Truth and Beauty 6-14

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Jack’s face, which he had been keeping determinedly neutral, broke into a smile. “Surgeon is the word we use to describe a ship’s doctor,” he explained. “May I see your commission? Good heavens, it’s entirely hand-written. Yes, acting surgeon,” he said, looking at Stephen with increased admiration. “Acting commissions are typically as a Surgeon’s Mate, you must have wowed him in your interview or you have some fantastic credentials.”

“As we have no surgeon for me to be a mate to, I don’t suppose he had much choice.”

“Eh?”

“I said that as the Roth doesn’t have a surgeon to begin with, there was no one he could appoint me to be the mate of. It is a logical impossibility.”

After a barest second’s pause Jack understood that Stephen had misconstrued the term mate. “My dear sir,” he said, “it is illogical, I do agree, but mate indicates subordinate to in rank. Smaller craft, with smaller crews, typically have only surgeon’s mates to look after them, with no surgeon on board at all. Most of our officers are in fact mates, too - Mister Lorre the carpenter is officially a carpenter’s mate, first class, for instance, and Ms Lund is an electrician’s mate, also first class. And on transport craft such as ours the surgeon’s mates are typically med-school drop outs or burned out RNs, if that. Full surgeons, such as yourself, are professional men and, ha ha, command a greater rate of pay.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. One and a half times as much, I believe, plus head money for the number of crew. And prize money, though of course as a transport we shan’t see any of that.”

“But I mean, an appointment as surgeon is a mark of confidence, a good thing?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack again. “Absolutely.”

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Truth and Beauty 6-13

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If that’s how you were dressed then I don’t doubt you made a poor impression, thought Jack, for Stephen’s coat had a dark square on its front where it had lost a patch pocket, and his pants had a certain shininess to them; and most admirals were sticklers for uniform. “Well,” he said, not sure how to share this observation without being offensive. Then, determined to hear the worst, “what happened?”

“I gave my name to the secretary, as you said, and was shown in. The admiral seemed a decent sort, asked after my health and offered me a drink, then asked why I had come. I told him that I intended to apply for the physician’s position on board the Roth, which I understood to be vacant. Do you mind if I get a glass of water?”

“Of course,” said Jack, gesturing to the printer.

Stephen returned with a glass of water, drank deeply, and sat down. “What a glorious thing it is to be properly hydrated,” he observed.

“Of course,” said Jack again. “What did the admiral say?”

“Yes, he kindly explained that a permanent appointment could only be made by the hurt and sick body-”

“The Sick and Hurt Board.”

“-but as an admiral he could make an acting appointment once he was assured of my abilities. Then he asked me a series of prepared questions of a medical nature, which I thought I had answered well, and then he asked that I wait with his secretary while he completed an obligatory background check. Finally he came out with this scroll and said that he was appointing me acting surgeon of the Roth - surgeon, as if I’m incapable of the medical side of things.”

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Truth and Beauty 6-12

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Still cursing under his breath, he pulled a scrap of paper to him and grabbed a pencil to compose an email to his father. Severity of work required him to remain with his command, he wrote, knowing the old man would see through the fiction at once, but would the admiral like to visit him on the Roth?

The email took a surprisingly long time to write, short though it was. Jack typed it in, ordered and drank a glass of whiskey, and clicked ‘send’ as seven bells rang. He leaned back in his wobbly chair and rubbed his temples.

“Liberty,” he said, putting his hands down and turning back to the computer.

Two minutes later he rose to answer a knock on the cabin door, but rather then Mister Greenstreet responding to his commander’s summons, Doctor Russ walked in, holding a roll of vellum. “I saw your admiral,” he said, laying the vellum on the table and taking off his coat to hang it on the back of his accustomed chair. “What happened to my chair,” he asked.

Jack flushed. “I, er, tripped. I’ll have Chips set it right, but use mine for now,” he said, taking Stephen’s coat and hanging it on a bulkhead peg.

Stephen sat and considered his new perspective on the cabin. “Hmm,” he said. “Strange how a different angle on something makes it unfamiliar. But I saw your admiral. I am not at all certain that I made a good impression."

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Truth and Beauty 6-11

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Jack left the interview in a mixture of shame and anger. He knew he should be relieved - grateful, even - beams-slipped-from-the-clamps was serious damage, and commanders had been docked pay or even lost their appointments for less. But shame, and not too deeply beneath it, anger, dominated. Standing in the busy passage outside the admiral’s office there was no outlet for any of these emotions, however, so he bottled them up, stepped into the admiral’s secretary’s office to submit Doctor Russ’s name, and caught the people mover back to the quay. From there he caught a wherry back to the Roth to see about unloading and docking her.

The emotions continued to work on him, however, and by the time he returned to the Roth he was thoroughly sour, looking for something to lash out on just to alleviate the tension. On the bridge he gave clipped orders to receive lighters to offload their cargo, and to have the guns locked down and inspected by the ordinance people in preparation for entering the graving dock. Then he retreated to his cabin, where he asked Stephen to report to the admiral. Finally alone, he swore loudly, kicking one of his chairs so hard that it broke free of the pins holding it to the deck.

“Damn it,” he swore again, nursing his now painful foot. He picked up the chair and set it on its feet again, where it sat lopsidedly, one of the legs being bent. Mastering the urge to hurl the chair across the cabin he sat down instead, wallowing in the discomfort of the damaged chair as punishment for his outburst.

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Truth and Beauty 6-10

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“I give you credit for honesty, captain,” said the admiral (come, thought Jack, that’s civil). "And, as I say, you made it. Are there any injuries?”

