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One thing you immediately like is how nobody here comments on how the necklace fits you or how your dress is just-so. They get straight down to business.
"Please, pay me no heed. I am just here to look around, and talk. Only the places I'm allowed to go, of course."
"You are a personal guest of Don Ortega. No part of the ship is off-limits to you, except personal cabins of other guests."
"That's very sweet. I don't want to impose. I am guessing your job is quite difficult even without me interfering."
"Well, my lady, I wouldn't say difficult. But it is a handful. As you can see, there are tubes and levers here through which I communicate with the various compartments of the ship - the coal furnace, the boiler room, the propeller room, and the Archimedean. The rudder is the only thing we directly control from here, as you can see our helmsman, Zam, currently doing."
The helmsman is a rather large black fellow. He doesn't appear to understand Hellenic, but he hears his name and turns to greet you, politely but quite awkwardly. It is clear he is not used to having nobility on the bridge.
"One man is controlling that entire rudder? I've seen it when I came aboard. It's massive!"
"There are actually two rudders, my lady. The main one on the bottom, and the smaller, auxilliary one on top. Auxilliary one can help reduce listing when used in opposition from the main one."
"Fascinating!"
"In fact, I would say a third of our minute-to-minute job is preventing listing. For water ships this is not an issue, as the hull's water displacement usually makes the system self-correcting. If you list to starboard, the shape of the hull means more water is displaced on the starboard side, which in turn causes the starbord side of the ship to rise more, thus creating an equilibrium. In airships, this can somewhat be achieved by having three archimedean units, but that's reserved for the largest military cruisers. Civilian liners like this one are all single-archimedean; there is only one point of the ship providing lift. The shape of the ship ensures the weight is evenly distributed under usual conditions. The shape of our fins and the placement of the propellers is sufficient to keep us straight as long as we are moving at any appreciable airspeed, regardless if, for example, all the guests moved to one side of the lounge. Sudden gusts of wind introduce imbalances that must be manually corrected."
"Most intriguing. She looks like nothing so much as an elongated fish."
