Firefly - Life Signs E-Book

James Lovegrove

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Serenity races against time to save a crew member's life in an original Firefly tie-in novel that reads like a lost episode from the showA deadly diseaseMonths after Inara leaves Serenity, Mal and the crew finally learn the reason for her sudden departure: she is dying of a terminal illness. It is Kiehl's Myeloma, a form of cancer that s supposedly incurable, and Inara has very little time left.A disreputable scientistThrough their shock and despair, rumors of a cure reach the crew. Expert Esau Weng is said to have developed a means to treat Inara s condition, but he has been disgraced and incarcerated for life on a notorious Alliance prison planet.An infamous prisonOn the planet of Atata, inmates are abandoned with no guards and left to survive as best they can. What's more, terraforming the planet did not take properly, so the world is a frozen wasteland. To save Inara, the Serenity crew must infiltrate the prison

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

Epilogue

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

LIFE SIGNS

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Big Damn Hero by James Lovegrove (original concept by Nancy Holder)

The Magnificent Nine by James Lovegrove

The Ghost Machine by James Lovegrove

Generations by Tim Lebbon

LEAVE US A REVIEW

We hope you enjoy this book – if you did we would really appreciate it if you can write a short review. Your ratings really make a difference for the authors, helping the books you love reach more people.

You can rate this book, or leave a short review here:

Amazon.com,

Amazon.co.uk,

Goodreads,

Barnes & Noble,

or your preferred retailer.

Firefly: Life Signs

Hardback edition ISBN: 9781789092271

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092288

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0UP.

First hardback edition: March 2021

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

© 2021 20th Television.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Did you enjoy this book?

We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at [email protected] or write to us at Reader Feedback at the above address.

To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website

TITANBOOKS.COM

DEDICATED TO

Cat Camacho

for keeping us flyin’

I have clinched and closed with the naked North,

I have learned to defy and defend;

Shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out—

yet the Wild must win in the end.

Robert W. Service,

“The Heart of the Sourdough”

“When a battle seems unwinnable,

a soldier has two choices: to fight on,

or to accept the inevitable.

Often the two are hard to tell apart.”

Browncoat General William Hubert Cole,

discussing the Battle of Serenity Valley

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The events in this novel take place between the

Firefly TV series and the movie Serenity.

1

“You know you got one of them upside-down faces?”

“Huh?”

“An upside-down face. You know what I mean.”

“Don’t reckon as I do.”

“Bald on top, neck-beard below. You stand on your head, it’d look like your face was the right way up.”

“You tryin’ to be funny?”

“Merely tenderin’ an observation. ’Course, from my current perspective, your face is the right way up.”

“You’re about to die. I really don’t think this is the time to be making wisecracks.”

“Personally can’t think of a better time to be making wisecracks than when you’re about to die.”

The two men speaking were Malcolm Reynolds—Firefly captain, former Browncoat, buccaneering rogue—and one Desmond Rouleau, killer for hire.

The former was bound hand and foot and hanging by his ankles from a bough of a tall mesquite. The latter was standing in front of him, brandishing a hunting knife with a twelve-inch blade. It was night. Cicadas were singing. A trio of moons illuminated the scene, as did the headlights of a two-seater hover-gig parked nearby.

A couple of hours earlier, the pair had had an arranged meet in a cabin in the woods a mile outside a town called Lonesome Rock. This was on Odessa, a Rim world that lay a hop, skip and a jump from the Uroborus asteroid belt. There’d been the prospect of a job. Some cargo to transport. Paid work, something which had been pretty thin on the ground lately for Mal and his crew.

A condition for the rendezvous had been that Mal came alone. No sidekick, no backup. Rouleau didn’t want a fuss. He was a low-key kinda guy, he’d said. They would talk man-to-man. “Get a person on their ownsome, look ’em in the eye, take the measure of ’em—that’s how Desmond Rouleau operates.”

Shots of bourbon were downed. A deal was sealed with a handshake. All at once Mal felt woozy, like he was descending a hundred floors in an express elevator. He got up from the table, fumbling for his gun…

And keeled over flat on his face, unconscious.

When his senses returned, he found he had been strung up from the mesquite and was dangling there like a human piñata. That was bad. Worse, perhaps, was the fact that his eyes were more or less level with Desmond Rouleau’s crotch. There were pale, crusty stains on the front of the man’s pants, and Mal didn’t much care to know where they’d come from. Food grease, he hoped.

