Chapter 3

Jayne leapt to his feet. "Gorram it, NO! No way in ruttin' Hell am I going anywhere close to that freakishly erbaiwu xie-eh place!"

Zoe said, "Much as I don't generally agree with Jayne, Miranda is not a place I'd care to go again."

River had curled up on the couch, cowering. Miranda had been the place of her nightmares for years.

"PLEASE!" yelled Amanda. She stood up. "Please just listen?"

"No one will shanghai you into going," added Marcus. "This is strictly a volunteer mission."

Jayne said, "No ruttin' way!"

"Sit down, Jayne," said Mal. Jayne glared at him, and Mal just nodded. Jayne sat. Mal continued, "Leaving aside why anyone would want to go to Miranda, it's a dead planet. Besides which, it wouldn't surprise if me if the Alliance has set up shop in orbit."

"They haven't," said Ben. "No ships, no satellites, nothing. No plans to do so, either. I checked before I came here. They're worried about Reavers returning. Some have."

"Which is another good reason to avoid it," said Simon.

"Uh-huh!" said Kaylee. She was holding tightly to Simon's hand.

"You made it past dem before," said Annie Devlin. "You can right manage it again."

"Why?" came River's quiet voice. "If you know what's there, why go?" She looked up at Duncan. "There are no wrongs to right, no maidens to protect. There are only the dead, and they tell no tales."

"Amanda?" asked Duncan.

She sighed. "My friend that I mentioned," she said.

"The sheriff," said Zoe.

Amanda nodded. "He took a position as a sheriff in one of the outlying communities on Miranda."

Simon said, "Then he's dead." Amanda turned to look at him. He wore his "I'm your doctor and here's some bad news" face. "Everyone on that planet is dead. The ones who didn't die left the planet and became Reavers. There's nothing and no one left."

"Nick isn't dead," answered Amanda.

Father Riley chuckled. "No one should ever bet on Nick Wolfe being dead. He's one of the best survivors in the 'Verse."

"Nobody is alive on Miranda," said Mal. "There was only the one transmission—from the ship where we got the recording. No distress signals, nothing else."

Ben Adams said, "Would you send out distress signals from a planet surrounded by Reavers? Would you do anything to attract attention?"

"He's dead," repeated Mal. "That's it. You don't need to go there to know that."

Kaylee cocked her head. "He's right. Ain't nothin' and no one there."

"The odds are he didn't become a Reaver," said Marcus. "Therefore, he'd still be on the planet."

River's head shot up, and she bounced to her feet, ending up in front of Marcus. She looked closely at his face, examining it.

"You're old, too," she said. "Very, very, old. Just like him," she pointed at Ben Adams, "and the Raven," she pointed at Amanda. She stood straight up and pointed at Duncan. "So are you, but not as old. Are you all old?"

Silence filled the room, and River started shaking her head. "No, no, no, no," she said, holding her temples. Simon jumped to his feet to help her.

"No, Simon, it's okay," she said. "They're thinking, but I can't read them." Her eyes opened wide. "Bart wasn't thinking gibberish," she said, "he was thinking in another language. It's not fair!" she cried. "You're so old you know languages nobody else does!"

Zoe said, "River, dear, they aren't that old."

Michelle Webster smiled. "I like to think I'm still young and pretty."

"OLD!" River yelled at her, and ran from the room.

Simon said, "I'm sorry; she hasn't been like this since before we visited Miranda." He shot Duncan a pointed look then ran out of the room after his sister. Kaylee followed Simon to see if she could help.

After a minute of awkward silence, Mal spoke. "I figure most of you are rich," he said, "so why not just buy a ship? You could buy a decommissioned fighter, and re-arm it. For old times' sake I'd be willing to help you smuggle in some weapons."

"For a modest fee," added Inara as she squeezed his arm.

"We're in a hurry," said Amanda.

Ben said, "A ship would take more time to equip than we have to spare."

Annie tried another reason. "We would also like ter avoid de attention ahv de Alliance." For some reason Mal couldn't fathom, her south Londinium accent was getting stronger under stress.

"I trust you, Mal," said Amanda. "You and your crew. I don't trust another crew, and I don't trust us to go to Miranda without a guide of sorts. We need you." She paused. "I need you. I need you all. Please?"

"What's the hurry?" asked Mal.

Duncan spoke up. "A man named Adelai Niska is the hurry," he said. "Amanda says you know him. He's preparing to travel to Miranda to capture Nick."

"Why?" asked Zoe. "What's so special about him?"

"Because no one knows Nick is alive," said Father Riley. "He wouldn't be missed."

"He's. Not. Alive!" said Mal. "Not on Miranda. Let Niska go and waste his time. Maybe a Reaver will get him, and make the 'Verse a better place."

Mal stood up, prompting the rest of his crew to imitate him. "I've listened to your proposal, and I've rejected it. It was nice meeting all of you, but we're leaving. Amanda, please bring the payment to Serenity before we go."

Simon, River, and Kaylee appeared at the door. "Oh, are we leaving?" asked Kaylee.

