“I see,” Book said.
“A few days ago the vigilantes here stepped up their operations. They’ve some sort of new objective that’s gotten them all very excited, and Elmira told me she had found out what it was. We had a rendezvous scheduled for the day before Alliance Day so that she could lay it out to me in person, but she didn’t make it. I haven’t heard from her since.”
Could this “objective” have something to do with Mal’s disappearance? “How is she in a position to know what they’re doing? Is she an Alliance plant? A spy?”
“A spy, in a sense. She was my CI—my confidential informant.”
Gradually the pieces of the puzzle were coming together. “How did you find her in the first place?” Book asked.
“During the war, a battalion of Browncoats burned down the Atadema family homestead and razed the surrounding land. Elmira’s parents starved to death. She herself was in dire straits, close to dying the same way, so she made a choice. She sold herself as a bondswoman. It was her only way out.”
“Dear Lord. That’s shocking.”
Wong frowned. “Well, you know how the Browncoats were. Declared themselves the champions of the people and then stole or destroyed everything they could. Damn barbarians.”
There was no sense arguing with him, and Book was not there to change his mind. As far as Wong knew, Book had no truck with the Independent cause. He maintained a neutral expression and waited for Wong to continue.
“Life as a bondswoman can be very unpleasant,” he prompted.
Wong’s lip curled. “Yes, not least when your bondholder is Hunter Covington. He is, his suave demeanor to the contrary, not what you would call a nice man. At any rate, I’d got wind that Covington was in league with the vigilantes. Maybe not a sympathizer, as such, but associating with them on a commercial basis. Covington’s a mover and shaker round these parts—when it comes to shady dealings, that is. He trades in information, people, data, whatever. Makes a tidy living out of it, too. On Persephone, and in Eavesdown in particular, knowing who’s coming and who’s going and what business they’re about can set you high on the totem pole.”
“Covington tipped the vigilantes off to something. Something big.”
“More than that. He helped facilitate it, from what I hear.”
The something big being… Mal?
“This I got from Elmira,” Wong said. “Not the specifics, which she didn’t know, but an overall picture that the vigilantes had major plans.”
“You still haven’t told me how you recruited her to be your woman on the inside with Covington.”
“It was when she ran away from him. It came to my attention that there was a bondswoman, a fugitive on the run from Hunter Covington. By then I’d already established Covington’s links to the vigilantes, and I realized here was my chance. I had someone who was ripe for cultivating. Elmira was hiding out in one of the slums not far from the docks. I approached her and promised her I’d set her up in a new life if she became my CI for a while. I sweetened it by promising to pay the full amount of her bond, when the time came.”
“But in order to do that, she had to go back to Covington first.” In effect, Elmira had exchanged one kind of servitude for another. Book, however, refrained from voicing this observation aloud.
“Which she did, voluntarily, albeit reluctantly,” Wong said. “That’s why Covington didn’t kill her, when he almost certainly would have if he had simply caught her himself. You don’t cross a man like that, not if you know what’s good for you. Elmira went crawling back to him on hands and knees, making out as though she was sorry, she bitterly regretted what she had done, she wouldn’t run away again. She begged him to take her back, and you know from that poster that she’s a fine-looking woman. Face like hers, gazing up at you full of pleading and contrition—well, you just couldn’t say no to it, could you? Even if you’re a cruel-hearted piece of lè sè like Hunter Covington.”
“Still, it chills me to think how he might have dealt with her. You took a huge gamble with her life, Mika.”
“Elmira knew what she was getting herself into, and she thought the risk worth the reward.”
“It may yet be that the risk has proved too great. Elmira has disappeared. Rumor is she may be dead.”
Wong’s shoulders sagged. “You heard that too, huh?”
“What if Covington has discovered she’s your informant?”
“I reckon she’ll be okay. She’s had a tough life, and it’s made her crafty and strong. But I always told her, if she ever felt she’s getting in over her head, she can contact me and I’ll pull her out. I’m trusting that because I haven’t heard from her yet, nothing untoward has happened.”