“Now then, Mr. Reynolds,” said Desmond Rouleau, “I bet you’re wonderin’ why you’re here, all trussed up and no place to go.”

“Thought had crossed my mind.” The blood was pooling in Mal’s head. His face felt puffy, swollen. His temples throbbed and his sinuses ached. “I’m guessing you didn’t slip a sedative into my drink and drag me all the way out into the boondocks and drape me from a tree just to discuss, I don’t know, philosophy. ’Less you have, in which case I apologize for misreadin’ the situation. It’s just, you don’t look the philosophy type.”

“You’re here,” Rouleau said, in the tone of someone whose patience was being sorely tested, “to die. Can’t put it any plainer’n that.”

“Would’ve been my second guess. Not discussing philosophy? Then dyin’. It’s normally one or the other.”

“Want to know why you’re going to die?”

“Be strange if I weren’t a teeny bit curious.”

Rouleau squatted down so that they were nose to nose. This was better than being nose to crotch, in visual terms at least. Unfortunately, Rouleau had terrible teeth and halitosis to match.

“’Cause you pissed off a rich, powerful man,” he said, “and he wants some payback.”

“Huh.”

“That’s all you got to say? ‘Huh’?”

“Well, thing is, I’ve pissed off a fair few people in my time, rich folks among ’em.”

Rouleau nodded sagely. “Even though I ain’t but known you an hour or so, I can see how that might be possible.”

“So you’re gonna have to narrow it down for me,” Mal said. “Who?”

“Name Durran Haymer mean anythin’?”

Durran Haymer. Sometime bio-weapons expert. Wealthier than God. Avid collector of Earth-That-Was artifacts. Had been the owner of a rare antique laser pistol, the Lassiter, until said weapon found its way into Mal’s hands through a complex chain of circumstances which began with an encounter with an old Browncoat friend called Monty and ended with Mal marooned in the desert, bare-ass naked.

“Never heard of him,” Mal said.

“Funny, ’cause he definitely knows you,” said Rouleau. “Says you took something from him. Something he prized greatly.”

“Oh, that Durran Haymer. Yeah, come to think about it, I did maybe help relieve him of a certain gun.”

“Gun?” Rouleau chuckled mirthlessly. “Nobody’s mentioned any gun. No, what you took from Mr. Haymer was way more valuable to him. A woman. His wife, to be precise. The love of his life.”

That would be the lady known variously as Yolanda, Saffron and Bridget, although she had doubtless gone by many other aliases over the years. A thief, a grifter, possibly a Companion at one time in her life. Mal admired her and hated her in equal measure. He also found her damnably attractive.

“The so-called ‘love of his life,’” Mal said, “who lit out on him and only went back, six years later, so’s she could steal from him. Even if I’d had anything to do with deprivin’ Haymer of her—which I did not—by any objective measure I did him a favor. And while we’re on the subject of favors…”

“What?”

“Mind lettin’ me down from this tree? Only, my head feels like a balloon about to pop.”

Rouleau appeared to consider it, then grinned and shook his head. His knees cracked as he straightened up.

“Nossir. Mr. Haymer, see, he’s payin’ me good money to do away with you. ‘I want it to happen somewhere remote,’ he told me, ‘and I want it to happen slow. Real slow.’ And that’s how it’s gonna be. Ain’t a soul around for miles. Nobody’s gonna hear you scream—and you will scream, Reynolds, make no mistake. I got this here knife and I’m gonna take my time. Gonna cut you up bit by bit. Gonna carve slices off of you like some kinda… some kinda…” He frowned, trying to think of a simile.

“Christmas turkey?” Mal offered.

“Exactly! Like some kinda Christmas turkey. And I’m gonna enjoy it, too.”

“That’s mighty nice to hear. Can’t fault a man who loves his work.”

“Oh, I do, Reynolds,” said Rouleau. “Very much.”

“There’s just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I have friends.”

“How nice for you. I imagine they’ll be right sad when they learn what’s become of you.” Rouleau held the knife to Mal’s stomach, cutting edge upward. “Reckon here’s as good a place to start as any.” With a flick of the hand, he severed three shirt buttons. The shirt fell open, exposing skin. “This blade is finest Regina steel. I hone it daily.”

“Still, you’re forgettin’. I have friends.”

“So you’ve said. Don’t see none around, though.” Rouleau made a show of looking in every direction.

“The kind of friends who wouldn’t leave a fella hangin’. The kind that’d come to his rescue. I mean, come to his rescue soon. I mean, soon soon. As in, right now. Please?”

