Nimisha's Ship (40 page)

“That wasn’t
her
idea, Syrie,” Casper said with a chuckle. “Rustin didn’t miss us sweating in the dress blues.”

“No matter what I just said, Casper, I don’t want to
leave
here. Tim’s First Family on Erehwon. Back in any of the colonies he’ll just be a—nothing.”

Casper gave an amused snort. “I doubt our Tim will be a nothing anywhere, Syrie. You know how smart Jon and Nimisha think he is, and I know he’s already proved it to Caleb Rustin. Look how he’s helping their semantics officer adjust her translator units.”

“But what if we’re
ordered
to leave Erehwon, Casper?” she asked in a muted wail.

Casper pulled her to her feet and into his arms, where he held her tightly, smoothing back the short hairs that had escaped her braid. “If it comes to that, Syrie, I’ll resign. You can, too, and we’ll all be colonists. We have that right under Exploratory Service regs.”

“I’d forgotten that,” she said, and began to cheer up. She rubbed her cheeks dry. “I won’t take long to change, dear. That’s one advantage with uniforms,” she added, carefully picking up her new one and making for the bathroom she had designed for their private use. “No problems about what to wear and when to wear what.”

Jon had had a chance for a private conversation with Caleb Rustin in his cabin, though Caleb dodged most of the initial questions about his current orders and if there were some pertaining to the shipwrecked crew.

“There are two points that I didn’t mention in any of the pulses, Captain—”

“Caleb, Jon.”

“Thank you, sir . . . thanks.”

“And what could you have failed to mention in the full reports I’m still reading?” Caleb asked, gesturing to the disks on his desk.

“The first oddity is that, when I computed the vector of the wreck we found in space on our way to Secondo, it had not—” Jon paused. “—come from the same area of space in which
our
wormhole ejected us. Of course, as we know now, that wormhole moves about on the other side; after all, it caught the space station and Meterios, who were both supposed to be well beyond its range. So—” Jon hesitated again, dubious. “I wonder if there could be more than one wormhole emptying into this general vicinity.”

Caleb considered that for a long moment. “We know so little about wormholes that you could be right.”

“I’d rather not be,” Jon said ruefully.

“Hmmm, yes, I agree. You said two points?”

“Yes, and maybe it is part of the first. On our way back from checking out the third M-type planet, the one Nimisha calls Tertio, I answered a muted alert from Helm. Nimisha was sleeping a lot just then, pregnant with the twins. I certainly didn’t want to wake her unnecessarily. What alerted Helm was an old emission trail.”

“It was?” Caleb sat up straighter, elbows on the armrest, his fingers linked. “How old? What sort of fuel trace?”

“That we couldn’t establish with any accuracy, but several months old at the least. The course just brushed the heliopause of Tertio. We diverted to see if we could pick up stronger traces. It was heading off our port side. Helm took readings of the stars in that direction, but none of them were close enough to be an immediate destination.”

Caleb leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers thoughtfully.

“That’s extremely interesting, Jon, because we found traces not that far from the beacon.”

“You did? Meterios mentioned nothing.”

Caleb snorted. “She only saw what she expected to see, although I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in this instance. She was probably too busy catching loose pods and dodging the space station debris to notice anything as nebulous as that was, even three months earlier. But it’s there. And we have it on record. Did Nimisha mention seeing anything on her way in?”

“No, and Helm would have mentioned a previous sighting. The one we saw was probably months old. Helm’s a lot more sensitive than other ships.”

“I think we might do well to set up a few drone-eyes,” Caleb said. “And possibly a discreet installation on the farthest moon. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, we’re here until further orders can be pulsed through to us. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind!”
Grinning like an idiot, Jon shook his head in the human fashion. “Having new people here?”

“I rather thought that would be your reaction,” Caleb said drolly. “In any event, we’ve enough equipment and certainly the skills to produce a good early warning system, even if we have to manufacture some things here on Erehwon.”

Jon turned serious again, too.

“Two sightings might mean a reasonably regular shipping lane through this area of space. On the other hand, maybe the trail was from a ship heading away from another wormhole exit. I think I prefer shipping lines.”

“I think I do, too,” Caleb said with a grin. “But shipping what and by whom? M-type planets are rare enough. Since the Sh’im were caught by the wormhole, those traces might not be from their colony ships. I think we need more evidence before we put it on the worry list. I’ll include your observations in my report.”

