My Own Kind of Freedom

Chapter 9 My Own Kind of Choices

The door to the canteen swung open at noon, and he and Zoë were waiting. The bartender, keys still in his hand, glanced over his shoulder as they entered. “Well,” he said, “off to an early—oh.”

“I see you remember us, Mark.”

He stopped a few feet from the bar, his eyes went to the comm unit next to the cash box, then he turned back. “Mal, and Zoë.”

“You have a good memory for names.”

“I’m not looking for trouble.”

“Shiny,” said Mal. “We didn’t bring any.”

“All right. I’m going back behind the bar now.”

“No one is stopping you. I would take it as a kindness if you didn’t make any calls, though.”

The bartender nodded, went behind the bar, and closed the flap that completed it. He dropped the keys next to the register, and turned around, moving slowly as if he had weapons trained on him. Mal and Zoë had kept their weapons holstered, but Mark clearly hadn’t forgotten.

“Okay,” he said. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Just a question or two.”

His eyes narrowed. “All right, ask.”

“There was a fellow in here last night. Big, heavy drinker, stranger. You asked if we were with him—”

“I know who you mean.”

“We’re looking for him.”

“He should be easy to find.”

Mal felt Zoë looking at him. Although she probably didn’t realize it, that look meant the bartender was safe; she’d never have taken her eyes off him otherwise. “Care to explain what you mean?”

“He’s either at the aid station or the lockdown. I think the lockdown; he didn’t seem to be hurt too bad.”

“What happened?”

The other shrugged. “He got drunk, took a swing at me, started beating on customers. I had to call the Locals. If he was a friend of yours, I’m sorry. I didn’t have any choice. He should have had his drink down the hill, with the miners, if he wanted to cut loose. He was busting up—”

“No,” said Mal. “He’s no friend. But I would like to talk to him. Any idea what the charges will be?”

“Drunk and disorderly, I suppose.”

“Okay. I should see about the fine.”

The bartender shifted on his feet, and looked down at the bar. “Uh, Mal…”

“Mmm?”

“That isn’t how things work here.”

Mal studied him, then looked at Zoë, and then back. “Okay. Maybe you’d best go ahead and explain how things do work here.”

He managed to reach the aluminum toilet before his stomach emptied itself. He straightened up, reached the aluminum sink, and rinsed out his mouth. The taste of the water made it only barely an improvement. He made it back to the aluminum bench and stretched.

He closed his eyes, opened them, and cursed long and creatively. He took an inventory of his pains, and nothing hurt too much; the worst were the knuckles of his right hand, where he’d clocked that fat lüzi de jiba.

There was a rattle, a pause, and the door swung out. They were good—they looked before opening the door—but they unlocked it first, so they weren’t all that good.

But he wasn’t about to try anything now; he wasn’t in shape for it, and didn’t know enough.

When the door opened, there was an unarmed guard there. He swung to his feet, and saw an armed guard a few paces behind him. Okay, so they knew their business.

“Jayne Cobb?” said the guard.

Jayne waited.

“Is your name Jayne Cobb?”

He continued waiting. The guard shrugged. “You’re charged with two counts of battery and one charge of public drunkenness. Anything to say? If you aren’t Jayne Cobb, now’s the time to say so, except I was on duty last night when you were hauled in, so it doesn’t much matter.”

“Anything to say? What, you’re my judge?”

The guard nodded. “We handle minor administrative matters at this level. If you’d killed someone, we’d have to—”

“Do I get a—”

“No.”

Jayne glared at him. “Well, you just do what you do.”

The guard nodded, and read from a clipboard. “Jayne Cobb, you are hereby sentenced to five weeks of indenture to Heracorp—”

“Indenture?” Jayne rose to his feet. The second guard took a step forward and swung his shotgun so it was a bit closer to pointing toward Jayne.

He estimated his chances. He didn’t like them. He shrugged. Five weeks in the mines wouldn’t be any fun, but he’d lived through worse. “All right,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have a talk when I get out.”

The guard smirked.

Jayne wasn’t always the best at reading people, but he knew what a smirk meant. He glared at the guard.

“All right, how does it work?”

“How does what wo—”

“Hump that fayu. How do they do it?”

“It varies,” said Mark, “but there’s always something. Maybe you show up five minutes late for work, that’s another six months. Maybe you leave for lunch a minute early, that’s another six. Pushing another worker, two months; pushing at a guard, another year. Obscenity—”

“Okay,” said Mal. “How do they get away with that?”

“Who’s going to stop him?”

