After Gimpy-Brain nearly rutted the deal—you would think that someone with psychic powers would know enough not to act all crazy in front of first-time buyers—the captain got Kaylee to put Little Miss Squash Rot away so that everyone could concentrate on business for a change. That skinny lawman with the big scar (and not much below it of interest to a man) radioed that the goods were good, the horse cart came, and the yokels got to loading.

Since it was fresh produce they were hauling back, the yokels still had to pick it, and Flat As A Board told the captain that a work crew would be on it in a couple of hours. So Jayne had some time to kill and was wondering if it was worth his while to look up that juicy Jasmine when some feller came up to him and, a-stuttering and a-stammering, asked him for their shi.

“What?” Jayne asked, thinking that maybe River finally had a play-mate.

“I’d like to vacuum your septic tank, I’d like to do that,” the feller replied. “We use it, we do, for fertilizer.”

“You use shi?” Jayne asked.

“Black gold, gold,” the feller said with a smile. He patted a metal tank he had strapped to cart that was pulled by a donkey. “We sterilize it and use it—best thing, best, best thing for crops.”

This place was just too much, but if they wanted the shi…not like the crew was going to use it, and if it meant Jayne had to run the septic vac one less time, so much the better.

Jayne wasn’t going to let the feller poke around the ship unsupervised, though, so he followed the feller and his donkey back to the external septic port on the side of the ship. Jayne had to open the port, but the feller was handy enough with his equipment and soon had his pump going.

“So, I hear you’re going to help the doctress,” said the stammering feller. Jayne just shrugged in reply—he thought it was stupid, but whatever—and the man just kept yapping away. “She’s a tremendous woman, you know. Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. People think that her ailment is a bad thing, but I think it’s a gift from God, a gift. Every day—several times a day now—every day, her mind is washed clean. She sees everything fresh; she greets everyone as an innocent, an innocent. There are so many people here who think, they think that they’re pure and clean, that’s what they think. They think they’re pure. But she’s the only one who actually is. She is an angel.”

Well, if he wanted to talk about women. “What about the Li girls?” asked Jayne.

“Oh, they’re the worst, worst,” said the feller. “They act all innocent, but in their souls, in their souls, you know, they’re as dirty as anyone. Dirty.”

That was certainly good news. “And Jasmine?”

The feller laughed. “Oh, an ostrich, Jasmine’s an ostrich,” he said.

“Is that like a slut?” Jayne asked, hopefully.

“You mean a bint, right? Well, maybe, maybe so,” said the feller. “I heard tell that there’s been some to-do with some of the outsiders, including that other man of Smith’s, Smith’s man. But an ostrich is someone who’s difficult, you know, difficult, restless, won’t stay home.”

“And roams around all night long, putting out?”

“Qing Jie! What are you doing?” It was Jasmine’s sister, the po fu who wanted to take away the cornbread.

She charged up to that feller like an angry bull, reached into a bag tied to the donkey, and pulled out a pair of plastic gloves. “Put them on,” she said, her voice quaking with fury.

The feller shot Jayne a look. “Yes, yes, yes, ma’am!” he said.

The po fu turned to Jayne. “I want to see your medic,” she said.

***

Xastare wanted to show Kaylee the settlement, which Kaylee thought was real nice of her. She took the lawman up to the cockpit so’s they could get the view from above. Simon, Wash, and Book were there, they had been trying to contact that friend of Annelore’s Simon knew. They were looking a little down—apparently the law firm the friend worked for was closed because it was night local time.

“Where does he live?” asked Xastare.

“Well, the last time I tracked him down, he was in Sihnon,” said Simon. “But he works for a big firm that has offices on several Core planets, so really, he could be anywhere.”

“Sihnon!” Kaylee exclaimed. “Maybe he knows Inara!…And maybe if he does he wouldn’t want to talk about it—sorry, that was a silly suggestion.”

She turned to Xastare. “Inara’s a companion.”

“A companion?” Xastare said. “You travel in some exalted circles, don’t you now?”

“Say, I was wondering if you could tell me what they’re doing now to the crops,” said Book.

Kaylee felt a little silly—they had come up to look out the window, and Book was the only one actually looking. And the landscape outside was fascinating: There had been row after row of that white fabric, but now Kaylee could see that workers were taking it down, revealing the familiar face of farmland.

“What are they doing?” Kaylee asked, fascinated.

