“I imagined you changed, so many ways.” Gabriel Tam regarded his son, his face giving away nothing. “But you just look tired. And you’ve lost weight.”

“Father… why?”

“A great many questions in that simple word, I’d wager. I really don’t know where to start.” He gestured hesitantly to a squat bottle and two glasses. “Your favorite, as I recall. It wasn’t easy to lay hands on out here. Will you drink with me?”

*

Sessions rejoined his men at the bottom of the stairs. Alone and unobserved, the two relaxed around their boss. One of them looked up at the door. “So, what’s this all about, Al? What’s Thompson want with this kid?”

“Didn’t say, Dickie. At a guess, he’s looking at him and his sister as unfinished business. I suppose he’s got an offer of some sort for them.”

“Which’ll prolly involve us. Been busy as a one-man band since we took this job.”

“We have been juggling geese a bit,” Sessions admitted. “Wasn’t supposed to be like this. Duvie should have been waiting for us when we got here. Thompson was sure the trade group he was seeing would take longer to strike a deal. When this other job came our way, I wasn’t sure I’d have time to line up transport for that box. But it all worked out. And like you say, Thompson’s already coming to us for more work.”

Dickie nodded. “Plenty times, I wish we was on his payroll permanent. No offense, Al, you keep us in work, and the pay’s good, but some of the people we do jobs for I wouldn’t share a meal with.”

“Like the little peckerhead we’re handling that crate for,” the other said. “That story about it being another package for the Underground. What was that all about?”

Sessions raised an eyebrow. “How do you know it’s not?”

The man twitched a shoulder. “Not much like anybody in the Underground we ever dealt with.”

“Be thankful for that. Some of those guys I wouldn’t leave alone with my beer while I took a piss. Believe me, he’d fit right in. That gang ever ends up running the Alliance, the Rim won’t be far enough away.” Sessions glanced up at the door as well. “Maybe the little monkey’s a go-between like us, a fixer. For sure he’s particular about how he does things. I had to hunt across half the Rim to find that gorram tramp, but he wouldn’t have any other haul his cargo. Got to admit, it’s a damn fine little smuggler. Still…”

Dickie frowned. “What was that fairy tale about opening the other box early? Orders again?”

“Sort of. He refused to put a seal or a lock on the damn thing. Seemed strange, but he said if it was locked up, Reynolds wouldn’t take it on. I think now he was right.”

“And then in the same breath, he tells Al to convince Reynolds not to open it, no matter what. You shoulda heard him on wave. ‘You must see to it that Meester Rreynolds does not open my leetle peckich,’” the man said, imitating the reedy voice of the client who’d hired them to deliver the box into Serenity’s hold and send it to Halifax. “‘Money will not be enough, I theenk. You must sway him a beet at a time, like a nervous woo-man at the bedroom door, yes? You will see to it, Meester Seshunss. I hear you heff a talent for such theengs. Your reputation eez not yet so-lid, but you are well-recommended.’”

Dickie grinned. “Deke, you crack me up sometimes.”

*

So you’re a leader of the Underground.” Simon held the tiny cup of sake untasted, letting it warm in his hand.

“Upper management would be a better description. And I could wish there were only one Underground. We’d get more done.” His father took a swallow, his eyes never leaving his son. “The Alliance isn’t the monolith it appears from out here. The face it presents to the Rim is unified enough - the Fleet, the big corporations that operate under license, the civil administration - but the government and politics of the Central Worlds is another story. Planetary and other nationalist governments maneuver for control of the legislature and executive. Trade groups, single-issue movements, special interests of all kinds buy and sell influence. They compete or cooperate, and coalitions are fluid. Nobody is loyal to anyone else, and they agree on almost nothing – except for Alliance policy towards the outer worlds.

