"I found a local map." River said as Jayne reentered the clearing left by the shuttle. She stood gracefully and held the book up. "The shuttle computer marked our current location when it was copied."
"Good." He looked at it. "Is this a river?" That was strange for a small moon. Then again, the variety of plant life was strange.
"Yes, it was part of the terraforming. It meanders around the entire orb." She manipulated the screen to show a turning planet.
Jayne frowned. Green moons were rare. Most were some other color. He could make out a wide snakelike band of darker, lusher plants. Must be around the river.
"Go back." Jayne requested. They looked at the local map again. "What about this?" He pointed to an oddly shaped formation just south of them. It was surrounded on three sides by a bend in the river.
River tugged the reader back to her eyelevel and fiddled with it some more. "Looks like raised, rocky ground. Possibility of caves 73 percent."
"How far is it?" He asked. High ground near the water source sounded like a good place to set up camp.
"Only about a mile, according to the map." She frowned. "It could be more. Sometimes the mapping satellites are incorrectly calibrated. That way."
Jayne looked the direction she was pointing.
"The trees are troublesome." River shivered. "New, unoccupied moon? Trees so tall are more, much more than ten years growth." She shook herself. "The lines of causality do not run straight."
He grunted as he worked thru her meaning. Girl had a point.
"Indicates a probability of failed colonies." She continued.
"That gives me a mighty uncomfortableness." Jayne said. "Lets go there." He pointed to the rocky spot on the map again. "We should set ourselves up nearer the river and I like the thought of high ground."
River looked around. "Their expectation was for us to remain here."
Jayne grinned wolfishly. "All the more reason to go."
He crouched next to the crate she wasn't sitting on, preparing to hoist it.
"Wait, don't." She waved him away, looking at the databook again.
"I can come back for the other one." He said. "They're made to stay tight even if they get rained on."
River just shook her head and opened the crate she was sitting on. She dug through it long enough to find a coil of rope and a hatchet. She latched the crate back up and laid the rope on top.
"Whoa, girl." Jayne said, backing away slowly.
"He is already wearing red." She looked amused as she said it. She glanced back down at her book and walked purposefully towards the crushed plants left by the shuttle. Jayne was startled to realize she was humming the lullaby he'd sung to her that first hour in the cell.
He watched for a moment as she hacked uselessly at the trunk of a broken sapling.
"Gorramit, girl!" He marched over to her. "Tell me what to do." He reached for the hatchet.
River paused, he could see her analyzing the situation. "Your proposal represents an optimal solution." She handed him the hatchet, handle first.
"What?" He took the tool.
"You're right." She smiled up at him. "You should wield the weapon. We need two trunks or long branches." She reached above her head to show how long they should be. "We also need three or four shorter branches." She indicated a length just smaller than her full arm span.
Jayne shook his head and quickly gathered the sticks she wanted. He watched as she arranged them and began lashing them together with the one long length of rope.
"We could cut the rope." He suggested.
"No." She said, struggling with it. "We may need the length later. No unnecessarily diminishing resources."
The sun had moved in the sky before she was done.
"Room for all the cargo." She said happily. She had him move both crates onto the frame and added the food parcel as well. She tied everything in place using the rope from the other crate, then rigged the extra length into two large loops. She padded the loops with blankets from the crates, handed him one and put the other around her own chest.
"You're joking, right?" He blinked at her, no, she was still getting ready to help him haul.
"She is serious." River said earnestly. "I want to help."
Jayne shook his head. "She should scout the path so he…I don't have to backtrack none. Just stay close."
Jayne crossed the two loops over his chest and hauled. The contraption moved over the ground easier than he would have expected. It was lighter too.
She led them, chattering as she went. At first he thought she was spouting nonsense again, but he realized slowly that she was identifying things as she went. Before long she was checking against the data book.
"Stop!" She called suddenly. She rushed past him and opened one of the crates. She pulled out yet another blanket. She tied it onto herself by the corners so it made sort of a big pouch.
Jayne watched her with bemusement. He shrugged, she was the crazy one, after all.
River began picking little brown things off the ground and stowing them in the blanket.
"Ri-Santha…" Jayne shook the question out of his head. He didn't really want to know what she was doing.
She paused, looking at him. "Is it really so difficult for him to remember Santha?"
Jayne started hauling again.
She made a cute little exasperated noise.
He groaned might as well tell her. "I'll get used to it. My regular trim on Persephone was named Santha."
Her eyes met his. "You see the same girl each time?" Her stillness unnerved him.
"Usually, if I go to the same whorehouse." Jayne could tell she was curious. Hell, why not talk. They were fixin' to get to know each other inside and out, being stranded together.
"Most of the whores I visit are real nice folk." He grinned at her. "But I ain't never met one I liked well enough to try to lure her away from the trade." Her innocent expression made him clear his throat and go on.
"Regular paying customers are a girl's livelihood. If a girl gets to know me and what I like, ain't no reason to let some other pretty bit steal my coin away from her."
"Admirable." River murmured, barely loud enough to hear.
"I got a few rules, is all. I stick to one girl in any one place, unless she introduces me to another, hinting-like. That happens sometimes."
River tilted her head like she was trying to figure that out.
