Truth and Beauty 3-2

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Jack stared at his orders. The blood ran from his face. “Roth?” he said, “Roth!? Porter! Porter there! Those two letters I gave you, do you still have them?”

“No, sir,” said the porter, looking up from his tablet. “I sent them directly, like what you said.” Seeing Jack’s face, he went on, “the boy may have dawdled at the corner, though, so I may be able to get them back.”

“Yes, yes!” said Jack, now starting to pace. Was he better off writing to Uncle Rufus or the Undersecretary? He was still working through the reasons for either when the porter returned.

“No, sir,” the porter said, “the butcher’s daughter is out on a delivery so the boy didn’t have reason to stop. I should think he’d have them delivered in forty-five minutes or so, depending on the tube. Are you okay, sir,” he added, for Jack now leaned against the wall, one hand to his forehead. “Would you like to sit at the bar? Allison is on her break but I could fetch you a glass of water?”

Jack said nothing, but allowed himself to be led to the bar, and when the porter placed a glass of water in front of him he mechanically took a sip. A vision of Jevons’ rosy, slightly drunk face flashed into his mind: “I’ve been superceded! Some fool used Parliamentary influence to get appointed to the Roth, probably thought she was a frigate, ha ha ha!”; followed immediately by the table in his copy of Darcy’s Sheet Anchor, where the fleet oilers were classified as brigs for command purposes, along with transports, small exploration vessels, and some experimental vessels; then Jevons again, before he had been superceded: “perhaps I’ll be promoted, some day.” And bumbling Uncle Rufus, so pleased with the miracle he had performed.

“Who is more the fool,” he asked aloud, “the fool, or the fool he leads?” He pulled out his phone again, queried the current location of the Roth, and found that she was still at the victualing wharf.

“To the swabs,” he said, lifting his his glass, draining it, and replacing it on the bar. Then he picked up his day bag, left a tip for the absent Allison, and left the inn.

Outside, the streetlamps were burning brightly. He checked his phone: two minutes after ten o’clock: plenty of time to get aboard the Roth before midnight, when Sunday became Monday and lawful arrests for debt could again be made.

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Truth and Beauty 3-1

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Chapter 3

Jack did have to report aboard that night, but first he had to forward his mail, arrange for the return of his library books, write and post a letter of thanks to the Senior Undersecretary for the appointment, write and post another letter of thanks to his uncle, and finally settle his account at the inn with his now elastic credit, so they would release his chest when he sent a midshipman (one of his own midshipmen, he thought with a smile) for it. This entailed packing, which in spite of his enforcedly frugal lifestyle included a phenomenal amount of possessions - no sooner had he strapped his chest shut and fitted its lock then he spied one of the trays sitting brazenly on the corner of the bed, forcing him to undo the lock and buckles and unstrap the chest to fit it in. And once he had figured out how to fit in the tray and was half way through strapping the chest up again it occurred to him that his sextant, presently in the lowest drawer of the chest, cushioned in a pair of socks, would probably be better off in his day bag so that he could sync it to Wrath’s central computer as soon as he was aboard and read in. Finally, during his last sweep of the room before exiting it for the last time he found one of his pistol’s spare batteries in the drawer of the bedside table, where he had carelessly left it after cleaning and charging it last night. Eventually, though, the trays were all situated in the trunk, the trunk was strapped, buckled, and locked; his sextant was safely in the side pocket of his day bag, his pistol and its batteries were all accounted for and packed; and he hauled the chest down to the lobby where he settled his bill and left instructions for the chest to be released when his (his!) midshipman called for it.

“Now,” he said, pulling out his phone to log into the Navy’s data site, “let’s see where she is.” A smile spread across his face as thought of the Wrath, that sweet little brig, his sweet little brig - to be replaced by a moment later by a frown. “That can’t be right,” he said, pocketing the phone, pulling his commission from an inner pocket, and reading it closely for what was in fact the first time:

By the right honorable Lord X_____, Knight of the Bath, Vice Admiral of the White, and Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Vessels employed and to be employed in the Home Sector, &c., &c.,

You are hereby required and directed to proceed on board His Majesty’s Brig Roth to accept the charge of Officer-in-Charge of Her, at the same time directing all those Persons belonging to Her to accept You as Her Officer-in-Charge, and to conduct their Selves in their employments with all due respect to You, her commander; and likewise shall You conduct yourself in accordance with the General Instructions and with and Orders and Directions as You may receive from your Superior Officers in His Majesty’s Service.

For so doing this shall be your order and your Commission.

Neither You nor Any of You shall answer to the contrary, as You shall do so at your Peril.

Given this, the 22 day of October, at 0900 hours to John Richard O’Brian, Esquire, hereby appointed Commander of His Majesty's Navy.

