Into the Storm (28 page)

What set the tall one apart, aside from his height, was that he was covered entirely in a dark purple robe with large stars sewn across the shoulders, and the long-tailed hood was pulled tight around his face so that only his piercing gray eyes could be seen. The creatures nearest him seemed more alert than the rest, more detached from the moment, and they had a protective, proprietary air about them. Because of this, and his dress, Matt took him for a leader, or at least an authority figure of some kind. Gray clambered over the rail to join him and as he did, he put his hand on one of the enormous backstays supporting the center tripod. He took it away and looked at it. The stay was coated with thick black tar. He arched an eyebrow at his captain and Matt nodded. He’d seen it too. He stepped forward and the two of them, the robed figure and the naval officer, quietly faced one another while the rest of the party boarded. All the while, there was silence. Matt couldn’t even fall back on Navy custom and salute their flag, for there was none, at least at present, but maybe . . . maybe that didn’t matter. Tradition was tradition, and he expected even if they didn’t understand it, they would recognize it as such. Maybe they would appreciate the respect that went with it.

Abruptly, he pivoted to his right, facing aft, and snapped a sharp salute. Then he turned to the robed figure and saluted him as well.

“Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy, United States Navy. I request permission to come aboard, sir.”

The Lemurian blinked rapidly with what might have been surprise, and his lips stretched into what looked for all the world like a grin. Matt held the salute a moment longer, and then on impulse slowly lowered his hand until he held it, palm outward, toward the creature in the purple robe. Very deliberately, it pulled the hood from its face. It was still “grinning” broadly, although the expression didn’t extend beyond its mouth. Matt suspected that, like cats, their faces weren’t made to display emotions as humans did. The “grin,” if that’s what it was, spoke volumes, however, and now others nearby grinned too. To the amazement of the humans, the one in the robe carefully imitated Matt’s salute and held up his hand as well. Matt heard a gasp behind him, as well as Gray’s gravelly chuckle.

“Permission granted, Skipper,” he said quietly.

The Lemurian clasped both his hands to his chest and spoke: “Adar.”

Bradford pushed his way next to the captain. “Upon my word! Do you suppose he means
he
is Adar, or that’s the name for his people?”

Matt sighed. “I was about to . . . ask him that, Mr. Bradford. Please, let’s have no more outbursts. It might confuse them and I’m confused enough for us all right now.” He pointed at the creature. “Adar?” he asked.

The Lemurian blinked twice and, if anything, his grin grew broader. He spread his hands out from his sides and bowed.

Matt clasped his own hands to his chest and said, “Matthew Reddy.”

The creature struggled to wrap his mouth around the unfamiliar sounds. Then he made an attempt.

“Maa-tyoo Riddy.”

Matt grinned back at him. “Pretty good.” He turned and proceeded to name those who accompanied him, and then pointed across the water where the destroyer kept station. She really was a sight, he reflected. Streaks of rust covered her sides and the patched battle damage was made conspicuous by the fresher paint. The lizard firebomb had scorched a large section of her hull just aft of her number, and the paint was bubbled and flaking. Most of the crew was on deck at the moment too, watching them. The tattered Stars and Stripes fluttered near the top of the short mast aft.

“USS
Walker,
” he said.

A respectful silence ensued that lasted while all the Lemurians gazed at his battered ship. Adar’s grin went away and he somehow radiated solemnity when he spoke again.

“Waa-kur.”

He blinked rapidly and gestured toward an opening in the large deckhouse behind him. He hesitated uncertainly, looking back, then strode purposefully through it. The other creatures cleared a lane. Apparently, he expected them to follow. Matt looked at the Bosun, who shrugged, and he glanced at the others and caught Sandra’s eye. He shrugged too, and strode after the purple-robed figure, followed closely by his companions. Silva made a half-strangled, incredulous sound. Matt looked back.

“What . . . ?” Then he saw it too. Suddenly, there was no doubt Adar was male. For the first time—driving home how distracted they were—they realized many of the Lemurians staring with open curiosity were also openly, glaringly—very humanly—female. Except for bits of armor, none wore much more than a kind of skirt, or kilt. Supremely practical, since their tails made other types of clothing inconvenient, but few tunics were worn by anyone. Furry breasts of a shape and proportion entirely, fondly, familiar (except for the fur, of course) unself-consciously jutted at them from all directions. Not surprisingly, Silva was the first to notice.

“Oh, my God!” squeaked Newman.

“Fascinating!” breathed Bradford.

“Not unusual,” said Sandra, a little sharply, Matt thought, and he saw her cheeks were pink. “Even ‘back home’ it’s not unusual at all for primitive people to go around like . . . this.”

“Way too ‘unusual,’ far as I’m concerned,” whispered Felts, and Sandra’s cheeks went darker.

“Silence!” growled Gray with less than normal vehemence. Clearing his throat, he went on, “Quit gawkin’ at their dames! You want ’em to eat us? Pick up yer eyeballs. They’re
critters
, for God’s sake!”

Matt coughed. “Not ‘critters,’ and not too ‘primitive’ to take offense, so keep your eyes”—he looked straight at Silva—“and your hands to yourselves. That’s an order!”

They stooped to enter the doorway, but inside was a much larger chamber than expected. It spanned the entire “ground” floor of the tower and the ceiling was as high as a college gym. Tapestries of coarse but ornately woven fibers decorated the walls, and large overstuffed pillows lay about the room in groups. It was a scene of considerable opulence compared to the scorched and bloodstained exterior. But even here, the scent of burnt wood and charred flesh and fur was all-pervading. Matt wondered how long that dreadful smell would linger like a shroud. In the center of the hall, the ceiling opened up to allow a strange-looking tree to rise, far above their heads. The only trees he knew were live oaks, cedars, and mesquite, so he couldn’t tell if it was more like a palm tree or a pine. But whichever, the thick, strangely barked trunk rose ten or fifteen feet before it branched into stubby limbs with delicate, greenish-gold palmated leaves. He looked at it curiously, but was more intrigued by the shape of another Lemurian seated on a stool at a small table nearby.

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-northeasterly 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.