Across a Star-Swept Sea Read Online Free PDF

children stopped writhing and fell into an odd, restless sleep. Sharie hoped this was normal. Her contact hadn’t told her exactly what to expect from the pinks—just that the children would be easier to transport to revolutionary officials if they were already Reduced.
    She didn’t like the look of them, lying there on pallets with the remnants of pink foam drying around their mouths. She didn’t like the fact that her contact was supposed to have been here well before sunrise. If the Fords noticed the children were missing—if they found her with them like this …
    Finally, she couldn’t stand the sight of their pathetic little figures anymore, and she escaped to the beach. Soon enough, the shadow of a skimmer loomed long across the sand in front of her. She hadn’t expected it from the direction of the beach but instead from the road. It didn’t matter. The pickup was here at last. The driver was … not exactly the police escort she’d expected. Then again, maybe the revolution preferred to do such dirty work through unofficial channels. The woman was a crone, hunched and craggy, with ropes of gray hair and deep-set eyes surrounded by masses of wrinkled, peeling skin. She was swathed in a heavy, hooded robe, and as she moved to lower the skimmer’s brakes to the sand, Sharie could see that her hands were encased in long linen gloves.
    “You’re late,” said Sharie, wondering if the old woman would even be able to help her move the bodies.
    The woman rolled her ancient shoulders. “Money doesn’t have an expiration date. But the revolutionary army’s offer does.”
    Sharie quickly ushered the lady into the house before she could change her mind. There, on a pallet, lay three children, still unconscious but sleeping fitfully. Pink stains crackled along their cheeks and throats and lay in spongy mats in their hair.
    “You gave them pinks,” the woman stated flatly.
    “Yes,” said Sharie. “As instructed.”
    But the woman made no response other than, “Where’s the fourth?”
    “Couldn’t get to her. She’s the heir, so she gets her own wing.” Sharie rolled her eyes. “You know aristos. Even under siege, they have to keep up appearances.”
    The old woman snorted, a phlegmy, disgusting sound, and reached for the leather purse hanging at her side. “So, the agreement was a hundred each, right?”
    “Three hundred,” Sharie corrected. She hadn’t braved smuggling the children out of the Ford estate’s blockade for pocket change! “Three hundred each.”
    The crone paused, thinking. “Well, without the heir, I won’t get full price for the lot. The plan’s to trade these children for Lady Ford and her husband. It’s them Citizen Aldred wants—they’re leading the royalist resistance. But without the heir, Lady Ford might just decide her other children are spares, necessary sacrifices, just like all those guards who’ve been dying to keep the blockade strong against the revolutionary forces.”
    “They won’t,” Sharie insisted. She could see the deal crumbling before her eyes. “They might be aristos, but the Fords love all their children. Believe me, I was their nanny for five years.”
    “Five years,” said the crone. “You took care of these brats, and now you’re Reducing them?” She whistled through her teeth. “What are you gonna do with the money? Buy a nice new life in Halahou where you never have to take care of some aristo’s spoiled spawn again?”
    Of course. Sharie had no experience other than child care, and with the aristos dropping like flies, there was no one left to hire her anymore. Might as well get as much as she could while the getting was still good. The Ford children were doomed anyway. The blockade would fall, and when it did, the whole family would be Reduced—them and anyone caught helping them. Sharie could see the writing on the wall, and she had no intentions of being there when it crumbled.
    The crone was making some mental calculations as she