Bandiagara, Part 5a

What is that thing attached to Serenity's hull? Who put it there?

Mal and Kaylee made a brief spacewalk to retrieve the foreign object Kaylee had spotted on her shuttle flight with Simon. Mindful of what had happened during the last spacewalk he'd made with Kaylee when the navsats failed, Mal was on the lookout for signs of sabotage or booby trap, but none was evident. If not for the fact that the object didn't belong there, it seemed benign.

Mal and Zoe reviewed the security vid taken portside. It was 狗屎的 gǒushǐde footage, due to the poor quality of Serenity's aging security cam, but one thing became clear: the object wasn't there when they left Persephone with the cargo of cattle, and it was there when they landed on Beylix. It had somehow been acquired during the journey, so either it was something leftover from the Shadow experiments, or it had somehow been attached to the ship by stealth somewhere along the way. Ip, River, and Jayne had made the spacewalk during the Shadow fly-by on that journey, and Simon and Kaylee had been involved in prepping the scientific instruments for that spacewalk, so Mal called them all into the dining room to see if they could identify the object.

River immediately spoke. "That's not one of ours."

Kaylee agreed. "That's not anything I had a hand in prepping. See how they got the hypertronic phased array rigged? I'll have to open it up to check, but it looks like they got an indirect connection. I woulda wired it directly to the power amplifier—save energy and boost the signal."

Simon nodded sagely in agreement, although Mal suspected he had no idea what the object was.

"Don't look at me, Mal," Jayne said. "River and Ip had a dozen a' them blinky boxes set up topside—I couldn't tell one from t'other."

"Do you recognize it?" Mal asked Ip.

"Sure do," Ip replied readily. "It's a locator beacon. Just like the one I put in the lander unit I sent down to Shadow's surface. Only this one has a much bigger antenna, and a more powerful amplifier. It's designed to transmit over a huge distance. The one I sent down to Shadow—I could pick it up from near orbit, maybe, but not much farther. This one—hard to say, but it's quite possible it could be read even as far away as the Core."

"The Core?" Mal wouldn't have guessed. The device looked so simple. "So this here's not so much a locator beacon as a tracking device."

Ip looked directly into the Captain's eye as he agreed. "I believe you're right."

"Now who'd want to be tracking us?" Mal asked, almost rhetorically.

River replied with a look that startled Mal with its intensity. She said nothing, but he understood exactly what she meant.

"Can you disable the transmitter on this thing?" Mal asked Kaylee, but it was Ip who replied.

"Sure can. I used these all the time, when I worked for Blue Sun."

"Then get to work." Mal wasn't about to leave a Blue Sun tracking device on Serenity. "Kaylee, I want you monitoring this process, every step of the way. Make sure you understand exactly what Ip is doing." He shot a look at River, not that it was necessary, but it was his habit to accompany all his silent communications with Zoe with a look. Follow every move like a hawk, Albatross. Can't afford to take any chance this tracking beacon is still working.

"It's alright, Captain," River answered, trying out a look of her own on the Captain. He'll do the job.

It is not alright, Albatross. Mal shot River another look. I know you like that young man, but don't let that sway you for a second. I don't know him well enough to trust all our lives to him—not yet. "That's what's at stake," he said aloud. "Is that understood?"

"Understood, Captain," River answered.

. . .

"Understood," River repeated at the Captain's retreating back, "but not comprehended. It doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't make sense, River?" Kaylee asked, as she readied her tools. Ip shot River a look.

"Doesn't make sense to disable it."

"Sure it does, River," Kaylee answered. "Cap'n don't want nobody tracking our movements." Ip looked at her with a question in his eyes, so she added, "'Cause it ain't nobody's business where we're goin'." That seemed to forestall Ip's imminent question. Then she added, "And it certainly weren't nobody's business to put a tracker on Serenity without the Cap'n's say-so. We don't even know who done it."

"Can find out," River replied.

"Well, I don't know about that," Kaylee answered. "It weren't there when we lifted off from Persephone, but it was there when we landed on Beylix." She smiled innocently at Ip. "Guess we could just wave all the folks what live in space along the way between and ask 'em if they misplaced a locator beacon."

"Kaylee, just who do you think actually lives—" Ip began, before he realized he was being had.

"You are such an easy mark," River snickered.

