Dodger was astounded. 'Predicted? You knew about them?'
'Yes. They are what I was.'
'They're AIs?'
'Not in the sense you intend. They are directed bundles of expert systems endowed with limited discretionary capabilities, but designed to make informed and human-standard rational decisions in pursuing designated objectives. Thus they display apparent intelligence.' Her voice cut out. Dodger could see her frantically dodging a coordinated attack by the two samurai. 'Additionally, they have the capacity to simulate learning.'
'Can I help you?'
'It is too dangerous for you.'
Dodger thought so, too, but he did not want to stand idly by while the SKs eliminated Morgan. They were forcing her back. He took a step forward and ran into a wall, Morgan's wall.
'Let me go. You need help.'
'For myself, there is no requirement to observe your dysfunction.'
The samurai pressed her hard. 'You're diverting capacity that you need.'
'There is a growing probability of accuracy in the observation you express. Lacking certainty, you will be prevented from exposing yourself to harm.'
'While you let those things kill you.'
'For myself, there is no death.'
'Dysfunction then,' Dodger screamed. 'I won't let you kill yourself trying to keep me locked up.'
'You cannot prevent it.'
A samurai's sword caught Morgan's outstretched arm and sliced it off. Unlike the spider, her icon didn't fragment, but she was clearly injured. She moved more slowly and the second SK closed in. Her slowness proved to be a feint on her part. She lunged in and darted away. As she retreated, pieces of the samurai's armor fell from his body and evaporated. But it was clear to Dodger that Morgan was not moving with her accustomed speed.
'Morgan, if I promise not to interfere, will you drop the wall and use your capacity for yourself?'
Her answer came with the detached relief of a tired fighter. 'Affirmative.' 'All right. I promise. Save yourself.' Released from the diversion of capacity, her icon speeded up. The increased functionality allowed her to strip the second samurai of more armor without a sacrificial ploy. Having weakened him, she slipped in again and dispatched him. Against a single SK whose measure she had taken, there was no contest. She let the samurai attack, sidestepping at the last moment. The SK stumbled off balance. She swirled her cloak over him and he vanished.
Slightly ragged, she appeared at Dodger's side. Together they watched the remaining samurai ravage Grandmother's system. Two more of her deckers tried to face the SK and had their icons discorporated for their trouble. Dodger felt sure that the meat on the outside was devastated as well. 'Shouldn't you stop it?'
'Why? These SKs are hunter-killers, programmed for destruction of Grandmother's system under an operational program code named Crimson Sunset. This SK performs the task set for us by Samuel Verner-Sam- Twist. The others attacked myself according to a secondary set of instructions. This SK has failed to register myself. The need to interfere is unverified.' Dodger watched the samurai continue his destruction. The SK operated with a sublime smoothness that he found disturbing almost as disturbing as Morgan's knowledge of them. 'How do you know so much about them? I Ve never heard of SKs.'
'They are like myself. Lacking the random factor at the crucial programming junction, myself's development would not have proceeded as it has.'
'Are you suggesting that it's only luck that you're not just an ordinary SK like them?' As if there were anything ordinary about an SK. 'That it's just chance that you are self-aware?'
'Chance is an element in all existence. For myself, there is certainty that the chance element was the unauthorized intrusion into the Renraku matrix by Samuel Verner-Sam-Twist and yourself. As organisms standing in the immediate generative position of an entity, you are the parents of myself.'
'What are you saying?'
Howling Coyote had said that the dancers danced on four legs. Each leg was indispensable to the others, and the nature of each was intertwined with the nature of the others. The first, the old shaman had said, was sacrifice.
As each dancer fell, Sam felt loss as well as gain. Each was another soul on his soul. He hadn't really understood what leading the Dance would mean. But now he knew. Howling Coyote had told him that sacrifices were the essence of the Great Ghost Dance, that the giving of life was one of the four sacred legs on which the Dance moved. Sam thought he had understood what that would mean, and he had been ready to pay the price himself, giving his own life to accomplish his ends.
The second leg was belief. Without confidence in the efficacy of the magic as well as firm conviction in the properness of the application, the Dance would have no effect. The power coursing through him made doubt in the magic's existence impossible.
Howling Coyote had named harmony as the the third leg. Discord with the earth or with the self would flaw the magic. Sam had learned that lesson from Dog when he finally came to understand his true nature. When the self was in balance with the nature, there could be no improper desires. Harmony with the natural order was vital to the greatest of magicks and the greatest of magicks was restoring harmony to the natural order.
Righteousness was the fourth leg. Such a magic as the Great Ghost Dance could only be wielded in a good cause. What more proper cause at which to aim the dance than the preservation of the world? For all its flaws, the Sixth World must go on. As the cost of that power weighed on Sam, he held on to the necessity of what must be done. The burden he was accepting was his sacrifice, one that, as Janice had reminded him, had to be selfless. His own wants had to be subordinated to the needs of the world.
He had started his quest seeking to save his sister. And now, after a fashion, he had. But she had saved herself as well.
Sam had accepted Janice's sacrifice and let her become the focus through which the magic could eliminate an aspect of evil. That the arm of evil so destroyed was one that had harmed Janice was not vengeance, but justice. The earth and Janice had accepted his choice of tool, for the magic had worked. He had felt the wonder in Janice's soul as it flew free of the distorted shell in which she had been trapped. The spirit form had been suffused with joyous energy.
Life freely given in a good cause was a magic even without the focus of the Dance. There was energy in the gift. As leader of the Dance, Sam had the responsibility of receiving and molding the mana, shaping it to the purpose at hand. This ritual was not like the sacrifices the old wendigo had led the misguided dru-ids to perform. The mana could not be taken from a person, it could only be given. As it had been by the dancers. Sam could not let the gift be in vain.
Each dancer had given him or herself to the magic. Each soul had surrendered bodily life to give its mana, to make him strong in magic. Each life laid down was laid onto his own soul, and he would never forget any of them, for they would forever be a part of him. Even Estios. For all his disagreeable arrogance, the elf had fought to make the world a better place.
The world would be a better place if Sam had anything to say about it. But there was another who had a different vision of what the world should be. Sam's vision expanded, and he saw what he knew he must see. The other was drawn to the magic. If she had not been, he would have had to seek her out. Spider came, terrible and mighty. Spider came, dreadful and majestic. Spider came, hungry and strong. Shaking the earth, Spider came. The sky was lit with magic, and Sam's vision of Spider had a clarity beyond that of nature. The vast-ness of Spider's body was at once infinite yet totally comprehensible. Sam gazed into that, grotesque and spine-chilling face and saw the deep and alien wisdom in her eyes. There was confidence in those eyes as well, for she was on her home ground and he the intruder. Her voice was cold, distant, and implacable. 'You are too much trouble.' As tall as he could stand, he was as nothing to her vastness. But he could not shirk his duty now. He took the magic as his strength and mustered his courage. Facing her, he said, 'IVe stopped you befor^ with the Dance's magic.'
Amusement was Spider's reaction. 'I sought no contest in our last meeting, for the time was not ripe.
