Nimisha's Ship (4 page)

“When he made improper advances at me, Lady Rezalla,” Jeska said, managing a flush. “Lady Nimisha interfered and told the RM Lord Vestrin was not to be admitted to the grounds.”

“As indeed he should have. Why was I not told of that affront, Jeska? You are in my employ and I will not have my people subjected to such embarrassments. Even by kin to Lord Tionel.” Lady Rezalla turned to Nimisha. “Your sire . . .”

“Is above reproach, my mother, as you certainly know. You have, yourself, remarked on how Lady Vescuya seems to delight in Vestrin’s excesses. I know that Lord Tionel does not and will certainly discipline his body-heir over this latest horrific escapade.”

“Indeed he will have to,” Lady Rezalla said with a sniff. “The Peace Guardians may upon occasion turn a blind eye to an innocent lark by high-spirited young men and women, but they take a different view entirely when deaths are involved. A period in a rehabilitation center is most certainly on the agenda. And community service. Hopefully on a difficult and primitive planet.

“Furthermore, I don’t see how Lord Tionel could possibly allow the Ship Yard to be handed over to such a want-wit as that young man. Why, the business would be defunct in half a decade! You know how hard Lord Tionel works and how often the Fleet contracts for him to build their special designs.”

“I do, my mother,” Nimisha said almost humbly, “which is why I regret, for Lord Tionel’s sake, that Vestrin has no interest at all in the Yard.” She did not need to add “except for the credit it earns.” Lady Rezalla’s eyebrow rose sufficiently to have mentally appended that clause. “I have always known how fortunate I am to be your body-heir, my mother, and appreciative of the care you have lavished on my upbringing and education.”

“You’re a Boynton, after all,” Lady Rezalla said at her haughtiest.

“And proud to be, my mother. I would like to utilize my advantages to the fullest extent possible and prove that the privilege I enjoy as a First Family scion is not wasted on stupid pastimes but turned to the best possible effect for my family name and my community.”

Even at breakfast, Lady Rezalla was far from slow. She gave her daughter a long, thoughtful look. “I believe we have come round to your fascination with design again, have we not, Nimisha?”

“Yes, my mother.”

“And you wish to spend more time at Lord Tionel’s Ship Yard?”

“Yes, my mother.”

Lady Rezalla poured herself another cup of coffee, added the dollop of cream she liked, stirred it, and took a sip.

“I could have wished you shared my interest in investment and how to recognize the potential of one business over another, but I can scarcely fault you for wishing to achieve . . .” She paused, her lips tight. “As the antithesis of wanton acts born of irresponsibility and lack of purpose.”

“Then I may . . . ask Lord Tionel if I may learn more about running the Yard?”

Lady Rezalla had never quite forgotten Lord Tionel’s casual remark about leaving Nimisha the Rondymense Yard. It surfaced propitiously.

“Learning how to manage a reputable firm that produces spaceships is certainly preferable to plowing through public transport vehicles. I shall inquire if Lord Tionel would be willing to instruct you in managerial duties.”

Oddly enough the “managerial duties” Lord Tionel graciously told Lady Rezalla he was willing to teach her body-heir happened to include “managing” the Designer and helping him complete the freighter they had started together. That was only the first of the projects they, and Jeska Mlan, worked on together over the next few years, during which time Lord Tionel outlined for them a ruthless course of academic studies, laboratory experiments, and special use of the smaller Design Room where they could examine and improve on the myriad components of the modern spaceworthy craft. Using his influence, he arranged for them to sit the same engineering examinations that would qualify them for full employment in his, or any other, Ship Yard.

As for his reckless body-heir, Lord Tionel sent him to the most reputable rehabilitation center available, ignoring the pleas of Lady Vescuya and not informing her in which center her darling son had been placed. Once the center was satisfied with his moral improvement and an acceptable level of responsibility for his own actions, he was to spend a year on a struggling colonial planet to learn what being a First Family scion actually meant. Lord Tionel increased the compensation to all the families of that fatal crash and took a quiet, personal interest in the education and promotion of the surviving siblings.

II

F
IVE 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 intergalactic 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 criticized 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 straighter. “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 honor 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 honored as fully as I honor 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 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.

He 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 vigor. 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 sizable 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.

It wasn’t until Admiral Narasharim herself called at the Boynton-Chonderlee House to see Lady Nimisha that Lady Rezalla began to appreciate exactly how much “managerial” instruction Lord Tionel had given his blood-daughter.

While Lady Nimisha was being summoned, Lady Rezalla offered hospitality and tried to discover why an admiral would need to seek out her daughter.

“Lady Nimisha has finished the latest calculations on the femtosecond processor and, since I have meetings on the surface myself, I thought to spare her an unnecessary trip to Headquarters.”