"So it must have been attached during the course of our journey." Ip spoke with logical precision as he attempted to repair the shreds of his dignity. "There really aren't many possibilities. Only the stealth ship and the Reaver ship that chased us around Shadow were close enough to Serenity. Could one of them have—I don't know—fired it at our hull? Stuck it on with some kind of—?"

"It's got a magnetic adhesive," Kaylee told them, as she examined the beacon's surface.

"Not Reaver-made or modified," River pronounced, as she cocked her head at the device. Kaylee and Ip swung their eyes to her. How did she know? "Rotational symmetry." Ip and Kaylee were still staring, so River added, "Reavers prefer asymetrical designs."

"So, not Reaver," Kaylee mused, with a shudder. "Well, that kinda leaves the stealth ship. And that means we better get on with frying the electronics on this thing." She picked up a screwdriver, and offered Ip his choice of tools from her box.

"Shouldn't." River blocked Kaylee's access to the beacon's housing.

"Why not, River?" Ip asked. "The Captain wants it disabled."

"Don't bring home the beacon and fry it up in a pan," she replied, with an intense look. "Better to set it free, teach it to fly on its own. By indirections find directions out. How it gets there is the worthier part."

"Sorry, River, I don't get what you just said, honey." Kaylee's eyes expressed her worry that River was lapsing into one of her less-than-lucid periods.

"Speak in English or Chinese, River, not Metaphor," Ip commanded. "It sounds like word salad when you throw something like that at us out of the blue. A person might be inclined to think you were losing your grip on sanity." Kaylee gaped at him. No one on Serenity confronted River that way. He wasn't done. "Don't fall into the Sidonius trap."

"Sidonius?" asked Kaylee, not comprehending either River or Ip at this point.

"Sidonius. Fifth century Gallo-Roman aristocrat, renowned for writing with an overload of literary devices. 'Literary artifices, applied with an unshrinking hand' is how I've heard it. Sidonius would mix metaphors with any man, and was notorious for excruciating puns. In fact, one of my professors went so far as to call Sidonius an example of 'literary pathology' and 'diseased language,' and went on to claim that his prose 'calls aloud for the amputation of platitudes, pomposities, and verbal conceits'." Ip was pleased that he remembered the exact quote—it had struck him as very funny at the time Professor Forsdyke had said it, and he'd written it down verbatim in his notes. "Not all of us here have studied ancient texts and cultures the way you have, River. We simply don't have the tools to understand all of your metaphors, and I don't think we even want to understand all of your puns." He grinned at River, who, to Kaylee's surprise, grinned right back. "Besides, I thought that one was a real groaner."

River giggled. "It's better to keep it working, but send it on its way. Out the airlock. It will take a while for them to figure out it's no longer with us," she translated.

"That makes sense," Kaylee agreed, "but the Cap'n said—"

"We change course after parting ways with it," River said with a mischievous look. "It won't know where we're going."

Kaylee nodded in agreement.

"We can find out whose it is," River added.

"We can?"

"Ip can."

"I can?" he echoed, his voice rising.

"Do you have a friend in marketing?"

"Marketing?" Ip squawked. "River, is this another metaphor game? Am I supposed to play 'Guess the Relevance'?"

"Marketing," River snapped. "Blue Sun marketing. Check the ID codes. Correlate with the Rewards Program."

Kaylee shook her head. She didn't get it. But Ip's eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh."

"Mind like a steel trap," River stated, looking at him.

"That's a simile, not a metaphor," Ip smiled.

"One that's been left out in the rain and rusted shut," River finished.

. . .

"Got this thing disabled yet?" Mal asked as he strode back into the dining room some time later.

"Uh, well, Cap'n—"

"Captain, we thought—"

"No," River answered, looking him directly in the eye.

"No?" Mal exclaimed, astonished. "Is there any reason why it ain't done yet? Thought I made myself perfectly clear."

"We just, uh, thought of another way—" Kaylee began, but was unable to continue in the face of the Captain's thunderous look.

"It would be…better—" Ip started, but couldn't keep it up as the Captain's look was transferred to him.

"It makes more sense to keep it working." River again addressed the Captain unflinchingly.

Insubordination! Mal thought, as he glared at River. "I don't recall givin' you leave to countermand my decisions, River," he said with great annoyance.

"This way is better," River countered, not backing down.

