"How can I create beauty when I don't understand it, Mister Dauphin?" she asked. "I only wanted to verify I still had the ability to manipulate the software. I think I am different - somehow."

"Well... Who wouldn't be changed seeing a place like that? You weren't even... well, you know..."

"99.2 percent of my code is unreadable, but the process has stopped."

"Then you're 99.2 percent spirit?" I asked, feeling the thought might have held truth. I grabbed Aether's hand - the solid hand of her vanitar - and took her to three of the people looking up in awe.

"Isn't it wonderful? What do you think?"

"It expresses untamed fury!" the first man said. "A fury that cries out to be heard but cannot find a voice!"

"No, it is peace," the second said. "A peace that tries to break out of a cage and cover everything."

"Sadness," the woman said. "The profound sadness of seeing wasted potential, like when someone loses children on a battlefield."

"How do you see that?" Aether asked them.

"Well, it's not the sort of thing we can explain," the woman said, looking at Aether. "It's just how we interpret it. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' as they say."

"Even if I could explain it, I don't think I'd want to," the man who saw fury said. "I think analyzing it too much takes away the magic of the experience, you know?"