Nimisha's Ship

Helm repeated the orders.

"I am also to be roused if anything… extraordinary… should occur in our current spatial neighbourhood."

"Anything not covered by standard operating procedures, ma'am?"

"You got it, Helm."

Nimisha rose, walking with stiff steps to the infirmary unit. She didn't like this expedient but it was better than waiting around and fretting herself over her inability to take action. She'd had several short spells of suspended animation and was none the worse for them. She did dislike not being present, but she could trust Helm and Doc to rouse her if anything untoward happened.

"Whenever you're ready, Doc," she began but wasn't sure how much of the sentence in her mind she actually spoke aloud, because the walls around the medical couch rose and snapped shut over her head, the sleep gas already hissing into the enclosed space.

"Lady Nimisha has only been gone five months, Cal," Admiral Gollanch remarked to Commander Rustin, who was pacing up and down in front of the desk. He sighed. "I know it seems a lot longer but you cannot deny that we have done everything possible, impossible, probable, and improbable to locate her. Finishing up the second Fiver would be a good idea. Especially, if putting her through a shake-down cruise will give us any clues as to what happened to Lady Nimisha's ship. And you tell me that Jeska Mlan, who is the Yard's executive director, agrees. So what's the problem?"

"We can't find the final specs to complete it."

"Hmmm, yes, well, she did warn me that she did not intend to give the Fleet all her secrets. But surely you…" and Admiral Gollanch extended his hand invitingly toward Rustin.

"I?" The commander grinned ruefully. "She trusted everyone up to a point. I, perhaps, further than her yard supervisors-equally, I believe, as much as she trusts Jeska Mlan. But she finished some units by herself, in her private machine shop." He paused a moment and amended that statement. "She usually had her special mechanic, Hiska, on hand, but she won't say anything. Not even if there were additional specs that Lady Nimisha kept someplace else."

Gollanch sighed. "She wouldn't have left without storing the final plans somewhere. Would she?"

"I was hoping that she had left them with you, sir."

"With me?" The admiral was surprised enough to jerk a thumb at his chest and cleared his throat. "I'd've said you would be the logical recipient. You seemed to have no trouble working closely together during the Fiver's construction. Surely she confided in you?"

"Up to a point-the point at which we are now stymied in completing the second Mark Five. Oh, we can fly her and she'd be an asset to the fleet as a long-distance scout. She could be sold as a yacht, but she's not yet a replica of the Fiver that Lady Nimisha took out on that run."

"Ah, I see," the admiral remarked, steepling his fingers and bouncing the tips together.

"Sir?"

The admiral gave a droll chuckle. "She did warn me."

"She also wouldn't leave, even on what should have been a routine shakedown cruise, without leaving such vital information in a safe place. She was too precise and careful a designer than not leave a backup."

"I concur. Would she have left them in her residence?"

"I dislike intruding on Lady Rezalla…" Rustin said, shaking his head.'

"So would I," the admiral replied with much feeling in his voice, "but the concern is not frivolous. And you have been welcomed at the Boynton-Chonderlee House, have you not? Even since Lady Nimisha's disappearance?"

"No problem there…" This was true enough, even if he had rarely seen Lady Rezalla. It was Cuiva whose company he sought, taking the girl on outings with Belac, who had similar interests in "designing things." He always made a point of asking the Residence Manager to convey his respects to Lady Rezalla and usually brought some small token for her-a delicate blossom, a rare fruit, or the sweets of which Lady Rezalla was inordinately fond. There was always a brief note of thanks for him at his next visit, handwritten in an unusually bold forward stroke. A penned note was such a treasure that he kept them all, filed in a lacquered box, as examples of a lost art. However, asking could he find a secreted file in the Boynton Family Residence was another matter entirely. "I could ask."

"That is all you can do, Commander," the admiral said with a snort, understanding both the etiquette and the audacious course of action he was asking his subordinate to undertake. He wouldn't have dared, but he was not on such terms with the Family as Rustin was. And he very much wanted to commission this prototype for Fleet use-once it had proved itself on trial runs. To have stumbled into a wormhole was a wretched piece of misfortune and not to be considered the fault of the pilot, much less the vessel.

Trying very hard not to show how ill at ease he was, Lt. Commander Caleb Rustin appeared at the door to the Boynton-Chonderlee House, a baroque creation of outstanding elegance and beauty in the Old Quarter of Acclarke City, at precisely one minute before the appointment received from Lady Rezalla.