Here's a chapter that got completely revised to death. This is mostly a version I was using when I actually tried sending this to publishers.

Skarff had come to claim Aeacus, this time in a beautiful ship with sweeping wings that to Ajax's eye looked equal parts Frank Lloyd Wright and Flash Gordon. The Eater greeted Meliboia as she approached, in the dress she had worn for the Dowager. "A generral ceasefire is in effect across the World Island," he said. "The interrests that have acted in your world are required to wait for the appointment of a representative in the Union. It is still King Ajax's to accept. If he dooes not, it will most likely be given to Lemmia."

"He might consider it, now," Mel said.

"I also wish to relay, the Union has considerred the situation regarding an heir to Ajax's throone," the Eater said. "We can prrovide assistance, at least on the lines of artificial conception and surroogacy. The offer is not contingent on any otherr."

"Thank you," Mel said. "What is the situation with my father?"

"He is being held on possible charrges for unlawful use of technology in war and other crimes against peace and common law," Skarff answered. "What I gather the Coourt truly hopes for is testimony against his clients and backers. It does not rroole out his return for trial by the Realms of the World Island."

He turned back to Mel as they reached the ramp to the ship. "As you know, you have the rright of visitation," he said. "Anything he might say to you, and hypoothetically anything you might say to him, will be confidential. You will not be requirred to report any disclosure or confession to any crrime, nor will any such statement be admissible as evidence in any Coourt of the Union. If you fear you arre being threatened with incriminating testimony, oor with any other rreprisal, counsel will be available to you."

"Understood," Mel said. "I'm not worried, really." She ran her hands through her hair as she entered the ship.

Aeacus was in a cell no different than the ones he had used for his own prisoners. He rose as a guard led Mel to him. "My Daughter," he said. "I regret what has happened. What has been done is done."

She sat before him on a chair turned backwards. She rested her chin in her hands, with her elbows supported on the back. "Here's the thing," she said. "I wouldn't have thought you would ever do a tenth of what you did. And what that makes me wonder is, have I ever known you?"

"I hid nothing from you during the time you were a Myrmidon," Aeacus said. "You know the true meaning of our Codes."

"Sure," Mel said. "But there were always supposed to be limits. In all the time I was with you, I never saw you break the rules that mattered. Don't harm hostages. Don't break a truce. Don't kill kids. But there was a lot that came before, wasn't there? Like Caledon."

"So, you wish to speak of that," Aeacus said. "I offered to aid you in your inquiries."

"Sure," Mel said. "That would've been convenient, wouldn't it? Everything I found out, you would have known, too. Well, I'll tell you this. In all the time I ever bothered to look, I found two people who might have known something. One was a burned-out Misthios named Myrtilus that I talked to six weeks before he overdosed on Lotus… allegedly. The other was Cadmus. When I caught him, I offered to let him go if he told me whatever he knew. He chose taking a walk."

"I knew Myrtilus," Aeacus said. "He was an Atreid, not a Myrmidon. If he took part, then they were the ones responsible."

"Maybe," his daughter said. "But we did plenty of business with them, didn't we? And then there was Cadmus. Why would he know anything about it? He really did, he couldn't hide it. He was never cut out for what he did. Why would he remember it? He could barely keep track of the names of his clients, or whether they had paid him. Anything he knew wouldn't just be something he overheard. Would it?"

She straightened. "But let's start at the beginning. There was the kinetic strike. That probably tripped the only signal that went out. 18 hours later, you came, maybe in time to spook the team out of taking the platinum. 36 hours after that, you showed up in port, with a baby nobody but you had ever seen. Even you have to admit, the optics are looking shaky. And here's the thing. Everybody said that the roll of names of the colonists was lost, from you to the Syndicate to the Union Court. Funny thing is, Myrtilus did have it, after all those years. He showed it to me. There were names, ages… and notes on which women were fertile. So how did it go missing in the first place? He couldn't tell me, but there was only one thing that made sense. Whoever gave it to him was a Syndicate contact who blanked the original files. So who else had it? Somebody must have, because it didn't show any kids. Even knowing what I do now, I'm sure Myrmidons wouldn't sign off on killing kids. Would we?"

