Thanks to everyone who left feedback on section 1. Yes, this is a re-posting, in fewer, larger increments, now that the story is complete. You may also have seen it on fanfiction.net under my given name, Mary Kroll. Please enjoy.

There was no friendly truck waiting for the crew of Serenity when they landed again on Janus. It would take several trips on the mule, but there was nothing for it. Jayne was grateful for the focus of the work and the drone of the vehicle as it rumbled to the warehouse and back. Mal had a lecture primed for him, Jayne just knew. Every sidelong glance the captain took in the mercenary's direction promised a high-handed dictum on his behavior, assumably relative to Kaylee and his declaration a few nights since. He was so deliberately fixated on his task that he never noticed the two men watching him from their position across the street, pistols strapped to their thighs.

The bulk of the day was gone before the last crate was deposited in the building and the short stack of wrinkled bills was deposited onto Mal's hand. Jayne and Zoe sat on the back of the mule, waiting, as professional banalities were also exchanged.

“Cobb?” one of the men yelled as he and his partner loped across the street. “Jayne Cobb?”

No sooner had Jayne turned his head but the two had each grabbed him by an arm and hauled him up.

“Gun dan!” Arms weary from shifting boxes all day and taken unawares, Jayne's wrists were in cuffs before he knew it.

“Jayne Cobb,” the taller man began, “you are bound by law.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, gents,” Mal stepped in front of them, but the shorter man shouldered him out of the way as they muscled Jayne between them. “That's my hired man you're absconding with.”

“See this?” the taller man pointed to a pitted metal badge on his left chest. “This means we're the law and we'll abscond with anyone's hired man we see fit, especially when he beats a man to death in our town.”

“I'm Deputy Lonnie Gibson,” the younger of the two said with a little smile, as if he were leading a tour, “and that's Deputy Stacey Gibson”. His brother glared at him in irritation, but did not falter a step.

“Mal, I ain't beat nobody to death here.”

“I'll get it sorted, Jayne. When's his trial?”

“Trial already happened,” Deputy Stacey answered. “You missed it. We convicted him and now he's gonna hang for killing Jeremiah Boone.”

“Mal!” Jayne's face looked markedly less intimidating than usual. Wants and warrants he was accustomed to, but never a conviction and death sentence.

“There's gotta be something we can do here, fellas.” The faster Mal walked behind them, the faster Deputy Stacey pulled at Jayne.

“You can talk to the sheriff about settling the bond price after we get him in a cell,” Deputy Lonnie offered, again to his brother's obvious vexation.

Zoe had followed close behind, eyes tracking the street for more lawmen, but the way was clear. “Daring daylight escape or lawful obedience?” she asked surreptitiously as she came abreast of Mal.

“Lawful obedience, of course,” Mal said clearly enough to be heard by the deputies out-pacing them. Then, sotto voce, “And if that doesn't work, go with the daring escape thing.”

Iron bars over the windows signaled that they had reached the seat of local law. “Take him in and get started,” Deputy Stacey ordered his brother. He turned to the captain and first mate, “You all stay out till we call you,” before continuing on down the street. Zoe watched him walk to a nearby business while Mal peeped through the filmy windows as the younger deputy led Jayne over to a chair and sat at a desk stacked with papers. He turned to speak to the man seated at the grander desk at the far wall, a stocky fellow in a white suit, pure indulgent foolishness in this dry territory. Undoubtedly, this was the sheriff.

“Murder's believable,” Zoe said quietly, eyes on the door the elder deputy had disappeared through.

“How do you mean?”

“As far as crimes Jayne would commit.”

“You know of any he's not a likely candidate for?”

Zoe did not even need to consider her answer, “Rape.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Mal tilt his head in consideration. “Said just the other day, 'the verse is full of willing women'.”

“I'll buy that.” Mal's eyes searched the front room of the sheriff's office, but it was otherwise unfortified, clearly not where Jayne would be held and so not fruitful for him.

“Here he comes and he's bringing company.”

Mal turned to watch Deputy Stacey Gibson march toward them again, dragging an obviously discontented woman by the wrist. “I know her, or I've seen her before, at any rate. She came on the ship last time we were here, looking for Jayne.”

“A working girl?”

“Like as not.”

They held their peace as the deputy and the woman passed. Mal fixed his gaze through the murky glass again and strained to hear. The copper-skinned woman stood stiffly in the center of the room when the deputy released her, looking as much an arrested accomplice as anything.

“Somsri, Somsri, Somsri,” the sheriff said as he levered his portly body from his chair. “How many times do you need to be told not to cover your head?”

