“They’re coming!” Dessie had been waiting impatiently by the waves’ sweep, and now, heedless of the water curling about her legs, she ran forward, holding out her hands to the merchild who threshed up a fountain of spray in its eagerness to meet her. Hand in hand they pattered to dry land where the merchild shrank shyly against the little girl when it saw the men.
But Dessie was smiling, and said importantly, “Ssssat and Ssssutu are coming now.”
Dard hid his surprise. How could Dessie so confidently mouth those queer names—how did she know? From all his questioning and Kimber’s and Kordov’s and Carlee’s—last night, they had only been able to elicit that the “sea people thought into her head.” They had been forced to accept the concept of telepathy—which could be possible with an undersea race.
So, deciding that Dessie’s interpretation might be needed that day, they had schooled her in her part.
Ssssat and Ssssutu—if those were the proper designations of the mermen who were borne in with the next wave came ashore. They both carried the barbed spears and wore long bone daggers at the belts which were their only articles of clothing. Without a sound they seated themselves on the seaside of the gifts, facing Dard, regarding him and the other Terrans with owlish solemnity.
“Dessie!” Dard called, and she came trotting to him.
“Do I give the presents now, Dard?”
“Yes. Try to make them understand that we want to be friends.”
She picked out two of the bowls, put an apple and a handful of grain into each, and carried them over to set down before the envoys.
The one on Dard’s right held out his hand and Dessie, without hesitation, laid hers, palm down, upon it. For a long moment they made contact. Then both mermen relaxed their tense watchfulness. They put their spears behind them and one ran his hands through the fur on his head and shoulders where it was fast drying into rainbow dotted fluff.
“They want to be friends, too,” Dessie reported. “Dardie, if you put your hand on theirs, then they can talk to you. They don’t talk with their mouths at all. This is Ssssat—“
Dard got to his feet slowly so as not to alarm the mermen and crossed the strip of shore until he could sit face to face. Then he held out his hand. Cool and damp the scaled digits and palm of the other lay upon his warmer flesh. And, Dard almost broke the contact in his surprise and awe, for the other was talking to him! Words, ideas, swept into his mind—some concepts so alien he could not understand. But bit by bit he pieced together much of what the other was striving to tell him.
“Big ones, land dwellers, we have watched you—with fear. Fear that you have come to lead us once more into the pens of darkness—“
“Pens of darkness?” Dard echoed aloud and then shaped a mental query.
“Those who once walked the land here—they kept the pens of darkness where our fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ “ …—the concept of a long stretch of past time trailed through the Terran’s receptive mind—“were hatched. The days of fire came and we broke forth and now we shall never return.” There was stern warning, an implied threat, in that.
“We know nothing of the pens, nor do we threaten you,” Dard thought slowly. “We, too, have broken out of pens of darkness, he added with sudden inspiration.
“It is true that you are not the color or shape of those who made the pens. And you have shown only friendship. Also you killed the flying death which would have slain my cub. I believe that you are good. Will you stay here?””
Dard pointed inland. “We build there.”
“Do you wish the fruits of the river?” came next.
“The fruits of the river?” Dard was puzzled until a dear picture of one of the red spider plants formed in his mind. Then he shook his head to reinforce his unspoken denial.
“We may then come and harvest as we have always done? And,” there was a shrewd bargaining note in this, “perhaps you will see that the flying death does not attack us, since your slaying powers are greater than ours?”
“We like the dragons no better than you do. Let me speak with the others now—“ Dard broke contact and reported to the Terran committee.
“Sure!” Santee’s jovial boom could not be kept to a whisper and at the sound, or its vibration, both mermen started. “Let ‘em come in and get their spiders. I’ll watch for dragons.”
“Fair enough,” Kimber agreed. “We don’t care for the dragons any more than they do.”
Before the hour had passed cordial relations had been established, and the mermen promised to return early the next morning with their harvest crew. Carrying the gifts they waded out into the sea, Ssssat’s cub riding on his father’s shoulder. The little one waved back at Dessie until all three disappeared under water.
“Those pens they spoke of,” Kordov mused later that night when they discussed the meeting in an open convocation of all the voyagers. “They must have been imprisoned at one time by the city builders and escaped during or after the war. But surely they weren’t domestic animals.”
“More likely slaves,” suggested Carlee Skort. “Perhaps they were forced to do undersea work where landsmen could not venture. They are coming tomorrow? Well, why can’t we all go down and meet them? Maybe we can help in the harvesting and prove our good will.”
The clamor which interrupted and supported her was indicative of the enthusiasm of the rest. Dessie’s merpeople had caught the imaginations of all. And Dard believed that the Terrans would have gone to meet them in any case.
Early as the colonists came down to the river bank the next morning, the merpeople were there before them, wading along the shallows of the slowly flowing stream, sweeping between them woven basket nets, as fine as sieves, to skim up the red fungi. Merchildren paddled in and out, and a line of spear-bearing males patrolled the shoreline with attention for the cliff perches of the dragons.
They stopped all these activities as the Terrans came into sight, and when they began again it was with a certain self- consciousness. Dard and the others who had been on the seashore the day before went up to meet the sea people, their hands outstretched.
A party of the armed males split off to face them. In the center of their group was one portly individual who, though there was no way save by size for the humans to guess at merman ages, gave the impression of dignity and authority.
Dard touched palms with the leading warrior.
“This is Aaaatak, our “Friend of Many.” He would communicate with your “Giver of Law.’”
“Giver of Law.” Kordov came the nearest to being the leader of the colonists. Dard beckoned to the First Scientist.
“This is their chieftain, sir. He wants to speak to our leader.”
“So? I can not call myself leader,” Kordov met the hands of the older merman, “but I am honored to speak to him.” As Kordov and the merchief clasped hands the rest of the colonists came up, timidly. But an hour later merpeople and humans mingled with freedom. And when the Terran party set out food, the mermen brought in their own supplies, flat baskets of fish and aquatic plants, kept in water until time to eat. They accepted the golden apples eagerly, but kept away from the fires where their hosts cooked the fish they offered in return. Although each fire had a ring of amazed spectators, standing at a safe distance to gaze at the wonder.
Three dragons that dared to invade were brought down with rays, to the savage exultation of the merpeople. They asked to inspect the weapons and returned them regretfully when they understood that such arms would not last in their water world.
“Though,” Cully said thoughtfully, when this had been explained, “I don’t see why they couldn’t use some of the metal forged by Those Others. It seems to resist rust and erosion on land—it might in the water.”
“Nordis!”
The urgency in that call brought Dard away from the engineer to the small group of Kimber, Kordov, the mer-chief and several others. Harmon was there, as well as Santee, and some techneers.
“Yes, sir?”
“You’ve seen the lizards, ask Oaaatak if those are what he is trying to tall us about. We can’t get the right impression of what he means and it seems to be vitally important.” Kordov edged back for the boy to take his place. Dard clasped the readily extended claws of the merchief.
“Do you wish to tell us about—“ He shut his eyes in order to concentrate better upon a mental image of the huge reptiles,
“No!” The answer was a decided negative. “Those we have seen, yes-hunting down other land dwellers. They were once subordinate to those we speak of now. These—“