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.