Jayne narrowed his eyes, maintaining a safe distance from Zoë. “How come you know so much about that, preacher?”
Inara wanted to know the answer, too. The Shepherd’s past was cloaked in mystery, but on several occasions the Alliance had extended deferential treatment to him—life-saving medical assistance, for example—and he had proven a fierce fighter on many occasions, including the assault on Niska’s space station to rescue Mal. Where did a man of God learn advanced martial arts techniques?
“Our abbey provided refuge for any and all affected by the war, no matter which side,” Book said. “It’s often said that confession is good for the soul. Many of those who came to us, Browncoat and Alliance soldier alike, unburdened themselves of their past sins. It was not our place to judge, but to listen. Everyone wants a chance to be heard.” He paused to look at each person in the infirmary in turn. “At the abbey, we have sworn a vow to respect the privacy of those who have entrusted us with the secrets of their souls.” Holding up a finger, he added, “Unless by not speaking up, we become complicit in wrongdoing.”
Jayne said, “Huh?”
“Jayne, why are you still here?” Zoë demanded.
“Hey, I care about Mal,” Jayne said. “I never said he was a traitor.”
Inara realized that somewhere deep in his avaricious heart, all appearances to the contrary, Jayne actually believed that.
“Kinda did,” Kaylee said. “What the Shepherd means is that if someone confessed that he was going to do something really bad, the monks would tell on him.”
“Yes. We would tell on him,” Book agreed. “Or her.”
“Now at least we have another potential lead,” Zoë said, “although I don’t know how much good it does us.”
“I’m prepared to volunteer to go back down to Persephone,” Book said. “In light of what I’ve just learned, I can think of someone who may be of assistance.”
At that moment, Wash’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Guys? I just got a wave from Guilder’s. They really want their loaner back and they’re saying that if we haven’t contacted the police about our shuttle, they’re going to make us sign a statement saying that we release them from all liability.”
Zoë looked even more tired.
Inara said, “We don’t really need the other shuttle. I haven’t scheduled any clients for the next couple of weeks. Book can use mine if he wants.”
“Who is he?” Zoë asked him. “This ‘someone?’”
“An old acquaintance,” Book replied. “An Alliance officer by the name of Mika Wong, who headed up the team tasked with gathering intel on vigilante groups. He used to talk about retiring on Persephone, and I believe he now has.”
“A retired purplebelly?” Kaylee said, aghast. “We don’t have time for this. If a bunch of no-good hún dàn scumbags have kidnapped the captain, we gotta go after ’em.”
“But if we don’t know who they are, or where they’re headed, we’re just chasing our tails,” Simon put in.
“There’s gotta be somebody on Persephone who saw the whole thing or who knows about it,” Kaylee persisted. “Zoë, we should put back down and—”
“We can’t go back,” Zoë reminded her. “We have unstable cargo and the Alliance is looking for us.”
“Yes,” Simon murmured, “there is that.”
“And anyway, I’ve already tried beating the bushes looking for Mal,” Zoë went on. “Didn’t get hardly anywhere.”
“We can’t leave Mal behind like this and just go on with business as usual,” Kaylee implored. “Especially if there’s fanatics involved. We have to do something.”
“So send this Wong guy a wave, Book,” said Zoë.
“No,” Book said. Everyone looked at him. “We didn’t part on the best of terms, he and I, and I’m not positive we can trust him.”
“But you just said—” Kaylee began.
“I said I’m willing to return to Persephone and stay planetside, making investigations of my own. Those may or may not feature Mika Wong, depending on how desperate I get. Either way, the rest of you can continue on to the delivery point, and somebody will still be doing something productive about Mal.”
“Sounds shiny,” Kaylee said. “Don’t it?” She looked around at the group. “Don’t it, Zoë?”
“Yes,” Zoë said. To the group she said, “We can spare the Shepherd.” To Book she said, “Make sure your comm link works.”