“The people who work for change from outside the system are just as varied. Their ambitions run the gamut, from anarchists who want to bring the Alliance to utter ruin to… aspiring Xian Yus who’d turn the Core into a police state, and the defeated Independent Worlds into concentration camps.” He drained his cup. “Our group simply seeks to curb the government’s worst excesses, and hopes to see the Union become a commonwealth, with all worlds partners sharing in its progress. That modest goal seems very distant sometimes.”

“Does Mother know?”

“Of course. She’s the one who got me involved.” The older man smiled at the memory. “I knew that girl since we were children. I used to steal her toys to get her to shriek and chase me through the house. I courted her for six years. We shared hobbies and entertainments, took trips together – chaperoned, of course. We spoke on every subject – or so I thought. The last year of our engagement, we spent so much time at each other’s houses our estates seemed merged already. And then, on our wedding night, when I think I’m about to learn the last things about her I don’t know, I find out I don’t know her at all. She told me while she was removing my cravat.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“About your affluent parents being conspirators and revolutionaries? We thought you were too young, at first. Then, when you began your studies at MedAcad, we thought you were already burdened enough. I suppose we were just afraid to tell you.”

“About River, I mean. Sessions said you got her out. I don’t understand. Why let me go through all that, thinking I was buying her free? You just let me blunder along, blind with fear for her. Why?”

Gabriel Tam set down his cup and refilled it. “By the time you showed us that letter, we’d already learned the true nature of the Academy and were laying plans to get her out, building a network of contacts on the inside. The security there was very tight. Our natural impulse was to keep you out of it, since you couldn’t help, and we didn’t want the officials running it to feel… threatened by discovery. So we tried to convince you to drop it.” He huffed, and tapped a sheet of paper lying next to the bottle. Simon recognized a copy of his arrest warrant. “We should have known better. We raised two very single-minded children. Brilliant, but stubborn.”

“You were so obtuse and intransigent,” Simon said. “Like different people.”

The older man nodded, looking into his cup. “It was no easy thing, lying to you, feigning impatience and anger. Threatening you. Watching the respect fade from your eyes that day in the police station. But I didn’t know what else to do. You were circulating among all the wrong people, asking about River and the Academy. Every time a police informant whispered your name into his handler’s ear, security at the facility tightened a little more, and we had to rework our plans. After the police picked you up that first time and it didn’t deter you, I didn’t dare try to stop you anymore; if you had, that would have been even more suspicious.”

Simon tossed the expensive rice wine to the back of his throat and swallowed as if it were Kaylee’s uncut moonshine. “The people I contacted. A different Underground.”

“Yes. They took your money, and you worked for them, but it was for nothing. Their promises were empty. They were never going to get River out.”

“That’s why I didn’t hear from them again. They were done with me.” A thought occurred. “Wait. Your man Sessions. He was with them. My first meeting with them.”

“He told me. But their plans were ludicrous, and they wouldn’t meet his price for a proper job.” He stepped closer. “How is she?”

Simon shrugged. “It was bad at first. Very bad. She seems to be getting better, and I have hope. But it’s like watching the tide come in. It’s too easy to pin your hopes on that odd wave that rolls halfway up the beach. And when it recedes, you look at that brief high point and wonder if that’s as good as it’s ever going to get.” He set the cup down and reached into his pocket. “She’s fairly lucid right now, and what they did to her made her… strangely perceptive sometimes. I think she knew I was coming to meet you. She wrote you a letter. She told me to read it first, but I think that was just for my peace of mind.” He drew it out and offered it.

*

It was times like this, Jayne thought, you realized just how gorram small this ship was.

That gorram crazy idjit girl. For sure and for certain, she had a way of getting under his skin that had nothing to do with reading his mind. Right now, he needed to do something that taxed his body and kept him too busy for idle thinking. He wanted to get out somewhere and run till his legs felt disconnected from his will and his breath rushing in and out tasted of blood, till he stumbled to the ground with his whole body recoiling to the hammering of his heart. But there was no place aboard with a straightaway long enough for more than a bitty wind sprint.

