The trail from the charcoaling camp up into the hills was narrow and winding, clinging to the flanks of slopes so steep that they could see over the tops of the full-grown trees just a dozen yards downslope. They trod it single file, making constant use of their walking sticks to brace themselves as the trail rose, dipped briefly, and rose still more. Jayne, at the head of the line, was thankful that the path was narrow and difficult: there were no worries that the hundan had left it. It didn't matter that the trail was a month old and there were no prints to follow, so long as there was only one way their quarry could go. The first fork or crosstrail they came upon, though, he might have to get clever…
Dell huffed, "Is the air getting thinner?"
"Nah," said Jayne. "Path's just getting steeper." He kept his breath even and tightly controlled while talking, though the endless climb was taxing him in a way that his workouts in the hold hadn't prepared him for. The Hensons, outdoorsmen though they were, were all struggling, leaning hard on their staffs; the first place they found to stretch out, he decided, he'd call a rest.
Simon said, "I'm pretty sure the atmospheric shield maintains a uniform pressure." Their Core-bred city boy looked surprisingly fresh, though his shirt under his pack straps was dark with sweat.
"Maybe we're up above it."
"That doesn't seem likely," the doc told him. "We're still breathing."
"We go much higher," Royce said, looking up through the trees, "we might bump our heads on it."
Around midday, they came upon a clearing – just a spot where the path widened, really, a flat area smaller than Serenity's lounge – and Jayne called a halt. Everyone shrugged out of their packs and set them gratefully on the ground. Dell rolled an eye at his brother when Jayne sat on a fallen log and began to unfold his map. The big merc beckoned to Simon, and the doctor sat beside him. Jayne spread the big map across both their laps as the three prospectors drew closer.
"What's the longest she said he was gone?" Jayne asked Simon, his fingertip on the wooded spot on the twenty-year-old map where they knew the charcoal camp was now located.
"All night, but she didn't say whether he left at supper or breakfast. What are you thinking?"
The merc's finger drew a narrow ellipse with the camp at one end, pointed east. "Just tryin for a better idea how far from the charcoal operation he might feel safe leavin the girl. I don't wanna round a bend and walk into his camp." It had also occurred to him that, if this path was used only by the man they were hunting, it might be alarmed or booby-trapped close to where he was denned up. "Might be time to slow down and start payin attention to the trail, and how much noise we're makin." He touched a spot a hand's width east of the camp. "We're about here." Then he tapped a thread of blue lying roughly north to south another handwidth east of their position. "He won't wanna be far from water, and this is the only stream inside a day's hike of the charcoal camp. We reach it before we come across him, we'll head upstream."
"Why upstream?" Garrod asked.
"Cause that's the direction keeps leadin up, and takes him farther from other people."
"How soon?" Garrod loomed over the sitting merc. "Can we be there tonight?"
"Well," Jayne said, "I'm thinkin we should stay put here for the night and start at first light. That should put us at the stream around noon."
Dell said, "If we push on now, we'll be there by dark!"
"Mebbe." Jayne eyed the boy. "You wanna give this gan ni niang a chance to find us before we find him? Till we get a better idea how far away he is, we don't take no chances stumblin around in the dark over strange territory he prolly knows better than the feel of his yinjing in his hand."
Garrod's voice was soft and dangerous. "You thinkin at all about what he's like to do to her tonight? Cuz you want to be cautious?"
Jayne stayed off his feet; he folded his arms, deliberately keeping them from straying near his holster. "What he's gonna do to her tonight," he said carefully, "is prolly the same thing he did to her last night, and the night before. The same thing he's gonna do to her tomorrow, if we tip our hand and he gets away with her. And the day after, and the day after that, till he's tired of her or she's plain used up, and he cuts her throat and leaves her for the scavengers and goes lookin for a replacement. You thinkin about that?"
The brothers looked about to protest, but their father said, "I don't like it either, but the man's right. We might only get one chance to save that girl. I don't want to throw it away taking a chance I could avoid." He unrolled his bedding and placed his pack at the open end for a pillow, then went carefully downslope through the trees. To Simon's eyes, the man looked wearier than he had when they had stopped.
The brothers shared a look and left the clearing as well, presumably to relieve themselves. But Simon noted that they both headed down in the same general direction their father had gone. He got up and set up his sleeping spot; when he finished, Jayne was still sitting with the map. "What is it?"
