Badger lifted his face to the morning sunshine as he walked the crowded, narrow street. He took a deep breath, and his nose filled with a rich and heady mix: the smells of dust, cooking, incense, body odor, drive exhaust, a dozen others. The clamor of the vendors and customers sounded over the deep rumble of ships coming and going at the landing area. My place. My people, he thought contentedly. The nods and small bows of many whose paths he crossed reinforced his feeling that all was right with the world. Pissing off Warrick Harrow always left Badger in a good mood. "'A petty thief with delusions of standing,' am I?" He almost laughed out loud. A fine insult, coming from a man who just bought himself a lordship. With money he got from smuggling banned entertainment vids, no less. Mokey’s mood was somewhat less cheerful. “Swear, I don’t know why you deal with that touchy peacock. If he didn’t want you to tell him what you thought of his stupid sash, he shouldn’t of brought it to the meet.” “Prolly sleeps in it, mate,” Badger said with undiminished humor. “He’s just a broken-tailed alleycat who claims he’s a lion on his mother’s side. He’s got his pedigree, a down-at-the-heels estate, two good suits, and a herd of cows. He still gets invites to all the fancy parties because his family’s gentry for six generations, but none of the old money wants to be seen talking to him. He uses the get-togethers to meet new-rich social climbers. They’re the only sort he can impress. Sometimes he gets a little business out of it.” He smiled wider. “Wasn’t really laughing cause he was wearing one, even at the Docks. It’s just the bloody thing is red as a landing beacon and twice as wide as anybody else’s, like he wants it visible from orbit. Pathetic.” “So, what about the deal?” Howard said from behind him. “That off, I suppose?” “Don’t know. Haven’t decided.” Don’t know anybody I dislike enough to give the job of shipping His Lordship’s cargo, he thought. “Harrow still wants the deal, that’s sure. He knows he’ll never pull it off by himself.” “Huh?” Buster’s eyebrows pushed together. “He called the office and said he never wants to hear from you again.” “Buster,” Badger said patiently, “he called four times in four hours and said he never wants to hear from me again. Which means he’s desperate to hear from somebody, so long as it’s not me.” Warrick Harrow was a man whose fortunes were uncertain. Most of the family estate had been squandered by the father, an infamous wastrel, and his son Warrick was forever looking for a get-rich-quick scheme to put the family back on its feet. But the man had no business sense whatever. Some of Harrow’s worst schemes were just poor research, like the shares in the terraforming outfit that went belly-up for lack of contracts. Others were small-time criminal enterprises, low-risk and therefore low-profit, like the banned vids. And some were deals undertaken with no consideration but markup, totally disregarding the difficulties and costs involved in turning that markup into a profit. Like the gorram cows. He paused at a shop window, admiring a girl on display wearing a frilly pink-and white dress. Nothing Mum would wear, of course. If I want to start wasting my money on frips like this, he thought,I need a bird. And not the sort Hoya’s got stirring his tea. He ambled down the lane, entourage in tow, thinking about the folly of raising beef for export on a world like Persephone. Of course there was a huge market for it on the frontier worlds; many of the water- and nutrient-poor planets couldn’t support herds of large grazers. By law, cattle could be imported to such worlds only for slaughter. As such, they were not only a high-profit luxury item, they were tons of water and other nutrients on the hoof which found their way into the ecosystem and enriched it. Which was exactly why luxe, conservationist planets like Persephone prohibited taking them off-world. Licensed carriers wouldn’t haul them, and it wasn’t easy for a dandy like Harrow to do business in Eavesdown without getting his pockets turned out. Badger was his best choice. But finding a carrier for such cargo was no easy task, even for Badger. Cows were difficult passengers that needed feeding and cleaning up after; even with concentrated feed, they each ate fifteen kilos a day and drank God knows how much water, and special chemicals would have to be introduced to the ship’s overburdened recycling systems to handle their end products. They stank to heaven and could be dangerous, especially in an enclosed space. There weren’t many people flying spaceships with experience handling livestock; even