“What do you think of the salad?” Kessa nibbled a cactus slice topped by Reject-20 lizard caviar. “Is it to your taste?”

  Thomas sat across from her. He speared a slice with his fork and took a bite. “It’s…” He considered. “Interesting.”

  They sat on an open-air balcony that overlooked the sprawling oceanside city of Freedomland. A long table separated them. Kessa wanted to stop feeling disadvantaged, and the distance prevented any chance of Thomas probing her memories or reading her intentions. It was a small measure of equality.

  “Interesting?” Kessa prompted.

  The salad bore no resemblance to the rotting slop piles that slaves had no choice but to dine upon. For most of her life, Kessa could not have imagined a delectable meal such as this, beautifully arranged with a garnish and presented by a friendly chef.

  Thomas ate another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Well, these aren’t flavors that humans or Torth would normally put together. But it’s good.”

  Kessa watched him eat, making mental notes for later analysis. She wanted to make a regular habit of inviting Thomas to dine with her, but she wasn’t confident about her knowledge of humanoid culinary tastes. Vy liked herbal beverages. Cherise preferred spicy treats. Ariock and Garrett were indifferent to those things, but they ate like nussians when presented with seared meats. Jinishta, predictably, liked mushrooms prepared in a variety of ways.

  As for Thomas? When he had been dying from his neuromuscular disease, even the act of eating had been a chore for him.

  Now he seemed like a new person.

  He no longer resembled an emaciated skeleton devoid of muscles. The purple mantle he wore rested easily on shoulders that were no longer quite so narrow. He was able to lift his own fork and his own glass of water. Kessa had heard, through reports, that he ate whatever was on the menu for the research annex.

  “You look a lot stronger,” Kessa said, aiming to put Thomas at ease before she dived into her questions.

  He seemed flattered. “Thanks.”

  Kessa finished the last bite of her salad. “How is the zombifying going?”

  Thomas’s smile became a troubled frown.

  Kessa pretended not to notice. She poured more water for herself and for Thomas. “I have heard,” she said, “that they die very easily.”

  She had heard much more than that about the zombified Torth. According to her informants, they were as delicate as sea scum. They forgot to blink. They forgot to hold their bowels. Some forgot to breathe. Warriors had taken to using them for target practice rather than taking them into battle.

  “They require micromanagement,” Thomas admitted. “I’m refining a list of baseline operational instructions to load into each one. But their main purpose is really to be a deterrent, not a fighting force.”

  Kessa sipped from a crystal goblet. “Are they working as a deterrent?”

  Anyone could make the inference. Ever since Thomas had begun to twist the minds of prisoners, the Torth Empire had gone into full retreat mode. They seemed to be the reason for Ariock’s victories.

  Thomas confirmed it. “Yes, they’re the reason why we don’t see many Rosies or Servants in battle anymore, and why the Torth evacuate cities when we show up.”

  “Yet they don’t retain their powers?” Kessa asked.

  “Zombification entails massive brain damage,” Thomas said. “They lose a lot.”

  Kessa made a mental note to ask more about that later. She remarked, “You don’t own any, yourself.”

  “I don’t want any.” Thomas’s voice had an edge. Candles flickered, and the air temperature dropped.

  Kessa let that line of questioning go. She was secretly gladdened by his obvious discomfort about the topic of zombified Torth. It could be difficult to gauge Thomas’s humanity, since he never shared his feelings. He hardly confided in anyone.

  But he had promised to answer any question that Kessa asked, as long as they were in private.

  “The Torth will take back all the cities we’ve won if we let up the pressure, even for an instant.” Thomas studied a slice of cactus as if it held secrets that he wanted to crack open. “They have the military capability to attack a hundred planets simultaneously. We can’t fight them with numbers or technology. So we need to make their military champions terrified to face us.”

  Kessa understood that. Yet…

  “This is a temporary solution,” Kessa observed.

  “Yes.” Thomas gave her a look of respect. “I know.”

