"So, how does the criminal mastermind feel about this latest caper?" Zoe asked dryly. Simon jumped a little and turned around to face her, from where he'd been nervously wandering around back and forth in the cargo bay. "Getting ready to go under deep?"

"I... I'm trying, but I feel like I'm not accomplishing that much," Simon muttered. They were only about six and a half hours from landing on Whittier near the Maren's isolate cabin, and everybody else seemed to be busy getting ready to put Kaylee's plan into action. "I've been over everything that I could find out about Rickard Maren, both from Badger's files and other publicly available material on the Cortex, but... but I don't feel that same level of confidence that I would when walking into a hospital. This sort of thing is out of my depth, and he's a private guy that nobody really knows much about, and I really don't want to get all stiff and stuttery like I usually do when I'm n... n... nervous." He smiled lamely at the ship's formidable first mate.

"I know it's a bit cliche, but you really don't have that much to worry about," Zoe told him, with a slight smile. "Number one, everybody messes up a little when they're undercover, and it usually doesn't matter. Number two, the fact that your guy is an enigma really does work in our favour - nobody else knows him either or much about him, so he can be whatever you want to 'play him' as. Well, anything that's consistent with being secretive and reclusive, which shouldn't be hard. Third - you don't have to go to the conference with only the information and preparation available to us now. That's part of why we're going to Whittier first."

"Hmm, yeah," Simon muttered, and distractedly he walked over to an iron trunk which was kept in the cargo bay more as a bench seat than to store things in, and sat down on it. "Minor nit point, though - not EVERYBODY at the conference will be just as in the dark as we are at the moment."

"Oh?" Zoe wasn't too surprised about that, but she was curious about any details that Simon had found.

"Yeah, I did some in-depth cross-referencing. Doesn't seem that anybody who'll be there has seen the Marens recently, or even corresponded with them in the past few years, but I've found some people that Rickard went through his schooling with, specialists who Juli worked with before she got married, and so on. Those will be the dangerous points."

"Then we'll need to get more information about those times, straight from the Marens themselves," Zoe answered. "Is there anything else that you're worried about?"

"Yes, the technical expertise," Simon moaned. "He can't possibly explain everything about his work to me in the time that we've got - or enough to cover, in the time that we've got available to us before Kaylee and I have to leave for the conference. And - and I don't have enough of a grounding in this engineering stuff. I won't be able to manage."

Zoe cocked her head slightly, and squatted slightly to get down closer to Simon's level. "I thought about that, but - well, Kaylee isn't an engineer on Rickard Maren's level I suppose, but she does know that kind of stuff. She can help you 'cram' for the conference, as it were: on the trip there, at night, maybe even help save you with a critical hint in public. And - she'll need to know medical and bioscience stuff for her own part, and you're the only one who can help her out with that. I suppose that it's a bit lucky that the two of you are the ones who can pull this thing off on the basis of physical appearance - you're well suited to it in other ways too." Simon rolled his eyes. "What was that for?"

"Oh, just... Kaylee and I well suited to playing married," Simon put in, with a bit of a chuckle. "Does something sound not-right about that to you?"

"What? I thought that you liked her too."

"Oh, I... I do." Simon couldn't help a smile, though it was a bit of a wistful one. "Who wouldn't like Kaylee? 'No force in the universe...' as the saying goes, right?" He paused and ummed. "I know that she likes me too, but EVERY time that I've tried, or she's tried, to do something about the fact of our mutual attraction, something goes wrong." He sighed. "Usually whatever it is, it goes wrong quite spectacularly. Either I say absolutely the wrong thing, or she gets pissy over something that wasn't my fault, or one of us passes out, or the sheer cultural difference between the worlds we've come from seems like too much, or someone with a gun arrives at exactly the right moment to ruin things." Simon sighed wearily. "Don't get me wrong, I do sort of look forward to the opportunity to spend some time with her, and to learn more about her specialty and teach her about mine, even under these circumstances." He mulled over what the 'but' was for a few seconds. "But I'm worried about what might go wrong this time, I guess."

"Don't worry about it," Zoe said with a twinkle in her eyes. "That's like trying to expect the unexpected - it never works. When it happens, you'll know."

"Oh, *thank* you, that's very helpful," Simon retorted.

