To Newton, that he could find it good to begin with was incomprehensible. But the depth of the other Consul's knowledge of the subject made him formidable in debate. So did his native cleverness. People didn't call him the Greased Snake for nothing.

"May I ask my fellow Consul a question?" Stafford inquired in his politest, and most dangerous, tones.

"By all means, sir." Leland Newton could also be formidably ironic. He gestured in invitation. "You see? I refuse you nothing."

"Why refuse when you can veto?" Consul Stafford shook his head. "Never mind. That was not the question I intended. This is: imagine, sir, if you will, that an insurrection has broken out in the sovereign state of New Marseille, an insurrection marked by murder and arson and all manner of lesser crimes."

"He doesn't need to imagine it!" Justinian Bainbridge howled. "It's happening right this minute!"

"Bear with me, Senator," Stafford said easily. He turned back to Consul Newton. "Now imagine that this insurrection is the product of white ruffians and robbers, with not a single mudface or nigger attached to it. If New Marseille appealed to the Senate of the United States of Atlantis for aid under those circumstances, would you prevent that aid from coming?"

Howls and whoops rose from the slaveholding states' Senators. Porfirio Cardenas of Gernika roared so loud, he suffered a coughing fit. One of his colleagues had to pound him on the back. Newton muttered under his breath. He supposed it had been necessary to incorporate what once was Spanish Atlantis into the USA. Now the red-crested eagle flew over the whole mid-Atlantic land mass. But adding the new state gave weight to the pro-slavery side, and the Spaniards had a name for being harsh masters. So did the Atlanteans from farther north who'd flocked into the new state to try to get rich quick.

Newton had waited too long. Stafford called him on it: "You see? Against white rebels, dragoons and artillery would already be on the way."

"Not necessarily," Newton said, buying himself time to think.

"Oh? How not?" Stafford returned with ominous calm.

"If white men rebelled because they were dreadfully mistreated, because they could suffer any sort of punishment at their masters' hands without due process of law, because they were not allowed to take wives, and because the women with whom they cohabited could be forced into a master's arms at his whim, would we not applaud them? Would we not send them dragoons and artillery to aid their fight against injustice?" Consul Newton took a deep breath.

He got the same tumultuous cheers for his answer as Stafford had for his question, but not from the same men. The Senators from north of the Stour (the Erdre, southern men still sometimes called the river, preserving the French name) clapped their hands and shouted. Those who favored slavery tried to drown them out with hoots and catcalls, but couldn't quite.

When something close to order returned, Jeremiah Stafford said, "There is a difference, you know."

"Oh? And that would be…?" Newton asked.

"Simply that white men are of our own kind, our equals by nature. Niggers and mudfaces are not, and never can be."

"Such an assertion would be all the better for proof," Newton remarked.

"I have a great plenty of it, and should be delighted to give you as much as you require," Consul Stafford said.

"Move we adjourn!" shouted Harris Mitchell of Freetown. His state bordered the Stour on the north. Slavery had lasted longer there than elsewhere in the north of Atlantis. Freetown wasn't neutral ground, but came closer than any other state.

And a motion to adjourn was always in order. Half a dozen Senators roared seconds. The motion passed overwhelmingly. Everyone seemed relieved to stream out of the Senate chamber. One more day without blood on the floor… One more day, yes, but it had been a damned near-run thing.

When Jeremiah Stafford talked with officers in the Ministry of War, he was exceeding his authority under the Atlantean Charter. Consuls commanded an army in the field on alternate days-if an army was in the field. If not, they were supposed to fight shy of matters military.

You had to know where a man came from. More than anything else, that told you where he stood. Oh, there were exceptions. Some northern officers despised Negroes and copperskins enough to lean toward keeping them in bondage. Rather fewer southerners thought slavery morally wrong. On the whole, though, geography and politics walked hand in hand.

Major Sam Duncan was from Cosquer. Consul Stafford had known him for years. Duncan had Radcliffe blood, too, which made them kinsmen of sorts. Stafford passed his latest news on to the officer: "Do you know what the nigger leading the rising is claiming? He says he's Victor Radcliff's grandson."

"Likely tell!" Duncan said. He was a solidly built man in his early forties, with bushy muttonchop whiskers that didn't suit the shape of his face. "One of my brother's copperskins said he was descended from the Holy Ghost. A good dose of the lash changed his mind in a hurry."

"I expect it would," Stafford agreed.

"When are we going to be able to send our soldiers over there and clean out those coons, sir?" Duncan asked. "The longer the government shilly-shallies, the more trouble they'll kick up. Liable to be insurrections all the way from the Hesperian Gulf to the Atlantic coast."

"You understand that, Major, and I understand it, and most men of sense do as well," the Consul said. "Too many people, though, don't appreciate the difficulties inherent in the situation."

"Damn fools, if you care what I think," Duncan said.

"Oh, I agree with you," Stafford answered. "But our founders, in their wisdom-if that's what it was-made it possible for determined folk, wise or not, to hamstring the government. Consul Newton remains opposed to the national government's movement against the insurrectionists. This being so, nothing official may be done."

He waited. He'd always thought Sam Duncan politically astute. That was one of the reasons he'd cultivated the man. But, if the major didn't hear what he was saying, he might have to change his mind.

Duncan tugged at one of his muttonchops. He didn't smoke; the side whiskers gave him something to do with his hands while he thought. His eyes, always heavy-lidded, narrowed further. "Nothing official, you say?"

Jeremiah Stafford smiled-inside himself, where it didn't show. He hadn't been wrong after all. Major Duncan did have ears to hear. "Unfortunately, that is correct," Stafford said, sounding grave as a doctor delivering a gloomy prognosis.

"Some unofficial things might be done, though?" Duncan, by contrast, spoke in musing tones. "Give some fellows leave to return home, say? Or transfer weapons to state militias without worrying too much about paperwork? Things like that?"

"If they're done unofficially, I don't need to know about them," Stafford answered. "No one needs to know about them, not officially."

"All right, Consul. I get you." Duncan laid a finger by the side of his nose. "Nobody will find out. We'll do-"

Stafford held up a hand. "This discussion has been purely hypothetical, you understand. I would prefer that it stay that way. What I have not heard, I am not in the least responsible for."

"I get you." Major Duncan nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened."

"Well, it might be interesting if something like that did." Now Jeremiah Stafford let the outside of his physiognomy show amusement. He felt muscles creaking under his skin; he didn't smile all that often. "I wager the mudfaces and niggers would think it was pretty interesting, too."

"That's the idea, isn't it?" Duncan sketched a salute. "A pleasure talking hypothetically with you, your Excellency."