Across a Star-Swept Sea

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 her 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?” 

Twenty-two

ON THE ONE HAND, the picnic would forever be remembered 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