The Climbing Storm sucked her thumb.

She knew that was wrong, against the rules of the baby farm where she lived. If anyone saw her bizarre comfort-seeking behavior, she would fail to graduate to adulthood. Adults tended to forgive super-geniuses like her, but it was best not to take risks or cross lines.

Getting killed and chopped up for organ donations seemed like a faraway danger right now. There were scarier things.

She hid inside the blocky playground labyrinth, in a dark recess for slaves. There was hardly any light. It felt safer than her own bedroom, where anyone might barge in and find her.

She hoped that Nuzzy, her slave, would remain silent.

The Climbing Storm had told Nuzzy to carry her here, since she could not walk or crawl very well. Nuzzy was a grown-up govki. He was good, but like all slaves, he missed a lot of information and he had no idea what was going on. His furry body cushioned her, wrapped around her, soft and comforting.

She trembled. She could feel Nuzzy’s heartbeat and smell his fear. He was afraid because she was afraid.

She took a risk and peeked in on the Megacosm again.

The chaos was worse. Throughout the Empire, Torth shot their comrades in the back or the head. Torth threw grenades at their rogue neighbors. All the while, that symphony played in the background; the one orchestrated by the Twins.

You traitors (you so-called penitents) don’t deserve to live!

 !!!

  Wrong! Get off Our planet!

  !!!

   No! We claim this planet for the Conqueror!

    All hail the Conqueror!

The Megacosm heaved and tossed like a dying god, fracturing and cracking along fault lines that few people had even noticed until now.

The ones who wanted to worship the Conqueror were at a disadvantage. They believed that they must surrender their weapons and obey their slaves, but of course, anyone who threw away their weapons became vulnerable.

It seemed like madness to the Climbing Storm. She wasn’t that stupid. And she was only four years old.

Fools! Can’t you see that the Twins fell for propaganda?

 The Conqueror just wants more Torth slaves!

The arguments back and forth made the Climbing Storm wonder if she ought to attempt to form an actual opinion on her own.

But she was too young for that.

It was hard to make evaluations without guidance from adults or older kids. The Climbing Storm was curious about the Conqueror, but she doubted that such a mature and accomplished super-genius would value her. She was unripe. Everyone knew that super-geniuses younger than six years old were essentially worthless.

Unlike able-bodied people, she genuinely relied on slaves in order to survive. Would the Conqueror assign slaves to her? Or “friends,” or whatever he called slaves over on his side?

Probably not.

The Climbing Storm really didn’t want to make a mistake that would ruin her life forever, or get her killed. She sucked her thumb and hoped the Majority would reemerge from the madness and show her what to think.

Amidst the violence and losses, a boulder of sanity arose.

In normal times, a thirteen-year-old child with a penchant for torture would not have been so esteemed. Everyone agreed on that fact. But the Death Architect was the eldest surviving super-genius who remained loyal to the Torth Empire. She had dealt serious damage to the enemies.

It was about time she showed up.

HELP US!

 SAVE US!

Billions of minds flocked into orbit around the tranquil behemoth mind, desperate for solutions to this cataclysmic eruption of battles storming across the galaxy. The Climbing Storm went with them. She wanted rational answers and safety as much as anyone.

The Twins bowed out of the Megacosm, unwilling to directly challenge the elected leader of galactic civilization. They feared the Death Architect’s ability to probe their minds and learn their exact locations. Their symphony faded as hundreds of millions of penitents likewise dropped out.

Whew. That calmed things down a bit.

The Climbing Storm dared to hope that the Megacosm would eventually settle into its normal state.

Although in truth, it had felt rotten for a long while. The Climbing Storm was very immature, but even so, she outshined most adults in the field of philology. She estimated that the Megacosm had begun to feel like an unstable teeter-totter around the time when the Colossal Failure had killed himself. The loss of a maturing super-genius always made a dent in universal knowledge. The Megacosm had seemed to become more porous.

The holes had increased and gotten larger when the Majority assassinated the Upward Governess.

No one had treated that as a cause for alarm, either. Some scientists regretted the loss of such an industrious super-genius, but … well, traitors deserved death. Besides, the Upward Governess had suffered from multiple physical maladies. Everyone expected her to die. There were always new baby super-geniuses to replace the elders who blinked out of existence.

The Climbing Storm had crawled along obscure nodes at the time, soaking up research. She had concluded that the Megacosm was cohesive enough. Things were fine.

