Hat picked herself up painfully from the floor where she’d been thrown by the River-stealers and limped over to her son. She felt like she’d been run over by a gorram spaceship. She could feel blood running down her face from where she’d hit the wall and her left leg was too painful to put any kind of weight on. As soon as she picked him up, Little M stopped screaming and began straining and wriggling dramatically, gazing pathetically towards the empty doorway through which River had presumably left. Hat appreciated that he’d bonded closely with River, after all she looked after him a lot of the time, but Hat was so not in the mood.

“Oh, stop being a drama queen, Malcolm!” she snapped irritably, and firmly moved her son to her hip, containing his mad squirming, “we’ll get her back. I’ll tell you not for nothing though, but yer pappy’s gonna be mighty aggrieved at this turn of events.” She sighed heavily and headed for the cockpit, dragging herself weakly up the steps. “Yer see,” she went on to her son, who to be frank, clearly didn’t, he was no longer really following the conversation, but rather gazing in rapture at the array of tiny lights on the control panel, “time has become somewhat of an issue.” Hat felt like trying to talk her worries out and in the absence of an adult, Little M would have to do. She tried to catch her baby’s eye and failed dismally. How could she compete with shiny things? “We gotta find River fast. Before she gets moved too far away. So lets you and me see if we can’t contact daddy, shall we?”

She flicked several switches, hoping that Mal had taken a communicator with him. From the static she got in reply, she guessed he hadn’t. She tried to calm herself; it was really no use getting hysterical. Logical thought and planning were required, but it was hard when you were trying to contend with no small amount of pain at the same ruttin’ time. At least Little M, mesmerised by the lights, had settled. She would have gone to put him down, it was time for his bed anyho