Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

"I had not finished," Newton said. "What do people who buy and sell other human beings at a whim, who take the fruits of others' labor, who violate their bondswomen whenever it strikes their fancy-what do those people deserve?"

"What do people who Christianize the heathen, who build a thriving country out of empty wilderness, who make the United States of Atlantis into the earthly paradise-what do those people deserve?" Stafford returned. "We are talking about the same people, you know. What justice is depends in some measure on the angle from which you view it."

"Well, I would agree with you there," Newton said. "You have a perspective different from mine about the planter class."

"I know them. You don't," Stafford said.

"Let it be as you say," Newton told him. Stafford raised an eyebrow; he hadn't expected even so much of a concession. Consul Newton went on, "What you will not see is that we also have a differing perspective on the rebels. You think of them as murderous, bloodthirsty wild beasts-"

"Which they are," Stafford broke in.

"To you, perhaps," Newton replied. "To me, they look more like men and women who, having been treated intolerably for generations, seek liberty so these abuses cannot go on. They seem very much like proper Atlantean patriots, in other words, even if their skins be dusky."

"That is a madman's perspective," the other Consul exclaimed.

"Oh, piffle! You know better. Do I caper? Do I gibber?" Newton said.

"You do not, as you must know. But you are more dangerous, not less, because you do not," Stafford answered. "An obvious lunatic ends up in jail or an asylum, where he can do others no harm. A lunatic who is not so obvious will deceive many others and persuade them to follow him. What is the name of that maniac minister?"

"Which one?" Newton asked. Atlantis permitted all faiths, which meant strange ones sometimes sprang up in the backwoods like weeds. Most flourished for a while and faded, but some seemed likely to last longer.

"The fellow who founded the-what do they call it?-the House of Universal Devotion," Stafford said. "I know there are others, but he's the one I had in mind."

"Oh. Him. Well, we have agreed twice in a few minutes-how strange. I think he's a maniac, too," Newton said. The House of Universal Devotion was indeed a backwoods sect, one with an unsavory reputation. People who didn't belong to it claimed that far too much of the devotion went to the founder, far too little to the Lord. Members kept to themselves as much as they could. There were rumors some of the rites were licentious, even lewd. Newton didn't know if those rumors were true, but he wouldn't have been surprised. Something else he didn't know… "I can't tell you what his name is. He goes by the Reverend or the Preacher."

"If I came out with nonsense like that, I wouldn't want my real name associated with it, either," Stafford said.

"People listen to him," Newton said. "He doesn't seem to do much harm." That was as far as he would go to praise the House of Universal Devotion.

It was too far to suit Jeremiah Stafford. "The devil!" the other Consul snapped. "The only reason you say that is, he rants against slavery along with his other ravings. That he does should make you ashamed to hold the same views."

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day," Newton said.

"That clock ought to be smashed, not broken," Stafford said.

"If the sect provably violates the laws, or if we find good reason to set aside the Charter, no doubt it will be," Newton said. "Until and unless that happens, tolerance seems the better policy."

"You will tolerate a tumor on the Atlantean body politic, which wants only growth before it can extinguish the Charter. But an institution long sanctioned by our laws? That, you oppose." Stafford sounded bitter as wormwood.

Consul Newton hadn't thought of things in such a light. Uncomfortably, he said, "The Reverend and his followers do not harm others-"

"Not where they get caught," Stafford retorted.

"Slavery does," Newton went on as if his colleague had not spoken. "That is why I oppose it, and why so many in the north do."

"Servile insurrection must be checked!"

Newton waved to the soldiers all around. "Well, here we are. What are we doing, if not trying to check it?" They were doing more along those lines than he'd had in mind when they set out from New Hastings.

"Whatever we're doing, it's not enough." Stafford plucked at his whiskers. "I wonder if we have any weak-minded House of Universal Devotion men in this army. If we do, I shouldn't be surprised to hear that they were discovering our plans to the niggers and mudfaces."

That hadn't occurred to Newton. He wanted to say the other Consul would be hearing voices next. He wanted to, but discovered he couldn't. What Stafford had suggested might be unlikely, but it was far from impossible. What did come out of his mouth was, "We shall have to find out about that."

"Yes. We shall." Even the soft answer failed to satisfy Stafford. "We should have done it a long time ago."

"Maybe we would have, had you suggested it then," Newton said. "If you bring it to Colonel Sinapis' attention, I am sure he will handle it."

"He does not favor slavery," Stafford said darkly. Newton wondered why that surprised the other Consul-few immigrants did. Stafford scowled. But then he unbent enough to add, "He will not care for the House of Universal Devotion, either: it is destructive of good discipline."

"Something else on which we agree," Leland Newton said. "We may have more in common than either of us would have believed."

"So we may. But so what?" Stafford had no more give to him than the rocks of North Cape. "We also know where we disagree, and we know which carries the greater weight."

"I am not your enemy," Newton said. "You mistake me if you judge me so."

"You are the enemy of things I hold dear, however," Stafford replied. "You oppose me there, and I will oppose you to see those things strengthened and protected. I do not see how we can make a friendship of that."

Neither did Consul Newton, however much he might have liked to. Jeremiah Stafford scowled at Lorenzo. The copperskinned emissary from the Free Republic of Atlantis stared back impassively. Whatever Lorenzo was thinking, he didn't tell his face about it: a useful quality in an envoy. Only the flag of truce he carried kept Stafford from ordering him seized and hanged from the closest tree. The Consul was tempted to do it despite the white flag.

"Here I am again. Now you start to see you can't hope to beat us," Lorenzo said. Even his voice grated on Stafford's nerves. He talked like what he was: a slave, and likely a field hand at that. A pig in an archbishop's robes would have made a more unlikely diplomat than Lorenzo, but only a little.

"We haven't seen anything of the kind," Stafford growled. "If your precious Frederick Radcliff is such a wonderful general, why doesn't he come out and fight instead of skulking around like a coward?"

Lorenzo still didn't change expression, though something might have flickered in his eyes. "If you are such a wonderful general, Consul Stafford, why don't you make him come out and fight when he doesn't want to?"

Beside Stafford, Leland Newton snickered, then tried to pretend he hadn't. Colonel Sinapis coughed, which might have been even more embarrassing. Stafford's ears felt ready to burst into flame. He couldn't even show his fury, lest he hand Lorenzo another point. "That," he ground out, "can be arranged."

"So you say, your Excellency." By his tone, Lorenzo didn't believe a word of it.

"I also say you deserve lashes for your insolence," Stafford told him.

Lorenzo only shrugged. "If you want, I will take off my shirt and show you my stripes. I have tasted the lash before. Have you?"