“What, does he have an army backing him?”

“Call it a large security force.”

“Huh.”

The bartender reached under the counter, but emerged with nothing more than a damp cloth, with which he absently attacked some of the splotches on the stainless steel counter in front of him. “What about you?” he said.

“Hmmm?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Delivering cut maple.”

“Ahh.” The bartender smiled.

“You know what it’s for?”

“It’s for me. I’ve been wanting a new place, and he’s been promising me one for most of a year now. A real saloon, made of good wood. Know what I mean? And I want swinging doors, holo windows, a dart board, a flyball booth, maybe a couple of pool tables. So, what was that ruckus about last night? Those two guys you picked on were on Mister Sakarya’s private security staff.”

Mal felt a quick glance from Zoë, and checked his tongue, then said, “A personal matter.”

“For your sake, I hope it stays personal.”

“I’m like to feel the same way. Where is the lockdown?”

“Back of the security office, just down the street.”

“The security office for the company?”

“That’s right.”

“They house the lockdown for the Locals?”

The bartender nodded.

“Well. You have to like it that they make no effort to hide it.”

Mark stared down at the rag in his hand.

Mal shrugged, nodded to Zoë, and they made their way out the door.

“Sir—”

“I need to talk to Jayne.”

“Sir, tell me you aren’t thinking about breaking Jayne out of a lockdown.”

“I just need to talk to him.”

“And when they don’t let us see him, which they won’t?”

“We’ll think of something.”

“Think of something, sir?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. Well. Smear me with engine grease and call me Kaylee. I’m just full of optimism.”

“There it is; that’s the security office. Are we supposed to knock?”

“Couldn’t say, sir.”

They went in. Two men sat behind desks, facing each other. Both looked up as they entered.

“Good afternoon,” said Mal. “Can you tell me where to find the lockdown?”

The bigger of the two said, “You want to be put in jail?”

“Not exactly,” said Mal. “There’s someone you have here. How do I arrange to visit him?”

The two security officers looked at each other.

Two minutes later, they walked out again.

“Don’t say it, Zoë.”

“I have to, sir.”

Mal sighed. “All right. Say it.”

“Now is when you need to think of something.”

“Feel better?”

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

He stopped when they got back to the street, not sure which way to turn.

“He has an army, sir.”

“A small one, sure.”

“To pull a jailbreak would be suicide.”

“Did you see that place? You and I could walk in there and walk out with him.”

“Then what? They have an army, sir.”

“Well, I suppose they do, kind of.”

“You don’t owe Jayne anything.”

“It isn’t about owing Jayne, it’s about needing to ask him some questions.”

“Sir, what makes you think he’ll answer?”

“If we break him out of jail, he’ll answer.”

“Would you mind telling me what you want to ask him?”

“I’d like to find out what he might have done that set all this off.”

“I think it’s safe to say he tried to call in the Alliance to get the reward on River and Simon.”

“I’m sure he did, Zoë. Then what happened?”

“You think he’d know?”

“All right, Zoë. How would you suggest we find out?”

“I’d suggest, sir, that we don’t. That we get back to Serenity and get off this gorram world.”

“Can’t do that, Zoë.”

“Anzhao yi tou bei yange de liniu de shuzui xiwang why not?”

He closed his eyes. “Let’s go back to the canteen and have a beer while I think about this.”

“Yes, sir. I’m good with two out of three.”

She matched paces with the Captain as they headed the short block toward the canteen. Her eyes never stopped moving, and her mind never stopped working.

She was, by now, very much aware that there was more than one thing going on. Yes, the Captain had been behaving oddly ever since Inara had left; but that wasn’t all of it. There was something else, and it was something that could get the Captain killed—not to mention Wash, herself, and the rest of the crew.

She was also very much aware that she was closer to the Captain than anyone else: she knew him better, and he’d accept things from her that he wouldn’t from anyone else. But there were lines that she’d never crossed, and he had put those lines there for a reason. She knew why the walls were there; she had her own walls that permitted her to live in Serenity Valley. It had taken a long series of accidents and tremendous effort to let Wash inside as far as he was. And Wash understood enough of those barriers and lines to respect them, and to love her anyway; that was how they survived.

The Captain didn’t have anyone; had consistently pushed away Inara when she’d come too close to them.

And now, it seemed, she was going to have to break those lines, or jump right over them, or none of them would get out of this.

She wasn’t sure she could do it.

The Captain opened the door, and they entered the Canteen.

