"Run diagnostics on all systems," she told the artificial intelligence that managed ship functions.

"Aye, ma'am," said the tenor voice she had programmed into the AI her early years as a test pilot on long and lonely runs had taught her that it was psychologically reassuring to hear another human voice-and the AI, helm, was the state-of-the-art in that regard even to making independent queries and initiating standard procedure actions without direct command. She had another ai in the compact infirmary, doc, and a less broadly programmed one in the galley who responded to "cater." she flipped open the safety harness that she had fastened at the sound of the warning bell of reentry and rose in a single graceful movement. "I'll be in the galley." a needless comment but part of the routine she had established with her AI units. This initial run should shake out the glitches that had escaped the gruelling routines to which she subjected each part of a new ship. Responses from the AI's were very much a part of a ship that she wished to produce and sell to both the federated sentient planet space authority and private buyers among the wealthy of her acquaintance. Many of them enjoyed flitting about the star system. Many of them preferred to have little, if any, crew and some of them were not competent enough to be permitted to travel alone.

Most needed as much backup and assistance as could be crammed into a compact vessel. And a fleet ship with a single scouting pilot would need the "company," spurious as it was.

the large "day" room was spacious enough to hold large parties in. That would be a boon to those who wished to entertain at their ports of call. It could also be separated into four sections with privacy shields for discreet conferences. The galley was located on the long starboard wall, and the panels on either side of it enclosed additional dispenser units to accommodate an increase in guests.

The main airlock was on the port side of the cabin. On either side of the galley facility were the passageways to the six private cabins, far more spacious and well appointed than a naval vessel could permit. A circular staircase on one side gave access to the lower level, which included a well-equipped gymnasium, one of the several hydroponics units, and additional storage space. On the other side, a quick descent pole reached the lower deck, closer to the escape pods. On the main deck, beyond the private cabins, were the main storage units and the larger hydroponics. Through a safety hatch, there was the skiff secured in its own garage, and, through an additional safety hatch, the engineering section and the ship's propulsion system.

The medical unit was directly to the port side of the bridge: compact enough to hold state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, a life-suspension facility, and an AI programmed to deal with any esoteric disease so far discovered-or any condition a human could be reduced to, including being flattened by the stampede of quadrupeds. The AI medic was a baritone. Nimisha had borrowed his mellifluous voice from lord physician naves, a long time friend of her dam's. In fact, she'd nearly asked him to sire her heir. Not that she wasn't totally satisfied with rhidian's performance; his genes had abetted hers in producing beauty, intelligence, and character.

She wouldn't have had rhidian as a long-term partner-hunting bored her and stimulated him-though he had a wry sense of humor that she liked. And he seemed to be rather proud of his biological daughter, evoking lord tionel's continued interest in Nimisha.

But rhidian had never understood Nimisha's fascination with space or her propensity to do hands-on work with machinery of all kinds.

Which was why cuiva's early childhood interest in "tinkering" was such a delightful surprise. Obviously the rondymense genes had dominated.

Nimisha had no intention of pushing the child into her own profession since there were many options for an intelligent, well trained mind. She was, however, gratified that cuiva was so happy to play with building blocks and stick-togethers while she was busy at her design screen.

Nimisha's thoughts right now were more on something to fill her empty stomach than on her heir.

"I'll have a mixed fruit juice, a green salad, and mercassian bread," Nimisha said as she strode across the carpeted deck. A single chair and table emerged from the wall just as the dispenser chimed the arrival of the order. So Nimisha settled immediately to her meal with a pleasant thank-you.

"You're quite welcome. Let me know if you wish anything else," said the dulcet dispenser AI it spoke in a lilting tone and, while Nimisha didn't need to respond, much less express appreciation the habit of courtesy had been so ingrained in her that she was unable to break it. Some of her friends found it amusing but then, few of them traveled the distances she did and could appreciate the companionship of other voices, AI or human. And Nimisha had been well drilled by her womb-mother: courtesy was the mark of true nobility and aided the instillation of loyalty. And no one of any rue breeding assumed service.

