Just a Little Favor for a Friend Pt. 13
Blast Furnace, finish
***
Wash parked Serenity in the Crater Mine drain bed. He and Kaylee stayed with the ship and awaited further instructions while Mal and Zoe took a path on foot up to town.
***
"Alioramus? It can't be! I thought--"
"That I was lying in my grave at the bottom of a cliff-- a cliff you told me to run along the edge of? Now, now, don't get so excited, Stegosaurus. I'm a fair kind of dinosaur. I am willing to let bygones be bygones. I'll gladly treat you to a tour through the palm groves. I hear tell that Triceratops has discovered a new species. It's called the Gigantic Rotating Knives Rubber Miniature Coconut Palm of Doom. I've been meaning to go myself."
"You're a real pal, Alioramus."
***
Mal took Simon aside in the hotel. "Doc, your part of this mission's through. You and your sister stroll on out toward the mine and board up now. If you stay along the highest point of the road, you'll come to a curve and a slope that's hardly in sight from the working plateau-- you walk down and then around that ravine and Serenity's right there."
"All good things must come to an end. It seems rotten ideas have their way of fading out as well. River, come along, okay?"
Simon took River by the hand, but she resisted. "I want to stay with Jayne."
Jayne came from a corner, shoving his communicator under his belt. "Jayne's doing the tough stuff, little gal."
Simon took River by the arm. "Let the man do his job, River."
River looked over her shoulder at Jayne as they all stepped onto the porch, then she turned her head to look over her other shoulder, but eventually she faced front and squinted into the wind.
Miners were coming up from the cut to go home to supper; a few nodded at Simon and River, but soon the two were out of the main road, following the slope Mal had mentioned. River spooked at a black shuttle flying close and low-- Simon held her steady and watched it, perplexed. It disappeared outside the mine wall, in the direction in which they were headed. "What is it?"
"Pirates," said River. "Me and Kaylee saw them."
Simon stopped walking, but only for one step, and River kept on. He hurriedly decided that if Mal had told them to go that way, then they had better do so-- he thought of radioing Mal, but wasn't sure what point the team in town were at with their plans. But if this was about his and River's safety--
"Is that the same man we saw on the porch?" he asked her. "The one you said wanted you to be his prey?"
River nodded.
"Well, now I don't know what to do. Maybe I'd better call Mal."
They were still walking, and as they came down the slope, the black shuttle could be seen alongside the battered white one they knew belonged to Cedie. Cedie was outside, gesturing and insisting, but what her words were was obscured by wind and distance. The pirate Simon and River had seen earlier was standing, unmoved, but as they paused and watched, he boarded up, along with another man who had been sitting with his feet out on the black shuttle's running board. Cedie waved them off and the black shuttle spun, running up the slope directly over Simon and River's heads.
Simon let off a rare curse word. He felt queasy. "They did that deliberately!"
River nodded. "Look." She pointed as Cedie's shuttle came around more slowly. The shipping and storage vessel came up even with Simon and a hatch opened.
Cedie called to them from her pilot's seat. "Hurry up and get in before they get back."
Simon glanced in the direction the black shuttle had gone, stared momentarily at the white shuttle's hatch, and shoved River back up the slope. "River. Go. Run back to town, screaming."
River evaded him and began to hop into the shuttle, while Cedie repeated in exasperation, "Get in for God's sake. What do I need to do, pull out a gun and threaten you?"
"Your gun is plenty threatening where it is. River--" Simon lost his grip on River's arm and resorted to pulling on her skirt. When she yanked it away and jumped lightly up into the hovering shuttle, he climbed in after, still wrestling. The hatch slid shut before he realized what he'd done-- before he could turn River back towards the door, she had seated herself and was smoothing her skirt. Simon began look for an edge or control to the door.
"Oh, Mercy's sake." Cedie looked mildly disgusted. "Where's your ship? I'll take you."
"Don't tell her!"
River folded her hands in her lap and said, as if directing a chauffer, "Crater Mine drain bed," nodding in the direction of the outer wall.
"Thank you. At least one of you has some sense."
"What are you talking about?" Simon was standing and when he gestured angrily at Cedie, she tipped the shuttle so he'd have to grab a seat. He glared at her; she returned the dark look.
"You think I can control every nutjob on the George Gray? I can only do what I do and you take it or leave it. You're the nutjob if you leave it. Huh. Some gratitude."
"It's not gratitude at all. I am harboring no gratitude. You know where our ship is now and you'll turn it over to your crew--"
"Manners, Simon," hissed River. "Do as she says."
Simon clenched and unclenched one fist ineffectually. "Why am I listening to you?"
River wrinkled her brow. "Because I'm only damaged, Simon. I'm not wrong."
"They don't know where your ship is yet. Here we are. Now be sure and tell your pilot to stay dark. If my people don't know a ship's there, they can't bother themselves to find it-- it's not valuable enough-- you're not valuable enough. I told them I'm a big tigress and I can handle you on my own. I know that's not true of you, River--"
--Simon's confused look included both Cedie and River--
"but they don't know what I've already figured, and I'll tell 'em you both got away from me." Cedie's shuttle bumped and skidded to a stop in the mine bed, and she opened up a channel to Serenity. "Tell him to let you in and not to take off until I give the all clear."
"This is insane."
Cedie sighed dramatically. "Just say it."
"What do you want from us?"
"I expect to be reimbursed for what I spent on you."
"We don't have any money," River told her. "Simon spent it on squash."
"I didn't say money." Cedie half-grinned. "I'll show up when you least expect it and take it out of you another way. Seriously, I don't need or want anything. Go on, Simon, get the message to your pilot-- wait. I do want one thing."
"Surprise, surprise."
Cedie glowered at his tone, then asked, "I just wanna know, is your name really Simon? Feds say it is."
"It really is Simon. I'm not very undercover."
She grinned. "Your radio, Sir."
***
Alioramus lay on his back with his mouth open. "I hate going to the dentist."
"And it is no wonder," Stegosaurus, DDS, proclaimed, "for I have only set up this appointment for you in order to torture you into revealing to me the location of the treasure!"
"Aaaah!" said Alioramus.
Wash had noticed the unfamiliar shuttle signal in Serenity's proximity and was considering whether it was best to alert Captain Reynolds mid-job when a call came in.
"Er, Wash, this is Simon."
Wash stuck a complimentary toothbrush crossways in Alioramus's open mouth. "'sup, Simon?"
"We're either-- that is, River and myself are either being removed from danger or kidnapped by pirates--" there came the sound of a quiet, quick scuffle, then Simon resumed, "Open the cargo door for us and don't do anything else until we tell you to."
Wash took a look outside, saw the shuttle, saw River step down from it and wave. "I'll wait until you and River are alone on the ground and the shuttle's gone, how's that?"
Simon paused a second. "Yes... yes, that sounds reasonable."
