Chapter 3

"Guess this is where we find out if Inara ain't got herself busted and those co-ordinates she sent up don't lead us straight into the arms of the Alliance," Mal said, frowning out over the grey landscape lit up hellishly in the gas giant's orangish light. Place had an air of abandonment that was hard to mistake. He'd seen a few times, out on the rim, colonies that just didn't take - some of them where nobody was even sure how everyone had died, just showed up one day expecting a township and found only empty homes and bones. Either reavers got 'em, or the food ran out, or they got struck by some pestilence already taken all trace of itself away along with its victims. A few, like Riarden, economic corpses, with stragglers left behind to cling.

He'd never expected to see their like right next door to the Core.

"You're uncharacteristically positive lately, sir," Zoe remarked, not looking up from her piloting as she guided them down to the world.

"You've noticed it too?" Simon dead-panned distractedly from the back of the shuttle, and his actually joining in surprised Zoe enough that Mal caught her almost tossing a smile the doctor's way, before she pressed her lips closed and turned back to the task at hand.

"If that's the case, might be it's the fault of whatever you're dosing me with," Mal offered, and dismissed the pointless banter in favour of a return to pointless worrying. "You think Inara sounded rightly normal, over the comm?"

"No, but there are other explanations for that, sir."

Something in Zoe's voice awoke Mal's suspicions. "She talk to you any about this professor fellow of hers? Big client back in the day on Sihnon was all she told me... hey, you do know something, don't you?"

Zoe gave an awkward exhalation. "It's not for me to tell, captain."

"She said they were friends," Simon commented vaguely over their shoulders. "If she's been removed from her home planet and those she knew there for over a year, surely it's not beyond all reason that she'd be emotional about seeing him again?"

The shuttle descended the last dozen of so feet into a near-empty landing pad with a smooth motion. Zoe cut the engine and swung about to face Mal. "See, sir? Now you have Simon advising you on the basic workings of human emotion. Cut your losses and back out while you can."

"Hey - "

Mal said, "I know an evasion when I hear it, Zoe - "

"It's Inara's business. That means it's not yours." She followed up her stony response by standing and moving to plant him on his feet as well, her arm slipping easily around his shoulders... and he was getting more than a little tired of being hauled around like so much baggage. Even when it was Zoe doing the hauling, who'd carried his dead weight plenty times before. "Why don't you ask her yourself when you see her?"

Simon already had hit the door, the doctor dressed his most respectable, and it had to be said that seeing him like that did strike home how much the boy had relaxed in his own skin since their very first meet. Now, he took the lead with a professional sort of stiffness, and Zoe and Mal exited the shuttle in his wake.

Across the pad, a handful of figures were already crossing to them, Inara immediately possible to pick out as the splash of colour in their midst. She wore the yellow dress she'd left Serenity wearing hours before, and pushed an empty wheelchair in front of her. As he watched, she pressed forward of those folks accompanying her, setting a stride that left them in the dust.

"What's this?" Mal asked with something of a laugh as she trundled the chair up and parked it deliberately in front of him.

Her eyes rolled. "Just sit in it and for once in your life resist the urge to be awkward, Mal."

"Yes, ma'am." He mock-saluted and almost overbalanced. Between them, Zoe and Inara got him secure in the damn chair. Inara kept a hold on the back of it, and something passed between the two women, because Zoe nodded smartly and turned to Mal.

She said, "I'll get back to the ship."

It was almost a request, so he nodded, although he was finding ever more tiresome the assumption that just because he was down he was also out. Simon's meds weren't addling him that much. "Happy huntin'."

"Good luck, sir." She turned and climbed back into the shuttle, and the rest of them retreated to avoid the shift of air as it lifted off. A moment after, it was a vanishing speck in the sky.

"Incidentally - " Inara hunched down, all but setting her lips to his ear as he watched the last of the shuttle " - your name is Mallory Hardesty."

"Mallory?"

"Because it's obviously so much greater a stigma than 'Malcolm'," she hissed, and pulled herself up straight before he could comment she seemed a mite tetchy, belatedly making the effort not to look suspicious as the rest of her party caught up to them and Simon strode forward, taking the helm.

"Ah, Doctor Barrett," said the older man among the group, before Simon could speak. "I received all the papers that were forwarded to me. Everything's in order, I'm pleased to say. You should have no trouble completing your work here as planned." After they'd shaken hands, grandpa handed over a roll of electronic paper.

