“What is taking so gorram long?” Mal was pacing, unable to keep still.

“It’s only been five minutes,” Simon said, not feeling that much calmer himself.

Jayne understood, though. Inside that room, with that ga ni niang doing things to ‘em, were the two most important women in Mal’s life. His first mate and his wife. The one who’d kept him alive all through the war, and the one who made it worth living now. “She’s going fast as she can,” he said. “It twists a lot.”

“She’s telling you?” Simon asked in surprise. She’d rarely dropped her thoughts into his mind, and to find this big man mentioning it so nonchalantly, as if it happened all the time …

“Yeah,” Jayne admitted. “You got a problem with that?”

As much as Simon wanted to say yes, to admit it hurt him more than he wanted that his little sister would communicate with this mercenary ape, he remembered her words.

“Does he make you happy, mei-mei ?” he’d asked.

Yes.

“Why?”

Does there have to be a reason?

He’d had to tell the truth. “I suppose not.”

Be happy for me, Simon.

“River … I’ll try.”

So Simon shook his head. “No. If she talks to you … that’s fine.”

Jayne nodded, for once not taking the opportunity to make fun of the young doctor. Not at a time like this. “She’s there,” he said quietly.

Mal jerked, staring at the big man before laying his hands on the door.

---

River watched through the grating, doing the math. Five men, including Niska. She’d never seen him in the flesh, but didn’t need to. It was him. Of the others, only three were really any threat, but they were real enough.

Time to act. They’d put Hank into some sort of tube, and from the feelings and thoughts emanating from the two women chained to the wall, this was bad. Very, very bad.

Triangulate, measure, aim … everything was going through River’s mind at once, as she tried to block out the fear below and outside, the anger beating at her. If they’d all just shut up she could …

She kick