Firefly--Life Signs

by James Lovegrove

  “That could be carvin’ up babies.”

  “Book said he was carrying out human trials without permission.”

  “Could still be carvin’ up babies.”

  “But it could also be that Weng just tested his universal therapy on people – people who’d agreed to be tested on – without filling out the proper forms first. From the looks of it, he’s a wild card, so it’s the sort of thing he might’ve done.”

  “If that was all it was, though, a paperwork oversight, then what the gorramn hell is he doing on Atata?”

  “I looked into it. I ran a search for court records of his trial, but they’ve been redacted. The case was heard in a closed session.”

  “Now this is starting to seem a mite fishy,” Mal said. “If the Alliance are prosecuting a fella and not doing it in public, then you might be forgiven for gettin’ the impression it’s a kangaroo court and he’s being railroaded.”

  “You might well.”

  “In other words, Dr. Weng musta pissed off some grand high mucky-muck and it was decided to make an example of him.”

  Zoë rolled her eyes. “So cynical, sir.”

  “It’s a cynical ’verse we live in, Zoë,” Mal said with an exaggerated sigh. “You reckon Weng might be the answer to our prayers?”

  “Doubt the Shepherd would have mentioned him if he didn’t think it was worth a shot.”

  “But how’re we gonna get to him? Supposin’ that’s what we choose to do.”

  “Well, that’s the honking great question, isn’t it?” said Zoë. “Never mind extracting the man off Atata. It’s a tall order us simply landing there safely, undetected and in one piece. Fed ships are in constant orbit around the planet. Nothing arrives or leaves without their say-so, and if you don’t have the appropriate authorization, they’re apt to blast you to pieces.”

  “Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I’m just saying, I appreciate you like a challenge and all, Mal, but there’s challenging and then there’s crazy.”

  “Might be helpful if we knew a bit more about Weng,” Mal said. “Like, is he deluded or is he the real deal?”

  “Maybe the Doc’d be some use with that.”

  * * *

  They found Simon in the ship’s dining area. He and River were preparing dinner, a vegetable soup using the last few precious items of fresh produce on the ship before they turned bad. Simon was stirring the soup while River was chopping the vegetables to add to it. She wielded the kitchen knife with startling speed and accuracy. A carrot was reduced to disk-shaped chunks in just a couple of seconds, each slice precisely the same width as the others, to the millimeter.

  “Esau Weng?” Simon said, in answer to Mal’s query. “Name rings a bell. I think I remember reading about him in the Hippocratic Chronicle a couple of years back. He was working on something to do with the promotion of cellular regrowth and endogenous repair using targeted artificial immunomodulatory microorganisms.”

  Zoë shook her head bemusedly at all the jargon. Mal just looked blank.

  “Robot viruses that can mend anything in the body,” River explained to him, as if speaking to a ten-year-old.

  “Oh,” Mal said.

  “Cutting-edge stuff,” Simon said. “It could revolutionize modern medicine—if it’s at all feasible.”

  “You don’t think it is?”

  “I don’t know enough about it to say. The problem is, Weng has never published anything on the topic—not even an abstract—and he’s never allowed his research to be peer-reviewed. That’s made the medical world regard him with suspicion, and rightly so. Anyone can claim they’re on the verge of a huge breakthrough, but if no one else can check what you’re doing, you may as well be making mud pies in your backyard. Come to think of it, wasn’t there a scandal involving Weng not so long ago? A court case or some such? I have a feeling there was.”

  “Trumped-up charges,” said Zoë. “Leastways, that’s how it looks, reading between the lines.”

  “What sort of charges?”

  “Unlawful experimentation. Contravention of Alliance Medical Association rules. So Book says. The Cortex doesn’t specify any further.”

  “Shepherd Book?”

  “I waved him.”

  “Gray hair, no longer here,” River murmured, quartering a potato in two deft strikes.

  “Then,” said Simon, “I suppose what I should be asking is: why’s there this sudden interest in Esau Weng, of all people?”

  “Because of Inara, silly,” River said.

