Mal sat on his bunk, glowering in the direction of the broadwave console. He had to call the client. The Alliance's Operative had done them a lot of damage, when he'd murdered so many of Mal's old network -- all their truest friends, all the people they could really trust, who really trusted them -- to try to smoke Serenity out. Mal had been rebuilding that network from scratch ever since, one contact at a time, hiding his identity from those who knew the name Mal Reynolds and considered him too hot to touch. It had been a slow process. This latest client, though, had actually sought him out, citing his name and reputation as factors that recommended him. He'd thought that was a good sign; a hopeful one. Maybe things were getting back to normal, and people were starting to forget that Mal Reynolds had once been the most notorious criminal in the 'verse, leaving only the vague memory that he was a small-time shipper with a rep for getting the job done. This job could have cemented that perception. Now it looked like it was going to destroy a year's worth of painstaking effort at rebuilding his business. The mere thought exhausted him. He felt like a man who had aged thirty years in a day. The broadwave console stared blandly at him. It'll wait forever, Mal admonished. Ain't gonna call the gorram client for you. Ain't nobody, man or machine, gonna help you out that much, Mal Reynolds, and ain't like you to expect it might.. But he was just so tired. Maybe he dozed. Maybe he just sat there in an unthinking fog, losing track of the time. However it happened, he was surprised to suddenly feel as though he had awakened, and to find that the blank broadwave console had come to life, and he was staring at Wash's extraordinarily pale face. Did the pilot always look that bad, he wondered, or was it just that his red eyes and the slight bluish tinge to his lips made the rest of his skin look like untinted wax? "Mal," Wash said, and he sounded no better than Mal felt, "Zoe's on the 'wave. Shecure. I'm . . . um . . ." Wash's hands fumbled over the comm panel, and the pilot disappeared, replaced by his wife's face. She looked considerably better than her husband did, right this moment. "Boy," Mal said, because it was the first thing that came into his head in word form, "are you a sight for sore eyes." If she'd been there in front of him, he would have fallen on her in a huge embrace just out of relief to see her alive. "You don't look so good. Sir." Zoe said. There was movement in the background behind her, and Mal caught a glimpse of Simon, pacing. "We're partly despressurs -- depresh -- we lost some air," Mal said. "Makes it hard to get enough beauty sleep." He'd meant it as a joke. Had it not been funny? Zoe didn't look amused. She looked plain worried, was what she looked like. "Sir," she said, "Do you know where you are?" "On Serenity," he said automatically, and then figured she ought to find that funny, too, 'cept she didn't seem in a humorous mood at all. Just like that, he was irritated. "You talked to your husband, dincha? He knows where we are. That's his job." Zoe's eyebrows drew even closer together, and she looked positively thunderous. "Yeah. I talked to him. He ain't looking so good, either. Sir!" Mal snapped his head upright. "Uhn?" "Simon and I are safe, for now," she said. Good, that's good Mal thought, and thought that he ought to maybe say so out loud. In just a minute. "Have you heard anything from River, or Inara?" Zoe asked. "Riv --" that's right, she'd left the ship. "No. Wait. Kaylee talked to Inara. She's okay. Back on Nassau Point with that guy. Her client." He thought hard. "Ain't heard from River." "Sir," Zoe said, and he wondered how she managed to make that word sound like a command the way she did. "What do you plan to do next?" Mal stared unhappily at the row of manual controls underneath the broadwave display. Well, there was the matter in a nutshell and no mistake. Hadn't he been wishing Zoe was around, the whole time she'd been gone? And now here she was, doing just what he'd needed her to do, and he was wishing with all his heart she would just let him be. "Gotta call the client," he admitted unhappily. "Set up a new rendezvous." "How are you going to get to a new rendezvous point, with the ship damaged?" Zoe demanded, relentless. "Ain't worked that out yet," Mal said, hating her more with each question. Except, his backbrain said grudgingly, it was himself he was really hating. Zoe was just a convenient lightning-rod, right