Jerrode looked like he had been to a Christmas party, in a bright red tunic heavily embroidered in gold, with emeralds winking green at her from the epaulets, and tightly-fitted black slacks. His expression, too, was unusually bright -- he was grinning broadly, his arms open wide, as he walked into the music room where Inara had been practicing her lute, using one from Jerrode's collection. A Butterfield lute, of palisander, unless she missed her guess; a collector's piece from Earth-that-Was, lovely both to look at and to play. Inara laid it aside with a twinge of regret.

"Inara!" Jerrode was positively ebullient as he drew her to her feet and embraced her. "I've located some of your friends!"

He pushed her to arms' length, grinning, watching for her reaction. She smiled broadly back at him. "Jerrode, that's wonderful!"

"They're not here," he said, in a cautionary tone. "We'll have to go and fetch them. But I happen to be at leisure now, and it won't take long. I thought we could go together!"

She laughed at his unaccustomed display. "Of course! I would like that very much!"

"I have a ship waiting!" he said, offering her his arm as he turned to leave the room. "You could even bring the Butterfield, to entertain us both while we are en route!"

Shaking her head, Inara placed the lute carefully back in its case. She slipped one hand into Jerrode's proffered elbow, and picking up the lute with her other. "I would love to," she said. She felt lighter. Whatever mess Mal had made, it was finally on the way to being fixed.

***

"Not dinner," River said, as Brother Matthew drew her out of the winery and into the abbey's sunlit courtyard.

"No," Brother Matthew agreed. The bells sounded frantic; the brothers were running across the courtyard with unseemly haste, their robes hiked up over their knees, heading straight across the tended grass, heedless of the paths they normally followed with such deliberate care.

River tried to think, tried to feel what the emergency was, but the bells drowned everything out. Brother Matthew hitched up his own robes in his free hand, and dragged her toward the dining hall, where all of the other brethren appeared to be headed. River was pulled along, unresisting; her attention was outflung, grasping at a hint of insight that jittered away from her on each new vibration of the clanging bells.

She looked up for it, and saw the sky, bright and glorious blue. She looked out for it, and saw the fountain, its water flashing brilliant blue. She looked down for it, and saw her hands, the veins pulsing an unnaturally luminescent blue.

River screamed, and crumpled onto the grass.

"River!" Brother Matthew tried to drag her to her feet.

"They're here, they're here!" River moaned.

Brother Matthew tried to pick her up bodily, but she resisted. The blue-handed men they found with her, they would kill. Brother Matthew was concerned about his monks, she could feel that like the alarm bells, crashing against her own consciousness. If she resisted, he would perforce leave her to see to the ninety-and-nine, who were not yet safe in the fold. So she crumpled herself onto the ground and held there, and Brother Matthew gave up -- he thought it was temporary -- and went to see to his other sheep.

The bells stopped.

The silence descended, resting on River's back so that she could not rise, could not even raise her head to look for the doom that was coming for her. They were close, they were coming, it was inevitable.

Warm fingers touched her arm, and River reacted. She threw the hand off; she rolled to her feet. She raised her head.

Book.

River wavered, poised for the attack, but seeing no enemy.

Book glanced aside, toward the abbey's main entrance. Then he motioned, silently, for her to follow him.

River followed.

***

Zoe studied the street map on Simon's encyclopedia screen, committing the route from their landing point to Southdown Abbey to memory -- along with several alternative routes, in case she should need them. She didn't like to have to mess with maps once she was on the ground; they took her attention away from her immediate surroundings, which was a security risk. Wash understood that. Whenever they came down in populated areas with air-traffic control, he always committed the pertinent details of their approach to memory, in advance. Landing a space ship in heavy traffic was a terrible time to be consulting charts.

Thinking of Wash was a mistake. She saw his face in her mind as she had last seen it on the 'wave, pale and hollow-eyed and faintly blue. The foolish desire to be with him, aboard Serenity, she put from her mind by force. She would only be another set of lungs, breathing air that was already in short supply, and straining the resources of a damaged ship. War had taught her that you couldn't always control where events put you, and when, but that if you spent all your time wishing to be somewhere else doing something else, you were a lot less likely to make it through. You had to be where you were, doing what you were doing, or your chances of making it through might turn out not to be half so good as your buddy in another theater whom you thought was a lot worse off.

Mal understood that principle. Zoe hoped fervently that Wash also understood it, but her husband had never really been all that enamored of cold uncompromising logic, even as a survival strategy. Be here, she told herself sternly. Do this.

This, of course, was getting to River before the Blue Sun operatives, the men who wore the blue gloves and who had killed Simon's contact, could get to her. And that meant getting to the Abbey. Persephone was no low-tech border world, but neither was it Sihnon, or Osiris. Zoe had feared that Simon would have a stroke when he discovered that Persephone lacked supersonic atmospheric transport, and traveling to their destination would involve three layovers and take two days. She had forced him to have a drink, and then forced him to write himself an anti-anxiety scrip. And then forced herself to monitor his usage. She figured the last dose ought to be wearing off right about now.

