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  "Good, very good, Phelan." Someone patted his leg reassuringly. "Keep up the cooperation and we can end this soon. How many regiments does the LCAF have?"

  The mercenary's whole body tensed. He tried to withhold the information, but a voice inside his head whispered seductive arguments that gnawed away at his resolve. What have the Lyrans ever done for you, Phelan? They humiliated you and cast you out of the Nagelring. They murdered DJ with their stupidity. Think of all the times you vowed you would avenge her if you had the force. You don't have it, but they do. All you have to do is tell them what they want to know and your shame will be absolved.

  Phelan felt as if a million fire-ants were marching over his body, feasting as they went. He searched his brain for the information on the Lyran Commonwealth's troop strengths, but instead he ran headlong into reasons why he could not give the Commonwealth up. My father and mother are fanatical in their devotion to the Steiner family. Victor Steiner-Davion is my cousin. To betray the Commonwealth is to betray them, to betray everyone I love. I cannot!

  The Confessor's voice gained an edge. "Take him up to eighty and back down again immediately."

  The mercenary heard the menace in those words and tried to brace himself for the drug's effect, but he could never have anticipated it. He felt a tremor begin at his feet and knew that a wave had begun in the kilometers of ribbon that made them up. Moving up beyond his knees, it built in intensity and coursed through his thighs. He saw his whole body flapping in a technicolor wind. As the power of the wave increased almost beyond endurance, it suddenly broke like a mighty explosion in his brain.

  Over Phelan's scream of agony, the Confessor repeated the question. "How many regiments does the Lyran Commonwealth have?"

  Phelan fought to resist, but the words had already reached his throat and tongue. "One-hundred fifty-three regiments. The sixty-five coming from Skye and Tamar are questionable in loyalty because the Archon has forbidden them to try to take back former Tamar Pact worlds from Rasalhague."

  His body quivered and sobs wracked his chest, but nothing could free him from his bonds or his tormentors. Hothead's evil chuckle underscored and mocked the Confessor's strong voice. "Very good, Phelan. Now we will start again, from the beginning, and make sure everything tallies. Work with us and we will not have to hurt you again ..."

  13

  Skondia

  Federation of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth

  31 December 3049

  Drenched in sweat, Kai Allard rested his hands on his hips and raised his face to the sky. These hills really make me wonder about my commitment to running. He laughed to himself. On Skondia, running isn't a commitment. It's a sentence! He snaked his hands under the hem of his red t-shirt, raising it to wipe his face.

  When he pulled the shirt down again, he saw her for the first time. Her black hair barely brushed the shoulders of the oversized gray sweatshirt she wore. The black and green body suit underneath hugged her long, well-muscled legs, the design's green elements swirling up her limbs like long blades of grass. With her right heel resting on a park bench, she leaned over and grasped the toe of her right shoe and pulled herself forward to touch her nose to her kneecap.

  As she unfolded, she caught sight of Kai watching her and seemed to become self-conscious. Though she smiled, her blue eyes were wary as a cat's. She brought her arms close to her chest, obscuring the New Avalon Institute of Science crest on the sweatshirt, and began to perform waist-twists. "Hello."

  "Sorry to startle you," Kai said. "I'd not expected to see anyone else here this early in the morning." He glanced out over the misty green ,valley where he'd just run. "They've got a beautiful exercise course set up here, but you couldn't tell that from the number of people using it."

  He took a half-step forward and saw her drift back easily. He pointed at the tan canvas bag near her end of the bench. "Could you toss the bag to me? I'd like my towel."

  Her reserve broke as she lofted the bag to Kai. "How well did you do?"

  Kai frowned. "Pardon?"

  She smiled and Kai instantly decided he liked that very much. "Your shirt... it's from the Twenty-fifty New Avalon Myriameter Run. How well did you do?"

  Kai pulled a white towel from his bag and mopped his face. "Uh, I finished in the fifties."

  She lifted her other leg to the bench and began to stretch. "Was that place or time?" Her question came without challenge or skepticism and that pleased Kai.

  She's not yet decided if I am a liar or a fellow runner whom she can trust. "Place. My time was 43:35. I should have done better, but I died late in the race."