at the moment. And -- he thought, in a lightning-rod moment of his own -- her brain was working, in the way his wasn't just this minute. "Got any bright ideas?" "I'll think on it," Zoe said. "Right now, I think you ought to get some oxygen out of the med bay, and then call the client." That did sound like a good idea. Oxygen would clear his brain, so he could think a bit before he called the client. "That's what I was just about to do," he said. "I'm glad to hear it, sir," Zoe replied, and even in the shape he was in, he could tell she wasn't a bit fooled. "We'll get the ship fixed up, and then we'll come get you and . . . and . . ." the doctor's name had momentarily escaped him. "Simon," Zoe supplied. "Right. Simon," Mal said. "I'm glad to hear it, sir," Zoe said again. *** Hands. The word rang like a bell in her mind, and River reeled. Hands, two of them, four fingers one thumb apiece, digits, phalanges from the Greek phalanx, by way of the French word phalang. She stared in wonder at her hands, at her fingers, while the words she thought she'd lost forever spilled back into her mind as though a dam had broken, a dike, a levee, a great seawall letting the language back in and clearing the fog that had settled over her brain. Another word, an image, overlaid on her own thin appendages: blue. Blue hands. River screamed, and covered her face. "River!" Hands on her arms, someone else's, another person's scent and the feel of coarse fabric as she struggled to get away. The stranger called her name again: "River!" He pushed her out to arm's length. "River." "I can understand you," she said. "It's the medication," he replied, releasing her so that he could reach into some hidden pocket of his cassock and pull out a small pill bottle. He pressed it into her wonderful hands. "We thought it might help you." "We?" "One of the brothers thought it might help." "Brothers?" River looked around, seeing as if for the first time the place she had been brought to. Plain stone walls, open windows, natural light. Outdoors, green gardens and men in cassocks like the man who was with her now. "Where am I?" she asked. "Southdown Abbey," he replied, and memory tickled at the base of River's skull. She had heard of this place. Somewhere. "I am Brother Matthew; I'm the Abbot here. You're safe here, for as long as you choose to stay." River stared down at the pill bottle. The words were coming back, but some things were still jumbled. "Your brothers are doctors, too?" Brother Matthew frowned slightly, an expression River was familiar with. He was trying to make sense of her. "All of our brothers come to us late in their lives, out of other callings," he said. An image flitted through River's mind: a man in Shepherd's garb, holding a gun like he knew what it was for. "We don't ask," said Brother Matthew, "but sometimes one will offer some expertise out of his former life. One of them said the pills might help. Take two a day." "I understand," she said. Then, "Thank him for me." Brother Matthew smiled. "He will be as grateful to God as you are that his suggestion was helpful." "I didn't say I was grateful to God," River corrected. Somewhere in the jumble, she knew that it was important to be precise with words, and that she was grateful to the man whose suggestion had brought that knowledge back to her. And to the people who had made the pills, from research to production, and to the trains, trucks, and ships that had transported them here, and to a great many others whose involvement had put the small pill bottle in her hands at this instant. God, she was not so sure about. If he was affiliated with pharmaceutical firms and transport companies, he was keeping awfully quiet about it. "You may have the freedom of the grounds," Brother Matthew said. "And you may come join us for our evening meal, when you hear the dinner bell." Precisely interpreted, it was a dismissal, and River turned away from Brother Matthew, drawn to the gardens and sky beyond the window. She wandered down the hallway until she found a door that let her outside, into the neatly parceled grounds where sheep grazed on a postcard-beautiful lawn, and low-walled gardens and orchards were tended by men in plain clothes. Southdown Abbey. River wandered the sandy paths. She tried to force herself to sort out how she had ended up here, and how she was going to get home, but the name of the place plagued her: where had she heard it before? She stood in the middle of the path, disoriented, wishing someone would