colony ships usually carried their live animals as embryos in cryo. And the nearest buyer that offered a safe and decent profit on the deal was on Xianyin, presently three weeks away by paths little-used by the Alliance Navy. In the wrong hands, most of the stock would die before next landfall. Badger’s list of suitable shippers was short. He’d considered suggesting that Harrow slaughter the animals here and ship the meat, but any slaughterhouse would seal and imprint the packages, registering them for legitimate sale at controlled markup on a short list of worlds. That would force Badger to discount them anywhere else. It was marginally more profitable, he figured, to ship them live. Provided he could find someone who wouldn’t kill them all on the way to market. Presently, Howard’s com unit chimed and he pressed it to his ear. Badger watched the man’s features close up as he listened. “Bad news?” “Serenity just landed.” “Serenity.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Do tell.” Howard put the com away. “You’re taking the news well. Didn’t Reynolds and his crew leave your office at gunpoint last time they were here?” Badger’s smile grew a little wider. Before Reynolds had been a captain, he’d been a sergeant. But before that, he’d been a rancher. In his mind’s eye, he saw Serenity putting down at Xianyin, the cargo hatch opening, and a gasping crew slogging through knee-deep niou fun to lead their bawling cargo down the ramp. “Water under the bridge. Let’s pay a visit.” *

Before the end of the day that Badger had struck his devil’s bargain with Darcy and sent her to his mother, one of Hoya’s bullyboys had arrived at his office with a small flat package and a card that was a work of Chinese calligraphy beautiful enough to frame. It said: Even men who bend laws as they will must respect proprieties. Inside the box was a circlet of silvery metal, just large enough to go round a neck, and a small lozenge of matching metal that might be carried in a pocket or attached to a keychain or even hung from a necklace as a pendant. The band was slender, faceted and very feminine-looking, quite fancy. It was a slave’s collar for all of that, and could only be unlocked by the magnetic key in the pendant. It had a built-in transponder that would locate the wearer anywhere on Persephone, and most of the civilized ’Verse besides. By law, it would go around Darcy’s neck from the moment she signed the papers until her indenture ended. He’d stared down into the box. “Hadn’t thought a this. Doubt she’ll take it well.” “But she’ll take it,” Buster had said, unsympathetic. “If I have to hold her down while I slip it around her neck. She’s got not a speck of gratitude for what you’re doing. And if she gets a sniff of drops, she’ll be gone with anything she can carry out of your house. Hoya’s right. You need to mark her.” That was the collar’s second purpose. It told everyone that the person wearing it was someone else’s property, with no affairs of their own to conduct, and banned from handling money. It made stealing from one’s master very difficult, at least when that master was a respected player in Persephone’s black market. No pawnshops would be buying candlesticks from Darcy. Even the drug dealers who’d supplied her in the past would avoid her, even if she came round with cash in hand, once she was Badger’s goods. It had all been for her own good, he told himself as he walked down the quiet residential street that fronted his home. The worst of the withdrawals was over, and her health and sanity were on their way back to her. She was getting on with his mother, and seemed more or less accepting of her circumstances, even if her understanding was lacking. She was far better off than when she’d stumbled into his office, and if he’d turned her away that day, she’d likely be dead now. Those reassurances didn’t stop his gut tightening as he turned down the shrub-lined walk that ended at his door, or make him mask a momentary cringe when Darcy opened the door for him. “Evening, Darcy,” he said as he handed her his hat – not the derby; he left his ‘business’ clothes at the office and changed into respectable middle-class garb that better suited a man walking down the street in this neighborhood. “Where’s Mum?” “In the kitchen, adding spices to the soup.” She took his coat over her arm as well, avoiding his eyes as usual. “Will you be going out again?” “Not if I have a say in it.” He tried not to look too hard at the sunken cheeks and loose skin. Darcy was off the suety diet drop addicts were famous for and eating better than she had in months, but the last of the shakes and