David Yo’s transport drew up outside House Madrassa, closely followed by pairs of paparazzi on hover cycles – one to pursue, one to record. Those who arrived first were able to get valuable footage of David Yo, in camel overcoat, sharply pressed trousers, perfectly shined shoes, leaving the transport, turning to give a wave of practised friendliness and disappearing into the building. It was a fundamental violation of etiquette, of course, for the Press to enter the compound of a House. But they all knew the game. It could only have come from David Yo’s office itself that the soccer star would be calling at House Madrassa, and it was their business to respond to opportunities such as this, stage-managed or not. At the same time it was the House custodians’ business to hurry out, shouting and shooing at them with brooms until they started to back away. They withdrew to the walls of the compound, quite happy to wait for David Yo’s departure.

It didn’t take long. The transport glided through the gates slowly enough, they understood, for clear captures of its occupants to be taken: Yo himself, and her - Inara Serra. Even those with the most withered hearts were moved to joy: one of the most lucrative of celebrity relationship was back on (perhaps indeed it had never been off) and they were there to capture it, to share the news with the whole of Sihnon and beyond.

They were there at the Seven Gods Tower too, to record the couple going into the building. A helpful doorman let it be known that they had hit the elevator button for the top floor of the tower, meaning they were going to dine in the hover restaurant. They would leave it to the copywriters to find out what they had actually eaten, to discuss what Inara was wearing, to analyze the couple’s body language. As far as the last went: they had been touching, in some way, the whole time that they had been in sight. Only a kiss would have been better.

_____________________________________________________

When he was shown into her quarters Inara had told David Yo straight away, by way of explanation for her collapse the previous day, that she was sick; that she had left Sihnon because of it – not wanting her illness to become public property – and that she had returned because she had become aware of a new treatment.

For Yo, Inara had nothing to explain about her predicament, since all the problems that illness created for her would be the same for him, were he to fall sick. Once he had expressed his concern, therefore, and his desire to help in any way he could, he spent the journey to the Tower trying to amuse and scandalize her, just as he always did.

“Did you hear, Suram Bhadavar is having injections right into her eyeballs, to make the whites look whiter.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“It’s true. It’s pioneering. They use white – stuff.”

Inara rolled her eyes. She looked tired and, yes – unwell. “Your hair looks as black as ever,” she said with a mock-cutting tone. “Perhaps even blacker. And very shiny.”

“What are you insinuating?”

“Nothing.”

“Anyway, her veins got all bloated and one of her eyes kind of exploded.”

“Exploded.”

“Yes. She’s been wearing dark glasses all the time. There was eye jelly everywhere.”

Inara remembered – it wasn’t so long ago – that she had been squeamish about blood. “There isn’t a thing you could say that would sicken me now.” She gave a dramatic echo to her voice. “I’ve seen so much.”

Yo looked at her seriously. “Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”

“Not now.” He nodded. “Tell me about your last game,” she continued. “It’s the only thing you know anything about.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Yo replied, and lovingly he began to describe the match he had played two days previously. As usual he played up the roles of his team mates, underplayed his own. He watched her, gazing out of the window, re-composing herself, gazing out of the window. He continued his description, then: “Inara?”

She turned her head towards him, smiled wistfully. “I am listening,” she said. He smiled back at her, full of affectionate concern, and she squeezed his hand.

________________________________________________

Dr Ronson wondered, as he looked down at the streets of the capital, like a tangle of cables far below, if someone as thoroughly middle-class – and revolutionary – as he was could ever come to feel comfortable in Inara’s world. In the days when he’d been a paramedic he’d been called to attend to people from all walks of life, but it had never involved visiting anywhere as grand as this suite of rooms: all mushroom and chocolate brown, upholstered walls, hidden lighting, carpeting a foot thick, a bathroom as big as his apartment…

He hadn’t believed it, when one of his friends back on Pity had told him that he had just bumped into Inara Serra in the store – thought it was some sort of off-kilter out-of-nowhere joke. But then he’d seen her himself, sitting under a tree peeling a pear with a knife. Not that he’d quite been aware that she had left Sihnon, his knowledge of her being limited to a sense that she was immensely celebrated and that it was to do with looking and behaving in a certain way at certain events, in a way that wasn’t unimportant, was very important in fact, but not important to him.

Even now, having shared the journey back to Sihnon with her, he didn’t understand what she’d been doing apparently living on an outlawed Firefly with a truly mixed bag of people. And how it was that she appeared to have suffered the same sort of damage as the patients who’d been passing through the clinic ever since it had been set up. He and his colleagues there were doctors, not detectives – they weren’t the ones to solve the mystery of what linked their secret clients. But any one could see that in relation to this group, in relation to any group of people actually, Inara stood entirely apart.

_____________________________________________________

Dr Ronson jumped when the door opened, somehow feeling guilty for having sat on the huge bed, as though it was wrong to have left an impression on the probably brand-new and only-to-be-used-once linen.

Inara smiled warmly, hurried towards him. He shook her hand and she held his with both of hers.

“Did it, did it all go all right, getting here?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so. And you?”

“David’s gone to the room we booked for our ‘assignation’. I left him front of a hockey game.”

“Do you think – you made the right impression?”

“Oh, undoubtedly. They’ll have us married by the end of the day. It’s always marriage they long for, isn’t it? And divorce.”

“Yes. It’s difficult to change channels at the moment without coming across images of – Inara Serra.”

Inara sighed heavily. “I’m grateful that something that is usually so very irksome has provided me with the cover we need.”

“Of course. We should get going. As soon as you’re ready.”

Inara disappeared into the bathroom to change into the clothes that Dr Ronson had brought for her.