Thomas floated down each aisle of staked penitents, then up the next.

He absorbed moods, ideas, experiences. He spent less than ten seconds on each individual’s mind. He might pluck one salient experience, maybe two, and ignore the rest of a person’s life history.

Sure, that was sloppy. It might even be considered dangerously sloppy. But since Garrett and Jinishta had pressured him into evaluating hundreds of penitents per day, he was leaning into expedience.

I am Yours forever. A woman fell to her knees, weeping, desperate to be noticed as the Conqueror hovered past her. Give Me any command.

A man fell to his knees with the same desperate fervor. I will obey. Let Me be your slave (I’ll do anything) just let Me continue to exist (oh please)…

Another. I will follow anywhere You lead, Great One. If You start a new Empire? I am there.

Another. I will serve You however You want.

Each penitent bowed to Thomas as he floated past, judging them. Their praise was silent, of course. Chains and fence posts kept them spaced at equidistant intervals in the field. They could not run. They could not hide, or read each other’s minds, or cheat. They were immobile like a crop.

Can I serve You, mighty Conqueror?

 How may I please You?

  I worship You.

   I adore You.

These wretches had had weeks or months to ponder how they would confront the Conqueror, should they ever meet him. They were never given access to people with authority. This was their chance of a lifetime. Each penitent knew that they would have only a few precious seconds in which to seize the undivided attention of the mental titan who had conquered them.

At least they understood that the Conqueror was more than a traitorous child. Penitents could not deny the evidence all around them: Thomas had established a new civilization. He kept doing things that nobody had ever done before, and nobody could predict what he would do next.

Their worship was genuine.

Would you like to use me as a sex slave? I will pleasure You, Great One!

Thomas floated at a quicker pace. He figured he didn’t really need an in-depth analysis of every life. All he needed was a gestalt.

When Jinishta and others had pressured him into making these regular evaluations, he had complained. “Drilling into lives is intensive. We have half a billion penitents. Are you asking me to vet them all? Personally? Because I can’t spare that kind of time.”

“You’ll ramp up,” Garrett had said. “You’ll get faster at it.”

“I don’t have time,” Thomas had insisted. And when they pushed back: “You’re asking me to soak up too much. Even my mind has limits.”

But his friends had limits, too.

They needed Torth allies, and they were too afraid of mind readers to have them any other way. They wanted guarantees. So here Thomas was, meeting a daily quota.

He sped between heads that bowed to him in reverence. He tore through haunted pasts while ignoring secret invitations.

Like:

No, he did not want an orgy. That penitent’s notion of a lurid orgy was childish at best. What a bunch of stupid fantasies.

No, he did not need a private militia.

No, he did not want aid in assassinating the secret society of Alashani undergrounders. He didn’t want to lose any of his allies, even the ones who hated him.

No, he would not set himself up in a pleasure palace with penitents serving him as chambermaids.

What? No! He was absolutely not interested in that offer.

No, he was not going to start a fresh offshoot of the Torth Empire. Ugh. What a perverse notion.

No, he was not having fun at all. He did not enjoy being worshiped. He would rather not spend another minute in the company of….

One of them lacked emotions.

She was one of the many youthful adults. Unlike the others in this big assessment field, she had no secret offers for the Conqueror. No imaginative favors. No worship.

Thomas stopped his hoverchair and threw it into reverse.

The emotionally deadened penitent realized, too late, that she had gained unwanted attention. She hurriedly offered a few memories.

Thomas tore past her meager offerings. Never mind what she’d eaten for breakfast. Never mind her baby farm playpen. He didn’t care about her Adulthood Exam, or her career path, or where she used to live.

He sought threads of strong emotional value. Sympathy. Empathy. Kindness. Compassion. Or just passion.

He found none of those things in the Becalmed Dipole.

Instead, he sensed a buried, halfhearted hope. The Becalmed Dipole had bided her time. She believed that the Death Architect would (win) prevail, and she wanted to sabotage some of the Conqueror’s accomplishments in order to impress the Torth Majority. Thusly she had pretended—for more than eight weeks—to be an obedient penitent. She had gone unnoticed.

Until now.

Thomas pointed to the deep cover agent. “Kill her.”

Soldiers rode speeding hoverbikes into the field, outfitted with long-range blaster cannons.

Thomas forged on ahead while the Becalmed Dipole croaked, “Pleeeeease—”

Her plea was torn apart in wet, meaty thuds.

Thomas did not watch. The staked-out penitents likewise ignored the barbarous execution. They were too focused on striving to prove their loyalty to the mind reader who could have them killed on a whim.

Use Me!

 I will obey any command You or Your minions give!

  I am Yours!

Thomas wished he could freely go back to his Dragon Tower. A strange feeling, suspiciously like self-hatred, twisted just below the level of his conscious mind.

