Badger arrived at the ramp while Hoya was closeted with the Shepherd. He brought only two men: the big black with the dreadlocks who guarded the door to his inner office, and the older bald-headed fellow who seemed to be Badger's right hand. Both were armed. Badger was now wearing a 'business suit' more appropriate to Eavesdown, complete with derby. Mal and Zoë and Jayne waited just inside the doors; they had changed into working clothes as well. Reckon we don't need to act like gentlefolk anymore, Mal thought.

The little fixer nodded to his men, and they halted at bottom of the crippled ramp with Hoya's guards. Badger passed his derby to his attendant and walked up the ramp alone. At the top, he lifted his nose in the air. "What's that smell?"

"Explosives," Mal said. "Bien didn't want to wait for someone to answer the door."

"Where's the Chief?"

"Talking with the Shepherd. Seems he's the star witness."

Badger eyed him keenly. "That right? Any idea how soon they'll be out?"

"None. You planning on waiting?" Reluctantly, he said, "Spose you could take a seat in the lower lounge."

Badger's eyes got sleepy-looking with amusement. "That the lounge my man fetched a chair from last time I came aboard?"

"The same."

"Then I'll take that one." He moved toward the hatch. "It's broke in right. I could sit in it all day." He lifted his eyes and smiled wide. Mal followed his gaze and saw Kaylee smiling back from the catwalk. But she didn't come down; instead, she headed for the stairs leading up to the kitchen.

At the hatch opening, Badger raised his head to sniff again as he headed down the stairs, but made no comment. "This as far as they got?"

"So I'm told." Mal watched the little man settle into the tatty mustard-colored armchair. Instead of taking a seat, Mal and his mate stood on the other side of the low table, where they could watch the passage leading to passenger country and the little fixer at the same time.

Jayne glanced from Badger to Mal. "I got other stuff to do, you don't need me here."

"Go on, then," Mal said, surprised at the big merc's show of trust. He was surprised again when Jayne turned back the way they'd come, instead of heading up the aft companionway or into the passenger dorm where Simon and River were.

The three left in the lounge turned at the sound of steps in the aft companionway. Kaylee came carefully down the stairs, a tray in her hands. When she reached deck level, Mal saw that the tray contained a tall tumbler filled with pale yellow-green liquid. "Thought I'd offer our guest some hospitality," she said with a pointed look at her captain.

Zoë questioned him with her eyes. They both recognized the contents of that glass. Remembering the fancy food and drink they'd just had at Badger's, Mal wished he'd thought to beg something from Inara's private stock before the little fixer had arrived.

But Badger gave the girl a smile as she approached. "What's this?"

She set the tray down on the low table in front of him. "Nothin much, really, just my homemade, cut with some reconstituted fruit juice. But you can get used to it." She offered the glass.

Badger took it in hand, raised it to his chin, and sniffed. "Sure, you didn't cut it much." He took a sip, and his eyes widened. "That's not bad. Hoo." He took another sip and grinned. "Minds me of the stuff I used to drink in stir. Good memories." He lifted his glass in salute to the beaming girl and set it down, but not on the tray. "Thankee. Think I'd best go easy on it, though. Might need a clear head soon."

"Are you hungry? We got some dinner left."

Badger patted his stomach. "Still full from me own. I'm content as a cat in a sunbeam, little girl. Say, you wouldn't have some of this to spare? I'm thinking I might take it home, if you're agreeable."

"I'll get it right now." The little mechanic snatched up the tray and nearly skipped up the stairs.

Zoë said, "That was kindly."

Badger made a dismissive gesture. "It was doing right by them does right by you. Me own version of the Golden Rule. And good business practice."

Mal said, "Everything you do go back to business?"

"Gonna have that discussion again, are we?" Badger sat back and regarded the man standing on the other side of the table. "A good business is a good neighbor, Captain. Least, one that gets all its custom from word of mouth. I piss people off, I can't just close the hatch and take off for someplace don't know me, now can I?" He picked up the glass of 'shine and studied it, seeming to admire the color. "How much did you get for those imprinted supplements?"

