19. I Miss Out on All the Fun

Li Shen’s establishment on Whitefall had been the center of a sprawling farm operation. Shen had once worked for Mal’s mother, on his family’s ranch on Shadow; after the war, he had set up here, in a temperate spot halfway between the equator and the pole, farming corn, soybeans, apples, and smaller fruit and vegetable crops, along with some livestock. He’d become hugely successful, taking in strays from all over after the war and creating a community of free folk of all sorts, in a neat cluster of homes and outbuildings that was almost entirely self-supporting, as well as highly profitable. Every year in the fall, if Serenity had no other business, they could stop at Li Shen’s and stay a few days, or a few weeks, helping harvest whatever was ready and shipping any cargo that would keep to various offworld markets.

Now, the entire community was a scorched ruin, like Shadow after the war.

It was winter in Whitefall’s northern hemisphere; the creeks that watered the farm were frozen, and several inches of snow disguised the burned-up earth and rendered the wrecked buildings almost picturesque. The cold, Mal figured, might have also preserved the bodies here a little better than in other places. And it was also important that Li Shen’s thriving community had been made up of all sorts of people. Mal didn’t have the whole ‘verse to search through, the way the Alliance did; he needed to find bodies that were an approximate match for three men and three women of varied ages, sizes and complexions, and this was his likeliest spot.

He and Zoe watched through the bridge windows as River settled the ship in the middle of a snowy and frozen pasture.

“Wash and Inara ain’t here,” Zoe observed.

Mal had noticed that, too, and it worried him just the slightest. “Probably nothing to fret over,” he said. “Maybe . . . maybe they just fell madly in love and ran off together.”

Zoe frowned at him. “Is that supposed to be funny, sir?”

Mal cleared his thr