Ro had been on dairy duty that morning, and hadn’t been one of the laborers to help destroy the wheat crop, so Elliot had come to Ro’s for comfort. Tatiana and her father might prefer the darkness of the star-cavern sanctuary, but there were only two places on the North estate that Elliot considered a refuge, and the barn loft was too crowded with notes about her wheat to be a comfort today. Yet here, for a few precious minutes, she could be silent and fill her hands with soil and pretend that there were no worries that awaited her beyond the confines of this sun-drenched hut. It was pointless to dwell, anyway. What good would it do?
Ro was already digging among her flowers when Elliot arrived. She dripped mud across the unfinished planks of the floor as she crossed the room to greet Elliot.
“Good day, Ro.”
The girl’s green eyes—so unusual, even among the Reduced—searched Elliot’s face, and she frowned.
“Yes, I’m sad,” Elliot admitted. She’d never successfully lied to Ro. Reduced her friend may be, but not insensitive. Elliot had been taught as a child that the Reduced could sense your emotions, like dogs. Over the years, she’d begun to wonder if their general lack of speech made it all the more important for them to read faces.
To some Luddites, the Reduced were children, fallen and helpless, but still human. To others, they were beasts of burden, mostly mute and incapable of rational thought. Elliot’s mother had taught her that they were her duty, as they were the duty of all Luddites. Cut off as the population of these two islands had been since the Wars of the Lost, they might be the only people left on the planet. The Luddites, who had kept themselves pure of the taint of Reduction, therefore had the responsibility to be the caretakers not only of all of human history and culture but of humanity itself.
It had been generations since any Luddites had tried to rehabilitate the Reduced. Mere survival had taken precedence. But Ro was more than Elliot’s duty. She’d become Elliot’s friend, and sometimes Elliot even dared wonder what Ro could be—what any Reduced could be—if the Luddites had the resources to try.
Ro brightened and took Elliot’s brown hand in her own reddened, muddy one. She pulled Elliot over to the pots, grinning, and Elliot allowed herself to be pulled. She knew what was coming. Ro’s pots had been yielding the same profusion of blossoms for the last four years, but Ro still greeted every one with squeals of delighted surprise.
Ro led her to one particular group of pots set apart from all the others and Elliot’s eyes widened in shock. These flowers were different from any she’d seen before—not red or yellow or purple or white, but a pale violet with streaks of scarlet running in veins along each petal from the depths of a deeply crimson heart.
“They’re beautiful, Ro!” she blurted, while inwardly, she tried to work out the genetics. A simple cross-pollination perhaps, the purple flowers set too close to the red ones . . .
Ro bounced and clapped her hands. She pointed at the red and purple flowers planted nearby and then at Elliot herself. Elliot narrowed her eyes, remembering evenings Ro had spent by her side in the barn loft.
No, it was impossible. She was Reduced.
A few words, a few signs, and simple, repetitive tasks were the most the Reduced could handle. They were capable of being trained, but not for any skilled labor. And they required close observation. The young, the sick, the pregnant, and the elderly had an odd propensity for self-violence, which is why the Luddites were forced to confine them. The birthing house that Dee had feared was an unfortunate necessity for Reduced women, but torture for a Post like Dee.
But Ro was nodding eagerly, miming picking flowers then pressing her palms together. “Ro wheat,” she said, in the awkward monosyllabic speech that was all the Reduced could manage.
Ro wheat. Ro’s special wheat. It was impossible. A Reduced could never comprehend what Elliot had been working on in secret, could never re-create the grafts herself. Ro was Reduced. It was impossible.
But no repetition could truly banish Elliot’s suspicion. “Ro,” she said, “you mustn’t show these flowers to anyone, do you hear?”
Ro frowned, her pretty, freckled face wrinkled with confusion.
“I love them, I do!” Elliot took the girl’s hands in hers. “They are beautiful flowers and I’m proud of you. But it must be a secret, right?” She pressed a finger to her lips. “Shh.”
“Shh,” Ro agreed, muddying her mouth with her forefinger. Elliot wished she could be sure the girl was doing more than just parroting her. But this was the way it was, the way it had always been, ever since the Reduction. Each generation of Luddites would care for the Reduced and their offspring. They’d tend the land, obey the protocols, and keep humanity alive.
Then came the CORs.
Some reckoned there were four generations of them now, though others claimed only two. There were more every year, though, as if the human spirit itself had risen from the ashes of the Reduction. CORs—or Posts, as now almost everyone but holdouts like Elliot’s father had taken to calling them—came from Reduced ancestry, but they were born and developed completely normally. Posts were as intelligent and capable as any Luddite. They’d been rare in the time of Elliot’s grandfather, but now people said one in twenty babies born to a Reduced was a Post, and a Post parent never produced a Reduced child.
Posts quite naturally stepped into positions of power on the Luddite estates. By the time Elliot was born, it was a given that the Luddite farms, instead of being overseen by the actual Luddites as they had been for generations, would instead be manned by a staff of Post foremen, mechanics, chefs, and tailors. The Luddites themselves presided over all in a life of relative leisure.
