"Fine," said Angus, taking a deep breath and straightening his jacket. "How do I look?"

"Like a father," said Katherine.

The groundcar drew to a halt within the villa's courtyard and Arcturus got out in time to see his mother and father emerge onto the steps before the front door. His father was dressed in an immaculate, severely cut suit of ash gray with the wolf-head emblem on the breast packet, while his mother wore an elegant dress of cornflower blue.

The air was fresh with the tang of saltwater and a pleasing chill blew in off the ocean. As five armed guards stood in the shadows of the courtyard, Arcturus stood straight and with his shoulders back, trying to read the expressions on his parents faces. His mother smiled warmly, and Arcturus thought he detected a faint hint of welcome even in his father's stern features.

Achton Feld moved past him with his suit-bag and Arcturus followed him.

As he reached the bottom of the steps, his mother came down and embraced him, all her thoughts of reserve forgotten as tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Oh, Arcturus...." she wept. "It's so good to have you home. We've missed you so much."

He returned his mother's embrace, feeling a powerful, forgiving sense of return. He surrendered to it and felt years of bitterness begin to wash away at the simple sincerity of his mother's welcoming love.

Eventually his mother released him and he found himself face-to-face with his father.

The moment stretched and the warmth of the previous welcome faded like a distant memory. At last his father extended his hand.

"Good to see you, son," said Angus.

Arcturus smiled, though it was an effort. "And you, Father."

They shook hands stiffly, but Arcturus could discern that, despite himself, his father was actually pleased to see him.

"You've changed," said Angus.

"So Feld tells me," replied Arcturus. "Though he seems unable to say how."

"It's your eyes. You've gotten older. You've done things that have aged you."

"Is that a good thing?"

"I don't know yet," said his father, releasing his hand.

Arcturus saw his mother narrow her eyes and turned to her. "Where's Dorothy?"

"She's upstairs." said his mother. "Asleep. It seemed a shame to wake her."

Arcturus caught the hesitation in her reply and said. "Come on, Mother. Where is she really?"

"She's upstairs," repeated Katherine. "She's just... Well, she's still angry with you."

"After two years?"

"People can hold grudges for longer than that," said his father.

Arcturus nodded. "So I gather. She's in her room?"

"Yes," said Katherine, "but maybe you should let her come down in her own time, dear?"

"I don't think so," said Arcturus. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that it's almost always best to tackle a problem head-on."

"The Marines teach you that?" said Angus.

"No, I learned that from you," said Arcturus, sweeping past his parents and into the villa.

The entrance hall was exactly as he remembered it, with its checkerboard-patterned floor, dark paneling, and gold-framed portraits. His mother's objets d'art still stood on their while marble columns, and no sooner was he across the threshold than a hundred memories from his childhood returned.

He stood in the warm hallway, letting the smells of the house wash over him in a sustained assault on his senses: the wax rubbed into the wooden floors, the aroma of slowly cooking dinner, the polish used on the silverware. Arcturus could hear the bustle of staff in the kitchens, the creak and groan of an aged house warmed by the sun, and the hum of the generator room deep in the basement

The house spoke to him in a language of the senses, a combination of a thousand different sights, sounds, and smells, but they all blended into one simple feeling.

He was home.

How many soldiers fantasized about home? All of them, even the ones with nothing much to look forward to at the end of their term of service. Home was an idealized notion to most military men, but here, standing in the house in which he'd spent every summer growing up, Arcturus knew that this was no fantasy.

Arcturus climbed the stairs, avoiding the creaking ones—as he had always done as a child—and made his way toward Dorothy's room. He smiled as he saw that her door was still covered with colorful letters.

He knocked lightly on the door, three slow knocks followed by three quick ones, the secret code they'd used when she was little more than a toddler.

"Go away!" came a voice from beyond the door.

"Llltle Dot, it's me," he said. "Arcturus."

"I know."

Realizing he would get nowhere like this, Arcturus pushed open the door and went in. Inside, he saw that Dorothy's room had changed since the last time he'd seen it. It was still strewn with toys, but there was an order to them now, a hierarchy that had Dorothy clearly at the top.

His sister lay on her back in the center of her bed. Pontius the pony held tightly across her chest. The old pony was looking a little threadbare, but Dorothy plainly wasn't about to let that stop her from hanging on to him.

"Hello, Little Dot," he said. "I'm back home."

"No one calls me that anymore," said Dorothy. "I'm not a baby anymore."

Arcturus crossed the room to stand at the side of her bed, observing that Dorothy had indeed grown since he had seen her last. She had blossomed into a pretty little girl with the distinctive high cheekbones of her mother and the thunderous brow of her father.

She wore a smart dress and her hair was pleated in two pigtails. Even lying down, she looked every inch the Mengsk she was.

He smiled. "Okay. So what do they call you now then?"

"Dorothy, silly," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, which, he had to admit, it probably was. "What else would they call me?"

"Sorry, yes, should have thought about that," he said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I don't want to talk to you," said Dorothy, rolling away from him and onto her side.

"Well, that's too bad," said Arcturus. "I suppose I'll have to keep the present I was going to give you. Maybe I'll give it some poor children."

"I don't care," she said. "I don't want it anyway."

"That's a shame. It was a really nice present."

"I told you, I don't care," said Dorothy, and Arcturus saw he wasn't going to win her over with simple appeals to a child's greed. As always, he'd have to go for the emotlonal blackmail.

"I wrote to you every day, but you didn't write back," he said. "I missed you. I really missed you, little sister."

"Then why did you leave me?" she cried, rolling over to face him and hurling Pontius at him. The stuffed pony bounced to the floor and Arcturus leaned back as Dorothy rose to her knees and hit him over and over on the chest with tiny fists.

"You went away and left me without saying good-bye," she sobbed.

He let her vent her frustrations on him without protest, and when she was done, he put his arms around her and held her tightly.

"I know I did, and I'm sorry. I never meant to leave you like that."

"Then why did you go? I never saw you to say good-bye."

"I...I had to go," he said. "I couldn't stay here."

"Why? Because of Daddy?"

"No, it was because of me. I had to go and do something for me, something that wasn't some idea or plan of his. Joining up was my way of doing that."

"You could have died," cried Dorothy. "Soldiers get shot at and blown up all the time. I see it on the news every day, even though Mummy and Daddy don't like me watching it. I kept looking for you, I kept watching the news and wondering if you'd been killed."

Arcturus held his sister close as she cried, not having thought about what she must have gone through, wondering if he was alive or dead. His mother and father would no doubt have assured her that he was alive and well, but what force could compete with the imagination of a six-year-old?