plain. All wore ghost shirts decorated with sun and moon symbols as well as circles, crosses, and stars. Though most of the shirts were buckskin, a few were muslin like Sam's. The cloth shirts seemed to belong exclusively to the Anglos, Asians, and Blacks present.
When Sam and Howling Coyote reached the edge of the outer ring, a single figure rose to meet them. At first Sam didn't recognize her, for she was swathed in an oversized dancer's shirt covered with a constellation of crudely painted stars, and die leggings that showed beneath were not her habitual gray. 'Gray Otter, what are you doing here?' 'I heard about the dance,' she said softly, reverently.
'But you're not a shaman,' Sam said, perplexedly. She gave him a small, shy smile. 'Don't have to be to dance.'
'She's right, Dog man,' Howling Coyote confirmed. 'Only got to believe and be ready to die.' 'But…'
Howling Coyote cut him off. 'Moon's rising. Time's wasting.'
The shaman took Sam by the arm and pulled him toward the center of the clearing. A pine tree, stripped of its branches and looking like a pole, lay on the ground there, its length pointing away from them. At its side Sam could see dark lumps that he knew would soon be attached to the stubby remnants of its branches. Those lumps were medicine bundles, cloth streamers, stuffed totemic images, and bundles of feathers. The pine would be raised to stand in a dark hole dug to receive it. It was to be the sprouting tree, a central component of this open- air medicine lodge.
The sprouting tree was the axis around which the dancers would revolve. It would link their souls with the earth.
Before they reached the tree's base, a delegation of Indian shamans rose and stepped into their path. Sara didn't recognize their tribal affiliations, but the elaborate ceremonial garb they wore marked them as highly placed persons. A young man in a thickly fringed shirt called out a challenge. At least Sam assumed it was a challenge from the tone and the stern expression on the man's face. The words meant nothing to him.
Howling Coyote gave a short response that drew heated comments from the others in die group. It was clear that there was dissension in the ranks. Maybe the shamans had come to stop the Dance rather than to participate. Sam wished Howling Coyote had let him wear a language chip in his datajack. Then he might have understood the words and known whether it was concern or hatred that he saw on the faces of some of the gathered shamans. Howling Coyote began a speech that went on for some time. Sam watched the effect of the old shaman's words. Doubt was displaced by determination in some, but the group faltered short of coming to complete agreement. Howling Coyote turned to him.
'You must show them.'
'What? How?'
'Begin the dance,' Howling Coyote said, and sat.
Sam looked at the shaman, but the old Indian ignored him. Sam turned his gaze to the challenging shamans. There was no sympathy there. No clue, either. But this was a minor riddle. Beyond them lay the pole. Lying on the earth, it made the ritual circle incomplete. The Dance could not begin until it was raised. The stony silence made it clear that Sam could expect no help, which meant that there was only one way to raise it.
Dog!
'Who calls?'
I call, totem. I need your power.
'Have I power?'
You are Dog.
'Am I power?'
You are power.
''You wear my skin. Are you I?'
I wear your skin. I am what I must be.
'I am what I am. What are you?'
I am what I am. I am Dog,
He/Dog howled joyfully at the moon. Sam opened his eyes. It was fully night. His striped blanket was wrapped around the base of the raised sprouting tree, and his dog skin fluttered from its top. He didn't remember removing either. He felt the breeze cooling his skin through the light muslin shirt. Sweat evaporated from his face.
Sam felt energized. His senses seemed preternatu-rally sharp. He saw his image reflected in the eyes of the elder shamans around him. Though his dog skin hung on the pole his shoulders were swathed in fur, a snout projected over his forehead, and pointed ears topped his head. The shaman's mask was upon him, and he was cloaked in a faint glamor of power.
He turned to Howling Coyote. 'Where's the drum?'
'No drum. This is the Great Ghost Dance.'
'Okay. No drum.' Sam sighed. 'Where does the rhythm come from?'
' 'Look within yourself.''
Sam smiled. 'And if it's not there, no magic.'
Howling Coyote smiled back. 'Hey hey, Dog man, you're not such a dumb Anglo after all.'
The old shaman began the chant, and Sam took it up. He felt anticipation and a growing excitement. The chant pulsed with the faint stirring of great power. Sam's voice strengthened as he sang the words that
Howling Coyote had made him memorize. The words were Indian and Sam didn't know what they meant, but he felt the power that awakened at his call.
Awake it might be, but it held itself aloof.
Sam repeated the chant, this time alone. The power rose ever so slightly. Around him the elder shamans took up the song, calling and greeting. Each sang different words, but all sang the same song. Holding hands with fingers intertwined, they began to dance.
Morgan had been coy in Sam's presence, but not so when they were alone. Her presence suffused him, filling him with the joy of freedom and the heady rush of oneness with the Matrix. The euphoria was nearly enough to make him forget what he had promised. Nearly, but not quite, for loyalty was as strong as love.
There was no need to tell her what he had promised to do, for she had been there. Together they reviewed the data Sam had dumped. Finding the system addresses they needed was simplicity.
They went after it. She was a silver girl with an ebony cloak. He an ebony boy in a cloak of stars. Together they crept along the byways of the Matrix, slipping through the shadows in search of the swag. Bit by data bit, they assembled pertinent information and sent it winging through the electronic byways to runners awaiting their cues. Together, they were an unbeatable team.
They turned their attention to a more challenging task.
Ebony boy and chrome girl gazed eagerly at the glittering, pulsing web of data. Grandmother's system might be an entangling web to most, but to these intruders each strand was a rooftop along which to scamper, a dangling rope by which to clamber, a quiet corridor through which to sneak. In sparkling displays of clandestine acrobatic skills, they penetrated ever deeper.
Within the lattice datastores were cocooned packages awaiting the web's mistress, but Morgan's ever-so- sharp knife slit them open, baring the contents. From among the exposed treasures Dodger selected the most promising, and Morgan opened them for him. A wealth of data, a hoard of secrets, and nothing could keep the team of Dodger and Morgan from them.
Everything Sam wanted was theirs for the taking. Well, almost everything. A prudent old biddy, Grandmother did not keep all her data in one place. They assembled a list of locations that matched Sam's list of suspected weapon stockpiles. Information buried throughout Grandmother's files convinced Dodger that Grandmother had no other targets than those toward which Sam had dispatched teams. Morgan concurred with his analysis of the data patterns.
'For myself, there is curiosity. Are matters so grave, yet so simple? Samuel Verner/Sam/Twist has no further requirements?''
'For the nonce.' He felt an odd sense of disappointment, and her next communication echoed it. 'Where is the sport?'
'In the doing, my darling. But I agree that the challenge was low. Naetheless, I expect things will be more interesting in the next phase.' 'The run?'
