Across a Star-Swept Sea

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HarperCollins Publishers

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PRAISE FOR
For Darkness Shows the Stars:

“This novel is a postapocalyptic retelling of Jane Austen’s
Persuasion
that will be a hit with fans of sci-fi romances.… Readers will keep turning the pages right up to the end.”

—School Library Journal, starred review

“A richly envisioned portrait of a society in flux, a steely yet vulnerable heroine, and a young man who does some growing up.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A smart and sexy tale of star-crossed love that’s as thought provoking as it is heartbreaking.”

—Robin Wasserman,
author of
The Book of Blood and Shadow

“Don’t you love it when a brilliant idea meets with brilliant execution? Thank you, Diana Peterfreund, for giving us a postapocalyptic
Persuasion
. This book is meltingly good.”

—Laini Taylor, National Book Award finalist
for
Lips Touch: Three Times

“Diana Peterfreund’s
For Darkness Shows the Stars
is an impassioned ode to Jane Austen, love, and the hope found in stars.”

—Beth Revis,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Across the Universe
and
A Million Suns

“A beautiful, epic love story you won’t be able to put down!”

—Simone Elkeles,
New York Times
bestselling author
of the Perfect Chemistry series

“ Scores high for ingenuity.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Will appeal to science fiction and romance fans alike.”

—
Voice of Youth Advocates
(
VOYA
)

across a

star-swept

sea

Also by Diana Peterfreund:

F
OR
D
ARKNESS
S
HOWS THE
S
TARS

R
AMPANT

A
SCENDANT

across a

star-swept

sea

DIANA PETERFREUND

BALZER + BRAY

An Imprint of
  HarperCollins
Publishers

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Across a Star-Swept Sea

Copyright © 2013 by Diana Peterfreund

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-06-200616-5

Typography by Carla Weise

13 14 15 16 17 XX/XXXX 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

Dedication

For Eleanor, who is brilliant and beautiful and brave

Epigraph

The history of the human race pivots on two points: the development of agriculture, which created civilization, and the Reduction, which destroyed it.

Before the Reduction, the few impoverished or dissenting peoples who didn’t genetically engineer their offspring had been the object of scorn and pity. But a generation later, when these “perfect” children could only produce mentally and physically impaired Reduced babies, it proved what a colossal mistake had been made. The bulk of humanity affected by this tragedy—the Lost—did not accept defeat lightly. Instead, they turned on those who’d escaped unscathed, making them the targets of envy, hatred …. and, with the Wars of the Lost, utter annihilation.

After the wars were over, the survivors looked with horror and dismay upon what they had wrought. There was hardly any place left on Earth to make a life, and few untainted by Reduction left to live one.

In desperation, two poor servants defied their Lost masters. Out of the wars’ most terrible weapon, they terraformed a new home, an oasis in the wreckage of the world: New Pacifica. There, they declared, they’d rule forever over those responsible for the Earth’s destruction.

It didn’t work out that way.

—“HUMAN RIGHTS IN ALBION:

A TERM PAPER BY LADY PERSIS Blake”*

* Note: Though Lady Blake received an A—on this essay, her instructor saw fit to send a flutternote to her father, Lord Torin Blake, regarding the propriety of a young lady using such incendiary language. Lord Blake responded: “Actually, that sounds about right to me.”

One

I
F THE
W
ILD
P
OPPY
dared return to Galatea, Citizen Cutler was ready. He’d stationed armed guards at the entrance to the estate and placed an additional ten soldiers around the perimeter of the taro fields. Though no Reduced could even attempt escape, Cutler knew the real danger came from outside. The flowery Albian spy had “liberated” at least a dozen enemies of the revolution in the last few months, but it wouldn’t happen on Cutler’s watch.

During the better part of the morning, a sea breeze had moved across the sunken fields, stirring the taro leaves and making the water shiver and ripple like the skin of a snake. The Reduced prisoners moved slowly and methodically through their plots, following an ancient and, frankly, unnecessary tradition of cutting each root by hand and replanting the stalk to be ready for the next harvest.

