Диана Дуэйн - High Wizardry

"Maybe I should buy It a hot dog," Dairine muttered. That would make as much sense as most of these solutions. She was getting a feeling that there was something important about dealing with the Lone Power that the computer wasn't telling her.

She scrolled back to Nita and Kit's precis again and read it through carefully, comparing it with what she had seen them do or heard them say herself. Her conversation with Nita after she had seen her sister change back from being a whale was described in the precis as "penultimate clarification and choice."

Dairine scowled. What had Nita chosen? And why? She wished she had her there to ask her. . but no.

Dairine didn't think she could cope with Nita at the moment. Her sister would certainly rip into her for doing dumb things, and Dairine wasn't in the mood. . considering how many dumb things she had done in the past day and a half.

Still, Dairine thought, a little advice would come in real useful around now. .

"Ready," said the computer suddenly.

"Okay. Ask it to go ahead."

"Warning," the computer said. "The spell being used requires major restructuring of the substrate.

Surface stability will be subject to change without notice."

"You mean I should stand back?"

"I thought that was what I said," said the computer.

Dairine made a wry face, then picked it up and started walking. "C'mon, Gigo, all you guys," she said.

"Let's get out of the way."

They trooped off obediently after her. Finally, about a quarter-mile away, she stopped. "This far enough away, you think?" she said to the computer.

"Yes. Working now."

She felt a rumbling under the surface again, but this was less alarming than that caused by the transit of the black hole-a more controlled and purposeful sound. The ground where Dairine had been sitting abruptly sank in on itself, swallowing the debris caused by the breaking-out of the turtles. Then slow ripples began to travel across the surface, as it turned itself into what looked like a bubbling pot of syrup, clear in places, swirled and streaked with color in others. Heat didn't seem to be involved in the process. Dairine sat down to watch, fascinated.

"Unnamed," Gigo said next to her, "data transfer?"

Dairine looked down at the little creature. "You want to ask me a question? Sure. And I have a name, it's Dairine."

"Dairrn," it said. She chuckled a little. Dairine had never been terribly fond of her name-people tended to stumble over it. But she rather liked the way Gigo said it. "Close enough," she said. "What's up?"

"Why do you transfer data so slowly?"

That surprised her for a moment, until she considered the rate at which the computer and the motherboard had been talking: and this was in fact the motherboard she was talking to now. To something that had been taught to reckon its time in milliseconds, conversation with her must seem about as fast as watching a tree grow. "For my kind of life, I'm pretty quick," Dairine said. "It just looks slow to you."

"There is more-slowlife?"

"Lots more. In fact, you and the Apple there are about the only, uh, 'quicklife' there is, as far as I know."

She paused and said, "Quick life, as opposed to dumb machines that are fast, but not alive."

"I see it, in the data the Lightbringer gave us," said Gigo. Dairine glanced over at the computer. "Data transfer?"

"Sure," Dairine said.

"What is the purpose of this new program run?"

Wow, its syntax is really shaping up. If this keeps up, it's gonna be smarter than me!… Is that a good idea? But Dairine laughed at it. It was the best idea: a supercomputer faster than a Cray, with more data in it than all the New York Public Library-what a friend to have! "When I'm gone," Dairine said, "you're going to need to be able to make your own changes in your world. So I'm making you mobiles that will be able to make the changes."

"Data transfer! Define 'gone'!"

Gigo's urgency surprised Dairine. "I can't stay here," she said. No, better simplify. "My physical presence here must terminate soon," she said. "But don't worry. You guys won't be alone."

"We will!" cried Gigo, and the whole planet through him.

"No, you won't," Dairine said. "Don't panic. Look, I'm taking care of it. You saw all the different bodies I wrote into the 'Make' program for you? You saw how they're all structured differently on the inside?

That's so they can have different personalities. There'll be lots more of you."

"How?"

Dairine hoped she could explain this properly. "You'll split yourself up," she said. "You'll copy your basic programming in a condensed form into each one of them, and then run them all separately."

There was a long, long silence. "Illegal function call," said Gigo slowly.

"It's not. Believe me. It sounds like it, but it works just fine for all the slowlife. . it'll work for you too.

Besides," Dairine said, "if you don't split yourself up, you won't have anybody to talk to, and play with!"

"Illegal function call. ."

"Trust me," Dairine said, "you've got to trust me. . Oh, look at that."

The surface, which had been seething and rippling, had steadied down, slick and glassy again. Now it was bulging up, as it had before. There was no sound, but through each hunching, each cracking hummock, glassy shapes pushed themselves upward, shook the fragments off, stood upright, walked, uncertain and ungainly as new foals. In the rose light of the declining sun they shone and glowed; some of them tall and stalky, some short and squat, some long and flowing and many-jointed, some rounded and bulky and strong; and one and all as they finished being made, they strode or stalked or glided over to where Dairine was. She and Gigo and the first turtles were surrounded by tens and twenties and hundreds of bright glassy shapes, a forest of flexing arms, glittering sensors, color in bold bands and delicate brushings-grace built in glass and gorgeously alive. "Look at them," Dairine said, half lost in wonder herself. "It'll be like being you. . but a hundred times, a thousand times. Remember how the light looked the first time?"

"Data reacquired," Gigo said, soft-voiced.

"Like that," Dairine said. "But again and again and again. A thousand of you to share every memory with, and each one able to see it differently. . and everyone else'll see it better when the one who sees it differently tells all the others about it. You won't be the only quicklife anymore. Copy your programming out, and there'll be as many of you as you want to make. A thousand of you, a million of you to have the magic together. . "

"The call is legal," Gigo said after a moment. "Data transfer?"

"What?"

"Will there be pain? Like the Dark that Pulls?"

Dairine's heart wrenched. She picked Gigo up and pulled him into her lap. "I don't know, small stuff," she said. "There might be. I'm here if it does. You just hold on to me, and don't be scared."

She turned to the computer. "You know how to describe this to the motherboard?" she said. "They've all got to have all the major programming you gave their mom, but you're gonna have to pack the code down awful tight. And make sure they still don't lose the connection to her once they're autonomous."

"Noted," said the computer. "Override protocols require that I confirm with you what parts of the wizardly programming are to be passed on to each individual, and to what number of individuals."

She looked at it in surprise. "All of it, of course. And all of them."

"Reconfirmation, please. This far exceeds the median distribution and percentage."

"Oh? What is it on Earth?"

"Ratio of potential wizards to nonpotential: one to three. Ratio of practicing wizards to potential wizards: one to one hundred. Ratio of-"

"Are you trying to tell me that there are sixteen million practicing wizards on Earth?"