Nimisha's Ship

"What can we do now, Commander? We must do something,"

Fermassy insisted. "Lady Nimisha must be found! She's First Family, sir!"

"We are all exceedingly aware of that, Fermassy, I assure you. It is my devout hope that the more sensitive equipment on board Admiral Gollanch's ship may find traces we cannot."

"But both our ships are Rondymense-made, sir!" the young captain exclaimed.

"Which is why we made it here so fast. Ah, and what have we coming in now?" Caleb noticed ships arriving from three directions and welcomed the diversion from Fermassy's self-castigation.

He was not quite as pleased to discover that the luxury yacht that had diverted from its original destination to a hunting preserve was occupied by friends of Lord Vestrin. How the man would enjoy knowing that his half-sister had gone missing in such a dramatic fashion. Caleb sent a pulsed priority message directly to Rondymense Ship Yard and another to Lady Rezalla. Vestrin's dam would like nothing better than to get the Yard back into her hands under a default condition, since the Yard had been left to Nimisha, not to Nimisha and her body-heir.

BUT NIMISHA IS NOT DEAD, Caleb told himself at the top of his mental voice, denying, denying, denying.

There had been the Fiver's ion trail in normal space, ending some ten thousand kilometres from the beacon. Caleb figured she might well have propelled it as far from the wormhole as possible to be sure it would escape and send its vital Mayday. She was in the most advanced and sophisticated ship in the known galaxy, built of the best materials, all basic ship functions had proved out in the earlier models and no debris was evident. Malfunction was marginally possible. But he denied malfunction. He denied her death. But how could they find a wormhole that had never been seen? How could they even prove that it had been a wormhole that had snatched her out of this part of space?

Despite the most sensitive and sophisticated of instruments, some of which bore Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense's patent registrations, no further trace was found. Machinists and programmers on the admiral's big cruiser made alterations to existing sensors and the original beacon was shortly anchored to a highly specialised satellite. It was programmed to launch a piggyback double probe into whatever wormhole or other spatial anomaly might appear at these coordinates, simultaneously pulsing a broadcast to the nearest drone monitor. When the double probe reached the other end of the wormhole, the piggyback, with the most powerful single thruster in the Fleet's possession, would be immediately released and return with whatever information it could glean in a nanosecond's view of the exit space. Similar units would be constructed and scattered within this relatively unoccupied sector, so that no wormhole could poke its white snout through the fabric of space without instant detection. During the next month, a special station was hauled to the edge of the sector and positioned there, with a Mark 4 on detached assignment, probably the fastest ship that could be scrambled to reach a wormhole.

"We hope," was Admiral Gollanch's remark as he initialled the necessary orders. "I'll make this a three-month duty station, high risk compensation, partnered crews so they'll have something to do while they wait…"

"Ma'am? Ma'am?"

"Lady Nimisha? Please answer, Lady Nimisha. Do you wish more to eat?"

"Nimi, get to your feet and get over to the unit. I can't treat you from here."

The sentences, each in a different but recognisable tone from patient repetition to anxiety to command, gradually penetrated Nimi's fogged mind.

She struggled to sit up, rolling her eyes at the pain in her head, trying to remember what had hit her.

"Orders, please, ma'am. I am on standby."

"Standby?" Nimi repeated and forced her eyes open, one hand at her temple so that she felt the dried blood that had congealed there. "Oh." She shed the half of harness she had managed to get on and tried to stand. "Helm, report!"

She made a second and successful attempt to get to her feet and made her way to the medical station. Wove her way, she amended. She'd had quite a crack.

"Doc, how long have I been unconscious?"

"Three hours, twenty minutes, six seconds and-"

"Thank you, Helm," she cut off the hundredths. "I asked the Doc."

"Helm needs to hear your voice, Nimi," the medic said in Lord Naves's soothing baritone. "Now lie down before you fall."

The change in position made her head throb, but the infirmary unit's extensions had snaked out of their niches to clamp on her body for readings.

"Shaken but nothing stirred," the Doc said reassuringly. "We'll just relieve the symptoms and clean up that cut. A spurt of nu-skin will close it neatly."

Nimi grimaced as a swab made her aware of how tender the spot was, but the sudden coolness on her arm from a hypospray meant that the discomfort would soon disappear.

"All systems functioning normally," Helm said. "No damage reported in any section despite the turbulence of the wormhole. The hull has been scraped on both sides but has not lost integrity."

"Wormhole!" Nimisha would have shot upright if she hadn't been entangled with extendables, which were still checking her over.