He adjusted the harness straps before continuing. "If I walk in while she's busy, 'my' girl might let a friend take care of me." He explained. "Or, sometimes it's because they don't want to see me again." He shrugged. "Ain't important."
"You are honorable." River said slowly.
"No, I ain't." He frowned.
River's face contorted into several odd expressions in rapid succession. "Maybe that is the wrong word, maybe it isn't."
Jayne nodded.
"But tell me this, would you ever sleep with a whore, then not pay her?" River asked slowly.
"Never. That would be like…" Jayne said with some anger. He wasn't that kind of…
"Say it." River pressed. "It would be like what?"
"Ain't we supposed to be hiking?" He grumbled.
"Say it." River repeated. "I hear it already, say it out loud."
Jayne's jaw worked with anger or some other emotion.
"Rape." He finally ground out. "It would be like rape. Stealing too, I guess, but… stealing don't bother me much."
"You don't think you'd ever rape someone?" The little smile playing along her lips made him angry again.
He swore colorfully. "No, gorramit. Ain't that come clear to you yet?" He'd just proved that, hadn't he? Surviving days with her in that sleeper cell…
"Yes." Her smile grew in size.
His anger evaporated. "What do you take me for, anyway?" He grumbled.
"Honorable." She seemed entirely too pleased with herself. She skipped off, only to become distracted again by picking more little lumps from the ground.
"Gorramit, girl, what the hell are you doing?"
"Collecting edibles." She came back to him and held one up for him to see.
"Huh." It was a nut. He'd seen those at market, but never wasted coin on them.
Her face lit up again. "Oh, look." She scampered off. "Turnips." She knelt and started scratching at the dirt with her hands.
"Wait." Jayne called. "I think I saw a spade."
"Jamie is quite correct." She inspected her hands. "Santha is going to damage herself." She ran back to him and dug through the crate.
"Pull the sled, Jamie-boy. Santha will only dig up a few. That way there will be more later." She hummed happily.
"Keep up." He called when he almost couldn't see her anymore. He waited until she joined him.
She mostly stayed pretty close. He half watched her as he hauled. She was referring to her book more and more to identify the plants they passed.
She chattered to him the whole time, mostly gibberish, but she called herself Santha every other sentence or so.
"Those are gorram maple trees." Jayne said suddenly.
Ri-Santha looked back at him. "Yes, Acer saccharum the sugar maple. I already said that."
"Planted straight as an arrow, too." He mused. "These trees ain't cheap. My granddad planted twenty of them for the syrup. There are hundreds of them here. Why would someone plant them out here in the middle of nowhere?"
Ri-Santha walked all the way back to him. "Wasn't nowhere, once." She pointed to a bristly line of bushes.
That was arrow straight too. Chills ran down Jayne's spine. He stopped and carefully removed the harness.
She was right. Those bushes were a shaggy hedge, beyond them was a rectangular pit. It was overgrown too, but at some point someone had carefully, lovingly, lined the pit with stones. This was the foundations of someone's house. It was abandoned a long time ago. There was no trace of the original structure, just the pit.
"Terribly creepifying." He muttered, returning to the sled. "Let's get elsewhere."
"Old." Santha mused. "Not even any ghosts left." A moment later she laughed and pointed up. "Look."
Jayne looked. He laughed too, less amused. Halfway up the trunk there was a wooden bucket attached to the trunk. Bark had grown partway over it. He measured the distance up the tree against where he would put the bucket if he was harvesting here. Years and years ago.
Jayne looked around the grove. Shit. Someone tapped all these trees that long ago but not since. Jayne licked his lips. Maple syrup.
When they moved on, Jayne started to see more signs of abandoned settlement. Almost rectangular fields growing a sad mix of mostly weeds with big patches of food crops. More building foundations, a few stone walls, overgrown orchards and even a sick looking vineyard.
The sun was still in the sky when they found the river. It wasn't long then until they found the rocky outcropping they were headed for. Both of them set their burdens down and explored the area.
"No caves." Jayne was sorry. He'd kinda liked the idea of sleeping in a cave.
"Might have already been occupied." Santha's eyes shone with mischief. "Look, Jamie, we can build a cave right here." She held her arms out and twirled around.
She was right, she was standing in a good spot. It was the closest thing to a cave this hill had. There was a wall of exposed rock behind her and the top of the hill hung out a few feet. It faced away from the river. More importantly, it was well above the highest flood line.
Jayne nodded. "We need to rig up a shelter."
"Santha has done some thinking on that topic. We also need fire and adequate bedding." She pointed out. "The ground here is sharp."
"I'll deal with the shelter." He pulled the supplies off the sled and started taking the frame apart. No use wasting the logs he'd already cut.
Jayne was busy trying to rig up something that vaguely resembled a tent, so at first he didn't notice the truly massive pile of deadwood that River was amassing.
"How big a fire are you planning?" He barked. She was returning to camp, dragging a log taller than she was by hugging it against her.
She tilted her head in that questioning way. "A little one to cook on, a long one to last all night."
She dropped the log and brushed braids off her shoulder.
"You say you thought about shelter?" Jayne asked when the structure he was building collapsed yet again.
River opened one of the crates and pulled out the databook. Funny, he hadn't noticed her put it in there, but it made sense to protect it.
She held a diagram up for him to look at. "Temporary shelter."
Jayne studied the drawing, mouth working as he made out the words. "Right."