ALONG CAME A ZHI ZHU -Chapter THREE

By BlueHandTwoByTwo (LarryL)

“Jayne, take that dress off right now,” Mal pleaded with Cobb. He turned to Book and Simon and shook his head, “Now there’s something I never imagined saying in my lifetime.”

“NO!” Jayne protested and took a step back out of the hatch, the pink and white dress rolling back and forth on its wire under-frame. “She’s had it long enough,” he pointed at Kaylee, who was still sedated and resting on the gurney. “It’s my turn. Besides, she’s all doped up. She ain’t gonna miss it.”

“It doesn’t belong to you,” Book reminded him. “A proper gentleman doesn’t take a lady’s dress without first asking permission.”

“Well, guess I ain’t a proper gentleman then,” Jayne sneered and turned his back on them as if to leave. Simon took advantage of the window and stealthily whisked across the room.

“Jayne!” the captain called out. Jayne stopped and turned, an ugly scowl parked on his mug. “Looks like Kaylee’s waking up here. Hows about you doing the right thing and asking her if you can wear her dress.”

Jayne eyed the captain suspiciously. It wasn’t beyond him to try and pull off some kind of dirty trick. The man simply couldn’t be trusted. Probably wanted to wear the dress himself. After all, he’s donned women’s clothing before. Jayne recalled a certain cotton dress and pretty floral bonnet the captain wore once when they were laying a trap for a band of outlaws who were birddoggin’ that moon a while back. Perhaps he got a liking for it? Jayne looked to Kaylee but Mal took a small, casual step forward, blocking his view of her. No, he wasn’t going to fall for it. “She don’t look awake to me.”

Book suddenly interjected, “Oh! There she goes again. I just saw her eyes flutter open.” He turned his back and leaned over Kaylee, blocking Jayne’s view as well. “Good morning, Kaylee. How do you feel?” Kaylee was, of course, still heavily sedated and sleeping soundly.

Jayne frowned and took a reluctant step forward back into the medical bay. Book wouldn’t lie to him, would he? Wasn’t it against religious law for a Shepard to tell a falsehood? Simon -quietly waiting against the wall next to the hatch- stepped up behind Jayne and hurriedly injected him in the neck with a tranquilizer. Jayne spun around as if stung by a bee, eyes wide, face flustered. “You and your gorram needles!” Then he went all glassy-eyed and swayed on his feet. Simon dropped the syringe and caught him before he dropped to the floor unconscious. Book and Mal stood in their spots, watching as Simon struggled underneath the man’s weight. “Little help here, gentlemen?”

*** *** ***

“There, do you see them?” Simon pointed to the computer monitor.

Everybody was gathered around the monitor: Mal, Book, Wash, River, and Zoe. Mal leaned forward, squinted, frowned. “Do you mean the reddish-yellow blobs or the kind of purplish-green blobs?”

Simon sighed and tapped the screen with his finger. “See all these dark spots attached to the cells? Here and here and here?”

“Yeah, sure,” Mal said, still unsure of what he was looking at. “Let’s just skip to the part where you tell me what they are.”

“Those are called ‘Thurbibulens’.”

“Oh yeah!” Wash said, snapping his fingers. “I had those once. They’re a breakfast cereal, right honey? Little dancing cows on the box? All wearing sunglasses?” Zoe rolled her eyes at him.

Simon frowned. This was no time to be joking around. “Thurbibulens are nasty little proteins that hitch a ride on the backs of red blood cells. Once they’re in the bloodstream, they start to crystallize. Eventually, they’ll grow big enough to block entire arteries and the patient usually strokes.” A subdued hush fell over the group.

“Shiny,” Mal remarked, sarcastically. “But how does that explain her trying to kill me?”

“Thurbibulens also attack your nervous system once they reach the brain. The crystals attach themselves to the ganglia and interrupt the normal flow of electrical impulses between the synapses. This usually causes severe disorientation and in some cases…” he looked over at Jayne, lying on the gurney still dressed in the pink and white hoop skirt. “Dementia. It’s not uncommon for those who’ve been infected to undergo complete personality changes.”

“How does one become infected?” Book wanted to know.

“According to the data banks, Thurbibulens naturally occur in only one place: within the secretions of the Green Nile Zhi Zhu.”

“Scratchy scratchy,” River shuddered and clasped her arms around herself.

Wash furrowed his brows. “Funny, I don’t ever remember piloting us to the Green Nile.” He turned to Zoe and asked, “Honey, have you been flying this ship behind my back?”

Mal pointed to Kaylee. “You mean to tell me all of this was caused by a rutting spider bite?”

Simon shrugged. “That’s one way for transference to happen.”

“There’s others?” Zoe asked, concerned.

