Nimisha's Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  Caleb’s heart had twisted violently at the fleeting view he’d had of the object, but a second’s sober thought steadied his heartbeat. Nimisha had managed to send pulsed messages. So what was that tangled mess of wreckage?

  “Messages are pouring in from the beacon, Commander, and analysis suggests that the debris is the remains of the Wormhunter Space Station, not the Fiver.”

  “What the hell would the space station be doing on this side of the fragging wormhole?” Caleb demanded.

  “Latest messages first, Captain,” Helm said. “From Captain Meterios—”

  “Meterios?” Kendra’s voice squeaked in dismay.

  “—of the Acclarke courier stationed on the other side of the probable site of the wormhole.”

  “She shouldn’t have been drawn into it,” Caleb said. “Her position was a hundred thousand kilometers from Nimisha’s beacon.”

  “How do we know that that wormhole has a stable point of entry?” Ian Hadley asked. “The space station wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell if the wormhole opened within even fifty thousand kilometers of it. Can Helm check to see if there are any pods in the wreckage?”

  “Later, later,” Caleb said. “Let’s get the latest reports.”

  “I shall screen the earlier ones in the lounge, sir,” Helm said. “The Acclarke reports that it saved eleven out of twelve pods, chief astronomer Dr. Qualta having sustained the worst injuries.”

  “How did the Acclarke weather the passage?” Nazim asked excitedly. He had helped build the Fours that Vegan Fleet had ordered.

  “Later, later,” Caleb said again, shushing them. “Go on, Helm.”

  “Messages in the beacon indicate that the Acclarke proceeded immediately to the coordinates left by Lady Nimisha for the first of three M-type planets.”

  “Nimisha went exploring?” Caleb grinned, having won that bet.

  “There are reports of her investigations, with Commander Jon Svangel, of the other two M-type planets relatively close to the initial one. She has named it Erehwon.”

  “Erehwon?” Kendra exclaimed.

  “That’s nowhere backward,” Cherry Absin-Hadley said with a grin. “Appropriate.”

  “There is also an encrypted message for you, Commander, which I will forward to your cabin,” Helm said. “Numerous pulsed messages have been sent back to Vega, sir. Including the latest from Captain Meterios, dated five days ago, Vegan time.”

  “What’s she still doing here?” Caleb demanded in a rhetorical tone. “I know what orders the Acclarke was given. In the event the courier got drawn into the wormhole, she was to ascertain if Lady Nimisha was alive and then proceed with all possible speed back to Vega.”

  “She would first have had to deposit the space station survivors wherever Lady Nimisha is,” Kendra remarked. “The Acclarke could not manage eleven more passengers.”

  “In cold sleep it could,” Caleb said grimly. Because the entire complement of the Five B’s crew was listening, he did not voice his private thought: Whatever had possessed anyone at Vegan Fleet Command to give Nesta Meterios a tour of duty on the Acclarke? He answered himself: It was possibly one of the few places in which she could do the least damage, excluding the sudden appearance of the wormhole, which it should have had the speed to outrun. The Acclarke Helm had been programmed to take command in any emergency, including the reappearance of the wormhole. Nesta the Nothing would have been merely a passenger.

  While Helm kept trying to present a coherent report, everyone had questions, especially about the world Erehwon. Caleb wished to know who this Commander Jonagren Svangel was. Mareena handed him hard copy access from Fleet files, and consequently he learned that Poolbeg had been the last known ship missing in this general area. Captain Panados Querine had been captain of record, with Lt. Commander Jonagren Svangel listed as executive officer. The Poolbeg was an exploratory service vessel with a crew of ten. Caleb experienced intense relief that Nimisha had not been alone for nearly six years. Not that she wasn’t capable of surviving by herself, but to have had company—and the Poolbeg had had a mixed crew—would have made her life there more agreeable.

  “Captain,” Kendra said suddenly, “they have made contact with aliens also shipwrecked.”

  “Aliens!”

  Kendra grinned at the vehemence in his voice. “Sapient ones, too, since their ship crashed on Erehwon.”

  “Ship? Space-farers? How fascinating! Work for you, my sweet,” Ian said to his semantics-trained wife.

