My Own Kind of Freedom

Chapter 17 My Own Kind of Truth

In a moment of relative lucidity, he realized he’d been shot again. That he was back in Serenity’s med bay again. He tried to put together the events of the last few hours, days, but he couldn’t make things fit, and it was too much effort to try. Shortly after that, things went fuzzy again.

Some indeterminate time later, he saw the doctor’s face peering at him. He tried to ask if he was going to live, but he couldn’t make his mouth work right. “You’re back on Serenity,” said the doctor, as if that had been his question.

“Where else would I be,” he tried to say, but it wouldn’t come out right. Not that it mattered.

Zoë’s voice came through the speaker. “Captain wants everyone in the dining room.”

Kaylee, leaning against the port battery casing, stared at the box. It was a technology that hadn’t changed in hundreds of years: a thin membrane set to vibrating by the motion of electrons through insulated wires. Power requirements: almost nil. Control. It was all about control, about fine tuning, about precision. It was the same sort of precision control, in a different way, that let Wash do what he did. And the Captain do what he did.

Big things, turned into small things, then moved and turned back into big things.

She stared at the speaker.

“Kaylee?”

“I’ll be there,” she said. Her voice sounded odd in her ears.

The speaker went dead. “I have to be there,” she told the empty engine room. “It’s my job to keep Serenity running.”

Sometimes it seemed it was just a matter of keeping her balance. Too far in one direction and she would see anything; would just sit there for the rest of her life like the cat-tails in a still-life. Too far in another direction, and it would all rush in on her at once so that she would burst and become nother. Too far in another direction, and she would become nonexistent. Too far in another direction, and they would find her and take her back. Too far in another direction…

The problem was there were too many directions, and you had to stay balanced among all of them. It was like dance; if you could find the balance point, you could do anything.

That was the beauty of flying. She would have to ask Wash he how did it, how he made it like a dance. The way Kaylee made Serenity dance. The way Simon danced with his hands, when he was operating. The way Mal danced between disaster and triumph. The way Zoe danced around between Mal’s orders and Mal’s wishes. The way Jayne…

Jayne.

Jayne was the only one who didn’t dance.

He had no balance. That’s why he did all of those things, he couldn’t find his balance point.

She got up, then, and walked to the Med Bay. Simon looked up and said, “What is it, River?” but she ignored him. She went over to Jayne, who had was looking upward with fractured shards of consciousness coming and going like his breath; wrung out, shot full of drugs and holes with his life flowing through tubes and his spirit spreading through the ship like the ghost locked up in the hold.

She stared down into Jayne’s half-open eyes. “Boxing is just like ballet,” she told him, “except there’s no music and they hit each other.”

Then, satisfied, she turned and went back to her room.

She walked away from the speaker and took another glance at Sakarya. He was well secured to the stairway with steel cuffs. There was nothing within nine feet of him. He looked back at her; his eyes were dead things.

“Food, water, and toilet break in an hour,” she told him. Then she turned back to the speaker, punched a button and said, “Wash, surveillance check.”

“We’re good,” he said. “Dining room?”

“Yes.”

“All right, I’ll be there as soon as I’m sure nothing is coming to eat us.”

She looked at the prisoner again, wondering why she didn’t hate him; wondering if there was something that had died, somewhere along the road.

Someone said, “So, did you think it was a good operation?” Zoë recognized her own voice, and wished to hell she could take the words back.

“Quite professional,” he said. “Do you actually care what I think?”

“Evidently.”

He nodded a little. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, I mean, why was it important to ruin me?”

“We were much too late for that, Colonel.”

“Glad to have given you the opening for the line, but you know it doesn’t answer the question.”

“Yes it does,” she said, and turned and headed up the stairway, hearing her boots clank loudly in the wide, empty space of the hold.

“River,” he told his sister patiently, “we need to get to the dining room.” He wanted to ask her what she had meant when she spoke to Jayne, but he was afraid she might tell him.

“It’s not that far,” she said reassuringly, but made no move to get up from her bed.

“Mal is expecting us to be there.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “Yes. He’s going to ask questions, and he’ll want answers, only the answers he wants won’t be there.”

After some hesitation, he asked it. “Where will they be?”

“In the cargo hold,” she said, as if it should have been obvious. “Where the ghost is.”

Simon made a few connections in his head, put a few things together, and nodded slowly. “You see, River, we can’t always tell when you’re speaking in metaphors, and when you’re being literal. That makes it hard—”

“What makes you think I can tell?” She sounded genuinely curious.

“To use a metaphor, or a simile, requires activating a part of the brain that… “ he trailed off. “It isn’t that you can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy, it’s that you can’t express the difference. The language centers… I might have something.”

