"Calvy g'Valdet," Calvy murmured. "And Madame's a.s.sistant, Simon. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we don't know the correct form of address."

"At the moment we are being informal. Please call me Questioner. I do weary from all the unearned reverence I'm subjected to."

"Hardly unearned," murmured Calvy with a bow. "Your reputation is unsullied, certainly a matter for reverence."

Questioner laughed, a truly amused sound that seemed to draw all of them from their various reveries. "Come," she said. "Let us admire the view."

Accordingly, they turned their attention to their surroundings, though both Madame and D'Jevier found it difficult to take their eyes from Mouche's face.

At their right, a roadway opened upon the ledge, an avenue that stretched down and across the wilderness, straight as a rule.

"That doesn't appear on the orbital surveys," said Calvy. "None of this does!"

At right angles to this road, continuing the line of the ledge, a narrower way descended in a gentle slope eight-tenths of the way around the caldera before making a switchback that returned it to a point almost beneath them. The road continued in descending arcs, back and forth, back and forth, at last reaching the floor of the caldera, where it ran around the emerald lake and thence through a gap in the caldera wall to their left.

The ledge they were on also continued in that direction, making a sharp bend onto the wall of the twin caldera and giving them an unimpeded view down an abyssal cone. The road below wound back and forth on only the northern half of the cone. The southern half, from the rim down as far as they could see, gleamed blackly, smoothly, its surface interrupted by occasional vertical ridges, softly rounded, that ran convergently into the depths. The rim of this chasm sparkled as though set with gems. Questioner extended her sight to make out huge lenses and mirrors that reflected light down the black surface into the pit below.

"Well," said Madame to D'Jevier, turning her attention from this enigmatic vision. "We seem to have arrived, wherever this is. What's going on down there?" She pointed to the lake below, where a cl.u.s.ter of persons was being marshaled upward on the road.

"I see Ellin and Bao," announced Questioner. "My Old Earth aides, but I don't see the rest of my people."

"You do not sound concerned," said Calvy.

Questioner sighed. "I do not wish them ill, I simply don't mind if they're elsewhere. They are political appointees, presumably serving a kind of internship. Occasionally the committee gives me someone sensible, but that is not the general rule."

"What is that with your two aides?" asked D'Jevier. "That's not a Timmy."

"That is a Corojum," said Questioner. "According to it, the last Corojum, and he tells us the extinction of his ilk means our extinction as well."

"Now, then ..." said Onsofruct angrily.

"Hush," said D'Jevier.

Onsofruct fell silent, fuming as D'Jevier said in a cautionary tone, "Let them tell us what's going on. It's sure somebody must, for we are at a loss."

"Do you know what's going on?" Onsofruct demanded of Questioner.

"More or less, yes. In a moment or two, Ellin and Bao will be here, and then we can put our heads together. Meantime, since we may be here for some time, let us look about this place with a view to occupancy."

Though unwilling to defer enlightenment, the eight of them scattered into the caves that backed the ledge, finding them already equipped for persons, with bedplaces piled with soft twigs and covered with blankets; a small, private cave set aside for a privy; water jars hung in the cool air, and flat trays of fruit and bread set nearby. Calvy, Simon, Ornery, and Mouche took possession of one cave, the three women settled themselves into another. When Ellin and Bao arrived, Bao joined the men and Ellin the women.

Questioner took no part in this bustle, instead continuing her examination of the abyss, noting now that the black, glossy surfaces seemed to quiver from time to time as though alive. Which, she thought, would explain a great deal. After a short recess of nibble, sip, lie down, and get up again, the Newholmians trickled out to join her at the rim of the ledge, where they were soon joined by Ellin and Bao. When they were all present, she gestured them to find a sitting place, studying them closely as they did so.

Mouche and Ornery, Ellin and Bao gravitated toward one another and sat to one side wearing faces that were almost copies of one another. Interested but wary and mostly uncommitted. Bao was perhaps a little more engaged in what was going on. Ellin was refusing to become involved. Ornery was merely cautious, and Mouche ... Mouche had the appearance of someone who had removed himself as far from the present as possible and was existing on another plane by will alone.