"Professor... Sherwin?" Simon said, haltingly, and Mal blinked as the old man nodded, then looked again at the two he had with him, both of them fresh-faced youngsters, and grasped Simon's reasoning. "It's a... pleasure to meet you. I've heard great things."

Mal craned his head around to look up at Inara, whose eyes were on grandpa - Hoyle - and the kind of strain in her face that might be expected, considering the subterfuge and all. He looked back at Hoyle. If this fellow had been more than just a client... well, when he'd thought about Inara looking for a rich man to keep her, grandpa there wasn't exactly where he'd been thinking her tastes might run. She must have had to exercise some caution against killing the fellow dead from happy in their exploits.

Agitated, he played with the wheels of the chair, and discovered they gave him a measure of control over his own mobility when he nearly ran over Inara's foot. It didn't take away the vertigo that motion still brought on, but it did make it far less likely he'd end up on the floor. He wheeled himself up closer to Simon and the Professor, aware of Inara's steps falling in behind him.

"And this must be Mr Hardesty," Hoyle said, as Simon looked to Mal and quite visibly faltered.

"That's right," Mal replied, more swagger coming out in his voice than he could reasonably justify, as he stuck out his hand. "Pleased to meet you, prof." He could practically feel Inara's glare burning the back of his skull. Hoyle's hand was frail and withered in his grip and he felt suddenly at a loss.

Hoyle broke the deadlock, turning back to Simon. "Doctor. Allow me to show you to our facilities. I hope the rooms I've set aside for you prove adequate."

"I'm sure they will, professor."

They started off toward the low, flat cluster of buildings at the edge of the grey expanse, and Mal followed. Inara took a hold on the back of his chair an instant after, skinning his fingertips on the wheels as she started to push and no doubt garnering herself a satisfying bite of revenge.

At least Reynolds was gone. The bright point, Badger reflected, was that at least Reynolds had gone.

The less-than-bright point was, so had everyone else. The shuttle had scooted off a half-hour since, and he wasn't especially regretting the absence of the imposing folk, but it left a man feeling all kinds of overlooked to be consigned to ship with the crazy girl, the preacher and the wisecracking pilot while all the useful people headed off about their business. Did his pride an injury.

He wasn't sure what precisely he was meant to be doing, apart from kicking his heels. Excess baggage, plain and simple, and not much for him in the way of options to alter the situation otherwise. Reynolds and his folk didn't trust him, account of fobbing them off and threatening to turn them in to the feds that one time - they were picky sorts, that way - and he sure as hell didn't trust them, but seemingly for the moment they were stuck with each other.

Without the greater component of its crew, Serenity felt a mite more fitting of its name than he'd come to be aware it usually was. Badger'd lost track when people peeled off after seeing out the shuttle for the second time, and now he walked the ship end to end looking for a sign of life. Found it finally on the bridge, though the pilot wasn't his first choice of company on the boat. Preferable to the preacher, though, who according to Reynolds was collecting heathens for his personal mission. Two days on the ship had apparently been enough for him to add Badger to the list, second only to the captain himself.

"What's going on?" Badger ventured, seeing Wash's hands dance over the controls.

"Gaaaah!" And the man all but jumped out of his skin, throwing his arms up.

"Jumpy," Badger remarked, as Wash recovered and shook himself with a disgusted noise.

"Wo de tian a! Would you please not sneak around? We've enough people on board do that already."

"Sorry." He wasn't much inclined to play down the amusement he was feeling. "Quiet ship right now. Kind of unsettling, you might say. Was trying to figure where everyone had got to, myself."

"That's because everyone has work to do," Wash emphasized without much in the way of patience. He looked down to his console, glanced back up again at Badger still waiting, and conceded, "Shepherd Book is seeing that River has all her meds present and correct, since we're all eager to avoid the kind of wacky fun-filled hijinks that ensue when she hasn't. That considered, I'd imagine they're probably both in the infirmary. I'm making some alterations to our orbit to keep the ship undetected, since our esteemed captain wants me to accomplish the impossible today. Those would be very precise and critical alterations that don't require any distractions, yes, thank you."

Irritably, Badger glared, but stayed quiet and let him to it as he set his head back down to work. A few minutes later, he felt the lazy shift of the ship drifting into a different orbit, and Wash sat back, shooting a grimace over his shoulder, well aware the unwelcome company never had left.

