Their first sleep period on Glory of God had taken place after darkness fell. That had been followed by what was apparently the traditional “day” of something closer to rest—a period of activity in what was the middle of the planet’s night. The cold and dark outside limited agricultural tasks, so the settlers remained in the caves, doing handiwork, meeting, conducting business, and attending prayer meetings.

Residents of Fortitude who suffered from minor ailments or needed routine care went to see the doctor, but the schedule was light enough that Simon was able to attend Book’s sermon. The presence of an outside shepherd was apparently something of a novelty—the sermon was well-attended, but Simon noted that most of the people there, himself and River included, did not take communion.

Book had a warm and engaging speaking style, but Simon felt his attention wandering to his own moral quandary: Annelore. River was one thing—Simon would go to the ends of the galaxy to help her, even just a tiny bit. But Annelore was, to put it simply, not his sister. And River didn’t insist on having the exact same conversation every time she saw Simon.

But who else was there to help? The Lis may have good intentions, but what could they do except observe the length of time Annelore could retain memories get ever shorter? Annelore had helped him out when he needed it—“I’m a sucker for the underdog,” she had once said—and what really, was being asked of him? To smile when she saw him and screamed his name with excitement. To tell her, once again, that he had done well at the medacad, thank you very much. To explain to her that help was on its way. In a couple of “days,” Serenity would return with Sisyphus, and Simon would be relieved of the burden of being the only person Annelore remembered.

He spent the rest of the dark day instructing the Li sisters and assisting with patient care. He had not slept well the previous “night”—Glory of God’s sleep periods were somewhat out of synch with Serenity’s—so at the end of the second day, he quickly fell into a deep sleep and had no idea what time it was when River shook him awake.

“You’ll have to bundle up,” she said, and went back behind her curtain.

The door opened slowly. “Simon?” a voice whispered—Kerry Li.

“I’m awake,” Simon whispered back.

“Sorry to be upknocking you, but could you please come out? Xastare and Shoef need to see you.”

Simon got to his feet, grabbed his shoes and coat, and quietly walked out. Standing in the hallway was Xastare and a man—a lawman—Simon hadn’t seen before. He looked young, about Simon’s age, but he was considerably taller and quite broad, as broad as Jayne although shorter than that ape. Despite his size, he had a looseness to his posture and an openness to his face that made him a far less intimidating figure than Lawman Jude or even Jayne.

“Simon?” the man said, offering his hand to shake. “Sorry about the upknocking. I’m Krak.”

“We got a problem, and we think you might be able to help us, don’t we now?” said Xastare. She looked a bit wound. “There’s a ship that’s landed.”

“Serenity?” asked Simon.

She shook her head. “We don’t know what it is—it landed some miles west of the cliffs, huntsmen saw it. They seem to not be wanting to be sociable, and in a case like this, we like to send a little party to reconnoiter. Since you’re a medical person…”

“You want me to come along,” said Simon.

“You’d be kept out of harm’s way,” said Krak.

“That’s fine,” said Simon. “I’ll do it.”

“We’ll be taking horses—they’re quieter,” said Krak.

“I rode dressage when I was younger,” said Simon.

Krak looked completely baffled by that statement.

“I know how to ride a horse,” said Simon, serving as his own translator.

He went back into the room to get more clothes and to tell Book where he was going. Book, a bit groggy, promised to look after River and Annelore. Simon finished dressing and went out into the hallway, where Kerry Li was at the ready with even more warm clothing. Xastare insisted that he take a knit hat that covered Simon’s face all the way down to his neck with holes for the eyes and mouth, a pair of mittens, and two long, rectangular pieces of leather with laces dangling off them, all of which Simon carried as he walked with them out of Fortitude.

The air was like a knife, and the breeze that was blowing, while not powerful, seemed to rob his ears and face of all their warmth in an instant. The sky was clear, and two nearby planets shone brightly in the sky, so there was light to see by. On the ground was either a dusting of light snow or a serious frost. He followed Xastare and Krak as they walked along the cliff face—it couldn’t have been more than a few dozen yards, but Simon’s legs were already hurting from the cold by the time he saw his companions duck into another cave. His gloves were evidently not up to the job; his pinky fingers felt like they were made out of ice, cold and unbendable.

