CHAPTER FIVE
"What the ruttin' hell are you starin' at, girl?"
River blinked at Jayne, who was watching her with one of his angry expressions, his thoughts—ain't never a moment's rest round her, she's like to be readin' my mind right now—whispering through her brain. She still sometimes had a tendency to zone out, staring at those around her in contemplation. It always gave Jayne the creeps. This time, she'd been painting Jayne, and had wound up finishing the picture and still staring at him. Focused now, she raised her eyebrows at him. "Hmm. There are so many ways I could answer that."
Jayne gave her a look. "Can't even eat my food in peace no more." He grabbed his bowl of food and stormed out of the dining room.
River sighed and sank back against the chair in the little lounge area off of the kitchen. For four days, they'd just been sailing through space. Mal had decided he didn't need to pay Velgese a visit on Osiris, since she had talked. After two days in the infirmary, she'd had Simon take her to her room, but after another day had become terribly bored, and had managed to migrate to the dining area. She'd been occupying herself with her new sketchpad and paints, making portraits of the crew. She still felt physically weak, though not nearly as bad as she had a few days earlier. She could actually walk without support, but she got tired very quickly.
"—just sayin', sir." Zoe's wry voice preceded her into the room.
"Well, sayin' it ain't helpin' me none." Mal followed her into sight, and River glanced at both of them. Whatever they were talking about was dropped as Mal made a face. "You know, I'm gettin' fair sick of the smell in here. It was fine the first few times, but if Kaylee don't stop cookin' those gorram tomatoes, we ain't never gonna get the smell outta here."
"Don't forget the potatoes." Zoe went to the cupboard and pulled out a cup. "And it ain't a bad dish."
"Never said it was. Tastes just fine," Mal pointed out. "Just don't wanna smell it no more." He grabbed an apple off the table and a knife off the counter, then sat down in the chair opposite River and began to cut it up.
Mal shoved an apple slice into his mouth and reached over without asking permission to snatch up the pictures that River had been painting. He chuckled when he saw the first one, and turned it so Zoe could see it. "Fittin' portrait of Jayne."
River had captured Jayne in the act of shoveling food in his mouth, with something dribbling down his chin. She smiled mischievously. "I was thinking about framing it."
Mal shook his head, and even Zoe cracked a smile. "I'd be worried about you if I didn't know you could knock Jayne flat," he told her. He put the painting down and looked at the next one, this one just one side of Kaylee's laughing face. River watched Mal's smile soften, and he turned to the next one—Zoe. He silently handed it over his shoulder to Zoe, who looked at it and then stared at River—don't know that I like that she sees me like this—and folded it up before tucking it in her pocket. "Think I'm gonna hold onto that one," she told River, and River understood. She hadn't just painted what she saw on the outside, but what came through in her mind when she looked at the crew.
"I wasn't going to show it to anyone," River said quietly.
"All the same." She exited the dining area with her cup in hand.
River's eyes went back to Mal, who now wore an expression similar to what Zoe's had been a moment earlier. He looked at River a long moment, then slowly handed it back to her and stood to his feet. Without a word, he left behind Zoe, apple chunks in hand.
River picked up her painting of Mal and looked at it. She'd painted only his eyes. She had portrayed the smile that crinkled up the corners of his eyes. But in the eyes she captured all the shadows, the loneliness, the memories that haunted him on the inside. He, unlike Jayne, was used to her insights into his own mind, and as long as River didn't go blabbing it out—which she didn't—he really had no trouble with it. It was one of the things she appreciated about him, especially as the captain. She couldn't imagine anyone else going to the lengths that he had gone to keep her and Simon safe. It was one of the things that made Serenity home to her. The only real home she'd ever had.
A home that had been invaded.
River realized it the moment a tangle of disoriented thoughts reached her. Despite herself, her jaw dropped open. "Zhen dao mei," she muttered. She lurched to her feet and stumbled across the dining room, casting her mind out to the invader to determine what, exactly, was going on. When she had told Mal that Iain and Bennett would be back, she had hoped it wouldn't be when she was only half-recovered. Right now, though, she was only sensing Bennett's mind. It was not nearly as chaotic as it had been when River had last encountered her, but she was playing hide and seek with her thoughts. Still, River picked up a few things, and as she stumbled into the fore passage, she called, "Mal!"