“Aww, ain’t that sweet?” said Rouleau. “Begging for help, even though there’s no chance any’s comin’.”

A shot rang out.

Rouleau doubled over, clutching his ear and hissing with pain. He drew his hand away and looked at it. The palm was covered in blood. He probed his ear gingerly with one finger. Most of its top section was missing.

Then he peered at Mal. “Now just what the—?”

A second shot rang out.

Rouleau’s hand flew to his other ear. It, too, was now minus its top section.

“Gorramn it!” he yelled, peering around. “Whoever the hell you are, stop doing that! Hurts like a mother-rutter!”

“Drop the knife,” a gruff male voice barked from the shadows beyond the hover-gig’s headlights. “I done the right ear, I done the left. Next shot goes in the middle.”

“Okay, okay.” Rouleau let go of the knife. It thudded point-first into the ground. “You got the drop on me, whoever you are. I ain’t gonna resist.”

“Mal?” said the voice. “You found out what you need to know from this guy?”

“Yep.”

“Then I guess there’s no reason for him to stay breathin’.”

“Wait. Wait!” said Rouleau. Blood was streaming down both sides of his neck, glistening in his beard. “What do you want? You want money? I’ll give you money. The fee from this job, plus ten per cent extra as a goodwill gesture. How’s that sound? And in return, you let me walk away. No questions asked. You won’t never see me again.”

The unseen sniper went quiet, as though giving the matter thought. Then he said, “Mal? We want this guy’s platinum?”

“Sure could do with it,” Mal said.

“It’s yours, I promise,” said Rouleau, with every appearance of sincerity.

“On the other hand,” Mal said to Rouleau, “you did go on at some length ’bout how you were going to kill me slow.”

“That was just talk.” The killer for hire was sounding blustery and panicked again. “I’d’ve made it quick, honest I would.”

“Decent of you. I just don’t happen to believe you.”

“Swear to God.”

“Way I heard it, you were gonna get your sick, sadistic jollies torturin’ me.”

“Sometimes a fella says these things for effect.” As he spoke, Rouleau was surreptitiously slipping a blood-smeared hand behind his back. “You know how it is. Gotta sound tough and menacin’. Gotta—”

Instead of finishing the sentence, Rouleau whipped out a six-shooter that had been lodged in the waistband of his pants, nestling against the base of his spine. He leveled the barrel with Mal’s face, cocking the hammer at the same time.

Blam!

Rouleau keeled over backwards. The third shot fired at him had, as promised, been aimed between his ears. Now Rouleau lay on his back in the dust with a hole where his nose used to be and another, larger cavity where the back of his skull used to be.

And that was the end of Desmond Rouleau, killer for hire.

2

Serenity took off from the surface of Odessa at full burn, achieving escape velocity in under a minute.

On board, Mal was having a debrief with Zoë and Jayne in the cargo bay. River sat on the catwalk nearby, legs dangling over the edge. She appeared not to be paying the conversation below much attention. Instead she stared into the middle distance, humming to herself and twirling a lock of her hair around a finger.

“Haymer, huh?” said Zoë. “Should’ve known that sooner or later there’d be blowback from that whole business.”

“Yeah,” said Mal, “who’d’ve thought he’d mind losing one of his most precious possessions so much?”

“You talking about his Lassiter or YoSaffBridge?”

“You know how attached men get to their guns. Don’t they, Jayne?”

Jayne was cradling his favorite rifle, the Callahan full-bore auto-lock he called Vera. “Ain’t nothin’ shameful about that,” he said.

“But in this case,” Mal went on, returning his gaze to Zoë, “I mean YoSaffBridge. Guess he shoulda found someone a bit smarter to do his dirty work, though. Rouleau’s trap wasn’t any too subtle. ‘Let’s meet at a remote cabin, just you and me, nobody else.’ We knew the thing was a setup. Couldn’t have been more obvious. Just needed to know who was doin’ the setting up and why.”

“But you surely could have come up with a better way of finding out, sir,” said Zoë. “’Less, that is, you like getting tied up and having a knife held to you.”

“I was hopin’ to persuade Rouleau to spill the beans through the time-honored method of pulling a gun and threatening him with it. That was the plan, remember? Would have, too, if I’d gotten the chance. How was I to know the gè zhēn de hún dàn would spike my drink?” Mal was still feeling the lingering after-effects—fuzzy head, furry tongue—from whatever drug the would-be assassin had used to knock him out. “Or that he’d then hogtie me and drive several miles out into the wilderness to kill me? Good thing I had a guardian angel. That was some nice shootin’, by the way, Jayne.”