"We did all right."

"How much?"

Mal said reluctantly, "Two hundred."

"Credit or platinum?"

"Platinum."

"Two hundred platinum," Badger said, as if savoring the words. "Who bought the goods?"

"We sold them at Whitefall."

"Whitefall." The little fixer paused to think. "Main settlement on Whitefall got hit by Reavers two-three days after you left, wiped out. You couldna been more than a day ahead of them."

"Reckon not."

"You hadn't jumped salt on me, Reynolds, you'd've got at least twice that, without burning a drop of fuel or risking your necks in Indian country."

"So you say. But it looked like the deal was dead as soon as you opened your mouth."

"No. Just… fluid, owing to the shift in our joint fortunes." He scowled. "But you showed me no trust. And then you attacked my character. That's a bad way to do business, Sarge. Least, it is in Eavesdown."

Mal shrugged. "Reckon we got different ideas about opening negotiations."

Badger sighed heavily. "Reynolds, I despair of making you an honest man."

Voices came to them from the passage leading to passenger country. Priest and policeman appeared, talking in low voices, but fell silent before they were properly in earshot. Badger bowed deeply to the police chief, and started talking in Chinese. Mal was conversational in Mandarin, or, rather, the pidgin spoken by most Occidentals, and could at least make himself understood to a native speaker. But Hoya and Badger's palaver was too fast and smooth for Mal to follow. Hoya gave the fixer a sideways wave of the hand, dismissing something Badger was saying, and they both smiled.

Shepherd Book nodded to Badger. "Captain," he said, "I need to run a small errand, but I expect to be back tonight."

"Take your time," Mal said. He glanced at Hoya. "Haven't got a warning not to leave town yet, but I'm sure it's coming."

"On the contrary," Hoya said. "I think you should make repairs with all haste, pick up some cargo, and find somewhere else to be for awhile. For your own safety." He moved toward the ramp. "I will be in touch, however, if you're here tomorrow."

"Which reminds me," Kaylee said, standing halfway up the stairs leading from the galley. "We got a job offer from a real nice man while you were out." She continued her descent, gently swinging a bottle filled with clear liquid by its neck.

"That sounds mighty convenient," Mal said, sharing a look with his mate. "Not a doctor, I hope."

"Nope." She grinned. "A friend of mine I met at the Ball."

Serenity's captain held back a smile. Proper job opportunities were still scarce at most of their ports of call, their offers being mostly of the hired-thug variety that Mal spurned. But on Persephone lately, decent-paying jobs had been falling into their laps at every landing. "Doesn't want me to hit someone or poke him with a sword, I hope."

She reached the bottom of the stairs; Badger, to Mal's surprise, stood like a proper gentleman as she joined the group. "Nope," she said again. "Cargo hauling. He's got his own ships, so I guess that means we'd be carting something he doesn't want to risk bein caught with. But he's a straight shooter, Cap'n. I bet anything he hires us to for'll be legal as cows, anyway." She turned to Badger and passed him the bottle. "He said you sent him. Thank you for that."

Badger turned to Mal, smirking. "Pick up your jaw, mate. Why else do you think you always find fair work here?" With his sleeve, he polished the little flamingo pin on his lapel. "Mind, I always take my cut, else the people I steer your way would think you had something on me."

Mal's jaw muscles flexed. "Why?"

"I'm your gorram patron, remember?" Badger stared up at him. "I wouldn't mind seeing you go hungry enough to eat your pride, and choke on it too. But you got people aboard I won't see in want if I have a say." He fussed with his lapels. "So, like it or not, you're crew. We're just going to have to bloody get used to it, both of us."

-0-

Unnoticed by the others, Book left the ship side-by-side with Hoya. But as soon as they were on the street, they parted with a nod and the Shepherd went his own way. At a public terminal, he dropped a token in the payment slot and punched in a com code.

The screen lit to show the head and shoulders of a young man in clerical garb. "Southdown-" He recognized Book. "Blessings, Brother Derrial."

"And to you, Brother Stern. Has Sister Risa returned to the Abbey?"