Both Mal and Zoe came out of the cockpit in a heartbeat, and River looked at them grimly. "They're back," she said.
Mal cottoned on immediately. "Zao-gao! Jayne!" he bellowed. He grabbed his gun and swept toward River. "How—"
"They stowed away," River said quickly. "I don't know exactly how…they're in one of the storage compartments. I only have contact with Bennett's mind, but…she knows that Iain's here, too. Cargo bay. She's in the cargo bay."
Mal cursed again as Zoe and Jayne appeared.
"Wait," River said, holding onto the doorframe for support. "Please. She doesn't want to hurt anyone."
"You sure of that?" Mal asked her skeptically.
"Mostly," River said. "Her mind is clearer now then it was back on Adonis. She wants…" She threw her mind out toward her former acquaintance again, trying to capture her slippery thoughts. "Me. She wants me. Please. Let me try to talk to her." It was all she could do to stay on her feet right now, and she clung harder to the doorframe. "Remember, if they really wanted us dead, it would be done."
Mal considered her request for half a second before he jerked his head at Zoe and Jayne. "Let's go."
River used the wall for support and made it halfway to the stairs before Mal decided she wasn't moving quickly enough and came back to help her. Down the stairs, into the cargo bay, to find Bennett standing in the middle of the room, her body tense and coiled.
Zoe ran up the stairs to one of the catwalks and Jayne took point on the stairs. Both trained their guns on the intruder, as did Mal, who still had one arm supporting River. They got into position just as Bennett puked all over the floor. A side-effect, River suddenly realized, of the medicine she had used to shut down her life signs…she and Iain had to appear dead, so that River wouldn't detect them on board.
When she finished throwing up, Bennett straightened and looked up, her gray eyes locking onto River's. Memories were flying through River's mind, memories she had been thinking about a lot since her encounter with them four days earlier.
Iain had come to the Academy a year after River, a wide-eyed boy from one of the faraway border moons, where he had lived with his grandparents. His expectations, like River's, like every other naïve student who entered the prison masquerading as a school, had been high. He had never thought he would get off the little dust ball that was his home, but his intelligence had been uncovered by scouts from Blue Sun, like so many of the others. Bennett had arrived six months later, when River was already well into the program. An orphan from Ariel, she had no family to even question anything that went on at the Academy. She had shared a room with River for a very short time, and on her second day there had witnessed River on the brink of insanity, when she had sliced up her own mattress.
The standstill went on for several heartbeats, until River ventured a wary question. "What do you want?"
Bennett took a step forward, but stopped at the loud click of Mal's gun being cocked. Without looking at Mal, she focused upon River. "Talk," she whispered, and she sounded as though she hadn't used her voice in a while. One sudden, desperate thought, louder than her spoken voice, rose to the surface of Bennett's mind. Help. Please.
River's eyes narrowed. It had been a common way of communicating, back at the Academy, for the students to think at each other instead of speaking out loud. It had just been easier. Some of those in more advanced stages of experimentation had more and more difficulty thinking clearly, and even further difficulty putting ideas to words. Sometimes, even when one of them couldn't verbally articulate what they needed or wanted, one or more of the students could usually determine what the other was trying to get across.
Of course, it meant that the doctors and trainers often did experiments on them to see just what they could pick up from each other, and that had never been pleasant. And it had been a long time since River had communicated this way—toward the end of her stay at the Academy, her mind hadn't been coherent enough to communicate much that made sense to the anyone.
"Help with what?" River asked quietly.
A few more words came to Bennett's mind, words and ideas. Others…hiding for so long, running, never get away, never going back, have to stop them…
River glanced over at Mal. "It's all right. She's trying to explain…"
"I don't hear her tryin' to explain," Mal said pointedly.
"In her mind," River said simply.
"You know what I'd like an explanation for? Why they attacked you, and what the hell they're doin' on my boat," Mal said evenly. "And let's not forget the sabotage they pulled."
"Wasn't us," Bennett said hoarsely, a frantic urgency from her mind assaulting River. "We had to stop them. We had to tell you…" She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them, a pleading look on her face. "Please," she said.