“You’re welcome,” said Jayne.

“Just curious, though. From the start, you were in position near the cabin. You could have taken Rouleau out as he was carryin’ me to his hover-gig. Why didn’t you?”

“Didn’t have a clear shot. He had you slung over his shoulder. Couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t hit you. I also didn’t know if he’d gone and spilled the beans yet or not. I assumed not, so my only option was to follow you on the Mule bike at a safe distance. By the time I caught up, Rouleau’d already hung you up and started waving his knife around.”

“And I was busy stalling him by keeping him talking. If it weren’t for that, you might’ve been too late.”

“I got there before any real harm was done, didn’t I?”

“True, aside from some missing buttons.” Mal looked ruefully at the front of his shirt. “Guess I can’t complain.”

“Pity of it is, I just went and bought myself this.” Jayne patted his latest customization for Vera, a brand new night scope. “Was hopin’ I’d have the chance to test it out, but there was enough light to see by that I didn’t need it.”

“Maybe next time someone’s holding a knife on me you’ll get your wish.”

“Yeah. Fingers crossed.”

Mal side-eyed the big man. Either he was joshing or he was being crass. With Jayne Cobb, it wasn’t always easy to tell.

“Question is,” said Zoë, “what are we going to do now? Haymer sent one paid killer after you. Chances are, when he finds out this one’s failed, he’ll send another.”

“Chances are he won’t.” Mal gestured towards an aluminum-sided crate. “Not once we’ve dropped that off on his front doorstep.”

The crate, which had more or less the dimensions of a coffin, held the mortal remains of Desmond Rouleau.

“Haymer’s a Bellerophon blueblood,” he went on. “Doesn’t have the sand to pull a trigger himself, but he’s happy to pay someone else to do it on his behalf. Man like that needs to be shown the consequences of his actions, needs to know what killin’ really looks like—and opening up that crate and gettin’ an eyeful of Rouleau’s perforated carcass will surely do the trick.”

“And if it don’t?”

“Then the same thing’ll happen with every other hired gun he sends, over and over. He’ll get the message in the end.”

“Works for me,” Jayne opined.

“Kind of a risk,” said Zoë.

“A calculated one.”

“Still a risk.”

Mal sighed. “That’s our lives now, Zoë. Ain’t nothin’ but risk, calculated or otherwise.”

Simon appeared on the catwalk, in time to catch Mal’s last remark. “What’s this about risk?” he asked River.

River craned her neck to look up at her older brother. “Mal was just saying he doesn’t mind if people try to kill him.” She had been listening in after all, in her own distracted fashion.

“Ain’t what I said at all, River,” Mal corrected. “Somebody pulls a gun on me, a knife, any kinda weapon, with a view to doin’ me a mischief, I very much mind. Seems that’s becomin’ a more and more common occurrence these days, and I mightn’t like it but it’s something I just have to accept.”

“So where are we headed now?” Simon asked him.

“Bellerophon,” said River. “Mal has a present for Durran Haymer. One corpse, fresh off the production line.”

“Corpse?”

“In that box.”

“Seriously?”

“A point needs to be made,” Mal said.

“He was a hero, you know,” River said.

“Flatterin’ of you to say so, River,” said Mal. “I wouldn’t exactly describe what I did as heroic, my own self. Brave, maybe, but not heroic.”

“Bellerophon,” said River. “Demigod from Greek myth. Son of Poseidon. Rode the winged horse Pegasus. Slew the Chimera, a fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent.”

“Oh. That guy.”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“No, but he sounds like a hero all right. Slayin’ monsters and such.”

“Bellerophon went too far, though. Heroes often do,” said River. “He became arrogant. Because he killed the Chimera, he thought he deserved a place on Mount Olympus with the gods.”

Jayne shook his head despairingly. “What is this, some kinda ancient fairytales lecture?”

Ignoring him, River continued. “Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus mid-flight. Pegasus threw Bellerophon off, and he fell to Earth, landed in a thorn bush and was blinded. He spent the rest of his days alone, humbled and miserable. It’s called hubris. When mortals set themselves up as the gods’ equals, the gods don’t like it. They make them suffer for it.”

“Your point being…?” said Mal.

She blinked at him. “Does there need to be a point?”

“You seem to be suggestin’ I’m guilty of this hubris thing.”