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Many warriors hated Thomas. Some whispered about assassinating him, although he pretended not to know that.

What if the undergrounders were right about him on some fundamental level?

He didn’t want to act as jury, judge, and executioner for so many people. Wasn’t he behaving like a tyrant? What if he accidentally ordered an execution for someone who didn’t deserve it?

He really hated his job.

When his daily ordeal was finished, he didn’t bother to visit with Kessa or anyone else who was standing at the edge of the field. Life experiences churned within his head, assimilating into the amalgamation that was his personality. He could not muster enough warmth for pleasantries or small talk. He could barely tolerate the bright colors of sky, or the sounds of distant foot traffic.

He navigated a winding footpath that led back towards civilization and uptown. He had absorbed enough memories of enough routes to know every inch of every trail around Freedomland.

“Thomas?”

It was Kessa.

Thomas glided to a halt, letting her catch up, but he clutched the armrests of his hoverchair in impotent annoyance. Couldn’t she read his body language? Did she even care that he was not in the mood for chitchat?

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Thomas stared balefully at her, and let her draw her own conclusion.

“I am completely willing to reduce the quota.” Kessa stood at her usual respectful distance, not quite within range. “If Jinishta or anyone has a problem with that, send them to me.”

The offer was kind. Thomas knew that he ought to feel something. Gratitude, maybe.

He felt nothing but a churning of many lives.

“It’s fine,” he said, and moved onward. Maybe vetting penitents was truly the only road towards gaining legitimate Torth allies. Maybe this would lead to winning the war. Should he really complain?

Kessa strolled alongside his hoverchair. “When I have lieutenants who look like how you are looking now, I tell them to take a vacation.”

As if he could do that.

“It is emotionally draining work,” Kessa added. “To care for silent people who keep their emotions suppressed.”

Was that a dig at Thomas? Was she accusing him of acting like a Torth?

Thomas gritted his teeth. He wasn’t sure he could endure insults right now. Especially not from Kessa.

“I hope you do not feel guilty over the one we had to kill today.” Kessa’s tone was gentle. “Everyone is grateful that you uncovered her, before she could cause damage or hurt somebody.”

“I’m glad that she’s dead,” Thomas said.

Kessa assessed him from the corner of one gray eye. She looked skeptical, almost wary. Like she didn’t quite believe him.

“Let me ask you something.” Thomas stopped. He was in a dangerous mood, but he ignored the warnings in the depths of his mind and gave Kessa his full attention. “Does it make any difference?”

Kessa looked inquiring.

“I give them my stamp of approval,” Thomas said, “and you place them into households. And supposedly some of them will get their hands on weapons, to train as soldiers. But does anything change? Are they now truly on our side, on a path towards redemption? Tell me. Because I don’t see it.”

Kessa regarded him for a moment. She looked frustrated.

At last, she spoke. “Trust takes time.”

Thomas pounded his fist against his armrest, although he dared not reveal his hopelessness. Not to anyone. Kessa and others would lose morale, if they knew.

No one on his side seemed to be asking certain strategic questions. Questions such as: What would the Torth Empire do once it discovered its hidden reserves of brainwashers and mind controllers?

Statistically, there had to be a lot of fourth and fifth magnitude telepaths hidden amongst the Torth population.

The brainwashers were likely unaware of their dark power. In a culture with so much repressed emotion, it would be exceptionally hard to trigger that power. But they existed. Thomas had no doubt. His ability to brainwash people was not a lucky fluke. It must be common, or somewhat common.

And the enemy super-geniuses must be aware of that potentially enormous advantage on their side.

With mind controlling champions, the Torth Empire could easily win. All they had to do was mind twist Ariock. Heck, they could ruin any free city.

The penitent population wasn’t stupid. Thomas figured this was why they were not jumping to pledge themselves as soldiers in his military. Gossip spread among them like wildfire. If one penitent thought of an idea, that idea wended its way through their barracks and work crews within a matter of hours.

Many penitents believed that a Torth Empire victory was inevitable. That terrified them into inaction. They worshiped the Conqueror, but they also suspected that he was bereft of any way to counteract enemy brainwashers.

That was probably why his outreach efforts were failing. That was why his invitations in the Megacosm went ignored. The boy Twin hadn’t yet showed up, and perhaps he, too, doubted that Thomas could win.

“We need the penitents integrated on our side,” Thomas said. “That’s why I’m doing this work. We need them. We cannot win without them.” He figured he could be frank here, on an open path where no one was within earshot. “We’re in a precarious stalemate with the Torth Empire. When it breaks, we might be the ones losing ground and people.”

Thomas could juggle facts. But social variables? Emotions? Solving these sorts of problems might forever be beyond his capabilities.

If only he could brainwash himself into not losing morale.

Kessa gave him a soft look. “Let me ask you something. Why did you order that spy killed, rather than twisting her mind so that she can be of use to our military?”