“I most certainly will,” Shepherd Book said. “I’ll head back down immediately, and I’ll take Guilder’s shuttle rather than Inara’s. I can return it to them and get them off our backs. Kill two birds with one stone.”
“Maybe someone should go with you,” Simon said. “As backup.”
“Yeah,” said Kaylee. “How about Jayne? He can watch your back.”
Jayne huffed. “’Nother gorramn babysitting job,” he grumbled.
“With all due respect to Jayne,” said Book, “I think I’ll manage better on my own. People tend to lower their guard when they’re around a Shepherd, more so than they might if I’m in the company of a hulking great bruiser of a man with a scraggly, mean-looking beard. No offense, Jayne.”
“None taken.” Jayne seemed to think Book’s description of him was more than fair.
“Then couldn’t Zoë go?” Kaylee said. “I just don’t like the idea of you down there alone, Shepherd. And two can cover more ground than one.”
“Zoë’s needed here,” Book replied. “Wouldn’t you agree, Zoë? This ship needs a captain, and in Mal’s absence, that responsibility falls to you.”
Zoë acknowledged it with a nod.
“Besides, that leg of yours will be a serious hindrance. You may not be letting on how much it hurts, but I can tell. It’d be better if you rest it up.” Book smiled kindly at Kaylee. “I promise you, Kaylee, I will do everything in my power to track down Mal and bring him back safe and sound. Just remember, I may be just a man all on his lonesome, but”—he pointed a finger heavenward—“I have someone mighty riding shotgun with me at all times.”
Inara linked arms with Kaylee. “If anyone can find him, dear, Book can.”
Book nodded to her, appreciative of the vote of confidence.
“It—it can’t be that somebody took Mal to punish him,” Kaylee said, sniffling. “He never did anything wrong in the war.”
“Except fight in it,” Jayne said.
Zoë glowered at him, then hit the intercom. “Wash, slow us down for shuttle launch.”
“I’ll just go to my bunk and grab a couple things to throw in my satchel,” Book said.
Inara wondered what he would take along. Coin? Weapons? Body armor? Secrets? Probably some of each.
As Book stepped out of the infirmary, Serenity began to slow, her engine note lessening in pitch and intensity.
“Oh God…” Kaylee said, a tremor in her voice.
“It’s going to be all right,” Inara said, but the comforting words rang hollow even to her.
“You don’t know that,” Kaylee shot back. She looked from face to face. “Everyone understands that this is a big deal, right? Just because Mal usually comes back okay from whatever tight corner he gets into, it don’t mean he always will. This might be the one time he doesn’t.”
That was exactly what Inara thought, too. Her mind raced as she fought down panic. Though she was skilled in dozens of relaxation techniques, at that moment she couldn’t remember any of them.
“Book will find him,” Zoë vowed. “We can trust him to do his best, and his best is better than most people’s.”
“But will Mal be all right?” said Kaylee. “Will he even be alive?”
“He hasn’t been gone that long,” Zoë said. “And if you could have seen Mal in the war, you wouldn’t ask that. I saw him get out of all manner of tough scrapes that would have done in anyone else. He’d dust himself off and live to fight another day, usually laughing about how close the call was.”
Inara could tell Zoë believed tha
t. Deep down, she herself believed it too.
“There, you see?” she said to Kaylee. “It’s going to be okay. Why don’t you come have tea with me in my shuttle? We can center ourselves and be prepared in case we’re needed.”
Serenity’s close call with the liner had pushed Simon closer toward anxiety. Serenity and crew had had to leave their captain behind to an unknown fate, because unless they offloaded Badger’s cargo, it could conceivably blow up and kill them all. And on top of that, it seemed the Alliance were narrowing in on him and River.
Kaylee was fond of calling things “shiny.” This situation, to Simon, felt like the opposite of that. Gloomy. Dim. Leaden. Dismal. Pick your antonym.
