I strongly suspected that we were going to need to insitute some kind of communal classes before our next mission, though I could appreciate it wasn't time to bring it up. The boatmen jabbered in their cant. Though agitated, they weren't immediately going for weapons, which I took to be a good sign. The language was derived from a form of proto gothic that tugged at the edge of my conciousness. 

"Arg ye stande vay thak provfae?" one of them called, fingering his weapon.

"Do we stand with the prophet," Hadrian translated. Judging by the way the locals shifted when they said it, alot hung on our answer. I ran the angles quickly in my mind. There have been many times in my inglorious career in His service my back ground as a con artist has come in handy. These people had no tradition of prophets, which meant the concept was off world. Stand with suggested the drawing of lines and picking of sides. That meant they balance of probabilities meant they weren't with the off worlder. 

"No," I suggested, hoping that Hadrian had been translating literally.

"Onae!" Hadrian called. The phenoms began to coalecse in my mind as I got more of a sample size. The boatmen exchanged glances, clearly afraid, though of exactly what I wasn't sure.

"Climb... we take you safe," one of the boatmen called.

"There is no way we are getting Lucius on one of those boats," I sighed.

The village was located down one of the many murky streams. Great walls of almost impenetrable mangrove rose on both sides. At times the canopy reached completely across the water, blocking out the sun like a tunnel. After an hour or so the channel opened to reveal a small island, ramparted by carefully manicured mangroves. A handful of boats were pulled up against a muddy bank. Long strings of eel like fish hung from ropes above a smoking trench. Unwashed children threw handfuls of what looked like seaweed into the trench, feeding smouldering fires within.  Beyond the shore stood a cluster of huts of woven seaweed, bedecked with shells and dried flowers. Grim faced men squatted in the dirt before the huts, some had las guns, others had spears of metal or bone. Thye all stood as the boats came into view, eyes widdening as Lucius stomped through the water behing the boat, up to his neck in the brackish water but unworried. By the time we reached the village all the children were out of sight and all the men were waiting for us, weapons brandished. A grisled looking man with ritual scars on his face led them, clearly the chief.

"I hope you are ready to negotiate," I whispered to Hadrian.