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Authors: Diana Peterfreund
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vegetation, about computer chips designed to make your brain run faster, about living among people who’d filled the air and water with toxins. They’d saved the world by rejecting it all.
How could she abandon what they’d fought so hard to achieve?
The space was softly lit by sconces as they entered the sanctuary, and the predominant sound was Felicia’s gasp of wonder. “It’s even more spectacular than I’d thought.”
The cavern’s earthen walls sloped upward into vague shadows, and where the walls weren’t marked by murals depicting the skylines of ruined cities and monuments that Elliot had only seen in antique books, they were blackened by the smoke from ancient fires. Here and there stood other artifacts from the Luddites’ time underground. Elliot tried to imagine what it had been like for her ancestors, living their entire lives underground, kept from the turning of the seasons, from the feel of the sun on their faces or the smell of the fields.
Perhaps this was what she’d been missing. Perhaps her father was right, that she should spend more time in the sanctuary to reflect on the true weight of her heritage. Her forebears had spent untold years living in this darkness, subsisting on fish from underground streams, mushrooms, and stockpiled food, because of the horrors that genetic manipulation had visited upon their world. And now, because of a few lean years, she had chosen to tread down that same, dangerous path. Of course, her wheat grafts weren’t ERV, but the idea was the same. Gavin and Carlotta had introduced Endogenous RetroViruses into the Lost in order to trick their God-given DNA into turning on only the best and most powerful expressions of their genes and delivering those same traits to their offspring. Elliot’s grafting methods hadn’t been nearly so intricate, but the result was the same: horizontal gene transfer and a transgenic wheat that produced thicker, heavier seed heads far sooner in the season.
She’d told herself it wasn’t the same. She hadn’t been mucking around with microscopes and DNA strands. It was safe, hardly any worse than the type of cross-pollination that occurred naturally when one plant sat too near another in the field. Of course, that was God’s plan, same as when he’d cursed those with ERV and caused the virus to mutate within their genes and Reduce all their progeny. Elliot had manipulated this wheat herself. And she doubted her Luddite ancestors, who’d experienced much leaner times than this in their years spent huddled in the caverns, would accept her excuse that she’d been desperate to find a way to feed the people on her lands. She felt her cheeks burning in humiliation, and was glad for the dim lights that hid her shame.
Elliot braved a glance at Kai, wondering what he thought now that he saw the North star cavern for himself. He was staring straight up at the darkness in the ceiling, just like the Phoenixes, with an amused expression painted across his features. “So this is all of it.”
“Fascinating,” Andromeda said softly. “Well, at least I can say I have honestly never seen anything like it.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” said Olivia Grove. “Shall we turn out the lights, Tatiana?” She leaned over and extinguished a nearby sconce when Tatiana nodded.
Elliot and the other Luddites began putting out the lights. As the cavern dipped into twilight, she looked back at Kai, waiting for the moment when the miracle overtook him, but his expression did not change.
“Our ancestors,” Tatiana said, as the sanctuary was plunged into utter darkness, “were forced to take refuge during the Wars of the Lost. Some already lived on these islands. Some came as the reach of the wars grew ever wider. But all were forced eventually underground. When the Lost realized what they’d done, that they were the last generation of healthy people, they struck out with unthinkable rage against any and all who had avoided Reduction.
How could she abandon what they’d fought so hard to achieve?
The space was softly lit by sconces as they entered the sanctuary, and the predominant sound was Felicia’s gasp of wonder. “It’s even more spectacular than I’d thought.”
The cavern’s earthen walls sloped upward into vague shadows, and where the walls weren’t marked by murals depicting the skylines of ruined cities and monuments that Elliot had only seen in antique books, they were blackened by the smoke from ancient fires. Here and there stood other artifacts from the Luddites’ time underground. Elliot tried to imagine what it had been like for her ancestors, living their entire lives underground, kept from the turning of the seasons, from the feel of the sun on their faces or the smell of the fields.
Perhaps this was what she’d been missing. Perhaps her father was right, that she should spend more time in the sanctuary to reflect on the true weight of her heritage. Her forebears had spent untold years living in this darkness, subsisting on fish from underground streams, mushrooms, and stockpiled food, because of the horrors that genetic manipulation had visited upon their world. And now, because of a few lean years, she had chosen to tread down that same, dangerous path. Of course, her wheat grafts weren’t ERV, but the idea was the same. Gavin and Carlotta had introduced Endogenous RetroViruses into the Lost in order to trick their God-given DNA into turning on only the best and most powerful expressions of their genes and delivering those same traits to their offspring. Elliot’s grafting methods hadn’t been nearly so intricate, but the result was the same: horizontal gene transfer and a transgenic wheat that produced thicker, heavier seed heads far sooner in the season.
She’d told herself it wasn’t the same. She hadn’t been mucking around with microscopes and DNA strands. It was safe, hardly any worse than the type of cross-pollination that occurred naturally when one plant sat too near another in the field. Of course, that was God’s plan, same as when he’d cursed those with ERV and caused the virus to mutate within their genes and Reduce all their progeny. Elliot had manipulated this wheat herself. And she doubted her Luddite ancestors, who’d experienced much leaner times than this in their years spent huddled in the caverns, would accept her excuse that she’d been desperate to find a way to feed the people on her lands. She felt her cheeks burning in humiliation, and was glad for the dim lights that hid her shame.
Elliot braved a glance at Kai, wondering what he thought now that he saw the North star cavern for himself. He was staring straight up at the darkness in the ceiling, just like the Phoenixes, with an amused expression painted across his features. “So this is all of it.”
“Fascinating,” Andromeda said softly. “Well, at least I can say I have honestly never seen anything like it.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” said Olivia Grove. “Shall we turn out the lights, Tatiana?” She leaned over and extinguished a nearby sconce when Tatiana nodded.
Elliot and the other Luddites began putting out the lights. As the cavern dipped into twilight, she looked back at Kai, waiting for the moment when the miracle overtook him, but his expression did not change.
“Our ancestors,” Tatiana said, as the sanctuary was plunged into utter darkness, “were forced to take refuge during the Wars of the Lost. Some already lived on these islands. Some came as the reach of the wars grew ever wider. But all were forced eventually underground. When the Lost realized what they’d done, that they were the last generation of healthy people, they struck out with unthinkable rage against any and all who had avoided Reduction.
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