"I'm thinking a more personable sort of approach wouldn't hurt, if your captain's fixing to do business with me and mine again," Badger critiqued.

"Yes." Wash clapped his hands on his knees in mock go-to exuberance. "I'm sure you were thinking about how personable we all are when you gave us up to the feds on Persephone."

Badger snorted. "That what all this is about? We got out okay, didn't we?"

"We got out 'okay' because the captain - who, may I remind you again, you betrayed - showed up all guns blazing in a crazy near-suicidal raid to drag us out. At all too evident personal cost."

"Grow up, friend," Badger growled. He relaxed himself, smirked and brushed down his lapels fastidiously. "They were gonna kill me. Note I don't use the phrase 'threaten to kill'. Now, much as I might value doing business with you folks, we ain't friends. Alliance man sticks a gun to my head, I ain't gonna let him pull the trigger just to save Malcolm Reynolds' hide. Reynolds would have done the same. He plays with serious people, and he knows when people are playing serious."

Wash went all tight-lipped rather than leaping to his captain's defence, by which Badger took it he wasn't too sure what Reynolds would or wouldn't do. Mind, it was nice to know Reynolds was as unpredictable to his own people.

"You, now," he told the pilot. "You're not like me an' him. You want to stand your ground. Be the hero. Would've held out to those feds, right? Would've gotten your head blown clean off so's your precious cap'n would have nothing left to rescue by the time he'd finished chargin' in."

"Ni ta ma de!" Wash smashed a fist into the console and rose to his feet to confront Badger with more an air of threat than a beat-up, out of shape guy in a Hawaiian shirt had any right to. "When are you going to get it into your head that Mal's not like you? Maybe he would sell you out, yes, but that would be entirely because you're a worthless piece of lese that's gone back on his word and dumped us in it no shortage of times. Mal wouldn't sell out any of us, and none of the crew would sell him out. Even Jayne..." He faltered a little on that, and then said more positively, "Even Jayne."

"Because Malcolm Reynolds is such a salt-of-the-earth sort of a fellow." Badger held up his hands, mocking.

"No, generally he's an unremitting bastard," Wash said, with sarcastic patience. "But he deals with people fairly, and he - gorram it, Badger, why are we talking about this? You want a heart-to-heart with Mal over big tough criminal morality, talk to him when he gets back." Something wistful crossed the man's face. "No, really, please talk to him. Wind him up enough, and he'll toss you out the airlock himself, business or no business. Now... get the hell off my bridge and let me play with my dinosaurs in peace."

"Dinosaurs?"

"Yes. Dinosaurs." As Badger stared blankly, Wash produced from under the console two plastic critters and planted them on top of the radar, then pointed at the door. "Gun ququ."

"Charming," Badger muttered, shaking his head as he turned to go. Far as he was concerned, Reynolds' crew were the whole lot of them insane. Good match for their captain.

"And if you're thinking of going sniffing after River again," Wash called helpfully behind him, "You might want to consider that one time she stuck a knife in Jayne... I don't know if anyone's told you that fun story yet? Not to mention a few other choice adventures I could, well, I could mention..."

"Don't mention," Badger grunted, stomping off the bridge and regretting acutely the fact vacuum-seal doors didn't slam.

Gorram spaceships.

"I'm sorry about Mal," Inara said. "He doesn't like anyone with a social standing higher than dirt as a matter of course. Plus, he seems to have this insane notion that he's required to defend my honour at every turn, whether it's necessary or not... I did mention the swordfight, didn't I?"

Hoyle chuckled. "You did. And don't worry - I won't hold it against any man who takes it into his head to defend your honour. You're worth defending."

She rolled her eyes. "Please. The last thing I need right now is another testosterone match."

"I'm a little beyond anything of the sort." He paused a moment before adding, self-indulgently, "Too old and wise for such nonsense. And my swordplay's too rusty, besides."

"So we should all live to be," Inara murmured. "He'll be grateful, I promise, when he remembers to be." She didn't add that he wouldn't have to worry a bit about his swordplay, however rusty, considering what she'd seen of Mal's. She wrapped her arms closer around herself and wished she'd brought a shawl, and he pulled her into his side with ease, sharing his warmth with her as they walked. The gas planet that had earlier taken up half the sky was down to a thin slice on the very horizon. Since it never gave out as much light as a sun even in the height of day, the colony around them was already very dim, and the air chilling quickly. The sunset had an odd greenish quality in amongst the orange-yellow shades, which showed up in light flares and where it reflected off the blocky line of one of Riarden's inelegant buildings. "You know, it's almost pretty, in an odd way," she said.

