It had been a great trip.

Four glorious days. No Dr. Snot and the Swami. No spookiness or bitchiness or folks prancing around, keeping count of everything Jayne had ever done wrong.

Just Jayne and his guns and his knives—a beautiful thing.

It would have been nice, he would admit, to have Book along. Spead was great fun, but his high spirits came largely from the bottle, so he wasn’t much one for workouts.

On the other hand, Spead had some great stories about poontang, and you sure couldn’t expect none of those out of Book. Jayne had never known a rich feller before who didn’t have a stick up his pigu. But Spead didn’t act like he was too good to talk to Jayne about all kinds of things.

And he had tales to tell. Stories about companions (“worth every credit”) and bored debutants and the excitingly rivalrous Milton sisters. And he’d listen too, he wasn’t too full of himself not to realize that Jayne was an expert on women. He especially wanted to know if there looked to be any fine tail on Glory of God.

Spead sure loved women. Sometimes a bit too much than was good for him—there was that incident with Zoe, but all it took was a little ice and some rest and he was good was new again. After Zoe, Spead pretty much left her and Kaylee alone, although Kaylee was a little unhappy when her home brew went missing.

Inara was always getting upset with Spead, for just an acre of reasons—the most nonsensical being that his traveling duds were too showy (“You don’t even know what you’ve been aping!”), like she didn’t tromp around in spangle-dangles all the time.

Like Spead said, Inara shouldn’t be so high-and-mighty, because the only reason companions was respectable was that they worked for men like him. Spead was great about putting the uppity into their place—he cut Sisyphus down time and time again. That was fun to watch: Sisyphus was such a sad sack, he just took it and took it and never fought back.

No, Spead was all right by Jayne. He reminded Jayne of his Uncle Bukka—you never actually saw him take a drink, but he was never exactly sober. Inara and the captain had a little game going, trying to figure out where the hooch came from. But Spead shared, so Jayne never mentioned the flask or nothing.

It was like a wonderful dream. But like they say, all good things die young, and Serenity landed on Glory of God.

And there was the damned doctor, all uptight and waiting for them. Kaylee just about had a fall when she saw him—she was all lovey-dovey toward him, and he was all lovey-dovey back, and it was just sickening. Jayne had thought he’d seen the end of that, but there it was again, and Lord only knows why. Like Simon would even know what to do with a red-blooded girl like Kaylee.

The doctor’s addle-minded friend was there—not a bad-looking piece of ass by any means, but Jayne had really enjoyed not having to deal with the mentally crippled, and here they were again. She practically bought the farm when she saw Sisyphus, she was so happy to see him.

And Sisyphus was just a total pansy about it, he couldn’t even step up and pretend to be man. His actually first words to her were, “I don’t know if I can help you.” Just like that. She’s all, Sisyphus, my savior! And he’s like, I don’t know if I can. Not like Jayne was looking to do no charity work, but could save folks when he wanted too. Sisyphus was just pathetic, like a dog who’d been kicked so many times he wouldn’t put his tail up anymore. Like no kind of man at all.

And Spead was just gone, bailed off the ship with his bags without so much as a good-bye.

Book wasn’t even around. Apparently Ants In The Brain-Pan didn’t want to say hello to everyone because she was too busy doing macramé or something. Which was fine, except she had to be baby-sat all the time, so she tied up everyone else as well, which when you got down to it, was the problem with having her around in the first place, whatever her stupid powers.

And it was hot. Jayne was ready to get out of this shithole the minute he came.

* * *

Inara sent her message to Xenia and adjusted her veil. She was wearing the black-and-gold two-piece—she’d been wearing it a lot lately. She knew she’d wear the scarlet dress again, but not just yet.

She stepped out of her shuttle and headed down to the cargo hold, where the settlers had begun unloading the ship’s cargo. Mal was speaking to an enormously tall, quite stern-looking older man with a badge.

“So no tangelos in this shipment, this time. Avocados,” said the man.

“Oh, I think I know where those are headed,” she said with a smile.

Mal smiled too. “Ah, Lawman Jude, I want you to meet Inara Serra.”

“A pleasure,” said Inara, holding out her hand.

She had it out for a moment before she realized that he wasn’t going to take it. She dropped it, wondering if she had committed some sort of faux pas. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to touch a woman who was not his wife?

“The companion,” said Jude.

The expression on Mal’s face said it all—Damn. Of course, it had been a calculated risk, but most people on the Rim, even the religious ones, were so dazzled by a companion’s glamour that they were willing to suspend judgment regarding her occupation.

“I’m sorry, was Smith unable to come up with an adequate payment? Because this is a payment in cats,” said Jude.

“Oh! I’m not a payment,” said Inara, relieved. Perhaps the situation was salvageable after all.

“No, no, you miscomprehend the situation,” said Mal, obviously thinking along the same lines. “Check the cargo. Smith has paid you full up. Inara’s not here to work, she just travels with us.”

