Across A Star-Swept Sea Part 14

"Of course?" Justen scoffed. "That's ridiculous. You were born here. This land is yours."

Well, if that wasn't the least revolutionary thing she'd ever heard him say. "Well, lucky for me, I have no interest in such boring pursuits as land owners.h.i.+p. I'd be happy to let my future husband handle that sort of thing."

"I find that hard to believe, Persis. I bet you won't even let your future husband pick out his own clothes."

She smiled in spite of herself. He had her there. "The laws of Albion require that a woman and her holdings are the property of her father, her husband, her brother, or her son. Women can't inherit unless there's no man in the picture at all."

"Then if I were you," Justen said, "I'd never marry at all. Stay single and control your land as you see fit."

She laughed and splashed at him. "You wouldn't condemn the villagers to a life of foolishness and fas.h.i.+on, would you?"

"No, but I doubt you would either. You love the people here too much. You can't fool me, Lady Blake."

That stopped her in her tracks. She had better fool him. She might be forgetting herself here in the star cove, but her mission was still all-important. Then again, maybe it was time to stop lying to Justen. If he was working to help the refugees, he was halfway in the League already.

And what would he do if she did tell him? Would he even believe her? Would he fight by her side? Would he kiss her for real?

She cleared her throat. "It's how things work in Albion, though. Men make the decisions. This is why Isla is only the princess regent, and her infant brother is the king. If Albie had never been born, they'd be pressuring Isla to marry as soon as possible, so the country could get a proper king."

Justen snorted. "Some hereditary rule. You can take control of the country just by marrying the princess?"

"I suppose you prefer taking control of the country through a military coup, Citizen Helo?" she snapped.

Justen squeezed his eyes shut in embarra.s.sment. "No. That's not what I meant."

And Persis had not meant to turn to such a serious topic. That wasn't how the flaky, shallow girl she pretended to be would act if she had brought a handsome young man down to the star cove. Even one she was just pretending to like for Isla's sake. She mustn't forget herself, no matter how many stars sparked against her skin, no matter what Justen had done today for the people the Poppy had rescued. This was a missiona"same as any other. She was used to the role of Persis Flake. She needed to remember that the role of starry-eyed admirer of Justen Helo was just as false.

"I had wanted the queen removed from office," he said quietly, returning to the ledge. "She was cruel to her subjects and unfair to the regs. Personally, I'd already argued with her more than a year ago about access to my grandmother's research. She a patronized me. Acted like I was a child playing scientist instead of a student doing legitimate research. It was right of the people of Galatea to seek to remove her from power. I will not deny that. Buta"everything else. It wasn't motivated by justice. It was something much darker."

"Revenge," Persis whispered, though she wasn't sure if he heard. Revenge for all the cruelty and the dismissals and the wrongs done to an entire people.

"I wasn't there when the queen was sentenced," Justen said. "But I was there the night she died. I saw a what happened afterward."

He was weighing his words carefully, Persis noted. And with good reason, for "what happened afterward" was that a mob had formed, and they'd taken their desire for revenge into their own hands, stealing the queen's body and tossing it into her private cove to be devoured by her own mini-orcas.

He shook his head. "It got out of hand. All of it. No one deserves the punishment of Reduction. No one deserves to have their body desecrated as the queen's was. This is not the world we've fought to create here on New Pacifica. This isn't the life Persistence Helo wanted the regs to have."

Persis ducked her head beneath the warm water then, as the only other option would have been to throw herself on him and kiss him again. Justen Helo was handsome and smart and was trying to be the hero his famous name required, but she had a job to do, too. He wouldn't ever kiss her by choice. He didn't even know who she was.

When she surfaced, he continued. "I thought, perhaps, it was all a terrible mistake. I didn't think it would continue. I've been proved wrong again and again these last six months, but I never thought it would get as bad as what I saw in the sanitarium yesterday." He ran his hands across his short, p.r.i.c.kly hair, starlight flowing from his fingers and down his arms in streams.

Persis nodded. It's what everyone thought. And everyone had been wrong. That's why the Poppy had been born.

