Chapter Two

Mal sprinted the last ten yards, grabbed her by the belt and hauled with all his strength, pulling her off the railing, into his arms, and knocking them both flat. Kaylee struggled for a moment, then went limp, weeping as though her heart were broken.

"Simon!" Mal nearly screamed. "Down here, double time!"

He sat up, keeping Kaylee in his arms. There was no fight left in her. As he turned her towards him, he caught a strong whiff of alcohol.

"[Soak my bones in acid]," he swore. "You drunk, mei-mei?"

When he touched her face to turn it to his, his hand jerked back. Her skin was burning hot to the touch. Her cheeks were flushed underneath the tear tracks.

Simon arrived, running down the steps with a napkin still in his hands. He immediately kneeled beside them, placing his hands on Kaylee's face and throat.

"Tachycardic," he murmurred. "She's spiked a fever. Must be at least thirty-eight eight." He sniffed. "What's tha- she's been drinking?"

"You tell me, doc," Mal answered. "Never came across a bottle with contents that made me want to take a swan dive."

Simon stopped dead and looked at Mal. "She tried to kill herself?"

Mal nodded. Had he been an inch slower, had she taken off her belt earlier in the day, had any one of a hundred things been marginally different, she wouldn't be crying in his arms just now; she wouldn't have been breathing at all. He started trembling.

"Let's get her to the infirmary," Simon instructed.

They'd had to restrain her, for once laid on the gurney, Kaylee had reached for one of Simon's surgical knives. Mal had caught her hand and forced her to give it up, leaving bruises on her wrist. Simon gave her a sedative, a febrifuge, and a pain killer. Slowly, the knots between her brow relaxed, and her breathing slowed and deepened.

"Measles," River announced from a corner of the infirmary.

"How'd she get in here?" Mal looked up.

"She does that," Simon answered. "She likes Kaylee. So long as she doesn't get in the way, I'd rather she stayed."

"Measles," River insisted.

"It's not measles, River."

"What the hell did Kaylee get into?" Mal asked.

"I don't know," Simon replied, taking a tube of blood from the syringe in Kaylee's arm. "But I will find out."

"Any guesses?"

Simon placed the tube in a holder on the counter. "The suicidal ideation is a symptom along with the fever and flushing. Kaylee was fine this morning, and people just don't go from fine to 'I think I'll kill myself' in the course of a day. Not without some enormous trama."

"Right. So?"

"She might have ingested something toxic. I'd start looking for whatever it was she was drinking."

"I'll get busy on it."

As soon as Mal stepped outside of the infirmary, the rest of the crew gathered around him.

"What's wrong?"

"Will she be okay?"

"Want me to kill someone, boss?"

He sighed. Much as he loved his crew, there were times when things got a little complicated. "Anyone spend time with Kaylee planetside today?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"She went with Simon," Book supplied.

"Anyone got any idea where she might have a stash of something tasty to drink or maybe some sort of exotic food? You know she'd maim for strawberries."

"She holdin' out on us?" Jayne asked indignantly.

"What is it, Mal?" Inara asked, cutting through the other voices.

"Doc thinks maybe it was something she ate or drank. She's got the smell of someone's been hittin' a bottle pretty hard, too."

"Kaylee? Drinking?" Wash asked. "That doesn't sound like her."

"Okay, split up and start searching the ship. Inara, you take her quarters. I'll check the engine room. Look for anything that she might have gotten into today."

"Plague," offered River.

"No," Simon answered, not looking up from the test he was running. "She doesn't have any buboes."

River pulled her hair in frustration. "Fresh bread! Feathers!"

"What? River, what are you on about?" He asked, looking up. A tiny thought tickled the back of his head, and then evaporated when the timer dinged at him. The hemoscoptic unit spat out a printed report, which Simon looked at, puzzled.

"Hepaphaegic fever," she insisted.

"River, please! I'm trying to figure this out!"

She threw her hands in the air and flounced out of the infirmary, as Simon thumbed the intercom button.

"Captain?" Simon's voice came over loud and clear.

Mal looked up from sorting through the box of belongings Kaylee kept in the engine room. She was a tidy little mechanic, and nothing had offered the smallest clue.

"Yeah, doc."

"Kaylee didn't have anything to drink. Her blood alcohol content is point zero zero zero percent. I can't find any traces of a contaminant, either."