Deputy Stacey snatched the topaz blue scarf from her head and let it flutter to the ground, where he swiveled his boot onto it. Somsri set her jaw and refused to react, though her nostrils flared.

The sheriff motioned to Deputy Lonnie, to which Lonnie hopped up from his desk and pulled Jayne standing. “Now, Somsri, we need you to do your bit as a good citizen and tell us, is this the man called Jayne Cobb?” The sheriff pointed a thick, tobacco-stained finger at Jayne, though all the while his eyes roamed sleazily over Somsri's body.

“That's the name he told me.”

“And is he the one you saw engaged in fisticuffs with our late Jeremiah Boone?”

“Yes.”

“There's a good girl. You can get on back to work now.”

Jayne looked at Somsri, his eyes grabbing hers. The gaze between them veritably crackled. “At least you earned your thirty pieces of silver.”

Her expression was hard, her answer half snarled, “I don't owe you anything.”

“Oooh, feisty,” the sheriff mocked, laughing. “Alright, you go on now, but be over at my place tonight around nine. I've got a hankering for a little sausage and clam.” The elder deputy joined him in deriding the woman as she left, though the younger one was slower to laugh.

Surfeit with indignity, Somsri turned sharply and strode out, past the two outlanders on the porch, paying no more mind to Mal than she had the week prior on the deck of his ship, even though she walked directly between him and Zoe.

“Huh.”

“Sir?”

The door opened and Deputy Stacey moved aside from it, “Y'all come in now.”

Mal stepped into the office and stood before the larger desk, Zoe falling in one pace behind and to his left. “Captain Malcolm Reynolds,” he extended his hand.

The sheriff's handshake was at once firm and bored, “Sheriff Taylor Gibson.”

“Hen gao xing ren shi ni.”

“This fella kin to y'all?”

“He's in my employ presently and I'm hoping to keep it that way. Your deputy says we can bond him out. What's that gonna run?”

Sheriff Gibson chuckled and looked to Deputy Stacey, who smirked coolly.

“We didn't clap him up for stealing chickens, you know.”

“Charge of murder, we're told.”

“Not a charge, son, a conviction.”

“That's where my brain gets fuzzified. You can't just go convicting a fella without letting him speak for himself.”

Immediately, the sheriff's face dropped from a haughty, superior smile to an affronted scowl. Color rose in his cheeks, highlighting the blood vessels in his nose, clear testimony to any person too far away to smell the man's breath that the sheriff was a dedicated drinker. “Qiao wo de!” He stood and flung open the door. “Get yourself an education in the law and come back tomorrow. It's the dinner hour and we're closing the office.”

“This is some gou pi,” Mal groused as the sheriff's office door slammed behind them.

“Nothing like a nepotistic small town dictator to brighten up your day.”

“Town like this, I bet they don't have three last names between them.” Mal began to stride back in the direction of the mule, knowing without looking that Zoe would be behind him. “Ya know, my day was bright enough before Jayne went and got himself jammed up like this.”

“And quite a jam it is. What's our plan of action?”

“Do what the man says, hunker down with the rules of law for these parts and see if we can't free Jayne in an above-board fashion. Simon's already doing a spate of medical research, should be no trouble shifting gears from doctor-speak to lawyer-speak.”

“Plan B being a jail break?”

“Let me think on that a while.”

Zoe regarded him silently as they mounted the mule. 'What was there to think about?'

Mal found Simon and Wash convened over a cortex screen in the bridge. “What's the good word?”

“Antidisestablishmentarianism,” Wash said.

“What?”

“Antidisestablishmentarianism.  That's a good word. In fact, it's one of my favorites.”

Mal sighed exasperatedly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Simon, you got anything useful to say here?”

“I've been able to identify the parasites that infested Kaylee.”

Mal looked at the doctor and, mouth open slightly, gestured back and forth between he and Wash. “What happened to that strict patient confidence you had a hard-on for last week?”

“That I what last week?”

“Hey,” Wash put a hand up for a chance to speak, “I may have finished school with a double first in Spitballs and Armpit Farts, but it didn't take a genius to figure out why Simon was up here looking for what he was looking for, what with Kaylee not vomiting all the time anymore and the enhanced on-board quiet.”

“I'll make it a point never to doubt your deductive reasoning skills again.” Mal returned to Simon, “What were those things?”

