Chapter Three

B'gard, listed as Beauregard on the charts and affectionately called Buggered by its inhabitants, was wet, crowded, and smelly. For a border world, it was heavily populated, but the majority of the people crawling on that particular rock were transient, to say the least. It was no hard task to find a junkyard with Firefly parts, but it did take Kaylee some time to find two hydrospanners that satisfied her persnickety standards.

"Done, mei-mei?" Mal asked.

"Just about, captain. Say, I don't suppose we could get-"

"No, we can't. Not enough time," he answered.

She pouted for only a moment but then returned to her cheerful, arm swinging walk as they headed up to the counter.

"Zoe, give me a status," he said into his comm unit.

"Weirdness, captain, bad weirdness," Zoe answered. Mal felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle with heat. "We finally got Morado's crates open with the encrypt-cracker Kaylee left us. Nothing in the box but a handful of circuit chips, and River put her hands over her ears and ran out of the cargo bay yelling the whole way. Jayne, Simon, and the preacher are after her now."

"Wait a minute," he stopped dead in his tracks, "are you telling me that she's off the ship?"

"Yes, sir, no one's happy about it at all."

"[Liver sucking hell!]" he swore. "Find her, get her back on board, lock down the ship, and seal those gorram chips in a shielded canister. C'mon, mei mei. We just got handed one hellacious hurry up."

The video-communication unit was a frustrating dead end. It didn't receive broadcasts of any sort. It was only provided so the occupant of the module could watch feelies from the limited library. "Hot Independence Ladies in Action" was probably the most critically acclaimed title of the bunch. It took him several hours of minute dissection to determine that none of the components were capable of reverse engineering to get a signal broadcast back into space.

"Startin' to think that this Morado has got one twisted sense of humor," Mal stated, sitting on the floor with his back up against the bed. While he'd been working, Inara had restored most of the panels to their rightful places. He couldn't help but wonder what kind of compulsive Companion training was behind that.

"It does seem like he enjoys those little pointed jokes of his," she agreed. She sat on the bed just a few inches away from him, enough for the following silence to become companionable, not awkward.

"You never did answer my question."

"Which question was that?" she asked in return, looking down at him, her eyes peaceful and serene.

"Why did you become a Companion? What drew you to it?"

It was a question she inevitably heard from every client she serviced, every friend she made, every acquaintance who gave in to curiosity, but the poetically phrased answer that usually fell off her lips failed. She looked down at her hands and spotted a cuticle she'd been picking at absentmindedly. With the slightest, tired smile, she smoothed the irritated skin above her nail back down and trained her thoughts away from it.

"Inara?" It was unlike her to be caught without a ready answer, and even then, the pause was always artful and pregnant, not hesitant as now.

"Do you know how young a girl is when she's accepted into the Academy's Companion program?"

"Not a clue. Young, I suppose," he answered.

"I was thirteen, and considered a little long in the tooth. My instructors worried that I'd never be able to control myself well enough to realize my potential. It's common, you understand, for nearly half of the girls accepted into the program to be sent home the first year. Half of the remaining leave in the next five years. By the time we graduate, less than one of ten have completed the program."

"A tough row to hoe," he commented.

"But never too tough. I always wanted it more than I wanted to get away with temper tantrums or selfishness or spiteful tricks. I wanted the perfection, the control, the power within myself."

"Guess I don't quite understand why it took becoming a - … what you are to accomplish that," Mal shrugged.

"You grew up on an independent border world, Mal," she answered. "Within certain economic constraints, you had the freedom to be whatever you wanted."

"What I wanted was to be left the hell alone by the Alliance. Didn't exactly work out that way."

"In the center worlds, it's different. There are only a few occupations open to women of my standing that can accrue any wealth, and fewer even then that garner recognition, acceptance, and respect. Besides, becoming a Companion, the world of Companions . . . it was clean, always composed, as close to perfect as a person can be. There was no ugliness in it."

He glanced at her to see if there was any hint of prevarication, but the calm acceptance in her eyes told him she really believed what she said.

She was picking nervously at her fingernails again, caught herself, and immediately schooled herself against it. It was her nerves, of course. The documentation in front of her was not lying, not when she'd delved it out of the third most deeply encrypted level of the Guild's database stores, not when her Guild superiors had no idea that her questioning had gone beyond the easily satisfied curiosity of a freshly fledged novitiate. She assumed she would have been told when she became the priestess of House Madrassa, but that was at least ten years away, and in that time, who knew what political machinations would have taken place and how she would have been compromised.