When Elliot was younger, she’d asked her tutor why, if the CORs were as capable as the Luddites, did they still have the legal status of the Reduced? The conversation hadn’t gone well. No one could deny the existence of the CORs, but it was still taboo to deviate from the Luddite way. No one had even studied the origin of the Posts, nor tested their genetics. It was not for Luddites to question the will of God or the nature of man. Such thoughts had led to the Reduction, and by their piety alone had Elliot’s people been saved.
What, Elliot wondered, would her teacher think of her Luddite piety now? She knew her wheat was a sin, but what choice did she have? The North estate could not go hungry.
These flowers, though—they were something else. There was no reconciling it. She knew what everyone else would see. A creation of frivolous beauty, made by a Reduced who’d aped Elliot’s crimes. It was insupportable. Unforgivable.
It was also pure Ro. She loved pretty things, which was why she grew flowers, and she loved Elliot, which was why she tried to do everything just like her. And she was Reduced, which meant she bore the punishment for the hubris of her ancestors. Ancestors who had held themselves higher than God, and had been brought lower than man.
If Elliot wasn’t careful, Ro would suffer punishment for a sin of Elliot’s making, too.
Ro began to shuffle the pots, burying the hybrid blossoms among the others. “Shh,” she said. “Shhh, shhh.” But she couldn’t be trusted to keep the secret. Not like Dee or any of the other Posts.
Elliot plucked a single bloom and rubbed the petals between her fingers. They were so small and perfect, so alive and vibrant. How could such a thing, such a tiny, beautiful thing, be a sin against God? Surely a sinful flower would wither and die, but look how these prospered under the care of the most humble of creatures. Whatever else this meant, the existence of these flowers, on this day, told Elliot one thing: Let her father trample what wheat he may—Elliot would not give up.
ON SUMMER AFTERNOONS, BARON North and Tatiana made a big show of descending into the star-cavern sanctuary for Luddite services. Their piety waned in the winter months, however, when the ancient refuge was less a cool retreat from the sun and more the frigid, punishing darkness that their ancestors had endured only because the wars had driven them underground.
Elliot didn’t begrudge them their act
ivities, though. She used the time to have uninterrupted access to her father’s study, so she could deal with his correspondence. Once, the job had been her mother’s, and so by rights it should now be Tatiana’s, but Elliot’s sister showed the same interest and head for numbers as their father—which was to say, very little at all. Left to them, the desk would collapse beneath the weight of unanswered requests and unpaid bills—mostly the latter variety of late. Then again, people stopped asking for favors once they knew you owed money all over. Even if your name was North.
When her mother was alive, there’d been economy in their house. Economy and industry both, to balance out her father’s worst tendencies. His older brother had been raised to manage the farm, not Zachariah North. Elliot’s uncle had died before Elliot’s parents were even married, leaving behind an infant son too young to take over and Zachariah, who hadn’t been fit to lead but became the baron nonetheless. The North estate had never been the same. Elliot’s father possessed the Luddite sense of superiority, but without its corresponding call to action. And ever since his wife died, he deeply resented anyone who made him remember it—by, say, suggesting that one’s debts ought to be repaid.
Most days, that was Elliot. She had to be very careful with the bills now, or risk lectures from her father on the honor due to Baron North. They were not even ordinary Luddites, the Norths, but one of the last great baronic families who had preserved the world in the wake of the Reduction. Their ancestors had led the remnants of humanity out of the caverns. They had held their land for generations.
Hard to remember all this family honor when Elliot spent every day staring into the eye of a cyclone of debts called due.
Her wheat could have saved them, kept the estate from needing to import food this winter. Even allowed them a surplus for the first time in Elliot’s memory. But it was not to be this year. Her father would rather build a racetrack for horses he could barely afford.
One of the letters caught her eye. An unfamiliar correspondent, and a Post by the look of the address. Elliot opened it.
Most Admirable Baron Zachariah North,
Forgive me the trespass of writing this letter. I have never had the honor of being introduced to such a lofty person as you. Most likely, you do not know me, nor of my reputation amongst your illustrious fellows. I am an explorer in the service of my Luddite lords, and in the past ten years my activities have brought great distinction and wealth to my patrons, who include the honorable families of Right, Grace, Record, and Baroness Channel. For my references, you may apply to any of these families.
I have learned that you are currently in control of the shipyard belonging to Chancellor Elliot Boatwright. If the facility is not in use, I would be interested in renting it from you, as well as some residential properties and the use of some of your labor force while my shipwrights work. I seek to build a new ship, one much bigger than any of my current facilities can handle. I am told that Boatwright shipyard is the best in the islands, and I am sure we can come to an agreement that is profitable and advantageous to us both.
I remain your ever-humble servant,
Nicodemus Innovation, Admiral of the Cloud Fleet
Elliot had heard of the renowned Cloud Fleet. There weren’t a lot of seaworthy vessels on the island—at least, not since her grandfather’s shipyard had shut down before her birth. And since the wars had rendered magnetic compasses useless, very few braved the trip out of sight range of their shores. Was the Cloud Fleet, staffed entirely by free Posts, attempting an overseas journey? Elliot’s heart raced at the very thought. It had been ages since she’d allowed herself to dream of that. Not since Kai had gone away.
