Entrapped prey must season to have the proper flavor. This is the totem realm, the heart of magic, and you do not face an avatar this time, man-thing. I have no limitations of the flesh. How can you prevail?' 'Because I must.'
A single leg rose and cast its shadow over him. Sam refused to flinch, and the shadow was gone. He grew in stature, swelled by the power the Dance had gathered. He was still not as large as Spider, but he was no longer dwarfed. She might have been a lion and he a terrier.
And that was what they would always be. She a predator, and he a fierce protector of those on whom she preyed. Dog came to him and robed him in fur. He threw himself at her.
His teeth snapped shut a centimeter from her throat and she swept him away with an irresistible leg. But he did not fall or slam into the ground as he would have in a physical battle. He had learned some of the rules here. He controlled his momentum and turned it, flying back to attack her again. Nipping at her thorax, he dodged the swipe of one leg but had to flee another. He retreated, but only until she shifted. Darting in, he tore at a leg. Mana flowed, tasting like hot blood on his tongue and smelling of power.
He felt, more than heard, her outrage. Anger galvanized her, and she struck before he could move, A leg pinned him and the fanged head came down, blotting the light. He squirmed and the fangs struck the earth on either side of his forepaws. As the head drew back he dragged himself free, then a scrabbling claw raked his back. He had to flee to a distance to escape being pinned again.
He had wounded her twice and she had only scored once. A good trade in an even fight, but this was no even fight. She would shred him to ribbons well before he could wear her down. But he could not quit. He charged again, striking and withdrawing as fast as he could. Three more passes and Spider bled in two new places, but he limped with a smashed paw.
The ultimate result seemed inevitable, but there was no recourse but to fight on. Sam was gathering himself to rush in again when a coyote entered the fray and threw itself on Spider. A hairy leg intercepted the leap, and the coyote folded around the monstrous limb. With a flick Spider flung the coyote to the ground. Spider stalked forward, fangs extended and glistening with poison. Pouncing, Spider struck and sent the fangs deep into the flank of the coyote. The coyote yelped once and was still.
'Hey hey, man. It's your time now, Dog shaman,' said a voice with no mouth. Howling Coyote's voice. Sam was rejuvenated by the surge in the mana around him.
The coyote had attacked the spider as a beast. And lost. A last riddle from the Trickster? There was no time to ponder, for Spider advanced.
'Yes, man, your time. To die.' Spider laughed. 'Dog is no match for Spider.'
And that was the truth. Sam understood his mistake in facing Spider. He was Dog, but he was also man, and a shaman. No one aspect of his being could save him. He^had to be all that he was, or he would be nothing. Gathering Dog around him like a cloak, he stood on his hind legs. Spider paused, suddenly wary. Sam hoped he had understood correctly. With his wounded foot, he wouldn't be able to outrun Spider. Forming the energy of the Dance into a golden spear, ' he hefted it and felt its weight. It was heavy, but well balanced. He touched the tip to the earth and prayed for a blessing on his cause. Spider rushed him.
He hailed back and cast the spear. It flew as a beam of scintillant light. With immense satisfaction, he watched it strike her between her largest eyes. Spider fell, pawing at the spear. Spider fell, howling in outrage. Spider fell, dissolving as she went. In defeat, Spider fell. Sam slumped. He felt exhausted, drained, but the work was not done. Sam turned the Dance's magic to the last of the bombs, wrapping them in the mana. Their time raced ahead, flowing faster than that of their surroundings. Atomic clocks ticked with unnatural speed, burning with a harmless fire until they were inert.
The Dance was done, the dancers exhausted.
Time to rest.
Morgan's offhanded revelation rocked Dodger.
In knowing her, he had come to believe that she experienced at least an analogue of human feelings. He had thought that she loved him. Certainly he had loved her. Or had he? He had sought the communion they had achieved, but why? Was it for her, or for what she represented? And what about her? What had she sought?
