Across a Star-Swept Sea Read online

  “Very,” said the soldier, and her tone was more matter-of-fact than defensive this time, so it was probably true.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Persis said though she was thinking the opposite. “We wouldn’t want to be caught by the Poppy without any defenses.”

  The skimmer picked up speed as it left the sunken maze of taro fields and hovered along the road bordering the northern coast. To the right sat cliffs and, far below, the black sand beaches that formed the boundary of Galatea. Beyond lay the glittering sea separating them from Persis’s home of Albion. The two islands were shaped like crescents about to kiss, but this far east, the distant shore was a bit too far to make out with the naked eye.

  The guard was not enjoying the view. Instead, she cast a quick look back at the pathetic lot of prisoners huddled on the bed near the intake fans. “Careful with your speed. Those prisoners have had a tough enough day already.”

  Persis raised her eyebrows. Sympathy from a revolutionary guard? Well, that was unexpected. She decided to press. “There was a Reduced—a true Reduced—living near me when I was very young. Probably the last one left alive. But he wasn’t like—this. Mute, yes, stupid, yes. But not these clumsy, broken people.”

  There were people throughout history, and especially before the wars, who had believed in gods, immortal beings meting out punishments and rewards to humans based on some rarefied score sheet. Some believed that Reduction was retribution by these gods for humankind’s attempt to perfect themselves. Of course, that was silly.

  Humans had been attempting to perfect themselves since the dawn of time. They created tools because they had no fangs or claws. They created clothes since they had no fur or scales. They invented eyeglasses to see and vehicles to make them travel faster; they protected their bodies from diseases and did surgery to cut out things that could hurt them. They’d genetically engineered themselves before and after Reduction. It hadn’t been a punishment—it had been an unfortunate genetic mistake.

  It shouldn’t be a punishment now, either. And Persis wouldn’t rest until she’d stopped it.

  “They say it’s exactly what real Reduction was like.” Trina was parroting the party line.

  Persis pressed harder. “Who says?”

  “Everyone!” Trina snapped. The medics who made it … and Citizen Aldred, of course. You’re going to get charged with insubordination if you keep talking like that.”

  Persis rounded a curve and began to climb the bluff to the promontory where Andrine lay in wait. This Trina was a mystery Persis didn’t have the leisure to unravel. As she straightened the steering wheel, she began to loosen the fastening of the glove covering the palmport on her left hand.

  “Oh, I can do better than that. Want to hear?” Persis asked.

  “No,” the girl lied, even as she leaned forward.

  “I think Reducing aristos is cruel and unusual punishment,” she stated, yanking the glove off as she drove. “I think that instead of changing things for the regs in Galatea, the revolution’s just punishing aristos.”

  The girl’s mouth was open in shock, which was convenient for Persis’s purposes. She’d need a direct hit for the knockout drug to work. She lifted her hand and summoned her focus.…

  “I think it might be, too,” the girl said, and Persis stopped.

  She lowered her hand back to the steering wheel. “You do?” Maybe she had this girl all wrong. A Galatean soldier could be a true help to the League of the Wild Poppy—particularly if she was good with a gun. That was one area where Persis’s expertise was lacking. After all, they didn’t teach combat at cotillion.

  The girl nodded. “But I’m not stupid enough to say it. You’re as bad as my brother. I swear, everyone around here is asking for trouble. Now, you keep your eyes on the road and I’ll keep a lookout for the Wild Poppy.”

  Persis sighed. At the top of the bluff, a large, bare rock jutted out from the cliff, the remnant of some old explosion from the island’s fiery birth. Persis clenched her jaw, readying the command to her palmport even as she steered the skimmer to a steady stop.

  “What are you doing?” Trina spluttered, straightening. In the caged bed, the Reduced prisoners were watching them with wary eyes.

  Persis opened her hand, but the moment Trina caught sight of the golden disk set in her palm, she lunged at Persis and they both careened out of the cab.

