Nimisha's Ship (34 page)

“Any information reaching the beacon is supposed to be forwarded to both Helms,” Nimisha reminded him.

“But, if you tell Rustin what’s been going on here, wouldn’t he help?”

“Does he know Captain Nesta?” Nimisha asked.

“Whose side would he be likely to pick? Yours or hers?”

“Point,” Nimisha said, eyeing him askance. “I’d rather we covered that before Caleb reaches Erehwon.”

Jon cocked his head at her and she shook hers.

“We were very good friends,” she said, “but having met you . . .”

“Propinquity is a decided advantage,” he said, pulling her into his arms and grinning at her.

“And five children,” she added.

“Will you hold that against me forever?” he asked with a chagrined expression.

“Now and then, perhaps,” she admitted. “It’s just as well we have the Sh’im to take over, or my attitude would be considerably different.”

“You do have your implant operational, don’t you?” he asked.

“As of the day I delivered the triplets.”

“Then shall we?”

“I was wondering when you were going to get up the nerve to ask again.”

“Jon,” she began later, “speaking of orders, can you be ordered away from here?”

“Hell’s bells, luv, I was on an exploratory mission that, with due modesty, I can say I have acquitted to the best of my ability. As well as taking a cursory look at two other M-type planets in the immediate vicinity. I’m certain that we have a case for making Erehwon the center for further investigations. Since my knowledge of the area is intimate, I might even get bumped up in rank to administration. Which would suit me admirably.”

“You want to be an admiral?”

“That’d keep me in administration, which wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Depends on how my initial reports and performance are received.”

“Another good reason for getting Meterios out of the picture and on a long and uninterruptible trip back,” she said.

“I agree. I like Erehwon. I like the life we’ve been carving out here. I love you.”

She stood up and curled her arms about his neck. “I rather thought you might, but d’you realize that’s the first time you’ve admitted it?”

“Out loud.” He curved his lips in a very tender smile. “I rather thought you’d’ve guessed as much.”

“I did, but I’d rather hear you confirm the situation.”

“Then, Lady Nimisha, I respectfully request a similar confession from you,” he said softly into her ear, holding her very tightly.

“I do love you, Commander Jonagren Svangel,” she said softly, “though I certainly never expected to.”

“Well, you have designed the perfect long-distance yacht: You are free to set that inventive mind of yours to new challenges.”

“Hmmm. What a good idea.”

Jon gave her another long and deeply stirring kiss before he swung his feet over the bed and reached for his discarded coverall. “I want to have a private word with some of Meterios’s crew. And Dr. Qualta.”

“And I think I’ll just dash off a little note to await Caleb’s arrival at the beacon. Something about orders he’s received for the
Acclarke.
”

“They’d have to be at the beacon,” Jon said, stamping into his boots. “Headquarters would have had word by now of the loss of the space station and the
Acclarke
, but he wouldn’t have any pulses while on IS drive. So make it clear he’s stripped them from the beacon now that it’s been repaired and we can get messages to and from.”

“Dear heart, don’t worry. I come from a very long line of devious women.”

Her first instruction to Helm used the cipher she and Caleb had set up for private messages. He’d know to accept and read it by himself. In the opening paragraph, she suggested that the Five B Helm beam orders directly to Captain Meterios on Four’s comunit. That would be less suspicious than for him to have documentation to give her. While a pulsed beam message carried no signature, Caleb did know one of Admiral Gollanch’s private codes to give authority to such new orders. By citing Meterios as a xenophobe, she’d gain Caleb’s understanding of their need to rid the planet of her presence. A pulsed explanation would reach the admiral well in advance of the
Acclarke.
She also asked Caleb how to keep the useful crewmembers on Erehwon. The long trip home under such a captain was likely to cause severe disciplinary problems. Since the original tour of duty had been four months, not much attention had been paid to matching psych profiles. With a Helm to guide a ship through IS drive, no human watch was actually required, and Helm could always rouse the captain for any emergencies requiring human intervention. Not that Nimisha had much faith in Meterios’s ability to handle real emergencies. She must have exhibited some initiative to get to be a courier captain but Nimisha couldn’t imagine it.

When Jon returned, unable to check with all the people he wanted to speak to, she showed him her message.

“In any case, we have her for not attempting to return back to base as her orders specifically state,” he said. “Send it.”

