One Man's Trash, part 4a
All-crew conference
Working together, Zoe and Inara managed to get Mal down the ladder into his bunk in one piece, despite his protestations that he didn't need no help, delivered in a more pronounced Shadow accent than usual. He was snoring before Inara even left the room. Zoe headed off Dr Ip, who was prowling the halls of Serenity with a Where's-the-Captain? look.
It was a subdued group that sat down to a late dinner that night. Kaylee looked all done in, and was nodding into her plate. Girl had done a hard day's work, scouring every salvage yard within range for parts, yet unable to buy because the Captain's funds were still hung up. Simon was concerned for Kaylee and didn't have much to say otherwise, other than to report to Zoe that his quest for medicines to re-stock Serenity's infirmary was only partially successful, and again, that he was out of funds. Inara was thoughtful. Zoe herself was uncomfortable, the tight waistband of her pants digging into her abdomen, no matter how upright her posture. She would have unbuttoned them if she could. Jayne hadn't returned to the ship, and Ip would only say that he'd run into an old friend in town, and the two had headed off to have a drink together. River was muttering numbers and codes to herself, and headed back to the bridge immediately after finishing her meal. Ip alone was full of contained excitement, but he only wanted to speak of it to the Captain. Mal, of course, was sleeping it off.
. . .
Jayne rolled aboard Serenity well into the morning. "Her love for me now ain't hard to explain, the Hero of Canton, the man they call—me!" he sang lustily. Luckily for Jayne, the hangover meds Simon had slipped Mal at breakfast time had already kicked in, and Mal was feeling reasonably spry after his second cup of coffee. Simon and Kaylee relaxed, seeing as the Captain didn't look like his head was about to explode.
"Had a good night's sleep I take it?" the Captain commented wryly.
"Damn straight I did!" Jayne replied, his loud voice carrying right up to the cockpit.
Not just Mal, but Zoe and Simon cringed, while Kaylee said, "How about usin' an indoor voice, Jayne?"
"Who's the lucky one?" Mal was in the mood to tease Jayne.
"Janice. Remember Janice?" Jayne was remembering Janice in all carnal detail, her healthy, robust form, wrapped around—
"Can't say as I do, Jayne."
"From Higgins Moon. Her indentures was up, so she moved to Beylix. Works at Ray's Hauling. Step up from them mud pits."
"Smells better, I reckon."
"Oooh, yeah, smells much better—" Jayne began, with a leer.
"I do not need to hear this," Mal interjected, regretting that he'd started this hare. Mal really had only the vaguest recollection of the woman Jayne was talking about. Jayne had connected with a Mudder woman, thought he was a hero like all the other Mudders in Jaynestown—oh right, place was actually called Canton. If she still thought he was a hero, reckon Jayne'd had a good time reconnecting.
Jayne went and helped himself to a cup of coffee. Mal caught Zoe's eye, and began the proceedings. It was unusual to have a crew conference in the morning, especially when they were parked on a planet, but some things needed explaining.
"As you all know, we're short of funds. Last job paid us well, but the account's flagged and I can't get any coin." Dr Ip made as if to interrupt, but Mal held up his hand. "River's still workin' on finding out why the account's all locked up. Meanwhile, anybody has got any ready money they're willing to contribute to the ship, I'll keep an account of it and pay you back when the funds come available."
Kaylee leaned forward, ready to speak, but Mal wasn't finished. "We're goin' to dinner—the midday meal, her time-zone—at Juju Kamara's." Jayne opened his mouth, but Mal ignored him. "All of us. Clean and shaved and nicely dressed. Meal after Friday prayers is the equivalent of a formal Sunday dinner on her home world. We go and play nice. Generate good will and all that. Need a new job, and Ms Kamara may lead us to one. Anyone as can't generate good will—" he glared at Jayne "—will mind their manners and keep their mouths shut."
Now it was Simon who began to speak, but Mal still wasn't finished. "Monty's contact was no good. Zoe and me waited a couple hours at that bar, but he never showed. Wasn't quite a waste of time, though. We met up with three Purplebellies fought at Serenity Valley there."
Simon could no longer keep silent. "You got into a fight? Captain, that really isn't a—"
"Didn't get into no fight, Simon," Mal retorted. "Sat down with 'em and had a drink."
Simon was flabbergasted, but recovered quickly. "So now you're best of friends with the Alliance, sitting down to drinks with them?"
"I never had no quarrel with the soldiers themselves," Mal replied.
Simon couldn't believe his ears. "Right. You just shot at them."
To Simon's astonishment, Mal jumped up from his seat and gave him what Simon privately called Mal's "back down Jayne" look. Simon wasn't prepared to be on the receiving end of that look. "You don't want to go there, boy," Mal said in a cold voice.