“Or it has and she was unable to get word to you in time.”
“There is that,” Wong admitted.
“So you’re just crossing your fingers and hoping Covington hasn’t murdered Elmira, most likely in some dreadful way?”
“No. Well, yes, maybe a little. But I have a contingency plan.”
“Namely?”
“In case of emergency, I can locate her. Before Elmira returned to Covington, I had her fitted with a subdermal tracking implant, networked via the Cortex with heavy encryption and shielded internally so that it can’t be detected by any electronic scan. It registers her bio-signs as well, so if she’s alive, or otherwise, I’ll know. All I need to do is activate it and I can pinpoint where she is, anywhere in the ’verse, to within a half-mile radius.”
“Then why haven’t you done so?”
“Why do you think I was downtown earlier?” Wong said. “I was trying to gather some solid intel on her disappearance. There’s a great deal of tittle-tattle goes around Eavesdown and it can be an effort sorting the wheat from the chaff. I didn’t want to go after Elmira to pull her out without good reason.”
“Wouldn’t want to blow her cover unnecessarily,” Book said with undisguised sarcasm. “Waste of a good asset.”
“Don’t take that high moral tone with me, Derrial. I’m not an inhuman monster. I’m concerned about Elmira and I’ll do all I can to get her back safe and sound, on the proviso that it doesn’t happen unless there’s absolutely no alternative.”
“I’d say you’ve reached that point, based on current evidence. You need to fire up that tracking implant, find out where the hell she is, and go fetch her. Whether she’s alive or dead doesn’t matter. You owe it to her to try.”
Wong studied him, flinty-eyed. “Ever the man of principle, huh?”
“If you won’t do it, I will.”
“I don’t doubt you would.” He looked down at the folder, which he was still holding. His fingers had dug into the card cover hard enough to make dents. “And I might let you and all. I require a level of deniability here. If I go in to get Elmira myself, or even using any of my known associates, people are going to draw the conclusion that I’ve been reactivated by the Alliance.”
“And that might compromise the sweet little protection racket you’ve got going here.”
Wong blinked. “How did you—? Never mind. I guess people will tell a Shepherd anything and everything, feeling confident it’ll go no further. Much like I’ve been doing.”
“It’s a gift,” Book said, “and sometimes something of a curse. Besides, I only need to look around me at this extravagant lifestyle of yours to know you’re doing far better for yourself than an ex-military officer has any right to. You must be working some sort of angle, and protection seems as likely an explanation as any.” Again, he had the waitress Saskia to thank for this apparent deduction, and again, he wasn’t going to credit her in Wong’s presence.
“So, if I give you Elmira’s whereabouts, you guarantee that you could rescue her?”
“I can be very resourceful, and I have some no less resourceful friends who, given the right motivation, will back me up. We’ll get her.” Book knew that Wong could probably steer him direct to Hunter Covington, cutting Elmira out of the equation. But Elmira seemed to
know as much about Mal’s situation as Covington did, and it was information Covington was unlikely to supply willingly, whereas she might be a different story. And then there was the secondary consideration––the woman was clearly in serious jeopardy, assuming she wasn’t already dead. If the crew could pull her fat out of the fire as part of the process of doing the same for Mal, so much the better.
For a long time Wong said nothing, deep in thought.
“I wouldn’t do this for just anyone,” he said, and turned and went over to a framed oil painting, a genuine Earth-That-Was artifact that must have set him back a small fortune. The picture was on a hinge, and he swung it out to reveal a wall safe beneath. A quick but thorough biometric scan—fingerprints, retinas, breath, voice recognition—unlocked the safe. The door eased smoothly outward and Wong rummaged inside for a few moments, producing a handheld unit equipped with a tiny screen and a digital readout.
“Well, here goes,” he said, and pressed a button on the unit.
The screen lit up. A map of the ’verse and its plethora of suns, moons and planets appeared, all these elements linked by lines representing channels of communication, like a complex web. Bit by bit the image zeroed in on a single quadrant, a single solar system, a single planet, a single zone of that planet, a single subdivision within that zone, narrowing down the search for the tracking implant. As soon as it made contact, it gave a ping. The tracking implant responded to its prompting, offering as accurate a set of global positioning coordinates as it could manage.