"All part of the service." And with a lazy, mocking salute, Zoe headed off to the stairs up.

------------

"Alright, we're getting close enough," Mal warned Wash, from his usual crouch over and behind the pilot's chair. "Can you see a good place to come in for a landing, far enough away that we won't get spotted?"

"Yes, and yes, Captain," Wash retorted a bit edgily. "We've been over this. Why don't you go down to the lower level and pick out a good gun or something?"

"Alright, alright," Mal mumbled, backing away slightly. "Except that my guns aren't there. Let me know if anything goes wrong."

"Yeah, as if," Wash retorted as Mal made his exit. "Let's see, now... Turn off the main forward thrust..." that was a flip of an overhead switch, "lift down to minimum descent stability, and landing gear out." With two more flips, Wash satisfied himself that they were ready to land as silently and unobtrusively as possible. Serenity dropped like something very droppy out of the sky, and would have crashed, if Wash hadn't stamped on a foot petal, to activate emergency lift out of the VTOL thrusters at the last moment. "We have touchdown," he announced unnecessarily over the ship's PA system.

""Right, that's our cue," Jayne said with a bit of an eager smile.

"Jayne, leave the over-under behind," Zoe told him in a bored tone. "We're not going toe-to-toe with alliance riot squads here."

"Oh, come on," Jayne complained, and turned to Mal, but he got no sympathy there. "Can I run and get Vera, then?"

"If you feel like you must," Mal said, "but be quick about her."

"Well, you can't rush a girl like Vera," Zoe pointed out, as Jayne made his tracks.

It wasn't too long before the trio crept out of Serenity's hatch, took a bearing, and slipped through Whittier's twilight towards the cabin. The initial plan had the three of them leading the way, securing the cabin and its two inhabitants, before calling for others to follow - Simon and Kaylee, probably Book and Inara as well, depending on the situation. There were no sentries around the building, of course, and when Zoe scanned with a good bicorder that she'd bought on Ariel, she found only the simplest possible security grid passing through the doors and windows in the walls, and, most surprisingly of all, it wasn't activated. Could even absent-minded scientists be so careless? Perhaps they could.

Jayne led the way inside, or perhaps it was better to say that Vera led the way and Jayne followed quite closely after her. "Alright, get your hands up!" he barked after a moment inside. "Good. Now get out of the bed, carefully..." There were a few cries of muted outrage, and then: "Alright, you can put on a few more clothes if you like, but - actually, hold off on that for just a moment. Where's the little lady?"

Mal and Zoe traded a glance, and then they followed Jayne inside. In the dim light, the resemblance of the man sitting on the bed to Simon was so remarkable that Mal gasped, wondering if there was some way that Simon really had beaten them here. "Oh, good," Jayne said casually. "I frisked him already, but one of you can cover him so I can search his clothes before giving them to him,"

Zoe shot Jayne her what-are-you-rutting-kidding-me-seriously look. "He's a scientist, Jayne. Do you really think he'll have a piece hidden in the inside pocket of his favourite sweater?"

"He's an *engineer*, Zoe," Mal muttered in a low voice. "It can't hurt to be careful, anyway."

So they went through the routine of having Jayne paw through the guy's pants and a heavier shirt, and Mal continued to train his gun on Rickard even after he'd finished dressing. "I think that my friend asked you a question, by the way," Zoe said, trying to stick to business. "It was about where your wife was." She'd already examined the rest of the cabin thoroughly with the bicorder, and satisfied herself that Juli could not have been hiding anywhere in the handful of rooms.

"I *told* him," Rickard muttered sulkily, in about as foul a mood as could be expected given the unexpected start to his morning. "She left yesterday to go hiking. I've gotten to the trickiest part of my new design, and she usually finds some reason to make herself scarce after I start to get on her nerves. She might be miles away by now."

"Do you have any idea when she'll be coming back?" Mal asked, groaning slightly. Even with little things like this, plans never go smooth.

"Could be early this afternoon, could be two days from now. Don't think she'd have packed supplies for longer than that, as well as the tent and the rest of the gear she'd need."

"Well, I suppose that we can't wait," Jayne told him. "Does she carry a communicator wand, for emergencies and such?"

