NirSighted Chapter Fifteen: We Interrupt This Broadcast

The crew of Stoïque was gathered around the table. Mal sat at the far end, and Catie and River occupied the opposite end. No one looked particularly happy besides Catie and River, who were playing six-circle.

"All done?" Mal asked as they came in.

"All done," Kaylee agreed. "Should be ready fer takeoff any time now."

"Music t' my ears," Wash said, and headed on through the galley to the bridge. "Irving-Keene, Cap'n my Cap'n?" he called out behind him.

"Take us up 'n out, Wash," Mal requested.

Nir took a seat next to Emilia. "Companion Sage, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about why you and your crew chanced to land at Breakstaff."

"What do you mean?" Emilia asked, looking over at the little-girl-sized agent. "And what difference does it make to you?"

"I apologize for not introducing myself," Nir replied. "My name is Niriel Shatter-Glass; I am onboard Serenity to prevent a catastrophe of epic proportions."

"Oh, now it's a catastrophe," Mal muttered, flinging up his hands.

"What does that have to do with me and mine?" Emilia asked coolly.

"We picked you up for a reason," Nir said cryptically. "It would help me to know a little bit about your reasoning for staying at Breakstaff for so long."

"Might as well tell 'er, Miss Emilia," Carole said from the other side of the table.

Emilia sighed. "All right, all right. We landed at Breakstaff a little more than three weeks ago, intending to pick up Dr. Pawtucket's sister, Bridget."

"What was the reasoning behind that?" Nir questioned.

"Dr. Pawtucket at that time was very ill," Emilia said. "His sister was also a doctor, and he felt that she could treat him."

"But Bridget doesn't live in Breakstaff, does she?"

"No, she didn't," Emilia answered. "She lived in Parliament Village, which was an hour's ride from Breakstaff. Antony and Kolya volunteered to go out to Parliament Village on the mule to collect Bridget."

"What happened when they got there?" Nir asked gently.

"No one was there," Antony answered for Emilia. "We got there and the entire village was gone."

"How many people lived in Parliament Village at that time?" Nir questioned.

"Records said upwards of fifty, and the number of buildings and outposts seemed to support that," Antony replied. "And there was no one there. Kolya and I stayed for about an hour, trying to find some indication as to what had happened to those people."

"And what did you find?"

"Nothing," Kolya answered, taking over for Antony.

"But you did find Ms. Pawtucket's computer," Nir said.

"Yes, we did," Kolya said. "We brought it back here to Stoïque, because neither Antony nor I could crack the encryption necessary to enter it."

"I will make short work of that," Nir informed him. "What was your hypothesis as to what had happened to Bridget and the rest of the citizens of Parliament Village?"

"I'm not even sure," Kolya replied.

"Were there any signs of violence?"

"None that we could see," Antony said, shaking his head. "No bombshells, no bullet holes."

"I have only one more question to do with Parliament Village," Nir informed him. "What did it smell like when you got there? Answer the truth now."

"What did it smell like?" Antony repeated, as though he couldn't believe Nir had asked such a question.

"Yes. What did it smell like? What was the prevailing scent?"

Antony closed his eyes to think. Kolya, who had been eating some scrambled protein, put his fork on the table as he leaned forward thoughtfully. At last Kolya said, "It smelled like cinnamon."

"Cinnamon. Are you sure?"

Kolya nodded, and Antony said, "Yes. Cinnamon."

"Thank you very much," Nir said to the two emissaries. She turned back to Emilia. "All right, let us continue with the record of your time at Breakstaff. When did you realize that Dr. Pawtucket's condition was not going to get any better?"

"Musta been five or six days after we landed," Carole replied.

"And what did you do at that time?"

"We were still waiting for his sister to show up," Emilia answered honestly. "We all thought she would come."

"But she didn't," Nir said. "So how did you treat Dr. Pawtucket?"

Emilia looked across the table to Carole, who said, "We did just as Dr. Pawtucket asked us to, gave him the medicines he thought would help. But he just kept gettin' weaker 'n weaker… we tried t' feed him, tried t' help him, honest we did."

"I believe you, Carole," Nir said, leaning over to pat Carole's hand. "Dr. Pawtucket's death was most certainly not your fault. Now, what happened after Dr. Pawtucket's death?"

"Antony 'n Kolya went down t' th' Medical Commissioner's office 'n asked fer a slip t' bury Dr. Pawtucket in Breakstaff," Carole replied.

"And was permission granted?"

