Firefly

by Tim Lebbon

  Which brought him back to Jayne, and the floor.

  “Well then, why can’t Kaylee be floor scrubber this time?” Jayne asked, just as Kaylee entered the bay from the rear of Serenity. She was wearing overalls and carrying a small object that sprouted snipped wires and cables. Her face was smeared with oil, her hair tied in a bun, and she appeared unaware of anything apart from the strange item in her hands. It seemed to Mal as if it belonged inside some creature.

  “Because Kaylee keeps us flying,” Mal said. “The ship’s her baby and she looks after it. Learn to service the grav drive, then maybe we can talk.”

  Jayne dropped his brush into a bucket of water and stood, and Mal groaned. He knew it would come to this eventually. They were all aware that they were just filling time—even Kaylee, who by her own admission was servicing parts that didn’t really need the attention—but so far the underlying tension in the ship had been vented in good-natured banter with only an occasional barbed comment.

  If trouble was going to come from anywhere, it would be from Jayne.

  “What about Wash?” Jayne asked.

  “Wash flies the ship.”

  “The ship flies itself.”

  “Even when the ship is flying itself, Wash is making sure it’s going the right way.”

  “Inara.”

  “You really wanna ask a Companion to scrub your floor?”

  “Zoë, then. Or the Doc. Or the girl. Why do I gotta do it?” Jayne looked around, as he always did when River was mentioned. He’d been wary of her since the incident with the carving knife, and even though she seemed to be much more levelheaded nowadays after their visit to Ariel, he was always nervous in her presence. In truth, Jayne’s nervousness meant that Mal was often on edge around River too. He might be antagonistic and arrogant, but Jayne was one of the hardest people he knew.

  “Because I told you to,” Mal said. “You polish your guns anymore and you’ll wear ’em away.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll just jump ship and you’ll have to scrub the gorramn floors yourself!”

  Mal tried to come up with a response, and failed. Jayne was right. None of them had been paid in some time, and with the ship’s supplies of food and booze rapidly dwindling, he had to expect cussing and moaning from the crew. Jayne weren’t no surprise, but he’d come across Zoë and Wash whispering with each other just the day before. Not an unusual occurrence in itself, but their sudden change in demeanor and tone upon his arrival had made it obvious they were talking about him. Simon and River kept pretty much to themselves, as usual, and Book seemed content with his old tomes. Inara, he knew, was getting itchy feet, and it wouldn’t surprise him if she left for another appointment sooner rather than later. Even Kaylee wasn’t her usual sunny self. She’d mentioned a couple of times lately about wanting them to spend some time in a decently equipped port, or a space dock where she could perform a more thorough overhaul of Serenity. Usually she was happy just spending time on the ship.

  “You missed a bit,” Kaylee said, glancing down from the walkway at the cargo-bay floor. Jayne pulled a face and aimed a rude gesture her way.

  “I ain’t jokin’.” She pointed past Jayne. He frowned, turned to look, and Kaylee laughed.

  Jayne plucked the brush from his bucket and lobbed it at her. She ducked just in time, grinning.

  “Let’s eat,” Mal said. “All of us together. I think it’s time for some honest talk.”

  “Honest, like when do we get our back pay?” Jayne asked.

  “Back pay?” Kaylee asked, looking at Mal.

  “In the mess,” Mal said. “Now!”

  It was time to come up with a plan to find some work. It wasn’t all about the money, it was about staying purposeful. It was about keeping his crew sane, and safe. Mal was their captain, they looked to him to provide, and there were only so many times Jayne would agree to get on his knees and polish the gorramn deck.

  * * *

  “Maybe Inara has the right idea,” Jayne said. He scooped a third spoonful of energy supplement onto his plate, glancing at Mal as he did so. They’d agreed that they were all on rations of two spoons per meal until they resupplied somewhere. Mal blinked at him but said nothing. The fact that he was having to pick his battles, even with Jayne, meant that this had gone on for too long.

  “Inara has every right to come and go as she pleases,” Mal said.

