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."Youtalked about law and order.For seven years, we've been just about the onlygroup that has tried to maintain a degree of decency for all humans in Gaea"-and here he glared at Trini, who glared back."We have been and remain willingto protect even those who don't belong to our organization, subject only tothe availability of manpower and weapons.I won't claim we've made the streetssafe.But our aim has been decency."Cirocco looked from one to the other.Oddly, both of them had summed up theirrespective positions in two minutes.It was likely that neither of themremembered they had been arguing and embellishing for ten hours without sayinga hell of a lot more than they had just said.At any rate, they shut up for a moment, and looked anxiously at Cirocco."I like you both," Cirocco said, quietly."It would bother me a lot to haveeither of you killed."Neither of them flinched, but their eyes looked a little hollow."Stuart, you and I both know my weapons policy couldn't last long.Ihave been given one very large break, and I intend to use it for all it'sworth.To control all the ammunition in Bellinzona.There are plenty of gunsaround.I intend to round them up, with house-to-house searches, if necessary.Making useful guns is beyond Bellinzona's industrial capacity, and will be forquite a while.But you can and will make knives, more swords, and bows andarrows and blackjacks.and so forth."I'm going to use this short time when everybody is disarmed to.to give thepeople a chance to breathe freely.There's going to be a lot of killing in thenext few days, but it's going to be Titanides killing humans.If a human kills another human, execution will be swift and public.I wantpeople to see that.My goal here is to get a social compact going, and I'mstarting practically from zero.My advantages are superior force, and theknowledge that most of these people came from lawful societies before the war.They'll soon remember the ways of getting along.""You're trying to make a paradise, is that it?" Stuart sneered."By no means.I have few illusions about what's going to happen here.It willbe brutal and unfair.But it's already better than it was twenty revs ago.""I felt safe twenty revs ago," Trini said."That's because you lived in a walled camp.I don't blame you; I'd have donethe same thing, in your positions.But I have to tear down the walls.AndI can't have a lot of sword-toting Vigilantes swaggering around until I knowmore about them." She turned to Trini."I have a couple things to offer you.After the disarmament, I'm going to havea period of time-possibly as long as a myriarev-during which only the policewill be allowed to carry swords and clubs.And only women will be allowed tocarry knives.""That's not fair!" Stuart shouted."You're damn right it's not fair," Cirocco went on."It also isn't fair thatmost of the women who arrived here after the war were knocked out and draggedaway by some large hairy item and sold at public auction."Trini was looking interested, but still dubious."Some women will die," Trini pointed out."Most of them don't know how tohandle a knife.""Some women died yesterday because they didn't have one," Cirocco replied.She was still looking dubious.Cirocco turned to Stuart."As for your Vigilantes.we are going to be needing human police after thisinitial period.I intend to give preference to the Vigilantes.""Armed with sticks?" he asked.Page 158 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"Don't underestimate the billy club.""So my people will be going up to guys and searching them, right? What happenswhen the guy pulls a knife?""It depends on how good your man is.He may very well die."She let them think it over again.It was a great temptation to come right outand say it: you don't have any choice.But they knew that.It would be betterif they found a way to like it, or at least part of it."So there will be laws, and courts?" Stuart asked."Not just yet.I've already sketched out laws about slavery and killing.For now, they'll be enforced at the scene of the crime with Titanides actingas judges.Pretty soon we'll elaborate the laws and go through the formalityof arrest and some sort of trial.""I'd feel better with some laws and courts right now," Trini said.Cirocco just looked at her.She did not mention that there was an even morebrutal alternative which she had considered for some time-and had not totallyruled out even yet.She called it the Conal Solution.The Titanides could makejudgment calls that Cirocco trusted utterly.If they said this or that humanought to be killed, she knew they were right.There was no denying it wouldmake things quicker and easier.She didn't even know if it was wrong.Cirocco believed in good and evil, butright and wrong were something else entirely.Trini craved the sanction of lawbecause that's what she had grown up with.Cirocco had, too, and believed itwas ultimately necessary if humans were to live together.But she didn'tworship it.She had no doubt that a Titanide's innate knack of smelling outevil in humans was better than the judgment of, for instance, a jury of twelvehumans
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