Firefly--Life Signs Read online

  “I guess they need a scapegoat,” Simon said. “Someone they can pin the blame on for something that’s actually nobody’s fault. It’s strange, but they really seem to love Mr. O’Bannon, don’t they?”

  “He’s like an abusive parent,” said Zoë. “He’s got them thinking, in a twisted-up way, that whenever he’s cruel to them, he’s justified. That it’s worth it, because in the bigger picture it keeps the peace. It’s for their own good.”

  “Maybe it is,” Jayne said. “I mean, you got to hand it to the guy. His system works. Consider what this place might be like if he wasn’t runnin’ things: gorramn bedlam. Whereas, as it is, it ain’t paradise, but it ain’t terrible neither.”

  “So Weng’s been in the wild for weeks now,” said Simon. “Do you think he made it safely to one of the other correctional units?”

  Zoë shook her head. “Annie doesn’t reckon so. Weather was particularly nasty for several days after he left. Nature dumped about eight feet of snow in the course of twenty-four hours and then kept adding to it. Besides, if Weng continued going north to the Great White Mountains, he was traveling in the wrong direction. All the correctional units are due east or west of here, along roughly the same line of latitude. Annie said he probably wouldn’t even have reached the mountains. He’d have frozen to death halfway.”

  “He might have diverted before he got there,” said Jayne. “Turned west or east after all, and the whole ‘north’ thing was just a ruse.”

  “Could be,” said Zoë, “but even in that case, it’s two hundred and fifty miles to the nearest correctional unit, the one we’re supposed to have come from, #22. Could he have managed that on foot, in atrocious conditions? I’m saying no.”

  “So he is dead.” This had been Jayne’s theory pretty much from the outset, and he was quite satisfied to think he had been proved correct.

  “It’s looking that way,” Zoë admitted.

  “Time for Mal to fetch that transceiver out of his pocket, then, and call in the cavalry.”

  “Time for Mal to do no such gorramn thing,” said a croaky voice from the bunk.

  35

  Mal propped himself up in the bunk on one elbow.

  “Mal,” said Simon. “You’re back with us.”

  “Yeah,” Mal rasped, “and kinda wishin’ I wasn’t, given how everything’s hurting so much. Wouldn’t be so bad if someone hadn’t gotten herself of a mind to use me as a punch bag.”

  “I was doing you a favor,” Zoë said. “I hadn’t butted in, Ornery Annie would have carved you a new smile with that shiv of hers.”

  “Yeah, I realize that.”

  “A thank-you would be nice.”

  “I’ll say thank you once my face is no longer throbbing like a sonofabitch and I can open this eye of mine fully again.” Mal tried to sit up, and let out a gasp of pain. “Yeowtch. Tài kōng suŏ yŏu de xing qiú dōu sāi jìn wŏ de pì gŭ.”

  “Best if you try not to exert yourself,” Simon advised.

  “Yeah, I’m gettin’ that impression, Doc.” Mal lay back down. “Just so happens I’ve been awake awhile and I’ve been laying here listenin’ to you all flapping your yaps.”

  “So you’ve heard about Dr. Weng then,” said Zoë.

  “Heard everyone thinks he’s dead.”

  “You don’t?”

  “All there is, is assumptions. It’s assumed Weng didn’t get to another correctional unit. It’s assumed he died out there in the snow. What if he didn’t?”

  “You think he could still be alive?”

  “He’s a doctor. He’s a smart guy. He could’ve found shelter, a food source, figured out how to survive. Why are we writing him off just ’cause everybody else has?”

  “Okay,” said Jayne, “let’s say he is still alive somewhere out there, which I don’t believe for one moment, but whatever. It’s a big damn planet. He could be anywhere. You’re proposin’ we head out and start searching an entire world? It’d be like looking for—for something tiny in somewhere large.”

  “Like a needle in a haystack, you mean, Jayne?” said Simon.

  “Yeah, but I never understood that expression. Why would you even look for a needle in a haystack? If you want a needle, whyn’t you just buy yourself one from, like, a needle shop or something?”

  Simon said nothing.

