Cyber Way

by Alan Dean Foster

  “I hope we can be helpful.”

  “Yeah. Say, why do your friends call you crazy?”

  “Everyone in my clan thinks I would be a plant manager by now if I had gone into commerce instead of police work. It does not matter to them that I happen to like police work. It suits my nature. What do you know about Navaho sand-paintings?”

  “I know one guy got himself killed over one. That’s about it. In my department you don’t have to take anthropology to make detective.”

  “Different departments. Why don’t we rest here a moment? Sometimes it helps, when you have just come up from sea level.”

  Moody hesitated, checked with his heart and lungs, and gave in to their reply. He set his luggage down next to a bench and then gratefully let the hardwood slats cradle his weight. Ooljee remained standing.

  “You will be seeing sandpaintings all over town, especially in the hotels and gift shops. It is a big business. Some are still done using colored sand, while others are just painted on canvas or board.” There was a twinkle in his eye. “The first thing you should know is that every one of them is wrong.”

  “Wrong? Wrong how?”

  “The colors, the tilt of a figure, the way it faces, the arrangement of plants or designs; one or all are incorrect. No one would make an accurate sandpainting to sell to a tourist, because the magic might get loose.”

  So now I know why they call you crazy, Moody thought amusedly, suspecting he was being skillfully put on. “You’re not telling me anybody out here actually believes in stuff like that anymore?”

  “Oh no,” replied Ooljee with exaggerated concern. “To do so would mark that person as an unrepentant primitive, a throwback, an apologist for ancient superstition.”

  “Then why bother to change the paintings that are sold to tourists?”

  “Many of the people here, especially the older ones, tend to adopt an unspoken agnostic-like position. They can be ninety-nine per cent sure there is no magic, but the remaining one per cent might make life unnecessarily complex. So those who manufacture the sandpaintings for mass distribution will tell you it is all old nonsense at the same time as they are making sure at least one small part of each painting they turn out is inaccurate.

  “It’s easy for them, because only a trained hatathli, a medicine man, knows how to make an accurate medicine painting, and they do not make things to sell to tourists. So you need not worry if you buy one. There will be no real magic in it.”

  “That’s a great relief,” said Moody. “Now I can embark on a life without fear.”

  “Hold to the comfort of your skepticism. We may need it later. Do not forget that someone, and I concur with your department that he is most likely Navaho, has murdered two people and violated the security of a major multinational insurance firm because of a sandpainting.”

  “But no specific suspects yet?”

  “I regret not. It will come. Your cadcam portrait was very distinctive, and we have more to go on than that. There is, for example, the fact that the victim’s secretary heard the perpetrator make his request to acquire the sandpainting a fourth time. In our culture a request made a fourth time must be honored. I think it an unlikely ploy for a non-Navaho to try.”

  “Any idea why he destroyed the painting after making such an effort to acquire it? The theory out my way goes that maybe he wanted to be the only possessor of the design, or something like that.”

  Ooljee nodded. “A possibility. When we find him we will ask him.”

  “Damn right we will.”

  “There is a chance he could be Sioux or Kiowa or someone from another tribe masquerading as Navaho to conceal his true motives, but I tend to think not. I do not see someone from another tribe being so interested in a sandpainting.” For the first time, Ooljee appeared to hesitate before speaking. “Tell me, my friend, if you don’t mind: why are you here?”

  “My department wanted one of its own on the scene. Lucky me got elected when he wasn’t looking.”

  “I see. I was not told, and I was curious.”

  “Shoot, who wouldn’t be? Look, I don’t want to step on anybody’s ego. It’s not that we don’t have complete confidence in you people out here. This wasn’t my idea. I’ll try to stay out of the way.”

  “That would be nice. Are you feeling a little better?”

  “Yeah.” Moody rose. The initial lightheadedness had left him. “Let’s go. But keep it slow, okay?” He bent to recover his luggage.

  CHAPTER 5

  On vehicles that had been left in the parking structure for more than a couple of days he noticed a fine coating of what looked like rust but which on closer inspection turned out to be russet-colored dust. He wiped some off the nearest car and rubbed the grit between his fingers, suspecting this too was something he might become unwillingly intimate with in the days to come.

  Ooljee led him to a stocky, non-aerodynamic vehicle mounted on oversized tires. The normally exposed back end was covered with an extended accordion cabover. The sergeant unsecured it electronically, popped the back door so his companion could dump his luggage in the rear. Then they climbed into the passenger compartment.

  Moody watched as Ooljee entered the ignition combination and waited for the control LCD to light. Without waiting for the engine to warm up, he backed them out of the official parking space and headed for the exit. Map lights winked on the navigation screen. Moody recognized the uncertainty pattern and queried his companion.

