Ben was right. A few moments later, the thrumming roar sounded again from aft, followed by another one forward. No more heads appeared over the bulwarks, and toward the fantail they heard almost continuous splashes as the creatures there suddenly jumped over the side. Ben dropped the magazine out of his Colt and pushed down on the remaining cartridges with his thumb. Taking a few loose rounds from his pocket, he refilled the magazine and shoved it back into the pistol. Only his slightly trembling fingers betrayed the fact that he’d been nervous at all. Flipping the thumb safety up, he dropped the pistol back in its holster. “It was a tough fight, Maw, but we won,” he said softly.
Bekiaa, Isak, and Bekiaa’s remaining Marines slowly, carefully, worked their way back across the corpse-strewn deck. Only now, in the light of more lanterns, could Russ see that nearly all of them were at least lightly wounded. God, he thought, I hope Those damn Things’ claws aren’t poisonous!
“Double the guard for the remainder of the night,” Russ said. “No wounded, though. If you even got a scratch, get it looked at now. Pass the word.” He sighed. “First priority tomorrow is getting the generator up and running; power every bulb on this bucket we can get to light up! We need to send a message to Tolson too. Tell them we need reinforcements and the rest of our salvage crew…” He paused. “But what if those slimy devils gang up on the barges? Hell. Lieutenant Monk’ll be in charge of the next bunch. He’ll have to make sure they’re ready for anything, that’s all.”
“What about the wounded, Cap-i-taan Chaapelle?” Bekiaa asked.
“I already said I want them looked at,” Russ repeated tiredly.
“No, I mean the ‘enemy’ wounded.”
“Maybe somebody ought’a throw some water on ’em,” Gilbert said, looking at the half dozen “frog-lizards” gasping in the meager shade offered by one of the crates. “They’re gonna dry out like a smushed toad in the road.”
Isak shrugged. “Let ’em. Nasty bastards!” Isak was missing a patch from his scruffy beard on the left side of his face, courtesy of one of the sticky tongues the night before. He also had a bandage around his left hand where a couple of claws had “barely” touched him. He hadn’t even felt the “scratch,” but it nearly severed two of the tendons in his hand. A little polta paste and the company corpsman, or “corpscat”-whatever-had absolutely, positively assured him he’d be okay. Maybe. Twenty-odd Marines had worse injuries, and three had died. Two of the dead would be burnt in the Lemurian way. One would be buried, the “Navy” way, per his dying wish. All their names would be added to the growing tablet monument on the parade ground in Baalkpan. The dead frog-lizards had been thrown over the side.
“What’re you two doin’ here?” Laney snarled. “I been lookin’ all over for ya. We gotta raise steam today and check for leaks.”
“You ain’t my boss no more, Laney,” Isak declared. “Lieutenant Monk’s over all of us. Far as I’m concerned, until he gets here-today, I hope-we’re on ‘official terms’ only. I don’t even gotta talk to you ’cept in the line o’ dooty.”
“This is duty, you moron. Cap’n Chapelle’s orders. ’Sides, we’re all still snipes, and I’m King Snipe… unless you want to strike for the job.”
Isak took a step back. Laney probably had a hundred pounds on him. “I ain’t goin’ down there where them tongue-grabbin’ buggers can get me,” he insisted. He held up his hand. “And besides, my best flipper’s wounded.”
“Since when are you left-handed? Don’t worry about it. A squad o’ Marines has already been below, checking stuff out.” He grinned savagely. “Found some more crates of them tommy guns too. Anyway, all the frog-lizards is gone-and there weren’t none in the fireroom anyway.”
They heard a splash near the “prisoners” and turned to see that someone else had had the same idea as Gilbert. Chapelle, Bekiaa, Jannik, Moe, and Sammy were standing near the dripping prisoners. Mallory was there too, but keeping his distance. Probably under orders. He had his pistol out, though.
“Oh, well,” Isak sighed. “Since I ain’t gonna get to watch them bastards desiccate, I might as well get some work done.”
“Now what?” Bekiaa asked.
“You said you got the ‘feeling’ you might have communicated with them last night. Somehow. What made you think that?”
“I don’t know if I ‘thought’ it, really,” Bekiaa replied. Her tail twitched irritation, but from her blinks Chapelle knew she was irritated with herself. “Whatever it was, the feeling was gone as soon as Laay-nee started shooting.”
“Shooting make no difference,” Moe said. “They come to kill, not talk. No can talk. They come all over ship. Even we talk to these”-he indicated the area aft where his group had fought-“we not talk to others… ah… for-ord.”
“He’s right,” Chapelle said. “Maybe you startled them, or even got the group aft wondering a little, but they hit the guards forward at the same time. One way or another, the fight was on. There was nothing you could have done. They did come to kill us.” He paused, looking at the creatures. The dark color he’d noticed the night before was a brownish purple and the light was a yellowish orange. Weird, but probably well suited to the dingy water they lived in. They wore no clothes and had no implements, no ornaments of any kind. There was no physical evidence that they harbored any intelligence whatsoever. But last night they’d employed what could have been a damned effective tactic, and their “operation” had been well coordinated. “Throw some more water on them,” he said, and when it was done, he watched the creatures’ reactions closely. Four of the six didn’t seem badly injured, and they continued staring at him with their weird, almost fluorescent eyes, but it seemed to him that the water did give them some relief. They weren’t gasping as much, anyway.
“I wonder,” Russ said quietly. There were still a few dead monsters on the fo’c’sle that hadn’t been dumped yet. He called for one. When it arrived, carried between two disgust-blinking Marines, he had them lay it down in front of the prisoners. They showed no reaction, but of course there were several weapons pointed at them. “Jannik,” Russ said, “I want you to poke your sword in that thing’s tongue and make it flop around. Make it look like it’s striking.”
Jannik looked at him and blinked, but then did as he was told.
“Ben, shoot it in the head.”
For a moment, Mallory didn’t think he’d heard right, then he grinned. As soon as Jannik stepped back, he blasted away one of the still dully glowing eyes. The report of the pistol and what it did to the corpse caused the creatures to flinch, but that was all.
“Now, Jannik, grab its arm and make like it’s clawing the deck.” He did so, understanding beginning to dawn. Again, after he’d done it for a moment, Russ had Ben shoot it again, nearly blowing the dead skull apart this time.
Taking a breath, Russ pulled his own pistol out and pointed it at the creatures. He took a couple of steps forward, within easy range of their tongues, and squatted down to face them.
“Are you nuts?” Ben exclaimed, pointing his Colt, ready to fire if any of them even twitched.
“I think I know what I’m doing,” Russ said. Still staring into the closest huge yellow eyes, he pointed the pistol away. For an instant, while the thing’s eyes followed the pistol, he figured he’d just committed suicide, but then the eyes came back to rest on his and he knew it understood. “Well,” he said, a little shakily. “Bring some polta paste. Sammy, let them see you smear some on your arm before you try to put any on them.”
“You think they’ll let him?” Ben asked. Sammy was clearly keenly interested in his answer as well.
“Yeah. Like I said, let them see you put it on your wound, then point at one of theirs. Do it slow and gentle. Easy does it.”
“Easy does it, you betcha!” Sammy said sincerely.
After the wounded creatures were successfully doctored, Ben stepped over to Chapelle. “So. Now what? We’ve gotten them to let us smear some ooze on their oozy skins. You think that’ll make a difference?”