Across a Star-Swept Sea

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 use 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!” Persis 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 Trina’s shoulder.

Trina 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 soldier 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 in fact, you’re 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. 

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