Jon nodded. “Then, too, the Sh’im would prefer a dimmer primary than this one, or those of the other two M’s. Sh’im eyes need shading. That’s why we borrowed the tarpaulin.” Jon gave a droll smile. “For an unpopulated area of space, this sector shows more traffic than certainly
I
thought there’d be.”

“We’ll just keep optics up there to spot the next batch of traffic. Did you ever see any exploratory probes while you were here?”

Jon gave a bark. “Not so much as a con trail. Though we were scarcely in a position to do any signaling once the shuttle was crocked. Sure had the surprise of my life when Nimisha flew in to our site on the
Poolbeg
’s gig.”

“Yes, but then she’s been surprising people since she was Necklaced. Which reminds me, Jon . . .” Caleb rose and picked up a neat package from his bed. “Think these might come in handy for today’s ceremony. And they’ve improved tropical dress whites while you’ve been gone.”

Jon didn’t waste any time opening the parcel and grinned with real pleasure to find the hat fit his head perfectly. “I appreciate this, Caleb, more than you know. Those dress blues are
not
for this climate.”

“Got to preserve all the naval traditions we can. When the fun’s over, let’s get our com experts together and see what we can come up with”—Caleb held up a warning hand—“without exactly explaining why we want the equipment.”

“Since when did the Navy explain more than need-to-know?” Jon asked with a cocky grin. Then he noticed the wall clock. “I’d better go get dressed. Thanks again.”

Jon ended up showering and changing in the only empty cabin. He was buckling the white web belt—an item of uniform that had never altered—when there was a quick knock at the door and before he could say anything, Syrona, exceedingly correct in her whites, entered and closed the door behind her.

“I’m here to trim your hair, Captain Svangel.”

Jon’s right hand went to the damp hair well below his shoulders. Syrona grinned and held up scissors and comb.

“Casper didn’t complain, and you better not.”

“You haven’t cut your hair, have you, Syrie?” Jon demanded anxiously.

She turned her head so that he could see the intricate braids that extended below the back of her hat.

“Sit,” she said, pointing to the stool, and draped his damp towel over his shoulders. “It won’t take long. And may even look better than the job I did on Casper, now I’ve got the hang of it again.”

“Hey!” Jon protested when he heard the first snip.

“Oh, relax. I’ve never cut anyone’s ears, and you simply have to look as good as you can to match Nimi and Cuiva. That is, when her mother and Perdimia finally made her stop playing long enough with her brothers and sisters to
get
dressed. You’d think they were more important than her Necklacing.”

Jon chuckled, careful not to move his head. “Got over that one easily, didn’t we?”

“Cuiva’s a nice person. Everyone on the Five B—and we have got to do something about proper names for those ships, you know—thinks the world of Cuiva. D’you know she intended to keep looking for her mother if it took her entire life?”

“Dedication seems to be a Boynton trait.”

He felt her comb through much shorter hair. “Sit still. I need to clip . . . just . . . one or two. There!” She gathered up the towel carefully from his shoulders to keep the cuttings from escaping.

Jon blinked twice in the mirror at his new elegance and grinned. “Thanks, Syrie.”

“Now finish dressing. It’s nearly time to take your seat.”

Placing his hat correctly under his left arm, Jon made his way out of the cabin and into the main lounge of the Fiver. There he stopped short, his jaw dropping as he saw Lady Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense and Lady Cuiva Boynton-Farquahar looking every inch the First Family scions they were. Nimisha was now clad in the filmy delicately blue gown, no doubt from the box Perdimia had brought over from the Five B. Her luxuriant hair had been plaited into a high coronet on the crown of her head, with jeweled pins that picked up the colors of her Necklace, making the hairstyle truly regal. The Necklace was magnificent in its intricacy, covering exactly the heir tattoo beneath it as Cuiva’s Necklace shortly would.

He had trouble breaking his eyes away from Nimisha, for he’d never seen her in her role as a First Family body-heir, despite knowing every whorl of her tattoo. She smiled gently, as if she understood his confusion at her transformation.

