One Man's Trash, part 4b
Everybody wants to talk to the Captain.
As Mal expected, nearly every crew member came up and buttonholed him in the interval between the conference and Friday Dinner. Kaylee reported that most of the needed parts were available at the salvage yards.
"And how much this gonna cost, 妹妹 mèimei?" Mal asked, hating that he had to ask the question, and knowing that he wasn't gonna like the answer.
"Cap'n, I tried," Kaylee began, and Mal already felt bad for her. "I tried hard as I could to work the prices down." She told him an answer that was well beyond the amount of cash available.
"How much if we leave the nav sat out of the picture?" he asked. The answer was still too high. He kept asking, winnowing down the list until they were left with the bare minimum necessary to restore the engine to a condition suitable for another hard burn. And that was letting the atmo feed slide, which was a risky state of affairs. It still cost more than the cash he had on hand.
"I'm sorry, Kaylee," he said, pulling her in for a hug. "You did your best. We can't afford it unless some miracle drops money into our laps."
"Turn trash into treasure," River said, floating into the dining room to grab a protein bar for breakfast. She had been at work nearly round the clock, and hadn't joined the rest for the meal or the conference.
"How's that research comin', Albatross? Any notion who's blocked my account?"
"No news is—"
"Good news?" Kaylee finished eagerly.
"Bad news," Mal inserted, reading River's expression. "I can tell."
"I know who it's not, not who it is," River answered, and headed back to the bridge before anyone could speak again.
"Kaylee, I think we're just gonna hafta look a little lower for our engine parts."
"Cap'n, I already done checked every salvage yard within—"
"Ain't talkin' salvage yards no more. After dinner, we'll go look at the dump. Trash picking."
. . .
"Cap, Janice works at Ray's Hauling," Jayne said.
Mal was not interested. "Woman can work wherever she gorram pleases, Jayne. Ain't no concern a' mine."
"Hell, Mal, you got yourself in a bad mood, you can go—"
"Go what?" Mal took a step toward Jayne.
"Fine, Mal. Mebbe it don't matter ta you, lookin' a gift horse in the—" wherever it was a gift horse got looked at. Letting the details slide, Jayne pressed on. "Just sayin', I could ask her ta put in a good word at Ray's, mebbe there's a haulin' job for Serenity."
Mal did not relish the idea of turning Serenity into a garbage scow, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Maybe he couldn't afford to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Alright, Jayne. You look into it. Check in with Janice—after dinner," he added as Jayne made to exit immediately, with a lit up expression on his face.
. . .
Everybody seemed to want a private talk with the Captain, so Ip bided his time. He took the opportunity to visit River on the bridge, where she was still working the cortex screen, trying to crack the code on the flag on the Captain's account.
"Any progress?" he asked her.
"Negative," River answered.
"That's a disappointment," Ip said with a sigh. "I would have thought that some of that information he sent would have been useful—"
"It was," River said, peevishly. She had been up half the night working on this problem, and was very frustrated that the code had been impossible to crack.
"It was? But why did you just say—"
"Negative progress," River snapped, as if explaining to an idiot. "The code did not originate within the bank. It is not local law enforcement. It is not federal law enforcement. It did not originate from the Bureau of Taxation and Revenue. It is not military. It is not from the Bureau of Investigations, nor from the Covert Operations Agency—"
"You checked all of those?" Ip was astonished, knowing that to eliminate all of these agencies as the source of the blockage, she had to have hacked into all of their protected databases. How had she cracked the protections on the military and the Bureau of Investigations? And had she really hacked into the Covert Operations Agency?
"Your friend's information was very helpful," River stated simply. Her bad mood was beginning to ebb.
"Well, it seems to me you have made progress," Ip said, his cheerful nature finding the silver lining in the cloud. "You've eliminated a lot of possibilities, although I can't imagine why Covert Operations would be interested in the captain of an obscure transport vessel."
River knew why they'd been interested, and she was delighted to have independent confirmation of the effectiveness of the Operative's work in squelching the government's search for the wayward Tam siblings.
"So, you've eliminated all of those sources. What's left?"
"Parliamentary directive," River answered, "or a private entity."
. . .
At least Simon's cloud had a silver lining. "You're sayin' you bought up a whole case of this antibiotic?"
"Yes, Captain."
"A fire-sale, huh?"
"They practically gave it to me for free," Simon answered. Nearly, but not quite. "I spent every coin I had, but if no other job offers, there are any number of Rim worlds where we can sell that medicine and the people will thank us."
"I thought you said the stuff was expired."
"Well, yes, I—"
"I don't want to be causin' nobody harm sellin' medicine that's gone bad."
"Captain, the expiration date is a legislated number. Studies were done, and scientists testified before Parliamentary committees, but in the end, the expiration date is a compromise worked out by politicians representing different interests—pharmaceutical companies, health insurance providers, hospital administrators, physicians and patients' advocates. Simply put, the quality of the drug is not noticeably affected by the mere passing of the expiration date. Over time, of course, most drugs gradually lose efficacy, but this can be minimized by proper storage. Many of the drugs I use aboard Serenity are officially 'expired.' They're much cheaper." Simon paused to let that thought sink in. "The antibiotic will still be safe and effective for a while longer. It's simply illegal to sell it."
Mal let a smile crack his face as he turned to Simon. The boy had a decent criminal mind. "Well, I don't see as how that ever stopped us before. Good work, Doc."
. . .
"Sure, why not?" Mal answered sarcastically. "Last run of the experiment only resulted in us gettin' chased by a stealth ship and by Reavers, what could possibly go wrong with another run?" He gave Ip a stern look, and was rewarded by seeing the young scientist wilt before his eyes, his bubble completely burst. Mal savored the cruel joke for a moment, then relented. "Nah, of course, Ip. The machine can stay." His smile faded. "Tell your professor I'm very grateful for the income. Dear knows we are in desperate need of it." Ip had still not recovered from the Captain's cruel sense of humor, so Mal went on, seriously this time. "Ip, you saved our 屁股 pìgu on Persephone when we needed ready money to outfit the ship for the cattle transport. Now we can't access the money we rightfully earned for that job, and you're offering to save our 屁股 pìgu again. I'm right grateful. You're a good man."
Ip recovered his balance quickly. "Where are we headed next, Captain? Because I'd like to tell Professor Rao. She told me that the locations were not so important as the route, but still—"
"Destination not so important, eh?" Mal asked. "How you get there is the worthier part." It pleased him to be able to apply Shepherd Book's saying to the situation.
Ip smiled. "It seems to me she'd put up with almost any destination, as long as different systems are involved. Eventually she'll want the unit delivered to the university on Bernadette, but not until after we've flown it around the 'Verse for a while." The Captain still had not answered the question, so he asked again. "So where are we headed next?"
"Don't rightly know, yet," Mal answered, bleakly and truthfully. "Still gotta find us a job."
. . .
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glossary
妹妹 mèimei [little sister]
屁股 pìgu [asses]
So, if you were on the crew, what would you say to the Captain? Write me a review, and let me know!