Across a Star-Swept Sea

by Diana Peterfreund

  Lord Blocking, behind them with his lady, snorted. “Is that why you are so reluctant to help put an end to the atrocities happening in the south, Princess? Because you have interpreted your father’s teachings as a call to passive inaction?”

  “No,” replied the princess smoothly. “It is because I govern by the will of the people and shall not go to war, risking who knows how many of my own citizens’ lives in the process, until the people of Albion will it.”

  “And if the people of Albion will a revolution? If the people of Albion will you stripped of your power?”

  For a moment, Justen wondered how far the man planned to go with this.

  “Oh, come now,” said Andrine, who seemed annoyed equally at the direction the conversation had gone and the fact that she was walking alongside Dwyer. Somehow, in the last few minutes, Persis and Tero had fallen way behind the rest. Andrine kept looking back at them and scowling. “Surely the fact that our leaders bother to take into account their people’s opinions is an argument for not revolting. What do you say, Citizen Helo?”

  Justen started. Despite being the only Galatean present, he’d not expected to be put on the spot in this way. “Queen Gala was a distant and indifferent ruler,” he said.

  “Oh, and you knew the queen so well?” asked Lord Blocking.

  “I met her a few times,” Justen admitted. “The first was when my parents died ten years ago and there was a question of where my sister and I would go. It was suggested by some that the queen take us in herself, given the debt the Galateans felt they owed our family.”

  “What happened?” asked Dwyer Shift.

  Justen forced a smile. “I was not raised by Queen Gala.”

  “No,” said Persis, who’d at last caught up to the group. “She pawned you off on her trusted military general Damos Aldred.”

  The group fell silent. Isla paused, causing everyone else to stop short as well, and turned to Persis. “So what are you saying, Persis? That I’m safe from a military revolution as long as I don’t stick any of my councilmen with a bunch of orphans to raise?”

  Persis smiled sweetly. “Couldn’t hurt.”

  A few of the guests chuckled, and, just like that, the tension diffused. How was it that Persis was so good at this? Maybe he should have left her to deal with her mother as she wished last night.

  Slipstream appeared out of nowhere, hurrying to his mistress’s side. When he got there, he lifted himself up on his hind legs and proceeded to do a strange little dance, hopping back and forth, then dropping, rolling over, and repeating the process again.

  “What’s he doing?” Dwyer asked, incredulous.

  “He’s glad to see me,” said Persis. She stripped off her wristlock and leaned over to pet the sea mink, running her fingers deeply through his fur. “Aren’t you, boy? What a good, good boy you are.” Something gold glinted near the animal’s green collar, but Justen figured it must be sunlight reflecting off the buckle.

  “Let’s just get to the stupid monument,” grumbled Lord Blocking.

  “Stupid?” Isla drew herself up, looking quite majestic and almost supernaturally grand all of a sudden. It appeared to be part of royal training. Justen would never understand. “I’m sure you meant to say dumb—as in silent—as in magnificent and lonely and ever so sacred.”

  The man looked away.

  Isla appeared satisfied. “Perhaps in the next election cycle, it shall be the will of the people in your district to revisit the wisdom of placing you on the Council.” She strode off, and only Justen heard as she passed close, “And then I’ll no longer be forced to place you on my guest lists.”

  “Princess,” Justen said, jumping on his first opportunity to be out of earshot of the others. “I need to speak to you. I know we’d originally agreed that I’d be available for your publicity purposes, but I feel my true purpose in Albion lies elsewhere.”

  “Oh?” Isla responded. “So you want to be relieved of the duty of sucking my friend’s face off like you were back there on the boat?”

  “Yes—”

  “Didn’t look like it.” She walked on.

  Justen caught up. “I’ve had the opportunity to see the Galatean refugees. As a medic, I know my place belongs in the labs, helping your scientists develop a treatment for their condition. I can be so much more useful to you there. Even Persis will agree …”

  Isla groaned and pressed her fist against her brow. “Certainly, Citizen Helo. I shall look into it as soon as I’ve managed to prevent the imminent uprising in my own country.”

