“I feel naked,” Freya complained, for at least the fifth time in the last hour.

“You look beautiful,” Mal assured her, walking close beside her.

”No, I don’t.” She glanced down at herself. “This feels wrong.”

Mal hid the smile that wanted to bloom, as he looked her up and down. “It’s fine.” She was wearing one of the dresses Dillon had bought her while she and Mal were quarantined on Persephone, this one a burnt orange with red trim. As suggested, she’d cinched it in with a belt, and it flowed prettily around her knees. “It’s very pretty,” he added quickly at her look.

“I'm getting a breeze where’s there’s no right to be one.”

“At least you’re armed,” he pointed out, nodding towards the black, waist length jacket she’d topped the outfit off with. Hiding underneath, snug against her chest, was her shoulder holster and snub-nosed pistol, a gift from Mal. “If anything, I feel more naked than you.”

“I'm just glad you listened to reason and didn’t try to wear your brown coat.”

He chuckled, tugging briefly on his own grey cord jacket. “You think they might have objected?”

“I think there might have been a riot.” She looked at their surroundings. “Particularly here.”

The main campus of Ariel University looked like something out of an old vid, squatting on the landscape like it did. None of the buildings were more than three storeys tall, and they spread out across several acres.

“It was designed by Ferrinaci,” Simon said as they walked through grounds maintained to within an inch of their life. “He was inspired by the great universities of Earth-that-was, and attempted to make it as conducive to learning as possible.”

“Sure looks out of place here,” Mal responded. “And how come nobody’s smiling?” he added, watching the students hurrying past them, heads down, books clutched to their chests.

Simon’s own lips quirked. “You have an odd idea of the Core, Mal. Not everyone’s happy, not by a long chalk. Otherwise people like Sam wouldn’t be able to make a living.”

“Guess