My Own Kind of Freedom

Prologue

Those who appreciate ginseng—either for its supposed medicinal qualities, or for its distinctive flavor—are willing to pay inordinately high prices for it.

In the Southern Hemisphere of Paquin, about eighty kilometers east of the Scar (in the high foothills of the Napala chain) is a long, meandering forest called Runaround, full of oaks and sugar maples. It is the best place in the ’verse to find—or grow—the herb called panax, red berry, tartar root, and ginseng. It’s a plant that is absurdly easy to grow, given the right climate and soil: you cut a furrow in the autumn, drop in the seeds, pack them down, and spend the next five years tapping maple trees and shooting at poachers.

In addition to being the economic base of the region, Ginseng is the name of the biggest town, with a population of almost nine thousand, if you include the nearby rooters. The town has an effective sewage system, clean water, several paved roads, dozens of permanent buildings, and, temporarily, just past the smokehouse, it had a Firefly-class transport, hunkered down in a clear field like something that pounces waiting to pounce.

Inside the vessel, even as her landing gear settled onto the rich dirt and plumes of smoke were blown away from the side-thrusters on the outside, a voice came over the intercom: “We’re down. We have landed safely. Yes, through a hailstorm of fire, once more, we have achieved landfall in spite of all the obstacles of the heavens. We are delivered. We must kiss the ground. Yes, I say, the ground, the holy ground we must, uh, kiss.”

On the outside, the cargo door swung down. On the inside, a large, square-jawed man wearing loose pants and a green tee-shirt said, “Need to break that intercom.” He put a finger into his ear and shook it as the pressure finished equalizing.

Near him, also looking out on Paquin, was a brown-haired woman wearing greasy gray cover-alls. “This world smells like candy,” she said.

“Smells like money to me,” said the man.

Two others walked up next to them. Like the large man, they both wore sidearms: his was standard military-issue Shacorp IX semi-auto, hers was a lever-action sawed-off carbine. He was clean-cut, and of average build; she was dark and athletic-looking.

She said, “All right, let’s make this quick and clean. We make the exchange, and then we’re out.”

The man glanced at her. She glanced back at him. “Just trying to save you the trouble, sir. You must be tired of giving that speech.”

“I’m appreciative, Zoë. Most like it’ll do as much good as when I say it.”

The big man snickered, but didn’t say anything.

“Jayne, stay here and see to the loading. Zoë and I will go see about payment.”

“I thought we were being paid on the other side.”

The one who’d been addressed as sir (a title he accepted as if used to it) tilted his head and peered up at the larger man. “Yes, Jayne. We are. And they are being paid at this end. I think they call that commerce.”

“Wait, Mal. We’re paying them? I’m not real keen on giving money to a bunch of—”

“Is it all right with you if we pay them with the money Sakarya gave us for that purpose?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“Glad to hear it. Then you don’t mind if we go ahead and do this deal? I mean, I wouldn’t want to take a step without your ta ma de yunxu.”

“Suibian ni,” said Jayne as Mal and Zoë set foot onto Paquin.

“I still don’t get it,” he continued after they were gone.

The woman in cover-alls said, “Cap’n and Zoë going to drop the money off, then they load the cargo, then we drop off the cargo on Hera, then we get paid, then we buy Serenity a new induction—.”

“What I don’t see is why we ain’t just keeping the money and saving ourselves a lot of flying around.”

She sighed. “Oh, Jayne,” she said, and wandered back into the ship. She climbed the metal stairway up from the massive cargo hold that was the reason for the ship’s existence and followed a long corridor back to the med bay. A young man—he looked like he barely needed to shave—stood looking down at the occupied exam table. He glanced up as the woman approached and said, “Hello Kaylee.”

“Hey, Simon. How’s River?”

“Sleeping,” he said, glancing once more at the small figure on the table. “I’m trying a new treatment. She’ll be out for an hour or two.”

“Was she having more dreams?”

He looked at Kaylee and nodded, and there was a certain communication that passed between them, as if a conversation many times repeated didn’t need yet another iteration. Instead, Kaylee said, “Checkers?”

“Why not?”

Five and a half hours later, the hold was loaded with four tons of pre-cut maple.

Mal punched the door closed and said, “Wash, take us out of the world.”

“That part went pretty smooth, sir,” said Zoë.

“Yep. From now on, you’re giving the speech.”

Outside, the sound muffled by the boat’s skin, the side-thrusters fired, and the ship lifted.