“But what about seeing the future?”

He frowned. “You see the future?”

“I see my future. I see more tests.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

“What else can I do?”

“You want me to remember.”

He nodded.

“I don’t want to remember.”

“I know. But…” he looked for the words. “I think you’re in a state of lucid dreaming, while you’re awake.”

She was quiet for what seemed like a long time, then she turned her deep eyes on him and said, “But how can you do anything about it?”

“I’m a trauma specialist,” he said. “Come on, let’s go to the dining room.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew it without turning around; had known when he heard the footsteps.

“Everything is all right?” he asked, and felt her hesitation.

“Did you hear from the feds?”

“Agent Merlyn said he’d be showing up sometime in the next hour.”

“Good.”

She stood there behind him, just touching him.

“Sweetiekins, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know how this is going to come out.”

“You mean, Mal?”

“What we did—”

“What I did, you mean.”

“The Captain won’t like it.”

“Then we’ll have to stage a mutiny.”

“Wash, that’s not funny. That’s almost what we did.”

He stared out at the light blue cloudless sky of Hera.

“Did you see another choice?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Why not? It’s what you’ve been doing for the last six years. And Mal too. When you don’t have any choice, you do what you have to.”

Her hand still rested on his shoulder.

“Then what?” she said softly. “What happens after that, Wash?”

He locked on the autopilot and stood up. “Maybe I can find a job performing with finger-puppets.”

She wrapped her arms around him. “And what would I do?”

“Cook my dinner and rub my tired fingers. Ouch.”

She shook her head, smiling. “Some things, you and I just ain’t cut out for.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“The Captain—”

“This is our home. He knows that. And it’s his home because we’re here, and he knows that too.”

“If he gets pushed too far—”

“You know, for someone who’s known Mal longer than any of the rest of us, you don’t have a lot of faith in him. Come on, let’s not keep them waiting.”

They were sitting around the table. On his left was Kaylee, looking at the table in front of her; then Simon, looking at Kaylee; then River, looking at nothing; then Wash and Zoë, who were involved in some sort of whispered conversation.

“All right,” he said, looking at each of them one at a time. “I got a bit of mad I ain’t used up yet, so now’s the time. Wash, maybe you can start by telling me how it happened that you concocted a plan with the fed behind my back. I’d expect that from Jayne, not from you.”

Wash looked down at the table.

“Not good enough, Wash. I need an answer.”

Still nothing.

He felt the knot of anger in his belly; he noticed his right hand, sitting on the table, was starting to shake. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like Wash to do something like that; not, at any rate, unless it involved protecting Zoë, or—

“Kaylee,” he stated.

She looked up. “Yes, Cap’n?” There was a tremor in her voice.

“You got something to add to this?”

Her mouth opened and closed, and she glanced at Wash, as if for support. She got it, too. “Mal,” said Wash. “She was going to crash Serenity into the house.”

He looked at Wash, who was now staring back, and then at Kaylee, who had returned to studying the table-top. “Huh? Why?”

“Because,” said Wash, “she thought we were all going to die.”

“We weren’t going to die.”

“Yes you were,” said River. “You were going to kill the ghost, and then the wizard was going to kill you, and then Zoë was going to kill the agent, and then the security forces—”

“You weren’t even there!” said Mal.

He suddenly felt everyone looking at him.

“Which,” he continued less forcefully, “doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”

“Sir,” said Zoë, “you’ve been off your game. We’ve been covering for you. Sorry, but that’s how it is.”

“How long has this been going on?”

No one spoke for what seemed a long time, then Kaylee said, “Since Inara left,” and it was his turn to have nothing to say.

She wasn’t even there, and she was still complicating things. His anger flared, and he badly wanted to find something to throw or someone to hit.

“You can’t blame her.”

An acidic response came to his lips, then he realized that no one had said anything; the voice had been in his head. Great. Now I’m hearing voices.

He said, “This can’t work if my crew feels they can just concoct their own plan whenever they conjure I’m not working right. Noble thought, maybe, but it can’t work that way.”

Zoë said, “Then what do you want us to do, sir? If Wash hadn’t acted, we’d all be dead now.”

“With all respect to little miss Delphi here, you can’t know that.”

This time, the silence was eloquent, and lasted longer, until Zoë said, “Sir, what do you want us to do?”

“Times like this,” said Mal, “I always ask myself, ‘what would Jayne do?’ ” He looked around. “Not, you understand, that I’d do it; I just ask myself.”

He didn’t even get a courtesy laugh.