“Oh, these folks, they are ingenious, don’t you know,” said Xastare. “The sun gets so strong during the long daylight that it’ll cook the plants. So before everyone has their lighttime sleep, they put up sunshades. Except over there—well you won’t be able to see it until all the shades come down, but they grow cactuses there and those you don’t have to shade. And then when it gets cold during the dark, they use smudge pots—I don’t know why they call them that, basically they’re electrical heaters that charge up during the day. Most of ours are jerry-rigged, but your Smith got us some nice ones, all one piece with the solar panels attached and actual thermostats so you don’t have to turn them on yourself—that’ll be a timesaver.”

“I guess when people on Pfalzenhoffer have their lavish outdoor galas celebrating the simple life, that’s what they use,” said Wash.

“What, is it like here? No wood to speak of?” asked Xastare.

“Not exactly,” said Wash.

“I think the people there are kind of, you know, delicate,” said Kaylee. “They wouldn’t like the smoke.”

Xastare laughed. “I suppose that’s true. Anyway, these people here are just amazing farmers. Glory of God doesn’t really have seasons, you know, so there’s a whole thing they do with the shades and the heat levels to trick the trees into bearing fruit….”

“You’re not from here,” Book said.

“Oh, no,” said Xastare. “I’m a pilgrim.”

“I was wondering,” said Book. “You don’t sound like the other settlers.”

Xastare laughed again. “Wah! Yee et kin har, kin yee nooo? Izat ai no am frahm dem wirdly ya, ir whoat! Noaw poopa! I came here five years ago.”

Kaylee started, not sure if she was more perturbed by Xastare’s sudden new way of speaking or the ease with which she returned to regular talk.

“You know, I have a question for you—you’re a doctor, right?” Xastare was speaking to Simon, who nodded. “Smith’s other man, Wolf, he suggested we grow some kind of drug, something called peyote.”

“He did!” exclaimed Book. Simon looked confused—Kaylee knew she was.

“Mescaline,” Book said.

“The hallucinogen?” Simon asked.

“Well, I was wondering if maybe it had medicinal value,” Xastare continued. “I mean, they grow some herbs for stuff like stomach problems or female trouble….”

Kaylee’s attention wandered off as they talked about drugs you could grow—Simon seemed to think it was, in general, a bad idea, something about not being able to control doses or something, while Xastare was arguing that not having the drugs at all was a bigger problem. Book was pointing out that they could make themselves a target for scavengers if they tried to grow them.

Around and around it went. But outdoors, the shades were literally coming off, revealing row upon row of trees, and bushes, and vines, and oh, that was corn! You could tell it was dry land, the soil was crumbly in most places, but water was being released into channels that ran in lines along the plants, and where they were growing the soil looked dark, rich, and moist. The people were working like bees, some of them pulled down the shades right quick while others of them worked the plants, and everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. It was like watching fancy dancers on a ballroom floor.

And there were animals too! People were leading donkeys and horses out of a cave that was located a ways further along the cliff face from where the people lived—it must be the stables. Donkeys and horses and, oh my God! A camel! Two camels!

Kaylee turned from the window to tell everyone about the camels, but they all looked so serious she stopped herself.

“We weren’t exactly friends,” Simon was saying. “We were friendly, but she was really more like a mentor to me. And I really needed one then, too—my prep school was good, but nothing like Capital City Medacad. It’s the best medacad on Osiris, and it attracted people from everywhere, other planets, even. The competition to get in was amazing. I mean, I was really a star at prep, especially in the sciences—no one in my class could touch me. And then I went to this medacad where every single student there was were every bit as good as I was, and quite a few of them were a lot better, on River’s level really—”

He suddenly looked up at Xastare, and added, “before she got sick, she was really brilliant—and I just didn’t know what to do. My first year, I lived next door to someone who had been top forward in the Capital City Novas before giving it up to attend medacad—because he was an amazing soccer player and an astounding medical scientist. He was getting fan mail from people begging him to give up medicine. I was nothing special.”

He shrugged, and Xastare nodded sympathetically.

“Annelore really helped me overcome the intimidation factor, the fear I wasn’t good enough. Just helped me get back in touch with what I was good at—work, concentration, cutting people with knives,” he laughed. “When I would worry that I wasn’t smart enough, she’d say, ‘Oh, but you want to be a surgeon, right? Everyone knows they’re not too bright. Look at your professors!’ She had this great way of making things that seemed so difficult seem so attainable, like it was no big deal. Performing heart surgery, fixing a pump—all the same thing!”