  “Who are you!” she screamed as they landed in the dust. Even as she fell, Persis withdrew the mental command to her palmport, halting the app. She couldn’t afford to waste it unless she had a clear shot.

  Trina was reaching for her gun, and Persis kicked and slapped, trying desperately to dislodge the soldier’s grip. The pistol thumped against the ground and slid beneath the skimmer’s lifts.

  “Stop!” Trina cried.

  “You stop!” she shouted back, struggling to fight the girl as they each lunged toward the gun. Where was Andrine? She could certainly use backup right now. The Reduced watched silently from the cage. She wished any of them still had a mind.

  At the same moment, both their hands closed tight around the gun barrel and they wrestled in the grass. Trina raked her nails across Persis’s face and knocked off her cap, then reeled back in surprise as hair the color of frangipani came tumbling down on them both. Persis used the opportunity to wrench the gun from the recruit’s grip.

  “You’re a girl?” Trina spluttered.

  Persis stood, gun trained on Trina. She sighed and swept her yellow and white ropes of hair out of her face with her free hand. “This surprises you? You’re a girl.”

  The girl’s face was filled with disgust. Persis shook her head and shrugged. It was disappointing, really. They were almost in agreement.

  Trina, her face contorted with rage, kicked out and swept Persis’s feet out from under her. Persis felt the girl’s fingers on her gun, and everything was a cloud of dust and hands and white and yellow hair.

  Out of nowhere, she heard a chittering, and a red streak darted between them, sinking sharp little teeth into the Trina’s shoulder.

  She screamed and again pulled away, and Persis scrambled to her feet. “Slipstream, heel.”

  The sea mink let go of Trina, trotted obediently to Persis’s side, and wiped his whiskers with his flippery paw. His long, sleek body was damp from his latest swim, and the soldier’s blood hardly showed against his deep red fur.

  Still holding the gun on the girl, Persis caught sight of Andrine racing up, her ocean-blue hair trailing out behind her. “So good of you to show up,” Persis said to her friend.

  “Sorry for the delay.” Andrine unlocked the cage and began unloading the prisoners. “You didn’t mention you were bringing an enemy combatant.”

  “Last-minute addition,” Persis replied lightly. Trina was still crouched on the ground, holding her bleeding neck with both hands.

  “I know who you are,” she said with a sob. “You’re the Wild Poppy.”

  “What a brilliant deduction,” Andrine said, as she helped the last of the victims off the truck. “Exactly how long did that take to put together?”

  Persis gave her friend a quick look. Now, now, there was no need to be smug. They were pointing a gun at the poor girl.

  “And you’re finished,” the girl spat angrily. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with. You have no—”

  Now Andrine chuckled. “Awfully high-and-mighty for a girl who was almost a snack for a sea mink, isn’t she?”

  The soldier’s eyes were wide and wild. “I’m going to tell Citizen Aldred everything.”

  “Oh, really?” Persis said tilting the barrel of the gun toward the girl’s face. “How do you plan to do that from beyond the grave?”

  At once she felt a hand on her elbow. At first, Persis thought it was Andrine’s, though she knew her friend had more faith than that. Persis wasn’t actually going to shoot the soldier. After all, she still had her palmport dose—she could just knock her out. She risked a glance out of the corner of her
eye.

  Lord Lacan stood there, silent, an expression nearing clarity in his somber old eyes.

  Persis lowered her arm. “It appears you have made a powerful friend, little Galatean.” She sighed. “But what to do with you? You have no idea what it is you’re fighting for.”

  “Of course I do,” said Trina. “My country.”

  Persis stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “I was going to say you were very foolish, seeing how outnumbered you are. But I’ve decided you’re in fact terminally brave. And that should never be snuffed. Besides, I like your style. That move with your foot there almost had me. Very well, then. I will let the Lord Lacan decide what will happen to you.”

  Trina looked baffled. “But he’s Reduced. He can’t even help himself.”

  “Don’t worry, little soldier,” Persis said, as something began to spin out of the golden disk set in the center of her palm. The girl’s mouth had opened again, which was remarkably convenient. “We take care of that part, too.”