Simon took a wrong step out onto the dirt and stumbled, but recovered himself. The shuttle turned sharply about and zipped up the drain bed. Wash lowered the door and River grabbed Simon's hand and sprinted through the dust to Serenity.
Wash closed up ship and was telling Kaylee to get the boat moving so they could find a better hiding place now that pirates knew where they were when Simon cut him off from the cargo bay. Simon sighed, first, then explained awkwardly, "Don't do anything at all... I guess... we're not to move the ship until Cedie-- the pirate, I mean-- gives the all-clear..."
"Are we fleeing pirates now or not?"
"I don't know."
River batted Simon away from the communicator and sped up to the bridge. "Listen, Pilot. Don't tell Kaylee to do anything. Do not move at all. The pirates will know where we are otherwise."
"But they already know."
"The bad ones haven't guessed. Well, some of them are bad sometimes, and not other times. You know how it is."
"No, I really don't," Wash admitted. "I have no familiarity with that concept, River."
"Just don't do anything."
"It's a trap," said Simon stubbornly.
River made a long sigh.
"Do I listen to the Doc, or to the Doc's crazy-- sorry," Wash amended, "the sensitive-euphemism-for-crazy sister? If it were up to me, I'd fly into the desert where I have room to maneuver and--"
"Don't do that!" River made as if to stop Wash from manipulating the controls. "If you move, the pirates will see you."
"She's convincing," Wash told Simon.
"I know." Simon sounded discouraged rather than convinced.
Kaylee's voice broke in. "Wash..? Are you gonna give me some kind of go-ahead?"
Wash considered, then responded, "Nah, let her sit. We're waiting on a signal from outside."
"Good enough. I'm gonna play mini pinball."
River perked up. "Me, too." She gathered her skirt and made off for the engine area.
Simon and Wash blinked at each other.
"What just happened?" said Simon.
"Search me. I'm about to play with dinosaurs and wait for a sign from God."
"I think I'm going to inventory our meager stock of medical supplies. While I'm doing that I will pretend I'm at home and that this is a bad dream."
"Hm. To each his own."
***
A few horses, some slow-walking chickens and a camel were the only visible inhabitants of Crater Mine at suppertime that evening. Here and there, wagons stood outside at hitching rails, their horses resting each rear leg in turn with the hoof held at a sleepy angle.
The guards of the fossil shed had gone. Jayne, Mal and Zoe approached the shed; everything appeared as easy as it had the day before, although now a chain with a padlock through it secured the door.
"In a way this may be easier, if we can break it without making a sound," Mal hoped. "Nobody'll notice and we can get out so quiet we'll be cleared of suspicion if we decide to come back for any more ice cream socials."
"Well," said Jayne. "That ice cream was good." He wrapped a finger around the chain, which ran through a hole in the shed wall and another hole in the door. He gripped it in his fist, pressed on the door with the other hand, gave a sideways jerk and broke the door. "Easy." He held up the end of the looped chain to show Mal. The second he let go of the door with his other hand, a shrieking, snarling pale-yellow blur burst through and launched itself at Jayne's neck, which it could not immediately reach. It turned mid-air and snapped for Zoe, who stepped lightly aside.
Jayne got out half a spluttering curse and thunked a boot square on the dog's chest, holding it off before he, Mal and Zoe slipped quaking into the shed and slammed the door. "Gorramit, didn't know they had dogs here."
The animal hollered and lunged at the door. Mal pried up the framing points from around the fossil and plucked it easily off the table, tucking it deep into his coat pocket. Zoe, Jayne and Mal looked at each other-- and at the door, which opened out rather than in, and every time it threatened to bounce open the dog put its paws on it and pushed it back into place.
"Maybe we should've shot it," Mal said to the others as the dog roused the town.
Jayne replied, "it ain't armed. It's a dog."
"Sharp teeth count as armaments, far as I'm concerned," Zoe said.
"You gonna shoot it then?" Mal wanted to know.
"Don't think so, Sir."
People outdoors called off the dog and began shouting. "Come on outta there, whoever you are!"
One voice said, "Maybe it's the alien, come alive."
This momentarily distracted one or two. "The alien's come alive?"
Zoe came closer to Mal. "I don't intend to shoot anything right now, Sir. I open that door, I'm shot."
Mal agreed.
"They'll shoot us through the shed wall soon enough," Jayne snorted. He peered cautiously through the hole ripped in the door where the chain had been. "Whole gorram town's out there." He jumped back as a bullet cut through the door and narrowly missed his legs.
"Come on out of there!" More gunfire.
Mal and Zoe made a sudden decision and shot the points where boards were nailed to the studding opposite the door. The three of them shouldered the wall apart and scuttled, crouching, past two or three armed men at the back of the shed who got off surprised shots-- Zoe and Jayne made return shots; others started to come around the fossil shed as Mal and Jayne ducked beneath a loaded wagon and Zoe sheltered alongside its quietly standing team of horses.
Mal signaled Wash. "Wash, change of plans. Pick us up in town a minute or two ago."
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Captain, but I'm trying to play a game of hide and seek with some pirates right now. I'd better close off communication to keep from attracting attention."
"Wash-- pirates?" There was no reply.
Zoe quickly said, "Wash'll confound 'em, Sir. I suggest we keep our minds on our own troubles."
"What would pirates be doing all of a sudden chasing Serenity? That would be one of our troubles!"
Zoe had untied the horses and clambered up behind them, trying to keep a low profile. Jayne and Mal vaulted into the wagon, which was loaded with full grain sacks.
"Oh, I can see it now," moaned Jayne. "Whole town after us, valuable grain we could've stolen, and we haveta pitch it to stay ahead of the enemy."
Despite the ongoing gunfire, the horses were restful, and Zoe's shouting and slapping the reins did little to start them off in a hurry. They trotted, though, and headed out of town on the wagon track. Two men mounted their saddle horses that had been tied nearby during supper, and quickly came alongside to get a good shot at the wagon. The steadily trotting team did not share Zoe's concern about these developments. Mal and Jayne fired at the riders, then realized that ducking and hiding and throwing some of the grain overboard was another, less exposed option.
The grain sacks landing behind and beside them seemed to alarm the wagon horses slightly; they tossed their heads and skipped. Zoe felt her slouch hat get winged with a bullet. "Shit." As she yelled at them, the horses abruptly twisted their tails, humped their rear legs under them and launched into a gallop down the rutted track.
The dog, let loose again, came running silently after them, catching up to the saddle horses and their frustrated riders who had slowed to reload. He swung behind the wagon and streaked towards its off horse, who veered. Zoe felt the control of their heads slip out of her hands. The dog was trying to turn them back towards town, where many people on foot were converging at the end of the main street, but he couldn't catch the nose of the horse he had homed in on and the rutted track made a convenient path for the horses to gallop.
The load was lighter from Mal and Jayne's tossing of grain sacks and the wagon jounced and rattled. "Zoe!" Mal risked a look over the edge of the wagon at their surroundings. "Don't drive 'em into the working mine. Take the drain bed slope."
