One Man's Trash, part 5b
Springing into action
When the crew returned to Serenity, Mal sprang into action.
"Dr Ip, if you'll kindly wave your professor and solidify the contract for the next phase of the grav experiment, I'd appreciate it. Have her transfer payment into your account, then withdraw the cash, like last time. Soon as there's ready money in hand, River, you see to the needs of the ship. Basic foodstuffs, water, and as much fuel as we can afford. Inara, if you're willing to lend River a hand, I'd sure appreciate it. Zoe, Simon, you come along with me and Kaylee. We're going to scour the dump for useful parts, for Serenity and for cargo. Jayne, you come along with us, we'll drop you off at Ray's Hauling to check in with your friend, see what Ray's can offer Serenity." He tossed comm units to the various parties.
The largest group, the dump scourers and Jayne, took Shuttle Two and the mule. Mal flew Kaylee and Simon directly to the dump, while Zoe took a turn through the edge of town and dropped Jayne at Ray's Hauling before circling back to join the others at the dump.
As soon as they landed, Mal divided them into pairs and assigned sectors of the dump to comb through. Although at first appearance the dump was nothing but a vast mountain of random garbage, they soon learned to distinguish the more industrial garbage from the domestic, and focused on the locations where they were more likely to find machine parts. The smell was bad, but within fifteen minutes, everyone but Simon had learned to disregard it, and simply worked with dogged determination. Within an hour, Kaylee had located a discarded ship's console. It wasn't from a Firefly, but it had most of the necessary navigational gauges and an intact display screen. Of course there was no way to see if it really worked, but Kaylee inspected the wiring and decided she could make it work, or at least cannibalize it for parts.
Simon and Zoe kept a lookout for household items—sewing machines, as Juju had mentioned, pumps, electric generators, solar panels, refrigeration units, bicycles, tractors, mules and other vehicles, agricultural equipment, air compressors.
Mal kept his eyes open for a nav sat, but didn't locate one—not even a badly damaged one. He did find some synchronizers, an undamaged set of fusion injectors, and a catalyzer for a compression coil, which he recognized perfectly well. Kaylee located a complete set of reverse couplers in the back of a burnt-out shuttlecraft, and hit paydirt when she located what appeared to be the discard bin from a spaceport machine shop.
"Oooh, look at the pretties!" she exclaimed in a voice that echoed around the bin she'd climbed into. "Now will you look at that! Perfectly good mag spider, it's just a discontinued model. And retro stabilizers—reckon they didn't need those for the hotrod space yachts they were servicing. An' a holographic display panel—prolly nothin' wrong with it but the color didn't suit the customer."
In the end, Mal determined to load almost the entire contents of that bin into the shuttle. Zoe flew the first shuttle load back to Serenity, with Simon along to help her unload, while Mal and Kaylee continued picking through the trash.
. . .
"Hey, Janice." Jayne spoke quietly. He didn't know how many other workers there were at Ray's, and didn't know whether disturbing Janice at her place of work was allowed or not.
"Jayne!" she hollered, and threw herself on him, hugging and kissing with robust enthusiasm.
So much for bein' all discreet and quiet-like. "Listen," Jayne gasped between kisses. "Janice." This was why he didn't—"We need ta"—like to kiss 'em—"talk"—on the mouth. Aw, hell, Jayne thought, as Janice's hands worked their way under his belt. Time enough for talkin' later.
. . .
She kept her eyes open, and while her hands retrieved coils of wire, circuit boards, pump handles and condensers, part of her mind kept up a constant search pattern for the telltale drape. She'd been there for two hours, and had flown three shuttle runs, before she spotted what she was looking for.
It was filthy. It looked like something musta been living in it, then thrown up on it and died in it, but Zoe looked at it with the delight of a new mother. It clearly had belonged to a giant, someone bigger than Monty. A warrior of yesteryear. Like Beowulf. Or Grendel. Maybe Grendel's mother. Zoe picked it up, held it in front of her appraisingly, and smiled broadly. Genuine para-aramid synthetic fiber and carbon fiber composite interweave, the latest in bulletproof technology. And it was big enough for her to wear twelve months pregnant with a hippopotamus.
. . .
Simon felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle up, and he straightened to find himself squaring off with a fierce, growling junkyard dog.
"Nice poochie, nice…" he said nervously, trying for a soothing voice. You weren't supposed to show fear: they could smell it. His father had never allowed them to have a dog when they were growing up, and he didn't know quite what to do. "Nice puppy, good doggie…" He took a step. The dog growled louder and snapped. This must be one of those breeds that was bred to be fierce, to guard, trained to take a bite out of strangers' legs.
"Doc, you found any—" Mal stopped short, seeing the stand-off between the Doc and the mutt. It was clear the Doc had no idea how to deal with a dog. Probably never had a puppy growin' up, poor sumbitch. Those rich Core folks had strange notions of how to raise children. Woulda been funny, any other time—but they didn't have time to waste, and it wouldn't do to have the Doc pinned down by the pup, paralyzed and unable to work.
Simon watched in amazement as Mal made friends with the fierce guard dog. How did he do that? Now the fearsome beast was licking his hand, wagging its tail. Mal gave the dog a pat on the neck and it trotted off round a mountain of trash, baring its teeth one last time for a token growl as it passed Simon.
. . .
Sometime later, when Simon had long dismissed the dog from his mind, he heard it again. It was growling at him, and this time, it had brought company. A man. An armed man. Simon resisted the urge to pat himself down for the small pocket pistol Mal had insisted he carry on the job. He couldn't have found it in time, even if he remembered which pocket he'd put it in.
"Who are you, and what are you doing?" the man demanded.
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