Liberating Atlantis

Henry Barford was incensed, as Frederick had known he would be. "You are a son of a bitch!" he shouted at Lieutenant Torrance.

Torrance seemed more distracted than offended. "Sorry, Mr. Barford," he managed at last.

That didn't come close to placating the planter. "Sorry? I don't think so!" Barford said. "I'm going to write to my Senator-that's what I'm going to do."

The Atlantean officer looked through him. "Mr. Barford, you may write to the Pope for all I care, and much good may it do you. My back hurts, and so does my head. If I have not got a fever, I should be very much surprised."

Henry Barford stared at him in undisguised horror. "Lord love a duck! You're coming down with it, too!" He edged away from the lieutenant.

If that offended Torrance, he hid it very well: or, more likely, he had other things to worry about. "I fear I am. I hope I am not, but I fear I am." He muttered to himself, then spoke aloud again: "I wish we could have got these rifle muskets to New Marseille. Before long, the garrison there will commence to wondering what has become of them."

Frederick heard that-the two white men were talking outside the big house after the work gang came in for the day. Frederick was healing, and was also begi

"You could send somebody to let 'em know," Barford said. "Not that far to town-even closer to the nearest place where you could send a telegram." Wires were begi

Lieutenant Torrance shook his head. "I stopped here to keep from spreading the sickness any farther."

"Oh, and a hell of a job you did, too, my boy!" Barford exclaimed.

As if on cue, his wife's voice floated down from their bedroom. "Henry! Are you out there, Henry?"

"Sure am," he answered. "What's going on?"

"I don't feel well, Henry." By the way Clotilde Barford said it, it could only be her husband's fault.

But that wasn't quite true, was it? It could also be Lieutenant Peter Torrance's fault. If he'd picked a different plantation… How much difference would it have made? Maybe not much-when yellow fever spread, it could spread like wildfire. But maybe it wouldn't have come here at all. You never could tell. And if that wasn't enough to drive you crazy, nothing ever would.

Henry Barford absently slapped at a mosquito, then wiped the palm of his hand on his trouser leg. "Don't feel good how?" he asked.

"I've got a headache. My back hurts, too. And I'm warm-I swear I'm warm," Clotilde said. She didn't give her symptoms in the same order as Lieutenant Torrance had, which didn't mean they didn't match.

Frederick realized that right away. Barford took a few seconds longer, and then delivered a double take worthy of the stage. "Oh, you son of a bitch!" he snarled at the Atlantean lieutenant. He rushed back into the big house.

Torrance just stood there. He swayed slightly-he looked as if a strong breeze, or even a breeze that wasn't so strong, would blow him away. He caught Frederick's eye. "You. Come here."

"What you need, sir?" Frederick asked as he walked over. He didn't-he couldn't-move very fast.

Chance were it didn't matter. The lieutenant looked through him, too. "I didn't mean to bring the sickness here," he said after a long, long pause.

"Who would mean to do something like that, sir?" Frederick said, which seemed safe enough.

The answer seemed to focus the lieutenant's attention on him. Frederick wasn't nearly sure he wanted it. "What's your name?" Torrance asked.

"Frederick," the Negro answered automatically. But, a heartbeat later, something made him add, "Frederick Radcliff."

Most white men would have laughed at him for his pretensions. At a different time or place, in different circumstances, Lieutenant Torrance might well have laughed, too. Now he gave Frederick his full attention. "I can see why you say so," Torrance observed. "You have something of the look of one of the First Consuls to you."

"He was my grandfather," Frederick said.

"Easy enough to claim," the officer answered. But he held up a hand before Frederick could get angry. "It could be so-I already told you you have the look."

"Victor Radcliff's grandson, a field nigger." Frederick didn't bother hiding his bitterness.

"I can't do anything about it," Lieutenant Torrance said. "I can't do anything about anything. If I am alive a week from now, I shall get down on my knees and thank almighty God. If you are alive a week from now…" He ran down like a watch that wanted winding.

"What?" Frederick asked.

The lieutenant pressed his palm against his own forehead. Frederick had always found you had a hard time telling whether you had a fever that way, because when you did your palm was also warmer than it should have been. But Torrance's grimace said he didn't like what his own flesh told him. "I am from Croydon," he said, out of the blue-or so it seemed to Frederick.

"Yes?" the Negro said, wondering if Peter Torrance's wits were starting to wander.

"No slaves in Croydon," the lieutenant said, so he had been going somewhere after all. "We don't put up with that kind of thing up there. We haven't, not for a man's lifetime and longer. Doesn't always stop our traders from making money off of what slaves do, but we don't keep 'em ourselves. Some folks think that makes us better. But I'll tell you something, Frederick Radcliff."

"What's that?"

"If folks don't want you to be free, you can still take care of the job. Look what your grandfather did against England."

He made it sound easy. Maybe he thought it would be. Or maybe his wits were wandering but he didn't realize it yet. Ru

Lieutenant Torrance shrugged. "If you are your grandfather's grandson, you'll find some way to be worthy of his name. And if you aren't…" He let that hang, too. After touching one finger to the brim of his black plug hat, he walked back to the tent he'd run up. He wasn't steady on his legs, and it wasn't because he'd had too much to drink.

"What did the white man want?" Helen asked when Frederick came back to her.

"Don't quite know," he answered. "Tell you somethin', though-don't reckon I ever talked with anybody like him before."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Don't quite know," Frederick repeated. He wished he could spend more time ciphering it out. An enormous yawn soon put paid to that notion. He wasn't so exhausted as he had been that first dreadful night, and his stripes didn't pain him so much. But they did still hurt, and he was still weary.

He and Helen headed back to their cabin. He woke up in the night needing to use the chamber pot. As he lay back down, several itchy new mosquito bites reminded him again that he hadn't screened the window. They kept him awake a little while. That was one more mark of progress; the first night, he hadn't even noticed he was getting eaten alive.

No one blew the horn the next morning, not till the sun stood higher in the sky than it should have. And when the horn did sound… It always reminded Frederick more of an animal's bellow than of a product of human ingenuity, but this morning it reminded him of an animal in pain.