Across a Star-Swept Sea

Five

JUSTEN HAD TAKEN TWO sea voyages with Persis Blake so far but had yet to see her touch the controls. On the way back from Galatea, she’d been unconscious, and now she left the yacht on autopilot while she downed palmport supplements and stationed herself at the cabin’s wall port to exchange what were apparently rather urgent messages with her tailor.

The autopilot’s docking mechanism was somewhat shaky. Justen went below to call to Persis, who rolled her eyes in frustration at the interruption. “The Daydream won’t sink,” she said with a wave of her hand. The image of a keyboard hovered before her, its letters flashing. “Now leave me alone. I’m a bit rusty at this wall port business. I can’t believe it actually makes you type. With your fingers. Like some kind of primitive.”

The yacht commenced banging its sides into a slip.

What kind of girl, Justen wondered, possessed such a gorgeous vessel as this and treated it with all the care of an old shoe? The same kind whose papa had purchased her a personalized pet, Justen supposed. If she did end up sinking her yacht, Justen had no doubt her aristocratic father would just buy her another, and another, and another still.

If Persis weren’t the quickest way to gain access to Princess Isla, he would have found a way to ditch her by now. But he didn’t have a better plan for getting into court, and he had to admit that before the docking procedure, the trip around the point of Scintillans and up the west coast of Albion had been picturesque—all blue, sunlit sea and wind that smelled of salt and fire. Justen had remained on deck, enjoying the view of the cliffs receding into the smooth slopes that characterized the outer shores of Albion, watching the sea mink frolic in the wake, and wondering if maybe, all things considered, he hadn’t been spending a bit too much time in his lab.

At first glance, Justen decided the royal court wasn’t so very different from the stories they told about it in Galatea. The water organ was gorgeous if ostentatious, the outrageous clothes nearly blinded him, and the appallingly decadent flutternotes whizzing every which way were apt to give him a headache if he remained in their midst for too long. He’d learned about their operation during his medic training and had always been relieved that the craze hadn’t caught on in Galatea. Parasitic biotechnology that drained the body’s own nutrients to operate? It was foolish and unnecessary. Why couldn’t the Albian aristos use oblets, like everyone else? He fingered his own precious oblets, still hidden away in his pockets. Their smooth edges clinked against each other, solid and reassuring. He may have left his homeland and his sister, but at least these would be safe . . . and out of his uncle’s hands.

Thankfully, he saw no fellow Galateans in the crowd of the courtyard. Though anyone in the Albion court would probably be an enemy of the revolution, he didn’t need a report of his whereabouts to reach Uncle Damos so soon. Even more thankfully, his host ushered him quickly through the throng and into a small, white, orchid-draped antechamber to await an audience with the princess regent. Persis had walked into the palace with her sea mink like she owned the place, and had to brush off several courtiers along the way. And she’d managed to bring him to the princess straight off, too. Persis must have been telling the truth, then, that they were friends.

And, yet, she was the daughter of an aristo married to a reg. Would wonders never cease?

The princess, too, looked just like the images he’d seen of her. She was a few years younger than he was—about Persis’s age, with silvery hair and an all-white gown that seemed almost practical after the rainbow of colors and iridescence he’d passed through outside, even if it was covered in waves of floating feathers and crystals that tinkled as she moved.

One of the standard complaints about the old Queen Gala had been that she’d acted like an Albian woman rather than a Galatean one. Shallow, silly, and more interested in parties than politics, in clothes than in culture. Justen could only hope that Isla defied expectations. Her friendship with Persis boded ill. He’d heard the princess didn’t wield much in the way of true power in Albion. And with an airhead like Persis as her lady-in-waiting, perhaps there was good reason for that.

Then again, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Greetings, Galatean,” said Princess Isla, spreading her arms in a gesture of welcome. “My friend Persis tells me I’m about to be bowled over by you. But given the number of Galateans that wash up on my shores these days, I wonder what she finds so impressive this time.”

