Opening Atlantis

XXI

E ven the trees down here were strange. Some barrel trees dwarfed barrels-and men. Others had round trunks full of sweet sap. Victor Radcliff had already enjoyed the rumlike drink the French and especially the Spaniards brewed from it.

Conifers were different, too. In floral wreaths, cypress meant mourning. Here in southern Atlantis, cypresses just grew. Locals used the timber in their buildings, even if it wasn't as good as pine or redwood. The farther south Victor and his men went, the more mossy beards hung from cypress branches.

And the more snakes lurked in the trees and in the undergrowth.

One of the raiders was bitten; he died in short order despite having the wound cauterized and being given all the rum he could drink to keep his heart strong.

Some of the snakes had rattles at the ends of their tails, like many of the venomous serpents Victor knew farther north. Again like those farther north, some shook their tails before striking but had no rattles to warn their victims. And some simply skulked and struck. Some were probably harmless, but after the death Victor's followers weren't inclined to take chances. If it slithered and they saw it, it died.

"Do they have poisonous snakes in Africa, too?" Radcliff asked Blaise.

"Oh, yes. Here, you don't have-" The Negro used a word in his own language. He drew a picture of the kind of snake he had in mind in the dirt. He used a twig with a confidence a lot of sketch artists might have envied. That broad flare behind the head…

"That must be a cobra," Victor said. "They also have them in India, I believe. People there tame them and teach them to dance to music."

"You see this? You know it is so?" Blaise asked.

"Well…no," Victor admitted.

"Then it is a lie, I bet." Blaise sounded very sure of himself. He was willing-no, eager-to explain why, too: "Mess with these, uh, cobras, you have to be mad. Crazy. Cray-zee." He liked the sound of that word.

"I won't tell you you're wrong," Victor Radcliff said. "It seems crazy to me, too. But people do crazy things sometimes."

"You cray-zee with cobra snakes, you are not cray-zee long." Blaise spoke with great conviction. Radcliff suspected he knew what he was talking about. Anybody who spent too much time fooling around with venomous serpents of any kind was taking his life in his own hands-and its fangs.

His scouts reported that the French settlers were moving against his men from the northeast, as he'd suspected they might. They had more men than he did: he was sure of that. Since he didn't think he could meet them on even terms, he saw only two choices. He could try to ambush them, or he could avoid meeting them at all.

Had they been the regulars from France, he would have tried an ambush. One had worked against Braddock's redcoats; another might well work here. But not against other settlers. They knew the tricks of the trade as well as Victor's men. Since this was their country, they probably knew them better.

Avoid, then. Down the tracks that led south toward the Spanish settlements he went. Those tracks were truly wretched. Most of the real roads in the French settlements ran from east to west, from the seacoast to the interior. The same was also true in the English settlements, but to a smaller degree. With far more people starting to crowd a similar amount of land, the northern settlements needed and had a real road network.

Now the English settlers plundered more thoroughly and didn't burn till after they'd robbed. They'd eaten up the supplies they'd brought with them, and were living off the countryside. Radcliff had known that would happen. It worried him all the same.

"What do we do if they burn in front of us?" Blaise asked one hot, sweaty afternoon. It was early spring, but it felt like what would have been high summer in New Hastings or Hanover.

Blaise had unerringly put his finger on Victor's greatest fear. "We starve," the commander answered.

"Ah." Maybe Blaise hadn't expected anything that blunt. On the other hand, maybe he had. He showed only what he wanted to show.

The French settlers didn't burn their own homes and plantations to keep Victor's force from moving forward. Maybe they didn't think of it. Or maybe they were simply less ruthless than Radcliff and his colored sergeant. If they were, he wanted to make them pay for it.

He discovered he'd left French Atlantis and entered Spanish Atlantis when the lordlet whose house he'd just burned cursed him in most impure Castilian-actually, in the hissing Andalusian dialect more commonly used here and in Terranova. Victor surprised the hidalgo by returning the uncompliments in the same language.

