11

River fled, but not for the bridge. From the cargo bay she heard grunts and squeals and crashes. She raced for Jayne's quarters. Locking herself within, she ransacked the room, quickly locating what she thought might best help her. She loaded all she could atop a sheet, seized the corners, and then emerged from the cramped space dragging the bundle behind her.

Returning to the battle armed with more weapons from Jayne's personal stash, she ignored the commotion around her and made for the connector between Serenity and the alien vessel. Anything that distracted her got shot. So the creatures required mass and energy to grow larger or to replace what they lost while shifting. They had the ability to heal themselves almost spontaneously, and their anatomy or ability to alter it at will allowed them to survive what would normally be fatal injuries. Flint had consumed at least two of the beings, so clearly that was one of their weaknesses, but the question remained if Flint could be overpowered and consumed himself.

A lean, long-limbed, spidery thing landed softly before her and mantled its willowy body in preparation of seizing her. She cut it in two with an automatic burst and watched the result with morbid fascination. The upper half crawled toward the nearest upright surface, changing shape as it went. Extra limbs emerged, sprouting spatulate toes that allowed it to walk up the wall. While she was watching, she felt something tug at the bundle she'd been dragging and released it. The creature before her shot a length of thick, gobby, wet webbing at its oozing lower half and dragged it close. She could hear snuffling and other odd sounds behind her. The pale, fleshy, insectile thing she had mowed down seized its own lower body and began to devour it through a hexagonal-shaped mouth that flared open like an umbrella to accept the large morsel. It was unnerving enough to make her close her eyes and turn away. When she looked again she glanced right and saw that two of the creatures were greedily tearing into the sack of goodies she had pilfered from Jayne's quarters.

A large man who relieved tension by working out when he wasn't planetside, Jayne could be a voracious eater and had had been yelled at several times by his shipmates when he'd gone for snacks the size of complete meals in the middle of the night. Genuinely hungry and tired of being scolded for desiring seconds and thirds, he'd begun smuggling treats on board that he hid in his quarters. Proclaiming himself a die-hard carnivore, the bulk of his treasure consisted of salt-cured or smoked hams, dried and tinned meats, and prepackaged pork rinds. There were also a few packs of nuts and some sweets in the mix, but as she'd suspected, the aliens were happy to increase themselves with things that didn't run, struggle, or shoot at them.

She walked beneath the swelling spider-thing and entered the airlock. It smelled faintly of swamp silt rich with decayed matter, stagnant water, rotting vegetation. Nothing impeded her progress, and she continued on until the surface beneath her felt like fine, unglazed porcelain and had taken on a pearlescent sheen. The humidity was startling, the lighting dim and faintly blue-green. Texture in the short tunnel appeared all around her like veins, striating every surface and growing thicker the farther she went. River got the impression of entering an ancient, dank, swamp-filled forest and guessed they were hints of what the alien creatures' homeworld must be like.

The corridor widened slightly and grew darker still. She traveled until the floor beneath her feet felt too treacherous to safely traverse, thick with something that mimicked tree roots. The heavy, heady stink was far stronger and in the dimness she noted two distinct things—faint lights above and around her sunk within creepy little recesses, and water dripping from hundreds of uneven surfaces.

High above her soft lights blinked out and her brain informed her it was not an electrical function but an indistinct silhouette eclipsing them as it prowled.

"I'm not afraid," she called in her naturally soft voice, lifting a pair of sidearms.

"Nor do I fear you," replied a soft, warm, velvety voice too near her. She tensed, but failed to sense any movement from the direction she thought the voice had come from.

"You speak English well."

"Every language that I speak, I speak well."

Movement continued above her. The voice had sounded closer than before, but had emanated from a different direction. "I demand that you evacuate my ship immediately."

"Miss Tam," said the voice from very near her own foot, "we have unfinished business here."

"You're losing. Flint Fortner will consume you all."

"That would be wasteful," the thing replied from below and behind her although the thing above her was close enough that it made her body hair stand on end.

"Take your battle elsewhere."

"Perhaps it would be helpful if you thought of it as more of…a test."

She whispered, "What is he to you?"

Something murky and bluish lowered into her field of vision and faint ambient light gleamed across large eyeballs centimeters from her own. When it spoke again she could feel and smell its breath—vaguely sweet and oddly musky as though it had recently eaten something warmly fragrant with a peppery finish. "Our kind must test each other constantly to find our places in the hierarchy."

"So, he's important."

The figure oozed from above, slowly maneuvering itself directly before her. "When your species is critically endangered, every member becomes vitally important."

But Flint was tearing through them like Jayne through a pouch of jerky. "He doesn't feel that way."

"Innately he does," the alien assured her, seeming to swell in her vision, growing hotter and fuller, upright so it seemed.

"How could he bring his own kind to near-extinction?"

A hand that contained only two slender digits reached forward to pat the top of her head. River's breath caught in her throat as she realized she was unable to pull away. She uttered soft syllables of protest as she concentrated on moving more than her mouth and eyes, only to learn she was practically paralyzed in place. "Did he tell you what he's after? It's another of our kind who has actually been attempting to repopulate our species."

"He said he's human."

"My dear child," the thing said, enjoying her extreme discomfort as it allowed its warm, softly furred body and leathery fingers to glide freely over her slight form, "we all originate from the same source."

"Evolutionary variance."

