The Serendipitous Day arrived in Freedomland when it was warm and sunny.

He teleported into one of the city parks, a flowery crown atop one of the urban hills. He took a moment to surveil the greenery and the garden paths, as if sharing the scene with thousands of orbiters inside his head.

That was just old habit. No one else shared his thoughts. The Megacosm was shattered into a million shards.

The Serendipitous Day had considered joining one of the rogue minicosms, or founding his own. Should he join the death cultists? Should he captain his own splinter cult? Should he kneel and become a penitent?

After many days of weighing pros and cons, and sampling each option, he had finally chosen his fate. This strange new metropolis, Freedomland, had ironically become a seat of magnificent galactic power. This was the place to be.

The Serendipitous Day wore a woolen cloak over his skintight white armor, disguising his former status as a Servant of All. He had been careful to reprogram his eye color before leaving the battleship which he used to captain. Now, instead of blank white eyes, his eyes were (purple) the naked color.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his cloak and slouched, like a human or a shani. He made his way down a crowded boulevard.

Although he had never visited Freedomland in person before today, he could map its famous landmarks. The tropical mountains and the banded gas giant in the sky were familiar. He had vicariously experienced this city plenty of times, through fellow Servants of All, and through the eyes of penitent spies, before the Megacosm collapsed.

Slaves (no, not slaves; they are people) of various species filled the streets, strolling or shopping.

As the Serendipitous Day squeezed past crowds, he sensed that many of these people expected him to act a certain way. They wanted him to be servile (no, not servile; friendly).

It felt unnatural. It went against all of his instincts and lifelong training.

He nodded to slaves (people) who glanced at him. He broadened his cheeks in the human expression of a smile. It caused his face to ache. His facial muscles were unused to such treatment.

He wanted to spend a leisurely time exploring this enemy (no, not enemy) city before officially enslaving himself to the Conqueror. But pretending to be a penitent was more exhausting than he had anticipated. It felt like wearing a mask. Should he reply to that nussian who had greeted him in the slave tongue? Should he try to set that crying govki child at ease? What was he expected to do? Every minor interaction, even an exchange of glances, required social decisions that he felt unprepared to make.

He would undoubtedly feel more at ease among his own kind.

So he cut his leisurely exploration short, and went straight to the Mirror Barracks.

A pair of nussian sentries let him through the open gate. He entered a chrome lobby, its reflective walls a defense against any Rosy or Servant of All (like himself) who might wish to teleport inside and wreak havoc.

He searched for penitents, but all he saw were slave species. Nussians guarded every tunnel entrance. Unlike guards under Torth rules, these nussians squatted, at ease. They played games. None spoke, yet they seemed to communicate without words.

“Let me stop you.” A motherly nussian intercepted the Serendipitous Day. “I never forget a face. You’re new, aren’t you?”

The Serendipitous Day was unsure how to respond. Questions were unnecessary in mental exchanges. Should he agree that he was new? Wouldn’t that be an insult to her intelligence, to state a fact so obvious that she had already deduced it for herself?

He searched for someone who could read minds. He didn’t want to deal with an inquisitive nussian.

“What is your name?” the nussian asked.

At least that was an easy one to answer. “I am the Serendipitous Day.”

His name-title conferred great respect in the Megacosm. At least, it used to. Lesser ranks could not earn such fortunate sounding monikers.

The nussian gave him a bland look. “Is that the name you wish to be known as, as a penitent?”

The Serendipitous Day hesitated.

He knew, even without probing this nussian’s mind, that names were a signal that a former Torth was ready to move on and discard Torth societal values. Alashani warriors felt more comfortable fighting alongside “Zai” rather than the Shrewd Awareness.

Or Opal.

Or Bob.

“I am … uh…” the Serendipitous Day trailed off.

He had assumed the enemies (the freed slaves) would vote on a new name for him, the way Torth voted on name-titles. He had never imagined that he would be asked (allowed) to choose his own.

He wanted it to mean something, if it was actually going to belong to him.

It felt like too weighty a decision for one individual to make. Shouldn’t names be decided by committee?

“Think on it.” The nussian led him to a cabinet. “I assume you want to join us?”

“Yes,” the Serendipitous Day said. “I will fight for the Conqueror.”

“You will fight for Kessa,” the nussian said, correcting him. She handed him a package. “Here’s your mantle and cuffs.”

The Serendipitous Day knew, even before opening the package, what it contained. In all of the lands protected by the Conqueror, warriors with powers had to wear garments in public that marked them as Yeresunsa. For albinos, the garment was a purple mantle that draped over their shoulders. The penitent version was the same thing, except in black instead of purple. Penitent warriors also wore cuffs that wrapped around their forearms, like gauntlets. People could see at a glance that they were beholden to the so-called heroes.

It wasn’t so different from having white eyes.

The nussian sucked in her breath as the Serendipitous Day removed his traveling cloak. She knew what white armor meant. “Ah, you were a Servant of All?”