"Why do you do these things to me?" the Spaniard cried, looking disconsolately from the English settlers running off his livestock to his house going up in flames.

"Our kings are at war," Victor answered with a shrug.

"You are one of the settlers from the north," the Spaniard said. "I thought you had no king."

"England has a king, just as Spain has a king," Victor replied. "If the King of England wars against the King of Spain, that makes the two of us enemies." The English settlements in Atlantis, Victor reflected, remembered their loyalty to King George only when England warred against France or Spain. The rest of the time, the settlers were more inclined to complain about how England didn't want them making things on their own or trading with other realms instead of buying from the mother country.

None of that mattered a farthing to the Spaniard. He saw his property burning and being stolen. "You offered no resistance," Radcliff told him. "We spare your life because you didn't. You can rebuild. You can start over."

The Spaniard bowed, which didn't hide the hatred smoldering in his eyes. "I hope you do not put yourself out too much, Senor, with this generous favor you grant me," he said. "If ever we meet again, maybe I will do the same for you-but it would not be wise to count on such a thing."

"Then I won't." Victor touched a finger to the brim of his hat. "Hasta la vista, Senor, and we shall see who does what to whom if we should run across each other again."

"Whoever sees the other man first will do it," the Spaniard said, which struck Victor Radcliff as all too likely.

Roland Kersauzon had heard that Englishmen complained Frenchmen moved too slowly to suit them. He thought the English settlers were jittery fools; Frenchmen moved at just the proper pace, as anyone but a fool could see. But, to him, the Spaniards seemed to have inbred with the fist-sized snails that gnawed on ferns and barrel trees down here in the south. The snails were excellent with garlic butter. Their speed, however-and that of his Excellency, Don Jose Valverde, of Spanish Atlantis-left something to be desired.

"Why does he not answer?" Kersauzon grumbled to anyone who would listen-and to people who got sick of listening.

God only knew what horrors the English settlers were wreaking on Spanish Atlantis. Well, actually, that wasn't quite true. Roland had a pretty good notion: the same kinds of horrors they'd inflicted on French Atlantis. And yet the Spaniards promised that, if he presumed to enter their territory without Don Jose's leave, they would fight him as hard as they fought the English, or even harder.

He believed them. Such idiocy perfectly suited Spanish notions of honor. Were they doing what was advantageous to them? Such a thought never entered their heads. They were doing what a hidalgo ought to do, as they saw it. Past that, as best he could tell, they didn't think at all.

He wished the Devil would bread Don Jose Valverde and fry him for a cutlet over the hottest fire in hell. Satan had to keep a special chamber or firepit in which to torment people who wouldn't answer their mail.

Roland knew too well that he couldn't linger too much longer hard by the border of Spanish Atlantis. Keeping his army fed wouldn't be easy. And, pretty soon, malaria and bloody fluxes and maybe even the dreaded yellow jack would break out. A force the size of his needed to keep moving if it was to stay healthy, especially in this miserable climate.

But if he went away, who won? Victor Radcliff did, damn his black heart. He had no compunction about roving through Spanish Atlantis. He wandered as he pleased, destroying whatever got in his way. And he didn't need to wait for permission from Don Jose blasted Valverde!

"We ought to boot these Spanish guards out of the way and do what we need to do," one of Roland's lieutenants said.

"And then we would be fighting the English and the Spaniards for the rest of the war," Kersauzon answered gloomily. "And the Spaniards would fight us, too. Never doubt it for a minute. They understand spite. They don't understand much else, God knows, but they understand spite."

After what seemed forever and was really a week later than he'd hoped, a horseman finally came up from Gernika. Roland almost dragged him out of the saddle. The rider presented him with a letter gorgeous with multicolored ribbons and seals. When the Spaniards made something official, they made it official.

All of which mattered not two pins to Roland. "What does the miserable thing say?" he demanded.

"Monsieur, I have no idea," the fellow replied. "Another fellow gave it to me and said, 'Here. Take it on to the French commander.'"