He’d walked about the ship instead, not sure if he was looking for her or not, knowing that he’d never find her unless she was so inclined. But he’d found damn near everybody else aboard. He knew it wasn’t imagination put those looks on Zoë’s and Inara’s faces, or on Wash’s either. That made him madder still.

He’d avoided the engine room.

Two other places he wasn’t about to look for her were his room and hers. Living with Wenda had taught him that anger between a man and woman had a way of twisting into something else sometimes; he wasn’t about to confront River with his blood up just two steps from a bed.

He drifted into the cargo bay finally, with some half-formed notion of burning out his bad mood on the weight bench. Instead, he found himself staring at their cargo, the cryo box that was a twin to the one she’d arrived in.

When did it start? He asked himself. He wasn’t the most inward-looking of men, and finding answers by such means was uncomfortable and strange. But it was something he’d been doing more and more of since she and her brother had come aboard. The moment she slithered out of that gorram box, that’s when. He remembered how her scream had pierced him, a man who’d heard plenty of cries of pain and fear. The boy had slipped out of his grip and rushed to her before he’d even realized. And the story the doc had told about her in the mess had agitated him so much he could hardly sit still.

Later, he’d nearly blown the interrogation of Dobson when the weasel had referred to her as a ‘package.’ Convincing their prisoner that Jayne was coldly capable of anything was key to getting the information Mal wanted without the delay and bother – and risk - of torturing the lawman. Slipping out of character and punching Dobson’s face in over a word would have ruined the setup and given the trigger-happy little hwundan a real lever to move them with.

She’d said he’d been growling at her like a suspicious dog for months. He supposed he had, and for the same reason: he’d been scared of her. Ariel had changed that. He’d still been scared of her, but all thoughts of sending her away had gone.

He sighed. It was damn strange, feeling close to a woman and not knowing what you wanted to do with her.

“Still mad at me?” Kaylee’s voice, but not. A pair of arms wound around him from behind.

He looked down: Kaylee’s sleeves, River’s hands. “You can’t tell?” He laid a hand over hers. The anger was gone, just disappeared the instant she touched him and spoke.

He felt her forehead press against his back. “Maybe I just wanted to hear you say it.”

“No, then, moonbrain. I allus wondered how your brother put up with you. Now I reckon he just couldn’t help hisself. But don’t do it again. That was a hell of a shock.” The worst of it had been that first half a moment when she’d pulled the door open, smiling that gorram smile again, and he’d thought she’d come to join him.

“Thought about it.” She gave him a squeeze. “Too many witnesses. You swore up and down nothing happened that night. Jumping in with you would have made you out a liar. But the offer I made that night stands.”

“So’s my answer.”

Her hand moved in a slow circle around his navel, making him tingle from groin to ribs and shortening his breath. “You sure? There’s no one between us and passenger quarters.” She swayed gently, tugging at him. “And I got mosta my marbles right now.”

Dance with me.

He pulled her hands off his belly. “An which of ya would I be tuppin?” He turned and took her head in his hands. “Little girl, I do a threesome, I expect two full sets a woman parts to play with.”

She looked up at him, eyes sober. “Wouldn’t do, calling you ‘Bear’ in a moment of abandon, either, I suppose.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Someday you’re going to run out of excuses, Jayne Cobb. Then you’re going to have to decide what you want to do with me.”

He dropped his hands, and she turned to go. But she stopped and turned back towards the cryo box, as if something had drawn her attention to it. But nothing about it had changed to Jayne’s eye. He watched her lay hands on it as if she was trying to feel something through the metal. “What are you doin?”

She pressed her cheek to the box, as if listening. “What’s in here?”

“Dunno. One a your little classmates, maybe.”

“No.” She closed her eyes softly. “There’s no one in here. Something, waiting.”

*

Wash’s voice cut across Mal’s thoughts. “Mal, you ever visit Halifax before?”

