AUSTEN TREK: or, if Jane Austen wrote Star Trek…

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single captain in possession of a starship, must be in want of a tribble.

However little known the feelings or views of a captain may be on his first entering a space station, this truth is so well fixed in the mind of a con-artist like Cyrano Jones, that the captain is considered the rightful property of some one or other of the tribbles.

“My dear Captain Kirk,” said Cyrano Jones to him during his first day on Deep Space Station K7, “have you heard that I possess a miraculous cure for high blood pressure?”

Kirk replied that he had not.

“But it is true,” returned the trader; “for Doctor McCoy’s tricorder has just been here, and confirmed it beyond all doubt.”

Captain Kirk made no answer.

“Do you not want to know how I cure it?” cried Cyrano Jones impatiently.

“YOU want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

This was invitation enough.

“Why, my dear captain, you must know, I have in my possession a rare and invaluable creature, the like of which none but the wise ancients of Organia have ever before possessed.”

“What is it called?”

“Tribble.”

“Is this tribble a group, or a single creature?”

“Oh! Single, my dear Captain Kirk, to be sure! A single tribble, but with a large capacity for reproduction: it will yield four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for your crew of four-hundred and thirty!”

“How so? How can it affect them?”

“My dear James Kirk,” replied the trader, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of you purchasing a tribble for them.”

“Is that your design in speaking to me?”

“Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that you MAY fall in love with one of them, and therefore you should look over my stock carefully.”

“I see no occasion for that. You may send the tribbles away, or you may choose to accompany them, which perhaps will be still better, for inasmuch as you are as annoying as they are silly and ignorant, I am less likely to end by striking you if your face is not in the same room as my fist.”

And the question for today is: Do you like Austen Trek? Hate it? Do you want to see variations on it (e.g. Bronte Trek, Heyer Trek, Austen of the Lost Ark, etc)?

And if you want to read previous installments of Austen Trek, just click on the words “Austen Trek” at the bottom of this post!

Cara
Cara King, going where no Regency writer has gone before…