Dead children floated in the swimming pool.

This entire subterranean facility was room after room of dead toddlers and children, amidst bouncy balls and other toys. Water trickled down waterslides. A decorative mobile hung from the ceiling, untouched, lazily twisting and sparkling with glitter.

Tiny, pudgy bodies were blasted into bloody chunks, contrasting with the pastel colors of the underground low-gravity waterpark.

Ariock had not been alerted fast enough to hear the screams. He heard them anyway, ringing inside his imagination.

“S s s o r r y.”

“P l e a s s s e f f f o r g i v v v e U s s s?”

Four adult Torth cringed inside a makeshift cage of debris. These were the only survivors of the local suicide-massacre, trapped by Ariock.

“Jerja Flats. No living mind readers in this baby farm.” A squad leader’s voice crackled through Ariock’s earpiece. She sounded shaken.

Ariock had already heard similar reports. He had flickered to Lunar Vantage and other cities, just to double check. Dozens of baby farms on the moon colonies were the sites of abrupt suicide-massacres.

Gangs of adult Torth had apparently yanked toddlers out of playpens and broken their necks. They had smashed amniotic sacs, spilling fetuses onto laboratory floors. They had ruthlessly murdered every baby and child that remained within the umbra of Ariock’s reach.

Now the remaining dregs cowered and begged for mercy.

“Should we collar them as penitents?” Choonhulm asked with uncertainty.

Ariock stared at the sorry bunch of prisoners. Their inner audiences must be fleeing their minds in droves. Although these were not Yeresunsa—Ariock had sensed their lack of power before his troops shot them full of inhibitor—he didn’t trust such monsters to meekly work towards absolution. What if they savaged their fellow penitents? They might murder mind readers who had genuinely earned redemption.

“Please.” One of the dregs gazed up at Ariock with beseeching iridescent yellow eyes. “I am so sorry. I did not want to.”

He was a teenager, barely old enough to have graduated from a baby farm himself. He sounded like he belonged on a sitcom or drama show from Earth.

“Why did you do it?” Ariock’s voice was cold.

The teenager sank down, hands clasped. “They told me to. The Majority.”

Of course.

What sort of psychotically intense peer pressure could induce this acne-faced boy to murder children? Whichever Torth was responsible for the initial suggestion, Ariock figured they deserved to have his fist punched through their skull.

“The idea had an origin,” another prisoner whispered. She was middle-aged, just like Ariock’s mom had been. “The Death Architect suggested it.”

Ariock filed that away.

“I can be a good boy,” the teenager said. “Can I be a penitent?”

All four child-murderers went to their knees behind the shrapnel wall, begging to be made into penitents. Begging. As if they deserved the mercy they had not shown to their victims.

Ariock took a breath, and regretted not cleansing the air first. It stank of chlorine and slaughter. When he glanced away, he saw small body parts. Children reduced to garbage.

The carnage reminded him of the Upward Governess. Just like that situation, Ariock might have saved these children if he had been better informed.

Was he allowing Thomas to do too much of his thinking for him? Thomas was a brilliant strategist, but he was also zombifying a lot of Torth, keeping the prison clear. That process seemed to be souring him in some way. He had dark circles under his eyes.

Ariock had planned to declare the entire planet Umdalkdul safe as of today. It was a huge milestone. It was meant to be a celebration.

Someone should have warned him of what the Torth were likely to do.

“They can’t become penitents,” Ariock told Choonhulm. “They haven’t earned that right.”

Choonhulm raised his blaster rifle.

“N n n n n n o!” The child-murderers prostrated themselves on the floor. “W w w e e e c a n s s s s e r r r v e—”

“Kill them.” Ariock would have done it himself, except he understood the symbolism of a former slave acting as their executioner.

Choonhulm blasted their heads off, one by one, in a series of casual motions. Ariock forced himself to watch. This was justice. Their bodies slumped, as gory and lifeless as their innocent victims.

He hoped the Torth Majority heard their death screams in the Megacosm.

Maybe this would teach the Torth Empire that his side of the war would not tolerate atrocities? Maybe his form of justice would reverberate through less corrupted minds on distant planets, and incite some brave Torth, somewhere, to take a stand against murder?

Yeah, right.

Thomas seemed confident that he had left enough wiggle room for renegades. He claimed that they could lay low, like he had done. The bravest of them could theoretically avoid getting shot by the neighbors, steal a streamship, and jump through the temporal stream network. If they landed at the makeshift spaceport in Freedomland and surrendered their weapons, they would be welcomed. Thomas or Kessa would personally show up and greet them.