"You couldn't have lived here." His hand on her shoulder gave a small squeeze.

"I beg your pardon?" The change of subject startled her, and she wasn't sure if the assumption implicit in the remark wasn't a reason for anger in itself.

"If you're thinking of having regrets," Hoyle said, "Don't. I hadn't been here more than a week before I knew. I couldn't have asked you to stay here with me. And I was glad, then, for your answer. If I'd had to choose between my work here, and losing you... I'm not sure that's a choice I could have lived with. I was glad you made it for me. This place is dead and cold, and... there's nothing here for you, Inara."

She told him, "My regrets were exorcised long before now. I made my decision. I don't look back. I've made... others."

"Atherton Wing?"

"Among the rest. You were the first... and by far the hardest to refuse." She smiled. "Back then, I could barely contemplate my life without you in it. Saying no... But now, I would find it hardest of all to contemplate a life without Serenity. If there's anything I regret, it's that I didn't visit you more, those last weeks before you went away. I should have made the most of our time, instead of burying myself in bitterness and regrets. I was young."

"You're still young."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, relaxing into him, though not heavily enough to be a burden. "Love is the hazard of my vocation for all concerned."

The 'town' area of the settlement was barely a crossroads, an intersection of two industrial roads mapped out to government grid plans, where the last half dozen buildings on each branch had been minimally altered to make stores, a few eating houses, and a club whose very lights and music seemed to become greyish and subdued as they hit the street.

Hoyle led her inside one of the eating houses - not the one she'd have chosen first, from their frontages - and into a room where the whir of the atmo unit warred with the recorded sitar music being piped in. The air-starved tightness in the back of her throat ceased after a few minutes, and they ate real fish and real strawberries surrounded by the hushed conversation and occasional laughter of the few other couples and parties dining within.

The street was dark when they spilled back out onto it some time later, the gas planet fallen out of sight beyond the horizon and the sky bereft in its lack. All of the shops had closed and most of the eating houses were closing. Even the discordant jangle of the music from the club had a hushed, guilty air.

"We should get back," Hoyle said, as a half-dozen young men in Alliance uniform, clearly on downtime, brushed past them heading into the club. He followed her eyes, trailing in their wake. "There's a garrison here. They're as bored as everyone else."

"Everyone except you." Inara smiled. "You're actually happy here, aren't you? You have your research, and the quiet... and that is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"Happiness is never absolute," he said, and offered his arm. "Don't worry. I won't ask you to stay with me again."

Later, she lay beside him in the big bed that hadn't housed more than one during his tenure, listening to his breathing and feeling the rise and fall of his chest in the faint stir of the sheets against both of their skin. And she tried to connect where she'd been three years ago to who she was now. Hauling Mal out of detention on some border planet... holding her breath with the rest while reavers passed near enough almost to touch... holding a gun upon a girl who was a liar and a thief. The dislocation of it weighted her.

And this... was this payment, or indulgence, and shouldn't it matter that she couldn't and hadn't made that distinction? All she knew was that it had been inevitable, without discussion or thought, that she would be staying here with Hoyle while she was on Riarden.

A companion had of necessity to draw strict lines and abide by them. No good could ever come from letting them start to blur.

She hoped that Simon was taking good care of Mal.

"No, not like... no! I can't work with these constant hassles and interruptions. Get out! I'll do it myself - no, leave that. Out!" Simon flapped his hands at the two assistants until they scuttled from the lab, then checked the door was securely closed after them and the sounds of their feet faded satisfactorily down the corridor. He leaned his aching head against the door, shut his eyes and muffled a groan.

"Nice job," Mal commented. "Anyone'd think you really were a tight-assed fancy core doctor with a mighty big bee in your bonnet. Think you chased 'em off for good?"

"I hope so." Simon turned around with a sigh, leaning his back upon the door instead so he could face the captain. "Though the truth is, I could use the help. It's been a long time since I used any of this... very specialised equipment. But it's too big a risk."

"I don't know why grandpa set you the help on you. Sure Inara must've told him this is work needs doing secret-like." Suspicion in Mal's voice, alongside the usual trace of rebellion and the hostility engendered by whatever was going on between the captain and Inara these days.

