“I can’t see.”

Jayne nearly dropped a barbell on his foot. “Gorramit, I told you not to—”

“I can’t see,” River repeated. He knew, he just knew, that she hadn’t been in the cargo bay a second ago, but then how the hell did she get to standing behind him so fast? Was she learning tele—tepelort—how to move from place to place instantly now as well?

And what was this go-se about not being able to see?

Jayne swung his arm out, his fingers just missing her face. She flinched.

“See? Y’ain’t goin’ blind. Now go play dolls or somethin’, and leave me alone.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she said, sighing, and plunked herself down at the end of his bench. “There’s something coming and I can’t see what it is. It’s making me crazy.”

Jayne eyed her uneasily. “I thought Doc said—”

“I really am getting better, not just pretending!” She leaned forward and stared into his eyes with an uncomfortable intensity. “But the saner I get, the less I can see and hear!”

“Y’mean the reading-minds thing?”

River sighed again and rolled her eyes. “Duh.”

Jayne turned away and began stacking his weights neatly on the rack. It was evident he wasn’t going to get any peace for the rest of the day; he had learned to recognize the signs of the peculiar disease he called That Girl Followin’ Me About And Tryin’ To Teach Me Things About Squids (though the less said about that particular incident, the better).

“That was only once,” she protested. “Listen to me! This is actually important.”

“Something’s comin’ and you dunno what it is,” he said. “I heard ya. Whaddaya want me to do about it? There’s always somethin’ coming that we don’t know what it is.”

“This is different.”

“Reavers? Alliance? Them blue-hands? Somebody out for revenge?”

“Not bad, at least not bad bad like guns and screaming…” She stared at the ceiling, apparently fascinated by a steel girder. “All I can tell is that it’s coming. You’ll see it first; that’s why I’m telling you.”

“And you couldn’t’ve said that without bein’ all dramatic?”

She shrugged. “Entertainment is scarce out in the Black. Scaring you is funny. Have to go land the ship now. Bye.” *

“I don’t see your… pointy thing. Point. I dun’ see it.”

Mal stood up and pulled himself to his full height, then thought better of it and collapsed back onto the bar stool.

“I will explain it all,” he announced grandly, pointing his finger at one of the Simons in his field of vision. “I said I would not get drunk. ’Member? ’Fore we… went to the…” He frowned, concentrating.

Simon frowned as well, trying to guess the word. His head seemed a bit swimmy; probably the only thing that could fix it was some more of this stuff in the round thing, whose name he couldn’t remember either.

“AHA! It was a cup!”

This did not seem quite right to Mal, but the Doc had a better vocab— bocava— bocavabulary than he did, so he let it pass. “Right,” he said, draining his glass. “B’fore we went there. I said I wouldn’ get drunk, right?”

“Right…”

“An’ I always keep my promises, don’ I, Doc? Or Docs,” he added, so as not to insult the doppelgangers. It wouldn’t do to start a bar brawl with somebody who wasn’t even actually there. “So if I said I—”

Simon held up a hand. “Bi zui for a second, will you! I’m tryin’ to listen!”

“What?”

“Someone… someone…” Simon’s face slowly contorted into a mask of indignation. “Is snickering.”

“’Zat so?” said Mal. He turned around to the woman sitting next to him, and told her sternly, shaking his finger, “You stop that, miss! Not neither of us ain’t drunk. Doc here is a— a sauna sturgeon, and I, well, I ain’t drunk!”

“Of course you aren’t,” she said to him, and patted his shoulder comfortingly.

Mal glared at her, suspecting condescension, but turned away and returned to lecturing Simon.

“As I was saying,” he said, “before th’ two— no, the three o’ you innerupted me, I said I weren’t gonna get drunk, an’ as we can all see,” he said with exaggerated slowness, “I ain’t drunk.”

“Me neither,” said Simon.

“Well, somebody is,” said Mal thoughtfully. “I know ’cause thass empty. Stands to reason, don’ it.” He waved a hand at the bottle on the bar in front of them.

“’S Jayne,” Simon replied with an air of superiority. “The hundan’s always drunk.”

This was quite true, but after a second’s reflection Mal spotted the fatal flaw in this argument. “Can’t be— he’s had night shift all las’ week. He ain’t drunk, he’s asleep. So’s Kaylee.”

“Could be ’Nara,” suggested Simon.

“Naw,” Mal waved this off, knocking over the bottle in the process. “’Nara’s a lady. Eleg—egelant—eggplant, tha’ was it. She don’t get drunk, she gets tipsy. An’ Zoe hardly ever drinks at all.”

“So tha’ leaves—” Simon clapped his hand over his mouth, and exchanged horrified stares with Mal.

“Gotta get back to th’ ship,” declared Mal. “Gotta go now. ’M gonna room her in her lock ‘til… ‘til she’s—”

“Thiririrty,” said Simon firmly. “No less’n that.” *

She waited ‘til they stumbled out, arguing (“’Twere a job, not a cup!” “Was too!” “Was not!”), then finished her fruit juice and pulled out a trendy little BlueComm™.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “You were right, for once. I found ’em.” She nodded to herself as the other replied. “No, I checked. First thing tomorrow morning— but Himself can catch them at Pandora if he leaves now…. Sure. Bye— wait wait— remember, get it in solid platinum, no credits!”

The bartender, who had been listening in amusement to the two men earlier, leaned in and said, “Word of advice, if’n you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

“Yes?”

“The Sheriff around these parts is a bit zealous, if ya know what I mean. Doesn’t look too kindly on kidnappers.”

She smiled. “Sheriff needn’t worry about us.” *