“You got the rest of them to go along with it, even though you know the case against me was as flimsy as rice paper.”
“Wasn’t difficult. They’re disgruntled, easily led. They’ve been at this so long, they’ve begun to lose sight of why. They just love the blaming and the accusing and the executing. Makes them feel good about themselves, and you’ve seen them. Do those look to you like people who’ve many reasons to feel good about themselves? Some of ’em needed more talking round than others, but we got there in the end. We paid Hunter Covington just about every piece of platinum we could scrape together in order to get a lead on you. Seemed a fair price. I even plundered my own savings, such as they were. Don’t have a single coin left to my name.”
“Yeah, but wasn’t what you were doing dangerous to you? Mightn’t it have backfired if the others had realized this thing was just a whole dog-and-pony show?”
“If so, what do I care?” Toby said with a hapless shrug. “My time’s running out anyway.”
Mal’s eyesight was adjusting to the gloom. Toby’s face looked pallid and haggard, a wreck of its old self.
“You ain’t well, are you?” Mal said. “You’re seriously sick. What is it? Damplung? Wilson’s palsy?”
“Cancer. The terminal kind. All over. The whole meal, soup to nuts.”
“Toby…”
“Got it ’cause of my spacesuit’s shielding failing at Sturges, most likely. Docs reckon I must’ve received a dose of cosmic radiation, not enough to fry me on the spot but enough to send a few internal organs gradually haywire. The war’s finally catching up with me, after all these years. I’m a dead man walking, but at least I finally got to see you paying the penalty for what you did to me.”
“Toby, maybe there’s a cure,” Mal said. “I have a doctor on board my ship, a really good one. He can try and fix you.”
“He can’t, Mal. Nobody can. You know what, though? I thought I’d be happier to see you on the end of the rope, I really did. But somehow it just made me sad.” Toby’s voice was thick, husky. He sounded close to crying. “Sad that it’s come to this, and sad for all that we lost. Not just Jamie and Jinny. Not the millions of men and women the war killed. The… innocence. The fun we used to have on Shadow. Foolin’ around. Getting chased by Bundy. They were good times, weren’t they, Mal?”
“The best, Toby. The best.”
Now Toby really was crying, deep sobs wracking his body. “Oh God, Mal. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have… I should never…”
Toby’s gun had begun to droop in his grasp. Mal cast a quick, sidelong glance towards his own gun. If he could just keep this conversation going a few seconds longer, keep Toby distracted and off-beam, he might be able to make a bid for the Liberty Hammer.
He tensed, ready to bat Toby’s gun aside and lunge for his own weapon. “It’s okay, Toby. We’re good. Come on, help me up and let’s go see if we can’t—”
A shot rang out.
Toby’s body jolted. He fell against the tunnel wall, then slid down to the floor.
Mal, ears ringing from the detonation, turned to see Jayne standing some twenty feet away. Vera was in his hands, smoke coiling up from her muzzle.
“Got him,” Jayne said with cold satisfaction. “You okay, Mal?”
Mal looked back at Toby Finn, now just an inert heap, chin on sternum, blood on his breastbone glistening in the faint light. In a way he was glad Jayne had shot Toby. Even after everything, he mightn’t have been able to do it himself.
In fact, he reckoned Jayne had done Toby a favor. Toby had been dying anyway. Jayne had only hastened what was inevitable, ending his life quickly, unexpectedly, rather than leaving him to be eaten away, an inch at a time, by the slow horror of cancer.
“Come on,” Jayne said. “We gotta go. Don’t know how much longer Zoë’s going to be able to keep the vigilantes at bay with that detonator-switch con. They’re gettin’ all kinds of antsy.”
“Con?”
Jayne brought Mal up to speed on the plan involving the crate and the detonator.
“Not bad,” Mal said. “Kind of sneakiness I might have come up with.”
Wearily he got to his feet and retrieved his gun. He couldn’t remember when he had ever felt quite so tired, or so old. Jayne turned back down the tunnel, and Mal staggered after.
38
Back in the cavern, Zoë was indeed finding it increasingly hard to keep the Browncoats restrained. Sonya Zuburi was giving her all manner of grief, calling her names and making feints towards her, trying to grab the detonator switch. Even back during the war there had never been much love lost between Zoë and Sonya. She’d been a good soldier but Zoë, even on her worst day, was ten times better, and whereas Zoë had been fast-tracked to corporal, Sonya had remained a humble private to the bitter end. That had been a source of great anguish and frustration to Sonya and she had tried to undermine Zoë every chance she got.
“You won’t do it, bitch,” Sonya goaded. “You don’t have the balls.”
“At least I don’t keep my husband’s in a purse,” Zoë retorted.
Someone sniggered, and Sonya shot them a filthy look. David Zuburi himself seemed unamused, but appeared to acknowledge that there was some truth in Zoë’s taunt.
Out of the corner of her eye Zoë saw Hunter Covington and Harlow sneaking towards the exit tunnel. She would have to deal with them later. Right now what mattered was the angry Browncoats. Where the hell was Jayne? She had sent him off in pursuit of Mal. He surely should have found him by now.
There was a gunshot from the tunnel Jayne had followed Mal into. Zoë recognized the deep, bassy boom of Vera. Moments later, Jayne emerged from the tunnel with Mal in tow. The already irate Browncoats became more irate still.
“Where’s Toby Finn?” someone demanded to know. “What have you done with him?”
Zoë could tell the situation was about to spiral into chaos. Not even the threat of blowing up the mine entrance was going to keep a lid on it much longer. She began backing towards the tunnel, the barrel of her Mare’s Leg tracking this way and that, pausing at random Browncoats and curbing their aggression, if only temporarily.
“I will shoot,” Zoë warned, backing towards the exit. “I don’t want to but I will if I have to, and anyone who knows me knows I am not the type to make idle threats.”
Nonetheless the crowed kept edging closer, inciting one another forwards. An array of guns bristled around Zoë.
“Let’s rush her,” Sonya said. “Somebody grabs her hand, clamps it tight around that switch, there’ll be nothing she can do.”
Then Jayne and Mal were at Zoë’s side. That gave her a little more leverage, and the Browncoats knew it. They weren’t up against a lone gunwoman any more but a trio.
“We’re outta here,” Jayne said to the crowd, “and I’d advise anyone who’s thinking about getting in our way to not to. Get in our way, that is. Or even think about it.”
As they retreated towards the entrance, Zoë kept an eye out for Covington and Harlow, who might be lying in wait somewhere along the tunnel. In her judgment, however, the two men wouldn’t be hanging around. Instead, they’d be making for Covington’s yacht and hightailing it off Hades as fast as they could. Neither was any slouch when it came to self-preservation, she thought, and they must have realized that if it came to a shootout between the Browncoats and Zoë, Jayne, and Mal, there was a good chance of getting caught in the crossfire.
She was mistaken about that, and nearly got a bullet through the head for her pains.
Where the tunnel jinked round a corner, Harlow was lurking. If Zoë hadn’t caught a glimpse of the tail of his absurd yellow duster, she might not have been able to dodge in time. Her Mare’s Leg thundered a riposte, blasting away a section of rock just inches from Harlow’s hiding place.