"Not even," the waiter answered, and went away.

One of the men said, "I don't care if that nigger says Alexan der the Great is his grandfather. Ain't gonna do him any good any which way."

"Well, it wouldn't," another one answered. "We could squash him like a katydid if the government didn't act like a honker with its head stuffed up its-"

"It doesn't matter, not in the long run," the raspy-voiced man broke in.

"Devil it doesn't!" said the fellow he'd interrupted. "Tell that to all the decent white folks who've had to run for their lives. Tell it to the ones who didn't get away, too. Some of those poor ladies… Jesus God!"

"Doesn't matter," Raspy Voice repeated. "Doesn't matter what the damnfool Consul from damnfool Croydon says, either, not a cent's worth."

The aforesaid damnfool Consul pricked up his ears. Leland Newton was of the opinion that his opinion mattered. If these fellows weren't, he wanted to know why.

And one of them obligingly spelled it out for him: "Army's going to get New Marseille what it needs to whip the slaves no matter what. If they don't have to talk about it, who's going to know the difference?"

Isn't that interesting? Newton thought. He felt like thumping himself in the head. The only reason he didn't was that it might have made the mouthy men at the next table notice him. But he knew he should have realized the southerners might try such a ploy. Since he was an uncommonly upright man himself, the idea of dealing from the bottom of the deck hadn't sprung into his mind right away. But he could see the possibility once someone else pointed it out to him.

The waiter brought the southern men their flapjack-turtle stew. The heavy smell of the spices-and of the turtle meat-reminded the Consul of his efforts to accommodate other southerners by eating as they ate. It hadn't worked; he knew that. He had tried, though. He didn't want to accommodate them any more. He wanted to hamper their every move.

And they wanted to hamper him, too. If they couldn't get their way through the legal channels the Atlantean government afforded them, they'd do it any way they could. Yes, he should have seen that that might-would-happen.

A barrister named Ezra Pilkington came up to his table. Pilkington was a Croydon man, too; they'd known each other since they went to Radcliffe College together. Tipping his hat, the lawyer said, "Eating by yourself, your Excellency? Mind if I join you?"

He ignored Newton's frantic but subdued shushing motions. They must have been too subdued to do any good. Resignedly, Newton glanced over to the next table. All the men sitting there were staring at him in dismay altogether unfeigned. How much had he heard? Too much; that was plain. Even more resignedly, the Consul said, "Not at all, Ezra. Sit right down."

"Don't mind if I do." Pilkington didn't notice anything amiss in Leland Newton's voice, either. Or, if he did, he had the skill to dissemble. Waving to draw the waiter's attention, he said, "What are the United States of Atlantis going to do about that damned slave insurrection?"

Now the men at the other table listened attentively to Consul Newton. He said as little as he could. Some of the things he was going to do, he couldn't do officially. But, if he was going to start bending the rules, he didn't aim to let anyone else know about it beforehand.

Meeting by night in a dive in one of New Hastings' dingier quarters, Jeremiah Stafford felt like a conspirator. And with reason: he was. He sat in a dark corner nursing a shot of popskull and waiting impatiently for his fellow plotter to show up. A woman as good as you paid her to be sidled up to him. She must have seen a lot in her time, and little of it good, but the look he gave her sent her reeling away.

"You could just say no!" she shrilled.

"No," he said. She glared, but she left him alone after that.

When Major Duncan appeared at last, Stafford had all he could do to keep from laughing. The Atlantean officer had swathed himself in a great black cape that covered everything from the eyes down. A broad-brimmed black hat covered everything from the eyes up. He looked like a woodcut in a lurid novel translated from the French.

A man larger than he was planted himself in his path. "What are you supposed to be?" the fellow demanded.

Duncan's voice came from behind the black cape as if from beyond the grave: "Get the hell out of my way, shitheel, or you'll find out."

The man let out a roar of rage and swung on him. A moment later, the fellow was on the floor. It happened so fast, Stafford couldn't see what the major did. Whatever it was, Duncan had proved himself a man of parts. For good measure, he kicked the bigger man behind the right ear to make sure he didn't get up for a while.

Then he looked around. "Anyone else?" he inquired.

Stafford wondered when the dive had last been so quiet. Into that silence, the ring of the silver tenth Sam Duncan tossed onto the bar seemed double sweet. Duncan took his barrel-tree rum and strolled back to the table where Stafford was sitting. Slowly, slowly, the tavern came back to life. People stepped over or around the man the major had decked. After several minutes, the fellow stirred and groaned, clutching the back of his head. He stayed flat. The dazed look in his eye said he didn't remember what had happened to him: only that he hadn't enjoyed it.

"That was nicely done," Stafford remarked.

"Thanks," Major Duncan said.

"All the same," the Consul continued, "why didn't you paint yourself blue and come in juggling flaming torches?"

"I didn't want anybody to know what I looked like." Duncan sounded aggrieved.

"But the idea is to make sure no one wonders about you," Stafford said. "They're not the same."

The Major looked almost comically astonished. He'd lowered the cloak to reveal his face-and to be able to drink. After pouring down his rum, the officer gave his attention back to Stafford. "Be damned," he said. "You're right. Fry me for an oil thrush if you're not. Have to remember that." He waved for a refill.

"Do," Stafford urged. "Cloak and dagger doesn't mean literally."

"I haven't got a dagger, by God," Duncan said. "I've got an eight-shooter in my belt, and a double-barreled derringer with a charge of shot in the bottom barrel, too. If that bastard gave me even a little trouble, I would have ventilated his spleen for him."

"You don't need to worry about that," Stafford said. The tavern tough still lay where he'd gone down. He'd barely wiggled; he wouldn't be getting up any time soon. Someone bent over him, perhaps to minister to him, perhaps to pick his pocket.

The barmaid brought the major a new shot of rum. She seemed to have to remind herself to linger long enough to get paid. Then she disappeared again.

Consul Stafford still had whiskey in his glass. He raised it. "Your health," he said, and they both drank. Then he asked, "What's gone wrong? Something must have, or you wouldn't have come to meet me" dressed like a damned fool. But the last handful of words Stafford kept to himself.

"Newton knows what we're up to." Duncan delivered the bad news as straightforwardly as he would have reported a reverse on the battlefield.

But Leland Newton, damn his black heart, wouldn't let the Atlantean army take the field against the colored insurrectionists. If he was going to try to snuff out covert aid to the southern states as well… "How did he find out?" Stafford asked.

"My best guess is, somebody blabbed." Duncan spoke in tones of resigned anger. "I have a notion who, too: some clerks from the Ministry of War. They all looked like they wanted to hide when people came around asking questions."

"Did they give straight answers?" Stafford asked. "That could be inconvenient." He was proud of himself. Duncan would have to go some to outdo his understatement.