Just a Little Favor for a Friend Pt. 15

[feech]

Infirmary Vessel
***
"Every time he starts to come out of it, he seizes. His coma is induced by medication, now. It's not safe to let him wake up. He could lose too much oxygen."

"Pretty grim. What does this mean? He just gonna lay there 'til he dies?"

Simon shook his head and gave no other answer, looking dejectedly at the galley table. Captain Reynolds passed him some food, which he ignored; River, having disdained her seat for the entire meal, flitted up behind Simon. "Cheer up," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Ben is coming."

"I just don't know, Mal," Simon admitted. He reached up to pat River's hand, then turned to glance at her, startled, having just absorbed her words. "Oh, no, River. Ben's not coming here. Did you take you--"

"I took my pills. Silly physician. He's coming here. I got a letter."

Simon looked wide-eyed from River to Mal, who nodded. "Sure. Your sister persuaded me it'd be good for you."

"Ben? On Serenity?"

"Got a problem with your brother, Doc?"

Simon sputtered. "Did you-- how did you even-- why didn't he write me? What did he say, River? Do you still have the letter? What do you mean, it'd be good for me? What's good about the rampant chaos that's going to ensue when a research physician encroaches on my infirmary? Please, enlighten me. I'm dumbfounded. Speechless. This isn't speech coming out of my mouth-- it's surprise. I'm surprised. Shocked, even. I need a drink." He went to the cabinet for one. Zoe watched him solemnly from the table; Haven ate placidly; Mal glanced up and then sprinkled salt on his twice-baked potatoes.

"He's jealous," River informed Captain Reynolds as she twirled past the dining crew members, between table and counter. "He's so missed having other doctors to holler at. It will benefit him to no end. He'll see."

"Doctors? Doctors?" Simon took a swig from the first bottle within convenient reach. "Colleagues. Frank exchanges of medical advice."

"Doctors," River nodded, arching her arms and placing her fingers together gracefully over her head.

"I didn't know you two had a brother," said Zoe quietly.

Simon stammered. "Brother in the genetic sense of the term." Then he grumbled into his bottle. "Didn't grow up in our house."

"Bring that over here, I could use some." Mal gestured and Simon leaned to meet his reach and give him the alcohol. Mal sniffed it, then poured it onto his squash.

"I want some!" River decided suddenly, taking her seat. Mal offered her a moderated portion, which she dove into as if the conversation had ended long ago. Simon came behind her chair and stroked back a lock of her hair that threatened to fall in her plate, then asked, "What did he say? Just tell me that?"

"He wrote to tell me he wanted to quit his work."

"His research work? Well, he is not going to want to work on a thieves' cargo ship, I know that much. And he doesn't have the touch for trauma work, or he would have stayed in his general practice. He's cold."

"This is just jealousy," River informed Mal and Zoe, while Simon's lip flinched. "He misses him. They always had to work near each other because Simon came up faster in education than Ben did, so even though Ben's older, there was a lot of competition, and everyone--"

"Excuse me, River, I am in the room!"

"Yes I know. So, cheer up. Ben's coming."

Simon let out his breath in a slow, chilled sigh and sat down, taking the bottle from where Mal had placed it by the salt shaker. "I can't see how you can stand to put this on squash. Don't we have any maple syrup? And Zoe, one of us has to get back to the infirmary in-- six minutes or less."

"I'll go. You hash out the situation with the new medic. I guess you ain't too happy about it."

"I'm not. I haven't seen him in how long? And I can't say as he's been--" suddenly Simon stopped and turned white.

River followed him when he left the table. She caught him up outside the infirmary door, where he had stopped to lean on the frame and was clearly not thinking of Jayne or infirmary work-- he had a black, inner look.

"You left without saying, 'Excuse me,'" she informed him.

"I'm such a cad."

She nodded. "Your choice of self-deprecating term is quaint."

"You know what I'm thinking--"

"Yes, I know." River rocked on her bare feet, heels, toes, back and forth. "You noticed."

