Six Moon Dance (49 page)

“Only a tiny piece,” said Corojum sadly. “I remember the Timmys assembling. I remember a tiny, early part of the dance, and then standing upon the rim of the abyss singing. Some Timmys remember some, some Joggiwagga, some others. And Bofusdiaga remembers only the song, for Bofusdiaga left it all to us!”

“Then let us start with what we have,” said Questioner, beckoning Mouche and Ornery to sit beside her. “Now. Tell us about the dance.”

The Corojum said, “The dance. So, long ago the Quaggima was caught, you know, the song says.”

“I saw her,” said Questioner. “Lying on an outer planet. I thought she was dead.”

“Not dead.” The Corojumi shook his head sadly. “Not dead, but very … wounded. Maimed? These Quaggida, when they mate, they lure weaker-one with their song, they capture them, but while mating, they almost kill weaker-ones. That one is left on the far-off mating place, all alone, while the egg grows inside.

“Then, when the egg has grown too big for Quaggima to keep it warm, Quaggima searches for womb fires. A warm place, you know? It is instinct. No one taught Quaggima, Quaggima merely knows. So, here in this world, closer to sun, were womb fires. Timmys, sing verse of falling!”

Their voices came from the aft deck:

The Corojum nodded. “Quaggima did not really call us by our names. Kaorugi heard Quaggima calling: ‘Oh, opener of space. Oh, burrower of walls.’ In our language, openers of space are Corojumi—for this is a dancing matter—and burrower of walls is Bofusdiaga, so we used those names in our song. It was Kaorugi who heard the calling, and Kaorugi said to us, you Corojumi, you are openers of space. And you, great Bofusdiaga, you are a burrower of walls, so you will be openers and burrowers for Quaggima as well. So, we opened space, and Quaggima fell.”

“Here?” asked Questioner, wanting to be quite sure. “To this planet?”

“Here. Inward, toward sun, intercepting us.”

“How did Kaorugi know what Quaggima said?”

“Kaorugi perceives meaning, over much, long time. Yes. Timmys, sing next verse!”

Corojum nodded. “We did not know how big was Quaggima. We made too small a place. When Quaggima fell, it made far deeper chasm. All Quaggima’s wings were torn and burned. Egg was laid there, beneath Quaggima’s body, where stone is hot and steams rise, and egg sank down, into stone. What Quaggima said was true, it could not rise. It did not have wings to fly, like a bird-thing, only wings to soar, like a kite. And Kaorugi perceived it and felt pity and great interest and told us to care for Quaggima. Timmys, next to last verse!”

“Kaorugi said, ‘We do not know who Quaggima means when it sings about mender and death defier, we do not know where such creatures are or if they are listening, but
we
are here and
we
are listening, so we will become mender and death defier! We will stop pain, we will repair, and my creatures shall be death defier and caretaker to Quaggima.’ And it has been so, for Kaorugi said it. Kaorugi said, ‘You, my offshoot, Bofusdiaga, you be breaker of shackles and limitations. You be singer of sun, maker of mirrors, who will not allow stone walls to keep out the light. And you, you Corojumi, you create the dance, you repair the broken, you focus bright skies upon Quaggima.’ “

“Very commendable behavior,” commented the Questioner. “Does Kaorugi always say ‘we’?”

“When Kaorugi means self and parts of self. We are all parts of Kaorugi and do Kaorugi’s will. When Kaorugi says we, Kaorugi means all.”

“I understand. And what happened then?”

The Corojum whispered, “So we made Quaggima sleep to forget pain, and we mended its wings. But we were like Quaggima, z’na t’tapor, as you say ‘unaware,’ for egg of Quaggi grew with each wax of each moon. It sucked in substance of our world, and its shell got bigger and bigger. And then, as moons came all in a line, pulling, and egg rocked inside world, from inside egg we heard creature calling, ‘Quaggima, Quaggima, crack egg and let me out!’ And Quaggima began to hearken!

“But Kaorugi was there, everywhere, listening, and he cried, ‘A great miscalculation! When creature breaks the egg, it breaks world, and all here nearabout, all our life and being that is Dosha will die along with Quaggima!’