Inside the cave that housed the stable there were two “smudge pots” and things were much warmer. Simon put on the mask and pulled the mittens over his gloves while one of the lawmen readied his horse. Counting Xastare and Krak, there were six lawmen, most of whom were already masked and all of whom seemed happy to have a medic with the crew who was not suffering from a serious brain injury.

Simon held up the leather rectangles and asked a nearby lawman what they were. The lawman told him to mount his horse, and after Simon did so he wrapped and laced the leather around Simon’s legs. “I do this for my boy,” the lawman said, and Simon smiled weakly.

While the experience with the chaps didn’t do much for Simon’s pride, he nonetheless was better protected against the cold when they rode out of the cave. Past the cultivated fields—irrigated, Simon had learned, largely from an underwater aquifer—Glory of God was an arid world of low brush, grass, and cactus, glowing under the moons’ light.

Simon looked at the sky. It seemed a bit lighter than before, but he wasn’t sure. The planets above were large and bright, and it could simply be that the sky here at night was lighter than what he was used to.

After riding along for about 15 minutes, Simon saw a structure. It was large and rounded, and it shone under the strong moonlight. They were almost upon it when Simon realized what it was—a spaceship, one with no lights. Its cargo door gaped open.

Just past the disabled spacecraft, the lawmen in front of Simon turned their horses sharply to the left. “Why are we turning?” Simon asked Xastare.

“We’re going a roundabout way,” she said. “The cover’s better, don’t you know?”

They rode several minutes more. The land was becoming hillier, and word passed down the line for the lawmen to turn off their coms. A hill rose sharply ahead of them, and the lawmen rode straight for it. At the bottom of the rise, they stopped and dismounted, and Xastare told him to be sure to keep his voice down as they continued up the hill on foot, leading their horses. Simon was following, a little off to the left from the main group, when suddenly he stepped on something that moved, and he fell, dropping his reins. Whatever he fell on moved more.

“I believe the law has arrived,” said a woman’s voice beneath him.

He rolled off. “Ah, you found our huntsmen,” Krak said behind him.

The ground moved and then suddenly flipped back, revealing a man and a woman. If the dark smudges on their skin and clothing weren’t clue enough, Simon’s nostrils told him that they hadn’t bathed in days, maybe weeks.

“Sorry,” said Krak. “Did we wake you?”

Simon stepped back to where Xastare was standing, looking amused. “I thought huntsmen lived in junked ships,” he said.

“Huntsmen are tough,” Xastare said with a smile, but it faded as she looked at the sky. Simon looked up too—it was definitely getting lighter.

Krak was introducing the huntsmen to the lawmen. The man was called Mohammed, while the woman had the unlikely name of Chantal. They both had dark hair that looked to be about shoulder length, although Simon could not discount the possibility that their hair was much longer and simply looked short because it was so matted.

Both of them were standing around in knit one-piece garments, a stark contrast to the lawmen, who were thoroughly bundled and had no skin exposed. While Simon could see that they had more clothes lying inside the large sheepskin sleeping bag he had stepped on, neither seemed to be in any hurry to get dressed.

Xastare, in contrast, seemed to be in quite the rush, and soon put the lash to the other lawmen. “Whose got the cameras?” she hissed, as they scrambled through their saddlebags.

“They’re in my bag,” said Krak, who was standing next to Simon, looking completely unruffled.

“So what’s with the gamflin,” Xastare said. “We want to go the time fast, what now!”

Krak grinned and turned to Simon. “You’ve got to forgive Xastare. When she gets in a bustle, that’s when you’re sure to discover that she didn’t grow up speaking no English.”

“Wah, and you speak it so well, do you now? Fit right in in the Core, wouldn’t you now,” she snapped.

