She didn't. He was asleep for four hours before she judged him sufficiently rested to continue. And she'd been right. She had completed one more board and several of the finicky alterations on parts she had brought in from the fiver.

They finished, and installed, all the boards by the time fatigue again overtook caleb. He slept aboard the ship while hiska occupied the cot in Nimisha's office when the second shift quit.

Chapter 4.

"Lady Nimisha?" said a familiar voice as the fog of sleep lifted from her mind. The medical couch was open and not so much as a whiff of the sleep gas remained.

"A full standard year has passed, ma'am," added helm's tenor voice.

"And no response?" "No, ma'am." she felt the coolness of hyposprays penetrating both arms.

"Sit up slowly, nimi, but I think you'll find you're in excellent shape after that nice long nap," doc said.

"May I fix you something to eat, lady Nimisha?" cater asked.

Nimisha's stomach rumbled.

"Indeed you may," she said, following doc's advice about movement . She was stiff with disuse. "Helm, plot a course to the nearest of the primaries with an m-type planet. I'm tired of hanging about in space. Let's see what mischief we can get into out there." I am programmed to remind you, lady Nimisha," helm said, sounding as close to repressive as the ai could get, "that we are constrained to avoid contact with emerging species. It is against fsp policy to interfere with normal evolution when the indigenous population has reached either toolmaking or settled agricultural base level." "That is, if there is an indigenous and sapient population," she said with a grin.

"Yes, ma'am," was helm's not at all contrite response.

Nimisha smiled as she collected the usual post-sleep liquid meal.

"This at least tastes appetizing, cater. Thanks," she said after the first tentative sip. The gruel for the revived that was offered on naval ships was so bland it was difficult to swallow. That was another of her little improvements for long-distance traveling: savory comestibles.

"And, helm," she added, "leave an update on that beacon to indicate our new destination." "Already programmed, ma'am." she shrugged. She really was almost superfluous.

"Estimated arrival time?" she asked.

"At interstellar speed three, we will reach the heliopause in two days." "So be it, helm. We will decelerate and record all data on our way into the third planet. It is the third planet, isn't it?" "Yes, ma'am." "Standard almost, isn't it?" she murmured.

"Yes, ma'am." Nimisha made a facial grimace. Oh, well, "yes" was more encouraging than another spate of "no's" from helm.

She felt the thrum through the deck plates as the fiver moved forward, gradually increasing speed sufficient to is. enter drive. She watched the stars in the view screen begin to blur, counted down to herself to the translation into the is speed mode, and braced herself just as the fiver slid forward. She had become inured to the insertion nausea but was still pleased when it passed as they settled into warp drive.

"Report on insertion and performance, please?" after all, this was still a trial run.

"All systems functioning at normal levels and efficiency." that was certainly as it should be.

She opened her log and made the necessary entry. Helm would have kept the ship's log updated on a daily basis; she would have to update hers.

The fact that she now had a destination made all the difference to her morale. She felt alive, keen, wondering just what this world would be like. Of course, if there were any signs of civilization, she'd have to veer off. She could almost wish there were a society of some sort to visit. As the first emissary of federated sentient planets.

Damn. Had she put the universal translator on board? Yes, she must have. She remembered having hiska install the unit. The woman had given her a shocked and surprised look. But she'd done it.

"Helm, is the universal translator activated?" "Yes, ma'am. Shall I put it online?" "No, but I'm glad it's there." "Yes, ma'am." "Always prepared for the unexpected, aren't you, nimi?" doc commented.

She gave him an ironic laugh. "Except for a wormhole, doc." "well, yes, but you had cleared your course with the fleet, and they had no records of a phenomenon in that sector, had they?" "No, they didn't. It's mostly used for their navy maneuvers and testing since it's rather barren of stars and planets." "Is that so?" "it is!" she was certain that there had been intensive searches for her while she had slept. Caleb rustin, not to mention her mother and cuiva, would never give up until they either heard the ship's death knell or found her. That was comforting, but she did want to make it back before cuiva was necklaced. She looked forward to that day: she'd be able to take her daughter more fully into her confidence and to examine cuiva's natural aptitudes. No reason for the girl to be one of those gilded-or misshapen fashion dilettantes.

Useless creatures. Her mother might have been traditional in every aspect of social behavior and a devil for propriety, but she had never been vapid, stupid, or shallow. Boynton women had always been achievers.