“All right, all of you seem to think I’m in a twist over Inara, but—”

“I don’t,” said River.

Now all eyes were on her.

“All right,” said Mal. “And what does the Oracle think?”

“You just needed to lay a ghost to rest.”

“Ghost?”

“The ghost you have chained up. Ghosts usually walk around with chains. It’s traditional.”

“I don’t—”

“Now you’re done with the ghost, so it’s all fine.”

“You think so?”

River nodded. “Now you can make yourself miserable over Inara.”

“Doctor,” said Mal, “is your sister a shrink as well as, uh, whatever else she is?”

“Captain,” said the doctor, “I give you my word I have no idea all the things my sister might be.”

Whatever Mal might have come up with to say to that was interrupted by the double buzz of the proximity indicator.

“I’ll go check on that,” said Wash, sounding relieved. He headed up to the bridge.

Everyone except River was now staring at the table top; she was looking right at Mal. After a very long and uncomfortable two minutes, Wash’s voice came over the intercom. “Mal, the fed is here and wants to come in.”

“Why the hell not?” he said under his breath. Then he stood up, punched the intercom button, and said, “Okay, Wash. Let him in.”

They all got up and headed for the cargo bay. Zoë reached the button first, and opened the airlock, let down the ramp. Wash joined them.

Kit came in, holding a pair of large duffel bags. He set them down. “I opened the lockers, gathering evidence. This is your man’s stuff. He’ll want it back, if he lives.”

“He’ll live,” said Mal.

Kit nodded. “I wouldn’t stay here long, if I were you. The Special Deputies are eventually going to figure out you aren’t where I said you were, and they’ll come back this way first to pick up your trail.”

“That going to make it hot for you?” asked Mal.

“Hard to say. I can cover a trail pretty good. I might get away with it. And I completed my assignment; that should count for something. Speaking of, may I have my prisoner?”

“Zoë will fetch him for you.”

“Has he said anything?”

“I haven’t asked him anything. Didn’t trust myself.”

Kit nodded. “I should be moving too. I have reports to file, a prosecution to arrange, and maybe even a job to keep, if I’m lucky.”

“If you call that a job.”

“I do.”

“Zoë,” said Mal, shrugging. “Go fetch the prisoner. Kaylee and Wash, get the boat warmed up; I want to be off the world in five minutes.”

“Cap’n,” said Kaylee, “she’s still pretty hurt. Guidance is bad, we got a big hole—”

“Can we make it to a repair station?”

There was a pause, then, “I think so.”

“Then we move. A repair station, then back to Paquin.”

“Paquin, sir?” said Zoë.

“Got some ginseng to return,” he said, prodding Jayne’s bags with his toe.

“Yes, sir,” said Zoë and went off to fetch Bursa-Sakarya. Wash went back to the bridge, Kaylee to the engine room.

The doctor said, “I’ll go see to it Jayne is secured,” and headed toward the med bay.

“Don’t worry,” said River. “She’ll be back,” and turned to follow her brother, leaving Mal alone with the fed.

“Must be hard,” said Kit. “He used to be one of the good guys, which makes it much worse. I’m impressed you didn’t kill him.”

“I’m just proud as a papa of that.”

“And,” continued the fed, “here I am, and I used to be one of the bad guys.”

“Still are, in my book.”

“Is that right? Let me ask you something, Captain Reynolds. During the first two years of the war, ninety-five percent of the Alliance forces were volunteers. After that, they still made up the heart of the army. What do you suppose made them volunteer?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“You don’t think maybe they believed in what they were fighting for?”

“Maybe so. Folk been wrong about things before, believed it was okay to tell other folk how to live. Nothing new there.”

“And maybe they thought it would be a good idea to stop the Sakaryas in the ’verse. And maybe they were right.”

“You worry about right, Agent Merlyn, and keep fixing the ’verse. I got to fix my boat.”

“Good luck with that,” he said.

Zoë showed up then, one arm on the shackled prisoner. Mal looked him in the eye. “Got anything to say, Colonel?”

Bursa met his eye. “It’s what happens when you lose everything,” he said.

“Not always,” said Mal. “Sometimes you find a new thing.”

The fed took hold of the prisoner, and led him down the ramp. Mal walked over and punched the button; the ramp raised, and the world of Hera vanished from sight. As the airlock closed, Wash’s voice came over the speaker: “Strap in, everyone. We’re off the ground in two minutes, and we’re still in rough shape.”

“It could be bumpy,” said Zoë.

Mal looked at her. She looked back at him. “Just trying to save you the trouble, sir; you must be tired of saying that.”

They walked back toward the heart of Serenity.