"I don't know how we'll ever recover from this. I don't know how to make it better."

She glided to his side on the bench. "There is only one way to recover from the evil humanity does to itself: overcome it. It's like my mother said at dinner the other night. We can only be responsible for what we ourselves do. Bad things happen in this world, and we are judged on how we respond. Do we take part in evil, or do we fight against it with all we have?"

Justen made no response to that at all.

Emboldened by the darkness, Persis continued. "Bad things have happened everywhere, even at my beloved Scintillans. My ancestors kept Reduced as slaves. My ancestors were Reduced slaves. But now things are different. When my father had the chance, he worked to make the lives of the regs here whatever they wanted them to be."

"Oh, and they want to be servants and fishermen?" Justen asked, skeptical.

"Not all of them, and not all of them are," she replied. "Look at Tero. He's a gengineer, though his father is our butler, Fredan." She shrugged. "Regs like Tero have more choice than I do about what course they want to take in life."

Justen's eyes were so wide and round, Persis could make them out by starlight. "Andrine and Tero's father is your butler? Andrine's a friend of the princess and the daughter of a servant?"

For once, Persis did not have to pretend to be clueless. She was honestly baffled. "Who is the sn.o.b now, Justen Helo? Your grandmother was the daughter of Reduced slaves, and she invented the cure."

"Yes, and fought almost every aristo on her island to do so." Justen shrugged. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to such things being encouraged by aristos."

"And I'm not used to men telling me I should lead my estate like an equal." Well, except her father, that is. "Perhaps if more men took that approach with me, I wouldn't be available to help you and Isla with your little romantic subterfuge."

And that, Persis decided, was as honest as she could risk being with Justen Helo. She cast him a furtive glance, but if he was at all affected by her words, he didn't show it. And why should he? If there was anything she understood about the revolutionary she'd invited into her home, it was that he was impervious to Persis's infamous charm. He was too smart to be seduced by her stupidity, too industrious to be impressed by her idleness.

She wondered if he'd feel differently about the girl who was the Wild Poppy. Then again, he didn't even know the Wild Poppy was a girl. Everyone, from this equality-minded Galatean to the most s.e.xist aristo in Albion, thought the spy was a man.

"What would you be doing right now, if you weren't helping Isla and me?" Justen asked her, rousing her from her thoughts.

What an apt question. Persis smiled. Planning more raids to his homeland, mostly.

"I mean, would you be looking for a real husband?"

Her mouth snapped shut. Oh, of course. Because the Persis she'd presented to him could do nothing more useful than find a husband.

He pressed on. "Did you have anyone in mind? Have you broken any hearts at court?"

She laughed aloud as an image of her confessing the truth to an incredulous Justen reared up in her head. She could tell him right now what she really did with her time, and he'd never believe her. Not a girl in a bikini in the star cove. Not the spoiled, stupid aristo she'd convinced him she was. Persis tossed a lock of wet hair behind her shoulder. "I've broken a dozen hearts this week. Don't you know? I'm Persis Blake."

He chuckled softly. "Fair enough. You know, we made a list of why I might have fallen for you, but we didn't figure out what it is you see in me."

"You're Justen Helo. A man with a famous name. Wherever you go, people are impressed. That's enough."

"So that's what you look for in a man?" Justen asked. "Fame?"

Sure. Fame would do for Persis Flake. "You're easy on the eyes, too."

"I'm not as beautiful as you."

"Another bonus, as far as I'm concerned," she replied, letting the compliment roll off her like so much star-studded water. She waved her hand at him. "Your fas.h.i.+on sense we can fix."

"That can't be all you care about, especially if you're giving him your home. Especially if a" He trailed off.

Especially if she was going to Darken. Well, there was an argument for getting tested. If she had a reg brain, she would Darken like her mother, which meant she had a vastly compressed timeline to get married and start a family. That was, if any aristo would risk reproducing with someone, even an aristo heiress, coded for DAR.

And there, also, was an argument not to get tested. If she was going to die and leave Scintillans to a stranger, better that it be someone she considered long and hard, rather than whatever young man just happened along first.