“The femtosecond processor?” Lady Rezalla asked, trying to sound as if she knew what the admiral was talking about.

“Yes, she’s been experimenting with storage fibers and she’s come up with exactly the right composite to handle almost incredible electron transfers. Of course, having the latest Josephson junctions has been of inestimable assistance in solving that problem.”

“Yes, it would, wouldn’t it,” Lady Rezalla said, smiling graciously.

A brief knock was followed by Nimisha’s entrance into the room.

“Here you are, Admiral,” and she passed over several of the tiny round disks that generally held quantities of information Lady Rezalla thought were quite remarkable. “I do apologize, my mother. But this is very important,” she said.

“We have a little time in hand for you to complete your toilette before we leave,” Lady Rezalla said with only the slightest hint of reprimand.

The admiral was on her feet, shaking Nimisha’s hand and grinning. “I’ll see you tomorrow with the test results, shall I?”

“I wouldn’t miss it, ma’am,” Nimisha said, and guided the admiral to the door, which the RM opened with a deep, respectful bow. “It won’t take me long, my mother,” Nimisha said gaily as she shot up the stairs to her room.

“You must tell me more about these . . . seconds . . .” Lady Rezalla began when they were settled in Nimisha’s skimmer and on their way to the ballet that was the evening’s occasion.

“It’s just business, my mother,” Nimisha said with a shrug.

“A business that an admiral comes in person to collect is not
just
business, Nimisha.”

“It is, however, Fleet business, my mother, and I may not discuss it, even though I know you to be the soul of discretion. However, I would like to prevail on your financial acumen to take a look at the Ship Yard records. I may know a nanosecond from a femtosecond, but achieving trial balances and projections of what percentage our profits are above last year’s is totally beyond me.”

“I should be delighted to look them over, my daughter. When had you in mind?”

“Would the day after tomorrow be convenient?”

Lady Rezalla had no real need to consult her delicate wrist pad, but she did. “Quite suitable.”

Showing good sense as well as filial respect, Nimisha brought her mother in to her executive office to peruse the Rondymense Ship Yard financial records while she busied herself with minor but necessary executive tasks. Halfway through the inspection, Lady Rezalla closed the file she was studying and sat back in the chair.

“Tionel knew very well what he was doing. And so do you, my dear girl, in spite of that famo-neto-second gibberish you gave me the other day. I shall leave your Fleet discretions and secrets, since you’re in them as deeply as dear Ti was. Obviously he trained you to take his place and so you must, restoring the name Rondymense to the honor it deserves.”

Neither remarked on the fact that Lord Vestrin had finally returned to Acclarke but was keeping a very low profile, generally taking himself off-planet to hunt with those of his acquaintance who did nothing but divert themselves with whatever foible or folly took their wayward interests.

“I don’t believe that I had any idea of exactly the scale of dear Ti’s Yard, nor how much construction is currently under way. How can you possibly find time to do little tasks for the Fleet? Much less spend so much time completing that yacht he was enamored of.” Lady Rezalla’s final tone bordered on the critical despite the good impression the extent of Rondymense’s enterprises had given her.

“He trained Jeska Mlan at the same time he trained me.”

“He did?” That startled her mother, who hastily reviewed that young woman’s behavior but could find not the least trace of unbecoming or pushy manners.

Nimisha laughed. “Ti used to say that Jeska had the ninety-nine percent of perspiration it takes to invent something new and I’d supply the one percent genius that shot us into a new dimension. Actually, we’re a very good team. I always have Jeska check my calculations. She’s accurate to the exact limits of the data. I might be right in my guesstimate most times, but she makes sure it’s substantiated by hard figures.”

“Really,” Lady Rezalla said faintly, in a mild state of shock.

“Actually, we do more design than administration anyway, since Tionel has always had excellent executives like Jim Marroo, Efram Dottlesheim, and Ferman Miles-Zynker. You met them at the obsequies and I remember you commenting on how impressed you were with their dignity and genuine grief.”

“That is true. I was impressed.” Lady Rezalla had been, but for reasons other than those quoted by her daughter. She had learned all she could about the men who were—nominally, it now appeared—in charge of her body-heir’s inheritance. She would ruthlessly have dismissed any that had not met her high standards, but they all had. Which made dear Ti’s dreadful body-heir all the more a tragedy.

“I have no qualms at allowing them to continue in their current responsibilities,” Nimisha told her mother, smiling, “doing the bread-and-butter work that supports the icing on the particular piece of cake Ti wanted so to finish. It’s mine now, and I’m continuing the work in progress. Some of it, I spin off to the Navy for their experts to try to pick apart. Tionel did that, and I seem to have inherited the same courtesy they extended him. Anyway, he left us copious notes on how to proceed.” She gestured around her office to indicate the schematics and plans projected on the wall, all printed out from work down in the Design Room where she spent so much of her time.