without killing her in the process.
Valerian had cried with her as she told him and gently guided him through the same reactions she had experienced: denial, shock, anger, sadness, guilt, and fear.
She was going to die, and had made her peace with that.
It was more than Valerian could do.
He had immediately ceased his visits to the surface of the planetoid they circled and thrown himself into researching his mother's condition, despite the apparent hopelessness of the endeavor. Perhaps because she had been told she could live for several more years before death finally claimed her, his mother had tried to dissuade him from wasting his time looking for a miracle cure.
"Sometimes fighting to hold on to something you love can destroy it in the process," she had said to him one evening, holding him as he cried. "Let's enjoy the time we have left, Val. Let me watch you grow and live your life. Don't waste it chasing windmills."
But nothing she said to him could penetrate his need to do something, no matter that this was an enemy he had no means to light. He discovered that not even the most advanced intrascopic lasers—devices capable of targeting specific areas of the body with precise amounts of heat—nor the latest drugs or even nano-brachytherapy could defeat this foe without first killing its victim.
Valerian, however, was a Mengsk, and he did not give up easily, requesting fresh digi-tomes and the latest researches from the top medical institutes on Umoja and Tarsonis (via safe routes to avoid compromising their security, of course).
"Sir?" said Whittler, and Valerian started. He hadn't realized they'd reached his mother's room, and wondered how long he'd been standing here.
"Are you going in?" asked Whittier.
He look a deep breath. "Yes. Of course I'm going in."
Valerian sat beside his mother's bed and held her hand, wishing he could pass some of his own vitality on to her. He had plenty to spare, so where was the cosmic harm in evening the balance? But the universe didn't work that way, he knew. Ir didn't care that bad things happened lo good people, and was entirely indifferent to the fate of the mortal beings that crawled around on the debris of stars, no matter what those who believed in divine beings might claim.
His mother sat upright on her bed, her skin pale and translucent, as though pulled too tightly across her skull. Her hair fell around her shoulders, its golden luster now the sickly, jaundiced yellow of a chronic smoker. She was still beautiful, but it was a serene beauty bought with the acceptance of death.
Valerian found it hard to see her, fearful that if he looked too long he might lose grip on his emotions. At times like this he cursed his father for the lessons of emotional control.
"Have you been to your ruins today, Val?" she asked.
"No, Mum," he said. "I haven't I don't go to them anymore, remember?"
"Oh yes, I forgot," she said, waving a bony arm before her. "I have trouble remembering things now, you know."
Valerian looked around the room, its austere functionality putting him in mind of a mortician's workspace. He hated the reek of defeat that filled the room.
"Are you thirsty?" he asked, in lieu of something meaningful to say.
She smiled. "Yes, honey. Pour me some water, would you?"
Valerian filled two plastic cups with tepid water and handed one to her, making sure she had it held in both hands before releasing his grip. She lifted the cup to her gaunt face and sipped the water, smiling as she handed it back to him.
"Charles told me you received a message today."
"I did," she said with a smile that served only to make her face look even more cadaverous than it did already. "It's from your grandfather."
"What does he have to say for himself this month?"
"He says your father is coming to see us."