Of course, she did her best not to think of him, either.
As far as anyone knew, there was nothing left of the world but these two islands, these quarter of a million square kilometers, these people and these mountains and these animals and this society. Admiral Innovation might change all that. His Fleet had first captured the population’s notice when one of his exploratory trips to nearby islands had brought back a breed of horse not seen for generations. Sturdier, taller, and faster, the Innovation horse had quickly become the preferred means of transport on the trade routes. Another one of his expeditions had resulted in the rediscovery of a wild game hen that produced twice as many eggs as the standard estate chickens. Even Baron North had filled his henhouses with them. Most recently, Elliot had read of a Cloud Fleet expedition, one run by a Captain Wentforth, in which he’d found another island and a cargo hold full of salvaged, solar-powered vehicles in near-pristine condition.
This news, of course, had been greeted with mixed reactions from the Luddite community, who frowned upon any technology they hadn’t already been using for centuries. But as many disapproved, there were other Luddites, not quite as fastidious, who had declared the machines nothing more than an innocuous, long-forgotten form of transport, and turned the sun-carts into a hot commodity. The Norths, of course, had not indulged. They couldn’t afford to.
And now this Admiral Innovation wanted to build himself a new ship—and using the Boatwright facilities, too! This would be a tricky proposition to get by her father, but if she could manage it, it would certainly solve their financial woes. Innovation must be very wealthy to be able to rent the whole shipyard. Elliot wondered if the money would be enough to sway her father, or if he would view such matters as too tawdry for his taste.
Maybe she could find another incentive, though. Admiral Innovation had more than just money to offer, and her father did have that splendid new racetrack.
NINE YEARS AGO
Dear Kai,
I’m sorry I can’t come see you today. In school last week, we had to write a paper about the Reduction. I don’t know what I wrote that was so bad, but the tutor told me she had to give it to my parents, and now we’re all four of us having a “conference.” My mother said it’s probably best if I stay away from the barn for a little while. It was hard enough getting this letter to you.
I’m really scared. Last year, when my cousin Benedict got sent home from boarding school, my father beat him. My father yells at me a lot, but he’s never hit me before. I can’t figure out what I put in the essay that was so wrong. Can you?
Your friend,
Elliot
WHY THE REDUCTION HAPPENED
By Elliot North
Before the Reduction, there were two kinds of people: people who trusted in God to create mankind in His own image, and people who thought they could do better than God. The first kind of people were my ancestors, the Luddites. The second kind of people, the Lost, did lots of experiments to make themselves better than God. They tried to create new kinds of plants and animals, the way God did. They gave themselves fake arms and legs and eyes that worked better than the ones God gave us, and they did experiments on unborn babies, too, so that they could make them different and supposedly better than their parents.
The Luddites were the only people who knew how evil this was. They refused to give themselves the fake body parts, or even the fake brains that were supposed to make them smarter than God. First they refused to eat genetically enhanced foods, and then they refused the ERV procedure to enhance their babies. They tried to warn the Lost, who believed Gavin and Carlotta and all had ERV, but the Lost didn’t believe them.
Finally, God got angry at the Lost, and cursed them and all their children. From that point on, they would no longer be born in His own image. They were Reduced. After that, there were also two kinds of people: the Luddites and the Reduced.
The Luddites took pity on the Reduced, and helped them survive.
Except now there’s a third kind of people, called the Children of the Reduction, who are born just like Luddites, which must mean that God has forgiven the Reduced. There are many of those on the North estate.
Dear Elliot,
I hope you are okay. I read your essay and it sounds like what we learn too. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I don’t know why
you would be in trouble. The only thing I never heard about before was the part where you said that the Posts were a sign of forgiveness. They never say that to us at services. Do you think that’s true?
Your friend,
Kai
Dear Kai,
I am grounded. I had to bribe Benedict with my dessert to send you this letter. I hope it gets to you and he doesn’t read it. My mother says he’s a very naughty boy and I shouldn’t spend too much time with him.
It was the part about the forgiveness that made my teacher so worried. She and my parents explained to me that we don’t have the right to decide when God has forgiven you and your ancestors, which I guess makes sense. But at the same time, doesn’t it seem like He must have? For so many years, the Reduced only had Reduced children. But now there are people like you and your father. If I were God, and I wanted to show that I had forgiven the Lost and the Reduced, that’s what I would do.
But when I told my father that, he got very angry and slapped my face. It’s the first time he’s ever hit me, and I hope it’s the last. He said I also don’t have the right to pretend I know what God would do and why. Although, if that’s the case, then how is it that we know that the Reduction was a punishment from God? It’s so confusing.
Since I’m grounded, I can’t pick up letters in the knothole. If you write me back, try to get the letter to the housemaid Mags. She likes me ever since I gave her baby one of my old dolls. I trust her way more than Benedict.
Your friend,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
For Darkness Shows the Stars Page 2
