"An' black folks an' copperskins had to do what the white folks said," the other Negro broke in.

"That's right." Frederick nodded. "My granddad made it so white folks were free, anyways. My grandma used to say he wished he could do more-"

"He done plenty with her, didn't he?"

"Shut up!" Frederick said fiercely. "If I was a white man an' you talked to me like that, I'd make you regret it-bet your sorry ass I would. But he figured out you can't have an army 'less you got people who have to stay in. He was right. All the white folks' countries do it that way. We're gonna win, we got to do it that way, too."

"I'll run off again. You wait an' see if I don't," the prisoner declared.

"I know who you are, Humphrey," Frederick said. He hadn't till one of the guards whispered the man's name in his ear, but he sure did now. "This time, you don't get anything but a talking-to, on account of you didn't know no better. We catch you again, you'll be sorry for sure."

The prisoner-Humphrey-stripped off his shirt and turned his back. His scars made Frederick's look like a beginner's. "What you gonna do to me that the white folks ain't already done?" he asked as he faced Frederick once more.

And what do I say to that? Frederick wondered. To his surprise, he found something: "White folks whipped you 'cause you did stuff they didn't like. You run off from us, they'd thank you for it. Chances are they'd pay you for it, same as the Romans paid Judas. You want their thirty pieces of silver, go ahead an' run, you bastard."

That shut Humphrey up, anyhow. Maybe he'd stick around. Maybe he'd try to desert again. If he succeeded… Frederick couldn't do anything about that. If Humphrey failed, he couldn't say he hadn't been warned. Freedom had limits. It had to have limits, or it turned into chaos.

Frederick hadn't understood that before tasting freedom himself. But there was nothing like running a revolution to drive the lesson home. His grandfather could have told him the same thing-if Victor Radcliff wasn't fighting on the other side.

Colonel Sinapis emptied New Marseille's arsenal to equip most of his regulars with rifle muskets-and with some ancient flintlock smoothbores that had gathered cobwebs there for God only knew how long. There weren't enough weapons for all the regulars. There weren't enough for any militiamen. They were loudly unhappy about that.

Sinapis stuck by his guns, and by the way he handed them out. Leland Newton backed him. "It's not a state arsenal-it's an arsenal of the United States of Atlantis," Newton told a self-appointed militia colonel. "It's only right that the guns go to troops from the national government first. If we had more, you'd get your share."

"Or maybe we wouldn't." The colonel-who decked himself out in a uniform far fancier than Sinapis'-had a pointy nose, a whiny voice, and a suspicious mind. "Reckon you're afraid we'd do us some real fightin' against them damned niggers."

Newton was afraid they'd try, and would shatter the fragile tacit truce that still held. Since he didn't care to admit that, he answered, "I haven't seen your men win any more laurels than the regulars."

"We never got the chance!" the militiaman complained. "That damnfool foreigner you've got in charge of your soldiers wouldn't turn us loose and let us fight the way we wanted to."

What did that mean? Newton feared he knew. The colonel wanted to rape and loot and burn and slaughter. He would have made a fine freebooter from western Atlantis' piratical past. A soldier? That looked to be a different story.

"Your private war against the men and women who were your slaves is not the only thing at stake here," the Consul said coldly. "The fate of the United States of Atlantis rides on this, too."

"You reckon they don't go together?" The militia colonel made as if to spit, then-barely-thought better of it. "If you do, you're even dumber'n I give you credit for, and that's saying something." He clumped away, disgust plain in every line of his body.

Staring after him, Newton sighed. Then he swore under his breath. The militiamen didn't have to stay under Colonel Sinapis' command. If they grew desperate enough, and if they got their hands on some muskets (which they could probably manage if they grew desperate enough), they could storm off against the insurrectionists on their own. Newton didn't think they would cover themselves in glory. He knew he might be wrong, though. And even if he was right, that might not stop them.

He started to go warn Sinapis. But what would that accomplish? The most the regular officer could do would be to put the militiamen under guard. That would only complete the breach Newton wanted to prevent. The militiamen wouldn't listen to reason from Sinapis, any more than that damned colonel had wanted to listen to Newton.

What then? Reluctantly, Newton hunted up Jeremiah Stafford instead of the regular colonel. He feared the other Consul wouldn't listen to him, either. Still, if Stafford didn't, how were they worse off?

Stafford did hear him out. Then he asked a reasonable enough question: "What do you want me to do about it, your Excellency?"

"We aren't fighting Frederick Radcliff's men right now," Newton answered. "I'd like to keep it that way if we can."

"Right this minute, the militiamen have damn-all to fight with," Stafford said. "That's the biggest part of what's eating them."

"Not the biggest part," Newton said. The other Consul looked a question at him. He went on, "What's bothering them is the same thing that's bothering you. They don't want the Negroes and copperskins to get their freedom."

"Yes, that's about the size of it," Stafford said. "Why do you think I'd want to slow them down, then?"

"Because they'll only spill sand in the gears, and you know it as well as I do. God knows the two of us don't agree, but you're not a stupid man. That militia colonel…" Newton shook his head. "He couldn't cut his way out of a gunnysack if you gave him a pair of scissors. Your Excellency, we have a chance to end this peacefully. We-"

Stafford interrupted: "Peacefully, maybe, but not the way I'd want it."

"To end this the way you want it, we'd have to soak Atlantis in blood. Even that might not do it, because killing all the Negroes and copperskins leaves the country without slaves, which isn't what you have in mind, either. Or it might not end at all-there might be murders and burnings and bushwhackings a hundred years from now. You can have peace, or you can have slavery. I don't think you can have both any more. It's not just cooking and sewing and barbering these days. Will an overseer ever be able to turn his back on a slave with a shovel in his hands again?"

"You… God… damned… son… of… a… bitch." The words dragged from Stafford one by one, as if dredged up from somewhere deep inside him.

"Your servant, sir." Newton made as if to bow.

The other Consul started to say something else, then broke off with an expression of almost physical pain-or maybe of true hatred. Now Stafford was the one who shook his head, like a horse bedeviled with flies. He tried again: "You are a son of a bitch. You know how to rub my nose in it, don't you?"

"I'm sorry." Newton lied without hesitation. "The thing is there. You know it's there, even if you don't like it. That's the difference between you and the colonel of militia. If I make you see it or smell it or whatever you please, you won't go on telling me it's not."

"I wish I could," Stafford said bitterly.

"I'm sure you do. But it's too late for that, isn't it? The Senate wants to get this over with. By the way the wires sound, it doesn't care how we do it. People south of the Stour-white people, I mean-will get used to the idea of freeing slaves faster if someone they respect tells them they don't have much choice any more."