The surface shuttle back to Eavesdown was crowded with working-class folk in worn and dirty clothes, all headed home after a day's work among the affluent. Rather than take widely-separated seats, the three shipmates stood in the aisle, each with a hip braced against a seat back, swaying with the vehicle's motions. Jayne held Missus Eaton's pie between his big hands as if it belonged on a velvet pillow. Mal absently watched the rows of large neat houses slip by the windows. He was sure they belonged to respectable folk, ambitious and smart, with solid reputations and roots in the community. He wondered how many of those folk owed their prosperity to the sacrifices of better men.

Through most of the War, Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds had been fairly certain that he and his comrades were being used by men with motives baser than patriotism. But the Independent cause was one that touched the heart of him and defended what he held good, and he'd figured that, as long as those men helped him achieve his goals, what they wanted from the War didn't much matter. It wasn't until Serenity Valley that he'd seen the fatal flaw in that line of reasoning.

After four years of grinding defeat, Hera had been the Independents' chance to turn the tide. It was a mining world, rich in materials vital to the Alliance war effort, and the Core needed it intact. That meant sending an invasion force to take and secure it, unlike the Alliance's usual practice of bombing a world into submission, then sending troops in to clean out pockets of resistance. The Alliance, its offensive capabilities stretched thin as it advanced further into the Rim and the theater of operations expanded exponentially, had allocated most of its uncommitted ground forces to the assault. The Independents, however, had got wind of the enemy's plans in time to send a force of their own to defend the little world. And, for once, it had seemed as if the Rim Worlds held the better hand.

The Alliance commander's plan had been simple. Relying on speed and surprise to establish landing sites on what he'd thought was a lightly-defended target, he'd left most of his task force waiting nearby at a rendezvous point just outside the system and dispatched a spearhead force consisting of his strike carriers and a handful of support ships. The carriers would deploy their small contingent of ground-support aircraft as they descended, to provide cover for the beachheads. Once the troops were down and in possession of the principal mining and ore-processing facilities, he'd thought, he would call for the rest. His boots on the ground would keep the mines running and hold the prize against any remaining Rim troops; his flotilla of naval vessels would arrive and take up positions in orbit and on picket well ahead of any Independent relief force. There were tactical advantages to guarding a planet from orbit rather than further out, advantages having to do with mobility and fuel conservation that Mal understood better as a ship's captain than he had as a sergeant. All he'd known then was that each side wanted the bulk of their ships circling Hera when the other fleet arrived.

The Independents' plan had been simple too. By the time the Alliance had appeared overhead, the Rimworlders were already well dug in and hidden from eyes aloft. As soon as the troop carriers hit atmo, they would be sitting ducks for ground-based missile batteries; whatever remnant of the assault force that reached the ground should be easy pickings for the Independent forces. At the same time, the Independent warships would come a-running from their own hiding place, a rubble field at a nearby libration point much closer to Hera than the Alliance's staging area.

The Independent Navy didn't have any big capital ships like the Alliance battlewagons, nor dedicated atmospheric craft. What it did have were a great many converted merchant ships, some of them small and sturdy enough to serve double duty as patrol boats and ground-support craft. While the larger and more heavily-armed vessels waited in orbit to meet the Alliance fleet, the Jayhawks and Cerberuses would make short work of the Alliance skiffs, and then commence to pound the surviving Khangs into the ground like tent stakes.

The Rim Worlds had no use for the mines – their industry wasn't up to making their own arms out of ore – but the General Staff reckoned that, once they'd crippled the Core World force, they could hold Hera against anything the Alliance could spare to send against them, until the purplebellies' war effort withered for lack of essential materials. Nobody believed the spoiled Core Worlders would be prepared to tear down their pretty skyscrapers and strip-mine their nature preserves to build warships.