“Minavitas aferosi, literally 'steal a little life'. Like certain other animals, and in some instances plants, that were moved interplanetarily, they changed in their new environment, evolving within just a few generations . The original aferosi only laid their eggs beneath the host's skin. As they were carried unknowingly from one planet to the next, their survival modality changed. The current incarnation on Janus inject their eggs into the host's blood stream by means of a cannula-like appendage, which I mistook for a splinter when I removed it from Kaylee's arm. Once inside the host, the eggs travel to a sustaining organ, such as the uterus of a healthy, young female.”

Wash had read all of this with Simon earlier, but it still made him a little queasy to think about eggs and larvae floating around inside a body. “You're gonna check Zoe too, right, Doc?”

“Directly. And bring it to Inara's attention.”

“Do that,” Mal affirmed. “Where are we on points legal?”

“Funny thing, that,” Wash punched up some documents on his cortex screen. “Funny uh-oh, that is, not so much funny ha-ha.”

“Apparently, the township of Tibernius has legal standing for in absentia convictions,” Simon offered in the spirit of brevity as he monitored the captain's tremulous state of calm.

Mal crossed his arms and leaned against the bulkhead. “It was my understanding that a man has a right to confront his accuser under Alliance law,” he nearly choked to say it.

“Normally, yes,” Simon explained, “but during the early days of colonization and in certain circumstances during the war, exceptions were made. In every other case I looked at, the laws were all rescinded or redacted as soon as the needs of the provisional government changed. Whether through apathy, totalitarianism or a clerical oversight, the Rule of Absentia is still in effect on Janus.”

“Given their skill at bulletin posting, I'm laying my chit on clerical oversight,” Wash jumped in. “I mean, I had to dig back through almost fifteen years of laja to find a mention of those parasites. These wuneug de ren haven't updated the alerts since we were all in short pants.”

“Probably they figure everybody knows it by now,” Mal speculated. “I'll be the last guy in line to hang medals for geniusness on anybody down there, I'll tell you that for nothing. Okay, I need to know the criminal law for the planet of Janus in general and the territory of Tibernius in particular, and I need to know it sharp-ish, so give me the highlights.”

As Simon lectured, Wash pulled up more cortex pages for him to refer to, but Simon did not need them. The law was a great deal like medicine: complicated to practice, expensive to patronize and full of Latin.

“Criminal offenses are divided into two main classes, Petty and Great. Petty crimes, like minor theft or public drunkenness, are punishable by jail or a fine. What distinctifies Janus from most other municipalities is that it is largely up to the accused to determine which one. If a man had the money, he goes free. The funds go into an account for public works, to which the sheriff had unquestioned access. Felonious, or Great, offenses such as murder automatically draw a death sentence, but can also be forgiven with money, though it requires substantially more.”

“How much in a 'more'?”

Wash mumbled an answer.

“How much?!”

Simon found River on the couch in the common area alongside the infirmary. She sat stiffly, her brows knitted in consternation, her fingers clenching the edge of a cushion. The conversation on the bridge had gotten loud toward the end and sound carried well along the corridor. One need not be psychic to pick up on the tension in the ship. With an ability Simon described to himself as 'receptive empathy', River must have been quite taxed.

“How are you feeling today, mei mei?”

“It's complicated. He's complicated.”

“Which 'he'?”

“He has to see many people about many different ducks, but he always returns to his warren with visions of her. He hopes to pluck that dusky jewel from the wretched hands of wealthy men. Without, great leader. Within, doubting, resentful, insecure.”

“Hey,” Mal's voice resonated from the top of the stairs that led to the crew quarters, “I heard all that.”

“That doesn't make it any less true,” River shot back, then closed her eyes and gulped a breath. Simon watched her as she struggled, like a diver nearing the surface, unsure if there is enough life-giving air in her lungs to make it. Her hands trembled as she clasped them together. “One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five...”

Simon recognized the sequence, the Fibonacci numbers, the golden spiral. “River, what are you doing?”

River took another deep breath and swallowed it down, as if she could swallow down the madness that rose to overtake her lucidity, to remove her from sense and propel her into the nebulous, confusing unreality that dominated many of her days. “Numbers. The numbers never change, cannot change, solid, predictable, grounding. The rules always apply. No exceptions. One is A, two is B, three is C, four is D.” She took a breath and let is out slowly. “D. Desultory. Demented. Deranged. Defective. Dangerous.” With each word and breath, River began to still, her focus returning to the world outside her fractionated mind.

“Delightful,” Simon interjected.