  “Well, I never,” was her astonished response, her green eyes sparkling with anticipation. “Oh, dear, I’d better see if I can locate the translators. I brought them along sort of as an afterthought. Never for one moment thought I’d need them.”

  “You signed Cuiva off on their use, too, you know,” Ian called after Cherry, who was running across the lounge. “We’ll have plenty of time, honey . . .” He shrugged as she continued on her way to find the equipment.

  “Pretty good detail on the pulsed reports,” Gaitama called out, as she was the only one watching the screen in the lounge and the earliest reports. “Planet has some real nasty life-forms. Mareena, come take a look.”

  Mareena joined the biology ensign in the lounge and gulped when she saw the size of the avians and the immense shaggy creatures. Nimisha had added a human figure to the image to show comparative size.

  “Nimisha found other wrecks, not as lucky as the Poolbeg,” she added, rewinding the tape to show those.

  “That’s ancient,” Nazim said. “Must have been First Diaspora.”

  “All right, crew. Helm has stripped the beacon of formal messages,” Caleb said, half an eye on the screen as he delivered orders. “Helm’s sending a pulse beam indicating our ETA at Erehwon. They’ve put up an operational comsat so they’ll know we’ve made a safe translation. I’m assuming that the Acclarke has informed them of our imminent arrival.”

  “An operational comsat?” Kendra repeated with a respectful gleam in her eye. “Well done.”

  “Any crew member wishing to add a message to a pulse going back to Vega III should have it ready in twenty minutes,” Caleb went on. “I don’t intend to hang about here. We’ll be resuming IS drive in twenty minutes.”

  “Hey, that’s not long enough, Caleb,” Nazim protested.

  “Write your reams during IS drive, Nazim, and Helm will relay them when we reach Erehwon. Our first priority is to deliver our sleeping beauty to her mother as fast as possible.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” was Nazim’s prompt reply, and he bolted down the corridor to his own cabin.

  “Twenty minutes, Nazim,” Caleb called after him.

  “Helm, is there anything worth saving from that space station?” Caleb asked.

  “The metal and perhaps smaller objects,” Helm replied.

  “I shot a warning and light beacon over to it, Captain,” Kendra said, “to ward off any possible collision.”

  “Good idea,” Caleb said, as he netted in for translation. “Though why Meterios neglected to do so is something I shall have a word with her about. I suspect there’ll be more traffic rather than less if Nimisha’s planet has aliens. Just like her to find some.”

  “Some people do have a knack for turning disaster into triumph,” Kendra said with a mischievous grin.

  “Nimisha certainly does,” he agreed, and gave her hand on the armrest an affectionate squeeze.

  Her ability to maintain a light touch was one of the qualities about her that Caleb particularly enjoyed in their relationship. He’d never been quite sure when Nimisha was being humorous or subtly sarcastic; being able to relax with Kendra had been an especial boon on this long voyage. She was also assiduous in separating their personal life from their professional.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Caleb said over the com. “Sent your pulse, Kennie?”

  “First in,” she said.

  “If you’ll be good enough to send the official pulse to Fleet Headquarters, I’ll have time to send Lady Rezalla
reassurance.”

  She nodded and began to key in the obligatory notice while Caleb, pausing to word his note carefully, sent a privately encrypted message to the Boynton House. He discreetly commented that Lady Cuiva was enjoying excellent health, had completed all the lessons and tutorials sent for her instruction, and was looking forward eagerly to rejoining her mother.

  “Translation in thirty seconds,” Helm announced and in the main lounge, Caleb and Kendra heard the scurry of people making for secure seating.

  “I don’t know what it is, Karpla,” Doc said, and Nimisha had an image of Lord Naves stroking his chin and shaking his head in perplexity as he regarded the state of Brad Karpla’s naked body under the plastic canopy. She could see the dust that oozed in little gouts from the pustules.

  He had been complaining of a skin irritation for several days and, although he had seen the Acclarke medic, when the irritation began to spread with alarming speed to cover even the soles of his feet, Captain Meterios had insisted that he consult the more sophisticated system. They had been a ludicrous pair on their entry, the smaller captain supporting the taller, heavier gunnery officer up the steps and to the diagnostic unit. Traces of the gray powder that the irritation exuded clung to her uniform, and she had asked permission to use the Fiver’s facilities to wash and brush it off.

