For Darkness Shows the Stars

my neighbors, Elliot noted. Was he here to take back the estate? Regardless, she shook her head. “I can’t. I have too much work to do.”
    “What do you have to do?” Benedict asked. “I’ll help. And when we finish in half the time, you’ll take me to the Boatwright house.”
    Her eyes widened, but her cousin was completely serious.
    “Do not let it be said I’m shirking my duties here.”
    Elliot examined his fine coat and his city-softened hands. He wanted to know what it took to manage the North estate? Fine. She’d show him, and he’d be far too tired to drag her back to the Fleet.

Twenty-seven
     
    BENEDICT TOOK ELLIOT BY surprise. He hauled feed bags and curried horses and helped her check on the supply of food and other goods at the Reduced barracks. He made the rounds with her as she visited each of the remaining Posts, and smiled and chatted with all of them, even those who were suspicious and openly hostile.
    “It’s funny,” he said to her as they traveled from cottage to cottage. “There does not seem to be much love for your father among the CORs on the estate, but they are still willing to believe his story.”
    “We tend to call them Posts now, as they desire,” Elliot said.
    “I’m glad to hear it.” Benedict’s expression was jovial. “COR sounds so artificial in my mouth, but it’s the terminology your father uses. Not much of a surprise.”
    Elliot was silent, as every minute a new theory bloomed in her mind. Did he hope to win the North Posts to his side in a potential battle over his inheritance? Did he hope to win her over, too? One thing was clear, her cousin was no fool. It had taken him no time at all to assess how things worked on the estate. Of course, Admiral Innovation had told her when he first arrived that it was well known throughout the islands that Elliot was the only person to get things done here. Perhaps Benedict had known it long before he arrived.
    Perhaps he thought the workers’ lack of loyalty to Baron North would be an easy way to reclaim what was his.
    “When I was younger,” he said, “I didn’t realize why they preferred to be called Posts. Living in the enclave down in Channel City taught me the difference. A ‘Child of the Reduction’ is just that—an offshoot of the Reduced, a juvenile, and still inextricably linked to his ancestor’s limitations. There is also the theory very popular on a few of the estates in the south that CORs are nothing more than the product of illicit Luddite liaisons with the Reduced. That they never overcame the Reduction on their own at all. You can imagine how the term might be offensive to the Posts.”
    She didn’t have to imagine. She’d met Andromeda.
    “But a Post-Reductionist  . . .” Benedict raised his eyebrows in appreciation. “That’s something else entirely. A Post has moved past his humble beginnings. A Post is looking at the future, and not the past.” He regarded Elliot. “I assume these Cloud Fleet Posts are filled with the same sort of boundless optimism?”
    “They are focused on the future, yes,” Elliot replied safely, as they walked on.
    “Little wonder,” said Benedict. “There isn’t much in the past that they’d find appealing. But even I, born a Luddite, prefer the potential of the future. Don’t you, cousin?”
    Elliot was so taken aback by his bluntness that she nodded before she could stop herself.
    “I knew we’d see eye to eye. You think like me. You know, watching the enclaves grow these last ten years from tiny shantytowns filled with beggars and thieves to prosperous neighborhoods, seeing the success of Posts like your Fleet, it isn’t hard to read the writing on the wall.”
    “Oh really?” Elliot asked. She ignored his use of “your Fleet.” It was not hers. Certainly not.
    “The Post-Reductionists are right.” Benedict nodded with certainty. “The Reduction is coming to a close.”
    Elliot was rendered speechless. She’d never heard anyone talk such heresy. And certainly not a Luddite.
    “For now,” Benedict continued, “Posts who are dissatisfied with their estates have merely run away, but mark my words, revolution is coming. Perhaps not here, but on other estates. Estates where the Luddite lords’ mistreatment veers into cruelty. Or maybe just when there are so many free Posts that the Luddites can no longer maintain control. Do you know where you want to be when that happens, Elliot?”
    “Here,” said Elliot immediately. “If