“No. Not a bit. But when we arrive on Bellerophon, I think you need to be prepared to fall to Earth with a bump.”

“What?”

River gazed down at Mal from the catwalk, and looking into those big, soulful eyes of hers he had the sense that she knew something the rest of them didn’t. The feeling was familiar to him from past experience, but no less eerie for that. Alliance scientists had meddled with River Tam’s brain, gifting her with abilities some might call superhuman. These abilities—telepathy, precognition, extraordinary combat prowess—were gradually making themselves known, and it was unclear what their full extent might be. They came at a price, however. River was now damaged goods, mentally unsound. Sometimes that amazing mind of hers could resolve seemingly intractable problems; just as often, it caused them.

“What?” she repeated back.

“No, I said ‘What?’ first,” Mal said. “You don’t get to say it after I do. You get to answer me. How am I gonna fall to Earth with a bump?”

“Did I say that?”

“Here we go,” Jayne groused. “Little Miss Creepybritches confounds us all. Again.” He strode out of the cargo bay with Vera, muttering to himself.

“River,” said Simon gently, “if you know about something that’s going to happen, you’d best tell us.”

His sister gave a puzzled frown. “Do I know what’s going to happen?”

“On Bellerophon.”

“Bellerophon. Demigod from Greek myth. Son of Poseidon. Rode the winged horse Pegasus. Slew the Chimera…”

“You’ve told us that already. Is there something else we should know?”

River seemed genuinely nonplussed. “I don’t think so, Simon.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” It was as if she had no memory of the comment she’d made just half a minute ago. Indeed, she probably didn’t. Abruptly she sprang to her feet. Tapping Simon on the arm, she cried, “Tag! You’re it!” and ran out of the cargo bay.

Simon, with a shrug, set off after her. “I’ll get you, River.”

“No, you won’t,” came the singsong, laughing reply. “You never do.”

Mal and Zoë exchanged looks.

“What do you reckon, Zoë?” Mal said. “Our own private crystal ball has given us a warning.”

“I reckon we should be ready for trouble on Bellerophon, sir. Just in case River’s on the money.”

“I reckon that too. Mind you, it’d be worth taking precautions anyway, even if we didn’t have Madam Nostradamus on board.”

“Why’s that?” said Zoë.

“’Cause, the way our luck runs, there’s always gorramn trouble.”

3

In the event, somehow they bucked the odds and there wasn’t trouble.

Durran Haymer owned one of the floating estates that hovered in clusters over the sea on Bellerophon, each kept aloft by an array of conical antigrav generators projecting downward. Disc-shaped and pretty much identical to one another, the estates resembled giant lily pads suspended in midair at varying altitudes.

Mal and Zoë touched down on the landing platform at Haymer’s in one of Serenity’s two shuttles and hurriedly offloaded the crate, which Mal had labeled “Special Delivery for Mr. Haymer—To Be Opened By Him Only.” They were airborne again within moments. There was no point in hanging around. If they dallied, there was a chance someone might call the authorities on them.

Looking out from the cockpit window, Mal saw a man emerge from the main house. The guy shaded his eyes against the sun as he watched the shuttle depart. It wasn’t Haymer but some flunky dressed in a servant’s uniform, with a tailcoat and fancy vest. He peered down at the crate, read the label on the lid, and went back into the house, presumably to summon his master.

Mal half smiled. Durran Haymer was in for a hell of a shock when he opened the crate. He’d have no trouble figuring out who it was from and what it meant, and hopefully he would learn his lesson. He was basically a law-abiding-citizen type, after all. Out of frustration, or perhaps desperation, he had dipped a toe in unfamiliar water—the water Mal swam in on a daily basis. Mal was showing him how deadly dangerous that water could be.

They were halfway back to the rendezvous point with Serenity when Wash got in touch over the comms.

“Mal?” said Serenity’s pilot. “Incoming wave for you. One Stanislaw L’Amour. Want me to patch it through?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

A moment later, a screen on the shuttle’s control console lit up. The exceptionally handsome face of Stanislaw L’Amour flickered into view.

“Captain Reynolds. Miz Alleyne Washburne.”

“Mr. L’Amour,” said Mal.

“Hi,” said Zoë.

“Been a while,” said Mal.

Their sole previous encounter with L’Amour had taken place several months ago on a remote, arid world called Thetis. He had helped the crew out of a jam, summoning a private army of security contractors who’d ridden to the rescue like the proverbial cavalry. He had done this to discharge a debt to Inara Serra, with whom he was old friends. L’Amour was that rare thing, an enormously wealthy businessman with honor and scruples.

