Nimisha's Ship Read Online Free PDF Page A

entire session under the password
decor.
Lights on, and open door,” he added. He ushered the girls out quickly. “I’d no idea we’d been in there so long.”
    “It was a lot more fun than I’ve had since the day you gave me my skimmer, Ti,” Nimisha said.
    “You’ve got a definite gift for design, Nimi, and I won’t have it wasted on . . . decoration. Which reminds me: You’ll have to think of a color scheme on our way home so your dam won’t know what we have been up to.”
    “I’m sure we could have worked out that problem in just a few more moments,” Nimisha went on dismally, shaking her head with disappointment.
    “I’ve no doubt about it,” Lord Tionel said, and then turned to Jeska. “And you, young woman, have the good sense to see when enthusiasm needs to be reined in for practical matters. We’d’ve lost a good forty tonnes of cargo space if we’d kept on with a main tunnel for all conduits.”
    “Besides being difficult to access,” Nimisha said. “What’s your favorite color, Ti?”
    “Green, of course,” he said as they arrived at the dock of his private vehicle.
    A complete color scheme, including fabrics, rug, and a well-known furnishings establishment to custom-design sketches, was figured out by the two girls on the short trip home. Nimisha casually left them on the hall table when the Residence Manager opened the door to the girls. The fact that the RM said nothing at all to Lord Tionel, closing the House door almost on his nose, was indicative of the disgrace he was in.
     
    Such a miscalculation in time did not occur again because Lord Tionel installed an automatic cutoff within the Design Room, to save the work and give the girls ample time to reach home in Nimisha’s very fast skimmer. So Lady Rezalla had no further opportunity to complain that her birth-father monopolized his daughter.
    Having these fascinating and instructive sessions cut short to deceive her mother did not sit well with Nimisha. She knew what she wanted to do with her life, which was far more than most of her peer group did. Especially as she enjoyed none of their so-called diversions whatsoever. She and Jeska kept trying to figure out ways in which to achieve their objective of placating Lady Rezalla sufficiently to really dig into their engineering studies. Circumstance, as it so often does, gave Nimisha the perfect opportunity. And she promptly seized it.
    Three weeks after the installation of the alarm that would allow the girls to be home when Lady Rezalla expected them, the breakfast vidcast was full of replays, interviews, and stern statements by high-ranking Acclarkian Peace Guardians concerning the antics of certain young scions who had already received warnings about reckless behavior. The fact that the main culprit was Lord Vestrin Rondymense-Waleska, Lord Tionel’s body-heir, was the only reason Lady Rezalla would have continued to view the matter. On a bet to see who could maneuver his skimmer fastest through the rush-hour traffic in a crowded industrial complex, young Vestrin had lost control of his vehicle and had crashed into a public transport, killing nine craftsmen.
    “He had no business in that area at that hour,” Lady Rezalla said indignantly. “If he must drive at dangerous speeds, let him at least do so at the lake and drown himself instead of killing people. And then to send a minor solicitor to offer the most paltry compensation for the deaths of hardworking and decent folk! Mere craftsmen they may have been, but they were supporting their families and educating their children to be useful citizens, which is more than I can say Vescuya ever did with Vestrin. In fact, they’re far more worthy of extreme consideration than that young, heartless lout.
How
such a total disaster of a man can be Lord Tionel’s body-heir is beyond me. First Families have obligations, above and beyond the fact that they were the first, and most successful, of the colonists to land on a planet.