"--that I am sitting at a table with Zoe, complaining about my own brother, and she would give anything to--"

"I could pet your hair, if it would make you feel better. You seem to always want to do it to me."

Simon almost smiled. "But, that's because you're my baby sister."

"If you think I'm a baby, then I need my two big brothers."

The almost-smile vanished. "You need him like I need him. Who needs him? Zoe ought to just know it's not pleasant to hear from him after all this time."

"Simon. Your embarrassment is how you're becoming someone I'm very proud of. When you can say these things to the faces of the people in question, then you'll be a grownup. You can grow up. Look how big you've gotten?"

Simon smirked, then hid a laugh with the side of his hand.

"Ben can't bring us any monitors," River said distantly.

"Oh, of course not," Simon responded. "They're too exp-- wait, he can't, right?"

"Right. But maybe he can bring us something else useful. Do you think?"

"How would I know? Maybe he's a thief and can bring us a stash of meds."

"Thief like we. But he hasn't stolen anything yet."

"Not yet. Look, tell Zoe I'm going to stay with Jayne."

River gave a half-smirk, not looking in his direction, and floated back to the galley, where she whispered an apology to Zoe on behalf of Doc.

"So I was thinking," Mal was informing the remaining dining crew, "that we'd stop off and pick up Ben Driscoll at his hospital port, since we ain't got a job lined up in any direction. So we might as well go over our prospects over that route."

Kaylee piped up. "This might be a good time to tell you about a stop we could mayhap make on the way."

"Oh? You got a job tip, now, Kaylee?"

Kaylee wiped her face with a napkin and stood up and left the galley. She returned with a pad with figures on it. "I got this information-- I mean, I was just on a call with... a friend, see, and somebody kinda suggested there might be a salvageable infirmary transport out here--" she pointed to the figures-- "that might be deliberately left to the last on a piracy prevention salvage coordination mission."

"Where in the black did you hear about this?"

During Kaylee's preparatory breath with her eyes to the ceiling, Zoe made a very slight headshake at her. Kaylee looked down at her questioningly, and Zoe stared at her meaningfully. Kaylee nodded, took a breath again, and said, "I can't tell you anything 'cept it ain't got nothing at all to do with Atherton Wing."

"Mm. That's good. Where are these coordinates?" Mal reached for the pad. "Oh, this is good. Excellent, even. Not too far out of the way. River, tell Ben we'll be there soon as we pick over this find. If it's in line of a piracy prevention crew, meaning Alliance vultures in shiny suits, they'll have their eye on it but they won't have any reason to strip it until they know somebody's got a nose on it. You just got this, Kaylee, right?"

"Right."

"Good girl."

Kaylee flushed and beamed.

"Buzzards," said Haven with a mouthful of squash.

"What, Duck Pilot?"

"Buzzards." Haven washed down her mouthful and repeated, "We call them buzzards."

"Used to, when you were 'we' with Alliance."

"Right."

"You called the pirate-skulkers buzzards?"

"Of course. You don't have the monopoly on unflattering terms."

Mal shrugged. "I had no idea you all weren't part of a hive mind."

Haven scoffed. "Even though you're my captain, watch your step."

"I always do." Mal lifted a boot. "It pays. Well, on our decks, anyway."

Haven laughed.

* * *

Simon licked at his teeth and looked untrustingly at the sidearm Mal had placed with him. "Why are Kaylee and I going into this armed? I had been looking forward to seeing an Alliance infirmary again, but you're putting me off my game. This sounds unhealthily like the plots of too many flicks. Horror-type flicks."

"What? You mean monsters eat the crew, remaining folks ditch the vessel to protect mankind?" Mal stepped out into the breathable air of the terraformed, sharply rocky landscape. "This is a junk yard. Why would those monsters hang about waiting for us?"

"I thought of it when you wondered aloud about the senselessness of this situation," Doc told him. "That's usually the first thing. And stepping out right now, like this, with Kaylee and myself armed--"

"Hey," Kaylee stopped him. "I can shoot this." She aimed her weapon at the nose of a resting vessel.