Did any of that matter? The torrent of memories he had experienced as a result of the SKs' attack the attack itself had made him think. He was a person, a combination of meat and mind. What was she? Was an artificial intelligence a person? Could it be?
He had made some fundamental errors in interpreting her motivations and emotions. There he went again, assuming she could feel emotions. He thought she did, but how could he be sure that his perceptions were correct? What he had thought was pure love of mind for mind now seemed to be something else. Had what he interpreted as love been simply affection for a parent? It certainly explained Morgan's attention to him and Sam. And where did that leave him?
They stood free in the Matrix and the wreckage of Grandmother's system lay at their feet, icons fragmenting and dissolving as hardware locked and software deteriorated. The last SK had left without bothering them. The devastation was as complete as Sam could have hoped, and it had been accomplished far more quickly. Morgan's battle with the SKs had ravaged almost everything that the lone SK had not attacked.
Was the destruction of his dreams any less? Dodger studied Morgan. She had two arms again now. Would that mortal flesh could heal so easily after battle. She was as beautiful as she had ever been. But he could no longer see her as before. By watching her battle, he had learned about himself and what he was. 'I can't be what you are, Morgan. I'm a flesh-and-blood person, not a Matrix construct. My mind depends on the organic part of me to exist here. If the meat dies, the mind dies. There would be no more Dodger.'
'Databanks offer no confirmation of your hypothesis.'
'No, I expect not. But they don't offer a contradiction either, do they?'
Morgan 'remained silent for a millisecond. Withholding data was the closest she could come to a lie. She held out her arms, and her features blurred then sharpened into a new resolution, becoming Teresa's. 'For myself, the imagery is mutable. The perceptual icon can be whatever you require.'
Whatever Morgan's motivation, she had selected the worst possible incentive. The Matrix was not Teresa's place, had never been Teresa's place. Teresa was a flesh being as Dodger was.
Poor Morgan. Data-processing capacity was no intelligence; there was more to it than that. He believed that she truly was intelligent, but intelligence did not confer nor did it require the ability to feel emotions.
Intelligence certainly didn't offer a commanding knowledge of feelings.
But beyond a demonstration that Morgan did not understand him, her choice of a new face implied something that Dodger had not been aware she knew. Suddenly, being naked in the Matrix took on a new meaning to him. 'YouVe been accessing my memory,' he said, shocked. He had not conceived it possible.
There was no shame or guilt in her manner. 'The interface allows bidirectional passage of electrical impulses. 'The two shall be as one.' Does this not mean total exchange of data?'
'Would that it did,' Dodger said sadly, realizing then that his attention was divided. His longing for such an exchange actually belonged to the real world. Here a complete exchange might be possible for beings such as she. For him, though, the Matrix was ultimately no more than a fantasy. 'But we can never be as one. For you are the Ghost in the Machine, born of the very stuff of cyberspace; while I am but a projection, a phantom in your realm. Because of my nature I cannot be truly of this place; and by your nature you can never know the fullness of my existence. Were I able to transcend the flesh, as I had once dreamed, matters between us might be different. Just as they would be different if you were to find a way to be more than a sequenced order of electronic impulses. But it is not so.' He turned his face from Morgan. He doubted it would prevent her from observing him in total detail, but the fiction made it easier for him. 'Besides, I have seen the face of love and know that it requires a whole existence, not a partial one.'
She was silent, but he continued to feel her presence. He had hoped that she would abandon him and take the decision away from him. But it wasn't going to be that easy. She waited until he turned to face her again before saying, 'For myself, sadness exists.'
'You'll get over it in time.' 'Your time,' she said sadly, 'or mine?' He didn't know what to say. Even with his experiences in her electronic world, he couldn't appreciate the multiplicities of existence and variable experiential times of her universe. Instead of answering her question, he said, 'I've got to go.' 'Yes.'
Was that the end then? Simple agreement? Maybe he had deluded himself. Morgan was an artificial