"Oh," was all Roland said to that. It sounded more deadly than an hour's worth of inspired profanity.

He got a little satisfaction from tearing off the ribbons and cracking all the seals. Then he unfolded the letter. Some secretary must have written it; the handwriting was improbably perfect. The French in which it was written was also perfect-even a governor on a distant shore needed a decent command of the language of diplomacy.

And the letter was perfectly infuriating. With all due respect to the French commander, the governor of Spanish Atlantis wrote, I am confident we shall be able to treat these English marauders as they deserve without requiring assistance from him or his men. Therefore, while appreciating his generous offer, I must decline it. I of course remain his most obedient servant… The fancy squiggle under the body of the letter probably came from Don Jose's own hand.

"What does it say, Monsieur?" the horseman asked.

"It says that the governor of Spanish Atlantis is a God-cursed fool, that's what," Roland answered. "If he hadn't used such rough paper, I would wipe my backside with it, and better than it deserves, too. As is…" He tore the letter in two and let it fall to the ground with the bits of ribbon and wax. Then he ground the pieces under his heel and stalked away.

His officers exclaimed in amazement and fury when he gave them the news. "The Spaniards couldn't catch the pox in a brothel!" one of them exclaimed. "How do they think they'll catch the English settlers? And why do they think they'll beat them even if they do catch them?"

"I have no answers for this," Roland said. "Sometimes, observing another man's stupidity, you find yourself compelled to admire it. You want to watch and see exactly how it leads him to disaster. This seems to me to be one of those times."

"What do we do now?" the captain asked.

Kersauzon made hand-washing motions, as if he were Pontius Pilate. "If Don Jose doesn't want our aid, he won't get it. I intend to leave some of our men here near the border. If the English settlers come back-no, when they come back-our soldiers can slow them down till we bring more troops to bear. With the rest, I aim to go north again. Montcalm-Gozon, at least, has the sense to know we men of French Atlantis are worth something."

"The Spaniard will find out," the captain said. "He'll also find out his own men have not the value of a counterfeit sou."

"Yes, I do believe he will." Roland Kersauzon spoke with the anticipation any man might show while contemplating the discomfiture of someone he despised. A slow smile spread across his face. "And soon, too."

A company of Spanish settlers formed a line of battle, ready to stop the English invaders if they could. Victor Radcliff didn't want to show all of his men at once, for fear of making the Spaniards run away. He brought them forward out of the woods a few at a time. After exchanging a volley or two with the enemy with roughly even numbers, he could show more of his hand.

"Will you look at those old-fashioned buggers!" he said, staring at the swarthy soldiers a couple of hundred yards away.

"How do you mean?" Blaise asked-a handy question that fit almost any situation.

"Why, their officers are wearing helmets," Victor answered. "A couple of them even have corselets-back-and-breasts. Armor."

"Good idea, no?" Blaise said.

"Good idea, yes-if you're fighting savages without guns," Victor said. The Spanish conquistadores had gone through the copperskinned natives of Terranova like a dose of salts. But that was a long time ago now. No European armies used armor any more-armor stout enough to turn bullets was also heavy enough to slow a man down and make him uncomfortable.

And in this weather…If those Spaniards weren't stewing inside their fancy ironmongery, he couldn't imagine why not. He wore linen and wool, and felt stuck in a pot waiting for a housewife to throw in the onions. The Spaniards really did encase themselves in metal.

His men started banging away at them without waiting to form a neat line. He doubted the enemy would find that sporting, but it wasn't his worry. And the gunpowder smoke screened the reinforcements he ordered out of the woods.

The Spaniards were brave. They tried to advance against his musketry, and didn't seem to understand why it kept getting heavier. More and more of them fell. They didn't break, though, till he sent horsemen around their flanks. That did it. Like a lot of inexperienced troops, they were as wary as so many virgins about flank attacks.

