I felt like a fool. Horst stalked over and got the signal. He dropped it on the ground and said in a voice far colder than mine could ever be, because it was natural and mine wasn't, "The piece be yours." Then he tromped on it until it cracked and fell apart. Then he said, "Pull a gun on me twice. Twice." He slapped me so hard that my ears rang. "You dirty little punk." I said calmly, "You big louse." It was a time I would have done better to keep my mouth shut. All I can remember is a flash of pain as his fist crunched against the side of my face and then nothing. Brains are no good if you don't use them. IV 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?"