Once Jayne was satisfied with the shelter and Ri-Santha had the fire roaring, they sat down to eat the part of her gatherings that didn't need to be cooked. She'd found all manner of greens that could make up a salad.
Jayne held up one with red veins dubiously.
"Beet greens." She supplied. "Completely edible." She plucked it out of his fingers and chewed it enthusiastically.
"So, why does your name gotta be Santha, anyway?" Jayne asked. "Academy folks must not know about the name if you're using it."
The sun had finally gone down. Seemed like, despite the size of this little moon, the engineers had been able to give it a long enough day for humans.
Santha stretched out on her back on the ground. "I went through a phase. Actually I went through a lot of phases. This one started when I was six."
She raised one hand in the air and waggled the fingers in the firelight. "Alright, I guess I never outgrew my phase." She dropped her hand back to her stomach. "I was always good at math and numbers. Researching things on the Cortex was like a game. When I was six I started making capitol gains on my pin money."
"Your what?" Jayne ate steadily.
"The money my parents gave me each week." River picked up greens from her pile one at a time and inspected them before lowering them into her mouth.
"Oh. Like an allowance." Watching her was almost more fun than eating.
"Exactly." She rolled onto her side facing the fire and poked at the food objects resting near the coals.
"They gave you a lot of money?" Jayne hadn't ever gotten more than a few coppers at a time until he'd started working.
"I suppose so, but not more than my friends received." She waved a hand dismissively. "Anyway, six year olds are not supposed to make gains on their pin money. So I invented an adult alias to do the investing, Kaia Brown."
Santha laughed at the memory. "Kaia was an incredibly good investor. I made my first million when I was eight. The second million is always easier than the first. Santha is Kaia's daughter. She is just exactly my age plus six months."
"Why older?" Once he got over the thought of all that cashy money, her story was pretty funny.
Santha's laugh was musical. "I was looking forward, of course. There are always times you wish you were just a little older. Although, I suppose I missed many of them."
Jayne didn't like to think on the things she'd missed.
"In any case, there were times when my parents were away or even off planet. Whenever that happened, Santha came out to play. I always had to hire a minder for myself."
She pulled one of the nuts out of the fire and rolled it close to her. "Usually through an agency. I had them pick me up at a hotel, arranged remotely by Kaia, of course. The minder would take me to plays or the zoo or art museums, wherever I decided I wanted to go, again, all arranged by Kaia."
"So your parents didn't know about this?" Jayne found it hard to believe it. Didn't her parents have someone watching her while they were out of town?
"Nope, neither did Simon. When I was thirteen I went on a tour of Sihnon. I was supposed to be visiting friends on the other side of Osiris during my summer break at school." She laughed. "My minder picked me up at the usual hotel in Capitol City, took me aboard a passenger liner and brought me home again when the tour was finished. We both had a marvelous time."
"Wait a minute. What happened to all the money?"
"Well, its all sitting in accounts overseen by a bank manager that I have never met in person." She rolled her hot nut onto a flat stone and hit it with another rock. "I wrote a computer program sophisticated enough to answer his most likely questions. I have no idea how my accounts are doing, actually."
"Why…?"
"Why didn't I use my money while I was on Serenity?" She smiled up at him. "I can hardly string together two sentences that make sense."
"You're doing fine now." He grumbled. All that money, just sitting there.
"You're the only one here." She picked white nutmeat out of the smashed shell and ate it.
"That makes a difference?" He frowned hard. Had she ever made so much sense to him as since he'd been forced to listen?
"Apparently." Santha said.
"Huh."
"The nuts are ready, pull as many as you want out of the fire." She reached in with her stick and snagged a couple more.
"So, how much money are we talking here?"
"Ten or twelve million, I suppose." She shrugged as she said it, as if it didn't matter.
"Ten million credits?" That kind of money definitely mattered to Jayne.
"No, ten million platinum." Her secret little smile said she knew how he would react to that.
He didn't disappoint. "That's like a hundred million."
"Not really." Santha looked amused. "The last I checked, the exchange rate was more like eight point three six credits per platinum."
Jayne let the surprise roll out of him. "Well, you can't get to it from here." He said philosophically.
"Not yet." Santha agreed. "Not until I build a machine that can connect to the Cortex."
Simon was grateful for his sore voice. It allowed him to think in solitude for several days. Inara checked in on him and plied him with herbal teas. She also shook her head disparagingly at him at intervals without additional provocation.
Shepherd Book sat with him sometimes. That was usually pleasant. Most of the others left him alone, even during mealtimes.
Kaylee was ignoring him. Not that Simon blamed her.
She had an amazing ability to ignore a person while having a regular conversation with them. It was all in tone of voice and lack of eye contact.
Simon found this painfully disconcerting. He'd seen her do it to Mal before, but this was the first time he'd been on the blunt end of her considerable, cheerful ire.
When Inara cleared him to speak normally again, Simon spent some time in his room, trying out his new voice. It was harsher than it used to be, he wouldn't be singing in any choirs.
