by Tim Lebbon
Mal was in too deep now. He ignored Zoë’s glare. To abandon the game before its natural end would show weakness of character, and that was something he had no desire to project.
Luck shone down with the final hand. He cleaned out Holly, who glowered but remained at the table to see the game’s end. He won ninety pieces of platinum from Gentle and negated her hand with a brilliant turnaround. And then it was just him and the old man.
“Come on, Deacon,” Holly said, using his name for the first time. “He’s just a space pirate, prolly bad as Lassen Pride, and I put that turd in the ground.”
Mal held in his shock. Just.
“And I’m just a traveler preachin’ kindness,” Deacon said. “I’d have become a pirate years ago if I could afford a ship.” He frowned at his hand, then sighed. “I’ve got no more platinum or valuables, Mal, but I don’t want to give up this game. Will you take other payment?”
“What’ve you got?” Mal asked.
The old man, Deacon, brought a backpack up from beneath the table and rooted around inside. He pulled out what Mal first thought was a book, but when he placed it on the table he saw a folded piece of thick paper contained in a clear packet.
“Picked this up a while back,” he said. “Never been able to understand it. Maybe you can.”
“What is it?”
“Some sort of star map.”
“To where?”
Deacon shrugged. “If I could work that out, maybe I’d be in no mind to gamble it for a few pieces. But it’s all I have left of any worth.”
Mal reached for the map, and just as he touched it he heard a sharp intake of breath from his left. Holly. He glanced at her but she was looking at her fingernails, biting and picking at them. He dragged the map across the table close to him, and watched her glance at it again from the corner of his eye.
“Sure,” he said. “But I get to call.”
Deacon nodded. Mal called. Deacon laid out his cards and they were two solid hands. But Mal’s were better.
“Damn it. Guess I’ll never be a pirate,” Deacon said, and he raised his glass at Mal with a smile.
“Thank you all for the game,” Mal said. He stood and pocketed the handful of platinum and other stuff he’d won, leaving the map sitting on the table. He saw Holly half-rise and tense. Then she caught his eye, and saw his other hand resting casually on his pistol’s handle. “And thanks for this,” he said, picking up the map. “It’ll keep me occupied when I’m sittin’ in my ship without any work.”
Gentle smiled at him and shrugged. “Sorry, sweetheart.”
“Not your fault,” Mal said. “Thanks for the hospitality. And the food was shiny.”
He turned away from the table and tucked the folded map into his jacket’s inside pocket. For a second it felt strange—warm, tingly, almost like it held a static charge—and he paused close to Wash and Zoë.
“So?” Zoë asked.
“Wash, tell Jayne to finish his drink. We’re leavin’.”
“What’s up?” Zoë asked.
“Plenty,” Mal said. Holly was dangerous, likely freelancing for the Alliance, and she’d taken an interest in him and what he’d won. That meant he had an interest in it too.
“So we got some work?”
“Nope. No work.”
“So what did you get?” Zoë asked. They both stood, and Mal caught Zoë glancing over his shoulder. “Oh,” she said.
“She lookin’?” Mal asked. “The younger one, not the Madam.”
“She’s doing everything but looking this way.”
“Right. The old guy?”
“She’s talking to him. A deep talk, if you ask me. So, you going to tell us, Mal?”
“I won somethin’ from the old man that she wants.”
“She expected to win it from him?”
“I don’t think she even knew he had it. But when she saw it…” He opened his eyes and mouth wide in feigned shock.
“What is it?” Wash asked.
“A map.”
“To what?”
“I have no idea. That’s why we’re leavin’, and sharpish. I have a feeling Holly isn’t on her own, and she claims to have put Lassen Pride in the ground. An’ Gentle said she’s likely an Alliance merc. So get Jayne, Zoë and I’ll round up Kaylee, Simon, and River. Then we take our leave of this place. We don’t want it renamed Serenity’s Bane.”
Zoë touched his arm. “Mal, this isn’t like you.”
“Just bein’ cautious,” he said. “No use putting ourselves in danger. There’s no work here, but if I’ve somethin’ of worth in the map, we need to keep it. An’ if she is an Alliance merc, mayhap she has pictures of River and Simon.”
