All the usual. Not mine, but oh I wish they were.

The next morning Mal established the routine they would follow for the next few days. He, River, Book, and Jayne started the day by grooming all eight horses. Book said it had been quite a while since he had been around horses but that he would greatly enjoy helping. River couldn’t have been kept away from them with an electric fence. Jayne was, as usual, grumbling.

“I’ll learn to brush ‘em but I ain’t singin’ to ‘em,” Jayne announced when Mal detailed what needed to be done.

“Singing is optional,” said River.

“Well, I’m optin’ out,” answered Jayne.

Mal’s objections to religion in general and prayer in particular did not seem to extend to singing. When Book started singing “Holy Manna,” an ancient hymn from Earth-that-Was, Mal joined in. River listened for one verse and then pitched in with an ethereal high harmony. It turned out that Mal knew almost as many hymns as Book and singing them brought them through the morning chores. Jayne declined to participate, unless a low-level grumbling could be counted as a basso obligato.

***

Once the horses were groomed, Mal sent Jayne off in a respirator to wipe down the vents where they had removed the boxes. Inara tore a sheet into small squares, Jayne took the squares and a bucket of water to Serenity. He dampened one square at a time, wiped until he had used all its surfaces and then dropped the used square in a bag. This way, he didn’t spread spores from one place to another. The job didn’t take long, and when it was finished Simon said that they would leave Serenity wide open and see what the spore counts were like by the afternoon.

While Jayne cleaned Serenity, Mal marked out a long rectangle about 50 yards by 25 yards on a flat piece of ground near the spring. He marked the corners with piles of rocks and then he patiently walked back and forth through the rectangle, covering every inch. As he walked he collected any stones he found and threw them to the outside of the rectangle. River