Xastare was laughing and shaking her head, as she reached out to pat Simon’s shoulder.

“Did she?” Kaylee asked, a little weakly. Everyone looked at her, which just made her feel more awkward. “I haven’t met Simon’s friend.”

“Oh, she’s a great lady,” said Xastare. “And a real beauty, isn’t she there?”

“I guess,” said Simon. “But you know, it takes a lot more than prettiness to cut it at the medacad.”

“I reckon it does,” said Xastare. “In any case, she’s been a boon and a salve to all of us here.”

Kaylee shifted uncomfortably. Simon was obviously pondering the beautiful, angelic wonder of Annelore, whose brains and kindness certainly far outshined the prettiness of any girl he may of admired not so long ago. Kaylee wondered if Annelore had ever fixed a pump—not always so easy as some might think, even if they knew about implants and hearts and things.

“And what about you, young lady?” Xastare suddenly asked Kaylee. “Are you willing to be a boon to us, or what?”

“Huh?” Kaylee asked.

“People say you’re quite the whiz with ships, don’t they now?” Xastare said, looking around and getting affirming nods from everyone—including Simon. “We could use advice from someone who knows ships the way you do. And we’d pay you—we can’t give you tangelos, but we got pomegranates, honey, different kinds of oranges….”

“There’s different kinds of oranges?” Kaylee asked.

“What do you use ships for?” Book asked.

“Shelter,” Xastare said. “Mostly people live in the tunnels left from the azurinium mining, but the huntsmen and herdsmen live out, plus we’ve got a small settlement of folks at the coal pit a few miles from here. The tunnels protect people from the hot and cold, but when you’re away from the cliffs, the best thing is a scrapped spaceship—they’re insulated and all, and usually have freezer units and the like so you can keep supplies there. They can be real lifesavers when it’s real hot or cold, don’t you know? But most of our ships are damaged and real old—one-way specials that were used by pilgrims and such—and their power supplies aren’t always reliable. So we wanted to be able to hook them into some solar panels, but we need someone who knows ships and their wiring.”

“Absolutely!” said Kaylee. “I’ve got some schematics in my room—you need older ships, right?”

“Ya,” said Xastare. “Oh but you know, Krak—I’m sorry, that’s Shoef Kak, he’s a lawman, we all call him Krak—he’s gonna want newer ships as well.”

“Great!” said Kaylee, and dashed off to her room, happy to be of use.

***

Simon was just about to ask Xastare why they would want schematics for newer ships when Jian Kang Li burst into the cockpit. Jayne was behind her, looking irritated, but once he saw Simon he waved his hand dismissively and went back down the hallway.

“Simon,” said Jian Kang. “Annelore wants to see you.”

She looked so troubled Simon immediately asked if anything was wrong. The question seemed to surprise her, and she said no. Annelore had finished examining the settlers who claimed to be too sick to work, and now she simply had some time on her hands and wanted to see him.

“Does she remember our meeting?” Simon asked.

“No,” said Jian Kang. “She wrote it down like she does. A huge note—practically a sign: Simon Tam’s here!”

“You remember what we said about discretion?” Simon asked.

“I know—we could get that note burglariously,” Jian Kang said. “The problem is, she gets excited about something, she writes more than one note, in case something happens to the one. Sometimes she hides them and writes on them stuff like, ‘If you didn’t see another note, that’s because it was stolen,’ and if she finds one of those, she gets real anxiferous. Eventually we do get all the notes and she forgets, but it can be an ugly business. I don’t like to do it.”

“Maybe you can just talk her into writing smaller notes,” Xastare said to Simon.

“Sounds reasonable,” said Simon. He turned to Wash and Book. “Will you let me know when we hear back from Sisyphus’s office?”

They nodded. “I’ll run over,” said Book.

“Ah, you don’t have to do that,” said Xastare. “Let me plug you into our system—you just let Central know, and they’ll tell a lawman.”

She sat down by the com, pulled a small black device out of her pocket, laid it on the com, and reached under the com to plug in two long wires attached to the device. “You see, you just flip this switch here,” she pressed a button on the device, and the button lit up, “and you’re live. Hello Central, this is Xastare on board Serenity.”

A man’s voice replied. “Xastare, you nimster! You’ve stolen those poor people’s ship already?”