The merc beckoned Simon over with a movement of his head. The map was now folded to show an area mostly off their route. At the bottom, southern edge, he touched a fingertip to the cursed black crater with its haunting shadows. His finger moved north to a spot Simon judged to be a day's travel distant from the old hideout. There, he saw an irregular circle bare of trees, and a cluster of rectangular shadows around a trio of dark crescents. Jayne said, "The charcoal operation was smaller, twenny-odd years ago. But he was part of it even then. I talked to a foreman on the kettle crew, the first man hired when it was put together. The hundan we're trackin has been hirin on casual, camp to camp, almost from the start." Jayne folded the map. "The outfit's a real company, pays taxes and all. The man who set it up even gave it a name, all legal and hifalutin. Wanna take a guess?"
Simon felt a chill. "Does it have 'Ames' in it?"
"Blue ribbon, Three Percent. 'Ames and Sons, Limited.'"
"I thought he only had one son."
"He does, accordin to the foreman. And the kid wasn't even born when Ames started the company. Ambitious jiba, innee?" Jayne took a pull from his metal canteen. "He sold the company bout a year ago, but the new owners still use the name. Guess he sold it to em, along with his contracts and suppliers and such." He offered the canteen to Simon.
"Goodwill, it's called," Simon said. "When my father buys a successful business, he always includes goodwill in the deal. He says it's worth more than the inventory." He put the canteen's opening to his lips and let a swallow into his mouth before he noticed the smell. He spluttered, eyes watering.
Jayne gave Simon a little smile. "Just somethin to cut the dust, and mebbe make the night a little quieter. How's the feet?"
"The feet are fine. Though it's a miracle I can still feel them." The raw alcohol made the memory of Kaylee's slash seem like ambrosia.
"One a the fellas in the kitchen has got a still," Jayne said, putting the canteen away. "Seemed smart not ta ask what he put in it." He fussed with the inside of the pack, seeming to have trouble fitting the contents together. Finally, he got a firm grip and hauled out a carefully wound bundle of rope.
"Wai." The Hensons stepped back into the little clearing. Garrod went on, "Where did you get that?"
"Brought it out of the charcoal camp," Jayne said. "Was thinkin of the doc and his tree-climbin stunt when I did it, but I'm guessin we may have other uses for it later."
-0-
In Serenity's galley, Kaylee watched the water streaming out of the faucet. The recycler had been repaired, and she was clearing the brown gunk out of the taps, one at a time; the galley faucet, being the highest one aboard delivering drinking water, was the last. While she waited, her mind drifted, settling on her family - and her brothers in particular.
She and Rosh had talked at length, catching up, and Kaylee doing her best to satisfy his curiosity. It had been hard to avoid telling him the whole truth about River's condition and the reason she and Simon were aboard Serenity. She badly wanted his approval of her beau, but despite how close they were, she was unsure how Rosh would react to learning that the Tams were fugitives from the law with huge prices on their heads.
Matt's bitter opinion of the Alliance, as related to her by River, had taken Kaylee by surprise. He had never given a hint that he harbored such ill will toward the people whose flag waved above their little world, though it seemed clear now that he believed official indifference had played a hand in her and Mina's long imprisonment and Mina's loss of her mind. She thought that maybe finding Mina's body had freshened and strengthened his resentment.
But would he act on it? How? Matt wasn't the kind to join the hooligans and vandals using the Alliance as an excuse for their little pranks. If Matt Frye ever made a statement against the authorities, it would be meaningful, and probably risky.
But it was Will who worried her the most. The family still hadn't spoken to him about how he came to be, but at the wake the house had been flooded with well-meaning folk with Mina on their minds and tongues; it seemed likely he had learned something the other Fryes would prefer kept from him for a while yet. She debated on whether to sound him out, to see if what he'd heard had at least been true and not gossip. Maybe when Simon and the others returned…
The coffee-colored water streaming out of the tap thinned and then abruptly cleared. Kaylee gave a little breath of relief. They could use the shower now, at least, but she would have to run some tests before they quit drinking bottled water aboard. She was filling a little vial for a sample when a shadow passed over the sink. She looked up through the window and saw an aircar, unmarked, pass just overhead, headed toward the house.
She hurried down to the hold and stepped out on the ramp. By then the car had settled to the earth, its sole occupant waiting for the dust to dissipate before getting out. Kaylee recognized the young man: Mr. Ames's son, who had come with him the night of the party. He leaned against the grounded aircar and cupped his hands around his face; when he took them away, she saw that he had a cigarette in his mouth, a rare vice among folks beyond the Border.