  “I’m not set up to patrol in Klagetoh,” Ooljee explained, “so they don’t issue me road software.”

  The exit gate flashed them through. Ooljee deftly negotiated the maze leading out of the airport, avoiding the town as he headed for the Interstate.

  Once clear of commercial traffic he entered their destination into the dash. The onboard navigation unit confirmed the entry and they began to accelerate. Ooljee let go of the wheel and relaxed. Beneath their feet, the ROM laser tracked the guide strip laminated to the pavement, coordinating speed and direction with all vehicles ahead and behind. Unless Ooljee altered the entry manually, they would travel the rest of the way into Ganado on automatic.

  “You always work out of a pickup truck?” Moody asked conversationally.

  “Old traditions die hard. This is standard issue transportation for plainclothes work. A department road cruiser would look more familiar to you, except that it would also come with four-wheel drive and steering. The roads on the Rez are much improved over the last hundred years, but there are still plenty of places that will destroy a normal vehicle. That is tradition too. Like the sandpainting.” He looked to his right as they passed a private vehicle stuck by the side of the road.

  “Family breakdown. Help will arrive soon. Tradition is why I was able to get into this Kettrick business. For a lot of the people who work in the department, tradition is who won the league title two years ago. Now me, I have always been interested in the old ways.”

  At a touch, a locked compartment in the dash dropped open. He fumbled through a disorganized, highly compacted mass of papers, opdisks, and mollyboxes until he found a color fax. Moody recognized the Kettrick painting.

  “I have been working with this a lot since your department contacted ours asking for information. I’ve already run it through the files at the Museum of Northern Arizona, the Navaho Museum in Window Rock, and the University of New Mexico at Gallup. My friend, there are hundreds of sandpaintings, each distinctively different, and this one does not match up with any of them. There are individual elements which do, but they are drawn oddly and make no historical sense in the context in which they appear. It is very peculiar. I have talked to specialists in all three places about it and they agree they have never seen anything quite like it.

  “Of course, I am only a policeman and they are only academics. We all agree that only a hatathli with much experience and a very active imagination could make anything out of this. His interpretation might not be accurate, but it would certainly be entertaining.”<
br />
  Moody shifted in the seat. It was worn but comfortable. “So what you’re telling me is that nobody has any idea what it means.”

  “That is what I am being told.” The engine hummed as they began to climb. He ran his finger over the fax. “There are figures and shapes and designs in this painting that some say are wholly nontraditional in origin. Other experts are not so certain. That is not to say the designs are meaningless; only that I have been unable so far to find anyone able to tell me what they mean.”

  Moody stuck out his lower lip. “We assumed that it sure as hell meant something to the son of a bitch who murdered Kettrick and his housekeeper.”

  “I tend to agree. I do not subscribe to the theory that we are dealing with a crazed collector.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I do not see a collector, even an insane one, destroying what he has gone to so much trouble to collect. I think it was the substance of the sandpainting the killer wanted, more than the original itself.” He looked thoughtful. “When we catch him I will be very anxious to ask him about that.”

  “Ask all y’all want. I’ll settle for catching him.” Ooljee glanced at his colleague. “Your interests parallel but do not always duplicate mine. That is understandable.”

  He turned forward again, lost in his own thoughts.

  It gave Moody time to study the countryside through which they were passing. Paralleling the Interstate to the south were the four major east-west maglide tubes, shooting cargo and the occasional passenger car between Los Angeles and Albuquerque or the Montezuma Strip.

  They hadn’t spent five minutes on the Interstate before the truck ducked down an off-ramp and crossed onto highway 191 running north. A glowing sign flashed past. METROPOLITAN GANADO—40 MILES

  “That’s where you’re based?” Moody inquired.

  The sergeant nodded. “Window Rock’s still the capital, but Ganado’s the commercial center of the Rez. Has been for over a century. You’ll be seeing high-rises pretty soon.”

  They were already in among sprawling assembly and manufacturing plants, Moody noted. “Nothing personal,” he said as they passed mile after mile of faceless industrial facilities interspersed with residential dormitories and service structures, “but surely you folks don’t own all of these?”

  “No, but we are in most of them. There are not enough of us to fill the demand for skilled techs, let alone the uhskilled positions. A lot of Hispanics and Filipinos live and work on the Rez. Plus Anglos, of course. And Nicarags, ever since the big eruption that wiped out Managua back in sixty-five. Asians mostly in the administrative posts.” With a wave of his hand he encompassed the teeming industrial landscape.