He’d been staring out the bridge windows into the Black and woolgathering, thinking about looking in on River again. Last time, he’d found her in the engine room with Kaylee, both of them with their feet sticking out from under the machinery, chattering away as they passed tools back and forth, and he’d had to listen close to tell which was talking. Then River had slid out from under with grease on her cheek and her hair done up tight at the back of her head, and she’d smiled at him like sunshine. “All shiny, Captain Tightpants. Turns out two intuitions are better than one.”

Pleased as he was to see the girl out of nightmare-land, he was uneasy at the way she was clinging to this Kaylee impersonation to keep her head above crazy. He wondered how long the trick would work, and if they’d have any warning when it quit, and how bad it would be after. And he wondered about his part in her affliction, and what he’d have done different. Those weren’t good thoughts to have, but he couldn’t help himself right now.

“Mal?”

He turned from the window, and saw the pilot glancing from him to the console display. “Sorry. Halifax? No, just Whitefall. Why?”

“Are we supposed to deliver ‘on’ Halifax, or ‘at’ Halifax?”

He blinked. “Why, they got a town with the same name?”

“There aren’t any towns. There’s no one on the surface but the terraforming crews. It’s still under development. The only established settlement is the skyplex they’re using for a construction shack.”

Mal drew close and leaned over Wash’s display, which was dialed in to the Cortex and showing nav and physical data on the Halifax operation. “Alliance,” he breathed.

“Technically, no. Terraforming outfit licensed by the Colony Board. But the station is leased from the Alliance, and you can bet the Feds manage traffic control and keep order aboard.”

Docking at a station meant being locked down until they got permission to leave; if they got caught with illegal goods, they never would. And if they were boarded for inspection and the Feds discovered River…

Sessions had said they’d be met at Halifax by a man who’d make the exchange and take their parcel, someone who’d see the process went smooth. Although Mal felt the agent was no stranger to shady dealings, he was inclined to trust the man. That left their little mascot as their remaining problem. Hide her, and risk her being found? No. Suiting her up and sticking her outside wasn’t an option this time, either; a skyplex in orbit had a lot more people out and about than a ship in space, and she’d likely be spotted clinging to the hull. Launch her in the portside shuttle with Zoë, and rendezvous later? The missing shuttle might make the authorities’ noses twitch. How to get her safely off ship before docking?

He touched the intercom button that connected him to the starboard shuttle. “Inara?”

“Yes, Captain?”

He cleared his throat. “You doin any business at Halifax?”

“I’m screening applicants right now,” she said guardedly. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes and no. There’s a problem, but you might be the solution.”

*

Simon watched Gabriel Tam unfold the paper with exquisite care, more than one could possibly think necessary to avoid damaging it. Rather, Simon imagined his father was savoring the way it opened up for him, knowing his daughter’s fingers had creased and secured it for him. Finally it was open, revealing the message, and the man’s eyes misted as they traveled over the page. He glanced up once at Simon, a question in his eyes, but then dropped back to the paper without a word. When he finished, he passed it to Simon and turned back to the window.

iiiiiii

Pa,

I love you, you did everything you could, and none of it is your fault. Sorry to be so abrupt, but I don’t know how much time I have to write this and I wanted to make sure that got said. I know this doesn’t sound like my usual missive, but as Simon will tell you, I’m not entirely myself lately.

I’m among good folks who stand by me and treat me right. They’re rough and uncultured mostly, but they’re as their world has shaped them. I suspect you know more about that than I. Simon is working hard to undo what was done to me in that place, and I feel better. We’ve made a life for ourselves out here.

Speaking of which. Pa, Simon won’t ask, but I beg you to give him permission to court a girl. Her name is Kaywinnit Lee Frye, of the New Home Fryes, not that her pedigree means much to you, likely. But her pa and her brothers are men of principle and resolve, and you’d get along. A mutual friend has already approached her family. Please say yes. I know you had your heart set on Adele Holmes-Garrett for a daughter-in-law, but you’re a practical man, and you know the Alliance isn’t going to let us pick up our old lives, ever. Besides, I like Kaylee better. She plays a mean game of jacks.