The system, which Nimisha whimsically named primero, adding its coordinates within the present sphere of the galaxy, was so close to "normal" that it was exactly what any exploration team would give all left arms to encounter. There were ten planets, the coldest, outermost few were frozen; then there was another giant, and while there was no asteroid belt between the gas planet and the fourth, the third was in the proper astrophysical position close enough to its primary to be habitable. it had three moons, the largest farther out, with two inner ones seeming to chase each other. Must wreak havoc with the tidal system. She decided to call the third planet erehwon, partly after an old dystopic novel she'd once read and partly because it was "nowhere" backward and that certainly was her present situation. She hovered by the large moon to do the usual basic investigative tests, sending down an exploratory probe and waiting for its reports.

No holes in the ozone layer, the usual mix of atmospheric gases, sufficient seas, and nine continents, three with archipelagoes reaching out like broken fingers to the larger landmasses. Helm, in the al's science officer capacity, agreed that the planet looked to be eminently habitable.

"Let's orbit and see what else we can discover," Nimisha said, toggling the log to include that order. She'd had the usual space traveler's briefing from fsp about not infecting indigenous sapients with too abrupt a contact with a space-faring race and what to do if-by any remote chance-she met other space-farers. So far the universe seemed very full of sentient species incapable of ever attaining that freedom.

"Shorter day, I see," Nimisha mentioned as they completed one orbit. "And no sign of what we tend to term 'civilization' either." "No, ma'am," helm replied. "No artificial satellites. No pulses, no sonar or radar transmissions. Not even radio." "Let's go in," she said.

The ship continued its inward spiral, quartering the planets surface as it went. Daylight shone on a land teeming with small and large life-forms, jungles, forests, plains, and mountain ranges of considerable height and depth running like twisted spines suggesting their savage upthrust from basement rock materials. The nightside did not show any fires or the use of fossil fuels. The planet did have ore deposits that would certainly interest developers back in her native portion of the galaxy. That is, if they could establish that there were no sapient inhabitants. Further circling brought her over portions of the continents, helm assiduously mapping though Nimisha had turned off that screen, she tried viewing the surface at high magnification to be able to make out details, but it gave her a headache to see surface features speeding by that quickly. So she reduced the magnification and trusted helm to call her attention to any anomalies. On the fourth lap, helm spoke.

"Sensors read an unusual metallic mass on the plateau directly ahead." Nimisha turned up the magnification, but they were too far out to determine what the anomaly was, other than something that perhaps ought not to be there.

"Mark it, helm. Definitely needs to be seen." on the seventh lap, another anomaly was discovered.

"Now that's ridiculous. We haven't seen so much as a band of humanoid nomads, but those two metallic blips are not indigenous to this planet. I'll bet my necklace on it."

"Rash of you, dear nimi," doc said with an audible ripple in his voice.

"You know me, doc," she agreed.

"Let's home in on the first anomaly, helm. I think we've ascertained that this indigenous population is mainly composed of beasts, unlikely to be evolutionarily compromised by our presence." "There is a third metallic anomaly, ma'am, and I am now reading a fourth." I "we'll have a dekko at those, too." it was out of the bounds of possibility that all eighteen missing ships had landed on erehwon, though that would have been a logical course of action, given its suitability for humans. This could be rather a fun adventure. Of course, the downside was that if they all had been stuck here-since they were still listed as missing-then she might be, too. Well, maybe some marooned male would be possible. Lady Rezalla would be furious when she learned of her daughter making any sort of an improper alliance. But celibate life was not a prospect Nimisha could contemplate with any joy! As helm obeyed her instructions and they cruised across the plateau to the first object of interest, the grazers didn't so much as raise their heads from their industrious eating. Great shaggy brown and black creatures, they moved steadily across the grassy savannah heads swaying back and forth as they ate. She did notice that the young of this species were kept behind a formidable wall of their elders. So there were predators of some sort.

"We are closing, ma'am. Shall I magnify?" helm asked.

"By all means." she gasped as the sharply defined image filled the screen. "Undeniably a spaceship," she said. "A match on our files?" "A fair big mouthful for that wormhole to trap," doc remarked.

Nimisha gave a bark of laughter. "Trap? That's a good description of a wormhole. Well, well. This ship's very old. Maybe we're number twenty, not nineteen. Can you decipher anything of the ship's original id markings, helm?"

