Chapter 3: Secrets and Servitude
They were nearly done with dinner.
Jayne drained his mug and burped. "Standish, get me another beer."
"I'm eating, Mr. Cobb," the gambler pointed out. "I believe you are aware of the location of the galley, are you not?"
Kaylee giggled. Ezra Standish had been on board two weeks now, and she still was tickled by the way he talked … even if she didn't always understand his big words.
"Get me another beer," Jayne repeated. "You're a slave; you gotta obey orders."
Emerald fire flashed from his eyes, first at Jayne, then at Mal. Mal glanced at Zoe and Wash, the only crew members who knew the truth about Standish. Zoe shook her head almost imperceptibly.
"You're a slave, ain't you?" Jayne demanded.
"Not yours," Standish snapped.
"But you are a slave," Jayne persisted, no longer sounding quite so sure of himself.
"I am not a slave," Standish replied, using monosyllabics to be sure the gunman would understand him. He glanced at Mal, waiting for the captain to contradict him.
"Ezra owes me money. He's working it off," Mal said.
Wash smiled. Neither man had lied, technically.
"Captain Reynolds, am I obliged to follow the directions of this oaf?" Best to have the matter settled, one way or the other, Standish thought.
"This is my ship. The only orders either one of you follows are mine. And Zoe's," Mal added, as an afterthought.
"But –" Jayne began.
"Shut up, Jayne," Mal told him. "And get your own beer. And you, don't call your shipmates 'oaf'."
The big man frowned, but obeyed. Standish merely nodded his head.
When Jayne returned to the table, Mal told him, "Standish is ship's cook. He brings food to the table, that's part of his job. Fetching and carrying for you, that ain't part of his job."
"Then how come the last two planets we touched down on, he didn't get no shore leave? If he ain't a slave, how come his cabin only locks from the outside? Why are there handcu- "
"You sure do have a gnat in your noggin," Mal interrupted. "Standish has those quarters 'cause they're small. I didn't want to waste a cabin that I could rent to a paying passenger. Now change the subject or shut up. You're annoying Standish and boring the rest of us."
Wash said, "I finished that mystery novel I picked up at our last stop, if anyone wants to borrow it."
"I seldom read mysteries anymore," River said. "The deus ex machina solutions are simultaneously predictable and unbelievable. Although from a sociological point of view, ancient mystery novels provide an excellent portrait of life during the era written."
"I'd never really looked at it that way before," Book remarked mildly.
"Especially the 20th and 21st century novels," River continued. "You can track the changes in societal expectations by following the transformations of mores and customs from Dashiell Hammett to Agatha Christie to Robert Bernard to Sharyn McCrumb."
"Really?" Wash was a bit overwhelmed by the direction the conversation was taking, but he was determined not to let Jayne steer the talk back to Standish's status.
River nodded. Then she turned to Jayne. "He's not a slave." Just as Mal and Standish started to relax, thinking the matter was closed, she went on, "He's an indentured servant. Well, technically, he's a convict, assigned to a term of penal servitude, rather than a bondservant."
"Don't be silly." After a long moment, Inara broke the stunned silence. "Mal would never buy a slave or a bondservant."
"Oh, he didn't," River responded.
"I like a good mystery sometimes," Mal inserted, hoping (in vain) to cut off River before she could say anything else. Right now it was a mystery to him why he'd let Simon and River Tam stay on board Serenity.
"He bought his labor contract," the girl continued as if the captain hadn't said anything. She turned to Standish to reassure him. "I didn't go snooping through your cabin like Jayne did. You just think loud."
Simon murmured sotto voce in Chinese a fraternal scolding about the ethics of telepathic eavesdropping.
"How'd you know I was snooping, unless you was snooping yourself?" Jayne wanted to know.
"My apologies, Miss River. I shall endeavor to maintain my mental cogitations at a quieter level," Standish said after a moment, with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances. He didn't know what else to do.
"I warned you, Doc, your sister gets to talking and acting crazy, we may need to make other arrangements," Mal said.
"She ain't acting crazy. She's acting witchy," Jayne corrected.
"My sister is not a witch," Simon protested.
"But she is crazy," Mal persisted, hoping to turn attention away from Standish and back to her.
"But she's right this time, isn't she?" Inara asked. "After everything you've said about slavery –"
"Ezra Standish served with me and Zoe in the war. He owes me money. He's working it off," Mal repeated. "Anything else is between him and me. He's same as any other crew member. And the only orders anyone follows on this ship are mine. The discussion is closed."
Dinner ended in an awkward silence, with everyone sneaking peeks at Standish, and trying not to let him see them do it.
Kaylee grinned as Standish moved a broom around the cargo hold floor. "Don't know what you're doing, but you sure ain't sweeping."
He paused in his efforts and looked up at her.
"You don't know how to sweep, do you?" she asked sympathetically.
"I regret to inform you, Miss Kaylee, that in my youth it was never the pinnacle of my ambitions to become a janitor."
"You talk fancier'n Simon. What did you do before –" she hesitated, "before you came on board Serenity?"
"I played cards."
"You played cards? For a living?"
He nodded.
She glanced at the broom, immobile in his hands. "You need smaller strokes to control where the dirt and dust are going. The way you're pushing that broom, you're just rearranging it."
He swept, a clumsy stroke, but slightly shorter than before.
"Not like that." She came down the stairs. "Let me show you how to do it properly."
Suppressing a grin, Standish surrendered the broom to her.
"See? Little strokes. Were you able to make a living off that? Just playing cards?"