I don’t know when our paths will cross again. There are a million things I want to say to you, and I long to hear your voice. But he’s just said goodbye to Kaylee, and he’s almost at my door. He won’t want to wait; everyone feels pushed by unease and a nameless urgency.

Give my love to Mother, and tell her I’m well.

Your Loving Daughter,

K River

P.S. I was never going to marry Winston anyway. I’m thinking of becoming a mercenary, or maybe a Companion.

xxx

iiiiiii

“She’s not really well, is she?” Gabriel Tam kept his face to the window. “Sessions told me. If she’s better now, I can’t imagine what she must have been like at first.”

Simon stepped towards him. “It was a mischance. We didn’t know what warming her early would do to her.”

His father turned to him, perplexed. “Do to her?”

He felt his brows gather. “You know. Breaking cryo too soon. Cut short her convalescence. Unhinge her mind.”

“Son, what are you talking about? From what Sessions tells me, she came out of that box in the same condition she went in. We barely got to her before they burned out her mind, like all the others.”

He felt disoriented, confused. “Wait. She was disturbed when she was rescued?”

“Very.”

“You said, ‘all the others’.”

Gabriel Tam nodded. “There were six students in her class. She was the last survivor. The others became so schizoid their handlers couldn’t make sense of their answers anymore. So they froze them, hoping for a treatment in the future that would make them usable again. We had someone on the inside feeding her hallucinogens to make hash of her responses. When they gave up on her and put her in cryo, we switched her into another container and smuggled her out of the complex.”

“So... there aren’t any more.”

“No.” The elder Tam shook his head. “Perhaps River’s escape made them recalculate the cost-to-benefits. Or they might have run out of children with the gift, I don’t know. But there are no new test subjects at the Academy, and the originals are all still in cryo, except for her.”

“No other escapees?”

“Not a chance. As soon as she was missed, security at that place closed like a steel trap. We’d never get her out now.”

*

Sessions and his men turned and looked up as the office door banged open and young Tam stepped onto the landing, followed by a perplexed-looking Thompson. “Mr. Sessions. You lied to me.” The boy tramped down the stairs to meet them. “I want to know why.”

Sessions shrugged. “Sorry. Orders.”

Tam turned to look up at Thompson.” Not his.”

“No. My client with the box.”

“There’s no refugee inside. What’s in it?”

Sessions shifted on his bad leg; the damn thing always seemed to act up when he was tense. “I don’t know. When I arrived, it was already here, and its owner was looking for an expediter who could satisfy a very particular client and not ask unnecessary questions. I’ve never had a problem with that, as long as the money was right, so I took it on. I got orders to get it to Halifax un-tampered with, delivered by your ship and no other. But your captain seemed disinclined to haul it without knowing what was inside. When I heard her carrying on and saw you, I made a lucky guess and came up with that story so he wouldn’t open it. I know it was rough on you. Take a poke at me if you want.”

“I wasn’t the one who opened the box. It was the Captain.”

“Ah.” Sessions was silent a moment. “That puts a bit of a spin on things, if he’s true to his reputation, and I think he is. Then again, he’s getting very well paid. That ought to make up for being tricked into taking the job.”

“Mr. Sessions, I think you’re missing the point. Why was it so important this cargo be carried to Halifax by Serenity, unsecure but unopened? Who’s the client?”

“I can’t say.”

“A young red-headed woman? A middle-aged gentleman, dark haired, with a scar on his cheek? Or with a strange accent and a derby hat? An elderly man, balding, wearing lenses?”

Sessions kept his poker face on while the boy recited his list of suspects. But he noticed that young Tam wasn’t looking at him. He cursed inwardly when he realized the boy’s eyes were flicking from Deke to Dickie, knowing they’d be more likely to give something away. The boy was not only smart, he was unexpectedly cunning.

