The creature sat completely still except for his tail, which swished slowly back and forth. Others stood around him, but it was clear that the short, powerfully muscled one with reddish-brown fur was who they attended. Matt wasn't startled to recognize him as the one he'd waved to before. Without hesitation, he strode forward, closely followed by his companions, and held his hand up once again in what was evidently a universal sign of greeting, even here. Adar positioned himself next to the seated figure who, Matt saw upon closer inspection, had been wounded many times. Numerous cuts and slashes were evident across his powerful frame, and they hadn't been bandaged. Instead, a clear, but slightly yellowish viscous fluid had been smeared into them. Matt wondered what it was, and he could almost feel Sandra's anxious desire to go to him and help. He wasn't sure the Lemurian needed any assistance.
For one thing, the dark eyes that held his seemed clear and focused and devoid of any distraction that excessive pain or fever might cause. Very solemnly, the creature raised its own hand and held it up in greeting. It spoke a few gravelly syllables and its mouth spread into a grin. Again, the expression went no further, but Matt sensed sincerity reflected in the dark pools of the Lemurian's eyes. The one named Adar gestured with evident respect.
"Keje-Fris-Ar," he said and bowed his head slightly. All the other Lemurians did the same. "U-Amaki ay Mi-Anakka ay Salissa," Adar added, and the dignity with which he spoke implied a lofty title.
"I expect he's the big bull around here," whispered Gray, more to the others than to Matt. "Other one's probably a witch doctor or pope or somethin'."
In spite of himself and the situation, not to mention the tension he felt just then, Matt almost burst out laughing at the Bosun's inappropriate comparison. "Chief," he said through clenched teeth, "are you trying to get us killed? If you are, I bet one more comment like that will do the job." Matt hadn't looked at him when he spoke, but Gray's voice sounded sincerely flustered.
"Uh . . . sorry, Skipper. But, I mean, we could recite nursery rhymes and they wouldn't know the difference."
"No, but we would, and I doubt they'd react well if we all started laughing right when they're naming their gods or something. So put a lid on it!"
"Oh . . . oh!! Aye, aye, Skipper!"
"They are quite incredibly ugly," commented Jarrik-Fas, Keje's kinsman and head of Salissa Home's active Guard. He spoke quietly to Adar while the two groups regarded one another. "They have almost no fur and their skins look pale and sickly."
Adar replied from the corner of his mouth. "They looked beautiful enough yesterday when they helped drive off the Grik. Do you not agree?"
Jarrik grunted, but there was agreement in the sound. "The gri-kakka were welcome, too, while they devoured our enemies. But we'd not have wanted them to linger overlong."
"True, but had they remained, there's no question the gri-kakka would have done so in hopes of devouring us as well. Here there is that question. If the Tail-less Ones desired to devour us, they could have done so already with the power they possess. Yet they come peacefully before us."
"Not un-armed, though," observed Jarrik. "I don't know what those things are that some of them carry, but they must be weapons. And yet they give the Sign of the Empty Hand while their hands are not empty."
Adar was silent, thinking. He knew Keje was listening to the words of his two most trusted advisors, even as he watched their visitors. "That's true," Adar said, "but perhaps among their kind, the sign is more a figurative thing than a literal one. Perhaps it means their hands are empty toward us but not toward all."
"And perhaps the sign means something else to them entirely," grumbled Keje, speaking for the first time. "But the one who seems to be their leader has an empty hand, and it's with him I must find some way to speak. Besides, would you have gone unarmed with me to their ship, Jarrik?"
Jarrik looked at the back of his leader's head. "No, lord, I would not," he admitted. "Not that it would matter in the face of their magic."
The Tail-less Ones muttered among themselves as well, and Adar wondered if their conversation ran along similar lines. The long weapons some carried had been placed on their shoulders, suspended by straps. That was encouraging at least. Nearly all of them were talking now, and a large one, with less fur than the others, talked the most. Their faces moved in a manner he had to conclude displayed emotion in some way, since they had no tails and they rarely blinked. Their strange little ears couldn't possibly convey any meaning.
Another spoke quite a lot as well, one that was smaller than the others and had very long fur on its head. The proportions of its anatomy indicated it was female, but it was difficult to tell with all the cloth they wore.
"The Scrolls make no mention of these creatures?" Keje asked, and shifted uncomfortably.
"I'm not sure, lord," Adar temporized. "Not specifically. There is the reference by Siska-Ta to the tail-less race that departed into the East long ago," he said grudgingly, "but their vessels were utterly different. They had sails, much like the Grik." He tilted his head back, remembering, and quoted a line copied from the First Scrolls taught to him as a youngling, which he now taught his apprentices. It was in the forgotten language of the ancient Scrolls themselves, and none save the Sky Priests bothered to learn it. They had to, since it was the language of the ancients in which the secrets of the stars themselves had passed to them.
"And upon the longest of the long days, when the Sun Brother was large and close in the sky, they freed their great ship from the bottom of the sea and sailed into the East, into the emptiness of the Eastern Sea." Adar smiled slightly with pride in the power of his memory. He read the Scrolls often, but he rarely spoke the words. He glanced at the Tail-less Ones and was surprised that they'd stopped speaking. All were looking at him with what he surmised to be very intent expressions. The one with so little fur stared with his mouth open wide. The one with the black fur and the darkest skin stepped near their leader and spoke into his small, misshapen ear. The leader, eyes wide, looked at the speaker with even more apparent amazement, but nodded, and the black-furred one turned to Adar.
"This said . . . speech . . . yours?" asked the creature in the ancient language of the Scrolls.
Keje lurched to his feet in shock, just as Adar hit the floor in a dead faint.
Matt stood in Walker's pilothouse staring uneasily at the huge, wounded ship to starboard. They were creeping along in a generally north-north-easterly direction, at less than four knots. He reckoned that was as fast as the Lemurian ship could go in this wind, with all her damage. The Bosun stood beside him, as did McFarlane and Larry Dowden. The rest of the bridge watch went about their duties, but the usual banter was absent as the destroyermen strained to hear their words. He knew all the details would spread as fast as if he announced it on the shipwide circuit, but he felt no particular reason to keep the conversation secret. Everyone would know soon enough anyway.
"Latin," murmured Gray. "Who would've ever thought it?" Matt nodded.
"But how?" asked McFarlane wonderingly. "I mean, how?"
"How . . . any of this, Spanky?" Matt gestured vaguely around. "It should make it easier to communicate, though I doubt many of the men know more Latin than Lemurian. But I don't know how any more than you do. That's one of the things maybe Bradford or Lieutenant Shinya will find out."
Courtney Bradford, Lieutenant Shinya, Lieutenant Tucker, and the rest of the security detail had remained behind on the Lemurian ship and would stay for the rest of the day, with orders to learn as much as they could and render any possible aid. Once it was clear that his people had nothing to fear, Matt had decided to return to Walker. There was little he could add to the discussions, since he knew virtually no Latin, and with their now common enemy abroad in such unprecedented numbers—an enemy they now had a name for—he didn't want to be separated from his ship if the Grik returned.