Persis looked at the princess and scowled. Isla smiled serenely. The aristo favored her princess with the ghost of a curtsy. She was holding yet another half-empty bottle of supplement drink. Justen imagined her tongue must be just about curdled from the sugar overload by now. She obviously couldn’t wait to get back to her palmport. Why anyone would subject their body to that kind of punishment when an oblet could run off its geothermal battery for weeks at a time was beyond him.

“You two go ahead and have your little chat. I think I’m recovered enough to boot this up again, right?” Persis waved her left hand at Justen.

He gave a noncommittal shrug. She’d probably be fine, given her supplements, but he couldn’t imagine she had any messages left to send after the flurry on the Daydream.

Palmport advocates said it was as close to telepathy as the human race had ever come, but Justen didn’t think it was worth the cost. Besides, you still needed oblets for data storage and any large information transfers. Palmports were only as good as the memories of the people using them, their data little more than digestible, untraceable nanosugars. And given the type of people who ran them—people like Persis—they were useless for anything more than silly games and gossip.

Persis seemed satisfied anyway. She plopped onto a nearby cushion and ripped off her wristlock. He swallowed his scowl. What he had to say was not fodder for Albian gossips.

And what, exactly, would that be? Certainly not the whole truth. Princess Isla was an aristo. If she knew about his involvement in the revolution, she’d put him in prison and then he’d never be able to right the wrongs he’d caused. Better to start with part of the story.

“Your Highness,” Justen said, finding those words every bit as difficult to speak as “Citizen” had been to hear. He guessed not all his revolutionary principles had been extinguished, despite what he’d learned. He gave her a short, stiff bow, then straightened and looked her right in the eyes. She was a royal. Not a god. “My name is Justen Helo—”

Her eyebrows rose and when she smiled this time, she looked less like a monarch and more like a teen getting a birthday present. Even from royalty, then.

“I’m the grandson of Darwin and Persistence Helo. And I’m here to ask you for asylum.”

At this, Isla blinked in surprise, but Persis just looked bored. Justen wondered if she even knew what “asylum” was.

“And,” he added, “I need it to remain a secret.”

“Why?” asked Isla. “I assure you I would have no compunction celebrating far and wide that a Helo would prefer living in Albion to braving the revolution.”

She was sensible at least, even if she had silly taste in friends. Maybe she just kept Persis around for fashion advice, though Justen wondered how advisable even that was. “I’d prefer my countrymen think I was just visiting your island,” he said, “at least until I can contrive to get my little sister out of Citizen Aldred’s house.” Even if his uncle guessed the truth, a public lie might be enough to protect Remy.

Persis lifted her head, her eyes keenly trained on his face. “Wait, that . . . revolution guy in Galatea has your sister imprisoned? Now that’s interesting!”

The princess batted her hand at her friend, and Persis sighed and returned her attention to the diagnostics hovering above her palmport disk. Justen bit back his frustration. Isla didn’t seem to mind the girl’s presence, and as a foreign reg, what right did he have to ask for an aristo’s removal? Besides, it was Persis who’d brought him here. He’d just have to bear it.

“Not imprisoned,” Justen corrected. Brainwashed maybe. Just as he’d been until recently. “Citizen Aldred is her guardian.” He’d been Justen’s guardian, too, and probably still thought of himself as such, though Justen was eighteen now.

It was amazing, all the thoughts that oozed out as soon as a single crack appeared in the surface of your beliefs. How long had Uncle Damos been planning the revolution? Had he known ten years ago, when he first agreed to take custody of the orphaned Helo children, how much goodwill he’d earn from the regs of Galatea?

He couldn’t have guessed that it was Justen who would hand him the weapon he needed to overthrow the government. Even Justen hadn’t known that when he’d done it.

“Guardian,” Isla said now. “Not that far from ‘guard.’”

Justen nodded in relief. So she did understand. “Right now, that’s the measure of it. We’re valuable to the revolution as symbols of the cure.”

“You’d be valuable to us as the same,” said Isla. “I take it you don’t wish to trade one gilded cage for another?”