  Justen drew back, chagrined. “I know you’re busy, but—”

  “I’m not happy about you hiding away in some Darkened sanitarium, and switching that up for a secret refugee lab is even less appealing. However, if you’d like to do a few propaganda videos for me about the importance of stopping the Reduction of your people, I’d be more than happy to arrange it. All right?”

  No. Not all right. Not all right at all. He needed to keep a low profile until his sister was secured. Vania’s visit had proved that. After all, she’d as good as threatened Persis yesterday.

  And Justen had almost bitten her head off for it.

  “Please, Princess—”

  At the rear of the party, Persis rose and for a minute, it looked like she’d lost her balance. Tero grabbed her hand, and they held on to each other until she regained her footing.

  “Are you hurt?” Justen called.

  “Fine.” Persis dropped Tero’s hand and strode up to where Justen stood. “Why, are you jealous you aren’t walking with me?” She batted her eyelashes at him and tossed a few ropes of her hair behind her shoulder. Lady Blocking ducked to avoid being hit in the face with them.

  “I think,” Tero said, “that I’m going to do a quick survey of the beach. Given the day’s events, we can’t be too safe.” Bizarrely, he shook his sister’s hand in farewell before vanishing down the trail.

  “Let’s keep going up!” Persis cried. “Up, up, up! The sooner we get to the monument, the sooner we can get back to lunch—am I right, Lady Blocking?” Not waiting for an answer, she rushed forward, past Justen, past Isla, and kept up the pace until she reached the next curve in the path, far above their heads. Isla also quickened her pace, and the rest dutifully followed. As they passed the curve, Justen looked down at the beach, and stopped dead on the path.

  “Who is that?” Far below them stood a figure. From here, he could make out little more than orangey hair and a dull brown dress.

  Persis practically ran down to meet him. “Oh, look, another Albian, out to pay her respects to the monument. How lovely. Who knew this would be such a popular trip? Of course, the weather’s so lovely today. Everything is so lovely. All right, onward—” She tugged at his hand, but Justen was riveted by the girl on the beach.

  There was something strange, and yet oddly familiar, about her movements. He struggled to place it. Perhaps the distance was just playing tricks on him. But as he peered closer, he saw her joined by another woman, whose hair was a color he’d never seen outside history books and videos. Not yellow like some of Persis’s, but a soft, sunshiny gold. “Blond,” he said to himself. It was called blond. He’d yet to see any Albian who’d chosen to dye their hair a color that had once appeared on humans in nature.

  “Come on,” Persis insisted, and pulled him away. “Stop spying. I don’t know how they do things in Galatea, but in Albion, it’s considered rude.”

  “Odd,” he replied. “Since the most famous spy in the world is Albian.”

  Persis allotted him a pity chuckle.

  Two more turns, if memory served, and they’d reach the summit of the island and the ceramic obelisk that marked the sanctuary. Isla still led the way, her pace now almost as fast as her friend’s. Everyone had stopped talking, concentrating mostly on keeping up.

  “And, here we are!” Isla announced, a bit breathless, as they rounded the last turn. “The monument of Remembrance I—” and here words failed her.

 
; There were two people already there. At first glance, the strangers standing before them appeared Galatean, to judge by their natural, dark hair and more somber dress. Except “somber” wasn’t the right word for it. The young woman wore a simple, faded shirt and patched trousers hardly fit for the most downtrodden of Galatean peasants before the revolution. Her hair hung down her back in a braid almost long enough to skim the earth as she knelt and examined the writing at the base of the monument. The young man, dressed notably better, almost like an aristo or at least a rich reg, stood facing them, as if he already knew they’d arrived, though he couldn’t possibly have heard them over the wind here at the peak. Justen wanted to say the strangers were nearly the same age as he was, but that didn’t seem right, either. Surely he’d remember a Galatean of his social class who looked like this. The other boy’s skin was paler than Justen was used to, and the shape of his eyes and cheekbones gave him pause. But though the stranger looked on their party with extreme wariness, he couldn’t hide his expression of unmitigated delight.

