The start of the trip was easy going along trails that were clear, well-marked, and smooth as sidewalks; Jayne reckoned that the fringe of the forest was well-traveled. Having looked at the maps Ames had provided last night, though, he figured that would change before they made their first camp.
There was a good reason why a planet full of farmers had left standing a forest covering almost a quarter of the little world's land area. Under the trees, the ground was about as flat as an unmade bed at a whorehouse. Sometime in the recent past - geological 'recent', maybe about the time folks on Earth-that-Was discovered fire - this area had been a bulls-eye for a long string of falling rocks, a bombardment that had heaved and split the crust and made it flow. The topo map showed a hashwork of overlapping impact craters of all different sizes, forming a maze of steep ridges, closed valleys, passes and saddles. It was no wonder the hundan who took all those girls had never been found, Jayne thought. He began to wonder about five men's chances of finding the girl and her abductor in such a wilderness, but roughly pushed the doubts aside. We'll find a sign. And once I'm on his trail, it won't matter what's between us.
Despite the abundant sign of game about, he had no doubt the area was well-hunted too. Likely the wildlife would become even more plentiful as they went deeper into the woods and the ways became less traveled, but all their hunting would be done within the first week of their journey. They had packed plenty of packaged food; it was Jayne's intent that they hunt for their meals early on, to conserve their field rations, and switch to what they'd brought before they were close enough for a gunshot or a fire to alert their quarry.
Despite the soft trail, the doctor began to lag. Simon had been weight training with Jayne and the Shepherd of late, but that didn't do much to build wind; apparently hiking had never been one of Simon Tam's pastimes. Jayne saw that he was placing his feet carefully and controlling his breathing. But each step took him a little farther behind. By afternoon, despite them slowing their march somewhat, the boy was trailing the group by forty paces.
The Hensons cast glances back at him, and at Jayne. The merc, having spent most of his life among hard-headed men, fell back to a position between the doctor and the prospectors. He understood their impatience, and it was plain what they were thinking. But they weren't keen to abandon their tracker, and Jayne's new position on the march made it clear he wasn't going to leave the boy behind.
Jayne dropped further back, close enough to talk to Simon without being overheard. "Ain't too late to turn back. You wouldn't get lost."
"I'll be fine." Simon's jaw clenched as he swung his foot forward and set it on the trail. "Tomorrow."
"You ain't provin nothin to her. She likes ya the way you are."
"I'm not here for Kaylee, Jayne." The boy turned his ankle on a patch of ground as smooth and flat as a tabletop, and almost stumbled. "I'm doing this for me. And the girl." He winced as he brought the foot down.
A suspicion crossed the big merc's mind as he contemplated the Core-bred medic in his borrowed clothes. "Where the hell did you get those boots?"
"Rosh and I are pretty much the same size. But his foot must be shaped differently, or maybe he just has a different gait. Guess I should have worn thicker socks."
Jayne hurried forward to rejoin the others. To Royce he said, "We're takin a rest. Where's the nearest water?"
The elder Henson pointed left, a small angle off the trail. "Stream that way, maybe ten minutes' walk." He locked eyes with Jayne. "We can't do this every couple hours."
"Won't." He nodded off into the trees. "Lead off. I'll see he gets there."
-0-
The Shepherd met Inara's returning shuttle as soon as it slid back into its berth aboard Serenity. As she stepped through the lock, she said, "Did they leave yet?"
"This morning."
She nodded and moved toward the galley. "I wish I could have been here."
"Your appointment calendar is always full when you visit a prosperous world without a Chapter House like New Home. It's part of your mission, after all – to bring the Guild to underserved markets, strengthen demand, and expand its influence."
She smiled. "You almost make it sound like a conspiracy."
"More of a business plan, I'd say. If asked. Did it go well?"
"Very. There's going to be a large social gathering in Capital City two days from now. I've been invited …"
"Of course." Book took two mugs from the cupboard as Inara filled a kettle – from a jug, not the tap – and set it to heat on the cooktop.
"If I'm not booked for our entire stay by then, I'm sure I will be after. So many Core World émigrés starved for culture."
"Not many locals, then?"
"Not many, at least not at this soiree. The wealthy New Homers tend to keep their own company. It's not like Persephone."
