“You’re quite welcome.” I forced a grin. “It’s not often you get to save the life of someone who, yesterday, wanted to toss your ass out of an airlock.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t answer.

She just flipped me the finger.

Fifty-Seven: Ona Sudak

FIFTY-SEVEN

ONA SUDAK

“Who are you?” My fear expressed itself as bluster. I scrambled to my feet and brushed myself down. “What are you?”

The bear’s nine eyes were black, impenetrable singularities in the fabric of the universe. Its teeth were yellow scythes.

It growled.

You are being judged.

The words materialised in my head. I clenched my fists and raised my chin.

“Judged?” I was a captain, for heaven’s sake. “What right have you to judge me?”

The beast gave a snarl. I am not judging you.

The words felt like an intrusion—an unwelcome annexation of my most personal space.

“Then what are you talking about?”

You are being judged.

I rubbed my knuckles against my temples in frustration, wanting to tear the invasive declaration from my head.

“By whom?”

The Armada.

I frowned. “Those white ships?” There had to have been at least a million of them clustered around that miniature sun, maybe more.

That is correct.

“I am being judged by their crews?”

By the vessels themselves. They have no crews. The beast reared up on its hindmost set of legs. I am their agent. I am their collective will made manifest.

“An avatar?”

An archangel.

By now, I had backed away a good dozen steps and wondered what would happen if I simply turned and ran. Could I make it under the half-closed door before the creature overtook me?

As if conscious of my thoughts, the bear dropped back onto all fours and snarled, and I saw the cord-like muscles in its haunches tense.

Stay where you are.

I raised my hands. Something was rummaging around in the attic of my consciousness. I felt half-forgotten memories flare and subside like distant fireworks seen from a balcony at night. My first day at school. The fibrous aroma of boot polish. The crash of a thousand boots as a ship’s company snapped to attention in a crowded hangar. The feathery caress of rose petals against my cheek. The touch of Adam’s skin against mine.

The Battle of Pelapatarn replayed itself again and again. I saw corvettes torn apart by antimatter explosions; lines of tracer stitching the darkness; and a hemisphere turn black with smoke from the burning jungles. I saw the whole thing recreated in painstaking detail. Every round fired and every life lost—all of it.

And then, nothing.

I stood on the floor of the dome, unable to move or speak as the bear towered a full metre over my head.

Judgment complete.

The fearsome jaws worked through a complicated series of growls and roars.

Annelida Deal, you have been judged by the Marble Armada and found…

UNWORTHY.