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Drew's Fighting Ships: Curtis JN-4

Curtis Industrie (often misspelled Curtis Industry or Curtis Industries) bought out Julio-Novak in 2736. In typical Curtis fashion, most of J-N’s product line was discontinued, with customers of unfilled orders being offered an “equivalent” Curtis product or their money back. Most elected to have their money back, which seems fair comment on the perceived value of Curtis’s offerings at the time.

Four J-N offerings survived the acquisition, however. The federal government refused both options, threatening to block the deal under anti-trust law if J-N’s Space Train troop and cargo transports or the related Red Ball fleet oiler were to be discontinued or substantially altered. The ships were renamed, though, to be consistent with the rest of Curtis’s lineup: the Space Train troop transport became the JN-1, the cargo transport JN-2, and the Red Ball oiler became JN-3. These ships continued for another 7 years, seeing only minor changes until they were replaced in the government’s lineup by variants of Wang’s Stratolifter series.

The fourth J-N product to survive the buyout was a yet-unnamed light reconnaissance vessel. Reasons given for its survival vary, but survive it did, though Curtis’s engineers managed to saddle it with a governing subroutine that severely limited its engines’ performance. As the fourth former J-N product in the Curtis catalog it was named the JN-4, but it quickly became known as the Curtis Jenny.

Factory-standard Jennys featured twin Rolls-Royce Vega Mark IV engines mated to an equally robust Allison P-63 “Voyager” transdifferential, directed by an Intellicorps DN-5 CPU with Intellibus; and an FBW modular body-on-frame design that, unlike the more-common unibody designs of the time, separated structural integrity from hull integrity. The result was a fast, powerful, widely adaptable vessel that could absorb a great amount of punishment, all of it choked nearly to death by Curtis engineers’ software.

The obvious solution was to do away with the software, and a small industry sprang up to do exactly that. Within less than a year after the Jenny’s launch in 2737, no fewer than ten such companies existed, offering software designed for operations as varied as military reconnaissance, fire suppression, and courier service. Aftermarket body modules were a natural extension of this theme, and by 2739 it was possible to purchase new Jennys from secondary manufacturers, already fitted and optimized for fields as diverse as emergency medical services and resource exploration. In 2741, Curtis, belatedly recognizing the uses that its JN-4 was being put to, began offering option 5a, an incomplete vessel containing chassis, cockpit, engines, and drivetrain, designed for sale to secondary manufacturers for fitting out.

Thus, by the second half of the 28th century, Jennys were found as campers, ambulances, light and medium reconnaissance vessels, police patrol and intercept vessels; as tenders to larger vessels, as lighters, as light freighters in their own right, as communications and control lorries, as mobile offices and as mobile laboratories, to name just a few of the over 100 registry types in the Helios system alone.

Curtis gave the JN-4 a facelift for 2740, visually harmonizing the vessel with the rest of the Curtis fleet. Changes included a general softening of the vessel’s profile, reshaping the faceplate to an oval form, and consolidating forward lighting into a “cyclops” arrangement typical of the company’s in-house designs of the time. Other cosmetic changes were also made, all minor, yielding a second-generation JN-4 whose operating characteristics were essentially unchanged, and which could trade modules with first-generation vessels.

Other entries in this series

Truth and Beauty: First Post|Latest Posts

Truth and Beauty 2-10

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Molly returned with their entrees, breaking the flow of their conversation, and Stephen applied himself to his dinner with the attention that it deserved: the sirloin was indeed excellent, a bone-in cut; and was accompanied by lightly-steamed vegetables, still crunchy; and mashed potato with brown flecks of potato skin mixed through it, perfect for greedily mopping up the steak’s juices and consuming them, too. Only once his meal had been reduced to a wreckage of bone and scraps of fat did he return to the subject of serving as a ship’s doctor, “I presume that the Navy provides its ships with instruments, equipment, and so on? These would not have to be provided by the physician?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack. “Mercury Hall sends a chest aboard, which belongs to the ship. Saws, knives, hooks, that sort of thing. And a medicine cabinet of sorts - I think sloops generally get the kind that prints drugs to order - what’s the learned term?”

“Compounds?”

“Yes, that’s it. Confounds each medicine as needed, so you don’t have a proper cabinet, just the printer.”

“You can bring your own tools if you wish, though,” said Jevons, “In the Juno, Captain Weiss, Mr Richards was a lefty, and he brought a selection of left-handed saws and such.”

“So why not come along?” said Jack. “We won’t be able to get you an appointment from Mercury Hall before Wrath ships out, but come along as my guest. The surgeon’s cabin should be free, and even if it isn’t, we’ll make room.”

“Well,” said Stephen, “I believe you’ve convinced me. I believe I could take a month or so away from my duties here on land.”

“Excellent!” said Jack. “I will need to report aboard tonight but I could send a midshipman for you, shall we say 4pm here at the inn?”