So far? Brave Torth renegades did not seem to exist.

Or if they did, then Torth peer pressure must be intense beyond anything a sane person could imagine.

Garrett claimed that the vast majority of Torth were evil beyond redemption. For once, it seemed that Garrett’s life experience might have actually led him to a more accurate assessment than Thomas’s analysis. Whenever Ariock looked at adult Torth—even penitents—he saw bitter resentment. He saw arrogant entitlement.

He saw murderers who were willing to shove blaster gloves into the faces of babies.

“I just don’t understand.” Choonhulm lowered his weapon. His beak had a sad, frustrated twist. “Is this meant to shock us? Or scare us?”

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“Neither,” Ariock said. “It was done to prevent us from having a full victory.”

He had smashed so many Torth combatants in recent weeks, the Mirror Prison always had cells full of freshly captured Rosies and Servants of All. The quicker he took victories, the more scared the Torth Empire seemed to become. The empire had actually fled the planet Umdalkdul, leaving luggage and slaves behind.

“But why target their own offspring?” Choonhulm asked.

The reason seemed obvious to Ariock. Maybe he was spending too much time with Thomas. “Fewer than forty percent of Torth children are able to pass their Adulthood Exams. The rest have emotions.” He gestured around. “Basically, their children might be willing to join us, even without needing to become penitents.”

“Really?” Choonhulm’s eyes grew round with incredulity. “Are you saying that Torth offspring are like humans?”

That was a comparison Ariock would rather not have faced. But he nodded. “Uh, maybe.”

Older children would probably have trouble emoting and speaking out loud. But what about baby mind readers? Ariock could imagine them alive and burbling. Or crying. Or babbling in baby talk, just like any human baby.

He pictured Torth toddlers playing with hatchling ummins, under Kessa’s caring guidelines.

It was hard to imagine. But perhaps in time, Kessa’s system would raise a generation of mind readers who behaved like humans?

“I am not sure our side would simply accept Torth children,” Choonhulm said, clearly thinking along the same lines. His brow ridges knitted in a frown.

Ariock knew that the ummin soldier had recently done the ummin equivalent of a marriage ceremony. Choonhulm’s mate was caring for an unhatched egg. They would have a child in the near future.

“Well, it looks like it won’t be a decision we face any time soon.” Ariock felt brutish to even discuss the future of families while the blood of children stained walls and floors everywhere he looked.

“Perhaps we should bury these remains?” Choonhulm glanced around skeptically. “Instead of throwing them down the garbage chutes?”

Ariock would have insisted on that. He was glad that one of his so-called Spears had compassion for the victims. “Yes. We can assign penitents to wrap up the remains and bury them.”

He stopped himself, unwilling to tread on Kessa’s authority. She worked with the penitents, and she seemed to have the most progressive ideas about how to integrate them into society, as well as how to incentivize them to act more human.

“I will let Kessa know,” Choonhulm said.

“Thank you.” Ariock wished he could clap Choonhulm on the shoulder, but he would have to bend down to do that for an ummin, and be ultra gentle. It would be awkward. “I’ll return within an hour. Are you okay here?”

“I got this.”

“Okay. Go for fresh air if you need it.” Ariock put himself into a clairvoyant trance.

Soon he was zooming away from the moon Morja, past the beat-up scraps of metal that used to be Torth warships. The route to Reject-20 was well-traveled and familiar to him.

It was late night in Freedomland. Ariock ghosted through the war palace. He considered dropping into Vy’s suite, but he didn’t want to startle her or wake her up. He could knock, but he decided against it. Vy must be tired of listening to his complaints.

He located Thomas in a manufacturing facility adjacent to the research annex. The lights were on, and Thomas seemed engrossed in inspecting a tiny device. Technicians stood at various workstations.

Ariock targeted the empty space behind Thomas’s hoverchair. That seemed big enough for his body.

Pulling himself across the galaxy was an instantaneous act. It felt like flipping upside-down, as well as pulling himself psychically through a knothole, but it was a process that Ariock was used to. At least it didn’t send him into a depletion coma. Very few Yeresunsa had enough raw strength to even approach the possibility of teleportation. Ariock was the only one who could do it on a casual whim.

He dropped out of thin air and landed on his feet.

Thomas twitched in startled surprise. He rotated to face Ariock. “Jeez, don’t do that!”

Ariock took his usual half a second to acclimate to the different gravity, atmospherics, and directional compass. He felt much heavier on this planet than he had on the moon colony of Morja.