  A moment later, Trina Delmar collapsed on the ground.

  Another mission accomplished.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  Two

  THE ROYAL COURT OF Albion was often likened to a riotous garden, but it buzzed with more than bees and was filled with colors never found in nature. Bougainvillea hedges encircled the public court and hibiscus topiaries lined the aisles, but no flowers could compete with the whirlwind of gowns; cloaks; leis; and most of all, the towering hairstyles of the island’s most fashionable aristocrats. Their chatter drowned out the sounds of the sea beyond, the constant hum of flutternotes zipping to and fro among the courtiers, and even the delicate tinkle of the famous Albian water organ.

  One particularly crowded corner was currently occupied by Lady Persis Blake and her retinue of admirers. This evening she wore a simple, bright yellow sarong fastened about her neck with a length of crocheted gold links, and a matching gold wristlock—the leather fingerless glove that covered the palmport on her left hand. The elegant fall of her gown could only be achieved using the finest of Galatean silk, a difficult product to come by since the revolution began, but you could count on Persis Blake to have the inside scoop on where to get the best fabrics. Its hue matched exactly the yellow tones in her hair, which had been twisted, braided, and otherwise arranged so that its upswept yellow-and-white strands resembled the frangipani flower on the Blake family crest. Her beauty stood out, even among the kaleidoscope throng of the court.

  In the six months since Princess Isla had ascended the throne as regent and brought along her old school chum as her chief lady-in-waiting, Persis had become one of the court’s most glittering and popular members. Hardly anyone remembered a time when a party or a boating trip or luau was complete without the addition of Albion’s loveliest, silliest socialite.

  Even better, almost no one at court had been at school with Persis before she’d dropped out—no one who could paint a very different picture of the girl who was gaining quite the reputation for being nothing more than stylish, sweet, and above all stupid.

  Along with her gown and her jewelry, today Persis wore a look of sheer boredom as the conversation took a turn in the direction of the revolution. The casual observer would guess it was because such an ornamental creature would find politics a tedious topic.

  The truth was, no one here had a clue what Galatea was really like these days.

  “The southerners’ civil war will spread to our shores,” said one young courtier with obvious aspirations to the Royal Council. “And when it does, we must quell any reg uprising before we find ourselves in the same predicament as the Galateans.”

  “Surely not,” Persis said. “It’s hard enough finding silk merchants in Galatea who remain open these days. I’ll simply die if the Albian shops close down, too.”

  “How like a woman.” The courtier chuckled indulgently. “Lady Blake, if there’s a revolution against the aristos in Albion, what you wear is going to be the last of your concerns.”

  “Never!” Persis replied. “I have a reputation to uphold. We mustn’t let a silly thing like war make us forget our duties.”

  There was another ripple of laughter among the young men sitting near her.

  “I’m serious!” she added, forming her mouth into a pink pout. “Even with my responsibility to Princess Isla and her royal wardrobe, my dear papa hardly ever lets me sail down to visit the shops in Halahou anymore. He says he fears for my safety, but you’d think he’d spare just a smidge of concern for my clothes as well. If any of you fine gentlemen know the identity of the Wild Poppy, won’t you please ask him to rescue us some dressmakers on his next trip to Galatea? It’s getting old that all he’s been rescuing lately are other aristos. Honestly, they aren’t useful for anything but competition.”

  “If I knew the identity of the Poppy,” said one of the courtiers, “I’d be the most popular man on both islands. In Albion all the ladies would adore me”—several ladies tittered for proof—“and in Galatea, I’d be Citizen Aldred’s very best friend. The Poppy is Galatea’s most wanted.”

  “Then my proposal would solve everyone’s problems,” Persis argued. “Citizen Aldred probably wouldn’t mind so much the loss of a tailor or two, and I would get that meticulous Galatean attention to sartorial detail that I’ve been missing. Everyone wins!”