"It's nothing to worry about," Simon said quickly. "Professor Sherwin told me - it would look suspicious if he didn't loan out his own staff with the facilities. He's protecting our alias. He said to chase them off if things were too sensitive. Apparently independent researchers can be moody and difficult types." Along with other independent types, Simon thought, watching Mal carefully manoeuvre the chair around so he could reach another array of cold-stored vials that he proceeded to poke through. "Please don't play with things. Those need to be maintained at very specific temperatures, and I'll never find my way around this lab if you switch everything out of its proper order."

"I'm not - " Mal held up both empty palms, giving in. "Just wonderin' if any of this gear is worth anything, is all. Got us a pretty packet out of the business on Ariel, for all we didn't get to keep it long."

"We're not stealing anything here!" Simon lowered his voice to a hiss, shocked by the suggestion, hurrying over. "This facility has done some very crucial work, on exceedingly tight funding as it is. And before you think of pocketing anything, those are just synthesised tissue and they are useless if contaminated or interfered with." He carefully set the unit far enough back on its counter to be out of Mal's reach in the chair, and only afterward realised how very patronising a gesture that had been in current circumstances. He stuttered, trying to recover his ground. "I'm not about to make a career of helping you steal from Alliance medical facilities."

"And I wasn't about to ask you to, doctor. Too much risk involved, for one. You keep doing the same crime the same way, and they will catch you for it sooner or later, specially if the fellow providing your specialised know-how is a tagged fugitive." Mal frowned at the out-of-reach vials. "Man can't help wondering, is all."

"I'm sorry. I don't... fare very well with all this secrecy and subterfuge. You know that."

"Plenty of stress to go 'round, doctor." Mal toyed with the wheels of the chair, executing a cautious spin. He was only saved by Simon impatiently slamming the back of the chair down as it began to tip over, but apparently the near-spill left him unfazed. "Say, these things are kind of fun." He scooted about the lab, after the last few days enjoying even this limited mobility. Simon, with one eye on Mal, resumed the checking of the equipment that the two lab assistants had been engaged in before he'd sent them away. "What do you reckon to Inara's friend, doc?"

"I think he's taking a very great risk to help us out." It was with some relief that he found everything intact and familiar and concluded that he had everything necessary to successfully repair the captain, provided there were no abnormalities beyond what he had already noted that would rule the procedure non-viable or indicate further damage. That left only the immediate concern of scanning Mal using the more effective equipment the research centre had on hand.

"There are some investigations I'd like to complete before we both find some sleep." It was getting late, both in terms of ship time and the current time on Riarden. He stalled Mal's protest. "I need more information than a hand-scanner report if I'm going to do this right. We'll need to head back down the corridor that way - " Simon pointed vaguely, trying to remember what Professor Sherwin had said as he'd shown them around. Simon had the distinct impression the man was more distracted by Inara, indeed even as the captain was, than engaged with the dangerous subterfuge they were all a part of.

Ironically enough, it was a scanning device similar to the one he'd once paid Captain Reynolds to help him access in order to treat River that they now required.

"Oh, hey," Mal said distractedly. "Here's that file the prof handed you. Didn't he say something as he was going 'bout not leaving it lying around?" He picked it up and made to wheel the chair toward Simon - faltered, dumped it in his lap, and used both hands to wheel himself over.

Simon took the file with a nod, idly flicked through it with his thumb, and froze. "This - " He opened it up wide; studied closer the chart it had fallen open on, and swallowed hard.

"What's wrong?" Mal asked sharply.

"This information... I'm looking at a very detailed study of... a particular pattern of cell breakdown... it's... it's what we need. I mean, everything so far has been guesswork... we don't know what this weapon is... what it does... but this file... With this, I can make sure we have everything covered." Simon shook his head, flicking over more pages, barely able to believe what he held in his hands.

"And that's... bad."

He heard the catch in Mal's voice as the captain caught on even as he spoke. Saw the captain's mouth bunch up, hard and determined. "Doesn't matter, doctor."

"It doesn't matter? I am wondering how we're going to tell Inara that her 'friend' is involved in working on the weapon tech that caused this. At the very least he knows far more about it than he has any right to, for anyone whose research work is supposed to be benign!" He realised he was all but shaking in his anger, and tried to calm himself - and lower his voice. Mal reached up and gripped his wrist.

"We're not," he said.

"What?"

