ht with the
Brotherhood and counting himself lucky to be alive. It had left him
with a scar across his right cheek, cutting into his mouth and chin,
but it had left five others dead, three disabled.

The scar had upset the young men he was interviewing; most had stared
for a few seconds, then looked away. Well, they hadn't been very
promising anyway. Recruiting trips to out-of-the-way small towns like
that Boalsburg were mostly for show rather than out of any real
expectation of finding good Enforcement candidates.

The last applicant's folder had brought a smile. Joan Cortin . . .
Not many women applied for Enforcement, and even fewer qualified. He
remembered thinking it probably hadn't been a serious application; more
than likely, she just wanted to meet the "romantic" Enforcement
officer. Odeon hadn't minded; he'd been rather flattered, if anything.
He'd opened the folder and scanned it, intending to make it look good
before he turned her down.

There'd been only one catch. Grades, psychoprofile, and physical stats
said she did qualify--and at well above officer-cadet minimums. He'd
wondered if she knew.

She hadn't. Her application had been the ruse he'd guessed; she
admitted that immediately, without either staring at or avoiding his
scar. She thought it added to his appeal, which hadn't hurt his
feelings at all. It'd been rather enjoyable convincing her that she
really was Enforcement-officer material, and he'd taken real pleasure
in waiting until she was leaving--and her former schoolmates could
hear--to tell her when she'd be picked up by an Enforcement trooper
who'd drive her to the Royal Academy.

He'd been there for her graduation, too, proud that one of his recruits
had been at the top of the class, commissioned First Lieutenant for
that achievement. He'd given her her first salute, then staggered as
sixty kilos of enthusiastic female officer jumped him for a
congratulatory kiss.

Remembering that kiss--and the night that followed, the others
later--Mike Odeon rubbed the scar crossing his lips. It hurt to see
medics working over her, hear them sounding pessimistic. Her injuries
seemed to be even more severe than Boris had said at first, and she'd
been weak to begin with, just recuperating from one of the unnamed
plagues that had devastated the Kingdom Systems during the Final War.
The plagues were no longer common, hadn't been for over a century;
Joanie had simply had the bad luck to pu