"Miss Kaylee, there was a time when I won enough in an evening of cards that I could have bought this ship with my proceeds from merely an hour's play." Standish did not mention he had seldom been in a position to play for such stakes, nor that the last time he'd done so had been quite a long while ago.
"Wow!" Her brown eyes widened. "So how did you go from that to … this?"
"A run of bad luck," he confessed ruefully. Sensing an eager audience in the young mechanic, he began to tell her of opulent core world casinos and dirty saloons on semi-terraformed backwater moons.
"Standish!" Mal stood at the top of the stairs. "Mind telling me why Kaylee's doing your work?"
Kaylee glanced down, surprised to see how much floor she'd swept whilst they were talking.
"The young lady was merely demonstrating a more ergonomically efficient method, Captain."
"That's your fence to white-wash, not hers," Mal remanded him.
Standish raised a dark eyebrow. He hadn't expected Mal to be well read enough to make literary allusions. "May I impose on you to return that instrument? The captain is regrettably correct."
It took Kaylee a few seconds to decipher that as a request for the broom. "Here."
"My thanks for your assistance, Miss Kaylee." He nodded; it was almost – but not quite – a bow.
" 'Tweren't nothing. And you don't need to call me 'miss'."
"Yes, he does. If he talks to you, he keeps a respectful tongue in his mouth. But the less he talks to you, the better." Mal glanced down at Standish. "That clear?"
"Captain Reynolds, my sins may be legion, but I have never been accused of child molestation."
"I'm not a child," Kaylee protested.
"My most abject apologies, ma'am, if I offended. Please excuse me while I apply your lessons." Standish nodded again and began sweeping.
Mal gestured for Kaylee to come upstairs. Once she joined him, he told her, "You stay away from Ezra Standish. He's trouble."
"Aren't you being just a trifle hypocritical?" asked Inara Serra as she moved her queen forward. "Check."
Mal studied the board, then shifted his bishop. "Me? A hypocrite?"
"You find slavery so distasteful that you felt justified stealing a wallet from a man transporting a cargo of slaves[1]. You helped those slaves escape from Mephitis; risking your own freedom smuggling them off-world, and the fee you charged them wasn't enough to cover your fuel costs[2]. Yet you treat poor Standish like …" She moved her rook as she sought a term bad enough to describe the way Mal treated the ship's cook.
"You're overlooking two things, 'Nara. First, Standish ain't a slave. His labor contract clearly states it's a five year indenture. And second," Mal's knight leapt over Inara's defenses, "it's Lt. Standish."
Zoe leaned against the bulkhead, watching the chess game. "That's reason enough."
"By the way, checkmate," Mal added.
Inara glared up at him.
Standish knocked hesitantly on the door of Inara's shuttle.
"Come in," a dulcet voice invited.
"You sent for me, Miss Serra?"
"Inara, please. I only use my surname when signing legal documents," the raven-tressed courtesan explained. "The captain always calls you Standish. Do you prefer that, or should it be Ezra?"
"You may call me whatever you like, ma'am, although I confess a preference for a beautiful lady to address me by my given appellation." He eyed her quickly, enough to let her know he observed and appreciated her beauty, not lingering on any of her feminine attributes long enough to be rude or lewd. "It's a pleasure to be of service to a beautiful lady. How may I serve you?"
"I didn't call you in here to work. I just wanted you to know that I don't like the way Captain Reynolds is treating you."
"In that, fair Inara, our minds are in unison."
"If he goes too far, let me know. I'll talk to him."
Standish nodded his head. "I'm grateful for your concern. Your kindness and compassion rival your appearance."
Inara smiled. If only she could get Mal to talk like this occasionally.
"If it's not overly presumptuous of me, may I beg one favor?"
"What, Ezra?" She was too experienced to promise anything without knowing what he wanted.
"The captain has informed me that so long as I am a member of his crew, your professional services are forbidden. But could you spare me a few moments' conversation from time to time? Sgt. Reynolds was a valiant and competent fighter during the war, but hardly fit company for a gentleman. Peace has not improved him overmuch. An occasional interlude of civilized discourse on a subject other than fisticuffs or cargo might relieve the tedium of my …" Standish couldn't bring himself to say the word 'servitude'. " … of my time aboard Serenity."
"It would be my pleasure," she replied with a smile. "You might also seek the doctor's company, or Book's, if you need intellectual stimulation."
"Ah, but in your company, I find both intellectual and visual stimulation." He thought a moment, then quoted, "Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note/So is mine view enthralled to thy shape." [3]
A gentle laugh bubbled forth from her ruby lips. "I hope you're not saying I look like a donkey."
"An angel is like you, and you are like an angel," he replied.[4]
"From Midsummer Night's Dream to Henry V. It's been a while since anyone quoted Shakespeare to me," she said.
"Pigs will fly before you hear one word of the Bard's out of Mal Reynolds' lips," Standish predicted. "Which is why as much as I may lust after your delectable body, at the moment I lust after your mind more. Even the privilege of kissing your fingertips is forbidden me at present, but if you would condescend now and then to grant me a snippet of intelligent conversation, it would …."
"It would be my pleasure," Inara interrupted. "But I'd better let you get back to your other duties now. The last thing you need is to give Mal a valid reason to scold you."
Standish nodded.
[1] In the Firefly episode "Shindig."
[2] In the story "The Slaves of Mephitis," in Of Dreams and Schemes #20, also posted at this website and AO3.
[3] Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III, Scene 1
[4] Henry V, Act V, Scene II