Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 160

Then he was free to coexist, as it were, while Ramarren plugged away at
his computations.
Falk looked at nothing while Ramarren worked, but listened for any
noise, and was conscious always of the two motionless, senseless figures
sprawled out nearby. And he thought; he thought about Estrel, wondering
where she was now and what she was now. Had they retrained her, razed
her mind, killed her? No, they did not kill. They were afraid to kill and
afraid to die, and called their fear Reverence for Life. The Shing, the
Enemy, the Liars…Did they in truth lie? Perhaps that was not quite the
way of it; perhaps the essence of their lying was a profound, irremediable
lack of understanding. They could not get into touch with men. They had
used that and profited by it, making it into a great weapon, the mindlie; but
had it been worth their while, after all? Twelve centuries of lying, ever
since they had first come here, exiles or pirates or empire-builders from
some distant star, determined to rule over these races whose minds made
no sense to them and whose flesh was to them forever sterile. Alone,
isolated, deafmutes ruling deafmutes in a world of delusions. Oh
desolation… .
Ramarren was done. After his five hours of driving labor, and eight
seconds of work for the computer, the little indium output slip was in his
hand, ready to program into the ship's course-control.
He turned and stared foggily at Orry and Ken Kenyek. What to do
with them? They had to come along, evidently. Erase the records on the
computers,
said a voice inside his mind, a familiar voice, his
own—Falk's. Ramarren was dizzy with fatigue, but gradually he saw the
point of this request, and obeyed. Then he could not think what to do next.
And so, finally, for the first time, he gave up, made no effort to dominate,
let himself fuse into…himself.
Falk-Ramarren got to work at once. He dragged Ken Kenyek
laboriously up to ground level and across the starlit sand to the ship that
trembled half-visible, opalescent in the desert night; he loaded the inert
body into a contourseat, gave it an extra dose of the stunner, and then came
back for Orry.
Orry began to revive partway, and managed to climb feebly into the
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