Nimisha's Ship
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Nimisha's Ship». Краткое содержание книги:
When Nimisha takes an experimental ship on a solo test flight, something goes horribly awry, marooning her light-years from home on a planet as deadly as it is beautiful. Now the ruthless members of a rival branch of the Rondymense family are given the chance they've been waiting for: to reclaim the Ship Yards by any means necessary.
Only Nimisha's ingenious child, Cuiva, stands in their way. But for how long? For just when her daughter needs her most, Nimisha is in a precarious situation herself--and unable to help. But Nimisha has never given up in her life--and she's not about to start now . . .
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 kilometres. 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 manoeuvres, 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 colour. "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 coloured image bulged through the pumpkin seed. "Like this?"
"Exactly. Now, put in 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 realised that they had spent nearly eight hours working on a variety of modifications until Jim Marroo, who was night supervisor, buzzed through on the com-unit. 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 colour 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 colour 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 favourite colour, Ti?"
"Green, of course!" he said as they arrived at the dock of his private vehicle.
A complete colour 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.