The doctor’s attention returned to him. “We’ve got to stop them.”

Sessions shook his head. “They’re out of signal range. Unless you want to use the message beacons and share your words with every busybody in the Alliance, as well as giving them both parties' locations.”

“Then we have to chase them down. You have the only ship here, isn’t that right?”

“Impossible. Even if I wasn’t pinned to this spot by contract, they’ve got too big a lead. She’s fast, but not that fast.” It didn’t do to think what penalty Kersey’s bunch might impose if their man Duvie showed up at port without immediate offworld passage.

“They won’t be coming back for their money, Mr. Sessions. The authorities at Halifax will be waiting for the ramp to drop. You’ve led them into a trap.” The boy was trembling with emotion. “You’ve got to try to catch them!” He stepped closer. “Is it money you want?”

“Sessions,” Thompson said from the catwalk, “I don’t understand what’s going on, but I’ll pay whatever you want.”

“Deke,” Sessions said. “Dickie. Get to the ship. Deke, I want you to put a lock code on the controls. Dickie, guard the hatch. I wouldn’t put it past this young man to try and steal our transport.” He looked up at his employer. “I’m sorry, Mr. Thompson. What he’s asking can’t be done. It’s too late. And I have another client’s interests to protect.”

“Wait.” Doctor Tam’s voice was suddenly calm. “Let me get my bags off the truck before you go, at least.”

*

Jayne had retired early to his bunk behind a locked door. Not that the door lock would stop River, and would hardly slow Kaylee, if one of them thought he was sick or in trouble. But he thought both would respect a sign he wanted privacy.

His thoughts had turned inward again, searching for how the little crazy girl had softened his heart. He supposed his bitty time with Kaylee had set him up for it, but it wasn’t enough to explain…

When had he ever acted such a fool, gone so far from his own interest over a girl? He drifted off to sleep with that thought on his mind.

*

He was on the hunt. The man he was trailing was in a hurry, knowing Jayne was after him with blood in his eye, also knowing Jayne’s skill as a tracker made speed a surer bet than subtlety. Not that Kripitch left a sign just anyone could follow; he was woodcrafty enough for a city-kid-turned-outlaw, and he’d started his flight on a path trod by plenty of feet, which mixed things up some. But when he’d stepped off the trail, he’d tried to broom his tracks out with a length of brush. To Jayne’s eye, the marks were as plain as a road sign.

Half an hour later, the hwundan had hit on another half-smart idea, and turned up into a ridge covered with broken rocks. Jayne had heard that people who didn’t know squat about tracking thought you couldn’t follow a trail over rocks. He supposed there might be some kinds of hard terrain that was true for, but this broken ground left plenty of sign, from little spills of disturbed pebbles to crumbled rockfaces that had been spalled off by the recent passage of feet, plain as plain. He climbed the ridge, thinking about sending Kripitch’s brains spraying out the back of his skull.

He slowed as he neared the crest, thinking the hwundan might be lying in wait on the other side, and that made him look ahead at the trail a little more carefully than he might.

The tracks ended ten feet from the ridgetop.

He threw himself to the side, and a shot rang out. He belly-crawled to a biggish rock, a long fold of stone running alongside the trail. “Sloppy, Kripitch! Shoulda laid the trail all the way over the top, youda got me sure.”

“Doesn’t hafta be this way, Cobb,” the man called back, his voice echoing off the rock faces. “Chrissakes, she was just a little whore.”

“She was just a kid too scared to say no till it was too late, you horse’s ass.” Jayne poked his head around the boulder for a half-second look before he yanked it back; he was safe again before Kripitch pulled the trigger. “Sides, some of the best people I know is whores.” The hwundan was hid in one of two places; how to narrow it down? He moved to a spot that could be covered only by one of the two possible hides. He poked his head out and drew it back quickly: nothing. Unfortunately, that didn’t prove anything. Against all sense, he exposed himself again from the same spot. Before he could draw back, a bullet spanged off the rock a yard from his head, sending stone chips into his brow and cheek. He picked them out and wiped at the blood, counting himself lucky. He hadn’t taken any real hurt, and now he knew where the little prick was hiding.

