EIGHTH LEG
GREENLEAF

The trip to Greenleaf would be a milk run, and Mal was already on the Cortex, hammering out a contract with the tea planters in the cool equatorial hills. Serenity was purring, running smoothly after the extra pampering she had from Daddy Frye, Kaylee had little to do, so she spent her time chatting with River, playing with the children and painting the last few passenger cabins.

'The bunkie needs work too, but we ain't had nobody looking for a cheap ride in yonks. We kin charge more if the cabins look fancy.'

She painted the walls a warm blue and was repapering the shoji screen doors. The beds had almost new soy latex foam mattresses, but Kaylee pulled out her serger and made new covers from some of their linen fabric.

'I'll be looking for some cloth for duvet covers too when we land. The linen is good for sheets but too plain.'

'Wax merry in mood indigo.' said River. 'Fixatives the problem. Nobody has a urinary tract infection though. No need to piss away our money.'

As often happened, there were blank looks around the dinner table.

The trip may have been a milk run but landing on Greenleaf was difficult. River had no problem with the actual setdown, but the bureaucracy made Mal testy.

'Drug smugglers,' explained Simon. 'Greenleaf grows so many plants that are used to produce important drugs. Or very rare drugs. Ones that cannot be synthesized yet. But because too many workers were taking clippings home and growing them on, the producers engineered plants genetically crafted with traceable tags and patented. So now they inspect every ship for contraband.'

'But we're landing!'

'Put the fear of God into the potential smugglers, sir. Get us antsy when they don't need to work too hard at the search. Also they now have a record of what we bring in. And a record of what we sell here.'

'So it gets easy to tell if we are flying with more cargo than we declare. Cute.'

'I'll deal with the red tape, sir. You do better with getting an export cargo.'

Mal knew he was being controlled but realized that Zoe would be more efficient with the customs inspectors than he would be. He left the bridge where he had taken the inspectors' wave for his own cabin.

But there he found Kaylee and their children. Since she had her machine out anyway, she was measuring Derry and BabyGirl for new clothes. 'We got so much cloth it makes sense to make instead of buy, capt'n. I could make you a couple too.'

They heard a commotion in the cargo bay.

As they looked down from the catwalk a slurry of orange wings rose up and fluttered around them.
A customs inspector lay flat on his back on the grilled floor, stunned, possibly unconscious. Falling, he had knocked some of the biocontainers frothier securing ties. One had broken open, scattering bright green pupae like peridots across the floor and through the grates.

And some of the Monarchs had emerged. The bay seemed full of silk scraps struggling on new wings.

River stepped in from the bridge, looking solemnly at the chaos. She reached into her topknot pulling out some combs and releasing her waist length hair. Swing her head, she danced down the steps and onto the piled boxes an crates. Were the Monarchs dancing with her or was she dancing with them?

The baby crowed her delight in the scene. 'Bud! Bud!" she cried. "Butterfly,' her mother corrected her softly.

Jayne was less impressed with the sight. He moved swiftly to th open door and slammed it shut, keeping the butterfly cargo from escaping.

The noise broke the spell. David got Simon's red case from the infirmary, while the doctor checked the customs man for concussion. His colleagues gather nearby, clipboards clamped to their bosoms.

'Told them not to climb on the cargo.' Zoe said calmly to Mal. 'told them they could check from the catwalk.'

Derry had joined the doctor and his patient. 'Will have need a cast too, 医生叔叔?'

'I don't think so,' Simon replied.'But he's very lucky that he doesn't.'

The groggy inspector looked into two pairs of blue eyes. The doctor's sapphire eyes snapped with annoyance, while the child waved a blue fibreglas cast at him. "Hey, sign my cast, mister? I fell off the cargo, too.' The inspector groaned and closed his eyes.

Simon shooed the boy away. He gave instruction to the rest of the inspection team. 'Keep him awake for the next 12 hours. Any nausea or dizziness, take him to ER for a scan. And get him some prescription analgesics, he's going to be very bruised and sore.'

The inspectors hurried their fellow out to their van and disappeared.

'So he fell?' Mal asked Zoe.

'Yep.'

'Tripped on the ropes?'

'Looks like.'

'He was pert close to a hidey-hole.'

'Was he?'

'Good work, Zoe. Okay anybody know how to capture butterflies?'

As it developed no one on the crew knew how to capture the escapees. When the customers came to collect their cargo, they just laughed.

'Don't worry about it. There are going to be release as soon as we're sure we got full weight. And Dr. Mobutu is reliable as sunrise and sunset. A few hundred more or less won't make any difference.'

When they opened the large cargo doors to unload the Purple Emperor cargo, there was a rush of orange wings into the sunshine.

All over the dusty industrial waste of the dockyard , spacers and navvies stopped to gaze at the cloud of beauty as it swirled up and away to freedom.