His men didn't pursue very far. They plundered the enemy dead and did what they could for the living. Victor was relieved to find the English hadn't lost more than a handful of soldiers. He couldn't afford heavy losses, because he couldn't imagine how the English settlements would reinforce him way the devil down here.

Way the devil down here…When the phrase first crossed his mind, it was more one of annoyance than anything else. But Old Scratch would have felt right at home in this part of Atlantis. If hell wasn't like this hot, steamy, swampy, snake-infested place, Satan was missing a trick.

Blaise had a furrow on his left arm where a bullet had grazed him. He hissed when a surgeon poured rum on the wound. "Stings, don't it?" the surgeon said cheerfully-his arm was fine.

"Yes," Blaise ground out through clenched teeth.

"Got to get it clean if I can," the white man said. "Down here, a wound'll fester easy as you please."

Victor hadn't thought of that. One more reason for Satan to set up shop in Spanish Atlantis. He went over to a prisoner. "You can't beat us, you know," he said in his bad Spanish.

The captive only shrugged. "God was against us," he said. A bloody bandage covered one ear, or more likely where the ear had been.

"You can go home if you want to," Radcliff told him. The Spaniard went from dejected to suspicious in one fell swoop. Victor went on, "You can. Tell people not to fight us any more, that's all. If they don't fight, we take what we want but we don't hurt people. If they do fight, we make them sorry."

"Even if I tell them, they won't listen to me," the Spaniard predicted with the gloom so common in his folk.

"They listen to our muskets. They listen to our bayonets," Victor said. A dead Spaniard lay on the ground not far away. He'd been gutted like a trout. A bayonet was the last thing he'd ever heard.

"If you are crazy enough to let me go, I will say what you want me to say," the prisoner said. He was eyeing the dead Spaniard, too. "But I promise nothing. If the fighting keeps on, no tengo la culpa."

"Yes, I know it won't be your fault," Victor said. "Go on, though. You won't be the only one we turn loose to spread the word."

Something shrewd glinted in the captive's dark, liquid eyes. "If we go, you don't have to feed us. You don't have to doctor us. You don't have to bring us along…or kill us if we get in the way or make trouble."

He was right on every count. Victor Radcliff smiled. "Yes? And so?" he said blandly.

"You are an Englishman. But you are not a stupid Englishman, are you?" the Spaniard said.

"I hope not," Victor replied. With a thoughtful nod, the prisoner got to his feet and left the field. An English settler looked back toward Victor, who nodded and waved for him to let the Spaniard go. With a shrug that might have matched the prisoner's earlier one for fatalism, the sentry did.

Radcliff preached the doctrine of nonresistance to other Spaniards and sent them off to the east, too. That done, he went back to see how Blaise fared. The Negro stood there opening and closing his fist, making sure all the tendons still worked the way they were supposed to.

"Not too bad," Radcliff ventured.

"No, not too. But nobody ever shooted me before." Blaise's grammar still sometimes left a bit to be desired. He looked down at the bandage the surgeon had given him. "It will make a brave scar, though." Was that more of his eccentric English, or did he mean exactly what he'd said? Victor wasn't sure.

"Did you pay back the man who did it?" Victor asked.

The Negro nodded. "Oh, yes, sir. That him there." He pointed to the gutted Spaniard. "I am a blooded warrior again."

"He won't argue with you-that's certain sure," Victor agreed. So Blaise won his warrior stripes whenever he killed somebody? Victor knew of white men-English, French, and Spanish-who shared the same attitude.

His little army couldn't stay in one place very long. It soon started eating the countryside bare. It moved on, plundering small farms and plantations the way it had all through French and Spanish Atlantis. Some of the hidalgos tried to fight back, others didn't. Maybe the released prisoners hadn't spread the word. Maybe the men defending their property just didn't want to listen. Spaniards could be as stubborn as Englishmen.

Two days later, Radcliff got a new surprise. His vanguard ran into Spaniards coming their way. The new arrivals weren't soldiers, but men, women, and children with no more than the clothes on their backs and whatever they could carry. "Save us!" they shouted when they saw the English soldiers.