  Mal said, “It ain’t necessarily that big of a task, Jayne. We know where Weng was aiming for. Those mountains. Could he have gotten over them, gone beyond? Maybe, but it’s unlikely. You must’ve seen ’em on the way in. They’re huge, jagged, probably impassable. More likely he stopped when he reached them. We go that-a-way, we stand a good chance of coming across him.”

  “Do we, Mal?” said Zoë. “Or is that just what you want to think?”

  “You saying I’m kiddin’ myself?”

  “I’m saying your head isn’t clear. Dr. Weng is Inara’s last hope and you’ll do anything to cling on to that. You’ll have us hunt through a vast tract of wilderness in subzero temperatures for who knows how long—days, maybe weeks—when there’s not even any guarantee that the person we’re hunting for is still breathing.”

  “We even find him,” Jayne added, “might be he’s frozen solid, like a human popsicle. Or he’s lining the floor of a grizzly bear’s cave.”

  “It’s just ridiculous.” Zoë softened her tone a fraction. “Mal, can’t you see that we’ve done all we can? We’ve given it our best shot. It’s time we cut our losses. From what you told us about your visit with Inara, she’s made her peace with her dying. Maybe you should too.”

  “No,” Mal said, as loudly as he dared. “No, gorramn it! Inara is… Inara is our friend. She’s one of us. I’d search a dozen worlds, a hundred, if there was even the remotest possibility Dr. Weng was on one of them. You think she wouldn’t do the same, it was you had the terminal cancer? Or any of us? No, this is how it’s gonna go, and I don’t want to hear any arguments. We’re gonna gather supplies and outerwear, we’re gonna steal ourselves a Slugger, and we’re gonna get us to those mountains. Once we’re there, we’re gonna look for Dr. Weng until we start running out of food. Need be, we’ll call in Serenity and use her to widen the scope of the search. Her sensors might pick up a heat signature, if Weng’s made himself a campfire or some such.”

  “But one of the Alliance corvettes might intercept her as she comes in.”

  “That’s why it’ll be a last resort. We know getting off Atata is going to be even trickier than getting on was. Feds might get suspicious, they spot Serenity making a second ‘resupply run’ so soon after the first. They’ll definitely get suspicious if they track her and she doesn’t land at any depot but instead starts nosing around a patch of uninhabited territory. That’s why the original retrieval plan has her sneaking in at lightning speed, grabbing us and sneaking back out again, so fast she hopefully won’t be detected.”

  “Huge risk for Wash if we ask him to join in the search,” Zoë said. “The corvette gets wind of what he’s doing, it could follow him down and start shooting.”

  “Wash is a heck of a pilot.”

  “He is, until the day he’s persuaded to do something totally reckless and his luck runs out.” Zoë paused, her expression grim, as if even the thought of losing Wash was too much to bear.

  “Well, like I said, last resort,” said Mal. “It may not come to that. First and foremost, we get out of Hellfreeze and look for Weng.”

  He fixed each of the others in turn with his one good eye. There was a determined glint in it, and something adamantly imperious in his expression overall. You could be forgiven for thinking that he was jettisoning common sense, that his desperation to save Inara had driven him over the edge.

  In the event, Zoë, Simon and Jayne gave nods of reluctant assent, one after another. Each harbored doubts, and each was considering some way of talking Mal out of his plan. That, or going along with the plan for the time being but convincing him to pull the plug on it when its futility became obvious, which would sur
ely not be long.

  “Okay then,” Mal said. “Let’s everybody grab a couple hours’ shuteye. Then we’ll go rustle up those supplies and that Slugger. Yeah?”

  The others mumbled in agreement. Jayne and Simon retired to the adjacent cell—Jayne had already called dibs on the upper bunk— while Zoë remained behind, since she was sharing with Mal.

  As she clambered into the upper berth of their double bunk, Mal said, “And don’t even think about it, Zoë.”

  “Think about what?”

  “Tryin’ to sneak the transceiver off of me at some point and using it to summon Serenity yourself.”

  “Never even crossed my mind.”

  “Sure it did. I’ve got the thing tucked inside my pants. You start rooting around in there, you can bet I’ll feel it.”

