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.“Allow me to introduce myself.I am Gavin Marik.”Again it was the name.The name and the resemblance.It startled Julian enough to begin to reach for the offered hand before he froze, forcing Gavin Marik to reach forward and give Julian’s hand a perfunctory shake.“Victor’s grandson?” The family traits were there, some so strong that Julian couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized them before, from years of looking into a mirror.“Gavin Marik-Davion?”“Gavin.Just keep it to Gavin.”He wasn’t certain what else to say.“You weren’t at the funeral.”“That’s family.This is business.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of thin wafers about the size of a small coin.Data-storage devices.He set them both on the desk in front of Julian.“Caleb is not fit to sit the throne of the Federated Suns,” he said.“And this documentation will convince you.”Julian scoffed.“Because he is not a MechWarrior?”“Because he is insane.By the most clinical definition.Paranoid schizophrenia, Julian.And it has started to get worse.That bottom wafer contains all the evidence Prince Harrison planned to hand you himself, eventually.All of Caleb’s records, from the time he was diagnosed.”“In MechWarrior training,” Julian said quietly.Nodded.A few odd-shaped pieces in the pattern of his life suddenly fit together.“Testing him for neurological suitability.They would have discovered it.” He looked up.“No.Harrison would never have.” He stopped.“You had to wonder, at times.” Gavin stepped back from the desk.Leaving Julian to the pool of light, dividing his gaze between the two innocent wafers and the man who had dropped such news on him.“Why you? What was Harrison’s interest? Why show such favor to a distant cousin? It’s on the wafers as well.Your records.You were being groomed, Julian, as a warrior and—”“As a leader,” he interrupted softly, recalling Harrison’s final words to him.“Yes.”“I don’t want this.” That was Julian’s first reaction.Give it all back.He’d never asked for the responsibility, and he damn sure hadn’t asked to be drawn into such trouble after the fact.“Trust me, Julian, you will want those files.What you do with them is up to you.The second wafer contains a sample of reports we’ve collected from Terra.From New Hessen and Tikonov.From worlds under attack by House Kurita.You may find the first one of particular and immediate attention.”Then he stepped forward, reached into his vest pocket and plucked from it a black business card.He laid it on the desk in front of Julian.There was nothing on it except an exchange number.Printed in silver, and centered.It didn’t even say what worlds it would work for.Somehow, Julian doubted that mattered.“The first taste is always free,” Gavin promised from the door.He’d moved away stealthy as a cat.“After this, it costs.”The door whisked shut behind him.Julian sat there for the better part of an hour, staring at the data wafers.At the shut door, after the man who had left him such a terrible gift.He replayed several important moments from his life, reviewing them from the different angles opened up by what he now knew.And once he knew more? Once he had reviewed all the information? What then?What more might he discover about his family, and himself, that he did not want to know?He pushed the wafers back and forth on the desk, thinking about that.The first taste was free.Always a danger.That was how madness started so very, very often.And yet.He picked up the bottom wafer, thumbed it into a tiny slot on the side of his desk and waited as it fired his computer to life.The inset ferroglass glowed with sudden resolution, projecting a screen filled with data above the desk’s steel and glass surface.The first file.That’s what Gavin had said.There it was.SISTERS OF MERCY.The hospital to which Harrison had been admitted.Always a danger.He stared at the blinking file name.Which was where Callandre Kell eventually found Julian.Sitting at his desk, leaning far back in his chair to stare up into the shadow-cloaked overhead.His holographic screen was still aglow with letters and numbers, all awash in multiple files opened and then tucked away behind different tabs.“Missed you at the DropPort today,” he said after she’d keyed her way into his quarters.He hadn’t bothered to lock the door.Wouldn’t have mattered if he did.She had the code.“I was there.Making arrangements for.what is it?”Callandre moved into the darkened room.She came up to the desk.The desk lamp’s reflected glow played off the red highlights currently streaked into her hair and spiked a terrible glow into her doe-brown eyes.“Something happened.” She looked ready to go jump into.well, someone’s tank and head off.“What arrangements?” he asked.He leaned back to stare up into the ceiling again.“Sandra.She’s coming in this evening.I got the captain to pour on some extra burn.Thought after this morning, you might need a little pick-me up from your girl.”“She’s a friend, Calamity.”“Uh-huh.Anyway, you can meet her DropShip on pad seven and head off to a late meal.”“What about you?”“Sure, I’m hungry.But three’s a crowd.”He kicked at one corner of his desk, turning his swivel chair back and forth, back and forth.“You aren’t leaving soon? Back to Lyran space? The Hounds have got to be missing you [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]