"Yes, one I designed myself. She knows better than to let herself get out of comm range from here." He sighed. "Do you want me to TALK to her?"

"Umm, no, I don't think so," Mal told him. Even if they were watching Rickard with a gun to his head as he spoke over the comm, there were too many ways that a couple who had long known each other might send secret signals. If Juli had the slightest hint that Rickard was in trouble, she might call for Alliance law patrol, or make tracks to a friend's house, or do any of a dozen other things that might stimy all their plans. "We need to find a way to track her based on that communicator," he muttered under his voice to Zoe and Jayne.

"Listen, what's all this about?" Rickard asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Are you after ransom? Because the people who I still work with won't pay much for me - or for Juli, I think. We're too 'eccentric' to be of value. I have some Alliance credit in my own name, but if you want me to access it and turn it into coin without anybody raising a red flag..."

"No, that is not it," Jayne told him, as Zoe left the room again. "We may be low thieves, but what we're after is not yours - at least, not what we're after to keep."

"Hmm." Rickard considered again. "Not one of my designs or devices either then, I suppose. What *is* it that you need to borrow?"

Mal decided to say it straight out. Rickard seemed to be a plain-spoken man, if somewhat lost in his own head, and would probably appreciate forthrightness. "We need your identities. Yours and your wife's. To get somewhere that you were invited and, I think, had not planned to go."

Rickard's eyes widened slightly with appreciation of the idea. "What, that Baty miniaturization conference thing?" He weighed that notion. "Interesting. Well, as you say, we wouldn't have used those invitations ourselves, nor... our ID bracelets, or the space-sled. What else would you need to make this masquerade complete? I don't think that either of you have much similarity in features with me, and your lady friend is entirely the wrong hue of her skin."

"You're trying to get us thinking you want to co-operate?" Jayne growled softly. "I don't trust nobody, especially a stranger. Why would you play ball?"

"I've always been interested in trying new things, and I've never tried to pass someone else off as myself," Rickard quipped. "But more seriously... if there is one thing in this verse that I cannot BEAR, it is having one of those... those THINGS," (and he waved generally at mid-chest level out into the room,) "pointed at myself. Figured that if I 'played ball', as you put it, I might gain enough goodwill that you would forebear."

"What, the guns?" Mal asked, looking down at his little pistol. "Well... we'll still use them if you force us to."

"I would certainly expect such a reaction," Rickard answered evenly. "And thus, it ill behooves me to provide any such stimulus."

"Can I shoot him just for talkin' so funny, Mal?" Jayne complained.

"No," Mal said, raising his eyes to the ceiling in despair.

It was just at that point that Zoe reappeared. "The next wave will be coming soon," she informed them. "I took the liberty of inspecting Mister Maren's comm rig, and it shouldn't be too much trouble to get a lock on the portable signal and follow it. The only questions are who and how. If she's walked as far as all that, we can't follow her on foot, in time."

"You could take the sled for that too," Rickard suggested. "It's got the homing comm function built in, actually, and will give one of your people the opportunity to practice."

Zoe, for her part, looked nearly as distrustfully at Rickard as Jayne had, but eventually she nodded. "That does have some practical advantages."

"Sled's a two-seater craft," Mal mused, "and I don't figure S... the good doctor, for doing any piloting. But she'll need someone better able to deal with trouble. Which of you has more experience flying small craft?"

"Precious little, for me," Jayne disclaimed. "Took over a Jiangyin jumping bug when the trained driver got shot by a sniper - but I crashed it before we'd properly made our getaway."

"It's been a while, for me," Zoe offered, "but I was steering little inter-ship tugs before my mama gave me the [birds and bees] talk. I think I can handle it."

"Alright, fair enough," Mal said. He was comfortable with the notion of Kaylee and Zoe going after the wife themselves. Wondered it would be like when they came face to face. "Go and see about warming the engine up, or whatever."

"Interesting," Rickard said as Zoe left. "So, might I be permitted to inquire what the arrangements will be, once -- Kaylee and the doctor leave, prepared to impersonate myself and my wife? It seems unlikely that you will entirely depart at that point."

