For Darkness Shows the Stars

deeply crimson heart.
    “They’re beautiful, Ro!” she blurted, while inwardly, she tried to work out the genetics. A simple cross-pollination perhaps, the purple flowers set too close to the red ones . . .
    Ro bounced and clapped her hands. She pointed at the red and purple flowers planted nearby and then at Elliot herself. Elliot narrowed her eyes, remembering evenings Ro had spent by her side in the barn loft.
    No, it was impossible. She was Reduced.
    A few words, a few signs, and simple, repetitive tasks were the most the Reduced could handle. They were capable of being trained, but not for any skilled labor. And they required close observation. The young, the sick, the pregnant, and the elderly had an odd propensity for self-violence, which is why the Luddites were forced to confine them. The birthing house that Dee had feared was an unfortunate necessity for Reduced women, but torture for a Post like Dee.
    But Ro was nodding eagerly, miming picking flowers then pressing her palms together. “Ro wheat,” she said, in the awkward monosyllabic speech that was all the Reduced could manage.
    Ro wheat. Ro’s special wheat. It was impossible. A Reduced could never comprehend what Elliot had been working on in secret, could never re-create the grafts herself. Ro was Reduced. It was impossible.
    But no repetition could truly banish Elliot’s suspicion. “Ro,” she said, “you mustn’t show these flowers to anyone, do you hear?”
    Ro frowned, her pretty, freckled face wrinkled with confusion.
    “I love them, I do!” Elliot took the girl’s hands in hers. “They are beautiful flowers and I’m proud of you. But it must be a secret, right?” She pressed a finger to her lips. “Shh.”
    “Shh,” Ro agreed, muddying her mouth with her forefinger. Elliot wished she could be sure the girl was doing more than just parroting her. But this was the way it was, the way it had always been, ever since the Reduction. Each generation of Luddites would care for the Reduced and their offspring. They’d tend the land, obey the protocols, and keep humanity alive.
    Then came the CORs.
    Some reckoned there were four generations of them now, though others claimed only two. There were more every year, though, as if the human spirit itself had risen from the ashes of the Reduction. CORs—or Posts, as now almost everyone but holdouts like Elliot’s father had taken to calling them—came from Reduced ancestry, but they were born and developed completely normally. Posts were as intelligent and capable as any Luddite. They’d been rare in the time of Elliot’s grandfather, but now people said one in twenty babies born to a Reduced was a Post, and a Post parent never produced a Reduced child.
    Posts quite naturally stepped into positions of power on the Luddite estates. By the time Elliot was born, it was a given that the Luddite farms, instead of being overseen by the actual Luddites as they had been for generations, would instead be manned by a staff of Post foremen, mechanics, chefs, and tailors. The Luddites themselves presided over all in a life of relative leisure.
    When Elliot was younger, she’d asked her tutor why, if the CORs were as capable as the Luddites, did they still have the legal status of the Reduced? The conversation hadn’t gone well. No one could deny the existence of the CORs, but it was still taboo to deviate from the Luddite way. No one had even studied the origin of the Posts, nor tested their genetics. It was not for Luddites to question the will of God or the nature of man. Such thoughts had led to the Reduction, and by their piety alone had Elliot’s people been saved.
    What, Elliot wondered, would her teacher think of her Luddite piety now? She knew her wheat was a sin, but what choice did she have? The North estate could not go hungry.
    These flowers, though—they were something else. There was no reconciling it. She knew what everyone else would see. A creation of frivolous beauty, made by a Reduced who’d aped Elliot’s crimes. It was insupportable. Unforgivable.
    It was also pure Ro. She loved pretty things, which was why she grew flowers, and she loved Elliot, which was why she tried to do everything just like her. And she was Reduced, which meant she bore the punishment for the hubris of her ancestors. Ancestors who had held themselves higher than God, and had been brought lower than man.
    If Elliot wasn’t careful, Ro would suffer punishment for a sin of Elliot’s making,