Alan Foster - Cyber Way

“Yeah. I can hardly restrain myself,” Moody murmured sardonically.

“They are holding many things I also do not recognize.” Ooljee tapped the monitor’s plastic surface. “This might be a medicine pouch, or it might be something completely different. I do not have any idea what the central pattern represents, because of the strange shapes it contains. These,” he indicated the colored bars, “could almost be whirling rainbows, except the colors and proportions are all wrong. But these two additional guardian figures up here”—and his hand moved up toward the top of the monitor—“look very much like Gila monsters.”

“Very instructive.” Moody belched. “Anthropology 101. What does it get us?”

“Very little, on the face of it.” Frowning, Ooljee walked back to the kitchen table and turned to study the complex image anew. “But there is a relevant ritual.”

Moody sat down tiredly. “Not another ritual.”

Ooljee was unrepentant. “It is called the Hand-Trembling Ritual. By it you specifically invoke Gila Monster, a deity who sees and keeps track of everything that occurs. So the legends say.”

“What about it?”

“Ever hear a better description of an all-inclusive database?”

“I’ve heard better names. So there’s a database called Gila Monster. Do you access it, or feed it?”

“You do not believe me. I am not sure I believe me. But there is something there.” He studied the softly humming screen appraisingly. “When working with Gila Monster, you do the Hand-Trembling ceremony. If it works, it leads to what you are looking for. That, or…”

“Or?” Moody prompted him.

“You hear the voice of Gila Monster.”

Though he’d never been outside the South, Moody knew what a Gila monster looked like from watching nature programs on the vid. He was not sure he wanted to speak with one.

Ooljee continued. “The Navaho name for the ceremony means ‘to look for something without looking.’ You could not pronounce it.”

“Do you have a vitamin ceremony? My enthusiasm level is way down.”

“And I am running out of ideas.” The sergeant pursed his lips as he eyed the monitor. His spinner sat on the table, active and alert. The telltale on the interrupt box leading to the home unit shone bright green, giving no indication of behaving in anything other than an accepted, dignified electronic manner.

“I have told you before that I am no hatathli: just a cop with an interest in the old Ways. As 1 remember it, the Hand-Trembling ceremony is comparatively simple and straightforward. Not like Blessingway or Shooting Way. Wait here a minute.” He turned and exited the kitchen. Moody looked after him. “Where are you going?”

“To look up some details.”

“How many domestic mollys do y’all have in this place, anyway?”

“Just two. The one on the counter, and one in the boys’ room for their school work. It won’t interface with the tower molly, but I can access the educational library system with it. That should be sufficient.”

While waiting for his host to return, Moody busied himself with raiding the refrigerator and examining the image frozen on the zenat. The twisting humanlike figures and accompanying symbols, though unfamiliar, were arrayed against the neutral background in symmetrical, orderly fashion. Nor did one have to be an expert to identify the two shapes at the open east end of the sandpainting as lizardlike. East was the direction from which spirits entered, he remembered Ooljee telling him.

The sergeant returned, studying some paper printouts.

His lips moved as he read, as if he were rehearsing.

“I probably will not do this right.”

“It probably won’t matter,” Moody argued. “Look, why don’t we just call it an evening and go get some supper? If you’re that into continuing this we can come back to it in the morning.”

“They may call me to report to work in the morning. I want to work on it now."

Moody shrugged. “It’s your kitchen. I’m just taking up space here. It’s just that I thought you told me you didn’t believe in any of this spirit stuff.”

“Not in spirits. In reason and logical progression. Even coincidence has its break point, my friend. Anyhow, it won’t take very long.” He wasn’t exactly pleading, but the detective could see that his colleague was going to have to get this out of his system. Well, it would be worth a few minutes of silliness to accomplish that.

“There is just one thing: you are going to have to help.”

“What, me?” Moody sat up straight. “Look, Paul, I’m just a good ol’ boy from the Sip. You may want me to concentrate on sandpaintings full of funny shapes and people with different-shaped heads, but all I can think of is steak and yams and red beans and rice. And iced tea, about one part sugar to ten parts tea. I don’t fry my bread, neither. What could I do that would help?”

“I do not have a drum.”

Oh, mama, Moody thought. “A drum?”

“I just need someone to help me maintain a rhythm.”

“You mean, something like this?” Moody extended a big hand and softly tapped the upholstery of the chair next to his.

“A little slower, please.”

“That’s all? Shoot, I can handle this much. So long as I don’t think about how stupid it looks.”

“There is no one here to see you.”

“You don’t need for me to emphasize any beats?”

“No. A steady, unvarying rhythm will be best.”

“You got it. Okay if I switch hands once in a while?”

“That will not matter.” Ooljee had already turned around to face the screen.

Even though he had some idea of what to expect, Moody was surprised when his partner began to sing. The voice was still that of Paul Ooljee, Sergeant, NDPS, but the intonation was archaic, like something out of an old two-D vid or ethnographic recording. It was not difficult or incomprehensible—just different. Moody thought that with a little practice and instruction he could do it himself. There was much that was basal and primitive in it, a simple mon-otonal chant that was probably common to all primitive cultures including his own, irrespective of origin. It grew easier instead of more difficult to maintain his drumming on the chair as he listened to his partner.

Ooljee stretched his left hand out toward the monitor. His right still held the papers he’d brought. There were only a couple of pages. The left hand had begun to tremble like that of a man afflicted with Parkinson’s and Moody mentally complimented his colleague on his accomplished amateur theatrics. He was on the second page of his notes now. In a minute or so this would all be over with. Then they could get something to eat.

The police spinner on the table was equipped with a vocup for recording reports and the confessions of suspects, so presumably it was picking up its owner’s chanting as well. Certainly Ooljee wasn’t prolonging this nonsense for his friend’s benefit.

Something alerted Moody’s nostrils. He sniffed, his gaze shooting to the gall-like growth on the linking cable that was the interrupt box.

“Okay, Paul, that’s enough.” He stopped drumming, but his partner continued the chant, glancing briefly in his direction to indicate that he’d heard but that it didn’t matter. “Hey, that’s enough!”

Smoke was rising from the comers of the interrupt box. Something in its vicinity vented a loud pop.

Moody shoved his chair away from the table and lunged at the cable which connected the home spinner to its wall jack. He let out a yelp of pain and surprise, letting go of the cable as quickly as he’d grabbed it: it was hot enough to bum.

Tiny flames spurted from one comer of the interrupt box, which started to melt. Oblivious, Ooljee kept chanting, his left hand still vibrating madly. The image on the zenat was unchanged.