"I ain't really drivin' 'em anymore, Sir," Zoe shouted. "They're just runnin'."
The wagon team seemed to realize they had a problem when they came to the drop-off slope at the top of the mine, but their path was forward and they gathered their heels under them and began to skid and flounder down at top speed. A saddle horse had caught them again and slid down neatly, past them. The rider took a shot at Zoe, but his horse seemed to think that now he was ahead of the wagon horses it was his job to drive them back up the ridge, and his rider suddenly had a handful of determined horse going back up; Mal managed a lucky shot to the rider's shoulder as the saddle horse took short leaps up the hill and the wagon jostled downward toward the plateau that supported the furnace.
There were a few scattered workers remaining at the blast furnace after mining was through for the day. Some beasts of burden stood on the plateau with the human workers, and ore carts were operating slowly in the dull light. The animals skittered and the humans backed out of the way, startled, until they saw that a chase was on; as soon as they recognized sides, the mine workers who had guns pulled them and fired on the wagon or tried to turn the horses, who were keeping to the track which took them around the blast furnace.
"Wrong way!" Mal shouted again through the dust in his mouth. "Drain bed is the opposite direction!"
"All respect due you is granted, Sir," Zoe raised her voice, "but you wanna drive?"
"Where's Wash?" Jayne wondered angrily. "Can't he handle a little pirate problem faster'n this?"
Mal and Zoe realized simultaneously that keeping to the track would take them directly around the blast furnace and back into the group of humans and beasts that had been startled out of the way before. "Jayne!" Mal shouted and pointed at the ground. Jayne nodded; all three jumped.
They rolled when they hit the ground, but rolling on the plateau took them to its edge and Mal went over. As soon as he was on his feet, he saw Zoe rising to find an armed rider behind her; Jayne jerked the man's arm and nearly unseated him. The rider got off a wild shot and Zoe grabbed the edge of the plateau and jumped down; Jayne followed.
A man who had been tending the furnace came as close as he dared to the ledge and aimed a rifle at Mal. Mal began to return fire, then changed tactics and dashed close in to the plateau, running along it where he'd be harder to hit and heading for the closest mine wall to escape the empty cut. The cut benches were about his height or a little shorter. He hoped they could make a quick climb to the top of the mine and reach the debris fields that he and Wash had seen blocked off from town by thin rises.
Their pursuers opened fire as a group as soon as Mal, Zoe and Jayne began to run flat-out for the wall. Mal turned to fire back, realized the blast furnace was as likely a target as the humans who were giving chase, and jerked up his gun in frustration. Soon they would be out of handgun range, but it seemed more rifles had appeared with shooters on the plateau. "Stop shooting! Dumb--" Mal berated the miners uselessly. "Do they even have any idea what they're shooting at? Oh, here they come."
A few locals with pistols had jumped off the plateau to get close enough to fire. It was hard to get full speed on foot on the mine floor, but Mal and Jayne and Zoe began to race without thought for firing back; they came to the wall, Mal boosted Zoe, she reached to help him and they both balanced Jayne while he walk-climbed up. They ran along one bench, clambered up the next in the same fashion, but the group of miners behind them came on quickly as soon as they realized the escapees had ceased firing. Mal and Zoe paused to answer a few shots on the second level, while Jayne hollered at them to get a move on if they didn't want to die draped over a mine bench in this forsaken hole.
Serenity was such a welcome sight at this point that for a split second Mal thought he was imagining things. Jayne had leapt a bench alone, turning again to shout at Zoe and Mal-- what he said was lost in a roaring clap and thunderous vibration of the mine wall. Dirt broke and collapsed, Mal wondered if he could hear or if his ears were only ringing; Serenity seemed to vibrate in air, and the next instant a scream of burning slag and hot air burst out around the blast furnace and Mal and Zoe both fell to the berm from which they had just come, unable to hold onto the breaking surface in the explosion. The miners had to get to their feet, too, and Zoe leapt up quickest and offered the least surface area of her body possible to try to prepare a shot. Rather than taking a shot at her, a couple of pursuing mine workers fired at the fragile ground beneath Zoe's feet, making her have to slide to their level or fall off the wall. Mal hadn't gotten his balance yet, but he grabbed Zoe's ankle while Jayne hopped down one level and grabbed her arm.
There was mayhem at the plateau some distance away, but the mine workers at the wall did not give off the chase. The cut shook again, this time without the noise, just an ominous shifting of material. Serenity had bumped the wall. The miners, daunted, fell back, grasping anything solid they could use to help themselves scramble back to the flat cut bottom. Mal, Zoe and Jayne had a precarious hold on their level, and they flattened themselves against the wall until Serenity drifted out just enough to keep the miners barred from another climb yet avoid shifting the ledges any further.
At the top of the cut, Serenity rose, came around and sought out a space between the thin ridges where she could land. Zoe tried to wave her in.
Jayne and Mal paused at a point overlooking the mine. Mal ran his hand behind his neck. "Well, Jayne, what do you say? Would you call this a loss, or a win?"
Jayne considered the scene in the cut. Their pursuers, seeing Serenity and her crew out of reach, made for the plateau, where a hissing secondary explosion blew a side cap off the furnace and the remaining framework creaked, shrieked, bent downward-- people attempting to fight the fire scattered. Jayne flicked his eyes towards the fleeing horses, scratched briefly at his short, brown beard and shrugged. "Do we get paid?"
Boarding up, Mal asked Wash, "So, pirate trouble all cleared up?"
"Seems to be," Wash told him. "At least, we haven't had any suspicious activity hereabouts and Cedie called us with an all-clear."
"I couldn't help noticing we still have a medic and a psycho," growled Jayne. Quickly he took River aside and hissed low, "I wondered why that crazy pirate gal didn't just call in more crew and take you from me by force. Must not've been able to get 'em all to see it her way."
River bridled. "I told you you'd never be rid of me."
Jayne shrugged. "Don't matter. I got money out of the deal this time, anyhow. And I can sell you again."
Simon came past, paused and looked at them curiously. River slipped away from Jayne, twirled her skirt and gave him a laughing look over her shoulder. "Mister Cobb, you say the nicest things." She glanced briefly at Simon and skipped away up to a catwalk.
***
Night was falling in dusky ochre and red when Wash put Serenity down in the gully on Wedding Ring Ranch.
Once the crew members who had been chased in the mine had accomplished some semblance of cleaning off the caked-on dust, Kaylee went along to the house for the Cowpony ride, and Mal and Zoe went to present the fossil to Gloria. They were ushered into the parlor, a darker, finer-looking place in the evening when the window let in only an idea of light. Inara was present, giving Mal a sharp, appraising look before glancing for confirmation to Zoe and easing back into her perfected mask. A stranger was sitting on a sofa and rose to greet them. Vincent, more sunken-looking and appearing shorter without high heels, gracefully introduced Mack. "He just came in as part of a survey team," Vincent explained, "and since he is a terraforming geologist having some familiarity with techniques used on Court's World, I thought we would ask him in for dinner and to have a look at your find. Captain Reynolds." Vincent nodded, and Mal pulled the fossil stone from his pocket and half-tossed it to Mack.
