Of all the annoyances committed by the vermin humans on Earth, Ajax considered sedition the most unforgivable.

The victim whimpered and wailed, struggling plaintively against his bonds as the bully Titan paced back and forth, his sleek legs clattering on the floor of the vast empty chamber. After catching the crew boss at his attempted treachery, Ajax had clamped a free-formed artificial hand around the man’s right bicep and dragged him away from his workers, screaming and stumbling.

The slaves had stopped their tasks, looking with horror and pity at their supervisor, now fallen to the wrath of Ajax. The cymek paraded with his terrified captive through the monument-shadowed streets and finally carried him into a hollow building. With squared-off facades and ornate stone-work, the structure was called the Hall of Justice.

That seemed infinitely appropriate to Ajax.

Like so many grand edifices of Earth’s central city grid, the Hall of Justice was merely a stage set designed to convey a sense of majesty and grandeur. Inside, the hall was an empty shell without facilities, only a floor of plazcrete.

Ajax and the traitor could be alone here for a lengthy private interrogation. The very idea of a revolt among the slaves amused him with its naïve absurdity, especially the possibility that a trustee would add his support to such nonsense.

With a thoughtrode impulse, he focused his myriad optic threads on the whimpering captive. The terrified man had soiled himself and sobbed pathetically, making more excuses than denials. No need to hurry. Best to play this out for his own enjoyment.

“You plotted to overthrow the rule of thinking machines.” Ajax kept his voice firm and deep. “Concocting tales of a widespread underground resistance, with the foolish aim of making slaves rise up and somehow gain a fairytale independence from Omnius.”

“It’s not true!” the man wailed. “I swear I didn’t know what I was doing. I was following instructions. I received messages—”

“You received messages commanding you to commit sedition, and did not report them to me?” Ajax’s ominous laugh made the poor fellow wet himself. “Instead, you surreptitiously passed the word among your work crews.”

The evidence of sedition was incontrovertible, and Ajax expected to be rewarded for dealing with the problem. Omnius was watching, after all. Perhaps, the cymek thought, if he ferreted out the core of this budding rebellion, he could claim a reward, even demand the opportunity to fight in a spectacular gladiatorial combat, as Barbarossa and Agamemnon had done.

“We must record this properly.” Ajax strode forward on flexible armored legs, swaying sets of exaggerated insectlike arms. He grabbed the captive’s left wrist and clamped down with a polymer-metal grasp. “Tell us your name.”

The trustee blubbered and pleaded, trying to flinch away. In a twinge of anger, Ajax clenched his powerful gripper and snipped off the sobbing captive’s hand at the wrist. The man screamed, and blood spurted, much of it raining onto the cymek’s front set of optic threads. Ajax cursed to himself. He had not meant to inflict so much pain before the human even had the chance to answer simple questions.

While the crew boss howled and thrashed, Ajax activated a hot blue flamer and scorched the end of the severed wrist, crisping the stump. “There, it’s cauterized.” Ajax waited for the man to show some hint of gratitude. “Now answer the question. What is your name?”

Shaping another menacing claw from his flowing metal limb-tip, Ajax grasped the man’s other hand. The crew boss wailed unrelentingly, but had the presence of mind to say, “Ohan. Ohan Freer! That’s my name. Please, don’t hurt me again.”

“A good start.” Ajax knew, though, that the hurting had just begun. He especially enjoyed this part of his job, when he could improvise pain and inflict it like a master designer.

Some of the other Titans considered Ajax a loose cannon. But if a leader couldn’t show a little domination over a vanquished people, what was the point of taking over the Old Empire in the first place? Even in their glory days, Ajax had never been interested, like Xerxes, in extravagant food and drink, or in a pampered lifestyle with toys and pleasures like his own spoiled mate, Hecate.

No, Ajax had joined the team for the sheer challenge of it. Early on, when Tlaloc had made plans with his fellow conspirators, seductive Juno had recruited Ajax to their cause. A tough and aggressive fighter, Ajax had provided the muscle the Titans needed— not just physical strength, but the mindset of a warrior, a relentless conqueror. Following the initial overthrow of the humans, he had done his best to maintain order, regardless of the cost in the blood of noncombatants.

The vermin invariably attempted one uprising or another, but Ajax easily extinguished these little brushfires. When the more organized Hrethgir Rebellions threatened the Titans, Ajax had responded with astonishing mayhem. He had gone to Walgis, the site of the rebellion’s initial sparks, and closed off the planet from space transportation. He’d made a point of leaving communications open so that the doomed populace could scream for help. That way, restless slaves on other Titan-controlled worlds could experience the punishment vicariously.

Then he set to work.

The essential job had taken years, but Ajax finally succeeded in exterminating every living human on Walgis— committing most of the murder with atomics, poison gas clouds, and customized diseases. To finish off the survivors, Ajax had installed his brain canister inside a monstrous and intimidating body and hunted the humans down like wild animals. Accompanied by squads of Barbarossa’s programmed robots, he had burned cities, smashed buildings, ferreted out any human presence. He killed every last one of the hrethgir, and enjoyed it immeasurably.

Truly, those had been the glory days of the Titans!