It was a battle the Independents should have won. But Mal remembered a quote from some old general, maybe from clear back on Earth-that-Was, that he'd seen proved time and again during the War: "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

At the beginning of the fight, he and Zoë had stood outside their camouflaged bunker, looking into the sky. He'd watched the tiny stars of the Alliance transports' drives get bigger and bigger, and waited for the SAM batteries to put paid to the invaders. But no exhaust trails had lanced up from the ground to meet them, and too soon he'd heard the drives change pitch as they'd neared the ground. The Browncoats had come boiling out of their hides and engaged the vessels, and even destroyed a few in the air with point-defense antiaircraft guns. But the others had grounded safely and disembarked their troops, and the Independents had paid dearly for their small success under the guns of the enemy's skiffs.

Of their own promised air support, there was no sign. Mal learned, much later, that the signal to execute the plan hadn't come to the hidden Independent fleet until the battle was joined on the ground and the Alliance fleet was already on its way to Hera. So, instead of meeting the enemy after taking possession of the orbital high ground as they'd planned, they'd been forced into a desperate battle in the space around the little world, a battle which favored the enemy and thus of necessity included every able Rim ship – including the ones originally intended to back up the foot sloggers.

The Independent forces on the ground, after their initial attack, had been forced on the defensive. They'd been prepared for the worst – out of habit, since the worst was what they'd got used to - and constructed a defense in depth, with elaborately fortified primary and secondary positions. But they had faced an Alliance force that, despite their losses at the beachheads, was still more than twice their size. And the Alliance air support, scant as it was, had nevertheless dominated the sky, and begun to chew holes in the Independent lines. By dusk, Mal and his men had received the first order to fall back. Under a sky lit with the flashes of fire both from the skiffs and the ground defenses, and streaked with the occasional comet trails of dying ships falling from the battle above, the Browncoats had been forced to withdraw - first to the rammed-earth strongpoints of their well-prepared fallback positions, then to the sandbag bunkers of their third line, then, finally, to the redoubt they'd built in a barren steep-walled canyon with the misnomer of Serenity Valley.

Defensively, Serenity Valley had its points. Its narrow confines and high walls made it an unhealthy place for the low-flying skiffs, not least because they had so little room to dodge. And the Alliance ground forces had found themselves unable to deploy their full strength across the narrow line, negating their numerical advantage. From strongpoints across the valley floor, the Browncoats had held the pass dividing the eastern and western halves of the valley like Horatius at the bridge, while marksmen sniped at the hapless purplebellies from spider holes in the canyon walls, turning it into a killing ground. The Valley would be a very hard place to dig them out of.

It was also, unfortunately, a very hard place to get themselves out of. Retreating to Serenity Valley was an admission that the Independents had lost the initiative and that their objective was not victory, but survival. The ground forces' only hope was that the space battle would go to the Independents, or at least that some ships could be freed up to provide air support. The Khangs were almost shoulder-to-shoulder on the valley floor, begging to be strafed and bombed. The Independents could still snatch their desperately needed victory, if only the men on the ground could hold until the ships came.

The Alliance commander had sent an officer with a white flag to the dead zone between the opposing armies. At the time, Mal's squad had been had been holding a position high on the steep slope at the base of the valley's northern wall. He'd seen the truce party approach through his binoculars, and it had seemed to him that the boys in the crisp gray uniforms were a mite unhappy to be there. He'd seen the Alliance officers standing at the edge of the minefield while one of them shouted across to the Independents on the other side, and, after a short wait, get escorted in. He'd also seen the Khangs come back, with two of them carrying one of their number on a stretcher. He'd heard the story of the meeting later from men who were there, in the internment camp where he and Zoë had waited for the War to end.

The Alliance party had demanded a parley with the opposing commander to discuss the current situation. Though there hadn't seemed much to talk about, the Independent commander, Colonel Xian, had received him at his forward command post out of military courtesy.