Kaylee quickstepped toward him. "Mister Ames," she called, unsure of his first name. "Coming to inspect the work?"
"'Mister Ames' is my dad," he said, smiling faintly down at her: he was quite tall. "I'm Rod or Roddy, when my father's not introducing me to strangers. He thought it would draw less attention to send me here instead of coming himself. There are people who are always interested in what Ames Holdings is doing, and we have no recorded ties to Frye's Repair." He took a deep pull from his cig and blew out a little wisp of smoke. "No, I'm not here to look the ship over. What I'm here to check on is the progress of our hunting party."
"We haven't heard from them," she said. "Not since they found Mina." She swallowed and went on. "No reason to think anything's wrong. Wash thinks they might have left the com on by accident and flattened the battery."
He nodded. "I wanted to be here for the wake, to show my respects," he said. "But…"
"People would wonder what you're doing here. Thank you anyway."
He nodded again, and turned his gaze on the ship parked across the field. He took a big pull on the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke; though his face was turned away, she could still smell it: the tobacco had an odd scent very different from Jayne's cigars. "Must have stirred up some memories."
"She hasn't been far from my mind since I come back," she said. "At least now we can stop wonderin."
"I wanted to go with them," he said, and she realized he was looking past the ship toward the distant green line of the Wood. "Father wouldn't let me."
"Well," she said uncertainly, "he wanted to keep the party small." And maybe he wanted to spare you having to look at what they find.
"Who's got more right to be there than her own brother?"
She had no answer for that. Instead she said. "How old are you, you don't mind my asking?"
"Twenty-seven, next birthday." Another puff and exhale. Something about the smoke coming from his mouth made her nervous, as if Roderick Ames was a piece of malfunctioning machinery.
"And she's ten. That's a pretty big age gap."
"Yes," he said. "Almost exactly the gap between my father's first and second wives."
Kaylee felt her ears warm. "Oh."
"He didn't throw her over for a younger woman, Miss Frye," he said. "She left him. And me, when I was younger than Amadine."
"It's Kaylee."
He nodded. "You like it, out in space?"
"I like flyin," she said. "I like my ship and crew."
"But not space."
She shrugged. "The stars are pretty. Side from that, space is just what's between the places you wanna go. If I ever suit up, it usually means trouble, and nobody wants trouble in space."
"I like space," he said. "It's quiet. Simple. You always know what it wants from you. The stars are ten times as close through a faceplate as a window."
"That's all true," she allowed. "What were you doing in space?"
"A business venture of my father's. I can't say any more." He dropped the half-spent cigarette and ground it out under a toe. "Well. I'm keeping you from your work, and the less time I'm away the better. Will you call me if you hear from them?"
"First thing."
He pulled a small notebook from his pocket, jotted on it, and tore the page off. "My com code. Personal, not the office. Best to leave my father out of this, keep a low profile."
"These people, aren't they watchin you too? Officer of the company, and all?"
The faint smile returned. "I'm sure it will be easy to explain me visiting a pretty girl and talking to her on com. There will be a hundred guesses how we met, but no suspicion."
As she took the slip of paper, she said, "Sure you don't want to see how we're spendin your money?"
"My father's money," he corrected. "I'm certain you're spending it prudently. I only hope you can be finished by the time your friends come back." His attention turned back to the treeline. "You'll all be ready by then to get into space and be on your way someplace far from here, I'm sure."
-0-
Shepherd Book was hoeing in the tiny garden beside the Frye homestead, preparing a section for planting. He was also keeping an eye on Kaylee and the Ames boy standing beside his aircar in the field. The scuffing sound of shoes headed toward him from the house made him turn. When he saw the person heading across the bare earth toward him, he dropped his hoe and took a step toward her.
"Easy, Brother," said Sister Nan. "Just a handshake, we're not supposed to know each other."
They were far enough from the house and other buildings that they could speak privately, but the little garden patch was visible from numerous observation spots, even the ship. "I'd say not," he said as he clasped her hand. "You look like a farm hand."
As Sister Risa was beautiful, Sister Nan was … not. She wasn't ugly or misshapen, but her face was plain and coarse-featured, her figure stocky and mannish. Her hair, freed of its topknot, was short, dry, and gray. The only role Book could imagine for her that was distinctly female would be that of the matriarch of a big and sturdy family.