“That must be very convenient for you,” said Jude.

“I don’t pay him in trade, either,” said Inara. The tall lawman didn’t even acknowledge that she had spoken. “She can’t be here,” he said.

“What? Listen, this is my ship,” Mal snapped.

“And it’s on my planet,” said Jude. “There are three things that have never been allowed on Glory of God: pigs, sloth, and whoring.”

“She’s not a—she’s a licensed companion, guild-certified. What she does is perfectly legal.”

“To the Alliance,” replied Jude. “Not to us. What some people call smuggling, we call trade. What some people call providing companionship, we call—”

Inara couldn’t take this, their bandying her about like she wasn’t even there. “I’m perfectly happy to abide by your law,” she said, interrupting. “I’m not going to attempt my trade on your planet, I swear it.”

He turned to her, finally. “No you won’t,” he said, flatly. “You’ll stay on this ship. You will not set foot on Glory of God.”

“What?” said Mal. He was practically shouting, and the settlers were beginning to notice. “No. No. I have put up with your evil-mindedness and your suspicion and your insane religion because I think there is good business to be done here that could benefit us both. But it’s your turn to yield some. Inara is part of this crew—it’s only by accident that she wasn’t here before, or you’d know that by now. She is with us for good. She belongs with us, she is one of us, and I expect every courtesy to be extended to her, the same as they would to any other of us. You sha gua, she is the person who found Annelore’s lawyer friend! She tracked him down by herself, which she didn’t have to do, and she convinced him to hop on a ship full of people he had never met and to be taken to some backwater world he’s never been to before. She did that for someone she didn’t even know, and for no benefit to herself.”

“I know a whore can mean well—” Jude began.

“And how would you know, if there aren’t any?” It was Simon. Inara hadn’t even noticed him walk up behind Jude, she was so focused on the obdurate lawman.

“I mean, how would you know that a whore can mean well, unless you’ve met a few?” Simon continued. “I’m sure Xastare never thought twice about having sex with her marks—back when she was BettyLu McDoogle, of course—and what was that for if not money? And then there’s Krak’s mother—”

“Chastity Kak has been nothing but an upstanding citizen since she came here!” roared Jude.

“Her name’s Chastity, is it?” said Simon, with an amused chuckle. “I didn’t know that. Tell me, was she born with that name? Or did you give her it to her? When she came here, and became this upstanding citizen?”

Jude’s face flushed—he looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel.

“I think quite a number of residents here have done some bad things on other planets,” Simon continued. “You don’t hold it against them as long as they didn’t do it here.”

“You’re twisting things,” said Jude. “They give up their old lives.”

“Just like Inara will give up her wanton whoring while she’s here,” said Mal. Inara stared at him. It was amazing how quickly he regressed. “Think about it—she’ll have whoring-free time every time she comes to visit you all. A chance to live pure, however briefly. And who knows? Perhaps being among you Godly folk in all their purity will cause our dear Inara here to re-examine her sordid life. Maybe the Glory of God will come upon her and she—”

“You shut it,” said Jude. His voice was quiet, but angry. He lifted a finger—they all obediently were still—and walked to the wall of the cargo hold, kneeling down and rocking with his palms upward. After a few moment of this, he got back up.

He looked at Mal and shook his head, but there was humor there. “Do I look like Kerry Li to you?” he asked.

Then he turned to Inara. “You can go out. But no whoring on this moon.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Inara replied.

And of course, a sensible man would have quit while he was ahead. But Mal just had to plow on.

“She’ll be like Cesare’s wife,” he said, putting the emphasis on the second syllable of the name. Because what they really needed right now was a malapropism.

Jude looked confused. Inara silently hoped that the schools on Glory of God were as bad as those everywhere else on the Rim.

“Who’s Cesare?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know my own self—it’s just an expression,” Mal replied, genuinely puzzled. “She’ll behave.”

“Yes,” said Inara. “I’ll behave.”

And I’ll stay, she thought. For River.

* * *

If the whole hullabaloo over Inara weren’t enough, Spead had to bring Jude back an hour later by being drunk and obnoxious. It was quite the laugh for Mal that an accomplished whore could traipse around their pure little community without causing mass outbreaks of immorality, but some rich kid from the Core?—not so much.

Anyway, it turned out that while alcohol was not strictly prohibited on Glory of God, that public drunkenness was very, very much frowned upon. And Spead either drank up his mysterious stash the moment they landed or used whatever unerring instinct that had led him to Kaylee’s wine to find some settler’s vat of agave beer. Thus limbered up, he got sufficiently chatty with Jasmine Li that even Kerry had to doubt his intentions. Someone suggested that he find a private place to sober up, and Spead got a touch feisty and more than a touch loud. He further offended the residents by demonstrating his top-notch swearing abilities—apparently he said some very unkind things about Buddha, and while the settlers on Glory of God didn’t actually worship Buddha, they knew that there were settlers elsewhere who did, and were shocked and offended on their behalf.