Mack had a goatee and square spectacles and a tendency to lean forward and squint; he put his face very close to the rock, then went for a magnifying glass that lay next to a Bible on the end table of the sofa. "I've never seen one of these."
"One of what?" Mal asked. Inara glided over, curious. Vincent was clearly trying to disguise some of his agitation and interest.
"Well, I wouldn't be sure, but it's fairly hard to miss. What confuses me is what it's been doing in the desert. Ophisaurus harti. Chinese mud dragon."
"Ophisaurus... what?" Mal shrugged off the Latin name. "So-- not an alien?"
"Not quite." Mack handed the fossil to Vincent, who perused it noncommitally. "But I don't know what it's doing here. Some animals-- some plants-- are so--"
Mal interrupted. "So how do you know what it is?"
"Oh, it's famous. Your pirates, Vincent-- the ones you say come around now and then--"
"--and they were in town," put in Mal.
"Yes. This may be a clue to what they're looking for."
"Could there be more of these around?" Vincent inquired, turning the stone and viewing it at various angles.
Mack shrugged. "Where there's one, there could be more. Or similar items, related items, at any rate."
"It is just as well we removed this from the people's hands, then," Vincent said. "No need to encourage their efforts to find reasons to revaluate the land."
"Wait," said Mal, "'related items'?"
Mack nodded. "Some animals, some plants, are part of public collections, or distributed relatively freely by the Alliance, or by corporations associated with the Alliance, big-name terraformers and the like. Some organisms are not so readily available. They've been in private collections or traded on a very small scale for a very long time. This animal--" he tapped the fossil Vincent was holding with the magnifying glass-- "is part of a private collection... as far as I know, a few have been found in various areas, and if I'm not mistaken, the mulch that this small creature would need to live in would be worth a fortune, not to mention what else might be there along with it. It's a fragile animal. To sustain its environment takes humidity and plant matter and beetle larvae, and someone has these somewhere. I suspect that the pirates are banking on part of a collection being somewhere nearby."
"So there's more of this valuable stuff around?" asked Mal. Zoe quirked an eyebrow.
"It's not just lying about, if so," said Mack. "It couldn't sustain itself in a place like Crater Mine. I'd guess this was part of something that got caught in a storm, or perhaps the collector himself or a thief dropped it."
"Who owned them?" asked Mal. "What's the collector's name?"
"Some folks say a fella named Nadim owned all or most of the collection. It seems he's sold some of it off, as I understand it."
"A pirate asked me once if I had heard the name," Vincent recalled. "I had not, and I told them so."
"But how'd it get in the stone?" Kaylee spoke up.
"That's the easy part," Mack smiled. "The soil you see outdoors at the ranch is meant to hold some scrub for cattle. We have to prevent adding unnecessary overburden to mining operations. We blow the sand off the potential mine areas with wind, then water the dunes to collapse them in place, make a solid wall to keep weather-pattern winds from covering the mine space with dirt before it's used. After we collapse the walls, we heat them. This little lizard got caught in a layer cake. I'm supposing there could be others like him dropped at about the same time, whatever caused him to be out there in the first place. The materials in the wall got pushed through... sifted through his bones and tissues, only more slowly than in the material around him, so you see a mark of him in the stone. And then, because it's a wind-blown spot, eventually he showed back up and someone found him. He just had time to drop his tail before the sand collapsed on him."
"The tail shattered like glass," Mal said. "It's a real animal, you're sure?"
"Quite sure."
"That is well and good," said Vincent, handing the fossil back to Mal. "I am glad of this outcome and I suppose, Captain Reynolds, in addition to your prescribed payment I owe you a thank you for your conduct earlier today when one of my trains had a bit of trouble..."
Mal shrugged. "We didn't have time to stop and talk when we got back on the other train, just called up the cowboys and got right back to Serenity. Um-- about the--"
"The blast furnace. Yes, I quickly received a report about that, too, and I am sure I will hear more, shortly. I understand that there was gunfire involved. However, it is not my business nor of much interest to me aside from whether the insurance adjustors for the people at Crater Mine decide that a payout is warranted. It is rather my preference that the miners be found negligent. They have obscene amounts of insurance considering what that equipment was worth."
"We didn't shoot at it much," shrugged Mal, and Zoe winced.
"As far as I am given to understand," Vincent continued, "none of your rather high-profile behaviors while in and around Crater Mine have yet implicated me in the removal of the fossil. For some reason, no one has as yet seemed to associate your team with me."
Mal couldn't quite pinpoint the shared amusement between Inara and Vincent, but he was sure that it was there. He handed the fossil to Kaylee. "Here. Won't be needing this anymore. Little souvenir for you."
"Aw, poor lil' fella," mourned Kaylee, cradling the fossil.
***
Wash sat on the end of the opened cargo bay door with his rubber dinosaurs and watched the stars come out. Alioramus and Stegosaurus had abandoned verbal repartee and resorted to kicking dust onto each other. The dim layer of wind-rising red dust faded into blackness; white stars blinked on in the clear space in the sky. Inara's shuttle whined familiarly into sight, with distant swirls kicked up by disturbed, sleepy cattle in the crevasses.
Wash picked up the dinosaurs and shook some of the dust off while Inara's shuttle reattached. Book and the others had returned with Inara, Book having turned over some of his shinier buttons to the gamblers who had also won back their doll's head; the Shepherd noted to Serenity's other crew members that he had no need for the vanity of so many buttons, and that this form of gambling could be morally upright in its ability to humble players.
"You mean humiliate," said Mal.
"The two are very closely related, Captain," said Book.
"You cheated," Mal said sharply. "So they could win."
"I couldn't leave burdened," Book responded.
"I don't feel burdened, and I'm leaving with money."
"I'm a bit glad I didn't meet the townspeople," said Book. "I may have had difficulty in aiding you as you may have wished."
"We made it fine without you. Chaplain's for moral support anyhow." Mal took long strides up to the bridge, where he glanced at Alioramus and Stegosaurus perched on the console with circlets of dust around their rubber feet. Wash turned to face him.
"How'd we make out?"
"Better than the town. Here's your cut."
Wash took a good look at the cash Mal tossed on the console. "Shiny. What was the deal with the fossil?"
"You'll be happy to know that it had 'saurus' in its name."
"Wow. I'd be even happier if it were an alien. That would be something new."
"It was new to me. Did you know there are lizards that break like glass and live in really expensive mulch?"
"That was a secret of the 'verse heretofore unknown to myself, Captain. Shall we fire up Serenity?"
"Glad as always to impart knowledge of the ages." Mal nodded to the pilot, and to the dinosaurs on the console. "Wash. Dinos. Take us out of the world."
