Free Way Down Dark by J.P. Smythe Page B

harder than I thought, evidently), but I’m fine. I wash my face, and that makes it feel slightly better. It always does, without fail. My leg is worse but not nearly as bad as it could have been: a nasty graze, that’s all. I wash and dress it. It will heal.
    Around me, everybody is talking about the Lows; everybody has a story about what they did last night. The girl I saved wasn’t a one-off: Lows were everywhere last night. Every story ends the same: they killed or injured somebody, threw their things into the Pit. I listen to snippets of conversation about how they spilled over the edges of their sections, out into section IV or section VI, how they attacked somebody, ruined some berths. Agatha joins me after a while and snorts at what we overhear.
    “They think that the Lows’ incursions will end,” she says.
    “You think that they won’t?”
    “They’re marking their territory,” she tells me. “It’s expansion. It’s animal instinct.” I don’t understand her, and I don’t like to ask. “But you’re okay?” she asks.
    “I’m fine,” I say. I don’t tell her what happened. If she cared, she would already know.
    “You don’t look fine.” She glances at my chin, and I look down, hiding the mark from her. “You’ve been in a fight.”
    “I’m fine,” I repeat.
    “Your mother would be worried about you,” she replies, and that’s it: she walks off, leaving me there, no comeback, no way to argue my case.
    I take a break and leave the arboretum to stand on the gantry that runs back toward my berth. I watch the free people work to protect themselves against the Lows. The spaces between sections I and VI and between III and IV—the stairwells, the only physical gaps that keep them from our half of the ship—are being stockpiled with whatever people can find. They’re erecting jagged metal barriers and tearing up the few remaining stairs and ladders to make it as hard as possible for the Lows to get across to us. It’s happening on every floor that I can see.
    People are scared.
    This is the time of day when most Lows are asleep—most, but not all. Some are on watch, guarding, and I look at them in the distance, standing there, watching just as I am. They don’t seem even slightly concerned.
    Later, I’m working the vegetables—pulling turnips from the ground and cleaning them off, checking for mite rot and that they’re safe to eat. I stay at ground level because I’m hoping that I might see the girl from last night, and she works only the jobs that don’t require her to use her useless arm. Even though Agatha’s not with me, I picture myself arguing with her, and I get angry with her—and with myself—because of everything that’s not being said. I’m not saying what I did lastnight, because I’m scared of Agatha and of how she’ll react; and I’m not telling her that I’m angry with her because she’s breaking her promise to my mother that she would watch over me; and I’m not telling her that I miss her, because she won’t let me.
    Everything we harvest goes into the communal baskets, to be shared with all the free people. We all know that everyone who works in the arboretum steals some; that’s our reward for working so hard. Today I steal more vegetables than I should, when nobody is watching me. I need to get myself a new weapon, and that’s going to cost me.
    The weapon seller is blind and makes no attempt to hide it, which is almost refreshing. I’ve met blind people before, and they lie until they’re found out. They don’t want to be seen as weak, but this one doesn’t care even a little bit. He stands in his berth, knowing where everything is, avoiding eye contact. That’s not rare on Australia . You probably wouldn’t notice a thing until you actively tried to look at his eyes and saw that they were both missing. Instead, there are sunken black pockets with thick red scars on their outskirts. That’s a Bell trick: a thumb in both sockets, pushing