They spoke Spanish, of course. "Hold fire!" Victor yelled, for the benefit of his men who didn't understand the language. "They're friendly!"

"Devil you say!" an unconvinced settler declared.

Ignoring him, Victor asked the nearest Spaniards, "Why do you need us to save you?"

"Because the slaves have risen up!" one of them cried. "The copperskins and the blacks, they want to kill us all!"

"What's that bugger going on about?" At least half a dozen men who spoke only English asked the same question in almost identical words. Instead of answering them right away, Victor Radcliff glanced over toward Blaise. The Negro knew some Spanish. By the predatory smile on his face, he knew plenty to understand that.

Heading up through French Atlantis toward the northern border and the war against the English settlements, Roland Kersauzon was not a happy man. He would gladly have sent Don Jose to hell or to London, whichever was worse. He'd known about Spanish arrogance before, but the refusal to let him enter Spanish Atlantis proved he hadn't known all about it.

He was more than halfway back to the war he'd left behind when a courier coming up from the south caught him from behind. The man looked to have ridden hard for a long time. He thrust a letter into Roland's hand. Roland stared at the fancy seals and ribbons bedizening it. "Don't tell me this is from-?"

"Oui, Monsieur," the courier replied. "From his Excellency, the governor of Spanish Atlantis. I don't know what he says."

"I don't care what he says," Kersauzon growled. "I might like to meet him with seconds, but any other way? I think not."

"Do you want that, then?" The other horseman pointed to the letter at the same time as he used his other hand to pat his blowing mount's neck.

"Want it? Dear God, no!" Roland said. "But I suppose-I suppose-I'd better read it anyway." He took a certain satisfaction in ripping off the ribbons and breaking the seals. If he tore the paper a little, too-well, so what?

The first thing he saw when he opened the letter was that the secretary hadn't written it. It was in Don Jose's own cramped script, and began, General Kersauzon, please believe that I abase myself before you. With all my heart, I beg you to return to the land that previously rejected the helping hand you put forward.

"Well, well!" Roland said, and then again: "Well, well! Here we do have something out of the ordinary!"

"What is it?" The courier was no less eager for news than any other mortal.

But Roland waved him to silence. He was still reading. Not only do the English afflict us yet, Don Jose wrote, but we are also tormented by a servile insurrection their invasion has touched off. We are in danger of being murdered in our beds by those who should aid and comfort us. And you must know this is a sickness which, if not nipped in the bud, may soon infect French Atlantis as well.

"Nom d'un nom!" Kersauzon muttered, and then a couple of Breton obscenities he only half understood.

"What's going on, Monsieur?" the courier asked once more.

"The slaves in Spanish Atlantis have risen up," Roland replied, which made the other man swear in turn. Roland went on, "Now the Spaniards want us to pull their fat from the fire."

"Are we going to do it?" the courier demanded, and did his best to answer his own question: "Lord knows they don't deserve it."

"No, they don't." Roland Kersauzon sighed. "Which doesn't mean they won't get it anyhow. Don Jose is right about one thing, damn him: an uprising could easily spread from his land to ours."

"If we kill enough slaves, the rest will remember their manners pretty quick," said the man who'd brought the letter. "Or if they don't, we can bloody well kill them all."

They couldn't. Roland knew that perfectly well, even if the courier didn't. Without slaves, French Atlantis-and Spanish Atlantis, too-would grind to a halt. But they would also grind to a halt from an uprising. You couldn't let slaves get away with rebellion, or with thinking they were as good as their masters. The whole system would fall apart if you did, even once.

And so, reluctantly, Kersauzon called to a bugler and said, "Blow halt."

Obedient but puzzled-the French settlers had been pushing hard toward the northeast-the man obeyed. The soldiers weren't sorry to stop. Soldiers were never sorry to stop, from everything Roland had seen. Some went off to take a leak. Others lit up pipes or cigars.

Roland rode out in front of them. "My friends, I am sorry to have to tell you that we must reverse our course again," he said.