And if you spent any time at all working in a sanitarium, as Justen had, you already knew every side of the debate about getting tested for DAR. Some wanted to know so they could plan accordingly. Some didn't, so they could live their lives without the specter of death.

"Persis," he murmured, and it felt like a hug. "I just meant a with your parents' example, you shouldn't sell yourself short. You should marry someone who can be a true partner."

The two sides of Persis Blake warred within her. It had been a long time since she'd considereda"truly considereda"what she wanted in a romantic partner, in the husband she would one day have to have. Isla could make as many jokes as she wanted about Persis's dream boy, but the reality was much harder to pin down. Someone as clever as she was. Someone who cared as much as she did. Someone who saw the real her and loved her because of it, not in spite of it, the way everyonea"even her parents, even Islaa"did. It's what she wanted, but it was impossible.

"When I marry," she said at last, "it will not be a love story like my parents had. I relinquished any fantasy of that long ago." Love was magma, shooting from the Earth. It had the potential to form pillars of rock that would last for a thousand years or plumes of ash that choked the sky. She would never love like her father, never let herself be loved like her mother. She would never suffer what her parents were suffering now. "Do not concern yourself, therefore, in pretending to be my perfect man. Your focus should be on the refugees now. They're the ones in real need."

This was, Persis decided, reason enough not to burden him with revelations about her true ident.i.ty and the fact that she'd just put his sister into a rather precarious position. Though Persis knew that Remy was capable of the tasks they'd set before her, Justen seemed to consider his sister little more than a child.

Justen leaned back against the stone, as constellations swirled around and above them. "Oh, look," he said. "You have a message."

A flutternote flitted above their heads in Andrine's preferred form of a flying fish. Persis lifted her hand out of the water and it dropped down, melting into her palmport.

I have received a message from our new young operative. The Ford barricades have fallen and the rebels have taken what remains of the family and their reg loyalists prisoner. Immediate rescue required. The Fords are being transferred to Halahou city prison, with sentencing scheduled for sundown tomorrow.

Persis caught her breath. Remy Helo was already paying off. And with what Persis knew about the Reduction drug, it was imperative that the Poppy liberate the reg prisoners before they were dosed, or they'd suffer permanent damage.

"What does it say?" Justen asked.

She forced a giggle. "News travels fast on this island. Apparently it's more than the village children who know about our kiss."

"HOW CAN WE KNOW that this intelligence is true?" The image of Isla's face, flickering in the lights coming in the window from Scintillans Village, looked skeptical. Andrine, Tero, and Persis were huddled around Tero's oblet in Andrine's bedroom, discussing the mission with the princess. Persis thought she'd spent more time here since becoming the Wild Poppy than she'd ever done growing up. They'd always played outside or up in Scintillans proper. Andrine's room wasn't a cramped exactly, but it was certainly smaller and less comfortable than Persis's apartments at home.

All things she hadn't thought of much before spending time with Justen Helo.

"Remy Helo has been back home for whata"a day? Terribly convenient for her to have delivered such news so quickly."

"I agree," said Tero, sitting beside his sister on a bamboo trunk. "The timing of this is suspect. We could be walking into a trap. I mean, Persis and Andrine could. Wild mini-orcas couldn't drag me to Galatea these days."

Andrine shook her head. "I've talked to her at length. I trust her. She's not the devious sort. She believes in the revolution, but she believes just as strongly that it's gone astray. In that capacity, she's willing to help us."

Isla appeared nonplussed. "She's not devious, you say, yet we've sent her into the arms of Citizen Aldred bearing our biggest secrets? Wonderful. I knew this was a bad idea. We'll be at war within a week."

"She doesn't need to be devious," said Persis. Remy's best disguise was that she was undervalued. They couldn't imagine her useful as anything, and certainly not a spy. Persis did have some experience in that arena. "All she needs to do is keep her ears open. Andrine is right; Remy is as trustworthy as her brother."