“It has indeed been a while,” said L’Amour. “You look well, Captain.”

“You too.”

This was not entirely true. Even though Mal could not claim close acquaintance with L’Amour, there was something off about him now. He recalled the genial, urbane fellow he had met on Thetis, someone who seemed to find life infinitely enjoyable. This Stanislaw L’Amour was a markedly different proposition. He looked and sounded somber.

“What can I do for you?” Mal said. “If you’re after Inara, you obviously ain’t heard that she’s not with us anymore. She’s left and gone back to House Madrassa.”

There was a tiny hitch in his voice as he said these words. Inara had quit Serenity not long after the events on Thetis, for reasons which were still not quite clear to Mal but which, he thought, had a lot to do with him and his stubborn, damn-fool insistence that there was nothing going on between the two of them. Just at the point where he’d been about to admit he had feelings for her, Inara had told him she was leaving. Talk about bad timing—or rather, talk about putting things off until it was too late.

“Or could it be you’ve got a business proposal for us?” he added hopefully.

“No, this is about Inara, as you first surmised,” L’Amour said, “but not in the way you think. Captain Reynolds…”

“You can call me Mal.”

“Mal, then. Tell me, what do you know about Inara’s condition?”

Mal felt a stirring of unease in his belly. “I’m sorry, condition?”

“Ah.” The grave look on L’Amour’s face deepened. “You had no idea.”

“No, I had no idea about any condition, and I’d be more’n grateful if you could enlighten me.”

“Mal, I must apologize. I assumed she had told you.”

“Told. Me. What.” Mal fired the words at the screen like bullets.

L’Amour hesitated, evidently plucking up courage.

“Inara is dying, Mal,” he said. “Cancer. The doctors say she has, at most, a month to live.”

4

Stanislaw L’Amour had homes all across the ’verse, including one on Bellerophon—and that was where, as chance would have it, he happened to be staying right now. The property lay in the northeastern region of the largest of the planet’s three main continents: an imposing two-story country mansion set in grounds which ran to fifty acres and which were landscaped to perfection.

Wash set Serenity down on a landing pad a half-mile from the house. An automated maglev transfer pod was waiting, and no sooner had Mal climbed in than it set off on its track, whirring along a series of sinuous curves through thickly wooded terrain.

On any other occasion he might have enjoyed the ride. The trees were in their autumnal prime, their foliage all russet, tawny and gold, the leaves clinging on, still glossy, not yet ready to drop. A gentle zephyr made the branches stir languorously. Of all the seasons, Mal loved fall the best. He loved the colors and the way it made him feel pleasantly wistful.

Not today, however. Today, all he saw around him was slow, inexorable decline.

Shortly the transfer pod pulled up outside the mansion’s front door. A solemn majordomo ushered Mal through into an enormous vestibule, where L’Amour was waiting for him.

“Mal.” L’Amour extended a hand. “Good to see you again in person. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

Mal did not take the proffered hand. “Where is she?”

L’Amour nodded understandingly. “Upstairs in the guest quarters. She’s being well looked after. I have oncologists on call, the best that money can afford, and there’s nursing care round the clock. Everything is being done to make her as comfortable as possible during her final—”

“Take me to her.”

“Of course, of course. This way.”

Up a sweeping staircase, along a galleried landing, to a suite of rooms more spacious than most city apartments. The décor in the suite was sumptuous, from the swagged drapes to the flock wallpaper to the parquet tiles, which made the newtech medical bed in the center of the main room all the more incongruous-looking.

The bed, which floated a couple of feet above the floor, bristled with monitoring equipment and readouts. Intravenous drip bags containing various clear fluids hung from stands attached to the frame. It was angled to face a large picture window which looked over a lawn, a lake and a knot garden filled with topiary and statuary. Its contoured mattress was adjusted to prop up the occupant so that she could take in the view.

A nurse was bent over the bed, tending to the patient. She straightened up and stepped discreetly aside as Mal and L’Amour entered.

Mal walked to the bed, not hurrying now. He wanted to look at Inara. He didn’t want to look at Inara.

She was dressed in a silk kimono with a hand-painted cherry blossom motif. Her face was gaunt and sallow-skinned, and her lips were dry and cracked. Her cheekbones stood out, skeletal, while her hair had lost its luster and was now as dull and brittle as tumbleweed.

But still beautiful. She was still beautiful.

