CHAPTER 4 - THEY TAKE SUCH LOOKING AFTER

River sat, swinging her legs against the cold metal of the catwalk platform edge. She loved to sit there, watching form a vantage point high above the action in the cargo bay below. Not part of the proceedings but, like a spectator in the Royal Box, with the best possible view. But for once she didn't feel quite as comfortable as she normally did nor as serene. Her unease was mostly due to the smell.

Serenity was grounded at New Dodge City on Endymion II and the Captain, Zoë and Jayne were loading cargo. Large crates were filling up the bay and there was considerable grunting and laughing going on below. River wasn't entirely sure what was in the crates, but the part of her she called her craft-brain was telling her it wasn't organic. So just what was that sharp, overtly animal, rancid smell with just a hint of richer, warmer, butteryness that seemed to be enveloping her? A snort some small way below her and to her left made her sigh and wonder why she hadn't placed it before.

There, hanging from the bottom of the lower catwalk, just to the left of Jayne's exercise grips, swayed a bag like contraption on rubber leashes and strapped tightly therein swung Little M, the baby of Serenity. He seemed just as content as River to waft above the action, watching the events with the beady eye of a connoisseur. Like her, River knew that Little M appreciated a good bit of space theatre, provided there wasn't too much danger involved. Although he did seem to welcome the appearance of a gun or two rather more than she herself did. The rotten smell was obviously the sign of a full diaper, whilst the half of rusk he was gently consuming provided the overlying perfume. Although, to be fair, he didn't seem to be so much eating the rusk as chewing it to mush and then allowing the resultant mess to drop to the floor far below with a satisfying plop, like some strange, biscuit-coloured, pigeon guano.

Zoë, walking below with a smallish box in her hands and consequently not lookin