For Darkness Shows the Stars

heard of the renowned Cloud Fleet. There weren’t a lot of seaworthy vessels on the island—at least, not since her grandfather’s shipyard had shut down before her birth. And since the wars had rendered magnetic compasses useless, very few braved the trip out of sight range of their shores. Was the Cloud Fleet, staffed entirely by free Posts, attempting an overseas journey? Elliot’s heart raced at the very thought. It had been ages since she’d allowed herself to dream of that. Not since Kai had gone away.
    Of course, she did her best not to think of him, either.
    As far as anyone knew, there was nothing left of the world but these two islands, these quarter of a million square kilometers, these people and these mountains and these animals and this society. Admiral Innovation might change all that. His Fleet had first captured the population’s notice when one of his exploratory trips to nearby islands had brought back a breed of horse not seen for generations. Sturdier, taller, and faster, the Innovation horse had quickly become the preferred means of transport on the trade routes. Another one of his expeditions had resulted in the rediscovery of a wild game hen that produced twice as many eggs as the standard estate chickens. Even Baron North had filled his henhouses with them. Most recently, Elliot had read of a Cloud Fleet expedition, one run by a Captain Wentforth, in which he’d found another island and a cargo hold full of salvaged, solar-powered vehicles in near-pristine condition.
    This news, of course, had been greeted with mixed reactions from the Luddite community, who frowned upon any technology they hadn’t already been using for centuries. But as many disapproved, there were other Luddites, not quite as fastidious, who had declared the machines nothing more than an innocuous, long-forgotten form of transport, and turned the sun-carts into a hot commodity. The Norths, of course, had not indulged. They couldn’t afford to.
    And now this Admiral Innovation wanted to build himself a new ship—and using the Boatwright facilities, too! This would be a tricky proposition to get by her father, but if she could manage it, it would certainly solve their financial woes. Innovation must be very wealthy to be able to rent the whole shipyard. Elliot wondered if the money would be enough to sway her father, or if he would view such matters as too tawdry for his taste.
    Maybe she could find another incentive, though. Admiral Innovation had more than just money to offer, and her father did have that splendid new racetrack.

N INE Y EARS A GO
     
    Dear Kai,
    I’m sorry I can’t come see you today. In school last week, we had to write a paper about the Reduction. I don’t know what I wrote that was so bad, but the tutor told me she had to give it to my parents, and now we’re all four of us having a “conference.” My mother said it’s probably best if I stay away from the barn for a little while. It was hard enough getting this letter to you.
    I’m really scared. Last year, when my cousin Benedict got sent home from boarding school, my father beat him. My father yells at me a lot, but he’s never hit me before. I can’t figure out what I put in the essay that was so wrong. Can you?
    Your friend,
    Elliot
WHY THE REDUCTION HAPPENED
By Elliot North
Before the Reduction, there were two kinds of people: people who trusted in God to create mankind in His own image, and people who thought they could do better than God. The first kind of people were my ancestors, the Luddites. The second kind of people, the Lost, did lots of experiments to make themselves better than God. They tried to create new kinds of plants and animals, the way God did. They gave themselves fake arms and legs and eyes that worked better than the ones God gave us, and they did experiments on unborn babies, too, so that they could make them different and supposedly better than their parents.
The Luddites were the only people who knew how evil this was. They refused to give themselves the fake body parts, or even the fake brains that were supposed to make them smarter than God. First they refused to eat genetically enhanced foods, and then they refused the ERV procedure to enhance their babies. They tried to warn the Lost, who believed Gavin and Carlotta and all had ERV, but the Lost didn’t believe them.
Finally, God got angry at the Lost, and cursed them and all their children. From that point on, they would no longer be born in His