“Now she most pointedly is looking our way.”
“Wash? Out the back door with Jayne. We’ll meet you by the food vendors. Quick as you can.”
“She’s calling someone, wrist communicator,” Zoë said. “Wð men wán le.”
“Time to leave.”
* * *
“River, what’s the orange?” Kaylee asked. “Because if it’s perilous for us we need to know.”
“Shhhhh,” River said, and she moved her hand back and forth before her face.
“What’s that?” Mal asked.
“I don’t know,” Simon said.
“Kaylee, ask again,” the captain said. “If we’re walkin’ into something, it’s best we know about it.”
From the minute Mal and Zoë came looking for them in the small outdoor market, Kaylee had known something was wrong. None of them could say what, exactly, but Mal was on edge and alert. Zoë said it was to do with someone in the saloon.
They were walking along a rough path next to the river, passing an array of buildings—homes, shops, storage barns. Half of them were fallen to ruin or boarded up, and those still occupied were mostly in a poor state of repair. They’d arrived in the town on the other side of the river, and Kaylee, Simon, and River had crossed to find the market. She’d experienced sensory overload in the chaos, a familiar feeling when exiting Serenity after a long flight, but one that she never quite got used to. An array of smells, sights, and sounds flowed around and through her, and she’d reveled in the scent of spice and flowers, the colors of knitted hats and woven mats, and the diverse group of hardy people who’d made this rough place their home. Kaylee now carried a shoulder bag with some fresh fruit, root crops, and a good selection of dehydrated food, and Simon had managed to find a few common medicines to restock the ship’s supplies. It wasn’t much, but if rationed with the supplies still on the ship, it’d keep them going for another few weeks.
“There’s a bridge ahead,” Zoë said.
“River, the orange?” Kaylee asked, prompting her for an answer.
River did that strange thing in front of her face again. “Shhhh.”
“No matter,” Mal said. “Over the bridge, meet Jayne and Wash, then we’re back to the ship and away.”
“Then we follow the map to a big bucket of treasure,” Zoë said, one eyebrow raised.
“Map?” Kaylee asked, and Mal only shook his head.
“Precious sun…” River whispered. Only Kaylee heard. She didn’t have time to ask what she meant.
Several figures emerged from behind a tumbled-down shop. They wore dusty, torn longcoats, pale green hats, and they carried heavy wooden clubs or knives. It was obvious that they’d been waiting.
“Over the bridge,” Mal said. “Nice, slow, easy. ’Til we have to run.”
“They’ve brought knives to a gunfight, Mal,” Zoë said, touching the weapon on her belt.
“Let’s not start blasting away just yet,” he said. “Simon, River, you first.”
It was a small footbridge spanning the waterway, wide enough for two or three people at a time and supported on heavy stone columns. The water broke and splashed around these columns, and as she stepped onto the wooden bridge after Simon, Kaylee caught something from the corner of her eye. She paused and looked closer, down into
the water. There was something there. It wasn’t just the river’s flow but a shape moving against the current. Something alive.
The water was orange with the dust it carried from surrounding areas.
“Mal—” Kaylee said, and then there came a shout from the bridge’s opposite end.
“Six more of us on this side,” the woman said. “No need for any nastiness, Mal. Let’s just settle this and we can both move on.”
“Settle what, Holly?” he said. “Thought all the settlin’ was done at the card table.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. She walked onto the bridge, and behind her several other men and women stood nursing clubs and knives.
River and Simon, Kaylee thought. But Holly hadn’t even spared them a glance. If she was an Alliance-employed mercenary, they didn’t appear to be her concern.
“So what is it?” Mal asked.
“Precious sun…” River whispered, and she turned and came to Kaylee, hanging on to her and shivering.
“Hey, hey, nothin’ to be worried about,” Kaylee said, but she didn’t really think that. She thought there was plenty to be worried about. Mal and the others could hold their own in a fight, but what worried her most was how River might handle it. She was already acting strange, more agitated than before. She had no wish to see the girl turn once again into that killing machine that was buried deep inside, behind her general weirdness and sense of vulnerability.
