But even at top speed they’re four years’ travel away. Meanwhile, back at Vega, Caleb protects Nimisha’s daughter and heir, Cuiva, from the feeble threat posed by Vestrin and organizes a rescue mission. With plentiful supplies from a wrecked freighter, they all begin to build a civilization. Exploring further, the group also finds descendants of survivors-the small, furry Sh’im-from an alien vessel. Nimisha finds survivors: Jon, Casper, Syrona, and young Tim. Erehwon, then, is littered with wrecks from the wormhole’s previous victims. As the wormhole opens and closes unpredictably, there’s no immediate hope of rescue, so Nimisha explores a nearby habitable planet. She takes the ship for a shakedown cruise only to be trapped by an uncharted wormhole and deposited, more or less intact, many light-years from known space. Assisted by naval attachÇ Caleb Rustin, Nimisha designs the revolutionary, ultrafast Mark 5. And when Tionel dies in a tragic accident, Nimisha takes over-despite the objections of Tionel’s ne’er-do-well son, Vestrin. Impressed, her father, Lord Tionel, takes her into the family business, the vast Rondymense Ship Yards, and teaches her to design spaceships for the navy. New, independent sf from McCaffrey (Freedom’s Challenge, 1998, etc.) Here, Lady Nimisha, unlike most of Acclarke City, Vega III’s decadent aristocrats, enjoys tinkering with machines and improving their design.
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