He also knew what he was packing, by the sound: an M&E Model 10, a stubby machine pistol with a thirty-round clip and a rate of fire that would empty it quick as a blink on full auto. It was a fine tool for a bandit looking to scare somebody or take down a door, but nothing Jayne would carry against an armed opponent. Kripitch was smart enough to have it set on single shot, but it was still a lousy weapon for a gunfight in the open; even at this piddling range, Jayne was sure he could win a duel armed with a couple of rocks.

But Kripitch was hunkered down, and Jayne would have to get behind him to deal with him. He wished he’d brought one stinking grenade; that would have put paid to the whole affair. But he hadn’t expected the little hwundan to pick up and run, and so had gone to meet him with just a pistol.

“Whassa matter, Cobb, you wanted her? You shoulda said so. I’d of give her to ya, soon’s I was done.”

When Kripitch was done with her, she’d been cooling meat. If Jayne had found out sooner the little bastard had grabbed a town girl, he’d have made him give her up; hell, he’d have bought him a woman, just to keep peace. But a willing partner hadn’t been what Kripitch had a taste for.

He belly-crawled to an open spot masked from Kripitch’s sight and studied the terrain. Jayne might start his approach from here, but he’d be exposed for the second half of the thirty-yard run over broken ground; he didn’t like the odds.

“Jayne!” Kripitch was shouting at the place he’d seen him last. “Come on, man. You’re actin crazy. Yu bun duh. You’re gonna turn on your mate over a piece? She wasn’t even that good.”

He crept up quiet as a snake until he could go no farther unseen. He picked up two rocks. He lobbed one in a high arc towards his second position, the one Kripitch had almost tagged him at. Just before it hit, he threw down the second one at his feet, hard.

The M&E screeched; the idjit had switched to full auto to fire at the second sound, thinking the first and louder one was a distraction. The auto pistol was loud as all get, too; Jayne was sure Kripitch’s ears were ringing from it, and his scramble over the rocks to reach the scalawag was unheard till he was on top of him.

He popped over the last rock, and Kripitch met him with a blade, a big combat knife. Jayne turned and leaned back as the blade speared past, grabbed the man’s wrist with his right hand, and lifted the extended arm to bring the wrist to forehead height, safing the weapon. At the same time, he drove the heel of his left hand into Kripitch’s elbow. The crack of the joint breaking was loud, but not as loud as the hwundan’s scream a second later. He twisted the broken arm and forced the breathless man to his knees. One good kick in the soft meat under the jaw, and it was done. It was only then he realized he hadn’t bothered to draw his pistol.

He dragged Kripitch by one leg, head bumping over the rocks, out where he’d be easier for the scavengers to find. Then he went through his victim’s pockets while said victim was still clutching his throat with one good hand, rolling eyes and weakly coughing blood. He took the knife and its belt scabbard, all the man’s cash and ID, and a little necklace with a purple stone he found in a pocket, something that would have been a young girl’s prized pretty. He tossed the pistol as far as he could and heard it clatter among the rocks, by which time Kripitch was well and truly dead. He spat on the corpse before he left.

He looked at the sun and his back trail to get his bearings, then set out towards a more distant town that might not have heard about the girl’s disappearance yet. He wasn’t about to go back to the outlaw camp. Bad as what Kripitch had done was in Jayne’s eyes, what he’d done to Kripitch was worse in theirs. He couldn’t be trusted anymore, and his crew would kill him on sight. He was leaving behind eight months’ saved loot, a few weapons and clothes, and no friends.

He wished he’d been able to get her body back to her people, or at least bury her, instead of leaving her for those two-legged jackals to dispose of. But if he had, Kripitch would have got away, and Jayne would have had to leave the gang anyway. And sooner or later, the hwundan would have come back from town with another scared little girl’s wrist gripped in his fist.