"No, I'm afraid that we can't let you call in any kind of warning," Mal said. "If you don't cause trouble... then we'll do our best not to inconvenience you, *won't we* Jayne? You can continue your work or whatever, but I'm afraid that if the better half finds it frustrating to be around while you're working at this stage, one or the other of you are likely to be disappointed, because we won't be able to keep an eye on her effectively and allow her to roam."

"What about if *I* find it frustrating to let him work, Mal?" Jayne asked, sounding disgruntled.

"Hello?" Book asked, from just outside the cabin door. "Ahh, guns down I see. I hadn't hoped for so much."

"He asked nicely," Mal told the Shepherd, and then looked back to Rickard to see his reaction to the engineer's first look at Simon and Kaylee. The flabbergasted jaw-drop was very impressive, and it warmed Mal's cynical heart slightly.

"Someone's waiting for you out in the space-sled," Mal told Kaylee in an undertone. It wasn't something that had occurred to him before they'd come, but they'd all need to refrain from using names in front of the Marens, or even repeating the ones that they had already used with Rickard, though if he had a good memory, that was probably wasted effort. "Don't use names," he whispered to Kaylee, hoping that she'd understand the point.

"Got it." And she let her glance flick over to Simon for just a moment - yes, that did make some sense. As a high-priority Alliance fugitive, Simon's identity, (and River's, but the Marens shouldn't even meet her,) was an equally high priority secret. Fortunately, that one he hadn't spoiled yet, though he had mentioned that Simon was a doctor of some description.

"Hello, Doctor Maren," Simon said, going over to his opposite number. "It's great to have an opportunity to meet you, even under these somewhat strange circumstances, but I'm afraid that I have a few specific areas that I'll need to question you about, in order to..."

"Yes, I quite understand," Maren replied, nodding affably. "There will be people at the symposium who have history with me. I suppose you've already done a cursory search for matches?"

"Yes," Simon said a bit warily. "I have a full roster, if you'd... like to look at it, and maybe spot someone I missed?" He looked away to stare at Mal, and then Jayne, for a moment, as if asking for an explanation of Rickard's attitude. Mal just shrugged. There was a possibility that Rickard might provide a bit of misinformation meant to expose Simon as a fraud, but Mal didn't think so - his 'read' on the scientist confirmed that he was intrigued about the challenge, and scared of their guns. Plus, it would be hard to manufacture a 'smoking gun' that couldn't be plausibly explained away as a mistaken memory.

"Certainly," Rickard said, and extending his hand for the printout list.

------------

Kaylee giggled softly to herself as she manoeuvred the gravity sled over the forests of Whittier - navigating in open air, without even birds to avoid, was intuitive enough that she required almost no attention to stay on course, aside from carefully watching the tracking display to get updates on exactly where their course was leading them. That left the rest of her mind free to revel. She wondered what the cozy little craft would manoeuvre like once she had it out in orbital space.

"Doing well," Zoe confirmed. "If you and Simon take off from here, it'll be around twenty-five standard hours' trip back to Bellerophon."

"Not too bad," Kaylee judged. "It's just our luck that the two moons are so close together at this point in time, and will stay well aligned for the duration of the conference."

"Yes, but..." Zoe sighed. "It's one thing to take a journey of twenty-five hours in a ship like Serenity, or even one of our shuttles, if you like the company. In this dinky thing..." She trailed off, and Kaylee checked her airspace carefully before allowing one lightning-quick look behind her. The living compartment of the sled was smaller than Serenity's kitchen, including the pilot's and co-pilot's seats, the bunk, a compartment full of supplies, (mostly dried rations,) and a few completely exposed sanitary fixtures.

"Okay, yeah, I do take your point," Kaylee admitted. "Say, is there even a Cortex hook-up?"

"If I guess right, then I'd say that it was..." Zoe muttered, then activated the pilot's screen and touched a small icon in the bottom corner. A familiar Cortex welcome node flashed up. "Right, that would be built into your station as well, I figure."

"Right, okay," Kaylee said, thinking it through. "So if Simon or I need the Cortex for preparing our roles, then we're up here, and not - oh, say, relaxing on the bunk or anything."

"Are you thinking of the both of you, relaxing on that bunk together?" Zoe allowed herself to tease the young mechanic. "That sounds very cozy."