“Timmys! Final verse, the one we sing at the chasm!”

“Yes, yes,” said the Corojum. “Do you see? Her child is our doom, for when Niasa breaks egg, Niasa breaks world. Everything shatters. All Dosha dies.”

“Aha!” exclaimed Questioner.

“So, what was to be done?” The Corojum scowled, posed, gestured broadly in a forbidding movement. “We say Quaggima must not wake to break egg. We say it must sleep. This was not an evil thing to say. The creature in egg …”

“Niasa?” asked Mouche.

“Little Niasa, yes, for we gave it a little name. Little Summer Snake, we called it, for it was laid in summer and so does our own little summer snake writhe within shell. Kaorugi says Little Niasa can go on growing in egg forever and ever if need be. There is no limit to its size so long as it has fires to feed on. Then, when world grows cold, after we are gone, then it can hatch. This did not distress Quaggima—she is called Big Summer Snake—for we had soothed Quaggima’s pain and given good dreams and much good food and drink with our mirrors….”

“Mirrors?”

“And lenses, for it eats sunlight, and Bofusdiaga sings to sun, making mirrors we use to send sunlight down into chasm. So, then, Kaorugi said, we must dance Quaggima to sleep….”

“We is who?” interrupted Questioner.

“We Corojumi and Timmys and Joggiwagga and Tunnelers and Eiger birds, and everyone that moves!”

“I get the picture.”

“And Corojumi said do this thing, and that thing, and the Timmys or Joggiwagga did it, and we all sang, and when Quaggima stirred, Corojumi said no, that doesn’t work, and when Quaggima was relaxed and happy we said yes, that will do, and we put dance together, tiny bit at a time. And because Niasa was not yet grown very great, dance was enough.”

“And you remembered it?” asked Ornery.

“We Corojumi remembered it. It was our job to remember it. And when came next time of many moons, we remembered it, and all Dosha danced it, and we improved it for Quaggima’s pleasure. And each time many moons happened, we improved it more, over and over again. And then came your people, those jongau.”

“The men from Thor,” said Questioner. “I don’t think they were our people. I don’t think they fit our definition of human, even.”

“They came, whatever people they were. And they hunted us Corojumi, and they took skins away. And soon there were fewer, and then only a few, and then none but me, and those young jongau would have killed even me, but for Mouchidi! And all pieces of dance were gone but mine!”

“Each of you remembered only a small part?”

“True.”

“You said, they took the skins away, so they couldn’t come to Fauxi-dizalonz. What have the skins to do with it?”

The Corojum threw up his hands. “You have all your thoughts in one place, in here,” he knocked his head with one large fist. “We people of this world, Timmys, Corojumi, Tunnelers, Joggiwagga, all of us, we keep our memories all over us, in net, under skin. And when we are old, and our parts are worn, we go into Fauxi-dizalonz, and everything is refocused and straightened and made new again. Without skins, what was there to mend? Bofusdiaga tried with jongau, but it was no good.”

“The jongau?”

“Your people who you say are not your people. Jong is like we say, throw away, trash. Them. Bofusdiaga thought, well, maybe they have eaten memories of Corojumi, why else would they want hides? So Bofusdiaga sent Timmys and Joggiwagga and all to bring those persons to Fauxi-dizalonz, and our people went to their town at night, and we tied them and brought them, and pushed them in the Fauxi-dizalonz, and the jong swam through and came out other side, gau!”

“Gau?” asked Questioner.

“Unmended and bent and too dreadful to live, and we told them, go back, go back, be remade as you were—for Fauxi-dizalonz will repair, you know—but the jongau would not and they smelled, so bad we could not come near them. And some of the Timmys went into Fauxidizalonz, to see if they had left anything there about the dance, but the jong had left only ugly memories and pains and horrors that Bofusdiaga took much time and care to filter out. Our peoples do not keep such things.”

“Why can’t you just reinvent the dance?” asked Mouche.