  “Inara?” Simon said, putting it together. He looked at Mal. “You think Dr. Weng could cure her Kiehl’s?”

  “You think he can’t?” Mal said.

  “I have no idea. On the one hand, he sounds like a crank, and a shady one at that. On the other hand, if he really has developed artificial immunomodulatory microorganisms—”

  “Heal-all robo-viruses,” River chipped in, for Mal’s benefit.

  “It’s okay, River,” Mal said. “I got it the first time.”

  “Then,” Simon continued, “technically there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t work on Kiehl’s myeloma. But I’ve got to say, this is clutching at straws. I mean, I want Inara not to die as much as the next person, but if we’re pinning our hopes on some untested, unproven form of therapy, one that may not even exist, then…” The sentence trailed off into a shrug.

  “Doc,” said Mal, “you have a better idea, I’d like to hear it.”

  “I wish it were otherwise, believe me—but no, I don’t.”

  “Thought not. Me? I can’t lay claim to any fancy medical background, but I do know that if there’s even the slightest chance this Dr. Weng has invented bitty little viruses that can reverse Inara’s cancer, then we oughta try to find him and convince him give her some of ’em.”

  “That’s all very laudable, but—”

  “Whoa.” Mal held up a hand. “Let me stop you right there, Simon. This ain’t about what’s laudable—if I even know what that means. This is about bringing Inara back from death’s door. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes, even if it involves traveling to the ass-end of the ’verse. I’d like to think you would be too.”

  “I never said I wasn’t willing to help,” Simon replied defensively. “But what’s this about ‘the ass-end of the ’verse’? As far as I recall, Dr. Weng has been conducting his researches at a private laboratory somewhere in the Red Sun system.”

  “Not anymore,” said Zoë. “He did have a lab. It was on Greenleaf. And it burned to the ground. Suspected arson. Happened shortly before Weng got arrested. Word is, he torched the place himself.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Then if he’s not on Greenleaf, where is he now?”

  “Well, that court case you were talkin’ about,” said Mal, “it didn’t go too well for him.”

  “He wound up on Atata,” said Zoë.

  “Atata,” Simon echoed, with a note of incredulity. “But only the absolute dregs get sent there. Worst of the worst. They’re dropped off and left to fend for themselves. No wardens, no oversight, just survival of the fittest.”

  “It’s an ice world, what’s more.”

  “Yes, the terraforming didn’t ‘take.’ Winter all year around except at the equator, and even there the temperature never rises much above zero.”

  “Named after one of the Eight Cold Hells in Buddhism,” River offered. “The word echoes the sound of teeth chattering. The other seven Cold Hells are Arbuda, where the skin gets stripped off you by a freezing wind; Nirarbuda, where the same happens but you can’t get out; Hahava, where—”

  “Atata ain’t a beach club resort, that’s for damn sure,” Mal said, butting in before she could go through the entire list. “But,” he added, with finality, “it’s where we’re going.”

  8

  “That’s it?” said Simon, arching an eyebrow at Mal. “You’ve decided.”

  “Sure have, just now,�
�� Mal said. “We land on Atata, find Weng, grab him, get the hell out.”

  “Don’t the rest of us get to have any say in the matter?”

  “Nope. My ship, my rules. That don’t sit well with you, you’re welcome to step off.”

  “But that’d… You know River and I can’t simply…” Simon collected himself. “It just needs to be said, Mal, that this isn’t the greatest idea you’ve ever come up with. The cons far outweigh the pros.”

  “Cons,” River commented. “Prison planet. Clever.”

  “I didn’t intend it as a joke.”

  “Clever, all the same.”

  “Complain all you like,” Mal said, “my mind’s made up.”

  “I’m not complaining. I’m simply making the point that what you’re suggesting carries a very high chance of failure. In fact, it’s probably futile. But if you insist, then…” Simon sighed manfully. “I’m in.”

