Zoë shot Jayne a look that could have carved a diamond in two.
“No disrespect,” Jayne added hurriedly. “Passable unmarried quim, is what I meant.”
“That’s okay, then,” Zoë drawled. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“You should.”
“Well, since no one else is goin’ to buy us a round,” Mal said, “guess I’d better.”
“Now you’re talking,” said Jayne.
Just as Mal bellied up to the bar, a man wearing a long, mustard-yellow duster and a dented ten-gallon hat laid a small piece of folded paper on the bar beside his elbow. Wasn’t Covington. Might well be a messenger from Covington.
Mal palmed the piece of paper, and without a word the man in the mustard-yellow duster turned away and drifted off into the crowd. Mal placed their order, and while the bartender was filling it, he teased the paper open and glanced at the note like he was checking his hand at a poker table.
Outside. Alone.
— HC
To Mal’s right, another deluded citizen of Persephone was hoisting his glass in honor of the Alliance, slopping brown ale all down his shirtsleeve, going on about “peace in our time.”
Not to mention malnutrition and radiation poisoning, Mal thought.
With an effort, Mal let it slide. Business before pleasure. He paid the bartender, picked up the order, and headed back to their table.
“…only thing the Alliance coulda done a better job of is if it had killed off a few hundred thousand more Browncoats,” the deluded citizen was saying, addressing the entire room in a slurred shout. “So-called Independents don’t value human life like we do. Don’t value it at all. Lying cowardly scum killed more civilians than soldiers, an’ you know that’s the truth! I wager every person in this room lost kith and kin on account of them savages.”
“Yeah!” chorused the surrounding folk, angrily thrusting their glasses towards the towering ceiling.
Mal couldn’t contain himself a moment longer.
“Hey, just hang on now…” he began, then buttoned his lip and carried on towards to the table. Nobody had noticed.
Zoë gave him a hard, searching look as he set the drinks down with hands that were a tad unsteadier than they might have been.
“Sir?” she said.
“Got slipped a note,” he said just loud enough for Zoë and Jayne but no one else to hear. “Came from a fella in a ten-gallon hat and a duster the color of pus.”
“I saw him. Hard to miss, with that coat. He went out the back way straight after. What’s the note say?”
“Looks like it’s from Covington, and he’s waiting outside.”
“Sounds kinda fishy, if you ask me,” Jayne said.
Mal considered. “Yes and no. It’s awful loud in here and awful busy. Maybe Covington just wants some quiet and privacy.”
“Alone, though?” said Zoë, glancing at the note. “That’s fishier.”
“I agree. But I guess if I don’t do as asked, could be the deal’s off. The two of you stay here, hold the table. We’ve all got comm links. I’ll keep a channel open. Anything sounds like trouble, come running.”
“How about an emergency code word, sir?” Zoë suggested. “Just in case.”
“Okay. I say ‘strawberries,’ that’s your cue.”
“Strawberries?”
“Strawberries.”
“But what if the word crops up in conversation?” said Jayne. “You know, Covington asks what’s your favorite fruit, and you just automatically say strawberries?”
Mal blinked. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Comms check.” He pressed the send button on his comm link. “Zoë?”
“Can’t say I’m hearing you very well,” she informed him, touching a finger to her earpiece. “Lot of interference.”
“But you can hear me a little.”
“A little,” she confirmed.
“Jayne?”
“Reading you. Just barely.”
“It’ll have to do.”
Mal added the purchase of new batteries for their comm links to his long list of supplies they could not currently afford.
“I’ll be back shortly,” he said. “Jayne, don’t misbehave. Zoë, make sure Jayne doesn’t misbehave.”
Head lowered, jaw clenched, Mal turned for the exit.
3
Man, them two are sore losers, Jayne thought, downing the last of his beer. The brews at Taggart’s were right tangy. War’s been over for years. What’s their beef? He thought about finishing off Mal’s drink as well since it was sitting right there in front of him and Mal wasn’t. He guessed Mal would be a mite sore if he came back and his glass was empty, so he let it be.
The singing and dancing showed no sign of abating. Jayne opened his mouth to join in, caught Zoë’s glare, and thought the better of it.
“Browncoats bombed the hell outta my village rather’n let the Alliance save it!” a tall drunk yelled nearby.
Jayne could see how something like that would piss people off. Way he figured it, the rebels were lawless and disorganized; their only real purpose was to make a mess of things. The Alliance had overcompensated for that, sure, ’cause they had had the sticks up their behinds like they did now, but the Browncoats hadn’t been no angels neither. Leastwise, that’s what he’d heard. He hadn’t taken sides during the war. He’d basically robbed soldiers on both sides of it. Neutrality was profitable.
“Killed my cattle so’s I wouldn’t provision the Alliance!” the drunk bellowed.
To everyone else in the room, Zoë looked calm as a Buddha as she sipped at her drink and studied the crowd. But Jayne knew her pretty well. Well enough to recognize a slow burn when he saw it. She was getting mad.
He wondered whether things were going to get entertaining after all.
“I got these here missing fingers on account of Browncoats!” the offended citizen raved on, spraying his closest audience members with a mist of saliva on the final, sibilant “s.” He held up a hand that was good for hitchhiking and picking his nose with but not a lot else. “They said”—more spray—“they was fighting for the common man but you know they was just a bunch of gŏu shĭ!” Yet more spray. “Tip over a rock and you’d find one of them with his hand out, threatening to kill your whole family if you didn’t pay him off.”
If Jayne had known the Browncoats were so enterprising, he might have joined them.
“Yeah,” another man chimed in, “or they’d wipe out your whole family if you didn’t agree to let ’em stash their weapons in your root cellar.”
Zoë’s lips were compressed so tight, the color had started to drain out of them. Jayne sat back and laced his fingers behind his head, watching her shift uncomfortably in her chair. Was she going to snap? No. Zoë wasn’t like Mal. She never started a fight. That wasn’t to say she wasn’t real good at ending them, though.
“All this anti-Independent talk gettin’ to you, huh?” Jayne commented.
“Nope,” Zoë said.
Jayne knew a lie when he heard one too. “Must sting like a sumbitch. Wouldn’t be surprised if you lashed out.”
“Unlike some of us, I have self-control.”
“Sure, sure.”
A guy in a patched Alliance jacket and an abnormally large forehead staggered towards their table. “Hey, you two, you hearing what they’re saying about those murdering Browncoat bastards?” he demanded.
“Yeah, I’m hearing it,” Jayne said amiably.
“Yeah, and listen to this…” Large Forehead began. He paused, swaying back and forth like a reed in a breeze, his eyes narrowing as he studied Jayne. “Hey, Earl,” he shouted over his shoulder, “come over here and look at this clown hat!”