Trouble for Nothing, Tricks for Free 4.0

I often sit, and stop, and wonder,

What causes those to abuse their power,

To rule with hurt, and pain, and suffer,

Just like a controlling, selfish lover,

She flew to help.….but was now forever lost,

To those who harmed the Albatross.

From “Whispers of the Albatross” R. Tam’s ledger : 2517

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Malcolm Reynolds lay in his bunk, pondering the events which had happened over the past several weeks. They really had been lucky. Returning the Chameleon, Charlie had said they carried an angel on their shoulders, but Mal didn’t believe in angels. Yet he did believed in devils.

Was it possible to believe in one without the other? Mal didn’t know, and he often wondered if he was harboring one or the other on his boat?

“She may be a witch, but she’s our witch,” he had remembered saying to the simple hill folk on Jiangyin. But actually now, he thought about how much of that statement could really be true? How could River have known about the Union Star? How too, could she have known of anything that had taken place aboard the Chameleon?

He had blamed it on the Shepherd at first, with his deep knowledge and uncanny ability of knowing things. Yet upon further consideration Mal knew that this could not be. If the Preacher had, had information like that (Bartholomew stamping all the ships he inspected with the “Union Star”) then he, himself woulda sent Malcolm a warning wave, not River. The Captain had all kinds of ideas running through his head. Some had him believing that River was only a confused child, others…..that she was something more.

Had Parliament gotten to her in ways that even he did not understand? Was she a mole with even deeper connections than Dobson had, had? Mal meant to ponder this further, yet he wouldn’t let his guard down about what he was thinking. He just hoped the girl couldn’t read minds!

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Glad to be back on the REAL Serenity, Mal felt that it was a plac