  She laughed easily. "Heartbreak Hill!"

  Kai matched her laugh with his own. "You know it? I mean you've run in the race?"

  Her black hair whipped back and forth as she shook her head. "No, not the race, just the course. I'm not much for competition." She straightened up. "That hill is a killer. It may only be a kilometer and a half back through Davion Peace Park to the finish line, but it might as well be a light year after that hill."

  Kai hung his towel around his neck and raised one of his legs to the bench. A droplet of sweat rolled off his nose as he bent forward to stretch out his hamstring. "You're right. The hill is death itself. Still, running through the park, I got a lift from the Silver Eagle memorial."

  "How is that?" She shuddered visibly. "That statue is so horrible. That dog's all torn up and obviously in pain. Just as obviously the panther is going to kill it. I found it depressing." Her face screwed itself tight with distaste. "It's so violent I don't see why it's in the Peace Park."

  Kai shifted legs and bent forward until the muscle in the back of his other thigh almost screamed. I remember when my Uncle Dan took me to the park and explained how the dog represented the Kell Hounds rescuing Melissa Steiner from a Kurita trap. Patrick Kell sacrificed himself to make sure his cousin Melissa could escape. The statue deserves to be in the Peace Park because people need to remember that great sacrifice is necessary for great gain.

  Kai looked over at her. "I understand your point, but I differ with it. I think the child the hound is protecting—and the rope rising into the sky symbolizing the child's imminent rescue—makes it a hopeful display." He refrained from bragging about his family's connection with the statue. "In the race, I felt as torn up as the dog looks, but I pushed myself because I knew it wouldn't kill me and because I felt I owed myself the best finish I could muster."

  "And I see your point." She stripped off the sweatshirt revealing the body suit's clinging tank-top. The muscles in her bare arms were well-defined and her flat stomach and smallish breasts marked her as a dedicated runner. She tossed the garment down on the bench. "Is it safe here?"

  Shifting around, Kai leaned into the bench to stretch out his Achilles tendon and the muscles of his right calf. "Do you mean for you or the shirt?"

  She gave him a half-grin. "The shirt. I may be just off the DropShip, but I can take care of myself."

  Kai chuckled lightly. "The shirt should be fine. Skondia's criminal element would consider it beneath them. Since this world's penal colony is located on that silvery moon over there, and the ambient temperature is zero degrees Centigrade, they go for the big stuff. An NAIS sweatshirt isn't worth it."

  She followed his line of sight to a small silver ball hovering between two jagged mountain peaks near the horizon. "Escaping from there requires more than carving a laser pistol from a block of sodium tallowate." She turned back to Kai. "What do they call it?"

  Kai met her gaze squarely. "The crims call it the Last Mistress, but the locals just call it Justice."

  She frowned. "That's cold ..."

  Kai laughed. "No pun intended."

  She shook her head emphatically. "No, no pun." She watched him for a moment, then nodded approvingly. "Not many people stretch out like they should after exercise. It's a good thing you're doing."

  He nodded. "I don't want to be a tightened-up old man."

  She frowned sympathetically. "Is there a
family tendency toward that sort of thing? I mean, how are your grandfathers?"

  Kai kept the smile on his face, but his mind was racing over his nearest ancestors. Grandpa Allard is fine. I know it's a common story that he has a rare, untreatable form of Alzheimer's Disease, but that's so no one will try to kidnap him and pump information out of him. His years in the Ministry of Intelligence Information and Operations would make him a valuable resource to enemy intelligence agencies. But my mother's father, he was nuts for years before he finally died. After hearing all the things he did, and seeing what Romano Liao—I still can't warm to the idea of her as my aunt—has done to bedevil my mother, I can only hope I take after the Allard side of the family.

  "One is dead, but neither had real problems. I just don't want to leave anything up to chance." He wiped his face again with the towel, then stuffed it into his bag. "Well, enjoy your run. Five klicks out, you'll hit a downhill stretch that looks inviting, but save something. Beyond it is a slope that makes Heartbreak Hill look like a speed-bump."

