Join Me if you want happiness. Join Me if you are afraid. I accept you as you are; the Majority never will. Come to Me.

  - Thomas the Conqueror broadcasting to anyone orbiting his mind

  Cherise sat curled up in a stone window seat, gazing at the rain-sodden city.

  Few hovervehicles or electric lights graced this neighborhood. At night, the maze of alleyways looked a lot like the Alashani underground, each storefront dotted by the glow of a gas lamp. Hand-painted signs marked the doorways of a toy shop, a jeweler, a tea café.

  Except the streets were mud instead of stone.

  The air smelled fecund, like New Hampshire in early summer. Alien frogs chirruped in eerie, overlapping songs from gardens and gutters.

  “All this water.” Flen joined her by the window. He spoke in the slave tongue, since that was the language they had in common. Cherise had not learned the shani language, and Flen had no time to learn English.

  He inhaled the night air with a look of wonder. “It’s potable?”

  “It is,” Cherise confirmed.

  Flen held out his palms to catch rain. “It just pours and pours from that ...” He gazed upward. “Sky?”

  His people had no native words for the sky, or weather, or anything related to oceans, or a lot of things. They were too proud to admit ignorance, but they were beginning to infuse slave words into the shani language.

  “Yes.” Cherise had overheard some albinos attribute rain to the Lady of Sorrow lamenting their lost loved ones, ignorant of the fact that Evenjos had actually wrought the destruction of their homeworld. “It is called rain in my language, and it is as natural as stalactites.”

  “This rain situation happened in paradise?” Flen was incredulous.

  Cherise giggled, although she wished Flen would come to one of her classes, just once. His conceptualization of Earth was so wrong it bordered on comical.

  “Our houses had better protection than this,” she explained. There were no glass manufacturers on this planet, and she didn’t want to get into a debate about the merits of human versus Torth technology.

  A pathetic coughing sound came from the courtyard below.

  Four zombified Torth stood down there. As far as Cherise could tell, sentry duty was the only thing they did. She had never seen them take a break. When she had asked Flen whether they ever slept or used a bathroom, he had scoffed. “What are they, infants? We should not have to care for them like they are invalids.”

  Cherise had almost argued.

  But she and Flen were arguing too much, lately. Anyway, Flen was not responsible for the zombified minions. Their deplorable state was not his fault.

  And he had good, valid reasons for wanting to hurt Torth.

  “Have you heard any news about my mother and sister?” Flen sat on the stone ledge beside Cherise, his black armor creaking.

  Dozens of albinos were being rescued from slavers. Apparently, Thomas had teamed up with Garrett to locate and rescue the missing family members of Alashani Yeresunsa. Orla had been reunited with her siblings. Shevrael had regained his elderly parents, and more.

  Everyone heard their celebrations. Happy albinos praised the rekvehs as heroes.

  Flen pretended to be glad for his fellow warriors, but his smile dropped as soon as he was alone with Cherise. He begged for his mother in his sleep. Whenever he woke up weeping, Cherise would hold him, letting him cling to her, wishing she had a power to work miracles.

  Or to make Thomas work yet another miracle.

  “I heard news,” she admitted, “but it’s not good.”

  Flen gazed into her eyes. “Tell me.”

  Cherise hesitated, but this was too important to hold back. “According to Vy, every shani who could have been rescued has been rescued.” Cherise saw Flen’s devastation, and quickly added, “That doesn’t mean they’re dead. But they’ve been shipped to one of the enemy supergeniuses, the one known as the Death Architect. Her lair is hidden from the Torth Megacosm, so not even our mind readers can learn the location.”

  “Our mind readers.” Flen’s tone was dark with sarcasm. “You mean the rekvehs that rule us?”

  Cherise did not try to persuade her boyfriend that Thomas and Garrett were freedom fighters. She had no desire to retread the ground of past arguments.

  But really. How many times did Thomas need to win battles and save cities to prove that he was on the side of the good guys? She had plenty of concerns about her ex-best friend, but his loyalties were obvious, even to her.

  “So that’s it?” Flen asked. “They’ve given up on rescuing my mother and sister? They’re going to let them die?”

  “They haven’t given up,” Cherise said defensively, tripping over her own resolve to avoid an argument. “I’m sure they’re still searching. But you must understand, they’d have to search the whole galaxy.”

  “Lies,” Flen said bitterly.