"Yeah, they gave us a slip t' bury him in The Garden of Eternal Rest," Carole said.

"We dressed him in his best suit and bought him a fine coffin," Emilia added. "A few young men from the Medical Commissioner's office came out and helped Antony and Kolya dig the plot. It was quite a lovely service."

"And after Dr. Pawtucket was buried, why did you not immediately leave Breakstaff?" Nir wanted to know. "What was keeping you here?"

"It was shortly after Dr. Pawtucket's funeral that Carole and Antony discovered a fatal flaw with the engine," Emilia said. To Kaylee, she said, "You've seen the engine, is it fixable?"

"With time, patience, and some parts ya don't have yet," Kaylee answered. "Once we get t' Irving-Keene, we'll get things taken care o' for ya."

"After discovering this 'fatal flaw,' what did you do?" Nir asked.

"We… sat. It was all we could do."

"Did you attempt to pick up any passengers?"

"No, we knew that we would either make it to Irving-Keene or our business would be completed there at Breakstaff, and we were not really equipped to take on more passengers."

There was a rumble and then a sweep of movement as Wash lifted off. His voice came crisply over the intercom: "Attention ever' body, we're headed fer Irving-Keene; our estimated time o' arrival is… three days from now."

Nir turned back to Emilia and continued, "When did Mr. Parmin become, as we shall say, a wrench caught in the works?"

Emilia glanced over at Carole. Stoïque's pilot said, "Kee has been a part o' my life since I was little. I was from Breakstaff originally. We'd been childhood sweethearts."

"When did Mr. Parmin recruit you for his sick little musical?" Nir demanded.

Carole looked over at Emilia. "Uhh… must 'a been couple 'a weeks after we'd landed here. He said if I didn't play in his show, he'd tell m' mother that I'd been foolin' 'round with some Core type."

"Is that true?"

"Uhh, Miss Shatter-Glass, don't know if that's suitable fer the table," Carole said a bit nervously, looking around at those gathered around the table.

"I am sure that there will be nothing in your conversation that they have not all heard before," Nir replied tartly.

"Uh, well then," Carole began, stumbling a little over the words. "Naw, never fooled 'round with Core types. I'm just a down-home girl m' self, anyway."

"So the child does belong to Mr. Parmin?"

Carole flushed. Nir rolled her eyes, impatient. "I am not asking whether or not the child will actually become his in the legal sense," she snapped at Carole. "I just want to know if it's his in the genetic sense."

"Uh, yeah, it's his."

"Was that so hard?" Nir wanted to know. "Now, why didn't you report him to the Breakstaff authorities for possible abandonment of woman with child? You know as well as the rest of us do that it's a punishable offense in Breakstaff and, if I'm correct, all of Battleboury."

"I know," Carole said lamely. "But Kee… I loved him."

"Love should not be taken into account when laws are at stake," Nir said firmly. "Thank you for all of your assistance."

"Nir?" Mal said. "Things gonna be all right fer me 'n mine now that we stopped at Battleboury?"

"I am promising nothing," Nir replied. "The discovery of the massacre at Parliament Village throws a new variable into the equation."

"Massacre?" Mal questioned. "They said ever' body was just gone."

"And they are all most certainly dead, Captain Reynolds," Nir shot back. "Dead from an NPBAP-D."

"That ball thing ya had earlier? That killed 'em?"

"Most likely," Nir replied.

"Are we safe here?" Zoë wanted to know.

"You are as safe as I can make you," Nir answered, and it was clear that she didn't want to give that answer. "I only wish you were safer."

"If you don't mind me askin'," Zoë said, "why send such a little 'un t' protect us?"

"She ain't so little, Zo," Mal reminded her. To Nir, he said, "How d'ya know it was one o' those ball things?"

"The best clue I have is Kolya and Antony's recollection of the scent they remembered at Parliament Village – cinnamon. NPBAP-Ds, when used on a grand scale, leave a lingering scent of cinnamon. The scent, which will disperse within forty-eight hours, is the only remaining trace of what happened to those poor people."

"Yer sayin' that if ya hadn't thrown that ball thing out in 'ta the black, we'd all be disappeared and smellin' o' cinnamon?" Mal asked.

"That is correct, Captain Reynolds. Fortunately for all of us, that hasn't happened." Nir closed her eyes. She was getting tired again.

"Simon," River said from the end of the table, where she was winning at six-circle, "the bad man is going to be waiting for us."

"What bad man, mei-mei?" Simon asked.

