“One,” said that voice.
Annie was faced with a stark choice. Fight on and die, or surrender.
She was sorely tempted by the first option. If she could kill Zoë before whoever was in the ship killed her, she would consider that a fair trade.
“Two.”
But Ornery Annie had a strong sense of self-preservation. And, moreover, she had kids. Stevie and Billie. She hoped to see them again one day, after she’d done her stretch. She yearned for that prospect. Lived for it. Maybe she could repair her relationship with them, beg their forgiveness for what she’d done to their other mother, make up for the time she had lost with them…
“Three.”
In an agony of reluctance, Annie did as bidden and stepped away from Zoë.
Zoë rose to her feet unsteadily. She spat a wad of blood into the snow. Then, with a pitying shake of the head, she said, “That’s a Firefly.” She had to shout to be heard above the tumult of noise generated by the ship overhead.
Too late, Annie understood.
“Fireflies don’t carry weapons, dumbass,” Zoë said, and she swung a fist at Annie, and a firework went off in Annie’s head, and then there was only darkness and silence.
74
Darkness and silence still reigned when Annie came round, untold minutes later.
Then, amid the darkness, her eyes perceived the tiniest glimmer of light. It came from the embers of the fire in Dr. Weng’s cave. Outside, night had fallen. There was no sign of the Firefly, nor of Zoë or any of her colleagues.
Annie stood. Her head was ringing. Her body was a throbbing mass of aches and bruises. She felt like throwing up.
As her eyes adapted to the near-absolute absence of light, she took stock. There was Cleavon, lying on his back, breathing shallowly, unconscious. There was Michael Pale Horse, also unconscious. His busted leg had been immobilized with a crude splint. The bodies of Pops and Otis lay where they had fallen. Likewise the body of Dr. Weng.
As for Meadowlark Deane, she was out cold too, same as Cleavon and Pale Horse. However, unlike them, her wrists and ankles were secured using strips of torn cloth. There was a gag around her mouth as well.
Annie spied a note pinned to Meadowlark’s chest. She plucked it off and scanned it. The signature at the bottom caught her attention first. It said “Zoë.”
Forehead creasing into a frown, she read the rest of the note.
Annie,
Bet you’re asking yourself, “Why am I still alive? Why did those folks drag me out of the snowstorm into the cave? I was helpless. Why didn’t they kill me when they had the chance?”
Answer is, all said and done, I don’t reckon you’re a bad person anymore. You may have made mistakes in the past, big ones, but the Annie I’ve seen at Hellfreeze is a good lieutenant who does her job and follows orders. In that way, speaking as a (mostly) good lieutenant myself, you and I have more in common than separates us.
Like it or not, CU #23 needs you. Mr. O’Bannon isn’t going to last much longer, and without him keeping control, maybe Hellfreeze will go all to hell. The regime he’s created sure isn’t perfect but it’s better than nothing, and someone has to carry it on, and that someone could be you.
That’s why you’re getting this second chance.
The Deane girl, you can do with her as you see fit. If it were down to me, I wouldn’t show a whole heap of mercy.
Good luck.
Zoë
Annie reread the note, and her frown slowly eased. Her lips, swollen from the fight with Zoë, turned up at the corners.
Damn, woman, she thought, admiringly.
* * *
As dawn broke the next day, three people set out from the cave, heading back to Correctional Unit #23. Michael Pale Horse lay on the travois that had been used to transport Jayne. Cleavon and Annie took turns dragging it.
They left behind the bodies of the other Regulators and Esau Weng in the cave for the wolves and carrion birds to scavenge.
They also left behind the body of Meadowlark Deane.
As Zoë had advised, Annie had shown the girl no mercy.
* * *
Late that night, the group arrived back at CU #23, exhausted, bedraggled, half-frozen.
Annie went straight up to Mr. O’Bannon’s cell to report.
He did not take the news well. His yellowed eyes burned. With as much wrath as his enfeebled body could muster, he cursed Annie for her failure and threatened her with dire repercussions.