Her anxiety was not contagious: Krak grinned even wider and mouthed the word “Wah” to Simon, then strolled over to his saddlebag and pulled out a small black package. Xastare took it from him, then turned to another lawman who was holding a flat screen. She opened the package and removed three small devices.

“Let’s give them a check.”

“Do you want to do the suits first?” It was hard to be sure because of the bulky clothes and the mask, but judging from the voice, this particular lawman was also a woman, albeit one easily twice Xastare’s size.

“No, it’s dark enough and I want to start with the watching, what now. I’ll be far enough away, and there looks to be brush enough for cover.”

Krak returned to his bag, and Xastare pulled two earphones out of her pocket, giving one to the lawman holding the screen and lifting her ski mask to put one in her own ear. Then she turned and walked up the hill. Just before reaching the crest, Simon saw her drop.

The lawman holding the screen seemed calm—she even took a moment to introduce herself to Simon as Kissam Shorta, although her mask made that somewhat of a futile exercise. Simon stood so that he could see the screen as well. Initially, it was black, but after a few minutes, the left third of the screen came alive, showing a ship on the other side of the hill. The lawman muttered some words in a voice so low to be almost inaudible, and the camera’s angle was adjusted. Eventually all three of the cameras were put into place, showing as broad a picture of the ship and the area immediately around it as possible.

Xastare walked back down the hill.

“That’s some nice surveillance and communications equipment you have there,” Simon said. “Especially considering that you don’t have running hot and cold water.”

“Hey, we have running hot and cold water—it’s hot during the dark and cold during the light!” Xastare said with a smile.

Simon raised an eyebrow, then realized she probably couldn’t see it thanks to the ski mask. But his body language apparently was enough.

“We do get some things from the Alliance,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, technically speaking, we are law enforcement, and they are the law—or at least they think they are.”

“Who is the law, then?” asked Simon.

“God,” said Xastare, as though that was the obvious answer.

“Time for the suits?” asked Krak.

“Ya,” said Xastare. “Chantal, Mohammed, do you mind if I use your house for a second?”

“Help yourself,” said Chantal, who had by this point donned a coat, but not buttoned it up. “But lemme get the weaponry out first.”

She squatted down and rummaged around inside the bag, pulling out two long rifles that she handed to Mohammed, as well as a pistol and three knives—one of the was more like a machete—in sheathes.

“Lovely weapons you have there,” said Simon to Mohammed.

He shrugged. “These ain’t mine,” he said, indicating the rifles in his arms. “Chantal’s the shot. I like knives.”

He grinned.

Dentistry, thought Simon. I’ve got to teach the Lis about dentistry.

Xastare took a package out of her saddlebag and ducked into the bag. Mohammed cleared his throat next to Simon, and Simon realized that all the men were deliberately turning their backs as she changed in the bag. Simon quickly did the same.

“That’s it!” said Xastare, and the men turned back around. She was wearing a skinsuit with some sort of hood. Krak got into the bag next, and it was Xastare, Kissam and Chantal’s turn to pointedly look the other way as he changed into a similar suit.

“OK!” said Krak, and Xastare walked over to him. Krak pulled something small and metal away from his neck in his left hand. They held right hands, faced each other, and then began the muttered back-and-forth that Simon by now had recognized as the call-and-response of their prayers. Periodically first Krak, and then Xastare, would kiss the medallion Krak had around his neck.

“What’s he got there?” asked Mohammed.

“It’s a Barbara,” said one of the lawmen.

Mohammed and Chantal both gasped. “He’s got a Barbara?” asked Chantal.

“Yup,” said another lawman, shorter than the first.

“What’s a Barbara?” asked Simon.

“Barbara was a very special lady, especially blessed by God. She looked after The 43, them as was the founders of Glory of God,” said the first lawman.

“So, she was a settler?” Simon asked.

That triggered a debate.

“No, no—them was all men.”

“But she must have been someone’s sister or wife.”

“I heard she was someone on Earth-That-Was.”

“Really? I guess I always thought that she might have been a doctress or something.”

“That could be.”

