Across A Star-Swept Sea Part 5

"And every moment we remain here, the gossip about our imaginary romance grows stronger.a" Isla crossed to the blinds, peering through at the crowd and shaking her head. "Rumors are everything in this court. Sometimes I think they matter more than the truth.a" She gave a little hop, and the crystals on her gown tinkled. "That's it!"

"What's it?" asked Persis.

"A rumor. A romance." She pointed at Justen. "He's here because he's in love."

"With you?" Persis looked skeptical.

The princess turned to her friend. "No. With you."

At once, Persis and Justen shook their heads.

"I'm sure we can come up with a better plan than that," Persis said quickly. Justen wasn't so sure Persis was capable, but he was willing to let her try.

"No," said Isla. "This is it. Don't you see it's perfect? It solves all our problems at once." She began to tick them off on her bejeweled fingers. "It's a valid reason for Justen to remain in Albion. And Persis is my best friend. If I approve of your relations.h.i.+p, it will reflect well on the monarchy and give me some leeway to condemn the revolutionary activities. The regs love the Helo family. They won't be inclined to revolt if they know the toast of the Albian aristocracy is close with one."

"You want me to date him?" Persis asked with gritted teeth.

"Yes!" Isla beamed. "It's a romantic tale. He saved you on the docks of Galatea. We'll be a vague about the reason. And brought you back, nursed you to health, blah, blah. Love at first sight. People will eat it up, Persis. You know better than anyone how much people adore a good aristo/reg love story."

A pout crossed the aristo's face. Isla was no doubt talking about Persis's parents. But Justen was beginning to see the plan's merits, as long as none of his friends back home got wind of what a shallow flake Persis was. They'd never believe he'd fall for an aristo like her, reg mother or no.

"We'll parade you around a bit, make sure everyone thinks you're madly in love, stage a few cozy moments, and everyone's happy."

"We don't have to a get married or anything?" Justen asked, suddenly concerned as to what the princess meant by "cozy moments."

Isla waved her hand dismissively. "No, we shouldn't have to take it as far as that."

"Shouldn't have to?" Justen pressed.

"I find this a inconvenient," Persis said at last.

"Why?" Justen turned to her. "Will my presence cramp your social schedule?"

Persis glared at him, her amber eyes as fiery as her gown. "Why yes, if you must know. Look at the way you dress, for one." She pleaded with Isla. "Do you honestly think people are going to accept someone like me with someone like him?"

Justen rolled his eyes.

Isla was no more patient. "He's a Helo, Persis. Believing you'd want one on your arm is not going to be much of a challenge. As a trophy, if nothing else."

Persis's pout deepened as she seemed to realize the princess was right. "I'm really busy right now," she tried.

"I'm asking you." Isla drew herself up to her full height and stared her friend down. "I'm asking you. There's no one I trust more with our precious Galatean."

Something pa.s.sed between the two women. Something Justen couldn't hope to understand. But whatever it was, Persis relented.

She shook her head in defeat, then transformed before his eyes into the sparkling socialite and threw him a coy, seductive smile. "All right then, lover boy," she cooed. "I guess it's time to make our debut."

Six.

BY THE TIME THEY emerged from Isla's private chambers, it seemed as if every eye in Albion was upon them. Persis had to give her new sweetheart credit, as he looped his arm in hers and marched bravely down the stairs of the terrace and into the fray. Slippy skittered beside them, chittering as he avoided people's heels and stopped to lap from the water organ and groom his whiskers with the edge of his foreflippers.

"Aren't you afraid he'll get trampled?"

"Oh, Slippy can take care of himself," Persis replied. Much better than the average sea mink, too, thanks to Tero's gengineering efforts. She watched him slink up to one courtier's golden lion tamarrel. The tiny orange creature was attached to its mistress by a long, glittering chain, and there were jewels glinting in its full mane and bushy, squirrel-like tail. In its tiny paws it held a slice of star papaya, and it bared its monkey teeth at Slippy as the sea mink approached. Slippy lunged.

"Oh, no you don't," Justen chided, smoothly scooping up Slipstream around his long midsection before the animals could tussle. He smiled and bowed his head as he presented Slipstream to Persis. "Your beast, my lady."

She cuddled the sea mink to her chest and eyed Justen carefully. He could be dangerous when he turned on the charm, this handsome young revolutionary, this medic with a famous name and a desire to escape Galatea so strong he'd leave his sister and cleave to an aristo he clearly despised. Maybe he, too, was a spy.