"The one…" River's voice trailed off. Suddenly, her hands went limp and the six-circle pieces began to scatter across the table. Her head dropped back, her body became floppy, and she slipped from her chair, unconscious. The second she hit the floor, Catie began to babble incoherently, her hands flicking at her ears.

Simon hurriedly got out of his seat and went over to River, taking her wrist in his hand. "River? Mei-mei? Can you hear me?"

Nir, meanwhile, had opened her eyes, gotten out of her seat and was heading for Catie. "Catie, listen to me," she said, holding her hands out in front of her. "Catie."

"What's goin' on?" Kaylee wanted to know.

"Psychic overload," Nir replied without looking at her, her little-girl green eyes still focused on Catie, who was lolling her head around and babbling nonsense phrases. "I believe that the upcoming catastrophe will affect these two profoundly."

"This catastrophe ya keep talkin' 'bout, it ever gonna hit us?" Mal asked.

"It may be closer than you'd like," Nir replied. She had reached Catie and was now holding both of Catie's hands in her own. "Doctor Tam, my recommendation at this point is to give your sister seventy-five milliliters of barthic-bromide. Immediately."

"Seventy-five milliliters?" Simon repeated, almost in horror. "Do you know how much…?"

"I am well aware of the great size of the dosage," Nir replied, calmly. "A lower dose will work the same but much more slowly, and, judging from Miss Tam's pulse, she doesn't have time for you to wait. She is merely asleep at this juncture, but it could progress to a comatose state rather rapidly."

"Seventy-five milliliters it is," Simon said, and left hurriedly.

"What's goin' on here, Nir?" Mal asked, his eyes concerned.

"I believe that Catie and River are experiencing psychic backlash from the NPBAP-D," Nir replied calmly.

"What's gonna happen?" Kaylee asked nervously.

"Hopefully Dr. Tam can provide his sister with the barthic-bromide quickly, and Miss Tam will be fine," Nir said. "I would suppose that the noise in her head is something great at present."

"Why didn't Catie collapse?" Zoë asked, looking at the younger girl, whose head was still lolling about as she mumbled incoherently.

"I am not quite certain," Nir answered. "It is possible that because of Catie's earlier treatment on her hands, she developed a bit of an antibody against whatever psychic backlash was coming for them both."

"So, this weapon… it's biological, but it works on Readers' brain-pans too?" Mal questioned.

"The biological weapon will kill off everyone not protected by a vaccination," Nir replied quickly. "If there is such a person around – vaccinations against these devices are rare and costly and therefore not highly distributed – it will wait until they are receiving zeta waves in the greatest amount, which for Readers, happens to be when they are receiving data."

"Why didn't you collapse?" Mal inquired.

"Captain Reynolds, do you really think my agency would let me leave their premises on a search to eradicate these devices without such a vaccination?" Nir said dryly.

Simon returned and jabbed the syringe as neatly as possible into the vein at River's left elbow. "Mei-mei, listen to me. Wake up, you hear me?"

River's eyes opened and she looked up at him with her empty eyes.

"Wow," Simon said. "That was fast."

"Simon, the bad man is already here," River said, attempting to sit up. She found it a difficult process, and the room seemed to spin around her.

Simon, seeing his sister's face go white, leaned forward to grab her by the shoulders before she passed out. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Spinny," River replied weakly, lowering her head back to the floor. The pounding in her head increased, as though a horse's hooves were stomping on her brain-pan.

Mal had gotten up from the table and was heading into the bridge. "Wash!" he called. "How long to Irving-Keene?"

"I told you, three days!" Wash hollered back. "It hasn't changed!"

Mal turned back towards the galley. "These passengers got rooms?" he asked Zoë.

"Yes, sir, Emilia's staying with Inara, Carole is bunking next to Dr. Burk, and Kolya and Antony are down the hall."

"Good," Mal said. "Let's say we bunk up fer the night, let these things sort themselves out, we'll be closer t' Irving-Keene in the mornin'. Nir, you kin sleep with River again."

"What else needs to be done?" Simon asked, looking at Nir.

"For your sister? Nothing, except a bit of anthemide in the morning for the pain. She will sleep well," Nir answered promptly. "You can rest easy, Dr. Tam. If anything arises, I will handle it, you can be assured of that."

"Then sleepy-time it is," Mal said. "Zo, you kin keep Wash comp'ny fer awhile if ya want."

"Thank you, sir," Zoë said, and exited to the bridge to watch the stars fly by.