7.

"Damn thing," Jayne said, smacking the com against the heel of his other hand. "Must be Core World feioo. That stuff allus lets you down when you really need it."

Garrod Henson stared off into the fog around them, which was already thick enough to make the trees ten yards away indistinct, and getting heavier. They had stopped early because of it, building a fire against the sudden dark and chill. It threw back the light of the campfire, making the campsite brighter than it would otherwise be, but shortening their visibility even further and stealing their night vision, making them feel closed in and claustrophobic. There could be a hundred eyes watching them out there, just ten paces away in the darkness, and they'd never know it. "We're in a deep saddle. Maybe there's just no line to a sat. We could move a few more miles-"

"And walk blind off a cliff, likely," his father said. "It's not just foggy now, it's dark. I think we can let one night pass without a call."

Jayne supposed he was right, but he didn't like it much. He didn't really believe the rest of the crew would come looking for him over one missed wave, but he had been hoping for some news from Ames that might narrow their search. Jayne had been wearing out his eyes on those gorram maps at every stop, looking at water sources, cover, easy access, nearby habitations occupied and abandoned, and a host of other factors. He thought he had eliminated a good chunk of territory from their search area, but what was left would still take them weeks to go over, and if the hundan stayed on the move – Jayne didn't expect that, but it was possible – they might cover every square foot of it and still miss him.

Simon came in from the fog with a double armful of deadfall – starting and tending the fire had somehow become the doc's camp job, just like filling their canteens and cooking had become Dell's – and dropped it a short distance from the fire. "Damp out there," he said. "And the temperature is dropping."

Jayne eyed the cheery blaze, whose glow might be visible for miles on a clear night. The smell of a fire could travel even farther, under the right conditions. It was safe enough tonight, he judged, but soon they would be drawing close to the area where the gaiwu had likely denned up with the girl. And that meant that this would have to be their last fire.

The party woke the next morning still surrounded by a gray curtain. They ate a cold breakfast while things lightened up, and then set out, the trees disappearing into white blankness thirty feet all around. They walked downhill for most of the morning; the fog stayed with them even when the morning sun would normally have burned it away. The white blanket seemed to follow the travellers, rolling downslope from the saddle above, and the faint warmth of the sun only seemed to bring up more mist from the damp earth.

The woods they were traveling through abruptly changed. The trees became much smaller and crowded together, in many places clustered too close to walk between. The damp ground between was thick with brush. The trail narrowed and started to meander; they walked single file, Jayne leading. Behind him, Royce said, "This is second-growth forest. Must have been clearcut ten, maybe fifteen years ago."

"Thought you said loggers don't come in this deep."

"They don't. Cutting and grading a road for hauling the wood out makes it more trouble than it's worth, even if you got a sawmill on site. And you couldn't lift enough of it out by air, not without a skiff the size of an ore barge. Those don't come cheap."

"So what happened to the trees?"

The elder Henson shrugged.

"Why don't they just put a road through all this and be done?" The merc grumbled.

"New Home is self-sufficient, but that doesn't mean it's prosperous. You've seen the terrain. A road would be a real engineering project. It'd have to pay for itself somehow, and it wouldn't. Core Worlders and rich folks travel by shuttle and aircar."

"So, the folks who can afford to build a road don't need it, and them as could use it can't afford it."

"Ayuh. That's the Rim pretty much all over."

In the middle of the group, Simon's eyes slid over the hazy scenery, his mind on other things. He wondered how River was doing. He had had serious misgivings about leaving her in the care of Kaylee and Shepherd Book, but he couldn't turn his back on that kidnapped girl. And bringing River with him to sleep rough in the woods surrounded by angry violent men was out of the question. He hoped the others were keeping her busy.

If they camped early enough, he thought, he would begin composing a letter to his parents. Waving them or sending a message by post was unthinkable, but after Gabriel Tam had found his children aboard Serenity - and had helped them get rid of Niska once and for all – he had made arrangements through his Resistance contacts to deliver messages. The delivery schedule was decidedly uncertain, but whether it took a week or six to travel between the ship and Osiris, each letter was a precious thread in the lifeline connecting the separated family.