She laughed. “Now Krak, what would you say something like that for?” Kaylee walked into the increasingly-crowded cockpit, clutching an electronic pad and some papers, and Xastare smiled at her. “Hey, their mech is willing to give a little clinic on ship’s wiring, or what! So get ours and meet us at ’Durance right quick, will you now?”

“Or what!” said the voice. Xastare laughed and hit the button again, and it went dark.

The four of them—Kaylee, Simon, Xastare and Jian Kang—went down the catwalk and out of the cargo hold. They stopped for a minute because Kaylee spotted a donkey drawing a cart, and she pet it and chatted a bit with its owner.

The delay was brief, but it seemed to upset Jian Kang. Simon thought she was impatient for him to see Annelore—maybe she had been getting agitated? But then Xastare mentioned that Jian Kang seemed unhappy.

“It’s Qing Jie,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb at the donkey’s owner. “He wasn’t using his gloves. Xastare, you have to help me out on this one—you have to work on Jude. Ma’s just charitable to a fault, and she won’t bring it up with the council.”

“And your dad?”

“Pa don’t go to meetings ’less he has to.”

“Well, you can see why your mom wouldn’t be eager to bring it up, can’t you now?” said Xastare. “I mean, it’s been a little hard for Qing to find a place, and that’s not a job that everybody wants to do.”

“But it matters that it’s done right, especially now,” said Jian Kang, glancing over her shoulder at Simon and Kaylee. “I mean, do you want him running the sterilizer if he can’t even take the care to wear gloves? He’s been in to see Annelore six times already since taking the job, and each time it’s something that wouldn’t of happened if he just follow the rules. None of the other sanimen have been in near so much. I don’t know if he’s just forgetful or sick of the idles or what, but he just seems contrary to me. I mean, he’s vacuuming sewage off strange ship, and he doesn’t wear his gloves? Nobody with any sense acts that way. Who knows where they’ve been, or what they’ve picked up?”

She glanced at Simon and Kaylee again. “No offense,” she said.

“Oh, none taken,” said Simon. “Maybe it’s Munchausen’s syndrome.” Jian Kang gave him a perplexed look. “It’s a psychological disorder—people deliberately make themselves sick in order to get attention.”

“That could be it. I always got the feeling he was kinda glad to be in the clinic,” she said. “Is there a way to make it better?”

“Even with the full array of medication and counseling, it’s a tough disorder to treat.”

Kaylee and Xastare peeled off; apparently they were going to a different cave, one called Endurance, while Simon and Jian Kang were going to the cave where Simon had first met Annelore, which was called Fortitude.

Simon and Jian Kang discussed factitious disorders as they went in. Jian Kang was obviously concerned about sanitation and public health, but there were some gaping holes in her medical education—psychological disorders were pretty much new ground to her. Simon wondered if the Lis were going to be expected to be the doctors when Annelore departed.

They walked past the Lis’ restaurant and further into the cave to a house front, set like the others into the wall of the cave and painted with a large, crude caduceus. “This is the Doctress’ place,” said Jian Kang with a smile.

They walked into an empty waiting area, and Jian Kang introduced Simon to Jing Mei, yet another Li sister who exuded the hearty warmth of a pediatrician. Simon asked if the three Li sisters were all, but apparently there were at least two more: Jafreema, who was a herdsman (“but she’s a Fortitude herdsman” said Jing Mei, as though that was highly significant), and Juanna, who was married and lived in a cave called Resilience.

“But you’d better get in to see Annelore,” said Jing Mei. “I don’t think she quite believes you’re real. She asked me if the writing on that note looked like hers.”

Jian Kang opened an inner door to what was obviously an examination room and office. Annelore was sitting at a table, carefully reading through a large pile of notes. To one side was a single sheet, and even from the doorway Simon could make out the upside-down writing: “SIMON TAM IS HERE.”

Annelore was holding several sheets of what appeared to be someone’s medical records in her hand and reading it with intense concentration. But when she looked up to see Simon, the pages fell to the floor and her mouth dropped open.

“S-S-Simon Tam! Oh my God, Simon! It’s really you!”

***

Mal stood outside the cargo hold doors and watched as a picker drove a horse-wagon loaded with fruit crates up to Serenity. The heat was very nearly bearable now, but Mal could see that the driver’s clothes were soaked through with sweat.

“He-ya!” a voice shouted near to Mal. He jumped. “The cargo is ready to load!”