  Ariock was well on his way to conquering Umdalkdul, but he did not have the bandwidth to hunt and kill every individual Rosy throughout the galaxy. He could not singlehandedly conquer every planet. Sooner or later, the Torth would grow bold again. Or they would invent a new advantage for themselves.

  “Zombification is not our path to victory,” Thomas said. “I never imagined it would be.” He picked at the remains of his salad and selected a tangy bit. “How is your work with the penitents coming along?”

  Kessa offered a taut smile. She was not ready to capitulate control of the conversation. “How many prisoners do you zombify every day?”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Ten,” Thomas said.

  Kessa knew that Thomas could zombify anything that had a brain. He could probably zombify a lot more than ten per day, but she did not blame him for setting limits. It was a particularly dangerous power.

  “It’s an evil power.” Thomas gave her a frank look. His purple eyes picked up evening light from the cloudy sky outside. “I don’t like using it.”

  Kessa inwardly agreed. She rarely saw the zombified minions, but rumors were enough to make her feel uncomfortable about them.

  “What about the prophecies of Ah Jun?” she asked. “Is your zombification of the Torth featured in the book?”

  “Garrett has not seen fit to share the prophecies with me,” Thomas said.

  That was not really an answer to her question.

  “Yes, I think it’s in there,” Thomas said, likely seeing that she meant to dig further. “But I’m sure the other heroes must play a role in defeating the Torth. Otherwise Ah Jun wouldn’t have made such a big deal about there being four. And I assume we also need heroes like you.”

  Kessa clicked her beak at the flattery. She doubted she counted as a hero.

  “I think you’re the key to getting real Torth on our side.” Thomas adjusted his utensils on the table. “Willing Torth. Who aren’t brain damaged.”

  There was a trace of sadness in his gaze, and Kessa suspected he was remembering the one and only Torth he had persuaded. The Upward Governess had been assassinated moments after she’d volunteered to go renegade and become a penitent.

  “Do you still visit the Megacosm every day?” Kessa asked.

  “Yes.” Thomas sounded cynical. “For all the good it does.”

  Kessa could imagine many reasons why a secretly emotional Torth would be reluctant to give up godhood. If they agreed to kneel, they would lose many luxuries—and they would put themselves in terrible danger. They might end up shot, either by vengeful slaves or by their own peers.

  “I suppose it is very dangerous for them.” Kessa studied Thomas, wondering how well he acknowledged the risks he was asking many Torth to take.

  “We have a safe haven for them.” Thomas gestured at the city, with its bustling alleyway bazaars and stone tenements. “Freedomland.”

  Freedomland must seem like a strange place to any Torth.

  An adult sky crocodile soared lazily overhead, its immense shadow flitting over buildings. The beast could probably swallow a nussian in its gigantic beak. Hazards like those were the reason why the Torth Empire had rejected this planet for colonization.

  That, and Reject-20 was far from any temporal stream.

  Any Torth who approached this world would need to travel for seven days through local space. They would have to hail the makeshift Freedomland spaceport for clearance to land. And they would need to show up unarmed, prepared to serve former slaves.

  “The Torth Majority keeps a very close watch on all Torth citizens,” Thomas conceded. “They don’t have privacy. But…” He sounded frustrated, almost offended. “I took risks. I managed to escape, despite being watched constantly.” He gestured at the sprawling city on the cliffs below them. “And unlike me, they actually have somewhere to go.”

  Freedomland’s planet was unique in that it was protected by Ariock, Evenjos, and Garrett. All other planets—including Earth and other so-called wilderness preserves—were owned by the Torth Empire. Reject-20 was a true safe haven.

  At least for now.

  “Other Torth are not you,” Kessa gently pointed out. “They may not be as brave.”

  Thomas made a dismissive face.

  “You had a human parent,” Kessa reminded him. “He gifted you with human emotions.”

  Thomas looked annoyed, as if she had pointed out some trivial, inconsequential fact.

