Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

To his amazement-and fury-the Negro and copperskin both burst out laughing. "It's your Bible," Frederick Radcliff said. "They're your scholars. What are they gonna say? 'No, we're just a bunch of stupid cows next to these other folks'? I don't think so!"

That had never occurred to Stafford. It disconcerted him, but only for a moment. "The Bible is the word of God," he said sternly. "God would not lie, and you face hellfire if you say He would."

Lorenzo went right on laughing. "Devil'd have you on the fire right now if we didn't turn you loose."

No, Jeremiah Stafford didn't care to be reminded of that, not even slightly. This time, Frederick Radcliff spoke before Stafford could say anything: "That's about the size of it. Bible doesn't matter, not for this. I don't care if white folks reckon they're better'n we are. That doesn't matter, either. What matters is, you aren't strong enough to hold us down any more, and now we know it."

"Realpolitik," Colonel Sinapis murmured. It sounded almost as if it ought to be an English word, but not quite.

Consul Newton's thoughtful grunt said he understood it. Stafford believed he did, too, which didn't mean he liked it. But then Newton spoke to the insurrectionists: "You can't leave what white men think out of the way you think. If your horses rose up against you-"

That was precisely how Stafford saw things. It was also precisely calculated to enrage the Negro and the copperskin. "You call me an animal, you can kiss my ass," Frederick Radcliff said.

"I didn't. I don't." Newton held up a hand, as if to deny everything. "But most white men south of the Stour are liable to. More than a few from north of the river, too, I have to tell you, but maybe not so many. If you forget that, or if you try to pretend it isn't there, you're missing something important."

Stafford stared at his colleague in amazement. "He said it-I didn't," Stafford said. "I agree with every word of it, though."

"Well, I've got two words for those damnfool white folks," Lorenzo said: "Tough shit."

"Realpolitik," Colonel Sinapis repeated, louder this time. He looked across the table at the rebels. "The Consuls are right. White men in Atlantis do feel this way. You cannot ignore it because you do not care for it."

"Maybe us winning this fight here has gone a ways toward changing their minds," Frederick Radcliff said.

Balthasar Sinapis politely dipped his head. "Maybe," he said. "I would not bet on this anything I was not ready to lose."

"Most white men will go to their graves sure they are better than any copperskin or Negro ever born," Stafford added.

"If that's what it takes, we'll send 'em there," Lorenzo said. He started to get up from the table.

"Wait." Frederick Radcliff and Consul Newton said the same thing at the same time. They both blinked, then smiled almost identical sheepish smiles. Lorenzo blinked, too, and did sit down again. Newton went on, "We need to bring back something like peace. We can't go on the way we have been. The country will fall to pieces if we do, and that won't help anyone."

"I was thinking the same thing," Frederick Radcliff said. "We keep fighting the rest of our lives, we've got nothin' worth havin'."

"Slaves don't get set free, we've got nothin' worth havin', either," Lorenzo said.

"What have you got if you make the white men south of the Stour want to fight you to the death?" Stafford asked. "The way you're going, that's just what you're doing."

"We have to be free. Have to be," Frederick Radcliff said. Lorenzo nodded.

"Freeing you will break hundreds of thousands of white men, maybe millions," Stafford said. "They won't put up with it. Neither would you, not in their shoes."

This time, both Lorenzo and Frederick Radcliff got up. Newton started to say something. Then he stopped-he seemed to have no idea what would call them back. They walked out of the tavern together.

Newton and Colonel Sinapis both turned on Stafford. "A bad peace is worse than none at all," Stafford insisted. Neither of the other two men said a word. He didn't think that was because he'd convinced them.

Leland Newton held on to his temper with both hands. "It's either free them or fight forever," he said.

"Suppose I asked you to bankrupt yourself. Suppose I asked every fifth man in the state of Croydon to do the same," Stafford returned. "How eager would you be?"

"It won't be so bad as that," Newton said.

"Like hell it won't," the other Consul replied. "We won't do it. I know my people. Why won't you listen to me?"

"Negroes and copperskins were 'your people,' too," Newton said. "Why wouldn't you listen to them?"

He took a certain malicious pleasure in watching the other Consul's mouth fall open. "They don't vote!" Stafford sputtered. He needed a moment to gather himself. Then, his voice strengthening, he added, "And they've got no business voting, either!"

"It doesn't seem to do any harm in Croydon," Newton said. "No great pestilences-we don't even have the yellow jack up there, the way you do in Cosquer. God hasn't chosen to drop the city into the sea."

"I don't know why not," Stafford said. In the south, people thought Croydon and Hanover were dens of iniquity, full of sin and degradation. What Stafford didn't understand-one of the many things he didn't understand-was that people in Hanover and Croydon felt the same way about the states south of the Stour, and all because of slavery.

"You need to ask God about that," Newton said. "But you can't really believe you'll be able to put all the insurrectionists back in bondage… can you?" The question said he didn't want to believe Stafford could believe any such thing.

His colleague's mutinous countenance declared that Stafford wanted to believe it-wanted to with all his heart and all his soul and all his might. It also said Stafford wanted to kill as many men and women as he needed to in order to bring the rest back to submission. But then, slowly, the other Consul's features crumpled. "No," he said. "I can't." No bombastic tragedian playing Hamlet could have packed more anguish into three words.

Hearing them made Newton want to jump for joy. He didn't-nor did he show that he wanted to. Showing Stafford any such thing would only have further stiffened his colleague's already stiff back. So Newton spoke as if it were nothing but a matter of practical politics: "Well, then, how do we do what wants doing?"

"Good question," the other Consul said. "I warned you before-the whites south of the Stour won't put up with nigger freedom, let alone nigger equality."

"The way it looks to me, their only other choice is going on with this war, and that hasn't worked so well, either," Newton said.

"A lot of them won't care," Stafford said bleakly.

"Well, the militiamen we had with us can help spread the word," Newton said. "And they can help spread the word that the copperskins and Negroes could have killed every last one of us, but didn't."

"Good God!" The Consul from Cosquer looked at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses. "Do you think those people will do anything on account of gratitude? You know what that's worth."

So Newton did, much too well. Anyone who counted on gratitude in politics wouldn't stay in politics long. "No," Newton insisted. "But people all over the south need to know the insurrectionists aren't devils with horns and barbed tails."

"Are you so sure? What about the ones who slaughtered their masters and violated their mistresses when the uprising started?" Stafford said. "Shouldn't they hang for murder?"

"It was a war. Bad things happen in wars-that's what makes them what they are," Newton replied. "I think we will have to declare an amnesty. Otherwise the fighting starts again, doesn't it?"

"Amnesty." Stafford spat the word back at him. "So they get away with all their crimes? Makes me wish I were a nigger myself."