Steven Brust - My Own Kind of Freedom

“I know.”

“Mal won’t like that much.”

“I know.”

They didn’t speak for a moment, while Wash made the calculations for a geosynchronous orbit, and tapped it in. Then Zoë felt his eyes on her.

“Zoë, what are you thinking?”

She didn’t answer.

“You’re planning to go after him, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I know.”

“But you’re going to anyway.”

She nodded.

Her husband sighed and turned his attention back to guiding Serenity.

He was careful not to drink too much, confining himself to beer that he nursed carefully, and making certain to eat. There was something going on, and he was in the middle of it, and if he made a misstep, it could cost him his freedom, or worse.

The feds knew he was here, but hadn’t made contact with him. That was dangerous—it meant they might be planning to turn on him. They had once before, and he scowled at the memory. And Mal and Zoë were around, probably pissed as hell at him, and that was dangerous. And there was something strange going on, what with Mal and Zoë having saved the ass of someone he didn’t recognize, and that was dangerous. It had obviously been a trap, but for who? For him?

He could cut and run.

He still had the ginseng sitting in a rented locker; he could sell that for enough to buy passage off world. Go back and call the feds again, try for another meeting? But if he’d just missed a trap, then he’d be committing suicide by walking into the security office again.

How did this get so gorram complicated?

He muttered and drank some more beer.

The money for the crazy girl would be good, so good. But what good was money if you ended up dead or in an Alliance lockdown?

He should play it safe. He should sell that ginseng and get passage out, right now. Tonight.

He went up to the bar to get another beer, brought it back to his table, drank some, and looked around the canteen, slowly filling up with well-dressed citizens—just the sort who could afford what he was selling, and would probably love to have a rare, fine tea. He could do it. He could be away from this gorram world by tomorrow morning.

He drank some more beer.

“Naw,” he decided.

He looked from the doctor, to Kaylee, to River. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s the situation: Mal went back down in the shuttle to get our payment, and Zoë followed him in the other shuttle to keep him out of trouble.”

He bit his lip, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. “So, the question is, do we do what Mal wanted, or do we go down there?”

“We go after them,” said Kaylee. “That’s what the Cap’n would do if it were one of us.”

“I know,” said Wash. “Only there are two problems with that. The first is, it’s really Simon and River who are running the risk. Second, what can we do if they’re in trouble?”

Simon shifted uncomfortably. “As to the first,” he said, “I should point out that, uh, you are all harboring known fugitives, so it isn’t just us running the risk.”

“You have a point there,” said Wash.

“As to the second,” said Simon, “I’m not sure. The thing is, I’m not sure what they’ll run into, if they do run into anything.”

“It just don’t seem right to sit up here and do nothin’,” said Kaylee.

“I know,” said Wash.

“I’d feel better about disobeying the Captain if we had a reason. Are they in touch with us? Will we know if something goes wrong?”

“They’re both talking to Serenity, but not to each other. Mal doesn’t know that Zoë followed him yet.”

“They won’t be here for two days,” said River.

“Mal and Zoë?” asked Simon.

“They want their thing,” said River. “They’re a long way off, but the dead travel fast.”

“River?” said Simon.

“Two by two,” she said.

River stood up and left the dining room, heading toward her cabin. Simon started to follow her, stopped, turned back to Wash, looked at Kaylee, and spread his hands. “Do whatever you think is right,” he said, and hurried after his sister.

“Well, that makes it easier,” said Wash. He sighed. A memory tugged at his sleeve, then, and he said, “You know, Kaylee, just a few days before we dropped off the Shepherd, we were sitting around reminiscing—”

“I miss him,” said Kaylee wistfully.

“Me too. We were reminiscing, and he said something about how a lot of things would have been a lot easier if we had listened to River and just believed what she said.”

Kaylee tilted her head and said, “Hunh.”

“Yeah. I was about to ask him what he meant, but I got distracted by something. Landing, I think it was.”

He shrugged.

“So,” said Kaylee, “does that mean we should do what the Captain says and just wait up here?”

Wash nodded. “I’m pretty sure that’s what it means.”

“All right.”

“But I’m not going to.”

Kaylee smiled.

Wash sighed and headed back to the bridge.

It was evening on Hera when he nursed the shuttle to a standstill. He was glad Wash wasn’t there to see the landing; but he was down safe, and nothing was damaged.

He carefully went through the shutdown process, leaving the comm on. “Wash? Let Zoë know I’m down.”

“Will do, Mal.”

He reset the comm for the local office, and spoke once more.

“This is Captain Reynolds. Anyone there?”

After a moment, there was an answer. “Yeah. We have your payment here.”

“Going to be around for a while?”

“Another hour or so.”

“I’ll be there.”

Then he shut down the comm, as well.

He pulled his pistol, checked the load, re holstered it. “Okay,” he muttered. “Let’s do this thing.”

He left the shuttle, closed and locked it. Fifty feet away was the road; he took it.

Half an hour later he stood in the office, where the walls were white and clean and spacious, and everything blinked and hummed and flickered, and the few people who were working late were all dressed more or less like Kit had been. The place gave him the creeps.

A couple of questions led him to the right office, which turned out to be standing open. In it was a desk, and behind the desk a fat, pale man overflowed his chair, stubby hands typing at a keyboard. He looked up as Mal came in.

“Captain Reynolds?”

Mal nodded.

“Good. Sign here, please.”

The fat man passed him a clipboard and a lightpen. Mal signed it, passed it back, and received a narrow piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

“A check.”

“I was told—”

“Sign the back. I can cash it.”

He signed it, passed it back, and received a thick envelope. He opened it and counted, getting a look but no comment from the fat man.

“All here,” he said.

The other nodded. “I’m to convey Mr. Sakarya’s thanks.”

Mal nodded. “If he needs anything else, he knows how to reach us.”

“Indeed.”

Mal stuck the envelope into his coat and left the room, heading back out of the office. Okay, good. We’ve been paid. All is well, we can get out of here now.

There were a few pedestrians on the street, most of them looking like office workers, and many of them, it seemed, heading toward the canteen.

He dug into his a pocket, and found the map Wash had given him and studied it, relating it to the landmarks he knew. It wasn’t easy.

What’s the difference? I’m not going to go hunt him up. What’s the point? He’s a fed. Bad enough to have saved his life; there’s nothing to be gained by having anything more to do with him. Nothing at all.