It was, judging from his badge, another lawman, running a crew of about a dozen people. They came over to the ship, and as the crew unloaded the crates from the mule and sent the driver back for more, the lawman asked Mal where he wanted the boxes. Mal pointed out an area in the cargo hold.

Mal had shown them Smith’s packing equipment and the instructions, and it didn’t surprise him that they took to the process like fish to water—it couldn’t be any more elaborate than these cheerleading routines they threw for God every five minutes. They ran the wipes over the fruit and checked the color. Then they pulled a plastic bag over each crate, ran the vacuum sealer, and slapped the label certifying that these fruits were hydroponically grown in accordance with Pfalzenhoffer’s strictest standards over each seal. Then the crew lined up them crates in the cargo hold in neat little stacks.

“I hear you’re going to help Annelore,” a voice rumbled near Mal’s ear.

Mal jumped again. It was Lawman Jude. The first thought that crossed Mal’s brain was that this fellow was half an acre high. The second thought was that he had gotten up right next to Mal without making a sound.

“Yes, the doctor wants to help out his friend,” said Mal. “In fact, he’s on the Cortex right now.”

“Hello, captain,” said Simon, as he walked in through the cargo hold. Where had that boy been? Mal wondered. Mercifully, Simon went directly up the stairs and toward the cockpit.

“I’m sure he is,” said the lawman. “Just as I’m sure you all are just a passel of loveable rouges who spend your spare time saving puppies and helping the weak and needy.”

They stood silently, if not entirely comfortably, for a moment.

“God is a wonderful thing,” Lawman Jude said. The remark was a flat statement, not an invitation to discussion. “The wonderful thing about God is, he’s so complex. He has so many faces, and those faces are reflected in those who worship him. For example, God can be loving and kind and forgiving and benevolent. And I think that face of God is reflected in Mrs. Jedediah Li—you could not find a warmer, more trusting soul anywhere, don’t you agree?”

The lawman glanced at Mal. “She makes a fine cornbread,” he said.

“Jedediah makes the cornbread,” said the lawman. “Now about God. He has another side to him, a harsher side. God can bring misery and punishment. God can smite and rain fire. God can destroy cities and take away everything a man owns. And that’s a face of God that someone like Mrs. Li doesn’t reflect, and doesn’t even know that much about. But she’s not the only worshipper on this planet—here God has many, many worshippers.”

“I have been quiet about this out of respect for you and your beliefs,” Mal said. “But I think you should know that I do not believe in God.”

“Of course not,” said the lawman, with a smile. “But you fear him.”

And with that he walked out of the ship.

As intimidators went, Mal had to admit that Lawman Jude was more than a little gifted. “What was that all about, sir?” said a voice by his ear, making Mal jump for the third gorram time that pretended morning.

It was Zoe. Mal decided to put a bell on her as soon as possible. It sure wouldn’t be easy—he’d probably lose a finger or two in the process, but he’d had about enough with the sneakingness.

“I have just heard the most shocking, abominable thing,” he said.

“What’s that, sir?” Zoe asked.

“Mrs. Jedediah Li, crafty gui that she is, does not make her own cornbread.”

“Who does make the cornbread?”

“That would be Mr. Jedediah Li.”

“And what’s so shocking about that?” Zoe was not smiling.

Zao gao. “Absolutely nothing,” said Mal. “Look, I’m going to go upstairs and check on our good doctor. Keep an eye on things down here?”

Mal took a quick detour to snag a piece of cornbread—whoever made it, it was gorram tasty and Mal had not had real cornbread in an age and a half. When he got to the cockpit, Simon and Wash were laughing heartily—probably at the notion of either of them ever doing what Mal told them.

“Mal!” Wash exclaimed. “Success!”

“You found the doctor’s friend,” said Mal.

“Better than that!” Wash replied, and gestured to Simon.

“Oh, we’ve been quite fortunate. As luck would have it, Sisyphus has been transferred by his law firm—to Pfalzenhoffer. He’s evidently done well enough serving the wealthy and powerful that he’s been stationed on their vacation planet. In any case, we sent Inara a wave asking her to reach out to him.”

“You did what?” Mal asked, sharply.

“Is that a problem?” asked Simon. “She’s right there.”

“She is pretty much discrete for a living,” said Wash.

“Can you take it back?” Mal asked.

“I can’t take it back, Captain. It’s already been sent,” Wash said.