offer her some sort of assistance. No. Not someone. Simon. She wanted Simon, to ease the loneliness and the fear that lurked just below the surface of her calm. A bell rang behind her, deep and sonorous and sudden and loud, and she dropped into a crouch, covering her ears. But it was only the dinner bell that she had been warned about, and as she crouched in the path, the brothers working at their various chores carefully stowed their tools and aggregated into the path, coming toward her in knots of two and three. The first group stopped, offering between thunderclaps of the bell to assist her, but she crouched in the path with her hands over her ears and shook her head vigorously, and they respected her reticence and let her be. The first group having failed, the other groups simply flowed around her, glancing to see if they could help, but she shook her head no at all of them, wanting only for the bell to stop so that she could think again. Each time she thought it had stopped, she looked up hopefully, seeing the faces of the passing monks before the bell clanged again like a supernova in her head, and her vision blurred. For a moment, her vision cleared, and she looked up. A monk was passing there, and his gaze raked her, like the others, with that silent inquiry: "Can I help?" But at the touch of his gaze on hers, River screamed, because his face was the face of a dead man. The face of a man in shepherd's garb, who held a gun like he knew what it was for. He stopped. The other brothers passed them by, as though they didn't even exist. But this brother, this ghost, stood staring at her and River lacked the will to break that contact. "You're dead," she said, and the words were swallowed by the clanging bell, but the man understood them anyway, because he blinked in surprise. "You're a ghost." Now he shook his head, No, and his face creased in confusion, or perhaps just thoughtfulness. He held out a hand to her. River screamed again, falling to the path with her hands over her face. The words, the words were back, but the hallucinations had not gone. She curled around herself, fetal and whimpering, until the bell had stopped and the brothers had all passed by, gone to their meal. She looked up at the sky, fading pink and orange into evening. Book was gone. *** Zoe sat staring at the broadwave screen in silence after Mal had cut the comm. Simon sat on the end of one of the room's beds, and put his face in his hands. Serenity was badly damaged -- Wash had given them a rough report -- and based on the conditions aboard the ship, and the way both Mal and Wash had looked to him, he feared that they were in no condition to deal with the emergency. He hated to admit that it relieved him somewhat to think that River wasn't on the ship right now; her unpredictability combined with oxygen deprivation would almost certainly have ended in even greater disaster. So the ship was damaged, the captain and remaining crew operating under sub-optimal conditions, and River was missing. Zoe's first priority would probably be to get back to Serenity somehow, and help her husband and her old army pal. His priority, of course, would be River. So he had to assume, then, that at some point very soon, he would be on his own. Zoe stood abruptly, and walked away from the broadwave console. "Where are you going?" he asked her. He thought, with a shiver he didn't want to call fear, that she was going to walk out the door right that instant and not look back. "To take a bath," she said over her shoulder, as casually is if her husband were not in mortal danger; as carelessly as if his wounded sister were not at large in a dangerous 'verse. He didn't know whether he admired her stoicism, or despised it. Down deep, though, he thought he understood it: panic never got anybody out of a fix. "How will that help us?" he demanded. "We won't waste the price of the room, for one thing," she said, opening the mahogany wardrobe and pulling out one of the hotel's luxurious bathrobes. "For another, I'll be clean." She walked into the bathroom and closed the door. The faint splash of running water came through the wall, and Simon felt guilty. It should have been Wash, here in this rich room with his wife -- or Kaylee, here with Simon, instead. He hadn't spoken to Kaylee, on the 'wave. Zoe hadn't offered, and he hadn't asked. Again, he wouldn't call it fear, although it probably was. He didn't want to see Kaylee looking vacant and exhausted, when she was so far beyond his aid. Maybe if Zoe went