He nodded, donning the black gauntlets.

“We haven’t seen anyone new since yesterday,” the nussian said. “For a while, we were receiving hundreds every day.”

The Serendipitous Day wondered why this nussian wanted to chitchat with a former Servant of All. Did she imagine that she had anything in common with someone who used to own hundreds of slaves and bodyguards? Someone who used to command the governors of major metropolises? Someone who had been the admiral of a space fleet?

They had absolutely nothing in common.

Maybe she was an idiot.

Perhaps all former slaves had grandiose notions about themselves? How pathetic. Anyone with an iota of sense could figure out who was really in charge in this new empire of heroes, and it was not the nussians or the ummins.

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He would learn nothing from a mere minion. He looked beyond her, towards the nearest tunnel. Surely his fellow mind readers would coach him in how to behave here?

“Acknowledge my question, please.” The nussian’s demeanor lost some friendliness. She seemed to know what he had been thinking.

The Serendipitous Day looked at her. How could a stupid nussian possibly be so sure she knew what he’d been…?

!!!

He became aware that this nussian was actually hearing his thoughts.

The lobby was full of telepathy gas!

That explained why no one else was speaking out loud. These nussians were (so weird!) mind readers! He should have realized it right away. It was just so unexpected, so unnatural, and he had to navigate all kinds of culture shock. This was just…

The Serendipitous Day backed away, unsure if he could find the ends of the telepathy gas zone. The so-called gas was undetectable to natural mind readers like himself. It wasn’t even a gas. It was a dark energy matrix of some sort.

“No,” Sulmunaul said. “Stay.”

That was her name. He absorbed it. This intake clerk was not an empty-headed minion, but a lieutenant of Kessa’s. He should have guessed as much. How did the Conqueror ensure loyalty from his penitent troops? He had subordinates probe their minds. He had lieutenants do it.

It would be supremely stupid to offend a lieutenant who was probing his mind.

The Serendipitous Day halted. If he failed to pass this weird exam, then he might be rejected. Scary. Would they kill him? Or worse: zombify him?

“You don’t need to worry about negative consequences quite yet.” Sulmunaul emanated reassurance. “A lot of newcomers react the way you did. The process of becoming human is a long one. No one expects you to transform overnight.”

That was slightly reassuring.

“I do want you to answer a few questions, though,” Sulmunaul said gently. “You don’t have to say anything out loud. I don’t need you to fake being human. This is a stressful transition for you, and everyone here will understand that.”

He sensed her honesty. She was used to working with former Torth.

A tension left his shoulders and back. The Serendipitous Day had not even realized how afraid he had been. He never would have guessed that a few meager words—words!—from a former slave would set him at ease.

Her words worked like magic. It was even better than the effects of a tranquility mesh. How was that possible?

“Yes.” Sulmunaul acknowledged his amazement. “So, what brought you here?”

Telepathy gas put them on equal ground.

That equality was extremely weird to the Serendipitous Day. He was unused to gazing upwards into the broad orange face of a nussian, and considering her to be a person rather than a possession. He had been wrong to think of her as a minion. Someone—Kessa?—was trusting the judgment of this lieutenant. And the Conqueror was trusting Kessa’s judgement.

There was an unseen network of mutual trust and mutual respect going on here between former slaves and former Torth. That seemed unthinkable, but this nussian lieutenant was proof.

The Serendipitous Day swallowed. What had brought him here? That wasn’t the sort of question a Torth would ask. It was so imprecise, so generally broad. There were so many possible answers.

Sulmunaul mentally acknowledged that it was a broad question. Yet she was curious. She wanted his reasons.

The Serendipitous Day thought back to the Day of Collapse. When the Megacosm had fractured, his fellow Servants had vanished, either going rogue or joining the enemies. He had eyed the planet Earth.

It had been close. He could have used one of his armada’s small shuttles to get there in less than a day.

Once on Earth? He could have assumed a false human identity. Servants of All had been doing such things for millenniums. His features looked vaguely Asiatic. He could have gone to China, or to the United States, or to some smaller country, and taken a few weeks to absorb the local language. As a mind reader, he could easily determine who wanted what. Survival would be easy among the native primitives. He could thrive there.

Like a garbage-eater preening atop of a heap of trash.

He would have always been yearning for the stars. And for power. He had passed numerous tests and distinguished himself on many levels in order to become the admiral of a space armada. Was he going to just throw away all of his hard-won prestige?

Maybe the Torth Empire would recover.

Or maybe a smart faction would form out of the rubble and reassert galactic dominance.

He had waited for that. He had bided his time aboard his massive ship while his crew abandoned him. He had relaxed in his private suite, swinging in and out of various minicosms, seeking some champion, or some organization, that might be worth following.

But none were impressive.