“First dance, perhaps, for it was simple and Quaggima was small. Even second, or third. But this is many times one hundred dance, more complicated than you can imagine, and with something … essential (is that word?) about it we cannot remember!” He sighed. “We will talk to Bofusdiaga. Bofusdiaga will consult Kaorugi….”

“When we have completed the voyage,” said Questioner quietly.

“Yes. When we have completed voyage.”

E
llin and Bao had arrived in the small salon just in time to see the protocol officer’s blue legs being dragged away through an opening in the wall. Without thinking, Bao had thrown himself forward, trying to catch hold of the abductee, but before Bao could get near, he himself was grabbed by a dozen hands, lowered not ungently to the floor, and there tied and gagged. The last sight Bao had of Ellin was of her being similarly treated. The creatures committing the abduction were sylphlike, mankindlike in form, small but energetic, strong, and very set on doing what they were doing as expeditiously as possible.

Thereafter a transportation occurred through such complete darkness and in such complete silence that very little of it was perceptible to either Bao or Ellin. After a time, still in darkness, they were assured in whispers that no one was going to injure them in the slightest, their gags were removed, their arms were untied (though their legs were kept secured) and they were allowed to sit side by side, more or less comfortably, in a conveyance, type indeterminate, that was jerkily and noisily taking them somewhere, presumably away from Mantelby’s.

The moment Bao’s arms were freed he reached out to Ellin, who clung to him, partly in terror and partly in feverish excitement. “Where are we going?” she cried, almost hysterically, with a laugh on top of a sob. “Bao? That is you, isn’t it?”

“Me, yes,” he said, then called into the darkness, “Who’s here?”

“Tim-tim are here,” said someone in the dark. “You people say Timmys.”

Ellin and Bao peered in the direction of the voice, making out a pale shadow against the black. The longer they looked, the brighter it became, an effulgence, an aura of light.

The voice spoke again from the darkness. “Bofusdiaga has sent a legger for you. We are taking you quick as may be to the sea, where is a swimmer waiting, then into a tunneler who will take you down to the Fauxi-dizalonz where you may help us recover the dance.”

This brought so many questions to Ellin’s mind that she couldn’t settle on which to ask first. Bao saved her the trouble.

“What dance?” he asked.

“If we knew what dance, we would not need to recover it,” the voice replied with some asperity. “This is not the time to ask questions about the dance. When we arrive, you may ask all the questions you need. Now is time to ascertain whether you are comfortable. Are you in need of food or drink or excretory privacy?”

The almost hysterical laughter bubbled in Ellin’s throat, and she swallowed it, half choking herself in the process. “Thank you, but no. I’m not hungry or thirsty. Not yet, at any rate.”

“Where’s the other people you were dragging off?” demanded Bao. “Where are Questioner’s people?”

“In another tunneler, going by a slightly quicker route. They are not hurt.”

Since the Timmys would not answer questions about the purpose of the trip, and since there was nothing at all to look at except a dimmish glow that the Timmys were either emitting or crouched within, Ellin sank back onto the rubbery surface with Bao’s arms about her, and the two of them whispered together comfortingly, keeping, so Bao said, their spirits in good form.

“It is being important not to be getting in a state,” he avowed. “We must be keeping our wits about us.”

“Will Questioner come looking for us?”

“I am not doubting she will. She will be making a terrible uproar over this abducting, believe me.”

“These … these people don’t seem to care. Something in their voices … They sound extremely touchy, almost desperate, but not hostile. Not at all. Is it the volcanoes that have them so upset?”

“What has us upset,” said a voice from the darkness, “is that mountains are falling. Great Gaman, most beautiful of caverns, is no more. What has us upset is
Niasa
will be hatched, I think, even if it means we die, all of us.”

The voice began to sing in a language neither Ellin nor Bao had ever heard before, full of
ororees
and
imimees
and
wagawagas
. The song was unmistakably a lament, long drifting phrases in a minor key, with many repetitions that seemed to go nowhere, reminding Ellin of some twentieth-century ballet music by a man named … what had it been, Grass? Gless? After a time the warmth, the music, and the jiggle-jog of the floor beneath them created a cocoon of nursery-like peace around them and they fell asleep.