What would Mal do if he were here? Give the Alliance officers a whole load of bluff, bluster and baloney. But amiably, with a winning smile on his face.
Push comes to shove, she thought, that’s what I’m going to have to do too.
Her game wasn’t nearly as good as Mal’s. But as long as it was good enough…
21
The planet Shadow, long ago
The day Mal realized he truly loved Jinny was the day he caught her and Toby kissing.
He had been away from Seven Pines Pass awhile. His mother had sent him off to Da Cheng Shi — the largest city on Shadow, although not quite the major metropolis its name might suggest — to buy engine parts for a beat-up old combine harvester she had bought from a scrapyard and was hoping to sell to Bo Hopkirk on the next-door farm. She and Mal had been restoring the vehicle together for the past few weeks, and Bo Hopkirk’s crops were just coming ready and his own combine was on its last legs, so she was expecting he would jump at what she was offering and give her a decent price for it, too.
The journey to and from Da Cheng Shi was forty-eight hours each way by train, and Mal came home travel-weary and sore to his bones from poorly upholstered bench seats. He hadn’t been able to afford a berth in a sleeping car and had been forced to sleep sitting upright. Still, he had the parts they needed, and he’d haggled long and hard not to pay over the odds for them. He felt pleased with himself, and was looking forward to getting reacquainted with the gang.
Sure enough, the Four Amigos arranged a meet-up that evening at the Silver Stirrup Saloon. Toby even told Mal that he had an announcement to make. That ought to have been a clue as to what was coming, but Mal was too exhausted to see it. Mal himself, during the long, fitful nights on the train, had been coming to the conclusion that now was the time to make his move with Jinny Adare. He knew how much Toby liked her, and he knew that him horning in on Toby’s plans was going to cause ructions, and no mistake. It might even mean the end of the Four Amigos.
But Jinny was so gorramn beautiful, so perfect. Her sense of humor was as dark and acerbic as Mal’s own. He felt weirdly elated whenever she smiled his way. He couldn’t help himself. He had to let her know what was in his heart.
In a cold, calculating corner of his mind, Mal was confident that Jinny would favor him over Toby. Carrot-topped Toby Finn, all earnestness and gawky immaturity, versus Mal Reynolds, the broad-shouldered, chisel-chinned swashbuckler who made girls go weak at the knees and warm in the nethers just looking at him. It was no contest. Jinny, given a choice, wouldn’t even think twice.
Just to make sure, however, he had bought a gift for her at a pawnbrokers in Da Cheng Shi. It was a gold locket engraved with an ornate, curlicued “J” and suspended on a fine gold chain. It cost more than he could reasonably afford, but the moment he laid eyes on it, he’d known he had to buy it. The “J” was like an omen, something he just couldn’t ignore.
Mal was taken aback, then, when he walked into the Silver Stirrup shortly after nightfall to find Jinny and Toby already there, at a table. That in itself wasn’t so surprising. What was surprising was that they were engaged in a passionate embrace, lips locked.
Mal rocked back on his heels, as though swamped by an ocean wave. His head reeled. A herd of elephants could have thundered by and he wouldn’t have noticed.
Toby and Jinny? Together? An item? How? Why? When? What?
Recovering some of his composure, he sashayed over to them. “Howdy all,” he said, touching forefinger to forehead like some sort of cowpoke.
“Mal!” they both cried as one. Jinny leapt to her feet to hug him. Toby shook his hand, wringing it with all the strength in his body.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Mal said. “I’ve only been away four days. Ain’t like I’m returning from a visit to the Core or nothin’.”
“My round,” said Toby, scampering over to the bar.
Mal sat down. “No Jamie?”
“On his way,” said Jinny. “He said he’d be a little late. So, how was Da Cheng Shi?”
“Ah, you know. Dirty. Smelly. Full of folks looked like they wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. Never mind that, though. I see what I thought I just saw?”
“What did you see?” Jinny asked coyly.
“You and Toby being a big old smoochy pair of lovebirds.”
She looked at him sidelong. He’d tried to hide a note of jealousy in his voice but hadn’t, he thought, done too good a job of it. “Wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re lovebirds, exactly, but yeah, we’ve kinda gotten together.”
“Kinda?”
“Early days yet.”
“How long’s this been brewing?”
“A while now. Toby’s been more and more attentive. You must have noticed.”
“Can’t say as I did.” But perhaps he just hadn’t been concentrating. Perhaps he’d been so wrapped up in his own growing feelings towards Jinny that he’d overlooked the way his rival for her affections was flourishing right under his nose.
“He’s so sweet, Mal. Cute, too. He took me to a shindig over at Sageville the day before yesterday. We danced till sunup.”
“A date?”
“I’d call it that. At the end, as we were leaving, he just up and kissed me. I wasn’t expecting it, although I sorta sensed it might be coming. And it was a good kiss. I liked it. And it’s just snowballed from there.”
“So this is only two days old, this thing?” Mal said, reckoning the relationship was still young enough and tentative enough for him to nip it in the bud if he wanted.
“But it feels right,” Jinny said. “Feels like it’s been there much longer, bubbling under, only neither of us has realized it.”
I think Toby realized it even if you didn’t.
“What’s Jamie think?” he said.
“Jamie doesn’t know yet. You weren’t supposed to know yet either. Toby wanted to tell the both of you tonight.”
“Yeah, he mentioned a big announcement. I guessed he was maybe going to try and grow a beard, or dye his hair blond. That or something a mite more dramatic, like signing up with the Independents.”
Jinny’s expression turned sour. “Don’t say that. Don’t even mention the war.”
“Ain’t a war yet,” Mal pointed out. “Right now it’s just the Rim worlds making noises about secession and the Union of Allied Planets bragging and bullying and browbeating.”
“Long may it stay that way.”
“But it ain’t gonna. Everyone knows that, and those who think otherwise are living in a fool’s paradise. Sooner or later — and my money’s on sooner — the outer planets are going to form an alliance of their own and mobilize, and the Union’ll surely regard that as provocation, even justification for war. You can feel it coming. It’s inevitable. Over in Da Cheng Shi, it’s all anybody’s talking about. There are even recruitment offices popping up. They’ve got all these slogans. ‘Join the cause before it’s too late.’ ‘A timely militia is a ready militia.’ ‘Don’t get caught napping.’ ‘The outer planets need you.’ You can pretend it’s not going to happen, but that’s not going to prevent it happening. Events have a way of developing, faster than you expect.”
“You sound like you’ve half a mind to join up yourself.”
“Half a mind is about half a mind more than most folk think I have,” Mal said, “but yes, I’m givin’ the idea headspace at least. For too long the Core’s been exploiting the rest of the ’verse, strip-mining planets like ours for resources, sometimes literally, and leaving us with precious little for ourselves. It’s way past time that ended, and if armed opposition’s what it takes to make the Union sit up and take notice, so be it.”