Annie took the chastisement calmly.
Then, just as calmly, she drew her shiv and drove it up through the underside of Mr. O’Bannon’s jaw. Its blade penetrated his tongue and his soft palate, all the way up into his brain. He was dead in an instant.
Annie straightened up from the body in the bunk, wiping the shiv on her pants leg. There were tears in her eyes.
There was also resolve.
She had put Mr. O’Bannon out of his misery. She regretted it, but it was a mercy killing.
How would Hellfreeze fare now without his stabilizing influence? Would it descend into anarchy? Would violence and chaos be the order of the day, as they were at most of the correctional units on Atata?
That was down to her. Annie had to be the replacement for Mr. O’Bannon. She had to stamp her authority on the inmates. She had to recruit new Regulators and keep the peace.
It would not be easy. It would take effort and willpower. She might not succeed.
Zoë had robbed her of the opportunity to get off Atata early. Annie had to face that fact. The prospect of seeing her kids sooner rather than later had been dangled tauntingly in front of her and then snatched away. No less cruelly, Mr. O’Bannon had lost his last hope of a cure, thanks to Zoë and her pals.
All said and done, though, the woman had given her a second chance.
And Ornery Annie was not going to waste it.
75
Simon looked up from the microscope eyepiece.
He was dog-tired. Since Serenity landed at Stanislaw L’Amour’s house on Bellerophon six days ago, he had been working flat out, surviving on barely a couple of hours’ sleep per night. Even when he’d been doing his medical residency, pulling back-to-back shifts as part of the process of earning his license, he’d never driven himself this hard.
The cut on his neck, put there by the unhinged Meadowlark Deane, still hurt. It was itchy, too. A dermal mender had knitted the skin together, and his body’s natural healing processes were busy doing the rest of the work.
Now, Simon was coming to the end of his latest stint in the laboratory that L’Amour had set up for him. He had been going for over twenty-four hours with scarcely a break.
He craved food. He craved caffeine. Above all, he craved the refuge of a soft, warm bed.
Yet, for all the exhaustion and the physical discomfort, he felt good.
Around him was a host of high-spec equipment which the billionaire had acquired in accordance with instructions Simon sent him while en route from Atata. Every item was gleaming new, and altogether it must have set L’Amour back a small fortune.
River was there, too. Throughout Simon’s labors, she had accompanied him every step of the way, advising, suggesting, prompting. Together, brother and sister had isolated the AIMs from the sample of Dr. Weng’s blood. They had linked them via a wireless biotech interface to a top-of-the-range med computer. They had figured out how to manipulate the viruses so that their generalized curative properties became specialized. The AIMs were little blank slates waiting to be written on. Worker ants awaiting their queen’s command. They just needed direction and organization.
The insights and leaps of deductive logic River had provided were ones that Simon, on his own, would never have managed. In many ways she had done the bulk of the work, fathoming the structure and operation of the AIMs far faster than he himself ever could have. Dr. Weng’s genius had found its match in River’s, and without her Simon would not be where he was now.
Which is to say
, ninety-nine percent certain he had made a breakthrough.
Currently River was curled up in an armchair, fast asleep. She had more than earned the respite, and Simon was reluctant to wake her, but he wanted her to double-check his results.
Her nudged her gently. “River? River?”
She stirred. Opened her big brown eyes. Yawned deeply. Grinned.
“They work,” she said, as if she knew what he was thinking.
“I’m not sure. I want a second opinion.”
“They work,” she reiterated firmly. “I know it. Just put them in an injectable solution and give them to Inara.”
“But if we’ve got it wrong…”
“If so, then we go back to the drawing board.”
“We can’t. We only had a limited quantity of AIMs to work with, and we’ve used the lot up. If this dose doesn’t do the trick, we don’t get a second shot.”
River took the information on board, before saying, “Then you just have to have faith, Simon. In yourself. In me.”
“In you, mèi mèi, always,” Simon said. “In myself…?”
