Across a Star-Swept Sea

Well, Horatio had survived, even if Prince Hamlet hadn’t. And anyway, Persis wouldn’t be swayed. She had more important things to deal with than school—school where they taught her that the Reduction was over, that war was a thing of the past. School, where they argued these things even as Galateans were being Reduced by the score in a war her government refused to do anything about. She couldn’t sit in a classroom while this was going on. She couldn’t.

And she wasn’t going to let a little bout of genetemps sickness stop her now, either.

“I can put a geographical lock on your boat, you know. You won’t be able to sail beyond Remembrance Island without my say-so.”

“Papa! You wouldn’t!”

“I would, and what’s more, I’m going to. I’ve never had to restrict you in this way before, Persis. You’ve always been so responsible. But I can’t have you in Galatea. Listen to Justen Helo if you don’t believe me. He has every reason in the world to be happy with the revolution and even he thinks it’s unsafe there right now. If you get on someone’s bad side down there, they won’t care that your mother is a reg. They won’t have any respect for the fact that you’re a close personal friend of the princess. In fact, that might get you into even more trouble.”

She started to protest but he cut her off.

“I don’t care what Citizen Aldred’s official policy is. You could get caught up by a mob and no policy in the world will help you. I don’t want you in Galatea. Period.”

Well, that was a nonstarter. Period. The Wild Poppy would just have to find alternative transport. The spy’s missions had been doubly complicated by the day’s events. Not only would she have to find a place to stow her new Galatean charge, now she’d have to find another way to cross the sea.

“Persis? Are we clear?”

She nodded. “Yes, Papa.”

He smiled. “Good. Now that this is settled, let’s discuss the rules about bringing strange young men into the house while we’re not around. You’re sixteen. I don’t know what kind of nonsense is going on at court, but this is my home.”

Persis rolled her eyes. “Ask the servants. Justen is a perfect gentleman.”

Torin relinquished a smile. “I knew he would be. A Helo and all.”

Her parents were both starstruck, Persis realized with a laugh and a shake of her head. Even if Justen hadn’t been a perfect gentleman, she couldn’t imagine her father getting too enraged. And that was a good thing, since the two of them were about to embark on their little cooked-up romance. Maybe it would serve as a distraction for her parents—the idea that she’d fallen for a Helo.

They desperately needed a distraction these days.

As they emerged back on the terrace, Persis was gripped by a moment of fear. They’d left Justen alone with her mother. But as soon as she saw them at the table, she relaxed. Justen was talking animatedly, and Heloise Blake was laughing, a light, musical sound that wasn’t heard often enough around Scintillans these days. For a moment, Persis indulged herself with the vision of what this night might have been had everything been different. Maybe Justen Helo was the one from her fantasies: a young, talented medic she’d met on a trip to Galatea, a place where there wasn’t a war. Maybe she was simply a schoolgirl studying politics, and she and Justen could be real friends. Maybe they were all having a nice family dinner, and her mother was well, and her father was happy, and all was right in New Pacifica.

Right. And maybe they weren’t the only living land left on Earth. Fantasies were nothing more than that, and she wasted her time imagining otherwise. So instead she pasted her most enchanting smile on her face, poured herself a glass of kiwine, and joined them at the table for another round of being pretty and giggly and useless. Justen kept up his end of the conversation, and both her parents were utterly charmed.

“I do support gengineering,” Justen said at one point, “but unlike your friend Tero who builds games and pets, I prefer to focus on its more therapeutic aspects—”

“Yes, but like Tero says, you never know what you might stumble across while working on something else,” Torin pointed out. “Who knows if some breakthrough might be lurking inside the code for some silly palmport app.”

Justen seemed to be having a hard time swallowing a bit of fish. “True,” he said at last, coughing a bit. “Sometimes our discoveries are fortunate accidents. Or even unfortunate ones.”

“Like with the genetic experiment that caused the Reduction in the first place, all those centuries ago.” Heloise shook her head sadly.

Persis’s father quickly moved to change the subject. “Tero is such a promising young man. He and Persis have been trying to one-up each other since they were children, you know.”

Justen’s brow furrowed.

“In collecting admirers, I’m far ahead,” Persis said quickly, batting her eyelashes. “Tero is quite handsome with those broad shoulders of his. Like some sort of ancient warrior. But he does chatter on about the dullest subjects imaginable. All this nonsense about chemical reactions and DNA. It’s deadly boring.”

Her parents looked shocked, and Persis wanted to dive under the table when she imagined what they must be thinking of her. As dessert was served and kiwine flowed, she found it more and more difficult to restrain herself to flaky responses and interjections. Usually, dinners at Scintillans were one place where she could still be herself, still talk about politics and history and, yes, even gengineering like the girl who’d once beaten Tero and Isla and everyone else for top marks in school. But now, even that was taken from her. She ducked the odd looks she was getting from her father. Hopefully, he’d write her behavior off as trying to steer the conversation into a light, casual zone that would make it easy on her mother. But she could hardly bear the confused glances her mother sent in her direction. After all, how many more dinners would they have together? Could she really afford to waste the remaining ones masked as an empty-headed socialite?

After dinner ended, Justen said, “Which way is my room? I’m all turned around right now.”

“I’ll show him,” said Persis and led him down the corridor toward the guest suites. But as soon as they rounded the corner, Justen put a hand on her arm. Persis stopped short.

“Your mother,” he said abruptly, his face impassive and somber. “How long has it been going on? Six months? More?”

“What are you talking about?” Persis asked, though dread trickled through her veins at his words.

“Persis, just stop. She’s managing the symptoms well, but it’s only going to go downhill from here.”

“Honestly, Citizen, I haven’t the foggiest—”

He hissed in frustration. “You might be able to hide it from your other silly aristo friends, but I’m a medic. I know DAR when I see it.”

Nine

NO ONE HAD EVER said it out loud to Persis before. Not her father, or her mother, or the family medic who shook her head and frowned during her weekly visits to Scintillans. The word was verboten. Talk of Darkening was banished from the grounds. Never mind that she saw it echoed in the eyes of each servant on the estate. Never mind that she dreaded every time she visited the court that today would be the day the whispers began. That today would be the day the story escaped and became fodder for the gossips. The day it became spoken. The day it became real.

Did you hear about Lady Heloise Blake? Darkened. Guess that’s what comes of Lord Blake marrying a reg. Can you imagine? All that beauty, all that cleverness, drained away like water down a hole. I wonder if their daughter’s got it, too?

For hundreds of years, the survivors of the wars that had cracked open the Earth and destroyed every place and person except those on New Pacifica had lived as two populations: aristo and Reduced. The few natural regs born were viewed as aberrations. Then the Helo Cure came along, promising that every child born would be regular. The cure was adopted by both nations, and the Reduction ended in a single generation. But as with the Reduction itself, the side effects were discovered too late. Dementia of Acquired Regularity was the dark underbelly of the cure, the shadow that lay over the salvation of the human race.