She grinned, wondering how often she had heard that litany, as she tucked into the salad-crisply green with odd crunchy seasoned bits, just as she liked it. She remembered the day that she had auditioned voices. She'd had half a mind to use her mother's sultry one. But lady Rezalla would not have considered it in any way a compliment, nor were her mother's highbred tones and elegant diction suitable for any AI on this ship.

Nimisha had listened to voices on tri-d, selected those she liked and felt she could bear hearing constantly, and contacted an agency to act for her. The contralto was a young actress, determined to break into big time tri-d, who dutifully read through the material supplied, enunciating culinary words and displaying no curiosity as to the limitation of the audition. She had certainly been grateful for the credit lodged to her account when she finished the day's reading.

The man she had chosen for helm's voice had been an entirely different matter: he was a well-known compeer, and he had agreed only after haggling with both her and his agent as to price.

Once that was finally settled, he had rattled off the required pages of dialogue and vocabulary in a professional manner, but he was curious as to the usage.

"Do I have to be ... only ..." and he had leaned toward her, his eyes and manner seductive.

"Dear man, how would I survive listening to your voice thousands of systems away from your presence if we were to indulge - -." she paused, smiling as she ran a delicate finger down his strongly modeled jawline. " ... in an intimacy? I know-" and again she paused, this time in compliment. "-your reputation." when he leaned forward across the worktop that separated them, Nimisha rose from her chair in a graceful whirl toward the door and waved her hand across the control panel. "That'll be all, pet," she said, using her "business" voice, a tone guaranteed to reduce ardor.

With a rueful smile, he tipped her a saucy wave as he exited.

"You may be sorry," he murmured. Annoyed, she pressed the fast close stud of the door controls and just missed his left heel.

Her mother's long-term friend, lord physician naves, had started his medical career as a diagnostician but was now more in demand as a body-sculptor. He had assisted in the massive sculpting necessary to put young lord vestrin back together into the handsome figure he had once been before his accident. He had been charmed by her request to use his voice.

"Not that I'm expecting any trouble," she assured lord physician naves, "but when you roll off those unpronounceable diseases and suggest procedures in that gorgeous voice, one is instantly comforted and feels safe." the older man, who had let his hair go silver-a contrast to his young and vigorous countenance-preened slightly. He was very fond of lady Rezalla's body-heir and thought her most original to have struck out for herself in a profession of her own: so different from the languorous women and men whom he was called upon to body-sculpt. He smiled and winked at her.

"I've always considered my voice a professional asset. For you, nimi, I'll be happy to lend my vocal support." then he went on, repeating a familiar concern of his. "Far too many financiers, bankers, and entrepreneurs in our line. We need some diversity, some other role models for the next generation, or no one will be able to speak in anything except debentures, compound interest, and multiple mergers." he effected a shudder. "There is, after all, only so much you can say about those." "And infinite queries for you to answer for those of us who think we've contracted something lethal in our travels." "Precisely." he put both hands on her shoulders, giving her a little shake and sternly eyeing her. "But, of course, I shall be only an emergency feature? You'll be careful?" "I always am," Nimisha said, having no need to remind him that she had had only very minor scrapes in her career as a test pilot-nothing more than a sprain and bruises. As the saying went, any landing you walk away from is a good one. "Oh, how is lord vestrin progressing?" lord naves's expression became very solemn. "That young man feels the world owes him something. Which I assure you it doesn't. His.. ah ... reconstruction is almost complete and indeed there were some improvements he insisted on in the facial reconstruction. Symmetry is just not natural. It is, indeed, those minor flaws that give the whole countenance its character. Of course, character is a lack that body sculpting cannot repair. Nor can lady vescuya's devotion to her son be considered an asset." he paused, a fleeting look of dismay crossing his handsome and definitely asymmetrical features. "But she has been devoted." "So he'll be more handsome than ever?" lord naves gave her an odd look. "Illusory, of course," he said, flicking his fingers to dismiss this topic of conversation. "Good luck, my dear," and lord naves had given her four tenderly fond embraces. "At least the essence of me will be at your command. I feel much more confident about that." this shakedown flight was no more than routine, she thought, tearing off a chunk of the mercassian bread and using it to sop up some of the salad dressing.

