"Hear, hear!" "Bravo!" "Well said!" The cries of approval and the applause that went with them made Stafford smile. Not all of that came from southern men, not by any means. Stafford's eyes slid over to his fellow Consul. He wanted to see how Leland Newton enjoyed this.

If it fazed Newton, he didn't show it. "Wouldn't you agree, sir," he said, "that one of the so-called white men's ideas we've built upon is the notion that white men are better than any other sort?"

"I would," Stafford said proudly, "for that claim is the truth. White men are better than any other sort. The proof of which may be seen in the way that white men conquer and prevail all over the world." More applause echoed from the ceiling.

Consul Newton merely steepled his fingertips. "A few hundred years ago, Marco Polo visited Cathay. His book tells of all sorts of wonders the people there had, of which white men knew nothing. The cities in Cathay were bigger and cleaner and grander than any in Europe. The people used printing and paper money-not always a blessing, but they devised it first. Even the lowly noodle comes from Cathay. Would not any reasonable man in those days have said that the yellow folk there were far superior to the barbarous white Europeans?"

"You twist things!" Stafford didn't like to let Newton know his barbs stung, but couldn't stop himself this time.

"Do I? I think not. What looks to you like natural superiority seems to me more like picking the present in place of the past and a bit of luck besides. What does Ecclesiastes say? 'I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.' Or will you tell me you reckon the Good Book mistaken?"

"I will tell you that the Good Book has as much to do with Cathay as chalk has to do with cream cheese," Stafford snarled. "And I will tell you it has even less to do with mudfaces and damned niggers!"

" ' I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.' " Like the Devil, Consul Newton could quote Scripture to his purpose. As far as Jeremiah Stafford was concerned, the resemblance didn't end there.

He looked out onto the floor of the Senate chamber. Some of the Conscript Fathers looked as furious as he felt. Others seemed more thoughtful than usual. Not all the men who did were northerners, which alarmed him.

He said, "I suppose you will next tell me, sir, that the Bible condemns slavery. It does not, and you must know it does not, neither in the Old Testament nor in the New."

"True enough." But Newton spoiled what should have been a telling admission by adding, "It does, however, mitigate the conditions a slave is forced to endure, and liberates him during the jubilee. The institution as practiced in Atlantis does none of these things. I suppose you will next tell me that it does."

Consul Stafford growled, down deep in his throat. His colleague was the slipperiest thing this side of a greased eel. "In Biblical times, men enslaved others much like them," he said. "Our system, being different from theirs and based on the inferiority of those enslaved, naturally has different requirements. Aristotle noted that some men are slaves by nature, which we see proved here."

"Aristotle said all sorts of things," Newton answered easily. "Quite a few of 'em have turned out not to be so. Maybe this one is true, maybe it isn't. But it sure isn't true just because Aristotle says so. And the only thing the slave system in Atlantis proves is that white men here have the guns and the dogs and the whips, and the colored men don't. The Bible talks about sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind, too. You might do well to remember that."

"You are helping the insurrection!" Stafford howled.

"Me? I'm just sitting here," Newton said.

"When you should be moving! When we should be!" But Stafford couldn't make the other man see.

Enterprising restaurateurs in New Hastings brought fat frogs and big flapjack turtles up from the southern part of Atlantis and served them in stews and soups to men from that part of the country: men who'd grown up on such fare. Leland Newton hadn't. Oh, Croydon had its share of frogs and pond turtles, too. But they hardly ever got bigger than the palm of a man's hand. There wasn't enough meat in them to bother with, especially since they spent the cold seasons sleeping in the mud at the bottom of streams and puddles.

He'd had flapjack-turtle stew a few times since coming to New Hastings, when he was eating with southern men. It was fine… if you'd grown up eating it. These days, as pro- and antislavery forces found themselves ever more often at loggerheads (a different kind of turtle altogether), he felt less inclined to make such gestures. When he ate at Kingsley's Chop House, he ate mutton chops. Whoever wanted to gorge on turtles and frogs was welcome to his share.

A mutton chop with mint jelly, some fried potatoes, a glass of beer or burgundy or perhaps a tawny port… That was a civilized way to make a midday meal. If you had to eat something that swam, salmon and cod were tasty enough.

Which didn't mean the Consul ignored gentlemen who had other cravings. He was enjoying Master Kingsley's artistry with the mint jelly when a party of southern men took the table next to his. He sat more turned away from them than not, or they might have recognized him. They were talking a blue streak when they got there, and they went right on doing it.

His ear identified them as southerners even before they ordered. Like Jeremiah Stafford, they kept the faintest trace of a French accent-the ghost of a French accent, really. He wouldn't have been surprised if they were all of English stock. Even so, the tones of the first settlers lingered. Irishmen who knew not a word of Erse spoke English with a brogue.

"Can you believe the nerve of those niggers and mudfaces?" one of them said. Before his friends could answer, a waiter came up to see what they wanted. Their orders also showed they'd grown up on the far side of the Stour. After the waiter went away, the fellow who'd spoken before resumed: "A Free Republic of Atlantis for their own kind? Sweet Jesus, don't make me laugh!"

"Likely tell!" one of his friends scoffed. "It's all talk to make the northern states keep putting the screws to us. But we know how things really work, we do." He sounded more silly than worldly wise.

Consul Newton thought so, anyhow. The man's friends didn't. "I should hope we know. That damned nigger will keep telling them what to do, and they'll keep doing it."

"That devil!" The first man had an uncommonly raspy voice. "The nerve, to call himself Victor Radcliff's grandson!"

"Yes. The nerve!" his comrades echoed. Did their voices sound a little hollow? Newton thought so. He knew his would have in their place. Where did all the griffes and mulattos and quadroons and their copperskinned equivalents come from if white men didn't lie down with colored women? No one south of the Stour would let colored men lie down with white women: that was certain sure.

And hadn't Victor Radcliff been a man like other men? No matter what the schoolbooks said, Consul Newton figured the man who gave Atlantis liberty had sometimes needed to squat behind a bush and clean himself with a handful of leaves. He'd probably needed to get his ashes hauled now and again, too. He might well have left a byblow behind.

The waiter came back with beer for the men at the next table. "Your stew will be along soon," he assured them.

"Not slow as a turtle, eh?" one of them said. They all thought that was funny, which made Newton wonder how much they'd drunk before they got to Master Kingsley's establishment.