The boy's face blanked. "From the market, you mean?"

"Yes, of course." Not used to lying, are you, Brother?

"I'm not sure," the acolyte replied. "Let me try her room." The boy looked offscreen for half a minute; he might have been watching the call signal repeating without answer, or he might be sending a message, since his hands were offscreen as well. Finally, the boy said, "There's no answer, Brother. I'll leave a message that you called. Do you have a number?"

"I'm afraid not. No matter, it was nothing important." He disconnected just as his handheld Cortex link, which seldom left the duffel under his bed, sounded its 'incoming message' chime: a short passage from Romans. He replied with the next verse, deliberately misquoting. Immediately, another brief message appeared. He sent a one-character acknowledgement and shut off the unit.

He took a leisurely trip through the shabby little port as the twilight deepened and the shop lights took over the job of illuminating the streets. He examined the wares offered for sale at a dozen shops, sometimes retracing his steps to pay a second visit. He watched a number of street performances, smiling at the appropriate times and dropping a coin or two in the artists' collection plates.

After a time, his wanderings brought him to a quiet eatery just off the main thoroughfare, a signless place one might pass by unaware if he didn't already know it was there. The waiter appeared to also be the proprietor, a wizened man with a drooping Fu Manchu. Although the place was empty, Book requested a quiet table for two; the old man glanced at Book's collar and topknot and escorted him to a high-backed corner booth invisible from the entrance.

He barely had time to settle into the seat before Sister Risa slid in opposite, dressed in lay clothing. She took off her cap and set it on the bench beside her, freeing her straight ash-blonde hair to fall over her shoulders like a shining mantle. Behind her rose-tinted lenses, her eyes were grave. "You didn't need to walk over all of Eavesdown, Brother. I could tell you weren't being tailed after a hundred yards. That limp looks painful."

"Couldn't pass up a chance to practice my fieldcraft, Sister. I won't be on sabbatical forever." The waiter brought two handleless teacups and a pot and left without inquiring about their order. Book lifted his cup and sipped. "Besides, a little extra caution is in order. It wouldn't do for the wrong people to get a fix on your comings and goings from the Abbey. I presume that's why you're out of uniform?"

She nodded. "And because I don't want 'Sister Risa' to become known as a regular in Eavesdown. Those same people may want to know who I'm seeing." She raised her tinted glasses and seated them atop her head. Risa's eyes were light gray, and her brows scarcely darker than her hair. As a boy, Book had had little exposure to pale-skinned people; when he had met Risa at seminary school, he had mistaken her for an albino. The young girl had indignantly set him right, saying that she was 'Scandinavian', whatever that was; after four decades, he still didn't know. He'd found her rather exotic, and had prayed more than once during his adolescence over his attraction towards her.

He studied his old friend. Even from no farther away than a table's width, Risa could easily pass for a woman half her age. Her figure was trim, and her bearing lithe. Her skin was smooth and clear, with just the faintest lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. With her hair down, the silver streak was barely noticeable, and might easily be taken for a fashion statement of some sort. Certainly no one looking at her would guess she was nearing sixty. Clean living and a clear conscience, no doubt. Then he examined her clothing: modest, but form-fitting and smart. "I like the outfit."

She nodded. "More durable than it looks. Not drab, but unremarkable colors and conservative cut. Solid middle-class wear for this part of the world. Something that would be hard to describe later."

"I wasn't evaluating it as a disguise. I mean, it looks very nice on you."

"Oh." She smiled. "Derrial. A compliment, really? Next, I suppose, you'll be telling me I'm pretty."

"I thought you were a lovely girl the day I met you, Risa. And you've become a beautiful woman."

She scoffed. "Oh, thank you," she said in mock irritation. "After that little stroke, I'll have to do a penance tonight, and meditate on the perils of vanity." She sipped her tea. "Teasing. I shouldn't disparage His gifts, I know. My looks have been useful more than once. I just wish I made better use of them. Poor stewardship on my part, but trying to steer a man by enticing him is extra risky for a nun. Would that the Council had taken your suggestion seriously."

"Which one?"

