Diana Peterfreund - Across a Star-Swept Sea

IF THE WILD POPPY 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 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.