out a fairly small black-and-white horse for Jimmy and quickly saddled it, and added saddlebags.
After that, I took a quick look around. I didn’t find my gun, but I found the bubble tent thrown in a corner—apparently they hadn’t figured out how it worked. I found my bedroll, too. The rest of my things I wrote off. I decided that I would have to get Jimmy to share his clothes with me.
On impulse, then, I took out my pad and pencil. I wrote, “I’m a girl, you Mudeater!” and hung the note on a nail. I blew the light out.
We led the horses to the street and rode. I didn’t regret the note, but I was feeling sorry I hadn’t picked a better name than Mudeater. On the way, I asked Jimmy how he got caught.
He said, “There’s an army encampment north of here. They’ve got a scout from one of the other Ships there.”
“I’ve seen it,” I said.
“Well, I got caught looking the place over,” Jimmy said. “That’s where my gear is.”
“I’ve got a map,” I said. My copying hadn’t come out well so I had reluctantly added a map of Mr. Kutsov’s to my package. “We’ll go that way.”
I told Jimmy about Mr. Kutsov. “He left this afternoon. After he left, I gathered things we’ll need. All we have to do is pick them up and get going. The sooner we get away from this town, the better.”
When we got to the house, we rode to the back.
“Hold the horses,” I said. “I’ll be out in just a second.”
We both dismounted and Jimmy took Ninc’s reins from me. I went up the steps and inside.
“Hello, Mia,” Mr. Kutsov said as I stepped inside.
I shut the door. “Hello,” I said.
“I came back,” he said. “I read your note.”
“Why did you come back?”
He said sadly, “It didn’t seem right to leave you here by yourself. I be sorry. I think I underestimated you. Be that another child from the Ships outside?”
“You’re not mad?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. I been’t angry. I think I understand. I couldn’t keep you. I thought I could, but I be a foolish old man.”
For some reason, I started crying and couldn’t stop. The tears ran down my face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“You see,” he said, “you even talk as you did before.”
The front door signal, a knocker, sounded then and Mr. Kutsov got up and moved to answer the door. A green-uniformed policeman stood there in the doorway, his face yellowish in the light of the single candle in the front room.
“Daniel Kutsov?” he asked.
Instinctively, I shrank back. I swiped at my face with my sleeve.
The policeman moved one step inside the house and said in a flat voice, “I have a warrant for your arrest.”
I watched them both in fear. Mr. Kutsov seemed to have forgotten that I was there. The policeman had a hard, young face, nothing like Sgt. Robards in any way except for the uniform. Sgt. Robards was a kind man, but there was no kindness at all in this one.
“To jail again? For my book?” Mr. Kutsov shook his head. “No.”
“It be nothing to do with any book, Kutsov. This be a roundup of all dissidents, ordered by Governor Moray. It be known that you be an Anti-Redemptionist. Come along.” He reached out and grasped Mr. Kutsov by the arm.
Mr. Kutsov shook loose. “No. I won’t go to jail again. It be no crime to be against stupidity. I won’t go.”
The policeman said, “You be coming whether you like or not. You be under arrest.”
I had known that Mr. Kutsov was old, for all that my father had lived several years longer than he had, and I had suspected that his mind was no longer completely firm, but now at last his age seemed to catch up with him. He backed away and said in a voice that shook, “Get out of my house!”
The policeman took another step inside. I was fascinated and frozen. Why exactly, I cannot say, but I couldn’t speak or move. I could only watch. It is the only time in my life that this has ever happened and since then I have felt I understood the episode on the ladder with Zena Andrus a little better. But in my case, it wasn’t just fear. Events got out of control and rushed past me, something like watching a moving merry-go-round and wanting to jump on, but never quite being able to decide to