"Right. At something, and hit it, about as well as I can. Broad sides of barns aren't in constant supply in Captain Reynolds' adventures."

"Sure are," Mal corrected Simon. "Barns, trains, buildings and vehicles of all kinds. Come on, Doc. Never know what kind of brigands might have made a jump on this find. Ain't sensible how the Alliance has left it sitting here, if it has medic supplies on it. Spite, I conjure. Just don't want anyone else to have it."

The infirmary ship was lying in a blue-shadowed hollow. Her entry hatch was battered, not open enough to enter, but Mal, Zoe and Kaylee were able to pry it. Simon cautiously squeezed in first, then Zoe wriggled in after him and helped open the hatch further for Captain Reynolds. Kaylee skipped into the relatively undamaged corridor beyond and looked uncertain.

"Cap'n, it don't make no sense," she said in the gloom as Mal shone a light. "Why'd they crash land in a junk yard?"

"I don't fully comprehend it myself, Frye. Troubles me. Keep an eye out for anything that went wrong with her."

"Don't seem right," Kaylee mused. "The way th'Alliance keeps us from getting the useful stuff out of these old ships. Our girl, Serenity, goin' about space practically naked when she could have so much of this... I'm havin' a look at the engine."

"Careful," Mal approved after Kaylee's swiftly departing back. Then he raised his voice: "and come back quick and help Doc with the equipment he needs! That's why you're here."

"Mayhap the crew of this ship wanted to hide something in with the junk," Zoe suggested. "Alliance folks in charge might not even know she's here."

"Easy, or Doc'll get afeared of some kind of monster experiment."

Simon wasn't listening. "This way, I expect, will be the beds and any monitors they have-- along with some medicines. Back there would be the surgery. Let's have a look up this way. Fresh supplies couldn't come too soon-- I'm out of Cobb's regular drip. He's knocked out with a single dose right now."

Doc took his way up a ramp into the ship's bow and checked out the damage. Bottles and wires were strewn about, but it seemed almost as if they had been disturbed in certain areas before the apparent emergency crash landing. "The crew took some of these things. Perhaps they escaped to another vehicle and had some of the valuables with them. But why didn't they come back, take the rest? These lights still work. Everyone help me find... uhm..." Doc read to himself from a list he had brought with him, then passed it around. "That might also go under the name of Zicard. Sort of an unbranded version."

"You got it, Doc." Mal began digging through half-opened drawers and flipping medicine folders, few of which still held their injectable doses.

"This is strange. Some of these drugs I've never seen before. It's as if someone on the ship were developing their own cocktails." Simon peered intently into a clear glass vial as if staring would reveal the chemical content. "I feel it accurate and perhaps necessary to let you know that a sense of nervousness I had before leaving Serenity has intensified."

"Take some of that stuff along. Could prove useful."

"I think that's for the Doc to decide, Sir."

Captain Reynolds preempted. "I think we'll take it along. If it ain't useful, it's for sale."

Zoe scraped bottles into her pockets. Simon had begun to scour the floor for broken bottles, examining them carefully. "These are... familiar to me. But not entirely. And why did they leave these? If this is experimental, why not take their results? Why did they take what I suspect was the more conventional items-- see-- what would have been in these slots, here, they took out before impact. Then they left. If they'd been killed in the crash, there'd be evidence." Simon shuddered and shrugged one shoulder in mental discomfort.

Kaylee came quietly up the ramp. "Hey, crew. Um, kinda odd state of engine I gotta tell you about."

Mal looked up quickly. "What?"

"Well--" Kaylee twisted her fingers together as if this would explain something, "she's damaged beyond repair, so far as I can figure out, and whether her crew would have had any warning or not is hard to say. It's almost like she was programmed for destruction. But that don't make sense, does it? An infirmary ship?"

"Unless she was carrying something destructive," Simon suspected. "Was it automatic?"

"No, I don't think so. I think she-- I think it was an option they had in mind but who set it off, hard to say. Could've been remote, but only if they had access to the engines beforehand and--"

Mal clarified. "The ship was sabotaged?"

