Need Help with Interpreting Response Header

[Andris Kalnozols]

Hi.  I've encountered a situation where queries for a particular
domain name don't always work.  Here are the details:

  * The root servers list the following for 'byu.edu':

    ;; ANSWER SECTION:
    byu.edu.                2D IN NS        NS1.WESTNET.NET.
    byu.edu.                2D IN NS        NS1.byu.edu.
    byu.edu.                2D IN NS        NS.byu.edu.

  * A query type of 'any' for 'cnkiosk-morc-1.rn.byu.edu'
    returns nothing the first time it is tried.  However,
    a second attempt does return an Address record.

  * It appears that NS1.WESTNET.NET is not authoritative for byu.edu.

Question:  When DiG returns a header of

    ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 4
    ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

can it be safely assumed that a lame nameserver was queried or are there
other scenarios which would cause a query to return this (non)information?

Thanks,

Andris Kalnozols