Dell marched close behind Simon. "How's the feet?"

"Fine." Simon said. "I think I'm breaking Rosh's shoes in all over again. When he gets them back, his feet may be sore for a while."

Garrod tossed a glance behind him at their back trail and huffed softly. "You steppin into his shoes. He's gonna have to get used to that." At Dell and Simon's quizzical looks he went on, "Guess I'm talkin out of turn here. Thought you knew." He paused. "I'm pretty sure Rosh and Kaylee were sweet on each other before he got adopted."

Simon blinked. "Rosh is adopted?"

"Yuh," said Dell. "Year or two after … we brought her back. His parents got kilt in a fire, and the Fryes took him in." He scowled at his brother. "You don't think they…"

"None of my business. But no matter what they did before, I'm fair certain they're past it." Garrod nodded at Simon's pack. "He took good care of the man she brought home. 'Less you're the jealous type, you're not gonna have any trouble with him."

Dell grunted.

Fifty meters farther on, Garrod came up behind his brother and touched his shoulder. The two fell back until Simon's back was almost lost in the mist. "What is it?"

"Well," said Dell, "I didn't want to talk out of turn either. But I been watchin his sister, and I think maybe Rosh Frye has another reason to be nice to her brother."

Ahead, Simon put his foot down with exaggerated care, thinking furiously. He quickly decided not to let on that he had overheard. Figuring what else to do, however, was trickier. His sister was a beautiful young heiress not entirely in control of her faculties, and seemed to be developing an affinity for men of questionable character. He shook his head. Badger had turned to be a better man than Simon had ever imagined, worthy even of Malcolm Reynolds's respect, and a valuable patron. And Jayne had become, for the present at least, Simon's closest friend, and seemed in no hurry to capitalize on his sister's schoolgirl crush for the big merc. Maybe she's better at picking them than I am.

Half an hour later, the path opened into a clearing carpeted with long grass that lay on the ground, all in one direction as if blown flat by the wind. Visibility still ended at around twenty yards, Jayne guessed, but it was harder to tell without any trees to judge the distance. Something about the sound of their footfalls told him that the open space extended far past their limited sight. He asked Royce, "Why ain't there no trees here?"

"Not enough soil, prolly. There's other meadows in the Wood like this, here and there. Can't dig a posthole in one of em without striking solid rock."

They kept going through the trackless field, Jayne using the grass for a compass. They placed their feet carefully on the dewy carpet, unsure what lay beneath. No one spoke. The soft springy footing muffled their footsteps, and the fog seemed to be keeping the birds quiet in their roosts. There was a heaviness about their environment that discouraged sudden movement and unnecessary noise.

Simon turned to check on the Henson brothers, and saw them draw up and stop. He turned back and nearly ran into Royce. The older man crouched; Jayne was already on one knee, pistol in hand, his palm facing downward in a 'get down' signal. The doctor went to one hand and knee, and looked past the merc: faint against the blank white backdrop, he saw the ghostly silhouette of a small building.

Garrod and Dell secured their walking sticks to their packs and took their rifles in hand. Simon glanced at them. "Expecting trouble?"

"It's the trouble you don't expect that gets you." Garrod's jaw set. "This just looks too much like the shack in that rutting crater."

Simon fumbled open a flap in the back of his pack and dug out the pistol Jayne had loaned him for target practice. He still wasn't very good with it, but visibility was only ten yards anyway; at ten yards all you needed to hit a man-sized target was a steady hand, and Simon had very steady hands.

Wait, Jayne signaled, and crouch-walked toward the shack. Halfway there, he stopped. His head swung slowly from side to side. Then he duckwalked back. "There's a whole row of em. Looks quiet. Either nobody's home or they ain't up yet."

"It's noon," Royce pointed out.

"Ayuh. Spread out a little. We'll go in careful just the same."