Kaylee shrugged. "I don't understand it, but it sure looks that way. If I knew more about sabotage I could say for certain."

"They knew she was coming down," Mal said, "or she wouldn't have emergency crashed in a junk pile. They were definitely wanting to hide, Zoe's right. They're trying to just shuffle her in amongst the wrecks and hope nobody picks her over. Kaylee, you think your-- friend had any idea?"

Kaylee mulled that over expressively. "No. I think that-- my friend was just trying to pass along some mention of an infimary ship that somebody had seen left alone on the ground."

Simon handed over his collection of supplies to Zoe and led the others through a stiff curtain that ran on a rail. "There should be beds--" but there weren't. Instead there was a cage, taller than Mal, fastened to the far hull across a square patterned tile deck. On either side, some paces from the cage, stood banks of computers, one of which was dented severely. Mal and Simon attempted to trace how the damage could have occurred in the crash, but there was no evidence of the object that presumably had been flung with force into the console.

Simon fretted, "This should be the bed area, this here, and then another--" but through a reluctant yet still-functioning automatic door there was a smaller alcove, again with a cage of plain bars, flanked by two tables with straps. There were no monitors and no cupboards nor other bedroom supplies. Some kind of records on an eraseable panel had been hastily removed. Simon tugged at his hair for a second; Mal said, "Let's take a look at the crew quarters."

"Must've been holding madmen," said Zoe.

"Or transporting prisoners," said Mal. But when they came to the crew quarters, which Kaylee had seen on her way to and from the engine access, no evidence of police equipment was to be found. The lights in this part of the infirmary ship were malfunctioning and Mal shone a lamp quickly in each bunk area.

"We'll find nothing of use to Jayne in here," said Simon. "I guess we'd better have a look at the surgery in case the beds are there or Kaylee can use the monitoring equipment they'd have for the anaesthesiologist."

Zoe took up the rear, paused and backtrod when Mal's light caught something on the head post of a bunk. She looked, stepped, and picked up a wristwatch; she brought it out, following Mal, and turned it over in the light.

"Sir, look at this."

"It's a watch. Gold?"

"Don't seem like something a fella'd leave behind. See, it's engraved. Two sets of initials. Don't seem like it'd get forgot."

"Well, what, then? You think there was some kind of threat to the fella that owned it? Think he's dead?"

"I think somebody died. The somebody who owned this watch wouldn't have left it behind. There was some kinda rush or worry, here."

"Captain!" Simon's shout came hollow up the corridor. "Look at these cryo bays."

Where Simon had supposed the surgery would be, Kaylee, Mal and Zoe joined him to see two separate bays, each lined with six upright cryogenic boxes, blinking with monitor lights. The clear containment walls bore active locks. A white glow came from behind the boxes within each bay; Mal checked the rest of the wide room with the yellow beam of his hand-held lamp.

"Open the bays," Simon told Mal. "We can maybe use something out of here and be done with this ship."

"Didn't they take the patients with them?" Kaylee worried. "Oughtn't we to be careful and break 'em out?"

"If they left 'em," Mal said, "That's what they're hiding-- that they crash-landed a ship while moving sick criminals or lunatics. Too much trouble."

Simon considered this as he ran his hands over the transparent wall. "They could have moved the patients from one infirmary ship to another, so perhaps this means they were too fragile to travel. On the other hand, it doesn't work to cryogenically store critical patients. You have to be in good health to handle cryo. Which means they couldn't have been critical, and besides, there's a hovercart here they could have used."

The locks to the bays were coded. Zoe and Mal fiddled with one.

"You know what else is weird," Simon said, "These bays for cryo. Cryo is used individually unless it's for long-term storing. The way I've usually seen cryogenic units in bays is for research-- where you'd take out entire sets of -- subjects-- at one time."

"This trouble you, Doc?"

"It does a bit. Research and this boat make me highly uncomfortable, so let's just get--"

"Hah--" Zoe managed to knock out a lock. "These are easy. Whoever left 'em ain't too worried about 'em being broken into."

