Ends with a Horse, Part 5a
Mal waves the buyer and Simon does surgery
Dealings on Core planets always made Mal uneasy. Gave him a sense of being trapped, like a rat in a maze. The urban setting, the tall buildings and narrow streets like a corral—fence you in so you can't hardly see the sky. The streets all crawling with Feds of one sort or another. The sensors and cameras he knew were trained on him from the moment he hit dirt. When he was ashore in the Core, his Ident Card sat like an armed grenade in his pocket, ready to explode in his face if anybody stopped him for any reason and ran it through a scanner. Defeated Browncoat, internment camp inmate, Shadow native, bound by law on numerous occasions. It was nothin' short of a miracle that he'd never been convicted of anything. Any one of those things would be reason enough for the Feds to harass him, and a few—an outstanding warrant, for instance, or word getting out about his role in the Miranda broadwave—would get his 屁股 pìgu hauled off to jail. All those things might easily be discovered should the Law stop him, demand identification, and run his Ident Card through a scanner.
That's why it was so tempting to use his fake Ident Card while in the Core. But that wasn't possible this time. The legitimate cargo he carried, the shiny legal contract with "Malcolm Reynolds" writ on it in bold letters, required that he do business on Bernadette under his own real name.
The cargo was perfectly legal, but nonetheless Mal had an uneasy feeling about it. That fine and upstanding company Holden Brothers had hired him to carry a perfectly legal load of Beaumonde manufactured goods, with papers on it and tariffs pre-paid. He also carried Ip's science experiments and some custom-made lab equipment to be delivered to Harcliffe University, both completely legal and above-board. Perhaps there really was nothing to worry about. Of course, there also were some bags of illegally exported timonium crystals from Bandiagara that he had yet to fence, and likewise there was the illegal corporate spying part of the Holden Brothers deal, but Buck Holden had purposely kept Mal in the dark about that. He didn't know what the secret was, where it was hidden, or even what to look for—all he knew was that this time, the buyer of the legal cargo was also Buck Holden's contact about the surreptitious part, and would presumably know what to do about the whole gorram cloak-and-dagger business.
Rambod al-Siddiq didn't look like the cloak-and-dagger type. Well-to-do businessman, enterprising individual, the kind who was active in the local Chamber of Commerce. Not a Fed himself, if Mal was any judge, but the kind who cultivated a good relationship with the Feds, and used it to his advantage. Not the type to have much sympathy for an Independent like him, and most definitely not the type to have any truck with a smuggler and thief. Accordingly, Mal was dressed, not in his customary brown uniform trousers, earth-tone shirt, and suspenders, but in what he thought of as his "Core-going" clothes: blue button-down shirt and charcoal grey trousers with a belt. He needed to make the right impression—that is to say, a completely misleading one.
"We're about nine days out," Mal informed him. "Should break atmo next Thursday. What coordinates would you like us to deliver to?"
"Shinjuku Spaceport, of course," Mr al-Siddiq replied. "Once you've settled up with Port Authority, contact my office, and my representative will supervise the unloading onto local transport."
"Oh, right, understood," Mal acknowledged, trying to hide his surprise. He'd thought that with corporate secrets hidden somewhere within the cargo, al-Siddiq would have come to the spaceport himself, to oversee the transaction personally. "So I won't be meeting with you, then?"
"I'll contact you myself," al-Siddiq responded, "once you're on the ground. Mr Holden gave you the highest recommendation, and I'm interested in engaging your services on behalf of Siddiq Enterprises, if you're not otherwise contracted."
"We might come to an agreement." Mal raised his eyebrows—there were circles within circles, apparently, with all of Holden's cloak-and-dagger nonsense. Still—the spying part aside—the cargo was perfectly legal, and the pay was good. Buck was seeing to it that he got his way paid both to and from the spying drop points, and if he was going to play courier in this corporate spy game, had to say he preferred a cover story where he was a well-paid successful freighter captain, rather than a scruffy, down-at-the-heel cargo-hauler who could barely make ends meet.
"Good. I'll arrange to have an invitation sent to you."
