Let me face bare-handed a dozen highly trained and fully armed gladiators, each with a personal grudge… — Stephen Baxter

In the hearts of a hundred billion worlds

Across a trillion dying realities in a lethal multiverse—

In the chthonic silence—

All that could have been done had been done.

In peace and satisfaction, minds diffuse and antique submitted to the End Time.

We underestimated the vindictiveness of mankind. Their retrospective tribunals. Their visiting of punishments on the children of the perpetrators. They never forgave us.

Ah, Mardina. Evidently you entirely lack imagination. You’ll go far in the Navy.