He also allowed himself to look into a mirror for the first time. His bruises were faded and the reduction of swelling revealed his new face shape. He held the image that circulated with his warrant up where he could see both faces.
He sighed. Yes. That should be enough.
His cheeks were rounder, the bridge of his nose was wider, and his chin had a slight indent that wasn't quite a cleft. The most important thing was his eyes. Without a proper hospital environment that was also the most dangerous reconstruction. He had reshaped his eyelids. They now had a distinctly asian appearance. That alone might have been enough, but he wanted to be thorough.
Simon set down the image and took a deep breath. It was time to face the consequences of his impetuous, although well planned actions.
The crew was assembled in the dinning room already, which made things easier.
He entered the room and paused, surveying the truest friends he'd ever had.
"I want to apologize." Simon announced. "I'm sorry I acted hastily. I wanted to make it up to you all by discussing my plans with all of you." He spoke softly, as Inara had advised.
"I take it you have some interesting plans?" Mal asked. The captain wasn't ticked off at him. Just the women. All of the women, and Wash as well, the man naturally sided with his wife.
"A few." He acknowledged.
"Then come in, Doc." Mal said. "Don't lurk in the doorway."
Simon entered the room. Kaylee pointedly looked away from him. She was at the stove, working on dinner.
"I especially wanted to apologize to you, Kaylee. I didn't mean to frighten you." Since she didn't look up from the pan she was stirring, Simon took a deep breath and looked around. "I came to your home a fugitive, and I have endangered you with my presence every day since then. I want that to change, and I would also like to make my home with you."
"We… Let's all sit." Mal said with authority in his voice.
Wash and Zoë came to the table from the crash seating area. Shepherd Book put his bible down.
"I want to stop being a liability. I need a new identity to go with my new face and voice. I also need an occupation to help support the ship. I think I can arrange to pay my way if I have solid enough papers."
"I don't regret keeping you on, Doctor." Mal said firmly.
"I'm glad you feel that way, because I have a favor to ask you." Simon looked around. "I was hoping you had some connections who could help me acquire papers." He knew his smile was strained.
Mal nodded once. "Might be that I do."
"I'm quite sure I do." The Shepherd said enigmatically. "Ones who could provide papers that might hold up better under pressure." His smile was odd.
"Friends a man of God would admit to?" Mal asked, not quite hostilely.
"Not usually." Book agreed.
"I don't have much in the way of resources, but that should change once I'm not a wanted man anymore." Simon said. "I want to re-certify as a doctor. I could do so much good out here if I could practice openly."
"Could you do that without going to school again?" Kaylee asked. She took her pots off the stove and joined them.
"There are several correspondence courses that end in a valid doctor's license." Simon smiled at her. At least she was looking at him again. "My new identity could be a legitimate general doctor within a year. Sooner if I can test out of any lessons."
Zoë nodded. "I had a cousin who became a doctor that way. Some places that's the only way they'd get any kind of medical care at all."
"Sounds like a right noble cause." Mal agreed. "I think the ship can invest in your future, Doc, as long as you pay me back."
"I'll get the ball rolling on ID." Book said. "Did you have any details planned?"
"I… not as such, no." He conceded.
"I think I know you well enough to get started." Book said. "Your accent could come from about four worlds. I'll start from there."
"You will need to chose a new name and discard the old one completely." Inara spoke with firm authority. "It is difficult, but not impossible to train yourself not to respond to the name you have used all your life."
Simon met her eyes. It really sounded like she was speaking from experience.
"You will never hear the name my parents gave me pass my lips." Inara said, confirming his sudden suspicion. "I would not flinch or turn around if they called me by it right now. Have you chosen a name?"
"Raymond." Simon said, firmly. "After a scientist whose work I have always admired. Ray for short."
Book wrote that on a scrap of paper he had been using to mark his bible. "Last name?" He asked.
"I hadn't thought that far." Simon admitted.
"Wong to go with your new eyes." Kaylee suggested. She even almost smiled at him.
"Yes." Simon agreed.
"Good." Inara said. "Now, we need two jars and a pile of coins or beans or…"
"Sounds like a game." Kaylee jumped up and rummaged around the lower cabinets. She returned in a moment with two old pickle jars and a dusty bag of dried beans. Someone had bought them on sale years ago, and everyone was sick of them long before this last bag was hidden away.
Inara took one of the jars and spilled all the beans in. She replaced the lid.
"Every time you respond promptly to your new name, we transfer a bean to the empty jar. Every time someone says your old name and you do not respond or even flinch, likewise, a bean transfers to the empty jar." Inara smiled. "Beans can pass the other way as well, so be careful. When your empty jar is full, there should be a treat or a prize. I'm sure Kaylee and I can come up with something."
Kaylee was beaming. "Sure we can. This will be fun, won't it, Simon?"
Simon stiffened slightly, his breath gathered as if to answer, but he held it back.
Kaylee let loose a gale of laughter.
Simon let himself smile slightly.
"I'll decorate the jars." Kaylee offered. "That way we can tell which is which when they get close to the same level."
Simon - Ray, he reminded himself - was glad to see her happy again.