"Right in one," she said, still clasping his hand. She was clad in a checked flannel shirt and denim pants, her feet shod in heavy work boots. "A transient, looking for a few days' work. That's all the time I can spare from my real assignment, but the Bishop thought he should send someone whose opinion you'd trust."
"Hm." Book let go of her hand. "So you're here to tell me not to pursue it?"
She snorted. "You think His Excellency would send me on a fool's errand? I'm here to pick up your little investigation. Give me what you have, Derrial, and I'll look into it. But if it turns out to be nothing, or even just small change, you have to promise to leave it be. The Bishop insists."
"Agreed." They stood together under the blurry sun while Book spoke, stopping only to answer an occasional question. In a hand of minutes he was finished. "What do you think?"
The whine of motors intruded; the aircar lifted up a few meters, turned, and went off the way it had come. Kaylee waved briefly, then headed back to the ship.
"Well," Nan said, "it's about money, of course. At first wash, it sounds like a business venture that's illegal or simply depends on secrecy. If he really is a government official, I suspect this fellow is bending or ignoring a few rules to help things along, in return for a share. Not just a bribe, he's risking too much."
"But there's nothing in those woods but small operations – prospecting, hunting, a little logging. Nothing worth an Alliance bureaucrat's time."
"Derrial," she said, "there's something beyond price in those woods. You think this fellow Singh doesn't know about your 'hunting party,' and what it's hunting? If Ames is as rich as you say, maybe Singh is mounting his own rescue effort, looking for a reward." She interlaced her fingers and stared at her thumbs. "Or maybe, it wasn't the Woodsman who took that little girl at all." She raised her eyes. "Well. We can speculate all day. It's time to start digging up some facts." Grinning, she knelt in the soft earth. "Bless me, Father."
-0-
As predicted, the party reached the stream just before midday. The morning march had seemed dangerously silent to Simon, with the Hensons hardly exchanging a word with Jayne or him, though they had occasionally spoken to one another in voices too low to hear. The silence seemed to suit the big merc, however, and he had taken the lead, scanning the ground and the trees along the path carefully, mostly traveling as if he was all alone.
At the water – hardly more than a trickle, small enough to cross with a leap – Jayne examined the banks carefully.
"Anything?" Royce asked.
"Somethin, not much." He bent and touched a finger to a vague indentation, then pointed to another a step away. "Tracks, but they could be anything, really, even an animal. The stream rose up a while back and washed most of it out. Can't even tell how many, or which way they're headed."
Dell said, "You were sure they were headed upstream."
"I was sure that was where he'd be keepin her," Jayne said. "That don't mean he ain't moved her, if he's done with the charcoal camp." He moved downstream. "Stay here."
Dell stared after him, his face a mask of anger. As soon as the big merc disappeared around a bend, he turned and started upstream. Simon grabbed his wrist. The boy jerked his arm, but the doctor held fast. Simon sensed the other Hensons coming up behind him.
"I think you're going the right way," Simon said, addressing Dell but speaking to all three of them. "But those tracks may get clearer as we go. If we step all over them before Jayne sees them, we might lose important information. Wait for him. He won't be long." He let go of the boy, then bent with his canteen to fill it from the stream and drop a purifying pill in its opening.
Within half an hour Jayne was back, walking through the shallow stream and raising tiny splashes. He passed them, scanning both banks. The rest of the group followed. Simon asked, "What are you doing?"
"Lookin for where they crossed the stream," he said over his shoulder. "The tracks on the bank end right where we come out. But if they'd been on the trail we was on, I'd a seen signs. That means they went in the water, or come out of it. There's a little fall bout a quarter mile downstream where they'd a had to come out, but there's no sign. So that means-" He swerved to the far bank and parted some weedy brush. "Wait here." He stepped through and disappeared. Less than a minute later he was back. "This way. Fill your canteens first."
Scarcely five yards up the bank, the mud gave way to loam, and they saw the tracks: two sets of footprints, one half the size of the other, headed away from the creek. Simon drew a quick breath and let it out. It seemed now as if he had been mentally holding his breath since the little shack in the crater. These footprints were the first solid evidence that they hadn't been wandering through the Wood on a fool's errand, that they were on the kidnapper's trail and the child was still alive.
Royce said it for all of them. "You led us true, Cobb. We'd of never found them without you."
