“Whatever the reason, our masters were gone, and at first my people were lost and confused and frightened. But then we rejoiced. The universe was ours, you see. Some Axiom technology was mysterious to us, or couldn’t be operated by the Free, but many useful things were left behind. The Tanzer drives. The great power stations, like this star, with its collector-shell. We had resources, and long lives, and expertise. We could survive. We could thrive. We were free, for the first time. But we did not know what to do.” A sigh. “We had no history, you see. No culture. No conception of ourselves as anything but an enslaved people. There were many billions of us, scattered throughout the galaxy, once completely controlled, but suddenly released to make our own way. Is it any wonder that we took our ships and fled to all the distant corners of space? That we began to make up stories about ourselves, to reinvent ourselves in a million different ways, with a million different imaginary histories, all to obscure the shame and horror of our true origins? But a few of us were dedicated to remembering. The truth-tellers held on to the horrible memories and proofs of our reality. Apart from a few thousand truly isolated clans, everyone born in my species is visited by a member of my sect, and offered the opportunity to learn the truth: they are invited to visit the museum of subjugation, to see the data and consume the neural buds, and learn what we truly are. Once upon a time, more than half of our kind chose to find out the truth. Now, it is less than a quarter.”

“Maybe it’s good to move on,” Stephen said. “Since the Axiom are gone. Perhaps your people can emerge from that shadow.”