But River walks up to him, and looks him in the eye, and says: "We mustn't stay." And in his head Mal's agreeing before he answers.
"And why's that, li'l albatross?" is what he asks, because he wonders how close her reasons are to his own.
She holds up a glitter of gold that he recognises as the pin they took off the dead man.
"Because there will be more," says River, "and because they have faith."
Because they suspect the house is being watched, and because they want to give the impression that there are definitely not three corpses buried in the yard, supper goes on as planned, but crowded 'round the kitchen table and with a greater tension than the evening before. A light rain starts pattering down on the roof, giving them an excuse for giving up the peaceful shade of the yard, and by the time they sit down to eat has levelled out into a steady, drumming rain, so that River, who has been sent out, again, for vegetables - this time with Kaylee and Inara as company - tucks into her supper with her hair straggling wet into her eyes.
There is talk over the table, but not much, and what there is is a low murmur, and sporadic, and Mal almost feels bad for convincing Inara to come along, but after a glance he sees she's holding her own. He always chides himself for worrying over her comfort, because she's always better off than he is. She knows how. It's as simple as that.
The doctor spends the meal still laid out in the other room. He's getting back some colour, and by the time supper is over he no longer looks like the dead, but he's still out and not quite sleeping. But both Zoe and River say he's not hurt, just... elsewhere. It's a choice of words that Mal finds chilling.
It's another hour, while the sun goes slowly down and Kaylee frets, before the boy finally does wake, all at once and with a gasp like he's drowning.
He doesn't sit up, part because Mal thinks the boy's got his doctoring wired deep enough that he knows better, even now, and part because Kaylee stops him. "Stay put," she orders, in a tone brooking no objections, and Simon, apparently without thinking, sinks back without fighting her. River perches on the arm of the sofa at her brother's feet and studies him, sitting straight, her hands in her lap. Mal thinks she might be watching her brother for something, eyes narrow and darting, but a moment later she leans back and nods, to herself, as Kaylee settles herself next to Simon and tries to get him to eat. The doc still looks puzzled, whitewashed and hazy, and keeps looking around the room as if he's not sure how he got there.
Riona is holding in her hand the little gold pin they found on the stranger's body, and every now and then she glances at it, unhappily, glances at her brother, who looks almost angry when she does. Finally Mal asks, loud enough for the whole room to hear, because by this point there's not much purpose in secrets: "You know who they are, don't you?"
This time she doesn't answer, looks up with surprise, then frowns, shakes her head. "Not exactly," she says, and stares down into her hand again, looking unsettled.
Mal starts to scowl, takes a breath to shout at her again, but he's cut off by Collin's calm, cool voice: "She's telling the truth, Mal," he says. Mal turns to him in surprise. "We don't know who they are. We never have."
"They dealt with the two of you first," Jayne points out, and Mal's impressed the big merc worked out that much, though he knows he shouldn't be. Jayne can be clever when he needs to be, often much cleverer than they give him credit for. "Like you'd be more of a threat."
"Like maybe they didn't know River was here," adds Zoe, shrewdly, but River shakes her head.
"They saw me," she says, and looks proud, as she adds: "They couldn't reach me."
Mal sets that statement aside for later study, and looks narrowly at Collin. "I never knew that could be done," he says.
Riona hobbles to a chair and sits in it, and this time the others are looking at Collin, not at her. Kaylee looks pale but unafraid, Jayne suspicious, Inara stately and immovable; she's sipping a cup of tea. Simon is hardly moving, now lying obediently back against Kaylee, who has one hand laid gently on the side of his neck, though there's a hint of suspicion about him. Zoe is... well, Zoe, her gun across her knees. Only River is leaning forward, eyes glinting with curiosity. Mal wonders if that's because she's the only one who has any damned idea what's going on.
"They've been around a long time," Collin carries on, watching his sister as she continues to study the thing in her hands. "Ever heard of the Foundationists, Mal?"
Mal hasn't, but before he can say so, Inara says: "I have," and she looks troubled, as if she's searching her mind for a memory she can't quite catch. She looks briefly at Mal, explains: "They were a cult, of sorts. I remember hearing of them on Sihnon... one of the groups that worshipped Earth That Was, I think. But..." She looks queryingly at Collin, "I thought they'd disappeared, years ago. Their fame was short-lived."
"Hm," agrees Collin. "Near as we can tell, they come and go when times allow, even change their name when needed. But they've been around longer than we can track."
