Harry Turtledove - Liberating Atlantis

Frederick would have found the headline even without the helpful digit. What else would a Senator want him to read but a story headlined SLAVE REVOLT IN GERNIKA SPREADS!?

He quickly read the piece. The revolt had broken out near St. Augustine, a sleepy subtropical town on the east coast south of the city of Gernika, the state capital. Local planters had had no luck crushing it; neither had the state militia. The state of Gernika had been Spanish Atlantis till the USA bought it from Spain thirty years earlier. Both before and after coming into the USA, Spaniards had an evil reputation among slaves. Better to be owned by an English Atlantean than a Frenchman, but better a Frenchman than a Spaniard any day-or so Negroes and copperskins said.

Maybe that was true, maybe not. If the slaves down in Gernika believed it, they would fight harder against the men who'd claimed the right to own them. Frederick gave the paper back to the guard. "All right. Now I've seen it. What does the Senator want me to do about it?"

"He didn't tell me," the guard answered. "But if I was him, I'd want you to stop it. That's what you're here for, right?"

That's what you're here for, right, nigger? The guard didn't say it out loud. He and his friends were doing their job well enough, so maybe he didn't even think it. Maybe. But Frederick had trouble believing that. He could hear slights in a white man's tone of voice. If he sometimes heard them even when they weren't there, well, who could blame him?

Regardless of whether nigger was in the guard's thought, what he did say made obvious sense. It had equally obvious problems. "How am I supposed to stop something down in Gernika if I'm here in New Hastings?"

"Beats me." The guard tapped the two stripes on the left upper arm of his tunic. "I ain't nothin' but a dumb corporal. You should ought to talk to the Senator."

"It would help if I knew which one," Frederick pointed out.

"Oh, sure. That makes a difference, don't it?" Laughing at himself, the underofficer thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. Perhaps all men really were brothers under the skin. Frederick had used that same gesture when he was feeling more stupid than usual. The corporal went on, "This here was Senator Marquard, from Cosquer."

From Consul Stafford's home state, just north of Gernika. A Frenchman, by his name. A sly fellow, whatever his name and background-he didn't want trouble spilling up over the border. Slaves everywhere south of the Stour seemed suspended in a state of limbo. If the Senate approved the Slug Hollow agreement, they would be free. If the Senate didn't, they would explode, and Frederick didn't think he or anyone else would be able to stop them or even slow them down.

The Negroes and copperskins down by St. Augustine must not have been able to wait. Or else some master had done something intolerable even by the loose standards of masters in a state where Spanish rules still held sway. The newspaper story hadn't said what touched off the uprising. Maybe the reporter didn't know. Maybe, when he was writing about slaves, he didn't care.

Frederick didn't remember any particularly hostile questions from Senator Marquard. The little the Negro knew of him suggested he could see sense. He supported slavery-what Senator from south of the Stour didn't?-but he was less fanatical than most of his colleagues. Which meant…

"I'm going to have to see him," Frederick told Helen after summarizing the newspaper story and his conversation with the guard.

"How come? All he wants to do is get you killed," his wife said.

That hadn't occurred to Frederick. He hadn't thought of himself as naive, but maybe he should have. If he went down to Gernika to try to settle things and either the whites or the rebellious slaves didn't want to listen to him, he could easily end up dead. But if he didn't, what was he worth as a leader? What was the Slug Hollow accord worth?

Sighing, he said, "I got to see the Senator. Where I go from there… Well, we'll find out."

Senator Abel Marquard was ready to see Frederick. Frederick would have been astonished if he weren't. Marquard looked both debauched and clever. His eyes were red-tracked and pouchy; he combed a few strands of coal-black hair across a vast expanse of scalp. But he had the air of a man who calculated and who remembered-favors, yes, but also slights.

He shook hands with Frederick with no visible qualms: a courtesy not all southern Senators seemed willing to extend to a black man. When he said, "I am pleased to make the acquaintance of the man of the hour," Frederick could hear no sarcasm-which, with a customer as smooth as Marquard, didn't mean it wasn't there.

"Please to meet you, too, sir," Frederick said, wondering if he meant it. "What can I do for you?"

"Not what you can do for me-what you can do for Atlantis," Senator Marquard answered.

Frederick decided to stop beating around the bush. "Why should I do anything for Atlantis? What the devil has Atlantis ever done for me? Plenty to me, I will say that, but not much for me."

"Not yet, maybe," Marquard agreed blandly. "But how would you expect the Senate to approve the Slug Hollow agreement"-he named it with obvious amusement-"when slaves are still in arms against the country in spite of the truce you promised?"

"Oh, come on… sir," Frederick said with a snort. "I've never been to Gernika. I've never been anywhere near it. If you think I'm in charge of slaves down there the way a colonel in New Hastings is in charge of soldiers in New Marseille, you better think again."

"I see. Well, let me ask you another question, then: if you are not in charge of these people, if they pay you no heed, why should anyone here take the Slug Hollow agreement seriously?" Marquard said. "Does it not promise more than you can deliver?"

"Mmp." Frederick made an unhappy noise. He parried the question as best he could: "If you go along with it, the slaves won't have any reason to rise up, on account of they won't be slaves any more."

"It could be." Marquard didn't call him a liar to his face, but he might as well have. "On the other hand, we are entitled to proof that you are a leader who can get your people to follow you wherever they happen to be."

By your people, he couldn't mean anything but Negroes and copperskins. Frederick wanted to argue with him about that. He thought the Slug Hollow accord was good for everyone in Atlantis, regardless of color. But that would sidetrack the argument. Instead, he stayed direct: "Suppose I do that for you, then? What will you do for me in exchange?"

Senator Marquard looked pained. Such straightforwardness held little appeal for him. "You would not find me ungrateful," he murmured, pasting a delicate smile onto his thin lips.

Frederick's lips were far from thin, his smile far from delicate. "If I do this, and I come back alive-or even if I don't-will you back the Slug Hollow agreement? Will you do everything you can to get your friends to back it, too?"

The Senator looked pained. "You ask me to put my political future in your hands."

"Well, you're askin' me to risk my neck," Frederick retorted. "You think I'm gonna do that for nothin', you better think twice."

"I could tell you yes and then do exactly as I please," Marquard said. "You are no Senator yourself. You have no power to enforce a bargain."

"No, huh?" Frederick smiled again, as unpleasantly as he could. "How many slaves have you got, sir? If you renege on me, how long do you reckon you can go before you have an accident? Or you can turn your slaves loose, I guess-but if you do that, you may as well go along with Slug Hollow, right?"

Senator Marquard opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. After a long silence, he said, "It is not to be doubted that you favor your grandfather. The Radcliffs have always been famous for their stubbornness."