“I’ve always seen it like, once the Prodigal got his hand blowed off, he was sitting in the hospital bed, and he must’ve been in a terrible funk. And he’s saying, I wanna get off this lousy world, and leave this lousy place. And then this doctress, Barbara, says to him, she says, ‘Hey, God has not abandoned you, why should you abandon—’”

The rest of this theological discussion was lost on Simon, because Xastare and Krak vanished. They didn’t duck away, they didn’t leave, they finished their little ceremony, pulled up their hoods, pulled down their face masks, and—poof!—they were gone. Of course, they weren’t actually gone—it was a bit hard in the half-light but Simon could just make out the slight distortion in the landscape as they made their way up the hillside.

He put his hand over his mouth and pressed. Don’t ask. He was a stranger here, really—an expendable stranger. What did he know about these people anyway? He could get shot or break his neck “by accident,” or they could blame it on the people on the ship, and Mal would never be the wiser.

Zao gao.

Simon knew about these suits—he had read about them back before he had gotten River out and his life had been turned upside-down. They were reserved for elite Alliance commando units, a regular soldier would never even get to touch one. Each suit was essentially a vid screen embedded with miniature cameras and fast, powerful processors—if you were lying on your stomach, the cameras on your front would capture images of the ground, the processors would instantaneously clean your shadow out, and the resulting image would appear on your back. If you were standing, sensors in the suit adjusted the image, so that it looked like you weren’t even there.

Maybe, maybe they had gotten the surveillance equipment the way Xastare had said—after all, Simon knew people who had better equipment as part of their estate-security systems. But there was no rutting way the lawmen of a backwater like Glory of God had obtained these suits through some sort of resource-sharing agreement with the Alliance.

“Hey, medic,” said a lawman wearing a light-colored mask. “Wanna see?”

Simon jumped, then composed himself. The tall and short lawmen were entertaining the nodding huntsmen with a phrase-by-phrase retelling of Book’s sermon, while a third was taking the horses down the hill. The remaining two were watching the surveillance screen.

Simon joined them. “Can you make that any better? Use the infrared,” said the lawman.

“I am,” replied Kissam. She turned to Simon. “Can you see them? They’re at the ship.”

Simon looked at the screen. There were no footsteps in frost-encrusted ground around the ship. How is that even possible? Simon wondered—no heat, he could understand, but shouldn’t the pressure from their weight—?

“Oh!” he said, and pointed to the underside of the ship. There was a slight movement over a painted stripe.

“That’s Krak,” said the lawman with the light mask. “He’s doing the explosives.”

“Explosives?” said Simon.

“Yea, in case they wanna leave and we don’t want ’em to—it ain’t so hard to make a ship so’s you can’t take it into space. And Xastare’s up there,” he indicated an area high up the side of the ship.

“How did she get there?” Simon asked. “Is the suit magnetized?”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But magnets make too much of a ruckus. I think the suit helps a little, but that girl can crawl up anything. Her job’s the bugs.”

“Bugs.”

“Yeah, you know, listening devices.”

Simon thought of Xastare, attaching devices to Serenity’s com system, the settlers roaming about Serenity, “helping” him pack… “Do you have any of those on board the ship I came in on?”

There was a moment’s silence.

“No, no!”

“Oh, no!”

“No way, no.”

“We was expecting you all—these folks are strangers. They haven’t even tried to introduce themselves.”

“This is just insurance.”

“No reason for it with your ship.”

“Naw. No reason at all.”

“Nope.”

Simon made a mental note to tell the crew about the bugs.

“They’re up, and she’s coming down,” said Kissam, and the left camera zoomed in.

He watched the distortion make its way down the side of the ship. Once he knew what to look for, it wasn’t that difficult—he could even see her reach for handholds. She reached the ground, and joined with the other distortion. They made their footprintless way across the frosty ground.

A few moments later their pale figures appeared on hillside several feet down from the ridge. Xastare walked up. “You see the tracks?” she asked Kissam.

“That I did, called it in.”

She walked over to the huntsmen. “Hey folks. Did you hear motors while you were waiting for us?”