"And it's deeper than worship, or so it would seem," says Riona, nodding to Inara. "They tell stories, mostly. But they talk about Earth That Was as our origin in more than cells - they call it Mother Earth. They think it's where we got our souls. That they grew in us from the place that bore us. That when we left where we came from, we left something behind."
"Ah." Inara seems suddenly clearer, and Mal wishes he knew what any of them were talking about. He's heard the term before, of course, but it doesn't make anything more sensible, so far as he can see.
It's River who catches his eye, mouth quirked into a smile, and tells him: "They think we are separate from our roots."
Mal is sometimes bothered when he finds himself understanding River, but on this one occasion he'll forgive it in favour of getting some inkling of their situation. "So what's that to do with the two of you? Or the two of them?" He nods towards the Cromwells, and this time it's Riona who sighs, and hands him the little gold pin.
"I told you about the man my father threw out of the house, Mal. He used to wear a pin just like this. I haven't seen one like it since..." She trails off, her face freezing as if she's touched on a nerve. But she rearranges herself in her chair, like shaking herself, and goes on.
"I only heard of them a few years back... after the war, in the years drifting, before I found Collin. I was with a crew doing straight-forward passenger transport, and we ended up on a world where the terraforming was failing."
Mal nods. Mortimer Cromwell always insisted on his children being useful, and Riona has been a pilot from real young. "We were evacuating folk - the captain was a sight more charitable than you, Mal - free of charge. And three of them were priests. Looked like any other goodwill-spreaders, like Shepherds, the kind where your eye slides right past, until they speak. And they didn't, much.
"But when they did, they talked about Earth That Was. It's all they spoke on. Until they noticed me.
"They weren't... they weren't frightening, or cruel, or anything... they just... stared. And spoke. And to me, more intense than the others. I thought they were just missionaries. But I came to think that they got on that ship... because they knew who I was. Or what I was, anyway. They started talking about a ship of souls, a parable where the righteous were sent out into space as an offering, to re-seed men on another world. That until they were enlightened, then men would walk the worlds with no souls. It was a story, but something about the way they told it just struck... I don't know. Wrong." She looked green, shook, but Mal kept his face impassive. "When we made ground on Beaumonde I put in my notice and took off like a shot."
"Sounds like they spooked you." He means it to come out mocking, but it sounds worried, instead.
"They did. They knew, Mal, I don't know what, exactly, but something they shouldn't have. I never met anyone who could read me like that. Most who have the talent aren't trained. They cast about wildly, and it's half a miracle they can read anything, let alone keep from going mad like poor River, and those are the ones with proper shields that work on their own. But those men... they were reading me, Mal, all the way. Watching for something, something they wanted badly, I don't know what. Scared the hell out of me that they might find it in my head."
"And now it looks like whatever they were after in us, they've found in your two strays," Collin concluded, arms crossed.
"There's nothing in my--" protests Simon, trying, again to rise, and struggling, but he subsides under the twin assault of Kaylee's gentle arm, pulling him back to the couch, and River's scornful, censorious stare. He lies there looking mutinous and deeply offended, but he stays quiet. Mal re-inforces the message by sending Simon a stern This Is Not The Time look.
Then he surveys the two Cromwells, Simon, who is lying still and with bright, bitter eyes, and River, who is, of all of them, the calmest, and nodding, very slowly. He looks at Collin again. "I'm askin' because you two know these things," he said, "so what're the chances they'll come back here? How badly do they want this thing?"
Collin frowns, and looks uncomfortable - something he rarely does, so Mal says nothing as the other man thinks. Collin glances at his sister, who's wearing an expression of tight-strung control that even Mal can read as a cover for slowly-dawning panic. She wasn't joking; she was scared, and the attack has scared her worse. Mal can sympathise; there's no fear like one rooted in childhood. But he's got his crew to think on, and more worry besides, if there's a holy war coming down on their heads.
He's quiet a moment, considering, and then he stands up, straightening his bracers and his shoulders at the same time.
"Right," he says, "we're leaving." He looks at both Cromwells, Collin first, as he's the sensible one, and Mal is hoping that'll make some difference.
It doesn't take long for the argument to start.
"No," says Riona, stubborn and somewhat less than collected, though Mal wonders whether it's because he suggested it before she did. She ain't stupid, she knows he's right, she has to - but he's beginning to regret the way it sounded like an order. It's habit by now, and as soon as he said it he knew it would be trouble.