He measured finely ground leaves into a thimble-sized tea colander, snapped it shut, and offered its handle to her. "Ladies first."
Inara accepted with another smile, and dropped the utensil into her mug, waiting for the water to heat. She examined her companion carefully. Shepherd Book was out of his clerical garb and dressed in flannel workshirt and cotton pants, but his hands and nails were clean. "It's kind of you to welcome me back," she said, listening to the faint squeaks and bumps and occasional voices elsewhere in the ship. "Am I keeping you from your work?"
"Keeping the others from having to think of things for me to do, more like," he said. "I'm good for running errands, at least. I know the names of the tools and most of the parts, and I don't get lost when I'm sent to another part of the ship." The kettle whistled, and he poured water into their mugs.
"Speaking of errands." She stirred the colander in her mug. "Did you give Jayne my gift?"
"And your message. But I delivered them in the lower lounge, not outside."
Her perfectly trimmed brows drew together. "Why?"
The preacher hesitated. "I think," he said, "if I had gone all the way to the mule with him, I might have gotten in." When the girl made no comment, he went on, "Those men are in a killing mood. If I were with them, I might have needed to step in to prevent a murder." More silence. Book raised his eyes to meet hers. "But I'm not sure I would have."
She sighed softly and removed the colander from her cup. "I know it isn't easy for you, being here." She passed the tool to her companion. "But I think this ship is where you need to be."
"So do I." Book emptied the wet leaves from the device and refilled it. "But, Lord have mercy on me, I didn't feel ready for that test."
"Who did go with him, do you know?"
"Besides the Hensons? Simon."
The sculpted eyebrows lifted. "That's a surprise. Do you have any idea why?"
Book shook his head. "None whatever."
She eyed him keenly. "Well. Perhaps he'll have a calming influence on the others."
The Shepherd watched his tea darken. "I like the boy, but I've yet to see someone he has that effect on."
-0-
Simon lifted one bare foot out of the stream and inspected it: the sides, sole and toes were raw-looking and sporting an assortment of blisters. He applied salve to the swollen extremity. "It'll be cleared up by morning."
Jayne knew that the doc carried some pretty fancy treatments in his medical kit, bona fide Core World miracle drugs. But it was hard to believe any salve would heal overnight the mess the boy had made of his feet, especially since he'd still be wearing the same ill-fitting shoes. If experience was any judge, Simon would have a painful night, and wake tomorrow morning too bad off to walk.
"Why didn't you call a halt?" Gerrod, the oldest son, looked at the doc like he was crazy. "Before you got crippled up?"
Simon shrugged, still working the salve into his foot. "I didn't want to hold us up."
Gerrod didn't comment, just turned away. Dell, the youngest of the Henson clan, scoffed and sat down on a rock, shaking his head. Simon finished up, pulled fresh socks over his feet, and put his right boot back on, pulling hard on the laces to tighten the leather around his foot.
"What now?" Gerrod eyed the mossy bank lined with brush and small trees. "Gather wood?"
Simon shouldered his pack and stood. "I thought the plan was to walk until sundown."
"Simon," Jayne said, "you-"
"We've lost enough time because of me." He winced as he took his first step, but only the first one. He headed back up the hill to the path. "This is the way, isn't it?"
Royce stepped in front of the doctor, forcing him to halt. He regarded the boy for a moment, then passed over his walking stick. "This'll help." He turned, pointing with his chin. "Lead off. Just turn left at the path, you can't get lost." He stood and watched Simon trudge up the hill in a lurching gait, leaning heavily on his new walking stick. Then the prospector pulled a knife from his belt and applied the sawtoothed back edge to the base of a sapling. Once it was free, he unhurriedly began to strip the branches with the blade.
The others gathered their gear and followed. Jayne brought up the rear. As he passed Royce, the man said in a low voice, "You're right. He ain't weak."
-0-
Rosh Frye picked up his bag of tools in the forward hold and headed aft. It felt a little warm inside the ship after being closed up for the night; Rosh supposed the climate control was off setting again. Keeping a constant temperature aboard was pretty low on the 'to do' list, though; making sure the old girl wouldn't blow to pieces on takeoff came first.
The young mechanic ascended the short flight of stairs that ran along the infirmary's forward wall. He glanced through the window down into the ship's first aid station as he passed, wondering briefly why a tramp freighter with a total capacity of maybe twenty people carried such an elaborate setup; the clinic in town wasn't any cleaner or better-equipped than Serenity's.