  “Glad you see it my way.” Mal had known Simon would back down. It wasn’t even a case of calling his bluff. The Tam siblings were wanted by the Feds, and their best—perhaps only—option for keeping out of the Alliance’s clutches was to stay with Serenity. The ship was constantly on the move, making it hard to track their whereabouts. The downside of that, as far as Simon and River were concerned, was that whatever Mal proposed the crew do, they had no real alternative but to go along with it.

  “I’m in too,” said River. She twirled the kitchen knife on her fingertip, tossed it in the air, caught it and—thunk!—halved a zucchini longitudinally with a single blow. “Not that you asked.”

  “What about the others?” Simon inquired, with the air of a man trying to salvage some dignity. “Have they agreed to this?”

  “Let’s put it to ’em, see what they say.” Mal reached for the intercom and summoned Jayne, Kaylee and Wash to the dining area. When they were all assembled, he swiftly brought them up to speed on the situation.

  “This is Dr. Weng,” he said, showing them a picture he had pulled up from the Cortex. It was of a middle-aged man with haywire jet-black hair and eyes set deep in pouchy folds of skin, like he was perpetually tired. There was an air of obvious intelligence about him, but also the slightly lost look of someone who found it hard to connect with everyday life.

  “I ain’t askin’ for anyone’s permission to go after him,” he went on. “Just for consent.”

  “Zoë?” said Wash. “I’m guessing you’re going along with this.”

  “I am,” said Zoë. “Way I see it, there’s two choices here. We can sit on our behinds and let Inara die, or we can—as Simon has put it— clutch at straws. I’d rather do something, even if it turns out to be a waste of time, effort and resources, than nothing.”

  “Then count me in,” Wash said to Mal. “Whatever Zoë wants, I want.”

  “My man.” Zoë slipped an arm around her husband’s waist and kissed him. “That’s why I love you.”

  “It’s also why you haven’t killed me all this time we’ve been married.”

  “Smart of you to realize.”

  Mal turned to Kaylee. “How about you?”

  Kaylee looked pale and wrung out. Ever since hearing about Inara’s cancer she had been near inconsolable, so much so that she had scarcely left the engine room. Tinkering with Serenity’s workings invariably brought her a measure of comfort.

  Now, her face showed nothing but utter, rigid determination. “How soon do we leave?”

  “Attagirl,” said Mal. “Jayne?”

  “Ask me, there’s a thin line between doable and insane,” Jayne said, “and breakin’ somebody out of Atata crosses it.”

  “That a no?”

  “Not necessarily. I take it you have a plan.”

  “Not yet. Not as such. The makings of one.”

  “It involve violence, threat and danger?”

  “I’m hoping not,” Mal said, “but you know how plans go.”

  “Your plans more’n most.”

  “Never known a little violence, threat and danger worry you, Jayne.”

  The big mercenary drew himself up to his full height. “Never has, never will. Inara’s not done aught but right by me.”

  “High praise indeed,” Wash muttered to Zoë.

  “Figure the whore deserves a fightin’ chance,” Jayne said.

  “Companion,” Kaylee corrected him.

  “Tomato, potato,” said Jayne with a shrug. “I say we give it a shot. See where the line between doable and insane actually lies.”

  “Then it’s unanimous,” Mal said. “Unless, that is, you’re still quibblin’, Doc.”

  “I told you, I’m in,” said Simon. “Let me just get this straight, though. What you’re proposing is some kind of jailbreak.”

  “Yep.”

  “From a prison planet which, if I recall rightly, is patrolled by a number of Alliance ships.”

  “Yep.”

  “And there’s no guarantee Dr. Weng is still alive. He’s a medical researcher. He spends his life staring down microscopes and fiddling with centrifuges. Look at him in that picture. I can’t imagine someone like that is equipped, mentally or physically, for life among vicious convicts. One of them’s probably picked on him by now because he’s easy prey. Taken one of those makeshift prison knives to him, what it’s called?”

  “A shiv,” River offered helpfully.

  “And stabbed him with it.”

  “Shanked him.”

  “You’re up on your prison slang, River,” Zoë observed.

  “Never know when it might come in handy.”

