Among the Nameless Stars

around, some playing cards or talking, others being served drinks and food by children Kai recognized from the metal-box village.
    At the head of the room, in a great chair Kai guessed Pen wanted to look like a throne, sat the man himself. Kai did his best not to limp as he crossed the long room to stand before him, and to show no reaction at all to the slow, vicious smile that spread across Pen’s face as he approached.
    “Ah, the mechanic. Come at last.”
    “Good morning, sir,” said Kai, his head held high.
    Pen snapped his fingers in the air. “What do you want, boy?”
    “I’ve come about the job you offered me.” As Kai watched, a young woman approached Pen’s chair, holding a sheaf of paper in her hands.
    “Yes. The job.” Pen’s smile widened. “How many days ago was that?”
    Kai swallowed. He was so hungry. “Ten, sir.”
    “Ten.” The man stood and came close to Kai, looming over him. Kai refused to shrink away.
    “Ten wasted days. What a shame, don’t you think?”
    Kai nodded.
    Pen’s fist connected with Kai’s jaw.

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    He was thrown to the floor, landing hard on his sore knee. His vision went fuzzy, but he swallowed his gasp of pain and blinked away the tears swimming in his eyes. As soon as he could, he stood again.
    And again, Pen knocked him to the floor.
    This time, Kai stayed down, coughing and rubbing his jaw. Pen hauled him up and punched him again. Kai dropped like a stone, and Pen kicked him hard, twice in the stomach, and then, when he rolled into a ball, on his back, on his legs, wherever he could reach. Kai cowered, covering his head with his hands.
    The room was silent. Blood roared in Kai’s ears, and he fought to keep from crying, or grunting, or screaming for mercy. He’d never been beaten before. Once, he was kicked by a horse in the barn, but no foreman and certainly none of the Norths had ever lifted a hand against him. He was not prepared for this.
    He was not prepared for any of it.
    After a long time, Kai heard Pen’s voice again, but this time from a distance, so he knew the man had returned to his chair. “Ten strikes, boy. One for every day you defied me. I hope I won’t have to repeat it.”
    Kai unrolled himself and struggled to stand. It took longer than he would have liked, and when he did, he saw that every eye in the room was upon him. He opened his mouth to reply, and pain shot through his swollen, bleeding jaw. “No, sir.”
    Pen gestured to the woman at his side. She was young and slight, and she stood hunched over the paper she held as if she, too, would be beaten if she moved a muscle without Pen’s say-so.
    “This is your contract. You can sign it with an X if you can’t write your name. We have plenty of witnesses.”

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    Kai took a deep, painful breath, hoping he hadn’t refractured his ribs. “What does it say?”
    Pen sneered. “The usual. You work for me and only for me until I say otherwise.”
    The woman approached, holding out the papers to him. Kai glanced down. That’s not all the contract said. It also specified that he’d live in the housing Pen owned and buy his food from the shops that Pen’s workers ran. He would bet that the prices were higher than the normal, if not higher than his salary, which—Kai checked—was not, in fact, the same as what he’d been paid by the tailor.
    But what good did knowing that do him? Kai had zero negotiating power. He was starving.
    He was weak. He had never learned to fight, had never needed to. Even if he did tell Pen he knew the contract was unfair, he had no ability to get it changed. The fact that he was literate was the only secret Kai had left. He wasn’t going to reveal it unless he had to.
    “I’m sorry,” the girl whispered to him as she handed him a pen. She held her other, ink-stained hand protectively over her belly. Now that she was close, he could see the roundness she tried to hide beneath her clothes. She was pregnant.
    A pregnant scribe, working for Pen. What were the odds?
    “Are you Bess?” Kai asked softly.
    She blinked in surprise. “Yes.”
    Kai closed his eyes for a long moment. So there was no escape. Not even if he wanted to go back home, like Bess had once hoped to. If Pen wanted him, Pen would have him, or he’d end up dead, like Sid.
    “Your letter got to Jin in the fire fields,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
    Then he signed the contract with