There was something familiar about the girl with the long brown hair that hung in uncombed hanks around her face, as she made her way, shuffling and uncertain, along the concourse below. River kept trying to figure out what, but she couldn't quite bring her thoughts into focus. A sister? But I don't have a sister. Do I? She was sure of a brother -- Simon! -- and parents, somewhere. But the sister . . . a young woman passed in front of her, with thick straight auburn hair, bright amber eyes, and a ready smile. Sister, River thought, turning, but the young woman was gone, leaving only a sense of loss. Kaylee . . .

River turned her attention back to the trembling, shuffling girl on the concourse. She was drawing attention to herself, poor child, with her odd gait, her muttering, her handwringing. People drew away from her, leaving a circle of clear space around her, like the clearing around a fort so that no one could get within a bowshot -- or a gunshot -- without being seen.

So, of course, she saw them.

Two by two, hands of blue.

River screamed.

Just like that, she was back inside her own body, looking out through her own eyes at the two men in their neat suits, their blue hands balled into fists and partially hidden inside their sleeves. There was one thought in both their minds: her. They moved toward her, through the clear space, and River backed away.

She plucked a thought -- a dark thought; an unhappy thought -- from the mind of a man nearby. "It's him!" she cried, pointing at the men with blue hands. "It's Mackey!" She had no idea who Mackey was; it didn't matter. The man turned, saw the men with blue hands, and his suggestible mind saw his enemy. He pulled his weapon.

Under cover of the suddenly-scattering crowd, River fled.

Her father was running alongside her. "River, stop this nonsense right now!" he ordered.

"Daddy, help me," she pleaded. Behind her, she heard gunshots, and screaming, and other, more fright