“Well, we was in the bag,” said Chantal. “But I reckon we would have heard a regular motor.”

“So they’re using electrics or something else quiet. We should tell Central that, too,” she said. Xastare tapped at the communications device still in her ear and muttered for a moment.

Simon looked at her. Of all the questions he had, only one really mattered. “What happens now?” he asked.

“Now we wait,” she said.

***

Book woke up praying for Simon. It was an odd feeling, like part of some leftover dream, and it just added to the feeling of dislocation that came from waking up in a strange place at an unusual time of day.

He rolled over and looked at Simon’s bed. Empty. Then the memory came back of Simon waking him up, telling him he was going with some lawmen, asking Book to look after River and Annelore.

River, as if on cue, hopped out from behind the curtain that separated her bed from theirs. “It’s time to get up!” she exclaimed, entirely too happily, as she thrust her arms out from her side. She was fully dressed and looked washed.

“Well, you’re certainly ready to go,” said Book, with a smile. “I have to go to the washroom and change. Wait for me, and we’ll go down to breakfast together.”

River looked a little disappointed by his response. She was certainly taking to life here, maybe a little too enthusiastically. Of course, Book could say the same for himself. Glory of God brought out the evangelist in him—these people were so close. Prayerful and devout in their syncretism, but fundamentally ignorant of Christ’s word.

The so-called Resurrectionists, the settlement’s small Christian sect, reminded Book of the early Christians, trying to spread the word of Christ’s victory over the grave among people who viewed it—well, Book had to admit they didn’t view it with hostility, but more with bemusement. The Resurrectionists had told him that most of the settlers saw Christ’s rise from the dead a bit too prosaically, asking if he were a zombie or the like. There was an appeal to the notion of introducing the full meaning of Christ to these people, how He could mean a new life, a world not overwhelmed by death or loss, but filled with love and light.

There was an appeal, oh there certainly was. It was ironic, but when Book decided to leave the abbey, Glory of God was the type of place that, in his most optimistic moments, he envisioned winding up.

Of course, the Lord had laid out a different path for Book—a small ship, a mad girl. Book splashed water in his face and smiled. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Ah, Isaiah. It wasn’t what he had envisioned, but he had to confess that his small flock was an interesting one. Take the doctor. The intensity of Annelore’s need for him was palatable whenever she saw him and called out his name—she was truly a lost soul, unsure who to trust. To her, Simon must seem like the only port in a blinding storm.

Simon’s ambivalence toward her was also obvious. Book knew compassion fatigue all too well, when you feel like you give and give and give, and a world of uncaring souls sucks you dry. When the world’s victims become your enemies, when you have no more love to give, but only hardness and scorn. If you hid it from yourself, you denied the God of truth. If you hid your resentments and your self-centeredness, if you pretended they didn’t exist and that you were perfect and Christlike rather than admitting that you were flawed, mere flesh and blood, in need of grace, it could take to you a darker side of yourself, something you wish you had never known.

But it wouldn’t take Simon, not if Book could help it—or help out. He was glad that Simon had gone off with the lawmen. Annelore didn’t remember Book, but she had recognized his collar before and knew he was a shepherd. She had been helped by shepherds after her parents passed on, so she seemed to take some solace in Book’s presence.

Book prayed for her, and Simon, and River, and rest of the crew on their journey. Then he went back into the bedroom, got River, and went for breakfast in the restaurant.

It was really more like a canteen or cafeteria, a place where settlers who didn’t want to cook came and ate what was offered. Breakfast was sausage and some sort of corn mush, and of course, fruit. It was delicious. They were up a little late by local standards—Kerry Li had suggested they take their time coming to breakfast because of the morning rush—so the dining area was largely empty. Kerry’s husband, Jedediah, who was the head chef, was sitting out at a table, pulling some reeds out of a bowl filled with water and plaiting them. As Book and River ate, the reeds became a basket.

River finished eating, put down her spoon, and without a word ran over to where Jedediah sat. He looked at her, put down his half-finished handiwork, and handed her a wet reed.