She rolled her eyes. "The one about Companion training for Sisters of the Order. Those women know how to turn a man off and on at will, and do it without offending him – or injuring him." She took another sip. "Alas, the Elder Fathers feared for our maidenly souls should we be educated in such whorish wiles. Apparently beating information out of our targets is more virtuous than batting our eyelashes at them." She set her cup down. "You've got me doing it again."

"What?"

"Talking shop. Which we're not supposed to do with you. Orders from His Excellency the Bishop himself."

He scoffed and raised his cup. "Risa, I need some information. About the business on Foundry One."

The smile dropped off her face. "Operational security, Derrial." She picked up her tea again and sipped, hiding behind the cup. "I should never have told you about it."

"Your indiscretion may have saved the life of one of my flock."

She set the cup down with a little clunk. "That sounds so strange, coming from you. 'My flock.' Are you really building a ministry? I thought your shipmates weren't churchgoers - bereft of faith, even."

"Well, the captain's a man who's turned from God, that's certain - rather, of any God embraced by a church. I'd call him disaffected. But he has a good heart, and follows a moral code of sorts. Another of the ship's company is a Buddhist, but she's a wonderful person and strong in her faith. As for the others, who can say? I really don't know if I'm strengthening their faith. But I'm sure they're strengthening mine."

She nodded. "He was right, then." She took her cup in both hands, raised it to her lips, and smiled behind it. "He's been hinting that he'll be setting my feet on the road next."

Book scoffed. "I think you'll be Southdown's first abbess first. How could he think you've lost your faith?"

"I've known him almost as long as you, Brother. He's never misjudged a person. If he says I need to go on a pilgrimage to refresh my spirit, I won't question. I'll leave my weapons behind and find some quiet corner of the 'Verse to settle, and renew my relationship with God." She leaned back with her cup against her chest. "All right, I'm hooked. What's this about your people being in danger?"

"The limp isn't from the walk, Risa. You know a mercenary leader by the name of Bo Bien?"

Her face closed. "When?"

"Just this evening."

"Tien shiao duh. His drive couldn't have cooled off yet. What happened, and what was he after?"

Book verbally sketched the merc captain's connection to his folk, related the set-to earlier, and offered an assessment of the man's likely next actions, all in under a minute.

Risa nodded. "He arrived at Foundry One just before the staged labor riot was supposed to begin. We think he was hired to make sure the right people got killed in the uprising." She shook her head. "The sooner that one comes to Judgment, the readier he'll be. Can you imagine what further burdens will be on his soul ten or twenty years from now?"

"Jail would keep him from mischief almost as well as death."

She leaned forward again and stared into his eyes. "We're not jailers, Brother."

The way she said it raised hairs on Book's neck. He had known the woman before him since they'd been teenagers. For over forty years, they'd worked and studied and trained together at the Temple and the Abbey, and done all manner of 'missionary' work together; undercover, they'd played business partners, mortal enemies, criminal and victim, even lovers. He trusted her with his life. But there was a shadow on her soul that the light of trust and friendship would never banish. Perhaps that's what Bishop Sato means to free her of. He said, "I need to know about his stay on Foundry One. I'm not asking you to give up any secrets, but you may have information that's difficult to get elsewhere. And… I might need more than information. Will you help me, Risa?"

She sighed. "How could I not?"

-0-

Badger stayed a bit longer, seated in the battered armchair as if it was a throne, and made small talk, mostly with Simon and Kaylee, while he drained his glass of 'shine. Mal was surprised by the young doctor's easy acceptance of the little fixer, who shared too many eye-to-eye smiles with Kaylee for the captain's comfort. But Mal couldn't help noticing how often Simon cast an eye toward the passenger dorm, clearly apprehensive about the prospect of a visit from his sister.

Finally, Badger picked up his bottle and took his leave. Mal and Zoë escorted him to the ramp. At the sawtoothed inner doors, Mal said, out of the little redhead's hearing, "Doesn't seem likely we'll ever be friends, Badger. But I reckon if we can trust each other enough to do business, a certain amount of respect should come with the deal."