"We're not going to tell her. He's Alliance. We knew that. Be poor reward for the man helping us out. And he is helping us out, Simon. He gave you this. Didn't have to. We didn't ask for it, couldn't know about it. Even if Inara asked him to help us, this was above and beyond. Took hell of a risk, probably breaking a whole heap of laws Alliance don't look too kindly upon his sort going and breaking. So we're not telling and we're not panicking - right, doctor?"

He took a breath and jerked his head convulsively in what passed for a nod, and Mal let go his arm.

"Best keep that file with us." The captain kept his hand held out, expectant, until Simon passed the file back into it. "Still doing the thing?" Mal doubled back on himself, stalling with the file still held awkwardly in the air.

"Ye-es. The tests first," Simon confirmed slowly. He had to keep sight of what they'd come here to do. "I'll look through that... later."

He took the back of the chair and rolled Mal out of the room, the file held securely across the captain's knees.

"You're sure it was this way?" Simon asked dubiously. "I don't recognise any of this." Kid was slowing down, which meant Mal was slowing down, given Simon had the back of his chair.

" - and going at a crawling pace won't likely make it any less the right way," Mal insisted. "This - this corner, I definitely remember. Was just around there." All looked like a brace of corridors to him in truth, but he was clear enough on his sense of space and direction and what it told him.

"Around this corner, then." Simon still sounded no shortage of unconvinced.

Most of the centre was darkened and empty. They'd seen one labcoat working late, and a couple of security fellows kicking a football around one of the more out of the way corridors. The security men had stopped and looked guilty in response to a hard glare from Simon which, granted, didn't do their cover any harm, irony aside. All the doctor's tests were done and finished now, leaving himself in some gorram awful hospital tunic and pants looked every bit like girls' pyjamas, on account of how the buckles and buttons in his regular clothes messed with that fancy scanner. Time was skulking around the vicinity of midnight on the dead-end colony.

All things considered, Mal was as eager as the doctor was to find the room near where they'd started off, which Professor Sherwin had shown them earlier to the tune of a "There are pull-out beds in here where I sometimes sleep if I get sidetracked working late on something - no reason you shouldn't." They could have had accommodation provided as suited their cover, but it seemed safer on the whole to move 'round less and keep out of sight.

"Mal," said Simon, as they both stared down the corridor beyond that next corner, and he enunciated, unnecessarily, "We. Are. Lost."

"Okay." One corridor might be much like another, but barred doors was definitely new. "What am I looking at, Simon?"

"I don't..." The doctor seemed drawn to investigate, no matter if he forgot all about pushing the chair in the process. Mal balanced the prof's file and his own clothes across his knees carefully and hauled on the wheels. And almost toppled the chair when the occupant of the nearest barred room hurled himself against the door as he was wheeling past. Saw Simon fall back too, then twist away with a cry as a hand clawed between the bars behind him and tried to fasten itself to his face.

Mal swore. "What the hell kind of research are they doing here?"

The eyes of the fellow who'd pasted himself to the door next to him made River look a picture of sanity. Something most assuredly creepifying in the way the fellow clung to the door like he was trying to seep through it by sheer force of concentration, to get to the freedom - and the people - on the other side. Those mad eyes seemed to stare right through a man.

"They've done work on repairing damage to the human brain..." Simon faltered, casting his unnerved gaze front of them. Eyes all down the corridor, watching through the gaps between bars. "Maybe these people are test subjects... waiting to be helped."

"I'm thinking even the Alliance treats its patients a mite more humane," Mal said grimly. "How'd you like it if they tossed that sister of yours in a cell like this?"

"I wouldn't - " Simon began faintly.

"Pretty, pretty..." gibbered the fellow nearest. "Crazy moonbeam girl. Call down the sun. She's not screaming now... no more... she's not screaming."

"That's real nice," Mal told him blandly. "You happen to talk any other language but nonsense? Like, say, what you might be doing here behind these bars?"

"Running River..." the crazy guy said. "All running away..."

Frowning, Mal edged the chair closer. "Come again?" But the fellow only retreated, shaking his head and avoiding Mal's eyes like his attention had hurt him, muttering something over and over about guns and mud and explosions lighting up the dark.

" - Simon?" He half-turned to the doctor, deeply disturbed.

"Captain." Simon's voice was dead, entirely without inflection.

"Reckon this here crazy fellow just read my mind."

"Yes," Simon murmured, sounding numb. "I... reckon that might very well be the case."