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Truth and Beauty 2-9

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Stephen paused, picking up his glass to give himself time to consider and unthinkingly tipping the amber fluid into his mouth. Was Jack truly serious? There seemed to be no reason to think otherwise, yet he had been deceived before. Was he, Stephen, being overly cautious? “It is an occupational hazard,” he admitted to himself quietly, “a professional deformation.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Jack, who had seen Stephen’s lips move but hadn’t made out the words.

“Merely thinking aloud,” said Stephen. “If I was to join you, when would we depart, and when would we return?”

“We have no orders yet,” said Jack. “Customarily a new captain is given 72 hours in harbor before shipping out for the first time, and then the first cruise is typically only for a month or so - a shakedown cruise, so to speak, for everyone to get to know each other and the captain to get to know the vessel, how fast she is, her crew’s strengths —” when the arrival of their appetizers cut him short.

The clash of cutlery on crockery dominated the table for several minutes, punctuated briefly by comments as “how is your soup, sir, I think you have the chowder?”, and, “very good, sir, and your salad?”, but Stephen, deep in thought, said nothing. Banks would be the only barrier, he thought, and as his work has hardly been constant, he could hardly object. Nevertheless—, “I would have to see about coverage,” he said to Jack. “I presume that normal phones do not work deep in space?”

“I am afraid they don’t,” said Jack, putting down his spoon. “Email neither. We can write them, of course, but for anything more than an AU or so we have to wait for a vessel bound in that direction.”

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Truth and Beauty 2-8

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“I am an internist,” said Stephen. “I also do some surgery.”

“Really?” said Jack. “Really?” He picked up the bottle and poured for Jevons and himself, let the spout hover over Stephen’s glass; then, having not been waved off, poured for him as well. “I suppose it would be too much to ask of luck for me to find a new ship’s surgeon just as soon as I lose the old one. You’d think the Sick and Hurt representative for the home sector would be an upstanding, God-fearing fellow but no, I expect I’ll have to ship out without one.” He raised his glass, Jevons did the same, and without thinking, Stephen did, too. “You have no idea what a hypochondriac you common sailor is,” Jack went on, “and suspicious, too. Sailing without a surgeon is terribly bad luck, they feel.”

“But I am in no way qualified to be a ship’s physician,” said Stephen. “Surely there must be special classes, examinations, that sort of thing?”

“If you’re a physician then you’re overqualified,” said Jevons, pouring another round. “Sloops and other unrated vessels typically get med-school drop-outs, or else RNs tired of working at the old folks home. Drunks, most of them, too, though the sailors worship them just the same. Roth’s surgeon was regularly speechless by lights out, the sot.”

“I remember in the Perdition the surgeon drank himself to death off Tortuga y Coney,” said Jack, then, changing tack, “but it is not all so melancholy, think of this prize money! With his share, the surgeon of the Ethalion is setting up his carriage and retiring! Come, sir, cannot I tempt you to come to space?”

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Truth and Beauty 2-7

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The table fell silent as Stephen and Jevons consulted their menus. Jack, already familiar with the menu and knowing what he would order, checked his email to give his companions time to decide, humming quietly to himself as he did so.

Stephen found the sirloin near the top of the second page, but also found a pasta dish of about two-thirds the price, not quite the cheapest entree listed. He stared at the specials listed on the chalkboard over teh bar, not seeing them (all were far more expensive than the pasta dish), torn between hunger and manners, trying to make up his mind.

The waitress returned. Jevons ordered fish, Jack ordered the sirloin, and Stephen, freed by his hosts example, did the same. Jack and Jevons ordered appetizers as well but Stephen, feeling that he had tested jack’s hospitality enough with the sirloin, tried to demur.

“Nonsense,” said Jack, who was a big, well-fed man who never missed a meal if he could help it. “The clam chowder here is particularly good if you prefer the England style. Or a caesar salad? You can’t just sit there and eat nothing while Jevons and I eat.”

In the end, Stephen agreed to a house salad with Russian dressing, but he drew the line at a drink. “I have surgery later,” he heard himself say, “and must have a clear head.”

“But we’re wetting the swabs,” Jack protested, and “Come sir, just one won’t hurt,” said Jevons. Jack went on, “just the one, then you can revert to water or a soda to be set for your surgery. Molly,” he said to the waitress, “a shot of the black label for the doctor, please, and I’ll have the same. Jevons? Yes, Jevons too. In fact, just put a counter on the bottle and bring it with three glasses, please,” and when Molly had left, “I dare say being a doctor keeps you quite busy?” he asked again.

“Well,” said Stephen, shifting in his chair. “I do occasionally have time to dine out with good company,” he said as Molly returned with the bottle and glasses.

Jack and Jevons smiled, and Jack hastily poured three shots. “To good company,” they toasted, and when they had clinked their glasses and drained them Jack asked, “what kind of a doctor are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

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