Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

Sinapis looked a question to Newton. "Honor it," Newton said at once. "Let's find out what they have to say." Stafford made a disgusted noise, but he couldn't do anything about it-not today he couldn't, anyhow. The colonel told the corporal what to do. The two-striper saluted and went off to do it.

He came back fifteen or twenty minutes later with a strong, stocky copperskin who still carried his white flag. Newton had expected the rebels' emissary to be wearing stolen white men's finery, but he still had on homespun wool trousers and an undyed, unbleached cotton shirt: slave clothes.

"My name is Lorenzo," the fellow said. "I speak for Frederick Radcliff, the Tribune of the Free Republic of Atlantis."

"There is no such place!" Consul Stafford exploded. "There is no such title! And slaves haven't got the right to last names!"

"There is such a place, because that's where I come from. Frederick Radcliff is the Tribune there," Lorenzo answered calmly. "And he's not a slave-he's a free man. And so am I. Wouldn't be much point to talking if we weren't, would there?"

"What do you want? What do you expect from us?" Leland Newton asked.

"Leave us alone, and we'll do the same for you," the copperskin said. "The Free Republic of Atlantis is a place where anyone can live in peace. A lot of whites have run away from us, but they didn't need to. As long as they don't try to make anybody into a slave any more, we won't give them any trouble."

"Likely tell!" Stafford jeered.

"You've already killed a lot of people and done a lot of damage," Newton said. "Why shouldn't we treat you as so many rebels and criminals?"

"Because this is a war, and wars mean fighting, and fighting means killing," Lorenzo replied-the same answer Newton had given to Stafford back in New Hastings. "And because Frederick Radcliff is fighting for the same thing his grandfather fought for a long time ago-the chance to be free."

"Mudfaces and niggers have no business being free!" Stafford shouted, his face purpling with fury.

"Easy, Jeremiah, easy," Newton said. He turned back to the rebels' emissary. "You are not going to be allowed to form a nation apart from the United States of Atlantis. If you think that can happen, you are only fooling yourselves. Your commander is only fooling himself."

"By God, that's the first sensible thing I've heard you say all day," Stafford told him.

Newton ignored him. If Lorenzo was fazed, he didn't let on. Nodding to the Consul, he said, "Give us our rights inside the United States of Atlantis, then, and we'll be happy enough to stay."

"You have no more rights than a cow," Stafford said. "You have no more rights than a chair, damn you!"

"What rights do you have in mind?" Newton asked the emissary. Ignoring his colleague seemed best.

"The same rights white folks have," Lorenzo answered. "The right to be free. The right to a last name. The right to marry and raise a family. The right to buy and sell things. The right to learn reading and ciphering. Frederick, he can do that, but not many slaves can. The right to vote, even."

"You want to become citizens." Consul Newton summed it up in a handful of words.

Lorenzo nodded gratefully. "Yes, sir. That is just what we want."

"Will you let the whites who have run away return to their land?"

"As long as they don't try to buy us or sell us or order us around," the copperskin said. "Some of us want land of our own, too, so we can farm. If the white folks take everything back, nothing's left for us."

Stafford clapped a hand to his forehead. "They're as Red as the crazy radicals in Paris! They probably preach free love, too."

"You weren't listening," Newton said. "He told you one of the things they wanted was the right to get married."

"Yes, he said that," Stafford answered. "Why do you believe him? They're full of savage animal lust."

Lorenzo stretched out his arm and looked at his hand. Then his eyes went to Stafford's hand. "My skin is darker than yours," he said, "but it is lighter than Frederick Radcliff's. Past that, I do not see much difference between us."

"No, eh? Well, you will," Stafford said.

"Tell your principal that, if you put down your guns and petition peaceably for the redress of grievances, something may come of it," Newton said. "It is hard for Atlantis to talk with men in arms against us."

This time, the copperskin looked Stafford in the face. He shook his head. "If we put down our guns, you will slaughter us," he said. Stafford didn't waste time denying it. Lorenzo went on, "Better we should fight."

"If you do, we will slaughter you anyway," Newton warned.

"Well, you can try," Lorenzo said.

The corporal took him back past the pickets then. "You tried it your way. See what it got you," Stafford said to Newton.

"You didn't help," Newton said.

"Let me understand," Colonel Sinapis said. "It is to be war now?"

"For the moment, yes," Newton answered regretfully.

War against slaves who'd risen against their masters! Jeremiah Stafford could imagine no more noble cause. He must have done something right, or God wouldn't have been so generous to him.

But it wasn't the kind of war he'd had in mind when he set out from New Hastings with the army. The gray-clad soldiers owned the ground where they marched, but not another square foot of soil in the so-called Free Republic of Atlantis. Any man who left the line-say, to go behind some ferns and answer nature's call-was liable not to come back again. A Negro with a dagger or a copperskin with a bayonet might cut his throat and sneak off with his rifle musket and boots.

Any time the soldiers came within a quarter-mile of trees or ferns or fences or buildings, they were in danger. Enemies would pop out or pop up, fire, and then run off as fast as they could. The Atlanteans would shoot back, but it took uncommon marksmanship and uncommon luck to hit a single man at that range, even if he didn't disappear. Firing at large masses of soldiers, the mudfaces and niggers had much better luck.

No, it wasn't the way Stafford had imagined it. In his mind's eye, he'd seen dramatic pitched battles, like the ones Victor Radcliff had fought against the redcoats. Paintings of those-or woodcuts, sometimes colored, copied from paintings of those-hung in every government building from the Senate House down to the lowliest village post office. He didn't suppose the actual battles were just like the paintings, but the art gave him his most vivid notions of what war was like.

Colonel Sinapis didn't seem surprised at how things were going. "In charge of raw men like that, I would fight the same way," he said as the army encamped two evenings after crossing the Little Muddy. "Why should they risk a big battle? All the advantage would lie with us."

"What better reason?" Stafford said.

Sinapis gave him a crooked smile. "And do you also look for your chicken to climb up onto your plate already fried, your Excellency?"

"Well… no," the Consul admitted.

"Then do not expect the enemy to do what is convenient for you," Sinapis said.

Reluctantly, Stafford nodded. "All right. I can see the sense in that. How do we go about forcing the damned insurrectionists to fight on our terms, then?"

"That is a better question." Balthasar Sinapis plucked at his shaggy mustache. "In Europe, I would say the way to do this is to attack some place the enemy feels obliged to defend."

"In Europe? Why not here?" Stafford said.

"Because I see no place in these parts that the enemy would feel he had to hold," the colonel replied. "Where is the capital of the so-called Free Republic of Atlantis? Wherever Frederick Radcliff happens to be, unless my guess is wrong. Where are the rebels' manufactories? As far as I know, they have none. This being so, what position must they hold to the death?"