Lillian and Ayesha
compared recordings of the voices of the team with the pump-sound;
in Gofredo's they found an identical frequency-pattern.
"We'll need the new apparatus to be positive about it, but it's there,
all right," Ayesha said. "That's why Luis' voice pleases them."
"That tags me; Old Pump-Mouth," Gofredo said. "It'll get all through
the Corps, and they'll be calling me that when I'm a four-star general,
if I live that long."
Meillard was really worried, now. So was Bennet Fayon. He said so
that afternoon at cocktail time.
"It's an addiction," he declared. "Once they hear it, they have no
will to resist; they just squat and listen. I don't know what it's
doing to them, but I'm scared of it."
"I know one thing it's doing," Meillard said. "It's keeping them
from their work in the fields. For all we know, it may cause them
to lose a crop they need badly for subsistence."
* * * * *
The native they had come to call the Lord Mayor evidently thought
so, too. He was with the others, the next morning, squatting with
his staff across his knees, as bemused as any of them, but when the
pump stopped he rose and approached a group of Terrans, launching
into what could only be an impassioned tirade.
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