Chapter 20: Here’s a Funny Twist: No.

It took only a few hours for local lawforce to check out each of the sites Van Soren had given Carmelito, and report back. Serenity wasn’t on Haven, she wasn’t on Boros, she wasn’t on Beaumonde or the space-based way station that drifted at the edge of the worlds or a handful of Reynolds’s other known haunts.

But the call from Whitefall was more useful. It had taken longer to come in; there was no Alliance post on Whitefall; only a free-floating police station a few hours out. But Lt. Yazvac ‘waved Coles with good news indeed: Mal Reynolds was on Whitefall, with his ship. “Although it looks like they’re loading up; getting ready to leave,” Yazvac told him.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Coles said sincerely, and cut the transmission. Whitefall. I know where you are, you devil. Now. Where are you going?

“Will we be leaving orbit?” asked Polyphemus’ captain.

“Not just yet,” Coles said. He turned to leave the bridge; he needed to walk. Or maybe throw something. Where are you going? “Soon.”

**

“It isn’t going to work,” Simon insisted. He had cornered Mal in passenger dorm, which was the only place they had been able to find room to stow the bodies from Whitefall.

“Why not?” Mal asked.

“Because dead flesh doesn’t heal,” Simon said. “The microsurgical process uses a regeneration accelerator for healing that just won’t have any effect on dead flesh.”

“Doesn’t have to be perfect, doctor. Just has to be close.” Mal moved to edge past Simon, and Simon moved to block him, which Mal found intensely irritating. Simon with a bee in his bonnet could test Mal’s patience like almost nobody else.

“Another thing,” Simon persisted. “There is absolutely no way to plant the samples you had me collect from the crew on these bodies that will ensure our DNA is sampled instead of whoever these people really are. It can’t be done.”

“Have I asked you to do that?” Mal said, edging left. Simon stayed