One Man's Trash, Part 1b
In which we find out why Sir Warwick Harrow wanted to ship a herd of cattle to Beylix
Serenity landed in a pasture on Beylix, far from any town, far from the public docks, and (most importantly) far from any customs inspectors. The contact was waiting for them. Mal had spoken to the woman on the cortex, and his gut instinct told him there would be no trouble, but his last meeting with buyers of Sir Warwick Harrow's cattle had ended with Shepherd Book receiving a near-fatal gunshot, and he was taking no chances. Mal lowered the outer ramp, but only opened the personnel hatch, not the bay door, until he had assessed the situation. With Zoe and Jayne watching his back, he walked out to meet the contact.
She was tall and thin, towering over Mal and even Jayne with a statuesque presence. With her deeply dark skin and regal features, she looked like a queen, and it was saying something that next to her, even Zoe looked a little dowdy.
She stood alone in the meadow, and although she had come in a vehicle, she had left it standing outside the gate of the pasture, parked on a dirt track that led between the rows of fencing to the far horizon. Although Beylix had earned itself the moniker "Garbage Dump of the Kalidasa System," people tended to forget that most of the planet was rural. It was the very sparseness of the population that had led the local government into the business of receiving and storing other worlds' waste. No people to protest that they didn't want the dump in their backyard. So the parts of Beylix that weren't occupied by dumps, landfills, recycling plants, salvage yards and storage facilities for hazardous waste were occupied by open rangeland and farms, as far as the eye could see. Ironically, towns sprang up around the dumps, because that's where the jobs were.
The woman stood alone, a sign of trust. She also did not appear to be armed. She did have back-up, but they had remained in the vehicle. She spread her arms in welcome as she greeted them in her rich voice. "Welcome to Beylix, Captain Reynolds. I am Juju Kamara."
Mal stepped forward, hands relaxed but not straying far from his sides. Wouldn't do to let down his guard just yet. Her back-up people could have long-range weapons. Yet her next words surprised him.
"I am most grateful for your delivery, Captain. Long have I awaited the arrival of these cattle. Sir Warwick bred them specially for me, but he was unable to ship them until he happily thought of contracting your services. May I view the animals?"
Mal led the way, and Juju Kamara strode up the ramp like the Queen of Sheba entering the court of Solomon. She nodded with approval at the giant septic vac and the other accommodations installed for the cattle, who were placidly chewing their cud. Mal and Jayne had done a thorough shoveling and cleaning shortly before landing, and the cargo bay looked and smelled remarkably good, considering how long the cattle had been confined aboard Serenity.
"The cattle have arrived in remarkably good health," Juju pronounced after assessing the animals with a practiced eye.
Mal accepted the praise with good grace. He was wondering what basis she had for her pronouncement when she said, "Beylix is a difficult world for cattle. You might imagine it ideal, with all this range land, no?"
Mal agreed that the land looked suitable.
"Most breeds of cattle, however, do not thrive on Beylix. The local government has blamed imported bovine diseases, so there are many, many restrictions on imported cattle. They are quarantined for weeks, and even if a herd arrives healthy, by the time they are released from quarantine, they are sickly or dead."
"That sounds like a remarkable unhealthy quarantine," Mal commented.
"It is so," she agreed. "Sir Warwick has bred these animals to my specifications. He is a talented cattle breeder, even though for him it is a hobby that he engages in for his own amusement."
Mal tried to put himself in the mindset of a person who bred cattle as an amusing hobby, and failed.
"You have asked yourselves, I am sure, why Sir Warwick has sent me a herd, instead of calves or embryos?" she asked regally, including Jayne in her question.
It had never occurred to Jayne to wonder, and he looked it, but Mal replied, "Yes indeed, ma'am, I've been puzzling that over ever since we got the job."
"Sir Warwick has challenged and hardened these animals. Not only have they been bred to be hardy to the Beylix environment, but they have already faced and survived most bovine diseases in the known 'Verse. This is a most remarkable herd."
"Why didn't Sir Warwick ship you no bull, then?" Mal asked.
"The bull," Juju replied with a smile, "already resides here."
. . .
Juju Kamara's back-up people turned out to be her teenaged son and daughter. She called them over to Serenity to help herd the cattle out of the ship and into the far pasture so they would be at a safe distance when the ship took off.
"You know cattle, Captain," she stated, as Mal led a heifer down the ramp to the meadow. It wasn't a question.
"I grew up on a ranch," he replied. "Having the cattle aboard these past few weeks has let me re-live some fine memories."
She gave a knowing smile. "On which world did you grow up, Captain?"
"Shadow," he replied with a far-away look.
She nodded, but made no immediate comment. Eventually she said, "I am from Bandiagara." Mal knew very little about Bandiagara, a Rim world that was remote enough and insignificant enough that even most other Rim-worlders didn't pay it much notice. He remembered that, briefly, during the war, Bandiagara had attracted some attention as a source of certain rare minerals useful in manufacturing some kind of war materiel, he couldn't quite remember what. The war had ended, word had spread that the mineral resources weren't so significant after all, and the remote world had faded out of the news to obscurity once more. "I came to Beylix to marry my husband. I should like for you to meet him, and my family. Will you, and your crew, join us for the midday meal on Friday, immediately after noon prayers?"
"It would be our pleasure, ma'am, thank you kindly," Mal answered, knowing that he could not neglect any opportunity of forwarding a business contact. This cattle job had gotten them to Beylix, but they had yet to find another job to take them away from Beylix.