And, it seemed, just as interested in fixing the problems the revolution had wrought. It was good the information had come in when it had. Persis had been close to losing herself in the star cove. Or rather, of being herself, which was just as dangerous.

"The fact that the Ford barricades have fallen has been verified by propaganda out of Galatea. In a few hours, I'm sure they'll be telling us exactly what Remy hasa"that the Fords are to be sentenced in Halahou prison."

"So what's the rush?" asked Tero. "Why not rescue them after their sentencing, as you have with all the others? Security will be much more lax if they only have Reduced prisoners to guard. Don't get c.o.c.ky, Persis. I still remember the days when you couldn't make it up the pali without sc.r.a.ping your knees."

"Were those the days when you thought the height of chivalry was to burst cuttle jellies on Isla and me?" she replied.

"I remember that," Isla said with a smirk. "My hair was sienna for a week, until the dye wore off."

Tero fell silent, which was fine by Persis, since she didn't plan to budge on this point. She couldn't risk permanent damage being done to the reg loyalists who'd been captured along with the Ford family. But she also didn't want to scare Tero and Andrine.

"Remy says that General Gawnt has been increasing security at the estate work camps in response to our activities. They will be expecting us at the Fords if we wait to get them once they've been Reduced and returned to their estate. But they won't be expecting us at the prison." She touched the oblet to pull up a file on the Halahou prison. "Since the revolution, the inmates and guards have changed, but the supply schedule has not. If we were to pose as one of their usual supply deliveries, we could infiltrate the grounds very easily."

"More genetemps?" came Isla's dry rejoinder. "Are you up for that, Tero?"

All three women looked at him and he clenched his jaw. "Am I ever going to live it down? Yes, I messed up Persis's coding that one time. I'm not a genetemper, sorry. Have you ever had a problem with one of my palmport apps? Your knockout drug's working fine, right, Perse?"

She shrugged. "So far."

"And you, Your Highness? I've been keeping you and your brother in nonstop toys and I don't recall a single complaint." He glared at the image of Isla hovering over the oblet, and she looked down and away. An odd response, Persis thought. As if she was really hurt by his accusation.

"Yes." Andrine rolled her eyes. "You're brilliant. We get it. But you almost killed the Wild Poppy. If it wasn't for Justena""

Tero snorted. "Fine. Get your precious Helo to cook you up some genetemps, then."

Persis expected New Pacifica would freeze over before that happened.

"I'll stick to cuttle jellies and other life-forms on my own, low level."

"What's burning you?" Andrine asked her brother. "I'm just teasing."

Persis, too, was taken aback by her friend's tone. Was she really acting high-and-mighty? Andrine didn't seem to think so, so what was Tero's problem?

"Come on," Persis said sweetly. "You know you're our favorite gengineer, even if you did try to kill me that one time."

"I didn't try to," he corrected, and the teasing was back in his tone. So whatever he was angry about, it wasn't her fault. "If I'd actually tried, your little revolutionary boyfriend wouldn't even have had a chance to save you."

"He's not really my boyfriend," Persis said automatically.

"No," he grumbled, grouchy again. "None of us have real boyfriends or girlfriends, do we?"

Andrine looked confused. Persis was sure she was wearing a similar expression.

"For a moment, let's talk about something other than our love lives," Isla cut in.

"That's rich, coming from you," Persis said. For the last week, she'd been trying to get Isla to realize she had better things to do than go on a public relations campaign with Justen.

"Thank you!" Tero cried to Persis. She stared at him, baffled. There was something she was missing here, and that hardly ever happened.

"Look, we're sorry for making fun of you," she said at last. "Obviously, we think you're a very talented gengineer, and that the unfortunate incident was just a mistake, or we wouldn't ask you again. But we are asking. Can you do it?"

Tero's lips made a thin, stern line. "Yes. I'll do it. For you, Persis, and for Andrine. For the League."

"Thank you," Andrine said, exasperated.

"But not," he added, "for you, Your Highness." And he reached over and tapped the oblet off.

In the split second before the connection ended, Isla's eyes met Persis's.

The princess regent of Albion looked guilty.