So the next thing Mal knew, Jude’s long face was back, along with one of the other lawmen, hauling a semi-conscious but still swearing Spead back into Serenity. They dumped him into his bed—since they were pressed for space, he had been bunking Book’s room, and Mal hoped the shepherd would forgive him for putting the rich brat there if he wound up puking everywhere, which seemed likely.

“That man,” said Jude, “is going to be a sojourner, not a pilgrim.”

Mal was about to say something about it being fine with him, but Jude put up a hand.

“I know that he only paid you for a one-way trip,” said Jude.

Mal was about to say something about Spead’s newfound value as entertainment, but Jude waved his hand.

“We will pay you,” he said, and the younger lawman, who had stepped off, came back into the common area with a large sack. Jude opened it.

“Five pounds of cured salami—your shepherd is quite fond of this. One jar of tallow. Three rounds of goat cheese—you have to chill these three, but they’ll keep better than fresh fruit will. Five pounds of corn meal. Six jars of Jedediah Li’s preserves.”

Mal was about to say something about this being quite generous, but then Jude pulled out the two other jars. They were of glass, and they glowed amber in the light in a way Mal hadn’t seen in years but would never forget. The fluid in them was thick, viscous, and if Mal remembered correctly, quite possibly the most-heavenly tasting thing he had ever eaten.

“And two of honey,” said Jude.

And Mal couldn’t even say they’d do it, because he just plain couldn’t talk.

* * *

The elders of the settlement wanted to have some sort of meeting to decide what to do about Annelore. Simon told Sisyphus that it was just a formality, that they would of course let Annelore go, but Sisyphus told Simon and Inara just to go to the meeting without him. His stomach felt bad and he didn’t have anything to add and he wasn’t the kind of lawyer who argued cases before the court, so he wouldn’t be much help—that’s what he told them. “Just tell them I’ll take her back to Pfalzenhoffer if they want, that’s what I can do,” he said.

So they all went off, although he could tell that Simon was kind of mad at him for not tagging along. They all went except for Spead, who had stopped singing and was quiet now in his room, and that big lug, Jayne. He was there to look after the ship, since on Simon’s advice they were leaving the cargo doors open so that the settlers wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

Jayne was lifting weights—Sisyphus could see him from the hallway leading to the infirmary. A big, dumb goon, whose sole life skill was the ability to lift heavy things. Over and over again.

But then the girl walked in. She looked to be about 17, and was really quite nice-looking, with long black hair, smooth olive skin, and regular dark features. She walked over to Jayne, who put down his weights and sat up on the bench with a smile. She smiled too, and sat down next to him. She put her hand on his biceps and spoke softly to him for, oh, about 60 seconds total, and they were off, up the stairs and to the big goon’s bunk.

Sisyphus rolled his eyes. Soooo predictable. He turned his back and walked to the passenger quarters. He stopped before a door, then hesitated and walked back to take another look at the cargo hold. Empty.

He went back to the door, and knocked, gently. “It’s time,” he said.

The door opened noiselessly. “Let’s go,” said Spead.

They quietly walked off the ship and ran into the orchard. The “morning” bustle was over, and the area was largely deserted, so the two men spoke as they ran.

“How are we going to get her?” Sisyphus asked Spead. “Won’t she be at that meeting?”

“No,” said Spead. “They don’t think she’s with it enough, mentally. They don’t even want her to know about the meeting, because they don’t want her to get upset if she doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

“So where the hell is she?” asked Sisyphus.

“Well, our lovely Jasmine is taking her to see her sister, Juanna. Except that Jasmine has discovered that she can make some time for herself by just pointing Annelore along the trail and giving her directions. Bored teens are the same everywhere, huh? That’s how she hooked up with Wolf, by the way. He told me that when he gave me the love letter.”

“What did you tell her about Wolf?”

“That he didn’t mention her at all and is already taking up with other women. That’s why she was so eager to get cozy with our overgrown friend. I feel like a little Cupid.”

“Rather the anti-Cupid, don’t you think? Are you going to give the letter to her eventually?”

“Why should I?” asked Spead, almost tripping with surprise.

“Well, it would be an object lesson in the perils of trusting dissipated rich men from the Core. And I feel badly for Wolf, pining away at Smith’s, drowning his sorrows in drink and drugs and loose conversation with evil strangers.”

“Valued customer. And you haven’t read his poetry. It’s awful—he is entirely undeserving of the little slut.”

“You’re a cold bastard, aren’t you?” asked Sisyphus with a laugh.

“Well, we wouldn’t be much use if we weren’t,” Spead replied with a smile. “Look! There she is!”

And there was Annelore, looking slightly confused but diligently walking along the path Jasmine had pointed out to her because it was the only thing she knew. They did a quick peek to make sure no one else was watching, then Sisyphus stepped out and watched her face melt with joy.