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People who got off before Satchmo and the Rhythm Aces shook their heads and grumbled, often profanely, about delays and detours. A few of them muttered apologies to Flora as they walked by. One of the foulest-mouthed passengers, though, was a woman, and she was in no mood to apologize to anybody for anything.

Flora had no trouble recognizing the men she was looking for. In the bright light under the platform, the Negroes seemed all eyeballs and teeth. They wore green-gray uniform tunics and trousers with the highly polished shoes that must have accompanied more formal wear. They stared every which way, plainly with no idea what to do next.

She stepped up to them, gave her name, and said, "Welcome to Philadelphia. I'd say welcome to freedom, but there's a party down in the CSA that's given the word a bad name."

All five of the black men gri

The men from the War Department were a few paces behind Flora. Since they were the ones who were going to take charge of the newcomers, she stepped aside and let them introduce themselves. Then she asked, "What is it like for a Negro in the Confederate States these days?"

"Ma'am, I reckon you got a notion already that it's pretty bad," Satchmo said. Flora didn't need to nod to show she did. The musician went on, "All right. Well, for true, it's a hundred times that bad." The other Rhythm Aces murmured agreement, as if he were a lead singer and they his backup vocalists.

"Do most of the Negroes in the CSA know what the Freedom Party is doing to them-to you?" Flora asked.

One of the Aces spoke on his own for the first time: "If we didn't, ma'am, you reckon we take the chance o' doin' what we done?"

"But musicians like you travel all over the place. You hear things most people wouldn't," Flora persisted. "What about ordinary Negroes who stay in one spot? Do they know what's happening in those Freedom Party camps?"

A major asked, "Do they hear our wireless broadcasts? We try to let them know what's going on." He had to be in Intelligence or Propaganda. Nobody who wasn't could have made that sound so smooth.

"They hear some, I reckon, but the Freedom Party jams you pretty good, suh," Satchmo replied. "Don't want nobody, white or colored, listenin' to the damnyankee wireless."

Flora had heard white Confederates say damnyankee as if it were one word. She hadn't expected a black man to do the same. "How do they know, then?-the black people in the CSA, I mean."

The musicians looked at her. One of them said, "Everybody know somebody done got sucked into a camp. Ain't nobody know nobody who ever come out again. We ain't educated. White folks in the CSA always been afraid o' what'd happen if we git educated. But we ain't stupid, neither. Don't gotta be no sly, sneaky Jew to figure out what folks goin'in an' not comin' out means."

He knew as little of Jews as Flora did of Negroes, probably less. She had to remind herself of that. And he'd made his point. She said, "Well, you're safe here-as long as a bomb doesn't fall on your head. We all take that chance."

"Thank you, ma'am. God bless you, ma'am," Satchmo and the Rhythm Aces chorused together.

"You're welcome," Flora said. "And I'll do whatever I can to stop those Freedom Party goons from massacring your people. I don't know how much that will be, but I'll do my damnedest." She hardly ever swore, but it seemed fitting now.

"God bless you," Satchmo repeated. "Nice to know somebody here cares a little, anyways. Ain't nobody south of the border cares at all."

How many people north of the border cared at all? Too few, too few. Flora didn't care to tell Satchmo that. He and his friends had just escaped from worse. Let them find out a little at a time that they hadn't come to paradise. That way-maybe-their hearts wouldn't break.

Cinci

Just the same, he had made progress. He still used a cane, and feared he would for the rest of his life. He was fairly spry with it now, where he had been an arthritic tortoise. He didn't get headaches as often as he had not long after the accident, either, and the ones that did come weren't so blinding. Progress. He laughed. It was either that or cry. He'd gone from worse to bad. Huzzah!

His mother, now, his mother went from bad to worse. She still knew who Seneca was, and sometimes Cinci

He found himself looking at his father. Would he have to do the same for him one day? The horror of that thought drove Cinci

The place wasn't crowded when he limped in. He hadn't thought it would be, not on a drizzly Tuesday afternoon. But it wasn't empty, either. As far as he knew, Lucullus' place was never empty. The barbecue was too good for that. Negroes and whites both came here. As usual, whites sat at some tables, blacks at others, and… There, a white man and a Negro sat across from each other at the same table. That was out of the ordinary not only at Lucullus' but anywhere in the CSA.

Then Cinci

None of that had anything to do with the icy lizards that walked up Cinci

His face must have given him away. Bliss said something to Lucullus, who looked up. He waved to Cinci

"Well, well. Damned if it ain't little Mary Sunshine." Bliss sounded like a crack-brained derelict, too, which was harder than looking like one. His eyes, though, his eyes he couldn't disguise. They were too alert, too clever, to match the rest of his pretended persona.

"What you doin' here?" Cinci

"Me? goin'to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it," Bliss answered.

For a moment, that made no sense to Cinci