"And yet all too happy to give you your liberty with only a simple request. —Not to diminish my part in this, of course."

He worked very hard to get you out of that hideous cell, General. Asking nicely for anything is well outside his wheelhouse, you know.

Though the point stands: what rhyme or reason has there been to any of this? Either Ambrose and his ilk are master manipulators, or whatever plan they have is piecemeal—scrambling to account for what among their harvest is simple detritus and who can be made to work and those that have proven poisonous. If Ralston had any intention to stay here, he might bother to be troubled by it all. After all, no one likes to be a passenfer in a carriage in the care of an uncertain driver.

Yet—

"In any case, it hardly matters. Our trip to the horizon confirmed what I already suspected. If you care to return home, we need only find a way to reach the Singularity in the flesh without—" A small turning gesture with his free hand. "Slipping into that other place."

There'd been no option but to when they'd first been yanked across that dividing line.