Things hadn't stayed courteous long. The ranking Alliance officer in the delegation, a mere captain, had offered the 'rebel' forces fair treatment if they laid down arms immediately; otherwise, he couldn't be responsible for their fate if the Alliance troops had to pry them out of their holes like rats. The perfectly attired officer had looked around at the Colonel and his staff and offered them their own barracks, separate from the rabble outside, and hot water for bathing.

Colonel Xian had sent the Alliance general's white flag back with blood on it. He'd only broken the man's nose, but it was enough to make the general swear that he'd 'walk through' Serenity Valley, with his troops' boots sinking at every step into mud made with the rebels' blood.

The hwundan had damn near made good on his promise. The Independents liked to think Coreworlders were all pampered jibas, but their troops were tough and disciplined and well-equipped. The Alliance skiffs had massed at the edge of the minefield and bombarded it to detonate as many as possible; then the troops had rushed across. They'd taken casualties, from intact mines and Independent fire both, but they'd come on, re-formed on the other side, and advanced. The purplebellies couldn't bring their full force against the Independents in the trough of Serenity Valley, but their attack didn't weaken as it advanced, either; their huge reserve had allowed every Alliance trooper who fell to be immediately replaced. They'd taken their losses, closed ranks, and kept pouring fire into the Independent lines.

Meanwhile, the Independents were being ground down and forced back. The skiffs had hammered at the front line, and overflown it to strike deep into rear positions as well, tearing up the Independent command-and-control. Time and again, Mal's squad had fallen back to a foxhole or bunker already strewn with bodies. By the time his squad had reached the last strongpoint, a spot where the Valley suddenly narrowed and the ground rose up toward the canyon's rim, the entire chain of command between platoon leaders and the General Staff aboard the flagship was gone. The skiffs were pounding the Rim troops with impunity, because all the big stationary guns capable of dealing with them had been overrun.

The space battle had gone to the Alliance. The remnants of the Independent fleet, unable even to evacuate their ground forces, had withdrawn, to live and fight – and run – another day, and Command had ordered the troops to lay down arms as it departed.

Somebody should have told the graycoats the battle was over. Mal had watched, frozen with horror, as Alliance cruisers, tearing a page from the Independent playbook, had descended under power to the rim of the canyon to train naval weapons on the helpless Rimworlders below, turning the valley floor to flame. The Independent plan for breaking the offensive strength of the Alliance had been turned back on them.

Mal had talked to many people, in the camps and afterward, trying to figure exactly what had gone wrong, and how. But it seemed that the Independent defeat had been the result of a string of bad luck and bad decisions. The SAM batteries hadn't taken out the Alliance strike craft because the missiles to arm them had never been delivered, and so the crews had been forced to helplessly watch the landings with empty launchers. The fleet in hiding had been told to expect the Alliance assault force to approach from an entirely different direction, and so its scouts had been out of position to detect the invaders in time. And bad intelligence had misled the General Staff about the progress of the battle on the ground, to believe that the troops there were already beaten, and lingering above Hera would only cost the Independents ships they would soon need elsewhere.

It seemed that the Independent defeat had been the result of a string of bad luck and bad decisions, all right. But, as firm a believer as Mal Reynolds was in bad luck, the string of mistakes and errors by the Independent higher-ups had begun to seem like a string of good luck for the Alliance that was too convenient to be accidental. Over the years, a darker suspicion had taken root and grown in his heart.

What if the leading lights of the Independent cause had never intended them to win? What if, all along, the Movement had been intended only to fight hard enough to pose a credible threat to the Core, as leverage in some negotiation, that Mal Reynolds and all who fought and bled with him were pieces to be sacrificed for other men's profit? That was the only reasonable explanation for the orders that had led to the defeat at Serenity Valley.

Badger had spoken of his efforts keeping the Movement in 'beans and bullets', but there'd been plenty of times they hadn't had either. They'd gone for days on soup made from boiled belts and wild greens, and Mal had had to use his rifle for a club to stop more than one cocky Khang. Plenty of times, it had seemed to him that they were being supplied just well enough to keep going, but not enough to win. And, after the War was done and that dark thought had taken firm hold of his heart, his memories of their supply problems had smelled of deliberation.

