Six Moon Dance (54 page)

“There?” asked Calvy in an awed tone, pointing at the black, shining surface of the pit. “Those are her wings?”

“I believe so. Those convergent ribs are no doubt the stiffeners with which the sails are controlled. Bone, perhaps, or carbon fiber. When, or if, we get to the bottom, we will find her body and her brain and the rest of her. I have no very clear idea as to her anatomy, though I expect something serpentine.”

“She’s huge,” murmured Madame.

“Her wings are huge, but I would guess they are quite fragile,” Questioner explained. “They are actually stellar sails. When she flew, she sailed on the radiation winds between the stars, her wings spread over kilometers of space. By the time she fell here, her wings were so tattered as to be virtually useless.

“In the songs, however, Corojumi are called, among other things, those who repair. I infer, therefore, that the Corojumi have repaired her, possibly using the liquid substance of the Fauxi-dizalonz, which repairs all life on this world. The Corojumi were also choreographers, and we know that when the Quaggima was restless, the Corojumi designed dances that soothed her.”

“Where?” cried Ellin. “Where could you dance? Where are her eyes to see the dancers? Her ears to hear the music? She’d have to observe it, wouldn’t she?”

Questioner patted the air, saying, “Patience, Ellin. We will no doubt learn where the dance was done, and how.”

“I am still waiting to find out what this all has to do with us,” grated Onsofruct.

“Use your perceptions, woman!” snarled Questioner. “When the egg was laid, it was small. Over long time, however, it has grown! Had it not been soothed into sleep, it would have hatched long since! But, at some point when the creature within stirred very strongly, Kaorugi realized the hatching of the egg would mean the destruction of the world!”

“Destruction?” cried Calvy, incredulously.

Questioner nodded. “I’ve been running some simulations, just to see how the thing could be managed. One implication is inescapable. The Quaggi cannot escape planetary gravity using star-sails. I don’t know the size or weight of the egg, but it has to be propelled out of the gravity well with the hatchling still folded safely inside, and it is possible that only nuclear force would provide sufficient propulsive power. We will, I imagine, find some kind of device within or around the egg, developing as part of it, that will propel the hatchling away from this world’s gravity, with consequent destruction to a great part of this world. According to the Brotherhood of Interstellar Trade, the adult Quaggi extrude metal, which they draw from their surroundings. I imagine that the egg itself, or the thing inside the egg, or the Quaggima itself, has been mining this planet for fuel since it arrived here.”

“You’re sure of this?” asked Madame.

“Of course I’m not sure! Nonetheless, I can come up with no other reasonable inference.”

“Destruction,” Calvy said again, as though unfamiliar with the word. “Destruction of the whole world?”

Questioner replied, “The substance of the world will no doubt survive, as may some elementary lifeforms, but
the
life, the totality which is Kaorugi, is another matter. The explosion, with the resultant pouring of dust into the atmosphere, is likely to cut off the sunlight. Much of Kaorugi now draws its life from the sun and will die if sunlight is lost.

“Once Kaorugi realized the destructive capabilities of the Quaggi egg, it did everything possible to keep both the Quaggima and the developing hatchling quiescent. Evidently the hatchling can continue developing in the egg for a very long time, if necessary, and keeping it there was the purpose of the dances we have heard about. On another planet, one without moons, it might stay quiescent for eons. Here, however, as the egg went on growing, the tug of the moons became greater, the dance grew more and more complex.”

“So?” demanded Simon, wonderingly.

“So, no one of the Corojumi could remember it all. They remembered it corporately, and they recreated and augmented the dance whenever it was needed.”

“I can guess where you’re going with this,” said Calvy, staring at the pond below, where the Corojum stood in the midst of a great crowd of Timmys, a violet light shining among the other colors of the slender beings. “You said this was the last Corojum. The first settlers must have what? Killed them for their hides?”

“They did. What makes this most unfortunate is that all detachable, quasi-independent creatures on this world carry their neural and cortical networks inside their skin. Soon, there were no more Corojumi. The system managed to muddle through for the last several hundred years because there hasn’t been a six-moon conjunction in at least that long.

