Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

"A matter of principle." Consul Stafford sounded less scornful than he often did.

"That's right. A matter of principle." Frederick nodded. The white man had come out with what he was trying to say.

"We have our own principles, you know," Stafford said.

"Sure you do." That was Lorenzo, answering before Frederick could speak. "You can buy us and sell us and lay our women whenever you've got a stiff dick you don't know what to do with. Only you can't, not any more. That's how come we rose up, too."

Stafford didn't explode, the way Frederick thought he might. All he said was, "Getting this past the Senate will be harder than you seem to think."

"Tell 'em you're doing what's right," Frederick said. "It's the truth."

"As if that matters," Leland Newton muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.

"It better matter," Frederick said. "If it don't, we got to start over. An' startin' over means the Free Republic of Atlantis an' lots more shootin'."

"I told you before-we can start shooting again if you push us hard enough. You won't like what happens if we do," Stafford said.

"You won't like it, either," Lorenzo promised, and exchanged more glares with the Consul from Cosquer. But they weren't the same kind of glares as they had been before the two leaders drank together on the overgrown streets of Slug Hollow. Then, Stafford might have been scowling at a dangerous dog, Lorenzo eyeing a fierce red-crested eagle. Now each recognized the other as a man. That much was plain. Whether such recognition improved things was, unfortunately, a different question.

"We rose up on account of freedom," Frederick said. "If we could've got it without fighting, we would've done that. But it wasn't about to happen-you folks know it wasn't, and you know why, too."

"Do you see the day, then, when one of the Consuls of the United States of Atlantis will be a Negro and the other a copperskin?" Jeremiah Stafford didn't sound as if he saw that day, but he didn't-quite-sound as if he were mocking Frederick, either.

Since he didn't, Frederick judged he deserved a serious answer: "Not any time soon. More white folks than there are colored, and people just naturally vote for their own. But maybe the day will come when nobody cares what color a man is, as long as he's a good man and he knows what he's doin'."

"A noble sentiment," Consul Newton said softly.

"Well, so it is," Stafford agreed. He looked across the table at Frederick. "You'd better not hold your breath waiting for that day, though."

Frederick looked back at him. "No need to worry about that, your Excellency. I don't aim to."

"I don't care if a copperskin gets to be Consul," Lorenzo said. "What I care about is whether it's against the law for him to try. Long as he can try-long as nobody ties him to the whipping post and stripes his back for even thinking about it-I won't fuss. Same with marryin' out of your color: I don't reckon it'll happen real often, but there shouldn't be a law against it."

"That's right," Frederick said. "That's just right. That's how it ought to be."

"Easy enough for you to say so, out here in the middle of nowhere," Consul Stafford said. "As I told you a little while ago, it won't be so easy to convince the Senate in New Hastings."

"Do we have to bring the war across the mountains, then? We can do that." Frederick wasn't really sure the insurrectionists could do any such thing, but he wanted to keep the white men worried.

By the looks on their faces, he did. "Even if we give you everything you say you want, you may not end up happy with it," Newton said.

"If the law says we're free, we'll be happy with it," Frederick answered.

"If the law says we're equal, we'll be happy," Lorenzo added.

Colonel Sinapis suddenly spoke up: "Not matter what the law says, white men will keep running Atlantis for a long time to come. You are right-there are more of them than there are of you. And they have more money. They have more experience running things, too. You may not be slaves in law any more, but you will not at once become equals, no matter what the law says."

Frederick Radcliff glanced over at Lorenzo. The foreign colonel's words seemed much too likely for comfort. Lorenzo spread his hands, as if to say he felt the same way. But what came out of his mouth was, "Chance we've got to take."

"I think so, too," Frederick said. "We have to start somewhere."

Leland Newton had drafted the accord that would, with luck, put an end to what almost everyone these days was calling the Great Servile Insurrection. He wrote it in language more simple than he would have used most of the time. He was a barrister; keeping things simple wasn't something he normally did. But, while Frederick Radcliff could read and write, he wasn't trained in the law. Newton didn't want him to be able to claim he'd signed something he didn't fully understand.

"Why not?" Stafford said when Newton remarked on that. "It'd served the damned nigger right."

"We came to Slug Hollow to stop trouble, not to stir up more of it," Newton said.

"We came west to stamp out the insurrection," Stafford replied, "and look what a good job of it we did."

"If we bring home a peace the whole country can live with, we will have done well enough here," Newton said.

"If." The other Consul bore down heavily on the word. "And if the whites south of the Stour rebel because of the peace we've brought home, how well will we have done here? That may yet happen, you know."

"I do intend to propose that they be compensated for the loss of what has been their property," Newton said.

"That may do some good. Then again, it may not," Stafford replied. "If living in houses were to be made illegal tomorrow, how happy would you be to get money for a house you had to leave?"

"Happier than if I didn't get any, I suppose," Newton answered.

"You would still be angry, though, wouldn't you? You might be angry enough to go to war about it," Stafford said.

"I hope not." Newton heard less conviction in his own voice than he would have liked. He gathered strength as he went on, "White men south of the Stour can't go back to living in the house they had before. Their neighbors will burn it down around their ears if they try. You know that's so."

Unwillingly, his colleague nodded. "But a good many of them don't understand that it's so," Stafford said.

"We've got to convince them. You've got to convince them," Newton said. "They admire you. They respect you. They believe you. They believe in you."

"And much good any of that will do me. As soon as I tell them they really do have to give up their slaves, they'll start plotting to assassinate me. And if you think I'm exaggerating, you'd better think again," Stafford said.

Newton didn't think the other Consul was. He knew how high passions ran among slaveholders. "Maybe what's happened to our army-and what's happened to some of them-will give them the idea that times have changed," Newton said hopefully.

"Maybe." Stafford didn't sound as if he believed it for a minute.

"If you feel the way you do, why are you signing the agreement?" Newton asked.

"This will be bad. Not signing would be worse," Stafford said. "I can see that much. I'm not a blind man, no matter how often you've called me one on the Consuls' dais. But you and the insurrectionists seem sure angels will sing hosannas as soon as everyone's name goes on that paper. I am here to tell you things won't be so simple."

Do I think everything will be wonderful once we have an agreement? Newton wondered. Maybe he did. And maybe Stafford was right to have his doubts. But he was also right about something else: "Not signing would be worse."

"I said so." Jeremiah Stafford gestured impatiently. "But that doesn't mean signing will be good. It just means signing won't be so bad. You can say right away that a man is free. How long does it take before he truly believes he's free, though? And how long before his neighbors believe it?"