"No. I'm taking over this building. I'm declaring a ten-hour amnesty. You're going to need every minute of it, so you'd better go now. All the rest of you, you're free to go as well. You have five minutes to take what you can carry."
For a moment they all seemed too bewildered to say anything. Maleski frowned, then laughed.
"The hell you say. This building is private property."
This time Cirocco laughed.
"Just what planet do you think you're living on, you idiot? Hornpipe, shoot this guy in the knee."
The gun had materialized in Hornpipe's hand when Cirocco said "shoot," and by the time she said "knee" the bullet was already coming out the other side of Maleski's leg.
As Maleski fell, and for a few seconds after he hit the floor, there was a flurry of noise and activity. None of the men who survived it were ever able to recount a sequence of events, except to note that a lot of men stepped forward and neat holes appeared perfectly centered in their foreheads and they fell down and did not move. The rest, some twenty men, stood very, very still, except for Maleski, who was howling and thrashing and ordering his men to kill the goddamn sons of bitches. But each Titanide held a gun in each hand, and most of the men were getting excellent views down the wide barrels. Finally Maleski stopped cursing and just lay there, breathing hard.
"Okay," he finally managed to croak. "Okay, you win. We'll get out." He rolled over heavily.
He was really quite good. The knife was concealed in his sleeve. He got it out as he rolled over, and his arm flicked it with the precision of long practice. It flashed in the air ... and Cirocco reached out and caught it. She just grabbed it, holding it with the point about six inches from her throat, where it was supposed to have been buried. Maleski stared as she flipped it up and got a new grip, and then it flashed again and he screamed as it buried itself up to the hilt in the torn flesh that had been his knee. A man standing to Maleski's left crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
"Rocky," Cirocco said, "tie a tourniquet around his thigh. Then throw him out. You men, drop your weapons where you stand and walk slowly away from them. All your weapons. Then strip. Carry one pair of trousers to the door and hand them to Valiha-the yellow Titanide. If she finds a weapon in them she will break your neck. Otherwise, you can put them on and leave. You have four minutes left."
It didn't even take one minute. They were all feverishly anxious to leave, and no one tried to cheat.
"Tell your friends what happened here," she called to them, as her own people started arriving.
There were humans and Titanides in her crew. The Titanides were all calm, well-versed in their jobs. Most of the humans were nervous, having been drafted only hours before. There were Free Females among them, and Vigilantes, and others from other communities.
A desk was set up, and Cirocco took her place behind it as the lights were being arranged. She was suffering some reaction, both from the fight and from what she had done to Maleski-and from the close call. She felt she could do that knife trick six times out of ten, but that wasn't nearly enough. She couldn't let it get that close again.
But most of her nervousness was stage fright. Apparently, it wasn't something one could outgrow. She had suffered from it since childhood.
Two men from the Vigilantes who had worked in mass communications before the War were setting up cables and a tripod and a small camera. The lights came blazing on, and Cirocco blinked. A microphone was set before her.
"All this stuff must be a century old," one of the technicians grumbled.
"Just make it work for an hour," Cirocco told him. He didn't seem to be listening, but was studying her face from several angles. He reached out tentatively toward her forehead, and she backed away, alarmed.
"You really should have something there," he said. "There's a bad glare."
"Have what there?"
"Make-up."
"Is that really necessary?"
"Ms. Jones, you said you wanted a media consultant. I'm just telling you how I'd do this if I were running the show."
Cirocco sighed, and nodded. One of the Titanides had some cream that the man seemed satisfied with. He smeared her face with the greasy stuff.
"Picture's pretty good," the other man announced. "I don't know how long this tube will last, though."
"Then we'd best get to it," said the director. He picked up the mike and spoke into it. "Citizens of Bellinzona," he said, and was drowned out by a high feedback whine. The other man adjusted some knobs, and the man spoke again. This time it was clear. Cirocco could hear the words echoing off the hills outside.
"Citizens of Bellinzona," the director said again. "We have an important announcement from Cirocco Jones, the new Mayor of Bellinzona."
A Free Female was at the window, looking up.
"The picture's there!" she shouted.
Cirocco cleared her throat nervously, fought an impulse to smile brightly that had to have come from her NASA press conference days, a million years ago, and spoke.
"Citizens of Bellinzona. My name is Cirocco Jones. Many of you have heard of me; I was one of the first humans in Gaea, and for a time I was designated by Gaea to be her Wizard. Twenty years ago, I was fired from that job.
"It is important that you understand that, while Gaea fired me, the Titanides never accepted it. Every one of them will follow my orders. I have never taken full advantage of this fact. I am doing so now, and the results will change all your lives.
"As of this moment, you are all, as I said, 'Citizens of Bellinzona'.You'll be wondering what that entails. Essentially, it means you'll all take my orders. I have plans for democracy later, but as of now, you'd better do what I tell you.
"There are now some thousands of Titanides in your city. Each of them has been briefed on the new rules. Think of them as police. To underestimate their strength or their quickness would be a bad mistake.
"Since you are going to be living by rules, I'll give you some now. More will follow, after we have this thing going.
"Murder is not going to be tolerated.
"Slavery is prohibited. All human beings now in a state of slavery are freed. All humans who believe they own other humans had better free them at once. This includes any practice which may, through custom, deprive any other human of liberty. If you're in doubt-if, for instance, you are muslim and believe you own your wife-you had better ask a Titanide. There is a ten-hour amnesty for this purpose.
"Human meat will no longer be sold. Any human consorting with an Iron Master will be shot on sight.
"There is no private property. You may continue to sleep where you have been sleeping, but do not think you own anything but the clothes you wear.
"There shall be no edged weapons allowed in human hands for at least four decarevs. Surrender those weapons to any Titanide during the amnesty. As quickly as possible, I shall be returning the police function to humans. In the meantime, possession of a sword or a knife is a capital offense. I recognize the hardship this will pose to you who use knives for other purposes, but, I emphasize, you will be shot dead if you keep your knives.
"I ... have little good to offer you in the short term. I believe that in the long term, most of you will appreciate what I am doing today. Only the exploiters, the slavers, the killers, will never regain their present positions. The rest of you will reap security and the benefits of an organized human society.
"I demand to see the following persons at the building known as the Loop within ten hours. Any who do not come will be shot in the eleventh hour."
Cirocco read a list of twenty-five names, compiled with Conal's help, of the most influential mafia, tong, and gang leaders.
When she had finished, she read the statement in French, and once more in her halting Russian. Then she relinquished her chair to a woman from the Free Females who read it in Chinese. There were a dozen other translators waiting, human and Titanide. Cirocco hoped to reach every new citizen of Bellinzona.