“Now, however, a conjunction approaches. There is one Corojum left, but it doesn’t remember enough of the dance to recreate it. Kaorugi can make more Corojumi, of course, perhaps it has done so, but they will not know anything about the dance. Without the dance, the Quaggi in the egg is going to wake the Quaggima, she’ll crack the egg, which will set off whatever the propulsive force is, the hatchling will be burst out into space, and it’s likely good-bye Dosha.”

“Dosha?”

“We call it Newholme. They call it Dosha, which means
fitting
, or
proper
, or, in some contexts,
ours
.

Calvy started to speak, but Questioner raised her hand. “Two final bits of information that should be kept in mind. First, Kaorugi interpenetrates the crust of the planet. It feels the pain of the Quaggima, it realizes what will happen if she wakes and the egg hatches. It does not bear that pain and apprehension motionlessly. It writhes. It heaves. The mountains tremble and the caverns fall. Kaorugi itself is the source of much of the recent geological activity.

“Second, the Timmys, Joggiwagga, Eigers, and so forth are capable of independent movement and also independent thought. When these independent parts first realized the dance information was being lost, they went to the two cities, along with some large leggers and tunnelers and whatnot, and captured all the first settlers who had killed the Corojumi and dragged them to the Fauxi-dizalonz in the hope they might be holding some of the information. Their reasoning was that mankind ate animals—the first settlers had brought livestock with them—therefore they may have digested the Corojumi and somehow absorbed the information.”

“So that’s what happened to the first settlers!” cried Calvy. “They drowned in this Fauxi whatsit?”

Questioner shook her head. “No. Fauxi-dizalonz isn’t water, it’s a living thing. The settlers went in the pond and they crawled out again. Unfortunately, they went in as jong, which means trash, and they came out as jongau, which means bent trash, trash cubed, something that is unworkable and useless. The implications of that occurrence are extremely interesting.”

“The man known as Thor Ashburn must have been one of their descendents,” said Madame. “But … there was nothing physically abnormal about him. Except his smell!”

“You’re sure?” asked Questioner in her turn.

Madame stared sightlessly into space. “No. Of course I’m not sure. I never saw him unclothed. The boys were his sons, and I am sure they were physically normal, except for smelling like their father.”

Questioner said, “He and the boys would be no danger to us, I don’t imagine, but there are no doubt many others of his ilk.”

“All or most of whom—so said our tunneler—are on their way here,” said Madame.

“Why?” demanded Mouche. “What’re they coming for?”

“I don’t know,” said Questioner. “Curiosity? Or maybe they’re frightened. The recent tremors are enough to have frightened anyone.”

“And the tremors come from Kaorugi,” mused Simon. “In response to the pain of Quaggima….”

“Which is in response to the movement inside the egg,” said Madame.

“Which is in response to the tug of the moons,” said D’Jevier.

“Which nobody can do anything at all about,” concluded Calvy.

“Not unless we can recover the dance,” said Questioner.” Which is an issue I have decided to consider separately from the ethical concerns posed in doing so….”

“Ethical concerns?” cried Calvy. “At a time like this you’re worried about ethical concerns?”

“I was created to worry about ethical concerns! Under Haraldson’s edicts, we would have no right to interfere with the hatching. The Quaggi came here after a local population had arisen, however, so the rights of the local population should take precedence over the Quaggi’s rights. They, it, Kaorugi, had already interfered with the Quaggi before mankind entered the scene, but that issue is Kaorugi’s ethical concern, not ours. I don’t blame it for what it did, and in my opinion it also acted rationally, though mistakenly, when it abducted my people.”

“But taking your people wasn’t rational!” cried Ellin. “What would any of us from off planet know about their dance?”

Questioner laughed wryly, shaking her head. “Persons, beings are often unable to see things they can’t recognize, things they have no search-image for. Kaorugi is not accustomed to sexual reproduction. On this planet, creatures are budded or assembled in the Fauxi-dizalonz, and Kaorugi designs them and grows them as it needs them. All information on this planet is held by parts of Kaorugi. When Kaorugi needs information, it accesses the part that has it. From Kaorugi’s point of view, it was rational to assume that if some of its information is missing, we must have it. Where else could it have gone?”