Kerry bustled over to the table and picked up River’s plate and spoon. “He’ll keep her busy for a while yet,” she said, indicating Jedediah with her chin.

“I hope she’s not bothering him,” said Book.

“Oh, he’s loving it,” she said with a smile.

“In that case,” Book said. “Perhaps I should look in on Annelore.”

“That’d be right kind of you,” Kerry said. “Can I take your plate?”

Book handed her his plate and fork with a touch of guilt—he hadn’t meant for her to be cleaning up after them. He went back to his room to get his gloves and coat, and walked out into the mining tunnel and toward the clinic. Before he got there he spotted Jing Mei Li and Annelore coming out the door.

“Is there an emergency?” Book asked, after introducing himself to Annelore.

“We got a message from Central,” said Jing Mei. “There’s a woman in her third trimester over in Determination, and she’s having pain.”

“Our records indicate that she’s prone to false labor, but at this stage in her pregnancy, it’s best to have a look,” Annelore told Book.

“I’ll come with you,” Book said.

“Do you have a medical background?” Annelore asked. Book shook his head. “Well, I’m sure you’re presence will make the mother feel at ease—and maybe you’ll have a baptism to perform!”

Jing Mei looked a little alarmed at the suggestion, which Book took to mean that most of the settlers didn’t baptize their children. They pushed aside the curtain and walked out into the sunlight. It was nippy, and Book buttoned his coat and pulled on his gloves. Jing Mei led the way to the right, walking along the trail that ran underneath the cliff face.

Determination was one of the newer settlements, like the others a mining tunnel transformed into habitat. It was relatively far from Fortitude, about a 20-minute walk along the cliff face.

The men took them about 12 minutes out. The path followed the cliff face as it bowed in and made a cove, cutting off the view of the trail from either cave. At that spot, the orchard grew right up to the trail, so while Book had heard the low whine of their battery-powered motorcycles before the men appeared, he had assumed it was farm equipment. When they stepped out of the trees, he had for a moment thought they were settlers, working on the trees.

Their guns disabused him of that notion. There were three men, two with pistols, and one with a shotgun. Two of them had triad tattoos, and all of them were obviously old hands at this sort of thing. They were efficient and professional: One knocked Book in the gut with the butt-end of the shotgun, then gagged Annelore while the other two covered Book and Jing Mei with their pistols.

They went into the trees, and Book got up to his feet with Jing Mei’s help. He heard the whine of the bikes. “Get the lawmen,” he said. “Run!”

She ran up the trail, and he ran into the trees.

Use your ears, he thought, as he slowed up. He couldn’t let them see him—they had guns, and he did not. He listened, and ran toward the whine, pulling up when he saw a flash of movement behind a tree. They wouldn’t cut straight out of the orchard, not if they were smart and didn’t want to be followed easily. Instead they would use the cover, come out at some remote point so that it would take time for people to pick up their tracks.

So at the moment, they were taking it slow, which was both good and bad for Book—they were easier to follow, but if he came up on them too quickly, well. He was sure his wouldn’t be the first body they had left behind.

The whining moved on and Book started running again. His knees were protesting a bit. And his breathing was a bit sore thanks to the hit he took.

But he had them, yes he did. An old fox is still a fox.

When they came out of the orchard, Book hid behind a tree until they had disappeared from view, leaving a nice, obvious track in the sandy soil. Then he came out and started hollering, as loud as he could. When the horses appeared, he pulled off his coat and waved it over his head, yelling for the lawmen. The posse rode his way, and spotted the trail.

One of the lawmen stopped and helped Book onto the back of his horse. Book remembered what Simon told him—a strange ship had landed, not terribly far away.

“They’ve got at least a ten-minute lead,” Book said to the lawman. “And they’re on motorcycles.”

“Yup,” said the lawman.

“We’ll never get them before they reach their ship,” Book said.

A faint boom echoed across the desert. A plume of smoke slowly rose up before them.

“Don’t have to,” said the lawman.