The next half hour was filled with the bustle of small talk, while Persis introduced her "dear friend, Justen Helo" to the Albian courtiers, who were naturally delighted to make his acquaintance. By unspoken agreement, Persis and Justen kept their conversation easy and flirtatious, as befitted a couple that had met only the previous day. As news of the Galatean newcomer spread throughout the court, whispers reached Persis's ears.

"Look at him. Besotted!" Justen was apparently an excellent actor in his own right.

"And why shouldn't he be? She has her mother's face." Well, yes, but that face seemed to have left him unimpressed.

"Leave it to Persis Blake to bring home a Helo." In truth, he was just the latest in a long line of Galateans she'd brought over. Not as rich as some, not as grateful as others.

"Her father married the most beautiful reg of his generation. Why shouldn't Persis catch the most famous of hers?"

She pursed her lips as the chatter spread. Isla had guessed right that people would be quick to place her latest conquest inside the carefully cultivated "Persis Flake" narrative. And why not? Persis had spent the last six months cementing her reputation in the princess's court. It was for this she'd sacrificed school, for this she'd reinvented her image, for this she'd scandalized half the residents of Scintillans, who'd gone from thinking that Torin Blake was right in naming as heir his only daughter to wondering what in the world had happened to the clever, hardworking girl they'd grown up with. But what choice did Persis have? She had to protect the Wild Poppy. She had to help Isla. She had to save New Pacifica.

If they didn't take you seriously, they would never see you coming. Persis was the most stylish, the most glittering, the most frivolous girl in Albion. There was no way she was secretly orchestrating a spy ring.

Eventually they came across an older couple, two aristos whose Galatean origins were clear by their natural hair and more sedate wardrobe. Justen greeted them stiffly, and Persis followed suit, though in truth she knew them intimately, even if they weren't aware of that fact. Lord and Lady Seri had been the spoils of one of the Wild Poppy's first raids. They looked much better now, compared to the miserable, Reduced wretches she'd plucked from their ancestral home.

"Justen Helo," said Lord Seri, shaking Justen's hand, "welcome to Albion. It is an honor to make your acquaintance. I knew your grandmother well."

"Yes," Justen replied in a tone like the depths of the sea. "You argued with her mightily over the universal distribution of her cure."

But the old aristo merely chuckled and nodded. "Yes, I did. And lost. We will not argue now over who was right, despite the repercussions that have come of her work."

"If you mean the revolution," Justen said, his tone even and firm, "it was not a foregone conclusion. It was caused by the mistreatment of the Galatean regs by their aristo masters. You'll note there's no revolution in Albion as a result of the cure."

"No revolutiona"yet," Lord Seri replied.

Persis groaned. Loudly. "All this talk of politics makes my head hurt. Lady Seri, your dress is lovely. That silk is so rich I think I could drown in it. Does it come in any color but black?" She hadn't rescued these aristos so that they could export their sn.o.bbery to her homeland. And Isla hadn't granted Justen's request so he could act like some kind of revolutionary firebrand. His political leanings were obviousa"even understandable given the old system in Galatea. But their plan wouldn't work if he couldn't keep his mouth shut in front of the court's more conservative elements.

"Besides," Lord Seri continued, "I wasn't necessarily talking about the revolution. Darkening is a more than sufficient consequence to call the entire experiment into question, is it not? What's the percentage of Helo-cured regs who suffer and die from that little side effect? Five? Ten?"

Justen's grip on her arm tightened. Had he felt her tense? She searched the old lord's face, but he barely seemed to notice she was there. His comment was pointed, but not at Persis. No one at court knew about her mother. Yet.

"One percent," Justen said, his voice clipped. "But I think even those would rather suffer from DAR than live their lives Reduced."

Lord Seri looked amused as he leaned in toward Justen. "And how do you know that, young man? It's not like you can ask them once they're comatose."

Persis saw Justen's jaw twitch. She rather felt like vomiting, herself.

"Oh look," she said quickly. "There's Andrine. Let's catch her." She tugged him away before more harm could be done.

Andrine had limited time to spend at court since she was still in schoola"or, as Persis's father had put it, Andrine "had her priorities in order." She'd already devoted most of her spare time to Wild Poppy escapades. And Persis didn't begrudge her those other commitments. After all, unlike herself, the fifteen-year-old reg did not have an estate to inherit. Andrine and Persis had been friends all their lives, though Persis never would have suspected that their antics on the cliffs and beaches of Scintillans would have so well prepared them for risking their lives in Galatea a and in the only slightly less treacherous environment at court.

"Citizen Helo!" Andrine exclaimed as soon as she saw them. Today, she wore a dress to match her wild blue hair. "I'm glad to see you're still among us. And what's this I hear about you planning to stay a while?"