Simon stood still a moment while Mal and Zoe opened a bay. He was muttering to himself. "Broken into? No. Just like in the flicks. They're worried about somebody breaking out." He stepped back from the cryo bays, but Mal raised his voice.

"Open that other one, Doc-- just break the panel."

So Simon did. But he was swiftly disappointed. "Oh, shit, please no, after all this hope of getting some help from this-- these boxes are all inhabited, but these monitors are all out of whack; malfunctioning. They read living inmates, but these people are deceased." He touched and slid a cover back. A stale scent with minimal vapor came out. "Note the necrotic dermal tissue. These boxes have been damaged from neglect."

"Or maybe in the crash."

"I think they have been deliberately neglected, Mal," Simon disagreed, his jaw briefly clenched in indignation and bitterness.

"They could've come and taken 'em out, off the ship with 'em," Kaylee said sadly.

"They've been badly maintained all along." Simon was miffed. He moved down the line in the bay he had opened, removing lids. "We are looking for anyone alive whose monitors say they are alive-- I need decent equipment for Kaylee to adapt for my infirmary."

The smell from the third box opened by Simon set them all back from their work for a moment, but they continued until a holler came from Mal. "Hey! Live one, Doc, hurry over here."

Simon stepped hurriedly and looked. "Great day, he's alive. Now I'll deal with him while Kaylee--"

"I'll shoot him neat in the head while Kaylee deals with the monitors."

"Captain? We are removing this man's means of support, miles from anywhere, in a junk ship yard in a wild land. Thank you for your kind offer of aid--"

Zoe broke in. "In addition to this hovercart, there are plenty of other things we could use or sell on Serenity. Doc, you deal with the patient or whatever it is, Mal and I'll collect all this stuff, right, Sir."

Mal slanted his eyes sidewise at Zoe.

"Don't seem right, Sir, to shoot a man to save Jayne, unless he's doin' something to Jayne direct."

"And even then," Mal agreed. "Right. Doc. You and Kaylee--" he was interrupted by a call from Haven.

"Got buzzards, Captain. Least that's what I think they are. Sit tight and wait on moving your riches back to our cargo."

"Heard you. Black out."

The young man-- almost boy-- that Simon helped out of the mounted cryo box had the shakes. That was to be expected, Simon said, and asked him if he could speak, tell his name, how many fingers, follow the finger-- the patient breathed as if he wanted to speak, but no words came and he was intensely drowsy. Simon sought for a bed to put him in and something to clothe him with. The first time he suggested carrying the patient back to Serenity with the cargo, Mal pretended not to hear him and Zoe gave him a "wait on it" look, so he dropped the topic for that moment.

Mal and Zoe moved things of value to the outer hatch and awaited further updates from Serenity.

"Why can't we take a look around at things Serenity could use from all the other junk ships? Nobody's usin' 'em."

"You can bet they're alarmed here and there," said Mal. "Watch your step, Kaylee."

Kaylee obeyed. Slight distraction was provided against temptation by the monitors she had to work on adapting. She gathered up a tangle of cords and then went to look curiously at Simon's once again unconscious patient, who breathed in shallow, yet steady draws through greyish lips. "He looks all clammy," she told Doc. "Is that normal?"

"We can't expect normal if he's been in cryo for an extended period of time," Doc answered. "As long as he's stable, we'll wait and try to keep him warm."

Mal and Zoe poked around the infirmary vessel. The records they were able to see or hack were blank. "But if there were research records, those should have gone along with the crew," Simon insisted faintly when this was mentioned to him. "Not been trashed-- no, this is all wrong. We've got to get out of this place. And I don't even feel right taking what we're taking-- I'm afraid it's going to haunt us."

"Haunt us how?" Kaylee asked. "It's just supplies. Come on, help me collect up the rest of that monitoring equipment."

Simon followed her slowly. When they returned to the cryogenic room, it took them several seconds to look aside from their work on the live patient's box and notice, together, that ten other cryo boxes were now standing empty.