  “Use the farthest cabin, Captain,” Nimisha said. “The children are presently asleep in the two closer ones.”

  “Where have you been, Karpla?” Doc went on, his extendibles busy brushing the powder onto slides, disclosing the odd boil-like pustules covering Karpla’s body.

  “Hunting,” Karpla said, squirming on the couch in an attempt to ease the intolerable itching on his back. “Took a gang of the Sh’im kids—with permission, sir,” he added, craning his neck around to address Jon, “to hunt in the mountains.”

  “Did they warn you about any of the vegetation?” Doc asked.

  “Well, I guess they did, but it was much quicker to go through the thickets. We’d spotted a covey of a-alli and you know what good eating they are. ‘Sides, these coveralls are pretty impervious to most of the thorns and prickers this planet grows. Would you for mercy’s sake stop the fraggin’ itching, Doc?” The gunnery officer’s plea came out as a nearly hysterical invocation.

  “I’ve already given you a broad antihistamine, Karpla. It should be working,” Doc said. “Let me get some idea of what causes it, and I’ll knock you out until we come up with a remedy. You’ll skin yourself if you keep on doing that.” Karpla was writhing violently.

  Jon could now see how Karpla had scratched all over himself in an effort to ease the discomfort. His fingernails were bloody and broken, with the gray powder caked under them.

  “That fragging thicket caused it. Nothing else on this fragging planet’s bothered me. Has to be that.”

  “Describe the plant?”

  “Jasssus, will you stop the itching!”

  “I must be sure no one else is caught out as you’ve been.”

  Karpla wailed in anxiety.

  “I suspect the Sh’im tried to make Karpla avoid the bushes. Surely you’ve enough for analysis now, haven’t you?” Jon didn’t have much use for the dedicated hunter, but the man’s suffering need not be prolonged.

  “Pullease.” Karpla was patently in anguish.

  Jon didn’t see the hypospray, but abruptly Karpla’s arching body relaxed, eyes fluttering shut in the next instant.

  “Don’t come any nearer, Jon.” The extendibles within the diagnostic unit were spreading a sheet over Karpla’s inert body right up to his ears. The pustules, which had crept up his throat to his face, had stopped on his chin, giving him a vile gray lumpy “beard” along the jawline.

  Suddenly the air circulatory system came on full blast, plastering Jon’s coverall to him.

  “Nimisha, stand near Jon and let the vents clear any possible spores that might have reached you, too,” Doc said. “I suspect the powder is airborne. Whether it’s infectious or contagious, I haven’t yet decided. But you don’t want to run the risk.”

  “The children?” Nimisha realized she’d sent the captain down the passageway past the doors to their cabins.

  “Good tight seal on those doors, and Helm’s already ordered a complete vacuuming.”

  “But what is it?” Nimisha asked, hand on her throat in her anxiety. Jon started to put a comforting arm about her and canceled the action.

  “Should we shower?” he asked.

  “I’d advise it, and I’m preparing a thoroughly stinky but quite effective gel to use.”

  “How do you know it’s stinky?” Nimisha asked, irritable with anxiety. “You have no olfactory organs.”

  “Because my program tells me the components stink.”

  “Oh.”

  “Go shower.”

  Quite a breeze whipped through the ship since Doc had Helm open the garage hatch and all doors but those on the children’s cabins.

  “What is going on?” Captain Meterios demanded, leaning into the wind as she returned. It abated just as she reached one end of the medical unit. A quick peek proved to her that Karpla’s body was now decently covered.

  “Clearing the air, Captain,” Doc said.

  “What’s the matter with Karpla? You’ve sedated him?”

  “The irritation was quite unbearable, Captain. If you will call a stretcher team, he can be returned to his own quarters on the Acclarke.”

  “Your diagnosis?” Meterios stood hands behind her back, looking quite provoked.

  “An extreme allergic reaction to vegetation. I have found no comparison for either the dust or the pustules in my exotic disease data banks. An empirical treatment to relieve his extreme discomfort was necessitated.”

