"Explain to me again why I had to come along."

Wash had to shout to be heard over the thundering rain. Zoë and Mal, who were leading the party, both turned to look at him. Or rather squint at him, as they found it hard to keep their eyes open with all the water pouring down their faces.

"You're gonna help Kaylee look for the parts she needs," Mal shouted back. "Besides, you couldn't send your wife out in the rain and then stay behind your-own-self, snug and dry, on the boat. That wouldn't be gentlemanly."

Zoë almost laughed at the expression that fell over her husband's face, a funny mixture of annoyance and shame. He never offered the captain any reply though, just pulled his coat tighter and kept trotting on.

They'd parked Serenity about a mile outside Shahadeva's main settlement (not an easy task in this weather apparently, Wash had complained a lot about the restricted view as he executed it), but what should have been a short walk seemed a lot longer in these conditions. All of them were bundled up in anything that remotely passed as waterproof, but they'd still been soaking wet before they had even gotten as far as thirty paces away from the ship.

"People live in this?" Kaylee said, an unusual comment coming from her, as she was always so tolerant and open-minded and probably the last person in the 'verse to pass judgment on other people's ways.

"For eight months every year," Shepherd Book replied, prompting Zoë to cast a glance in his direction. Of the five of them he was the only one who'd left the comforts of the boat willingly. He'd said something about diplomacy skills and the captain's lack of it, and decided it would be best if he came along. Mal had either agreed or not bothered to argue with him.

The settlement, or town or whatever they called it, was situated at the bottom of a long and narrow valley. To get to it they had to cross a river, and it was as they reache