But the Conqueror kept spreading his message about emotional freedoms, eroding the confidence of countless Torth. His mental invitations and his imaginary hugs had stirred up a lot of furtive secrecy. Many Torth must harbor secret doubts about the war, or about the enemies, which they did not want their colleagues or neighbors to find out about.

The Climbing Storm had noted when it become commonplace for high ranks to avoid the Megacosm. That was historically abnormal. Some of the highest ranks were only sharing half of their daily wake cycles with their orbiters. That was miserly.

They offered solid excuses. The Death Architect and other super-geniuses purported to be hard at work on inventing new weapons. Governors and other petty leaders claimed that they were worn out from offering constant reassurances to the Torth Majority.

And then the boy Twin had vanished and gone renegade.

And then the girl Twin.

Now? Other super-geniuses were surrendering to the Conqueror. They left, and avalanches of knowledge fell away. Every aspect of collective knowledge seemed rotten to the core, held in untrustworthy minds that might turn rogue at any moment.

HELP US! the remainder of the Majority roared. It was a plea, but they were so distraught and so numerous, their plea came across like a demand. They were billions.

SAVE US!

 GUIDE US!

  SOLVE THIS!

The Death Architect was an exemplary example of godlike calm. Her tranquility drew people the way a black hole drew matter.

Billions of Torth went into her orbit, trembling. Please (please) please (please) PLEASE HELP US???

The Death Architect gave a quiet exhalation. Her rejection of love and friendship and slave emotions made her the epitome of peaceful logic.

Oh, My constituents (My orbiters), she thought without any pity or care. Don’t You see? We (the great and mighty Torth Empire) are stronger (better off) without the whiny dead weight of traitors, rogues, barbarians, and slave sympathizers.

Many of her orbiters recoiled in shock.

 !!!!!!!!!!?!!!!!!!!!!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) !!!

   !!!!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Climbing Storm sucked on her thumb harder. Her eyes widened even though there was nothing to see inside this darkened slave closet.

 KILL ALL TRAITORS!

  * ( ) * ( ) * ( ) ** ( ) * ( ) * ( ) * ( ) * ( ) * ( ) * ( ) * ( ) * ( ) *

Death screams filled the Megacosm.

Too many Torth figured that the Death Architect was their best possible leader, despite—or because of—her uncaring attitude. Surely she would invent a superior weapon? Surely she would pull all of the vast resources of the Empire into a victorious configuration?

The death cultists shot their colleagues and neighbors without qualms. They wanted a strong and united Empire. They would do anything to get that. Their murderous determination sounded like ferocious, bestial snarling.

 !!!! * ( ) * !!!!

  !!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!

 !!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!

  !!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!

 !!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!

  !!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!

 !!!! * ( ) * !!!!!

Yet many other Torth—billions, in fact—were horrified by the bloodshed.

This was not a small, localized rebellion. Nearly a quarter of the wakeful Torth Empire declared themselves to be kneelers, interested in joining the Conqueror.

Three percent more were inclined to go rogue.

On Tzogratzar, citizens sealed themselves inside the forums of various cities. Other citizens tried to blast the doors open. Still others sabotaged those efforts.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

On Permadrift Orbital, all of the citizens bowed to their slaves and declared themselves penitents. Only one refused. He locked himself in a bath closet.

In a city on Hoosf, children blasted their way out of a baby farm, intent on aiding one faction or another.

 !!!!!!!

  !!!!!!!!!

 !!!!!

  !!!!!!!!!

Mobs chased down traitors. Even more death screams filled the Megacosm.

Others encountered resistance in the form of slaves armed with blaster gloves.

What did the Death Architect have to say about the fresh waves of kneelers, penitents, and rogues?

Kill them, she thought with a mental shrug.

 !!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Being a Torth isn’t worth it, a super-genius known as the Spin Overture thought. I quit. Conqueror, rescue Me!

That sent her orbiters into a frenzy of ???? and !!!!!!!!!!

Newly minted penitents cried out. WE SURRENDER! CONQUEROR SAVE US!

You elected Death, the Rind Topographer let the Majority know. Isn’t it obvious which side of this war values creativity and ideas and life, and which side is ruled by stagnation, regression, and death?

The roiling, ailing Megacosm rose up all around her.

In agreement.

 * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! *

Their minds met, joining in an immense choral wave that washed away all dissenters.

 WE CHOOSE.

  WE SURRENDER.

   WE ARE PENITENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the Death Architect?

Hm. She remained tranquil, as if civilization was not crumbling. We (Torth) ought to preemptively kill all the remaining super-geniuses except for Myself. The others cannot be trusted.