“Hey, big brother. I found you on Atata, which was pretty incredible of me even if I say so myself, and flew you off of there, which wasn’t so incredible but still worth mentioning. I didn’t do that only to have you get all ‘wiffle-waffle, where’s my head at?’ on me now. Come on. Inara’s down the corridor, waiting. She’s not got long. It’s now or never, Simon.”
Simon steeled himself. River was right. Now or never.
* * *
Shortly afterwards, Simon strode through L’Amour’s sprawling mansion towards the room that had been turned into a single-occupancy hospital ward for Inara. River trotted alongside him. In his hand was a hypodermic syringe, and in that syringe was a clear liquid containing a swarm of microorganisms, invisible to the naked eye.
And containing, also, hope.
Mal, Zoë, Jayne, Wash, Kaylee and L’Amour were all stationed outside the door to Inara’s room, either slumped on chairs or leaning against a wall. None of them looked to have slept much more than Simon had since their return to Bellerophon. Mal’s and Zoë’s faces were patchworked with bruises in all the colors of sunset. Jayne’s injured arm was enveloped from wrist to elbow in a rehabilitation sheath and supported by a sling.
Mal stepped forward. “Is that…?” he said, gesturing at the hypodermic.
“I think so,” Simon said.
“And will it…?”
“I’m not making any promises.”
“It will,” River said.
L’Amour held the door open for Simon. “In you go, young man.”
“Want some moral support in there?” Zoë offered.
Simon shook his head. Then, looking round at everyone, he said, “I’ve no idea how long it’ll take the AIMs to work. It won’t be instant, that’s for certain. You should go get some rest, all of you. I’ll let you know as soon as there’s any improvement. If there’s any improvement.”
Kaylee took his hand. “You’ve cracked it, Simon. I know you have.”
Simon looked at her. Briefly he recalled Meadowlark Deane, whose smiling outward innocuousness had belied a dark, twisted soul. He had been lured in by her, lulled into a false sense of security, largely because she’d reminded him so much of Kaylee. Yet the two women could not be more different. Kaywinnet Lee Frye was pure at heart, not an ounce of malice in her. Unlike with Meadowlark, with Kaylee what you saw was what you got.
Her belief in him was like a jolt of electricity, galvanizing. Almost without thinking about it—and if fatigue hadn’t lowered his inhibitions quite so much, he might never have done it—Simon grabbed her by the waist, pulled her to him, and planted a huge kiss on her lips.
Kaylee, though startled, quickly got over it and kissed him back. Warmly. Passionately.
Simon broke the clinch, turned, and went into Inara’s room, leaving a flush-faced Kaylee looking embarrassedly around at her crewmates. L’Amour pulled the door to behind him.
Inara lay on her floating bed, sallow, skeletal. As Simon approached, she craned her head round to look at him. The effort this small movement required was enormous.
“Simon,” she said. “Always a pleasure.”
“Don’t talk, Inara,” he said. “Save your strength.”
“Just remember, it doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry?”
“If this treatment of yours fails. I won’t mind.”
“It’s not going to fail. I’m pretty sure it isn’t.”
“Promise me, Simon, you won’t blame yourself if it does. I’m not going to hold it against you, that’s for certain. I’m just grateful that you’ve tried. You and the rest of the crew. I know the lengths you’ve gone to, the ordeal you’ve been through. I love you all for it.”
“Please, Inara, like I said, save your strength.”
“Very well, Dr. Tam. Let’s get on with it, then.”
Simon rolled up one sleeve of her kimono and held the hypodermic ready.
* * *
Hours later, he found the others. They were gathered in L’Amour’s vast, gleaming kitchen. Dishes heaped with muffins, cookies and neatly sliced fresh fruit sat on the table, largely untouched. Jayne, alone, was eating.
Without saying a word, Simon staggered over to the coffee machine, helped himself to a mugful and drank it down at a single gulp.
Expectant gazes surrounded him.
Simon wiped his mouth.