An invitation? To what? Some kind of shindig? Apparently the Bernadettiens had a different way of doing business than folk on Rim worlds like Whitefall. All of Patience's business "invitations" had come along with bullets, at no extra charge.
"Sounds straightforward enough," he said, reaching to hook his thumbs under his non-existent suspenders.
"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
"No reason I can think of," Mal replied, trying to sound easy and genuine. "See you in the world." He cut the connection and fell into a muse.
. . .
"You're nearly as bad as the Captain, you know," Simon remarked, as he prepped her knee for surgery. Zoe was lying on the infirmary table, fully conscious, while Simon administered a spinal block and began the surgical repair. "The swelling is down a bit, good enough for surgery, but not as much as I'd have expected, given that the injury occurred a week ago. But you really haven't been resting."
Zoe's only reply was a lifted eyebrow, but it was enough for Simon. "I was hoping you would actually keep off the leg entirely for two or three days, and spend more time resting it in an elevated position. You've been rather active, shall we say, since the injury occurred."
Zoe gave a tiny smile. "Well, Doc, there was the matter of a certain 贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù needed keeping in line."
"You're in no condition for physical confrontation, and you know it," Simon retorted with physicianly authority. He relented somewhat. "Still, if it were the Captain in your position, I suppose I would have had to sedate him or put him in restraints to get him to keep off his leg at all. Perhaps I should be grateful for your powers of self-control."
"Only thing that kept me from murdering the 他妈的 不要脸 说谎者 tāmādē bùyàoliǎn shuōhuǎngzhě and spacing the body." Zoe kept her eyes on Simon, who for his part, kept his focus on the surgical procedure underway out of Zoe's view, beyond the drape.
"While that would have been a satisfying short-term solution, I have to agree with the Captain that it doesn't solve the problem in the long-term." Simon paused. He lapsed into silence for a time, and focused his attention on the procedure he was performing. Some time later, he added, "The Blue Hands are relentless in their pursuit."
He wondered, sometimes, if Zoe blamed him and River for Wash's death. Had he and his sister not taken refuge on Serenity, doubtless Mal would have continued with his obscure life of smuggling, low-key theft, and petty crime, for the most part avoiding the notice of the authorities. His and River's fugitive status had brought unwanted attention to the ship, and made it much more difficult for Captain Reynolds to fly under the radar where he liked to be. Simon didn't have a personal basis for comparison, obviously, not having been there before he came aboard, but he had gathered as much from little comments made by the others. Jayne's evident glee at the more frequent dust-ups. Inara's complaints, mostly directed at the Captain, that they no longer stopped at civilized planets where she could conduct her business. Even Wash himself, with his delight at having his flying skills more frequently challenged. Until the final test, the crash-landing that Wash handled so skillfully, a successful outcome with no loss of life—until the Reaver harpoon pierced his chest and severed his aorta, and not even timely and expert surgical skills could have saved him. They never would have been in such a position—chased by a fleet of Reavers, in possession of the Alliance's dirty secret, anywhere near Miranda—had he and River not come aboard. Wash would still be alive, and looking forward to fatherhood. Zoe would be happy and—
"I'm so sorry, Zoe."
"What? Somethin' wrong with the knee?"
"What? Oh, no. The knee's fine," Simon blathered, before regaining his surgeon's cool. What was this? Wool-gathering while performing surgery. He ought not to not let his mind wander, but the procedure was so straightforward he had allowed himself to do so. "Actually, the procedure's going very well. The damage to the anterior cruciate ligament is less severe than I was anticipating." He resumed placing interwoven microsutures in the ligament, and the confident surgeon was back in charge.
. . .
"S.O.B?" Zoe inquired incredulously. "Who's an S.O.B? And—I really can't believe you wrote that in your medical records, Simon."
Simon glanced down at the screen, puzzled. He had inadvertently opened Jayne's medical record, instead of Zoe's. Zoe really shouldn't be reading over his shoulder, but she couldn't exactly move away, since both her legs were still immobilized by anesthesia. He hadn't taken the precaution to block her line of sight to his screen, seeing as he had merely to notate in her chart the successful outcome of her knee surgery, of which fact he had already informed her. "Oh, sorry, Zoe, that's Jayne's medical record."