She did, and marked off yet another day until she would see her daughter again. The waiting was worse now that Cuiva was so close. While she had been busy, while she had been making a new life here on Erehwon, and with Jon, she had been able to censor painful thoughts and the realization that she had missed so much of Cuiva’s youth. And the Necklacing. That was such an important moment in a girl’s life. It had been in hers, when she was suddenly about to take her place in Society and be allowed to talk to adults without waiting to be spoken to: to be grown-up! She only hoped that her dam had not constricted Cuiva to what Lady Rezalla thought was proper for a First Family body-heir to learn. And in that, Nimisha would be to blame, having such an unusual interest as ship design. Cuiva would have had no one like Lord Tionel to stand up for any individual interests she might have developed. Well, Lady Rezalla was fair . . .

XI

“W
E ARE EMERGING
into normal space, Captain Rustin, in precisely nine minutes at my mark,” Helm said. “Mark.”

“About bloody time,” was Caleb’s soft murmur.

He had risen well before time and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before translation could occur. Kendra had joined him; since she was such a light sleeper, she woke no matter how carefully he had tried to slip out of the bed. He devoutly hoped that Nimisha would accept his new alliance without rancor. He suspected she would be sensible, but she’d been alone a long time. Would Kendra understand? Probably. They’d developed a very good rapport. Although the Five B’s initial orders had only covered a three-month trial run, he had been careful to match the psych profiles of all aboard the Five B to form a good environment for Cuiva’s benefit. The result had been felicitous, if startling, when Mareena favored Gaitama and Nazim and Perdimia had paired off. He wondered how Cuiva would take to that, but Perdimia had made it clear to Nazim that Cuiva remained her first order of business. Since he was a Rondymense employee, he accepted that equably.

Kendra joined Caleb in the pilot compartment, slipping into the second seat and netting in. Translations out of Interstellar Drive were not likely to be as rough as entering, but this was totally unknown space. There had been bets that Nimisha, discovering herself alone in a strange section of the galaxy, had taken the obvious out and gone into cold sleep. So the Fiver would be nearby. Knowing Nimisha better, Caleb wagered that she’d been exploring—if that had been an option—since she was not the sort of person to avoid a challenge. They’d soon know, and Caleb had Helm plot reentry well away from the beacon so that, if the Fiver was there, they’d not run into her.

Nine minutes can seem a long time. Kendra was tapping her fingers on the armrest by the final second countdown. By then, the entire crew had gathered in the main lounge in the couches that had security straps.

“Eight . . . seven . . . six,” Helm’s voice counted down, and then exactly on “one” they were out of the dark gray inter-space and back into black space and a bewildering mass of unfamiliar stars. Helm went into instant evasive action, veering away from a tumbled mass of twisted metal.

“Jasassssusss,” Kendra said, tightening her hold on the armrests. “That can’t be the Fiver!”

Caleb’s heart had twisted violently at the fleeting view he’d had of the object, but a second’s sober thought steadied his heartbeat. Nimisha had managed to send pulsed messages. So what was that tangled mess of wreckage?

“Messages are pouring in from the beacon, Commander, and analysis suggests that the debris is the remains of the Wormhunter Space Station, not the Fiver.”

“What the hell would the space station be doing on this side of the fragging wormhole?” Caleb demanded.

“Latest messages first, Captain,” Helm said. “From Captain Meterios—”

“Meterios?” Kendra’s voice squeaked in dismay.

“—of the
Acclarke
courier stationed on the other side of the probable site of the wormhole.”

“She shouldn’t have been drawn into it,” Caleb said. “Her position was a hundred thousand kilometers from Nimisha’s beacon.”

“How do we know that that wormhole has a stable point of entry?” Ian Hadley asked. “The space station wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell if the wormhole opened within even fifty thousand kilometers of it. Can Helm check to see if there are any pods in the wreckage?”

“Later, later,” Caleb said. “Let’s get the latest reports.”

“I shall screen the earlier ones in the lounge, sir,” Helm said. “The
Acclarke
reports that it saved eleven out of twelve pods, chief astronomer Dr. Qualta having sustained the worst injuries.”

“How did the
Acclarke
weather the passage?” Nazim asked excitedly. He had helped build the Fours that Vegan Fleet had ordered.

“Later, later,” Caleb said again, shushing them. “Go on, Helm.”

“Messages in the beacon indicate that the
Acclarke
proceeded immediately to the coordinates left by Lady Nimisha for the first of three M-type planets.”

“Nimisha went exploring?” Caleb grinned, having won that bet.

“There are reports of her investigations, with Commander Jon Svangel, of the other two M-type planets relatively close to the initial one. She has named it Erehwon.”