Mal sighed, running a hand down his face. "Where's that leave us?"

"I'll do a full blood screen and find out what I can. I'm a little worried, though. The febrifuge I gave her has had no effect on her fever."

"Everyone, call off your search," Mal's voice reached them over the intercom. "It's a dead end. Zoe, get the rest of the cargo stowed, and I'll update you as soon as I have news."

"Yes, sir," Zoe murmurred under her breath.

Book left to do the dishes, Jayne returned to his quarters, Wash climbed back up to the bridge, and Zoe looked over the boxes and crates left in a small pile to be stored behind the aft bulkhead. It wasn't much, but suddenly, her head ached with the thought of dragging each of those the ten yards over to the compartment. Long day, she thought, rubbing the space between her eyebrows, and it wouldn't do to bother Simon while he worked on Kaylee.

She grabbed the first carton by its handle and lifted it one handed. Well begun was half done, as her… her…what was the old lady's name? She must be tired if she couldn't remember what she called her mother's mother.

Jayne gave Mal a nod as he kicked in the door to his quarters and climbed down the ladder. Mal paused in front of Kaylee's. The door was still open, which meant that Inara was still inside. Had she not heard him over the intercom?

"'Nara?" he called. There was no answer.

He climbed down the ladder into Kaylee's quarters. Inara was there, standing just beside the built-in dresser, looking at something in her hand. It was a knife, one of Jayne's by the fearsome blade. The room looked tidier than usual. He knew Inara wouldn't purposefully rearrange the contents of Kaylee's room, but wherever she passed, order seemed to follow on the train of her gown. Sure enough, the little collection of trinkets Kaylee kept on her dresser had been arranged with an eye trained to composition. They looked like a miniature art exhibit.

"Jayne gave her a knife?" he asked. The smell of alcohol was stronger down here. Confounded, he looked around to see if a bottle had spilled or been broken.

"'Nara?" he asked again. "You find anything?"

The only warning he had was a soft growl, and then Inara leapt at him, knife in hand. He scrambled out of the way as fast as he could and heard his shirt tear against the point of the knife. She switched hands and stabbed at him, coming close to laying him open across his stomach.

"Jayne!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "JAYNE!"

Where in hell had she learned to knife fight like that? She handled that knife like she was born with it in her hand, and she switched grips from underhand to overhand with unconscious grace. He grabbed a pillow just in time to impale it on the knife and have it pulled out of his hands, shredded.

"'Nara!" he yelled at her, trying to make some connection.

Her eyes were glassy with fever, and her face was flushed a bright pink. It didn't slow her down at all, and he was trapped in an enclosed space with her, unwilling to fight back while she was more than happy to gut him.

"Jayne!" he yelled again.

"What?!" Jayne yelled back, dropping down into the small compartment.

Inara spun towards him, knife slashing downward.

"Whoa!"

Jayne ducked under her swing and pulled a brick-sized fist back to hit her.

"Don't hurt her!" Mal hollered at him.

Jayne managed to roll his eyes while simultaneously turning his punch into an open handed slap that knocked Inara to hands and knees. Mal grabbed the blanket off Kaylee's bed, threw it over Inara's head, and grabbed her around the waist, locking one of her arms against him.

"Get the knife!"

"Damn straight," Jayne agreed. "That's my favorite one!" He grabbed her wrist and squeezed one particular point with his thumb until her grip opened and the knife fell to the floor.

Inara jack-knifed up from the floor and head butted Mal hard enough to make him see stars. Jayne pulled the sheet off Kaylee's bed, grabbed Inara's ankles, and started swaddling her so tightly she could barely squirm. For a moment, Mal and Jayne looked at each other, breathing hard.

"What'n hell is goin' on?" Jayne asked.

"Let's find out," Mal replied. "Throw her over your shoulder, and let's get her to the infirmary.

There were two crates left, and neither of them should have been heavy, but Zoe found herself stopping every couple of feet to rest. Her head was pounding fit to split into two. She sat down on one of the crates when her feet proved a little too unsteady. She pressed her fingertips against her brow, but it wasn't a tension headache. She was having trouble getting her eyes to focus on the safety lights that lined the cargo bay. Why was it so cold? She looked over to the cargo bay environment readout, and to her surpise, couldn't make out what it said. That was, she saw the numbers, but they didn't register as anything more than a collection of straight and curved lines.