"Yes," it said, its voice seemingly masculine, though she could not actually be certain of a gender. "Poor thing. Far, far out of her element. Attuned to deal only with her own kind. What sort of horrid individuals seek to do such damage to their own kind? To decide for themselves who is worthy of life and who is not? To determine through…whim who shall lead and who shall mutely follow or succumb to talents such as your own?"

"You are poison," River muttered angrily.

"You chose to ally yourself with an alien creature solely on the fact that he appeared clean to you, pleasant, well-educated, and unwilling to risk the lives of your companions."

She had chosen to ally herself with him due to her near-psychic intuition. She set her jaw and willed herself to remain calm.

The thing slithered around her. She could actually see a sort of odd movement in the shadows beneath it that suggested something along the lines of a slug or snake, perhaps even a pinniped. "Think what you like, justify your behavior any way that pleases you." The thing chuckled as it wound itself about her like a python. "Thought you'd sneak aboard, try and take us out, sabotage our ship. Little girl," the thing said, resting the soft spot beneath its short, wide jaw atop her head while wrapping its oddly proportioned forelimbs about her from behind, "feeling just a little overwhelmed?"

"You sent your people to be slaughtered," she accused.

"We did not confront him as an act of suicide."

"I don't-" she began, but the thing lowered its massive head to lightly nuzzle her right ear. Its breath was hot, the fur on its broad nose short and velvety.

"Rule number one of dealing with an alien species: never think of them as human."

And in that moment, helpless, even her superior intellect useless because she had no idea what she was dealing with, anger drained right out of her and her upper nose began to ache a little just below where it met her forehead. She refused to cry. Her friends and brother were still safe and this creature could have easily killed her by now had it so desired. So long as she lived there was always a chance that things would somehow go back to normal. The nightmare would end and she'd be the wiser for it. "You don't know if he will fail or succeed."

"This is how we test his worthiness."

"Worthy of what?" she queried softly.

"To lead us."

"To extinction?"

"We embrace our destiny."

"Then why…is he after the other guy? Is he also being tested?"

"We are, all of us, always being tested."

There had been no other sounds aside from the drip of water and the movements of the thing that had her. The vessel was large, but there didn't seem to be any other life forms present. She doubted it held such a small complement, but at the moment she and it seemed to be alone. "What should I call you?"

"Whatever comes to mind."

She mumbled, "Furry slug."

"As you wish."

"Your homeworld…has elevated methane and carbon content with high temperatures and humidity with a swampy topography."

"The main one does," the thing allowed, startling her with a long, slow lick from a thick, smooth wet tongue from her shoulder up past her ear into her hairline.

"How did you trap me?"

"All I required was the slightest touch. At that point I controlled it. You," it amended. "I deprived you of sensation below the waist and grew your toes through your boots and into the floor like roots. The rest of you I manipulate as I please."

"I've never…imagined a life form like you."

"But then your imagination is so severely limited," it snarled, coiling around her again. "Oh, I know they consider you a genius, I understand what was done to you, to enhance you…and I am capable of undoing it."

"When I am free," River explained calmly, "I will kill you."

"You might try," the creature admitted lazily, pooling itself on the floor around her feet. "Would you like me to reverse the damage that was done to you, sweet child? Would you like to become Dr. River Tam, to help others instead of killing them? To become a bastion of peace and well-being instead of an instrument of death?"

"They say the devil's tongue is sweet."

"I know you don't believe in such fairy tales. I assure you that I am not temptation incarnate, but I can make so many of your innermost fantasies perfectly real."

"Why would you?"

"A gift," the being said, rolling onto its back.

"At great cost."

"No charge. After all, we are just here, the two of us now doing nothing more productive than killing time."

"I…." She reveled in her new confidence, was frequently amazed by her own abilities, thought of herself as a magnificent example of what the human mind and body could be capable of, but…she still loved the laughter of children, was envious when she saw someone receive a loving caress, recalled what having a nice home felt like; full of personality and meaningful artifacts from the past. "Like myself fine," she concluded.

"Then," the furry slug said as it stretched and writhed luxuriantly, allowing her to gauge its length at about four meters, its weight somewhere near 500 kilos, "what if I offer you completion? Correct the errors? Bring you up to full capacity and control?"

"I'll evolve on my own."

"Silly child," the thing said. "I don't require great lengths of time, pain, or a laboratory. A few moments right now if it pleases you, and you will become the equal of your peers."

She knew there were others who had been similarly experimented upon. "If I am not like them, then I will find my own unique ways."

"You could far surpass them even now." The dark shape seemed to prop itself on one side, watching her. "Imagine, if you will, becoming…like us."

"You?" she asked distastefully.

"Like your dear friend and confidant Mr. Fortner," it said soothingly. "Your mind is limitless, but your body is not. Now, what if it was? What if you could manipulate matter as easily as thought? Make it assume any feature, any function at all? Suddenly you are not only a weapon, but the ultimate survivalist as well."

"You can't do that."

"Flint Fortner was born on Earth over 500 years ago to very human parents. Completely human. No special abilities, nothing out of the norm. Ask him yourself."

The notion thrilled her. She could be so much more…if this creature was telling the truth. If it could really alter her and allow her to live as she chose. "But...then you will hunt me. To test me."

"You were correct, then," the thing sighed, using human inflections, tones, and gestures. "I suppose there is a cost after all."

"Were you human?"

"Only ever by choice," the thing replied, shrinking back into shadow. She found she could move again, but her feet remained planted through her ruined boots deep into the matrix of the alien vessel below her. River reflexively squeezed the weapons in her hands, but saw no point in utilizing them. If anything, she was more apt to shoot her way through her own ankles in order to free herself.