Above the infirmary, Rosh stopped at a low opening in the wall, its cover already off and set aside, and laid his tools on the deck. He peered into the space and listened all around: the only sounds were from his father and brothers on the deck above, wrestling covers off the field generator hardpoints for inspection. God help them all if any of those were cracked, replacements would be impossible to find for a reasonable price, and welding the exotic alloy would be a very iffy venture …
Quit stalling. He got on hands and knees and crawled through, pushing the bag ahead of him, until he reached a space big enough to stand upright.
He was in a short narrow access hallway running between decks from the reactor to the hold. Unlike most of the ship's other human-accessible spaces, its paint was unworn, the colors sharp - because the place had been shut up like a tomb for most of the sixty years since the ship was built, he supposed. The air hummed faintly, its source all around him. A double row of big capped pipes protruded at an angle into the bottom half of the space, the ends nearly touching the floor; at chest height, a line of cabinet-sized electrical boxes was attached to the wall, status lights glowing. Pipes and conduit formed the ceiling. Aft, above the accessway, the passage ended in a blank circular cover, the reactor service cap. There was a lot going on in this little space.
He was here because someone needed to verify the condition of the systems which ran through it. The bridge instruments that should have reported that information were junk or plain missing, having been cannibalized for other uses. That might change, depending on the success of the rescue mission and Ames's notions of 'fixed up new,' but for now they just needed to be sure nothing was about to blow up or catch fire.
Rosh eyed the complex layout. As he had suspected, the inspection job would be very hands-on, and might take a week. Until it was done, he would be spending his days deep in the belly of Serenity, as far from other folks as a man could get and still be aboard ship.
Which was exactly why he had volunteered for the job. Simon's sister was somewhere aboard, working with the others, and meeting her eyes or having to talk to her was something he'd gladly work a week alone to avoid.
He put all thoughts of River Tam's eyes and voice aside and set to work. The telltales on the cabinets all showed the proper number and color of lights, so he could leave opening them up for later. He looked over the keg-sized pipes, which were storage tanks for the liquid helium that cooled the superconducting magnetic drive coil which circled the ship's belt line. The coil was an essential component of the old girl's artificial gravity, and if it wasn't kept damned cold, it would fail, hence the liquid helium.
But Wash and Kaylee had told them that the grav was acting up, which could be a lot of things, but low coolant was a reason for it which could turn catastrophic. They had to be sure the tanks were all at optimal capacity.
A glance down the row showed no obvious problems: no frost on any tanks or fixtures, and the indicators on the tanks all showed close to full, minus the space allowed for temperature expansion. He wasn't ready to trust his little sister's safety to a visual inspection, though. He put a hand on each of them: cool to the touch but not cold, which only meant that the insulation was doing its job or the tank was empty.
He sighed and put on a pair of heavy gloves from his bag. Each tank had an emergency relief valve; he started at one end of the row, opening the valve just enough to hear the tiniest of hisses, then shutting it. He began opening and shutting valves, one after the other. The air cooled, and he wondered how high the aitch-ee concentration was getting. He said aloud, "Rosh Frye is the biggest shagua in the 'Verse." His voice didn't sound funny, so he supposed the air was okay.
The valve on the fourth tank in the portside row wouldn't open.
Rosh drew a heavy breath. Even if this one was full, leaving a basic safety device like a relief valve nonfunctional was bad practice. But to change the valve, he'd have to empty the tank. He eyed the other storage units. He could shunt the helium from this tank into the others, topping them off. It wouldn't be risky, really, not with the ship grounded and the grav shut down. And it would only be for as long as it took to change the valve. He nodded to himself and got to work.
He started at the end of the row, filling each tank from the one adjacent, then refilling the tank he'd just tapped from the one next to it, each tank's level dropping a little lower than the previous one. When he depleted the tank adjacent to the one with the bad safety valve, it was nearly empty. He emptied as much helium from the bad tank as he could, then addressed the partial row of tanks on the other side, duplicating the domino procedure, and made enough room in the tank adjacent on the opposite side to finish the job.
