Nimisha's Ship (3 page)

“Don’t you have any faith in your training of me, Tionel?” Nimisha asked, quick to accept his offer.

“Oh, I do, but you haven’t driven something as powerful as this one, and neither has Jeska. In this test run, you’ll drive with me until I’m sure you both have the measure of these engines. Get in.”

As this was a two-seater skimmer, suitable for city and country travel—or so Lady Rezalla would think—there were only two bucket seats. However, behind them, there was a little space and a ledge across the back, just adequate for someone as slender as Jeska, if she sat sideways with her knees bent.

The skimmer purred into activity when Nimisha thumbed on the engine.

“Slowly, my girl. Those engines could wake even your dam from a sound sleep,” Tionel said, raising one hand in warning.

“I can feel the power in them,” Nimisha agreed, smiling. “You’re such a good father, Tionel.”

Tionel sighed and Nimisha wished she’d phrased that some other way, for she knew how disappointed he was in his own body-heir. And really, she couldn’t blame him. Vestrin was useless and he needn’t have been. Once again Nimisha had cause to thank her mother for her upbringing and nurture. Vestrin’s dam might have been the acknowledged beauty of her debut year, but that, seemingly, had been her one achievement. She had, however, presented four notable Lords with body-heirs, never once losing her elegant figure in the process and increasing her personal wealth each time. Three of them were as indolent as Vestrin. Only the fourth, young Lord Haricore, showed signs of being interesting, and he was such an active child that he required a full squad of bodyguards . . . more to rescue the victims of his never-ending pranks than to keep him safe.

Nimisha lifted the skimmer slowly, turning the lever to port once she was above the low garages and heading out the main entrance, which opened at the use of her password. There was no sense of movement, though the ground passed swiftly beneath them.

“Lights . . .” Her sire gave her a grin, for her finger was already depressing the appropriate panel.

“Light is more likely to wake my mother than noise,” she said coolly. “I read the operating manual three times. So did Jeska.”

“The manual and the operation are distinctly separated by hands-on experience,” Tionel said. “Take us to the lakeside. I’ve cleared it with Traffic Control that I’m testing a new vehicle. There won’t be any repercussions when we let this sleek motor out.”

The two in the front heard Jeska’s throaty chuckle. “You think of everything, don’t you, Lord Tionel?”

“Well, that was an obvious precaution.”

They reached the lake within minutes.

“Take it down to the end at whatever speed you feel you can handle to reach that destination,” he said, sitting back and folding his arms.

Jeska took a firm hold of the conveniently placed seat tabs and willed herself heavier as she felt Nimisha increase the forward motion. The girl was cautious, possibly because it was so obvious that the skimmer possessed a very high-powered engine and she needed to get the feel of it. Nimisha executed a neat U-turn at the base of the lake. The geographical feature was actually an earth fault, one hundred and two kilometers in length and forty in width, that had been dammed to make a water-sports facility convenient to Acclarke.

Nimisha headed down the moonlit ribbon of water and began to increase the power, slowly at first, getting the feel of the controls and then speeding up.

“What’s holding you back, Nimisha?” her sire asked teasingly. “The engine has been well broken in, you know.”

“I will go as fast as I want to, Tionel Rondymense, and I’ll thank you not to taunt me.”

Tionel threw back his head and laughed. “Impudent scut!”

Jeska sighed with relief, but she really ought not to have doubted Nimisha’s common sense. She did crane her neck to see what speed was being achieved and saw the gauge holding steady at three hundred kilometers. She saw the cliffs that bordered the north side of the long lake zipping by and then kept her eyes straight ahead. Moments later Nimisha eased back on the stick and, when it came time to execute a turn, the skimmer was doing a sedate speed of one hundred klicks.

“Now, let me see you handle a few basic maneuvers, Nimi,” her father said. “The controls, as you will have noticed, are light to the touch. And you have no doubt noticed where the ejection controls are.” He turned his head around. “There’s one for the rear ledge, too, Mlan.”

“I felt no need to look for it, milord,” Jeska said in an amiable drawl.

When Nimisha had performed the aerobatics her father requested, she landed and looked back to Jeska. “Your turn,” she said and, inserting herself between the two bucket seats, managed to cram herself into one corner while Jeska went forward.