"Oh, you know what I mean," Kaylee muttered, but a glint had entered her eyes when Zoe mentioned the prospect. "That is..."

"Careful," Zoe muttered softly.

"What? Was I about to say something wrong?" Kaylee asked, shaking her head. She hadn't even been sure what she thought she was about to say.

"No, careful of the tracker," Zoe put in. "As in, don't talk until you've figured out where we land."

"Oh, right."

When the sled had lowered itself to the edge of a small open field, it became clear that Juli Maren had noticed the ship, but was waiting at the edge of the trees, probably wondering what had possessed Rickard to come flying after her. Now, how would she react to the sight of strangers emerging from the vehicle, Zoe wondered. "You go first," she suggested to Kaylee.

"Why do I go first?"

"Just trust me, okay?" Kaylee relented at the insistent tone of the other woman, popped up the large plasticized canopy, and hopped out of the pilot's chair and down the ladder on that side of the vehicle. Juli stared intently, probably having noticed the resemblance to herself and not sure at all what to make of it. Zoe allowed Kaylee a five second's count head start and then left the sled herself, glad that the angle Kaylee had landed at hid the co-pilot's side ladder from Juli's vantage point.

Juli Maren got over her surprise and made a dash back into the brush, but as familiar as she was with the woods, she had probably tired herself out with an early start, and the women of Serenity quickly surrounded her. "You'd best come with us quietly," Zoe said. "We already have your husband... safe."

"What the *tien-huh* is this all about?" Juli exclaimed, in a voice that wasn't quite a shout, but certainly carried. "Why are you in OUR sled?? Why would Rickard need you or anybody else to be safe out here?"

"It's not really like we saved him from anybody else," Kaylee said, honestly and a bit ominously. "Just - it would be a really good idea if you didn't cause us any trouble. We don't mean you any harm, but - well, there's this plan, and it really would take a long time to explain."

Juli started to reach for her backpack. "And what if I... um, I don't want to listen?"

"You'd better," Zoe breathed. Quickly enough that neither of the other girls had noticed her drawing, a seven-shooter was in her hand. "Kaylee - could you be a dear and take that pack? Yeah, thanks. I'm sure that an experienced backpacker would carry something with a bit of firepower in these woods, just in case of wild beasts." She smiled frostily. "A *smart* backpacker opts for somewhere more accessible than the pack."

Juli was stewing in her own frustration visibly by this point, but didn't resist as Kaylee took the heavy canvas bag away from her.

"Let's go," Zoe said, gesturing with her gun, pointing them back towards where the sled had been landed. "Now, to boil our interest down to the most salient facts - my friend and another member of our company, back at the cabin, are going to be pretending to be you and your husband for a few days. If you co-operate and don't cause trouble, then we'll give back all your IDs and property once the mission is done, and never bother you again."

"This is to rob the conference, right?" Juli asked. "You want to swipe one of the un-encased engines. It's the only thing that makes much sense. And what if the authorities decide that WE really were the ones who committed the crime? Did you think of that?"

From the sound that emerged out of Kaylee, she hadn't. Zoe had wondered about the same thing herself, but hadn't worried about it too much before meeting the Marens. Now, it was a bit harder to be blase about the possibility.

"Who rides back in the bunk?" Kaylee asked when they got back to the sled. "I hadn't thought about this."

"I did," Zoe told her, "and I will. I will also take the backpack. You need more practice at the controls, still."

"You'd better not crash this thing," Juli muttered. "It's a really great sled."

------------

"How's it going?" Wash called out, as soon as he heard the sound of someone climbing up the stairs between the kitchen and the crew's hall.

"Not too bad," Jayne muttered. "The husband's eager to play along, and the woman's sullen. Who woulda thought it? But Kaylee's managing to draw her out, bit by little bit."

"Alright," Wash said. "So, what brings you here? Just wanted to come and keep me company?"

"Nope, I wanted to grab some stuff outta my room, before you pulled up and took off," Jayne said. "Feeling all lonely in here? What about the Tam girl?"

"River?" Wash considered. "She was in here talking with me not long after the others left, but she wandered off - I admit that I didn't much mind at the time." He shot Jayne a meaningful look. "I'm not much for following her kind of talk, I admit."

"Hell, who is, even her kin?" Jayne scoffed.

