Taggart’s was deep in the seam of urban rot, the kind of dump the authorities wouldn’t bother sticking their noses in unless someone set off a hand grenade, and maybe not even then. Exchanges of gunfire from within would be ignored: that just meant fewer lowlifes to arrest down the road. Should fisticuffs break out, the police could claim it was none of their business. The hand-to-hand battle could be prolonged and epic.
All the same, Zoë’s dander was up. Mal could see it in the set of her jaw and the take-no-prisoners look in her eyes. Wouldn’t take much to provoke her to violence. And Jayne? Well, Jayne was Jayne. Almost as volatile as HTX-20.
Persephone had been one of planets where the fighting for the Independents’ cause in the Unification War had been the bitterest and most protracted. After Earth-That-Was got used up, the human race had flown out into space to make new earths — terraforming moons and planets, like Persephone. Hopeful, gullible settlers got dumped onto the worst pieces of land while the elites staked possession of the best. The fat cats also took control of planetary governments, enacting laws that favored themselves and ultimately joined together to form an over-arching, galactic authority they called the Alliance.
Every inhabited world had to become a member, the Alliance decreed. Ninety-nine percent of the populations of the outlying moons and planets never saw a scrap of the new technologies and other benefits an expanding civilization was wont to provide, like decent housing, steady food supplies, medical care, and schooling. What they got instead was exploited for cheap labor; the natural resources stripped, and the land left polluted for pennies on the dollar. The gap between haves and have-nots widened. The already fat grew morbidly obese. Most everyone else turned into walking skeletons. It was so obviously unjust that Mal was always amazed when he met someone who had fought on the side of the Alliance — or supported it. Inara, his own shipside Companion, was such a person.
She ain’t mine, he reminded himself. Inara belongs to no one but Inara.
He had fought for justice and fairness and the freedom for every person to make his or her own way, but he had lost and been punished severely for it. Funny thing, if he had to do it over, he would’ve done it again — just with fewer stars in his eyes.
“Okay, we’re here for business only,” he reminded his two crewmates. “Not pleasure.”
“Yes, sir,” Zoë said, while Jayne blew the air out of cheeks in disgruntlement.
“Hope this Covington guy pays for our drinks,” Jayne said.
“If he does,” Mal said, “it’s because the deal ain’t fair to us and he’s trying to butter us up.”
“A free drink’s a free drink,” Jayne argued.
“Except when it’s not.”
It was clear that Jayne wasn’t tracking. No matter. Mal took point, pushing both swinging doors inward. Zoë was close behind at his right shoulder. They burst into a maelstrom of stink and noise. The reek of spilled ale, food fried in rancid lard, and tobacco smoke hung in a fog over the heads of grubby drinkers, who huddled on bar stools and chairs, or leaned against walls to keep themselves upright. Fifteen-foot-diameter circular rings marred the bar-room floor. It looked like big vats had once stood there. Acid and vats. Mal’s best guess: the place had been a tannery before it was converted to a bar, and the new owner’s redecoration had been minimal verging on negligible.
A loud, rhythmic, grating noise blared from a pair of speakers at the edge of a low stage set in one of the rearmost arches. A lone performer sat on a chair playing a computer keyboard, with a microphone duct-taped against the side of his neck. The song had a jaunty, all-too-familiar refrain:
Mal bristled. The Alliance anthem. The bastard was singing the Alliance anthem, and not just singing it but throat singing it. And the gorramn drunks packed shoulder to shoulder in front of the stage were swaying their arms in the air and tunelessly bellowing along. Despite the synthetic organ, horn section, and string accompaniment, the whole thing was about as musical as Serenity’s struggling sump before Kaylee cleared the clog, and much less pleasant to listen to.
Tamping down his ire, Mal focused on the matter at hand. He scanned the packed room for Hunter Covington. He wasn’t here yet.
Mal reached for the photo printout in his pocket, just to be sure. In the Black, out of the blue, Serenity had gotten a wave from someone — Hunter Covington — with a job offer. The money wasn’t spectacular, but work was work. Mal had run some background checks, asked around among various associates about Covington, and learned nothing that filled him with an abiding sense of mistrust but nothing that much enthused him either. It seemed the man was a fixture around Eavesdown, with fingers in many a pie. In that respect, Mal had been somewhat surprised the name was unfamiliar to him, but then he couldn’t be expected to know every trader, merchant, crook, stealer, dealer, and double-dealer in a city that had such a plenitude of them to choose from.
On the vid screen Covington had spoken in a rich, low purr, presenting a well-dressed, well-spoken figure, with a tidily knotted Ascot tie nestled above the button-down collar of a silk shirt, a tailored velvet jacket, and a shot-silk vest. His luxuriant beard merged with bushy sideburns.
“Looks like the cat that got the cream,” Jayne said, glancing over Mal’s shoulder at the photo, which had been screen-captured from Covington’s wave.
“The cat that got the monopoly on the cream,” Mal said, “and cornered the kibble market too.”
“You sure about this, sir?” Zoë said. “Is it worth the risk?”
“Badger’s mission is way riskier,” Mal replied. “Hopefully this is something we can tack onto the job to make it more profitable without much additional effort or burned fuel.”
“I don’t see Covington around,” Jayne said, squinting into the smoke.
“We’ll just settle in and wait then,” Mal said. “Free table over there.”
The table was free because the four occupants had just fallen out of their chairs, dead drunk.
“Let’s grab it quick,” Zoë said.
They pushed forward before someone else could poach the table. All around them, plastered Alliance-loving patrons were busy outdoing each other with all manner of glass-raising, back-slapping, and top-volume-pontificating on the benefits that Alliance membership had brought to their dusty world. The continuing postwar enthusiasm for all things Alliance was a phenomenon Mal found simply baffling. It was like folks had been struck blind — or bag-of-rocks stupid. The recipients of the Alliance’s “bounty” scrabbled desperately to eke out a living, accepting wages that were meager, and giving away most of what they made in taxes with nothing to show for it in return. The system had been designed to flow one way: up.
“Wonder if they’ve anything good to eat,” Jayne said as they sat down. He picked up one of the half-emptied plates that had been left on the table and sniffed the congealed contents. The chef had made an attempt to disguise the taste of protein block chunks using a cacophony of spices and sauces. Jayne looked at it twice, hesitated, then put it back on the table. “This has gone bad. I’m starving.” He looked around. “Maybe Covington’ll buy us some grub when he gets here.”
“I’m not sure that what they serve at this place is edible,” Zoë said.
“Be nice if there was some passable quim here, too.”