What to do? She had no close friends. There was no friendship in the Guild; it was subtly discouraged as something outside the careful control Companions practiced their entire careers. She mentally reviewed the list of clients she had acquired after only a few short months of work. There was not one she would trust with this information. Each of them had become a person of sufficient wealth and power to attract a Companion, and none of them had done it by playing nicely or idealistically in their worlds. She couldn't just stand by, though. Something had to be done.

It occurred to her that she'd been wrong when she'd said she'd do anything to be a Companion. As much as she loved the world she'd entered – the beauty, the culture, the serene knowledge of being one of the best at what she did – it was not worth being silent over this matter. The very heart of who she was, of what made her a Companion, also made it impossible not to risk her vocation over this.

Drawing up her own account information on her vid screen, she began laying the groundwork she would need.

"Inara," her old instructor smiled in genuine welcome. "It's a pleasure to see you again. Please, come in and make yourself comfortable. Tea?"

"No, thank you, Director," she responded. "It's an unfortunate necessity, but I'm here on business, not pleasure."

"Oh?" The older woman paused a moment, as though running through possible business matters an old student might bring to her. It was almost, but not quite, a gaffe in the carefully constructed etiquette of their world. Anything short of a life and death matter could certainly have waited for the pleasantries of a tea ceremony.

Inara took a seat on the low divan, composing herself. There would be no threat of violence, but if she didn't play her hand just right, that violence would find her with no warning and even less mercy.

"You've been the Director of Procurement for the Guild for, what, five years now?" Inara asked her former instructor.

"Yes, almost six. It was difficult leaving the Academy, but being offered the position was an honor I could scarcely refuse."

"I certainly appreciated your recommended placement after my graduation."

"Please, Inara, think nothing of it. I never knew a student more devoted to the Art as you were and are."

"Thank you. I hope, though, that you understand it is not idle curiosity which brings me to ask what becomes of the girls that are dropped from the Academy?"

There was the slightest pause in the older woman's response. "I'm sure you know as well as I do. Do you still communicate with Nandee?"

"Nandee quit of her own accord, after she graduated from the Academy and was placed with a house. I'm speaking of the girls who never make it to graduation. Particularly, the girls who leave during the last year or two of instruction."

There. Her suspicions were valid. The Director had blinked twice in quick succession. It was as telling as an affronted gasp.

"Why, I couldn't tell you the fate of each individual girl. Most of them return home, I imagine. A few become whores, as they can parlay their skills into higher pay than most. A very few foolish individuals try to pass themselves off as Companions, though the Guild puts a stop to that very quickly. I suppose there are some who transfer to a different Academy program. The Companion program, as you well know, is the most difficult in the Academy. Any girl who's made it within a year or two of graduation would surely be welcomed into another program."

She was lying. More, she was nervous. In the Academy, girls had whispered about their teacher's almost supernatural proficiency at reading people, judging their internal thoughts and reactions by the smallest of tells – flicks and twitches, pauses and stammering, stillness and motion. Inara, though, had been accredited with just as much skill by the time she'd graduated, and she'd had reason to practice since then.

"Then," Inara began, taking a memchip from her sleeve, "you'd know nothing about the girls who were delivered into the hands of black market slavers, and sold as whores to individuals willing to pay a steep price for a Companion-trained girl no longer under the protection of the Guild?"

The other woman watched the memchip warily. "I've no idea what you're talking about, Inara."

"No? Not the names of five hundred different girls over the last five years and three months? It must have taken you nearly nine months to put together all the contacts you'd need as well as bribe Alliance officials to look the other way."

There was a pause of nearly ten seconds, as the Director clearly reshuffled information in her mind. Inara, she knew, was not the type to bluff. Therefore, she had found hard evidence somewhere.

"What do you want?"

"Want?" Inara asked, raising a perfect eyebrow.

"You can be the priestess of your house, though it will take nearly a year to set it up. Or would you prefer an appointment higher up in the Guild? An exclusive contract with an Alliance executive? Certainly you can't desire money."

For the first time in many a long year, Inara felt her temper near to unraveling.

"What I want is justice, but there's no way I'll see you marooned on an unTerraformed moon, waiting for your air to run out. What I'll settle for is an end to your unofficial "procurement" and the recovery of the girls you sold into slavery."

"That will never happen, Inara."

"Oh, but it will," she responded. She held the memchip up. "This contains a copy of every record of your … transactions. Your retina scan and your signature make them inescapably your work. There are copies like this chip scattered in different locations throughout the core worlds and even a few of the border worlds. There is also a tracer program wormed into the Guild records – which put me back a pretty penny. One more transaction, Director, and these copies will be released to nearly a hundred different agencies. You have five years in which to track and recover all the girls you betrayed. Each of those girls will report their return to me via the contact on this chip. If, by the last day of your term, you have failed – if any of the girls are dead or unable to respond to me – then the information in your files will be released to those agencies. Should anything drastic befall me, the information will be released."