Mutiny! Mal had never had his orders disobeyed so blatantly. Well, not since Wash had made a regular practice of it. Or since Book had objected—or since Inara had argued—or since Zoe had told him "Yes, sir" but acted "Hell, no"—or since Kaylee had turned him from his purpose by making use of those sad puppy eyes—or since Simon had just plain refused to go along with him—oh hell, weren't a body on this boat hadn't disobeyed him. He threw up his hands, venting his frustration with this gorram disobedient rabble of a crew. "鬼 Guǐ, what do I know about runnin' a ship? I'm only the captain! So feel free to do as you please. No need to consult me."

"Sarcasm doesn't become you, Captain," River replied.

"It doesn't become me?" he exclaimed. "I'll tell you what I'm becoming, River. I'm becoming seriously angry. And I'm armed."

Kaylee and Ip had already backed down, but River wasn't budging. She stood her ground, nose-to-nose with the Captain (or what would have been nose-to-nose, had he not had seven inches on her plus an extra one on account of she was barefoot). She interrupted—actually interrupted!—him.

"If the tracking beacon stops transmitting, they will know. They will conclude that it was damaged or destroyed. They will deduce that we found it. They will determine where we were when we found it."

"River, I am not listening to this insubordinate 狗屎 gǒushǐ—"

She talked right over him. "Better to keep it working, transmitting. Send it away. Like a crybaby. Can even plan its trajectory to maximize the deception."

"River—" he objected, but she could tell she was reaching him. She knew his whole tirade had more to do with the fact that their decision had been made without consulting him, than with any rational objection to the plan.

"Can also discover its broadcast frequency and signature. We can track it ourselves. That way we will know if someone comes to pick it up."

"Albatross—that's just—" he sputtered a moment "—a 聪明 cōngming plan, and it's exactly the kind of independent thinking I've come to expect from you," he finished.

River grinned.

"Make it so!" he ordered Kaylee and Ip. "I take it you already figured out the best trajectory and heading for us to dump this spyin' piece of 狗屎 gǒushǐ out the airlock?"

River nodded.

"Do it, then. And that's an order!"

River did her best to hide her giggles, and the Captain did his best to give her an exasperated glare, but he couldn't keep the mirth out of his eyes.

"Captain, would you like me to find out whose locator beacon this is?" Ip volunteered, as Mal turned to leave them to it.

"You can do that?" Mal asked, surprised.

"Well, I think I can," he replied. "Every Blue Sun-manufactured locator beacon has a unique identifying code imprinted on it. This beacon's code has been obliterated, but I probed the CPU when we had it opened up, and pulled the serial number off of it. We just need to look up the purchaser for this particular unit."

"Look up," Mal echoed. "You mean there's a list somewhere on the cortex, where you can just look up who bought this thing?" It gave him an uncomfortable feeling, truth be told, to know that someone, somewhere, was keeping track of who purchased goods like that. For what purpose? Even if it might work to his advantage this time, to find out who'd bought this gorram tracking device from Blue Sun, it made him all kinds of uneasy to think someone might find out the same kind of information about him through his legal purchases.

"Not on the cortex," Ip replied. "It would be available through the records at Blue Sun Marketing Division. They track the purchasers of everything through a rewards program. The rewards program is voluntary, of course, but everyone participates because the prices are ridiculous unless you do. Blue Sun Marketing tracks buyers' purchasing habits and uses the data to direct advertising toward them, as well as to regulate production and distribution of products."

Mal thought this was an argument for black market dealing, under-the-counter and off-the-record, if he ever heard one. He didn't want Blue Sun analyzing his every purchase. It was just giving away too much personal information. "So you can just look up this sales information?"

"Well, not directly," Ip answered. "I'm not a Blue Sun employee anymore. But I can get one of my friends to do it."

"Won't somebody get suspicious, we go nosin' around?"

"If you went nosing around, sure. But I know someone who can just go to inventory tracking and look it up. Sales information is proprietary, not classified. Easy enough for a Blue Sun employee to find out."

"Huh," Mal responded, then settled in to watch as River, Ip and Kaylee set to work on the tracking beacon, preparing it for its journey of deception.

. . .

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glossary

狗屎的 gǒushǐde [crappy]

鬼 Guǐ [Hell]

狗屎 gǒushǐ [crap]

聪明 cōngming [brilliant]

A/N: Thanks to my sister, who is my beta reader, whose suggestions were the seed for this chapter...and a nice long chapter it is! Share your thoughts.