“Simple skin contact. The Green Nile Zhi Zhu is very territorial. It usually marks its area with a small liquid discharge to establish dominance.”

“Not unlike a dog urinating on a tree,” Book remarked thoughtfully.

“Great,” Mal said, throwing his hands up in disgust. “We’ve got a gorram spider running loose and peeing all over my ship!”

“Even if you were to walk through any of its webs, there might even be enough secretions on the strands to infect you,” Simon continued. “This is pretty serious, Captain. If we don’t find this thing and fast, we’re all going to end up infected.”

Zoe grabbed Mal’s elbow. “Was Kaylee the first one infected? Maybe its in the engine room.”

He was about to answer when he suddenly remembered his strange encounter with--- “Where’s Inara!” Mal said, alarmed. She wasn’t standing here with the others.

Simon shook his head. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of hours.”

“Me neither, come to think of it,” Book said.

Mal turned and ran out of the Med bay, the others following close behind him. He ran up to her shuttle and banged on the hatch. “Inara! Open up!” He waited but no response came from inside. “Inara! Open this door right now! That’s an order!” Still nothing. Mal popped the control panel open and typed in a code that overrode the security lock. The hatch slid open with a hiss and everybody ran inside. Inara was lying on the floor as still as a corpse. “Inara! Book, help me get her to the med bay! Hurry!”

River peeked over everybody’s shoulders and watched as Book and Mal lifted Inara off the floor. She shook her head. “Green Nile. It liked the sparkles. Fuzzy, not hairy.”

*** *** ***

“Is she okay?” Book asked, worried about his friend. Inara meant a lot to him, more than the others knew actually, and he couldn’t face losing her. She’d been there for him from the very beginning. He still remembered that first week aboard Serenity when -in a moment of doubt and confusion over God’s divine purpose for him- he sought her company not out of carnal desire but for spiritual comfort. And she had given it to him. She put his mind to rest, gave his heart peace, reinforced his will to carry on. He thanked her for that night quite often, as a matter of fact. It was the bond that forged their friendship. And now it looked as if he might be losing her. A tear formed in his eye and he quickly dabbed it away before the others could notice. “She’s not going to die, is she?”

“She’s still breathing on her own, so we’ve got a little bit of time.”

“Before what?” Mal asked.

Simon turned to him. “Before she won’t be able to without needing a machine.”

“So these Thingamabobs…” Wash said, scratching his head. “Is there a cure for them?”

“There is,” Simon nodded. “It’s called ‘Drapomine’. It’s an organic alginate that dissolves the crystallized proteins on contact but leaves the cell intact. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of it here with me.”

“Where do we get it?” Mal asked.

“Any traveling medical frigate should have some.”

“Then we need to flag one down. Wash, I need you to bounce a signal right now.”

“I’m on it!” Wash waved and left for the bridge.

“Simon, you and Book stay here and watch over these three,” Mal gestured to Kaylee, Jayne, and Inara, all sedated and asleep on the gurneys. “And keep an eye on River. It’s dangerous. I don’t want her running around.”

“Yes, I agree,” Simon nodded.

“Zoe,” Mal said and turned to her. “I need you to suit up. You’re coming with me.”

“We’re going outside?” she asked, confused.

“No, we’re going on a bug hunt. If you can become infected just by walking into a web, I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Good thinking, Sir,” Zoe winked.

They started to leave when Mal thought of something and turned to ask Simon, “Any chance of coming up with a substitute for this Drapomine in case there aren’t any frigates nearby?”

Simon sadly shook his head no.

Mal frowned. “Didn’t think so.” He sighed heavily, then turned to his old Army buddy and put a hand on her shoulder. “Zoe, let’s go find ourselves a Green Nile Zhi Zhu.”

“Lead the way, Captain.”

*** *** ***

Wash dropped into his seat on the bridge, hurriedly flipped some switches and typed a distress message on the keyboard. He swiveled around in his chair and reached for the panel mounted above him to set the coordinates on the antennae dish to “wide-range” when -suddenly- a sharp stinging pain shot through his hand! He yelped and retracted his hand to see blood seeping from two small puncture holes! He looked back up above him and glimpsed a dark and fuzzy shape skitter across the panel. It disappeared into the shadows behind the box and a tangle of wires and was gone.

“Oh great. Just great,” Wash said to himself as he cradled his wounded hand against his chest. He quickly activated the distress signal then sat back in his chair, wondering what to do next. He thought about it, then hit the overhead mic. “Captain? You might want to come up here to the bridge.”

“Everything okay, Wash?” the captain’s voice asked over the shipboard intercom.

“Let’s just say that it’s a good thing Zoe doesn’t own any dresses. I’m bit.”

(to be continued)

***please leave a comment with your thoughts so far. Comments make me want to keep writing!