When the gauge finally read empty, he knelt and began applying a socket wrench to the six bolts holding the valve to the bottom of the tank. Four of them came out easily, but two were too gorram close to the wall and floor; he could get a socket on them easy enough, but there was barely room to swing a wrench. The tanks must have been installed fully assembled and everything else built around them, he thought, with little consideration for maintenance. Typical. The bolts were long and fine-threaded, and he'd have to turn them a click at a time. If only he had thought to bring a
"Flex extension," said River.
He jerked and banged the back of his head on the underside of a cabinet. The wrench hit the floor and the socket came off, rolling away.
She sat cross-legged on the floor two steps away, between him and the doorway, wearing a pair of Kaylee's threadbare bib overalls over a tight short-sleeved shirt with a neckline that bared her collarbones. Her feet were unshod. The legs of the bibs had been cut almost entirely away, baring the entire length of her thighs as well; out of her usual baggy coveralls and full loose dresses, they looked a whole lot longer, and smooth, and pale as cream.
"Tien shiao duh," he said softly. The girl's outfit seemed damned light for the season, climate control glitch or no. He felt moisture on his upper lip. Maybe not. "What are you-"
"It's the reactor." She glanced behind her. "Even on standby, it puts out a little heat." River Tam's Core World accent had a way of slipping disconcertingly in and out of her speech; suddenly she sounded as if she'd been born and raised on New Home. "Hide and seek," she said. "Found you. I win."
Rosh swallowed hard. Kaylee had been fond of hide-and-seek, even after she'd reached an age where most girls give up such games. He had humored her, at first out of pity for his friend Matt's little sister with the tragic past. But as they had gotten a little older, the game had changed: they had been playing 'hide and seek' when he had followed her rustlings and smothered giggles up into the hayloft for the first time. He was suddenly very aware of how isolated this place was. He stood, looking around for the missing socket –
It was in her hand.
Rosh picked up the wrench and stepped toward her. "About the other day. I, uh …"
"Someone made love in here, once," she said absently. Her nostrils flared. "You could still smell the paint. They wore uniforms of a sort, coveralls. Maroon, like spent blood. They spread them on the deck."
Rosh felt the hairs on his forearms stir, but he didn't ask her any of the questions rising to mind.
She looked up at him from under her brows. "You didn't pick her just because she was pretty, and available. You like playing with broken toys."
Rosh opened his mouth, but nothing came out, his voicebox closed off by shock or anger, he wasn't sure which.
"Not like those other boys, the ones who scared her. They would have fed her hurt and fear, made her worse. You wanted to make her better." The girl's legs uncrossed smoothly as she rose. "You don't have Kaylee's intuition, but you like fixing things. It was too late for the sister, anybody could see that. But not her. She was as much a project as a sweetheart to you. You liked making her happy, making her feel good about herself and what she liked." River placed the socket in Rosh's hand, but she didn't let go of it. She looked up into his eyes again. "And you liked breakin her in, too."
He felt his ears catch fire. "I wasn't using her. I love her."
"You do." The Core World accent was back. "Loving someone and using them aren't mutually exclusive. I have direct experience with that. I've been someone's project almost since I could walk. Still am." Her fingertips were warm in his palm, her eyes dark pools a man could fall into and be lost forever. "You feel the same pull towards me that you did with her. You know damaged goods when you see them." She let go of the socket and lifted her hand. "But I don't need any more project managers. And I already have my first picked out. I just have to convince him."
"I wouldn't need any convincing." The instant the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to take them back.
River Tam regarded him with cool eyes, a look very different from any he'd seen on her. There was nothing girlish in it. He was suddenly reminded of the tall black woman who had gone off with Captain Reynolds to mend fences. "Be careful, Rosh Frye. There's a whole handful of men feel protective of this girl. One is rich and powerful. One is clever and ruthless and underhanded." She touched a pendant stone at her throat. "And the others are just plain dangerous."
River stared at an electrical cabinet whose status display showed the same pattern of lights as all the others. She touched an unlit bulb. "This would be on, if it hadn't burned out. Be careful when you open this one up. Wouldn't want something to happen to you. By accident." She turned and sank gracefully to her hands and knees at the crawlway opening, and Rosh swallowed as the scant material stretched across her pigu, rubbing over each cheek in turn as she crawled forward. The cutoff hems rode up, exposing the crease at the base of each -
"The sauce is toxic," she said, her voice turning echoey as she disappeared. "Attempting to sample may result in swollen features, difficulty walking and breathing, or broken limbs."