  “No!” Cherise said. “I heard this from Vy, and she asked Thomas directly.”

  “Your sister is a pawn of the rekveh,” Flen said in a tone of suffering tolerance. “She’ll say whatever words he puts in her mouth.”

  Cherise tried to remind herself that Flen was hurting, in mourning for his family. She took a bracing breath. She needed to just let Flen’s bitterness wash over her, like the sound of rain. It shouldn’t affect her.

  But it did stir up her own self-doubts.

  What did Flen truly see in Cherise, if he believed her human family members were all a bunch of gullible fools? He claimed to love her. He said that he was infatuated with her angelic beauty. Clearly, he had no problems making love to a human from paradise. And when they were in bed together? He was good at making Cherise feel like a goddess.

  But apart from their bedroom activities, he acted just like all the other superstitious albinos.

  Alashani mothers dragged their children across a street in order to avoid Cherise. Every time that happened, Cherise would painstakingly reassure them. “I’m not a mind reader.” She had said that once—only to realize it sounded like she was reading their minds. “I am a human and I teach classes at the academy. Please come, and I will teach you about a world without Torth or mind readers.”

  Flen claimed to love her, yet even so … it was as if part of him, deep down, believed that he was dating a weirdly friendly penitent Torth.

  Not that he would admit that out loud. The one time Cherise had brought up her suspicion, Flen had furiously defended himself. That had been their worst fight ever. They had been screaming at each other, tears streaming down their faces.

  “Do you think I’m nothing but a pawn of the…” Cherise trailed off, interrupted by choking, wheezing sounds from the courtyard.

  One of the zombified Torth down there had fallen.

  It looked like a female, clad in a bodysuit, now curled on her side in the mud and apparently choking. She looked and sounded exactly like a suffering human.

  Cherise raced for the doorway, inwardly cursing her own misguided sympathies. It was a Torth. Not a human. Not a person.

  And yet.

  “Where are you going?” Flen seemed unaware of the distant, gasping sounds.

  “I’ll be right back,” Cherise called.

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  She barreled through a corridor of rough-hewn stone, then down a spiral ramp, wide enough for two or three nussians abreast. Everything Ariock built was cavernous. The war complex looked like a collection of squared-off mountains from the outside, much like the academy buildings.

  Cherise considered tapping her wristwatch to dial emergency medical services. But who would lift a finger to help a zombified Rosy Recruit or Servant of All?

  It would do no good, Cherise knew. Any medic would take one look and refuse to render aid. If she asked a medical team to rush out here, in the rain, through alleyways, perhaps appropriating a hovercart from someone who actually needed it … they would blame the human for a false alarm that wasted precious time and resources.

  That would likely pile on more nasty rumors about humans. Some people thought Cherise and Vy were secret mind readers, with secret hidden powers.

  Cherise splashed into the muddy courtyard. Three zombies remained standing, their faces gray, their lips swollen and discolored. The fourth lay unmoving.

  Cherise knelt by the fallen one.

  She had seen friends blown to bits or devoured alive. Even so, she recoiled from the fallen Torth. Her face was gruesome. No visible pupils or irises. The woman appeared to have choked to death on her own swollen tongue.

  Cherise checked the zombified woman’s neck for a pulse. Nothing.

  Then her wrist.

  The woman was dead.

  Cherise stood, her hair and woolens drenched with rain. It felt awkward to be sympathetic toward an empty shell of a person who used to think of herself a god. Servants of All tended to be merciless. The fallen zombie had probably murdered people for no reason other than her own sadistic whims, back when she’d had a working brain.

  Her fate here was probably karmic justice.

  Maybe that was what Thomas told himself when he twisted minds. Did he believe his victims no longer deserved enough freedom to make personal decisions? Did he think that robbing them of free will was somehow better than outright killing them?

  Executions would be more merciful.

  “Cherise?” Flen rushed into the rain, protected by his wide-brimmed hat and his lithe body armor. He wrapped her in a protective embrace. “What are you doing?”

  Cherise looked around for a pail, or anything that could be used to gather rainwater. “The zombified victims must be thirsty,” she explained. “And tired. Who’s in charge of them?”

  Flen let go of her.

  “How long have they been standing in the rain?” Cherise asked. “I’ve seen them here for days. Has anyone thought to command them to take breaks?”

  “The rekveh said they would be self-sufficient enough to survive,” Flen said.