It occurred to her that she was sick. Very sick. Simon might have his hands full dealing with Kaylee, but she was going to need some attention. The intercom was across the bay. All she had to do was reach it, press the button, and call for her husband. He – whatever his name was – would drop his dinosaurs and teleport if he had to.

Carefully steadying herself, she stood. Forty feet. She could do it. On her third step, a spike of pain cut through her skull with such blinding speed, she had no time to cry out. Her head was tearing itself apart under its own power.

There was floor under her hands, against her cheek. She was breathing, almost sobbing as her skull began to crush itself in on her brain. She couldn't move. It was so cold, so cold her breath ought to be freezing.

"Get her restrained," Simon instructed, sliding the needle of his syringe into a tiny bottle and pulling in the dose he thought would break Inara's psychotic episode.

It took both Jayne and Mal to hold her down long enough to get the thick, tough belts around her wrists and ankles. Then Mal held her head to keep her from thrashing around. Her skin was so hot it burned against his. There was no recognition in her eyes.

"Only person I've ever seen like this was that Reaver man we pulled off that floating wreck," Jayne muttered.

"Inara's no Reaver," Mal snapped at him.

The injection started to work as soon as it hit her bloodstream. Her body began to relax, and Simon started applying medtech sensors for cardiac, pulmonary, and basal readings.

"Thirty nine point four," he read her temperature off the display in his hand. "And she was fine fifteen minutes ago."

"What the hell is this, Doc?" Mal demanded. "Two hours ago, we broke atmo, and everyone was finer'n frog hair. Now Kaylee's trying to do herself in, and Inara couldn't be happier stringing my guts up on the walls."

Simon smoothed the back of his hair down, trying to think. "Maybe some exposure planetside – something in the water or the air."

"Then why ain't me or Wash or Jayne down with this? We spent more time planetside than either of those two."

River padded down the steps to the cargo bay. Brothers were so frustrating. He had ears, but he didn't use them. She used words, but he couldn't hear them. On the floor below, Zoe had collapsed, her hands over her head, trying to protect it from what was causing the pain, but River knew that it was nothing hands could fend off. It was all on the inside.

She sat down by Zoe and brushed her hair back.

"You'll get tangles," she whispered. "And your brain doesn't have any pain receptors."

Under her hands, blood vessels were stretched against an increase in volume and pressure. Storms of electrical activity and synchronized synaptic firings caused tiny twitches and spasms. The tiny gland that controlled such things as body temperature spewed prostaglandins and other chemical messengers as the invader disrupted its inner workings.

"I know," River stroked Zoe's hair. "I know. Sometimes it sings."

Under her hand, Zoe's pain began to ebb.

"White blood cell counts are up," Simon said, reading the results from Kaylee's complete blood scan. Inara's would come up in another few minutes. "It's an infection of some sort."

Then Simon stopped, squeezed his eyes closed, and grimaced. "Of course. River was trying to tell me."

"Tell you what? She's startin' a club for raving psychotics, ladies welcome?" Mal asked.

"No. That smell we both noticed – like whisky or some other hard liquor. Some diseases have very particular odors to them. Someone with measles is supposed to smell like feathers. Or is it fresh bread?"

"Supposed to?"

"I've never encountered it. I only worked trauma on Osiris, not communicable diseases. Plague smells foul. Hepaphaegic fever smells metallic. There's something else that smells like mice."

Mal felt the end of his temper begin to fray. "Doc, that's wonderful an' all, you rememberin' such stuff. I imagine you'd win yourself a lifetime supply of hull wax on one of those Cortex programs. That doesn't change what we've got here. What I need from you is to find out exactly what this is an' how we deal with it."

"I don't know what disease it is," Simon responded. "If it's viral – and I think it may be –one of two things will happen."

"And those two things are?"

"We treat their symptoms best as we can. If it's not a new virus, there's a very good chance that there's a specific treatment for it recorded in the Medacad archives, which I might be able to access."

"If it is a new virus?"

Simon paused. "The last new virus to emerge showed up on Aster, the second moon of New Beaumont. That was seven months ago. It had a 94% mortality rate."

