"With that matter settled, have we any more outstanding?" Richard Oswald asked, as he had with the draft he and Hartley arranged with Victor. Nobody said anything. Oswald nodded decisively, like an auctioneer bringing down the hammer on… On a slave, Victor thought, and wished he hadn't. Before he could dive deeper into his own worries, Oswald went on, "Then let us affix our signatures and seals to the document. Mr. Hartley and I will deliver our copy to London, whilst you take yours to Honker's Mill."

His manner was altogether matter-of-fact, which only made the comparison more odious. London was the greatest city in the world, perhaps the greatest in the history of the world. Honker's Mill… wasn't. A touch of asperity in his voice, Isaac Fenner said, "Now that peace has been restored, New Hastings will become the capital of the United States of Atlantis."

"How nice," Oswald murmured. New Hastings wasn't the greatest city in the history of the world, either. Maybe one day it would be, or Hanover if it wasn't so lucky, but neither came anywhere close yet. Not even the most ardent-the most rabid- Atlantean patriot could claim otherwise.

"Signatures. Seals," Custis Cawthorne said-and not one word about New Hastings' honor.

Men from both sides solemnly initialed the changed adjectives and adverbs on the treaty. They let the altered commas go. Maybe, one day, some historians would note the ones that had been deleted and learnedly guess which ones had been added after the first draft was done. For the time being, nobody thought they were worth getting excited about.

Richard Oswald and David Hartley signed for England. They splashed hot wax down on both copies and pressed their signet rings into it. Then the Atlanteans followed suit: first Victor, then Isaac Fenner, and finally Custis Cawthorne. One by one, the Atlanteans also used their seals.

"It is accomplished," Hartley said as the wax hardened. "Your land is separated from ours." Jeremiah could have sounded no gloomier. Even Job would have been hard-pressed.

"Now it is truly our own, to do with as we will!" Isaac Fenner, by contrast, exulted. Victor wondered how that balance between gloom and exultation would tip in years to come. Only the coming of those years would tell.

Company by company, regiment by regiment, the Atlantean soldiers who'd taken service for the duration of the war against England went home. The United States of Atlantis would retain a small professional army-one modeled on that of the mother country-but most of the greencoats wanted nothing more than to go back to their farms and shops, and to their families.

And French ships put in at Croydon to return de la Fayette and the survivors from his army to their native land. French sergeants cursed more musically than their English or Atlantean counterparts, but they were no less sincere. Ordinary French soldiers seemed as ready to go anywhere they were told and do anything they were told as a like number of redcoats would have.

De la Fayette clasped Victor's hand. "You may be sure, Monsieur]e General, it was a great honor to serve beside you and to help bring freedom to your land." The French noble grinned impishly. "And I also very much enjoyed giving England one in the eye."

"The fight would have been much harder and much longer without you, your Grace," Victor answered truthfully. "Your army's courage and its skill taught us a great deal, and your fleet slammed the cork into Cornwallis' bottle." He paused a moment, then added, "And, had you not come here, I should not have made a friend I value."

"I feel the same way." De la Fayette squeezed his hand again. He too hesitated before continuing in a low voice: "Now that Atlantis has shown the world what freedom means, perhaps my country will also discover it before long."

Victor remembered Custis Cawthorne's comments on the current state of France. What Cawthorne could say among his fellow Atlanteans, Victor didn't feel comfortable repeating to a French nobleman, even one of liberal ideas like de la Fayette. He contented himself with replying, "Come what may, in your land and in mine, I hope we meet again."

"As do I-and may it be so!" The marquis' smile was sweet and sad and knowing beyond his years. "If this is to come to pass, I think I shall have to come back here. Atlantean affairs will likely leave you far too busy to cross the sea and visit me in France."

"Maybe so-but then again, maybe not," Victor said. "I am going back to my farm. I never wanted to be anything more than a private citizen. Now that the war is over, I intend to seize the chance and go back to what I was."

"Well, man ami, I wish you good fortune in your endeavor." Yes, de la Fayette's smile looked knowing indeed. "But fame, once it takes up a man, often is not so eager to let him go again."

That had also worried Victor. He gave the best answer he could: "If I am willing-no: eager, by God!-to let tame go, I hope the beast will prove willing to take its claws out of me."

"A man should always hope," de la Fayette agreed. Victor Radcliff was old enough to be his father. The marquis had no business sounding like the more experienced of the two of them. But he brought it off with grace and without much effort, as he brought off so many things.

"You don't believe I can do it." Victor turned that into an accusation.

De la Fayette's shrug was a small masterpiece of its kind. "What a man can do… What fate will do… Who but k ban Dim can say how they fit together? As, for example, the matter of your paternity."

"What about it? How did you know about it?" That was the last thing Victor wanted anyone to know about. And it was the last thing he wanted to talk about, even if they were unlikely to be overheard.

This time, de la Fayette's shrug just looked… French. "Monsieur Freycinet communicated the news to me. Rest assured, he understands the need for discretion, and he relies on mine, as you may."

"Mmm," Victor said. Freycinet could afford to rely on that. Victor couldn't. Might the man from the south have told anyone else? Radcliff didn't want to contemplate that.

With a sigh, de la Fayette said, "It is a great pity when what should be a time of joy brings you no happiness."

Calling it a pity, to Victor's way of thinking, made a formidable understatement. He forced a shrug of his own: a poor thing next to those of de la Fayette, but it would have to serve. "Nothing to be done about it," he said.

"I know," the marquis agreed sympathetically. "Not even amending your laws would change the predicament, I fear. If you led a single life… But you do not, and no woman can look kindly upon her man after he sires a child on another."

"No," Victor said, wishing the marquis would shut up. Nothing de la Fayette said hadn't crossed his own mind. He and Meg had got on well for many years, but she wouldn't be one to take something like this in stride. How many women would? Precious few. Victor didn't need the Frenchman to point that out for him.

Someone aboard the nearest French ship called de la Fayette. The marquis grabbed Victor's hand one more time. "I must go," he said, and kissed Radcliff on both cheeks. He hurried down the pier, over the gangplank, and onto the ship. He waved from the deck before heading back toward the poop.

Victor also waved. Little by little, Atlantis was being left to her own devices. The prospect excited Isaac Fenner. Despite all the fighting Victor had done to produce exactly this result, he still wasn't sure whether it excited him or frightened him more.

Writing to Meg, which once was always a pleasure, had become a trial since Victor learned Louise would bear his child. He wasn't used to concealing himself from his wife. He'd always been able to speak his mind to her. No more, or not fully.

If she ever found out about his dark descendant, she would speak her mind to him. He had no doubts on that score.