The throbbing became more intense, driving itself deeper into his mind and making it hard to think clearly. He found himself involuntarily re-experiencing key events in his own life in flashes of almost hallucinatory detail, as if the Mos Hadroch were pulling them out of his subconscious and attempting, in its alien way, to understand who and what he was.

A machine for passing judgement: that’s what he had told Lamoureaux and Willis, back in Ascension. It was trying to find out if he was worthy of it.

He relived his days in the hidden R&D complex; the celebrations when the Legislate-backed strike against the Uchidan Territories floundered; the sense of betrayal when his Uchidan masters had decided to hand him over to the Legislate.

Despite his terror at what was happening to him, Ty laughed. The irony was inescapable: for all his abortive attempts at understanding the artefact, it was doing a much better job of understanding him.

Finally, mercifully, the Mos Hadroch reverted to something closer to its normal appearance. Meanwhile the monstrous noise that had accompanied its transformation decreased to a quieter pitch.

Ty remembered the ceremonial knife. Splaying his right hand flat on the console, he held the blade in his left so that it hovered over the finger wearing the data-ring.

If he could just do it quickly enough, the ring might not have the opportunity to send a signal through his nervous system. All he had to do was strike down, a single slash, and it would all be over . . .

His hand trembled as a cold wash of fear passed through him. He sobbed and let go of the knife, unable to go through with this act of self-mutilation; not when he knew the action might kill him.

He moved his shaking fingers across the surface of the console and set it to record, then began to speak. He did his best to summarize what he’d discovered, and what he thought they were dealing with. He tripped over his own words but pushed on regardless, knowing he was babbling but afraid that his mind might be stolen away from him before he had a chance to finish. He knew the monster inside his head could come back at any time.

Ty took the command structure he’d discovered and attached both his message and the video footage of the artefact’s sudden transformation to it, then distributed multiple copies throughout the ship’s networks. He left the console to continue recording in the meantime.

Even if the monster managed to track down some of the copies of the command structure, it couldn’t find or delete them all. All Ty needed to do now was . . .

A glint of light suddenly manifested in the corner of his vision, like a ray of sunlight reflecting off glass.

The monster had woken up.