Princess Isla and her guards have us holed up so we don’t cause a riot or something.” She leaned in and dropped her voice. “But if they don’t figure things out in a few more days, they’re going to have another revolution to deal with, if you know what I mean.”
Vania suppressed her look of shock and replaced it with a smile. “Oh, I so do. Please, tell me more.”
Twenty-five
IT WAS LATE IN the evening and the female captain and her Reduced friend were nowhere to be found on Scintillans. Their glider was still waiting on the lawn, but it didn’t keep Elliot North from pacing and wringing her hands. Justen watched her concern grow, unsure of what he could do to help the stranger relax. He had a variety of antianxiety prickers in his supply bag, but from what he understood of the aristo visitor’s personality, such a move would be tantamount to assault in her eyes. And then he’d have Captain Wentforth to deal with.
And Justen wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Elliot’s growing discomfort. Captain Wentforth’s expression swelled from worry to anger as he watched his girlfriend. At last, he strode over to Persis and demanded answers. “We were promised that if we did what you said, we’d be safe here. Where are my friends?”
Persis’s eyes were as round and innocent as an accomplished courtier like herself could manage as she answered. “Sincerely, Captain Wentforth, I don’t know. The last anyone saw them they were headed down to the sea to swim in our heated star cove—”
“So what?” Elliot broke in, her voice shuddering over the words. “Are you saying they were just swept out to sea?”
“Not from the cove,” Justen jumped to Persis’s defense. “It’s completely protected from undertows. No currents at all. Maybe someone from the fishing village offered to give them a tour. I know there’s a path cut into the rock that goes to the village—” He looked to Persis for assistance.
She closed her eyes. A moment later, several flutternotes erupted from her palm and zipped off to points unknown. Both Kai and Elliot stepped back.
“I’m sorry—did those scare you?” Persis asked.
“I will never get used to them,” Elliot said. She looked a bit green around the gills.
“You’re not alone,” Justen said. “They’ve been around for years and they still make me sick.”
“Oh, Justen!” cried Persis. “You’re such a luddite.”
Both visitors stiffened at her words. Persis cast Justen a confused glance.
“It’s their word for ‘aristos,’ remember?” Justen said.
“Right. Droll name.” She batted her eyelashes and Justen nearly groaned. “At any rate, I’ve just messaged Isla, as well as Andrine and Tero down in the village, to tell them that your friends have vanished. I’m sure we’ll get word of their whereabouts soon. And don’t concern yourself for another moment about that cove. Nothing could be safer in the world. I myself have been swimming there since I could barely walk.”
Justen doubted this made Kai or Elliot feel any more comfortable.
When another hour passed with no reply from Persis’s contacts, Elliot went from concerned to frantic. “I’m the one who took her with us, Kai. I’m the one who put her in this danger. She would have been safe back home on the North Estate with Dee. She would have—” She broke off.
“She’s with Andromeda, Elliot. Nothing’s going to happen to her—Andromeda will make sure of it.”
Persis jumped into action, immediately offering to go down to the star cove and search herself, though Justen was sure the visitors found the idea as comical as he did. Persis Blake wasn’t suited to the job of retrieving missing people.
Perhaps they should call the Wild Poppy.
Kai insisted he be allowed to take his glider and go as well. “It’s fully charged since it’s been sitting out all day. I can fly all night if necessary.” He turned to Elliot and took her hands in his. “We’ll find them. Trust Andromeda to take care of herself and Ro. You know how much experience she has.”
Elliot gave a barely audible humph. “But what if they’re separated? This place . . . the way they look at Ro here—”
“We stare at her,” Persis said, “because we’re not used to her. The same way you stare at our palmports.” She paused, as if suddenly realizing it did little good to compare a human being to her flashy piece of technology. “You know what I mean. She’s unusual here. You all are. But how many ways can I promise you we mean you no harm?”
Elliot turned to her, still holding tight to Kai’s hands. “What are your promises good for if my friend has disappeared?” She looked back at Kai. “I’ll take the other glider.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I like the idea of you flying at night. It’s different with Andromeda and me. And all these cliffs? You don’t have enough experience . . .”
“Experience?” Elliot laughed. “I’ve been flying your gliders since you first knew how to make them, Malakai Wentforth.” Her voice was haughty, but the expression on her face was wry, and Kai was grinning at the way she pronounced his name. “Besides, everything you design looks like our old tractor, remember? I’ll figure it out.”
Quick as that, it was decided, and Elliot, Kai, and Persis all left Justen alone. Not one of them offered to take him along for the ride, or suggested a place he might look for the visitors himself. And since Torin and Heloise had used the arrival of the visitors as an excuse to go on a private retreat to their north shore cottage, Justen found himself, again, alone in the house. Most of the servants had already gone home for the evening.
Since he still hadn’t received any response from Noemi about the new location of the refugees, he couldn’t go to them. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t help. He still had his grandmother’s research. Maybe, when cross- referenced with the recent tests he’d done, he could glean some new information. If only Noemi would write him back. He was sure she must be busy, but he needed to help his countrymen and undo some of the damage he’d caused.
Then again, she might let him come back to work and he’d just make a bigger mess of things than he had last time. The pinks had been just such an accident, and seeing Kai and his rudimentary gengineering today reminded him of how much trouble humanity could get into while trying to help, let alone trying to harm. Even the great Persistence Helo had created DAR alongside the cure, and Justen bore no pretensions he was smarter than she.
He’d read Persistence’s diaries a hundred times, and he couldn’t find her mistake any more than she could. She’d followed every trail that might hold a hint of a solution, from genetic flaws that might have worked themselves into the cure to ways to stop the deterioration before it had started. Indeed, it had been one of Persistence Helo’s hypotheses that had led him to create the Reduction drug.
Or whatever it really should be called, as Justen now knew what
In his grandmother’s diaries, there had been points where she’d written, late in life, about her attempts to trace the genetic ancestry of those regs who seemed most affected by DAR. Since the side effect was still relatively new by the time of her death, she hadn’t had a large enough sample size to test her hypothesis, but she had postulated that there was a genetic basis to natural regularity and that those whose family lines had achieved it by the time of the cure—even if individuals hadn’t themselves—were less likely to develop DAR.
Justen, coming into the research a few generations later, was able to follow family backgrounds further and determine not only that his grandmother was correct but also how much more likely a reg was to develop DAR if, at the time of the cure, his or her ancestors had no siblings or cousins who were natural regs.
But if DAR susceptibility had some basis in the genetic predisposition of its victims toward naturally remaining Reduced, what would it mean for someone like Tomorrow? Someone his age, who was probably three or four or more generations younger than any Reduced that New Pacifica had ever seen?
Wasn’t it far more likely that this Reduced girl had siblings or cousins who were natural regs than it had been at the time of the cure? Regularity grew, generation by generation. Even at the beginning of Persistence Helo’s research, she’d mapped out a timeline, based on population and reproduction patterns, for a natural end of