One second she was eating, the next, some subtle instinct had her on her feet and running to the bridge, swaying with the erratic motion of a ship gone unstable and yelling "report!" at the top of her voice.

"Instruments indicate emergence of wormhole-" "there isn't a wormhole in this sector." "Ship's library confirms wormhole phenomena..

She caught sight of the boiling white pout of disturbance that could be nothing other than a wormhole plugging open the space directly in front of her.

"Helm to starboard! Hard!" if they were lucky, they might just slip under the edge of the yawning maw that seemed to be sucking the ship in. From this angle the hole looked far larger than it might actually be, for after all it wasn't supposed to exist at these particular coordinates in the deltaquadrant. She'd chosen this area, off main shipping routes, so she could let out the fiver's engines without running any other vessel down. The seventy meters of her ship were no more than a splinter at its perimeter, yet she might just be able to skim past.

Fighting against the bucking of the deck beneath her feet, she pushed herself into the pilot's chair, fingers flying to program and release a mayday beacon, propelling it well astern of her ship., with her left arm, she fumbled into the safety harness but had no time to fasten the belt when the ship juddered and inexorably yawed to port, unable to execute the starboard maneuver though she could hear both thrusters and engines roaring to comply. The wormhole had got her and the ship was slipping over its thick lip and down into the brilliant, roiling interior of the tunnel it made. A tunnel to where? She clung to the right armrest, struggling to secure herself in the harness.

"We are in the wormhole, ma'am," said the AI. "What procedures are recommended?" Nimisha swallowed a totally inappropriate and useless expletive.

"Shut down the drive. Use thrusters to keep us as steady as possible, helm," she replied, firmly quelling the fright she could not quite suppress. To her immense chagrin, she realized that she had forgotten to program wormhole protocol. Now, in the incredible gullet of the hole, it was too late! Furthermore, she'd never been in one. Stable wormholes were relatively uncommon, and no one in their right mind entered one that hadn't been thoroughly probed.

Was the passage through a hole supposed to be this rough? If helm's reflexes hadn't been ferntosecond fast, they'd be mashed against the sides, the hull scored if not penetrated by the protuberances that she saw more as retinal afterimages they passed by so fast. Petralloy was considered the best possible material to clad spacecraft and she had used the most advanced composition for the fiver, but it could be dented and scraped. She could lose the exterior modules and sensors. Was she being sucked into a one way route to nowhere? Still attempting to fit the harness about her for whatever protection that would afford her, she leaned to port to get her right arm through the straps just as a savage downward plunge brought her forehead against the armrest with sufficient force to render her unconscious.

Ma'am? Ma'am?" the calm voice of her pilot asked, "your vital signs are showing distress. You should report immediately to the infirmary." when there was no reply, the advice was repeated with an additional query: "orders are required. No preprogrammed orders conform to the current emergency. Orders are requested.

Ma'am?" then, as the wormhole spat them out into starlit space, helm added, "without formal orders, will comply with standard operating procedures."

Chapter 3.

The pulses from the mayday beacon were omnidirectional and would connect with any sensor capable of receiving the message, including planetary or lunar satellites or other spaceships.

The first comunit to catch it was on a small intersystem freighter, five light-hours away.

"Hey, cap'n," the sailor on watch yelled to the dozing master of the vessel, "distress call." "Where?" when the sailor told him, the captain snorted. "Like we could do anything about it this month." "It's got a navy tag and one from the rondymense ship yard down vega way. We gotta at least forward it." "Rondymense?" the captain struggled to a sitting position.

"And navy? Label it 'flash override." we can't get there, but we can sure pulse a tight beam to the nearest naval base. Look up the coordinates and the frequency." the nearest naval unit, a destroyer on a routine mission, caught another of the pulses and the two warnings reached the naval base at dalonaga.

"Send those coordinates to the plot," the officer of the watch said, wasting no time to get to the transparent three-dimensional sphere that was used during maneuvers. The sphere could be adjusted to any given area of space and display it three-dimensionally.