  “I have no wish for my hand to go inside your pants, Mal. Not even if you were the last man in the ’verse.”

  “Just givin’ you fair warning.”

  Silently, Zoë removed her boots and drew the covers over herself.

  * * *

  Mal lay awake, listening out. He and Zoë had bunked together many times during the war, and he knew she had the ability to nod off in a matter of moments, whatever the situation. Once, as he recalled, she had even catnapped in a dugout trench during an artillery bombardment.

  Sure enough, in no time her breathing had slowed and deepened, and he knew she was fast asleep.

  Only then did he relax.

  Mal himself was in so much pain, he wasn’t liable to sleep. Instead, he lay in the dark and counted the minutes until they could leave Hellfreeze and get outside to begin the next phase of the search for Dr. Esau Weng.

  Weng was out there at the Great White Mountains. He was.

  Mal could not contemplate the idea that he might not be.

  36

  Commander Levine had already had her crew run a top-to-bottom diagnostic on Constant Vigilance twice, and now she had them running it a third time, just to be sure. It was this kind of thoroughness that made her so good at her job and would soon, she was certain, earn her a promotion to captain. Dedication to duty was inevitably rewarded, was it not?

  Not that climbing the ladder of rank was Levine’s primary motivation. It was a privilege simply serving aboard an Interstellar Alliance Vessel, as far as she was concerned. But someone as efficient and hard-working as she was could be even more of an asset the higher she rose. And why stop at captain? Why limit her ambition? Why not, one day, Rear Admiral Levine? Or just plain Admiral?

  “Engine at 95 percent of operational capacity, sir,” said her engineer over the intercom. “We’ve stress-tested the seal on the fuel leak and it’s still holding.”

  “Nav computer is online and fully functioning, as before,” said her navigator from his console, just to her left.

  “All ordnance is a-okay,” said her weapons officer.

  “Ship-wide systems are green across the board,” said her XO. “Sir, we are good to go.”

  If there was an edge of testiness in the crewmembers’ voices, a hint of their feeling that this third diagnostics check was redundant because the results were the same as in the first two, Commander Levine ignored it. She knew she was a harsh taskmaster, but there was a big difference between that and a martinet. The difference was a crew that respected you rather than one that resented you.

  “Very well,” she said. “Let’s go looking for that—”

  She was interrupted by an incoming call from Freedom to Choose, one of the three other ships patrolling Atata.

  The face of Commander Marvin Ransome appeared onscreen, scruffy-haired and unshaven.

  “Hey there, Vicky. How’s it going?”

  “It’s ‘Commander Levine,’ Commander Ransome,” said Levine drily.

  “Oops. Yeah. My bad. Formality at all times.” Ransome gave a salute that somehow managed to be both crisp and sarcastic. “Commander Levine, this is Commander Ransome of IAV Freedom to Choose, bidding you good morning from the day side.”

  “What do you want, Ransome? I’m busy.”

  “That’s just it. Are you busy? Because I was consulting the patrol logs just now, as I do over my first cup o’ joe every morning, and what do I see? Constant Vigilance has failed to meet its regulation patrol remit. Your ship has not moved position for several hours. That’s kinda curious, and it got me to wondering. I said to myself, ‘Marv,’ I said, ‘seems like there’s something untoward going on with that there ship. I better get on the line to old Vicky Levine and see what the matter is.’ Which is what I’m doing.”

  Levine stifled a grunt of exasperation. Trust Ransome to pick up on this. The man was forever trying to catch her out.

  “We’ve had a slight mishap, that’s all,” she said. “There was an… incident.”

  “Incident?”

  Briefly, and with a certain amount of chagrin, Levine outlined Constant Vigilance’s two encounters with the Firefly Tranquility.

  Ransome could scarcely keep the glee from his face. “Let me get this straight. You tried to blow another ship out of the sky and ended up nearly blowing your own ship out of the sky? You, Commander Levine? The woman who never puts a foot wrong? And then the Firefly practically rammed you, and now Constant Vigilance is dead in the water? Boy, that’s a hoot. Wait’ll I tell Walton and Goldsmith. They’ll fair bust their britches.”