The Hags and Madame looked merely weary, the men no less so. Calvy maintained an alert expression, letting his eyes wander, seeing all that was to be seen. Simon h.o.a.rded his gaze, seeing only one thing at a time, not moving on until he'd dealt with it. They sat in silence. The air around them moved gently. Flying creatures glinted by, occasionally uttering calls that were not unlike bell sounds, their various pitches contributing to a slow and wandering melody. From below, Timmy voices rose in song, underlying the bell sounds, supporting them. From on high came another voice, and they looked up to see one of the large, four-eyed birds circling high above them.

"That's an Eiger," murmured D'Jevier, her head thrown back to display the long, vulnerable line of her throat. "The bird who sees all. It's singing what it sees to Bofusdiaga."

"You know this," said Questioner, "because your nursemaid told you, when you were a baby. Your nursemaid who is now dead."

D'Jevier flushed, looked at her shoes and said nothing.

"Well," Questioner remarked. "Let us accept that all you Newholmians had nursemaids who told you of Eigers and Bofusdiaga and Corojumi and Timmys and Joggiwagga. And here we are, confronting them in reality. This has been an enlightening journey for all of us, I have no doubt. Are you ready to discuss what it means? Or would you prefer to continue in suspicious ignorance?"

"Madam." Calvy bowed, grinning at her. "I am sure I speak for everyone when I say we would be ... gratified to know what it means."

Though D'Jevier's mouth pinched momentarily, holding in her immediate rebuke, she did not utter it. She could not in all honesty disagree, and though Calvy had no right to speak for the Hags, in this case he had represented them honestly.

55.

The Tale Of Quaggima.

"As I have pieced it together, we are here today because of something that happened a million years ago," said Questioner.

"Which could be said for anyone being anywhere," Calvy remarked, his troubled eyes belying his charming smile.

Questioner's pursed lips and down-the-nose stare apprised him of the impertinence of charm. "There is more than mere timeflow at work here. Our lives have intersected those of a very large, long-lived, star-roving race called the Quaggi. Except for Ellin and Bao, who have heard the name only in pa.s.sing, you all know about the Quaggi."

Her listeners glanced covertly at one another.

"Come now," she coaxed them. "You heard about the Quaggi when you were children." She stared imperiously at D'Jevier. "When you heard many other interesting stories...."

"Say that we know about the Quaggi," Calvy interrupted, to spare D'Jevier's obvious discomfort. "If we don't, we'll pretend we do."

"Ah," said Questioner. "Pretense. Well, that is something you Newholmians do well. I continue: "A very long time ago, when this solar system was still quite young, a Quaggida entered the system. I am told by the Corojum that reproductive males sit out on the cold edges of solar systems, summoning, and that one or more females eventually respond to that call. I infer the female is unaware of the consequences, or, if aware, A: finds the lure irresistible, or B: is resigned to her fate.

"When the female arrived she was impregnated. In the process she was rather badly injured and her wings were so mutilated that she could no longer fly. The Quaggida left her there, one would imagine in considerable discomfort, and flew off to get started on the contemplative phase of his existence."

Madame made a breathy exclamation, then subsided under Questioner's admonitory gaze.

"This may have been an aberration. It may have happened only in a single case. Or, it may be that both the violation and the concurrent mutilation are required by the Quaggian ethos, or the Quaggian physiology. In any case, the Quaggima lies there on the cold planet, barely able to move, while the egg slowly develops. When it has grown too large for its location, the Quaggima struggles with her crippled wings to leave whatever mild gravity is holding her, and she falls toward the sun, timing this to intercept some moon or planet which is 'warm.' "

She paused for a moment, and was interrupted by Onsofruct, who said angrily, "What has all this got to do with us?"

Questioner held up an admonitory hand. "It has everything to do with you, because it happened here!"

"Here? Where we are?"

