River cowered at bay, whimpering as the blue gowned and masked figures drew closer needles and probes glittering menacingly in their hands. A voice whispered 'You must fight them, you can fight them.' she struggled to quiet the gibbering terror in her mind and as she did so words surfaced; words charged with warm, rosy power:
"Rose red; Summer Sweet; Safety Seek; Wrap Me Round; So Mote It Be!"
The last phrase was shouted aloud in triumph as her eyes opened on the safe, rose scented dark of her little bunk aboard Serenity. Far, far away from all who would hurt her.
The door slammed open. It was her brother of course. Always listening, even in sleep, for any sound or cry from her.
"I did it, Simon!" she crowed ecstatically. "I beat it - I made the terror go away!" She glowed with her victory. "Margot was right, I can fight it - and win!"
"What?" Simon blinked sleep and bewilderment out of his eyes.
"The magic worked! She set a spell in me and it worked! I thought it would but -"
"Spell? Magic? River what are you talking about?"
She explained.
Margot was reading in bed when her bunk door crashed open framing a half-clad and furious Simon. "What the hell do you think you're doing meddling with my sister!" he roared. "Do you have any idea the kind of damaged an untrained hypnotist can do to a case like hers? I want you to leave River alone, I don't even want you talking to her!"
Margot waited until he'd reduced himself to panting silence before saying. "Is it the custom on Osiris to burst half dressed into a lady's room in the middle of the night and scream at her? Are these the manners your parents taught you?"
Simon, still breathing hard, flushed painfully instantly reduced to ill bred little boy. Damn. How did she do that?
"Sit down, Simon," she continued in the same tones of matriarchal authority. "Calm down and listen. First I happen to be a board certified Clinical Psychologist with eleven years practical experience making me a lot better qualified to 'meddle' with your sister then you are, Doctor!"
"S'true," Shepard Book said standing bathrobed and wild haired in the doorway. "You'd do well to listen to the lady, son."
She nodded a polite greeting. "Thank you, Derrial." then continued to Simon; "As I told River medications are only half the battle. At best they give sufficient awareness and control for the patient to employ cognitive tools to help her deal with her disturbed emotions and perceptions. Yesterday I gave River such a tool; a mnemonic reinforced by post-hypnotic suggestion. She responded well, it should work -"
"It did." Simon said reluctantly. "Didn't you hear her?"
"No, I was concentrating. Good. I hoped her psychic abilities would give her an edge in controlling her own mind -"
Simon interrupted again; "She isn't -"
"Of course she is! That's half the problem, she's getting uncontrolled extra-sensory input that's disrupting her hold on reality." Margot's face turned very grim. "Your Academy scientists seem to have destroyed all the usual defenses against such input. There's a reason why we block off psychic awareness!"
"What's the other half?" Book asked.
Margot shrugged. "The usual post-traumatic stress of course but on top of that she's deliberately repressing something - no idea what but it must be very bad judging by the amount of energy she's putting into keeping it out of her consciousness."
"Can you dig it out?"
Margot shook her head. "I'd advise against it. At the moment she needs to work on strengthening and stabilizing her reality matrix. When she's strong enough to face them the memories should surface on their own. Forcing them before time will worsen rather than improve her condition." she turned her attention back to Simon. "I advise you to cut her med dosages by a third across the board and discontinue Federol entirely. Overmedicating causes its own problems - as you've seen."
"I -" Simon began.
She smiled at him kindly transforming from stern mother to approving one. "You are a surgeon operating way out of your field. You've done a fine job over all but you've become a little too reliant on drugs to control River. She needs to learn to control herself."
"You think she can?" he asked almost forlornly.
"She took the first step tonight. We can't expect a full cure - not with the disrupting psychic input - but we can hope for considerable improvement. In time. You must be patient, Simon."
"Back to bed now, son. The lady needs her beauty sleep," the Shepard said gently, and made way for Simon as he went out, calmed and reassured. Book looked at Margot, eyes glinting. "Anything you don't have a degree in?"
"Several thousands." she answered crisply. "But Anthropology leads to Sociology. Sociology leads to Psychology. And Psychology leads to Abnormal Psychology." Margot shrugged. "Living at the Athenaeum I've got plenty of opportunity to study whatever takes my fancy."
Shepard nodded pensively. "Given your knack for driving folk crazy, it's only right you should know how to make 'em sane again."
Margot stuck out her tongue at him then ostentatiously raised her book to resume reading. Book grinned, slid the door shut and went back to his own bed.
...
The whiny voice of the nameless little man from the bar oozed from the speaker but there was no vision. "I got a bite, but they want to see the goods before they hand over payment. Shall I send them to you?"
"No!" Mal answered sharply. He and Zoe had closeted themselves away on the bridge to take this wave.
"You want me to take 'em to 'em?"
"Hell no!" Mal gnawed a lip thinking. "Set up a rendezvous. My first and I will bring the goods and you can do the dickering. We'll stay out of sight but we'll keep an eye - and a weapon or two on you."
"No need for that," the voice responded, hurt. "I'm an honest business man I am!"