“It’s nothing to you, that’s what,” Holly said. “Deacon had no right putting it into the game. In fact, he stole it from me.”
“See, that’s where I stop believin’ you,” Mal said. “And where I start thinkin’ you’re an Alliance merc.”
“Don’t rightly care,” Holly said. “Not about them fugitives, neither.” She nodded at River and Simon. Her voice was lower, quieter.
“Behind us, Mal,” Zoë said, and Kaylee glanced back to see the figures closing in on them, weapons swinging down by their sides.
River stopped shivering, and her fast breathing eased into a more normal rhythm.
Kaylee eased the girl away, no longer wishing to be close to her. But what she’d expected to see—that distant humor, an almost soulless depth to her eyes as she prepared to kill—was absent. Instead she was lost, staring into an unknown distance with her mouth slightly open and arms limp at her sides.
“This doesn’t need to escalate,” Mal said. “You can see we’re carrying guns.”
“You think we’re not?” Holly eased her coat aside to show the six-shooters resting on either hip. “I never draw without shooting.”
“A good rule to live by.” Mal glanced back at his crew, and Kaylee recognized that look. Be ready.
“I won it fair and square,” Mal said. “But let’s say you wanted to buy it from me. What do you think a fair and reasonable price—”
“I’m not buying, I’m taking,” Holly said.
“Back to your employers?” Mal asked.
Holly shrugged. “I might negotiate with them first.”
Where are Jayne and Wash? Kaylee thought. “Simon,” she whispered, and Simon came and held on to his sister. Kaylee hated fighting, and was the first to admit she wasn’t very good at it, but she was as prepared for trouble as any of them. She had to be, being part of Serenity’s crew.
She was starting to wish she’d stayed on her ship.
Holly sighed, a mite theatrically, Kaylee thought. “Gonna count to five,” she said. “Five…”
“That’s counting down from five,” Mal said. “You aiming to count to five, you generally start at one.”
Holly froze for a second, and Kaylee actually saw any remaining good humor drain from her, like a fire extinguished in a surge of water. Then she gave a small nod and the trouble began.
Zoë dashed behind Kaylee and faced the heavies coming from that direction, while Mal crouched, one hand on his gun, the other ready to ward off an attack from the front. The footbridge constrained them, but it also meant that the attackers could only come at them two abreast. Which, Kaylee realized, didn’t really help them that much at all.
“Keep her safe,” Kaylee said to Simon, and even as she turned around she realized how redundant that comment was.
Zoë ducked a club, kicked out, and popped one guy’s knee. He went down screaming. His buddy jabbed with his knife and Zoë deflected his arm, pivoted, grabbed his wrist, braced it against her own, snapped it. He screamed too, and his knife bounced from the bridge and fell into the river.
More splashing sounds. Those things, Kaylee thought. They’ll know about them. “Mind the water!” she said, but she wasn’t sure the rest of the crew heard. She ducked down behind Zoë and picked up the dropped club, then stood and lifted it back past her shoulder.
Zoë sidestepped as a woman came at her, and Kaylee slammed the club across her arm. She winced as she heard the crack of bones breaking.
Zoë kicked out, tripped the woman, and as she crouched Kaylee saw what was going to happen. “Zoë!” she said, but Zoë was already shouldering the woman toward the handrail. Unable to hold on with her broken arm, the woman flipped over and dropped into the water below.
Kaylee heard the splash and one short, terrified shout, and then she saw a sudden wash of red merged with the dull orange waters flowing downstream.
She glanced behind her. Simon and River hugged in the center of the narrow bridge, River still staring into space. Beyond, Mal was taking on two men, ducking, kicking, punching, sucking in his gut to avoid a slashing knife, headbutting a man and sending him to his knees.
Beyond Mal, past Holly and two of her goons at the end of the bridge, Wash and Jayne were sprinting toward them, unnoticed by anyone else. We just have to hold out another few seconds, Kaylee thought, and then Zoë banged into her and sent her sprawling. She rolled and came up onto her knees, one hand swinging the club around. A man was standing astride Zoë, knife raised in his right hand. His coat flapped open and showed an array of knives on his belt, and his face was crisscrossed with pale, ugly scars.
