I tried to peer out the window set in the main cargo bay doors as we came in for our landing on Whitefall, but it was too high, or I was too short, and I couldn't see much. Brief glimpse of some small buildings, plowed fields ready for planting, and scrubby half-desert. Didn't seem all that different from home, come to think on it. Wasn't long before Serenity settled to the ground, first time she'd landed since taking me with her, and Mal nodded at Zoe. "Already, sir?" she asked.

"Patience'll be twitchy, after this long," Mal replied. "If we don't want to get into a siege war, with her people ringin' the ship round, we should just as well get it all out now."

I went over to check the jerry-rigged wagon that half of the cargo was already loaded up onto, and the chain that we'd be using to tow it. Everything looked ship-shape, or maybe planet-shape was more to the point. Zoe headed over to the mule, nodded at me, and climbed on, turning the somewhat tired motor over into reluctant life. Mal was already opening up the doors.

There was lots of loading and unloading to be done quicky, as you might imagine - as soon as Zoe had got the cargo outside we all worked at unloading it off the wagon, piling it near the port thruster exhaust, and then loading up the rest once Zoe had driven back inside. Wash had landed not far from a homey huddled town, and though a few beefy and hard-eyed guys came over quickly to watch, they didn't say anything, seeming happy enough to let us get on with things as long as we were hard at work this way. Neither Mal nor Zoe asked any of them to help.

I do remember one thing I said as we were unloading the first half. "Patience sounds like she doesn't really fit her name." Mal and Zoe stared at me blankly after that, though Zoe kept hefting big fertilizer containers. "You know, patience as in the ability to wait for something? Doesn't sound like she's got that."

Zoe rolled her eyes and Mal chuckled once politely. "I've thought the same thing once or twice myself," he admitted. "Bu