River smiled at him and reached out to take his hand in hers. “Devoted. Determined. Deluded. ”

“Definitely.” Simon smiled at his sister and the genuine way his smile was reflected on her face. The River he had loved so dearly was still inside this jagged, dishallowed person and she was struggling for control. That she was able to consciously calm herself was amazing progress. Simon made a mental note to update the transcript of her care.

Mal stepped down into the common area. “We done talking about other people's business down here?”

“For now.” River stood and approached the captain, ”Zhe shi wo de mi mi,” waving him to bend down to her, and whispered conspiratorially in his ear, “Purple monkey dishwasher.” Pole-axed but silent, Mal just stared at her as she nodded grimly and went off to her berth.

“Just when I think she's already beyond the pale.”

“Actually, Captain, though she can at times be as abstruse as ever, I think she's making some inroads to recovery.”

Assessing Simon's placid expression and the sudden, new ease in his body language, it gave Mal something to consider about his most troublesome cargo. “Huh.” He had no love for the trouble that ferrying the Tam siblings had bought him, but they had his hatred of a tyrannical government and its sadistic agents to ensure his allegiance to their fight.

Deputy Stacey seemed to have a genuine preference for pulling Jayne around by the elbow. In no position to affect much change in the matter, Jayne could only acquiesce and go where he was led. Jayne had seen the inside of more than a few jails in his time and even the occasional prison. Floorplans differed slightly from one to the next, but they were essentially the same, form following function. The Tiberinus jail had only three cells running along the left side of the room, each containing a basic bed with thin mattress affixed to the wall and a sink-toilet unit. The end cells also had a short bench attached to the exterior wall. None of them appeared to have been used very recently. Deputy Stacey marched Jayne down to the far end, nudged him inside and slid the door closed. Well-versed in the protocol, Jayne backed up a half-step, presenting his hands behind his back to the access opening and felt his handcuffs being removed.

“Meals are at seven, noon and five, so you've missed dinner already. Lights out at eight and don't touch the bars,” the deputy intoned disinterestedly. “Gorram it,” he growled, then yelled at the open door to the office area, “Lonnie, you're supposed to leave the key in the door when it's empty.”

“Um, I think I have it in here. Deng yi xia r,” came Lonnie's unsure voice.

“Ma shong!” Stacey just glared at his brother as Lonnie came in and handed him the key. “I swear, Lonnie,” he groused as he locked the prisoner away, “you're so stupid, it's a wonder you don't forget to wake up in the morning.”

“Well, that's why I set the alarm,” Lonnie answered innocently. Stacey just grunted and gave his brother a light shove towards the door.

Armed with a basic knowledge of the law of this land and a deepening resentment toward Jayne Cobb's inherent talent at causing chaos, Mal was waiting on the porch of the sheriff's office when the first deputy arrived to open shop for the day.

“Accused types hereabouts are entitled to one visitor, am I correct in understanding?” Mal asked as he followed the deputy inside.

“That's right.” Deputy Lonnie unlocked the door separating the anteroom office from the cells and pointed, needlessly, towards the far end.

“Did you have a good time the other night, Jayne?”

“Course I did. A whole night to myself with coin in my pocket? I didn't know whether to shit or go blind.”

“And this man they say you killed...”

“I got no independent recollection of him. Not like folk walk around wearing nametags and go se. I was in a fight, sure, lots of fellas were, but everybody left under their own power.”

“And you didn't beat on anyone bad enough for them to die?”

“Won't that kind of fight.”

Mal paused the ruminate on Jayne's asseverations. Local law did not imbue Mal with the authority to examine the evidence used to convict Jayne, so there was little more than their word against his. In a situation such as that, 'they' usually won. “Here's the other thing naggin' at me. Why'd you go and answer your name like that? Gotta be the oldest trick in the book.”

“Because last time I answered my name, a pretty whore gave me breakfast.”

“Those boys out there don't look like biscuit-dispensing hussies to me.”

“This ain't a productive area of conversation, Mal. How's about we change focus to something more solution-oriented, like getting me the ruttin' diyu outta here? How much is it gonna cost to spring me?”

“More than we earn in a year.”

“Net or gross?”

“Shen-me?”

“Gross take or the net profit?”

“Gross.”

“Wo cao!” Jayne retreated to the bench, scrubbing a hand through his short-cropped hair and down over his face. “What about Inara?”

There was a coldness is Mal's response, “What about Inara?”

“A...,” Jayne weighed his vocabulary carefully, “woman of independent means such as herself has gotta have a retirement fund she can dip into for exigent circumstances.”