***
Wash parked Serenity in the Crater Mine drain bed. He and Kaylee stayed with the ship and awaited further instructions while Mal and Zoe took a path on foot up to town.
***
"Alioramus? It can't be! I thought--"
"That I was lying in my grave at the bottom of a cliff-- a cliff you told me to run along the edge of? Now, now, don't get so excited, Stegosaurus. I'm a fair kind of dinosaur. I am willing to let bygones be bygones. I'll gladly treat you to a tour through the palm groves. I hear tell that Triceratops has discovered a new species. It's called the Gigantic Rotating Knives Rubber Miniature Coconut Palm of Doom. I've been meaning to go myself."
"You're a real pal, Alioramus."
***
Mal took Simon aside in the hotel. "Doc, your part of this mission's through. You and your sister stroll on out toward the mine and board up now. If you stay along the highest point of the road, you'll come to a curve and a slope that's hardly in sight from the working plateau-- you walk down and then around that ravine and Serenity's right there."
"All good things must come to an end. It seems rotten ideas have their way of fading out as well. River, come along, okay?"
Simon took River by the hand, but she resisted. "I want to stay with Jayne."
Jayne came from a corner, shoving his communicator under his belt. "Jayne's doing the tough stuff, little gal."
Simon took River by the arm. "Let the man do his job, River."
River looked over her shoulder at Jayne as they all stepped onto the porch, then she turned her head to look over her other shoulder, but eventually she faced front and squinted into the wind.
Miners were coming up from the cut to go home to supper; a few nodded at Simon and River, but soon the two were out of the main road, following the slope Mal had mentioned. River spooked at a black shuttle flying close and low-- Simon held her steady and watched it, perplexed. It disappeared outside the mine wall, in the direction in which they were headed. "What is it?"
"Pirates," said River. "Me and Kaylee saw them."
Simon stopped walking, but only for one step, and River kept on. He hurriedly decided that if Mal had told them to go that way, then they had better do so-- he thought of radioing Mal, but wasn't sure what point the team in town were at with their plans. But if this was about his and River's safety--
"Is that the same man we saw on the porch?" he asked her. "The one you said wanted you to be his prey?"
River nodded.
"Well, now I don't know what to do. Maybe I'd better call Mal."
They were still walking, and as they came down the slope, the black shuttle could be seen alongside the battered white one they knew belonged to Cedie. Cedie was outside, gesturing and insisting, but what her words were was obscured by wind and distance. The pirate Simon and River had seen earlier was standing, unmoved, but as they paused and watched, he boarded up, along with another man who had been sitting with his feet out on the black shuttle's running board. Cedie waved them off and the black shuttle spun, running up the slope directly over Simon and River's heads.
Simon let off a rare curse word. He felt queasy. "They did that deliberately!"
River nodded. "Look." She pointed as Cedie's shuttle came around more slowly. The shipping and storage vessel came up even with Simon and a hatch opened.
Cedie called to them from her pilot's seat. "Hurry up and get in before they get back."
Simon glanced in the direction the black shuttle had gone, stared momentarily at the white shuttle's hatch, and shoved River back up the slope. "River. Go. Run back to town, screaming."
River evaded him and began to hop into the shuttle, while Cedie repeated in exasperation, "Get in for God's sake. What do I need to do, pull out a gun and threaten you?"
"Your gun is plenty threatening where it is. River--" Simon lost his grip on River's arm and resorted to pulling on her skirt. When she yanked it away and jumped lightly up into the hovering shuttle, he climbed in after, still wrestling. The hatch slid shut before he realized what he'd done-- before he could turn River back towards the door, she had seated herself and was smoothing her skirt. Simon began look for an edge or control to the door.
"Oh, Mercy's sake." Cedie looked mildly disgusted. "Where's your ship? I'll take you."
"Don't tell her!"
River folded her hands in her lap and said, as if directing a chauffer, "Crater Mine drain bed," nodding in the direction of the outer wall.
"Thank you. At least one of you has some sense."
"What are you talking about?" Simon was standing and when he gestured angrily at Cedie, she tipped the shuttle so he'd have to grab a seat. He glared at her; she returned the dark look.
"You think I can control every nutjob on the George Gray? I can only do what I do and you take it or leave it. You're the nutjob if you leave it. Huh. Some gratitude."
"It's not gratitude at all. I am harboring no gratitude. You know where our ship is now and you'll turn it over to your crew--"
"Manners, Simon," hissed River. "Do as she says."
Simon clenched and unclenched one fist ineffectually. "Why am I listening to you?"
River wrinkled her brow. "Because I'm only damaged, Simon. I'm not wrong."
"They don't know where your ship is yet. Here we are. Now be sure and tell your pilot to stay dark. If my people don't know a ship's there, they can't bother themselves to find it-- it's not valuable enough-- you're not valuable enough. I told them I'm a big tigress and I can handle you on my own. I know that's not true of you, River--"
--Simon's confused look included both Cedie and River--
"but they don't know what I've already figured, and I'll tell 'em you both got away from me." Cedie's shuttle bumped and skidded to a stop in the mine bed, and she opened up a channel to Serenity. "Tell him to let you in and not to take off until I give the all clear."
"This is insane."
Cedie sighed dramatically. "Just say it."
"What do you want from us?"
"I expect to be reimbursed for what I spent on you."
"We don't have any money," River told her. "Simon spent it on squash."
"I didn't say money." Cedie half-grinned. "I'll show up when you least expect it and take it out of you another way. Seriously, I don't need or want anything. Go on, Simon, get the message to your pilot-- wait. I do want one thing."
"Surprise, surprise."
Cedie glowered at his tone, then asked, "I just wanna know, is your name really Simon? Feds say it is."
"It really is Simon. I'm not very undercover."
She grinned. "Your radio, Sir."
***
Alioramus lay on his back with his mouth open. "I hate going to the dentist."
"And it is no wonder," Stegosaurus, DDS, proclaimed, "for I have only set up this appointment for you in order to torture you into revealing to me the location of the treasure!"
"Aaaah!" said Alioramus.
Wash had noticed the unfamiliar shuttle signal in Serenity's proximity and was considering whether it was best to alert Captain Reynolds mid-job when a call came in.
"Er, Wash, this is Simon."
Wash stuck a complimentary toothbrush crossways in Alioramus's open mouth. "'sup, Simon?"
"We're either-- that is, River and myself are either being removed from danger or kidnapped by pirates--" there came the sound of a quiet, quick scuffle, then Simon resumed, "Open the cargo door for us and don't do anything else until we tell you to."
Wash took a look outside, saw the shuttle, saw River step down from it and wave. "I'll wait until you and River are alone on the ground and the shuttle's gone, how's that?"
Simon paused a second. "Yes... yes, that sounds reasonable."
Simon took a wrong step out onto the dirt and stumbled, but recovered himself. The shuttle turned sharply about and zipped up the drain bed. Wash lowered the door and River grabbed Simon's hand and sprinted through the dust to Serenity.
