"We have another chance now to do what we came here for," Stafford did say at last.

"What do you think the chances are that this next battle will settle the insurrection once for all?" Newton asked.

"I don't know," the other Consul said, "but I do know they're better if we win than if we lose."

"Are they what a man might call betting odds?" Newton persisted.

"I don't know that, either." Stafford sounded as if he wanted to change the subject, or else drop the whole conversation. Which he did, for he went on, "I am going up to the front, to see what our brave soldiers and militiamen can do. You are welcome to accompany me, if you care to."

If you aren't yellow, he meant. Stung, Newton said, "There is not a place on this campaign where you have gone and I have not." If the other Consul tried to quarrel with that, Newton was ready to box his ears.

But Stafford said only, "Come on, then," and hurried off toward the sound of the firing. He drew his eight-shooter as he went.

Sighing, so did Newton. The idea of shooting insurrectionists did not delight him, as it did his colleague. All the same, he could not believe the copperskins and Negroes would spare him for the sake of his belief in individual liberty. So many bullets flew almost at random; no one could do anything about those. If someone at close quarters aimed at him in particular, he intended to fire first. He might favor individual liberty, yes, but not at the price of his own survival.

That thought made him miss a step and almost stumble. The insurrectionists were risking their lives for individual liberty. No wonder they made such difficult foes!

By the time he and Stafford got to the scene of the firing, it was already dying away. They'd passed a couple of parties of stretcher-bearers taking wounded men back to the surgeons, and one foul-mouthed corporal going back under his own power cradling a bleeding wrist in the crook of his other arm.

"Only a skirmish, your Excellencies," said the middle-aged first lieutenant who seemed to be in command of the Atlantean soldiers thereabouts. "They probed to see if we were ready to receive 'em, they found out we were, and then they faded off into the woods again."

"Didn't much care for the reception, eh?" Stafford said, still holding his revolver at the ready.

"No, sir." The lieutenant scratched at his graying side whiskers. Was this the kind of glorious action he'd imagined when he joined the Atlantean army in the flower of his youth? Leland Newton had trouble believing it. But then, the difference between what you imagined and what you got was one of the yardsticks by which you measured your passage into adulthood.

Out in the ferns and barrel trees from which the insurrectionists had opened up, a wounded man screamed his guts out. One thing Newton had noticed: all badly hurt men sounded the same. Maybe that said something in favor of the basic equality of the races. Hoping so, Newton proposed it to Stafford.

His colleague snorted. "Huzzah," he said sourly. "If I shoot this horse here, it'll make pretty much the same noises, too. Shall we pick it for Consul next term, the way Caligula did with Incitatus?"

"Well… no," Newton said. Stafford was just the kind of man who would remember the name of the mad Roman Emperor's cherished charger and trot it out when it did him the most good.

"All right, then. Don't waste my time with foolishness," he snapped, and turned away. Had the injured Negro or copperskin lain out in the open, Stafford probably would have tried to finish him off, or to hit the fellows who came out to pick him up and do what they could for him. Newton didn't think that was a sporting way to make war. He also didn't think Stafford cared a cent's worth for sport.

Something in Colonel Sinapis' long, sad face told Jeremiah Stafford the army's senior officer didn't want to listen to him. Too damned bad, Colonel, Stafford thought. A colonel who didn't listen to a Consul wouldn't stay the army's senior officer for long.

"We need a decisive victory over the insurrectionists," Stafford declared. "We need to break their fighting force, and we need to break their spirit."

"Such a victory would be desirable-yes, your Excellency." Was that resignation in Sinapis' voice? It had better not be, Stafford thought.

"We need to go after that kind of victory more aggressively," he said.

"I shall certainly be as aggressive as seems advisable," Colonel Sinapis said.

"Be more aggressive than that," Stafford told him.

One of the colonel's shaggy eyebrows rose. "Do you want me to lead the army into a trap, sir?"

"No, damn it! I want you to trap the insurrectionists-trap them and smash them," Stafford said.

"If you smash a glob of quicksilver, all you have are smaller globs here, there, and everywhere," Sinapis said.

"Fine," Stafford said. The Atlantean officer gave him a look-that wasn't the answer Sinapis had expected. Consul Stafford went on, "After we smash the big glob, we can destroy the smaller bits one by one at our leisure."

"Ah." Sinapis relaxed fractionally. He hasn't gone round the bend after all. The colonel didn't say that, but Stafford saw it in his eyes. A beat slower than Sinapis might have, he resumed: "That may be possible. I hope it is, but I would be lying if I said I was sure."

"If we don't make the effort, Colonel, why the devil did we ever leave New Hastings?" Stafford asked, and answered his own question: "We came to fight the insurrectionists. We came to beat them. Let's do that, then."

Balthasar Sinapis sketched a salute. "Very well, your Excellency."

Stafford had learned that Very well, your Excellency could mean anything-or nothing. When Colonel Sinapis got an order he didn't fancy, he saluted, promised to obey, and then sat on his hands. Stafford didn't aim to let him do that this time. Sinapis' fingers wouldn't be warm under his behind-they'd be flaming in the fire.

But Stafford didn't have to hold Sinapis' hands to the fire this time. The colonel sent his men against the insurrectionists with what struck the Consul as almost a devil-take-the-hindmost enthusiasm. Sinapis might have been thumbing his nose at Stafford, in effect saying, Well, this was your idea. If it goes wrong, blame yourself, because it's not my fault.

If it went wrong, Stafford supposed he would have to do that. If he didn't blame himself, Leland Newton damned well would blame him… and would make sure all the papers back in the more civilized parts of Atlantis blamed him, too. He could see headlines in his mind's eye. They would scream about his recklessness-and about his fecklessness, too. They would ask why he overrode a professional soldier's judgment. That would make a painfully good question, too.

No one was happier than he, then, when it didn't go wrong. The Atlantean soldiers fell upon and routed a good-sized force of copperskins and blacks. The insurrectionists hardly formed a line of battle. They fired a few shots and fled. The soldiers killed over a hundred of them, and captured close to a hundred more. Casualties among the whites were seven dead and seventeen wounded.

"You see?" Stafford said exultantly, eyeing the unhappy prisoners. "We really can do this. We just have to push hard."

"It worked this time," Sinapis said, and not another word.

The Consul jerked a thumb toward the captives. "We ought to hang the lot of them, is what we ought to do."

"You agreed we would not, your Excellency," Colonel Sinapis reminded him. "Harming prisoners is a game both sides can play. Nor would your colleague approve of breaking the agreement."

Stafford backtracked: "I didn't say we would. I said we ought to. And I still believe that. After this war is won, there will be a great reckoning. Slaves have to learn they cannot rise against their masters."