Free Liberating Atlantis by Harry Turtledove

up, we’ll never find a better time to do it,” Frederick said.
    “Says who?” Helen retorted. “Way the yellow jack’s goin’ around, half your army may be dead week after next.”
    “If it gets us like that, it’ll get the white folks we’re fighting the same way,” Frederick said, which was true—or he hoped it was, anyhow. He went on, “That’s not what I was talkin’ about, anyways.”
    “Well, what was you talkin’ about, then?” Helen asked pointedly.
    “You know that lieutenant, the one who’s down sick? He’s a Croydon man, from way up north. They don’t have slaves up there. He just about told me I had to free myself if I ever wanted to be free,” Frederick said.
    “Fever must’ve scrambled his brains,” Helen said. “I wish to heaven you would’ve just dozed off like you should have.”
    “Most folks from Croydon hate slavery,” Frederick went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I hear tell there’s even niggers and mudfaces who can vote in the state of Croydon. And Consul Newton, he’s from Croydon, too. Everybody knows he can’t stand the notion of one man buying and selling another one.”
    If he’d hoped to impress his wife—and he had—he failed. “Well, la-de-da!” Helen said. “And Consul Stafford, he’s from Cosquer, down here on this side of the slave line. He’s a planter his own self. He’s got a bigger place than this here one, and he works more slaves’n Master Henry ever dreamt of owning. Gotta have both them fellas on the same side to do us any good.” Negroes and copperskins in bondage could no more vote than they could fly, which didn’t keep them from paying attention to Atlantean politics.
    Frederick grinned, there in the dark. “Most of the time, sure,” he said. “The Senate passes a law that says all the slaves are free, Consul Stafford can veto it, and nobody can say boo. But suppose we rise up now. Consul Stafford says, ‘The United States of Atlantis got to send soldiers over there and put those slaves down.’ ”
    “An’ the soldiers come, an’ they start killin’ niggers an’ mudfaces. It’s happened before,” Helen agreed.
    “It has,” Frederick agreed. “But I bet it won’t happen this time, on account of all Consul Newton’s got to do is, he’s got to say, ‘I veto it,’ and nobody goes anywhere.”
    “He do that?” Helen didn’t sound as if she believed it. And she knew why she didn’t: “Even white folks who don’t like slavery, that don’t mean they do like niggers an’ mudfaces. The whites down here start screamin’ loud enough . . .”
    She had a point. Frederick would have been much happier if she didn’t, but she did. He paused a while in thought, listening to mosquitoes buzz and to more distant crickets trill and frogs squeak and croak. At last, he answered, “What we got to do is, we got to fight clean, like it’s a war, not an uprising. Can’t go killing women and children for the fun of it, the way they do in uprisings.” Can’t go raping white women for the fun of it, either , he thought. That happened in every slave revolt. What vengeance was more basic?
    “Reckon it’d make any difference?” Helen still sounded dubious.
    “Bound to make some,” Frederick said.
    “Reckon slaves with guns in their hands’ll want to let them folks go?” She knew which questions to ask, all right.
    “They will if their commanders make ’em,” Frederick answered. And then, just before sleep took him at last, he added, “If I make ’em.” He was ready. Whether anyone else was . . . he’d find out.

IV
    Matthew blew the horn again the next morning. As Frederick came out to eat breakfast and go on to the fields, he looked at the overseer in a whole new way. He had to be careful not to let it show. Matthew took it for granted that he could hit or whip Frederick, or any other slave, without worrying about reprisal. If he realized Frederick didn’t take it for granted, he would do his best to kill him right