Carefully he observed River at the dining table, which had been relieved of fort duty—River’s blankets and pillows taken back to her bunk, and the table itself righted. Though the dismantling of her safe zone had clearly agitated her, his sister hadn’t protested beyond a few barely audible and unintelligible complaints. But he could see it in her eyes: River was still terrified by the threat of what lay in Serenity’s cargo bay, the crates of precarious HTX-20 mining explosive.
Inara had taken it upon herself to braid sections of River’s hair and wind them across the crown of her head, allowing a few stray brown wavy locks to brush her shoulders. Then the elegant Companion had added little trinkety bits of shimmer, and made up River’s eyes with black and turquoise, and dressed her in a brocade tunic and flowing black pants. The result Simon found both wonderful and painful to behold. It comforted him that River had allowed Inara to touch her face and head. He didn’t know what the Alliance had done to her, but she usually panicked when someone besides him laid hands on her.
What was wonderful, above all, was how sophisticated and grown-up she looked, like the beautiful, responsible young woman his parents had assumed she would one day become. But hadn’t.
After he had decoded the letters River sent from the Academy— the Alliance-run experimental center that had methodically driven her mad—Simon had spent countless sleepless nights wondering if she was dead.
In a way, she was.
The fantasy of her future had turned to dust.
Steam rose from the two clay cups of tea Inara had prepared for them. Simon had hoped that the soothing, warm beverage would ravel his sister back together, at least temporarily. His happy, smart, accomplished mèi mèi. Was she still in there somewhere, lost amid the swirling maelstrom of post-traumatic stress disorder and brain damage?
While he sipped and contemplated what to do next, River drained her cup. Then she sat ramrod straight in her chair beside his at the dining table, staring into the bottom of the cup as if she were a fortuneteller reading the tea leaves.
He heard her muttering and leaned forward to catch what she was saying. She was repeating the phrase “getting closer” over and over again, like a mantra or a witch’s spell. Or a crazy-person recording loop. The Alliance was after them, no doubt. It was always after them, and getting closer and closer, just as River was saying. When would it end? Maybe never. Or at least not until it had River back in its pitiless clutches.
She glanced up at him. Suddenly clear-eyed and focused, she shook her head in the negative, and a frisson of apprehension skittered up Simon’s spine. Had she actually just read his thoughts? Could she see into his mind?
“Shh,” she said. She lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “You-know-who.” She tipped the teacup left, then right. “There.”
Simon’s hair stood on end. A sudden, chilling thought had occurred to him. What if Mal being taken was a distraction, and the real scheme centered on seizing River and him? With the Alliance’s near-infinite resources, faking some business contacts and ID papers was child’s play. Removing Mal from the equation left the remaining crew weakened and rudderless. What if there was an Alliance vessel hailing Serenity right now, ready to exercise boarding rights and exploit Mal’s absence? Had that been the plot all along, and the business about anti-Browncoat vigilantes nothing more than a red herring?
“Closer, closer,” River murmured.
Jayne appeared in the corridor, ducking through the doorway into the dining area.
River rolled her eyes meaningfully.
Ah, thought Simon. That’s what she meant by you-know-who.
Jayne strode past the table, directing a wary look at River and then a dismissive shrug at Simon. Simon and the big mercenary had arrived at an uneasy truce after Jayne sold out the Tams to the Alliance during a caper on Ariel. A remorseful Jayne had changed his mind at the last moment and saved them. His excuse for the lapse: the money had been too good. Since then, the bounty for River’s capture had increased many times over, and Simon knew Jayne was a simple, reactive man. He liked to think Jayne wouldn’t succumb to temptation a second time, but he wasn’t convinced that someone with such a thirst for lucre would be able to hold out forever.
“So that was bracing, huh, Jayne?” he said. “The near-collision.”
“Yeah, well, we were both in a hurry. Us and the liner.” Jayne glared at him. “Guess why we were.”
River stared intently at her tea leaves and whispered to herself, making a rhythmic swish-swish-swish, swish-swish-swish sound.
“If—when—the Alliance next comes after us,” Jayne went on, “and believe me they will, we gotta figure out where to stash you two. Feds’ll take the ship apart, bit by bit, looking. It might be best to have a couple of suits ready so’s you can go outside again, like that one time.”
