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dodged right, for the opening she'd left, at the same time snatching up the waste can and throwing it. She blocked, but the can struck the styrette, triggering it. A narrow jet of liquid puffed into the air.
    He couldn't make a break for it; if she brought him down from behind, she'd finish him.
    Just then the chuteshaft opened, discharging a boisterous party of soccer fans. The woman knew when to cut her losses; she backed out of combat range and dashed from the cul-de-sac.
    By the time Floyt cautiously rounded the corner, she was gone from sight and the corridor was filling with rollicking sports buffs. There were no Peaceguardians to be seen. The best thing to do, he concluded, was return to his apt before anything else happened. He had to take a last look at the scattered trash and the beverage slick to convince himself that it had really happened.
    She must've mistaken me for somebody else, he said to himself. There just wasn't any other explanation.
    CHAPTER 3—PAROLED TO THE STARS
    Alacrity Fitzhugh had lost consciousness with no expectation of waking up, but he opened filmed-over eyes and looked out at a distinctly clinical room.
    He groaned, fighting down nausea, completely disoriented. He blinked. His harsh breathing hissed between locked teeth. The nausea passed after a few moments, and he realized that he didn't feel too terrible aside from the wooziness; he had the instinctive sensation that considerable time had passed.
    Waking up at all was against the odds, he decided, and it would have been in a detention cell or prison treatment center, if anywhere, that he'd have expected to find himself.
    This place, though, was neither. It reminded him more of a Srillan hospital he'd been in once while recovering and awaiting a hearing after a crash, some of the most civilized hospitality he'd ever received.
    He was acquitted, rightly, of all charges, but found out later that if he'd been judged guilty, the death sentence would've been carried out by the same concealed equipment that had ministered to him so faithfully.
    The recollection made him uneasy. He glanced around. An abundance of medical apparatus was apparent in the room, but it was all tucked into wall nooks or folded back into floor or ceiling, inoperative. His was the only bed.
    He could see no windows or viewpanels in the blue-white, deathly silent place, and no ventilation grills, though the air seemed fresh enough. He was under no restraint, and the single door was unguarded, at least on the inside. Floor, walls, and ceiling radiated soft light, sufficient without being too bright.
    He sat up, moving his arms and legs experimentally, exploring his ribs and head. No fractures, no concussions—not even a bruise. Not surprising in a modern medical facility, but he was on Terra—or anyhow, that was the last place he remembered being.
    A light sheet covered him, and he was naked. He'd slept in grav-bunks, flotation hammocks, and suspension fields, but this arrangement was the sort he tended to prefer. He tried to piece together the last things he could recall. The fight came back vividly; he felt quite lucid.
    The door slid open. Alacrity looked up, expecting Peaceguardians, Earthservice bureaucrats, medical personnel, or investigators. Instead, a man of medium height and rather athletic build entered; he was tanned and handsome in the fashion that Earthers still referred to as Mediterranean. His hair was dark and straight; the ends of his carefully trimmed mustache curled around his mouth.
    He was dressed all in carefully tailored black, looking distinguished rather than dashing: a billowing shirt with long, ruffled cuffs, high collar with ruff, tapered trousers, and gleaming shoes. He also wore a sleeveless manteau, open at the front, and a satiny sash wound around his flat, slender midsection.
    The man looked to be in vigorous middle age. His eyes were light brown; the breakabout thought them to be direct and extremely observant. He stopped near the foot