“Erehwon?” Kendra exclaimed.

“That’s nowhere backward,” Cherry Absin-Hadley said with a grin. “Appropriate.”

“There is also an encrypted message for you, Commander, which I will forward to your cabin,” Helm said. “Numerous pulsed messages have been sent back to Vega, sir. Including the latest from Captain Meterios, dated five days ago, Vegan time.”

“What’s she still doing here?” Caleb demanded in a rhetorical tone. “I know what orders the
Acclarke
was given. In the event the courier got drawn into the wormhole, she was to ascertain if Lady Nimisha was alive and then proceed with all possible speed back to Vega.”

“She would first have had to deposit the space station survivors wherever Lady Nimisha is,” Kendra remarked. “The
Acclarke
could not manage eleven more passengers.”

“In cold sleep it could,” Caleb said grimly. Because the entire complement of the Five B’s crew was listening, he did not voice his private thought: Whatever had possessed anyone at Vegan Fleet Command to give Nesta Meterios a tour of duty on the
Acclarke
? He answered himself: It was possibly one of the few places in which she could do the least damage, excluding the sudden appearance of the wormhole, which it should have had the speed to outrun. The
Acclarke
Helm had been programmed to take command in any emergency, including the reappearance of the wormhole. Nesta the Nothing would have been merely a passenger.

While Helm kept trying to present a coherent report, everyone had questions, especially about the world Erehwon. Caleb wished to know who this Commander Jonagren Svangel was. Mareena handed him hard copy access from Fleet files, and consequently he learned that
Poolbeg
had been the last known ship missing in this general area. Captain Panados Querine had been captain of record, with Lt. Commander Jonagren Svangel listed as executive officer. The
Poolbeg
was an exploratory service vessel with a crew of ten. Caleb experienced intense relief that Nimisha had not been alone for nearly six years. Not that she wasn’t capable of surviving by herself, but to have had company—and the
Poolbeg
had had a mixed crew—would have made her life there more agreeable.

“Captain,” Kendra said suddenly, “they have made contact with aliens also shipwrecked.”

“Aliens!”

Kendra grinned at the vehemence in his voice. “Sapient ones, too, since their ship crashed on Erehwon.”

“Ship? Space-farers? How fascinating! Work for you, my sweet,” Ian said to his semantics-trained wife.

“Well, I never,” was her astonished response, her green eyes sparkling with anticipation. “Oh, dear, I’d better see if I can locate the translators. I brought them along sort of as an afterthought. Never for one moment thought I’d need them.”

“You signed Cuiva off on their use, too, you know,” Ian called after Cherry, who was running across the lounge. “We’ll have plenty of time, honey . . .” He shrugged as she continued on her way to find the equipment.

“Pretty good detail on the pulsed reports,” Gaitama called out, as she was the only one watching the screen in the lounge and the earliest reports. “Planet has some real nasty life-forms. Mareena, come take a look.”

Mareena joined the biology ensign in the lounge and gulped when she saw the size of the avians and the immense shaggy creatures. Nimisha had added a human figure to the image to show comparative size.

“Nimisha found other wrecks, not as lucky as the
Poolbeg
,” she added, rewinding the tape to show those.

“That’s ancient,” Nazim said. “Must have been First Diaspora.”

“All right, crew. Helm has stripped the beacon of formal messages,” Caleb said, half an eye on the screen as he delivered orders. “Helm’s sending a pulse beam indicating our ETA at Erehwon. They’ve put up an operational comsat so they’ll know we’ve made a safe translation. I’m assuming that the
Acclarke
has informed them of our imminent arrival.”

“An operational comsat?” Kendra repeated with a respectful gleam in her eye. “Well done.”

“Any crew member wishing to add a message to a pulse going back to Vega III should have it ready in twenty minutes,” Caleb went on. “I don’t intend to hang about here. We’ll be resuming IS drive in twenty minutes.”

“Hey, that’s not long enough, Caleb,” Nazim protested.

“Write your reams during IS drive, Nazim, and Helm will relay them when we reach Erehwon. Our first priority is to deliver our sleeping beauty to her mother as fast as possible.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” was Nazim’s prompt reply, and he bolted down the corridor to his own cabin.

“Twenty minutes, Nazim,” Caleb called after him.

“Helm, is there anything worth saving from that space station?” Caleb asked.

“The metal and perhaps smaller objects,” Helm replied.

