He’d always thought of himself as a plodder.
There were field agents who could go into situations where there was liable to be shooting and stabbing and close escapes. And there were field agents who could appear at a crime scene and put together what had happened like rolling a vid. He had never thought of himself as either of those types: he went in, took as much time as was needed to establish a good cover, took as much time as needed to gather the evidence, assembled the information in neat, clear, and precise reports, and then, if necessary, testified in court.
You don’t fire up an ASREV to jump from the core to the border. You don’t pull the pin on a grenade to tap into someone’s Cortex transmission. You don’t use a tranq-gun to search a database for signs of tax fraud.
He was a tool of the Alliance, and he was fine with that; but he was the wrong tool for this job. Only, if he didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done. And if it didn’t get done, he’d not only wasted eight months of his life, but he’d blown the first assignment he’d ever actually cared about.
Gorram those rutting bastards to hell. Why couldn’t they have just let him do his job, instead of bollixing the whole thing just to rip over some poor girl who had yet to be even suspected of a crime?
He couldn’t save her, of course. The Special Deputies were coming, and he knew something of how they worked. They didn’t get stopped. All he could do, as a salve for his conscience, was to try to complete his mission before they arrived. Once they were here, he wouldn’t be able to…
Now there is an interesting thought. I wonder if that could work.
He looked around the shuttle again, and considered.
He took a close look at the comm equipment.
Yes, it just might work.
He left the shuttle and went off in search of River Tam. When he knocked on the door of her room, she said, “Come in, Agent Merlyn.” The captain was right, she was a bit “creepifying.”
He said, “River Tam… may I call you River?”
She nodded, watching him closely, as if he were a peculiar object; not something to fear, but something to study. He wasn’t entirely certain he liked it.
“I have a question for you. Do you already know, or shall I ask it?”
“Both,” she said.
“You said they’d be showing up in the afternoon. Can you tell me more precisely—”
“They’ll hit lower atmo, near enough to pick up on Serenity’s gear, at 13:18 local time, which will put them seventeen point three minutes from nearest landfall.”
“Thank you.”
He stood up and got out, because, gorram it, she was creepifying. He went off to find the pilot. Then he had to talk to the captain, now that he knew what to tell him.
“And that,” he said, “ought to be all you need. When it’s time, hit this. If that light goes green, it’s working.”
“What if it doesn’t go green?” asked Kaylee.
“Then it isn’t working.”
“But what do I do?”
“Call me.”
“You’re going to be able to tell me how to fix it while you’re in the middle of landing a shuttle through a wall inside a building?”
“No, but I’ll know to panic.”
“Wash, are you worried?”
“Worried? No, not at all. So scared my sphincters have slammed shut, but not worried.”
“Wash—”
“Kaylee, I know you want me to say something reassuring. And believe me, I’d love to. But this is the most insane thing we’ve ever done. And what with one thing and another, that bar has been set pretty high.”
Kaylee sat down in the co-pilot’s seat, and turned away. Her shoulders shook.
“Kaylee—”
“I just don’t want you to die. All of you. And I don’t want you to die when I’m not there. What am I supposed to do if you all get killed in there? And what are you doing it for?”
“Why did you say you were in?”
“Because… I don’t know. I just did. I am. I’m not going to say I’m not in.”
“Well, if things go bad, I’ll bet River could learn enough to fly Serenity out of here.”
“Wash!”
“I know. That isn’t what you mean.”
“You’ll be in touch, won’t you?”
“Of course I will.”
“If things get bad, will you let me know?”
“Why?”
“Cuz.”
“Kaylee, what are you going to do?”
“If you die, I can put River and Simon into the other shuttle and… what do you care, anyway? You’ll be dead.”
Wash stared at her for a moment. He knew what she meant to do; the question was, how to talk her out of it?
“Actually,” said someone whose voice he didn’t recognize at first, “I have an idea for something that would be much more useful, and leave you alive at the end of it. Maybe us, too.”
Wash looked up and saw the Alliance agent, just entering the bridge.
“What are you doing up here?”
“Looking for you. You’re Hoban Washburne, right?”
“Wash,” he said. “And what were you looking for me for?”
“Like I said, I have an idea.”
“I’ll have to ask the captain, whatever it is.”
“How about if you listen first, and then decide what you want to do about it. And you—Kaywinnet Frye?” Kaylee nodded. “You listen too, because if it works, you’re going to have to do it.”
Kaylee nodded again, and they listened.
Three minutes later, Wash looked at Kaylee. She looked back at him with an unusually serious expression; her eyes were just a little red, but they were dry.
“On the other hand,” said Wash. “Maybe we don’t have to ask Mal after all.”
“That sort of puts it on me, don’t it?”
“Well,” said Wash. “In a manner of speaking, from a certain perspective, I suppose you could say that your rôle—”
“Yes,” said Kit.
“I was getting there,” said Wash.
“Can you do it?” asked Kit.
“Oh, easy.”
Wash stared at her. “Kaylee, sometimes you… all right. I’ll set it up.”
“And,” said Kit, “I should get back to the shuttle.”
“I’ll walk with you,” said Kaylee.
She felt Wash’s puzzled look on her back, but didn’t want to take the time to explain. Besides, she had no idea what the explanation was.
When she hadn’t said anything by the time they passed the dining room, Kit said, “What’s on your mind?”
“Why do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Work for the Alliance.”
“Oh. That. I thought you meant why do I betray them by not reporting that I know where a pair of badly wanted fugitives are.”
“No. Well, that too.”
“I think it’s a good idea that people like Sakarya be stopped. Don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but does that mean people like Simon and River have to be hunted down, when they never did anything?”
“Seems like it does.”
“Well, that’s wrong!”
Kit didn’t say anything.
“You know it is,” she continued. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? That’s why you’re doing this. Because you know what they’re doing is wrong.”
Kit still didn’t say anything.
“You know, they grind people up. People like Simon and River, and people like you. That’s what they do. They grind people up.”
“I know,” said Kit.
The others had left to go about their business, except for Simon, who sat with her, but was lost in his own thoughts. She stared at the tabletop and waited for what had to be coming. It took several minutes.