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automatons , within any State or designated
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the
United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free’.”
    There were some loud shouts of approval, followed by a round
of hushing. No one wanted to wake up the white folks.
    “Wait a minute,” someone said. “That part about ‘in
rebellion against the United States.’ What does that mean?”
    “It means it doesn’t apply to us,” Davy said. “It only frees
people in the states still fighting. Maryland’s always been in the Union.”
    No one spoke for a moment, and then another man said, “What
we doing out here then?”
    “Because they’re going to have to free us, sooner or later.
It’ll take time, but if they’re going to get rid of slavery in the states that
rebelled, they’re going to have to get rid of it in the ones that stayed in the
union. We need to plan for it.”
    That drew a lot of discussion, pro and con, but Jasmine wasn’t
listening. That proclamation, it freed ensouled automatons, but not the other
kind. That’s why Calvert wanted to be sure she didn’t make the new ones
ensouled. And why he was so willing to offer her freedom if she worked her butt
off. He figured the slaves were going to be freed in Maryland sooner or later—her
included—and he was building up a workforce to replace the humans. No wonder
he’d liked the idea of a “machine” that could make other machines. He was a man
who thought ahead.
    She wasn’t just making him slaves to buy her own freedom.
She was ensuring he’d have slaves forever, even if they weren’t people.
    Jasmine was surprised by how much that bothered her.
    “What was that about the metalmen?” someone asked.
    “The proclamation treats ensouled metalmen the same as other
slaves.”
    “But they ain’t human. They’re just machines.”
    “No, they’re not,” Jasmine said. “They may not be the same
as us, but they’re a lot more than machines.”
    “Nothing personal, Jas. I know you make ’em and you do good
work. But why should something that’s made be treated the same as people who are
born?”
    It was a good question and she didn’t have a good answer.
The metalmen thought and reasoned, certainly, but did they feel the same way
people did? She thought so, and she didn’t even know any ensouled metalmen,
just ordinary ones. But it was a gut feeling on her part, nothing she could
explain to anyone else.
    Davy answered him. “The ensoulment process puts souls from
people who recently died into the metalmen. That’s why. It changes them from
just machines.”
    Jasmine wanted to argue with that, too. The ones without
souls were still more than machines. But it was clear that didn’t make any
difference. The ordinary kind would take the place of human slaves, and the
slaveholders would continue to prosper. Calvert would continue to prosper. She
would make it possible, by making him a large number of mechanical slaves.
    After the meeting, Jasmine sought out Benjamin. “You know
anything about ensouling metalmen?”
    “I know old man Calvert don’t hold with it. If you’re
thinking of doing something with the ones you’re making, you’re just gonna make
him mad.”
    “I just want to know more. I don’t even know how it works.”
    “Well, the priest probably knows something, but if you ask
him you might as well tell Calvert, because he will for sure.”
    Everyone knew of slaves who had gone to confession and ended
up in trouble with their owners, because the priest didn’t treat their
confessions with the same privacy accorded to the free. “Can you think of
anyone else?”
    “They say some of the other churches believe in ensoulment, but
there ain’t any of them around here. I think your best chance might be Bess,
over on that place across the Patuxent.”
    Bess was said to practice some kind of African religion.
Jasmine didn’t know what. She didn’t know much about Africa, except that she