Reassured by that smile, he took time to regard Cuiva, dressed in a subtle, not quite formfitting white gown that flowed about her slender body, outlining young breasts, slender waist and hips, reaching to her ankles, her feet in white sandals. Her hair was also dressed high on her head with ringlets that cascaded down but were somehow held on a level with her delicate ears. The neckline of her gown had been designed to show the body-heir tattoo that would soon be covered by her Necklace. She was as radiant as her mother, but she dropped her eyes shyly as he stood there, mesmerized.

“I gather we pass inspection,” Nimisha said, breaking the spell.

“I’ve never seen you look so beautiful, Nimi,” he said in a rough, low voice, and then laughed softly when she blushed. “And you, Lady Cuiva, must be the most radiant minor major body-heir ever seen in the entire galaxy, including this sector.” He accorded her his deepest bow.

Perdimia entered the room, her shorter hair somehow more elegantly arranged. She was clad in a long pearly gray gown, its elegance understated. She carried the Coskanito box that held Cuiva’s Necklace.

“May we,” Doc began, “the AI crew of the Fiver, congratulate you, Lady Cuiva, and salute you on your first step into maturity. May you live long and be happy.”

“Hear! Hear!” chimed in Helm’s tenor and Cater’s alto.

“If you’ll just get out of here now, Jon,” Nimisha said with a wide grin to take the edge off the order, “we can begin.”

The automatic bells signaled noon, and Jon strode as fast as he could out of the Fiver and toward the circle where the ceremony would take place. He couldn’t quite shake off the amazing visions of mother and daughter until he was suddenly engulfed by the sun-warmed fragrance of the blooms that had been gathered to enhance this outdoor affair. The tarpaulin did provide shade for Sh’im sun-sensitive eyes, but it also kept in the floral aromas, intensifying them. Bleachers that had been erected to accommodate the hordes of spectators were already crammed. He saw Syrona taking her seat by Casper and Tim, and noticed there was an empty place on a chair—not a Sh’im stool, for which he was immensely grateful—beside Caleb, with his first officer just beyond him. So he made his way there. Opposite the naval contingent was a special raised section, designed so the view of the smaller Sh’im would not be impeded by the floral decorations massed to create a circle. Many of the humans were seated on couches and chairs, Jon absently noted. Safer than those wretched stools.

The circle was broken by a few strategically placed gaps for exits and entrances. In its center stood a three-tiered podium. That was where Nimisha would formally Necklace her daughter.

Over the liquid vowel sounds of the Sh’im, he heard music. The musicians might have been professionally inferior to the fine orchestra that Lady Rezalla would have hired for the occasion, but the strains of old Earth tunes were, to his thinking, far more appropriate to rustic Erehwon. As he took his seat, he thought maybe they should call the Fiver “Erehwon.” Not accurate, though: That ship would always know where she was!

A hush settled. The soft music faltered a moment and then bravely started a triumphant march, not quite martial but vaguely familiar to him and in the proper tempo for a sedate progress. He turned his head, as everyone did, to see Nimisha, leading her daughter by the hand down the slight slope to the shaded arena. Sunlight sent shafts of light from the jeweled Necklace Nimisha wore. There were oohs and aaahs from the humans and the Sh’im liquid sound of approval, certainly the most beautiful sounds they made and far more evocative of joyfulness than human exclamations. Cuiva kept her eyes down, not so much in modesty as to be sure of her footing on the uneven, sun-baked ground. Behind them came Perdimia, looking as if she held back tears by sheer willpower.

Nimisha led Cuiva into the garlanded circle through one of the openings, where Perdimia halted. Mother and daughter continued around its circumference: mother on the inside. This was the point of the ritual, the presentation of a daughter to the mature spectators invited to a Necklacing ceremony that signified the daughter’s right to set childhood behind her. That none were relatives or highly respected family connections did not matter. Cuiva’s only other near kin were fast asleep or being amused elsewhere, since even the twins were much too young to behave during this formal part of the day’s ceremony.

Jon felt himself almost bursting with pride as Cuiva inclined her head to him as well as to Caleb. Having completed the circle, Nimisha led her daughter to the central podium and Perdimia advanced slowly to them. Nimisha stood on the highest tier with Cuiva on the one below, facing her mother. Perdimia held up the opened case. Slowly and gracefully Nimisha lifted up the exquisite Necklace by its ends, the jewels sparkling from the glare of what sun did penetrate tiny holes in the tarpaulin.