“I've called you a lotta things these past years, but 'exigent' wasn't one of them” Mal crossed his arms over his chest, his face stern. “Let Inara post your bail so you can piss off next time we touch down? Not much of an inducement.”

Jayne stood again and faced Mal squarely, body close to the bars. “I don't mind bonded service, wouldn't be the first time, but my trustworthiness ain't the issue here. You're getting your panties in a wad, thinking about her layin' up under dandy men just to save my well-defined ass. Hell, maybe you're getting' off on it.” From the flare of Mal's nostrils, Jayne saw that he had struck a nerve. It had become fairly clear to him that Mal had no interest in extending himself to help Jayne, so Jayne did not care a shred if he made Mal angry.

“Inara's business is her own. You want her money, you ask her. Oh wait, you can't. Seems you're only allowed one visitor and that was little ol' me.” Mal approached the bars, close enough to Jayne to smell him. “Now, I've got a first mate, pilot, mechanic, medic and passenger all relying on me to keep us flying, fed, and furtive. Can't do that with you bringing hell to my doorstep every time I turn my back.”

“You're just gonna leave me here?”

The answer was in Mal's silence, as he stood stalk-still with dour face.

“You do that and you're as good as killing me, Mal.”

It bristled up Mal's spine, another accusation of murder from a potential victim who had damn well doomed himself. “I didn't kill that fellow last week, Jayne, you did. Heroing is one of the shortest-lived professions there is, mercenary's even shorter. Your number's just come up.”

“If it was Zoe or the Shepherd got locked up without cause, they’d be home before supper got cold.”

Mal’s hard look took on a cast a skepticism at the assertion. “Know me so well, do you? Maybe you’re just not that valuable to me.”

Deputy Stacey was at his desk as Mal crossed the anteroom office. “Yuo mei qian?”

“Not today. I leave him to your tender mercies. Gentlemen.” With that, Mal strode out of the office and back to his ship.  

The mid-morning sun cast long shadows across the flat ground of the landing zone as Zoe watched Mal approach Serenity. They had been in close company for some long time and through trials too distressing to tell, so Zoe felt she could read Mal as well as anyone living might. It was a long walk into town and back, a clue to her that he knew he would want time alone to think. Further, his gait and the set of his jaw told her that circumstances had not improved and had probably degenerated in the way that seemed emblematic of their luck. Zoe had hardly expected Mal to bring Jayne back with him that morning, but a small, senseless part of her had hoped. She met him at the bottom of the ramp where he had stopped. “We're not bailing him out?”

“Can't. Utterly, unequivocally can't.”

“So on to Plan B, jail-break and derring-do.”

“There's not going to be a Plan B, Zoe, not this time. The 'verse is holding Jayne's feet to the fire for this one.”

“You've never been afraid to ride to the rescue before. Getting cowardly in your old age?” It was a little poke, a test of the thickness of Mal's calloused carapace.

Mal let it go. “Ain't about afraid. We can't afford to rouse rabble here. This back-and-forth-y transport gig, under-stimulating as it may be, is gonna give us some long-overdue fiscal stability and clients don't look kindly on those who blow up jails and release hardened criminals that the spirit moved them to put away. We've got many, many needs on this ship versus his one.” Mal bent, scooped a stone from the hard-packed dust, and hurled it skittering across the ground. For a moment, he simply stared after it. “Admittedly, it's a pretty big one.”

“Thought you had a higher standard than that for crew.”

Images of betrayal assailed Mal's mind, memories of Jayne doing for himself at the expense of other, sins of which Zoe remained unaware. Loyalty was a commodity to the mercenary, a cheaply bought nobility. “This is his fate. And when precisely did you become a one-woman Jayne Cobb admiration society?”

“He's a good sort, for the sort his is. Hell, he was probably best man at your wedding.”

“I ever tell you what a smart mouth you got?”

“Better a smart mouth than a dumb ass. When you were in trouble, he packed on a half-ton of steel and lead the charge.” Leaving aside how late Jayne was to the rescue party, the statement was more true than not.

Mal unclenched the fist that had curled reflexively and willed himself to a calmer composition. Zoe was a wall when her mind was made up, immovable and insurmountable. “The decision has been made.”

“So that's it for Jayne?”

“That's it.”

“And Kaylee?”

“Wei, what in the name of Tien and sonny Yesoo does this conversation have to do with Kaylee?”