“I shot a warning and light beacon over to it, Captain,” Kendra said, “to ward off any possible collision.”

“Good idea,” Caleb said, as he netted in for translation. “Though why Meterios neglected to do so is something I shall have a word with her about. I suspect there’ll be more traffic rather than less if Nimisha’s planet has aliens. Just like her to find some.”

“Some people do have a knack for turning disaster into triumph,” Kendra said with a mischievous grin.

“Nimisha certainly does,” he agreed, and gave her hand on the armrest an affectionate squeeze.

Her ability to maintain a light touch was one of the qualities about her that Caleb particularly enjoyed in their relationship. He’d never been quite sure when Nimisha was being humorous or subtly sarcastic; being able to relax with Kendra had been an especial boon on this long voyage. She was also assiduous in separating their personal life from their professional.

“Fifteen minutes,” Caleb said over the com. “Sent your pulse, Kennie?”

“First in,” she said.

“If you’ll be good enough to send the official pulse to Fleet Headquarters, I’ll have time to send Lady Rezalla reassurance.”

She nodded and began to key in the obligatory notice while Caleb, pausing to word his note carefully, sent a privately encrypted message to the Boynton House. He discreetly commented that Lady Cuiva was enjoying excellent health, had completed all the lessons and tutorials sent for her instruction, and was looking forward eagerly to rejoining her mother.

“Translation in thirty seconds,” Helm announced and in the main lounge, Caleb and Kendra heard the scurry of people making for secure seating.

“I don’t know what it is, Karpla,” Doc said, and Nimisha had an image of Lord Naves stroking his chin and shaking his head in perplexity as he regarded the state of Brad Karpla’s naked body under the plastic canopy. She could see the dust that oozed in little gouts from the pustules.

He had been complaining of a skin irritation for several days and, although he had seen the
Acclarke
medic, when the irritation began to spread with alarming speed to cover even the soles of his feet, Captain Meterios had insisted that he consult the more sophisticated system. They had been a ludicrous pair on their entry, the smaller captain supporting the taller, heavier gunnery officer up the steps and to the diagnostic unit. Traces of the gray powder that the irritation exuded clung to her uniform, and she had asked permission to use the Fiver’s facilities to wash and brush it off.

“Use the farthest cabin, Captain,” Nimisha said. “The children are presently asleep in the two closer ones.”

“Where have you been, Karpla?” Doc went on, his extendibles busy brushing the powder onto slides, disclosing the odd boil-like pustules covering Karpla’s body.

“Hunting,” Karpla said, squirming on the couch in an attempt to ease the intolerable itching on his back. “Took a gang of the Sh’im kids—with permission, sir,” he added, craning his neck around to address Jon, “to hunt in the mountains.”

“Did they warn you about any of the vegetation?” Doc asked.

“Well, I guess they did, but it was much quicker to go through the thickets. We’d spotted a covey of a-alli and you know what good eating they are. ‘Sides, these coveralls are pretty impervious to most of the thorns and prickers this planet grows. Would you for mercy’s sake stop the fraggin’ itching, Doc?” The gunnery officer’s plea came out as a nearly hysterical invocation.

“I’ve already given you a broad antihistamine, Karpla. It should be working,” Doc said. “Let me get some idea of what causes it, and I’ll knock you out until we come up with a remedy. You’ll skin yourself if you keep on doing that.” Karpla was writhing violently.

Jon could now see how Karpla had scratched all over himself in an effort to ease the discomfort. His fingernails were bloody and broken, with the gray powder caked under them.

“That fragging thicket caused it. Nothing else on this fragging planet’s bothered me. Has to be that.”

“Describe the plant?”

“Jasssus, will you stop the itching!”

“I must be sure no one else is caught out as you’ve been.”

Karpla wailed in anxiety.

“I suspect the Sh’im tried to make Karpla avoid the bushes. Surely you’ve enough for analysis now, haven’t you?” Jon didn’t have much use for the dedicated hunter, but the man’s suffering need not be prolonged.

“
Pullease.
” Karpla was patently in anguish.

Jon didn’t see the hypospray, but abruptly Karpla’s arching body relaxed, eyes fluttering shut in the next instant.

“Don’t come any nearer, Jon.” The extendibles within the diagnostic unit were spreading a sheet over Karpla’s inert body right up to his ears. The pustules, which had crept up his throat to his face, had stopped on his chin, giving him a vile gray lumpy “beard” along the jawline.

Suddenly the air circulatory system came on full blast, plastering Jon’s coverall to him.