Mal didn't lower his gun, and neither did Jayne and Zoe. "We ain't helpin' with nothin' till I get some answers," he said evenly.
Bennett drew a deep breath, and River sensed that she was trying to put her knowledge and ideas to words. Very slowly, she said, "They were tracking you. On Persephone." An almost fierce light came into her eyes, which she had pinned on Mal now. "But we're ahead of them. A step ahead. We stopped them. They're not really stopped, it's only temporary, they're still coming. We found you on Adonis, and hid on the boat…" She trailed off.
Mal gave River a quick glance, which she interpreted as Mal's 'do-you-know-what-the-hell-they're-talking-about' look. Before she could say anything, he continued, in a would-be friendly sort of voice, "You stabbed River."
Bennett shook her head. "No, no, we drugged River. We had to make her listen." Her eyes were back on River now. "You could have stopped us," she said, something inside of her mind begging for understanding. "We had to make sure you couldn't stop us. That you'd listen."
This, River could understand. During the whole Miranda episode, she had knocked Simon out to prevent her from putting to sleep. Action had made more sense to her than conversation at the time.
One thing was prevailing among Bennett's thought process, and River looked up at Mal. "She doesn't want to hurt any of us. Please…if I could talk to her, I might be able to figure this out. But she's so scared right now…it's not helping. She's scared for herself, and for Iain—who, by the way, could use a visit to the infirmary. He hasn't come around yet."
Mal considered for a moment, then rolled his eyes and sighed, lowering his gun. "Never a boring moment with you, is there?"
:-:-:
A short time later, everyone on board was just outside the infirmary, except for Simon, who was inside with the unconscious Iain. Iain himself was strapped into restraints on the exam table. Mal wasn't taking any chances. Who knew if these kids were crazy? Sure, River'd only really been crazy because of that whole Miranda horror being shoved into her brain, but he didn't want to take any chances. No matter what, they were strangers, which meant they were unpredictable, especially coming out of a dead-like state.
And he wasn't happy about having them on his boat.
The girl, Bennett, sat with River on the couch outside the infirmary. The two girls had been sitting there, perfectly silent, for near ten minutes, and it was unnerving to everyone.
The Alliance, Mal thought wryly, certainly had a way of throwing people off. Any casual passerby would've likely written River and Bennett off as completely harmless. Sweet and innocent. 'Course, that probably only served the Alliance further. What would be the point of creating assassins who would stand out?
"What the ruttin' hell are they doin'?" Jayne muttered. His gun was still in hand, his sharp eyes on the little blonde girl.
"I think they're talkin'," Kaylee said nervously, her hands crossed over her belly. "In their heads."
Jayne's grip on his gun tightened, and he muttered something about 'spooky' and 'unnatural.' It was fair creepy, Mal admitted, especially as Bennett seemed very jumpy. She kept on clenching her fingers together and twitching nervously at seemingly nothing. Finally, after what seemed a long spell, River stood up and made her way over to the rest of the crew. Jayne kept his gun and one eye trained on Bennett.
River took a deep breath. "I have some idea of what's going on."
Simon stepped out of the infirmary, looking ready to say something, but stopped when River continued. "I," she said slowly, "am being hunted. Ari Velgese was right about Blue Sun having the others." She took a deep breath. "Blue Sun doesn't like unfinished business. They've sent the others after me—and after Bennett and Iain."
Simon's eyes narrowed slightly, and he asked quietly, "How is it that Blue Sun doesn't already have Bennett and Iain?"
"Velgese said they was missin' from the Academy when the Parliament shut it down," Zoe pointed out.
"Iain was," River said. "He had been sent out on a…test run, of a sort. The Academy was sending some of the others out. Experimenting, to see if they were…ready. For missions. To see if their training was complete." She hesitated.
Mal crossed his arms. "So what went wrong?"
"Iain wasn't ready," River said simply. "He wasn't as advanced as some of the others, wasn't as broken. He wasn't as ready to obey orders without question. He had something to hold onto, something that held him back. He went back to the Academy to find that it was being shut down."
"What about the girl?" Mal asked.