fever weren’t that far back, and her body was still reeling from the changes. At least she was out of those slatternly outfits and in decent clothes, and he’d had her taken to a hairdresser’s for a proper cut. “Any messages?” “Mrs. Lilith, a neighbor. She apologized for her dog relieving itself on your front lawn, and sent a man to pick it up. Also-” Her chin nearly dropped to her chest. “She assures you that the girl responsible will be properly disciplined.” “Ehhh.” He slipped off his shoes and sat at the little changing bench to put on slippers. “What’s she send it round the neighborhood for, if not to crap on other people’s grass?” “And a Mr. Ping asked if you’d reconsider an appointment to Council.” Darcy knelt stiffly before him. “Here, what’s this?” Darcy grasped his foot. “Your mother tells me this is part of my duties.” She slid the slipper on his foot and reached for the other. Bertram felt more than a little uncomfortable, but he realized Mum was right. A proper servant would be expected to perform such a service for the master of the house. If Darcy was to learn to be a marketable domestic, she’d have to do such things regularly. And if Darcy was going to continue to respect Mum’s authority, he couldn’t be gainsaying her orders. He just never had expected anyone to do such for the likes of him. In the kitchen, his mother stirred a pot on the stove among a litter of meal-in-process. Bertram paused at the doorway to admire her. She was a tiny woman, her long hair done up off her neck and just going gray at the temples in a way he thought quite fetching. To his eye, she looked younger than her age, full of life and energy, and he was sure she wasn’t too old for another man, if she hadn’t been too devoted to her oldest son and his household to spare the time. He stepped behind her and put arms around. “How’s my girl?” She rested her free hand over his as she stirred. “Passable well, my heart.” Her Dyton accent was much less pronounced than his, having come to the Colony as a new bride. “I got some bargains at market today, and some lovely material for curtains for the back room. And Darcy is learning the difference between a clean surface and a wiped one.” He looked about at the cluttered kitchen. Mum was usually a clean-as-you-go cook; he’d never seen the counters and stove like this at dinnertime. And, now that he was more attentive, he thought he caught a faint scent of char under the smell of baking bread. “What’s this all about?” “Ah, well. Dinner was a bit hectic tonight. It started out as a roast, but we put it in late, and Darcy thought she could help things on a bit by turning the oven up.” “Oi.” “I salvaged enough to make a hearty stew, I think.” She sighed. “Sometimes I despair of teaching her to cook.” “Time, Mum.” “I know. How was your day?” She wasn’t asking about his business, though occasionally he would discuss some of his dealings with her. She knew what her son did for a living. She was asking how he felt at the end of the day about what he’d done. He kissed the side of her head and grinned. “Oh, had a very good day.” A little after supper, he was at his desk, reading shipping news from the Docks, when he heard the doorbell sound. He caught the reflex to answer the door, reminding himself he had a servant now, and sat with the flimsy in his hands and an ear cocked towards the entrance. He heard a man’s voice that he thought was Howard’s, and rose to greet his old friend. Darcy stepped through the office door, Mal Reynolds in tow. “Mr. Eaton,” she said, formal in the presence of strangers, “Captain Reynolds to see you.” Bertram frowned. He didn’t like bringing his Eavesdown business home. “Tell the lady of the house we have a guest, Darcy. And bring tea.” Reynolds watched her leave. “That mare looks ready to drop in her traces, Badger. You might think to feed her once in a while.” “How I deal with my servants is none a your business. What are you doing here, Sarge? Who gave you my address? And why aren’t you getting ready? The ball starts in two hours.” The ball was neutral ground and a sop to Harrow’s pride, where Reynolds, a man who shared His Lordship’s public contempt for Badger, would nevertheless arrange the deal Harrow was so desperate for. “No rule sayin I got to stand at the door waitin for it to open. And we have a little business of our own to do before I step through.” “Is that right?” Badger had already discussed the cargo without going into detail, and had given the captain an estimate of his cut. “They’ve offered thirty a head,” he’d said to Serenity’s captain, “But once they’ve got you there and think you’ve got nowhere else to