“Yes, indeed.”
“Just what is your line of work?”
Now it was Kit studying him. “I’m a dentist,” he said at last.
Mal shrugged. “Look, you don’t have a cover any more; all you can do is wait to be retrieved, and hope that happens before they find you and take another shot. What harm is there in telling us?”
“I’m wondering if you’re the ones who blew my cover.”
“And then saved your life?”
Kit shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what your angle is. Feel like telling me?”
“You’d never believe it,” said Zoë, staring at a spot over Kit’s shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell us anything,” said Mal. “We’re not going to threaten an Alliance officer. And we are surely not going to try to beat it out of you. But we came into the middle of this. We want the rest of the story. If you feel like telling us.”
Kit leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “What brought you to Yuva, anyway? I’ve learned who you are, but that only starts the questions. You aren’t miners, and I haven’t seen you around the office. I’d say security, but you aren’t wearing—”
“I captain a transport ship. We were hired to pick up some lumber for Mister Sakarya.”
“Yeah, that matches what I learned. But is it true?”
“Sure,” said the captain. “Why not?”
“Okay. You picked up some lumber. And then?”
Mal shrugged. “We were waiting to get paid, saw those two in the canteen, decided to interfere with their fun.”
“Mister Sakarya,” repeated Kit.
“Yes.”
“What do you know of Mister Sakarya?”
“Well, I gather he’s not burdened by excessive kindness toward his employees.”
“You could say that.”
“He seems like a thousand others I’ve seen. Big king in a little kingdom. Probably enjoys it too much.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Well what?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing you can tell us about him?”
“Sorry.”
“Or about what you’re doing?”
“Sorry.”
“Aren’t you curious about how we blew your cover?”
“Did you?”
“Not on purpose.”
Kit shrugged.
Mal said, “But then, someone tries to knock you on the head the day we show up here, and it hasn’t happened before, or you’d have been armed and expecting it. Bit hard to call it coincidence, isn’t it?”
“What’s your point?”
“That you might be curious about how it happened.”
“Maybe I am.”
“And if you tell us what you know, and we tell you what we know, we might both learn something.”
“Sorry. Can’t do it.”
“I suppose you couldn’t justify revealing anything to anyone without clearance for it.”
“Close enough.”
“A shame about that.”
“I suppose it is.”
“Do you have to tell them?”
“Yes.”
“But you are curious, aren’t you, Kit?”
“I’ll admit to that. But I’m afraid, well, you know. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, Captain Reynolds.”
Mal pushed himself away from the wall, nodded to Kit, and headed out. Zoë fell into step next to him.
“I have a question, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Did we learn anything?”
“Well, we have a lot more questions than we did before, but, yeah, we learned some things. We confirmed that he’s a fed. And he was on sort of mission here that had something to do with Sakarya, and something about our arrival here messed up his mission and almost got him killed.”
“I see. Something about our arrival.”
“Right.”
“Then I have another question.”
“What’s that?”
“Any objection if I hunt down Jayne and blow his head off?”
“He’s off the crew.”
“So?”
“Can’t blame a snake for slithering, Zoë.”
“No, sir. But if you blow its head off, you’ll slow it down some.”
He sat in the canteen, nursing his beer, and tried to work it out. Having decided to stick around and go for the gold, he really had to know what was going on.
Okay, what exactly were the events, in order?
First, he’d made contact with the Alliance, and been told that an agent would be meeting him in the Canteen. This was the only canteen in town. The other place, down the hill, was just called, “The bar.” So, he was in the right place.
Second, he’d come here, and waited about half an hour in a place that was completely empty except for the bartender. If the bartender was a fed, which didn’t seem likely to begin with, why hadn’t he said something?
Third, two guys had come in. They could have been feds—they were armed, and certainly looked like they were there for business. But why two of them? He hadn’t been told there would be two of them. That’s why he’d put his hand on his pistol the second they’d come in. But they’d ignored him completely, instead watching the door.
Fourth, Mal and Zoë had come in. He’d damn near opened fire when they’d walked through the door, figuring they’d found out what he was up to and wanted to stop him. But they’d pretended he wasn’t even there.
Fifth, the other guy came in, the one in the fancy clothes. He could have been a fed. But then those two other guys made their move, like they were going to kill him, and Mal and Zoë had saved him. No way Mal and Zoë were going to rescue a fed.
It didn’t make sense.
None of it made sense.
But he had to figure it out, because he couldn’t go into a high-risk operation like this without any idea of who was on which side, or even what the sides were.
Well, okay. Let’s just think this through.
Could Mal showing up there be coincidence? Well, sure; if they were stuck waiting for something, like payment for the job, how many other places were there? But what about that guy they saved? Mal and Zoë saved him, so no way he was a fed; that much he could count on.
So, if he wasn’t a fed, who was he? And who wanted to kill him, and why?
Why hadn’t the fed shown up, anyway? Whatever their attitude toward him, Jayne, he knew they wanted the doctor and his sister; they wanted them bad. So why didn’t they show?
He leaned back in his chair and sipped his beer, nursing it.
They were nearly back to the shuttle Mal had flown.
“Okay, sir, now we know.”
“Yeah.”
“At least, we might know some of it.”
“Right.”
“So, do we do anything about it?”
“Yeah. We’ve been paid, so I fly you back to Shuttle One, we get back to Serenity and get off this world.”
“Good plan, sir.”
“Glad you approve.”
“Only one problem with it. Do you really intend to do it?”
The shuttle was there, and appeared undisturbed.
“Yeah,” he said. “This is none of our concern.”
“That’s what you said before, sir.”
“And I was right, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mal punched the combination and the door opened. They went in. Mal sat down in the pilot’s chair, flipped on the comm, and found the channel for Serenity.
“Wash?”
“Right here, Mal.”
“We got paid, and we’re on the way home.”
“Uh…”
Zoë looked at Mal, who said, “Wash? Is there a problem?”
“Not a problem, exactly.”
“Talk to me, Wash.”
“Well, for one thing, Zoë went down after you.”