"Doc, I know you two don't always see eye to eye, but ain't that a bit…well, vicious?"
"Vicious?" Simon was confused. He looked at the record. Under the heading "Jayne Cobb," subheading for the detonator accident leading to cardiac arrest, he'd written the standard abbreviation for "shortness of breath," and then a straightforward note to follow up on Jayne's levels of creatine kinase, muscular form. What was—? Oh. That. He chuckled as he re-read the abbreviations. "S.O.B. F/U CK-M." It indeed looked like he was out to get Jayne.
"Oh, 胡扯 húchě!" Zoe laughed, when Simon explained the medical shorthand. "So who said the medical profession don't have a sense of humor? You really weren't kidding when you said you had funny stories about bein' a doctor."
Simon smiled, and filled in Zoe's chart. "Arthroscopic repair, type 3a tear of the right medial collateral ligament with Grossman interwoven suture technique. 105 semi-absorbable MediRex sutures. Minimal blood loss. Adequate hemostasis. Open time 17 min. Spinal block placed via L2-L3, 10,000u buffered habbicaine over 21 min.," he wrote, by way of a surgical note. More verbose than his usual, prompted by Zoe's admonishment, but definitely briefer than he might have written back on Osiris, with coding specialists and potential auditors looking over his shoulder.
"You'll need to use the crutches again for a short time, Zoe. I'm afraid you'll have to stay in the passenger dorm again until it's safe to go up and down ladders."
Zoe nodded. She wasn't looking forward to sleeping away from her own bed, but Simon was right. She couldn't manage the ladder in her bunk, six months pregnant and with a knee that didn't work.
"You've got to keep the weight off it for about a day. Then I'll fit you with a brace again, and we can begin mobility therapy. We'll ask Inara about using her bathtub, to do non-weight-bearing exercises to increase range of motion and strengthen the muscles.
Zoe acknowledged, then pursued their earlier line of discussion. "So you agree with the Captain that Saffron's got partners elsewhere as would come lookin' for her if she went missing."
"How else would she have acquired all those electronic devices?" he responded, as he checked over the record of her vital signs and transferred it into her chart. "Kaylee told me that the kind of gear she had is not to be found in your standard Border world electronics shop."
Zoe shrugged. "Could be workin' for the Feds."
"Could be," he agreed. "But if she were, why wouldn't the Alliance simply board and arrest us all? What's the point of harassing us and sneaking around like that? I mean, as you point out, you wanted to kill her. Why put herself at risk like that?"
"Captain's right that she was up to something."
"The question is what, isn't it?" He closed Zoe's case file, and turned back to the first mate as an insight struck him. "River had an idea that she was installing some kind of Trojan horse software."
"She did? Why didn't she say so?"
"She tried. River's been…well, you've seen it. Her brain's so scrambled after the Blue Hands used the safeword—"
"They did?"
"Yes. One of them said part of the phrase, before Ip distracted the guy he recognized, and River seized the opportunity to break his neck. He never finished speaking the phrase, but it seems that hearing even part of it has an affect on River. Anyway, she tried to tell me that she suspected Saffron was installing malware, specifically a Trojan horse virus."
"Why didn't you tell the Captain? Or me?"
"Because I really didn't understand what she was saying. I've only just now figured it out."
Zoe was silent, thinking.
"You and the Captain and River were on the bridge looking for malware. Did you find anything?"
"No. But it seems to me we'd stand a better chance, knowin' what we're lookin' for." Zoe tried to sit up, before she remembered that she couldn't go anywhere in her current condition. "Doc, will you call the Captain, and tell him what you just told me?"
. . .
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glossary
屁股 pìgu [ass]
贱货泼妇 jiàn huò pōfù [cheap floozy]
他妈的 不要脸 说谎者 tāmādē bùyàoliǎn shuōhuǎngzhě [gorram shameless liar]
胡扯 húchě [shut up, get out]
Thanks to all who reviewed and speculated last chapter. I welcome your feedback.