Thirty-one
IN THE SHELTER OF the cliffs below Fisherman’s Rest, Persis and Andrine moored their boat and came ashore. The moon was high in the sky tonight, providing little cover as they hiked up to the road and turning the sea behind them into a single silver sheet that stretched all the way back to Albion. They huffed their way to the bluff, hampered by the long robes of the isolated Peccant order they were impersonating and Tero’s last-minute genetemps, which had bloated them both into puffy, swollen versions of themselves. With their hair tamed and covered with dark hoods, and the excess bloat obscuring most of their facial features, they were decently concealed for a nighttime mission, though Persis wondered how much more extreme Tero’s genetemping would have to get if Vania kept inviting herself to Albian social functions. If she gave them more than a passing glance, she’d probably recognize them.
“There might have been a more convenient disguise than this,” Andrine gasped, her face soaked with sweat.
“Don’t exert yourself too much,” Persis replied. “You need as many fluids as you can retain for the disguise to work.”
At last they reached the skimmer, which was charged and waiting for them, thanks to the help of the Ford resistance.
“Is the oblet working yet?” Persis asked as they put their supplies in the back and took off toward Halahou. She was never completely comfortable until they’d regained contact. Their palmports couldn’t receive messages in Galatea, and their oblet had been inoperable since arriving on the island’s shore.
“Not yet.” Andrine slipped it back in her pocket. “But I hear Aldred’s instituted dampening hours. It gives his operatives time to search for seditious messages and purge anything that might have gotten through from dissidents like the Fords. We’ll have to work out a hack for it when we get a chance.”
“Sure,” said Persis drily. “We’ve got all the time in the world for that. I do wish Citizen Aldred would be a bit more respectful of our schedule.”
Andrine chuckled, her eyes turning to slits in her swollen face as they sped through the clear, cool night.
Without warning, the car collided with some sort of unseen barrier, springing both girls out of their seats. Persis crashed hard against the dashboard. The controls slammed into her bloated body, knocking the wind out of her. Fighting for breath, she looked over at Andrine, who lay slumped in her seat, unconscious, blood dripping from a gash near her temple.
“Andrine, wake up!” She shook her friend.
“My, that looks nasty,” said a familiar voice.
Persis turned to see Vania standing there in the dark, her fall of black hair hardly differentiated from the night itself. Several officers in military uniform stood at her back.
“Nanothread.” The captain gestured vaguely into the darkness as she approached. “So strong for such a tiny thing, don’t you think? I’m especially fond of it. So, Wild Poppy is it? Who is hiding underneath all that blubber?”
Persis reached for the wristlock covering her palmport and felt a sudden slash of pain traveling up her arm.
“No palmports, Albian,” Vania scolded, wagging her finger and the empty pricker launch. “Don’t you know they’re bad for you?” She approached, and Persis could see she’d changed from her gown into her military uniform. The sparkly black makeup webbing out from her eyes remained, however, as did her dark lipstick. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
We’ve met, thought Persis, but what she said through gritted teeth and the pain flowing out from her hand into the rest of her body was “Can’t say the same.”
“It was so easy, in the end,” Vania said, as if bursting to share.
Pain shot through her heart, but Persis clenched her jaw and refused to show it as Vania blabbered on.
“I knew the first boat to land on my island would be yours. Every aristo on Albion was at that party. I knew Justen would find you.” Her entire guard leaned forward as she gripped both Persis’s chins in her hand and swept Persis’s hood back from her face.
Persis could barely remain upright, but she mustered the wherewithal to bat her eyes coquettishly at Vania as her enemy’s eyes widened with shocked recognition. Even captured, she was still Persis Blake.
“Well,” Vania said, breathless with exultation, “that was unexpected.”
THE DAYDREAM SPED SILENTLY across the moonlit sea that separated Albion from Galatea. Tero stood at the helm, while Justen twitched awake on the long bench nearest.
“Welcome back,” Tero said. “For what it’s worth, you look . . . stately.”
Justen sat up, coughing a bit, then looked down at his arms. They didn’t look much different. He brushed his hands over his face, feeling the crags and wrinkles Tero’s genetemps had formed all over his skin.
“You promise you’ve worked out the kinks from last time?” he asked Tero, and his voice came out as a gruff grunt, like he’d spent sixty years barking orders at people.
“Pretty sure.” At Justen’s withering glare, he held up his hands in surrender. “I know how touchy you are about the whole operation. But I’m fresh out of fat coding and the male coding won’t help you much.”
Justen meant to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a growl. “This is going to take some getting used to,” he grumbled. “How far are we from shore?”
“A good twenty minutes yet,” Tero replied. “Don’t worry too much. If we don’t get to Andrine and Persis before Vania catches and doses them, Isla will get them back, even if she has to tear Galatea apart to do it.”
Justen wondered if Tero would be so sanguine about the whole operation if he understood the extent to which his own sister was in danger from the drug. Though Tero had told Justen about a fight the Finches had had with Persis recently regarding her drugging Andrine to keep her away from a mission, the gengineer didn’t seem to understand why Persis had made that choice, which must have happened after Justen explained to Persis how the drug worked differently for regs.
Every conversation he’d ever had with her had taken on whole oceans of new meanings, and every time he started thinking about that, his head hurt more than from the genetemps.
“That’s not good enough,” was all he said. No need to scare Tero at the moment.
Tero gave him a wry smile. “The things we do for love.”
“Persis and I are not in love,” Justen said automatically. “It was all for show.”
The Albian gengineer remained skeptical. “I saw the images of you two kissing in the star cove, you know. Everyone did. Quite convincing.”
“Persis is a consummate liar,” Justen said in his gravelly old man’s voice.
“And you share her expertise in the clandestine arts and other methods of spy craft?” Tero replied. “Impressive. I guess medic training really is more comprehensive in Galatea than I’d thought.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“There’s no need to deny it,” Tero said, “especially not to me. I know what it’s like to have completely inconvenient feelings for one of these girls. I tried to hide mine for months. It’s hard.”
Justen sighed. He liked the Albian gengineer, liked him even more now that he knew he was doing something more with his time than tinkering with Slipstream, but the last thing Justen needed was Tero, who’d only come out about his . . . whatever it was with the princess tonight, giving him relationship advice. Especially not when he was about to attempt the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“Persis and I are not in love,” he repeated at last.
“Really,” Tero said flatly. “Why not?”