Inara brought the shuttle into a landing on the small pad, then shut the engine down. Still gripping the control column, she tried to slow her breathing. She felt so close, as if the entire future path of her life was about to be decided.

She pushed her hair out of her face and noticed her hand was shaking.

“Come on,” she said to herself. “You’re a … well, an ex-Companion. You should be better than this.”

Closing her eyes she summoned all her resources, and when she looked out again at Ariel City, she was Inara Serra again.

“Time to go.”

---

“Hank?” Kaylee looked into the bridge.

“Oh, hey,” the pilot said, smiling broadly. “Thought you were going to the park?”

“I am. I was. I’m going back … Just something I need to do first.” Kaylee smiled somewhat furtively.

“You gotta secret?” he asked. “I’m good at keeping secrets if you want to talk about it.”

“No, I just … is the Cortex link in shuttle two working?”

“Sure. Last I looked. Why?”

“Something I need to look up.”

“Couldn’t you do that from here?”

“No, it’s … it’s a surprise.”

Hank looked at her. Kaylee was really the worst liar in the ‘verse, but he took pity on her. “Okay. I’ll make sure the link is up by the time you get there.” He looked behind her. “Where’s Bethany?”

“With River. They’re watching the ducks.”

“So there are actually ducks?”

“Thanks, Hank,” Kaylee said distractedly, hurrying off towards the shuttle.

---

“You were no help,” Mal complained as he walked beside Freya.

“Was I supposed to be?”

“They could get into a hell of a lot of trouble on this planet.”

“And you think they’d be speaking to you back on board if you didn’t let them go?”

“Be quiet, though.”

Freya smiled. “Now you know you hate it when they do that.”

“Maybe. But that don’t excuse you not backing me up. I am captain, you know.”

“And you do it so well.” They walked slowly along in companionable silence for a minute or two before Freya spoke again. “We could have waited, you know. For