“One man is still on light duty, sir, but the doctor - my guest - tells me he’ll fully recover.”

“Well, I am going to ask that while you’re here you confine yourself to your ship unless official business takes you off of it, but if you keep your nose clean I think we may consider this affair closed. I’ve reassigned your oxygen shipment to the Newcastle, but I have a shipment of carbon slurry that you’ll be taking to the Achilles system. Not glorious, but it has to be done. Have you any questions?”

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“The yard attendant will let you know once he has cleared a berth. You said that this doctor of yours wishes to be appointed your surgeon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you are happy as to his conduct thus far?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Leave his name with my secretary and have him report to me before you depart for the Achilles. Not Wednesday, I’ll be taking the baths that day, but any other work day. Good day to you, captain.”

“Good day, sir.”

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Truth and Beauty 6-9

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Neva-4, and Roth tied to a buoy in the inner roadstead while her captain reported to the port admiral.  “We had a, er, we hit the first coil of the gate badly as we made the jump to hyperspace, and the jolt pulled some of the beams form the clamps and played havoc in the hangar.  We put in some extra knees to support things and we had to put a cap on one of the gangway hatches to make the jump back to cartesian space - the christmas tree wouldn’t turn green, sir - but the hangar will need to be pressure tested.  Engineering has a Robbins pipe fitted on the secondary loop of the prime mover, holding well, and the forward berth deck lighting is on an auxiliary panel.”

“I see,” said the admiral, who was a short, slightly overweight man with close-cropped grey hair and a hooked nose.  At present he wore a rather severe expression, but whether this was due to Jack’s incompetence or due to pain from the admiral’s prosthetic hand wasn’t clear.  “Well,” he said, “you’ll have to go in for a refit, clearly.  But, you made it, that’s the main thing.  How did you end up hitting the gate off-center?”

“Well, I have a guest, sir, a doctor, a physician, who has consented to stay aboard as our surgeon if you’ll appoint him.  But he’s not a sailor and inadvertently - that is, I shouldn’t have allowed him on the bridge for the jump, or at least cautioned him to the nature of the maneuver.”  Jack wasn’t certain the he was explaining himself clearly, and the admiral’s expression only seemed to be getting darker.

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Truth and Beauty 6-8

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“In fact, we should be dropping out of hyperspace sometime in the second dog.” He shifted in his seat and refilled Stephen’s wine glass before he went on.  “You may be more comfortable in the coach or here in the great cabin when we make the jump.”

Stephen felt the remark deeply, but he acknowledged its fairness. “Certainly,” he said, after the smallest pause.  He raised his glass. “A glass of wine with you, sir.”

“A glass of wine with you,” said Jack, raising his own.

* * *
Shortly before six bells in the second dog watch, and except for the forward gangway door on the starboard boat deck, Roth was ready to jump back to Cartesian space. Though the hatch remained jammed shut, its frame was warped, and the sensors continued to show an open condition.

“Put a cap on it, Mister Lorre,” said Captain O’Brian at last, he and the carpenter having tried to pound and pry the hatch back into alignment without success. “It’s only till we make harbor. And place those knees. Will you need more men to have us ready to jump by the end of the watch?”

“Yes, sir. The red cutter’s crew, if you please. They are some of the best welders in the barky and are used to working together.”

“Very good, Mister Lorre,” said the captain, pulling out his phone and entering an order for the requested men. He walked aft along the gangway, absently returning the salutes of the cutter’s crew, rushing past him in the other direction. Roth required at least two days in port, probably more, since there was no guarantee of an available graving dock when they arrived. As captain, Jack would have to call on the port admiral’s office, and probably meet with the port admiral himself to explain why his command failed to properly negotiate the jump and now needed graving dock space, but even a protracted discussion of Roth’s condition and how she was damaged couldn’t take more than a highly-unpleasant hour or so.

Deliberately avoiding the question of whether the admiral would allow him to keep the Roth, after this near-disaster, Jack turned his thoughts to the question of laying in private stores with a further advance on his pay. Steak was out of the question, particularly on a planet where it have to be imported, but pork and chicken were likely available at a reasonable price.

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Truth and Beauty 6-7

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The swell persisted through the morning, and indeed none of the other sailors paid any attention to it, either, other than to help Stephen back to his feet when he stumbled, advising him each time to “keep one hand for himself, and one for the ship,” repeating the phrase each time like some sort of mantra.

“Take care, doctor,” said Jack after a particularly heavy roll knocked Stephen from his feet as he entered the cabin for dinner, rolling him across the deck so that he landed at Jack’s feet with his limbs splayed out like a starfish.  “You need to keep one hand for yourself and one for the ship.”

“Thank you,” replied Stephen as Jack pulled him to his feet.  “Surely this is abnormal?  I don’t remember ever being so tossed about in space before.”

“The commercial passenger liners do go heavy on the dampers, yes.  It makes for a smoother ride, which they feel the passengers prefer, but you’re less maneuverable, and of course the helm looses some of its feel.  I think this is supposed to be beef,” he said, having lifted the cover off one of their trays to reveal a reddish-brown loaf covered in a clear, slightly oily, brown gravy.  He leaned forward to sniff it.  “Yes, brisket, I think.  May I cut you a slice?”

“If you please,” said Stephen, passing his plate.  Lifting the other covers revealed a green paste that might have represented broccoli, and what they recognized as the printer’s take on buttered rice.

“We only have to make do with the printer for another day,” said Jack as they tucked in.  “We passed Martin’s Mark a little after two bells in the morning watch, so touching wood we should be docking at Neva 4 something before noon tomorrow, where we can take on some personal stores.”

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