Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
“But why do you need chips to control people?” I asked. “I thought you were strong enough to do it just with the power of your mind.”
“I and others of the Higher Caste are,” Sir told me. “If I wished, I could have controlled you from the start, little one. But I didn’t want an unwilling pet—I wanted the chance to convince you to be mine.”
I felt a shiver go down my spine as I thought of all the Torvian workers, doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. To think that Sir could have done that to me—that he could simply have taken over my mind and used me like a puppet—was almost scarier than knowing he could use his Mental Powers to crumple me up like a piece of paper if he wanted to.
“Of course,” he went on, apparently not seeing my shiver. “When one is Mind-Controlling someone, it takes a good deal of concentration and power, which is where the chips come in.”
“Do they make it easier to control someone?” I asked, almost in a whisper.
Sir nodded shortly.
“They also allow those of the Lower Caste, with hardly any Mental Abilities, to control a great many creatures at once.”
“So that guy—that foreman—probably wouldn’t be able to control anybody if they didn’t have chips implanted?” I asked.
Sir nodded again.
“They were invented by one of Gra’multh’s scientists, of course—before I was born,” he said, biting off the words. “Up until then, we Korrigons had only conquered a few of the worlds in our galaxy—those closest to us. But after the invention of the chip and, shortly after that, the invention of the Folding Drive which allows us to move from one part of the universe to another instantaneously, the Great Conquest began. My people went to every corner of our galaxy, ravaging every world that had even the least bit of natural resources and taking any sentient creatures we found to use on our own world as free labor.”
“You mean as slaves,” I said flatly. This was beginning to sound like the conquests of the New World by the East India Company back in my own world’s past, I thought.
Sir nodded yet again.
“Slaves and pets,” he admitted and I heard shame in his voice. “Since I gained my seat and took the title of ‘Overlord,’ I have been striving to reverse the process, but without much success. As I said, the Nobles and the Higher Caste are making too much profit to want to quit subjugating the creatures who are mentally inferior to us.”
“Maybe that’s part of your problem,” I pointed out. “Thinking that you’re all superior just because you have these crazy Mental Powers. The idea that might makes right.”
Sir frowned down at me.
“I’m afraid you’re not going to shake the idea of Korrigon superiority any time soon, little one. The fact is that we are mentally superior, which makes it very difficult to see other creatures, even sentient ones, as our equals.”
“But—” I began, but Sir interrupted me.
“Behold—the throne room,” he said, pointing.
We were just rounding a corner and I looked to see what he was pointing at. What I saw made me gasp—there was an enormous, shining, golden mountain looming up ahead of us. Seriously, it was huge—hundreds if not thousands of feet high and the glare of the light off its golden sides was nearly blinding.
“Is the Sovereign up on top of that thing?” I asked, squinting to try and see the top—but as I said, the glare was blinding and I couldn’t make it out. I could see that it was shaped more like a pyramid than a mountain—though it was much larger even than the Great Pyramids in Egypt.
Sir shook his head.
“No, she is inside it. The entrance is much lower—down at street level. We’ll be there presently.”
“Oh, so she’s inside the mountain,” I murmured. “Okay, got it.”
“Her throne sits atop a golden dais of ten thousand steps,” Sir told me.
I looked at him, aghast.
“Are you expecting me to climb ten thousand steps today, Sir? Because I have to tell you, I don’t think I have that in me. Especially not after all the junk food I’ve been eating lately to gain my curves back!”
Sir frowned down at me, his full-black eyes narrowing.
“Junk food? You told me the foods you were synthesizing were what humans ate in order to maintain their caloric needs.”
“Oh, well, uh…they do,” I said, suddenly feeling caught out.
It was true I had been synthesizing a lot more cheeseburgers than salads for the past few weeks, but Sir had wanted me to gain weight. It wasn’t my fault that a glazed donut helped you gain more than a spinach smoothie, was it?
“Look, what I meant to say is, I would need to train a lot to climb that many steps,” I told him. “And I just don’t think I’m up to it.”