Steven Brust - My Own Kind of Freedom

“Uh, I have no idea.”

“She is completely reliable,” said River. “She is only wrong about the important things.”

“Well, I’m glad we cleared that up,” said Mal. He sighed. “A gorram Alliance agent. I’d be more doubtsome if it didn’t answer all sorts of questions.”

The Captain and Zoë were looking at each other. Simon cleared his throat. “Feel like letting me in on this?”

“Nothing much to it,” said Mal. “We saved the life of an Alliance agent today.”

“Good going, sir,” said Zoë.

He punched the intercom. “Wash?”

“I’m still checking, Mal, but it looks good.”

“Skip it. Can you pinpoint the source?”

“Skip it? You mean, we’re not running?”

“Wash, I need you to pinpoint the source.”

“How close do you need?”

“How close can you get?”

“ Gao shenma gui, zenma hui shi? I don’t know. Give me a minute.”

“A minute,” said Mal.

He turned, leaned against the bulkhead, and closed his eyes. “ Wo taoyan fuza, ” he said, and headed up to the bridge. Zoë fell into step beside him.

“For someone who hates complications, sir, you do seem to go out of your way to create them.”

“You should be used to it.”

“Oh, I am.”

“Well then. I’d like to get paid.”

“Paid would be good, sir. What about the fed?”

“What about him?”

“We’re not going to do anything?”

“What would you suggest we do, Zoë?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

“Well, if you get any ideas, let me know.”

“I have a question, though.”

“Hmmm?”

“If that was a fed, who was trying to kill him?”

“Lot of folk on this world got no reason to love the Alliance.”

“Yes, sir. But not loving them is one thing, killing a fed is another. And that wasn’t just killing a fed, that was planned.”

“There’s something to that.”

“So, what do you think, sir?”

“I think I want to get paid.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wash turned his head. “Paid? But I thought this job was legal. Are we supposed to get paid for legal jobs, too?”

“Did you find the source?”

“It came from about two miles away from us, Mal. I can bring up a map of town and show you the place.”

“Okay, take us out of the world.”

“What about being paid?”

“Don’t give up yet.”

“What course should I set?”

“None. Synchronous orbit; keep us right here.”

“Okay.”

“Sir?” said Zoë. “Why—?”

“I’m taking the shuttle down. If something goes wrong, I want Serenity to be able to get away clean so we don’t lose River and Simon.”

“And you?”

“I’m in no danger.”

“Of course not, sir. You’re going to find that Alliance agent, aren’t you?”

“Alliance agent?” said Wash. “What—?”

“Zoë,” said Mal. “Why would I go seek out a fed?”

“Because you’re curious, sir, and can’t leave anything alone.”

“What fed?” said Wash.

“I’ll tell you all about it, dear,” said Zoë. She turned back to Mal. “But sir, I don’t think—”

“You’ll be waiting on Serenity. It shouldn’t take long.”

Wash cleared his throat, “If someone could—”

“Print out that location for me,” said Mal.

Zoë looked at him.

“I just want to know what to avoid,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Wash generated the map, and handed it to him. He folded the e-paper, put it into his pocket, and said, “All right. Get us airborne, Wash.”

“ You yi tian …” said Wash, and turned back to the controls.

Zoë sat down in the co-pilot’s chair. Mal headed back down to the dining room to tell the others.

Rennes didn’t seem so large when he stood in front of Sakarya’s desk, trying not to tremble.

“Who did you send to do it?” he asked.

“Taylor and Falworth, sir. They’ve always been—”

“Idiots, Rennes. Like you. Big, slow, and stupid.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what do you know about those two who broke it up?”

“I’ve got their names, sir.”

Sakarya felt his eyebrows go up. That was fast work, for Rennes. “Do you? How did you manage that?”

“They came into the office—the other office—for payment.”

“Payment? For what?”

“They’re the ones we hired to bring the lumber for—”

“Them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you paid them?”

“No, sir. I wanted your orders on that.”

“I see. Good thinking for once, Rennes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Sakarya considered for a moment.

“All right,” he said. “Pay them in full.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get a crew together, follow them to their ship, and kill them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once he finished his report to Asher House and admitted to himself that staying in his home was no longer safe, it took him three minutes to shut everything down and get what he needed, and then twenty minutes to walk across town to the place he’d already prepared.

It wasn’t the safest place, but it was safer than home. And he had installed enough gear to do a reasonable amount of work once he got it set up; and certainly enough to get hold of Asher House and say, Why in the gorram hell did you just blow off my last eight months of work?

He did not, of course, get hold of the House and say that. The very best thing that could happen with such a course is that he’d get no answer. But he had the equipment to do his own checking.

Malcolm Reynolds, Zoë Washburne.

And if that didn’t bring up anything directly, it would at least be a place to start.

Those bastards in Asher House had blown eight months of investigation right at the point where—well, maybe they had a good reason. They had better have a good reason.

In any case, they had trained him to sniff out and sift through facts he wasn’t supposed to be able to get access to; so, one way or another, he was going to find out what the gorram reason was.

He set up the miscues and false addresses very carefully before entering the search parameters.

Two hours later he was scowling at the screens as if it were their fault. A little voice in his head told him that something the House went to so much trouble to hide must be too big for the likes of him.

But eight months of work, of good work, of important work, all washed away in an hour. No, no. If they were going to do that, he was bloody well going to know why.

He wiped his hands on his shirt and got down to serious work.

“So that’s the short version,” she said.

“You rescued a fed.”

“Yeah.”

“And now Mal wants to go back alone to get the payment.”

“To get the payment, and, unless I miss my guess, to find out about that fed.”

“He’s being a hero again, isn’t he?”

She nodded.

Wash gave the boat some throttle, and Zoë felt Serenity lift, followed by a small lurch as the I-grav kicked in.

“I don’t like him going down there by himself,” said Zoë.

“Yeah, well, the us being up here thing and the him being down there thing is a problem if anything goes wrong.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Of course, what are the chances of anything going wrong?”

“That’s the other thing I’m thinking.”

“Dead certain?”

“Pretty much.”

“So,” he said, “what do we do? I could wait until the shuttle is launched, then land. I mean, once he’s gone, you’re in charge.”