His dark gaze cut at me sideways, skeptical.

“Indigo,” I insisted, and then the imp took a hold of me again. I reached out to his collar light and found the dials on the side. It took me a moment, but I figured out how to shift the color, and spun the wheel until it roughly matched the shade that had seemed to correspond to Indigo’s ‘name’. “See? Indigo.”

His lips thinned out. “Do you speak our language?”

I dialed his collar light a descending spectrum, violet to red: No. His eyes went narrow.

I released his collar light sharpish. “I just picked up a few things watching you. I wasn’t listening in.”

“How many languages do you speak?”

“Fluently? Kystrene and Sister. But I know a handful of others, enough to get around. I’m good at languages. I really can read Ameng, more or less. You need me to get through this ship.”

“We never needed you,” Indigo said flatly. “We could have hacked the computers or carved through the walls. Your speaking the language was simply convenient, not necessary. One wanted to find out what else you knew.”

Giving me enough rope to hang myself with, I supposed. And hanged myself I had. “Is that why you didn’t bring an expert from your own people along with?”

Indigo said, “Do you have any concealed weapons on you?”

“Like Benny? Uh, no.”

“Would you know how to use a weapon, if you were handed one?”

“I broke something’s skull with the flashlight,” I offered.

“Do not break the flashlight. If you see something, stay behind me. I will—” He cut off so abruptly it alarmed me; I looked at him only to see him staring into a darkened corner of the room, his fingers curling around the hilt of his knife.

“Get behind me,” he said.

I got up and stood behind him, grabbing the flashlight as I did. I held it so the beam illuminated the space in front of him. There was nothing in front of us that I could see, but there were cribs between us and the far wall, the bars casting concealing shadows.

A thought struck me. “Can you use that oil-slick as a barrier?” I whispered.

He was silent a moment, parsing what I had said. “The hull seal? It’s impermeable to air and heat, but sufficient kinetic force passes through. It’s a seal, not a shield.”

I wanted to ask what the threshold for kinetic force was—if the room was hot enough, or pressurized enough, would the air be able to pass through? If I touched the oil-slick lightly, would my finger go through, or did I have to punch through?—but before I could give voice to my questions, something struck my hand hard enough to knock the flashlight from it. It hit the floor and went dark.

Indigo moved like a whisper or a breeze, and something slammed into the floor with a bone-breaking sound.

I dropped to my knees and fumbled for the flashlight while Indigo darted around. Whatever was attacking him was human-sized, human-shaped. Something swung through the air with a hiss and I heard metal strike metal.