  Suspicion crept into her voice. "And after that?"

  'The hill's big brother."

  "Thanks for the warning," she tossed back over her shoulder as she headed off along the running trail.

  Kai watched until her head sank out of sight, then smacked the palm of his right hand against his forehead. Idiot. She said she was just off a DropShip. She's probably not had time to make many friends and you don't have a date for the Marshal's reception tonight.

  He glanced at her crumpled t-shirt and wished he had pencil and paper to leave a message with it. Slightly angry with himself, Kai started back up the road to the Military Compound and the small house he shared with another Leftenant in the Guards. He stopped at the crest of the hill and searched vainly for a view of her. Then he abandoned his vantage point and retreated home, silently berating himself for not even getting her name.

  ***

  "Blake's Blood, Kai!" Dressed only in a towel wrapped around his narrow waist, Bevan Pelosi pounded his fist against the door jamb. Steam still drifted from the shower stall beyond him, but his deep voice suffered no competition from the faucet's constant dripping. "How could you let such a woman get away?"

  Kai shot his tow-headed housemate a daggered glance. "This is me we're talking about, Bevan, not you. I do not have your vast experience with women. Give me an opportunity and I just screw it up."

  Bevan's hair hung in wet ringlets over his forehead but did not hide his frown. "I was thinking about this girl in the shower ..."

  "Hence the smile on your face," Kai quipped. "And the flush of your skin ..."

  "Wise guy!" Bevan made a face. "Why the hell didn't you just come back here and write a note, then drive back down to the park and leave it? You could've used my aircar. You know where I keep the keys."

  Kai turned from the mirror and raised an eyebrow. "My dear friend, I actually thought of that this morning." Kai glanced at a waste receptacle by his desk. "I would have done exactly as you suggest except that your guest from last evening had already taken the keys so she could go out and buy all those things she put into that omelet this morning."

  Bevan shrugged helplessly. "And don't think I don't appreciate your helping me eat that thing." He slapped a hand against his flat stomach. "Why is it that women want to fatten me up?"

  "They probably want to slow you down long enough to catch you."

  Pelosi's grin blossomed like a sunflower. "So many women, so little time ..."

  Kai turned back to the mirror. So many women, so little nerve ... He tugged at the collar of his green dress uniform and hooked it shut.

  "Is it fixed right, Bevan?"

  Pelosi closed his left eye, then nodded. "Don't change the subject, Kai. How long has it been since you've had a date?"

  "You mean aside from the time I went out with Pamela's cousin so you could be alone with Pam?"

  Bevan ignored the needling and stared wistfully into space. "Pam. Now there was a girl who really knew how to ..."

  "Cook?" Kai offered wryly. He moved back from the mirror and sat on the edge of his bed. Flipping open a rosewood case, he pulled one of the silver spurs from their bed of ruby velvet. The spur was a simple U-shape with a rowelless spike at the lowest point in the loop. "At least Pam didn't insist on putting quillar in an omelet," he commented as he fastened the spur to the heel of his left boot with a black leather strap.

  Leaning against the door jamb, Bevan wrinkled his nose. "This from a man buckling spurs to his boots."

  Kai ignored the jibe. "Why'd you stop seeing her?"

  Bevan shrugged. "I dunno. She just started grating on me. I think she liked you more than me anyway."

  "Not surprising." Kai tucked his trousers into the tops of his black boots. "I paid more attention to her than you did."

  "Yeah. I felt pretty embarrassed when you got her that holovid for her birthday and I'd forgotten clean about it." Bevan shook his head. "Wondered why you didn't ask her out after we broke up. I wouldn't have minded."

  Kai stood and checked himself in the mirror. "It wouldn't have worked—your permission or otherwise." Kai stared into the mirror but saw only a long line of footprints along a black sandy beach.

  As though reading Kai's mind, Bevan smiled sympathetically. "Hey, I know your thing with ... ah, what was her name ... ?"

  Kai's face remained impassive and his eyes distant. "Wendy. Wendy Sylvester."

  Bevan looked down apologetically. "Yeah, Wendy, right, Well, I know how that ended and that you blame yourself, and all, but you can't let it ruin your life. You gotta start living sometime. This girl today, she could have been an omen."

