After Gimpy-Brain nearly rutted the deal—you would think that someone with psychic powers would know enough not to act all crazy in front of first-time buyers—the captain got Kaylee to put Little Miss Squash Rot away so that everyone could concentrate on business for a change. That skinny lawman with the big scar (and not much below it of interest to a man) radioed that the goods were good, the horse cart came, and the yokels got to loading.

Since it was fresh produce they were hauling back, the yokels still had to pick it, and Flat As A Board told the captain that a work crew would be on it in a couple of hours. So Jayne had some time to kill and was wondering if it was worth his while to look up that juicy Jasmine when some feller came up to him and, a-stuttering and a-stammering, asked him for their shi.

“What?” Jayne asked, thinking that maybe River finally had a play-mate.

“I’d like to vacuum your septic tank, I’d like to do that,” the feller replied. “We use it, we do, for fertilizer.”

“You use shi?” Jayne asked.

“Black gold, gold,” the feller said with a smile. He patted a metal tank he had strapped to cart that was pulled by a donkey. “We sterilize it and use it—best thing, best, best thing for crops.”

This place was just too much, but if they wanted the shi…not like the crew was going to use it, and if it meant Jayne had to run the septic vac one less time, so much the better.

Jayne wasn’t going to let the feller poke around the ship unsupervised, though, so he followed the feller and his donkey back to the external septic port on the side of the ship. Jayne had to open the port, but the feller was handy enough with his equipment and soon had his pump going.

“So, I hear you’re going to help the doctress,” said the stammering feller. Jayne just shrugged in reply—he thought it was stupid, but whatever—and the man just kept yapping away. “She’s a tremendous woman, you know. Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. People think that her ailment is a bad thing, but I think it’s a gift from G