  “Good time to leave when we’ve become a bunch of nohopers,” Jayne said.

  “I have an appointment,” Inara said. “I take advantage of good opportunities the same as the rest of you.”

  “Good rich opportunities, I’ll bet,” Mal said.

  “I prefer to think of them as people of means,” she said, smiling at Mal. Her smile always did something to him he wasn’t used to. It confused him. And the last person in the crew he’d want to pick up on that always seemed to be the one who did.

  “I doubt she’d have you even if you could afford to pay,” Jayne said. River giggled at that, causing a moment of shocked silence around the table. The girl didn’t usually laugh at anything, or if she did it was something none of them understood.

  “It was bad luck we had to dump the pods,” Zoë said, and Mal wished she’d changed the topic to something else.

  “Bad luck on the Spider Slugs inside,” Inara said.

  “We had an Alliance cruiser closin’ in,” Mal said. “If they’d boarded us—”

  “Still don’t know how anyone can eat those gorramn things,” Jayne said, spooning a mass of paste into his mouth. “I mean, they’re slugs. As big as my arm!” He shivered. “Euch.”

  “They’re a delicacy on Londinium,” Book said. “One goodsized slug costs fifty credits.”

  “You’re speakin’ as if you’ve tried them,” Kaylee said.

  Book shrugged. “Once or twice. Actually… once. They taste as bad as they look.”

  Jayne was looking back and forth between Book and Kaylee. “But fifty credits each?”

  “Why do you think I was so ready to smuggle them?” Mal said.

  “And we dumped ’em in deep space?” Jayne shook his head. “We could have hidden the pods. This ship’s got more hiding places than… than somethin’ with lots of hiding places.”

  “They didn’t come on board,” River said. “They were sailing, that’s all, sailing on by.”

  “We weren’t to know they weren’t aimin’ to board us,” Mal protested.

  “You never asked.” River stirred her food but didn’t eat any. She stared down at the patterns it made on her plate, and Mal wondered what she might be seeing. Something other than energy paste and rehydrated potato, that was for sure.

  “I appreciate everyone’s patience,” Mal said. “We’ve been here before, lookin’ for work and missin’ out on commissions by a few days.”

  “Or a few million miles,” Zoë said.

  “But we’ll pull through if we hold together. One big score and we’ll forget about this.”

  “A familiar refrain,” Book said.

  Jayne scooped up more paste to add to the remnants of his meal. “Take me a long time to forget about this.” It didn’t taste of much, but it provided essential vitamins and calories. Simon had recommended supplementing their meals with it ten days before, and since then it had become a constant.

  “I hear you on that one,” Mal said.

  “Evening,” Wash said. He sat beside Zoë and started spooning food onto his plate. “Oh, yum. Potatoes and goo for dinner again.”

  “We were just discussing its culinary merits,” Zoë said.

  “Merits?” Wash looked around at them all, one eyebrow raised. “What’d I miss?”

  “Mal telling us how much those Spider Slugs were worth,” Jayne said. “And where our next score is comin’ from.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Wash said. “I might have an idea.” He forked food into his mouth and succeeded in chewing without pulling a face. Mal admired him for that.

  “So share!” Kaylee said.
>
  “Golden’s Bane.” Wash smiled, green paste between his teeth.

  “That another type of gǒu shǐ food?” Jayne asked.

  “It’s a place,” Wash said, looking around the table. “Don’t tell me none of you have heard of it?”

  “Rings a bell,” Mal said, tapping his fork on the table. “So where and what is it?”

  “It’s a mining town on Zeus’s fifth moon,” Wash said. “Or rather, it’s a valley on that moon, and there are buildings scattered either side of the valley’s river for a mile or so. Wouldn’t really call it a town.”

  “Why not?” River asked. She seemed suddenly interested. Mal still found it mystifying what might grab the girl’s attention. Simon didn’t appear to know either, much as he pretended to understand her. Must have been tough, losing your sister like that, then getting her back different.