"But I suppose we'd best find her, if only to make sure that she hasn't wandered off into the forests herself. We'd never hear the end of it for taking off without her."

"Yeah, you just make sure you do take her along, so that she's not showing up at the cabin and bothering me," Jayne put in. "It's a pretty sweet setup, too. Are you going to take a look before we go?"

"No, better if I don't, I think," Wash put in. "One less face for either of them to remember."

"Oh, yeah, right. But anyway - it looks all rustic and all, but the satellite cortex hook-up and the kitchen are as rich as those Bellerophon estates. Both of them have their own laboratory workshops, fully equipped and all."

"Makes sense," Wash put in. "If I was brilliant and wanted to retire into obscurity, I'd be careful to do it in style."

"Yeah." Jayne shrugged. "Oh, Doctor M had some intelligence about what the arrangements at the conference would likely be - maybe several years out of date, but Mal's listening to what he has to say as an addondum to Badger's info."

"Makes sense," Wash said. "Does he know anything about Artemis?" That was the nearest Bellerophon freeport to the conference site - a floating trade outpost, and the contingency plans included Serenity docking there for a spell, since they'd be able to reach the rendezvous point much faster than if they had to brake from orbit, especially if the orbital timing was bad.

"No, I asked, and he said that he'd never been."

"Okay, thanks for trying."

"Say nothing of it," Jayne suggested, and headed off to his bunk, to look for what, Wash knew not.

-----------

"Hmm... yes, not bad at all," Rickard said as Kaylee stepped out of the Privacy room, doing a slow spin to model the outfit. She didn't feel nearly as charitable towards the severe blue blouse and skirt herself, but hadn't argued with the unanimous decision that it would be a look Juli might choose to arrive at an important scientific conference in. Of course, that was still more than a day away, but Mal had suggested that they have the big send-off in appropriate clothes, and then change into casual wear once the sled was well away. Kaylee might have protested about the idea of deliberately increasing the number of times they'd need to change clothes inside the sled, with all the limitations on privacy that entailed... if a part of her wasn't eager to throw privacy out the window, when it came to just herself and Simon.

"Yes, you look... very much the part, K..." Simon said, and choked off when Zoe shot him a what-are-you-actually-stupid glare. (He'd been warned about not using anybody's name in the crew of Serenity in front of the Marens, but had a very hard time actually sticking to it.) "Is there anything else before we leave?"

"No, I can't think of anything," Rickard said expansively. "We've been over the background information, and the technical details, as well as we can without another two weeks to get into serious tutoring. You've got exactly the luggage we would have taken to an event like that conference, if we'd ever actually go, with an emphasis on personal knickknacks that might be recognized or strike people as 'so like us.' I would think that that covers it."

"There's something bugging me," Juli muttered, not looking at anybody. "Could I see that list of invitees again?"

There was a moment's pause. "I'm sure that we'd be able to help you with that, Miz Maren, if you'd say please, and, I don't know, actually look at one of my people while you're asking," Mal said in his best 'polite captainly authority' tone. "Care to try it again?"

Juli groaned, put on an artificially sunny smile, and swept her gaze all over the crew present. "Please, guys, you know what I'm asking for? Does somebody here have it?"

"That would be me, actually," Simon said. "Your husband made notes, and I was going to be studying them on the way." After waiting a moment to see if Juli would repeat the request, and getting a slightly impatient nod from Mal, he hurried over and showed it to her.

"Gorram it," she swore after staring at it for maybe fifteen seconds. "Something is nagging at me about the whole list, but I can't even narrow it down to one particular name."

"So there's somebody else who maybe knows you, but you can't even tell us who, never mind from where?" Kaylee asked, frowning at the prospect.

"Maybe that's it." Juli shrugged. "Maybe it's something else entirely, or something that I'm just imagining. Sorry."

"We can get another copy of that list, right?" Rickard asked. "So maybe she'll figure it out later?"

"Well, what good is it to... to our people?" Jayne growled, "If you only figure it out after they leave?"

"There's such a thing as a Cortex wave," Rickard told him. "I - well, I guess I just assumed that we would keep in touch. So that if there's any important information to pass either way, like warnings, or questions."