Kaylee stretched forward, and as her club connected with his hip, Zoë drove her boot up into his crotch. The impact was so hard it lifted him from his feet, and he groaned and folded double, falling forward. Zoë rolled to the side and his head struck the bridge.
Kaylee shoved him away, and he curled into a ball, rocking back and forth and holding his bruised balls.
Mal shouted out behind them, and Kaylee rose and turned, terrified at what she would see. Mal crouched and held on to his arm, but Kaylee knew he was not really wounded. His shout was a distraction.
At the bridge’s far end Wash pointed at Holly, Jayne stormed forward and grabbed her in a bear hug from behind, and Kaylee saw what was about to happen.
“Jayne, no!” she shouted, but he either didn’t hear or chose not to take heed. She knew he was no fool, especially when it came to combat, and Wash had pointed out the leader of this gang. To bring the fight to a halt, Jayne was trying to take the head off the snake.
He marched her toward the colored river, Holly kicking at his shins and slamming her head back into his face. Jayne’s head rocked back and his nose exploded red, but his rage was stronger. Ignoring the pain and the blood he dropped her and heaved her forward.
Kaylee saw the terror in the woman’s eyes—She knows, she’s been here long enough to understand—but she was already overbalanced. She teetered on the water’s edge and then fell in.
The flowing surface broke in a dozen places around the splash caused by her body, and they all saw the gnashing teeth and spiked spines of the eel-like creatures that bore down on her. Holly surfaced once, the flow carrying her under the bridge and downstream. She stroked for shore, and Kaylee actually thought she might make it.
Then she was tugged beneath the surface, the water foamed, and another slick of death spread and was carried away on the orange.
“Told you,” River muttered.
The violence paused on either end of the bridge. Holly�
�s heavies glanced at each other, then one of them held his hands up, palms out.
“She weren’t payin’ us enough, anyways,” he said, and he backed away from Zoë. The others followed suit, and a minute later the Serenity crew were left standing on the bridge and shore, the only sound the flow of the deadly river.
Jayne was looking particularly smug. “Can I go back and finish my business now?” he asked.
“Do you always just have to kill them?” Mal asked.
“Huh?”
“So what, Wash points the way and you home in like a huntin’ dog? Didn’t you even think I might want to talk to her?”
“Er… you’re welcome?” Jayne gestured at the gang retreating back into the town.
Mal shook his head, went to berate Jayne some more, realized it was lost on him. “We all good?”
“Oh, we’re all just shiny,” Kaylee said. Zoë clapped her on the shoulder. Simon smiled at her. River was looking around as if nothing had happened.
“Guess we know what the orange is now,” Mal said.
“And we know to get the hell away from it,” Zoë said.
“Back to the ship, and smart,” Mal said. “This map’s far from worthless, but I wanna get away from here sharpish.”
“Oh, yes,” Kaylee said. “Time to flee this rock.”
“I’m still waitin’ for a thank you,” Jayne said.
Wash and Zoë hugged, and they all started uphill toward where they’d parked the ship. Kaylee had already had enough of the fresh air and wide-open spaces.
“Goodbye, orange,” River said. “Hello, precious sun.”
Jayne didn’t like the fact that he’d saved them all from a whoopin’, and yet all he got was grief for killing that gorramn woman. Weren’t even like it was intentional—he wasn’t to know the stream was filled with nasties. Ãiya!
“Not a good way to go,” he said.
“Not good at all,” Mal said. “Ouch!”
They were in the medical bay and the Doc was sewing up a slash on Mal’s forearm.
“So, this map?” Jayne asked.
“Who knows?” Mal shrugged and winced again. “Guy I won it off obviously didn’t know its worth, otherwise he’d not have thrown it into such a small pot. No idea where he came upon it, but he was a traveler who’d been some places. A real mix of clothing, collection of tattoos on his hands. Soon as he bet the map, that woman Holly changed.”