With no desire to show off, Jeska did the length of the lake at the same speed that Nimisha had used.

“I’m disappointed in you, Jeska,” Lord Tionel said, clicking his tongue.

“What’s suitable for Lady Nimisha is so for me, too, sir,” Jeska said dryly.

“I am reprimanded,” Lord Tionel replied, one hand on his heart as he executed a bow in her direction. “Which of you will take the skimmer home?”

“I will, sir,” Jeska replied promptly. “This has been an exciting day for Lady Nimi and she must not appear hollow-eyed from fatigue tomorrow—or, rather, later this morning, when she’s formally allowed to take possession of her Double M day gift from you.”

“Well answered,” was his comment.

“Thanks, Jes,” came from the back. “It’s such a comfortable vehicle, I’m nearly asleep.”

What neither young woman ever publicly admitted was that this particular skimmer was also spaceworthy, which made it much easier for them both to go to the Ship Yard. There they spent a great deal of time with the trainers that Lord Tionel had employed to teach his daughter the engineering skills she expressly wished to learn. Since these included advanced mathematics, she could honestly reply to her mother that she was applying herself to lessons that would be useful in her adult life. Having Jeska to work with her on the lessons made them more fun and provided a competition that had them both vying to be the best.

On their first trip to the Rondymense Ship Yard in the new skimmer, Lord Tionel celebrated by taking them into the Design section and introducing them to the methods by which he achieved exactly the right design for the ship that he wanted to construct.

It was a big empty room, which surprised both girls. Lord Tionel grinned and motioned them to the side.

“Lights off. Designer on,” he said.

The lights obediently went off. “Designer on,” a quiet voice said.

“We are to design an interstellar freighter, displacement tonnage thirty thousand, cargo tonnage eighteen thousand, cargo space to be sectioned off into freezer units, liquid or bulk.”

“Did you want to start with an existing design?”

“No.”

“Accepted. Do you have a basic shape in mind?”

“Yes, I’d like to see an ellipsoid.”

An elliptical shape appeared in the room, lighting the darkness, along with lines that denoted scale. “Like this?”

Lord Tionel considered. “Mmm, no, let’s go with a deltoid pumpkin-seed shape.”

The shape changed. “This is similar to the StarStream hull in my database; would you like to use that instead?”

Tionel shook his head. “No, for the kind of freighter the client wants, this is a better starting point. Now, I want to push a new star drive through the back of the hull, taking up no more than five percent of the rear volume, to give the most cargo space.”

A portion of the rear of the image changed color. “Like this?”

“Yes.” Lord Tionel stroked his chin. “Now,” and he pointed, though he needn’t have with a voice-operated Designer, “extrude that through the hull for one percent of its length and flatten the new face.”

The colored image bulged through the pumpkin seed. “Like this?”

“Exactly. Now, put a standard ten-g star drive in that space, add tankage and plumbing, and tell me how it performs at top Interstellar Drive.”

“Fully loaded?”

“Of course.”

“Such a shape, fully loaded at maximum speed, would exceed the performance of the StarStream hull by two percent.”

“Not good enough. Let’s see what changes we can make with our pumpkin to improve performance.”

“What about making it a plumper pumpkin, Ti?” Nimisha suggested. “After all, it’s cargo space you want, isn’t it? If she carries more than the StarStream hull and still exceeds performance without other modifications, you’ve already achieved an improvement.”

“Designer, let’s see a plumper pumpkin,” Lord Tionel ordered with a chuckle.

None of the three in the Design facility realized that they had spent nearly eight hours working on a variety of modifications until Jim Marroo, who was night supervisor, buzzed through on the comunit. Lord Tionel frowned angrily, for they were about to solve a major difficulty in the drive coefficient.

“No one is supposed to interrupt me here,” he said in a growl and then looked at his wrist chrono. “Lady Rezalla, or my name’s not Tionel Rondymense-Erhardt.”

“Lord Tionel, it’s Lady Rezalla, or you may be sure I would not—”

“In this case, an interruption is quite in order, Jim. Tell Lady Rezalla I’ve had the girls helping me . . . helping me . . .” He turned to Nimisha and Jeska for assistance.

