Mal straightened his back and wondered about the twinges he felt in his lower regions. Time was, when he was still back on Shadow, he could help fence half a mile before breakfast, and still have the energy after to go chasing the cattle who’d got through the break and into the stinkweed. It hadn't hurt them, of course, but they would surely have had a few bad days getting over the hangover. Stinkweed sap might be tasty, but that was only because it was constantly fermenting.

Then during the war he had existed on nothing much more than iron rations and the occasional plunder of a downed Alliance supply craft, picking over the bones after the purple-bellies had air-lifted out what they could, before going on to be a thorn in their side for days on end.

Now, though, just giving Mr Boden a hand erecting the posts around the kitchen garden and he felt like an old man. And that was all the while ignoring the ache from the virtually healed wound in his hip.

Of course, he was older, although not necessarily wiser, than he used to be. He ate better than during the war, that’s for sure, and certainly more tasty since they figured out Simon could cook as well as work miracles over the various slings and arrows that life threw at them, and if he’d had to give up wearing the tight pants of his youth, well, a man likes to be comfortable in his advancing years. His face in the mirror when he shaved was a little fuller too, less lean and mean than before, but that could change if they had a few bad months. The kids would get fed no matter what, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the adults would be going to bed hungry once in a while again.

He didn’t talk about it, at least not to the rest of the crew, but the nights when he took the late watch he would randomly surf the Cortex, picking up on little things going on in the ‘verse, the tell-tale signs of the Alliance tightening its grip, and maybe squeezing harder than before. Life might seem good on the surface, but he could see a day when he’d have t