“Oh.” Thomas’s tone softened. His purple eyes were pained. He must be absorbing the recent horrors that clogged Ariock’s memory.

“Yeah.” Ariock tried not to sound accusatory. If Thomas had even remotely guessed that the Torth would slaughter their own children … well. Surely he would have warned someone? Surely he would have recommended preventative measures?

Thomas set aside the device he’d been inspecting, giving Ariock his full attention. “I didn’t guess the Torth would do that. I didn’t know.”

Ariock had expected as much, but it was still a relief to hear it. He nodded.

“Do what?” One of the nearby technicians pushed up his goggles, and Ariock recognized Varktezo.

“We can discuss it later.” Thomas sounded embarrassed. He stayed focused on Ariock, apologetic. “I’m sorry. I’ve been…” He flipped his hands, as if to whisk away guilt. “Feeling sort of overworked. That’s no excuse.” He looked disgusted with himself.

Ariock nodded, recalling that Thomas was tasked with upgrading all of the technology for their army. He also had to visit the Mirror Prison and zombify every prisoner within on a daily basis. They were trying to keep the prison clear, to prevent any possibility of a rescue operation. And Thomas planned the tactics and strategies for every battle. That was on top of his physical therapy regimen, war council appearances, and side projects he’d taken on.

Garrett probably made his tasks even more unpleasant than they needed to be.

“The Torth evacuated all of their baby farms on Umdalkdul,” Thomas explained. “It seemed logical that they would do the same on Morja and Jerja. But I miscalculated.” A shadow of anger crossed his face. “If the Majority held a spontaneous vote, by the way, Garrett should have told me.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Ariock said. Immersing oneself in Torth culture must be awful, but that was no excuse. Garrett was the only one of them who could do it without detection.

Thomas looked grateful. “Thanks.” His voice cracked. Judging by the way he cleared his throat, he was dealing with the onset of puberty. “You’ve been doing an outstanding job. Your conquest of TriSolstice City is the stuff of legends.” Thomas picked up the device he had been working on. “I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t have to deal with anything like this again.”

Ariock thought of the Upward Governess.

He nodded anyway. He understood that every epic battle required intricate planning and fluid tactics, and Thomas outmaneuvered the enemy tacticians every time. Thanks to Thomas, they had scored hundreds of victories without a single defeat. They had not lost any soldiers or warriors or friends in the past week. That alone was a reason for celebration.

They had won an entire planet, including its populated moon colonies.

One little sliver of the galactic Torth Empire belonged to Ariock and his friends.

“We all owe our victories to you,” Ariock admitted. He nodded towards Thomas’s project, trying to break the tension between them. “What are you working on?”

Thomas held up the device. “This? This is going to revolutionize communication across the galaxy.”

Ariock believed it.

“I’ll need your help to set up satellites,” Thomas said. “That’s a project for later this week. But once we’re done? We’ll become a lot less likely to be blindsided by random acts of Torth cruelty.” He rotated the device between his fingers. “People on different planets will be able to talk to each other.”

Ariock wanted to feel enthusiastic. Instead, he thought of all the dead Torth babies and children who had never been named, and who would never have a future. Would anyone bother to mourn them?

Of course not.

They had never been loved.

“I’ll see you later.” Ariock ignored Thomas’s look of concern. He shut off his communicator with the click of a switch, and put himself into a clairvoyant trance before anyone could demand that he be reachable.

He ghosted to a region where there were no cities or outposts.

He found a plain full of wheat-like grass, rippling in the breeze. It was mid-afternoon. Peaceful. Good for a moment of personal reflection.

Ariock teleported into the endless grass. He had to show up above it, since he could not displace solid matter, but he’d gotten good at landing on his feet.

He straightened.

The only life sparks within a hundred miles moved without the purpose of sapient beings. They were alien critters.

Ariock withdrew his awareness and allowed himself to be truly alone beneath the cloudless sky.

Right now, he knew, there were triumphant parades and festivals and important speeches going on in the cities he had liberated. An entire planet was freed from slavery. When people learned about those baby farm massacres? It wouldn’t diminish their joy at all. They would shrug and say that those victims were merely Torth.

Ariock’s reputation would remain untarnished. People called him the Bringer of Hope. Son of Storms. The messiah. They considered him to be a cosmic sorcerer; a great liberator.

But what was he, really, if crimes happened on his watch, under his rule?

Who was he, if he could not protect the innocent?

Ariock waded through grass that was so tall, a child could have gotten lost in it. But he saw all the way to the horizons. The prairie was an endless vista of purity.

If only he could see what future nasty surprises the Torth Majority might vote into action.