River looked over to where Bennett was curled up in a little ball on the couch. "That's what he had to hold onto. He saved her," River said quietly. "He got her out while the Parliament was moving the others."
"Why?" Simon asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
A small smile crossed River's face. "Because he loves her."
"Qing-wah tsao de liu mang!" Jayne cursed. "Bad enough havin' crazies on board, but lovesick crazies?"
Kaylee shot him a dirty look. "You got not one romantic bone in your body, Jayne Cobb."
"Hao le ma," Mal said, holding up his hand for silence. "River. Get to the part where they stowed away on my boat."
River nodded quickly. "They were confused, and scared, and angry. The lab rats were tired of running the maze."
Mal took a deep breath and let it out. "So what do two confused, scared, angry assassins do when they escape the maze?"
River looked at him, her brown eyes very sad. "They decided to see what they could do for the others. Blue Sun got to the others first, and so they followed one to Blue Sun's new facility. Then…" She hesitated. "Then Blue Sun sent out the more advanced students, ones that had proven to have successful test runs. To find Bennett and Iain. To find me."
"What about the sabotage?" Mal pressed.
"One of the others—I'm not sure who—found out I was headed for Persephone." River looked exhausted, whether from the after-effects of being drugged or from explaining so much all at once, Mal wasn't certain. "They couldn't get there before me. They hired someone on Persephone to sabotage Serenity so that it would stall in space. They hired a professional—snuck on board while I was shopping for food, got past the rest of you, and put a tracer on the outside of the ship to locate us when we were stalled. Bennett and Iain had already found me, though. They were watching on Persephone, and they removed the tracer before we left. They didn't want to do anything in the crowd on Persephone, or tip anyone to the fact that they were there, so they followed me to Adonis, made sure I was drugged, then hid on Serenity and injected themselves with bifodan so I wouldn't detect them."
"That's quite a tale," Mal said. He glanced again at Bennett, then back at River. "But I do not like 'em on my boat. Don't know what they might do if somethin' goes wrong. Don't know what might set 'em off."
"I don't know, either," River admitted. "They're both…well, different. Like me, I suppose, but not quite the same. They're here because they don't know what to do. They just knew they had to find me, warn me, try to get help. They don't want to fall back into Blue Sun's hands."
"Can't blame 'em," Kaylee muttered sympathetically. "Ain't no one deserves that."
"Still, it's the 'they're different' part that worries me," Mal said. "I don't want no trouble on my boat. Not more'n I already got to deal with, anyhow. Doc, how's the boy?"
"Still out. I gave him something to keep him unconscious for the time being, but did give him something to counter the bifodan and restore normal body functions," Simon said.
"Good. I want him to stay that way for now. In fact, might be wise to dope her." Mal jerked his head at Bennett.
The girl's head whipped toward him, and her hands clenched into fists. "I'm not crazy," she told him, looking for all the 'verse like an angry cat. "I'm not an animal that you have to dope to control."
"See you found your tongue," Mal said, looking at her sharply. "But you'd best listen well. You came on my boat unasked, and you don't ever tell me what to do or what not to do on my boat. Dong ma? Looks like you're stuck here till we set down, which'll be a few days at least, but in the meantime, you'd best tiptoe real quiet." Though what would he do if she decided to do something? River had already proven there wasn't much he could do to contain people like her. Still, if they kept the boy out cold, that might be incentive enough for her to keep nice and…normal. "I don't take kindly to stowaways."
"I was a stowaway," River pointed out in a whisper.
Mal shot her a look, too. "You ain't helpin'," he said, pointing a finger at her. He glanced around at his crew. "We need a plan."
"Think it's gonna have to be a hell of a plan, sir," Zoe said.
"She's right," River said tiredly. "This is worse than the Operative the Parliament sent last year. Out of the ten students that Blue Sun has, I don't know how many they've sent after us. But they'll find us. It's what they do. It's what they're trained for. Bennett and Iain just did it faster than the others, but it's only a matter of time."
Mal didn't like the sound of that at all. "Right. Then we need to come up with somethin' quick-like."
River just gazed at him, and Mal decided that he wasn't pleased with the look in her eye. He was even less pleased when she said, "I have an idea. But you're not going to like it."