"Wait," said Ben. "I'm sorry, everyone. There's only one way to convince them."

All of Amanda's friends sighed or looked uncomfortable. None of them met the crew's eyes. None of them objected, either.

Ben drew a knife. "Nick Wolfe is still alive. We know this because, while he can be killed, he does not stay dead. He is immortal."

"HAH!" barked out Mal. Jayne echoed that sentiment, but all of Amanda's friends continued to look anxious.

"I'm afraid it's quite true," said Amanda. "Doctor, if you'd come over here." She gestured to Ben, who tossed her the knife.

"What?" asked Simon, but did as she asked.

"Watch, just watch," she said. With a swift cut, she sliced her arm open to the bone. Blood gushed out.

"What? Why!" said Simon. "We need to staunch the bleeding…."

He started to tear his shirt, but Amanda stopped him. "Just watch," she demanded.

He watched, and saw something he couldn't believe. The wound closed faster than a medical skin stitcher could've closed it. Tiny sparks danced across the wound until there was no sign it had ever been there, except for the blood. Amanda wiped the blood away so Simon could examine her arm.

"There's no wound," he said. "It closed up on its own. How?"

"If I'd been stabbed in the heart, it would still heal," she said. "If I died, I would come back to life."

She looked over at Mal. "This is how Bart managed to conceal himself on your ship."

River's mouth was hanging open. She eventually managed to get some kind of sound out. "He was dead," she said. "I couldn't hear him, because there was nothing to hear. He was dead." She smiled a huge smile, and yelled, "HE WAS DEAD!"

"That's sha-que nonsense!" said Mal.

"Hell and damnation," said Jayne, "could you teach me how to do that?"

"You have to be born to it," said Duncan.

Michelle said, "It's quite a shock when it happens the first time."

Zoe was stunned. "We could kill you, all of you," she said, "and you'd come back to life. Why? Why do you get to do that? WHY!" She was screaming at the end.

Mal was more shocked by Zoe's outburst than seeing Amanda's wound heal. It was so unlike her that he was entirely caught off guard and could think of nothing to say.

Marcus broke the silence. "No one knows why," he said in a gentle voice. "No one ever knew. We know we're very nearly the last. Occasionally we would meet a new immortal, one who had not experienced the first death, but that was back on Earth-That-Was. We do not know why it happened, and we don't know why it doesn't happen here."

"None of us deserve it," said Duncan. "Good, bad, whatever choices we made, we do not deserve it."

"And there are downsides," said Annie. "No children, for one."

"And immortals try to kill each other," said Father Riley. "We call it The Game. We can kill each other when others cannot, and we take the other's knowledge, power—we call it the Quickening. We live a life always looking over our shoulders."

Zoe let herself fall against the back of the couch. She looked lost. Her head hung down and Mal couldn't see her face. Annie sat down next to her.

"You lost someone," she said. Her accent was gone like ice on a warm summer street. "Someone very dear. We understand. We understand far too well. I am truly sorry for your loss."

Zoe head bobbed slightly. She didn't look up. "Amanda said she saved this man, Nick Wolfe, she saved his life."

Amanda swallowed, and said, "Nick… hadn't had his first death. He was dying of a biological weapon, a plague. The first death has to be violent. I knew he could be an immortal, but I had never told him. I plunged a knife into his heart. It was the most awful thing I've ever done. I still have nightmares about it. Sometimes."

Amanda sat down on the other side of Zoe. "He knew about immortals from being around me. He knew about The Game. We say, 'In the End, There Can Be Only One.' He came back to life, then walked away from me. The last thing I ever heard him say was, 'What room is there for love, when there can be only one?' I have to help him, Zoe. I have to."

"Yes," said Zoe. "Yes. We have to."

"Zoe," said Mal, warningly.

She looked up again. Mal saw tears staining her cheeks. "We have to, Sir," she said, emphasizing the honorific.

Ben coughed. "We will, of course, pay."

"Here's something else you might want to consider," said Duncan. "Niska knows about Immortals. He blackmailed Bart into working for him. Atherton introduced Niska to the concept to get his cooperation."

"Atherton was an immortal?" said Inara. She looked down at Amanda. "You killed him, didn't you."

"I am sorry that my arrival was rather late," said Amanda. "As it was, I'm glad you weren't further injured by the Quickening at the end of the fight."

"It's like a giant lightning storm," said Michelle, helpfully.

Duncan said, "Now Niska wants to experiment on us, but we all know each other, and would know if one of us went missing. Nick Wolfe is the only exception."

Mal didn't appear to be listening to them. He kept his gaze on Zoe, who looked back up at him.

"You don't ask for much," he said, "but when you do, it's always a good idea to listen. We'll go to Miranda." To forestall any argument, he said, "Anyone who doesn't want to go with us can wait here. I wouldn't blame any of you, not at all."

"Eh, I don't know," said Jayne.

Michelle Webster ran a finger down his arm. "Please?" she said, doing everything but batting her eyes at him. "I could use the company on the long, boring, trip, with nothing to do."

Jayne mumbled, "Since you put it that way…."

Everyone else rolled their eyes.