go, they’ll cut the offer in half. Don’t settle for less than twenty.” “Twenty. And if I can get more?” Badger had turned up the corners of his mouth. “Well then, I’d say you’re a better man than me.” He imagined that would provide Reynolds with some incentive to drive a hard bargain. But until Reynolds had Harrow’s handshake on the deal, he didn’t see what else needed to be discussed. “I’m gonna need an advance. For expenses.” “Expenses?” He scoffed. “Last business arrangement we had fell through, and I lost a bit a coin. On expenses.” “That was your choice, Badger.” “And one I’d make again.” Bertram pushed down his irritation. “I already gave you the invites. What else do you need?” Reynolds’ face stiffened further. “A party dress.” *

“A pleasure making your acquaintance, Mrs. Eaton.” Reynolds bent over Mum’s hand. “Thank you for your kindness. And your company.” Mum smiled up at him, her hand still in his. “Yours as well, Captain Reynolds. I could wish all Bertram’s guests were so charming.” “Right, then,” Bertram said, feeling an irrational twinge of jealousy. “Let me walk you to the street, Captain.” When the door closed behind them, Reynolds said, “It makes sense now. Till the girl opened the door and led me to you, I was half sure I had the wrong address. But it’s your mother’s house.” “Right enough. But I picked it and paid for it.” “Still, doesn’t seem your style.” “‘Style’. A lot of contempt in such a little word.” They reached the sidewalk and stopped. The captain turned round to look at the house, tucked among ornamental trees and carefully-trimmed grass and planting beds. “There are limits to the contempt you can feel for a man loves his mother.” He turned down the sidewalk and clopped away. “He seems nice enough,” Mum said when he returned. “He can put on a good show when he needs. But I didn’t engage him for his manners, Mum. He’s a smuggler.” “Well! That sounds romantic.” “Only in fiction. In real life, it’s mostly about being sneaky and cunning as a rat.” He walked towards the kitchen. “Is that pie cool enough to eat, d’ya think?” Darcy was bringing the tea service out of his office. She paused with the tray in her hands and stared in his direction. Then she set it on a table and hurried off towards the bedrooms. Mum smiled. “I think Captain Reynolds makes an impression on you too, of a sort. Else you wouldn’t have walked out to the street with him in your slippers. I think Darcy’s gone to fetch your spares, before you track any more dirt across the carpet.” Bertram’s next visitor arrived after dark. At this hour, Bertram shooed Darcy away and answered the door himself, with a pistol behind his back. Howard and Buster stood on the stoop. “Trouble.” *

“I ask you, what could have been simpler?” Badger groused as he and his crew marched towards Serenity’s berth. “Reynolds shows up at the ball with his mate, slides in among the rubes chatting up Harrow, gets in good with him by trading a couple snide remarks about me, and brings up the deal. Harrow lets himself be convinced after a little more sucking up, and Reynolds leaves. How could anybody muck that up?” “Heard the fight started over a girl,” Buster offered. “I don’t care. You don’t punch a man out at the bloody Governor’s Ball! I’ll never get another favor from the bloke gave me those tickets.” That was the least of it. Atherton Wing, the hittee, was a well-groomed new-rich thug of the sort who was prickly about his ‘honor’, probably because his sort had so little of it. He had taken the physical insult as an excuse to call a duel, making an even greater spectacle of the embarrassing event. The authorities (both the official ones and the actual) were watching events unfold with a sharp eye for further improprieties. Hoya was watching Reynolds’ ship, wishing he could ground-lock it, likely. Word hadn’t taken long to go from one end of the Docks to the other that Reynolds was Badger’s man, and at the Ball at his orders. And now everybody at Eavesdown was wondering what sort of people Badger might be dealing with these days. Badger was remembering how Reynolds and his crew had “solved” their little problem with the Alliance cruiser – with a showy escape – and was now on his way to Serenity, determined to prevent history from repeating. He didn’t much like the idea of boarding a ship full of bullyboys and ex-military types. His people could get hurt. But the men walking at his side and at his back knew the game and the stakes. They’d all joined Badger’s crew for a chance to carve out a decent life for themselves and their families, and they weren’t about to let some lieu mang with a spaceship run off