"Heard little bits-that's about all," Quince said. "Masters don't like that kind of news getting to slaves, so they sit on it as hard as they can."

Frederick Radcliff nodded. Back in his days on the Barford plantation-only last year, though they seemed as far away as China or Japan-he'd seen the same thing. Slaveholders weren't fools. And, like the army, they had lots of experience on their side. If slaves didn't hear news that had to do with them, they couldn't get all hot and bothered about it. And so slaveholders did their level best to keep their two-legged property in the dark.

"What it comes down to is, the Senate's working up toward saying these arrangements are the way things ought to be in Atlantis from here on out," Frederick told him. "Slaves'll be free-free as white men. They'll have the same rights-all of 'em. They'll get to own property. They'll get to vote. If somebody elects 'em, they'll get to go to statehouses or to the Senate. Their kids'll go to school, same as white boys."

"And you say the Senate's gonna do this?" Quince didn't call him a liar, not in so many words, but he might as well have. "How'd that happen?"

"On account of the slaves I led whipped the snot out of the Atlantean army the Senate sent out against us, that's how," Frederick said proudly.

Quince's eyes lit up. "And you killed all the fuckers? Nigger, you're my kind of man!"

Frederick Radcliff was far from sure he wanted to be Quince's kind of man. But he did want Quince to be his kind of man here. "No, we didn't," he replied. "The government never would've let us alone if we had. We took their guns and let them go and made terms with them. There won't be any slaves left in Atlantis after the Slug Hollow agreement goes through-if it does."

"But those God-damned asswipes in New Hastings won't let it happen, huh?" Quince said. "Sounds like them, by Jesus!"

"No, that's not what was going on," Frederick answered. "I think they would have passed it sooner or later. But then they got word of this uprising. They got to wondering if I could bring slaves along in the deal, or if folks'd just keep on fighting."

"Can you blame us for rising up against these fucking dons?" Quince said. "And the shitheads who came down after Atlantis bought Gernika are just as bad." He paused, then shook his head. "Nah, they're even worse, on account of they don't know when to quit and the Spaniards do. Well, sometimes."

"How can I blame you for rising up when I rose up, too?" Frederick said. "But there's a good time to do that stuff, and there's a time that ain't so good. You could've picked a better one."

"Huh." If Quince was impressed, he didn't show it. "And what happens when we put down our guns? White devils jump on us with both feet, that's what." He answered his own question before Frederick could.

But Frederick said, "No, that's not how it'll work. You put down your guns now, it'll be like it was a war, and nobody'll come after you later on."

"Give me a new story, why don't you?-one I'll believe." Scorn filled Quince's voice.

"If the government in New Hastings has to, it'll send in soldiers to keep white folks off your back," Frederick insisted.

"Go on! You're tryin' to fool me," Quince said.

"No such thing. Honest to God, Quince, I mean it." Frederick raised his right hand, as if taking an oath. "But you got to do it pretty quick. If you don't, if the important white folks back in New Hastings decide I can't deliver the goods-"

"I got you." The copperskin stabbed a forefinger in his direction. "You want to be a big fella himself, and you want to get big on account of us."

"I'm already a big fella," Frederick said. "What I want is for slaves to get free. That's the size of it. You keep doing what you're doing, you could mess that up for niggers and mudfaces all over Atlantis."

"Says you."

"Yeah, says me," Frederick answered. "And the reason I say so is, it's true. You go on killing people and burning stuff, they'll send lots of soldiers after you, and I won't be able to do anything about it."

"So we'll lick 'em. You say you did." Quince seemed stubborn enough to make a proper leader for a rebel band. He might have got on well with Lorenzo.

"We did. And maybe you will. But even if you do, you'll still be hurting all the other slaves in Atlantis," Frederick said.

"Why should we care? When did them other fuckers ever care about us?"

Before Frederick could answer, Lieutenant Braun unexpectedly broke in: "One of your poets in English wrote, 'No man an island is.' He was wise, in spite of an Englishman being. Whatever you do, to other folk it makes a difference. Whatever they do, to you it matters. Believe me, I would not be in this strange land a stranger if this were not so."

"Huh," Quince said. "I can't decide here on my own. I got to go back and talk with some other people, know what I mean?"

"Sure," Frederick said. "Do that, then."

"Strange. Even insurrectionists find it needful to invent again the committee," Braun said. "This may God's judgment upon us be."

"Huh," Quince repeated, not knowing what to make of that. Frederick Radcliff didn't know, either. Still scratching his head, the copperskin eased away from the people who'd entered his territory and slipped off into the woods.

"It could be that you him convinced," Lieutenant Braun said.

"Could be, yeah," Frederick said. "Could be you helped, too. Hope so." He shrugged. "Now we wait and see what happens next, that's all." For Jeremiah Stafford, waiting and seeing what happened next was the hardest part of having Frederick Radcliff go off to Gernika. If the Negro persuaded his fellow slaves to abandon their revolt, he would be a hero. If the slaves kept fighting, whites in the Senate would decide Frederick couldn't keep his own side in line-which would doom the Slug Hollow agreement. And if some angry white man down by St. Augustine shot Frederick, Negroes and copperskins in the rest of the country would explode-which would also doom the Slug Hollow agreement.

Dooming the Slug Hollow agreement would also doom Consul Stafford-politically, anyhow. Frederick Radcliff was liable to be doomed in the far more literal sense of the word. He'd understood that when he set out for Gernika, but he'd gone anyhow. That was admirable or stupid, depending on one's point of view. Stafford wanted to think the black man was nothing but the usual dumb nigger. He wanted to, but he couldn't. Whatever Frederick was, usual he wasn't.

And the two of them were bound together now, like those occasional sets of twins that seldom lived long. If Frederick failed, he pulled Stafford down with him. That was part of what went with signing the accord at Slug Hollow. For the life of him, though, Stafford still didn't see what else he could have done.

Some of his Senatorial colleagues from states south of the Stour understood why he'd done what he'd done. Not all of them were willing to admit it where a reporter-or even a waiter-might overhear them and quote them, but they would when they talked with him in private.

Others understood nothing and didn't care to be enlightened. A Senator from Gernika with the euphonious name of Storm Whitson thundered against "that interfering nigger" with every breath he took. And Storm Whitson had taken a lot of breaths. He was up past ninety. As a youth, he'd carried a musket against King George's redcoats. Later, he'd moved south to Gernika and made his fortune in indigo and rice-and in clever slave-dealing. Stafford wished he could blame Whitson's intemperance on senile decay. But, while the old man wore thick glasses and cupped a hand behind his ear to get the drift of what other Senators were saying, his mind was clear. He'd been thundering about Negroes and copperskins for as long as anyone could remember.

He stood up on the Senate floor now-leaning on a stick, yes, but despite that straighter than many younger men-and shouted, "These inferior breeds must remain under our thumb! God has ordained it, and we would go against His will if we were to change the way we have done things for so long!"