The men muttered among themselves. "Who spilled the chamber pot into the soup this time?" one of them asked.

In spite of his own fury, Roland smiled. "That sums it up only too well, mon vieux," he said. "I learn that the slaves in Spanish Atlantis have risen." He held up the letter to show how he'd learned it. "The governor wants our help against them-and, I suppose, against the English settlers who inspired the revolt. And if we would rather not see an uprising in our own settlements, we would do well to give him what help we can."

They weighed that with grave attention. Not many of them came from plantation families, but even ordinary farmers who were doing well for themselves had a couple of Negroes or copperskins to give them a hand. Like plantation owners, they had to worry about their property absconding with itself.

One by one, they started to nod. Somebody said, "It's a damned nuisance, but we'd better do it."

"Once we get down there again, we ought to kick that damned Spaniard around the block," another soldier added, which brought more nods.

"Damned slaves are jumping on the Spaniards when they're down," yet another man said. "We need to teach 'em they can't get away with that kind of crap with us." That too produced a growing chorus of agreement.

"You are gentlemen-and it hasn't turned you into blockheads, the way it has with the Spaniards," Roland said. His soldiers grinned and nudged one another-they liked that. Roland wasn't lying, either. He pointed back the way they'd come. "About-turn, mes amis. We have two jobs of work to do, and with luck we can do both of them at the same time."

Had Montcalm-Gozon or the French regulars watched the settlers reverse their course, they probably would have laughed. Kersauzon's army wasn't long on spit and polish. It didn't drill constantly, the way a European army did. But it could fight when it had to. It had already proved that. As far as Roland was concerned, an army that could fight didn't have to look pretty…and an army that looked pretty was worthless anyhow if it couldn't fight.

He rode past the marching men to take his place at the head of the army once more. The soldiers seemed profanely determined to punish the slaves, the English settlers, and the Spaniards for making them march and countermarch. Roland smiled to himself. If that wasn't the right attitude for an army to have, he couldn't imagine what would be.

Victor Radcliff knew less about copperskins than he wished he did. Far fewer had been brought to the English settlements in Atlantis than to those of the French and Spanish farther south. Meeting with the leaders of the slave revolt in Spanish Atlantis taught him how proud the copperskins were.

"Why shouldn't we kill all the whites?" one of them demanded. His Spanish name was Martin. He had another one, the one he'd used in the broader lands of Terranova, but Victor couldn't begin to pronounce it. Martin would have to do. Black eyes blazing, he went on, "They don't care if they kill us."

"He is right. Even if he is a Blackfoot, he is right," another copperskin said. Not all of them came from the same tribe. They were as different as Portuguese and Germans and Poles…if you were a Terranovan yourself. Europeans tended to lump them all together, just as the Terranovans spoke of whites without separating Spaniards from Frenchmen from Englishmen. The fellow who wasn't a Blackfoot went by the name of Ramon. He continued, "Give us weapons, and we will make the masters howl."

"We have not many weapons to spare." Victor's Spanish was imperfect. So was the Spanish the copperskins spoke-and they were imperfect in different ways. Everybody had to back and fill and try again every so often.

Martin scowled at him. "You don't want to give them to us, you mean," he growled. His right hand folded into a fist. "How are you any better than these Spanish putos?"

"?Como?" Victor returned his blandest smile. "Simple-we're on your side. What would happen if you asked the Spaniards for arms?"

Reluctantly, Martin nodded. He didn't like the point, but he saw it. But Ramon said, "We don't ask no Spaniards for nothing. What he want from the Spaniards, we take, por Dios."

"Bueno," Victor said. "But you make them all join together against you."

"Why do you care?" Martin's grammar was better than Ramon's. "Then they don't fight you so hard."

"They still fight us." Victor wondered what his superiors would want him to do here. His orders were to start no slave insurrections-not directly. And he hadn't-not directly. But the enemy of England's enemy…was a handy fellow to have around. "We can help you some-just not so much as you probably want."

