Chapter Four:

*The characters and their world belong to Mr. Whedon and company; the mistakes and the follies are solely mine.

*Previously: Prologue and Chapter One ,Two, Three.

*If all is well with posting, 'haps you'll be leaving me one? Xie-xie. peace not pax--intopaper. - - - -

::Serenity, Galley:: - - “Serenity, this is Shuttle 1” Inara’s voice floats through the galley. The group smiles at each other; her routine hail suggested no horrible fate unleashed. Yet. Wash gets up and heads to the comm. he rigged open. Moves a bit too slow. “Ai ya, Mal, what the—“ “Wash, you there? Where the hell—“ “Hi, Inara. Captain. How’s things?” “Oh shiny.” Mal sounds pained. His crew instinctively pulls tighter together at the table. “We’ll be there in five.” “Docking in 10,” Inara sings out. “Hatch’ll be good to go, Inara,” Wash states, ignoring his captain, who never much was one for estimating flight times. “Get everyone together,” Mal practically growls. “Give me that, Mal, you’re going to break it and you don’t need....” Wash thinks he hears Zoe snort in the background. Inara shuts off the comm. as Mal starts complaining. Always stories, Wash thinks, although this one might be enjoyable. He wonders if the crew will hear it at the table, or if he’ll have to coax it out of Zoe later. He starts liking the idea of coaxing. Bit by bit, as she, he has to go prep the starboard side dock. “Guess we have a job,” he hears Kaylee say as he heads to the bridge. “Guess it weren’t the relaxin’ kind o’ tea.” Jayne adds.

