One Man's Trash, part 5a
The crew has dinner with Juju Kamara and Mal tells how he found Serenity.
Serenity set down on Juju Kamara's side of the world as Friday prayers were drawing to a close. Mal looked around at his crew with some pride as he prepared to lower the ramp. They cleaned up well. Zoe had amazed him by wearing an outfit he had never seen before—a soft brown tunic with a flowing edge, worn over soft, elegant stretch pants. It was practical, but more feminine than anything he'd seen Zoe wear in recent memory, excepting at Wash's funeral. River wore her usual long dress, with shoes, for a change, but what was striking was the care she had taken with her hair—she'd actually styled it, instead of letting it hang in random curtains. Kaylee was positively glowing, and it wasn't just that she'd changed out of her overalls and cleaned all the engine grease off her face. Inara, with her impeccable taste, had chosen a dress that was not too fancy for the occasion, but nonetheless made her look special. She stood out.
Serenity's men were looking fine, too. Simon had dug out some of those pretty fits he'd come aboard with, and put on one of his Core suits. Mal hadn't seen him wear something like that for—well, about a year, and that's when it struck him how much Simon had changed. He wasn't really a pretentious Core stiff anymore, and the suit no longer suited him, if you could say such a thing. Simon belonged to Serenity now. Jayne was wearing his shore leave clothes, and if you didn't know that those were the clothes he wore when he went whoring, you might have thought he looked almost—well, respectable. Dr Ip had pulled out some kind of Asian-style suit that Mal had never seen. It definitely had a Core look to it, but without the stiffness of Simon's formal clothing.
Mal was dressed in his best and only suit, and he had done whatever he could to make himself presentable. He offered Inara his arm, feeling that to have her by his side could only make him look better.
It did, and in ways of which he was completely unaware. Without conscious thought, he smiled more, and the smiles transformed his features. Worry lines faded. He positively shone with love and admiration, and looked years younger.
Juju Kamara was struck by the change in the Captain as she welcomed him and his crew. Mal made introductions for the members of the crew Juju had not previously met. "And this is Inara, my…" he hesitated.
"Your wife?" Juju asked, as she held out her hand to Inara, with a smile. It was clear the Captain was devoted to this woman.
"No, we're not married," the Captain said, the color rising in his cheeks, which made him, if possible, more 英俊 yīngjùn. "We're…courting."
"But you do intend to marry her?" Juju drilled the Captain.
"Nothing would please me better," Mal answered, startled into revealing his innermost wishes, then he blushed furiously. He could not look at Inara. What had gotten into him? Here he was, telling one and all that he wanted to marry Inara, when he had never discussed the subject with her! And just a couple of days ago, he'd announced to the entire crew that he wanted to have children with Inara—five children, no less—again, without discussing it with her, just blurting out his heart's wishes in front of everybody. He dropped his eyes to the ground, embarrassed with himself. He was such a fool. That is how he missed the look on Inara's face, a genuine and radiant smile that reached her eyes.
. . .
Although Juju's husband was from Beylix, dinner was in the Bandiagaran tradition. In the center of the room was a low table surmounted by an enormous platter heaped with steaming rice. Juju and her daughters and sons emerged from the kitchen carrying bowls of food, which were emptied onto the center of the mound of rice, and each guest was given a spoon. They all sat or knelt on the floor mats around the table, and at Juju's cue, everybody began to eat the rice and delicious sauces off the sector of the platter in front of them.
For a few minutes, there were few sounds beyond appreciative comments of "delicious", "美味 měiwèi" and "damn tasty"—the last hastily censored to improve its politeness.
"What is this dish called?" Inara inquired.
"Yassa poulet," Juju answered. They all spooned up more mouthfuls of the delicious chicken and onions and spicy sauce.
Jayne, having cleared his sector of the platter in record time, was encroaching on his neighbors'. He reached across Kaylee to grab a chicken leg. "You're only supposed to eat what's in front of you! Not what's in front of the next person!" Simon hissed.
Zoe sipped the frothy bittersweet tea, and looked around at the gathering, comfortable for the first time in many days. The soft stretch pants and tunic were from Inara, who had come to her that morning, diffidently offering the gift, unsure of the reception. Zoe had actually hugged her.
As the edge was taken off their hunger, the talk became livelier. They discussed local news on Beylix, Serenity's journey, how the herd was settling into their new home.
During a pause in the conversation, River declared, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."
"That is true," Juju agreed. "Captain, how is it your pilot is so wise, when she is yet so young?"
Jayne put in his two cents. "Girl's a…genius," he said, hastily gulping down the "ruttin'" that he'd automatically inserted into the phrase.
"She is at that," Mal agreed.
Juju's husband nodded. "Here on Beylix, the local government has made other worlds' trash the lifeblood of the community. Others want to get rid of it. They pay us to take it. And trash is the backbone of the economy."