A gesture from Persis and Andrine offered to introduce Justen to her older brother. "Two sciency types like you should definitely chat," Andrine trilled, taking him by the arm. "You can tell him all about the dangers of genetemps sickness, right, Persis?"

She rolled her eyes. Justen would certainly disapprove of Tero's more frivolous science, from Slippy to palmports to badly coded genetemps. But she was more than ready to let Tero be the object of Justen's revolutionary contempt for a few minutes. He deserved it after what he'd done to her.

Once Persis was alone, she sought out Isla.

"A word, Your Highness?" Persis hissed through her teeth.

"Don't be silly, Persis," quipped Isla. "You've never kept a statement to a single word in your life." She swept past her friend and toward a break in the bougainvillea. "Keep it quick."

As soon as they were hidden by the fall of leaves and petals, Persis said, "This is a terrible idea."

"You're only saying that because, for once in our long acquaintance, you weren't the one to come up with it."

"Forget about giving him secret asylum." Persis eyed the famous Galatean through the blossoms. "I can go fetch his sister if that's the fear. Your real trouble is controlling him. He's a Helo, yes, but he's certainly a rebel as well. You think his presence will help prevent revolution? If you listen to him talk for five minutes, you'd guess he was here to incite it."

"What do you want me to do, Persis? Put him in an induced coma like that little revolutionary soldier you kidnapped last week? She's n.o.body, and she could still get us in a lot of trouble. Justen is a Helo." Isla fixed her with a very penetrating look. "A Helo, Persis. If he were imprisoned in Galatea for speaking out against the revolution's atrocities, you'd be moving the very Earth to get him out, and you know it."

Persis hated when her friend acted as clever as she actually was. It meant admitting she was right.

Life had been so much easier when they had nothing more to worry about than who was getting top scores at schoola"usually Persis, though Isla always beat her at botany. Had that only been a year ago? Then Isla's parents and older brother had died, and Persis's mother had gotten sick, and the Galateans had overthrown their government, and the Wild Poppy had been born. She hardly remembered the girls they'd once been. Day by day, the superficial mask she'd donned chafed more and more; and no matter how many disguises Persis took on as the Poppy, she couldn't help but feel they fit her better than the one she wore at home.

THE FRANGIPANI-SHAPED FLUTTER THAT melted into Persis's palmport was delicate to the point of fragility. The message that whispered into her head a split second later was anything but.

Persis, darling. I've been hearing some very odd reports about a strange houseguest you entertained in our absence. Return home at once. Love and duty, Torin Blake Persis scrunched up her face. Her father always sounded so formal in his flutters, like he couldn't quite break out of the message etiquette he'd learned in his youth.

At once, Papa. Kisses.

She retrieved Justen and herded him back to the Daydream as quickly as the crush of the court would allow.

"My parents found out you spent the night," she explained as Slipstream swirled in excitement around her feet. He hated the court and was always relieved to get back into the ocean. "And now they're burning to make your acquaintance." Perhaps the name alone was enough to make up for her going against their wishes and bringing a stranger to their home. Perhaps her mother had rested all day in preparation for Justen.

"I look forward to meeting them," was all the Galatean said. Was all he said almost the whole trip back, as they skirted the coastline of Albion on their way to the far southwestern point of Albion that served as the seaward entrance to her father's estate As the cliffs rose above them, turning the water a shadowed shade of teal and blocking out the glare of the sun, Persis watched her pa.s.senger stare up in wonder.

"Scintillans pali takes some getting used to," she said, using the ancestral name of the precipice, "but you saw it when you brought me home, right?"

"No," Justen replied. "I was down below with you. You were a convulsing."

"How embarra.s.sing," Persis said, her tone carefully crafted to reveal only shards of her true humiliation. "I can't apologize enough."

"Don't worry about it." He was fixated by the rock rising above them. "I'm a medic. Besides, you're doing me a huge favor by agreeing to this subterfuge. Call us even."

"Does that mean I can't count on you for any more medical a.s.sistance?" she asked coyly.

He cast her a dark look over his shoulder. "If you mean concocting more genetemps drugs, absolutely not."

"Humph." She slouched in disappointment as he shook his head in disgust or contempt or something bordering on frustration.

Well, he wasn't the only one frustrated. She had a Helo medic who'd grown up in Citizen Aldred's house on her very own boat and she was unable to ask him anything important. The Wild Poppy's mission depended on her ability to hide her true ident.i.ty, to present herself as shallow and disinterested. And it was vital to do so in front of this Galatean revolutionary. He may have asked for asylum, but that didn't mean she could trust him.