“Even if the Corojumi are gone,” said Mouche, “the Timmys who performed in the dance should remember it. Why doesn’t Kaorugi gather up the Timmys who danced and give their information to some new Corojumi?”

“Right. Quite right, Mouche,” said Questioner, nodding her approval. “I asked the Corojum that same question during our voyage. The Timmys, however, weren’t shaped as they are until mankind came. They retain the memories but not the shape. If that weren’t enough, it seems your second wave of settlers had not only forbidden dancing but had killed and burned many of the Timmys who went on doing it. As a result, much of the Timmy information was lost.”

D’Jevier blanched. Onsofruct moved uncomfortably. Calvy nodded, mouth twisted. “This time we really did it, didn’t we?”

Questioner shrugged. “Certainly someone did. Kaorugi is intelligent but not at all imaginative, because it has never had to be. Conflict acting on intelligence creates imagination. Faced with conflict, creatures are forced to imagine what will happen, where the next threat will come from. If there has never been conflict, imagination never develops. Wits arise in answer to danger, to pain, to tragedy. No one ever got smarter eating easy apples.

“Kaorugi, therefore, could not imagine beings who would willingly destroy the common good for personal gain, something mankind is very good at. Kaorugi knew nothing of individually acquisitive creatures, and it didn’t learn until too late. The point I am trying to make quite clear is that all of us here must admit that it is, in fact, too late for any simple solution. We and Kaorugi must try something else.”

“It could kill the Quaggima,” said Onsofruct. “That’s what it could do!”

They all stared at her. The Questioner arranged her face, keeping her expression disinterested. “It couldn’t, as a matter of fact. It does not kill.”

“Well then, you can! You’ve got a ship out there. It has weapons!”

“Onsy!” said D’Jevier, warningly.

“Well, she could!”

“I’m not at all sure I could,” Questioner said calmly. “But aside from the fact I’m still unable to contact my ship, how would you kill it?”

“Blow her to hell!”

Questioner replied, “Blowing her, as you say, to hell, would certainly destroy the egg, and if you destroy the egg, you’ll set off the propulsive system and probably blow the planet apart. Which is rather what we’re trying to avoid.”

“So no matter what we do, it’s going to happen sooner or later anyhow,” cried Onsofruct.

“The operative word is later,” cried Calvy.

Questioner nodded. “I’m sure a century or so could make a big difference to everyone involved, including Kaorugi. Given even a few tendays, there are many things we could do, but we have only a day or so to do something else. Something wonderful and imaginative and expert that will give us breathing time.”

She turned, gesturing to Ellin and Bao. “And here are my wonderful and imaginative experts. How shall we set about recovering the dance?”

Ellin gasped, turning quite pale as she said, “You’re joking? You’ve got to be!” She looked around herself in a panic, reaching out for Bao.

“Oh, how faulty an expecting!” asserted Bao, giving Ellin a supportive arm and a sympathetic look. “We are being out of our depths here.”

“No false modesty, hysterics, or avoidance rituals, please,” Questioner murmured. “It’s a simple question well within your field of expertise. My data banks tell me that recovery of old dances is something done all the time among dancers on Old Earth. Simply tell us how they would do it.”

Ellin gritted her teeth and took several labored breaths before saying, “I’m sorry, Questioner. You took me by surprise, but you’re quite right. There’s no time for … whatever.

“Um. If I had to recover an old dance on Old Earth, I’d find all contemporary accounts of the performance. I’d look for letters written by cast members or observers, interviews given by them. I’d look for critical reviews, either printed or broadcast. I’d look at impressions noted by audience members or notes made at the time by dance aficionados. If the ballet had a name indicating a traditional or well-known story, like, oh,
Romeo and Juliet
or
Homage to Dorothy
, I’d find the story.”

“Designs of costumes or even bills for costumes are useful,” offered Bao. “Costume often defines character, and character defines movement. Same is being true for scenery. The music is being a good place to start, also musicians themselves. Then, one is doing what Mouche said. Surely not
all
Timmys who danced are being dead! So I would be talking to the ones left. They are describing the steps and movements they were doing, as well as those other people were doing.”