Wash closed up ship and was telling Kaylee to get the boat moving so they could find a better hiding place now that pirates knew where they were when Simon cut him off from the cargo bay. Simon sighed, first, then explained awkwardly, "Don't do anything at all... I guess... we're not to move the ship until Cedie-- the pirate, I mean-- gives the all-clear..."
"Are we fleeing pirates now or not?"
"I don't know."
River batted Simon away from the communicator and sped up to the bridge. "Listen, Pilot. Don't tell Kaylee to do anything. Do not move at all. The pirates will know where we are otherwise."
"But they already know."
"The bad ones haven't guessed. Well, some of them are bad sometimes, and not other times. You know how it is."
"No, I really don't," Wash admitted. "I have no familiarity with that concept, River."
"Just don't do anything."
"It's a trap," said Simon stubbornly.
River made a long sigh.
"Do I listen to the Doc, or to the Doc's crazy-- sorry," Wash amended, "the sensitive-euphemism-for-crazy sister? If it were up to me, I'd fly into the desert where I have room to maneuver and--"
"Don't do that!" River made as if to stop Wash from manipulating the controls. "If you move, the pirates will see you."
"She's convincing," Wash told Simon.
"I know." Simon sounded discouraged rather than convinced.
Kaylee's voice broke in. "Wash..? Are you gonna give me some kind of go-ahead?"
Wash considered, then responded, "Nah, let her sit. We're waiting on a signal from outside."
"Good enough. I'm gonna play mini pinball."
River perked up. "Me, too." She gathered her skirt and made off for the engine area.
Simon and Wash blinked at each other.
"What just happened?" said Simon.
"Search me. I'm about to play with dinosaurs and wait for a sign from God."
"I think I'm going to inventory our meager stock of medical supplies. While I'm doing that I will pretend I'm at home and that this is a bad dream."
"Hm. To each his own."
***
A few horses, some slow-walking chickens and a camel were the only visible inhabitants of Crater Mine at suppertime that evening. Here and there, wagons stood outside at hitching rails, their horses resting each rear leg in turn with the hoof held at a sleepy angle.
The guards of the fossil shed had gone. Jayne, Mal and Zoe approached the shed; everything appeared as easy as it had the day before, although now a chain with a padlock through it secured the door.
"In a way this may be easier, if we can break it without making a sound," Mal hoped. "Nobody'll notice and we can get out so quiet we'll be cleared of suspicion if we decide to come back for any more ice cream socials."
"Well," said Jayne. "That ice cream was good." He wrapped a finger around the chain, which ran through a hole in the shed wall and another hole in the door. He gripped it in his fist, pressed on the door with the other hand, gave a sideways jerk and broke the door. "Easy." He held up the end of the looped chain to show Mal. The second he let go of the door with his other hand, a shrieking, snarling pale-yellow blur burst through and launched itself at Jayne's neck, which it could not immediately reach. It turned mid-air and snapped for Zoe, who stepped lightly aside.
Jayne got out half a spluttering curse and thunked a boot square on the dog's chest, holding it off before he, Mal and Zoe slipped quaking into the shed and slammed the door. "Gorramit, didn't know they had dogs here."
The animal hollered and lunged at the door. Mal pried up the framing points from around the fossil and plucked it easily off the table, tucking it deep into his coat pocket. Zoe, Jayne and Mal looked at each other-- and at the door, which opened out rather than in, and every time it threatened to bounce open the dog put its paws on it and pushed it back into place.
"Maybe we should've shot it," Mal said to the others as the dog roused the town.
Jayne replied, "it ain't armed. It's a dog."
"Sharp teeth count as armaments, far as I'm concerned," Zoe said.
"You gonna shoot it then?" Mal wanted to know.
"Don't think so, Sir."
People outdoors called off the dog and began shouting. "Come on outta there, whoever you are!"
One voice said, "Maybe it's the alien, come alive."
This momentarily distracted one or two. "The alien's come alive?"
Zoe came closer to Mal. "I don't intend to shoot anything right now, Sir. I open that door, I'm shot."
Mal agreed.
"They'll shoot us through the shed wall soon enough," Jayne snorted. He peered cautiously through the hole ripped in the door where the chain had been. "Whole gorram town's out there." He jumped back as a bullet cut through the door and narrowly missed his legs.
"Come on out of there!" More gunfire.
Mal and Zoe made a sudden decision and shot the points where boards were nailed to the studding opposite the door. The three of them shouldered the wall apart and scuttled, crouching, past two or three armed men at the back of the shed who got off surprised shots-- Zoe and Jayne made return shots; others started to come around the fossil shed as Mal and Jayne ducked beneath a loaded wagon and Zoe sheltered alongside its quietly standing team of horses.
Mal signaled Wash. "Wash, change of plans. Pick us up in town a minute or two ago."
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Captain, but I'm trying to play a game of hide and seek with some pirates right now. I'd better close off communication to keep from attracting attention."
"Wash-- pirates?" There was no reply.
Zoe quickly said, "Wash'll confound 'em, Sir. I suggest we keep our minds on our own troubles."
"What would pirates be doing all of a sudden chasing Serenity? That would be one of our troubles!"
Zoe had untied the horses and clambered up behind them, trying to keep a low profile. Jayne and Mal vaulted into the wagon, which was loaded with full grain sacks.
"Oh, I can see it now," moaned Jayne. "Whole town after us, valuable grain we could've stolen, and we haveta pitch it to stay ahead of the enemy."
Despite the ongoing gunfire, the horses were restful, and Zoe's shouting and slapping the reins did little to start them off in a hurry. They trotted, though, and headed out of town on the wagon track. Two men mounted their saddle horses that had been tied nearby during supper, and quickly came alongside to get a good shot at the wagon. The steadily trotting team did not share Zoe's concern about these developments. Mal and Jayne fired at the riders, then realized that ducking and hiding and throwing some of the grain overboard was another, less exposed option.
The grain sacks landing behind and beside them seemed to alarm the wagon horses slightly; they tossed their heads and skipped. Zoe felt her slouch hat get winged with a bullet. "Shit." As she yelled at them, the horses abruptly twisted their tails, humped their rear legs under them and launched into a gallop down the rutted track.
The dog, let loose again, came running silently after them, catching up to the saddle horses and their frustrated riders who had slowed to reload. He swung behind the wagon and streaked towards its off horse, who veered. Zoe felt the control of their heads slip out of her hands. The dog was trying to turn them back towards town, where many people on foot were converging at the end of the main street, but he couldn't catch the nose of the horse he had homed in on and the rutted track made a convenient path for the horses to gallop.
The load was lighter from Mal and Jayne's tossing of grain sacks and the wagon jounced and rattled. "Zoe!" Mal risked a look over the edge of the wagon at their surroundings. "Don't drive 'em into the working mine. Take the drain bed slope."
