Paquin was a fairly big, fairly populated planet orbiting the protostar Heinlein in the Red Sun system. After its terraforming process had finished about a hundred years ago, most people had settled on the southern hemisphere and as such most of the major cities had popped up there. New Inverness however was located on the opposite side, on the northern continent, which had less and a more scattered population, and was mostly known for its vast forests.

This was also the home of the infamous wild dog that most people in the 'verse associated the name Paquin with. It was rumored to have been supposed to be a dingo, a canine originating from the Australian continent back on Earth-That-Was, but something had gone horribly wrong during the recreation process and the result was an animal three times as big and ten times as malevolent. But like with any of their other mishaps, the Alliance had never actually confirmed it. Anyway, the dog thrived in the forests of Paquin, and even though it shied away from civilization and rarely left the woods, hundreds of domestic animals and several people were killed by it every year. The fact that it also bred like rabbits had made it impossible to exterminate – or at least the authorities had long since given up on the task.

The towns of these inhospitable northern parts of the planet were smaller and much less developed than the cities in the south, and the town of New Inverness was no exception. With a population of about 5 000 it had grown up around a wood processing factory, but had changed little in its fifty years of existence. The railroad connected it to the bigger towns at the coast, but few strangers ever came here and least of all space ships. And so when Serenity landed on a meadow just outside the town line, people immediately flocked around it.

Jayne had grown gradually more agitated during the week the trip had taken them, and now as he stood in the cargo bay waiting for the doors to open, there was a darkness in his eyes that even scared Mal a little.