Badger stopped. "Well, isn't that bloody generous of you."

"But," Mal went on as if Badger hadn't spoken, "this ship won't take another job from you before I know what kind of return you're lookin for from your investment." He gave a meaningful glance back to the hatch between hold and passenger lounge, where Kaylee stood smiling after them. She saw them looking back and gave a little wave.

The little fixer smiled in return and raised his hand in farewell. Voice low, he said, "I'm getting more return than I was ever looking for, this mo."

"And what about River? What business are you doing with her?" And what do you want in return?

"Whatever, it's nothing to your fortunes or your safety, so it's none of yours."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Judge away. I don't chatter about my clients' affairs." Badger faced Mal squarely. "What is it about me that bunches up your knickers, Sarge? You even know?"

Instead of answering, Mal said, "I owe you a favor. I didn't ask for it, and I know you're not helping for my sake, but I'm beholden just the same. That don't mean I won't step between you and somebody I'm responsible for."

"Fang shin, Sarge. Only worthless men got no debts to repay." The little fixer turned away, towards the exit. The man holding Badger's derby polished the crown on his sleeve.

Mal said, "Badger."

Badger paused and turned partway back. "Eh?"

"The War. You wouldn't be the only one got cheated." Mal glanced at Zoë, standing silent a pace away. "Only, for us, it wasn't an investment."

Badger was still a long moment. Finally, he said, "So that's it, eh? You figure it was all just a horse race to me, and I'm just miffed because I put my money on the wrong nag? Think that's all I did during the War, while you and yours did the real work? That why you offer me respect like it's an act 'o charity?" He turned back to face the captain fully. Mal saw the little fixer's unencumbered hand curl into a fist before he deliberately relaxed it and stuck it into his pocket. "Let me tell you a thing or two about that. I told you I near turned out me pockets in the War. But I got back every penny I put into that lottery. We all did, and right away too, because it was run by honest scofflaws like me. Was after that I went broke. See, I was the Independent Army's rutting quartermaster, too."

Badger's two companions stilled in a manner that spoke of violence. The little fixer ignored them, his attention all on Mal, wearing an expression that made Mal wish Darcy was here to settle her boss before somebody got hurt. Then something changed, and Badger rocked back on his heels. "Not just me, o' course. More like an army of us, all petty criminals - back-alley traders who knew the right people, and career smugglers who found or bought safe routes to and from. There's more to beating a blockade than sneaking past the pickets with a full hold, leastways if you want to do some good. You've got to know what your lads need before they need it, and find someone who's got it, and work out a way to get it to them. Like I told you, most of the Independents' military hardware come from the Core side of the border – dirty dealings all, and not with the nicest of people. They were selling out their own side, after all; how much trust could we put in em? Niska was only one of them, and not the worst. You might have traded fire with your share of rude strangers, Balls and Bayonets, but I walked unarmed into many a room not knowing if I'd walk back out again. But I got the deals."

The little fixer began to pace across the width of the bay, while his men watched, the big black's scowl switching from him to Mal and back again. "And that's how I went broke. The suppliers and blockade runners were taking big risks, and not inclined to work for promises. But they knew if I promised a man payment and he did the job proper, he got paid, even if it came out of me own pocket. Plenty o times, whole shiploads of goods moved on just my word." He stepped close to Mal, almost touching chests, and looked up. "My word. But the patriots holding the Independent purse – the purse I filled – those honorable gents were a smidge slow to reimburse once they had the goods in hand. After a while, the ships stopped moving because I couldn't make any more promises. Mind, the money was still coming in. But nobody seemed to know where it was going. My guess is a few blokes saw where things were headed and took out a little insurance. By War's end, all I had left was me mum's house, Howard's old office at the Docks, and my people.

