Indigo stood up. He stepped into me—I got a knee to the face—and slammed his heel down hard on my jacket.

His toes came dangerously close to stepping on a fragile part of me. I shifted back as far as I could without losing my seal on the jacket, and let this fearsome immortal warrior, this god-like killer of planets, stomp a swarm of mechanical bees to death between my legs.

When my jacket ceased moving on its own, Indigo took a step back. He nodded at me like two warriors meeting over a battlefield. I tried to picture Number One hopping up and down on nanomachines until they shattered, and failed.

Distantly, like it was coming from several rooms away, I heard an ominous buzzing start up.

More Dreamer-bots. It had to be. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “This ship is bullshit.”

“How much of my language did you pick up, traveling with my people?” Indigo asked, low and quick. He was good; he almost didn’t sound recriminatory.

I briefly debated playing either dumb or smart. The low, threatening hum of an approaching murder swarm tipped me in favor of honesty. “I can say yes and no, stop and go, but that’s about it. I have some ideas about honorifics and question-phrasing, though.”

“Show me,” Indigo said.

I used my flashlight to speak to him: a quick flutter, a longer hold. Stop. And then a bright held flash: Go. “I can’t say yes and no without colors.”

“If you dim the brightness, the meaning will come across. Twist the ring around the head of the flashlight to brighten or dim the light. I would translate that first light as wait and that second light as come, but you’re essentially correct, though off in the,” he paused like he was thinking, “accent. We may need to communicate silently. Use those signals if we do, and follow me.”

He rose to his feet but remained hunched down, offering me his arm, black gauntlet, hand curled into a fist. I grabbed my jacket with one hand and used Indigo to pull myself up, glittering shards of broken nanobots snowing down onto the floor.

The humming swelled, rising to a threatening pitch. Getting close. Something told me that while Indigo might be able to lure a handful of the Dreamer-bots away from me, we’d be in real trouble if a proper swarm found us. I picked up the flashlight, checked to make sure I had tablet and water bottle and knife in the pockets of the jacket I held, and followed Indigo as quietly as I could away from the crushed Dreamer-bots. I only hoped Indigo knew where he was going; every room on the Nameless was starting to look pretty much the same.

I bet Lantern-Eyes could find her way around no problem, though.

Indigo paused right before the next room, where a dim red glow permeated the air, and drew his sword. From behind us, I heard that soft, susurrating hum, our whispering pursuit. I grabbed Indigo’s arm in question. He touched his collar, seemingly without thinking about it, and flashed a word at me that I didn’t know: a slow brighten, a slow dim.