  “It’s just… a rough place. Buildings appeared when they found gold in the hills, then when the gold was all mined out the place remained. Prospectors who went there with no money and found nothing couldn’t afford to leave. Over the years it’s built something of a reputation as a way station for criminals and miscreants. I went there once, years ago, when I was piloting a small transport ship for a mining facility on Aberdeen. They traded with the town for a while, buying a lot of the old mining equipment in return for farming gear, seeds, water filtration plants, that sort of goings on. Not somewhere I’d even hoped to visit again.”

  “Not to your usual standard of civility?” Zoë asked.

  “Could say that, sweetheart. The place was a dump. No law and order, no real system of rule other than local gang lords warring back and forth through the place. I was there four days and there were three murders, one in the tavern I was drinking in. I realized it was the butthole of the ’verse and left the next day.”

  “I’m liking the place more and more,” Jayne said, grinning.

  “Mal?” Zoë asked. He’d been thinking, and her saying his name jogged a memory he wasn’t too pleased to recall.

  “Lassen Pride,” he said.

  Zoë looked up, surprised, or maybe shocked.

  “What the hell is Lassen Pride?” Jayne asked.

  “Who, not what,” Zoë said. “Mal and I fought with him. He was…”

  “Not a good man,” Mal said. “The killin’ suited him, and after the war stopped, he didn’t.”

  “So what’s he got to do with Golden’s Bane?” Wash asked.

  “It’s where he went when he retired,” Zoë said.

  “From killin’?” Jayne asked.

  “So it’s purported,” Mal said. “But it’s also said he got into the smugglin’ business. If we’re close, and Wash knows the lie of the land as well’s he claims, maybe he’ll be a useful contact.”

  “You were friends?” Book asked.

  Mal gave a forced grin.

  “Friendly enough,” Zoë said.

  “Yeah. He didn’t try to kill either of you,” Jayne said, and he chuckled.

  There was silence around the table. When Mal caught Zoë’s eye he saw a glimmer of uncertainty there, and suspected it was reflected in his own. He couldn’t afford that. A captain shouldn’t be uncertain. He pressed his hands to the table and stood.

  “Let’s pay a visit,” he said. “Pride might find us some work.”

  “By ‘work,’ I assume you mean questionable employment that might eventually require my expertise?” Simon asked.

  “We always start out hoping not,” Mal said. “How things turn out is rarely of our making.”

  “If I may,” Book said, “I believe I’ll be sitting this one out.”

  “Sitting it out?” Mal asked. He caught a glance between Inara and Book and he sat back down, slapping his hand on the table. “Spill.”

  “Nothing to spill,” Book said. “I’ve asked Inara if I can accompany her to her appointment. She’s going to a space station in orbit around Ghost, and there’s a fine book trader there who I believe will pay handsomely for three of the old Bibles I found in the crate.”

  “How handsome?” Jayne asked.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  “You know that crate belongs to Serenity,” Mal said.

  Book held out his hands. “And I’d be more than happy to donate any proceeds to her. I could even use them to pick up the supplies we’re in need of.”

  “So we go to Golden’s Bane and mix it up with this Pride character, and you go to a library,” Jayne said.

  “And if I make some money, and you still find no work, Inara and I return with food,” Book said. He glanced at Kaylee. “And spare parts.”

  “And booze,” Jayne said.

  “Goes without saying.”

  “I’m not fond of my crew being split,” Mal said.

  “Split the crew, double the chance we make a score,” Book said. “And these books, Mal… they’re rather precious.”

  “You mean more’n money,” Mal said.

  Book nodded once.

  “They’re just books!” Jayne said. “Maybe we can burn ’em, keep warm.”

  “Not being a book lover, I’m not sure a gentleman like you would understand,” Book said.

  “So educate me.”

  “We’ve tried,” Mal said.

  Jayne looked around the table at them all, then snorted.

  “So when do you leave?” Mal asked, looking at Book but directing his question at Inara. Whenever she left Serenity on an appointment he felt a cool sense of loss. Part of it was seeing her leave, part knowing what she was going to do. One day maybe he’d tell her, but sometimes he felt they’d been doing the dance for so long that might never happen.