“She doesn’t have to help if she doesn’t want to,” said Simon.

“That’s not the point,” said Mal.

“What is the point?” Simon asked, a mite tetchy.

“The point is, we can’t be involving Inara in our jobs. We have our jobs, and she has her jobs. They’re different.”

“Hers pay a lot better,” Wash stage-whispered to Simon, who smiled.

Sometime Mal could just strangle Wash. “I’m serious,” he said.

“I see that,” said Simon. “But”—always a “but” with this one—“this isn’t even a job. We’re helping someone out. I think Inara would want to help, too.”

“It’s not a job, but it could be trouble, right? It’s a risk. What’s Inara’s doing on this boat? She brings us respectability—she loses that, and she loses everything.” Mal stopped himself.

From their expressions, he could tell he wasn’t reaching them. And that was because he wasn’t telling them what mattered. So he started again.

“One of these days, Inara’s going to want to leave this boat. She’s going to want to go back to her life—her respectable life. And she should be able to do that, she deserves that. Even if she wants to help now, we shouldn’t ask her. Because one day, she’s going to want to go back. And we shouldn’t stop her. We can’t. Don’t use her on any more jobs. Ever.”

As Mal turned to leave, he spotted Wash shrugging comically to Simon. He found himself wondering as he walked down the stairs why Zoe had to marry such a gorram clown.

***

What kind of fish were these?

They were swimming and swimming around and around their little wooden aquarium. They didn’t like it, River could tell, they wanted to be out in the open ocean, where they could swim straight. But here they were, all shut up in a little space, with nowhere to go but around.

But there was someplace else to go—away. They moved away from River as she came up. They grouped together at the other end of the aquarium. They looked at her from the sides of their heads—they weren’t flounders, flounders had eyes on the tops of their heads, and they weren’t rays then either. Their eyes were all to the sides, on the sides of their heads and with sideways pupils. They were very strange fish.

One of them opened its mouth. Mwaaahhhh. It said. The sound traveled well, because they were not in water. Another opened its mouth. Mweeeehh, it said. Then they all began to do it. Mwaahh. Mweeeeeehheh. Mwaaahhh. Mwaaaaahh. They were fish, and they were singing. What sort of fish sang like that?

Eventually they stopped, and started to swim around again, but keeping away from the side where River stood. She was getting bored with them when she felt the stink. It was an evil, awful, dark-green stink that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. It was filthy, putrefaction itself, she could smell it glob its slimy way toward her, an earsore.

“Get away from me,” she told the stink.

“What?” asked the stink, putting on an innocent act like her ears weren’t already screaming with that stomach-churning rancid stench.

The fish didn’t seem to mind the stink. Fish, remembered River, were stupid.

“Get away from me,” she said, loudly. You couldn’t tolerate a stink like that. If you let it, it would stay in your clothes forever. “You are filthy, dirty, contaminated. You are disease. Rutting hun dan! Hou zi shi! Get the hell away from me!”

The stink backed off, although it was still there, a high-pitched whine at the very back of her throat that threatened to give her a headache, so River tried to relax by watching the fish. It was soothing, she remembered reading somewhere, to watch fish swim in an aquarium. Around, they would go, around and around

She knew Kaylee was coming, she could see her like a sparkler in the night without even looking up, but she kept watching the fish, denying herself the pleasure of fully seeing the brightness until the last moment, making it a little present she could surprise herself with.

“Hey, girl, enjoying yourself?” Kaylee asked.

River looked at her and smiled. “You are so clean,” she told Kaylee.

“Oh, please,” said Kaylee, “I’m covered in grease! This fellow’s four-wheeler broke down, and I was helping him fix—”

River burst out laughing. Sometimes Kaylee said the silliest things! Kaylee looked confused, though, so River thought she should explain. “Your smell is clean,” she said. She spoke a little loudly in order to shame the rutting stink. “Like springtime. Sweet perfume. A field full of flowers.”

“Girl, I don’t know how you can smell anything but sheep,” said Kaylee, pointing at the fish. “Hey, does Simon or the captain or anyone know you’re not on the ship?”

Sheep! That’s what they were! River stared at them in amazement. Fleecy, baaing sheep!

“Uh, River, maybe you shouldn’t get too attached,” Kaylee said, then whispered. “I think they might be dinner.”

River rolled her eyes—oh, that Kaylee. “They’re not dinner,” she said. “They’re sheep.”