To his surprise, Sinapis answered him: "To keep someone else from using his army against you."

"So that's why the niggers aren't in New Marseille, is it?" Stafford snarled.

"Yes. That is exactly why," Sinapis said.

"And on account of we don't want to come into New Marseille any old way," Samuel said. "We don't want to fight any more. We want peace. You gonna tell all the people in Atlantis you don't want peace?"

You sneaky son of a bitch, Stafford thought, watching the reporters scribble. Samuel knew how to play to the gallery-Frederick Radcliff must have understood what he was doing when he sent out the other Negro. Damn it, the people of Atlantis, or too many of them, didn't want anybody telling them their leaders didn't want peace.

"If you think the people of Atlantis-of the United States of Atlantis-will let the so-called Free Republic of Atlantis stand, you'd better think again," Newton said. Stafford blinked, the way he did whenever he and the other Consul agreed about something.

Samuel only spread his pale-palmed hands. "I'm not the one to talk about that, either," he said. "You've got to see what the Tribune and the Marshal have to say."

Consul Newton nodded. He was willing to do that. Colonel Sinapis was also willing to do it, or at least resigned to the prospect. If Stafford said no, all the blame would land on him. There was probably enough to crush him.

If only…! If only a lot of things, he thought. They started with wondering why Victor Radcliff had to get a slave with child and went on from there. Too late to do anything about any of them now. Stafford was stuck with the world as it was.

He didn't say yes. He couldn't make himself do that. But he didn't say no, no matter how much he wanted to.

Approaching the hamlet of Slug Hollow, Leland Newton wondered how it had got its name. The answer proved altogether mundane: it sat in a depression, and the trees thereabouts were full of cucumber slugs, some of them half as long as a man's arm. The settlers had had the imagination of so many cherrystone clams, but they'd told the truth as they saw it.

No whites were left in the hamlet. Maybe they'd fled. Maybe they hadn't had the chance. Newton didn't ask-he didn't want to know. Jeremiah Stafford did ask, pointedly. He made sure he did it where the reporters could hear him, too. Newton thought about teasing him for taking lessons from Samuel, but decided not to. He didn't think his colleague would appreciate it.

When Stafford asked, Samuel only shrugged and spread his hands again. "I don't know what happened," he said. "They were long gone by the time I came through here-that's all I can tell you."

"A likely story," Stafford said. "How do you suppose so many buildings burned down? Lightning?"

"I don't know," Samuel repeated. "If I don't know, I can't tell you."

"Would we find bones if we dug in the ruins?" Stafford asked.

"Maybe you would, your Excellency," the Negro said. "You got to remember, though-a war went through here."

Newton was ready to make allowances for that. Stafford didn't seem to be, which surprised the other Consul very little: "It's war when you do it, eh? But it's nasty and villainous when we fight back."

"You said it, your Excellency. I didn't," Samuel answered. Stafford sent him a murderous glare.

The Consuls and the soldiers they'd brought along camped west of the ruined Slug Hollow. Samuel and his smaller retinue camped east of the place. When Frederick and Lorenzo came down to join them, they would bring enough fighters to equalize the numbers.

Colonel Sinapis had a good-sized force within easy reach of Slug Hollow. He wasn't supposed to, but he did. Leland Newton would have been amazed if the same weren't true for the insurrectionists. If the talks failed-or maybe even if they succeeded-the war could start again any time.

Frederick Radcliff and Lorenzo walked into Slug Hollow two days after the men from New Marseille got there. The Negro and copperskin would have cut a fancier figure had they ridden. Maybe they didn't care. Or maybe they didn't ride. Why would they have learned while they were slaves?

Stafford greeted them with, "If you keep up this nonsense about the Free Republic of Atlantis, we have nothing to say to one another."

"If you call everything that's ours nonsense before we even start talking about it, maybe you ought to send in your soldiers again," Lorenzo answered. "You want to settle things by fighting, I reckon we can do that."

If Newton hadn't got it for free, he would have paid a hundred eagles for a glimpse of Stafford's face. The other Consul plainly did want to settle things by fighting. Just as plainly, he knew he couldn't. The United States of Atlantis had ended up with egg on their face when they tried. No matter how much he despised the idea, he had to sit down and talk with the insurrectionists now. And he did despise the idea, and made only the barest effort to hide it.

Frederick Radcliff said, "If we can get what we need inside the United States of Atlantis, we don't need to worry so much about the Free Republic. If we can't… Well, that's a different story." He made hand-washing motions to show how different it was liable to be.

"What do you need?" Newton asked. "Can you put it into words for us?" If Radcliff couldn't, the Consul feared the talks would end up going nowhere.

But the Negro leader didn't hesitate. "You bet I can," he said. "We want to be free. We don't want anybody, no matter what color he is, to buy us and sell us any more. We want the law in Atlantis to forget about color, matter of fact. Whatever a white man can do, a Negro or a copperskin ought to be able to do. Whatever a white man gets in trouble for, one of us ought to get in trouble for, too-as much trouble, but no more."

Consul Stafford seemed bound and determined to make himself as difficult as he could. "You want the right to miscegenate with white women!" he exclaimed.

"To do what?" Lorenzo asked.

"To screw 'em," Frederick Radcliff explained, which wasn't the whole answer, but which came close enough.

"Oh. That." To Newton's surprise, Lorenzo laughed out loud. "What makes you think we think white women are pretty enough to be worth screwing?" he asked Stafford. Again, Newton would have paid money to look at an expression he got to see for nothing.

"White folks always get hot and bothered about that," Frederick said gravely. "They spent all this time screwin' our women, so naturally they figure we got to pay 'em back the same way."

Consul Stafford finally quit spluttering and gasping like a newly landed trout. "Will you have the infernal gall to claim you've all been chaste throughout this uprising? I hope not, by God, because I know better."

"No, I don't say that. You don't like it so much when it happens to your womenfolk, do you, your Excellency?" Frederick Radcliff answered. "But I say this-put us under fair laws and we'll live up to them. My woman's about the same shade I am. We been together lots of years. I don't want a white woman-I want her to be my legal wife. What's so bad about that?"

"A lot of men from south of the Stour will tell you it's the wickedest thing they ever heard," Newton said.

"A lot of men from south of the Stour are damned fools," Lorenzo said, and then, "Hell, it ain't like we didn't already know that."

"If you provoke us, we will keep fighting," Consul Stafford warned. Colonel Sinapis stirred, but he didn't come right out and call the Consul from Cosquer a liar.

Can we go on fighting? Newton wondered. He supposed it was possible. He didn't think it would be easy or cheap or quick. What would the United States of Atlantis be like after a generation of nasty campaigning and ambushes? Would they be any kind of place he wanted to live? He didn't think so. Would they be any kind of place where a Negro or copperskin could live? He also had his doubts about that.