“I’m not a symbol,” said Justen sourly. “And I’m certainly not a symbol of this revolution.”

“I like you better already,” Isla said. The bamboo blinds separating the antechamber from the court rustled. “Persis, darling, go see who it is bothering us.”

There was a man there, stuffed into yet another garish outfit and looking annoyed. “Who is that Galatean?” he hissed at Persis. “What is the princess doing with him?”

Persis pressed her hand to her chest. “Why, Council-man, a lady never tells.”

“Then what are you doing in there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” And she shut the blinds again. “That won’t hold him for long.”

“Of course,” said Isla. “Councilman Shift can’t stand the possibility that something, somewhere, is happening without his permission.” She sighed. “So far, this conversation has annoyed the chair of the Council and done damage to my reputation. I hope it’s worth it, Citizen.” She turned back to Justen, her skirts swirling around her, and fixed him with a queenly look.

He shocked himself by feeling the urge to step back, or bow, or sink to his knees. How did they do that, these aristos? He knew they weren’t born with such superiority, no matter what aristos claimed. Rather, both aristos and the people from the lower class had been indoctrinated since birth in their roles as master and underling. He thought he’d been taught to resist it, that the revolution had leeched it out of him, but the instinct obviously ran deep.

“Tell me, sir, if you please, what excuse you plan to use to your countrymen and your sister as to why you remain in Albion at my court. Surely you cannot prefer our aristocratic ways to the revolutionary ideals of Galatea?”

“I—hadn’t thought that through, yet.” He’d been too focused on getting out of Galatea before his grandmother’s work could do any more damage. Before he could. Escape was the priority. Excuses—and apologies—could come later.

Isla clucked her tongue and turned to her friend. “Persis, dear, wherever do you pick up these people?”

Persis was studying Justen with an appraising eye, as if he were a bolt of silk or a particularly fine hat. “This one picked me up, actually. As in, off the ground. He rescued me from the docks in Galatea.”

“Rescued?”

“Yes,” Persis admitted sheepishly. “I was suffering from genetemps sickness.”

Isla frowned. “I told you that would happen.” She stamped her foot. Royally, Justen noted. The way these two talked—they were real friends. A clearly clever princess and the half-aristo idiot socialite whose idea of a good time was to troll the slums of Halahou for genetemps and cheap silks.

Justen might be out of his depth here in Albion.

The princess returned her attention to him. “Why are you fleeing your country if you’re in such good graces with Citizen Aldred? You’re in no danger there.”

“But I am,” he said. As soon as reports came back from the Lacan estate, Uncle Damos’s suspicions would be verified. And, of course, Justen would be the prime suspect. “I no longer agree with the actions of my countrymen. I cannot support the revolution now that they’ve turned to”—he took a deep breath—“petty revenge and violence against innocents. Social justice is worth fighting for. A reign of terror is not.”

“So,” Isla said, “if you don’t act like the good little revolutionary, Aldred will make an example out of you?”

“Exactly.” Of course she knew how it worked. She was probably well versed in such methods of despotic rule. He’d been taught about its dangers by Uncle Damos himself, long before the revolution. How had it come to this—Justen Helo standing in the Albian throne room and casting his lot with a monarch?

“But you’re a Helo,” said Isla. “Aldred is not so foolish to do anything publicly.”

“Perhaps not,” he admitted, “but I’ve seen him in private.”

Persis’s mouth made a little round O. “You mean you think he would give you or your sister that Reduction drug I keep hearing about?”

Justen was hoping not, though it would be a fitting punishment for Justen’s disobedience, and Aldred knew it. There was nothing his uncle liked more than poetic justice. That’s why he’d pounced on the pinks.

Justen couldn’t decide if he was angrier with Remy or himself. A few days before he left, he’d confessed everything to her—all his doubts about the revolution, even how he’d sabotaged an entire batch of pinks ready for shipment to a prisoner estate out east. He expected shock but also support. Instead, his fourteen-year-old sister started brainstorming ideas on how to backtrack from the mess he’d made, as if he could. He’d already been barred from the labs. Uncle Damos suspected . . . something.