"I suppose I was assuming that radio silence would be safer," Mal said. "Obviously we can't risk having anyone else discover who they might be contacting. Will there be any opportunity to take security precautions?"

"Oh, boy, how much there is that you don't know about that world," Juli volunteered.

"What that's supposed to mean?" Jayne snapped.

"Just - well, I don't imagine this will have changed since I last made it to a scientific conference," Rickard said, chuckling. "They expect that delegates will extensively modify the Cortex interfaces provided - especially to fit their own security requirements. Did you pack an encryption chip, Juli?"

"Well, yeah, I slipped it in. Actually not sure if I know where the mate for it is," she said. Rickard shook his head, took a set of matched computer memory cards from his desk, tossed one to Simon, and tucked the other meaningfully into his own shirt pocket.

"What about security cameras or other devices in the actual rooms?" Zoe asked.

"Maybe a few 'for the sport', but again, they'd expect top scientists to sweep them out. The gear to detect and disable some basic bugs would be, again, in your luggage."

"Okay, well, we'll see about all of that," Simon said stiffly. "If it seems appropriate to call, we'll call, but I don't think that promising to check in for the sake of checking in is that wise."

Mal nodded meaningfully at Kaylee, and she returned the gesture without Simon seeing it. Then Kaylee made a big show of hugging all her friends goodbye, and everybody escorted them out to the space sled, which Kaylee lifted up into the air.

"Alright, so what's next?" Juli asked after a moment. "Are the rest of you leaving now too, except for our designated watchdogs?"

"I don't think so," Zoe said. "S... our ship can move faster than that sled, so we don't have the same time constraints, and it might be better if we weren't entering Whittier orbit until a few hours later, and at a very different spot."

"Then can we offer you dinner?" Rickard asked, smiling. Juli shot him a dirty glare. "Come on, it's been a while since this house has had had a crowd, and good company, and a little merriment? I mean - we only just met you folks today, and you're very politely holding us hostage after stealing our identities and all... but I think that I like you anyway."

Mal grinned. "What's for supper?"

"How do you feel about turkey?"

"As in, actual bird that used to gobble?" Jayne asked, incredulous. Juli sighed loudly.

------------

"So, are you going to change now?" Kaylee asked, as the sled was still climbing through the atmosphere. Under the effects of the gravity lens, it was very nearly acting like the moon below wasn't there, which allowed an incredibly small thrust engine to keep it aloft and push it higher. Even though gravity focusing technology was also used to a smaller relative extent with a ship like Serenity, it was amazing to experience the effect like this. "That's a mighty snazzy suit you've got on - wouldn't want it to - wrinkle, or anything."

"Um, what about you?" Simon asked, his cheek twitching in a sudden tic.

"What about me, what?"

"I mean - are you going to change too?"

"Of course, but not just now," Kaylee pointed out. "On account of how I'm flying the sled right now, and trying to pilot through the atmosphere and gettin' out of clothes at the same moment sounds like a good route to take to all kinds of badness - both flight-related and clothes-related badness, come to think of it." She giggled winningly. "It won't be too long before I'm up out of the stratosphere of Whittier, in fair empty space, and then you can take over at the controls while I slip into something a mite more comfortable."

"You - you want me to pilot the ship? I mean, I guess it makes sense, when you can't be doing it yourself, but..."

"Not really piloting, Simon," she told him. "A sled like this, doesn't need somebody steering her all the time, anymore than Serenity does. You just need to watch for something going wrong." Kaylee looked over and smiled at him. "On the other hand, if you do WANT to pilot for a bit, then I can try talking you through a few simple manoeuvres - while I'm sitting in the other chair. Is that a deal?"

"I... I guess I'll have to think about that one."

"Fair enough. Change?"

"Oh, right, yeah." Simon got up out of his chair, took a few steps, and then pitched into the bunk, muttering under his breath. A few seconds later, one of the two bags that had been packed for Kaylee/Juli got soundly deposited onto the co-pilot's chair. There was a silence that started off as awkward and then slowly became pregnant. (Oh, wasn't that a weird mental picture?) "So, umm, Kaylee... what - what was your life like before you came to Serenity?" Simon asked.

"Umm... very dull and quiet I guess. I was still living on my Daddy's farm on Three Hills, looking for decent work, and -- well, just exactly how do you define 'before?' Did you hear the story about Bester, by the by?"