“She’s alive,” he said. “That’s something. And even better, she’s still planetside.”
“Where?”
“Not far. Looks like some kind of spread out in the boondocks, couple dozen miles from town. Covington has a place out yonder, kind of a country retreat. Pretty sure it’s that.”
He passed the tracker device to Book.
“This is a marker of my implicit faith in you, Derrial,” Wong said. “I pray it’s merited.”
“Faith,” Shepherd Book replied, “is sometimes all we have and all we need.”
As Simon was making another pot of tea—purely for something to occupy his mind—Zoë appeared in the corridor from the direction of the flight deck. He had seen her looking happier and knew she was not the bearer of glad tidings.
“Alliance is tracking us,” she informed him. “Wash just confirmed it. They’re coming out of deep space and their course is straight for us. We’re hanging a U-turn and looking for a rock to hide behind, but there aren’t any big enough in these parts.”
“Back towards Persephone?” Simon’s stomach clenched. “But they’re looking for us there.”
Zoë smiled grimly. “Simon, they’re looking for you everywhere,” she said.
She could have thrown him out the airlock in a spacesuit and he might have been only slightly more afraid. Dread rendered him speechless. He was paralyzed, rooted to the spot.
River will know, he thought. Get to River.
His heart was pounding so hard he was afraid it would bruise his ribcage. He tried to swallow, to respond. Zoë narrowed her eyes at him.
“Simon,” she said, “you’re having an anxiety attack. Take a breath.”
He finally managed to give his head a little shake. He made a rough cracking sound as he tried to clear his throat.
“Breathe,” she said. “They haven’t come for us yet. We have time to make you safe. But you have to snap out of it.”
You can’t make us safe. Don’t lie, Simon thought. But the crew of Serenity had taken him and River in, had protected them before. On their own, they would have already been caught.
He finally took a deep breath. Zoë nodded approvingly and took his arm.
“You all right now?”
“It depends on your definition of ‘all right,’” he said.
“Well, you’re talking, so that’s a start. Go find River.”
“Has Shepherd Book checked in about the captain?” he asked.
“Haven’t heard a word.” Zoë’s words were clipped, the way she sounded when she was very angry or tense. She tapped the bulkhead and said, “Stay on alert. We may need to get creative.”
“I have no idea what that means,” he said.
“Keep track of your sister.”
He went to River’s bunk, but she wasn’t there, and a paroxysm of fear shot through him. He was hurrying back along the corridor when he ran into Kaylee and Zoë coming the other way. Kaylee’s face was pale and her expression grim.
“It’s no good,” Zoë said. “They’ve caught up and they’re demanding to come aboard. Wash estimates they’ll make contact in about fifteen minutes.” She looked hard at Simon. “We need to get you and River off the ship.”
Creatively, he thought, and he guessed what she was driving at. “Right, like before,” he said, as a wave of queasiness rolled over him at the mere thought. “Going outside and attaching to the hull.”
“Can’t,” Zoë said. “We had the hull degaussed at the docks.”
“Zāo gāo, that’s right.” Kaylee turned to Simon. “See, that means we neutralized the ship’s magnetic field. We have to do that now and then to clean Serenity up. Like when ships sailed on the ancient sea and they scraped off all the barnacles.”
“So?” Simon didn’t follow.
“So there won’t be any way for you to cling to the hull,” Kaylee explained. “The magnets on your suit’s boots and gloves will be useless.”
“Well, you can tether us, or glue us, or we can just hang on,” he said. He was new to spaceflight, so he knew his suggestions might be off base, but the point he was trying to make was that the crew was very good at coming up with alternative solutions.
“We don’t have time for any fancy stuff,” Zoë said. “You’re both going to get in Inara’s shuttle and leave, pronto. Wash can lay in a course for you to take so that your readouts will be shielded by Serenity’s mass until the Alliance vessel closes in on us for boarding.”