"I busted my hump for the Independents. Risked me life, bartered my honor, and threw away me fortune. And what come of it? The Alliance flag flies over every rock in the 'Verse. The same smug barstids sit behind the desks and up on the benches, just mouthing different lies in their speeches. More ships travel 'twixt the worlds than ever before, never mind that most of them got company logos on the hulls. Commerce is way up, and me business is better than ever. I made back what I lost in half the time it took to make it. So what did I do it for, eh? What?" He glanced at the bootlace wound around Zoë's neck, then circled Mal, curling his lip at the captain's duster. "So a bunch a losers could strut about in tatty bits o' their old uniforms and look down on me and mine… cause they fought." Sarcasm filled his voice, heavy and hard as stone. He passed the bottle to his baldheaded companion, who looked at it dubiously. He accepted his derby and twirled it between his hands as he set it on his head. Then, with a final dark look from Badger's dreadlocked bodyguard, the three of them passed out into the shadowy, bustling street.

-0-

The little personnel hatch atop the center section of Serenity's hull opened, and Jayne climbed out, lifting Vera through ahead of him. He was careful not to bump the fancy Callahan battle rifle against the hatch's rim; he knew the big scope he had mounted on its rail was dialed in proper, and he didn't want to bend it up.

He closed the hatch behind him and crouched low, keeping out of sight from the galley windows as he moved forward. There was a lawman aboard, after all, who likely wouldn't approve of Jayne's solution to Serenity's little problem. He went up the gooseneck, keeping low, until he was near its top, just back of the bridge windows. As long as he stayed on his belly or knees, the streets below were out of sight beneath the hull, which meant no one down there would be seeing him either. Those streets, narrow and walled with two-story buildings, were dim with shadow already, but up here there was still plenty of light to shoot by if you had a good enough scope. A quarter mile to the south, the nose of a ship stuck up above the rooftops and the hulls of the cargo haulers surrounding it.

Jayne had taken trips aboard tailsitters like Peregrine, and didn't care for them much. He didn't like the way all the floors became walls and walls turned into floors once the ship hit dirt, and you had to swing down all the furniture to new positions and rearrange the rooms. And it was creepifying to look at ladders poking sideways out of the walls. It was a fengla way to build a ship, at least one that regular folks lived and worked on. But you could install bigger drives if you fitted them into stationary mounts in the rear, rather than on pivoting lateral extensions like Serenity's. Tailsitters weren't nimble, but they could haul heavy loads, and without cargo they were plenty fast. Jayne figured a ship that would take you somewhere in a hurry – or away from somewhere in a hurry – was just the ticket for a lieu mang like Bien.

From a prone position, he looked through his sight at the other ship, his sight picture traveling from the spade-shaped nose with its bristle of antennae down the flattish curve of the hull until he found the bridge windows. Had a fifty-fifty chance they'd be turned this way; guess my luck is holding. He stepped up the magnification until he could see the inside of the control room, which was presently empty. That was fine with Jayne. But if Bien meant to rat out the Tams, he wouldn't be walking past the guards Hoya had planted around his ship to do it. He'd have to wave the Feds, and that meant a visit to the bridge. That was fine with Jayne too.

He lay watching the ship through his scope, taking his eye from the eyepiece briefly to rest it and then returning. He felt a hunter's stillness settling over him, an unthinking patience that took no notice of the passage of time. He was a weapon focused on a kill zone. Once that zone contained a certain target, he would pull the trigger, and the hunt would be over.

The thick glass of the windows was worrisome. He thought a round from the Callahan could punch through it – he'd done for the windows on a space station once with it. But then again, those had been built just to hold back vacuum, not withstand the stresses of re-entry. What fretted him more was the possibility that the glass's refractive properties might mess up his aim, make him think Bien was half a yard left or right of where he really was. Jayne doubted he'd get a second shot at the pirate if the first missed. Jayne was looking through the window at a slight angle; which way would that throw the image off? His hands made small adjustments, anticipating the merc captain's entrance.

It grew too dark to see clearly; the bridge became a cave's mouth, sprinkled with small lights from the controls. Jayne thumbed a switch on the scope, enabling its low-light capability, and the ship's interior reappeared, though seeming somewhat flatter, the colors fainter than before. The air took on a chill; he wished, briefly, that he'd thought to bring a coat.