It was an insightful question. Kessa had correctly perceived his mercy.

He owed her an answer.

“If I start casually punishing Torth transgressors with a fate worse than death,” Thomas said, “then I become the tyrant that the Torth Empire fears. And I encourage our side to see the penitents as potential tools or weapons rather than as people.” He shook his head. “I’m not aiming for genocide. I want the penitents to become equals among us.”

Few people would care.

Kessa’s gray eyes held a deep understanding. “You go to great lengths in order to show mercy to the Torth as a people. Why? What do you see in them that is worth saving?”

Thomas began a tedious reply.

“I don’t mean your military reasons,” Kessa said. “I mean your emotional reasons.”

Perhaps she did not see anything worth saving in them, herself. But Thomas thought that his reason was obvious.

“Knowledge,” he said.

Kessa invited him to go on with a raised brow ridge.

“I want to save their knowledge,” Thomas said. “The Torth collectively have an enormous amount of preserved knowledge. A thousand generations multiplied by thirty trillion people.”

Such a loss would be exponentially worse than the loss of ancient prophecies, the destruction of the buried city beneath the Stratower, or the burning of the library at Alexandria in Earth’s antiquity. The very idea of destroying the Megacosm made him ill.

“I can’t imagine any worse crime than to let their collective knowledge die,” Thomas said, unable to hide the raw despair in his voice.

Then he realized that his priorities must seem screwed up, to a former slave of the Torth Empire. Thomas cringed in preparation of being judged.

But Kessa looked as if a key had clicked into a lock and opened a new door. She understood. Very few people valued knowledge as much as Thomas did, and she just might be one of them.

“I might have an idea,” Kessa said.

Thomas looked at her. He felt hopeless, but he would listen.

“I am not sure you will welcome it.” Kessa looked embarrassed. “And I cannot guarantee anything. It is just a meager idea.”

No matter how many people called her Kessa the Wise, she did not believe it, herself. Perhaps someday she would.

“What is it?” Thomas gave her an inviting look. “I value your advice, very much.”

Kessa looked as if she doubted that, but she played along, straightening her back. “I believe that most former slaves are doing all that they possibly can to welcome the Torth. They are treating the penitents better than they were treated, as slaves.” She included herself in her gesture. “We have invited them into our homes and our families.”

Thomas nodded, acknowledging those truths.

“A bridge is being built,” Kessa said. “But construction must come from both sides.”

“You don’t think the penitents are trying hard enough?” Thomas realized that she was correct. Of course Kessa had noticed that even the nicest of penitents seemed reluctant to fully cast off their Torth loyalties, even if she didn’t know why.

“It is not a matter of what they do,” Kessa said with delicate caution. “It is a matter of acknowledgment. In many ways, the penitent Torth have not suffered the worst degradations of slavery. None have been forced to murder their own children. Or their own parents. None of them understand how it feels to hold in screams while Red Ranks drag away the love of their life, to be tortured to death.”

That had happened to Kessa.

Thomas was painfully aware that she had loved her mate, Cozu, as well as the family who had raised her. Those loved ones were gone. The Torth had stolen them from Kessa, and the pain of those losses would never go away entirely.

It could never be repaid.

A comparatively small number of Torth had tortured, humiliated, and ruined countless generations of multiple sapient species. The injustices done against slaves, in general, were far too much to be repaid in kind. That would lead to the genocide which Thomas and Kessa both want to sidestep.

“I think back to how I learned to trust you,” Kessa said. “At first, I dismissed you as just another self-serving, greedy Torth. Even after you severed yourself from the Megacosm, you acted superior and condescending. I could not consider you a friend.”

Thomas began to wish that he had acted more human. Perhaps behavior mattered more than he thought?

“But you showed remorse,” Kessa assured him. “You acknowledged the pain you caused, and you risked your life to save ours. You did it so often, no one could deny that you cared. It is a continuous act of atonement. And it matters.”

Thomas swallowed. He had assumed that he was destroying the Torth Empire based on rational reasons, with a side helping of vengeance. But it was more than that. Kessa had seen a motive in his actions which he had hidden from himself until recently.

His nameless mother had set him on this path.

There were other Torth who wanted to atone. He felt sure of it, knowing about his birth mother, and also from the many Torth lives he had absorbed. Most of the penitents didn’t realize it consciously, though. They were in denial, clinging to the peer pressures of their past.

“A bridge can be built.” Kessa clasped her hands behind her back. “But it is the penitent Torth who must take the next step.”

She was right. Thomas saw it clearly, now that she had pointed it out.

“What must the penitents do?” Thomas asked.

But he knew. In every way that mattered, he, too, was a penitent.

“They must show remorse,” Kessa said. “If they are ever to earn the dignity of respect among those of us who used to be slaves, that is necessary. They must prove that they regret injustice.”