  “Hello.”

  At the sound of his voice, the girl looked around, then jumped to her feet in shock. Quick as a flash, the boy maneuvered until he stood between her and the rest of them, his hand stretched back toward in a gesture of both comfort and protection.

  “Hello,” said Isla, pausing haughtily in expectation of a bow that never came. She shot Justen a look. “Galateans, I see. Well, we’re on neutral ground. I won’t stand on ceremony.”

  But Justen, the only Galatean in the group, felt in his bones that he wasn’t looking at his countrymen.

  The young man came forward, his back straight, his head high and his eyes, Justen could now see, glittering with a light no one on Earth had seen for generations.

  “My name is Captain Malakai Wentforth of the ship Argos,” he said, his words so distorted and odd sounding that they were practically unintelligible. “We have come from the end of the world to search for other survivors. You are the first we’ve met. Tell me, what is this place, and why does it not appear on any map?”

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  Twenty-two

  ON ONE HAND, THE picnic would go down in history as the most disastrous party that the Lady Persis Blake had ever thrown. On the other hand, every guest was present to see history made, so that was a point in its favor.

  The established mode, according to the old stories Persis and her father used to read before bedtime, was for the impossible aliens to ask the natives they encounter to take them to their leader. However, in this case, the leader in question, Princess Isla, was already one of the party. And she wasted no time getting the full story out of the two visitors, who called themselves Captain Wentforth and Chancellor Boatwright, as if the titles weren’t utter nonsense and the way they pronounced the words almost impossible to understand.

  It was called an “accent,” if Persis remembered correctly; a change in vowels or pronunciation in a language, like you sometimes saw in history videos. And, in this strange accent, the strangers told Isla they meant no harm, and as their story emerged, even Persis was inclined to believe them.

  And yet it was impossible that they were here. There were no survivors elsewhere. The population of New Pacifica was utterly alone on the world. Everyone knew that. They’d always known that. It was the whole point of Remembrance Island. And if there were, surely they would not come to New Pacifica with any purpose other than revenge—revenge against the descendants of those who’d destroyed the world to begin with. Right?

  Persis would have loved to take part in the interview, but she was trapped in hostess mode, in Persis Flake mode, shuttling the whole party down the mountain. Isla had already fluttered Tero, who Persis had earlier sent off to investigate the empty golden glider that Slipstream’s new surveillance app had shown the sea mink finding on the beach. When Justen had seen the two figures below them on the trail, Persis had deduced that they’d found the owners of the illegal glider, though she’d been surprised to see by their hair that they were Albian. But apparently in that, too, she’d been mistaken.

  They weren’t Albians with illegal gliders and dyed hair. They weren’t Galatean revolutionaries planning a sneak attack. Instead, they were something far more shocking and infinitely more dangerous.

  And Persis was stuck playing a stupid aristo while Isla and Tero got to have all the fun.

  By the time they’d reached the beach, Tero had rounded up the other two strangers, and was waiting with them.

  “Ro!” The one who called herself Chancellor Boatwright ran toward the one with the orangey hair. Tero tensed but otherwise did nothing. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course she is,” drawled the light-haired one. They were both dressed in the same simple, homespun fashions of the two they’d met at the monument. “Do you really think I’d let anyone hurt her?”

  The girl in question, Ro, shrank back from the group, pointing in fear at their hair and clothes. She said nothing, but the gestures continued, fluid, graceful, and utterly silent. Was she mute? No one was mute, except …

  “She’s Reduced,” Isla whispered in amazement. “I mean—really Reduced.”

  There was a chorus of oohs from the Blockings and Dwyer Shift.

  The other three strangers all exchanged glances. “Are there no Reduced here?” asked the one who’d identified himself as the captain.

  Justen looked away, Persis noticed immediately.

  “Not real Reduced,” Lady Blocking blurted. “Not for about two generations, since the cure.”

