Most of the militiamen owned slaves. How many of them would be left alive by the time this fight finished? Ironically, Stafford began to hope the insurrectionists made the massacre complete. That might horrify Atlantis into fighting the war seriously. If it did, the whites would win in the end. As Newton had pointed out, winning might entail making sure not a nigger or mudface remained aboveground and on his feet. That would play hob with the long-cherished social system south of the Stour.

Jeremiah Stafford found he didn't care. One way or another, the USA would sort things out. The Free Republic of Atlantis? That was an abomination, and had to be suppressed no matter what.

If I'm going to die, I may as well die usefully, he thought. He couldn't believe anything short of a massacre would galvanize the Senate and the people of Atlantis into giving the insurrectionists what they deserved. And, for the life of him-no, for the death of him-he couldn't see how the Atlantean regulars and militiamen had any chance of stopping a massacre.

Usefully, he thought again, and hoped it wouldn't hurt… too much.

"In the sack!" Lorenzo howled exultantly. "We've got the sons of bitches in the sack, and we just tied off the top. They can't even run away now. They're ours! Ours!-you hear me?"

"I hear you," Frederick Radcliff answered. "Looks to me like you're right. This went better than I ever dreamt it could." He'd wanted to surprise the white Atlanteans. He'd wanted to hurt them, too. To succeed beyond your wildest dreams… By the nature of things, you couldn't possibly expect that.

"All we've got to do is keep going now." Lorenzo mimed aiming, shooting, and reloading. "Before too long, won't be none of those white bastards left alive. Extra sweet blowing holes in the militiamen. The soldiers… They're just here working, you know? I don't have anything special against 'em."

"Except that they're trying to kill us." Frederick's voice was dry.

"Yeah. Except for that," Lorenzo agreed seriously. Then he came back to his favorite theme: "The militiamen, they're mostly out there on account of they wanted to get their property back. Turn us into slaves again, that means. Well, I got some news for them-it ain't gonna happen."

"Sure won't," Frederick said. The militiamen seemed to be falling even faster than the Atlantean regulars.

"Serves 'em right, too," Lorenzo said. "I want to kill 'em all, is what I want to do. And I reckon maybe we can do it, too."

"So do I," Frederick said. He never would have dreamt of that when the insurrection started, either. His dreams along those lines had been nightmares, almost without exception: nightmares of Atlantean regulars smashing through the rebels, shooting them, bayoneting them, hanging them, tormenting them in as many ways as his sleep-filled imagination could find. And it had proved ingenious in ways he never would have come up with awake. He hoped he wouldn't have, anyway.

"You know what'll happen when word of what we done gets to New Hastings?" Lorenzo said. "White folks'll shit, that's what!"

Frederick nodded gravely. "They sure will." Then he found a question Lorenzo hadn't yet: "And what happens once they get done shitting?"

"Huh?" The copperskin didn't even see that it was a question. "Who the devil cares what happens then?"

"We'd better," Frederick answered. What would the government of the United States of Atlantis do after a ragtag force of rebellious slaves slaughtered its professional soldiers and the white, mostly prosperous militiamen who fought beside those professionals?

Maybe the government would throw its hands in the air and decide the Free Republic of Atlantis was too strong to be put down. Maybe it would realize that blacks and copperskins were just as entitled to freedom as white men were. Maybe the government was looking for any reasonable excuse to liberate the men and women who'd labored in bondage for generations.

Maybe. But the more Frederick Radcliff thought about it, the less he believed it. The insurrectionists clearly could wipe this trapped force of white men off the face of the earth. Suppose they did. When word of the massacre got to New Hastings, wouldn't it infuriate the Senate? Wouldn't the Conscript Fathers decide the rebellion truly was dangerous? Wouldn't all the whites in Atlantis decide the same thing, regardless of whether they lived in Gernika or Penzance?

And if all the whites decided the insurrection was dangerous, what would happen next? Atlantis held many more whites than Negroes and copperskins. As much to the point, or maybe even more, those whites held far more wealth than their colored counterparts. If they decided they had to kill everyone in Atlantis who wasn't white so they could feel safe in their own beds, would they be able to do it?

No sooner asked than answered: of course they could. It might not be easy or quick or cheap, but they could do it. Frederick was sure of that. They might even feel bad about it afterwards, but afterwards would be too late to do anybody colored any good. Frederick was also sure of that.

Which meant… what? That slaughtering this trapped army might be the worst thing the insurrectionists could do? So it seemed to Frederick. One other thing also seemed all too plain: not slaughtering this trapped army had to be the second worst thing the insurrectionists could do.

"Lorenzo," he said.

"What d'you want?" the copperskin answered. "We've got these assholes. We've got 'em right where they belong."

Frederick explained what he wanted. He explained why he wanted it. Explaining made him more miserable, not happier. All the same, he finished, "We can't kill 'em all. We don't dare. Now that we've got 'em where we want 'em, we need to use that to get what we want. But we've got to call the cease-fire before they're all down."

Lorenzo spat in the dirt where the insurrectionists had dug their trench. "Then you go down and take a white flag and talk to the white folks. You done great stuff, Fred, but I will see you in hell before I do that here."

"All right. I will." Frederick didn't sound thrilled, but he nodded. Fair was fair.

"And what happens when the white sons of bitches shoot you down like a hound even though you got that white flag?" No, Lorenzo didn't bother hiding his scorn.

"Get our men to stop shooting. I'll go down there. If the buckra kill me, go ahead and do what you want to them," Frederick answered. "You will anyway-and I won't be around to stop you."

"Damned straight you won't," Lorenzo muttered. He aimed a forefinger at Frederick's chest like a rifle musket. "You nigger bastard, you better be right. You fuck this up, nobody'll ever forgive you."

"Now tell me something I didn't know," Frederick said.

Slowly, the gunfire died away. Frederick scrambled up over the rampart and advanced on the whites armed with only a flag of truce. He wondered if one of his own people would shoot him in the back. That might almost be a relief.