"I have no idea what you're talking about," Newton said. Stafford only snorted. He'd come to politics from the practice of the law, just as his colleague had. He knew a denial that wasn't a denial when he heard one.

While he and Newton bickered, Colonel Sinapis looked out the window. The Atlantean officer suddenly pointed. "There," he said. "This is part of the trouble of the countryside."

This was a rude encampment alongside the railroad tracks. Tents and lean-tos sheltered white people who were dirty and wore ragged clothes. A few of them waved to the train. More just sat or sprawled where they were, too apathetic to salute the men who had come to rescue them.

"You see." Stafford rounded on Newton and made the words an accusation. "This is what the insurrection does. These poor innocents got away with their necks, nothing more. All they worked for through their lives is gone now."

"Yes, it's very sad," the other Consul said. But that was at best a barbed agreement, for Newton went on, "They seem to have it as hard as the slaves did before the uprising."

The monstrous unfairness of that almost choked Jeremiah Stafford with rage. "Every time you open your mouth, all you prove is that you don't know what you're talking about. Any master who housed his slaves like that would get a quick talking-to from his neighbors, or maybe a horsewhipping. Putting mudfaces and niggers in such miserable quarters would be begging for an insurrection."

"I see," Newton said, nodding wisely. "You house your slaves better than this for the sake of your own safety, not on account of their comfort."

He doubtless thought that would make Stafford angrier. If so, he was doomed to disappointment. Stafford only laughed at him. "And I suppose the factory owners in Croydon pay their workers even one cent more than the least they could give while still keeping the workers alive. We were talking about freedom and the freedom to starve not long ago, if I recall rightly."

By Leland Newton's sour expression, the other Consul did. "We are not perfect paragons, either," Newton said. "But we hire our workers' labor. We don't buy it and sell it. Our workers are free to-"

"Starve in a different job if they don't like the one they have," Stafford interrupted. That probably wasn't what Newton had been about to say, which didn't mean it wasn't true.

"To change jobs as they please," Newton went on, as if the other Consul hadn't spoken. "They can move about as they please. They can marry as they please, and raise their own legitimate children."

"They can watch them starve, too, you mean, or waste away from consumption," Stafford shot back. "And who gives a damn whether mudfaces and niggers have legitimate children?"

"They do," Newton said. "Do you suppose they enjoy it when the father is sold to one plantation, the mother to another, and the children, maybe, to a third?"

Jeremiah Stafford's snort was full of exasperation. "You have been reading sensational novels again. That rarely happens, and is always condemned when it does."

"But the law allows it, which is the point," Newton said.

"Only if you make it the point," Stafford replied. "And how often do women in Croydon have to sell themselves on the streets to survive? How often are the children they bear legitimate?" He laced the word with scorn.

By the way his colleague grimaced, that happened more often than Newton would have wanted. Before the other Consul could answer, Colonel Sinapis said, "Whether these slaves are legitimate or not, we are going to have to try to deal with them. The two of you are in command here." That plainly disgusted him, but he couldn't change it. He continued, "You had better figure out a way to work together, because you will get my men killed, and pretty likely yourselves with them, if you go on like this."

"You know what we need to do, Colonel," Stafford said. "I know what we need to do. I think even Consul Newton knows what we need to do. The question is, is he willing to do it?"

Newton didn't say anything. He did look like a man who knew what needed doing. But whether what he knew was the same as what Stafford knew was liable to be a different question.

Leland Newton eyed Crocodile Flats with distaste. It was bigger than a village, smaller than a town. It had got carved out of the primeval Atlantean wilderness on the banks of the Little Muddy River, a name that struck Newton as perfectly accurate. Once upon a time, crocodiles had laid their eggs there-hence the name. Now the crocodiles were gone. A more deadly species raised its broods in Crocodile Flats.

A militia captain in homespun, a broad-brimmed, floppy hat all but covering his eyes, told Colonel Sinapis, "You can't go no further by railroad. It's all niggers and mudfaces from here on out."

"They have spread this far?" Sinapis muttered to himself. "This is not what we were told when we left New Hastings."

"Yeah, well, it's so anyways," the captain said.

"Can we force our way through the rebel pickets to get to the heart of the insurrection?" Sinapis asked.

"Not by train, you can't," the militia captain answered. He paused to spit a stream of pipeweed juice into the dust, shifted a chaw to the other cheek, and went on, "Bastards have torn up as much track as they could."

"God damn them to hell!" That wasn't Colonel Sinapis-it was Jeremiah Stafford. The news made his temper burst like a mortar bomb. "Have they got any notion how much money they're costing the USA? Why, without a railroad connection New Marseille will wither on the vine!"

Newton wasn't sure whether he meant the state or the town that gave it its name. The town still had all its sea commerce, of course. The colored rebels weren't likely to turn pirate and harry that. A couple of hundred years before, Avalon had been a famous pirates' roost, but times were different now. Newton looked to Sinapis and asked, "What do you recommend, Colonel?"

"That we disembark and advance," Sinapis answered. "High time we discover what we are up against."

"I couldn't agree more!" Consul Stafford declared.

Whether he agreed didn't matter… today, because it was Newton's turn to command. But tomorrow the southern man would lead. Unless Newton marched east, away from the Little Muddy, they would go into action then in any case. Newton saw little point to putting things off a day. "Very well," he said. "Prepare the advance as you think best, Colonel."

Balthasar Sinapis saluted crisply. "Just as you say, your Excellency."

He turned away to start giving orders to his subordinates. Before he could, the militia captain tugged at his sleeve. "You'll want our men to go along, won't you? We know the countryside like you know the shape of your wife's… Well, hell, you know what I mean."

"They may come." If the prospect pleased Sinapis, he hid it very well. "But if they do, they will find themselves under the command and under the discipline of the army of the United States of Atlantis."

The captain shifted the wad of pipeweed from cheek to cheek again. "What does that mean exactly?" he asked.

"To give you a basic example, if they kill prisoners or torture them for the sport of it, I shall hang them from the closest strong tree branch," Sinapis answered calmly. "Is that plain enough, or do you need further illustration?"

"But-" The captain broke off. He might have said several different things, but he wasn't stupid enough to imagine that any of them would have done him any good. "All right, Colonel. Have it your way. We'll play along."

We'll play along till we don't think you'll catch us. So Newton judged his meaning, anyhow. Did Sinapis judge it the same way? Newton expected he did. The colonel might be a good many things, but he was neither foolish nor naive.

The bridge across the Little Muddy remained in the militia's hands. They had pickets on the west side of the river. Those men seemed mighty glad to see regular Atlantean troops come join them.