Spratly's face swiftly darkened from ash-white to angry red. He raised one arm, pointing at Jaime. "Arrest that traitor!"
There was a sharp snick of movement, and Jaime held a Mark XIV power pistol, one of the weapons found aboard the Bolo. At his back, the detachment of uniformed troops snapped to the ready with captured power guns and stunsticks.
"I don't think so, General," Jaime said easily. "What I did this afternoon was in self-defense, after you threatened to turn me over to the cluckers. As for the gun, well... I needed it."
"Mutiny!"
The crowd parted again as Jaime moved forward, leaving Alita and the guards by the door. He reached the center of the circle and stood beside Spratly, an imposing figure in blue and silver. He kept tne power gun in his hand, though he kept the muzzle directed
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at the barracks' ceiling. The sheer, power-charged presence of the man, amplified by the first clean uniform any of them had seen in a year, held them all more captive than any mere weapon.
"I'm not going to apologize for any of what I did," Jaime said, but now he was speaking louder, pitching his voice to carry to every man and woman in the expectantly silent room. "I had a chance to end our slavery to the alien machines. I took it. If I hadn't... well, I leave it to each of you to decide how much longer we would have lasted, working the pit, grubbing in the mud, and providing those damned scavengers with biological spare parts.
"And at this point, I don't think any of us would care to walk back to the cluckers, apologize, and ask them to take us in again."
"Maybe you should do just that!" one anonymous voice called out from the crowd "We had it okay before you stirred up the Bolo!"
"Says you!" another voice cried out, angry and shrill. "What are you, some land of turner scum? Th' major's right! This is our chance to walk out of here, and I'm takin* it!"
"Me too!"
"That's telh'n* 'em!"
"Who the hell is he to decide for us?"
Jaime held up both hands, waving the crowd to silence. "Quiet down! Quiet down, everybody! Look... if we'd kept on the way we were going, we, all of us, wouldn't have survived much longer. Think about it, people! If you're honest with yourselves, you'll know what I'm saying is true. Now ... except for the fact that you're free now, we're not making any decisions for you. The way I see it, you have three choices, and which one you decide on is entirely up to you.
"First choice. You can strike out on your own, try to lose yourself in the countryside. We thinkўthough
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it's not certainўwe think that the farms and smaller communities beyond the Chryse Peninsula are still relatively untouched by the machines. We know that Tolun merchants have been delivering food, and that food has to be coming from someplace. You can scatter, go to ground. The machines may track down some of you, but others will escape Or maybe the machines won't even bother.
"Second choice. You can stay here. Talk to the machines when they return. Maybe they'll be ... merciful. I don't recommend it, but you can decide the advantages, and the dangers, for yourselves.
"Third choice. You can come with us."
For a frozen moment, a stunned silence fell over the crowd. Then the murmuring began, growing louder.
"Where you goin', Major?" a woman called out from the darkness toward the rear of the crowd.
"Away from here. Obviously, I'm not about to discuss precise plans with people who might be picked up and questioned by the cluckers. But I do have a destination in mind, and my goal, ultimately, is to use the Bolo to help us get us off of this world altogether."