and make a scapegoat of their Badger. They approached Serenity’s loading ramp, which was dimly lit from its built-in worklights beneath the gooseneck. The ramp was down, but the doors were all shut tight. Badger figured he’d invite himself aboard while his boys stayed out of sight near the door, ready to rush in at a signal. It wasn’t much of a plan, but he thought he’d likely come up with a better once he talked to those aboard and got the lay of things. Footsteps, quick and light, pattered towards them from the dark. A girl rushed headlong into the light, dressed in the pink dress he’d been admiring that morning. She was looking down at the ground mostly and holding up the bottom of the long dress to keep from stepping on it as she ran; so intent was she that she didn’t notice the group at the ramp until she was in the light. Then she drew up short, her mouth an O of surprise. “Here, love,” he said soothingly, an idea forming in his head. Mokey and Ralph moved to flank her and prevent retreat. “Easy, now.” “Who are you?” “I’m the fellow bought the dress you’re wearing, or I miss my guess.” The girl was a little jewel, with chestnut hair bound up in a pink ribbon and a sweet face just a compliment away from dimples, a very unlikely doxie for Malcolm Reynolds, he thought. He’d been sure the tall dark one on his crew was his mate in more than one sense, the way they seemed joined at the hip most times. “You’re Badger?” “The very same.” He removed his hat, pressed it to his chest, and smiled at her. “Who are you?” “I’m Kaylee Frye. The ship’s mechanic.” “Ah.” Badger nodded. “That’s good. I was hoping Reynolds didn’t spend my money on some dock girl he was trying to impress.” He put his hat back on and made a twirling motion. “Turn around. Let’s see the whole thing.” Hesitantly, the girl complied, looking over her shoulder at him in a manner that was unintentionally enticing. “I took good care of it. You can take it back.” “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve passed by that store window half a dozen times, trying to think of a girl I knew pretty enough for that outfit. You belong to each other.” She cast her eyes down. “Didn’t look much like the other girls at the party.” Her tone of voice told the whole story, and struck a nerve. “Pfft. I’ve seen the latest fashion. You can keep em, thank you. Old upholstery scraps stitched together by a blind man. Those girls wouldna been caught dead in one at last year’s ball, and won’t be at the next. Probably be wearing flour sacks instead, and telling each other how lovely they look.” Kaylee’s smile was tentative, but it was there. Having eased her a bit, he went on. “Heard about the trouble. Did he hit that bloke over you?” “No. The guy was with Inara, and I think he said something.” “Inara?” “She’s the Companion rents our number one shuttle. She’s my best friend.” The tall dark quaint, this little gem, and a Companion. The man’s traveling with a bloody harem. He remembered the way Reynolds had charmed his mother, and deliberately relaxed his jaw. “Do the others know?” “Not yet. That’s why I was running.” He nodded sympathetically. “Well. I’ve come on that very errand. Praps it’d be better if they hear it from me.” He glanced at the men flanking her, and they moved closer. “You wait right here.” *

Badger’s visit aboard Serenity was an education. His experience inside ships was limited. Although he did business from one end of the ’Verse to the other, he’d only traveled by spaceship once, when he’d left Dyton. He hired ships all the time, and dealt with their captains, but usually in his office or some neutral spot; he never got an invite aboard. And Badger, though unschooled, was a man who enjoyed learning new things. The vertical reach of the ship’s cargo hold fascinated him. Why build a transport vessel with so much unusable space? Then he took note of the catwalks which could be used as scaffolding to secure tall stacks of cargo and access them easily, and reach the cargo netting that hung all the way up the walls. The catwalks also allowed easy travel for the crew; Badger reckoned there weren’t two points on the ship more than half a minute apart because of them. Why that might be important he didn’t know, but it had obviously been a design consideration. His next surprise was the ship’s complement. He’d only seen Reynolds, Cobb and the mate Zoë off ship. He’d supposed there were more, but when he’d come aboard and Cobb had announced him on intercom, strangers had come out of the woodwork. He was fair certain a ship this size didn’t need a full-time pilot or doctor, and was dead certain Reynolds hadn’t hired