"I ain't really drivin' 'em anymore, Sir," Zoe shouted. "They're just runnin'."
The wagon team seemed to realize they had a problem when they came to the drop-off slope at the top of the mine, but their path was forward and they gathered their heels under them and began to skid and flounder down at top speed. A saddle horse had caught them again and slid down neatly, past them. The rider took a shot at Zoe, but his horse seemed to think that now he was ahead of the wagon horses it was his job to drive them back up the ridge, and his rider suddenly had a handful of determined horse going back up; Mal managed a lucky shot to the rider's shoulder as the saddle horse took short leaps up the hill and the wagon jostled downward toward the plateau that supported the furnace.
There were a few scattered workers remaining at the blast furnace after mining was through for the day. Some beasts of burden stood on the plateau with the human workers, and ore carts were operating slowly in the dull light. The animals skittered and the humans backed out of the way, startled, until they saw that a chase was on; as soon as they recognized sides, the mine workers who had guns pulled them and fired on the wagon or tried to turn the horses, who were keeping to the track which took them around the blast furnace.
"Wrong way!" Mal shouted again through the dust in his mouth. "Drain bed is the opposite direction!"
"All respect due you is granted, Sir," Zoe raised her voice, "but you wanna drive?"
"Where's Wash?" Jayne wondered angrily. "Can't he handle a little pirate problem faster'n this?"
Mal and Zoe realized simultaneously that keeping to the track would take them directly around the blast furnace and back into the group of humans and beasts that had been startled out of the way before. "Jayne!" Mal shouted and pointed at the ground. Jayne nodded; all three jumped.
They rolled when they hit the ground, but rolling on the plateau took them to its edge and Mal went over. As soon as he was on his feet, he saw Zoe rising to find an armed rider behind her; Jayne jerked the man's arm and nearly unseated him. The rider got off a wild shot and Zoe grabbed the edge of the plateau and jumped down; Jayne followed.
A man who had been tending the furnace came as close as he dared to the ledge and aimed a rifle at Mal. Mal began to return fire, then changed tactics and dashed close in to the plateau, running along it where he'd be harder to hit and heading for the closest mine wall to escape the empty cut. The cut benches were about his height or a little shorter. He hoped they could make a quick climb to the top of the mine and reach the debris fields that he and Wash had seen blocked off from town by thin rises.
Their pursuers opened fire as a group as soon as Mal, Zoe and Jayne began to run flat-out for the wall. Mal turned to fire back, realized the blast furnace was as likely a target as the humans who were giving chase, and jerked up his gun in frustration. Soon they would be out of handgun range, but it seemed more rifles had appeared with shooters on the plateau. "Stop shooting! Dumb--" Mal berated the miners uselessly. "Do they even have any idea what they're shooting at? Oh, here they come."
A few locals with pistols had jumped off the plateau to get close enough to fire. It was hard to get full speed on foot on the mine floor, but Mal and Jayne and Zoe began to race without thought for firing back; they came to the wall, Mal boosted Zoe, she reached to help him and they both balanced Jayne while he walk-climbed up. They ran along one bench, clambered up the next in the same fashion, but the group of miners behind them came on quickly as soon as they realized the escapees had ceased firing. Mal and Zoe paused to answer a few shots on the second level, while Jayne hollered at them to get a move on if they didn't want to die draped over a mine bench in this forsaken hole.
Serenity was such a welcome sight at this point that for a split second Mal thought he was imagining things. Jayne had leapt a bench alone, turning again to shout at Zoe and Mal-- what he said was lost in a roaring clap and thunderous vibration of the mine wall. Dirt broke and collapsed, Mal wondered if he could hear or if his ears were only ringing; Serenity seemed to vibrate in air, and the next instant a scream of burning slag and hot air burst out around the blast furnace and Mal and Zoe both fell to the berm from which they had just come, unable to hold onto the breaking surface in the explosion. The miners had to get to their feet, too, and Zoe leapt up quickest and offered the least surface area of her body possible to try to prepare a shot. Rather than taking a shot at her, a couple of pursuing mine workers fired at the fragile ground beneath Zoe's feet, making her have to slide to their level or fall off the wall. Mal hadn't gotten his balance yet, but he grabbed Zoe's ankle while Jayne hopped down one level and grabbed her arm.
There was mayhem at the plateau some distance away, but the mine workers at the wall did not give off the chase. The cut shook again, this time without the noise, just an ominous shifting of material. Serenity had bumped the wall. The miners, daunted, fell back, grasping anything solid they could use to help themselves scramble back to the flat cut bottom. Mal, Zoe and Jayne had a precarious hold on their level, and they flattened themselves against the wall until Serenity drifted out just enough to keep the miners barred from another climb yet avoid shifting the ledges any further.
At the top of the cut, Serenity rose, came around and sought out a space between the thin ridges where she could land. Zoe tried to wave her in.
Jayne and Mal paused at a point overlooking the mine. Mal ran his hand behind his neck. "Well, Jayne, what do you say? Would you call this a loss, or a win?"
Jayne considered the scene in the cut. Their pursuers, seeing Serenity and her crew out of reach, made for the plateau, where a hissing secondary explosion blew a side cap off the furnace and the remaining framework creaked, shrieked, bent downward-- people attempting to fight the fire scattered. Jayne flicked his eyes towards the fleeing horses, scratched briefly at his short, brown beard and shrugged. "Do we get paid?"
Boarding up, Mal asked Wash, "So, pirate trouble all cleared up?"
"Seems to be," Wash told him. "At least, we haven't had any suspicious activity hereabouts and Cedie called us with an all-clear."
"I couldn't help noticing we still have a medic and a psycho," growled Jayne. Quickly he took River aside and hissed low, "I wondered why that crazy pirate gal didn't just call in more crew and take you from me by force. Must not've been able to get 'em all to see it her way."
River bridled. "I told you you'd never be rid of me."
Jayne shrugged. "Don't matter. I got money out of the deal this time, anyhow. And I can sell you again."
Simon came past, paused and looked at them curiously. River slipped away from Jayne, twirled her skirt and gave him a laughing look over her shoulder. "Mister Cobb, you say the nicest things." She glanced briefly at Simon and skipped away up to a catwalk.
***
Night was falling in dusky ochre and red when Wash put Serenity down in the gully on Wedding Ring Ranch.
Once the crew members who had been chased in the mine had accomplished some semblance of cleaning off the caked-on dust, Kaylee went along to the house for the Cowpony ride, and Mal and Zoe went to present the fossil to Gloria. They were ushered into the parlor, a darker, finer-looking place in the evening when the window let in only an idea of light. Inara was present, giving Mal a sharp, appraising look before glancing for confirmation to Zoe and easing back into her perfected mask. A stranger was sitting on a sofa and rose to greet them. Vincent, more sunken-looking and appearing shorter without high heels, gracefully introduced Mack. "He just came in as part of a survey team," Vincent explained, "and since he is a terraforming geologist having some familiarity with techniques used on Court's World, I thought we would ask him in for dinner and to have a look at your find. Captain Reynolds." Vincent nodded, and Mal pulled the fossil stone from his pocket and half-tossed it to Mack.