Feeling a strange fierce sadness, he tucked the necklace inside his vest and walked out into the scrub.

*

He stood at the door, listening to the hissing sound of the shower. The unlatched panel moved under his hand, and Kaylee stood under the water, half-veiled in steam, skin glistening and slippery with soap and her wet hair shining darkly. Waiting for him. She smiled in invitation, her eyes dark and intimate, and he moved toward her as if pulled on a chain.

And then he drew up short, because the smile wasn’t Kaylee’s.

*

He woke with a gasp and a throbbing tightness at his crotch. He looked down and saw his blanket tentpoled.

“Gorram crazy idjit girl,” he grunted. He stood and shuffled to his brother’s guitar on the wall. He took it down and tipped it back and forth, listening for a tiny rattle from inside the sound box.

*

Simon stepped into the ship’s pilot compartment and paused.

Sessions’ accomplice, Deke, sat at the pilot’s station. Sessions stood beside him. Both men turned to him. “Doctor,” Sessions said. “How’d you get up here? Where’s Dickie?”

Sessions was armed, Simon was glad to see. That made the agent's unexpected presence in the cockpit manageable; an additional detail, nothing more. “Before you call your man to chastise him, have a look at this.” He casually extended a sheet of paper to the agent, trying not to let on how he careful he was being to touch only the lower right corner. “It’s the reason he let me up here.”

Sessions took it and began to read. “Your arrest warrant? I’ve seen it.”

“This one is different.” Simon nodded at it and flicked a glance at Deke, who was also armed, but carried his pistol in a holster with a cover that snapped. He had one hand resting on the board and the other on the seat back, nowhere near his weapon. “Keep reading, and you’ll see what I mean.”

The agent’s brow furrowed, as if puzzled. “I don’t…” The paper fell from his fingers.

Simon lunged at him. “Mr. Sessions! What’s wrong?” They went down to the deck together.

Deke rose from his seat, his hand reaching uncertainly towards his holster, but Simon already had Sessions’ pistol. He extended it towards Deke; in the tiny compartment, the end of the barrel was half a meter from the man’s forehead. He flicked the safety off by feel, his eyes never leaving Deke’s. You don’t always need to know how to shoot, Jayne had told him, if you only look like you do. “Remove your weapon. Carefully. Then slide it across the deck to me.”

Deke tried a bluff. “You just safed it. And it’s only a popgun anyway.”

“No, I didn’t. And this weapon is small, but it’s perfectly capable of penetrating a skull once. Then the bullet just sort of rattles around inside.” That knowledge came, not from Jayne’s experience, but his. Even in an upscale teaching hospital in Capital City, a trauma surgeon saw his share of gunshot wounds, and he’d attended more than one autopsy featuring a brain that had been stirred into oatmeal by a small-caliber bullet.

Deke unsnapped the holster and carefully pulled the pistol out with one finger and a thumb. “Thought you were a doctor.”

“I’ve had this conversation before. It ended with someone not me being carried into the infirmary with a gunshot wound. You’re wasting time.”

The pilot slid the weapon over. “What did you do to him? To them?”

“The paper is chemically treated.” He didn’t elaborate. Deke didn’t need to know that the two men would wake in a few hours. “I sealed the hatch on the way in, and Dickie’s inside. Lift. Give me a high-energy course to Halifax.”

“The fuel cells are only a quarter full. We’ll be drifting before we’re halfway there.”

“Our target’s not Halifax. It’s Serenity.”

“We’ll never catch them.”

“We don’t need to. We just need to get within range to wave them.” He wiggled the gun slightly. “I’m quite sure you can still fly with a bullet in the thigh.”

Deke settled into the seat and began flipping switches. “We could all die out there, you know.”

Simon stood behind the pilot’s chair. “My life is in that ship out there.”