I follow, clutching my little knife for all the good it will do.

  The trappist is on the ceiling, laying more gooey sand to repair the hole I made in its trap. Mercy's entrance gets its attention and it drops straight down, twisting in mid-air to land neatly on its feet. This is my first chance to get a good look at the thing -- it's somewhere between roach and centipede, with six legs and a multi-segmented body ending in a weirdly feathery tail. Two scythe-like claws flank its complicated mouthparts, perfect for carving prey into chunks for easy ingestion.

  Mercy goes straight for it, shockingly fast, her footsteps kicking up huge sprays of sand. Both her hands are blades now. As she gets close, the trappist slashes with its claws, but Mercy avoids them with a fluid twist and jams her blades into the underside of its carapace.

  They don't break through, skittering off the insect's chitinous armor. I wince. A second later the creature's writhing body slams into her and sends her rolling across the sand. She pops back up near the wall, skidding to a stop, and seems to ponder the problem for a moment.

  I'm seized by two contradictory urges. One is to help her, run in with my knife and start stabbing whatever I can. The other is to flee, to use the time before her inevitable demise to get out of here and start running. Neither, unfortunately, is practical -- my blade is too small to bother the trappist, and there's no way up without a long, hard climb. My hands clench so tight my knuckles whiten.

  she will be fine, says Gray, who still can't read my mind but apparently can see my body language.

  The trappist skitters back and forth, deciding what to make of this small but ferocious creature. Mercy gives a decisive nod and charges it again with her iconic battlecry.

  ""

  This time, when the insect lunges, she jumps, a balletic flip that takes her over the scything claws and gnashing mouthparts. She lands adroitly on the thing's back, arms spread, then drops hastily to her knees as it starts to thrash wildly. Her feet grow long spikes and she kicks into the seam between two backplates, embedding herself like a parasite. Then, both hands lengthening into butcher's blades, she starts to carve.

  I have a third useless feeling -- a moment of sympathy for the trappist. Mercy cuts around the edges of an armored section, levering it up and delving into the soft meat underneath. The bug's thrashing gets wilder and wilder, slamming against the walls in a frenzy, but she's burrowed too deep to dislodge. Finally it collapses, limbs twitching violently. Only Mercy's legs are visible, her upper half completely inside the hollow she's carved into the creature's body. It gradually stills, and soon the only motion is the wiggle of Mercy's butt as she works and the streamers of gore that spray over her.

  "I think it's dead!" I say. I mean to shout it, but I find myself unaccountably shy about attracting Mercy's attention. I clear my throat and take a deep breath. "Mercy! You can stop!"

  She wriggles free and sits up, slathered in off-white fluid and bits of torn meat, beaming a happy smile. "Murder!"

  "Yes, um, well done with the murder! Come on back."

  "Murder." She nods and slides down the side of the trappist's corpse, hands and feet returning to their usual form. Trotting over, she hops on the sand in front of me, for all the world like a pet looking for praise.

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  "Well done. Thank you," I tell her. A bit of tube drooling white goo rolls slowly down her shoulder and falls onto the sand with a plop. "You're a mess."

  "Murder," Mercy agrees.

  Baths and towels being somewhat lacking, I take off my prison shirt to wipe her down. The white goo is so sticky that it doesn't help much, but it's better than nothing.

  you're wasting time, Gray says. she doesn't care if she's dirty.

  Mercy actually seems happy with being cleaned, raising her arms agreeably when I ask. I glance back at the skull.

  "Have you thought about how we're going to catch up to the cruiser, talking skull? They weren't going flat-out, but it's still a lot faster than I can walk."

  mercy will carry you.

  I eye her small frame. At this point, I'm not going to disbelieve it. "First we need to get out of here."

  she can help with that, too.

  I finish cleaning. My shirt is a ruined mess, but I'm loath to throw it away; it's not like I have many possessions. After a moment's thought, I turn it inside out and tie it up to make a bag for Gray and the knife.

  "Sorry if you get a little gooey," I tell the skull.

  i am keeping a list of these indignities.

  "Really?"

  no.

  I pause after finishing the knot, wiggling my fingers. "So I don't need to be touching you for you to talk?"

  not anymore. your bond with mercy makes it easy for me to focus on you with or without the skull's proximity.

  "So you're just … watching me? All the time?"

  yes.

  "That's a little Twelve-damned creepy."

  i imagine.

  I sigh and turn back to Mercy.

  "Can you help me get out of here?" I point at the broken ceiling. "Up. We need to get up there."

  "Mur…der," Mercy says thoughtfully, gauging distances. She looks back at me and nods. "Murder."

  "Okay, let's --"

  She lunges toward me, and I instinctively flinch away. To my surprise, she pauses, brows knotting. "Murder?"

  "No, it's fine. Sorry. Just be gentle, all right?"

  Mercy nods again and comes toward me more slowly. She bends at the knees, presses herself against me, and wraps her arms around my waist.

  "Um." I look down at the top of her bald head. "What are you --"

  "Mur," she says, then takes a deep breath, ""

  She jumps, taking me with her. It's like being yanked into the air by a docking crane. I give a helpless screech as we shoot upward, clearing the rim of the pit and arcing toward the dunes beyond. I grab Mercy's shoulders a second before impact, and we hit in a spray of sand, rolling over and over. When we come to a halt with me on top, I flop over with a groan, leaving us both on our backs looking up at the sky.

  My poor, abused body is registering its protests. In addition to my abraded face (ow) and bruised shoulder (ow), it is finally insisting on what I've been trying to ignore: we are very thirsty and would like some water now, please. My lips are dry and gritty with sand, and my eyes feel like they've been dipped in molasses.

  "Are you all right?" Stupid question, possibly, unless the answer I'm looking for is 'murder'. I lever myself up on one elbow and look down at Mercy.

  She's staring upward, eyes very wide, lips parted in silent astonishment. I wonder how long it's been since she's been outside. If she's been outside. What it might feel like, to finally see the universe.

  I remember a night full of stars, and a woman's hand on a boy's cheek, wet with tears.

  Gray would probably say I'm wasting my time imagining how she feels.

  "Those are the stars," I tell her. The nightsun is still near the horizon, a ball of cool blue light. The constellations twinkle against the black, the closer stars showing discs while the furthest are only pinpricks of light. I point to the dimmest of all, a faint spot directly overhead with no companions. "That's Axis, for Is-that-Is, the First. Those two are Heaven and Hell, for the Second, Judge-of-all. The three green ones are for She-who-watches, and --"

  "Stars," Mercy says, eyes shining.