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trained to ignore the pheromones when they can
too, but that’s easier if not in one’s home settlement, so it is actually rare
for any shaman to spend much time in his or her birth settlement.”
    “The male shamans are trained
that way?” Arn asked. “Maybe I misunderstood but that Teller the mystic, Tack,
brought here… what was his name?”
    “Kractitoc,” Park supplied. “At
least if he’s the same Teller I met in Africa.”
    “Sounds right,” Arn admitted. “I
hate to admit it, but most of those Atackack names sound alike to me.”
    “Me too,” Park nodded. “We can’t
really pronounce their names, any of their native languages really, with much
accuracy. The Mer cannot either when you get right down to it, but they use
their torcs to translate for them. Atackack languages have all sorts of
subsonic and hypersonic tones we can’t hear. When speaking directly, the Atackack
are amazingly forgiving with how we must butcher their names.”
    “They are more forgiving about it
than most of us are,” Arn nodded, “but Kractitoc told me that shamans cannot
respond to the pheromones. Well, he didn’t call them pheromones… darned if I
can recall what he called them. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the
time, but he said they did not affect those of the shaman class, or I thought
he did,” he added uncertainly.
    “Just as some females cannot emit
the pheromones, there are some males who do not react to them,” Park replied.
“But Tack tells me that it is mostly a matter of training. It’s possible that
Kractitoc is one of those who is simply not affected and he was talking about
himself only, or maybe all the Tellers are like that. They are the shamans who
wander from town to town the most, so that would make a lot of sense.”
    “Interesting,” Arn admitted.
“Well, I think you’ll find the biggest change is downstairs in Ronnie’s ‘Toy Shop.’”
    “I haven’t seen Ronnie yet,” Park
noticed. “She wasn’t at the reception last night.”
    “She doesn’t get out of the
dungeon very often lately,” Arn replied. “She’s too busy with all her projects.
I’m a bit worried about her, in fact. She needs to see the light of day more
often. Even when Velvet Blair is in town they don’t get out much.”
    “I’ll see what Iris and I can do
to coax her out then,” Park nodded. “Hopefully, she won’t shriek and shrivel up
in the sunlight. What’s she up to these days?”
    “Why don’t you go and see for
yourself,” Arn suggested. “We give her full autonomy, but, technically, most of
her research is under your wing. You have a few hours before the Mer primes
assemble to hear your stories.”
    “I thought you wanted a private
debriefing,” Park commented.
    “I’ve been reading the reports,”
Arn responded, “and I know you well enough to understand they’re complete. I’ll
be at the conference, but I don’t expect to hear much I don’t already know.”
    “What about the reappearance of
that Dark Ship?” Park countered.
    “I know about that now too,” Arn
shrugged. “The details can wait until then. Go see Ronnie. I’m sure she’s
waiting to show her latest creations off.”

Six

    Park nodded at Arn’s suggestion and,
after finishing his morning coffee, took the base elevator down to the second
lowest level, where Veronica Sheetz kept her living quarters and drafting
table. She wasn’t in her suite and the office looked like she hadn’t been using
it much. There was a blueprint on the table, but it was the same small carrier
ship that had been in production for over a year in Questo. Shrugging, Park
walked down the stairs to the lowermost level and found Ronnie supervising the
installation of mounting brackets on a new ship of a design Park had never seen
before.
    “No,” she was saying
thoughtfully, “I think we need to set these under the wing.”
    “That’s going to disrupt the lift
capabilities, boss,” a Mer engineer commented.
    “You could