“We can’t leave Mal behind like this and just go on with business as usual,” Kaylee implored. “Especially if there’s fanatics involved. We have to do something.”
“So send this Wong guy a wave, Book,” said Zoë.
“No,” Book said. Everyone looked at him. “We didn’t part on the best of terms, he and I, and I’m not positive we can trust him.”
“But you just said—” Kaylee began.
“I said I’m willing to return to Persephone and stay planetside, making investigations of my own. Those may or may not feature Mika Wong, depending on how desperate I get. Either way, the rest of you can continue on to the delivery point, and somebody will still be doing something productive about Mal.”
“Sounds shiny,” Kaylee said. “Don’t it?” She looked around at the group. “Don’t it, Zoë?”
“Yes,” Zoë said. To the group she said, “We can spare the Shepherd.” To Book she said, “Make sure your comm link works.”
“I most certainly will,” Shepherd Book said. “I’ll head back down immediately, and I’ll take Guilder’s shuttle rather than Inara’s. I can return it to them and get them off our backs. Kill two birds with one stone.”
“Maybe someone should go with you,” Simon said. “As backup.”
“Yeah,” said Kaylee. “How about Jayne? He can watch your back.”
Jayne huffed. “’Nother gorramn babysitting job,” he grumbled.
“With all due respect to Jayne,” said Book, “I think I’ll manage better on my own. People tend to lower their guard when they’re around a Shepherd, more so than they might if I’m in the company of a hulking great bruiser of a man with a scraggly, mean-looking beard. No offense, Jayne.”
“None taken.” Jayne seemed to think Book’s description of him was more than fair.
“Then couldn’t Zoë go?” Kaylee said. “I just don’t like the idea of you down there alone, Shepherd. And two can cover more ground than one.”
“Zoë’s needed here,” Book replied. “Wouldn’t you agree, Zoë? This ship needs a captain, and in Mal’s absence, that responsibility falls to you.”
Zoë acknowledged it with a nod.
“Besides, that leg of yours will be a serious hindrance. You may not be letting on how much it hurts, but I can tell. It’d be better if you rest it up.” Book smiled kindly at Kaylee. “I promise you, Kaylee, I will do everything in my power to track down Mal and bring him back safe and sound. Just remember, I may be just a man all on his lonesome, but”—he pointed a finger heavenward—“I have someone mighty riding shotgun with me at all times.”
Inara linked arms with Kaylee. “If anyone can find him, dear, Book can.”
Book nodded to her, appreciative of the vote of confidence.
“It — it can’t be that somebody took Mal to punish him,” Kaylee said, sniffling. “He never did anything wrong in the war.”
“Except fight in it,” Jayne said.
Zoë glowered at him, then hit the intercom. “Wash, slow us down for shuttle launch.”
“I’ll just go to my bunk and grab a couple things to throw in my satchel,” Book said.
Inara wondered what he would take along. Coin? Weapons? Body armor? Secrets? Probably some of each.
As Book stepped out of the infirmary, Serenity began to slow, her engine note lessening in pitch and intensity.
“Oh God…” Kaylee said, a tremor in her voice.
“It’s going to be all right,” Inara said, but the comforting words rang hollow even to her.
“You don’t know that,” Kaylee shot back. She looked from face to face. “Everyone understands that this is a big deal, right? Just because Mal usually comes back okay from whatever tight corner he gets into, it don’t mean he always will. This might be the one time he doesn’t.”
That was exactly what Inara thought, too. Her mind raced as she fought down panic. Though she was skilled in dozens of relaxation techniques, at that moment she couldn’t remember any of them.
“Book will find him,” Zoë vowed. “We can trust him to do his best, and his best is better than most people’s.”
“But will Mal be all right?” said Kaylee. “Will he even be alive?”
“He hasn’t been gone that long,” Zoë said. “And if you could have seen Mal in the war, you wouldn’t ask that. I saw him get out of all manner of tough scrapes that would have done in anyone else. He’d dust himself off and live to fight another day, usually laughing about how close the call was.”
Inara could tell Zoë believed that. Deep down, she herself believed it too.
“There, you see?” she said to Kaylee. “It’s going to be okay. Why don’t you come have tea with me in my shuttle? We can center ourselves and be prepared in case we’re needed.”
13
Serenity’s close call with the liner had pushed Simon closer toward anxiety. Serenity and crew had had to leave their captain behind to an unknown fate, because unless they offloaded Badger’s cargo, it could conceivably blow up and kill them all. And on top of that, it seemed the Alliance were narrowing in on him and River.
Kaylee was fond of calling things “shiny.” This situation, to Simon, felt like the opposite of that. Gloomy. Dim. Leaden. Dismal. Pick your antonym.
Carefully he observed River at the dining table, which had been relieved of fort duty — River’s blankets and pillows taken back to her bunk, and the table itself righted. Though the dismantling of her safe zone had clearly agitated her, his sister hadn’t protested beyond a few barely audible and unintelligible complaints. But he could see it in her eyes: River was still terrified by the threat of what lay in Serenity’s cargo bay, the crates of precarious HTX-20 mining explosive.
Inara had taken it upon herself to braid sections of River’s hair and wind them across the crown of her head, allowing a few stray brown wavy locks to brush her shoulders. Then the elegant Companion had added little trinkety bits of shimmer, and made up River’s eyes with black and turquoise, and dressed her in a brocade tunic and flowing black pants. The result Simon found both wonderful and painful to behold. It comforted him that River had allowed Inara to touch her face and head. He didn’t know what the Alliance had done to her, but she usually panicked when someone besides him laid hands on her.
What was wonderful, above all, was how sophisticated and grown-up she looked, like the beautiful, responsible young woman his parents had assumed she would one day become. But hadn’t.
After he had decoded the letters River sent from the Academy— the Alliance-run experimental center that had methodically driven her mad — Simon had spent countless sleepless nights wondering if she was dead.
In a way, she was.
The fantasy of her future had turned to dust.
Steam rose from the two clay cups of tea Inara had prepared for them. Simon had hoped that the soothing, warm beverage would ravel his sister back together, at least temporarily. His happy, smart, accomplished mèi mèi. Was she still in there somewhere, lost amid the swirling maelstrom of post-traumatic stress disorder and brain damage?
While he sipped and contemplated what to do next, River drained her cup. Then she sat ramrod straight in her chair beside his at the dining table, staring into the bottom of the cup as if she were a fortuneteller reading the tea leaves.
He heard her muttering and leaned forward to catch what she was saying. She was repeating the phrase “getting closer” over and over again, like a mantra or a witch’s spell. Or a crazy-person recording loop. The Alliance was after them, no doubt. It was always after them, and getting closer and closer, just as River was saying. When would it end? Maybe never. Or at least not until it had River back in its pitiless clutches.