“Mal,” Simon said softly, but it was as if he shouted – he had everyone’s attention. “I think I have something.”

Mal was inside the infirmary before the words had even finished bouncing around the air ducts, but for once the rest of the crew decided to stay outside, probably as a result of the glare their captain threw them, although they did crowd around the door. “Well?”

“There wasn’t anything much in the way of forensic evidence,” Simon said, making a couple of small calibrations in one of his pieces of equipment. “Like I said, it’s been in pockets, handled … there were a number of fingerprints, but I could discount most of them as being River’s, Freya’s –”

“You keep my wife’s fingerprints on file?” Mal demanded suspiciously.

“I keep full body scans of everyone on board,” Simon said simply. “I am a doctor.”

“Hmmn. Yes, well. Go on.”

“So after I removed the ones I knew, and surmised Molly’s – please don’t ask how, because you won’t understand – the only ones remaining were too old and smudged to be of any use.”

“So you’re saying you haven’t found anything?” Mal wanted to know, ignoring the jibe.

“Not on the outside.”

“Doc, I’m on the verge of doing something Frey’s gonna make me regret.”

“See for yourself.” He turned one of his small displays around.

Mal peered at it. “All I can see is a whole lotta nothing. In fact a whole lotta red nothing.”

“It keeps going out of focus,” Simon said, adjusting again. “I think I need a new … there.”

For a moment Mal felt as if he was falling into the screen, then it steadied. “What the hell is that?” he asked as a small area became clearer, and as it grew he could discern tiny shapes and dots within it. “A flaw?”

“I thought so, at first.” Simon’s pale face was still, even less animation than usual. “If it had been, that in itself would have been unusual – Culver never let a stone go out that isn’t perfect. But when I looked even closer …” Again he made a minute adjustment.

Mal’s brows drew together. “That