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 . . .
CHAPTER 2
Five days after Lady Nimisha reached her full majority of eighteen years, her sire was killed in a freak accident at the Rondymense Ship Yard. She and Jeska were in the office, studying Lord Tionel's latest and revolutionary design for a spaceship capable of inter-galactic distances; his private design code for this yacht was GOLD PLATE. Having kept a keen eye on her sire's innovative schemes, Nimisha had already delighted him by making minor, but significant contributions to his special private project.
When the alarm alerted the entire yard to a major emergency, the two young women suited up and joined the search party. A space tug had gone out of control, shearing through the shell of a battle cruiser, propelling structural parts off at speed in all directions. One of them had lanced through Tionel's pinnace as he was returning from a meeting with Admiral Narasharim, head of the Fleet design committee. On such a short, routine journey, he had not been wearing a space suit. Nor had the little ship sufficient shielding to protect its passenger from the steel beam that lanced through the single compartment.
When Nimisha and Jeska learned the cause and the extent of the disaster, Nimisha paused long enough to calculate the trajectory of Lord Tionel's route between the navy yard and his office. Knowing the usual velocity of his trip, the vector of the structural member that had hit his craft, and the approximate point of impact, she calculated the likely course of the pinnace after the collision. Then, after both she and Jeska donned EVA garb. Nimisha commandeered a skiff, speeding to the exact location of the collision. She then followed the calculated path until she overtook the wreckage. They found battered human remains and identified the corpse as Lord Tionel's from his wrist com and what clothing was still attached to his body. Although the Yard personnel as well as the Fleet rescue teams would have given anything to spare the two girls such a ghastly task, they brought his remains in a body bag back to Yard headquarters while other teams were still looking for him. Nimisha and Jeska insisted on accompanying his body back to Acclarke.
When informed first of Lord Tionel's death and then of her daughter's actions, Lady Rezalla fainted for the first time in her life. She had revived by the time Nimisha and Jeska returned from the mortuary. At the sight of the two, Lady Rezalla lost her renowned calm and demanded to know how a gently reared child of the Boynton-Chonderlee family could possibly have undertaken the retrieval.
"He was my birth-sire and he deserved whatever final service I, his blood-kin, could provide. The thought of him, lost in space, spinning further and further away from where he could be most easily recovered, was too painful to bear," Nimisha informed her mother, her face pale and rigid.
Lady Rezalla regarded her body-heir with conflicting emotions, pride and approval vying with-Jeska said later to Nimisha-a tinge of jealousy mixed with anger that Nimisha had endangered herself when there were plenty of others to find… him.
"Jeska, pour me a drink, one for yourself and-what will you have, my mother?" Nimisha said, stiffly walking to the nearest chair and collapsing in it with an abruptness that Lady Rezalla would, under other conditions, have criticised as too graceless for a young woman of her upbringing.
"But you went OUT into space," Lady Rezalla said, nodding gratitude as Jeska handed her a strong stimulant.
"In a skiff and in EVA gear."
"In EVA gear?" Lady Rezalla's eyes bulged, her hand went to her heart, and Jeska guided her glass to her lips for a restorative sip.
"We were well instructed, Lady Rezalla," Jeska said, with a worried glance at Nimisha, who was silent with shock. "Part of our managerial training, my lady. In case there should be a major disaster and total evacuation of the premises was required."
"Then what was today's… horrid tragedy considered? A minor hiccup in normal procedures?" Lady Rezalla demanded, clearly recovering more quickly than Nimisha was.
"A terrible accident, Lady Rezalla," Jeska said, and she managed to get a handkerchief from a wrist pocket to blot her eyes of tears. "I understand that Admiral Narasharim herself is conducting the inquiry into how the tug was allowed to function without a proper spaceworthy certificate. She will be wishing to call on you, my lady, since neither Lord Vestrin nor Lady Vescuya are presently on Acclarke and someone must-" Jeska's voice broke.
"Take charge. Yes, of course, someone must take charge." Lady Rezalla said, sitting straighten "We were once contracted. We have a mutual child, my body-heir, and I have no doubt she will comport herself in a far more reverent and seemly fashion than that appalling young man who will now succeed him." Lady Rezalla gave a shudder of dismay and repugnance. "Not that he has the talent to emulate his sire." She took another long sip of the brandy. "Nimisha, drink that at once. You're dead white with shock and you must recover your composure immediately. The Boynton in you requires that. And at least the worlds will know that one Rondymense scion carries the name with honour and credit."
Nimisha downed the entire glass and then threw it into a corner of the wall.
Lady Rezalla blinked, but firmly pressed her lips together at the pleading look on Jeska's face.
"Yes, the Rondymense name will be honoured as fully as I honour yours, my mother," Nimisha said, clinging to the chair as she struggled to rise. "He will never be shamed by his daughter." And she ran from the room, weeping.
"But you're my body-heir," Lady Rezalla murmured, confused and a bit indignant. "Go with her, Jeska, and comfort her as best you can," she added, whisking the girl out of the door.
As Jeska turned back before the automatic door slid into place, she saw Lady Rezalla, hands covering her face, shoulders heaving as she, too, wept for Lord Tionel.
Ti had indeed left the entire Rondymense Ship Yard GmBH with all its assets, designs, and resources to Lady Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense-a bequest that Lord Vestrin Rondymense-Waleska instantly instructed his legal advisers to have reversed. He petitioned to be returned to Acclarke, having endured three years of his exile. His mother petitioned, as well, and had the advantage of being able to return to Acclarke City from the colony where, once she had learned where her son was being incarcerated, she had attempted to supply a few of the elegancies of life for her son. She pursued the claim with all possible vigour. Not that Lord Vestrin had been deprived in any way, for he inherited a considerable estate from his sire: funds so secured that the young heir would be unable to break the trust management and control the sizeable principal, but an allowance that would let him maintain a suitable lifestyle.
"He's the vindictive sort," Lady Rezalla said, "which characteristic he must have inherited from his dam's bloodline. Rehabilitation can only do so much-since body-heirs are not permitted by law to undergo the more drastic psychiatric treatments. Her other children display such pettiness from time to time. We've all noticed it." She then dismissed them as beneath her notice.
Lady Rezalla's attorneys were the acknowledged masters of their profession and instantly joined with Lord Tionel's to prove that the bequest was of long standing. In fact, when Lady Rezalla thought back over the years, she placed the transfer of the property to the very week in which Lord Tionel had made his casual remark about leaving his business to his blood-daughter. The Acclarkian courts refused to hear Lord Vestrin's appeal. He had been granted a substantial fortune as befit a body-heir. Since Lord Rondymense's bequest of his Ship Yard went to a blood relative, there was nothing to contend.
Lady Vescuya ranted and raved on about such iniquity to the point where she became a social liability to those who had once professed friendship for her. Certainly no hostess would commit the solecism of inviting both Vescuya and Rezalla to the same function. When a new scandal rocked Acclarke City's First Families, the untimely death of Lord Tionel and its subsequent problems were forgotten.