back to the ship, he should go, too. Worry and indecision gnawed unpleasantly at his stomach. Well, maybe there was a way to take care of his sister and Kaylee. Simon glanced at the broadwave. He could contact anybody from here. He could call for help. For an instant, as he put his fingers to the keypad to bring up the broadwave connection, Simon worried that he might not remember the codes. But he'd always had strong memorization skills -- just getting through med school had strengthened them even more -- and the codes flowed from his fingers as though he'd been born with them. The screen's wait symbol appeared briefly, as the call was connected through to Osiris, and was then replaced by the face of an unfamiliar woman. It didn't matter that he didn't know her. If she was who he needed her to be, she would know what to do. "Wang Jing and Zu," the woman said pleasantly, "How may I direct your call?" Simon's mouth went suddenly dry, and he nearly choked as he said, "I need to speak with Dr. Yinglin Bai." "Dr. Bai is no longer with this firm," the woman said, still pleasant, "Perhaps another associate, Mr. Yuan Ming, could assist you?" "Please," Simon agreed, because that was what he was supposed to do. The fictional law firm's logo appeared as the call was transferred. Simon caught himself chewing on his thumbnail, and stopped. A man's face appeared on the screen. Simon breathed a faint sigh; this face he recognized, although it was more gaunt and worried than he remembered. "Henh Ly," he said, feeling suddenly that everything would turn out fine. Henh had helped him set up River's rescue. Here was someone to whom he would not have to relate all the backstory, all the caveats. Henh would know what was going on, and he would know what Simon could do. "You," Henh replied. His hands fluttered nervously at the bottom of the screen, and his hollow eyes shifted from side to side as he spoke. "I knew you would turn up." Simon was taken aback by Henh's accusative stare, and his hunted appeareance. "I need to find River," he said. "I was hoping you could help me." "I put her on a transport four days ago," Henh said, talking fast. He looked about to bolt. "A transport?" Simon asked. From Nassau Point? Was Henh actually on Nassau Point? There were too many questions, all crowding in at once, and Simon feared that Henh would cut him off at any second. "I sent her to Persephone. A monastery there, Southdown Abbey. The brothers there are good men, they'll look after her until you can get to her," Henh said, and his gaze slid nervously sideways. "Southdown -- Really? Southdown Abbey?" It was on the other side of the planet from where they were -- but that was only a few hours away, if they could catch a suborbital flight. Did Persephone have suborbital flights? He was never sure quite how civilized a place it was. And... Southdown Abbey... wasn't that where Shepherd Book -- "Look," Henh said, cutting into Simon's tumbling thoughts. "I need to keep moving." He flashed Simon grim smile. "But I think you should know, Blue Sun was tailing her." "Blue Sun?" A ball of cold fear formed in Simon's stomach. Why would Blue Sun be after River? The fugitive bulletins had been revoked. And if Blue Sun was hunting River again, would they be looking for him, too? Was anybody else looking for them?

Henh Ly's gaze shifted again. There was a crash to his left, and his face transformed with alarm. "Oh no," he cried, backing away from the screen, "No . . ." he glanced right, but apparently had no place to go in that direction. "Henh? Henh!" Simon cried, but Henh Ly's attention was not on the 'wave anymore. Other people entered the view, and Simon caught a flash of blue. Henh was screaming, now. Simon was yelling, too, futilely, because there was nothing really that he could do. The men had Henh by both arms; he went suddenly limp and silent, as Simon screamed "Nooooooooooooooooo!" One of the blue-handed men turned toward the broadwave screen. His eyes locked with Simon's, and he smiled a wintry smile. "Cut it off!" came a cry behind him, "Simon! Cut it off!" It was Zoe, wrapped in the hotel bathrobe, her wet hair hanging limp down her back. She crossed the room in three steps and hit the keypad, cutting the connection. She looked at Simon, who stared back at her, speechless. "River's here," he said at last.And Henh Ly is dead. "Blue Sun . . . they're after her." Zoe snatched his bag off the bed and threw it at him; he caught it square in the gut. "Pack," she said. "We're going."