I remember pain and sickness, and motion, but my next clear memory is
waking in a bed in a house. I had a feeling that time had passed but
how much I didn't know. I looked around and found the old man who had
told the story sitting by my bed.
"How be you feeling this morning, young lady?" he asked. He had white
hair and a seamed face and his hands were gnarled and old. His face was
red, and the red and the white of his hair made a sharp contrast with
the bright blue of his deep-set eyes. It was a good face.
"Not very healthy," I said. "How long has it been?"
"Two days," he said. "You'll get over it soon enough. I be Daniel
Kutsov. And you?"
"I'm Mia Havero."
"I found you dumped in a ditch after Horst Fanger and his boys had left
you," he said. "A very unpleasant man ... as I suppose he be bound to
be, herding Losels."
"Those green things were Losels? Why are they afraid of them?"
"The ones you saw beed drugged. They wouldn't obey otherwise. Once in
awhile a few be stronger than the drug and they escape to the woods.
The drug cannot be so strong that they cannot work. So the strongest
escape. They be some danger to most people, and a great danger to men
like Horst Fanger who buy them from the ships. Every so often, hunters
go out to thin them down."
"That seems like slavery," I said, yawning.
It was a stupid thing to say, like some comment about the idiocy of a
Free Birth policy. Not the sentiment, but the timing.
Mr. Kutsov treated the comment with more respect than it deserved.
"Only God can decide a question like that," he said gently. "Be it
slavery to use my horses to work for me? I don't know anyone who would
say so. A man be a different matter, though. The question be whether a
Losel be like a horse or like a man, and that I can't answer. Now go to
sleep again and in a while I will bring you some food."
He left then, but I didn't go to sleep. I was in trouble. I had no way
to contact the scoutship. There was only one way out, and that was to
find somebody else who did have his signal. That wasn't going to be
easy.
Mr. Kutsov brought me some food later in the day, and I asked him then,
"Why are you doing all this for me?"
He said, "I don't like to see children hurt, by people like Horst
Fanger or by anyone."
"But I'm from one of the Ships," I said. "You know that, don't you?"