  “They don’t have free will.” Cherise wondered if the zombies were even capable of sleep. “They still need commands for certain things.”

  “They’re more trouble than they’re worth,” Flen said with disgust.

  “If you want to use them,” Cherise said, “then they need basic necessities. They’re living people, not—” She hesitated, since the slave tongue lacked any word for robots. “Not vegetables,” she finished.

  Flen faced the remaining three zombies, exasperated. “Drink sky water!”

  The zombies tipped their heads back. Rain fell on their tongues, and they made swallowing sounds.

  “Isn’t that pathetic?” Flen put his armored hands on his hips. “I’ve heard of one that went blind because no one told it to blink. They relieve themselves like animals unless we order them not to. And we lose them because they keep taking orders too literally.”

  “That’s sad.” Cherise stared at the zombies as they struggled to drink rain.

  She used to be able to defy her ma in small ways. These zombified victims were worse off than that. One of them had just died of thirst in a downpour.

  “You are too kindhearted,” Flen told her. “The only person who wants these useless creatures around is your skinny little rekveh. He is secretly puppeteering everyone in power!”

  Cherise rolled her eyes. She had problems with Thomas—he had never apologized for torturing her—yet she doubted he was evil. He had saved her once.

  Well, maybe more than once.

  Anyhow, Thomas was a hybrid, like Garrett, not wholly a Torth. His unknown biological father—a victim of Torth rape, no doubt—must have graced him with some non-negligible amount of human compassion.

  Flen saw her unspoken defense of Thomas. He tightened his jaw, no doubt suppressing his own arguments.

  “I agree that what he is doing to the Torth prisoners is wrong,” Cherise admitted in a placating tone. “It’s sick. No one deserves to become…” She gestured at the zombified victims. “What they are.”

  “Oh, they deserve it,” Flen said.

  Cherise lowered her gaze, aware that Flen had powers. Sometimes he caused things to float when he got enraged.

  “This is the exact same sort of demon that enslaved my mother.” Flen pointed at one of the gaping zombies. “And my sister. This is the evil that murders everything good. This is the reason I don’t have a family anymore!”

  He drew back his leg, looking mighty in his compact armor. And he kicked the nearest zombified Torth.

  Hard.

  The helpless victim staggered. Yet she continued to gape at the sky, mindlessly catching rain on her tongue.

  “Stop,” Cherise said. “You’re beating up someone who’s already a victim.”

  “This is a monster.” Flen slammed his armored fist into the woman’s stomach, hard enough to make her fall, doubled over.

  “Stop, Flen!” Cherise wondered if he was aware that the victim he was beating up looked somewhat like his girlfriend. The zombified Torth had black hair and a skin tone that was similar to Cherise’s.

  “Kill yourself!” Flen yelled at the fallen victim. “Choke yourself, the way your evil slave collars choke slaves to death!”

  The victim obeyed, of course.

  Cherise could not imagine what thoughts, if any, went through the victim’s damaged mind. The command was stronger than whatever survival instincts her body had left. She wrapped her hands around her own throat and began to gag.

  “What is wrong with you?” Cherise screamed at Flen. Her rage surprised even herself. “They’re helpless! And they feel pain! You need to tell her to stop!” She shifted her attention to the victim. “Stop!”

  But Thomas had brainwashed this victim, like all of them, to only obey warriors. The zombie would not, and did not, obey Cherise.

  “They deserve suffering.” Flen spoke as if his words were more important than life. He ignored the woman dying at his feet with her own fingers digging into her throat.

  Cherise whirled and stalked away through the mud. Flen was not the only warrior who treated the zombified prisoners as if they were still capable of doing harm, but Cherise didn’t care. She would never approve of brutalizing a helpless person, no matter what sort of monster that person used to be.

  Maybe she should teach a class on why her culture had abandoned torture and excessively cruel punishments. A lot of people in Freedomland could use education about human rights.

  Flen never imagined that he was doing evil things. To him, the bad guys were always Torth and the good guys were always Alashani. There was no nuance.

  Yet he had the nerve to accuse Thomas of being callous and unfeeling. Was Flen really that much better?

  “Flen,” a female voice called from the echoey darkness of the foyer. “See that the remaining zombies get a rest break.”

  Jinishta stood in the archway, arms folded, her black civilian garb blending in with the shadows. She watched with a mild expression.