Mal was already holding on to the side of a set of shelves, and the only indication he gave of hearing the news was to tighten his hold until his knuckles stood out white against the rest of his hand.

"Hey, guys," announced Wash as he strode in, "there's some really weird comm traffic from Bugg-"

He stopped when he saw Inara lying on the second bunk, strapped down and unconscious. "I missed something, didn't I?"

"Yeah," Mal responded. "What's up?"

"I – uh, there's a whole lot of comm traffic coming out of Buggered past half hour or so. Sounds like half the population – the female half, that is – has gone stark raving bonkers. They're up to their eyeballs in murders, suicides, and people just plain dropping dead in the middle of the street. There's talk on the Alliance channel of an armed intervention."

Simon looked puzzled. "Only the women? There's no such thing as a gender specific virus."

"Virus?" Wash asked. He looked again at Kaylee and Inara, and then his eyes went to Mal.

"Where's Zoe?"

Jayne found her first, head cradled in River's lap, River humming some Faustian tune and combing Zoe's hair with her fingers. Zoe's eyes were open, but the only movement she made was to smile very slightly up at River.

"C'mere," Jayne grabbed River by an arm and hauled her away. "Ain't gonna be-"

River screeched in shock and anger, twisting against Jayne's hand.

"What are you doing?" Simon demanded, running down the stairs, Wash right behind him.

"Baby?" Wash called. He ran over to her, kneeled beside her, and held his hands above her, as though afraid to touch her and do harm.

"She was messin' with Zoe!" Jayne declared.

"Let her go." Simon kneeled beside Zoe and began to check vitals.

"She had her eyes open, now look," Jayne pointed.

Zoe was no longer conscious. Her body trembled and then jerked in a seizure.

"It sings," River explained, reaching for Zoe again. Jayne pulled her hand away.

Wash and Simon together lifted her together and carried her up to the infirmary.

Book, Jayne, River, and Wash waited in the common room. The majority of the lights were off, since it was now past midnight by Serenity's clock. Simon and Mal joined them.

"How bad is it?" Book asked gravely.

Simon looked over at Mal, who began.

"The Alliance has called a quarantine of Buggered. All ships that left in the past 48 hours are to return immediately."

The three men at the table exchanged glanced.

"I know it, so we're not going. Not puttin' Serenity anywhere near an Alliance cruiser when they're still looking for doc and his sis. There's a chance that things are so crazy planetside they'll lose track of us. There's also a chance they put high priority on chasing down any missin' ships in the hope that they'll keep this from spreading to another planet. So, we stay powered down in the hopes that we won't draw anyone's eyes. Anything gets picked up on the scope, we go to emergency power only.

"Doc," he handed it over to Simon.

Simon took a deep breath. "The virus has a very short incubation period. Anywhere from less than six hours up to twenty-four. It infects both men and women-"

"Hey, I ain't sick," Jayne argued.

"I was going to explain," Simon continued, "that men appear to be carriers while women develop full symptoms. That means we don't land anywhere until we know that we're no longer contagious. I'm pretty sure Kaylee picked it up from me. Inara could have picked it up from anyone, but most likely Mal, since he spoke with her directly after we reboarded Serenity."

"What about River?" Wash asked. She was currently lining up the condiments by date of invention or discovery. Salt went first, of course.

"Her white blood cell count is up, and she's running a fever. So she has been exposed, but other than that, she's exhibiting no symptoms."

"How'd we know if she was?" Jayne asked.

Both Mal and Simon ignored him.

"Someone stays with River 24-7," Mal instructed. "No telling if or when she might suddenly come up with symptoms."

"What about Zoe?" Wash asked. There hadn't been room to stand in the infirmary, and Simon had all but bodily removed him so he could treat her.

"Resting. Her fever's high, same as the others. Same report of severe headache, but she's not experiencing any of the erratic behavior Inara and Kaylee have."

"Beauregard's saying there's an eighty percent mortality rate," Book stated. He had been listening in to the comm traffic along with Wash.

"That's mostly the suicides an' a lot of the ones who go beatin' on anyone don't move fast enough," Mal answered. "People try an' stop 'em, and end up tryin' a little too hard. They've got most of the women under observation one way or another, and the death rate's dropped."

"It's too early to tell what the course of the illness will be," Simon added.