Returning from the appointment with Dr Edo, Inara hurried up the stairs to her quarters, unbuttoning the constricting robe as she went and, once inside, threw it on to her bed. Without stopping she sat on the low stool before her cortex screen and decisively accessed a cache of saved messages.

They were all from Dr Lang. He had waved her the week after she had arrived on Sihnon: a brief, courteous message welcoming her back and enquiring after her health. There had been another one a further week later, asking if she had received the first. Three more weeks and the message was longer, the tone more personal: had he offended her, was all well? – he really just wanted the reassurance of knowing that. One more, the last, a month later: curtly informing Inara that as he had not heard from her he would assume that he no longer required his services and that he would close her file.

Close her file. What nonsense. Since when did doctors close their patients’ files? She understood that he was trying to alarm her, to draw her back, and that it was time to respond. It had been difficult to save the messages. She had wanted to delete them – delete delete delete. But deleting them would have done no good. They had already appeared on her personal screen, infected it. Just as they were now, sitting in their little cache, bristling with danger and malice.

She opened them one by one, arranged them on the screen, read them with a sense that her strength was equal to her fear.

He was trying to draw her; but she would draw him.

Inara spent almost the rest of the night composing her reply to Dr Lang. She paced the length of her living room, almost fevered with a sense of inspiration and determination.

In the morning, after a few hours’ sleep, she re-read the message.

My Dearest Dr Lang

Forgive me please for the, I fear, unforgivable delay in replying to your kind messages. Your welcome and your concern meant a great deal to me.

I have been unavoidably entangled in Guild business of a legal nature since my return. Though I am not able to discuss it in any way, due to the fact that legal and police action may be pending, I would like to assure you that if I had not been forcibly prevented from attending our last three appointments I would certainly have done so.

There is nothing to prevent me, however, from sharing with you the wonderful news that your efforts in treating me were not in vain. I have spent the last six months free of symptoms. The joy that I feel at this outcome is indescribable; but the fact speaks for itself.

I have been wandering how I can possibly repay you for the part you have played in restoring me to health. And I would like to let you know now that I intend to hold a party in your honor at High Priestess’s Residence. Please let me know if this would be agreeable to you and I will make the necessary arrangements.

Cordially &c

Inara sent the wave; there was no going back.

______________________________________________________

Edward Lang snorted when he read the wave that Lang had forwarded to him. He could only imagine how greatly it had pleased the little doctor. Casting his eyes back to the beginning, he waved his contact at the Office of the High Priestess.

“Have you seen or heard anything that would make you believe that Inara Serra is involved in some kind of off-world legal matter?”

A pause. “No. Not at all. But I wouldn’t necessarily know about it if she was. You know that the Guild is unsurpassed when it comes to standards of confidentiality.”

“Perhaps a kidnapping, an abduction?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see what I can find out.”

______________________________________________________

Dr Ronson was standing behind Inara, out of sight, when she finally waved Lang and spoke to him in person.

They had decided what she would say if Lang suggested some kind of follow-up appointment, some kind of examination to help him in his ‘research’. But it didn’t come up. Lang was aglow with excited pride talking about the party: who would be there, what the format would be, what he should wear. It was pathetic, and utterly revolting, and exactly as Inara had predicted.

Inara cried afterwards, cried the way she had when he had examined her that first time in Pity. He was glad that this time, unlike the last, he could hold her now, stroke her hair, comfort her. And, once she had cried away the fear that the sight of Lang had inspired in her, see the fire return to her eyes again.

She held his hand, said she wished he could be there; and he dreaded again the end of her treatment and their meetings.

______________________________________________________

He had resolved then to look into Lang, check out his credentials, find out what he could about him. It had surprised him to learn from Inara that she hadn’t done this herself. But, she explained, all the appointments with Lang had taken place in a room at the High Priestess’s own House, which had led her to assume that he had a valid association with the Guild.

Ronson didn’t know if he was pleased or not when Lang checked out: he was a genuine psychiatrist at one of the bigger hospitals in Capital City. And that raised a whole lot of other questions: why had he done what he had done to Inara, and what had been his entrée into the Guild?

But when he had tried to discuss it with her she had pleaded with him, warned him, just as he had warned himself – don’t get any more involved.

She refused to discuss the preparations for the party – which from the numbers she had mentioned at the outset he knew would be more like a full-blown ball – when they met for her appointments with Dr Edo, said that Good Son was assisting with everything. And when he cautioned her, reminding her that she had not been fully well for very long, she had almost reproached him: drawn herself up, addressing some invisible demon, vowing that though she had once been reduced, and weak, and afraid, she would never be those things again.

______________________________________________________

Lang asked Edward Tang if he had been invited.

“I have.”

“And will you attend?”

“No. I’m suspicious. Why should she invite me? And I’ve told Ling-Ling she can’t go either. She’s always been so bad at keeping secrets.”

“It’s the event of the year.”

“I’m green with envy.”

“Well. I’ll keep my eyes open. Give you a full report.”

“You do that Lang, you do that.”