Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

"Or maybe we wouldn't." The colonel-who decked himself out in a uniform far fancier than Sinapis'-had a pointy nose, a whiny voice, and a suspicious mind. "Reckon you're afraid we'd do us some real fightin' against them damned niggers."

Newton was afraid they'd try, and would shatter the fragile tacit truce that still held. Since he didn't care to admit that, he answered, "I haven't seen your men win any more laurels than the regulars."

"We never got the chance!" the militiaman complained. "That damnfool foreigner you've got in charge of your soldiers wouldn't turn us loose and let us fight the way we wanted to."

What did that mean? Newton feared he knew. The colonel wanted to rape and loot and burn and slaughter. He would have made a fine freebooter from western Atlantis' piratical past. A soldier? That looked to be a different story.

"Your private war against the men and women who were your slaves is not the only thing at stake here," the Consul said coldly. "The fate of the United States of Atlantis rides on this, too."

"You reckon they don't go together?" The militia colonel made as if to spit, then-barely-thought better of it. "If you do, you're even dumber'n I give you credit for, and that's saying something." He clumped away, disgust plain in every line of his body.

Staring after him, Newton sighed. Then he swore under his breath. The militiamen didn't have to stay under Colonel Sinapis' command. If they grew desperate enough, and if they got their hands on some muskets (which they could probably manage if they grew desperate enough), they could storm off against the insurrectionists on their own. Newton didn't think they would cover themselves in glory. He knew he might be wrong, though. And even if he was right, that might not stop them.

He started to go warn Sinapis. But what would that accomplish? The most the regular officer could do would be to put the militiamen under guard. That would only complete the breach Newton wanted to prevent. The militiamen wouldn't listen to reason from Sinapis, any more than that damned colonel had wanted to listen to Newton.

What then? Reluctantly, Newton hunted up Jeremiah Stafford instead of the regular colonel. He feared the other Consul wouldn't listen to him, either. Still, if Stafford didn't, how were they worse off?

Stafford did hear him out. Then he asked a reasonable enough question: "What do you want me to do about it, your Excellency?"

"We aren't fighting Frederick Radcliff's men right now," Newton answered. "I'd like to keep it that way if we can."

"Right this minute, the militiamen have damn-all to fight with," Stafford said. "That's the biggest part of what's eating them."

"Not the biggest part," Newton said. The other Consul looked a question at him. He went on, "What's bothering them is the same thing that's bothering you. They don't want the Negroes and copperskins to get their freedom."

"Yes, that's about the size of it," Stafford said. "Why do you think I'd want to slow them down, then?"

"Because they'll only spill sand in the gears, and you know it as well as I do. God knows the two of us don't agree, but you're not a stupid man. That militia colonel…" Newton shook his head. "He couldn't cut his way out of a gunnysack if you gave him a pair of scissors. Your Excellency, we have a chance to end this peacefully. We-"

Stafford interrupted: "Peacefully, maybe, but not the way I'd want it."

"To end this the way you want it, we'd have to soak Atlantis in blood. Even that might not do it, because killing all the Negroes and copperskins leaves the country without slaves, which isn't what you have in mind, either. Or it might not end at all-there might be murders and burnings and bushwhackings a hundred years from now. You can have peace, or you can have slavery. I don't think you can have both any more. It's not just cooking and sewing and barbering these days. Will an overseer ever be able to turn his back on a slave with a shovel in his hands again?"

"You… God… damned… son… of… a… bitch." The words dragged from Stafford one by one, as if dredged up from somewhere deep inside him.

"Your servant, sir." Newton made as if to bow.

The other Consul started to say something else, then broke off with an expression of almost physical pain-or maybe of true hatred. Now Stafford was the one who shook his head, like a horse bedeviled with flies. He tried again: "You are a son of a bitch. You know how to rub my nose in it, don't you?"

"I'm sorry." Newton lied without hesitation. "The thing is there. You know it's there, even if you don't like it. That's the difference between you and the colonel of militia. If I make you see it or smell it or whatever you please, you won't go on telling me it's not."

"I wish I could," Stafford said bitterly.

"I'm sure you do. But it's too late for that, isn't it? The Senate wants to get this over with. By the way the wires sound, it doesn't care how we do it. People south of the Stour-white people, I mean-will get used to the idea of freeing slaves faster if someone they respect tells them they don't have much choice any more."

"Some of them may. The rest will stand in line to shoot me. It'll be a long line, too." Stafford didn't sound like a man who was joking.

"What will things be like if they go on the way they have? Better? Or worse?" Newton asked. If anything would keep Stafford thinking about what needed doing-whether he liked it or not-that was it.

By the way he screwed up his face, he might have been passing a kidney stone. "This is not the way I wanted things to turn out when we left New Hastings," he said. "But you're happy now, aren't you?"

" ' Happy' probably goes too far," Newton replied. "I've always thought the slaves deserve to be free. I hoped we wouldn't need bloodshed to free them."

"It may not be over yet, or even close to over," Stafford said. "Do you remember what I told you before? No matter how happy"-he used the word again, with malice aforethought-"you are that niggers and mudfaces get to ape white men, plenty of people south of the Stour won't be. A lot of them will be like the militia colonel you don't care for-they'll want to keep fighting no matter what."

"I do remember. We've been over this ground before. What's the most they can hope for? I can think of two things." Newton held up two fingers. He touched one with the index finger of his other hand. "Maybe they'll kill off all the blacks and copperskins down here. Then they won't have any slaves left, whatever they were fighting for will be pointless, and their grandchildren will ask them, 'How could you do such a horrible thing?' " He touched the other finger. "Or maybe they'll win. I don't think it's likely, but you never can tell. But even if they do, will they trust slaves around anything sharp from then on out? I asked you that a couple of minutes ago, and you swore at me."

"You deserved it, too," Stafford said.

"Which still doesn't answer my question, your Excellency." What Stafford called him then made everything the other Consul had said before sound like an endearment. It would have made a hard-bitten regular sergeant, a twenty-year veteran, blush like a maiden aunt. Even on the receiving end, Newton admired it. When his colleague finally ran down, he inclined his head. "Your mother would be proud of you," he said.

"If she knew what you had in mind, she'd call you worse than that," Stafford said.

"The worst of it is, I believe you-which also doesn't answer my question," Newton said. "For God's sake, Jeremiah, if you think that hero from the militia will get you what you want, turn him loose. But if you think he's the biggest jackass this side of a stud farm, you ought to slow him down before he makes a bad spot worse."

He wondered whether Stafford would ream him out yet again. The other Consul didn't. He just gestured wearily, as if to say he wanted nothing more to do with Leland Newton and his impertinent questions. Knowing when not to push any more could be even more important than knowing when to keep pushing no matter what. Newton touched a finger to the brim of his tall beaver hat and left Stafford alone with his conscience-assuming he had one.