  But having emotions was not trivial or inconsequential. It made all the difference between being a penitent and being a human. It was something to be proud of. Surely he knew that?

  “What do you object to?” Kessa asked him.

  Thomas gave her a look, perhaps surprised by her perceptiveness. “Well…” He hesitated, ashamed. “I’ve never felt very human. I fit in better with the Torth.”

  Kessa felt a chill, hearing him admit that. She hoped he would not say such a thing in public, or within earshot of anyone else.

  Thomas went on. “It’s always been easier for me to not deal with emotions. Even talking this way?” He threw up his hands in frustration. “It’s awkward.”

  Kessa heard the unspoken implication. Avoiding emotions, or repressing them, was how he preferred to live. Was he saying he preferred to be a Torth?

  Although…

  Kessa had known slaves who shut their emotions off. The most traumatized of slaves became dreamers. They sleepwalked through life, forgetting their own names and stories. They allowed others to push them around, or to assign names to them.

  Wasn’t that very much what Torth did? Individual Torth allowed their inner audiences to make decisions for them. An individual’s orbiters collectively assigned their name-title, their mentor, and any privileges or punishments.

  Did that count as trauma, though?

  Kessa had trouble imagining the average mind reader as a victim of abuse. Torth did not get ripped away from families who loved them. Torth were not beaten or killed for failing to complete menial chores. Torth weren’t victims.

  Were they?

  Kessa began to wonder. Torth civilization looked utopian from the perspective of slaves—but whenever Thomas or Garrett described the Megacosm and the peer pressure of Torth society, they described a nightmare. That was one of the few topics they actually agreed on.

  The Torth Majority had collectively voted to outlaw their own intense emotions.

  They self-medicated by wearing tranquility meshes.

  They had essentially voted to act like traumatized slaves, to reject pain and anything they associated with pain.

  Only a handful of people knew the story of the origin of the Torth species. Kessa mulled over what Evenjos had explained about the rise of the Torth Empire—the earliest generations of mutant mind readers used to be downtrodden peasants. All they had wanted was a better future for their children.

  What did downtrodden and damaged people do, upon gaining power and privilege?

  Kessa realized that she was actually qualified to answer that herself. She touched her neck. She still had her scars. She still woke from nightmares. She still hated any Torth who might oppress her.

  Damage did not magically go away.

  Twenty-four thousand years later, it seemed the Torth still had to grapple with emotional damage they had never collectively healed.

  They’d even retained their hatred of Yeresunsa.

  “I want to be proud of my human heritage,” Thomas was saying, unaware of her thoughts due to the distance between them. “But I guess I didn’t see much human kindness when I was growing up. Maybe that’s why I feel more like a Torth than a human.”

  Kessa wanted to ponder that. Were humans unkind?

  That seemed wrong. Vy was wonderful, and Delia and Cherise had never seemed tyrannical. Although…

  Well.

  Cherise had obvious psychological scars that predated her time as a slave. She reveled in art and storytelling, but she had nothing to say about her birth family or her human friends. She did not reminisce. She never painted pictures of her past.

  In fact, Cherise embraced alien cultures as if eager to shed her human cultural heritage. She acted and dressed like a shani. She spoke the slave tongue fluently.

  What, exactly, had drawn Thomas to Cherise and vice versa? Hadn’t they been best friends on Earth? Hadn’t Cherise once idolized Thomas, promising that he would rescue her from slavery, no matter the odds?

  They had stuck to each other like traumatized orphans.

  Or like penitent Torth.

  Many penitents refused to speak out loud. They refused to emote. They cocooned themselves in an uncaring attitude, which made them seem arrogant … but what if Kessa and her lieutenants were misreading the situation?

  What if the penitents were bonding over shared trauma?

  “Thank you,” Kessa said.

  Thomas looked curious. “For what?”

  “You have given me a new idea,” Kessa said.

  Menilik! . Atlas, Icarus, and Trillion look to expand their newly formed galactic empire. While doing so they encounter 'others' out in space...