"wind, sun, and time have scoured the hull, which was badly damaged." "In the wormhole?" "That is a distinct possibility given the turbulence the fiver experienced. The tube of the hole did not have a regular shape.

it was difficult to avoid contact with the walls." "Which proves the merit of having an AI at the helm, when femtosecond reactions are required," Nimisha said approvingly.

"Perhaps when we are closer, some traces will be legible enough to identify the craft," helm said, unaffected by either praise or blame.

"An id might give a clue to the frequency of the wormhole on the fsp side of it," doc said.

"My very thought, doc. But it's not very well designed, is it?" she commented, scanning the vessel. "Cumbersome, to say the least." "No match, ma'am, on available files." "That old?" asked doc.

"Not disparaging the files of our navy, are you, doc?" "Even their files do not contain some of the early independent efforts of humankind to probe space for habitable planets." "That's true enough, doc," Nimisha agreed, rubbing her chin and trying to figure out what sort of propulsion the ship used with that stern configuration, dented and mangled as it was. She shook her head and gave a sigh.

By now, they were closing with the object, and helm automatically switched to normal screen.

The ship hadn't been landed with any great skill, for its prow had plowed a long furrow across the plateau to where a high ridge out-thrust from the foothills had finally halted its forward momentum. The furrow was clearly visible from the air, along with the heavy vegetation that had grown up in it. She could distinguish the bleached white skeletons of the giant grazers that had been bowled out of the way of this minor leviathan until it had come to a grinding halt.

"It's been there a long time," she murmured as they closed with the wreck. "How could anyone survive such a crash?" "The ship was not designed for landing," helm said. "It is also not equipped with either thrusters or vanes for atmospheric maneuvering." "Any life signs?" asked doc.

Nimisha laughed at such optimism. "Hardly, if such dense vegetation has grown up on the avenue it plowed. Probably from the first diaspora. Imagine being brave enough to go into space in that sort of contraption," she added with some admiration. "Please land, helm, near the center of the ship. I see some sort of airlock in its side." she dressed in appropriate skintight protective gear for a first walkabout. As the air had tested pure, she didn't require a breathing apparatus. Pure enough to breathe, but slightly tainted with an unfamiliar smell, she thought as she stepped out of the fiver and onto the thick grassoid surface covering. Three steps into it, she was glad of the impregnability of her suit, for the "grass" was sawtoothed and managed to leave scratches on the tough material.

What digestive equipment those shaggy creatures must have to graze on this, she reflected. She took samples of the obvious varieties growing about her and had to use the vibro blade to sever the blades and stems.

She tripped over the first skeleton, partially hidden in the vegetation and by the remains of its apparel.

"Human skeleton, clad in exceedingly durable clothing," she reported to helm.

"Bring me a swatch of the material and a bone and I'll do a forensic and carbon-date it," doc suggested. The longest finger bone was added to her pouch, along with a piece of the material, now so old it tore like paper.

"They must have set up some sort of a camp," she said.

There was a clearing of sorts, evidently made by melting the ground into a semi-glaze that defied the grassoid's attempts at succession.

There were oddments of metal scattered about, poking up from the dirt that had blown over them. The larger items she unearthed were crushed as if the grazers had put their big clumsy feet on them.

"Analysis suggests this ship was of a design used in the first diaspora, with chemical fuel engines of the type typical of that period for planetary landing and takeoff," helm informed her. I have been able to distinguish sufficient of the faded insignia on the bow to determine that it belonged to a federation known as the united nations of earth. We are the twentieth ship to come through the wormhole." "Thank you for that update on our position, helm," she said with gentle irony. She had not programmed any humor into helm, but sometimes he was inadvertently funny. Then she looked at the timeworn spaceship. "Poor guys," she said, shaking her head.

Gaining entrance to the ship was not a problem. A ramp or steps of some kind must originally have been used, but the centuries had allowed a build up of windblown dirt and debris that reached to the lower lip of the hatch. There were exterior controls where any sensible designer would have put them, and since she was an even more sophisticated designer, it took only moments to open the airlock. She climbed in. The inner lock stood open, and as she neared it, she heard some sort of ventilation system begin to circulate the air inside.

"Not bad," she said. "Some power remains." "Solar panels have been detected," helm said.

"Why would they use solar panels if this wasn't a landing type craft?" "There were many attempts at achieving the optimum use of many power sources-chemical, nuclear fusion, and solar power, both from generator panels and light sails-on early spacecraft," Helm said in the pedantic tone he assumed for his "science officer " role.

