 These are "makers", or nanoceles that they have infected them with, and it is Luz who has been calling them east.She tells Marak that when the Ila first arrived on the planet over 500 years ago, she used her own makers to modify man and beast to survive in the desert, but this angered the "ondat", an alien species, because she had released makers on their world and damaged its ecology.The "ondat" feared her actions would rekindle the age-old Gene Wars, and want to rid the planet of all Ila's life.