"Don't say that!" snapped Katherine. "Not ever."
"Sorry, dear," said Angus, standing behind his wife and kissing her cheek. "I didn't mean that, but I feel it's going to take something truly dreadful to bring the Confederacy to its knees. We won't beat them overnight, but will beat them, and I'll tell you how."
Once again Angus paced the length of the table as he spoke, allowing his voice to became the rich baritone he used when speaking in the Forum. "It's their arrogance that will be their undoing. They can't see how they can possibly do anything wrong, and when you can't see that, you make mistakes. My father once said that when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail."
Angus paused and turned to address his audience. "We'll show them what happens when the nail hits back."
The dining room was empty save for Angus and Arcturus, the two sharing an uncomfortable silence as the elder Mengsk poured out two snifters of brandy. Angus took one for himself and walked over to where his son sat to offer him the other.
Arcturus looked askance at the glass, clearly wishing to reach for it, but unsure as to whether or not he should.
"Go on, take it," said Angus. "I know you're too young, but on a night like this it hardly matters, does it? There's a lesson for you right there: sort out what matters from what doesn't. Act on the things that mean something and discard the rest."
Arcturus took the glass and tentatively sniffed the expensive drink. His nose wrinkled at its potency, and he took an experimental sip. His eyes widened, but he kept it down without coughing, and Angus felt his anger loosen its hold on him as he sat across from his son.
Achton Feld had explained what Arcturus had done and, as much as he wanted to rage biliously at his son, Angus couldn't help but be proud of the lad's inventiveness and sheer brio in pulling off a stunt like that.
But despite his grudging admiration, Angus couldn't allow Arcturus off the hook too easily.
"Do your tutors at the academy know you are gone?" he asked.
Arcturus looked at the timepiece on his wrist and smiled. "They will in a few hours," he said. "I sent a message with an attached comm-virus to Principal Steegman's console. He'll open it with his morning java, and it'll really spoil his day."
Angus shook his head. "They'll expel you for this."
"Probably," agreed Arcturus, and Angus fought the urge to slap him.
"Have you any idea of how much your place al Styrling Academy cost?"
Arcturus shrugged. "No."
"A great deal, and there are plenty of prospective students just waiting to take your place.”
"So let them have it," said Arcturus. "I'm not learning anything there anyway."
Angus bristled at his son's belligerence, forcing himself to remember what he had been like on the verge of manhood: his entire life ahead of him, and the sense that he knew all there was to know about the world. Arcturus was no different, and he began to appreciate the patience his own father had displayed.
He took a deep breath before speaking again. "Listen to me, son. You live a privileged life here, but it's time you learned that it is a harsh world out there beyond these walls, and that you are not prepared for it."
"I'll survive."
"No," said Angus bluntly. "You won't. I can't pretend I'm not impressed by what you did tonight, but stunts like that will see you dead sooner or later."
Arcturus laughed and said. "Now you're being melodramatic."
"No," said Angus. "I'm not. It's the truth, and now I have to discipline you."
"Why?" said Arcturus. "If it weren't for me, those men would have killed us all."
"I think you'll find it was Feld catching you that alerted us."
"It was just a joke," said Arcturus. "And anyway, isn't that something that doesn't matter after what happened tonight? Or don't your own lessons apply to you?"
Angus put down his glass and leaned over the table, lacing his hands before him. "You've the seeds of a debater in you, son, but you have to be punished. To allow youth to run unchecked is to invite a recklessness of spirit and disregard for the proper order of things that is anathema to any ordered society."
"You're one to talk," said Arcturus. "You disregard the proper order of things' all the time. All I ever hear the other students at the academy say is how you're stirring up trouble for Korhal with all your speeches about the corruption of the Confederacy and how we'd be better off without it. Why do you have to be such an embarrassment?"
Angus sat back in his chair, surprised at Arcturus's outburst and angry at how little his son understood of the world beyond his own little bubble of reality.
"You have no clue what you're talking about, son," said Angus. "What the Confederacy is doing on Korhal is criminal. Corruption, backhanders, and bribery are everywhere, and if you have money the law is a joke. Virtually every penny earned by the citizens of Korhal swells the coffers of some Confederate puppet corporation while our own. Independent industries wither on the vine. Tell me how that is the proper order of things?"
"I don't know," said Arcturus. "All I want to do is become a prospector."
"A prospector? Grubbing in dirt and rocks like some Kel-Morian pirate? Hardly. You are the son of a senator, Arcturus, and you are destined for greater things than prospecting."
"I don't want greater things. I just want to do what I want, not what you think I should do."
"You're too young to really know what you want," said Angus.
"I know that I don't want to follow in your footsteps," snapped Arcturus. "Hell, I might even join the military."
"You don't mean that: you're just angry," said Angus. "You don't know the reality of life, what the Confederacy has done and what they're going to do if someone doesn't stand up to them. In the centuries since the supercarriers crashed, the Old Families have been taking over everything by force, guile, and corruption. Soon there won't be anything left they don't control."
"So what? Who says that's a bad thing?"
Angus fought down his anger, but he could feel his temper fraying in the face of his son's obstinacy. Didn't the boy understand the scale of the Confederacy's corruption? Couldn't he see the terrible fate that awaited all right-thinking people if they didn't take a stand against the all-controlling, all-pervading influence of a remote, unthinking, unfeeling government?
Looking into Arcturus's face, Angus could see he did not, and his heart sank.
Speaking in the Palatine Forum, Angus Mengsk had swayed recalcitrant senators to his side, won hopeless causes through the power of his oratory, but he couldn't convince his own son that the Confederacy was a great and terrible evil that threatened everything the free people of Korhal prized.
Angus Mengsk, firebrand senator and son of Korhal, might yet save his planet—but might lose his son in the process.
The irony of it all was not lost on him.
The following morning, with the sun rising over the mountains, Arcturus yawned as he heard the door to his room open. He rolled over and smiled as he saw Dorothy standing in the doorway, the bright blue form of Pontius the pony clutched in her arms.
"What is it, Little Dot?" he said, propping himself up in bed.
“Why do you fight with Daddy?" asked Dorothy.
Arcturus laughed. "That's a big question for such a little girl."
"But why?"
Arcturus swung his legs out of bed and opened his arms, whereupon Dorothy ran to him and jumped up onto his lap.
"Ow, you're getting bigger every day," said Arcturus. "You're getting fat."