  “Except the aristos,” mumbled another of the courtiers, but no one listened to him. After all, talk of prisoners was deemed ever so dull by the Albian courtiers, and thinking about Galatean aristos they all knew who might even now be imprisoned did terrible things to one’s mood.

  Just once, Persis wished she could steer the conversation in this direction instead of away from it. Would things change if more aristos started questioning the Council’s hands-off position regarding the war? Would it be worth it to try, even if it endangered her carefully wrought disguise?

  She looked up to see Tero Finch gesturing to her from the edge of the circle. As a freshly cooled member of the Royal College of Gengineers, Tero’s clothes weren’t quite as stylish as the aristos surrounding him, but his height, broad shoulders, and perfectly dyed metallic bronze hair still had several of the young ladies turning his way. “Persis,” he called, “the princess can see us now.”

  With a trilling laugh that grated even on her own ears, Persis sprang to her feet. “I must leave you, lovelies. Please make sure to have some good gossip when I return.”

  She met Tero, and together they ascended the wide marble steps to the terrace.

  “Where’s my sister?” Tero asked under his breath. “You didn’t get Andrine arrested, did you?”

  “Probably in Scintillans Village by now, safe and sound and doing her homework,” Persis reassured him as they entered the throne room of the princess regent of Albion. Tero was convinced Persis and Andrine were risking their lives with every trip to Galatea. That he was right hadn’t dissuaded them yet.

  The sunset filtered through bamboo blinds drawn over the colonnade that formed the outer wall of the room. Vases three meters high were stuffed with drooping palm fronds strung with orchid leis, and the scent of the royal flower hung heavily in the room. Princess Isla sat in the middle of the floor, heedless of the giant white cushions strewn nearby. Her wide-legged white pants were gathered in bunches in her lap, and her white cape lay forgotten on one of the chaises behind her. For a moment, Persis could imagine they were children again, playing with puzzles or building pillow volcanoes on the floor.

  Isla held her left hand out to the toddler who sat before her, a bright-eyed boy who squealed with delight at the tiny golden threads leaping around on Isla’s fingertips.

  “It works!” Tero cried, dropping to his knees at the princess’s side.

  “Another new app?” Persis asked as she gathered the trailing ends of her yellow sarong and sat down, too. Tero seemed t
o spend half his time at his new job in the Royal College of Gengineers, developing new palmport apps for Isla.

  And the other half secretly working for the League of the Wild Poppy.

  So now it was jumping threads. The week before it had been an app that would allow Isla to control the playlist on the water organ in the courtyard. And before that, Tero had cooked up some code that combined optic identification with a visual skin, which if you ran the app made Councilman Shift look like an armadingo. Anything to make Isla laugh, or even forget for a moment that she wasn’t just their schoolmate anymore. She wasn’t just Persis’s best friend. One little accident, and she’d found herself an orphan, a mother, and a ruler of a country on the brink of war.

  “What kind of supplements does it take to run it?” Persis asked, as if none of that mattered, and they could talk as they used to.

  “Intense ones,” Isla said with a sigh, “but it’s a real flare with the king.” She shrugged, and the figures crumbled into shimmering dust around the gold disk inset in the center of her palm. The baby squawked in protest, but Isla grabbed him and turned him upside down until he started laughing again.

  “The King of Albion,” Tero added with mock haughtiness, “has exquisite taste for a child who only recently began walking.” He smiled at Isla and bowed his head. “I’m glad you liked it, your Highness.”

  Your Highness. When had Tero gotten so formal? There’d been no bows ten years ago when he was crashing their slumber parties and chucking cuttle jellies at their heads.

  But a lot had changed since then.

  Isla watched Tero leave, then patted the king on his diapered bottom. “All right, Albie. Go play while your sister talks to Auntie Persis.”

  The infant King of Albion obeyed, toddling into the waiting arms of his nurse.

  “Princess,” said Persis gaily, keeping careful watch of the toddler and his keeper, “I’ve just come back from Galatea and I’ve brought you some … lovely silks.”