The group spread to a line abreast and moved up. The single shack became a row of dilapidated small buildings sided with rough planks. Weeds grew at their bases. Wisps of fog drifted through the gaps between the buildings. The place had a long-abandoned feel to it, but Jayne still stepped quiet, watching carefully.

Royce grunted.

"What is it?"

"Let's see the other side. Then I'll be sure."

The men filtered through the gaps between the buildings to the other side of the row, and Jayne stopped. "What the hell is this?"

They stood in another clearing, smaller and barer. At its center was a row of rusted metal vats, six or eight feet in diameter and four high, each with a flattish cone-shaped lid. To Jayne, they looked like soup kettles for an army. Closer examination showed them to be bottomless, raised a few inches off the ground by an arrangement of square steel tubes. The ground around each was bare and scorched black, with piles of dirt all around.

Royce Henson said, "It's a charcoal factory."

"Charcoal?" Jayne looked at the row of containers. "They cut all them trees down, and then burned em?"

"Not all. You don't make charcoal by burning the wood, you cook it. You pack one of these kilns tight with seasoned firewood, then you light the stuff at the outer edge, just inside the wall." He tapped one of the tubes underneath with the side of his boot. "These feed the fire air and channel the smoke. The wood in the center gets really hot, hot enough to turn black. But it doesn't burn – no air. And all the water and impurities get cooked away." He glanced past the shacks toward the meadow. "Charcoal's a lot lighter than wood. Easier to package and ship, too. Wouldn't take much of a truck, if you kept it running all the time. That clearing we walked through was prolly their landing field."

Jayne scanned the puny treeline, imagining the woods cleared all around as far as the eye could see. "Who the hell would they sell that much charcoal to?"

"Restaurants." Simon's gaze swept the row of buildings. From this side, they were obviously abandoned: boards missing from the walls and roofs, doors fallen off their hinges, weeds climbing the walls. "Cooking with charcoal is common among the better eateries in the Core. It's supposed to impart superior flavor to the food. But Core worlds won't burn their woodlots to make it. Funny. I never really wondered where it came from."

Garrod scoffed. "Usin spaceships to haul charcoal halfway across the 'Verse. Yuh bun duh."

"I've seen stranger things," Jayne replied, thinking of cows and wobble-headed dolls. And niu fun. Harrow's little herd had been eating and crapping in Serenity's hold for weeks; just throwing away all that bovine end product had been unthinkable to that half of the crew who had been former farmers, ranchers and gardeners on nutrient-poor Rim worlds. They'd shoveled it up and freeze-dried it in the vacuum of space, and sold the fertilizer at their next stop for a price that had near doubled their profit on the trip. "Think they moved on, or just went outta business? Leavin their equipment behind and all."

Royce kicked the bottom of the kiln; the rusted metal crumbled, leaving a small hole. "These wear out after a while. Must have taken years to clear out a parcel of land this size. I'd guess they just left them behind and moved on with new ones." He said to Simon, "Core Worlders are still buying the stuff, right?"

The doctor nodded. "It's not a fad. It's a tradition, brought from Earth-that-Was. But wouldn't the War have interrupted trade about that time?"

"Not for long. The Alliance landed troops here as soon as the local Independents raised their flag over the courthouse."

Dell slung his rifle. "Why so much interest? Thinkin he used this camp as a hideout?"

"Maybe." Jayne's tone made clear that that wasn't what he'd been thinking about, though. "Musta been a busy place. Trucks comin in and goin out, men hirin on and quitting. Lotta strangers in one place." He turned to Royce. "Ten, fifteen years, you said?"

The elder Henson's eyes met his. "Too far away. She said he came back every night."

"Almost every night."

Dell frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"The man who took Kaylee and the other girls," Simon said. "No one ever saw him, but the way he did it took planning, and knowledge - if not knowledge of his chosen victims' movements, at least a knowledge of the area, good hunting spots where he might find a victim and catch her alone and kidnap her without being seen. He must have had a source of outside news without leaving the Wood."