“Jayne gets into trouble, you up and desert him. Kaylee has a problem, you go out of your way to embarrass her in front of the people she has to spend every hour of every day with. I heard a public humiliation, but I haven't heard a public apology yet.”   Heat crept up Mal's neck and washed down his arms, prickling the flesh with goosebumps as his anger rose. Any man who jabbed at him like this was feel four hard knuckles in his mouth. It was the best way, sometimes the only way, Mal knew to purge himself of this fast-growing wrath. But Zoe was a woman, whom should never be struck by a man, and Zoe was Zoe, who could wreck him without mussing her hair. Blue eyes locked to brown in a granite stare as Mal spoke, his voice low but severe, “We're not going down that road. This conversation is over. Are we clear?”

“Abundantly,” Zoe never dropped her gaze, “sir.” She watched Mal as he stalked away into the belly of the ship and was engulfed by the shadows, a resolution crystallizing in her heart. She did not believe in the fate that befell a person regardless of how they act, but only on the fate that falls on them if they fail to act.

Simon stood waiting for Zoe in the cargo bay, dressed in the finest clothes he still owned. The uniform of his former station, now a disguise, was at once comforting and a bit foreign. It had been months since a starched collar had touched his neck or his feet had slid into personally-fitted shoes that were polished to a gleam. The layered finery felt a bit bulky now, like a suit of armor.

Confident that he looked the part, Simon focused his thoughts on acting the part. This assignment was more fitting than the one foisted upon him on Canton. There he was a doctor masquerading as a purchaser of mud. On Janus, he would be a doctor pretending to be a different doctor, the fictitious physician whose name appeared on the contrived identification card in his breast pocket. Simon appreciated the odds, so much more in his favor for this mission – press the local constabulary to let him review the autopsy report and, hopefully, ferret out some detail with which to clear Jayne of murder. Synchronously, Zoe would take on the role of detective.

“Looking sharp there, Doc,” Zoe said, by way of announcing her arrival. The two briefly appraised each other, both suited up for duty, one in silk, the other in leather. Abreast, they strode down the ramp. “How are you feeling about this?”

“The first step is getting the local law to agree to the inquest. After that, it's just a matter of pathology.”

“I thought you were a trauma surgeon.”

“I am, but I also excelled at pathology. If there's evidence that's been overlooked or misinterpreted, I'll find it.” Simon straightened the knot in his tie just so. “That assumes, of course, that Jayne didn't kill that man.”

“Of course.”

Invoking the right of inquest would turn out to be easier than either Zoe or Simon had anticipated. The sheriff, still enjoying lunch at his desk, seemed unconcerned by the stylish new interloper.

“I'd like to review that autopsy record, including all scans and pictures,” Simon's voice was steady and sure.

“Can't,” Sheriff Gibson obscenely sucked the last threads of meat from a rib bone.

“Can't or won't?”

“Can't give you records from an autopsy nobody did.”

“You interred a murder victim without conducting an autopsy?” Simon was incredulous at the anarchical lack of protocol.

“Don't question me, son.” Sheriff Gibson belched out one side of his mouth. “We still got Boone's body.”

“It's in the walk-in at the pub,” Lonnie blurted out from his desk in the corner.

“Hush, boy.”

“May we ask why you've...” Zoe sieved through her mental lexicon for the right, official-sounding terms, “preserved the remains for more than a week?”   “Honoring the man's last wish to attend the hanging of the hundun that finally did him in.”

Zoe and Simon looked at each other, a silent agreement that the sheriff could not have given a more queer answer if he had said the body would be the grand marshal of a parade.

Simon turned his cool gaze back to Sheriff Gibson, “In that case, it should go without saying that I'd like to perform an autopsy.”

“You can autopsy all you like, won't help Cobb one tiny iota.”

“He's gonna cut Jeremiah up?” Lonnie was leaning across his desk, reaching his neck to get as close to the conversation as possible without leaving his seat.

Sheriff Gibson did not even look in Deputy Lonnie's direction, just help up two fingers toward him. “Bi zui.” Capitulating instantly, Lonnie sat back and stared at his mess of paperwork.

“I got some truck with the idea of you desecrating one of our own-”

Simon's mouth was already open to protest.

“But seeing as how you've quoted the law chapter and verse, and seeing as how I'm the bulwark of order and justice for this province, I don't see where I have standing to object. If you'll come with me,” he gestured condescendingly grandly towards the door, “we'll take you to our presiding doctor and get you your corpse.”

As they left the jail, Zoe slipped off to one side. From the mouth of the alley, she could see the window of Jayne's cell, half a meter wide but only a hand high. He might have been looking out, or it may have been a shadow, but still Zoe held up a fist and made three motions in the air, 'hold position, reinforcements inbound.'