Mal would have very much liked to believe Badger – or Bertram Eaton, as some called him – was one of the men who'd profited from the Independent defeat. But there was no mistaking the thin-veiled bitterness in the man's voice when he talked about bad investments. Perhaps his high-bred partners had double-crossed him, fed him a bunch of promises and cut him out when it was time to divide the spoils. But somehow, he didn't think so. And that was bothersome, thinking of Badger as another victim of the War.

In his ear, Zoë said, "Does it really matter so much?"

He scoffed. It figured that Zoë would know what he was thinking just by watching him. Kaylee sometimes had that same uncanny knack, as if he was clear as glass to her. It seemed downright strange to him that Inara, trained to read men like books, would mistake his meaning so often. "I spose not," he said, "since we lost. We'd have come out on top, though, I wouldn't have liked owin my future to Badger and his army of thieves."

"Would you have felt like you owed them? He said they did it for their own reasons. And he might not have got the return on his investment he was looking for, but it doesn't look to have lost anything either."

"Didn't leave him scrambling just to get by, for sure."

The mate's eyelids lowered. "You're plenty moody right now, for a man stuffed with good food and a little tipsy on imported brandy."

"Maybe cause it came from somebody who paid for it by-"

Mal's com link to the ship beeped. Zoë and Jayne bent close as he brought it to his ear. "Ni hao?"

"First off, Cap'n, don't worry," Kaylee's voice said tinnily. "Nobody's hurt much, the damage is an easy fix, and the cops are here already."

Mal blinked. Jayne said, "Well, that's reassurin."

Before Mal's mate could ask after her husband, he said, "Where is everybody?"

"Simon and River are hid in the smuggler's compartments. I don't know if they really needed to, but Simon didn't want to take the chance with so many uniforms aboard. He looked the Shepherd over quick before he went in, says he'll be fine. Inara's tending him in his room. Wash is talking to the cops. Not Feds," she amended, "those fellas in the black pajamas who walk up and down the street all the time. Their boss is here with them, askin questions. Seems okay. His people are helpin drag out the bodies so we can mop the deck."

"Wo de ma," he muttered. "All right, what happened?"

"It was that jiba who wanted to hire us, our last trip here. The one that Badger sent packing. Guess he come looking for payback."

Mal refrained from correcting her about who had sent the merc captain packing. It seemed little Kaylee had taken an irrational liking to the little hundan, and wasn't likely to be argued out of it. He reflected, not unkindly, that a multitude of men must have stolen their way into the little mechanic's heart since puberty. "Go on."

"Him and four of his crew stormed the ship, lookin for you and Jayne I think. The ramp was up, but they brought it down with a couple charges on the 'stender mounts, then forced the inner door open with some kinda jack. Didn't take em ten seconds, like they done it a hundred times, the dirty pirates."

Reynolds's fist clenched around the com unit. "How'd you stop em?"

"Well…" She hesitated. "I'm not rightly sure. I was up in the engine room, and I heard the ruckus and came down the stairs with Wash right behind me. But by the time we got there it was all over. Now that I think about it, it's kinda strange they didn't spread out from the hold, dontcha think? They didn't even take the forward companionway. They all ended up in the lounge outside the infirmary."

Mal's jaw clenched. The only places the raiders could have been headed from the lower lounge were up the aft companionway to the dining hall and engine room, in which case they should have sent a man or two up the forward companionway as well … which made their likeliest objective further aft, to passenger quarters. "'Ended up.' They all trip on the hatch and fall down the stairs?"

"No." A pause. "The Shepherd and River were in the lounge when they come in."

Five to one odds, Mal mused, with River to protect as well; he wondered just how bad the strangely capable but elderly Bible-thumper had really been hurt. "You say he's okay?"