It also pinpointed the present position of every naval unit in that area. Of which there were currently none when the appropriate section appeared on the sector and with it the position of the buoy, a tiny blinking red asterisk.

"The gods wept!" cried the jig. "We had a routine signal about a trial run for a rondymense yacht out that way. What could have happened? I'll have to bother the captain with this." "I'd've killed you if you hadn't," was the response as the captain swung onto the bridge, his cheek bearing crease marks from his interrupted sleep. "Crappit! The id's for that long-distance yacht vegan fleet's keen on. Now what the frag could have happened to it? What have we got that's fast enough to get out there and see, addison?" he asked the duty officer.

"Sir, there's nothing close enough, sir," addison replied, depressed. Then he brightened as he added, "the base at coyne III has one of the mark twos that came out of the rondymense yard." "Send a flash override to coyne iii's base commander, requiring him to send the mark two with all possible speed to these coordinates." the captain's finger was shaking just a little as he tapped the plot and the winking light. "The mark two can be net control and do a standard search pattern until we can get more units out there to help. No one's going to hang about when they see who sent that mayday." rubbing his face as if that would assist clearer insight into the emergency, the captain increased the magnification of the targeted zone and began to scratch his skull in perplexity. It was a sparsely occupied area, which is why it was used for testing new ships, and occasionally for naval maneuvers. Could the rondymense ship have blundered into a missile left over from the last games? He shook his head at that unlikely hood. If the test ship were an advance on the design of the mark 2, it would have sensors capable of detecting a missile. After all, the pilot had had time to shoot off a mayday beacon, so he hadn't landed on the missile to set it off. For el which mischance the odds would be in gigabytes.

The mark 2 from coyne in was the first to arrive, its captain having had the distinct pleasure of an excuse to redline the engines. It was joined by half a dozen other vessels, four naval, one commercial and one luxury yacht that had altered course from a hunting preserve to answer what might be a much more exciting adventure for its first family occupants. All participated in the standard 3-d search pattern, with the mark 2, swallow, acting as netcos.

The swallow, commanded by a senior lieutenant on his first assignment had followed all the recommended search procedures, starting with a long-range scan for a life pod, for debris, for traces of an ion trail. He did find that. Or, rather, traces of the ship's reentry into normal space.

The emissions were clean enough, what one would expect of a brand-new ship. But there wasn't so much as a cinder of debris or a pellet of melted metal to be found. Hailed by the incoming naval ships, one with an admiral aboard, swallow handed over the netcos to the flagship while he continued on his search pattern. By now all the ships had moved well beyond the beacon. The one thing he should have tried to find was any discontinuity in the space near the beacon, but at that point in time no one had thought to check for a wormhole.

Fretting during the long sleepless days it took caleb rustin to reach the beacon, even redlining the mark 4 he "borrowed" from the rondymense ship yard, he had time to check for reports on any anomalies, of any kind, reported in that sector of space.

He groaned as the report divulged that eighteen ships had been reported "last heard from" in this general area. The latest one had been fifteen standard years previously, an exploration ship, the pootheg, fsps 9k66e, ten aboard, captain panados querine commanding. The ship and crew had been deemed officially lost in space seven years ago. The other ships listed as missing ranged back through the nearly two hundred and fifty years of space history.

no debris of any of the missing ships had ever been found, even at the moon base of the notorious ebevyr pirates who had terrorized commercial shipping for three decades over a hundred years before. However, many previously "missing" ships, or fragments thereof, including descendants of crews and passengers reduced to slavery by the pirates, were found and accounted for.

When caleb reported his findings to admiral gollanch on his flagship, the admiral immediately set the more powerful search units of his database to sift possibilities.

"Wormhole?" caleb suggested, wincing.