Riona hasn't crossed her arms and she isn't pouting, but to Mal's mind she may as well be doing both. He's smart enough not to note this aloud, but just barely.
She probably reads his face. It's the only explanation, because he just knows she wouldn't go peeking inside without permission.
"And you can just wipe that smile off your face, too," she tells him. "I won't be chased out of my home."
"They'll come back," he says, lowering his voice because even from across the room he knows the others are staring, though they're trying not to look it. "You heard the girl. Any case, you know they'll come back. You said yourself you think they've been watching this house for months, now. They've tagged you two as interesting - I'd lay coin they know what you are and who you are and they'll come back."
She's trying to rally, but he can see she knows there's no way around it.
A moment later Zoe leans forward on her knees, and fixes the younger woman with a stare Mal can't read. When she speaks, though, her voice is low and reasonable. "This place ain't worth your lives," she says.
Mal's relieved when, a few seconds later, Riona nods, looking pained. He can always count on Zoe.
Indulging in twelve hours' rest on the Chengdu estate, Mal learns a little about Zoe Alleyne that morning, but little of it from the woman herself. Mortimer tells him, and Collin, who watches Zoe with a face that tells clearly the purpose of his attention, and he learns that Zoe's been with the Cromwells much longer than Mal.
He finds that Zoe Alleyne was a survivor off of Mycroft, one of just a few hundred, and Mal didn't think there had been any, because usually when terraforming fails that's how it goes. He remembers hearing about that, years back, that the terraforming broke down after only twenty years, just long enough for the brittle little moon to build a thriving farming commune, be torn to bits by Alliance military expropriations, then left to drift when the weather changed and the crops died and her people began to starve. He remembers, briefly, his mother angrily slamming doors at Alliance claims that something was being done, relief was being sent, any day now.
He remembers the general opinion that Mycroft was cut loose to wither, and that the Alliance had let it happen.
Mortimer doesn't tell him, but Collin, who was there, does, that some of the wealthier Browncoats threw up their hands and got together a rescue mission, but were blocked at every turn, so that by the time they hit the dirt on Mycroft, there wasn't much left; a few hundred teenagers and little ones scrabbling in the frosty soil and right on the edge of nothing. Not many adults had made it.
Mortimer tells him that Zoe reached Chengdu with her younger brother and two cousins, herself the oldest at fourteen and in charge, and set out to care for them with a little help from a foundation carefully arranged by those who later became Independents, but in the case of Chengdu was mostly Mortimer Cromwell refusing to let a handful of kids disappear into the mix of the slums. He'd gotten Zoe and her brother a job, made sure the cousins made it into primary care, and kept an eye on them all until both Zoe and her brother were adults, or nearly, Zoe eighteen and Mark sixteen, and near enough to making it into apprenticeships on the ranches and in the city, respectively.
When the Gurder Plague finally hit Chengdu full-on, the Cromwells were on Persephone, but as it turned out Elisabeth was already infected, weeks earlier, and her husband spent three weeks railing in Parliament against the withholding of relief from the Rim worlds, citing corruption and bribery and getting himself censured, while Mrs. Elisabeth Cromwell was mis-filed in the St. Grace system and left to die on a sub-floor meant for the uninsured. Nobody really believed it an accident, but nobody could prove it, either, no matter how many of them were making money off of selling marked-up vaccine to rich folks in the Core who stood about as much chance of contracting Gurders as a cactus has of root-rot.
Later, it turned out that Zoe Alleyne's little cousins hadn't held out much longer, breathing their last in the city hospital, such as it was, a little before sunup on the same night. Gurders had hit the children harder than anyone else, after all.
Mark Alleyne, not taking it well, took his complaints to the local Federal outpost, loud and ornery and was misinterpreted by Feds nervous from a week of riots, who shot him down as he approached, shouting.
When Mortimer Cromwell returned to Chengdu with medicines and his children in tow and enough money to buy the moon, he did two things. First, he cleared every Fed off Chengdu soil, and formed a militia. Second, he offered Zoe Alleyne an obscene amount of money to bury her brother and her cousins and to come work for him. She refused the money, but joined up and never looked back. She was just nineteen.
When the Independents started calling themselves Browncoats, Mortimer's militia was one of the first groups to start wearing the name on their shoulders. That was when most people knew a war was coming.