"He's walking stiff, the poor old thing. He was sittin on the couch holding his leg when me and Wash came down the companionway, with them four pirates layin on the deck all around. Says he fell down, and one of those fellas fell on top of him, that's how he got hurt. But not a word about what brought down the other three. And one of them is real dead, that's why we got to break out the mops. I was there when Simon checked the Shepherd over, and it looks like when he fell, he landed awful hard on his knuckles. Simon says he's got an old bullet hole in his left hip, something that might resent a sudden workout."

He decided to let that lie a bit; he had more pressing questions. "Your count's one short, little Kaylee."

"The leader hightailed it, looks like. For sure he's not still aboard. The police chief has men headed for his ship right now. But he stayed to talk to you."

Ten steps from the ramp, Serenity stank of explosives and burnt metal, a smell too familiar from his military service. The security chief, Hoya, was waiting at its base with Wash, Kaylee, and two of his men. Mal had never met the man, but had no trouble picking him out, even though all three men were dressed in the loose black trousers and jacket that served Eavesdown's security force as a uniform. Officers all looked alike.

Mal offered a small bow. "Thank you for your help. Would never have guessed the man would hold a grudge so hard."

Hoya didn't return the bow. Mal told himself that wasn't necessarily a bad sign. Authority figures usually didn't when on duty. But the man's expression didn't change, either. And he swept the three of them with eyes that missed nothing. "Out for the evening?"

"Dinner with some business associates."

"Any chance these 'business associates' might have known about Bien's plans?"

Suspicion flared. If Badger had set this up…

No. "Doesn't seem likely. No gain." The little fixer had already had River in his hands, and given her back. There'd be no percentage in cutting a deal with Bo Bien just to get Simon in the bag as well.

The security man said mildly, "Captain, if you would, please coax your two missing crewmembers out of hiding. I'll need to speak to them." When Mal hesitated, he said, "I don't give a hump what they've done, as long as it wasn't done here. And no one in my service is going to talk to any outside authorities, no matter how large the reward."

Mal nodded. "Let's head inside then. I'd like to check on my people."

"The only injury was to your … spiritual advisor," Hoya said, with a bare twitch of an eyebrow as he moved aside to let Mal and the others inside. "I suspect that in his… struggles, he angered an old injury. This man, how long has he been aboard?"

Mal walked through the hold with the policeman at his heel, the rest of the crew trailing. He paused at the bottom of the catwalk stair, near one of the smuggler's holes, and glanced at Kaylee, who widened her eyes in signal. He noted that Hoya's two guards had remained at the bottom of the ramp, their backs to the hold. "About a year. If he ever had a destination, he never told us."

The man seemed to weigh Mal's words for truth. "Just a passenger, you say?"

"Seems half set on convertin the bunch of us. Doesn't preach any, though, so he's tolerable."

"Does he ever …" The man shook his head. "Never mind." He went on, "I've already spoken to your pilot and engineer. If they have other duties…"

Kaylee was eying the hatch leading to the lounge, looking nervous. Jayne passed the pie to the little mechanic with both hands. "Take this with you. Lorry, don't drop it."

Kaylee looked at Mal, who nodded. She headed up the catwalk stairs. Wash hesitated, trading glances with his wife. "Wash," said Mal, "you might want to follow her upstairs and make sure of her." With a final look at his wife, the pilot turned for the stairs. As the echoes of their footsteps faded from the hold, Mal said, "Now, what did you want them gone to say?"

"Just sparing the girl, mostly," Hoya said. "She didn't look well when we rolled the corpse over and she got a look at the size of the hole in him." He passed through the hatch, headed into the lounge. Mal nodded at Jayne, then the hide, before following. Zoë trailed him through the hatch.

"Careful," Hoya said. Here, the unaccustomed smell was that of gunpowder, and a faint battlefield odor of spilled human insides. The rug was gone, and the floor still wet. He stepped to the couch and picked an assault rifle off the cushions – a gun not part of the ship's inventory. He removed the magazine and presented it to Mal and Zoë. "They were all armed with these. You recognize the ammunition, I expect."