“Choose the color scheme for your new yacht,” Nimisha said quickly. The information was repeated and Lord Tionel breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief.

“Designer, save the entire session under the password
decor.
Lights on, and open door,” he added. He ushered the girls out quickly. “I’d no idea we’d been in there so long.”

“It was a lot more fun than I’ve had since the day you gave me my skimmer, Ti,” Nimisha said.

“You’ve got a definite gift for design, Nimi, and I won’t have it wasted on . . . decoration. Which reminds me: You’ll have to think of a color scheme on our way home so your dam won’t know what we have been up to.”

“I’m sure we could have worked out that problem in just a few more moments,” Nimisha went on dismally, shaking her head with disappointment.

“I’ve no doubt about it,” Lord Tionel said, and then turned to Jeska. “And you, young woman, have the good sense to see when enthusiasm needs to be reined in for practical matters. We’d’ve lost a good forty tonnes of cargo space if we’d kept on with a main tunnel for all conduits.”

“Besides being difficult to access,” Nimisha said. “What’s your favorite color, Ti?”

“Green, of course,” he said as they arrived at the dock of his private vehicle.

A complete color scheme, including fabrics, rug, and a well-known furnishings establishment to custom-design sketches, was figured out by the two girls on the short trip home. Nimisha casually left them on the hall table when the Residence Manager opened the door to the girls. The fact that the RM said nothing at all to Lord Tionel, closing the House door almost on his nose, was indicative of the disgrace he was in.

Such a miscalculation in time did not occur again because Lord Tionel installed an automatic cutoff within the Design Room, to save the work and give the girls ample time to reach home in Nimisha’s very fast skimmer. So Lady Rezalla had no further opportunity to complain that her birth-father monopolized his daughter.

Having these fascinating and instructive sessions cut short to deceive her mother did not sit well with Nimisha. She knew what she wanted to do with her life, which was far more than most of her peer group did. Especially as she enjoyed none of their so-called diversions whatsoever. She and Jeska kept trying to figure out ways in which to achieve their objective of placating Lady Rezalla sufficiently to really dig into their engineering studies. Circumstance, as it so often does, gave Nimisha the perfect opportunity. And she promptly seized it.

Three weeks after the installation of the alarm that would allow the girls to be home when Lady Rezalla expected them, the breakfast vidcast was full of replays, interviews, and stern statements by high-ranking Acclarkian Peace Guardians concerning the antics of certain young scions who had already received warnings about reckless behavior. The fact that the main culprit was Lord Vestrin Rondymense-Waleska, Lord Tionel’s body-heir, was the only reason Lady Rezalla would have continued to view the matter. On a bet to see who could maneuver his skimmer fastest through the rush-hour traffic in a crowded industrial complex, young Vestrin had lost control of his vehicle and had crashed into a public transport, killing nine craftsmen.

“He had no business in that area at that hour,” Lady Rezalla said indignantly. “If he must drive at dangerous speeds, let him at least do so at the lake and drown himself instead of killing people. And then to send a minor solicitor to offer the most paltry compensation for the deaths of hardworking and decent folk! Mere craftsmen they may have been, but they were supporting their families and educating their children to be useful citizens, which is more than I can say Vescuya ever did with Vestrin. In fact, they’re far more worthy of extreme consideration than that young, heartless lout.
How
such a total disaster of a man can be Lord Tionel’s body-heir is beyond me. First Families have obligations, above and beyond the fact that they were the first, and most successful, of the colonists to land on a planet. They endured much to carve out the homes, fields, businesses, space stations, cities, and the amenities of which we are now so proud. That young man needs to be sent where his attitudes can be professionally altered. In fact, he should be made to earn a living as the craftsmen he killed did. He must learn to appreciate what his ancestors endured to give him the advantages he has and doesn’t seem at all able to understand and appreciate, much less improve. I shall inform the Residence Manager that Lord Vestrin is no longer received by this House.”

“I did so myself, six weeks ago, my mother, when he—” Nimisha stopped, because Lord Vestrin’s message had been a blatant threat for her to stop visiting
his
father so often.

“When he what, Nimisha?” Lady Rezalla demanded, tapping her fingers with displeasure.