After the clear and obvious similarities between the Sheriff and the two deputies, one keen to be involved, the other sullenly withdrawn, it did not surprise Simon in the slightest that the town's only doctor had the same eyes and chin as the sheriff, to say nothing of the same last name. There was even a parity to the doctor's indignation.

“Who are you to come here and tell me I don't know a murder victim when I see one?” Doctor Gibson was not quite as hefty as his brother, but he had clearly not missed any meals, and like the sheriff he was tailored in a fashion more refined than his surroundings.

“I can assure you, doctor, my presence here is in no way a commentary on your abilities. The employer of the condemned man has commissioned me to determine the veracity of his guilt as an impartial observer. I would be happy to extend you the professional courtesy of reviewing my findings.” For the span of a breath, Simon thought, the resident doctor's eyes seemed to glaze over under the onslaught of ten-penny words.

“That's right, Drew,” the sheriff put a meaty hand on Doc Gibson's shoulder and turned them away from the outsiders. His whisper was more harsh than it was quiet, “Look, just give him the body and let's get rid of them so we can get on to the hanging.”

“Fine,” Doc Gibson huffed back. Turning to Simon and feigning pleasantness as convincingly as bull with feathers glued to it might pretend to be a chicken, “Alright, Doctor Shonessy, let's get you set up with a place to work. I've got a few patients to see, then I can get the body to you in a couple hours.”

Simon's smile was just as fake, but far more debonair, “Thank you, doctor.”

Zoe parted company with Simon as Doc Gibson led him to a room at the back of his practice. Sheriff Gibson, having successfully passed the nuisance on to his brother, lost interest and returned to his office, leaving Zoe with a pleasantly surprising amount of freedom with which to work.

Mal's reluctance to strain himself, his crew and resources to help Jayne was understandable and not unprecedented. Owing to his deep personal moral philosophy, circumstances usually saw him change course for deliverance, but Zoe could not trust that Mal would feel so motivated in time. A wise man once said that patience taken too far is cowardice and Jayne's execution was slated for the following day.

The best course of action for her to contribute to Jayne's potential redemption was to retrace his steps from that portentous night. What she hoped to uncover, she did not know and could only trust in herself that she would know the exculpatory facts when she found them.

The crew of Serenity, minus her medic and passenger, began their evening more than a week earlier at a decent eatery, enjoying a proper meal and a round of un-watered beer on the advance payment of their newly acquired transport job. Wash had made allusions to a perfect way to end the evening, so he and Zoe excused themselves with a wink and a nod. Halfway back to the ship, Mal and Kaylee caught up with them, having declined to join Jayne in his much-anticipated debauch.

The trouble now was that the name of a bar one had never visited does not root itself firmly in the memory. Zoe stood on the covered veranda of the cantina and scanned the sign fronts of the other businesses in the restaurant district, hoping that one would leap out at her. 'Story's Place,' that was the place the waitress had directed Jayne to when he failed utterly in his attempts to entice her affections. Zoe ambled casually down the block, just another citizen walking down the street, and through the heavy windowless doors to Story's Place.

The whole building lacked windows, keeping prying eyes off the antics of folks who carried themselves as unimpugnably respectable the rest of the day. It was unremarkable, one of a hundred thousand similar providers of hard drinks and soft bodies throughout the 'verse – tables, bar, billiards, washrooms of terrifying feculence, and the yeasty yellow smells of beer and urine. A metal door like a portcullis guarded the bottom of the stairs at the back of the main room, more to keep the women above honest about the number of clients they took than to keep them safe. A clever publican could easily make his mortgage payment on the commissions the whores were forced to pay.

Simon examined the area the town's doctor had provided him to preform the autopsy. Leave aside the length of time since he had last worked with a cadaver, one un-dead organ smuggler notwithstanding, Simon was beginning to doubt. The room looked more like a decommissioned butcher shop than an unused surgical suite. A row of cabinets along one wall held only a scattering of random supplies, as if they had been picked over for a vastly superior purpose long ago. Spiders had adorned each corner, angle and crevice with haphazard webs. Dust crowded every visible surface, including the high, metal table, fitted with a drain pipe and still draped with a rust red stained sheet. 'Woebedtide these people,' thought Simon, 'that their only surgical option is a man whose operating table has a drain built into it.' He let out a little snort as he wadded up the sheet and began to wipe down the table and counters with it. 'The best medical advice I could give them would probably be 'don't get sick'.'