himself a chaplain, yet here they were. Badger noted that the odd sods in the crew were all Core Worlders - even Book, though by his accent he’d left young, like Badger. It was intriguing. It seemed that Malcolm Reynolds, Like Bertram Eaton, drew people to him who felt in need of a certain something. Most of Badger’s retainers were unwilling wanderers, uprooted or unwanted folk from all over, and had found in him and his organization a stopping place where they might settle in and build a more-or-less normal life. Reynolds’ bunch seemed to each be running from one thing or another. He wondered especially about the Shepherd: the way his eyes traveled over the armed men guarding the hold, as if examining them as targets, looking for weakness or lapses of attention; the way he studied their reactions when he moved close without seeming to. It gave Badger the willies, and made him very glad he’d brought so many men. And then, there was the girl. She’d appeared from nowhere, it seemed, since Mokey and Gru had checked all the compartments and cabins when they’d escorted the little jewel to her cabin to change and had declared that everyone aboard was in the hold. She was pretty enough to look on, with her long dark hair and big expressive eyes, but that wasn’t what had trapped his attention from the moment he’d become aware of her. Before she’d ever spoken, he’d seen some other-worldly quality about her, and the way the Shepherd and the doctor had tried to get her back out of sight before Badger noticed her spoke of secrets. And then she’d spoken to him. Her Dyton accent was as heavy as a dock girl’s, but nothing in her manner spoke of such a life. She’d spoken to him of things he only discussed with himself, and everything she’d said seemed to hold a double meaning. She’d laid a single finger on him, and rubbed her fingers together as if the tiny contact had soiled her. Then she’d dismissed him from her attention and left, and he hadn’t given a thought to hindering her. But he’d thought about her for the rest of the night, while Reynolds’ crew pretended to play cards and such while they talked over taking back their ship. He hadn’t even bothered to try to listen. Mokey and his boys knew their business. The big black had insisted on keeping everyone together in the hold where his men could watch them – and each other - without getting too close, even bringing a chair from the ship’s lounge for Badger to sit in. Serenity’s crew would still be discarding plans come daybreak, when word would come that their captain was dead and Badger would send them offworld with some make-work, if they’d still take employ from him. He rather doubted it. Likely, they’d lift from Persephone and never come back. Which meant he’d seen the last of the girl. “Did you ever see such a lazy crew?” Serenity’s captain came hobbling in, half supported by the arm and shoulder of a young beauty, which Badger would have bet anything was the Companion Kaylee had mentioned. Badger felt a mixture of pleasure and irritation. So the barstid was a swordsman too, to have survived the duel. And now being linked with Reynolds could be turned to advantage. Having it talked around that Badger had some responsibility for putting Wing in the dirt would make him some new friends. He rose and put his face into Reynolds’. “You get us a deal?” “I got a deal. Now get off my ship.” Badger didn’t rise to the taunt; he knew Reynolds and Harrow hadn’t cut him out of anything. Harrow would come up with another ridiculous scheme before long, and would have to come to Badger to figure a way to turn a profit on it. Their affairs were forever bound together; in a sense, Harrow was Badger’s man as well. He twirled his hat and put it on his head, observing the captain and the woman together, rather closer than walking support required. Guess I’ve seen his doxie at last. “So, very much for a lovely night then,” and called his men. Back in the dirt, Gru said to him, “I’ve seen that look. Never on you, but I’ve seen it. Which one? The little redhead?” “No.” Mokey’s dreds tinkled as he shook his head. “The wraith. The crazy one.” “Tsai bu shir.” “And why not?” Badger determined to do a thorough investigation of everyone aboard that ship, starting with the doctor, the Shepherd, and the girl. The next time Serenity touched down at Eavesdown, he’d know more about its crew than they knew about each other. “We hit it off well enough.” “She treated you like something she scraped off her shoe!” “Do you know nothing bout women then?” Bertram Eaton smiled. “A bird gives you that much attitude on first acquaint, it’s as good as a wink and a smile.”