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 guestfrom 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."