The admiral looked pensive. "None ever reported at those coordinates rustin." "possibly why this particular area is one of the more deserted sectors?" "Having eaten any nearby stars and their planets?" if an admiral : chose to be facetious, he could, but caleb gritted his teeth. it was Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense who was the victim, not some totally unknown unfortunate. "What the astrographer says about wormholes is that they seem to appear in less tenanted space. The few that have been regular occurrences suggest that there are far more of these phenomena than we have documented." "If lady Nimisha had seen a wormhole, she'd've included it in the mayday," caleb said staunchly.

"If she had seen it in time, commander," the admiral said. "I seem to be arguing against my wishes," he added with a rueful twist to his lips. "I'd like nothing better than to find her. and that prototype. Did you redline the four all the way out there?" "Yes, sir," caleb replied without a trace of regret. "Drive and ship performed very well at maximum thrust." "No problems?" "I'm preparing a full performance report, sir. You'll have it shortly on a pulsed beam."

"Did well, did it? Then why in name of holy icons was Nimisha dissatisfied with the four?" "Lady Nimisha ..." caleb had to close his eyes a moment, having managed to keep desire under control. By mentioning her name, he was robbed of his calm for a second, but he continued with a firm emphasis on the verb, "is a perfectionist, and I must admit that she had already proved to me that the fiver's drive tested out 12.25 percent more efficient before and after installation." hmmm, really?" the admiral pulled at his lower lip.

"Then we shall spare no effort to retrieve the prodigal and her efficient vessel." "Especially as she made the final adjustments and additions with jeska's help and not mine," caleb said ruefully.

By the time caleb rustin arrived at the beacon, the swallow and the other vessels that had answered the mayday were widening their search pattern for debris or any other traces. It was now three days and fifteen hours since the beacon had first begun to pulse.

Admiral gollanch had sent on to caleb in his faster comsystem science reports on wormhole tracings, but whatever might have been present before the mark 2 had begun its search pattern had been overlaid by its own ion trail.

The swallow's captain was horrified speechless and then babbled on and on about how he had followed standard search procedures as outlined in regulations and ... until caleb had to cut off the sound and look away from the screen. He got his emotions under control and held up one hand to stem the flow from the penitent junior before he flipped back on the sound.

"You did exactly as you should, fermassy, no fault to you," caleb said, and had to repeat it several more times until the young captain could be sufficiently reassured.

"What can we do now, commander? We must do something," Fermassy insisted. "Lady Nimisha must be found! She's first family, sir! " "we are all exceedingly aware of that, fermassy, I assure you.

It is my devout hope that the more sensitive equipment on board admiral gollanch's ship may find traces we cannot." "But both our ships are rondymense-made, sir! " the young captain exclaimed.

"Which is why we made it here so fast. Ah, and what have we aleb noticed ships arriving from three directions coming in now?" and welcomed the diversion from fermassy's self-castigation.

He was not quite as pleased to discover that the luxury yacht that had diverted from its original destination to a hunting preserve was occupied by friends of lord vestrin. How the man would enjoy knowing that his half-sister had gone missing in such a dramatic fashion. Caleb sent a pulsed priority message directly to rondymense ship yard and another to lady Rezalla. Vestrin's dam would like nothing better than to get the yard back into her hands under a default condition, since the yard had been left to Nimisha, not to Nimisha and her body-heir.

But Nimisha is not dead, caleb told himself at the top of his mental voice, denying, denying, denying.

There had been the fiver's ion trail in normal space, ending some ten thousand kilometers from the beacon. Caleb figured she might well have propelled it as far from the wormhole as possible to be sure it would escape and send its vital mayday. She was in the most advanced and sophisticated ship in the known galaxy, built of the best materials, all basic ship functions had proved out in the earlier models and no debris was evident. Malfunction was marginally possible. But he denied malfunction. He denied her death. But how could they find a wormhole that had never been seen? How could they even prove that it had been a wormhole that 1: had snatched her out of this part of space?