She rolled her head on the pillow, turning to look at him, and it seemed an effort for her to focus her gaze.

“Mal?” A reedy croak, scarcely more than a whisper.

Mal couldn’t speak.

“You came,” she said. She braved a smile.

Mal continued to have trouble finding his voice. There was a lump stopping up his throat.

“It’s good to see you,” Inara said.

Finally the power of speech returned to him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He meant it to sound plaintive. Somehow it came out accusatory.

“I tried to. Several times. Just couldn’t quite bring myself to.”

“But you knew. Right from the start, when you first joined Serenity. You knew even then. L’Amour told me.”

He glanced round, looking for L’Amour, but both the billionaire and the nurse had withdrawn from the room to give them privacy.

“And Simon says you hinted to him about it,” Mal went on. “That time when Serenity’s compression coil blew out and we were adrift and runnin’ out of air. He said something about not wanting to ‘die on this ship’ and you said something about not wanting to die at all. He didn’t think much about it at the time. Could’ve been you were just commenting in general on how death ain’t such a fun idea. But he says you sounded kinda sad when you said it, and now that he knows you were sick, in hindsight…”

“In hindsight, he realizes I was subtly referring to the fact that I’d contracted a terminal disease.”

“Yeah. But that was the only time you ever even came close to talking about it to anyone.”

“How is Simon, by the way?” Inara asked. “Have he and Kaylee finally managed to, you know…?”

“Get together? Nope.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tiān xiăo de! Those two. Can’t see what’s staring them in the face. How about the others? How are they? Zoë, Wash, River… I’ve missed them. Even Jayne.”

“I ain’t here to talk about them.” Everything Mal said was sounding angrier than he intended. Maybe he was angry. “You want to know how they’re doing, ask ’em yourself. Only, you ain’t going to. You’ve refused to let them come here. Said you’d only see me.”

“Mal.” Inara laid a hand on his. It felt as light as a sparrow. “Take a breath. Please. I didn’t want the others to come because I don’t want them seeing me like this. I want their last memories of me to be the person I was when I was fit and healthy. I didn’t especially want you seeing me like this either, but Stanislaw convinced me I should. The way you’re acting, I’m beginning to wonder if he was right.”

“Okay. Okay.” Mal tried to calm himself. Whatever emotions he was feeling, this meeting wasn’t about him. It was about Inara. “I just… If I’d known, it might’ve changed things.”

“How?” she said.

“I’d’ve asked you to stay on Serenity, for starters. Insisted on it.”

“Which is just why I didn’t say anything. You would have been doing it for all the wrong reasons.”

“We’d have looked after you. We’d have done everything we could for you. Those are the wrong reasons?”

“Sure, you’d have shown me compassion. You’d also have shown me pity, and pity’s something I can’t abide. Not from anyone, most of all not from you.”

“So instead you lied and said you were going back to Sihnon and House Madrassa. You had us all thinking we weren’t good enough for you; you were ashamed of us.”

“You mean ‘me,’ not ‘us,’ don’t you?” Inara said. “Because I’m fairly certain none of the others would have felt that way. And besides, it wasn’t a lie. I did go back to House Madrassa, for a while. Thing is, the type of cancer I have—Kiehl’s myeloma—the symptoms can be held in check, at least to begin with. There’s medication, a cocktail of proteasome inhibitors and immune response adjustors that can retard the progression of the disease. So while I was on Serenity I was injecting myself with it on a regular basis, and for a time it worked.”

“I never saw you doing that.”

“Why would you think I’d let you? I kept the syringe hidden away and made sure there was no one around whenever I used it. But I knew it wasn’t going to last forever. The drugs were becoming increasingly ineffective. I was getting headaches, dizzy spells, weird blurry patches in my vision. They came and went, but they were getting more frequent. Next, I knew, I would start fainting. That’s the usual pathology of Kiehl’s. My kidneys would begin to pack up, I’d fall prey to infections… In short, I wouldn’t be able to keep hiding it anymore. People would notice. Simon especially. He was the one I was most worried about—him and his doctor’s eye. There was that one occasion I almost blurted out the truth to him, and countless others where I bit my tongue in time. It might have been good just to tell someone on the ship, and I knew I could compel Simon to physician–patient privilege so it wouldn’t go any further.”

“Or there was me,” said Mal. “You could’ve trusted me. I’d’ve kept it a secret.”

“If you’d known, Mal, everyone would have known.”

“I wouldn’t have told a soul,” he protested.

