"Is this what running Atlantis is like all the time? Is this what my grandfather had to do?" the Negro asked.

"If Victor Radcliff ever drew a pistol on a Senator in a hallway, history does not record it," Leland Newton answered. "Plenty of people called him everything they could think of, though, and a little more besides. By everything I've read, and by everything old men told me when I was young, he gave as good as he got, or maybe a bit better."

"Huh," Victor Radcliff's grandson said thoughtfully, and then, "Well, I worried some of my people might shoot me, too."

"Did you?" Consul Newton said; Frederick hadn't admitted that before. "So things weren't all sweetness and light in the Free Republic of Atlantis?"

"Are you kiddin' me? Only place it's all like that is heaven-' cept I bet they argue there, too," Frederick said. "Somebody brags his halo's shinier'n the other fellow's, or this lady doesn't like it on account of that other lady over there, she's playin' her harp too loud."

"If some of the Conscript Fathers heard you, they would call you a blasphemous skink." Newton had to suck hard on the insides of his cheeks to keep from cackling like a laying hen. He had no trouble at all picturing Frederick's querulous angels, and hearing them inside his head. Chances were that made him a blasphemous skink, too. He didn't intend to lose any sleep over it.

And Frederick Radcliff passed from the ridiculously sublime to the serious in a single sentence: "If all the southern Senators are like that big-mouthed bastard, how will you ever pass the agreement?"

"Not all of them are, thank God," Newton said. "I doubt they will love you any time soon, but some of them can see reason if you hit them over the head with a rock. Consul Stafford did, after all."

"Happy day. That makes one," Frederick said.

"There will be more. There must be more." Was Newton saying that because he really believed it, or to try to convince himself? He didn't care to inquire into the question too closely. To his relief, Frederick Radcliff didn't seem to care to, either.

No one banged on the door to the hotel room Frederick Radcliff and Helen shared. They had guards out in the hall to make sure no unwelcome and possibly armed visitors barged in on them. Given the emotional and political climate in the Senate, and in New Hastings generally, Frederick was glad those guards were there.

When someone tapped on his door, then, he didn't hesitate to open it. One of the guards handed him a newspaper, saying, "A Senator gave me this. He asked if you'd seen this story here." A callused forefinger showed which story.

Frederick would have found the headline even without the helpful digit. What else would a Senator want him to read but a story headlined SLAVE REVOLT IN GERNIKA SPREADS!?

He quickly read the piece. The revolt had broken out near St. Augustine, a sleepy subtropical town on the east coast south of the city of Gernika, the state capital. Local planters had had no luck crushing it; neither had the state militia. The state of Gernika had been Spanish Atlantis till the USA bought it from Spain thirty years earlier. Both before and after coming into the USA, Spaniards had an evil reputation among slaves. Better to be owned by an English Atlantean than a Frenchman, but better a Frenchman than a Spaniard any day-or so Negroes and copperskins said.

Maybe that was true, maybe not. If the slaves down in Gernika believed it, they would fight harder against the men who'd claimed the right to own them. Frederick gave the paper back to the guard. "All right. Now I've seen it. What does the Senator want me to do about it?"

"He didn't tell me," the guard answered. "But if I was him, I'd want you to stop it. That's what you're here for, right?"

That's what you're here for, right, nigger? The guard didn't say it out loud. He and his friends were doing their job well enough, so maybe he didn't even think it. Maybe. But Frederick had trouble believing that. He could hear slights in a white man's tone of voice. If he sometimes heard them even when they weren't there, well, who could blame him?

Regardless of whether nigger was in the guard's thought, what he did say made obvious sense. It had equally obvious problems. "How am I supposed to stop something down in Gernika if I'm here in New Hastings?"

"Beats me." The guard tapped the two stripes on the left upper arm of his tunic. "I ain't nothin' but a dumb corporal. You should ought to talk to the Senator."

"It would help if I knew which one," Frederick pointed out.

"Oh, sure. That makes a difference, don't it?" Laughing at himself, the underofficer thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. Perhaps all men really were brothers under the skin. Frederick had used that same gesture when he was feeling more stupid than usual. The corporal went on, "This here was Senator Marquard, from Cosquer."

From Consul Stafford's home state, just north of Gernika. A Frenchman, by his name. A sly fellow, whatever his name and background-he didn't want trouble spilling up over the border. Slaves everywhere south of the Stour seemed suspended in a state of limbo. If the Senate approved the Slug Hollow agreement, they would be free. If the Senate didn't, they would explode, and Frederick didn't think he or anyone else would be able to stop them or even slow them down.

The Negroes and copperskins down by St. Augustine must not have been able to wait. Or else some master had done something intolerable even by the loose standards of masters in a state where Spanish rules still held sway. The newspaper story hadn't said what touched off the uprising. Maybe the reporter didn't know. Maybe, when he was writing about slaves, he didn't care.

Frederick didn't remember any particularly hostile questions from Senator Marquard. The little the Negro knew of him suggested he could see sense. He supported slavery-what Senator from south of the Stour didn't?-but he was less fanatical than most of his colleagues. Which meant…

"I'm going to have to see him," Frederick told Helen after summarizing the newspaper story and his conversation with the guard.

"How come? All he wants to do is get you killed," his wife said.

That hadn't occurred to Frederick. He hadn't thought of himself as naive, but maybe he should have. If he went down to Gernika to try to settle things and either the whites or the rebellious slaves didn't want to listen to him, he could easily end up dead. But if he didn't, what was he worth as a leader? What was the Slug Hollow accord worth?

Sighing, he said, "I got to see the Senator. Where I go from there… Well, we'll find out."

Senator Abel Marquard was ready to see Frederick. Frederick would have been astonished if he weren't. Marquard looked both debauched and clever. His eyes were red-tracked and pouchy; he combed a few strands of coal-black hair across a vast expanse of scalp. But he had the air of a man who calculated and who remembered-favors, yes, but also slights.

He shook hands with Frederick with no visible qualms: a courtesy not all southern Senators seemed willing to extend to a black man. When he said, "I am pleased to make the acquaintance of the man of the hour," Frederick could hear no sarcasm-which, with a customer as smooth as Marquard, didn't mean it wasn't there.

"Please to meet you, too, sir," Frederick said, wondering if he meant it. "What can I do for you?"

"Not what you can do for me-what you can do for Atlantis," Senator Marquard answered.

Frederick decided to stop beating around the bush. "Why should I do anything for Atlantis? What the devil has Atlantis ever done for me? Plenty to me, I will say that, but not much for me."

"Not yet, maybe," Marquard agreed blandly. "But how would you expect the Senate to approve the Slug Hollow agreement"-he named it with obvious amusement-"when slaves are still in arms against the country in spite of the truce you promised?"