Despite the most sensitive and sophisticated of instruments, some of which bore Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense's patent registrations , no further trace was found. Machinists and programmers on the admiral's big cruiser made alterations to existing sensors and the original beacon was shortly anchored to a highly specialized satellite. It was programmed to launch a piggyback double probe into whatever wormhole or other spatial anomaly might appear at these coordinates, simultaneously pulsing a broadcast to the nearest drone monitor. When the double probe reached the other end of the wormhole, the piggyback, with the most powerful single thruster in the fleet's possession, would be immediately released and return with whatever information it could glean in a nanosecond's view of the exit space. Similar units would be constructed and scattered within this relatively unoccupied sector, so that no wormhole could poke its white snout through the fabric of space without instant detection. During the next month, a special station was hauled to the edge of the sector and positioned there, with a mark 4 on detached assignment, probably the fastest ship that could be scrambled to reach a wormhole.

"We hope," was admiral gollanch's remark as he initialed the necessary orders. "I'll make this a three-month duty station, high risk compensation, partnered crews so they'll have something to do while they wait ..." is ma'am? Ma'am?" "Lady Nimisha? Please answer, lady Nimisha. Do you wish more to eat?" "Nimi, get to your feet and get over to the unit. I can't treat you from here." the sentences, each in a different but recognizable tone from patient repetition to anxiety to command, gradually penetrated nimi's fogged mind.

She struggled to sit up, rolling her eyes at the pain in her head, trying to remember what had hit her.

"Orders, please, ma'am. I am on standby." "Standby?" nimi repeated and forced her eyes open, one hand at her temple so that she felt the dried blood that had congealed there. "Oh." she shed the half of harness she had managed to get on and tried to stand. "Helm, report!" she made a second and successful attempt to get to her feet and made her way to the medical station. Wove her way, she amended. She'd had quite a crack.

"Doc, how long have I been unconscious?" "Three hours, twenty minutes, six seconds and-" "thank you, helm," she cut off the hundredths. I asked the doc." "helm needs to hear your voice, nimi," the medic said in lord naves's soothing baritone. "Now lie down before you fall." the change in position made her head throb, but the infirmary unit's extensions had snaked out of their niches to clamp on her body for readings.

"Shaken but nothing stirred," the doc said reassuringly. "We'll just relieve the symptoms and clean up that cut. A spurt of nu-skin will close it neatly." nimi grimaced as a swab made her aware of how tender the spot was, but the sudden coolness on her arm from a hypospray meant that the discomfort would soon disappear.

"All systems functioning normally," helm said. "No damage reported in any section despite the turbulence of the wormhole. The hull has been scraped on both sides but has not lost integrity." "Wormhole!" Nimisha would have shot upright if she hadn't been entangled with extendables, which were still checking her over.

"Let's just keep our cool," doc said.

"We were drawn into a wormhole, ma'am, and you were rendered unconscious by the buffeting," was helm's contribution.

Somehow she got the distinct impression from helm's voice that it was her puny human fault that she was vulnerable and he was sorry for her. Hmmm ... maybe she should reprogram helm when she got back to the yard. That actor had embroidered on the script with some emotional content that was not to her liking.

Damn him.

"What is our position?" there was a long pause, during which she was given another injection "for shock," the doc said.

"I'm waiting, helm." "Working, ma'am, on establishing our present position with star identification program." helm was almost a misnomer for the functions handled by that AI it was not only guidance, but engineering communications, navigation, defense, and science, as well as commissary for all the supplies on board the fiver which were not for human consumption. And it ordered those in from the lists supplied by cater.

Nimi craned her neck to get a glimpse of the main screen.

"You'll have time enough to look at it when you've been cleared by me, nimi, and have had something to bring your blood sugar up to normal. Cater, prepare a sweetened and restorative drink, high protein, full trace elements." "Yes, indeed. My pleasure." Nimisha wondered if she actually heard a note of relief in cater's voice. The manipulative arms of the infirmary withdrew.

"Move slowly now," doc advised. "No permanent damage, but you gave yourself quite a crack." "I'll have to see to the armrest design. Pad it better," Nimisha muttered. "Take note please, helm," she added as she walked slowly toward the dispenser and the cup of steamy liquid awaiting her. Judiciously sampling it, though it was at just the right temperature to be ingested immediately, she thanked cater and got a fervent "you're very welcome, lady Nimisha," as she returned to the pilot console.