"It happened here, on a moonlet of the outermost planet, and when the egg was ripe, the Quaggima fell to this world. She fell into a caldera where she somehow laid the egg beneath her in the warm rock. She did not die. I infer that the last act the female Quaggi commits is not the penetration of a warm moon or planet to lay the egg, but the breaking of that egg when it is ready to hatch.

"When she fell here, however, life was already present: intelligent, self-aware life. It was not life arising by differentiation and selection, which we are more familiar with. The life here had developed around suboceanic vents and had grown by ramification and acc.u.mulation. It was and is, I should think, a fractal sort of creature which recapitulates in each part or group of parts the structure of the whole. In any case, most life on this world is one giant living thing that permeates the outer layer of this planet, a thing called Kaorugi, the Builder, one single being who is able to detach and reattach quasi-independent parts of itself. Though some of the detachable parts were very simple ones, created to be merely self-replicating food items for other parts, all the other detachable parts have some intelligence, and some are self-aware to the extent that they have their own cultures and systems of artistic expression. The Timmys, for example. The Joggiwagga. The Corojumi."

"The Timmys," whispered Mouche.

"Indeed. The Timmys, who, according to Bao and Ellin, were shaped differently prior to mankind's arrival, and who were reshaped as erect bipeds only after mankind arrived on this world. They were made to look like mankind so that mankind would accept their presence. The entire life system, Kaorugi, is everywhere within the crust of this world, in the caves, in the tunnels, in and beneath the oceans, upon the surface, making up forests, pastures, and wildernesses. Since the separate animate parts are all parts of Kaorugi, there is no predator-prey food chain; strong does not eat weak; large sentient things do not live on small sentient ones; all things take their nourishment from sun, air, water, and the flying, sprouting, or swimming things, the self-reproducing, unconscious lifeforms Kaorugi has designed to serve as nourishment and habitat for its roaming parts. These unconscious parts are prolific and were created to have no sense of fear or pain.

"On this world, nature is not raw and violent. The green or violet or blue hair of the Timmys, the bright fur of the Corojumi serve the same function as leaves on plants, to draw energy from the sun. On this world, everything lives for the purpose of everything, and when a part wears out, it returns to that pond we see in the caldera, a place or organ called the Fauxi-dizalonz, and is there reconst.i.tuted."

"You're describing Eden," said D'Jevier, wonderingly.

Questioner nodded. "One might say, Eden, yes. Obviously, there is none of the inevitable agony and terror that a food chain implies. Accidents, however, can happen even in Eden, and the intelligent, nonfood creatures of this world have an aversive reaction to being maimed or mangled, just as we do, though they may fear it less, for they know if they are rendered nonfunctional they can be returned to the Fauxi-dizalonz to be healed or remade.

"When Kaorugi became aware of the Quaggi-before the fall-Kaorugi recognized pain and responded to it with what we might call pity or empathy or perhaps only curiosity. The Quaggi called upon certain Quaggian deities by their attributes. Kaorugi had parts with those attributes, so Kaorugi deputized them to make a place for Quaggima and ease her suffering. It is this sympathetic effort that is memorialized in the song you all heard as children.

"In that song and others, Bofusdiaga is called the death defier, the burrower of walls, the singer of the sun. We know this crater next to us was prepared for Quaggima, but Quaggima's falling created a much larger hole, displacing a great ma.s.s of rock that promptly fell on top of her. She was buried, shut off from the sunlight that nourishes her. Now we see that the stones have been removed. Now we see holes burrowed through the rim of this caldera where great lenses and mirrors are set to focus and reflect sunlight upon her."

"She's still here?" cried Ellin. "Where?"

"There," said Questioner, gesturing. "She is there, stretched up from the abyss, covering half that great creva.s.se, her wings exposed to the light."

"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 s.p.a.ce. 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 ch.o.r.eographers, 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 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. 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 s.p.a.ce, and it's likely good-bye Dosha."

"Dosha?"

"We call it Newholme. They call it Dosha, which means fitting fitting, or proper proper, or, in some contexts, ours 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 s.p.a.ce. "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 n.o.body 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."