Simon experienced a wave of vertigo as he recalled clinging to the hull of the ship, with no up or down, only the endless night. River had been enchanted by the vastness of space, the velvet black dotted with fields of stars. Simon had grappled with a low-grade panic that had threatened to paralyze him. Now, that same panic reared its head, building and nibbling at his carefully maintained composure.
Still, it was comforting to hear Jayne talking about helping them hide, as opposed to handing them over for the reward money. Unless, that was, Jayne was simply saying what he thought Simon wanted to hear. Lulling him into a false sense of security.
“It’s an experience I’d wish not to repeat if at all possible,” Simon said.
“Yeah, well, if wishes were horses, they’d ride beggars. No, wait, that ain’t it. Beggars would ride unicorns? No, that ain’t it either. Somethin’ about beggars, anyways.”
River looked up from her tea leaves again and gave Jayne a long, measured stare.
For second Jayne squinted at her, a look you could interpret either as kindly or as hostile. With Jayne, the two things weren’t that far removed from each other. Then he said, “Any more of that tea going, or did the pair of you hog it all?”
“Perish the thought,” Simon said. “The teapot is on the stove.”
“We used to put tamarind in it,” River said to her brother.
Simon smiled at her. “Yes, at home. I remember.”
“I miss home. Why did we leave?”
“Mother and Father thought it was best for us. You at the Academy, me at medical school. They… didn’t realize the consequences.”
“Yeah,” Jayne muttered. “The consequences being one of you’d end up with a stick up his butt, the other as mad as a gopher in goggles.”
“Jayne, that’s not helpful,” Simon said, which was about as stern as reproof as he dared give the much bigger and burlier man.
River made circles of her thumbs and forefingers and placed them over her eyes, like goggles, then stuck out her front teeth goofily.
In spite of himself, Simon laughed. River laughed too, a sound he didn’t hear often enough and yearned to hear more.
“Who made these cookies?” Jayne said as he rummaged in the galley’s cabinets. His cheeks were bulging, and cookie crumbs sprayed as he talked. “They’re powerful good.”
Simon didn’t reply. He didn’t know or care about the authorship of baked goods. As he turned back to River, he saw that she had stood up and was now
rotating in a circle, gracefully waving her hands, and tilting her head in what appeared to be ancient, courtly poses. She slid a glance towards him, her eyes glittering like polished topaz.
“They dance like this there,” she said.
“Where?” Simon asked.
“In the crates. The busy crates.”
“The crates in the cargo bay?”
Jayne was happily munching away on cookies while pouring himself some tea, seemingly oblivious.
“Yes. The crystals inside. They dance in their hearts, getting faster and faster.”
River swayed back and forth, her arms swooping and diving as if she was holding two large folded fans. The she abruptly halted, holding a pose, her body still, only her head moving, winding sinuously from side to side like a snake’s.
“When the music stops, they’ll stop dancing,” she said. “Everyone will stop dancing, and we’ll all go into the light.” Then she melted back into her chair. “I’m so tired, Simon.”
Simon watched as his sister picked up a drawing pad and a charcoal stick and began sketching. He soon saw that it was a picture of him. It was amazing how fast she worked and how well she captured his likeness. He smiled and she frowned back.
“Don’t smile,” she said. “You weren’t smiling when I started.”
Humoring her, Simon reassumed a serious face.
River erased the left half of his mouth with her thumb and redrew his lips on that side into a scowl. She added lines across half his forehead and a tear welling in his left eye. One half happy, one half sad.
“You’re homesick, but you’re getting used to being here,” she announced.
“That’s true,” he said.
“You’re angry with me but you love me.”
“That’s not so true.”
“It is.”
“I could never be angry with you.”
“You saved me,” River said, working again on her drawing. She shaded his cheekbone and began adding his hair. Then, looking puzzled, she said, “Something’s missing. I know! Your mustache.”
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