The Climbing Storm gasped out loud.

Slave-like alarm flooded her, so much that she automatically dropped out of the Megacosm.

Her blaster glove was in the compartment of her hoverchair, back in her bedroom. She had no way to defend herself. A measly weapon wouldn’t save her anyway, if her entire baby farm decided to gang up and kill her. She couldn’t fend off a mob of murderous children and adolescents.

She hated being below the Megacosm. It made her feel sunken and trapped inside her own unloved body.

She turned and buried her face into Nuzzy’s fur, much to the slave’s shock and surprise.

Hugs were definitely illegal. No child ever hugged a slave. It meant death.

Yet Nuzzy tolerated it, because he was good. The Climbing Storm was glad for something—someone—she could count on. She was no longer sure about anything else. She had no idea what was illegal anymore, or what would get her killed, or save her.

Well, that wasn’t quite so.

She had absorbed replays of the Conqueror whenever he entered the Megacosm. He claimed that he would welcome anyone, even if they were weak. Even if they were scared.

Maybe he would actually value an unripe child super-genius, after all?

But he was busy right now. He was conducting a battle, killing the Torth who had invaded his city. And before that, he had been absent from the Megacosm for many wake cycles.

But perhaps some of his penitent friends, like that weird Pink Screwdriver, would hear a specific cry in the Megacosm and convey a message to him?

The Climbing Storm threw herself wholly into the Megacosm, blaring her decision. I SURRENDER! I RENOUNCE EVERYTHING! CONQUEROR? SAVE ME!

She was only one more kneeler, one more newly converted penitent. There were billions. Her cry would have been lost in the chaos, dismissed and ignored because of her immature status, except for the fact that she had the rare super-genius mutation.

 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kill the Climbing Storm! many Torth chorused. Kill all super-genius traitors!

They mentally tugged for the attention of children on her baby farm. Find her. Kill her.

Far away, on another planet, the Geodesic Flux choked, suffocating. Someone had invaded his bedroom and was strangling him.

The Rind Topographer begged for a rescue. Her pleas evaporated into meaningless echoes as a blade sliced her neck wide open.

 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Other super-geniuses emitted shocked death screams. The Stalled Proofer. The Stemmer Linguist. The Neurobioticist. The Spin Overture. The Mechanized Meeter. They left afterimages of coppery surprise and regrets.

 ! * ( ) * !

!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    * ( ) * !!!!!!!

Half of the Megacosm seemed to cave in and collapse, like a continental plate slipping, except far worse. It was cosmic. It was like an accretion disk sucked into a supermassive black hole.

Scientific groups moaned that they were set back by centuries.

History groups screamed that they had lost millenniums worth of information, not backed up anywhere.

Every discipline, from military armaments to astronavigation to nutrition and medicine to childcare, and more … they felt a drain.

Every Torth in the Empire felt it. Too much knowledge was gone. The mental landscape became pockmarked with craters.

 !!!!!!!!!!! ( ) !!!

  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!! ( ) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!

   !!!!! ( ) !!!!! ( ) !!!!!! * ( ) * !!! ( ) !!!!!!!!! ( ) !!!!!!!!!!!! ( ) !!!!!!!!!!

The Climbing Storm mentally turned this way and that, searching for any of her esteemed knowledge-mates who might have survived.

Her own bedroom was being ransacked. She was the only super-genius who had hidden from her guardians and peers.

Of course, she had not foreseen this calamity. Only someone with a precognitive power could have foreseen this. She had only hidden because she’d felt scared, and she had been too ashamed to let anyone notice the slave-like emotion roiling inside her.

 FIND HER.

Footsteps shook her hiding place. Adolescents tore through her baby farm, searching.

Nuzzy curled around her. He understood that she was terrified, and that pathetic fact seemed enough to make him sympathetic, even without understanding why.

Just as a forest grows healthier by shedding dead leaves, the Death Architect thought while she orchestrated her cultists, We (the Torth Empire) shall grow healthier by shedding Our weak-minded deviants. Only true Torth have any value.

The Death Architect understood how fast super-geniuses could react. Her sudden and offhand command to kill super-geniuses had ensured that there was very little time for warnings or rescues.

She had planned this.

Or she had anticipated the opportunity, anyway.

The Climbing Storm couldn’t guess how or why, but she understood that the Death Architect had groomed Torth to trust and respect her. The Death Architect never, ever disagreed with the Majority. She catered to their every whim. Thusly the masses were conditioned to obey her with very little self-examination or skepticism. That was why so many Torth clung to her now, worshiping her as if she was an actual god.

