Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

"Not the end of the world, your Excellency," Colonel Sinapis said when Newton remarked on it. "Some of our men will be able to protect themselves from robbers or shoot game for the pot. You cannot make war with pistols, not against rifle muskets."

"I see the sense in that," Newton replied. "But will the insurrectionists? Or will they use a few holdout pistols as an excuse to treat our men more harshly than they would have otherwise?"

Sinapis' smile tugged up the corners of his mouth without reaching his eyes. "You think of such things, your Excellency. So do I, coming out of the cynical school of Europe. But that ploy never occurred to Frederick Radcliff or even to Lorenzo, who is less naive than the black man. When I mentioned it, they both promised they would not take it amiss, as long as the militiamen do not try anything foolish."

"That's good news." Newton tempered the remark by adding, "I hope so, anyhow."

"As do I," Sinapis agreed. "A few hotheads could greatly embarrass us by doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. I would not be sorry if the rebels made an example of them. I fear I would be sorry if those people made an example of all of us."

"Sorry. Yes." Consul Newton left it right there. The more rifle muskets went up in neat stacks of six, the more vulnerable the white survivors became. One thing was clear: even if the fighting continued after this disastrous battle, the insurrectionists would not lack guns, cartridges, or percussion caps for a long time to come.

Here and there, blacks or copperskins robbed disarmed white soldiers. A handful of militiamen-no regulars-died suddenly. Maybe they refused to take orders from men they still thought of as natural inferiors. Maybe slaves recognized owners they hadn't loved. Leland Newton found himself in a poor position to ask too many questions.

The whites started back toward New Marseille the next morning. They hadn't been able to bury all their dead. They had to rely on promises that the insurrectionists would see to it. And what were those promises worth? Anything? Newton had no idea.

He also had other, more immediate, worries. He kept looking back over his shoulder. If the Negroes and copperskins came swarming after the defeated Atlantean soldiers, what could the white men do? Die, Newton thought.

Stafford also kept looking over his shoulder. Nervous, are you? Newton couldn't twit him about it, not when he was nervous himself.

Some of the rebels, still carrying weapons, walked along beside the soldiers who'd surrendered. Newton didn't see anyone prominent. Frederick Radcliff wasn't coming along. Neither was Lorenzo. They had more important things to do with their time. Probably taking charge of gathering up the loot, Newton thought. Both the Tribune and his marshal were bound to think that was the most important thing they could do right now.

"Well," Stafford said, "we'll be marching like a couple of privates from the regulars by the time we get back to New Marseille."

"So we will. I know I'm in better shape than I was when I got on the train in New Hastings," Newton answered.

"So am I-here." Consul Stafford brushed his leg with the palm of his hand. "But here…?" He brought his hand up to his heart for a moment, then sadly shook his head. "Everything I ever believed in is coming to pieces."

"Everything outside of church, you mean," Newton said.

"No. Everything." Stafford shook his head again. "I always truly thought it was God's will that whites should rule over niggers and mudfaces. Hell's bells, man, I still want to think so."

"The evidence would appear to be against you," Newton said carefully.

"Yes. It would. And I don't like that for beans." Stafford's voice was cold as an iceberg drifting past North Cape in dead of winter. "Maybe God has changed His mind about the way things work-the way they ought to work, I should say. And if He has, then we're all worse sinners than I ever thought we could be. That's pretty bad, too, believe me."

"I don't know anything about that. I leave God to the preachers. Taking care of myself seems hard enough most of the time," Newton said.

He won a thin chuckle from the other Consul. "It does, doesn't it? So you say you want to leave God to the Preacher? I didn't know you'd taken up with the House of Universal Devotion."

"That's not what I said, and you know it damned well." A touch of irritation came into Leland Newton's voice. No educated Atlantean could take the Preacher-even when he got called the Reverend-or the House of Universal Devotion seriously. Atlantis had spawned its share of sects and then some. That no educated man could take the House of Universal Devotion seriously hadn't kept it from becoming one of the more successful and prosperous of those sects. No one had ever gone broke betting against the ordinary fellow's good sense.

"All right." For once, Stafford didn't seem to feel like arguing-or not about that, anyhow. He did have other worries: "What do you suppose they'll do to us once we get back to New Marseille and word of what happened here gets to New Hastings?"

"I don't know," Newton answered. "Maybe they'll decide we were a pack of fools and send out a new army to take a shot at the insurrection. Or maybe they'll try to turn this cease-fire into a real peace. If they do that, we're the people on the spot."

"On the spot is right." The prospect failed to delight Stafford. "Make peace? I wanted to kill them all! Sweet, suffering Jesus, but I still do!"

"I want all kinds of things I'm not likely to get. No matter how well I'm marching now, a carriage would be nice, wouldn't it?" Consul Newton tramped on for a while. He wondered what would happen if he wore through the soles of his shoes before he got back to New Marseille. You'll start wearing through the soles of your feet, that's what. After a furlong or so, he said, "That Frederick Radcliff is a piece of work, isn't he?"

Jeremiah Stafford made a horrible face. "Oh, just a little!" he answered. "Yes, sir, just a little. He's a chip off Victor's block. I don't suppose anyone who ever met him would tell you anything different."

"I expect his owner might have," Newton remarked.

"Yes, I expect the poor bastard might-and much good it would have done him," Stafford said. "Long odds that he's dead now. I wonder what he did to deserve it. I wonder if he did anything."

"Some would say you deserve whatever happens to you if you buy and sell other people," Newton said.

"Some would say all kinds of damnfool things so they can fan themselves with their flapping jaws." Stafford used a flint-and-steel lighter to get a cheroot going. He tried to blow a smoke ring, but didn't have much luck.

"Frederick Radcliff…" Newton tried to bring things back to what he wanted to talk about: "If he were his grandfather's legitimate descendant, chances are he'd be Consul today instead of one of us. He knows his onions, no two ways about it."

"Onions," Stafford echoed disdainfully. "I half wish he would have killed us all. That would have set the country going in the right direction, anyhow. This way… It's humiliating, to know the damned insurrectionists could have killed you but decided not to on account of politics."

"In theory, I can see that," Newton said. "In theory."

"Reminds me of the Caudine Forks," Stafford continued, as if he hadn't spoken. Back even before the battle of Cannae, the Sam nites had beaten a Roman army there and made the defeated soldiers pass under a slave's yoke before letting them go. Sharing a classical education with the other Consul, Newton understood the allusion. "Humiliating," Stafford repeated.

"It could be so," Newton agreed.

"Could be! My dear fellow-"

"It could be," Newton repeated, more forcefully this time. "But whether it is or not, I'm still damned glad to be alive. This way, at least I have a chance to sort things out later. If I were dead, I don't know how I'd manage that. Do you?"