"Bester?" Simon tried to place the name. "He was the mechanic before you, wasn't he?"

"I suppose you could say that... he'd gotten hired under such pretences, at least."

"Oh." Kaylee couldn't risk a look back out of curiosity about what Simon's face was doing at that moment, but he was turned away from her, so she couldn't see any face. On the other hand - well, he had been stripped down to briefs and an undershirt, so with him facing that way, she did get to see some interesting stuff, and had to force herself to turn back around quickly. "Mal mentioned that he fired Bester for being unable to sort out a fairly minor problem in decent time, and that he was lucky you'd been around to take over, but... I guess that's all I've really heard of him, why?"

"Hmm..." Kaylee considered. "I'll tell you that story on this trip, really, but I don't think this is the right moment - okay? Maybe after we're both a little bit tipsy, if they actually serve booze at this thing."

"Hmm... we'd better not get more than 'a bit tipsy', considering the job that we have to do," Simon reminded her. "And not even speak about our own lives - unless we're safely in our room I guess."

"Yeah, of course we won't."

"Okay - well, you pick something that this is a good moment to tell me," Simon said, chuckling under his breath. "Something in the year before you left."

"Hmm... well, let's see... it was about at the start of that year when a good friend of mine, Melany Waite, left the planet, and I was pretty despondent when it sank in, after a few days, that she was gone. Melany an' me, we weren't two peas in a pod or anything - she always thought it was weird for a girl to be so into machines, and I didn't understand about some of the things she liked to do to have fun either, mostly involving parties. But... but Three Hills is a very quiet and reserved planet, or at least the part where we grew up was, and -- and we both had a kind of restlessness, a passion for life, that other people didn't understand."

"But she met a guy from off-planet, a rich man from Ariel, Barrett Thomas, and he whisked her off her feet and offered to take her with him and show her the 'verse, and I was happy for her to get that opportunity. Even if it left me back home alone, looking for decent work, and trying to avoid the attentions of towner boys like Kairy Brand."

"Ahh," Simon said, slipping into the co-pilot's seat again, wearing knee-length shorts and a soft white tee shirt. "Did you ever meet Melany again?"

"Oh, yeah, after I'd signed up with Serenity, and before I met you," Kaylee said. "We spent some time on Paquin together, but it wasn't the same anymore, we'd both become different people, and I guess once we were both off Three Hills there wasn't that same bond holding us together anymore. Also - well, things got complicated because Melany and Barrett were on the other side of a job from Mal and Zoe. And Inara was involved there too; this was before she started renting a shuttle. And you CANNOT tell Mal I told you about that, because he still doesn't know that she was working against him."

"I... I couldn't even begin to explain any of that to anyone, so you can rest easy, I won't spill your secrets," Simon promised her. "What now?"

"We're still about ten minutes away from the end of the turbulent zone," Kaylee said, and then realized that he hadn't been asking about her changing clothes. "Umm... okay, my turn." This little game sounded promising, when nothing more intimate was offering, after all. "What was the day before River left for the Academy like for you? Did you see her then, or were you working so hard that you couldn't??"

"Oh, no, I... I was still in my residency, but it was in the same city where Mother and Father lived, after all, and - and I think I actually asked for a schedule change as a favour so that I could make the goodbye party that we threw her." He sighed slightly. "It was mostly just a family affair - we sent invitations to classmates of River's from the school she was in at the time, but only two showed up. I guess the rest were well glad to be rid of her."

"Oh," Kaylee said, disappointed that the story had such a sad note in it.

"Yeah, well," he said. "But River didn't seem to care about the meagre turnout. She was... was so excited, and nervous at the same time. Just about leaving home, being away from us for so long, and a little worried about if she might have gotten herself into something that she couldn't handle, academically speaking." He heaved a long sigh. "I guess that was the last time I saw her so happy, so vital - without that pain, that haunted look in her eyes."

"You'll be able to help her, yet," Kaylee told him, because she wanted to say something reassuring, and believed that it truly would happen.

"Thanks." And he reached out and took her hand, so Kaylee steered with the other arm, not wanting to break that contact for anything.

TO BE CONTINUED...