"Well, they did that right." nevertheless the air was stale and still had an acrid stink that left a taste at the back of her throat of metals, old foodstuffs, human perspiration, and hydrocarbon hydraulic and lubricant fluids.

"One does have to air the place out every now and then," she said in her best imitation of her womb-mother.

"Repeat?" helm asked, mystified.

"Don't bother," doc said. "I'll explain it to him." she went forward to where she expected to find the bridge. And did, though it was dark, since the forward screen had crashed right into the rock of the hillside and was now shards on the deck. She used her wrist light and found the appropriate toggle. She pushed it and faint illumination resulted-enough to see that the bridge was empty. She hadn't expected to see any bodies. The establishment of some sort of a base camp indicated there had been crash survivors enough to have suitably interred their dead. The big question was if any had survived long enough to establish a colony.

She tried to access the bridge log, but evidently the small source of power that circulated the air did not spark the computer systems into action.

She toured the ship and its cramped crew quarters with bunks stripped to the metal frames. Lockers had been emptied; dust had sifted in through the vents over the centuries that the ship had lain here. The galley, when she entered it, was also tidy, apart from dust. Again all usable items had been taken. The same could be said of any other transportable item or equipment that such a vessel would have carried. Well, if one were shipwrecked on an alien planet, one would certainly use whatever equipment was on hand.

Only where had it-and its porters--gone? Would she find the descendants somewhere else? Had they regressed to a primitive state in the meantime? Certainly she had seen neither fires nor fossil fuel smoke to indicate any human settlement ... so far, that is. The climate of the plateau and its position on the continent made it part of a temperate zone. Considering the new growth she had noticed on trees and shrubs, she had landed in this planet's vernal period.

Part of the shagginess of the grazers might be due to shedding winter fur.

Time after time, she had to shake her head at the clumsiness of design in the spaceship, the heaviness of the building materials.

"I shouldn't criticize. Fsp didn't even have petralloy until two centuries ago," she remarked. "Easy for me to find their design attempts awkward and inefficient. They got this far with what they had. Give them credit." "Most creditable," helm agreed.

"Definitely first wave of the diaspora," doc said, having finished the analyses.

"Is this ship among the eighteen cited?" Nimisha asked.

"No, ma'am." she checked all storage areas and found them empty. And dusty. An orderly withdrawal from the ship. But where to? She returned striding in her own footprints in the dust, wondering if this would add to the mystery of the ship for future explorers. The whimsy made her grin.

She was glad to be outside in the fresher air. She closed the outer air lock to preserve what power remained. She might want to come back and investigate. There were other metallic anomalies to be examined. If there were actually four ships already marooned on this planet, had the groups joined forces? But if they had joined up, why had they not made use of even such basic requirements as fire, for heating, cooking, and lighting? And built shelters of some description? Or used caves? A rudimentary necessity, or at least a comfort. She had fireplaces in rooms that were heated by cheap and nonpolluting substances. She'd even had one at the yard in her private office for those late night sessions with her subordinates. And tete-a-tetes with caleb. Oh, dear, better not think of him, she thought in dismay.

She prowled around the rusting ship and found the little graveyard sited in the churned up soil of the landing, above and to one side of the ship's resting place. Nine metal shafts were etched with the names of the dead: three women and six men. So it had been a mixed crew. The dates were four hundred years ago.

How many generations would that be? Nimisha wondered. If there had been any.

"What was the last registered disappearance that might have been a wormhole eating a ship, helm?" "Say again, ma'am?" helm liked his commands and queries crisp and uncluttered by personal opinion.

"What is the date the last ship disappeared?" "Sixteen years ago, ma'am." well, that was much better than four hundred years, she thought, firmly banishing the sinking feeling of utter despair. She'd already slept away one of that sum.

"Is there any significant interval between disappearances?" there was a definite pause as helm worked on the answer. "A regular pattern cannot be established by the disappearances of ships." "That could be accounted for," doc put in, "by the fact that the disappearances themselves took time to be registered." even sixteen years-and then the problem of catching the wormhole as it opened at this end. But she'd miss so much of cuiva ... her darling daughter ... she gave herself an admonitory shake.

"I've seen all I need to here," she told her ship. "I'm coming back aboard. Helm, please lay in a course for the second anomaly.