  “Allergy?”

  “Karpla, on his most recent hunting expedition, apparently plowed through bushes which the Sh’im avoided. I suspect he would have been wiser to follow their example,” Doc said at his mildest.

  Meterios was severely irritated as she spoke into her wrist com and ordered a stretcher team on the double. “How long is he likely to be afflicted with this . . . this local allergy?”

  “I am running tests on it at this moment, Captain, and will forward the results to you at the Acclarke.”

  “I shall have to set up a watch on him, I suppose.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Captain. I’ve put him in cold sleep.”

  “You what?”

  “Medical necessity. Can’t have him infecting anyone else until I’ve discovered what antidote can prevent its spread.”

  “Its spread?”

  “It could, you know,” Doc said. “But you had the good sense to wash immediately when you arrived, Captain. I would suggest that you shower with this gel as soon as you return to your ship.” A vial of a dark brown liquid rolled into one of the unit’s apertures.

  Jon and Nimisha exchanged quick glances, and just then the gurney team arrived. Doc’s extendibles had by then encased Karpla in a full cold suit.

  “Put him in your medical unit in the Acclarke and advise it to monitor him. I’ll send what information I discover directly there,” Doc told Meterios.

  She gave a sharp nod toward Parappan and Amin, who had brought the transport, and left without further comment.

  “What happened to him?” Ace Parappan asked as he and the yeoman, Fez Amin, loaded Karpla’s body on the gurney.

  “Went where the Sh’im told him not to,” Jon said succinctly.

  “Yeah, he liked hunting with the little guys,” Ace remarked.

  “Good shot all right, but won’t listen to anyone,” Fez said.

  “You put him in cold sleep, Doc?” asked Parappan.

  “Only safe place for him right now. Don’t touch the body bag again. Roll him into the cold sleep unit and when it’s closed, take a thorough, long shower with this gel.” Two vials rolled out of the dispenser drawer.

  As Fez put the vials in his thigh pocket, he turned to Jon and said casually,
“We got our four-month resupply, sir, just before the wormhole ate us. In case there was something you might need.”

  “C’mon, Fez,” Parappan said, but he winked at Jon as they guided the anti-grav gurney out of the hatch.

  Doc waited until they had left.

  “Into the shower with you, too. Grab the gel in the dispenser and scrub yourselves well. I’m closing the ship and will add a powerful detox to finish cleaning the air.”

  “The children . . .” Nimisha started toward their rooms as Jon scooped up the large bottle of brown liquid.

  “They’re in no danger. I instigated emergency closure and oxygen the moment I had a good look at Karpla’s condition,” Doc said. “Get scrubbed.”

  They did, with none of the foolery that often accompanied their showers.

  “We didn’t need this,” Nimisha said, dressing in fresh clothing. She could see that their cabin had been vacuumed, and the air had a decidedly medicinal taint to it. Fortunately when they reemerged into the main lounge, the air there smelled once again of Erehwon’s summer aromas.

  “Doc, Meterios was in close contact with Karpla. Will that detergent keep her from getting it?”

  “Too late for her, I fear,” Doc said. “The dust is contagious. She had it on her hands and face and then tried to brush it off when she came in here. Helm informs me there is no trace of powder now in this ship.”

  “Fraggit!” Jon muttered.

  “I don’t think I’d wish that sort of allergy on anyone, much as she makes me dislike her,” Nimisha said. “How long before she starts scratching?”

  “I can’t tell, Nimi, but I suspect by tomorrow, she’ll be showing signs.”

  “Then tell her crew to stay the hell away from the Acclarke,” Jon ordered.

  “Helm has already done so since I declared a medical emergency,” Doc said.

  “I have warned everyone,” Helm said.

  “What about those poor guys carrying the stretcher?” Nimisha asked.

  “They’ll be fine,” Doc said easily. “That’s why I put him in a body bag. No further danger of contamination. Hopefully the cold will also wither the powder, since it thrives in heat.” The medical AI made a throat-clearing sound. “It occurs to me, Lady Nimisha and Commander Svangel,” he went on formally, “that treatment for this condition may only be available back where exotic diseases have been studied. And often cured.”