A/N: Because of the rearranging I've been doing, this chapter ended up quite short. Also, the next two chapters need some revision, so I may be a little slower about posting them.

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River trailed her fingers along the ends of the stasis chambers that were stacked four deep along the ship's central corridor. The slow heart beats within, the massed sleepers' brain waves, had a soporific effect, and she found her eyelids growing heavy. It would be so easy just to sleep. But then she would dream, and River's dreams were troubled aboard this ship. This ship wasn't like Serenity. Something was wrong, here. She didn't yet know what.

She was approaching the crew's mess. There was a separate mess kitchen for the passengers, stocked and used exclusively by them, but River was just wandering; she wasn't actually interested in food. Voices filtered clearly along the corridor; River wondered if the speakers realized how well the stacked stasis chambers, with their blinking red and green lights, carried the sound.

She was surprised to recognize Frank's voice. "...trouble, when we arrive sooner than they expect?"

"No," said another voice, this one female. "We'll tell them it's just a stopover along our route, and by the time they know any better, it will be too late. Quit worrying."

River paused to listen. What they said was not clear; she listened hard to hear what they weren't saying. What they weren't saying was that the passengers aboard this ship thought they were headed for a colony world out on the Rim. But what River had known all along was that this ship was, in reality, headed for Nassau Point.

Why? Why would the crew carry a bunch of settlers to Nassau Point, instead of to where they thought they were going? She took a few steps closer to the kitchen, listening closely between the words. Frank, who had apparently begun this enterprise as one of the leaders of the settlers, was having an attack of conscience. The woman, w