Questioner spoke to Mouche and Ornery: “Are you making any sense of this?”
Mouche said, “I’m afraid not.”
The voice came again, this time with some asperity. “You mankinds always need everything right now. Your babies, too. Why this. Why that. Tell me this, tell me that. Explain, explain. You should learn to wait. See a little, then a little more. It will be clear. Drink water.”
None of them dared ask any further questions, though Questioner said in a jolly tone, “Drink water. By all means.”
Ornery and Mouche obediently scooped water from the stream and gulped it down. Aside from being very cold, it was simply watery, with nothing at all unpleasant about it. When he had wiped his hands on his shirt, Mouche turned gingerly on his haunches to speak softly to Questioner.
“When I was little, my Timmy used to sing me to sleep with a song that had Corojumi and Bofusdiaga in it. It was all in their language, and I asked her … it to tell it to me in my language, and a few days later she … it had it figured out in our language, rhymes and all. After that, it sang it to me in my language part of the time.”
“Can you sing it to me?”
“Not the way she … it did. Their singing is wonderful, but it’s all full of little trills and lilts and runs. I’ll just say it very softly.”
Mouche cleared his throat and began:
“Quaggida he sings
somewhere among the dimmer galaxies,
luring the Quaggima that he will seize.
Oh, Corojumi, she comes unaware.
Bofusdiaga, from deep dark he flings
fiery loops that make a snare
for her bright wings.
“Quaggima she screams
her wings broken and torn, she cries in vain
at flame and scalding light and piercing pain.
Bofusdiaga, where will she find aid?
Oh, Corojumi, all her lively schemes
are but memories that fade among dead dreams.
“Quaggima she calls:
Out of starfield coming, fire womb seeking
Fire she finds, rock wallowing, fume reeking
Oh, Corojumi, openers of space
Bofusdiaga, burrower of walls
She has need of birthing place
Wheeooo, she falls!”
After a long moment, Questioner said in an interested voice, “Is that all of it?”
Mouche shook his head. “No, there was more, but I can’t quite remember it. Their language is a lot prettier than ours. You’re right that it has no hes and shes. They sang tim in their language, but they put in the hes and shes in ours. In our language they couldn’t put all the trills in, and I usually fell asleep along about the burrower of walls line. I’ll try to remember the rest of it.”
“How do you explain it?”
Mouche scratched his head, trying to remember. “It’s the story of the Quaggi. Aren’t they a kind of huge something that lives out in space? I guess they’re travelers, sailing between the stars, and the male lurks around in the dark spaces between outer worlds to catch the female, and he impregnates her. And she’s supposed to lay the egg, but in the song, she’s hurt so badly she can’t ever fly again. When I was a little kid, I always just thought it was just a sad story, a lament, you know.”
Questioner murmured, “I think it’s a story about real things. It’s an odd story for a child, however, all that rape and violence, though it may be a clue to something your Timmy said earlier. It remarked that everything was part of the Fauxi-dizalonz except the jongau people, us people, Her, and Niasa.”
“Well, there are lots of songs or rhymes about Niasa, like:
‘Niasa, little Summer Snake,
Turn in your egg, the world will shake.’
Niasa’s mother, down so deep,
Sing your baby snake to sleep.’ “
Questioner mused, “So, Niasa is Summer Snake; Ashes is jongau; we are unequivocally us; so could Her be the Quaggima?”
“You think there’s a real Quaggima?” asked Ornery.
Questioner answered. “The Quaggi are one of the four races we have met who are definitely not human. The Quaggi we’ve met—or rather, seen, since one does not really meet a Quaggi—are all alike according to our sensors, so we’ve always rather assumed the females are somewhere else. This story you tell, which is the same story the Hags tell, by the way, accords with some information I received from a trader … “