  “Is this how you take care of your war assets?” Cherise said coldly.

  “Vedlor was supposed to care for them tonight,” Jinishta explained. “He took the night off without bothering to ask anyone to cover for him. I just found out.” She called to Flen, “After they have something nourishing to eat and drink, direct them to dispose of the dead bodies.”

  How pragmatic.

  Justifications for abuse were easy. Cherise’s ma used to pretend to be the suffering mother of a spoiled brat. Ma would say anything to justify hitting or neglecting her own children.

  Cherise hurried past the premier of premiers. She had nothing to say except criticisms.

  “Cherise?” Jinishta called. “I know it is wrong.”

  Cherise stopped on the ramp upstairs. She had never heard a warrior sound ashamed.

  “This is not how I ever imagined battles against Torth,” Jinishta said. “I did not think we would use prisoners like this. It is dishonorable.”

  They regarded each other in the dim foyer.

  “Flen is angry,” Jinishta said. “He lost his family. And his world.”

  “I know,” Cherise said. “But brutality like that”—she pointed to the corpses—“is wrong.”

  Flen shepherded the surviving zombies toward a bench. They might live another day, maybe two, but there was no mercy in that.

  “Anger is all we have left.” Jinishta’s luminous eyes were anguished. “Cherise, I know Thomas is not the evil rekveh my people believe him to be. None of us would be here without his aid.”

  That was definitely an unpopular sentiment among Alashani. Cherise stared at Jinishta, wondering why she was confessing such a heretical opinion.

  Jinishta climbed the ramp, coming close enough to lower her voice. “We lose warriors in battles. There are fewer than eleven hundred of us left. And we are not replaceable.”

  Cherise knew how overworked the warriors were. Flen barely had enough time to get intimate between battles and fleeting hours of sleep. Although they had won every battle so far, anyone who understood the scope of the galaxy knew that this was only the beginning of a major war. There would be many bloody battles ahead.

  “We are being carved away to nothingness,” Jinishta said. “I fear that we have lost our future as well as our world.”

  Although she spoke with the poise of a warrior, fear underlaid her words. Fear was in her eyes.

  And Cherise understood. There were no Alashani in other cities. Most of the surviving Alashani lived here, in Freedomland. The albinos were a stark minority in contrast to ummins, nussians, govki, and even some of the more exotic sapients.

  They had not been a large population to begin with. Extinction was on their minds.

  “I am afraid the zombified prisoners give us our only chance for survival,” Jinishta said, her shoulders bowed in shame. “We need them. We need even more of them.”

  Cherise felt sick, imagining armies of shambling, brain-damaged victims.

  “I don’t like what they are,” Jinishta admitted. “I am ashamed to use them. But we are learning to take better care of them. We can make them last longer.”

  This was a matter of survival for the Alashani. Cherise could not fault Jinishta for grasping at straws, but she still wondered if there was any alternative. Was this truly the best path to winning the war Thomas could think of?

  “If Thomas would speed up the production of them,” Jinishta said, “then the Alashani have a chance of survival.”

  And warriors such as Flen would not have to die in battle.

  “But Thomas refuses to zombify more than ten prisoners per day.” Jinishta’s tone became bitter. “He keeps making excuses. My people are not his top priority.”

  Cherise hated herself for thinking that Thomas might be right.

  She loved the Alashani, at least a little bit. She liked Flen when he wasn’t ranting or kicking zombies. But … well, she supposed the stakes of this war were higher for slaves and for Alashani than for humans.

  So far.

  “Would you please ask Thomas to zombify more prisoners for us?” Jinishta asked.

  Cherise stared at the premier of premiers. Jinishta ought to ask for the opposite.

  Someone powerful should beg Thomas to quit making zombies. Didn’t Kessa see how wrong it was? What about Ariock? Why wasn’t he putting a stop to it? Or Vy?

  Was Cherise truly the only one who thought Thomas should be stopped?

  “Or,” Jinishta said, seeing her unspoken protests, “could you ask Vy to ask him? Please?”

  Begging was not in Jinishta’s nature. This was serious.

  “You can help the Alashani survive.” Jinishta gently squeezed Cherise’s arm. “Just as we are trying to help your people, and all the enslaved people in the galaxy.”

  Jinishta walked into the rain-drenched courtyard, leaving Cherise to wonder if suffering was the only way to right the wrongs of the universe.