The Way Back (Champions of the Crystal Book 4)

Chapter 18.2

Fortunately, he was gone before the chess board hit the corner where he'd been standing.

——————————-

Sabrina spent a miserable hour in her quarters, weeping tears of anger and hurt and stewing over Tirqwin and Ford's refusal to agree with her decision. Khediva had remained diplomatically silent on the subject, but Sabrina knew she wanted to see the old Scotty live again, too. Why could none of them see that she wanted it as badly as they did? But it would be selfish to force those memories on an innocent, to erase the possibilities of that person's life without the memories. Scotty's memories would bind him to a life of service to Praxatillus, to a course laid out for him in a different time, under different circumstances. The memories would erase his right to choose. And she wanted him to have that right, because she loved him. And she wanted Scotty's memories to die with him, to remain unsullied—

Sabrina's head jerked up in shock. Unsullied? Where did that come from? Am I afraid he can't live up to them? Or that he'll live up to them too well? Or maybe he'd even reject them, choose to turn away from that life and do something else. The last possibility was the worst, she realized. She could not bear for someone to pass judgment on her brother's life and find it lacking.

Am I being selfish now? Am I wrong?

She remembered an old argument with Mara: "You are all against me!" Mara cried, tears streaming down her face. She turned and ran through the inner door. "That should be telling you something!" Sabrina shouted after her.

Maybe this should be telling me something, Sabrina concluded. She felt suddenly weary at the prospect of going through the decision-making again. It had felt good, in a way, to have it over with, even if she hadn't been entirely happy with the decision.

I'll go see him tomorrow, she sighed to herself. I won't think about it until then.

——————————-

Unsurprisingly, she couldn't sleep. Khediva told her that Tirqwin was helping design an English-language education module for Scotty aboard the station and that Ford had been summoned to a Committee meeting. Sabrina got a steaming cup of Darjeeling tea from the provender, mentally cursed the station's lack of a "night," and sat down on the control deck to wait for one of them to come back. She couldn't concentrate on the history she was still trying to wade through, so she coaxed Khediva into telling her stories about the travels she and Tirqwin had experienced in the past ninety-two years. Sabrina was in a light doze, relaxed and reassured by Khediva's steady, familiar voice, when Ford came back aboard.

"How did it go?" she asked, blinking and sitting up. Her heart sank as she saw his expression. "Oh, no. Don't tell me they're going to destroy it! Oh, Ford, all your work...."

He sat down next to her and rested his elbows on his knees, his shoulders hunched in defeat. "It might be worse, I suppose. They're confiscating the ship, but they decided it would be 'a waste of resources' to destroy it. They're keeping it for further study, possibly for use in situations too dangerous to risk a Wayship. They say most failed Wayfarer candidates could manage to pilot it, so I suppose they'll just pick an expendable one next time something horrific comes up and send him off in my ship on a suicide mission."

Sabrina heard the real pain underneath the bitterness. Nothing she could say could possibly lessen it, she knew. After a moment's hesitation, she reached out and put her arm around his shoulders, drawing him close and using her other hand to guide his head to rest on her shoulder. They remained like that for a while before Ford put his arms around her and held on. She hoped he was drawing some comfort from the embrace; it was all she could give him.