Mack had a goatee and square spectacles and a tendency to lean forward and squint; he put his face very close to the rock, then went for a magnifying glass that lay next to a Bible on the end table of the sofa. "I've never seen one of these."
"One of what?" Mal asked. Inara glided over, curious. Vincent was clearly trying to disguise some of his agitation and interest.
"Well, I wouldn't be sure, but it's fairly hard to miss. What confuses me is what it's been doing in the desert. Ophisaurus harti. Chinese mud dragon."
"Ophisaurus... what?" Mal shrugged off the Latin name. "So-- not an alien?"
"Not quite." Mack handed the fossil to Vincent, who perused it noncommitally. "But I don't know what it's doing here. Some animals-- some plants-- are so--"
Mal interrupted. "So how do you know what it is?"
"Oh, it's famous. Your pirates, Vincent-- the ones you say come around now and then--"
"--and they were in town," put in Mal.
"Yes. This may be a clue to what they're looking for."
"Could there be more of these around?" Vincent inquired, turning the stone and viewing it at various angles.
Mack shrugged. "Where there's one, there could be more. Or similar items, related items, at any rate."
"It is just as well we removed this from the people's hands, then," Vincent said. "No need to encourage their efforts to find reasons to revaluate the land."
"Wait," said Mal, "'related items'?"
Mack nodded. "Some animals, some plants, are part of public collections, or distributed relatively freely by the Alliance, or by corporations associated with the Alliance, big-name terraformers and the like. Some organisms are not so readily available. They've been in private collections or traded on a very small scale for a very long time. This animal--" he tapped the fossil Vincent was holding with the magnifying glass-- "is part of a private collection... as far as I know, a few have been found in various areas, and if I'm not mistaken, the mulch that this small creature would need to live in would be worth a fortune, not to mention what else might be there along with it. It's a fragile animal. To sustain its environment takes humidity and plant matter and beetle larvae, and someone has these somewhere. I suspect that the pirates are banking on part of a collection being somewhere nearby."
"So there's more of this valuable stuff around?" asked Mal. Zoe quirked an eyebrow.
"It's not just lying about, if so," said Mack. "It couldn't sustain itself in a place like Crater Mine. I'd guess this was part of something that got caught in a storm, or perhaps the collector himself or a thief dropped it."
"Who owned them?" asked Mal. "What's the collector's name?"
"Some folks say a fella named Nadim owned all or most of the collection. It seems he's sold some of it off, as I understand it."
"A pirate asked me once if I had heard the name," Vincent recalled. "I had not, and I told them so."
"But how'd it get in the stone?" Kaylee spoke up.
"That's the easy part," Mack smiled. "The soil you see outdoors at the ranch is meant to hold some scrub for cattle. We have to prevent adding unnecessary overburden to mining operations. We blow the sand off the potential mine areas with wind, then water the dunes to collapse them in place, make a solid wall to keep weather-pattern winds from covering the mine space with dirt before it's used. After we collapse the walls, we heat them. This little lizard got caught in a layer cake. I'm supposing there could be others like him dropped at about the same time, whatever caused him to be out there in the first place. The materials in the wall got pushed through... sifted through his bones and tissues, only more slowly than in the material around him, so you see a mark of him in the stone. And then, because it's a wind-blown spot, eventually he showed back up and someone found him. He just had time to drop his tail before the sand collapsed on him."
"The tail shattered like glass," Mal said. "It's a real animal, you're sure?"
"Quite sure."
"That is well and good," said Vincent, handing the fossil back to Mal. "I am glad of this outcome and I suppose, Captain Reynolds, in addition to your prescribed payment I owe you a thank you for your conduct earlier today when one of my trains had a bit of trouble..."
Mal shrugged. "We didn't have time to stop and talk when we got back on the other train, just called up the cowboys and got right back to Serenity. Um-- about the--"
"The blast furnace. Yes, I quickly received a report about that, too, and I am sure I will hear more, shortly. I understand that there was gunfire involved. However, it is not my business nor of much interest to me aside from whether the insurance adjustors for the people at Crater Mine decide that a payout is warranted. It is rather my preference that the miners be found negligent. They have obscene amounts of insurance considering what that equipment was worth."
"We didn't shoot at it much," shrugged Mal, and Zoe winced.
"As far as I am given to understand," Vincent continued, "none of your rather high-profile behaviors while in and around Crater Mine have yet implicated me in the removal of the fossil. For some reason, no one has as yet seemed to associate your team with me."
Mal couldn't quite pinpoint the shared amusement between Inara and Vincent, but he was sure that it was there. He handed the fossil to Kaylee. "Here. Won't be needing this anymore. Little souvenir for you."
"Aw, poor lil' fella," mourned Kaylee, cradling the fossil.
***
Wash sat on the end of the opened cargo bay door with his rubber dinosaurs and watched the stars come out. Alioramus and Stegosaurus had abandoned verbal repartee and resorted to kicking dust onto each other. The dim layer of wind-rising red dust faded into blackness; white stars blinked on in the clear space in the sky. Inara's shuttle whined familiarly into sight, with distant swirls kicked up by disturbed, sleepy cattle in the crevasses.
Wash picked up the dinosaurs and shook some of the dust off while Inara's shuttle reattached. Book and the others had returned with Inara, Book having turned over some of his shinier buttons to the gamblers who had also won back their doll's head; the Shepherd noted to Serenity's other crew members that he had no need for the vanity of so many buttons, and that this form of gambling could be morally upright in its ability to humble players.
"You mean humiliate," said Mal.
"The two are very closely related, Captain," said Book.
"You cheated," Mal said sharply. "So they could win."
"I couldn't leave burdened," Book responded.
"I don't feel burdened, and I'm leaving with money."
"I'm a bit glad I didn't meet the townspeople," said Book. "I may have had difficulty in aiding you as you may have wished."
"We made it fine without you. Chaplain's for moral support anyhow." Mal took long strides up to the bridge, where he glanced at Alioramus and Stegosaurus perched on the console with circlets of dust around their rubber feet. Wash turned to face him.
"How'd we make out?"
"Better than the town. Here's your cut."
Wash took a good look at the cash Mal tossed on the console. "Shiny. What was the deal with the fossil?"
"You'll be happy to know that it had 'saurus' in its name."
"Wow. I'd be even happier if it were an alien. That would be something new."
"It was new to me. Did you know there are lizards that break like glass and live in really expensive mulch?"
"That was a secret of the 'verse heretofore unknown to myself, Captain. Shall we fire up Serenity?"
"Glad as always to impart knowledge of the ages." Mal nodded to the pilot, and to the dinosaurs on the console. "Wash. Dinos. Take us out of the world."