CLARION 207

through the archway at the chauka. It was dark now; Elli had vanished shortly after Dorland returned, and nobody had reactivated the chauka to bring her back. The silver disk lay on the pedestal in front of the chauka. "I wonder if we'll ever see Elli—I mean, really her, not just an image."

"I don't think so," Paul said.

Something in his voice made her turn back.

"Why not?"

"We've assumed that the chauka was a longrange communicator," Paul said. "Maybe even a transportation device. I don't think it's either of those."

"Then what is it?" Frakes asked.

Paul looked out toward the temple. Had Dorland guessed the truth?

"Has it occurred to you that the main room in this building and the sacred chamber in the temple are set up like an auditorium?"

"An auditorium?"

"Elli can be heard only as far as the outer ring of pedestals. The pedestals were obviously meant to be the Tal Tahir equivalent of chairs. With those long arms and legs of his, I'd guess Lord Tern would find one of them to be a comfortable place to sit for a while. I think those pedestals were seats for the males."

"You're saying the Tal Tahir males came to this place to watch a show?" Frakes sounded skeptical.

"I think they came here for all kinds of reasons. They called on Elli when they needed a counseling session."

"A what?" Karyn exclaimed.

"I kept wondering what Lord Tern and Elli were getting out of this exchange with humans," Paul went on. "Then Elli said that helping us was the reason for her existence. That made me wonder about how the disks work. You touch the rod with the disk and Elli appears."

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