I set the roamers loose to examine the wreckage. It quickly became obvious that what I’d suspected was true—an internal explosion had ripped Bender’s ship apart. Most likely the laser had taken out the nuclear reactor control system in such a way as to make the reactor fail catastrophically. I remembered my first encounter with Medeiros, in Epsilon Eridani, so many years ago. He’d suffered that very fate. In addition, the meltdown had taken out his matrix. I had to hope that Bender hadn’t come to a similar end.