He worried a little more. What if the hwundan had already made his call? No, he decided, if that were the case, the Feds would already be here. The pirate captain was still weighing his options, that was all; before much longer, he'd be up here to send a wave. All Jayne needed was to wait for it and hope Bien didn't decide to sleep on the problem first.

Feeling thirsty, he took a single sip from his canteen, running it around his mouth before swallowing. He didn't want to fill his bladder, because he didn't intend to leave his perch before the job was done. No light remained in the sky but the nav lights of aircraft, beacons on the skyscrapers surrounding and lights from their windows, and a sort of ghost-light reflected from the lamps below into the hazy sky. He brought his eye back to the scope just in time to see a shaft of light fall into the control room from an open door.

He took a slow, deep breath, willing himself to relax. A shadow fell across the consoles: a figure in the doorway. A man entered the bridge – not Bien. The pilot, Jayne guessed, by the man's Wash-like familiarity with the room and its controls as he dropped into a seat and began fiddling with a bank of switches. Disappointment rose in the big merc until a second shadow fell across the station.

Bien.

Jayne flexed stiff fingers without breaking his sniper's rest. He stared intently through the scope at the man he'd come up here to kill.

Bien spoke. The man nodded and passed Bien a microphone. Jayne took his finger off the trigger guard and stuck it inside, feeling for the trigger.

Light exploded white-hot in his eye. He grunted and yanked his head back from the scope just as the thunderclap of an explosion reached him. He looked across a quarter mile of darkness towards Peregrine, which wasn't all that dark anymore. Spots swam in front of him, but he closed his right eye, the one he'd had to the eyepiece, and they vanished. Instead, he saw a fountain of sparks cascading down Peregrine's hull, illuminating it dimly before they faded out. In the unseen street below, the crowd sounds paused, and then resumed, higher-pitched. He put his un-dazzled eye to the scope and looked up at the other ship's nose, and beheld a cluster of glowing stubs that had recently been Peregrine's antenna array. Guess he won't be waving the Feds tonight.

He dropped the sight picture to the bridge. All the lights were out, but the space was bathed in flickering light from a fire inside the room somewhere. No one was in sight. Smoke wisped out of a hole in the window – not a bullet hole: it was too big, and oval-shaped, with a dribble of melted glass trailing down the lip like wax from a candle.

There was a similar hole in the steel wall on the other side of the control room. Jayne was half sure that, if he was to circle around to the other side of the tailsitter, he'd see a hole where the gorram beam had come out.

Where was the shooter? Lining up the two holes made for a narrow cone of likely sight lines, but there was nothing closer than some city towers at least a mile away to the north.

That wouldn't matter, he thought. Not to a beamer. All you need is a good scope, a solid rest, a steady hand, and lots of power.

One of the distant towers was now dark.

His eyesight was clear now; he returned to his scope and examined the windows again. After a moment, he saw the pilot rise into view, coughing.

Jayne had once seen a family that had been forced to take shelter in their cellar while their house burned to the ground above them. After things had cooled enough, they'd forced the buried trapdoor open and dug their way out through the smoking rubble. Jayne was reminded of those folk just then, as he watched the man looking around in a daze, swaying and blinking, his hair going every which way and his eyes too white in his soot-streaked face. He glanced around the floor, and found something that widened his eyes still more and turned his mouth into an O. He fell to his knees and was out of sight again.

By now, the streets must be full of people looking hard at high places, Jayne thought. He back-crawled until he was sure he could rise to a crouch unobserved, then skedaddled for the hatch.

-0-

Standing on the deck of Serenity's lower bridge, Shepherd Book pressed his cheek against the glass to watch the firelit plume of smoke jetting from Peregrine's bridge window. Above him, Wash called down, "Do you see that?"

"I surely do," he called back. The smoke was thickening and turning darker. One of the other ship's window panels popped and fell toward the street as flames licked out of the opening. "I'm fair certain half of Eavesdown does, too." From this window, he could see along several streets; many people were watching the stricken ship and talking excitedly. More than a few were staring hard at Serenity as well. "Should have seen it coming," he muttered. "Girl never was one for half measures."