The cell door shut with a clang. They’d be back in a while, after “processing” him, and then it was off to the mines. Was he going to have better chances of making a break here, or from the mine itself? Well, making the attempt here didn’t mean he couldn’t try later. And getting off the world, or at least off the continent, was going to be a problem in any case.

If he had the chance, he should stop by the public lockers and pick up his bags; he wanted his guns, and the cash from selling that ginseng might make the difference. Good thing he’d nabbed it.

Out of habit, he looked around the cell for anything that might become a weapon. The chair, the bed, the toilet, and the sink were all one piece and built in. The drain in the floor was welded.

He was wearing a one-piece, light blue cover-all that closed with velcro.

On the positive side, he knew the procedure they used when opening his cell. He had a pretty good chance of taking them both out, if he was fast. Then he’d be armed. After that…

How many were there? And what gorram direction did he need to go? Maybe, from the hall, he could see. The building wasn’t all that big; how hard could it be?

He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and tried to think.

This sort of thing just never was his strength; that’s why he’d always hooked up with someone else to do the planning, to do the figuring. That’s why it had worked so well with this last crew, up until Mal had decided to be a ru aixiao de zacao de chui xia yinjing about the gorram ginseng.

No point in thinking about that now. No point in thinking about what he wasn’t good at, he had to concentrate on what he was going to do.

The door rattled, clunked, and opened.

His idea of a sudden lunge at the door vanished at once; there was a whole crowd back there.

“Here he is,” said one of them.

A fat man stepped forward and said, “Ah. You.”

It took Jayne a moment, but he recognized one of the two security officers from when he made the call to the Feds. “What the gorram hell do you want?”

“You’re a popular man, Mister Cobb.”

“Yeah. They put up a statue of me on—”

“Pay attention. You might be able to get out of this.”

Jayne glared. “All right, I’m listening.”

“It’ll take some talking. Stand up and hold out your hands.”

He hesitated, looked at the odds again, and cooperated. They manacled his wrists, then attached those to fetters, and locked both to his belt, permitting him to take small steps, and hardly to move. They led him out of the cell, three in front of him, two behind. The two behind him held shotguns, and he could tell by their footsteps that he wouldn’t have had much of a chance to get to them even if he hadn’t been hobbled.

He kept close track of where they’d gone anyway, just in case.

They reached a small office. The fat one gestured Jayne inside, then said, “Wait here,” to the others, and shut the door.

“Go ahead, Mister Cobb. Sit down. Let’s see if we can do some business.”

“You got the guns. I’m listening.”

“Did you know you’re wanted for questioning in the murder of an Alliance officer, and aiding the escape of two fugitives?”

“What? I never killed no—”

“Maybe not, but one was found dead in a hospital on Ariel, with skin under his fingernails that matches your DNA.”

Jayne felt a scowl growing on his face, and tried his best to suppress it.

“Fortunately,” the officer continued, “we’re not Alliance. We don’t much care what you did on Ariel. We have you good for what you did right here.”

“What, getting drunk?”

“Didn’t they tell you the charges?”

“They told me.”

“So you understand your situation.”

“What’s the gorram offer?”

“Yesterday, you came into my office and demanded contact with the Alliance, and then we find you have a record of having murdered a Federal officer.”

The office had a glass window, and didn’t look like it was intended to be secure. But there were those restraints. This guy had the key. He measured the distance across the desk.

“So what’s going on with you and the Alliance?”

“What, I tell you that, and you let me go?”

“Let’s just say it’s a start.”

“What’s the rest?”

The officer shook his head. “No. Tell us what you know, then we’ll talk.”

Jayne considered his options. There appeared to be exactly two: he could tell them what he knew, and hope they kept up their end of the bargain, or he could lunge across the desk at this guy, hoping to take him down in spite of the restraints, and get a weapon from him, and get himself unlocked before reinforcements showed up, and then fight his way out.

Either way, he didn’t like it much.

He leaned back in his chair, staring at pictures of Simon and River Tam, along with pertinent facts. On another screen was the translated readout of a secure and heavily coded file detailing certain relationships between Parliament and the Blue Sun Corporation.

Special Deputies dispatched to Yuva, on Hera.

Yeah, okay, great.

Now what?

He deleted all references to his research, and certainly the results, from his machine, and then went over it again to remove the electronic traces that he’d even been looking for them. He was thorough; it took a good two hours to do, but this was something he was good at. When he was finished, all the information he’d gathered was gone.

Except that he still remembered it.

Now what?

Two by two, hands of blue.

They were coming. And if they reached her, they would take her back, and she’d never get out again.