-0-
The hunting party camped for the night in a thinly wooded saddle. After their brief stop, the ground had risen steadily in a series of ridges, each higher than the last. When the light had begun to dim, Jayne had picked a high pass between two peaks where a fire would be hard to spot. He and Dell had each shot a brace of rabbits on the march, and the coneys were turning on a spit above a small fire laid in a high ring of stones.
"I suppose this might be called a mutiny," Mal said, his voice tinny through the com speaker. "Assuming the captain's authority and all. But putting you out the airlock at gunpoint wouldn't be much of a disincentive right now."
Jayne puffed up. "If you'd a been there, you would have sent me out here yourself."
"You're right. And you had every right to hire yourself out while we're drydocked. But you don't want to get in the habit of makin decisions for me, Jayne." Unspoken between them – at least while the rest of the crew was listening in – were the particulars and outcome of the last time Jayne had tried to do just that. Jayne supposed the whole crew must know about Ariel by now, but Simon and River's quick forgiveness had kept any of the others from making much of it, and now the events had become somewhat historical.
"I just thought he might take back the offer if he knew he wasn't talkin to you. Wanna ream me out for it, go ahead. Won't happen again."
"Get your feathers down. It turned out all right, and that counts for more than a little. But if you tell folks ever again you're the ship's captain, you're gonna need a better reason."
And that, Jayne knew, was the end of it. To get past the uncomfortableness, he asked, "Aright. Zoë talk to her husband yet?" Simon had traded a few short and guarded sentences with Kaylee and his sister, then handed the com back to Jayne and turned to the solitude of the fire.
"Just a few words. Still savin the battery, it's close to gone. We'll be back tomorrow, whereupon I expect the estranged couple to do some serious makin up. I just hope they can keep it down enough for folks to get some sleep. How's everyone holdin up?" By which he meant their tenderfoot doctor.
Jayne glanced back at the fire, where Simon sat turning their dinner. "Surprisin well. Then again, it's still the first day. Tomorrow should tell us more." He had a plan in mind, should the doc's rosy predictions about his readiness to march in the morning not pan out. But he didn't want to mention it over an open channel until he needed to, or before he was sure it would work. "If that's it, I'll sign off. Big day tomorrow."
At the fire, Jayne spread out the map for his four companions. It was a combination aerial view and topo map, with forest covering most of the page, and elevation lines showing the shape of the land underneath. "We're here. The girl got took here." He swung his finger across the paper, resting it on a spot marked 'Founder's Park.' "He wants to disappear with her quick, he'll take her straight in for a day at least, then pick a spot to den up." His finger sketched a wide circle deep inside the wooded area. "What's in here that don't show on the map? Towns, tradin posts, maybe a sawmill?" If there were folks living among the hills and trees, they might have information he could use.
Royce shook his head. "Nothing like that, not in The Woods. The only settlements are miner's camps, and not many of them. There are plenty of lodes here, but hauling them out is backbreaking work. A prosperous outfit sitting on a big strike will clear a landing field for the ore boat, but the forest takes it back as soon as they play out the strike and leave. You'll find a few tumbledown buildings, but not many people."
"What about caves?"
"Not in that area. No underground water to carve them."
"Hunter's camps?"
"Hunters don't usually come this far in, they don't need to. Unless they're looking for Old Granddad, or maybe Saska." At Jayne's look, the older man smiled. "You know. Every little town on the edge of the Woods has somebody who's been deep inside and seen a deer as big as a horse, with a rack this big -" He spread his arms wide – "And too many points to count. Or else there's this half-man, half-bear that you never get more than a glimpse of. He roams the woods and disappears at will…" His voice trailed off.
"Ayuh. This 'Saska' get spotted a lot, one place in particular?"
Royce shook his head. "It's just a story, an old one. People see Saska all over The Woods. If any of those sightings is really our man, it won't help us."
"Unless some folks have noticed somethin different about Saska lately," Jayne said. Tomorrow, he would have Papa Frye contact Ames and ask him to do a little detective work. He touched a spot on the map just a few miles from their camp. "What's this then?" At the elder Henson's sharp look, he said, "I know what happened there. But what is it?"