Doc Gibson tossed open the door, clearly still nettled by the intrusion of the well-groomed upstart. Behind him shuffled a lean teenage boy, shaggy black hair hanging over his almond eyes. "Doctor Shonessy, I thought maybe you'd like an assistant for your assize. This is Jin Takeda."

"Oh, thank you," Simon said in the same false courtesy. He tossed aside the sheet and extend his hand to the young man, who only looked randomly and disinterestedly around the room. After an awkward moment, Simon lowered his hand.

Doc Gibson snapped his fingers, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, he's deaf and dumb. Emphasis on the 'dumb'. Mostly he carries things. See if you can't keep him out of trouble while you're working in my office." He turned on his heel and was back through the door before his venom could settle in the air.

Simon sighed and ran one hand through his hair. He'd picked up odd bits of signed language working in the emergency department, but certainly not enough to instruct an ad hoc autopsy technician. Hurting for other options, he shook his hand in front of Jin's face to grab his attention. YOU WASH and he pointed all around the room. Jin cocked an annoyed look, patently typical of a teenage boy, but started towards the sink cabinet, where he produced a bucket half full of rags and several unmarked bottles. Simon tapped his shoulder, B-L-E-A-C-H ? Jin opened each bottle and sniffed his contents, passing the liquid with the correct stench to Simon. Simon took a rag and turned to the impromptu autopsy table as Jin began to fill a bucket from the hot tap.

Simon sighed. "I should have told them I was a piano player in a whorehouse."

There were bees in the engine room, a great milling swarm of insects with wings beating faster than the mind could credit. River had followed the noise from the galley, all interest in her tea lost to the curiosity. She crept on her toes, trying to sound like wind or grass. The buzz became less constant as she approached, more a string of sounds than one continuous noise. The sounds broke apart further as she reached the engine room door and they became words. Kaylee lay in her hammock, staring blankly at the engine housing, absently chewing at one suitably clean thumbnail. The bugs were in Kaylee's head now. Simon pulled them out of her belly and now they were in her brain. Different, though. These bugs were made of thought, impossible to extract and every bit as dangerous. There were thought bugs of Simon and of Mal, but the largest colony belonged to Jayne, one minute making cruel jokes and the next minute swinging from his neck like a moribund pendant. The bugs crawled through “if only” and “now I'll never” and fed on “I wish.”

“We can go to him,” River offered without preamble. Kaylee jerked in her seat and the bugs fell away, silent now.

Zoe knocked on the door, and finding it unlocked, let herself in. Somsri glanced up from her book as she reclined incuriously on the bed. “Pay the bartender up front, honey. No discount for the girls.”

“What's the rate for talking?” Zoe closed the door behind herself.

“Long as no one hires me, I suppose talking can be free.” She tossed her book onto the scarred little bedside stand, to come to rest with an assortment of tools of her trade, prophylactics, lubricants, and an array of unmarked pills in unmarked bottles. “You'll be wanting to talk about your friend Cobb, I take it.” Lighting a thin cigarette from the case at her elbow, Somsri took a long drag. “I don't know what you want me to say. I saw him beat the ever-loving go se out of Boone, everybody did.”

“So Jayne was the last one seen scrappin' with the dead man.”

“Logic follows he killed him.”

“Logic being one of your highly specialized job skills?”

“You're not going to come into my room with no coin and talk to me like a common whore.” Somsri was off her bed as if she might actually want a course of violence herself.

“What part of the equation is missing here?”

“You think I chose this life? I was an art teacher back on Boros. You see these?” Somsri tugged at her right ear, pointing at five narrow notches taken out of the cartilage and skin. “These are the original years on my contract and these,” she pulled at her left ear, “are the years Gibson adds when he feels like it.”

“Eight years on a travel bond?” Zoe almost could not fathom the high cost.

“Eight as of now. Who knows? Maybe the sheriff hears I was talking to you and has his cusheng xai-jiao de xiang huo sons take out another one.”

The disgust on Zoe's face was clear and she did not try to contain it. “Why stay? You wouldn't be the first indentured to run off if you did.”

“He's got the contract on my daughter, too. As long as I toe the line, she gets to stay in school and believe her mother's a waitress.”

Feeling truly chastened, Zoe gave a small bow, “Bao qian, zao le.”She turned to go, but stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “Do you have the patience to entertain an idle curiosity?”

Somsri shrugged.

“What kind of client was Jayne?”

Somsri took the final, long drag from the cigarette and stubbed it out against bed-frame. “Hygienic.”