"It shouldn't take you this long to match spectroanalyses, helm. What's the problem?" "I can find no matches, ma'am." Nimisha blinked. "You're programmed with every single data cube available to the fleet on every single star system. You mean, that wormhole took us outside the delta quadrant?" "That would be a correct assessment of an inability to identify any of the primaries visible. We are substantially closer to the magellanic clouds, so we must be nearer the southern celestial pole. I believe I can identify the constellation doradus, but it is the only familiar starscape." Nimisha looked out, not precisely doubting helm but unwilling to concede that she, and her ship, were lost in space. She knew what configuration of stars she should have seen from the fiver at the position where the wormhole sucked her in. There were no comfortingly familiar star-patterns visible, but she was still in a in populous area, to judge by the multitude of primaries shining all around her.

"Well, if my brains were scrambled, at least yours can't be, helm." "No, ma'am." "What about that double star? Surely it's unusual enough to have turned up somewhere on fleet explorations?" "It does not match within the necessary parameters for any double stars on file." Nimisha eased herself into the pilot's chair and sipped at her beverage. It had a minty flavor and something else, more exotic, but she could feel its restorative rush.

"Interesting," she said, matching a tone her mother would use when faced with some unusual situation.

"Shall I log it in?" "might as well. Do the whole panorama," Nimisha added with a sweep of her free arm. "Might be useful sometime. No answer to our mayday, I suppose?" "No, ma'am." at least helm didn't sound worried. No, the worry was all hers.

"Helm, have we moved from where that wormhole spat us out?" "No, ma'am. I awaited your orders." "Yes, of course, since you weren't programmed for the standard operating procedure on exiting wormholes." "No, ma'am." for that matter, she didn't know what that would be either, but she could wish he had less need for so many negatives. Had she been conscious, her first action on being spat out would have been to send a probe back through the hole with the present star patterns. However, she hadn't been awake and she couldn't fault helm for not knowing what action to take in such a situation.

"Then please prepare a new beacon, giving our registration and com-pulse configurations, the spectroanalysis of the stars in our spatial vicinity, and repeat our request for contact with any fleet or civilian vessel." "Aye ma'am." an affirmative was a nice change.

"Beacon away," helm said a few moments later.

That was one advantage in having AI units managing the ship. They didn't have to take breaks or eat or go to the head at awkward moments, and they worked with great speed and efficiency.

She sighed and drained the cup.

"That did the trick, cater, doc." I recommend some rest, nimi, while you're awaiting a response.,, "aren't you the optimist?" she replied with a snort. But the idea of getting horizontal and sleeping was a good one. She'd be able to think better when the headache, as well as the medication that had reduced it, was gone. "You have the conn, helm." "I have the conn, ma'am." she slept her normal six hours and woke refreshed. After a quick shower in water that her purifying system kept fresh enough to allow such a luxury, she dressed and, leaving her quarters, gave cater orders for her breakfast.

"Good morning, helm. Any report?" nothing to report, ma'am." "Good morning, doc." "You sound perfectly normal," doc said cheerfully.

"Thank you. And thank you, cater, for breakfast." she asked for music since she liked it in the background when she was thinking hard. Indeed, she had no idea at all of what to do next, apart from waiting beside the beacon, hoping its pulse would alert someone. Her meal finished, she resumed the pilot's chair, staring out at unfamiliar constellations. Why, that band of stars in the grouping to the upper right vaguely resembled orion's belt, but the rest of the constellation did not match.

"Helm, has your inspection of the immediate vicinity turned up any m-type planets nearby?" "Three, ma'am." a red light briefly circled the three primaries.

That many?" "Yes, ma'am." "Well, when I find myself twiddling my thumbs, we can always go take a look-see. Might as well." action was preferable to sitting like-who was it on her tuffet? "I'll give it another three days. That would give time for our initial pulse to reach main shipping lanes." "Or the curious of this quadrant," doc added.

"A search of the records of ships missing in the general vicinity of that wormhole has proved fruitful," helm suddenly volunteered.

"Oh?"