Steven Brust - My Own Kind of Freedom

“Miss Wuhan, you have three choices. You can be bound by law, you can force me to shoot you, or you can walk out of here right now. I’d prefer you didn’t take the second option; I don’t much care about the other two.”

“You’re a federal agent.”

“That’s right.”

“What you did was illegal.”

“In fact it wasn’t. I got the evidence to convict, and I can show probable cause. Of course, if I’d failed to get the evidence, you might say I’d have been breathing metaphorical vacuum. But I got it, so all is well and happy. Now, do you want to go down with him, or go down for good, or go away?”

“The security forces will be back soon. They’ll kill you before you can—”

“Not before I shoot you if you’re still here when they arrive. I’m not big on shooting little old ladies, but I will. Trust me.”

The little old lady hesitated, then without another word headed out the door.

He sat in the chair and waited.

Security forces? She had no idea what the real danger was. To hell with the gorram security forces, there wouldn’t be more than thirty of them. But there were two Special Deputies coming; that was the real problem.

He heard a faint scuffling and raised voices coming from some distance away, no doubt down the stairs. He leaned back in the chair, and took a couple of deep breaths. He kept his pistol in his hand, out of sight beneath the desk.

There were two of them, as expected; except for odd, skin-tight blue gloves, they were dressed simply, much like he was; they could have worked in the office with him and would have fit in nicely.

“Good day, gentlemen,” he said, before they could speak. “I’m Kit Merlyn, Anglo Sino Alliance Security, Investigations Department, Identification number six three dash four one seven, reporting to Commissioner Gerald White. I’m not expecting you to identify yourselves; I know who you are and why you’re here.”

He felt himself come under intent scrutiny. The other, shorter one, spoke in a pleasant, almost melodic voice: “Agent Merlyn, why do you have a weapon concealed under that desk?”

He’d been expecting that question. “Because I know how you gentlemen work, and I have no intention of letting you kill me if I can prevent it. I have a man to prosecute, and—”

“You think we’d kill one of our own with no reason?”

“No, you’d need a reason, but I have no idea what you might decide is a reason, so I’m playing it safe.”

“Very well,” said the thinner one. “Then where are they?”

“Simon and River Tam left the world twenty-four hours ago in a Firefly class transport. They made a rendezvous in close orbit with an as yet unidentified Seagull-class transport, transferred to her, and left the world. The Firefly, Serenity, landed back here. I temporarily commandeered and searched her in order to complete my own mission. I’ll be filing a full report—”

“Did you speak with the Tams?”

“I had no contact with them at any time, only with a crew member of Serenity who intended to give them up.”

“That would be a Mister Jayne Cobb?” said the other.

“That is correct, yes.”

“And where is he?”

“To the best of my knowledge and belief, he is a fugitive somewhere in the world, having escaped the local lockup.”

“How did he escape?” said the shorter of the two.

“He had help. I don’t know more that that; it doesn’t fall within the purview of my investigation.”

They looked at each other. “We aren’t going to kill you,” said the thinner one.

“Then I’ll be equally polite,” said Kit.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“The Seagull was on a heading for New Hall. They have a day’s start, but they aren’t fast.”

“You could have reported that yesterday.”

“Not my job,” said Kit.

The thinner one nodded. “When you make your final report, see to it a copy comes to Special Operations. Mark it ‘Attention Headwater.’ ”

“All right.”

The two of them nodded and walked out of the room, and Kit started breathing again. However, he didn’t move for a good five minutes, just in case. But they were well and truly gone; the only thing left would be carnage downstairs. He wished there were a way to walk past it without seeing it. For one thing, he didn’t relish deciding if he were obligated to put it in his report.

He used the comm equipment at the desk to arrange for transport.

“Sit over there,” he told Zoë. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

“I’m fine,” she said, but he barely heard her; he was already concentrating on Jayne, who lay on the table, face down and sleeping; the bleeding had stopped for the moment.

Simon prepared his tools, then made his first examination. Pulse all right, blood pressure good—and there it was: he could see the exit wound in the trapezius. He studied the entry point, looked at the angle, and decided the bullet hadn’t done any bouncing around, which was good.

“I think he’ll be fine,” he said aloud.

“You going to fix him, doctor?” asked Mal.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Simon might have replied, but he was too busy, and the question was too stupid to deserve an answer anyway.

In a moment of relative lucidity, he realized he’d been shot again. That he was back in Serenity’s med bay again. He tried to put together the events of the last few hours, days, but he couldn’t make things fit, and it was too much effort to try. Shortly after that, things went fuzzy again.

Some indeterminate time later, he saw the doctor’s face peering at him. He tried to ask if he was going to live, but he couldn’t make his mouth work right. “You’re back on Serenity,” said the doctor, as if that had been his question.

“Where else would I be,” he tried to say, but it wouldn’t come out right. Not that it mattered.

Zoë’s voice came through the speaker. “Captain wants everyone in the dining room.”

Kaylee, leaning against the port battery casing, stared at the box. It was a technology that hadn’t changed in hundreds of years: a thin membrane set to vibrating by the motion of electrons through insulated wires. Power requirements: almost nil. Control. It was all about control, about fine tuning, about precision. It was the same sort of precision control, in a different way, that let Wash do what he did. And the Captain do what he did.

Big things, turned into small things, then moved and turned back into big things.

She stared at the speaker.

“Kaylee?”

“I’ll be there,” she said. Her voice sounded odd in her ears.

The speaker went dead. “I have to be there,” she told the empty engine room. “It’s my job to keep Serenity running.”

Sometimes it seemed it was just a matter of keeping her balance. Too far in one direction and she would see anything; would just sit there for the rest of her life like the cat-tails in a still-life. Too far in another direction, and it would all rush in on her at once so that she would burst and become nother. Too far in another direction, and she would become nonexistent. Too far in another direction, and they would find her and take her back. Too far in another direction…

The problem was there were too many directions, and you had to stay balanced among all of them. It was like dance; if you could find the balance point, you could do anything.

That was the beauty of flying. She would have to ask Wash he how did it, how he made it like a dance. The way Kaylee made Serenity dance. The way Simon danced with his hands, when he was operating. The way Mal danced between disaster and triumph. The way Zoe danced around between Mal’s orders and Mal’s wishes. The way Jayne…