"Eat and sleep, eat and sleep. Little souls, big world," River said, as she calmly led a cow down the ramp. "They were waiting to be cows, inside. Now they see the sky and they remember what they are."
"A sage observation, poetically stated," Juju Kamara remarked, agreeing with the sentiment. "It makes perfect sense. Cattle need to see the open sky and feel the ground beneath them." She watched as River communed with the animal in the pasture. "Did she grow up on a ranch as well, Captain?"
"No," he replied. "She's my pilot."
"Hiya! Git!" Jayne exclaimed, swatting at the hindquarters of a steer.
"Jayne grew up on an industrial world, ma'am," Mal said by way of excuse, as Juju Kamara narrowed her eyes in disapproval of Jayne's antics. "He's a city boy don't know much about cattle."
"When we gonna dump all that 牛屎 niú shǐ, Mal?" Jayne asked loudly as he passed by, unheeding of the presence of their customer. "Reckon Beylix's as good a place as any to dump 屎 shǐ, don'tcha think? Hiya!"
Jayne trundled off after the animal, oblivious to the matching glares of his Captain and Juju Kamara. Juju turned to the Captain. "Surely you're not thinking of—"
"Not at all, ma'am," Mal hastened to cut off that line of conjecture.
"Beylix authorities are very particular about dumping," Juju reminded him, unnecessarily as it happened. Mal had looked into the matter ahead of time. "Even organics. You would need to file for a permit with the Organic Materials Composting Bureau. You could deal privately with an enriched soil manufacturer, but the market is not good at the moment; they won't even pay you for the material."
"Coals to Newcastle. I'd have to pay by the ton to offload it here on Beylix," Mal returned. "No point in that. Besides, good, well-digested manure like that would be as welcome as good news on some of the newly terraformed worlds, where the soil's poor. Reckon I'll keep it right where it is 'til I land on some world as could use the fertilizer."
. . .
With the cattle delivered, it was time to face the music. Mal didn't have long to wait before Kaylee buttonholed him with her parts list. "Cap'n, we need some parts. We burnt out the Codippily relay and completely fried the Feynman mechanism when we went to hard burn escaping from the Reavers. The extra juice in the system also strained the fusion injectors and the override controller got…well, over-rid."
Mal had brushed up on Serenity's mechanical parts considerably since the incident of the blown compression coil catalyzer that had nearly cost them all their lives, and he hated to have to ask for anything in "Captain Dummy" talk anymore. But Kaylee had just rattled off a string of parts and problems long enough that the only thing he got out of it was the bit about the override controller. So he shot her his most expressive Captain Dummy look and asked, "Meaning?"
"Meaning we can't do another hard burn until the parts are replaced."
Mal nodded. Not optional repairs. Hard burn had saved their 屁股 pìgu before and would do it again, but only if it weren't broke. "Gonna cost us some coin to replace those parts," he said warningly.
Kaylee knew it. He wasn't gonna like her list. "Cap'n, we also gotta replace the bridge console."
A red flush stole up Mal's neck and cheeks, though he tried to make a joke of it. "Yeah, 'cause we never know when some 疯子的 傻瓜 fēngzide shǎguā captain gonna smash up the co-pilot console and then we'll be left with nothin'."
"Weren't your fault, Cap'n—"
"What?" he lashed out. "You sayin' I didn't smash it up? 'Course it's my fault."
Kaylee bit her lip. Hurt her to see the Captain beatin' himself up over something he couldn't do nothin' about. It weren't his fault those awful people come and blow up his world, same time as they were blowin' up his people at Serenity Valley. Weren't his fault he had nightmares and flashbacks. She held back the tears forming in her eyes. "Cap'n?" she said timidly.
"There's more, isn't there?" Mal spoke gently, now. "What else, Kaylee?"
"That atmo feed's been under strain, Cap'n. Was straining even before we went to 泥球 Ní Qiú, then it got a right workout with all them passengers aboard, and now filtering out the hay dust has done a number on it."
"Can you fix it up? Make it last a little longer?" Mal asked, knowing already that Kaylee wouldn't have brought it up if she could fix it with parts they had on hand.
"Cap'n, that's one thing we don't want breakin' down in deep space. It don't run, we run out of oxygen."
"Can't have that happenin'," Mal said with a shudder. "Right, you go to the salvage yards, see what you can find. We don't got the money for nothin' new, but if you spot the parts, try to bargain them down in price. There's salvage yards a-plenty on Beylix, oughtta be able to find what we need."
Kaylee was almost afraid to add more to the list, but it was necessary. "One more thing, Cap'n."
"What is it, 妹妹 mèi mei?" he asked mildly, masking his inward despair at the mounting price tag.
"We still only got two navsats. We never got a replacement for the third unit. An' one of those navsats you picked up on 尘球 Chén Qiú is a little wonky."
Mal groaned inwardly. Even at salvage prices, the parts list was gonna run him into the red.
. . .
.
.
.
glossary
牛屎 niú shǐ [cow shit]
屎 shǐ [shit]
屁股 pìgu [asses]
疯子的 傻瓜 fēngzide shǎguā [crazy idiot]
泥球 Ní Qiú [name of a world]
妹妹 mèi mei [little sister]
尘球 Chén Qiú [name of a world]
A/N: So, where would you go to pick up a replacement Codippily relay and a set of fusion injectors? Leave a comment or a review!