Which reminded her, it was time to school Justen on proper court behavior. "Back at the court, those Galateans you were talking toa""

"The Seris?" He snorted.

"Yes." In another time, another guise, she might have snorted herself. Horrible Lord Seri, to suggest that the Darkened would have been better off just staying Reduced! For a man who'd been Reduced himself, it was an astonis.h.i.+ng a.s.sertion. Of course, he was one of those aristos who would have preferred that the cure had never happened. It was good the Seris had lost any claim they once held to control the lives of others. And yet, they still held influence among the Albian aristos on the Council. "You know, you shouldn't be so hard on them. I heard they were tortured. Given that Reduction drug."

"I know," he said softly. "And I regret thata"that my fellow countrymen did that. But they are safe now, and I will argue to the death against their bigoted beliefs. People like them are the reason Galatea was driven to revolution."

Not people like the revolutionaries? Persis longed to say but could not. She'd never get Justen to change his minda"and she didn't truly want to. Most Galatean aristos had been horrid to their population after the cure had been administered. Though the people were born reg, most had still been treated like Reduced slaves. Many weren't paid for their work or educated or allowed control of property, and the aristos and more fortunate regs who'd campaigned for equal rights had been shouted down by the queen and her supportersa"or worse.

Desire for change was more than justified. Persis couldn't deny that. But the revolution was changing things in all the wrong ways. More slavery wasn't the right solution, and torture was torture.

Besides, if Justen was going to be an a.s.set to Isla, he'd need to learn how to tread lightly on the mines scattered about the Albian aristocracy.

"Have you heard their story?" she asked. "I have. They were enslaved on their own ancestral lands, put to hard labor for the amus.e.m.e.nt of their prison guards." Until the Wild Poppy rescued them.

"Oh, the horror," Justen grumbled without turning around. "To have to labor. Like all their servants did for generations. Like your servants do now."

Persis bristled. "My servants do their jobs. They work fair hours and are paid fair wages. They aren't enslaved or imprisoned"a"she hesitated, framing the words more carefully, more like Persis Blake oughta""and we don't give them drugs to make them stupid, either."

"But what of the Reduced servants Lord Seri didn't want to give the cure to?" Justen asked, turning to look at Persis at the helm. "Choosing to withhold the cure from them would have enslaved them forevera"in body and in their own minds."

Persis gripped the wheel tightly as a shudder skimmed beneath her skin. That's what was happening to the prisoners in Galatea. And it wasn't only the revolution that held such horrible fates for its people. Even here in Albion, some were enslaved in their minds, and some had that future looming before them, with no possible escape. There was nothing Persis could do for the Darkeneda"nothing at all. But even if such inevitabilities were written into her genetic code, she wouldn't let that kind of suffering befall anyone it didn't have to. The Reduction was over. She wouldn't let the revolutionaries bring it back with their appalling pink pills.

"But the cure wasn't withheld, in the end," she said at last. That was safe enough. A point even Persis Blake could make. "The queen who ruled then made its application universal, just as the king here did. Did your revolutionaries spare her descendant in grat.i.tude?" Persis would never forget the night of Queen Gala's death. Her Reduction had been the first blow, but even then Persisa"and all Albiona"had been naive enough to believe that it was a temporary insanity and would all be resolved. But when she'd died and her body had been desecrated by an angry mob, Persis could think only of her own princess. Her own best friend, young and ruling and without the power to prevent these things from happening.

It was the night the Wild Poppy had been born.

"No." Justen lowered his head. "We made many errors. I told you, I no longer believe in the way the revolution is playing out. But that doesn't make the goals that brought us to this point any less valid. Sometimes bad things happen when you try to do something good."

Persis knew that all too well, as had her namesake. Since symptoms of the illness didn't manifest until the victims were around forty, Persistence Helo had been old when Dementia of Acquired Regularity had first appeared among the population of the Helo-Cured regs. She'd spent the remainder of her life in seclusion. Some said it was from embarra.s.sment, but Persis often wondered if she'd been researching, trying to find a way to fix the problem she'd unwittingly created.

Persis would ask Justen, except she wasn't supposed to be curious about things like that.

"Whatever you believe," she said at last, "you ought to watch your tone in the Albian court. Not everyone is as sympathetic to the ideals of your revolution as the princess is, and you don't want to make enemies in your position." He was staring at her now, so she flipped her hair behind her shoulder and gave a careless, flirty shrug. "I'm no politician, but I know how to get by at court."

Justen nodded. "You're right. I'm too used to the att.i.tudes back home. I'll a try harder." He gave her what was surely meant to be a hopeful smile. "I am aware not all aristos are evil, you know."