"He might have traded with these people," Royce said. "Hell, he might've worked here, between kidnappings. I wonder if any of the girls gone missing had kin here."

Garrod opened the bolt of his rifle, inspected the round, closed it. "Imagine it. Workin shoulder to shoulder with that um huo. Sharing meals, trading jokes. Talking about the family back home. Showin him a capture of your sweetheart. And your sister." He opened the rifle again. "You'd have to feel something when he took it from your hand. You'd see it in his eyes as he looked em over. He couldn't hide that."

"Whatever else he is, he's a hunter," said Jayne. "He knows how to hide and blend in and lie in wait. And a man like that prolly doesn't really think of other folks as human. That makes it easier." He moved off, slowly. "If he used this place then, he might be still shadowin em, dennin up within walkiin distance of where they're camped now. Mebbe they left a clue here where they went. Or maybe we can get that out of Ames."

"Sounds like a long shot," said Dell.

"So's checking out Saska sightings," replied his father, as he watched Jayne move among the buildings with his eyes on the ground. "We might have to turn over a lotta rocks to find something that points to this gan ni niang. Can't expect somebody to just give us directions."

-0-

Mal reached above him and slipped the corded mike back into its overhead receiver. "No need to worry just yet," he said to the others assembled on the bridge. "Just cause we didn't get through doesn't mean something bad happened. I can think of a hand of harmless reasons they didn't answer."

And many more bad ones, River thought. She didn't have to be a reader to discern the unease underlying the captain's reassurances. "I could go back up in the shuttle to look," she said.

"And then what? Drop them a note tied to a wrench? You've been over that forest. What are the chances they're within miles of a place you can land a shuttle? Besides," Mal added, "after the apoplexy you gave those traffic-control types, you better not put hands on a control yoke until it's time to play huntin dog for Jayne and company."

A hand slipped into River's. "Fang shin," she said to Kaylee. "One bad man isn't enough to take them down."

The hand in hers twitched. "Sure," said Kaylee, and River knew she was thinking of Jubal Early.

"If we don't reach them tomorrow night, we'll go lookin at first light," Mal said. He looked around at the assembled crew, looking for questions or dissent. "All right then." The light outside the windows dimmed and went out, and the bridge lights flicked on automatically, darkening the view outside still further. "We all got busy days tomorrow. Best rest up."

River stayed behind, waiting in the copilot's chair for the others to file out the door and down the short stairway to crew country. She listened to them disperse: Wash and Zoë to their quarters; Kaylee and the Shepherd to the galley; Mal and Inara, speaking softly together, down the companionway to the lower level that contained the passenger dorms, the infirmary, and the lower lounge, which she knew was their intended destination. But sampling the flavor of their emotions, River judged a seventy percent chance they would be arguing by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, and would part ways soon thereafter.

Before long, the only sounds in the grounded ship were the faint tinking of Kaylee's tools and an occasional small breathy gasp from the pilot and first mate's room. River rose and ghosted through the hatchway and down the short stair, where she stopped, listening.

Grounded and powered down and half deserted, the shipboard environment made her a bit restless. She much preferred the ship when it was alive with power and life. But convalescents were often quiet, she reminded herself. Soon enough, the engine would turn, humming and squeaking. The drives would roar, and the passages and compartments would be busy again. For now, though, Serenity reminded her of the cryo box: asleep, silent, waiting.

River found herself standing at the closed door to Jayne's room. It was locked, of course, but half a minute's work inside the service panel beside it took care of that little impediment. She toed the bottom of the door – carefully, so as not to disturb the busy couple next door - and it swung back, forming the top of the ladder. She hesitated a moment, reflecting on rights and proprieties, then stepped on the topmost rung and went down.

Once her feet touched the deck, River lifted her head and flared her nostrils, taking in the man-scent that filled the little space. She was now much closer to Zoë and Wash, and the heat of their lovemaking seemed to radiate through the wall. River's eyes were drawn to Jayne's bunk, and her mouth moistened, thinking of the night she had spent with him there. She took a breath and resolutely put the image aside, clamping down on her extrasensory perception, and looked around.

