Mal liked to take a walk after supper.

It was always dark after chow time; the stars glittered in the black, the moons glowed vivid hues, the crickets chirped and the tall grass rustled in the breeze. As always, he walked passed the barn, then stopped at the fence where his pasturage began. The captain leaned on a fence post, shut his worn blue eyes and tilted his head back. Lungs flooded with chilled prairie air, and his blue orbs opened to see the sky his heart yearned for. He loved the black, he loved his spirit going where the wind took it.

Granted, if he was going to settle on land, Shadow was the only place in the 'verse he would. No other place was like Shadow, no other patch of dirt could his gypsy heart once call home. No other place he had come into the 'verse. No other place he had received his first horse at the ripe age of two and had been taught to ride by a ranch hand called Spiv. No other place he had hiked, hunted and had his first adventures at as a young boy. No other place had he slept out on the prairie with the feeling of pure liberty in the wind. No other place he had left with reluctance. No other place he had wept over those lost so heavily. No other place he had wept over the land itself.

The talk that Shadow itself had been completely destroyed had only been rumor. Shadow had been bombed heavily during the war, as it was home to people of an independent spirit. People who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, who didn't take government handouts, who didn't like some Alliance moving in. Yet the Alliance had only destroyed half of the planet. From space, it was easy to see, the divide was a straight line between the western and eastern hemispheres, making Shadow like Ying and Yang. To the west was green grasslands, rippling great lakes and a brawny spine of snowcapped mountains. On the ground life flourished. The bison didn't heed man, and the wolves sang their own ballads as the cattle got fat on premium grass. Yet to the east was grey and pallid, pockmarked with black crat