  “Right after dinner,” Inara said.

  Jayne slammed down his spoon with a clatter. “You call this dinner?”

  * * *

  Kaylee didn’t like the sound of Golden’s Bane, at least not how Wash had described it, and she knew him to be solid and dependable and not someone prone to exaggeration or embellishment. She didn’t like the sound of Lassen Pride. She didn’t like Jayne’s increasing agitation, pacing the ship like a caged wolf, snapping at anyone who even looked at him the wrong way, nor that Inara and Book had flown away, leaving the ship lighter two crew, one shuttle, and a whole lot of character. Most of all, she didn’t like not having the gear she needed to tend to the ship. Serenity was flying sweet and clean, but only because she’d had plenty of opportunity to service, tweak, and fine-tune the systems. She could do with a new gravity drop tube, and two of the lateral stabilizer foils were starting to chatter and shake, especially when they were flying into or out of an atmo. But these were new buys and refits, not repairs, and as usual there was no money.

  At least they now had a destination in mind. She loved Serenity, more than the rest of the crew combined—more even than Mal, and she thought Mal knew that too. But she also sometimes craved time on solid ground, with rock or dust beneath her feet and air to breathe that didn’t carry the faint taint of carbon filters and yesterday’s memories.

  And then there was Simon. Being in such a confined space increased the pressure between them. Serenity was not a large ship, and the whole crew was likely to bump into each other whenever they went wandering from their private rooms. She wished she could just be brave and kiss him, but even after so long she was worried that she had read the situation wrong. She had no doubt that Simon was attracted to her. He made that clear, though not as clear as she’d like.

  Her worry that she’d read things wrong was all about River. Simon was committed to his sister. He’d given up a promising career for her, rescuing her from the Alliance butchers who’d done whatever nasty stuff they’d done to her, and now he was looking after her as best he could. At least he’d begun practicing medicine again, but Kaylee doubted treating gunshots or knife wounds was the type of medicine he’d really trained for. On Ariel he’d found some of the answers he’d been seeking, and his treatment of River had eased her unpredictability some.

>   She thought she knew Simon, but perhaps all she knew for sure was Serenity.

  “Maybe it’s just you and me forever,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Mal!” Kaylee jumped and spun around. She’d thought she was alone in the engine room. She often became so embroiled in Serenity that she didn’t hear when people approached, or didn’t allow her senses to notice them. Maybe that was what it was like being in love.

  “Didn’t intend startlin’ you. Thinking on Golden’s Bane?”

  “Yes, just that. Sounds like a charmin’ place, full of sweet folk and no peril whatsoever.”

  “It’s necessary,” Mal said. “We need a job, and we all need a break from each other too. Few days’ shore leave—”

  “Need me to stay with the ship?” Kaylee asked.

  “You don’t have to.”

  She shrugged. In truth, she hadn’t really thought about what she’d do when they landed.

  “Just to let you know we’re approaching, best to buckle in. You know how the old girl rocks and rolls when we’re in atmosphere.”

  “Sure, Mal. And talking of which…”

  “Lateral stabilizer foils, for sure. First thing on my list once we bring in some credits.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mal left, and Kaylee unhinged the buckled seat against the bulkhead wall. Before sitting down she tapped the engine casing and said, “Be a good girl and set us down in one piece.”

  The vibrations started, and the stabilizer foils began to whistle and whine.

  * * *

  “You weren’t wrong,” Kaylee said. “What a dump.”

  “I like it,” Jayne said.

  “Yeah, it’s lovely,” Zoë said. “Maybe they’ve got a Jayne statue somewhere.”

  “My reputation goes before me.”

  “I sincerely hope not,” Wash said. He’d brought them down on a level escarpment above the river and the town straddling it. The valley was deep, its sides steep, and to land any lower would have been dangerous. Setting down close to the town might also have stirred up dust and mud, and the last thing they wanted to do was annoy the townsfolk. They were here to try to get work, after all.