The small room wasn't nearly as tidy as her brother's, but it wasn't the sty that most of the other crew imagined it to be. The floor could use a thorough mopping, as well as the bottom meter of the walls. The sheets needed changing, and the thin blanket might not have been to the laundry since it was new. And something warned River not to tip out the commode for inspection. But there was no garbage on any of the horizontal surfaces, and his belongings were stowed neatly. The guns he hadn't taken with him were neatly hung on the pegboard over his bunk, and were clean and well-cared-for.

The small set of built-in drawers yielded few surprises – she noted with a grimace that he owned another tee shirt with the hated Blue Sun logo that he hadn't worn in her presence; she wondered if that was the product of coincidence or caution. Mama Cobb's gift, his beloved orange toque, was laid flat in a back corner of the top drawer. His stash of nonperishable snacks was gone, probably packed for his journey; perhaps she could replenish it while he was gone…

What was she doing here?

The short and simple answer, of course, was that she missed him, and was trying to feel closer to him by surrounding herself with his things. But it felt like she was here for a more concrete reason as well.

The montage of pictures stuck to the walls exhibited a few shameless females, but most were of normally clothed people of both genders, and might be family photos. She touched them, but with their owner so far away, she received no thoughts or memories, only a sense of possession.

Jayne's guitar hung in its usual place on the wall. River ran a finger over the strings: still unturned. Not surprising; he only kept it in remembrance of his older brother, who had died without keeping his promise to teach Jayne to play. She carefully removed the instrument and sat on the cot with it.

River had some familiarity with stringed instruments, but guitars were uncommon on Osiris – at least the parts of it she had known. Five strings, she thought. More than a sanxian, fewer than a zither. She examined the neck. Fretted for a Western musical scale. She slid her hand along its length, and seemed to feel other fingers on the strings; whether that sensation was from her eldritch sense or just her imagination, she didn't know. She plucked, turned the key, plucked again. She selected another string. Then she went back to the first and made an adjustment. She repeated the process with all five strings, then experimented with a few chords, frowned at the result, and started over. Eventually she had an arrangement that satisfied her, and she began picking out notes, playing a simple tune, then more complex ones as her fingers and imagination adapted to the guitar's style of play. When she exhausted her repertoire from related instruments, she began experimenting.

"Wai." Kaylee's voice, distant and echoing. "River. You still inside your head, or are you gone somewhere?"

River realized the mechanic's voice was coming from the top of the ladder. She stopped playing. "I'm here," she said. "I was concentrating."

"Ayuh." The sound of shoes on the rungs, then Kaylee's feet appeared, coming down the ladder. She reached the bottom, and with one hand still on the ladder said, "You comin to breakfast?"

River noted that the redheaded mechanic didn't look around at the room's furnishings and decorations; Kaylee, it seemed, had been in this room before, and often. Then her words registered. "What time is it?"

"Breakfast time," Kaylee said, "which is why I'm servin breakfast."

She stared down at the instrument. "I've been playing all night, then."

"Accordin to Wash and Zoë. They were markin every note." Kaylee smiled. "Je bing bu chong yao. I don't think they were planning ta sleep much last night anyway." She gazed at the instrument in River's lap. "You're really good on that. It almost sounded like there were two of you down here, playin a duet, like. How long have you been playing guitar?"

"What time is it?"

Puzzled at the change of subject, Kaylee said, "Mm, about seven?"

"Eleven hours then. Not excluding the time I spent learning to tune it."

Kaylee shook her head, smiling. "Tian cai, for sure."

River carefully hung the instrument back on the wall. "He always wanted to learn. When he gets back, I'm going to teach him."

A/N: I don't know how anybody else fills that particular space in the narrative, but the tune I imagine Kaylee hearing River play is 'Ebon Coast,' as performed by Andy McKee.

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