"Ain't found em yet." Jayne spread a palm over an untrod part of the narrow path, brushing at the dirt. Then he took a pinch of soil from the rim of one of the prints and rubbed it between his fingers. "This soil 'ud hold prints a long time. Wish I knew when it rained last." He followed the trail, slowly, for a dozen steps, then stopped and pointed at the ground. "Seen anything goes with those?"
A line of palm-sized pawprints crossed the trail; one of them overlay a shoeprint, blurring it. Simon looked a bit further down the trail and saw several more. "No."
"Squirrels, opossum, deer," Royce said. "The wildlife isn't shy, this far from civilization."
"But we ain't seen this little sneak. Which tells me he prolly goes about his business at night."
"So they're no less than half a day ahead of us," Simon said.
"And maybe as much as three," their tracker said. "Might be able to narrow that down when the ground changes. But for now, we better figure half a day."
"Half a day, that's nothing." Dell stepped forward.
Jayne held up a palm. "It's a lot more than nothin. We don't know how fast he's travelin. We could spend days catchin up to him, days travelin close enough behind he might hear us. Sound travels farther in these trees than you think, and the kinda sounds men make on the march draws the ear. If he catches wind of a gang of men out here on his back trail, he'll run. And if that little girl is slowin him down, what do you think he'll do?" He eyed Del's pack, with the skillet hanging off the back. "Tie down anything that rattles, or wrap it in cloth. Watch where you step. And if you need ta talk to somebody, do it with your lips to his ear. We're hunters now."
While the others secured their gear, Jayne took a few more steps down the track, his eyes on the ground. "Huh," he said.
"What?" Royce shouldered his pack and joined the big merc; the others followed as they finished up.
Jayne stood looking down at the tracks. "Good news and strange news. I was a mite worried by that backtrack business at the stream – that's a stunt a hundan pulls when he knows somebody's on his trail. But now I think he just missed the path. When he got to the trail we used, he knew he'd overshot and doubled back, walkin the stream to make sure he didn't miss it a second time. This gan ni niang ain't in no hurry." He pointed at one large shoeprint, then the next. "I thought maybe he was shorter than they said, by the stride, but the heel marks tell me he's just amblin along. And lookit this." He pointed to a smaller shoeprint, overlaid by the larger one. "Now this." He stepped forward several paces and indicated another pair of prints: this time the smaller print was on top of the larger one. "Sometimes she's ahead of him, sometimes behind. No drag marks, though."
"He's had her for over three weeks," Royce said. "Bet she learned the first day not to pull on the rope."
"Maybe," Jayne said. "To me, it looks like he's letting her set the pace."
"Where's he taking her?"
"Dunno. There's nothin up this way but higher ground and more trees, accordin to the map."
"Someplace no one would think to look."
"For a reason. He still needs water. Less he plans his stay out here to be a short one."
-0-
Shepherd Book, shirtless in the warm sunshine, knelt over a wide board resting on two low sawhorses. He applied a handsaw to the protruding end, pulling the Western-style saw instead of pushing, trying to start his cut with a clean kerf. But the blade snagged and wandered a thumb's width off the mark. He sighed and tried again.
At least, he thought, he was engaged in rough carpentry and not cabinet work; no one would notice the mistake. The board was intended to repair a sliding door at the back of the barn: a minor job not critical or often looked at, which was probably why Papa Frye had consented to let Book do it. For the past three days, the old preacher had been volunteering for solitary outside work where he was unlikely to be observed, and carried his Cortex link hidden in a small bag around his waist. But Nan had sent no messages. And the time she had said she could spare for an investigation was nearly run out.
Meanwhile, Singh had been busy. Inara had called the ship two days before, outraged: her shuttle had been grounded in Capital City pending a review of its service logs. It had come to the Traffic Board's attention, she had been apologetically informed, that her shuttle's mothership had come to New Home seriously behind on its mandated maintenance; it was only natural to assume that its auxiliary craft were similarly at risk. It was a neat move, Book thought, one that turned their Companion's privileged status against her: Inara might have talked her way out of a restriction of her movements generated by any other rationale, but not one generated by a concern for her valuable hide.
The scrap end of the board fell off under the saw. Book lifted the cut board into place and tried to fit it in, and sighed again. It was perhaps a quarter of an inch too long. He doubted he could manage a second cut so close to the first without butchering it. Some student of a carpenter I am.
"Don't know why you're surprised," said Sister Nan. She wore an outfit similar to the one from their last meeting. "You were always hopeless with any tool didn't have bullets come out one end."