  Kai shrugged. "If she was an omen, I already missed." Bevan opened his arms expansively, lifting his palms to the heavens. 'There are plenty of fish in the sea, Kai. You're an eligible officer who also happens to have enough noble blood coursing through his veins to get him invited to the Marshal's reception while us po' folks have to fend for ourselves on this New Year's Eve. There are women in the thousands who'd like to be seen on your arm, or in your bed, if you'd just give it a chance."

  Before Kai could respond, Bevan cut him off. "I know what you're going to say, but bottom line is this, Kai: You just have to open up and give yourself a chance. Hell, today's the day."

  Give yourself a chance. Somewhere deep inside that phrase struck a chord in Kai. Why spend your life avoiding things because you know they'll turn out badly? You know you got along with Pam because she was with Bevan, which meant there was no pressure on you. You couldn't screw that up. Give yourself a chance.

  "So resolved. As of January 1, 3050, Kai Allard will give himself a chance." As he offered his hand to Bevan, a whisper of dread passed through him. Let's hope the gods of retribution do not notice your boldness. If they do, you will reap what your temerity richly deserves.

  ***

  "Yes, sir, I think it was three years ago we last saw each other." Kai smiled as he took Leftenant-General Andrew Redburn's hand and shook it. "As I recall, it was at the anniversary party for my Aunt Riva and Uncle Robert. I enjoyed getting to see both you and Misha." He looked around. "Is she here?"

  Andrew shook his head. "No, but she sends her love. She asked me to thank you for that kind hologram concerning her last book ..." Andrew Redburn's deep voice and ready smile reminded Kai of when the Leftenant-General—then just a Major with the First Kathil Uhlans—had brought his family to Kestrel for Dan Allard's wedding. He'd made it his duty to ride herd on all the children present to keep them from getting underfoot during the preparations. Kai remembered fondly more than one colossal wrestling match where Victor Davion, Phelan Kell, Andrew's son Thelos, and he had been wolves to Andrew's bear—complete with roars and growls and playful swats on all sides.

  "I meant every word," Kai said. "She and Jay Mitchell are the only historians around who have any sense for accurate battle reportage. Freedom's Bloody Price really brought to life Rasalhague's battle against the renegade Kurita forces dur
ing the Ronin Wars. The tactical descriptions of the battles read logically, and her judgment of the Gunzburg debacle placed the blame where it belongs: on the mercenaries and the politicians equally. I very much enjoyed the book and felt I had to tell her so."

  Andrew smiled and light glinted from the medals and campaign ribbons on the broad, black breast of his Uhlans' uniform. "Your message arrived right after the book had been damned in a review, so your comments were most welcome."

  "Then I'm doubly glad I wrote her. I just hope Misha is the one to chronicle any battles where I find myself. I know the victors write the history, but having a sympathetic historian in your corner can't hurt at all."

  "Excuse me."

  Kai felt a jolt as he heard her voice and felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned from Andrew and stared straight into the deep blue eyes of the woman he'd met that morning. Maybe Bevan was right. Maybe she is an omen!

  She wore a black evening gown whose bodice was sewn with ebony sequins in a starburst pattern that flashed with the lights as she moved. The string of pearls around her throat matched her earrings and had enough of a blue tint to complement her eyes and dark hair.

  "You forgot your bag," she said with an impish smile.

  "What?" was all Kai could think of to say.

  She laid her hand on his arm. "Your bag. The one with your towel in it? You left it on the bench. I waited after my run, thinking you might come back for it. There was nothing with your name so I couldn't call you. I took it home and planned to get out to the trail early enough tomorrow to give it back to you."

  Kai felt his cheeks flushing and turned back to Andrew just in time to see a bemused smile spread over his face. "We met this morning, General. Out running. I would introduce you, but I ..."

  Andrew winked at the worhan. "No need. Dr. Lear came in with us yesterday. She's being transferred to the Tenth Lyran Guards and I met her on the way down to Skondia. It's good to see you again, Doctor."

  She nodded her head. "And you, General."