Aeacus sighed, as if his patience had been overtaxed. "Perhaps we can talk about this in hypotheticals," he said. "Perhaps there were rumors among the Myrmidons and Misthioi as there were among the Apoikoi themselves. It would not have taken much, hardly anything, really. Just the report that someone was hiding something, and it was not untrue, was it? You saw the crib. Do you think I planted it? That I could have done it, without being found out? Enough people cared to look into that."

He sat down on his bunk. "If, perhaps, the matter had been brought to my attention by my allies and subordinates, I could have told them it was nothing. I was born an Apoikoi; I knew how their minds worked, how easily they are deceived, by themselves most of all. It was a byword among the junkers, nobody is easier to cheat than an Apoikoi who fears you will cheat him. They would laugh, but even they were embarrassed. As much as it would have been in my ability, I would have forbidden Myrmidon involvement, but even with the Geryon, I did not have the power I do now. It probably would not have mattered. It was a baited trap; sooner or later, someone would have taken it."

"You could have done something, if you knew," Mel said. "You could have warned them. You could have offered them protection. You could have told the Syndicate that the colony was in violation of its charter."

"And then what?" Aeacus said. "They knew what they risked. Everything and nothing, because they had nothing that others could not take on a thin pretense. You know what happened to colonists who lost their claims. They would have been more outcast than the Ostrakoi, unable even to sell themselves as harlots and slaves. They would have chosen death over that; many did."

Mel only stared coldly. "I suppose that would make sense," she said. "It would have been easy if you were the one who ordered the attack, and then tried to make up for it when you realized what you had done. That's how stories usually are… too easy."

She rested her chin directly on the back of the chair, level with Aeacus' own eyes. "You know, I talked to Nopalina about the story of Meliboia," she said. "She told me there was a version of the story without her at all; I knew that, of course. I could tell she thought that was how the story really went from the beginning. I told her, if that was true, what would be the point in telling the story at all? But the old Hellenes weren't like that. They knew how to tell stories that worked the way their world really was. Maybe the real point was that there was no point, just a lot of people dying because someone else did something really, really stupid."

She continued to stare. "I showed Ajax the inside of the capsule," she said. "I could tell he knew what happened as soon as we came inside. Someone sabotaged the airlock from inside. And who's to say that someone didn't succeed?"

"There was a life reading in our flight logs," Aeacus said. "You know they cannot be altered without being detected. There was no child among the dead; you yourself investigated that. What other explanation can you offer?"

"Sure," Mel said. "You really got an easy pass on that; why lie, when one more dead Apoikoi would give you salvage rights free and clear? And those life readings are tricky, especially with kids… or the recently deceased. It must have been close. There would have been just time enough for someone to decide whether it was better for a child to die, or be handed over to you."

"If you are right," said the man who had raised her as a father, "then your mother chose a death worthy of a Myrmidon, even of Amphion himself."

"Still, if what I'm thinking is right, maybe it was too close to be sure even after you got there," Mel said. "Maybe that was where Cadmus came in. I'll give you one thing, he was the one person who could have looked at all the options. And if it came to that, there was still a choice: Clone the child, or the mother? But I suppose I lost the trail. I never had my team do genetic tests on the crib. By then, it was probably too late to be sure. Oh, and why have you always called that woman my mother?"

She abruptly rose to her feet, so swiftly and forcefully that the chair clattered aside. A guard briefly looked inside. "You know the stupid part?" she said. "A whole lot of those fans believed it all along. I still didn't really think about it, until I met Ajax. When I had to tell him I couldn't have children, I said I was like Xaja's birds. And that was the first time I wondered if it was really true."

She wiped the tears from her eyes. "And you know something else? I don't want you to tell me anything. I'm done with this. I'm done with you. I never really wanted to know, anyway. It's just like I always tell people, the one good thing about my life story is that I don't have to worry about where I came from. Every day, I'm a clean slate. Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up, and I'm not going to think about you. Thanks for the wedding present, Daddy. You're never going to see me again." Aeacus only lowered his head as she strode out.

Ajax waited for her as she descended. "My Queen," he said. They embraced. "I am sorry I could not go with you. I feared Aeacus might say something to hurt you. Are you all right?"

"Yes," Mel said. "I'm better than all right. I'm a new woman." She walked hand in hand with her King toward the Geryon.