The violence, however justified, had troubled his mate Hecate, the weakest and most squeamish of the original twenty. Although she had joined Tlaloc’s rebellion to earn rewards for herself, she’d never understood the necessities of the job and had gradually wilted from it. After the Titans had sacrificed their human bodies in favor of an immortal existence as cymeks, Hecate had remained with Ajax, all the while trying unsuccessfully to change his personality. Despite their disagreements, Ajax had been fond of her, though his need for a lover had vanished with his physical form.

Appalled at Ajax’s bloodthirsty response to the Hrethgir Rebellions, Hecate had “resigned” her position among the Titans. She wanted nothing more to do with ruling humanity. Encased in a cymek body of her own design, a long-range space vessel, Hecate simply departed, leaving the remaining Titans to continue their death grip on humanity.

Ironically, Hecate had chosen the perfect time to leave. Not long after the obliteration of humans on Walgis, Xerxes’s fatal error had allowed the Omnius evermind to get loose. . . .

Now, inside the blood-spattered Hall of Justice, Ajax raised his intimidating body high. He powered up his systems so that neurelectric fire gleamed through his insectlike limbs.

The captive traitor screamed at the very thought of what was about to happen to him.

“Now, Ohan Freer,” Ajax said, “let me ask you certain other questions. I want you to pay close attention.”

BY COMMAND OF Omnius, the crew boss Iblis Ginjo brought his loyal slaves into the Golden Age Square. Ajax was about to pronounce sentence— execution, no doubt— upon a man he had taken captive, a crew boss from another labor gang, Ohan Freer.

Iblis had trained with the accused trustee in the special schools, but he had never seen his fellow crew boss do anything illegal. Ajax rarely needed much of an excuse, however. He himself had experienced the Titan’s displeasure more than once, but so far had managed to survive. He doubted his compatriot would fare as well today.

An ornate metal-worked column stood in the center of the square. A roaring orange flame gushed from the top of the pillar, like an ornamental smokestack. Fanciful facades of immense buildings, all empty, surrounded the plaza like prison walls around a central courtyard. Omnius’s sentinel robots looked powerful and portentous in formations along the sides of the square, ready to strike against any perceived infraction by the expendable human slaves.

Iblis guided his crew into the partitioned viewing areas, voicing a few words of reassurance, though not enough to upset the cymeks. Ajax loved showmanship, wanted to make certain every terrified eye witnessed his actions. When Iblis and the other crew bosses blew whistles to signal their readiness, Ajax emerged, carrying his maimed prisoner.

The Titan wore an antlike body with an impressive ellipsoidal core, heavy walking legs, and four grasping arms in which he held Ohan Freer. Hovering watcheyes captured images and fed a steady stream of data to the evermind.

Beneath the flaming pillar, Ajax clutched the squirming victim like a giant ant soldier with a hapless enemy beetle. Doomed Ohan had been burned, bloodied, and wounded; his left hand was only a charred stump. Blossoming bruises discolored his skin. A thin, watery wail leaked from his mouth.

A mutter of dismay came from the human onlookers. Watching them, Iblis knew these workers could not have been the source of the rebellion, despite the mysterious and provocative messages he had received. What if he was deluding himself and the secret call to freedom was simply a wishful suggestion voiced by another desperate person?

Lifting the unfortunate captive high, Ajax amplified his vocal synthesizers so that his words boomed like a projectile cannon around the enclosed square. “Some of you have heard this criminal speak. Some of you may have had the poor judgment to listen to his silly imaginings about freedom and rebellion. You would be wiser to cut off your ears than listen to such foolishness.”

The crowd held its collective breath. Iblis bit his lower lip, not wanting to watch, but fixated on the imminent horror. If he averted his gaze, the watcheyes might well detect it, and he would hear about it later. As a consequence, Iblis stared at every unfolding second.

“This poor, deluded man is no longer necessary to the continued glory of Omnius in the reign of the thinking machines.”

Ohan screamed, and struggled weakly. Ajax held the man’s intact arm in one roughly formed pincer claw and each leg in two others. With his last claw, Ajax wrapped a long, sharp embrace around Ohan’s chest, under his armpits.

“He is no longer a worker. He is no longer even hrethgir, one of the unruly humans who survive at our own sufferance. He is garbage.” Ajax paused. “And garbage is to be discarded.”

Then, without a sound or any sign of effort, Ajax pulled his artificial limbs in different directions, tearing the helpless Ohan asunder. The man’s arms and legs ripped free, his chest tore open and broken bones pierced skin. Blood and entrails spilled onto the clean flagstones of the Golden Age Square.

Ajax flung the bloody parts into the screaming crowd. “Enough of this nonsense! There is no rebellion. Now get back to work.”

The sickened workers seemed only too eager to race back to their tasks, looking to Iblis as they left, as if he could protect them. But Iblis still stared in disbelieving amazement. Ohan Freer had been a member of the rebellion! The crew boss had spread dissent, made plans, perhaps sent and received messages.

Another rebel!

Appalled, Iblis knew the danger to himself was even greater now, if he continued to act. Nonetheless, today’s execution had shown him one thing more clearly than ever: The brewing human rebellion was not just his imagination.

It is real!

If Ohan had been part of it, then there must be others, too— many of them. This underground network of fighters, which included Iblis, was safely separated into cells so that no one could betray the others. Now he understood.

He began to make plans with even greater conviction than before.