Rogue cults tended to run out of ammunition and food supplies long before they could achieve whatever foolhardy goal they wanted to achieve. Most rogue Torth were actually starving right now, unable to scavenge enough food to meet basic minimum daily nutritional requirements.

Without knowledge, Torth were nothing.

All of their collective knowledge had been inside the Megacosm. That was gone. Without that, individual Torth were reduced to tribes, to polities, to bickering factions. That made them easy pickings for the newly armed and liberated slaves of the new empire, or the Protectorate, as people were calling it.

The only Torth faction which held any promise was the Death Architect and her cult of followers.

She was a ray of hope for many Torth. Her promises were as great and mighty as the Torth Empire used to be. She kept reassuring her occasional orbiters that the Torth Empire would win. In fact, she promised that any Torth who joined her would reap power beyond anything imaginable. She was preparing to strike a death blow to the enemies. Her cultists believed that they were destined to found a second Torth Empire. It was inevitable! The future Torth Empire would be even better than the first!

What tempting promises.

The Serendipitous Day had believed her for a short while. He had been prepared to fight and die at her behest, to help establish a better version of the Torth Empire. But…

??? Sulmunaul leaned forward, eager to catch his reasons for exiting the death cult.

It is not that I disbelieved the Death Architect, he admitted. She truly believes her own assurances. And I respect her intelligence. But … well, I observed her leadership style.

The Death Architect was sadistic. She sent her loyal cultists into enemy zones without the slightest regard for their safety. She never took their individual needs or wants into account.

And she never revealed so much as a hint of her secret schemes.

She claimed that secrecy was paramount, or else the Conqueror would win. Maybe that was true. But it engendered a situation where only one Torth in that cult had eyes and ears and a brain, and it was her. Everyone else were as blindly ignorant as slaves.

Rosy Ranks flew into battles for her, expecting to win liberated slave-held cities. Instead, they died by the thousands. Why? Just to seize control of a handful of obscure factories, and old scientific research facilities on worthless asteroids?

The Death Architect directed her cultists here and there without any explanation or apparent purpose. When her cultists got slaughtered by enemies, she reacted without remorse, without so much as an insincere note of regret. She deemed every command to be “necessary.” Why? No one knew. She had a grand plan. Her secrets would eventually lead to victory, and that was all anyone needed to know.

Her promises weren’t enough for Me, the Serendipitous Day silently confessed.

Besides, the Death Architect was sickly, not someone that a self-respecting Servant of All would ever consider obeying in civilized times.

That was when he’d begun to think that a life in exile on Earth wouldn’t be so bad. Except Earth was no longer a playground for sexually deviant Servants of All. The Conqueror had ties to that planet. He would rid it of all Torth.

Where else could a rogue Servant of All go?

The Serendipitous Day had never considered himself a kneeler. He had no wish to enslave himself to the enemies who had destroyed everything he valued. And yet…

He could not help but compare the secretive, reckless leadership exhibited by the Death Architect to the much looser and respectful leadership shown by the Conqueror.

Mind readers who fought for the Conqueror went into battle fully informed. They were told who to target and why. Penitent warriors were even allowed leeway to make their own choices in the heat of battle. If they chose to aid a fallen compatriot instead of killing a target, for instance, they could be lauded instead of punished.

Penitent warriors might live a poor lifestyle compared with their peers in the remnants of the Torth Empire. They owned no slaves.

Yet they seemed overall happier and more content with their lives.

The Serendipitous Day had wanted to understand why. How could anyone who felt shame and guilt—those doing penance—possibly be content with their own existences?

So he had studied them from afar. He had analyzed them.

And he had concluded that it had something to do with their wider array of options in life.

Between battles, penitent warriors did more than simply consume food while receiving a chorus of praise or judgment. They touched each other. They experienced music or poetry. They had enlightening conversations with aliens. They expressed creative or innovative impulses, regardless of what rank they used to be.

Nobody told them not to. In fact, their human impulses were encouraged.

That was interesting.

A week ago, the Serendipitous Day would have rejected the very idea of bowing and kneeling before the Conqueror’s minions. He would have shot Kessa if he’d had the opportunity. Yet now…?

He suspected that all of his vaunted Torth values might actually be flawed.

The very foundations of civilization had been flawed. The whole thing had broken, hadn’t it? The Megacosm had cracked and spilled trillions of citizens into the abyss of loneliness or into enemy territory.

It was time to try the other side.

“You’ve come to the right place.” Sulmunaul wrapped one big arm around his shoulders. She guided him towards a tunnel that led to penitent bunk rooms. “We’re glad to have you.”

The Serendipitous Day wanted to shake off her arm as too friendly, too slave-like. He wanted to ignore her words as irrelevancies.

Instead, he found that her silly pleasantries mattered to him, somehow. So did her friendly warmth.

None of it should matter. None of it should affect him at all. Yet it did.

It mattered a lot.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be here, to serve Kessa as a penitent warrior?

Maybe he would take a next step in his career, and become something more than a Servant of All.