The former lord of the estate—his name was Lacan, though Cutler doubted the man remembered it after being Reduced—sloshed and stumbled through the field, hacking away at the taro stalks with a knife entirely too dull for the purpose. His gray hair was matted to his neck with sweat and mud, and his once-haughty mouth hung slack and stupid. As Cutler watched, the man’s grip slipped, and the blade sank deep into his thumb.

Lacan wailed, and the guards began to hoot and holler. Cutler didn’t budge from his position, leaning against one of the unused harvesting machines. Let his soldiers have their entertainment. It was boring enough out here on the rural east coast.

“Shouldn’t we help?” asked his newest recruit, a girl who hardly looked old enough for basic training. Her name was Trina Delmar, she’d arrived this morning, and she never shut up. “Looks like he cut himself pretty bad.”

Cutler shrugged and spat into the swamp. Silly girl. It was always the girls who got weepy over watching the prisoners. “That’s the former master of this plantation. Do you think his kind ever cared for the thumbs of your ancestors, back when they kept Galatea in their grip?”

“Grip’s not so good anymore!” cracked another guard.

“Don’t feel bad for these aristos, Citizen Delmar,” Cutler went on. “Had they ever cared about us, the cure for Reduction would have been discovered long before it was.”

That’s why it took a reg to make the Helo Cure, two generations back. For hundreds of years before the cure, most people who weren’t aristos were born Reduced, sickly and simpleminded. They said only one in twenty had been a natural-born reg, with a regular brain and intellect. The Helo Cure stopped Reduction in a single generation—after the cure, every baby born was regular.

And now, thanks to this new Reduction drug of the revolutionaries, the aristos would have their turns wallowing in the muck. Out in the field, the old lord was wailing and clutching his wounded hand to his chest. Cutler gave him a week—two at most. Reduction wasn’t designed to be a death sentence, but sharp knives and idiots rarely mixed.

“But Lord Lacan actually fought to distribute the cure to the Reduced,” Trina said, “back when he was young. I’ve seen a picture of him with Persistence Helo—”

Cutler glowered down at
her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Citizen. If he’s here, it means he’s an enemy of the revolution. An enemy of regulars like us.”

But Trina was still casting pitiful glances at Lacan. The recruit had been an annoyance ever since she’d shown up, questioning the pill dosage and schedule, as if it mattered that Cutler handed out the pink Reduction pills slightly more often than required. Once they were Reduced, it wasn’t like a few extra pinks could make them stupider. Plus, Cutler liked to watch the aristos writhe a little. Not much else to do all the way out here.

Now that idiot recruit was out in the field. She was approaching Lacan, who’d returned to ineffectually swiping at the taro stalks with his uninjured hand. That was the Reduced for you. They’d work until they collapsed.

“Back to your post, Delmar!” Cutler cried. He wasn’t about to be shown up by some freshly cooled recruit.

The recruit ignored him and smeared some ointment on Lacan’s injured thumb before wrapping it in a bandage.

“Did I tell you to administer aid to this Reduced slime?” Cutler said, churning into the field and slamming the butt of his gun into Lacan’s side. The old man fell into the taro, and Trina winced. “You’d better watch it, Delmar. I’d hate to give a bad report to Citizen Aldred.”

Trina didn’t even look up. Good. Maybe he’d scared her back into line.

“You’re not here to help them. You’re here to keep them away from the Wild Poppy. Every time we lose a prisoner to Albion, it undermines the revolution.”

“What undermines the revolution,” she snapped back, “is—” but she ducked her head and went silent when she saw the dark look on his face.

Just then, a skimmer zipped down the path between the fields, dust clouding up from its lifters. There was an empty caged platform behind the cab. “Officer!” called the driver, a young man wearing a military uniform.

Cutler waded back to the edge of the field and squinted up into the cab. Trina trailed after, to his further irritation.

“Transfer request,” the driver said, holding out his left hand. His oblet sparked to life in his palm, revealing a hologram of Citizen Aldred’s face.

“All Reduced on outer plantations are to be transferred back to Halahou city prison,” came Aldred’s voice from the image.

“I’ve heard nothing of this.” Cutler pulled out his own oblet, and its black surface glinted in the sun like the obsidian pebble it was named for. No new messages from Halahou. No new messages at all.