  “Odds are Weng is dead,” Simon concluded, “which makes the whole thing even more of a wild goose chase. Why aren’t we considering going to Greenleaf and looking for his research data instead?”

  “His lab burned down, remember?”

  “But maybe he kept a copy of his notes somewhere else. At home, for example. Greenleaf’s a great deal more civilized than Atata, and visiting there would get around the whole, you know, prison planet aspect of the other place.”

  “It did occur to me,” Mal said, “and yeah, that would be a helluva lot more straightforward. But even if we did have Weng’s research data, how easy do you think it’d be for us to figure it all out and cook up some of those viruses our own selves? And by ‘us’ I mean you, Simon.”

  “I could do it, I suppose,” Simon said. “It would depend on how detailed the notes were. I’d also need all the right equipment.”

  “And even if you had everything necessary, how long do reckon it’d take you? Days? Weeks?”

  Simon shook his head ruefully. “Months, more like.”

  “Inara ain’t got that long. Not nearly.”

  Kaylee choked back a sob.

  “No, Doc, time is of the essence,” Mal said. “Like it or not, Atata is our best and only chance. ’Course, it’s plain we can’t just waltz on over there and touch down and grab the first passer-by and ask ’em where Dr. Weng is and then just whisk him away. This is one of those operations that’s goin’ to require a little finesse. It’s also goin’ to require your direct personal involvement, Doc.”

  “Me?” said Simon, pointing to himself.

  “You.”

  “As in I go down onto Atata and participate?”

  “As in exactly that.”

  “But why?”

  “’Cause Weng’s a doctor and so are you.”

  “How is that relevant?”

  “It’ll help when it comes to finding him.”

  “Do you think we in the medical profession can sense one another somehow? We have some kind of ‘doctor radar’ that bleeps when we’re in close proximity?”

  “No,” said Mal, “but let’s assume the worst and Esau Weng is dead. Maybe he’ll have brought something with him to Atata, something that’ll give us a clue to what he was working on, maybe even some of the actual viruses. You have the knowhow to be able to identify it. You’re our ace in the hole.”

  Simon looked round at the others. Kaylee’s was t
he last face his gaze fell on.

  She fixed him with an imploring smile. “Please, Simon. The Captain’s right. You’re gonna have to go.”

  That seemed to clinch it.

  “Very well,” Simon said with a sigh.

  Kaylee went up on tiptoe, pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  The blush remained on Simon’s face for several minutes.

  9

  Commander Victoria Levine of IAV Constant Vigilance was a by-the-book kind of woman. She ran a tight ship and was a stickler for neatness and efficiency. Her uniform was always immaculate, not a loose thread or a button out of place, and she observed the timetable of shipboard life to the second. She had the same high expectations of her crew as she had of herself. Just because they were posted way out on the fringes of the ’verse, guarding a prison planet, there was no excuse for slovenliness.

  Constant Vigilance was one of four Alliance corvettes that patrolled around Atata. Each of these large Hornet-class ships followed a set flightpath that crisscrossed its quadrant of near-world space—the same exact route, day in, day out.

  It was undemanding work, no question—boring, even—and Commander Levine knew that some of the other crews regarded the posting as a bit of a joke. They lounged around, collars undone, feet up on the consoles, playing endless games of Tall Card while their ships cruised on autopilot. The crew of Freedom to Choose were the worst. Rumor had it they even drank while on duty.

  But not Levine and her subordinates. Oh no. They had a job to do, and by heaven, they were going to do it well. If she had anything to say about it, that was; and she did.

  So when a midbulk transport ship appeared on Constant Vigilance’s scanners, coming in on a direct heading towards Atata, Levine ran through the contact protocols exactly as she was trained to. She told her communications officer to hail the interloper on the common channel, and she addressed the ship in her most brisk, authoritative tone of voice.

  “This is Commander Victoria Levine, speaking from the bridge of IAV Constant Vigilance. I’m talking to the Firefly-class vessel approaching on bearing two-niner-six. Please identify yourself.”