  Commanders Walton and Goldsmith were in charge of the other two Atata patrol corvettes, Madame Xiang’s Dream and The Forge of Vulcan respectively.

  “Rest assured, Ransome, Constant Vigilance is back to full fighting fettle. We’re about to go after the Firefly, and when we find it, this time there’ll be no leniency and no comebacks. They’re not getting away from us again.”

  “You even know those people were doing anything wrong? From what you’ve said, it strikes me they were just carrying out a standard resupply run until you spooked ’em.”

  “Their manner was evasive and they failed to comply when I ordered them to stand by and prepare to be boarded.”

  “Exactly. You spooked ’em.”

  “But why were they so easily spooked? They wouldn’t have been if they weren’t engaged in some form of illegitimate activity. My belief is that a number of their crew, including their captain, disembarked on Atata’s surface. A search of the ship would have confirmed it.”

  “What in heck would anyone do that for? You’d have to be out of your mind to put yourself on Atata willingly.”

  “I don’t know the whys and wherefores of it,” said Levine, “nor do I care. Finding that Firefly is all that matters. Maybe, if we disable rather than destroy it, we can capture the crew and have some questions answered. But if things don’t pan out that way and we’re obliged to blow it to smithereens—well, I won’t be losing any sleep over it. One way or another, the people on that ship are up to no good. I’d swear to it.”

  “You ain’t gonna find it, though. By now it’ll be thousands of miles away.”

  “Not necessarily. The Firefly was in poor shape after the collision. They can’t have gotten far before they had to stop to make repairs.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’m counting on it. Hence I’ve felt confident about waiting until Constant Vigilance is at her very best again before starting to track them down.”

  “Counting on something ain’t the same as it being true.”

  “It’s close enough, in this instance. Now, is there anything else, Commander Ransome? Time’s a-wasting, and I’d like to be under way.”

  Ransome paused, then said, “I think you could do with some help. An extra pair of eyes.”

  “You have a job to do. Your quadrant won’t patrol itself.”

  “Neither will yours. But Walton and Madame Xiang’s Dream can cover for me, and Goldsmith and The Forge of Vulcan can cover for you. That’s why there’s four ships orbiting Atata. Multiple redundancy. One ship can handle two quadrants almost as well as it can a single quadrant. Ain’t as if traffi
c’s heavy round these parts.”

  “We can manage on our own.”

  “Truth is, I ain’t making you an offer, Levine. I’m telling you how it’s going to be.” Ransome was trying to act steely, but to Levine he just seemed peevish more than anything.

  “We’ll be fine,” she insisted.

  “Look, Commander, I’ll level with you,” said Ransome. “Nothing ever happens on this assignment. You know that. It’s as dull as dry humping a nun. Same thing every day: patrol, random checks on inbound vessels, patrol some more, maybe an inmate pickup once in a blue moon. Me and the guys on Freedom, we’re so damn bored, we’re climbing the walls. And now, finally, there’s a break from the norm, a bit of action, and I want in on it, and you ain’t gonna deny me that. I don’t even need your permission. We’re coming with you, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Levine cursed her luck. Ransome was right, there wasn’t much she could do to prevent Freedom to Choose tagging along. She couldn’t order him to stay put—she and he were of equal rank—and she knew that no amount of protest or objection was going to deter him.

  What made it all the more galling was the fact that the crew of Freedom to Choose was the least disciplined of all the corvette crews. Ransome and his lot were, not to put too fine a point on it, complete slackers. If she hadn’t known this anyway, she only had to look at Ransome himself right now as he smirked out at her from the screen—haggard, unkempt, bloodshot-eyed from a late night or a revelrous evening or both—to confirm it. Having them join in the hunt for the Firefly was like bringing your drooling idiot cousin to a cotillion. The potential for disaster and disgrace was high.

  Through gritted teeth, Levine said, “All right, Ransome. You can come.”

  “That is really most obliging of you, Commander.”

  “On two conditions.”

  “Okay,” Ransome said amusedly.

  “One: Madame Xiang’s Dream and The Forge of Vulcan don’t have to know about this.”

  “We’re not telling ’em where we’re going or why?”