Chapter 11

Morning. Supposedly. On a ship, solar time is, as River had once said, vestigial. They can say it is any time they truly want it to be and no one can argue the logic of it. However, the human body likes to function by a clock of some sort, a measurement of time for waking, a measurement for sleeping. In fact, of all the planets and moons colonized, not one of them runs to earth normal days. Teraforming isn’t accurate enough.

Which is River’s reasoning for not getting up this supposed morning. It isn’t morning. They just believe it is. So Simon can take his gorram morning and shove it up his pigu. She is staying in bed. Period.

Simon goes to breakfast alone.

Already there are Zoë, Mal, Wash, Juliet and Kaylee. He smiles and sits beside the mechanic, helping himself to some of the real oatmeal Mal had purchased on Persephone and savouring every mouthful. Real food. The one thing he wishes feverently he had never left behind at home.

Home.

The oatmeal suddenly tastes like the cardboard it is packaged in. His home. The place he lived for all of his stolen life, never knowing that by being there, being free, he was condemning his sister to what the Blue Sun corporation had done to her. He had tried not to think about it, tried not to realise what it meant. That he should be the one spouting nonsense, the alliance cutting up his brain, taking out who he was. He shouldn’t even be here. Everything he is, he stole from his sister.

He looks up from the rapidly cooling oatmeal, appetite disintegrated. Juliet is staring at him intensely. She is a victim of it too. And she probably knows exactly what he’s thinking.

“Mostly.”

“What?”

“I mostly know what you’re thinking. But you’re not as loud a thinker as some people, so it’s harder.”

Jayne walks in.

“Prime example of the loud thinker there.”

“Huh?” Jayne grunts, going over to the other side of Kaylee and sitting down. She beams at him and he puts an arm around her, kissing her forehead. “Mornin’ all.”

Zoë and Wash sputter with laughter at Simon’s e