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no resilience at all. The first evening after they left Cherbourg, she had shin splints from running too long on the hard deck.
    She followed the slow curve of the ship forward, keeping clear of doors, vents, and hatches. Her mother warned about such obstacles. Her mother had trained for the 2032 games on a cruise ship in the Black Sea and knew a Senegalese runner who broke an ankle and wrist by tripping over a hatch coaming.
    Rounding the bow, she started running along the port side. The rising sun was in her eyes. Jenny liked it. Living in Britain for ten years made her appreciate the sun more than she ever had growing up in the Bahamas.
    Some other walkers were out. A lean, dark-eyed man with a white ship’s towel around his neck was earnestly working on his morning 5K. He was trailed by a few plump women, the American teenage girl, and the youngest of the Chinese tourists, without his holographic hat. The American girl—Julie—was wearing her PDD shades and talking to friends via Your/World. On an earlier lap, Jenny asked in passing why she was up so early.
    â€œI promised my friend Miki in Jakarta I’d be up for her link. She’s having trouble with her boyfriend,” she said. The deck was quieter than the lounge and walking let her talk better, she said.
    As she passed the clump of walkers, the dark-eyed man sped up to a race-walk. As Jenny was only jogging, he kept pace a few steps behind until she quickened her stride. He did the same, breaking into a jog.
    Ah, she thought. You want to try me, do you?
    Without looking back, she upped her pace slowly until she hit her 1500-meter stride. Jenny circled the stern and started up the starboard side. To her surprise, the dark-eyed man was still in sight, though a dozen paces behind. She watched how and where he held his hands. He moved like an athlete all right.
    Grinning, she kept up her speed past the American guy leaning on the rail with his coffee. Leigh was startled to see Jenny pass at such a clip. Then her pursuer whisked by, and he smiled, too. The
Carleton
’s Olympic hopeful had a rival.
    He watched the two runners pass out of sight forward. The little group of walkers appeared, chattering among themselves. Julie was with them, waving her hands and declaiming something to the world about stupid boyfriends who were too cheap to buy a girl a decent graduation present . . .
    The lounge door slid back and the French guy emerged with a softly steaming mug in both hands. It was one of those heavy, handleless ship’s mugs that were weighty yet satisfying to hold.
    The walkers trampled by. Julie cocked her head and said brightly, “Hi, France!”
    François crossed to the rail after the morning exercisers went by. Leigh nodded a greeting and said, “‘France?’”
    â€œShe finds it easier to say than ‘François.’”
    â€œJulie doesn’t need people to make things easier for her,” her brother remarked.
    â€œI don’t mind. It sounds friendly.”
    Leigh told him a story about Julie when she was fourteen and decided she wanted to be called Nova. She wrote Nova on all her possessions and signed everything Nova for months. She even managed to get her teachers and friends to call her Nova, though her family resisted.
    â€œWhat made her stop using it?” France asked.
    â€œOur grandmother left us a trust fund, which we could draw on starting at age fifteen,” Leigh said. He blew steam off his coffee and sipped it. “Not a fortune, but it was legally assigned to Julia Diana Morrison and Leigh Ellis Morrison. The bank would not issue payments to anyone named Nova.”
    â€œSo, given the choice, she chose money over her special name?” Leigh nodded.
    Jenny rounded the deck again, still in medium-distance stride. Her rival kept up, though he was a full two paces behind. Leigh saluted with his cup and urged them on.
    â€œDo you know who that is?” France