A Way of Honor (Champions of the Crystal Book 2)

Chapter 6: The Price of Progress

A few minutes later, they were all in Khediva's galley, gathered anxiously around the table at the Ship's direction.

"What have you found, Khediva?" Sabrina asked. "Something good, I hope!"

"Almost anything I could find at this point would be better than the current situation," Khediva replied. "I have completed my analysis of the ship in orbit during the assassination."

"And?" Scotty, Sabrina, and Haaron chorused breathlessly.

"It is not I."

The group heaved a sigh of relief. Malvarak grinned and said, "I never doubted you'd conclude that, dear Khediva!"

"You should have," the Ship replied tartly. "The differences are minuscule—someone went to a great deal of trouble to make that ship appear to be me."

"Could you present us with a summary of your analysis?" Therenden asked politely.

"Certainly. That is what I called you all here for," Khediva said. "I am sure Praxatillus Control will want to duplicate the analysis; in fact, I have already transmitted my complete exterior specifications to them so that they may begin." She paused, and a holographic image of the Ship appeared above the table. It was soon joined by a second, identical one. "Now. The image in blue is the imposter. This is, without doubt, a Wayship, or at least it was at one time."

"Was?" Malvarak repeated in astonishment. "But Wayships are never decommissioned. They are in service until they are destroyed or die natural deaths, in which case their hulls are shot into the sun to be burned up." He paused, then added, "As we did with Sribarak."

After a respectful pause, Khediva continued, "There is a short list of Wayships whose wreckage was never recovered. It is just possible that this is one of them, cleverly reconstructed, with some sort of artificial intelligence substituting for the living brain." Khediva quickly produced a list in flowing script.

"Three of these are the old style Wayships," Malvarak said. "They could not have been modified to resemble you so closely."

"Precisely," Khediva said. "That leaves the other four. Husnefar was killed by a massive dose of radiation from the supernova he was observing; that radiation would still be detectable. Thus it is not he."

"It couldn't be Farasat, either," Malvarak said thoughtfully. "Her hull was eaten away."

"Couldn't someone have rebuilt it?" Sabrina asked.

"Yes," Malvarak said, "but see, that ship's hull isn't new. It's got several dents and scratches in it, like Khediva's."

"Almost exactly like," Khediva said wryly. "Someone was very familiar with my current appearance."

"Could it be Qadira?" Malvarak mused. "She was presumed lost in that wormhole collapse a century ago, but perhaps she escaped, or perhaps her wreckage was somehow returned to normal space."

"I doubt it," Khediva said. "For her to have survived with enough of her structure intact to reconstruct would be little short of miraculous. I am more inclined to think it might be Sadiq."

"Surely not," Malvarak objected. "Sadiq had undergone several conversions before he was lost in that spatial rift. His engine specifications would have been too different."

"Geesh," Scotty muttered, "this is like Aunt Euphrasia's mahjong afternoons. So-and-so had a heart attack, so-and-so has arthritis, so-and-so dropped dead just after his painting won first prize at the art show."

"Ssh," Sabrina said. "Khediva, you said that ship's hull had marks almost like yours. Where's the difference?"

"An excellent question," Khediva approved. "There are two marks in particular." The display changed to show the two hulls, the forward section. "One is here, where my hull buckled slightly when I tried to catch Sribarak hurtling out of Stanos orbit."