"That's so untrue. I once used a pipe wrench to good effect on two men who were about to shoot you, you may recall." He replaced the board on the sawhorse, glanced around, and sat on it. The woman sat beside him, putting their heads close together. "Well?"
"Well, your 'Bartolemew Singh' doesn't exist, though I'm sure you knew that. And the case against you was officially closed at the same time your pilot's license was reinstated – that was sloppy of you, Derrial."
"I haven't flown in over twenty years."
"Even worse. Letting God-given talent atrophy is poor stewardship." The woman's tone was joking, but Book knew she meant every word, as Risa had when she had spoken of wasting her gift of beauty.
"Anyway." Nan withdrew a small capture from her pocket. "There's nothing linking this man and his meeting with you to any government office. But, the Alliance being the Alliance, it likes to keep tabs on its employees during working hours – not the executives, of course, but you mentioned a staffer who escorted you to your very unofficial meet. It being a tad early for the lunch rush, there weren't more than a hand of young women matching your description off duty at the time. We checked them out-"
"We?"
"Did you really think I came alone, with just three days to give you enough answers to quiet your itch? But you don't need to know who they are. Anyway, one of these young women was a personal assistant to…" She activated the capture, showing Book a few seconds' observation of Singh as he got into an aircar. "Your man?"
"Yes."
"Meet the Honorable Lu Jian, Minister for Economic Development, Yellow Sun Sector – a job that consists mainly of finding profit opportunities out here for Core World businesses – and individuals, if they're generous enough. And sometimes, if a venture is lucrative enough and doesn't require a Core World outfit's cash reserves, he'll offer it to a small-timer, a local, and cut himself in for a share. Zang shang liu," she added, using the common term for people of wealth who were undeserving of it. "He's been here a long time, and he's quite wealthy, and his salary is the smallest part of his income."
Malcolm Reynolds appeared from behind the machine shed on the far side of the field, toolbox in one hand, coil of wire in the other, headed toward Serenity; apparently the ship's captain had taken Book's place as gopher for the repair crew. He glanced their way and slowed. Book raised his hand over his head and gave a little wave, and Mal lifted his in return before moving on.
Nan said to Book, "Nothing to see here, eh, Brother? How much do they know?"
"That depends on which of them you're talking about. They've all noted that I don't fit the mold of a monk turned country preacher. Some of them speculate, but they don't bother me about it. Surprisingly, the only one with the full story from my own mouth is a career criminal – small-time – who got hired on under rather strange circumstances. I'm sure he'll keep it close, not least because of the stories he's heard about us."
Nan gave him a little smile. "Are they true?"
"I don't know. He's never repeated them to me. But I doubt he's ever known anyone worthy of the Confessor's interest."
"And where is he now?"
"Out in the Wood, looking for that girl."
Sister Nan turned serious again. "There's more to hear about Minister Lu."
"I was hoping."
"Twenty-odd years ago, he brokered a deal to sell the terraforming project's antiquated geosat system and ancillary equipment to a local businessman. You know the name."
Book nodded. "Can't say I'm surprised. Any other connection?"
"A tenuous one. Ames is involved in a new venture, something very big which would certainly require Lu's involvement. It seems that Ames Enterprises has been working for several years to acquire a near-space mining license."
"Mining what?"
"Only Ames knows, but something very profitable. Judging by the equipment inquiries, I'd say 'carbons."
Book let out a soft grunt. 'Carbons were possibly the rarest resource in the 'Verse. There were only two known sources: the interiors of certain gas giants, extraction from which was fatally risky and incredibly expensive; or from asteroidal bodies, rare as hen's teeth, that wandered into inhabited space on the return leg of a billion-year orbit, created when a living planet circling Blue Sun had shattered eons before. Only three such had ever been discovered, and had made their owners wealthy beyond dreams.
If the stories were true, the surface of Earth-that-Was had been floating on the stuff, squirting out of the ground wherever you drilled a deep enough hole. Just like here, it had been prized for all the products that could be made from it, from lubricants to pesticides to fertilizer to plastics. But, incredibly, its primary use to folks on the homeworld had been as fuel; they had burned oceans of it to drive their engines, and the smoke and other byproducts of that combustion had been a chief contributor to fouling the planet's air and changing its climate, forcing humanity to find lodgings elsewhere. Book gave a word of thanks to the Creator for preventing Man repeating that mistake here.