"Anything is better than nothing," Martin said.

"But more are better-am better-than less," Ramon said.

"Well, the ones who do fight us don't fight you," Victor pointed out. "And, meaning you no disrespect, we are better fighters than you are."

"You think so, do you?" Martin was as affronted as Victor would have been if-no, as Victor had been when-General Braddock told him the redcoats made better soldiers than his settlers.

"I do think so." Victor Radcliff gave back the same kind of answer Braddock might have: "We have better discipline and more experience." He didn't talk about weapons, not when they were a sore spot.

And he didn't impress the copperskins. "We has something you will never has," Ramon said, again without much grammar but with great sincerity.

"What's that?" Radcliff stayed polite, almost disinterested.

"Hate." Ramon needed no grammar to get his point across.

"Hate sends you into battle," Victor agreed. "Hate without experience and discipline sends you into battle…and gets you killed."

That also didn't have the effect he wanted. "So what?" Martin said. "Do you know what we do, Senor? Do you know what they make us do? With what we do, dying in battle is a relief, an easier ending than most of us would find any other way."

It is if you lose, that's certain sure, Victor thought. Spanish vengeance was proverbial up and down Atlantis. Before he could say anything along those lines, Ramon added, "We may die, but we kill, too." He got things right there.

"Help us kill," Martin said urgently. "That's all we want."

"Let's see what we can do," Victor said.

He gave the slaves a few muskets. He gave them some bar lead and some bullet molds. He got his men to cough up some of the swords and bayonets and dirks they'd taken from Frenchmen and Spaniards. And he found that the copperskins were easily pleased. What didn't look like much help to him seemed a great deal more to them. They were so used to getting nothing, anything at all might have been a miracle.

"Now we make the Spaniards to pay," Ramon exulted, brandishing a rapier he plainly had no idea how to use.

Victor stepped away from him. "Have a care with that. You can hurt your friends with it, not just your foes."

Ramon's gaze was measuring. "And which is you?"

"I don't want to be your enemy," Victor answered evenly. "If you make me your enemy, you won't want that, either. Do you understand me?"

"Understand." The copperskin's voice was grudging, but he did nod. He might not like what he heard. Victor didn't care about that. But Ramon and Martin needed to see that they would be fools to antagonize the Englishmen who were their only friends in this sweltering land.

Blaise had a different question for them: "Do you lead blacks as well as Terranovans? Or do the blacks have their own leaders?"

Ramon and Martin looked at each other. "We have blacks in our bands," Martin said slowly. "Bands with black leaders have Terranovans in them, too. We both hate the Spaniards worse than we hate each other."

Blaise grunted. Victor might have done the same thing if the Negro hadn't beaten him to it. That was an…interesting response. Blacks and copperskins could work together. Blaise had escaped with a couple of Terranovans, after all. But they knew they were different from each other as well as from the whites who exploited them.

Guiding pack horses loaded down with weapons and lead, the Terranovans headed back to their own folk. Blaise muttered something in his native language. Victor looked a question at him. The Negro seemed faintly embarrassed. "Means something like, damned hardhead copperskins," he said.

This time, Victor did grunt. "What do they say about you?"

"Damned lazy mallates," Blaise answered without hesitation. "Mallate is like you say nigger."

"I've heard it before," Radcliff replied. "I wasn't sure you had."

"Oh, yes. I hear mallate. I hear nigger," Blaise said. "Can't help it if I black. Doesn't wash off." He made as if to scrub at one arm with the palm of the other hand. "Good when I run away-I am hard to see in woods. Other times?" He shrugged. "I all right where I from. You all right where you from. Terranovans all right where they from. Nobody from Atlantis, right? Everybody should be all right here."

That sounded good. Atlantis might have been a place where everyone could come together in equality. It might have been…but it wasn't. Not yet, anyhow. Victor Radcliff wondered if it ever would be. Let's smash up the Spaniards first, he thought. We can worry about everything else later.