Zoë extracted a round and turned it in her fingers. "Frangibles," she said. "No ricochets, lots of soft-tissue damage."

"Yes. These fellows meant business." Hoya looked intently at Mal. "And, if I'm not very much mistaken, they were after your passengers. Do you know of any reason for that?"

Mal head-shrugged. "They might have been after some reward money."

Simon appeared in the hatchway, Jayne standing behind him and pretty much blocking the view beyond. "Sir. I'm not sure my sister is fit to answer questions right now."

"Sorry to hear that," the security chief said. "But I'll see her, just the same. Sister, you said?"

Simon's face blanked. Mal smiled inside at the boy's lapse. "Well, yes. That is, I …"

Hoya shook his head. "We needn't speak names, I've seen your picture. Say nothing more. Let me see the girl."

Jayne moved aside to reveal River, who cringed against him as she stared at the security man. "Bu tong dan dong yang," she whimpered.

Simon said, "It's the uniform. She's -"

"I've heard." Hoya studied her. "'Just the same, only different', eh?" He said gently. "How different, nien ching da? And how the same?"

"Want to make things better," she said. "They all want to make things better – people, rules, worlds. Pull up weeds, hammer down loose nails, shape and mold, erase and start over. Can't find a filter, can't…"

"Don't be afraid," the black-clad man said. "You have friends here, all friends. Come inside where it's safe."

From the hatch, the poor touched girl stared down the stairs at the floor of the lounge. "Wasn't a game."

"No, indeed," the man said. "But it's all right." He took the stairs slowly until he was standing before her. Then he bowed – not a hands-clasped Oriental bow, but the sort one might make to a deb at the Governor's Ball. He extended a hand, palm-up. Reflexively, it seemed, River placed her fingertips in his palm. His hand closed over her fingers, and he brought her knuckles to his lips. "Very pleased to meet you, miss. I would very much like to talk with you, but I think you've had enough excitement for one day. Perhaps your brother could take you to your room and rejoin us."

As the sibs disappeared into the passenger annex, Mal said, "How much do you know?"

"Much," Hoya said. "It's my job to keep track of things, after all. And a ship with this one's penchant for trouble merits extra scrutiny." The police chief eyed him as if he was a plateful of something unappetizing. "Truth, I've considered denying you further landing privileges, despite the Council's open policies towards… high-risk visitors, but you have friends who are persons of quality, and that tips the balance back in your favor."

"Friends?" Mal thought of their 'goodwill ambassador'. "Our Companion, you mean."

"Guild members have special status, of course. But your Companion's needn't extend to you; she can bring her shuttle down from orbit and land anywhere on Persephone. No, I was speaking of your patron. I've notified him of your trouble, and he's coming to handle things."

"Patron." Hoya could only be talking about one person. Zoë moved close, but Mal knew better than to say anything, not with their docking privileges on Persephone hanging by this man's friendship with the little fixer. "He's on his way?"

"I'm expecting him any minute."

Simon returned, and the top cop fixed his eye on the young doctor. "Doctor, where were you when the raiders reached the lounge?" In a lower voice, Hoya said, "You don't want to lie to me, young sir."

Simon glanced at the infirmary door. "In there."

"But you didn't stay in there, did you?" Before the boy could answer, the police chief said, "The lump under your ear hasn't finished swelling yet."

The doctor shrugged. "I've been taking instruction in self-defense from one of the crew. I thought I could help."

"And did you?"

"I… might have provided some useful distraction."

Hoya regarded Simon with cool eyes, and glanced down at the boy's hands; Mal followed the policeman's gaze, and saw a split on the top of the second knuckle on the right one. Hoya nodded. "All right. I'm ruling the killing of Moe Chin, late of the Peregrine, an act of self-defense. Your sister won't face charges."

