as if she were an interesting piece of machinery. That look didn't deserve an answer, even if she'd had one, which she didn't. She didn't know why she'd ducked into this doorway instead of another. It was handy; she'd wanted a drink; when the thought of a drink and a doorway offering drinks overlapped, she went in. Put that way it didn't sound as if she were thinking straight, but she didn't want to think about that. Not here; not now.

"You know, we've got security vid outside," the man said, leaning back a little. "When your cube ID popped up on my screen, I ran back the loop. You were stalking along the street like someone with a serious grievance. Then you hitched a step, and turned in here, with just a glance at the sign. Anyone tell you about this place?"

"No." Even to Brun's present mood, that sounded sulky, and she expanded. "I was given a list of places that catered to various specialties, mostly sexual. They have a code of light patterns in the windows, the briefing cube said. Anything else was general entertainment."

"So, just as it seemed on the vid, you were in a rage, thought of getting a drink, and turned into the first bar you saw." His mouth quirked. "Really high-quality thinking for someone of your tested intelligence."

"Even smart people can get mad," Brun said.

"Even smart people can get stupid," he replied. "You're supposed to have a security escort at all times, right? And where are they?"

Brun felt herself flushing again. "They're-" She wanted to say a royal pain, but knew that this man would think that childish. Everyone seemed to think it was childish not to want half a dozen people lurking about all the time, looming over private conversations, listening, watching, just .

. . being where she didn't want them to be. "Back at the Schools, I suppose," she said.

"You sneaked out," the man said, with no question at all in his voice.

"Yes. I wanted a bit of-"

"Time to yourself. Yes. And so you risk not only your own life, which is your right as an adult, but you risk their safety and their professional future, because you wanted a little time off."

Now the scorn she had sensed was obvious in his expression and his tone. Those brown eyes made no excuses, for himself or anyone else. "Do you think your assassin is taking time off, time to have a little relaxation?"

Brun had not thought about her assassin any more than she could help; she had certainly not thought about whether an assassin kept the same hours as a target. "I don't know," she muttered.

"Or what will happen to your guards if you get killed while they're not with you?"

"I got away from them," Brun said. "It wouldn't be their fault."

"Morally, no. Professionally, yes. It is their job to guard you, whether you cooperate or not. If you elude them and are killed, they will be blamed." He paused. Brun could think of nothing to say, and was silent. "So . . . you got mad and barged in here. Ordered. Started looking around.

Noticed the decor-"

"Yes. Pieces of ships. It's . . . morbid."

"Now that, young lady, is where you're wrong."

Faced with opposition, Brun felt an urge to argue. "It is. What's the point of keeping bits of dead ships, and-and putting people's names on them, if not morbid fascination with death?"

"Look at me," the man said. Startled, Brun complied. "Really look," the man said. He moved the hoverchair back a little, and pointed to his legs . . . which ended at what would have been mid- thigh. Brun looked, unwillingly but carefully, and saw more and more signs of old and serious injury.

"No regen tanks on an escort," the man said. "It's too small. A buddy stuffed me in an escape pod, and when old Cutlass was blown, I was safely away. By the time I was picked up, there was no way to regrow the legs. Or the arm, though I chose a good prosthesis there. They'd have given me leg prostheses too, but I had enough spinal damage that I couldn't manage them. Now the head injuries-" He dipped his head, showing Brun the scars that laced his head. "Those were from another battle, back on Pelion, when part of a casing spalled off and sliced me up."

He grinned at her, and she saw the distortion of one side of his mouth. "Now you, young lady, you don't have a clue what using part of Cutlass's hull as my bar means to me. Or to any of the men and women who come here. What it means to have crockery from Paradox and Emerald City and Wildcat, to have cutlery from Defence and Granicus and Lancaster, to have everything in this place made of the remnants of ships we served on, fought on, and survived."

"I still think it's morbid," Brun said, through stiff lips.

"You ever killed anyone?" he asked.

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I have."

"Tell me about it."

She could not believe this conversation. Tell him about the island, about Lepescu? But his eyes waited, and his scars, and his assumptions about her ignorance. Which of these finally drove her to speak, she could not have said.

"We-some friends and I-had taken an aircar to an island on Sirialis. It's a planet my father owns." She didn't like the sound of that, now; she wasn't boasting, but it sounded like it. He didn't react. "We didn't know that there were . . . intruders. A man-he was a Fleet officer-"

"Who?"

She felt a reluctance to answer, but could think of no way to avoid it. "Admiral Lepescu." Was there a reaction? She couldn't tell. "He and some friends-at least, I was told they were friends-had transported criminals . . . well, not really criminals, but that's what they said . .

." He shifted, with impatience she could almost feel. "Anyway," she said, hurrying now, "he and his friends transported these people to the island, to hunt. To hunt them, the supposed criminals.

Lepescu and his friend stayed on a nearby island, which had a fishing lodge on it, and flew over every day to hunt. The hunted had cobbled together some kind of weapon, and shot down our aircar, thinking we were Lepescu. They captured us. When they realized their mistake, we realized that we

would all be hunted; Lepescu would try to cover up his crimes."

"And no one knew he was on this planet?" The man's voice conveyed his disbelief.

"Dad found out later that one of his station commanders had been bribed. There was so much traffic

in the system-it was the height of hunting season, with lots of guests coming and going-that the others had not noticed an extra ship at one station."

"Umph." Disbelief still in that, but a sharp nod made Brun go on with her story.

"So Raffa and I went off to an old hideout I remembered from childhood," Brun said. She felt herself tense, felt the fine sweat springing out on her skin. She didn't like thinking about that night or the next days. She rattled through the story as fast as possible: how she and Raffa had each killed one of the intruders and acquired their weapons, the discovery that the intruders had poisoned the water, their flight to the cave, and the final confrontation in the cave when Lepescu had been killed by Heris Serrano.

The man's expression changed at the mention of Serrano, but he said only, "So you yourself actually killed someone who was trying to kill you . . ."

"Yes."

"And did you enjoy it?"

"No!" That came out with more force than she intended.

"You were scared?"

"Of course, I was scared. I'm not a . . . a . . ." Military freak hovered on her tongue, but she was able to choke it back.

"Militarist crazy?" he asked. Brun stared. Mind-reading was impossible, wasn't it? Then he sighed.

"I do wish that somewhere in history people would quit diminishing courage in military personnel by assuming they aren't subject to normal emotions."

"Lepescu didn't seem to have any," Brun said.

"Lepescu was a serious problem," the man said. "He damn near ruined the Serrano family, through Heris; he was probably responsible for more deaths than the enemy in any engagement he had to do

with. But he was hardly typical. Even in his own family, there are good officers, not that any of 'em will have a career now."

He took a long swallow of his ale, then put the mug down and gave her another straight look.

"So . . . back to you. What put you in a rage?"

"An argument."

"With whom?"

"Esmay Suiza," Brun said. Anger burst out again. "She was like you-she thinks I'm just a spoiled

rich girl helling around the universe having fun. She had the nerve-the gall-to tell me I had no moral structure to my life."

"Do you?"

"Of course I do!"

"What, then, do you conceive as the purpose of your life? What is it that you do, to justify your existence? What are you here for?"

Put that way, in his easy voice that carried neither praise nor blame, Brun found the answers that floated into her mind clearly inadequate. She was her father's daughter; she existed to . . . to be her father's daughter. No. She didn't want to be just her father's daughter, but she had found

nothing else.