"However," Nan went on, "Ames has a bit of a cash-flow problem. Space mining isn't cheap or simple, and coming up with the money for licenses, permits, fees-"
"Bribes."
"-to acquire exclusive rights for an operation lucrative enough to interest Core World firms has left him stretched thin. He was forced to approach a few investors – including Lu, we believe – in return for shares. But it still wasn't enough; buying his way through the bureaucracy and beating off the competition has emptied his treasure chest, leaving him without enough capital for equipment and skilled labor to get started. He's been selling off his businesses over the past few years; all he has left are the satellites and his contract mining outfits. But he's still short, and he has nothing left to sell and nowhere to go for more cash. His partners have begun talking about selling out to some Core World firm to save their investment. But Ames is a stubborn man. He's been building his little empire in Jove system for thirty years – since before his first marriage, in fact – and he's not eager to turn it over to some Core World accountant, no matter how much he and his friends profit from it." Nan looked off across the field, and her voice lowered. "And … he still has one very sizeable potential asset."
A feeling of dread came over the old preacher. During his career, he had dealt with some of the vilest practices and people imaginable; he knew that bad men were capable of anything, and even normally upright people could be driven or drift to surprisingly evil acts…
"Ames has an insurance policy, a big one, taken out when he first started soliciting partners," she said. "It may not have been his idea, maybe something his partners insisted on."
"How much?"
"On himself, his wife, and his two children, four million credits total. It's a family policy. The premiums are equal for each member. But the payouts are unequal, depending on the assessment of risk, and they shift over time as the members age." She head-shrugged. "Which sounds more than a little peculiar, but insurance is really just a form of gambling, and you can find somebody willing to take any bet for the right odds. The takeaway to this is, you can buy a much higher payout on a family policy if you include the kids, because you can buy a lot more insurance on a ten-year-old girl for the same money than you can on a fifty-year-old man."
"How much?" He asked again.
"On the daughter, one point six million. Enough to buy a fleet of ships, or a first-rate mining outfit for harvesting asteroids." She stroked her forehead, suddenly looking very weary. "But the insurance company could keep Ames waiting for years for his money without proof of death. If he's going to collect in time to save his business, he needs a body."
-0-
Three days after crossing the stream, the posse caught up with the Woodsman and his captive. This had been accomplished by forced marches – rising before dawn and setting off as soon as they could see the tracks of their quarry, walking until the light entirely disappeared, then dropping in place to gnaw a little hardtack before falling asleep. They had also been helped along by the seeming unhurried pace of their target.
"Maybe the kid's sick, or just wore out," Dell had murmured to Simon on the trail. "He wouldn't kill her for that, if he still felt safe, and he couldn't lay his hands on another victim easy. He'd let her rest up some, so he could get more use out of her."
Simon had shrugged. Whatever reasoning the Woodsman used, or anyone like him, was beyond his understanding. The girl was alive, and Jayne had said the tracks were getting fresher; that was enough to know.
They had twice come upon the remains of recent overnight camps in wide spots along the trail: the first on the evening of the first day; the second near noon of the next. The camps had consisted of just a small fire, its embers carefully smothered with dirt. The Hensons' jaw muscles and nostrils had flexed at the single flattened spot beside the fire.
On the morning of the third day, they had been ascending a gentle grade through trees that abruptly thinned and thickened again, the result of God knew what geological or historical change. Dell had moved up close behind Simon, about to whisper something, when Simon caught a whiff of smoke and stopped, the boy behind nearly running into him before the scent registered. At the head of the line, Jayne signaled a halt.
They put their heads together as best they could on the steep narrow trail, propping themselves with their sticks. Jayne said quietly, "Stay here. I'll scout ahead."
"Don't take him on by yourself," Royce said.
"Never been in a fair fight I could make unfair. I'll be back for ya." He shrugged out of his big double pack, taking his rifle with him, and moved up the trail. They watched him until a gentle curve took him out of sight.
The posse waited, silent and tense, exchanging dark looks. Garrod took out his rifle and quietly inspected the rounds in his magazine. An hour later, Jayne returned. "Didn't get close enough to see em clear, but I see their fire, bout half a mile ahead. I don't wanna give him a chance to bolt. So we need to leave the path before it bends and come at the camp from outta the trees and surround him. The trees thin out some away from the path, so we got a good chance if we do it right." His eyes took them all in. "But we gotta be quiet, like smoke. He didn't stay uncaught this long without bein crafty and cautious. All it might take is a snappin twig or a little shower of dew fallin off a branch ten yards in to set him off. Take it dead slow, he ain't goin nowhere. Watch where you put your foot, every step. No unnecessary arm movements, they draw the eye. Don't touch anything."
