"Comic turn? Did you think I was joking? I am not glad to see you," Stafford said.

"Nor am I enamored of you, believe me. But we are in harness together, like it or not," Newton said. "And, one day soon, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, this army will start moving forward again."

"Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, indeed," Stafford muttered.

Newton pulled out a flask. "Here. Have a knock of this. It may improve your outlook. Something ought to."

"Maybe I'm glad to see you after all." Stafford swigged. Barrel-tree rum kicked him in the teeth and flamed down his throat. "By God, maybe I am!"

"Are you glad enough to answer a question for me?" Newton asked.

"I don't know. Let's see." Stafford almost drank again, but handed the flask back instead.

"Suppose the rebels decline pitched battles. Suppose they keep sniping and raiding and skirmishing, as they have been doing. Are you ready to post thousands of soldiers in little garrisons all through these parts for the next twenty or thirty years to try to hold down the countryside?"

"If that is what it takes, why not?" Stafford said. "The Terranovans do it on their frontiers, to keep the copperskins from sneaking in and detaching people's hair."

"It will cost us dear," Newton warned.

"What do you suppose not stopping the insurrectionists will cost us?" Stafford asked icily.

"Something," Newton said, which surprised Stafford-he hadn't expected the other Consul to admit even that much. Newton went on, "Change always costs something. But don't you see? We have to change either way. I fear trying to hold down slaves in southern Atlantis for the next generation will cost us our souls."

"I think we'd be fighting for them-and for our backbones," Stafford said.

"Maybe you're right, your Excellency. Maybe, but I wouldn't care to bet on it." Newton ducked back out into the rain, leaving Stafford alone, the taste of barrel-tree rum still on his lips.

Balthasar Sinapis pointed up into the sky. "Do you see that small, bright, yellow ball there?"

Squinting, Consul Newton nodded. "I do, Colonel. What of it?"

"If I remember rightly, in the old country we used to call that 'the sun.' "

The craggy colonel did have a sense of humor. Leland Newton wouldn't have bet a cent on it. Smiling to show he appreciated the joke, he said, "How long do you think the roads will take to dry out enough to let us travel on them?"

"They probably should be good enough for us to use just before it starts raining again," Sinapis answered. Newton started to smile again. Then he realized the colonel wasn't joking this time-merely expressing his faith in the innate perversity of nature. Since Newton had seen plenty of that perversity himself, he decided he couldn't very well disagree.

All around them, the encampment steamed. That hot sun drew vapor up from the drenched canvas of the tents. The grass and weeds and ferns on which those tents were pitched steamed. So did horses' backs. And so did soldiers' clothes. Every time Newton inhaled, he felt as if he were breathing soup.

As if picking that thought from his mind, Colonel Sinapis remarked, "No one would say the state of New Marseille has a Mediterranean climate."

"Avalon, farther north, is said to be quite pleasant the year around," Newton replied.

Sinapis only sniffed. "It would not be the same. Are you familiar with the notion of dry heat, your Excellency?"

"Only by reading of it." Leland Newton spread his hands. "Atlantis is surrounded by the sea, after all. And I believe it is a positive good that she is. Her position has gone far toward making her rich."

"No doubt," Sinapis said. "It has also gone far toward giving every citizen of this country rheumatism and lumbago. Or do your bones not creak when you get up of a morning? Till I came here, mine never did."

He was talking about New Hastings, where he'd spent the bulk of his Atlantean military career. The capital had a good climate-or Consul Newton had always found it so. It was certainly a better climate than chilly Croydon's. But Sinapis had different standards of comparison.

The colonel stuck a stogie in the corner of his mouth. Then he tried to strike a lucifer on the sole of his boot. The boot sole was wet, and the match wouldn't catch. Muttering an unpleasantry that wasn't in English, Sinapis pulled a small piece of shagreen from a tunic pocket. He scraped the lucifer against that. The rough sharkskin gave enough friction to touch off the match. Sinapis lit his cigar and puffed out pungent smoke to flavor the prevailing steam.

"You are ready for anything," Newton said as the colonel put the shagreen back in his pocket.

"I try to be," Sinapis answered. "If I may speak frankly, though, your Excellency, I was not ready for a war intended to be waged along political lines. I do not see how any army or any officer could be ready for such a thing."

"All wars are political, wouldn't you say?" Newton parried.

"In their goals, yes," Colonel Sinapis said. "A clever modern German called war the extension of politics by other means. I agree with this. Anyone who thinks about it is bound to agree, I believe. But when political affairs interfere with the way the war is fought, it becomes less likely to have a happy result. I believe anyone who thinks about it is also bound to agree with this."

Newton didn't need to think much about it to decide it seemed quite likely. All the same, he said, "When the war touches slavery in the USA, political affairs are bound to interfere. Half the country takes the institution for granted, while the other half hates it. We should count ourselves lucky not to have flown at one another's throats."

"Do you expect this fight to solve your problems for you?" Sinapis didn't sound as if he thought any fight could solve any problem.

"I hope so. Expect may be too strong a word." Newton remained an optimist.

"Oh, well." By the way Sinapis sounded, he didn't. What had he seen, what had he done, in Europe to leave his attitude so curdled? Consul Newton realized he didn't know the details of the colonel's career before Sinapis got to Atlantis. He hadn't cared enough to find out. That might have been a mistake. But asking now would seem awkward, so he didn't.

In his own way, Consul Stafford was an optimist, too. Most Atlanteans-most white Atlanteans, anyhow-were. What were the United States of Atlantis if not a place where a man could build on his hopes? But Stafford's hopes were different from Newton's. The sun's return prompted only one thought in him. "Now we can go after the insurrectionists and finish them off!" he declared.

Maybe the sun's return prompted some thoughts among Frederick Radcliff's Negroes and copperskins, too. They weren't an army, or weren't exactly an army. They could, and did, move around by ones and twos and small bands, where Colonel Sinapis' men wouldn't have felt happy or safe doing any such thing. And they popped up here and there and started sniping at the Atlantean soldiers.

One bullet snarled through the air between Newton and Stafford. Both Consuls automatically ducked. They exchanged sheepish looks. Almost everybody ducked. It didn't mean a thing.

"We ought to hang every black bastard we catch sneaking around with a musket!" Stafford said after he straightened up.

"That will really make the rebels want to give up," Newton observed.

"I don't care whether they want to give up or not," Stafford said. "I want them dead. I want the ones who are left alive to be afraid to lift their hands against their masters for the rest of their days. I want the United States of Atlantis to be safe for decent, God-fearing white people again."

"You want things to go back to the way they were before the uprising started," Newton said.