“You wouldn’t have had to. Your behavior would have done it for you. You’d have been different around me. You’d have been solicitous, sulky, mournful, overprotective—and the others would have noticed. I don’t mean that as an insult. You just wouldn’t have been able to help yourself.”

Mal thought she was correct about that. Didn’t make her right, though.

“I had to go,” Inara said. “That’s all there is to it. I couldn’t stay on Serenity. I’d have been a burden to the rest of you, and a liability. I only wish you and I had parted on better terms. That was my greatest regret about leaving the way I did. I wish I’d been honest with you. But I couldn’t. I did what I thought was best, and if that hurt you, I’m deeply sorry.”

“You reckon—you reckon quittin’ the ship without explaining fully why was the way to go about it? Letting me think it was ’cause of something I’d done, or hadn’t done? That was best?”

All at once, Inara let out a hiss of pain. A spasm passed through her, making her arch her back and writhe beneath the covers. Several of the machines integrated into the medical bed start making soft pings and bleeps.

“Inara? Inara!”

“It’s… It’s okay,” she replied through clenched teeth. “Just give it… a moment. The bed’s… responding. There.” Her body relaxed. She sagged back onto the mattress. “That’s better.” She raised an arm, showing him the tube that was feeding through a cannula into a vein. “Analgesic’s kicking in. Rén cí de fó zŭ, what a relief. Normally it’s okay, the pain isn’t too bad, but once in a while I get these acute attacks.”

“Inara…”

“Mal, please. Those big, sad eyes. I’m fine, really.”

“You ain’t fine. You’re dying!” The anger was back, fiercer than before, unstemmable. He was furious. Not with Inara. With himself. With fate. With this godawful disease that was eating away at Inara, killing her by inches.

“And that’s all right,” she said. “Everyone dies. It’s my time, is all.”

“No. No, I’m not takin’ any of this Buddhist lè sè.”

Her eyes blazed. A flash of the old Inara. “Don’t you call my religion ‘garbage,’ Mal. Don’t you dare.”

He bowed his head, contrite. “Yeah. Sorry,” he mumbled.

Her voice softened. “Sometimes you just have to accept there’s nothing you can do. Things are what they are. Raging at them, fighting them—it’s pointless.”

“Raging and fighting’s what I do. What I’ve always done.”

“I know, and I’m asking you to be different now, Mal. For my sake, and for yours.”

5

They talked for another five minutes or so. Mal updated her on the crew’s latest exploits.

“Platinum’s hard to come by,” he said. “So are jobs.”

“No change there, then.”

Inara was clearly getting tired, however. Speaking was becoming more of a strain for her.

“Mal…” she said eventually. “I’ve done bad things.”

“No, Inara. No, you ain’t.”

“Why I left House Madrassa. Fiddler’s Green. That client of mine letting slip about the offensive the Independents were planning at their base at Fiddler’s Green. I thought it was right I should let the authorities know. Thought it’d prevent a massacre.”

“Yeah. You’ve told me this.”

“Didn’t mean for it turn out how it did. The Alliance bombardment. The entire base destroyed. All those people. Those noncombatants. When I finally confessed to you about it, you were so mad.”

“I know, but this ain’t the time to start judgin’ yourself.”

“When death is hanging over you? If not then, when?”

“You need to think of the good you’ve done,” Mal said, “not the mistakes you’ve made. You need to think of what you’ve meant to people, how you’ve changed ’em for the better.”

“That include you?”

“Me most of all. Not that I’d admit that to anyone.”

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I’ll take it to the grave.”

In the end, she could barely keep her eyes open.

“Regrets, Mal.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “You just sleep.”

“You and I… We could have…”

“I know, Inara. I know.”

She said a few more words, but they were so slurred he couldn’t make them out. Then her eyelids fluttered shut and she sank into slumber.

He stayed at her bedside for another half-hour, watching her sleep. Then he stood and strode out of the room. He wanted to hit something. Didn’t much mind what. There was a sculpture on a pedestal in the corridor outside, a three-dimensional patchwork of what appeared to be pieces of recycled metal. He wasn’t sure what it was supposed to look like. A cat on stilts? A drunk giraffe? Regardless, he was sorely tempted to pick it up and throw it onto the floor. Stamp on it. Turn it back into scrap.

“Please don’t,” said Stanislaw L’Amour, walking up behind him.

“Huh?” said Mal.

“That’s an original Oscar Navarre. Verrry expensive. You were thinking of doing something bad to it.”