The Hensons' eyes flicked Simon's way, their question clear. Jayne caught it too. He said, "Dell, Garrod, take either side, get a little ahead of him. Royce, you come up behind on the right. Get as close as you can without givin yourselves away, and wait for my signal." His eyes swept the little group. "Anybody don't feel woodcrafty enough, stay back here and keep him from runnin back down the trail." At their nods of assent, he turned to Simon. "Stay with me."
When the others had gone, Simon said, "I'm not going to change my mind. I can do this." The others' packs sat propped against one another, but he still wore his; he couldn't easily carry his medical supplies without it. He pulled his pistol from an outside pocket, checked the clip, and put it back.
"Aright." Jayne beckoned the doctor up the trail. They walked in silence until the path began its gentle bend, then the big merc found a narrow opening in the brush and stepped through, without so much as a swaying branch. Simon took a quick breath and followed.
The trees and brush thinned out a dozen meters from the path, and the ground turned soft and spongy. Simon could just make out the path they had left through the tree trunks: he felt sure that someone on the trail would have a very difficult time seeing through the foliage lining it into the woods beyond. Dell, supposed to be somewhere ahead of them on this side, was nowhere in sight, lost among the trees.
Rather than follow Jayne's, he picked his own path, though he did not stray more than a few meters from the big merc. Moving very deliberately and examining the ground before setting his foot down, looking all around and ahead between steps for the clearest way, they took nearly ten minutes to travel a hundred meters. Jayne glanced back at him from time to time, nodding. The same sort of stealth had allowed Simon Tam to navigate Blackout Zone alleys strewn with trash and sleeping derelicts without losing his footing or raising an alarm.
Simon saw a flicker between the trees in the direction of the path ahead; it appeared and vanished as his moved, the trees hiding and revealing it. He remembered to breathe and reached slowly behind him for his pistol. The weapon was very heavy in his hand, and made him feel clumsy and unbalanced, but he couldn't put it back.
Just ahead, Jayne was moving in a deer stalker's crouch, eyes fixed on the light. Simon followed, matching his pace and posture, until the big merc stopped about ten meters from the path. He stared at the treeline, and between the trees saw movement that didn't come from the fire.
In a wide clearing, a man sat cross-legged on the ground facing the fire, doing something with an object in his lap. A pack rested against a tree nearby. He was dressed as they all were, in sturdy working clothes. Simon couldn't see his face clearly, but his hair hung down to his shoulders and looked rather ill-cared-for. And, although his position and the intervening trees made it difficult to be sure, he looked big.
A different figure moved into view, and Simon stopped breathing again: the girl's hair was cut roughly short and none too clean, but the color was Amadine's. And her clothing, looking soiled and rather worse for wear, matched the capture Ames had given them of his daughter the day of her disappearance. She was unfettered, stooping by the side of the trail on the opposite side three or four meters behind her seated captor. It seemed strange that the man should allow her so much freedom, but really, where could she go? It was as Royce had said: in the near month she had been in his power, the monster had trained her not to flee or resist.
Slowly, an inch at a time, Jayne set his rifle on the ground and silently pulled the pistol from his belt holster, eyes never leaving the man by the fire. Simon wondered what the big merc was going to do next, what he was waiting for. Was he making sure the others were in place and ready? Did he intend to move closer?
The man's head jerked up, and he stared into the trees just ahead of them. He looked at his pack.
"Gittem!" Jayne shouted, and pelted through the trees, and Simon ran after, hearing crashing noises elsewhere nearby.
The man shot to his feet. "RUN!" He roared. The girl stood, dropped something, swung her head around wildly at the men bursting from the trees, and ran – straight to the man, and clutched his shirt. He swept her behind him with one big hand and held her there while he backed up against a tree. He glared at the men leveling their weapons at him, but his voice was quiet and not for them. "Idjit kid, why didn't you run?"
A tiny sob was his only answer.
Simon glanced at the trail where the girl had been: a patch of wildflowers lined the path there, yellow and purple and red, and a small bundle of them lay in the dust where she had dropped them. He looked back at the big man shielding the child with his body, and saw a tiny yellow flower tucked behind one ear.
Jayne said, "What the hell is this?"