He shrugged. "Old mining site at the bottom of a crater. The impact fused the ground and walls – it'll do that, if the soil is right – so nothing much grew there. They cleared what little brush there was to make a landing site, then dug up the middle of the crater, where the lode was. The shack was probly where they lived."
Jayne nodded. "Aright. It's close enough, I think we should check it out."
It got so quiet you could hear the final squeak from the spit before Simon stopped turning it. Royce said, "You really think he might have gone back there?"
"Prolly not. But he might have left a clue behind. It's worth a look." Jayne flicked a glance toward their lame doctor, and Royce gave a look of understanding: the old pit was the only spot within a day's march where a shuttle might put down. "Hey, Doc. Those done yet?"
"I'd need a thermometer to be sure," Simon said, "but I think so."
Dell snorted and dug into his pack, producing a standard metal messkit. "I got one." He opened it and took out a fork, which he stabbed into the haunch of one of the coneys. He tugged, and the meat pulled loose, oozing juice. The smell, after weeks of ship's provisions, produced a rush of moisture in Jayne's mouth. Dell said, "Accordin to my thermo-metric instrument here, it's time to eat."
Everyone went for their kits. Jayne watched Simon, half expecting the Core World aristocrat to come up with a china plate and cutlery. Powers, just don't let him pull a rutting napkin out of that sack. But the doctor produced a kit just like everyone else's, acquired from God knew where, and accepted his portion of steaming meat without so much as a wrinkled nose, though Jayne noticed he cut his meat up a good deal smaller than anyone else. Must have been his training as a surgeon, he thought.
After dinner was done, Simon left the circle of light with his kit, presumably to wash it in the stream nearby while the others settled for a good wiping-out and a pass over the fire. About the time Jayne was starting to worry, he came in from the darkness with an armload of wood. Jane noticed it was all deadfall, dry and likely to burn easily with little smoke. The doc fueled and banked the fire carefully while the others spread their bedrolls.
Jayne watched again, wondering what Simon would bring out to sleep on or under, and wondering if the boy would change clothes for bed. Oh Ye of little faith, he thought as Simon spread a thick wool blanket, double-length, on the ground, folded at the foot for a serviceable sleeping bag, just like the four already laid out around the redly glowing fire. "Who packed your gear?"
"Rosh again," Simon said, setting a flashlight and some other tools on the ground next to his sleeping spot. "He seemed very concerned for me out here with all you mountain men."
"He teach you how to use them too?" Dell asked. That boy, Jayne thought, had a bug up his ass about Simon, and Jayne thought he knew why. The youngest Henson was only a few years older than Kaylee, and had been one of her rescuers. Seeing her look at the Core-bred boy with worshipful eyes probably grated on him, and for the same reason it had once grated on Jayne. If Simon was still with them by this time tomorrow, Jayne might have to take young Dell aside for some stern and unwanted advice.
"No," Simon said. "I have some experience sleeping rough."
"Where?" Dell pressed. "Some hiking park where they let you pitch a tent for the night?" He leaned back on his elbows. "With a park ranger telling you where to drive in the stakes, I spose, and skyscrapers poking up over the trees."
"There are places like that on Osiris, but no." Simon stared into the embers. "I spent a couple of months in a blackout zone."
Jayne shot a hard look at the others. None of them seemed to know what a blackout zone was. Only natural, he supposed; canny as they were on their home ground, they were still hicks who'd never seen a big city or had experience with a genuine criminal element. What the guai had Simon been doing in a place like that?
"What's that?" Dell said. "Place with no phone service?"
"Enough," said Royce, watching Jayne.
The big merc said, "Core World cities ain't all skyscrapers and fancy livin. There's places in the biggest of them where the law doesn't reach. The only time cops go in there, they go in like an invading army, and they get back out as quick as they can. There's two-legged predators a whole lot worse than bears in the 'Verse, boy, and that's where they live." He met Dell's eyes. "Tender little prairie dog like you couldn't walk in one side and come out the other."
Dell's nostrils whitened, but he subsided. Simon stared at the fire a little longer, then settled into his bedroll. Jayne watched the others settle in too, then threw a final stick on the fire and turned in. Tomorrow morning, they would head for the place where ten-year-old Kaylee and her sister had been held prisoner by a psychopath.