She didn’t want to go back. More than anything, she didn’t want to go back.

But there were the ghosts, too.

She had told them about the ghosts, but they hadn’t listened. They couldn’t listen, because they didn’t have the math to understand, and she recognized that the one skill she didn’t have was that of a teacher. The Shepherd had been able to teach, but his path of probability had led to different intersections, so now there was no one to teach, and they had to learn if they were to deal with the ghosts.

She couldn’t deal with the ghosts, because they weren’t her ghosts. She could maybe help them deal with the ghosts, but if she did…

Two by two, hands of blue.

She didn’t hear him come in, but when she looked up, he was there, his face, as always, smiling, and worried.

“Mei-mei, are you all right?”

He asked it as if it were a question that could be answered, as if an infinity of variables could be encompassed in a single constant. She struggled to translate, to simplify, to determine essence, and to rephrase the question into terms that could become a single, determinate answer that he would understand, and that would be as little a lie as she could manage.

“I’m torn between probability vectors with mutually exclusive benefits and the likely destruction of different targets and I can’t find a trajectory that avoids all of the negative outcomes without a radical shift in the entire matrix, which we haven’t the capability to carry out anyway, and I have a headache.”

Simon hesitated. “I’ll get you something for the headache,” he said.

Mark gave them their beers and then acted as if they’d never met. Mal led Zoë to a corner table and sat down.

“It’s a bad idea, sir,” she said.

“Most like it is.”

“Okay. How are we going to do it?”

“I guess we should see if Wash can find us a layout of the local lockdown.”

He felt Zoë studying him. “You don’t like this either, do you sir?”

“Not all that much.”

“Is it really necessary?”

“Your beer’s getting warm.”

“Thank you, sir. I wouldn’t want to get killed with the taste of warm beer in my mouth.”

“Zoë—”

“Maybe I should order a raw egg.”

“Zoë—”

“Think they have raw eggs here? I mean, real ones?”

“Zoë—”

“A fake egg in my beer before dying wouldn’t be at all the same thing. Don’t you agree, sir?”

“Zoë, what the gorram hell are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out what the gorram hell you are doing, sir. I can’t back your play if I can’t see it.”

“Zoë, I can’t—”

“You need to let me in, sir. I can’t help from the outside. Not this time.”

Mal leaned back in his chair and stared at his beer, trying to keep all expression off his face, so Zoë wouldn’t see that he was feeling the walls closing in. She waited, silent, with all the patience she’d learned in the war, waiting for attacks that they knew were coming, but never knew when or what form they’d take.

Patience was a powerful force. They drank their beers and waited for each other.

Eventually, Mal started speaking.

The alarm never went off.

The first warning he had, less than a minute after disconnecting with Mal, was when Serenity shook and pitched about three degrees to starboard before righting herself again.

“Wang ba dan,” he said, his hands already finding the emergency warm-up sequence. With his first spare fraction of a second he punched the intercom and said, “Kaylee!” and checked to see which indicators were blinking red, which were solid red, and which were green.

The grav-boot was still good, the engines would fire, and—

In less time than it took to think about it, Serenity was off the ground. She wasn’t happy about it; she moaned, and the controls fought him and complained, and he didn’t dare leave atmo. But they were airborne before whatever it was that had happened had time to happen again.

Kaylee’s voice came back. “I’m looking.”

“Hull integrity is breached, so we can’t get too high, but I can go up. I need to know if I can count on all my attitude adjusters.”

“Top of the list, then. Ninety seconds.”

“Go.”

Her voice sounded icy calm.

Serenity fought him; a sensation he liked not at all; somewhere not too far below the surface was the panic you feel when you try to open your eyes but they’re already open; when you reach for a glass and your arm doesn’t move. And not too far below that was the memory of the one other time he’d felt controls act like this; and the knowledge that there was no ejecting from Serenity.

Three kilometers up the air was noticeably thinner; the ship tried to grasp and claw at what there was, and hated it that there was nothing to hold on to.

Kaylee’s voice came back. “I found your control problems. Half the starboard extender is gone.”

“Copy that, Kaylee.”

Damn. If it was the whole extender; or, better yet, both extenders, this would be much easier. No wonder she was fighting herself.

“I’ll get you more when I have it.”

He didn’t dare take her any higher. And he wasn’t terribly excited about trying to land her. And he couldn’t keep control of her of this way for much longer.

His whole body was committed to keeping her in the air; leaving his mind free to reflect on which way to go, when all the ways led the same way: down, and much too fast.