- -

They hear Mal before they see him, muttering about insubordinate pilots, shuttle docking procedures, and lazy crews taking naps in the middle... He stops short when he finds everyone sitting around the table. Simon has his cortex link with him; Kaylee’s got the portable viewing screen flat on the table, a map of Lotus’s main port and surrounding compounds glowing. “Hear we got a job?” Jayne asks, enjoying the sense of being on the laughing side of one of the crew’s jokes. “You’re late,” River says. - - It’s Zoe that ends up briefing the crew; Mal decides to lean against the stove, close to where Inara has settled. It goes a bit smoother than usually, possibly because neither Wash nor Jayne question the apple/bird part when Zoe delivers the news. It’s her job from now on, he thinks, as he steps forward to parcel out tasks. “Before we start this, anything pressin’ happen whiles we were out?” “Nara got a wave.” “I said pressin’ Wash.” “I saved it, since you all weren’t here.” He waits a beat for Mal to interrupt again, but he doesn’t. “Want me to bounce the message to your shuttle now?” “Yes, thank you.” Inara leaves, ignoring Mal’s comments, and Wash is gone and back before Mal can finish looking over the layouts. The maze of hallways and gardens is not appealing right now, he’s happy to turn the work over to his crew. “Kaylee, I need you and Wash figuring out how to get us in and out quicklike, and take into consideration what we’ll be carrying. Mang’s codes might be good, but I’ll be wanting a back-up.” “Compound don’t look like much, Cap’n, ain’t like Bellerophon. Shouldn’t be a problem.” “That’s be a nice change then. Preacher, that garden of yours didn’t have an orchard attached by any chance?” “I know a little something about fruited trees. I’ll see if I can’t work out some way of transport. It’s a young tree, if it’s producing good apples...” “See what you can figure out. Don’t ‘spect we’ll get paid what’s owed if we turn over a pile of kindling. Jayne, you’re going dockside, pick up what we need, once it is Kaylee and Wash figure that out. By the by, we gonna need a cage for this bird?” “Cage? I could prolly make one up outta some scrap and wire. Like this big?” Kaylee holds her hands out. Wash looks up from the compound’s map. “How big are nightingales?” “Bigger than a sparrow.” “Bigger than a sparrow?” Wash raises his eyes at Jayne’s comment. “Like a inch bigger than a sparrow or a 100 feet bigger than a sparrow?” “Hundred-foot bird couldn’t fly.” “Serenity does.” River says, looking up from Simon’s cortex. “How do you even know it’s bigger than a sparrow?” Wash asks incredulously. “Ship ain’t a bird.” “When have you ever seen a nightingale?” “Define bird.” “Define sparrow.” “The both of them birds lived in the roof. Back home. Under the eaves, making nests... gorramit, girl. I know what a bird—” “Bee-jwah, all of you. River, if you can’t play nice you’re gonna do that homework in your bunk.” “Can I go play in my bunk too, sir?” River talks over Mal’s glare at Wash. “Nightingale. Flew the skies of ninety-four countries on Earth-that-was. Once believed to press a thorn to its breast in order to stay awake all night and sing.” “I need know how big they—” “Why’s a bird want to stay awake all night?” “Jayne. Don’t you have supplies to be getting?” “Standing guard lest enemies come unseen in the night. Or to sing away death and tell truths to the emperor.” River shrugs. “Stories vary.” “And get us nowheres. Jayne, figure out what Wash and Kaylee need and get on that. River, food and size.” “16 cm. Wu ge cun. 5.5 inches. This big.” She holds out hands. “Eats bugs.” “Then go help your brother figure out how to dope one. Or, no, go find out how old the tree is.” “She’s gonna mind-read a tree?” “Jayne, Kaylee’s holdin’ out a list. Go. Zoe. See to it this crew remembers how to work. Or they’ll just be remembering the taste of food, stead of eating it come dinner.” “What a change,” Wash says, but Mal’s already out down the stairs, following Jayne. “River—tree, it’s something precious or famous, must be on the cortex somewhere.” She doesn’t hear the whole order, but she doesn’t need to, really. - - Mal talks to Jayne again about what kinds of guns they’ll be needing, more about what kinds of guns they won’t, and hands over the cash to burn in the ordered lines of Lotus’s port. For all the ice-planets and sweet-treats it was lacking, law-breaking amenities were easy enough to be found. “Just what we need,” he calls out, one last time. Jayne just waves over his head. Mal turns, between the galley chatter and the discussion with Jayne, he’s decides he’s given Inara enough time to look at her wave. Besides, he’s right by her shuttle, anyhow. He owes her a thank-you, at least, and figures best to give it to her before he ends up dead and tiger food. He almost has his lines worked out when he walks through her door and freezes. “What are you doing?” “What does it look like Mal?” “Looks like you’re sitting at your cortex screen. Talking.” “I was, Mal. Thankfully your intrusion was timely, for once,” “Funny, that looks an awful lot like our mark.” “Perhaps because it is your mark.” He doesn’t once think she’d betrayed them. But his mind does some strange cartwheels, trying to conjure a reason for ‘Nara to be talkin’ to a man they were about to rob. Inara watches the mental games play out with some amusement before breaking into them. “He contacted me. He heard my stay on Lotus was extended, and asked if we might arrange a contract. “Well. Seems he ain’t so timely. Poor guy.” “Mal.” Mal stands up straight. “Don’t even think about it.” “Don’t even, what? This is my job—” Mal stops for a moment to untangle whether she means the current caper-in-planning or companioning in general. Just a moment, since it don’t matter, either way. “No.” “Will you listen for one min—” “No, Inara. I’m not having you waltz about that—” “I can provide some valuable information about the layout and the security measures there.” “The most of which we already have thank’s to—” “And how do you have any idea those are current or at all accurate. You just trust that Byron Park lets codes and—” “No, I’m not much trusting of anything, right now, on that gorram rock, and that’s all the more reason to be careful. And my definition of careful don’t include giving a perfect hostage to a man we’re tryin’ to rob.” “Mal, I hardly think he’d associate me with a bunch of people outside stealing his vegetation.” “And bird.” “Besides, it’s also traditional among the Guild for Companions to take clients from several of the clans, to show neutrality in the face of—” “Really. And just how does that fit into the ‘I pick my clients, it’s Guild Law’ mantra you rattle off all’s the time? Some lot of rules for a person so valuing her free will.” “Mal. I don’t see—” “You so needing the coin, Inara? You’ll get your cut from this; middleman’s-woman’s-that goes about 20 percent, and your gongzi was mighty keen to have his foliage. We all of us are going to have plenty—“ “Since I can’t remember the last time any of your jing tsai plans went anyplace other than terribly-wrong-land, maybe I am worried about my cut. Maybe I think an ally on in the inside would be an appealing asset.” “Well it ain’t. Not if it’s you. I can’t be worrying about doing the job and keeping you safe,” “You wouldn’t need to—and what’s this. The great Malcolm Reynolds can’t possible worry about two things at once? “Not when one of them’s you. Now enough with this crazy talk, or I’ll have Kaylee disable the shuttle and Zoe tie you to some chair somewheres. I got work to do.” She’s caught off-guard, and Mal takes advantage of her sudden stillness to nod emphatically as though she has conceded defeated and walks out of the shuttle before she can tell him otherwise. She counts to fifty. While doing so, she ignores an odd sense of relief and concentrates on her anger at his point-blank refusal to accept help or even listen to her. Kuh-ooh duh lao bao-jurn. Thinking of Kaylee, she stalks off to find the girl. At least she can offer assistance in planning a way though the mazy garden spaces of the Park compound. - - Byron Park’s hands pull into fists as he stares at the blank console. The companion’s grace lessened none of her sting. To reject him twice, smiling...and he had just sat there, smiling... He stands and walks to the far corner of his room, leans against the wall. He addresses his next comments to the young woman lying on the floor, tied up, and slowly coming out of a drug-induced stupor. “It appears your guild sister finds my proposition uninteresting. Let’s give her an hour to reconsider. If she hasn’t come to her senses, perhaps you can help me make a more persuasive offer. - - - Translations - - bee-jwah: shut-up. Wu ge cun: five cun (cun = original Chinese measuring system, equivalent to “thumb” or 3.3 cm, 1.3 in.) gongzi: gentleman/nobleman jing tsai: genius Kuh-ooh duh lao bao-jurn: horrible old tyrant

- - *Thanks to everyone who's posted thus far, especially 2x2. It does help me focus, thinking someone besides myself is waiting to see what happens next.