But couldn’t they tell that a decimation of the Torth population was not strength?

It was not an improvement. Anyone with a brain ought to understand that.

The Upward Governess had certainly understood that. So did the Conqueror.

 !!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!

  !!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!

 !!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!

  !!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!

In cities across the galaxy, anyone with a teleportation power vanished. Perhaps they were going to murder any surviving super-geniuses, such as the Climbing Storm? Or had they gone to kneel before the Conqueror?

Let cowards flee, the Death Architect crooned. We (true Torth) do not need feeble slave emotions. We are above that.

The Death Architect might tell herself that all this destruction was a benefit, and her constituents might believe it … but the Torth Empire had been truly mighty, with 38.2 trillion citizens. Whatever was left after today, it would not be comparable. Not even close.

Who needs traitors? Orbiters echoed the Death Architect’s opinions with fervency.

 Shoot penitents!

  Take out the trash!

   Get rid of the riffraff!

    Bomb the slave sympathizers!

     Kill kill KILL!!!!

They mentally cavorted around the enormous mind of their patron, while in the physical realm, they shot anyone who questioned the order.

This time of chaos will end, the Death Architect assured those of her cultists who harbored reservations, smoothing away their worries. We (the true Torth) will end up more pure. The Torth civilization will be stronger and better than ever.

Knowledge flushed away in the absence of super-geniuses and scientists, leaving massive sinkholes.

Billions of minds rejected godhood.

If the Climbing Storm had recognized what was at stake earlier, she would have begged the Conqueror to rescue her when he was actually present and listening. It seemed blatantly obvious, now, that the Majority had never truly valued super-geniuses or knowledge. Her orbiters claimed to worship facts and truths and logic above all else. Torth prided themselves on that. But now they were okay with murdering super-geniuses?

They were tossing knowledge away like it was garbage.

They used to have such a nearly infinite supply of knowledge, they had taken it for granted.

The Conqueror was different.

He never would have sanctioned the murder of super-geniuses. He went so far as to teach runaway slaves how to be scientists, because he valued every mind, no matter whose mind it was.

The Torth Majority, on the other hand, had voted to destroy the populations of baby farms on a whim.

The Climbing Storm should have been clued in when those baby farm massacres had happened on the moons of Umdalkdul. The Death Architect had justified that decision, claiming that she wanted to prevent the Conqueror from finding soft and easy targets for his conversion methods. She had killed assets—thousands of adolescents, children, toddlers, babies, and fetuses—before the Giant could show up to claim them.

Few Torth had questioned the massacres at the time.

But they had been wrong.

Today, the Conqueror was gaining billions of penitents without infiltrating a single baby farm.

And the Megacosm was a fractured mess. There was no longer any definitive Majority. There was no clear path to success.

Save Me, Conqueror, the Climbing Storm begged.

She was just one of many newly converted penitents who begged for salvation. No one could contact the Conqueror quickly enough. He wasn’t in the Megacosm.

Where did all the knowledge go? many Torth thrummed, feeling their way through the chaos that the Megacosm had become.

 Where are the answers?

  THIS IS WRONG.

   STOP.

    WE NEED SUPER-GENIUSES.

The Climbing Storm was amazed that she was not wholly alone. Self-proclaimed penitents urged the children on her local baby farm to RISE UP and DEFEND HER.

Some of them actually wanted to.

Children donned their blaster gloves. Some hid. Some shot at aggressors.

 !!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!

  !!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!

Even some of the death cultists wondered, Is it necessary to kill toddler super-geniuses?

 The babies can’t possibly pose any threat, can they?

  They are useless.

   Why should We kill the unripe ones?

Baby super-geniuses are future assets, the Death Architect informed her constituents. We ought not give the enemies any chance of stealing valuable (minds) resources for future use. Kill them.

Her cultists trusted her and believed her.

Seismic waves lashed the already-chaotic Megacosm. Everyone sensed a garrote choke off the breath of one toddler.

 !!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!!!

A blast destroyed another.

 !!!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the last one, the youngest baby.

 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * ( ) * !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Climbing Storm wrapped her twig-thin arms around herself and buried her forehead in Nuzzy’s fur. She couldn’t stop herself from weeping. She felt every death almost as if it was her own.

Yet she clung to the Megacosm, searching for any sign of stability, any glimpse of normalcy. Most of all, she scanned for any sign of salvation.

It was all coming apart.

It fractured into insanity.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………