CHAPTER 3

Mal and Zoë rushed to the bridge, Mal slipping into the empty pilot’s seat and silencing the alarm, Zoë bending over the console to see what triggered it. Zoë determined that “proximity” had become a relative term in her absence, as the Qian Chung cruiser was still a long ways off. From this distance, it looked like a pitchfork, but only if that pitchfork were drawn by Picasso in his cubism phase.

“You think they know about Simon?” she asked.

Mal waited for the instruments to get a fair read on the heading. “They’re not coming toward us.”

“Maybe there’s some place we can hide before that changes.”

“Maybe,” Mal agreed, furrowing his brow at the screen. He looked out the window, in confusion. “Where the gou cao de are we? Find River!”

Zoë trotted out of the bridge, and through the dining hall again.

“Mommy,” Jackson called, standing up as she went by.

“Stay here, baby.”

She headed quickly past the galley towards River’s room, but fortunately didn’t have to go that far. River lay on the catwalk, her ear to the floor.

“River!” Zoë called, but the girl didn’t lift her head. Zoë came down the stairs, calling again, but something about the scene struck her as off. This was too much like the old River she’d left on Serenity eight years ago, not the young woman she’d been getting to know over the past two weeks.

“River?” Zoë asked slowly, coming onto the catwalk, and noticing the fresh scrape on River’s toe. Slowly, uncertainly, she knelt beside River’s head and placed a hand on her back. The girl’s eyes were closed, red from dried up tears. “River, are you hurt?”

“Color of frond.”

It was then that she noticed the unnatural purple bruising on River’s wrist and trembling muscles. That along with River’s continued non-responsiveness gave Zoë a sinking feeling. She ran to the nearest comm box and called the bridge. “Captain, River’s out. You’re on your own.”

Returning to River, Zoë asked her again if she was hurt, and whatever her answer, Zoë could not make it out. Gingerly, she pulle