Remy didn’t get it. He wouldn’t take his actions back, even if it were possible. They’d exchanged some harsh words. She called him an idiot. He called her a child. And then she’d run off somewhere, likely to sulk, and wouldn’t answer his messages. He waited as long as he could, but figured Remy would be safe if he left. After all, she was still a model revolutionary citizen.

Isla began another circuit. “I can’t retrieve your sister for you.”

“Ooh,” said Persis, popping up from her focus on her palmport. “You know who might be great at that? The Wild Poppy.”

Justen snorted. “Right. Does he take requests?”

Isla paused. “What makes you think I have any control over what the Wild Poppy does or doesn’t do?” Another turn, another flick of her cape. “Me? Control one of my own subjects? Hilarious, right, Persis?”

“Yes, Princess,” said Persis obediently, and returned to her device.

“And pointless at any rate,” Justen said. “Unc— Citizen Aldred is a dangerous man, Your Highness. I don’t think anyone in Galatea truly understands what he’s capable of.”

Isla whirled around and faced him. “I believe, Citizen Helo, that I can name several Galatean aristos who do.”

With a flare of embarrassment, Justen looked away from Isla and from Persis, whose attention was on him again. Was she entertained by watching him implode in front of her princess? Her expression, however, was one of kindly warning, and Justen remembered that though she was an aristocrat, she was of lower status than her royal friend. She had more experience than Justen did dealing with her. And how had Persis been treating the princess? Always carefully and with deference.

He supposed he could learn something from her after all.

“What I meant,” he said, more quietly this time, “is that the royal palace in Halahou isn’t some work camp at an old estate.”

“It’s a good thing the Wild Poppy can’t hear you speak that way,” Isla said to Justen. “Judging from the spy’s behavior thus far, he’d see it as a challenge.”

“Ooh,” Persis cooed, grinning. “Do you really think he would?”

“Shut up, Persis.” Isla turned back to Justen and continued, her tone clipped. “And I don’t think it’s a good idea to empty your nation of all its revolutionaries, thank you. We have enough problems here as it is.” She resumed pacing. “You want to remain here. You need a reason that will not arouse suspicion back in Galatea.” She glared at him. “What is it you do when you’re not being a spokesperson for a bloody revolution?”

“I’m a medic,” he said. “A scientist, like everyone else in my family.” Except his sister, who claimed she wanted to go into the military like Uncle Damos and their foster sister, Vania. Little wonder Remy had toed the party line when Justen had told her how twisted their revolution had become and the steps he’d taken to stop it.

“Humph.” More pacing. “And how long since you finished your training?”

“Technically . . . I haven’t. I just turned eighteen, and I’ve been a little distracted recently.” Uncle Damos had pulled some strings to get him installed at a lab despite his lack of a degree. The Helo name had probably helped as well. And of course, it had helped Justen feel quite beholden to his guardian. He’d been played like a fiddle.

“Don’t feel bad,” Persis piped in. “I dropped out of school, too.”

“I didn’t drop out. I took a leave of absence to concentrate on my research.”

“Oh, that’s a good one. I should try that excuse on my father. ‘I’m taking a leave of absence to concentrate on my shopping.’”

Justen didn’t dignify that with a response. He’d been trying to save lives, not expand his wardrobe. Then again, Persis’s pursuit of silks had probably harmed far fewer people than his own research. “The point is—”

“The point is,” Isla said, cutting him off, “we have scientists. Grown scientists. All you offer is the Helo name.”

He clenched his fists at his side. Who was this child princess to say who was grown? He must be allowed to continue his research. If not, then everything—his defection, losing Remy, and the suffering of who knew how many Galatean aristos—would all be for nothing.

“And every moment we remain here, the gossip about our imaginary romance grows stronger. . . .” 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. . . .” She gave a little hop, and the crystals on her gown chimed. “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 relationship, 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 . . . 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 . . . 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 . . . 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 passed 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.”