its words making Prilicla tremble, “but they had to fight very hard every day of
their lives to achieve it, and I think they’re losing.”
The town occupied a wide crescent of grass and stony outcroppings enclosing a
small, natural harbor. There were several jetties projecting into deep water,
and most of the craft tied up alongside had thin, high funnels andpaddle wheels
as well as sails. One of the boats, clearly the legacy of a past joining, was
smoke-blackened and sunk at its moorings. Hugging the water’s edge was a widely
separated line of three- and four-story buildings, made of wood, stone, and
dried clay. Ascending ramps running around all four walls gave access to the
upper levels, so that from certain angles the buildings resembled thin pyramids.
These, according to the Goglesk tape, were the town’s manufacturing and
food-processing facilities, and she thought that the smell of Gogleskan raw fish
was just as unpleasant as that of their Sommaradvan counterparts. Perhaps that
was the reason why the private ‘ dwellings, whose roofs and main structural
supports were provided by the trees around the edge of the clearing, were so far
away from the harbor.
As they moved over the top of a small hill, Wainright pointed out a low,
partially roofed structure with a stream running under it. From their elevated
position they could see into the maze of corridors and tiny rooms that was the
town’s hospital and Rhone’s adjoiningdwelling.
The Lieutenant began speaking quietly into its suit mike, and she could hear the
words of warning and reassurance being relayed at full volume from the speakers
carried by the four Earth-humans who had precededthem.
“Please do not be afraid,” it was saying. “Despite the strange and frightening
appearance of the beings you are seeing, they will not harm you. We are here to
collect Healer Khone, at its own request, for treatment in our hospital. While
we are transferring Khone to our vehicle we may have to come very close to the
healer, and this may accidentally cause a call for joining to go out. A joining
must not be allowed to happen, and so we urgeeveryone to move away from your
homes, deep into th forest or far from the shore, so that a distress signal will
not reach you. As an additional safeguard, we will place! around the healer’s
home devices that will make a loud, and continuous sound. This sound will be as
unpleasant to you as it is to us, but it will merge with and change the sound of
any nearby distress signal so that it will no longer be a call for joining.”
Wainright looked toward Prilicla and when the empath signaled its approval, it
changed to the personal suit frequency and went on. “Record and rerun that,
please, until I either amend the message or tell you to stop.”
“Will they believe all that?” Naydrad called suddenly from its position along
the line. “Do they really trust us off-planet monsters?”
The Lieutenant moved several paces down the hill before replying. “They trust
the Monitor Corps because we have been able to help them in various ways. Khone
trusts Conway for obvious reasons and as their trusted healer, it has been able
to convince the townspeople that Conway’s horrifying friends are also worthy of
trust. The trouble is, Gogleskans are a race of loners who don’t always do as
they’re told.
“Some of them,” it went on, “could have good reasons for not wanting to leave
their homes. Illness or infirmity, young children to be cared for, or for
reasons that seem good only to a Gogleskan. That’s why we have to use the sound
distorters.”
Naydrad seemed satisfied but Cha Thrat was not. Out of consideration for
Prilicla, who would suffer everyone else’s feelings of anxiety as well as her
own, she remained silent.
Like everyone else in Maintenance, she knew about those distorters. Suggested
and designed by Ees-Tawn, the department’s head of Unique Technology, in
re-sponse to one of Conway’s long-term Gogleskan requirements, the devices were
still in the prototype stage. If successful they would go into mass production
until they were in every Gogleskan home, factory, and seagoing vessel. It was