“Mal has a theory about Alliance bureaucracy. He reckons different departments create bulletins like this and fling them out at random like a drunk guy playing darts — one in the bullseye, one in the back of Joe Bob’s head. Some of the agencies know about the existence of the Tams and some don’t, and they don’t always talk to each other, at least not in the same language. Not that I much care. To a snail, a duck is a vengeful god.”
“What?”
“It’s a saying.”
“A saying said by who?”
“By, uh, me?” said Wash. “More and more, though, this situation with River and Simon is giving me the heebie-jeebies. It’s like we’re playing roulette every day, and every day there’s another zero on the wheel. There are times when you have to ask yourself if we mightn’t be better off ditching River—”
“Oh! Hey, sweetie,” Kaylee said, pointedly cutting Wash off.
Wash looked over to see River standing on the threshold of the bridge. Her eyes were enormous and streaked with tears. She was shivering as if she were freezing. Simon rushed up behind her, his gaze connecting with Wash’s.
“Let’s get you to your bunk, River,” Simon said, his cheeks reddening with embarrassment or consternation, or some of both.
River held out her hands and started waving them around as if brushing away spider webs. “They’re coming. They’re coming…”
Wash recoiled at the sight of the waving hands. Wŏ de tiān a, talk about the heebie-jeebies. The crew had already had a run-in with two men wearing powder-blue gloves who were after River. Alliance officers who had gotten in the gloved men’s way had wound up dead, blood gushing from all their orifices.
“River, do you think they’re after us?” he asked carefully. “The men with the hands of blue?” River seemed to have a way of sensing things. Or maybe it was simply that because she rambled all over the place, on occasion she made sense. It was so hard to tell.
She looked at Wash, then saluted. “Avast ye, matey. Hit the turbos and set sail for the horizon.”
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll do that.” He buzzed Zoë. “Honey?”
“I haven’t located Jayne,” Zoë reported. “But… Wait a moment. That’s Inara in the Mule. She’s just spotted me. Is something wrong, Wash?”
“River’s singing about the blue hands,” he said.
By way of replying, Zoë let loose a long and complicated curse.
Wash said, “Please hurry.”
12
Inara hard-banked the bulldozer-yellow MF-813 Mule to avoid a mob of Alliance Day revelers who had staggered into the middle of the street. Dressed in a shimmering gown and her jeweled golden snood, she allowed everyone to see that a Companion moved among them. An armed Companion; in the folds of her gown, a gray buckskin shoulder holster cradled her Ruger Mark II, 22 caliber pistol, with flash suppressor. The hovercraft had no windscreen or overhead canopy for the pilot, just low tubular railings along the sides. Although it could carry four passengers — two seated, two standing — its primary function was cargo transport.
The street was packed with Alliance Day partygoers on their annual celebratory whoop-de-doop. With no way to avoid them, Inara advanced the hovercraft at a crawl. The crowd cheered and bowed, drunk yet impressed. Rug and jewelry stands lined both sides of the avenue. Hookah bars, outdoor grills, noodle shops spewed forth a riot of smoky and spicy aromas.
At the designated rendezvous point, she spied Zoë, who stepped out from the shadows, pushed through the crowd, and approached the Mule as it decelerated and touched down. To Inara she looked tired and frazzled. She grimaced in pain as she climbed on board and then dropped heavily into one of the passenger seats.
“Are you badly hurt?” Inara asked with concern.
“I’m fine,” Zoë said.
“Where’s Jayne?”
“Don’t know. We split up.”
“Hey!” a deep voice bellowed from close by.
The sound of heavy footfalls followed. On instinct, Zoë reached for her Mare’s Leg, relaxing as she saw Jayne jogging over towards the Mule.
“Good thing I ran into you guys,” he said. “I was gettin’ tired of walking.” He clambered aboard.
There was no room to turn the Mule around, what with all the pedestrians and the shopping stalls spilling over the curbs. Reversing course was out of the question because of the traffic that had backed up behind them. Inara steered the Mule forward and at the first available side street turned right, wending her way back to the docks by a circuitous route.
As they floated above the potholed roadway, Zoë’s face took on a placid, masklike expression. Outwardly, she looked completely calm, but attuned to people’s moods as Inara was from her years of Companion training, she knew that Zoë often affected this expression when the gŏu shĭ was flying in the direction of the fan and the ship and crew were in real trouble. She bit back her questions about what had happened, and where Mal was. She herself knew a thing or two about self-control, and about patience.
At the docks, Inara drove across the airfield along designated pathways fringed by painted hazard stripes. On all sides, lit by kliegs on widely spaced stanchions, rows of parked spacecraft sat. Clusters of transporters loaded and offloaded their cargos. Here and there was a crater in the ground where a vessel had crashed. The Mule passed a line of passengers in shiny silk print robes with belongings in hand and balanced on top of their heads, queueing for an incoming passenger liner. The docks never slept.
When they reached Serenity, Inara drove up the illuminated gangplank and into the hold. She parked gingerly, but with precision, beside the crates of HTX-20. Simon and Shepherd Book came down the stairway as she killed the engine. Jayne vaulted out of the Mule. With difficulty, Zoë climbed to the deck and took a hesitant, limping step. She stiffened and froze, in obvious pain.
Simon hurried over to her and, bending down on one knee, examined her ankle and shin.
“Mmmf,” Zoë said, pulling away from his touch.
“We have to get you to the infirmary, see what’s going on with your leg,” Simon told her, straightening up and looking her in the eye. “Shepherd, we’ll need the gurney and—”
“I can walk there,” Zoë insisted. To Book she said, “Any news on the captain?”
Shepherd Book shook his head. “Not yet, I’m afraid. But since there’s no Alliance in sight, perhaps we can afford to wait a few more minutes to see if he might arrive before Wash lifts us off.”
“We don’t have much more than that,” Zoë said. “And I don’t think he’ll be arriving at all.”
Briefly she outlined her theory that Mal had been abducted. She mentioned the stolen shuttle and expressed her hope that Mal was aboard it, if not of his own volition.
“Who?” Inara said. Her throat felt tight. “Who would do that?”
“Number of enemies Mal’s made in his life, take your pick,” said Jayne. “Could be he ain’t just been kidnapped; he’s dead already. What?” Dagger looks were coming at him from all directions. “I’m only saying what we’re all thinking.”
“None of us is thinking that, Jayne,” said Inara.
“None of you’s tryin’ to, is what you mean,” Jayne said.
“I hate to say it,” said Zoë, “but we’re going to have to take off without him.”
“No!” Inara cried.
“You know it’s the only way, Inara. We’ve got a time-sensitive cargo and we’ve got the feds snapping at our heels. The captain’d be the first to agree with me. We can’t afford to hang around. It’ll be all of our necks if we do.”
“Yeah,” said Jayne. “As a wise man once said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”