There were seven of them, each of them in dark uniforms of a material that could probably have stopped Leah’s bullets as efficiently as the indigo Minister’s gauntlet had done. They were each as sleek as arrows, as graceful as shadows, and their different-colored collar lights illuminated faces that had the same sort of serene androgynous beauty, like they had all been cast from a single mold.

The seventh and final Minister landed on the floor as silently as an owl finding a perch. Her collar-light was a purple so dark and intense it burned black, a brilliance my eyes felt without seeing. Ultraviolet.

When she had landed among us, the indigo Minister touched his collar light and flashed at her in the same shade of ultraviolet she wore.

The ultraviolet Minister rose from her crouch and turned to us. She had a young woman’s face, but hair the color of polished steel. I knew somehow that she was old, old and terrible, like this ancient nameless ship or the star outside on the verge of explosion.

“Wake them up.” Her voice was clear and sharp, like metal snapping.

A Minister with a green collar light injected Benny and Quint with something, no sympathy or sentiment in her face, then left.

Benny stirred beside me. Relief jolted through my chest, indistinguishable from pain. The Ministers walked through the room, examining walls, floor, ceiling, an old touchscreen that had gone dark with age. And they flashed their collar-lights, back and forth, bright and silent. The light language, spoken before my eyes. Numbly, I thought: I could learn what they are saying, if I live long enough to learn.

When Benny and Quint were awake enough again to sit up, weak and squinting on either side of me, the ultraviolet Minister spoke.

“I hear one of you fired a gun at number Two,” she said. “We do not fire guns on spaceships, especially ones as old as this. The hull is too fragile. A bullet could pierce it and cause a decompression. A Minister would survive that. A human would not.”

Benny and Quint were right beside me, but beneath the ultraviolet Minister’s cold gaze I felt alone. So what if they were next to me? Nothing could stop a Minister from doing what she liked.

“I have some questions to ask you,” the ultraviolet Minister said. “You will answer them honestly. How did you find this ship?”

And yet, if she was talking to us, that meant she wanted something from us.

So long as she wanted something from us—so long as she was willing to talk to us—that meant she was willing to keep us alive.

I said, “We picked up a transmission.”

“Who sent that transmission?”

“I… We don’t know,” I said.

“Who was the woman that Two watched run away into the wall?”

“We don’t know that, either.”

“Why did you come here?”

I hesitated. Quint was listening in. I didn’t know how Quint could trigger our implants to detonate, or if she even would at this point, but I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t let this Minister know about the politician. “To get salvage.”