"My…" Simon swallowed.

"You didn't know?" The man raised his eyebrows. "Only one shot fired, and her right hand smells very strongly of powder, as do her clothes. She doesn't handle firearms?"

Mal said, "Not generally," taking over the conversation to get Hoya's eyes off Simon and let the boy recover his wits. "She's got no training, and my people get a mite apprehensive when she gets a gun in her hand."

The man nodded. "It wouldn't have taken any training. He couldn't have been two feet away, judging by the powder burns around the entrance wound, and a hit anywhere would have been fatal with that load. As I said, an act of self-defense. Just one more entry in your ship's file, Captain." The police officer turned aft. "And now, I'll see your chaplain."

-0-

Inara and Book turned to look as the door to his room slid open, revealing a trim Oriental man of middle age wearing loose black trousers and matching jacket: the uniform of Eavesdown's constabulary. The man's eyes flicked from the Shepherd to the Companion and back.

Inara said, "Blessings, Commander Hoya. You're looking well."

"Quite well, Lady Serra. You're as lovely and courteous as ever."

"Commander, this is Shepherd Book. I suppose you know he was assaulted by the raiders. He's still a bit shaken, I'm afraid."

The man's face didn't change, but he made no effort to keep the amusement from his voice. "That an attack occurred is not in doubt. Determining who played the roles of victim and assailant is somewhat more difficult."

"The man who was killed. I'm certain it was an accident."

"As may be, Lady. I've already ruled it an act of self-defense regardless."

"Inara," Book said, "will you excuse us?"

Inara was too good a Companion not to recognize the limits of her influence. She rose without protest and left. After the panel slid closed, Hoya said, "She's very protective, Padre."

Book ignored the policeman's use of the archaic title. "She's quite attached to the ship and its people. I'm sure our friendship provides her with some amusing stories to tell when she visits her sisters at Chapter House."

"I doubt she tells any such stories. Any more than you, when you visit Southdown Abbey, or Londinium Temple, or Crac d'Ospitaler," Hoya said, listing the three major headquarters of Book's Order – including the one not known to the general public. The man took Book's only chair, leaving the old monk sitting on the bed. "I'm not here to question you about this little contest, though I'd certainly have liked to see it. I haven't come to make trouble for you. Rather, I've come to find out if you're going to make trouble for me." He crossed his legs. "Are you here… in an official capacity?"

"Very unofficial, Commander. I'm on sabbatical."

The man's eyebrows rose. "This seems a strange vacation choice, if you're looking for a change."

"It is a change, though. More than even you might guess." He added, "These people are bending the rules only as much as they need to get by. Surely Eavesdown is full of such. Business as usual."

"This ship carries a crew with a combined reward on their heads of almost half a million. That is most unusual. And it leads me to wonder how random your selection of this ship really is." He uncrossed his legs. "I take it they don't know about you."

"They suspect I'm not just an itinerant preacher. The ship's security man knows, but he's not likely to tell."

Hoya's eyebrow twitched. "Cobb? I can imagine he needed some convincing you were harmless." He leaned forward. "The details and outcome of this incident are of no great concern to me. The reason for it, however, is. As are the possible repercussions. Bien arrived just today, in great haste, from Foundry One."

"I heard about the trouble."

The policeman paused to regard Book keenly, then went on. "It's an open secret in Eavesdown that Serenity is hosting fugitives with high prices on their heads. There's even speculation that it's a source of ship's income. But profiting by that knowledge by revealing it would be considered heinous behavior. I feel sure that girl could walk our streets with a knowledgeable escort and never fear for her safety, or worry that news of her presence here would reach official ears. But, as you pointed out, criminality comes in different degrees. Bien is a bad one. Now that his attempt on River Tam has failed and she's out of reach, he may try to sell what he knows to the Federals." He leaned back. "I'd like to know what a man in your… special position would advise I do about that."