In the weeks that had passed since his arrival, Raul could not believe how people could so easily fall in with the oppressor, become his willing and cruel servants.  The native overlords among The Ashura had been almost as cruel as The Krackens!  Virtually all of them deserved the sentence of death.  Some of them, even their wives and older children had taken part in the cruelty.  And Raul and his coworkers had sadly found that even some of them deserved execution.  The process was nerely done. Raul had called one overlord to him, however, for personal interrogation because he had received hundreds of requests that the man and his family be given clemency.  The man was brought in, sat before him, and the guards left.  "Tow Doc," Raul began, "is that how your name is said?" 
     "Yes," the Ashuran answered.  "You pronounce it quite well, sir. 
      "Well, Tow," Raul continued, "can you make an explanation of yourself?  The people in your district think very highly of you!  They beg for your life.  They say you did much good.  How did you do that good?" 
     "I was an appointee," the man answered.  "I didn't want the job, but The Kracken said take it and do it well, or we'll execute you and your entire family.  I couldn't say no.  They'd have only picked somebody else.  But as soon as I could I got together with the doctors.  I didn't draw lots for the gatherings, like the other district leaders did.  As much as I could I chose the sickly children, the ones that weren't too bright, the ones that would be having a hard time anyway.  This was forbidden.  The Krackens wanted only sound stock.  If they'd found out they'd have killed us all.  We secretly managed to grow more provisions not accounted for in stores, and distributed them to those that really needed them.  Again if we had been found out we would have been put to death.  We were aware of the rebellion.  Though we were not a part of it ourselves, our people didn't trust us.  We concealed it from The Krackens, and when the rising came we did what we could to secure our sector.   I do not worry about myself, sir.  If I am put to death it does not matter.  But I seek the safety of my wife and children."
     Raul stared at the man for several moments, and then found his voice.  "As everything you have said," he began, "is verified in these documents, that caused me to have you brought here, I think execution should not be a possibility.  But I think you and your family better come and live in our colony.  We will find some work for you and when your children are older they can return to their own people in a different sector, where they are not known.  Perhaps we will even change their names.  As far as anybody would know they're just the children of workers who have been living with us until we get enough people to maintain everything we need to maintain.  Would there be any objections to that?"
     The man before him trembled. 
     "No, sir!  No!"  he answered.  "I would be honored to work for your people!  I am sure I could make myself very useful.  Perhaps, in time, the nightmares will stop, and I can sleep without hearing the cries of children being dragged away from their mothers.""We have very good healers," Raul put in, "that are very good at helping with things like that.  I will see that one is assigned to you, immediately!  Is it true they made the mothers undress the children and deliver them to the pick up crews naked?"
     The Ashuran bowed his head.  "Yes, sir," he answered.  "They didn't want to have to bother to remove their clothes while they were processing them.  They just threw them through trap doors in the trucks.  I cannot describe the horror.  Thank The Great Mother they didn't kill them 'til they got to the processing plants!  But people on the streets could hear the children screaming and crying in the trucks as they drove passed.  The mobs that attacked the processing plants left no one alive.  They killed every Kracken they found in them, even if they were just common laborers."
     Raul sighed.  "Little wonder!"  he moaned, "Little wonder. 
     Raul summoned the guard and had the man taken out.  There were others that were shown mercy for similar acts of silent courage.  But as far as he was concerned far, far, too many collaborators...far too much.  He went to work establishing a colony.  It was soon thriving.  They decided to call it Maputo, and it soon became one of the leading colonies in the sector.  Everyone praised its original leader for many, many years to come. 

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