The whine of the engines changed; the ship's momentum shifted. She braced for touchdown, for the grating kiss of landing gear on tarmac. There.

From the seat opposite her own, Simon met her gaze.

She handed him his encyclopedia, marveling in some corner of her mind that he carried such a thing everywhere he went. But to Simon it must be like Zoe's weapons were to her; an item without which he felt ill-prepared to meet the world. He tucked it into an inside vest pocket.

The suborb's hatch clanged open, sending a shudder through the vessel.

"Let's go," Zoe said.

**

The ship that had showed up on their scanners had now shadowed Serenity for a full day. It had not hailed them, and it had not attacked, but it made Mal deeply uneasy. It couldn't be following them for any reason that was good. To cover his unease, he had buried himself in work. But he wasn't covering well, and about dinner time he gave up trying for a minute.

"You got an ID yet?" he demanded of Wash. Behind him, Kaylee stopped in the hatchway, leaning wearily against the frame. Turning a hallway into an airlock was giving them more problems than Mal had anticipated, not least because it was a lot easier to do when you could set it up from both sides of the hatches at once. Trying to work at it from only one side -- the side with the air in it -- was like trying to peel an orange with your toenails. Too far away, too hard to manipulate.

Wash shrugged. "Just a fast scoutship -- nice little spacecraft, really -- I don't think they're Alliance, but I do think their big brother's going to be along to cross this bridge any minute."

"Well, let's make sure we don't get shoved into the river," Mal said. He leaned over Wash's shoulder, looking at the schematics the pilot had brought up. "Nice little spacecraft" was a bit of an understatement, in Mal's opinion -- the ship that was shadowing them was a Swift Nightrunner, a brand-new model. Fast, maneuverable, stealthy -- it had been on top of them before they'd picked it up, even with their enhanced sensors -- and likely owned by someone -- or some entity -- that was either very wealthy, or a very good thief.

Someone, or some entity, like whoever had busted up their deal back at Nassau Point. Someone who also owned a small private army. Mal quailed just a little bit at the thought of what that scoutship's big brother would look like, when it arrived.

I get out of this, I swear I will never again get involved in industrial espionage in any form, Mal thought bitterly. I swear I'll stick to small-time customs evasion. It'll be bobble-heads and beagles for us, girl, he thought, laying a hand along Serenity's bulkhead in silent promise.

Jayne lumbered up the stairs in Serenity's nose, carrying a steaming stock pot. He set it down with a clunk along the top edge of the pilot's console. "Hey!" Wash protested, swiping at the hot stock pot without actually touching it, "You never heard of potholders?"

"You never heard of dinner?" Jayne shot back, pulling the stock pot away protectively. "Anyway, what I got is a camp stove and some canned goods, and dishes for four," he nodded at a box of kitchen things stashed behind the copilot's chair. "Ain't got potholders and can't get at 'em, 'less Mal and Kaylee got that airlock working?"

Mal shook his head. "Might be a while on that. Kaylee, come get yourself some grub." Kaylee came past him and fished a shallow bowl out of a box behind the copilot's chair, digging deeper to find a ladle and spoon. And a potholder, which she handed to Jayne with an expression of reprimand. Jayne slid the potholder underneath the stock pot, looking more annoyed than penitent. He accepted the bowl, spoon, and ladle, too; Kaylee dove back into the box to retrieve dinnerware for herself and Mal and Wash. Mal took a bowl and spoon for himself, holding them absently in his right hand. "Wash, how close can we get to full burn?" he asked.

"With the hull in this condition?" Wash considered, slowly shaking his head as he examined his instrument panel. "I could bring her up slow, see how fast we can go before I start to get alarms going off. But I'm guessing not more than three-quarters, if that." He turned back to Mal. "Even on her best day, though, Serenity can't outrun that scoutship."

"Shouldn't need to outrun the scoutship," Mal said. "Just whoever's coming out to meet her. If we can get to Reaverspace before they arrive, maybe they won't follow us."

"Or maybe they'll be sorry if they do," Wash speculated. He turned back to his console and laid his hands on the controls. "All right. Fasten your seat belts and put your tray tables in locked position. We're heading for Reaverspace, fast as she'll fly."

"Could use a good tray table right now, actually," Jayne said, leaning against the pilot's console with one hip to stabilize the stock pot while trying to eat his supper.

"Kaylee, eat up," Mal said, ladling some soup for himself. Kaylee had taken the copilot's chair, so Mal settled in behind Wash. "Then let's you and me finish setting up that airlock."