Juju spoke up. "On my native world of Bandiagara, we have long had to make do with the cast-offs from other worlds. A sewing machine that is too old, a bicycle with a broken chain, a pump that won't draw, a mule with no seats, no dashboard, no ignition system—these are thrown away in the Core worlds. If they reach Bandiagara, they are treasures. The sewing machine allows the tailor to set up a business, and the tailor's whole family can make a living. The bicycle is fixed, and someone has transportation and is able take a good job farther from home. The pump is repaired, and draws water to irrigate the crops in the dry season, turning a subsistence farm into one with a surplus. Someone gets the mule to run, and is able to take their goods to market."
Juju's husband agreed. "There are many ways to turn trash into treasure."
"I have to agree," said Mal. "After all, I found Serenity in a junkyard."
The others were all eager for him to tell the story.
"It was after the War," Mal began. "Zoe and I had just been released—"
"From the prisoner-of-war camp?" Simon asked.
"Internment camp," Zoe corrected. "They didn't consider us prisoners-of-war."
"Rebels," Mal inserted. "Traitors."
"They tried the officers for treason," Zoe said.
"They tried you for treason?" Ip asked, round-eyed.
"No," Mal answered. "I wasn't commissioned. I was a non-com, a sergeant. They just held us a spell, then let us go."
Zoe knew how much was omitted in that simple statement. Conditions in the camps were bad. They didn't complain because the last few weeks in the Valley, they had nothing. No food left to speak of, no medicine, very little water. So at first, life in the camps was better—got fed regularly, one meal a day. The water was untainted. There were prison doctors, and even a prison hospital. But then the harassment started. Interrogations. No one had any military information worth knowing—Mal was one of the highest ranks, and all he knew was his last orders from high command to hold the Valley, delivered weeks before the surrender. When they couldn't get information, they got mad, and the beatings started. Mal had a smart mouth, and that marked him for special attention. Six months in that internment camp. Zoe shuddered to herself, and shut the door on the dark memories.
"So then you were free to go home," Juju's husband spoke into the silence. Juju shot him a quelling look.
"Didn't have no home to go to," Mal said simply. "Shadow was destroyed. Zoe didn't have no home neither."
"Born and raised on a spaceship," Zoe said. "Casualty of war." There was more silence. While Serenity's crew all knew that the Captain's world was destroyed in the war, not all of them realized that Zoe had also lost her home.
"I was one of the lucky ones," Mal said, surprising everyone. He flicked a glance at Zoe, and she continued the story.
"We spent a few weeks wandering the slums of Hera, with nothin' but the clothes on our backs," Zoe supplied.
"Sleeping outdoors with nothin' but the stars for a blanket," Mal continued.
"Scrounging for scraps to fill our bellies," Zoe added.
"Word reached me that there was a credit account with my name on it at Hera Central Bank," Mal finished. "So I went to claim the legacy."
"Who left you an account?" Simon asked, curious.
"I never did know for certain. But I reckon it was my ma. Saw trouble comin' on Shadow, sold off what she could, and wired the moveable assets into an account in my name on the world I was last known to be on." He paused to take a deep breath, then continued.
"It wasn't much, but it was enough. I went to a used spaceship dealer. Gave me the hard sell on all sorts of broken-down craft. Told me I wanted a monstrous junkheap with a Capissen 38 engine—" he grinned at Kaylee, who grinned back knowingly "—but I'd already spotted her.
"She was sittin' in a far-off part of the lot, where they kept the ships that were too broken-down to sell; kept 'em to cannibalize parts off of, mostly. Most people woulda looked and just seen what she was like on the surface," Mal continued, with a far away look. "But I saw the heart of her, and loved what I saw inside. Not what she appeared to be, but what she really was, and what she could be. I knew I could be good to her, get her put together, complete her, and there was no doubt at all in my mind how good she would be for me."
Zoe looked intensely at her friend. He wasn't just talking about Serenity. He was talking about Inara. He was telling a love story on two levels.
"Zoe thought I was crazy."
"Still do."
"Hēi, easy there."
"That ship was a deathtrap."
"You asked me if I paid money for her…on purpose."
"I said you were robbed."
"You called her a piece of 废物 fèiwù."
"废物 Fèiwù!" Kaylee exclaimed indignantly.
"Kaylee, Serenity then weren't anything like so good as she is today. Captain put heart and soul—"
"And every platinum I had to my name—"
"—into fixing her up and making her fly again."
"Turned trash into treasure," River said.
"One man's trash is another man's treasure," Mal reiterated, suddenly getting it. "Exactly."
. . .
.
.
.
glossary
英俊 yīngjùn [handsome]
美味 měiwèi [delicious]
嘿 Hēi [Hey]
废物 fèiwù [rubbish]
So that's how Mal found Serenity, at least in this story. How did you find Serenity? Leave a comment or review.