"Sure you are. But I'm a nasty suspicious bastard. Set up the appointment and wave us where and when."
If that's how you want it," the voice sulked, and signed off.
"Wonderful the way you make us friends wherever we go, sir," said Zoe.
"Yeah, ain't it just."
"Zoe and I are going out to do some business." Mal informed his assembled passengers and crew a few hours later at dinner. Shouldn't take long, but I want somebody listening in case we have to call in back up."
Wash and Kaylee nodded seriously. Jayne slumped in his seat in a black sulk like a kid deprived of a favorite toy. River patted his shoulder consolingly. He shrugged her hand off angrily and she put it back with the other in her lap but the sympathy on her face didn't change.
"Likely to be trouble?" Wash asked, shooting a concerned look at his wife.
"I doubt it. But never hurts to take precautions," Mal answered.
...
They set off right after dinner, the cannon well covered in the back of the mule, Zoe driving. Nobody ever let Mal pilot anything if they could well help it. The rendezvous was a back street lined by high walls haloed with light from the enclosed yards. Cheerful voices, music and the smell of food drifted into the alley, a thread of lonesome dark shut off from normal life, like the crew of Serenity.
Mal shrugged off the thought, peering ahead. Their contact was waiting at a cross-road, this time dressed in a suit decorated with luminous stripes of sickly green and orange-red.
Zoe winced. "I'll never complain about Wash's shirts again." she muttered, bringing the mule to a halt.
"Nor me," Mal agreed sotto-voce, then aloud; "Give us a hand unloading, will ya?"
The four cannon were arranged on a black drop cloth, lights set up at the four corners making their metal glitter. Then Zoe backed the mule until it was hidden in the darkness before joining Mal under cover of an angle of wall, eyes fixed gimlet-like on the goods and their go-between.
The customers arrived right on schedule, just moments after Zoe and Mal'd made themselves invisible, two big, well built bruisers; one with a graying buzz cut and bearing that screamed 'military'; the other fair colored, lanky, loose limbed and apparently bored. It was the military one who inspected the goods, leaning down close and probing with long, deft fingers. Tweed- suit stuck to him like a wad of chewing gum sticks to shoe leather, babbling a pitch that the customer was obviously ignoring.
Studying them from the shadows Mal decided he liked what he was looking at. Men living on the edge but straight enough in their own crooked way - just like his ownself. A sidelong glance at Zoe showed him a fractional relaxation that said she agreed. There'd be no double-cross from these two.
Buzz-cut had made up his mind. He straightened up pushing Tweed-suit back with one long arm as he fished out a wad of cash money. Mal relaxed, too soon as it turned out.
A volley of gunfire showered down from the top of neighboring wall, catching Tweed-suit full in the back and winging Buzz-cut on the arm holding the money. It fell from his hand as he summersaulted backward into the cover of some ash-cans next to his rangy friend. The two of them and Mal and Zoe all opened fire on the wall, that being the only target they could see. The standing lights went out in a series of sparky explosions and so did the light leaking over from the backyards as the locals took shelter in their homes.
Zoe groped her way through the blackness to the mule and turned on its headlights. Tweed-suit lay face down, his back a bloody mess, beside an empty drop cloth. The cannon were gone.
For a long moment nobody moved. Then Mal shoved his gun back in its holster and walked into the light to check Tweed-suit. Yeah, he was dead all right. When he looked up the buyers were standing over him, Buzz-cut holding his arm.
"And you'd be?" he asked.
"The seller. Those were my guns they took."
"Looks like they got our money too," lean and lanky observed, cool and calm as softly falling snow.
Buzz-cut didn't take it so peacefully. He swore in Mandarin and another tongue Mal didn't know for nigh on thirty seconds.
Zoe interrupted him; "Looked like they winged you. Best let me have a look at that arm."
"They did. But there's nothing you can do about it 'less you're a mechanic." He took his hand away to show skin curling back not from blood and muscle but wire and components. "Must have got the nerve center, I can't move anything below the elbow."
"Wouldn't have dropped the money otherwise," commented his friend. Then to Zoe. "Don't suppose you have any idea who those reubens were?"
"Nary a one," Mal answered for her, rocking back onto his hams and wiping his hands on his thighs. "You?"
Buzz-cut shrugged. "I got no enemies here - nor friends. Never been on this rock before in my life."
"You knew him," Zoe said, nodding at the body.
He shook his head. "Nope. Nothing to me but a contact number. Was cruising the VR market and saw the goods. Seemed like a good deal."
"Who'd have know about this little rendezvous?" Mal wondered.
"Me and my crew," buzz-cut shrugged. "You and yours -"
"And anybody working with this poor chump," finished lean and lanky.
Mal stood up. "Whoever they are they got my guns and your cash. Seems to me we got a common problem here."
Buzz-cut nodded and held out his left hand, "Name's Maxx Williams. This is Ross MacIntosh generally known as Rawhide."
Mal shook. "Malcolm Reynolds. And my first officer Zoe Washburn."
Zoe nodded polite acknowledgement, then pointed at the bullet powdered wall. "A look into that yard might be productive."