  The male stranger’s bright eyes got even brighter. “There’s a cure?” He looked at the dark-haired Chancellor Boatwright. “There’s a cure.”

  The girl was already nodding, her severe face utterly transformed by a breathtaking smile. “There’s a cure. You did it, Kai.” Her voice was breathless, ecstatic. Persis imagined this is what Darwin and Persistence Helo must have once looked like, when they realized what they had on their hands. The dark-haired strangers were facing each other, gazes locked, hands floating out toward each other, like they’d completely forgotten there was anyone else on the beach, anyone else in the world.

  “Oh, please,” groaned the blonde, looking nauseated. “Not this again. Honestly, I’m glad we’ve found land, if only because it means I’m not trapped on a boat with you two.”

  Isla cleared her throat, understandably baffled by how this revelatory meeting had somehow turned into a discussion about the visitors’ interpersonal relationships. “Persis, if you would be so good as to return your guests to Albion? I have already called for a royal guard ship to escort our visitors—”

  “We’re not getting on any of your guard ships,” said the light-haired one. She turned to Captain Wentforth, who had drawn away from Chancellor Boatwright, though their hands were now clasped tightly. “Tell her, Malakai.”

  Captain Wentforth sighed. “I agree with Captain Phoenix.” Phoenix. What ridiculous name was next? “We’ve come to find other survivors of the war, not be imprisoned by them. If you want us to come with you, we will do so in our own vessels.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Lord Blocking. “We don’t allow flying machines in New Pacifica. Yours will be destroyed.”

  “Oh, no they won’t!” said Chancellor Boatwright. “We don’t know your laws. If you won’t allow the gliders, we’ll just remove them. Boats, I assume, are all right? We’ll just go back to our sailing ship.”

  Isla turned to her. “And how many more of you are there … on your ship?”

  Chancellor Boatwright shut her mouth and cast a long look at Captain Wentforth.

  He swallowed. “We mean you no harm, but we must insist that we be allowed our freedom.”

  “By what means,” said Lord Blocking, “are you insisting? What weapons have you got?”

  A flutternote buzzed against Persis’s palm. She shi
fted the edge of her wristlock to allow it entrance to her palmport. It was from Isla.

  This is a disaster. We must keep the visitors a secret from the court until we learn their full story. I wish to agree to their autonomy, but I can’t show weakness in front of the Council members. What do you advise?

  Persis advised a diversion. Quickly, she manufactured the Poppy’s knockout dose. It was a stretch of her resources, but as long as she got back to the Daydream soon, she had the proper supplements to counteract any negative effects. Once made, she instructed the nanos to aim it at Lord Blocking. He was as good a victim as any, and deserved to be shut up.

  Seconds later, he slumped to the sand.

  “Oh dear!” Persis exclaimed as Lady Blocking screamed. “I do believe the hike was too much for our dear Lord Blocking. He needs a medic!”

  “He has a medic,” Justen growled. He was already kneeling at the man’s side, fingers of one hand pressed against the aristo’s neck, while his other hand pried open the man’s mouth. “Odd. He’s asleep. No sign of tachycardia or obstruction of his airway—”

  “Oh! Oh!” Lady Blocking squealed. “They did it! They hurt him! My poor husband! They—they—”

  “They made him go to sleep?” asked Andrine, her tone mocking. “Oh, the unmitigated horror. What a tragedy.” She glanced at Persis, who shrugged. If Andrine wasn’t speaking to her, then she wasn’t getting kept in the loop when Persis deployed her knockout drugs.

  “We did nothing of the sort!” the one called Captain Phoenix cried.

  “He needs medical attention I can’t give him here,” said Justen. “Persis, I need the wallport on the Daydream. Perhaps we should transport everyone back to the yacht, as the princess requested. The sooner, the better, for Lord Blocking’s sake.”

  Persis narrowed her eyes at him, but his expression was utterly guileless. A medic would recognize drugged sleep. A medic as skilled as Justen would recognize exactly the nanodrug Persis had used. Which must mean—