"Don't talk on something you know nothing about," Zoe said icily, doubling Mal's menacing stare.
"Never stopped him before," Jayne quipped.
It broke the tension.
Mal took a deep breath, and resumed his seat. "Look, Doc, I asked you to listen 'cause I want you to apply that top three percent of yours to the situation at hand. We sat and had a drink and some talk. And mighty interesting talk it was." He briefly re-capped the conversation. "There's two things bother me in all this. Number one's Blue Sun. Everywhere you look, there's only one party comes out on top."
"The Alliance?" Way Jayne saw it, Alliance always come out on top.
"No, Jayne. I mean, Alliance beat the Independents down, took over our worlds. But who's getting the profit from it? Who supplies the Rim worlds? Who controls the shipping? Who rebuilds the worlds torn apart by the war? Who controls the new terraforming sites? Who has the jobs?"
"It's Blue Sun," Simon realized.
"Buck Holden said Blue Sun's everywhere, got a finger in every pie," Mal continued. "Trying to take over all the independent shipping on Beaumonde. He sounded an awful lot like your sister when he said it, Doc, even to using her very words. Said 'Blue Sun has all kinds roots and branches—they're everywhere, you can't even tell it's them. It's the little ones you don't see that have the teeth.' He even said, 'They come out of the black and bite you when you're least expecting it.'"
Simon was struck by the quote. "That is eerie."
"And they have. I don't know for sure why, but I reckon they're already after us. That stealth ship that tracked us through the Lion's Mouth. And quite possibly that sabotage job on our nav system when we were carrying Holden's inside info on Blue Sun. The stealth ship that went after us near Shadow coulda been Blue Sun, or mayhap some other 混蛋 húndàn was raping Shadow. All those times River was tuned in to the problem before we were. I figure she senses a connection we haven't made yet. I want you to try to find it."
"I'll look into it, Captain, first thing," Simon said, determined to pump Ip Neumann for information about his former employer, as well as to spend some time on the cortex looking up Blue Sun's connections to war reconstruction projects.
"What's number two?" Jayne asked into the silence.
"What?" Simon asked.
"What's the number two thing what's botherin' you, Mal?"
"Number two is Reavers," Mal replied.
Jayne shuddered. "That'd be my number one."
Mal began to expound. "On Miranda, we found out that the Alliance made the Reavers, with that Pax stuff they put in the atmospheric conditioners."
Ip Neumann sat bolt upright, all ears. He wasn't crew, and hadn't been invited to the crew conference, but he hadn't been asked to leave the room, either. The Captain had just voluntarily mentioned Miranda. And he said we found. Had they all been to Miranda?
"The Reavers probably been using that planet for a base ever since," Mal was saying, "first for food, then for fuel. Perfectly good planet with nobody to stop 'em. But that wasn't the first time they made Reavers."
"It wasn't?" Simon asked, astonished.
"Hell no, Doc. We had Reaver raids on Shadow when I was a boy, and that's long before Miranda was settled, and in a different sector altogether."
"And I thought you were just feeding Harken a pile of 狗屎 gǒu shǐ about Reavers," Jayne said. "You seemed to know all about them."
"The psychology and life-ways of Reavers…" Simon mused. Ip glanced over at him and opened his mouth, but no one was paying attention to him.
Kaylee looked at the Captain with a new realization. "You told Commander Harken that the boy from that derelict would turn Reaver—you knew."
Mal gave a slight shrug. "Well, I seen it before. And now, it seems, there were Reaver raids throughout the war, that both sides called atrocities—and blamed on the other side. I heard about some of 'em during the war—couldn't believe anyone was dumb enough to believe the Alliance done it. Boy was I naïve—just 'cause I knew a Reaver raid when I heard about it didn't mean no one else could recognize it. So, I'm wonderin', where all those Reavers come from? How many times has some 不道德 混蛋 bùdàodé húndàn given the go-ahead to poison the atmosphere with that 狗屎 gǒu shǐ? How many places have the Reavers been made?"
"My gods, the implications of allowing such immoral experimentation on human beings—not just once—repeatedly—" Simon remembered how sickening he'd found the situation on Miranda. And how, literally, River had been sickened by it. And now Mal had put it together—天啊 tiān ā, that man had some keen insights—
"You think on it, Doc," Mal said. "Do some research if you can. Because I got a feeling that Blue Sun and Reavers are connected—through your sister."
. . .
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glossary
混蛋 húndàn [bastard]
狗屎 gǒu shǐ [crap]
不道德 混蛋 bùdàodé húndàn [immoral bastard]
狗屎 gǒu shǐ [crap]
天啊 tiān ā [god]
Comments, anyone?