Then, slowly, guardedly, he began to smile.
Epilogue
“You know your face is on upside down?” said Inara to Mal.
“Are you denigrating my good looks?” Mal replied. “Because I’ll have you know, in certain quarters I am considered quite the hunk.”
They were at the belvedere overlooking the lake. Mal had pushed Inara out there in an antigrav med chair, which now hovered stationary beside the bench he was sitting on. It was a week since Simon had administered the AIMs, and there was already a marked improvement in Inara’s health. The pallor was gone from her complexion, her hair was regaining its luster, and she had put some weight back on. Above all else, her eyes were bright again. Bright and wonderful.
“No,” she said. “It’s just, you’re frowning so much, and your mouth’s downturned, but if I could flip your head over, you’d look as happy as can be. What’s making you sad?”
“I ain’t sad,” Mal said.
“Good, because how can anyone be sad on a day like this? In a spot like this?”
She waved a hand—a hand whose fingers had lately been so skeletal that they couldn’t bear rings, but now did again. The gesture took in the landscaped grounds; the trees, still in their autumnal pomp, if now shedding the odd leaf; the lake with its myriad of flickering golden fish. The sunlight was just the right temperature, warm but not oppressively hot. A few white clouds lazed against the blue firmament.
“A wealth of beauty,” she said.
“Beauty created by wealth.”
“Don’t be such a miseryguts. You don’t envy Stanislaw his money.”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t mind havin’ a little bit of it. Listen, Inara…”
“Uh-oh,” she said playfully. “What’s coming?”
“What do you mean?”
“You say you’re not sad, so this must be your sincere face instead, and when Mal Reynolds gets sincere, then things must be serious.”
I am serious, Mal thought. I don’t think I’ve ever been so serious.
“It’s just… On Atata, it was a struggle,” he said. “For all of us. There were times when I was convinced we weren’t gonna make it. But we kept going. I kept going. Because I had to. Because I didn’t have a choice.”
“I know,” Inara said. “You never gave up. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
“I knew if we failed, you’d die. I couldn’t have that. I didn’t want it. I wanted you to live, more’n anything.”
“Believe me, Mal, I am thankful beyond wo
rds. I owe you everything.”
Mal was poised on the edge of the bench. He hadn’t rehearsed this moment, hadn’t prepared for it. But he’d decided it was going to happen, the moment he’d parked Inara’s chair at the belvedere. In these surroundings, it felt right. It felt like there would never be a better time or place.
He just wished he had had the foresight to buy a ring first. A ring he could safely lodge on Inara’s finger, now that she was able to wear rings again.
Saying the words would have to do. The ring could come later.
And then, before Mal could make his move—propel himself down onto one knee in front of her, adopting a posture he hoped would be winningly old-fashioned—Inara said, “I won’t forget everything you did. The whole crew, but you most of all. I’ll cherish the memory.”
Mal froze. Cherish the memory. He did not like the sound of this. He did not like where it seemed to be headed.
“And,” Inara said, “that makes what I’m about to say a lot harder to say.”
Mal had to force the words out. “Which is?”
“I’ve had a brush with death, Mal. I got nearer to it than I ever have. I felt it inside me. Like this tide of ice-cold water slowly rising, slowly engulfing me. It was frightening but it also wasn’t completely unpleasant. It felt… natural. Inevitable.”
She laid her hand on his.
“It’s the kind of experience that changes a person,” she said, “and I need time to absorb it, make sense of it. Time… and space. Stanislaw’s told me I can remain his houseguest for as long as I like. So I won’t be rejoining you on Serenity. I’m going to stay here. Stay and recuperate and process what I’ve been through.”
“Okay.”
“After that, maybe I’ll return to House Madrassa, I don’t know. For all the problems they have with me there, it’s the only place I’ve known that’s felt like home.”
“Okay.”
“You understand why, don’t you, Mal? I’ve thought long and hard about this, and it seems like the right thing to do. The only thing to do.”
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