The director's hands had curled into white knuckled fists. "You have no idea what you are throwing away, Inara."

"Oh, believe me, I do. But I'd rather see the Guild dismantled, torn down, and the ground on which it stood sown with salt before I see this continue."

Inara stood, her skirts and sleeves falling about her in graceful lines. "Some might say the task I've set you is impossible, but you are a Companion, as am I, and I learned from you that a Companion can accomplish anything she puts her mind to."

The Director stood as well, regal and white with fury. "You'll regret your actions, child."

"No. I regret the necessity of them, but not the actions themselves. Good day, Director."

She gave her deepest curtsy, letting her hair and sleeves sweep the floor. Then she floated to the door, buoyed by the serenity she'd fought for so long to master.

At the foyer of the Guildhall, she hailed a personal transport.

"The spaceport, please," she asked, once she was settled in to her seat.

There was no way she could remain on the Guild's homeworld. There was no way she could remain on a core world at all. The Director would waste little time in finding the trace – though there were actually seven of them, each inserted a little more insidiously than the last – and even less time in testing whether Inara's death would release the files or not. It was best that she remove herself from imminent danger. Indeed, it was best if she stayed out of the Guild's way as much as possible until this was finished, one way or another.

The Director would never forgive her. There were few more powerful people she could have as an enemy within the Guild. Sighing, she checked her chronometer. Her belongings were either sold or packed, bonded, and already stowed on the ship that would take her to Persephone. From there, she could certainly find some vessel she could make arrangements with – perhaps a cruise vessel that would appreciate a full time Companion on board. There would be something so that she could support herself and stay as far away from the Guildhall as possible.

"Zoe," Mal yelled, storming back into Serenity, "where is she?"

"We don't know yet, Captain," she replied, hurried but unfazed by his temper.

"Have you heard from the others?" Kaylee asked, crowding in after him.

"Jayne and Book are quartering the marketplace. Simon took off on his own, thinking he could figure out just where she went. They've all got communicators and instructions to check back in every five minutes."

"We've got to find her," Kaylee said, aghast. "Buggered's no place for her to be runnin' around on a regular day, and with this guy Inara said's after her-"

"We know, mei mei," Mal answered curtly. "Zoe, what have you got on those gorram chips?"

"Wash took a look at them, but can't figure out what the heck they are. Maybe Kaylee might."

"Get up there, mei mei, and give me a report on the communicator as soon as you can. Zoe, hold down the fort. I'm joining the search party."

The streets of Buggered lacked paving and any concession to public health. Raw sewage trickled or gushed down gutters or even in the middle of the street. River was aware of it, but had more pressing matters on her mind.

Typhus, typhoid fever, malaria, part of her mind sang out as she dashed down one alleyway into another. Plague, ebola, Keller's Bleed, mumps, measles, whooping cough, hepatitis A though M… she calculated disease vectors, the apparent lack of immunization for most of the citizens, and plotted out in her mind a feasible way to wipe out 97% of the population of the planet, in case anyone should ask her how it might be accomplished.

The screaming was still in her ears. What she had thought was arguing had really been stifled, suffocated screaming. As soon as the crates were open, it spewed all over her, chased her out of the ship, clawed her ears and her mind.

"It's purple!" she yelled, and the only one who noticed was the rat eating rotten cabbage. "I told them, and I used words, but they didn't understand."

The rain picked up, and her feet smarted from running. Aware that something had changed, she very slowly took her hands down from her ears. The screaming. It hadn't quite stopped, but it was so quiet she could barely hear it anymore. Still panicky, she leaned against a brick wall and peered out at the crowd beyond the end of the alley, twenty yards away.

"Simon?"

"What'd ya think?" Wash asked, glancing over her shoulder.

Kaylee tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I think I'm gonna feed whoever put these chips on my ship into Serenity's starboard engine."

"Fair enough. It'll balance out the one Cap fed the portside engine. Other than that though?"

"They're made for broadcasting," Kaylee frowned. "But it don't make no sense, the bandwidth they're on. And it's sending out trash. Just junk. Noisy junk at that. If it were audible, we'd all have size 10 headaches from it. A'course, it's not audible."

"Maybe not unless you're River," Wash peered at the chip Kaylee held in the grip of her favorite pair of needle noses.

"Huh?"

"Crates' opened, River clapped her hands over her ears and started yellin' big time. I don't know about you, but I'm guessing our customer didn't just ship these on Serenity because we've got the best prices in the verse."

"Oh, criminy," Kaylee breathed. "And the hydrospanners, too. You'd best call the captain and tell him what's what."