Among the Nameless Stars

antenna and aimed it in the right direction. There’d be one shot at this.
    Though several bystanders looked over in curiosity, Sophia Innovation did not so much as turn her head. With her luxurious clothing and distant air, she acted more like a Luddite lord than any Post he’d ever met.
    Kai supposed that’s what happened when you never knew anything but wealth and status. He would never understand it, the way he would never understand what led Elliot to the choices she made. It wasn’t just that she was a Luddite and he was a Post. It was that she was born with a place in the world and he was not.
    Sophia Innovation was also a Post, but she didn’t invent her own name. She was born with it.
    Like a Luddite, she was born with everything. He’d only recently realized how lucky he was among Posts, to have had a close relationship with a father who loved him, to have learned to read and write, and to have been raised in a safe and gentle place. But his position had been fragile. It depended entirely on whether his father survived, on whether Kai remained a highly skilled slave on the North Estate. He knew that now.
    Sophia’s position was certain. Even if her explorer parents perished, she’d have their money, and the protection of the Luddites who were her family’s patrons. There wasn’t one Post in ten thousand who had a life like hers.

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    Kai hadn’t even realized how tightly he was gripping his device until the antenna snapped off in his hands. Dismayed, he turned his attention to the box. “Oh, no,” he mumbled. “No no no no no no no.”
    The girl at last turned in his direction. “What’s the matter?”
    He looked up, into her unfocused eyes, and guilt slammed through him. Of course she wore as much of the fuzzy velvet and precious, smooth silk as she could. Of course she didn’t care if the colors clashed. Of course she wasn’t paying attention to him.
    Sophia Innovation was blind.

    Among the Nameless Stars by Diana Peterfreund
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Ten
    In his life, Kai had only known two blind people. One was a Reduced boy on a neighboring estate who’d somehow survived infancy. Unable to labor in the fields and unable to learn the hand signs that would help him communicate with others, he was confined to the kitchens, doing what little tasks he could—like pitting cherries or shelling peas. Another was an old Post friend of his father’s who’d lost his sight with age. He’d been sent to the healing house, where all sick and wounded North Posts and Reduced went, and hadn’t survived another winter. One never lasted long in the healing house, with all the sick people shoved in together to fend for themselves. Even Kai’s father, Mal, had barely lasted a few months after his stroke, despite the medicine Elliot had sneaked in.
    But here was Sophia Innovation, a young, free Post, rich and pretty and living the life that, a few short moments ago, Kai had envied with all of his heart. Here she was in a crush of spectators, all come to watch her father compete in a race that she could never see.
    “I—” Kai stuttered. “I broke something. An antenna.”
    “Oh.” Her brow furrowed over her blind eyes. “What do you need one of those for?”
    “It’s a long story. But I have nothing to fix it with—not here. And I —” His voice betrayed him then, breaking slightly. “I was really counting on it,” he finished weakly.
    She slipped off one of her velvet gloves and picked at a bandage wrapped around her index finger. After a moment, she peeled it off and offered it to him. “Does this help at all? I’m sorry it’s used.”
    He took it gingerly from her fingers. “Thank you, I think it might.” He wrapped the two pieces of the antenna back together, then tested the connection. “Will your finger be all right?”

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    “Oh, yes. It was just a pinprick, you know. I have … a condition, and my mother gives me blood tests. My name is Sophia.”
    “I’m Kai.”
    “Young man?” Kai looked up to see Mrs. Innovation peering over at the two of them. “Can I help you?”
    Yes she could. She could help him in a dozen ways. In a hundred thousand. She and her husband were the only people in the enclave who could help him. He’d come this far to get their attention, and now he had it. Kai stood as straight as possible and swallowed his fear.
    “I think your daughter already has,” he said.