Steven Brust - My Own Kind of Freedom

She patted the bulkhead.

“Don’t worry, hun. We’ll have you fixed up right in no time.”

Serenity’s low, clear purr seemed to say that it was all right, that Serenity trusted her.

If anyone had asked, she’d have said that she knew very well that such feelings were all in her imagination. But she was glad no one was around to ask the question, because she hated lying.

As Kaylee headed back toward the Engine room, he made his way into the shuttle. He knew he didn’t need to inspect her work, but he also knew she’d appreciate it if he did.

He saw the unrepaired, harmless indentations from the bullets, but saw no sign of Kaylee’s repair work. She really was very good. He was gorram lucky to have her.

He left the shuttle, and crossed over into the other one, telling himself he ought to give it a once-over, just to make sure it was ready to go.

It was bare, empty, and functional, just like shuttle two, only more so, because shuttle two had no memories of ever having been anything else.

Am I really still smelling incense in here, or is it my imagination? It has to be my imagination.

He sat down in the pilot’s chair, and touched the controls.

He stood up again, balling up his fists and relaxing them again, shaking his head.

If Inara were here, she’d be calling him six kinds of an idiot for even thinking about doing anything but taking the money and blasting. And she’d be right.

And he’d make some remark about how much experience she had in this sort of thing, and then she’d give him that look…

He swallowed and looked down at his hands.

Stupid.

He was being stupid. Why waste time thinking about Inara, when he had decisions to make, decisions affecting his crew, his boat, his future.

And, put that way, the decision was easy. Zoë wouldn’t hesitate: get out of the world. Wash and Kaylee wouldn’t understand why he even had to think about it. The doctor might have an idea, if he thought about it, but he wouldn’t think about it. And River, well, who knew how her mind worked anyway?

It ought to be an easy decision.

Except that for all Inara would tell him he was a fool to be thinking about it, she was the one he’d have trouble looking in the eye if he just let it alone.

What would he have told her, if she were here? Nothing. He would have done everything he could to avoid the conversation. “Well, you see, Inara, it turns out this guy who hired us is a real, first-class bastard. In his own way, worse than Niska. Forced indenture. You know what that means? That’s slavery under another name, Inara. He’s running his mines on slave labor. Sure, all we did is bring him wood, but then we saved the life of a fed who was trying to shut him down. And now I have to decide if that means we’re involved in this. And if we are involved, how?”

What would she say? Nothing, because he wouldn’t have had that conversation with her. He’d have said, “I’m just pondering some things.”

And she’d have put most of it together, gorram her anyway. And she’d have said something snide, and he’d have gotten mad, but part of him would have listened, and—

And when had he assigned the role of conscience to a—

The word refused to quite form in his mind. He almost laughed, realizing it. He’d called her that to her face often enough, but now when she wasn’t even on the boat, he couldn’t.

Shipboard romances complicate things.

But they ought to stop complicating things when they were over.

He wondered what she was doing right now. Then he guessed, and started to smash his fist into the bulkhead. He stopped as he imagined trying to explain the injury to the doctor, and the damage to the bulkhead to Kaylee.

He turned abruptly and left the shuttle, making his way to the Engine room, where Kaylee was doing something incomprehensible involving the wetpull.

“The shuttle looks good, Kaylee,” he said.

“Thanks, Cap’n. If you can give me a couple of hours, I should have the I-grav smoothed out. Though it isn’t really important. I can always—”

“A couple of hours? We can do that.”

A couple of hours more to make up his mind; that was good. He could use the time to wrestle with his conscience. He chuckled.

“What did you say, Cap’n?”

“Hmmm? Oh, nothing, I was just muttering to myself.”

A whore for a conscience indeed!

He took himself to the bridge long enough to make sure the boat was securely buttoned up, then went back to his bunk to lie down, close his eyes, and try to think.

He gave Zoë a kiss on the cheek, got up, and dressed. She rolled over and sighed. He smiled, made his way to the bridge, and leaned back in the pilot’s chair. He partially woke up Serenity and did some checks: nothing on the perimeter, no transmissions had come in. Good.

He tapped the intercom. “How we doing, Kaylee?”

After about ten seconds, her voice came back. “Just about there. She should be smoother into and out of real grav now. If you can give me another ten minutes, she’ll be ready to fly.”

“Okay. So far as I know, we aren’t going anywhere right away.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“I wish I knew.”

He sat facing the front window.

There had been times he had wanted to smack Mal hard. There had been times he would probably have done so, if he hadn’t known that Mal could and would have pummeled him into the deck without breaking a sweat. But this was different; there was something wrong with Mal, and whatever it was, it was working its way through every aspect of life on Serenity. It was like trying to fly with controls that might do what you expected, or might do something entirely different. No one could fly like that.

He’d been scared before. Many times. He’d been scared the first time he’d soloed, on his first (and only) combat mission, and more times than he could count since joining this crew. But this was different; this was intangible, and therefore much worse; this was a fear he couldn’t look at it. Something was wrong, and therefore something bad was liable to happen, and there was no telling what.

He stared out through the window, wishing he had some sort of idea, until one of the small red lights below the nav started flashing.

The intercom crackled and Wash’s voice emerged from it. “Mal, we have a visitor.”

His eyes still closed, he found the button, pushed it. “I’ll be right up.”

He opened his eyes, heaved himself up and made his way to the bridge. Wash was staring at the console, fine tuning.

“Some sort of armored vehicle,” he said. “About half a click away, coming on slow. Should I deploy the guns?”

“We don’t have any guns.”

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting that. Why don’t we have any guns?”

“How long to warm up and go?”

“Uh… two minutes, if Kaylee is ready.”

If Kaylee is ready, thought Mal. Well, she’d said a couple of hours, and that usually meant ninety minutes. He checked the clock, then hit the intercom.

“Kaylee, we ready?”

“Any time, Cap’n.”

“Take us up as soon as you can, Wash?”

“Out of the world?” he asked, even as he was running through the warm up.

“No, we’re just going to scoot a bit.”

Wash didn’t answer. It looked like something was bothering him, but there was no time to worry about it now.

“Wash, give me sound.”

It took Mal a moment to identify the sound of trees rustling in the wind, followed by a low motorized hum.