Simon’s lips parted. “But I can’t even pilot a shuttle.”
“I can,” Kaylee said.
“Sorry, Kaylee, but we need you here,” Zoë said brusquely. “Inara will go with you, Simon. Now go wake up your sister.”
“She isn’t in her bunk. I was going to look for her.”
“Okay. Be quick about it, then get to the shuttle. Inara will meet you there.”
“But what if they come after us?” Simon said.
“Try to stay calm,” Kaylee urged, putting her hand on his forearm. “I know it’s hard not to be real scared.”
“I’m not afraid for myself. I’m afraid for River. What they’ll do to her.”
“We have to make sure they don’t have a chance to,” Zoë said. “Let’s move it.”
“Yes. Yes, all right.” Simon faced Kaylee. She was gazing at him with wide eyes, as if she were memorizing him.
As if she thought she might never see him again.
“You’re gonna be safe,” she said, bobbing her head and smiling through what were clearly tears. “And we’re gonna find the captain and… and…” She trailed off, struggling. She balled her fists and bit her lower lip, falling into silence.
“And it’s going to be fine,” Simon finished for her.
“Not unless you get in that shuttle now.”
Simon leaned towards Kaylee with the intention of kissing her goodbye. But Zoë was there, and Kaylee was… He didn’t know why his courage failed him. He rushed past her, into the dining room.
“Mèi mèi?” he called softly, as if the Alliance could hear him. “Where are you?”
She wasn’t there, either, or in the galley. Cursing under his breath, Simon hurried back down the hallway, checking the cabins on either side for River as he went. His sister had a habit of disappearing—or losing her tether—at the most inconvenient times. It came on like contrarian clockwork.
The voice coming from Jayne’s cabin gave him a rush of hope. The way Jayne was holding court, Simon was sure t
here was someone else in the room. When he stuck his head through the open doorway, he realized that wasn’t the case at all. Jayne had been talking to Vera as he cleaned her barrel with a flexible ramrod and a bit of oily rag, in a tender voice telling her what a good and proper girl she was. From his seat on the rumpled bunk, Jayne shot Simon a sour look.
And he thinks River’s crazy.
Simon moved on without explaining the problem or attempting to enlist Jayne’s aid. He had learned the hard way that Jayne Cobb needed a lot of explaining to in order to get the big picture—or any picture, even a sketch—and Simon didn’t have time to spare for the snail-crawling Socratic dialogue, the circular questions and angry accusations that were the meat and potatoes of Jayne’s conversational repertoire.
He found Zoë and Kaylee in the same spot he’d left them. Both looked surprised to see him.
“No idea where she’s got to,” he informed them, somewhat out of breath. “I looked in the other cabins on the way back here. She isn’t on this deck. She’s just gone!”
“Maybe she telepathed that you were going to leave in the shuttle?” Kaylee said, her expression dead serious. “You know, with her tested certified genius brain. Maybe she’s up there now, waiting for you?”
Zoë gave her a disbelieving look. “Simon, use the ship’s intercom,” she said. “Tell River to meet you at the shuttle. Hurry her up but don’t scare her too much. You know how to do it. Kaylee, you go check the shuttle to see if she’s already there. If she’s not, stay there and wait for her. Simon and I will search down in the cargo area.”
“River, this is your brother,” Simon said into the intercom microphone. His voice boomed out of the speakers scattered throughout the ship. He tried to sound calm, reasoned, not frantic and about to blow a gasket. “If you can hear me, we have a situation right now. Nothing to worry about. Just get to Inara’s shuttle. I’ll meet you there. We’ve got to leave Serenity. We’re going on a little trip, is all.”
There were a thousand places to hide on the ship. Places that without an infrared scanner—something an Alliance boarding party would certainly have on hand—would be difficult and time-consuming to check. River might be anywhere: ceiling ducts, gear lockers, any number of crawlspaces. She even could’ve climbed into a space suit and slipped out into the Black, for all they knew.
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