We'll fly at a low enough altitude to see if we can spot any abandoned settlement these people may have built." the second blip proved to be the pootheg fsps 9k66e. It had landed circumspectly near a small stream. It, too, showed that it had had a rough passage through the wormhole, with gashes that in one place had damaged the hull integrity.

"She'd have had ten as crew, from the type she is," Nimisha said. "Any word on her?" "She is listed as lost in space, ma'am, sixteen years ago." "We know that. What other information have we on the pootheg ? Can you get a response from the ship?" "I have already been calling and received no answer. I am accessing the comunit. Shall I display the result?" just the last entry now, please, helm." on her screen was the entry, dated fourteen standard years before.

This is lieutenant commander jonagren svangel, acting captain of the pootheg. As we have sustained damage to our drive and cannot make the repairs required, we have voted to leave the ship to explore our immediate surroundings in the shuttle. We hope to make a base camp in the foothills ... a map was inserted, showing the projected goal ... and live off the land. Our botanist says there are enough nontoxic edibles to supply us with a fair diet and we have plenty of additives to supplement what we can gather or hunt. Some of the indigenous animals are ferocious, but they can be avoided. We will try to get back and update this log at regular intervals.

"And didn't, poor wretches," Nimisha murmured.

"Shall I spool back, ma'am?" "No, but copy to our files and for the material we're storing in the beacon."

"Did you intend a physical examination of the ship or its environs ?" helm asked.

"Yes, and break out sidearms for me. I want something that's powerful enough to stop 'ferocious indigenous animals' in their tracks. Obviously the captain of the pootheg met with a disaster," Nimisha said.

:"how do you construe that?" doc asked.

"because an acting captain is making the entry," Nimisha said curtly, on her way to the airlock where she donned the heaviest of her coveralls and attached the repeller harness. "Besides which I can see two graves from here. They were down to eight crew when they left the pootheg." she slid the stunner on to its belt hook and completed her exit apparel with a full-face helmet that had a neck protector. She wouldn't be able to turn her head as easily, but the protection might prove a wise precaution.

She paused briefly by the grave sites, pointing the recorder at the markers. Then she stood at attention for a moment, hand on her heart to salute the service dead. They had died on the same day, two weeks before svangel's final log entry. She wondered where the others had met their ends, since no one had returned to the pootheg to make updates. She detoured slightly to get a sample of the water. The shallow stream burbled down a rocky channel.

Winter run off, if this were the spring of erehwon's year? The water was cold and clear in the sample tube.

The pootheg had been left as shipshape and neat as the older vessel. It had not been stripped of quite as many of its fittings, nor had all the supplies been taken with the marooned. Sixteen years would reduce the supplies the fiver carried to crumbs. And the pootheg was new enough that whatever it had dispensed by way of comestibles could be used by the fiver's catering unit.

However, she could come back when she needed more, if she couldn't find local substitutes.

In fact, since they hadn't taken the small captain's gig, she decided she'd use that for an aerial reconnaissance of their proposed base campsite. And so she informed helm.

"It's got full power. Why waste mine when this is available?" she said in an unarguable reply to helm's polite but negative response to her idea.

"I'll run basic checks on it, but initial readings indicate all systems are go. It's designed, you know," she added with some heat, "to remain in full working order for years, considering the distances exploratory ships have to go. I know the model. It's still in service and I've flown one. It is also supplied with missiles, which my skiff isn't." another oversight on her part: that she hadn't thought to load her skiffs weaponry for the shakedown cruise. Then she added a final rebuttal. "Besides, if there are survivors, they'd recognize it and that would establish my bona fides." on her way, she spotted examples of what anyone would call "ferocious animals." they were the size of trees, and even if someone had stunned one-as the dead captain may have-sheer momentum would have kept them moving forward. The largest one was close to ten meters from ground to undulating shoulder, or what she thought was a shoulder, since the creature did not have definite sections that could be easily labeled "legs" or "body" or "head" or "tail." it was a lump that moved by contracting and expanding its muscular frame along the ground. Nimisha wondered if it was as agile on uneven surfaces as it was on the more or less level one it was now traversing. The front part seemed to swoop down into the grassoid, raising to give her the sight of the appendages of some smaller creature disappearing from view. She didn't see a mouth, as such, or eyes, when the giant creatures raised up their front ends to investigate the gig. She increased her altitude to well above their full length.