  “Most of the businesses here are tripartite joint ventures between Navahopis, Anglos, and Orientals. Isn’t it the same where you come from?”

  Moody shook his head. “Greater Tampa’s still primarily a retirement and recreation city. Oh, there’s plenty of industry, but not a lot of high-tech. Humidity’s not good for electronics.”

  “That is a problem we do not have here.”

  They drove in silence interrupted only by Ooljee’s occasional checks with his office. Only much later did he venture to ask, “I don’t suppose any neighbors reported hearing any singing from the victim’s house around the time of the murder?”

  Moody was taken aback. “Singing? Why? You think our nut’s the kind who celebrates over a kill?”

  “Not exactly that. It is only that we are operating on the premise that our suspect is Navaho, or at least someone with detailed knowledge of Navaho custom. A hatathli always chants when destroying a sandpainting. I would give a lot to know if our killer is a hatathli. It would narrow the list of potential suspects considerably.”

  Moody could not keep the irritation out of his reply. “No, as far as I know, nobody heard any singing.”

  This sandpainting business was beginning to get to him. He’d been in the Southwest less than an hour and already he wanted out. Medicine men and chants! If any of this ever made it back to Tampa he’d have to deal with the jokes for years.

  He tried to concentrate on the terrain. It was spectacular, but far too sweeping and barren for his taste. He preferred calmer horizons softened by the irregular green of tropical trees and framed by the glint of sunlight on still waters, not endless mesas that ran like veins of rust through a harsh blue sky. It was beautiful, sure, but to him, lifeless. And the lack of moisture in the air was making him itch.

  He was only here to serve as a liaison, he reminded himself; to offer what aid he could while reporting back to Tampa on any local progress, which according to Ooljee was practically nil. He could back off from this hatathli nonsense and stick to standard police procedure.

  If, he told himself suddenly, Ooljee wasn’t simply having some fun at his expense and setting him up for a few good gags with his buddies at the station. Sure, that made plenty of sense! He could envision it clearly: the paleface sucker from Florida somberly questioning other Navahos about sandpaintings and medicine men. He smiled to himself. Ooljee was good, and his guest had nearly bought it. Nearly.

  Well, two could play. Moody would smile and nod and appear to take it all seriously, and when the time came, he’d be the one to deliver the punch lines. Ooljee was a good guy and a good cop. He was only having a little fun.

  Just as Moody had it all figured, the sergeant threw him a big, fat, sweeping curve.

  “I have been devoting some time and thought to the matter of a motive.”

  “You ain’t been the only one, brother.”

  “The sandpainting is the obvious solution. What we do not know is the question. I think whoever wanted it, or a copy of it, needed it for a particular reason, and not to complete a collection. It may be that this particular sandpainting was used against the murderer in the past, or against his family, or a close friend. Or it may have been employed against a stranger who hired the murderer.

  “By destroying it according to tradition he may have been removing the threat it presented to someone. You would call it an exorcism.”

  Lordy, mused Moody. Just when common sense had been reasserting its good ol’ self.

  “If this guy can electrocute people by an as yet undetermined method, why the hell would he need to trash a bunch of colored sand? You ain’t trying to tell me we’re dealing with something like voodoo, are you?”

  “It provides a rationale for a seemingly irrational act,” Ooljee argued. “The underlying principle is the same. To affect another, they need only believe they can be affected. ”

  “This is starting to affect me,” Moody grumbled.

  “It does offer us a motive.”

  Moody eyed him sharply. “You don’t really believe in any of this scrim, do you?”

  The sergeant sidestepped the question. “What matters is that someone else may. People who believe are people capable of anything.”

  “So we’re back where we started,” Moody murmured. “The guy’s a nut.”

  “People have killed for stranger reasons: because their god or their devil told them to, or simply because they didn’t like the cast of another man ’ s eyes, or the tone of his voice. ” Moody couldn’t argue with that. He’d seen it happen too often on Tampa’s mean streets.

  “It does not matter,” Ooljee went on, “that we are dealing only with a pile of colored sand and pulverized masonite. What is significant is that whoever did the damage may believe that the sandpainting had real power. It gives us a new line to pursue. There are ways of checking such things. Not as thoroughly or efficiently as I would like, but we can make a beginning.”

  “Right.” Moody relaxed a little. It was a relief to find out that Ooljee had had a serious goal from the start.

  Beyond the fact that Ganado served as the commercial center of a major high-tech manufacturing area, Moody knew nothing about the city. As they drew within sight of the first towers, however, he knew he was going to have to discard many of his preconceptions.


  Fanciful spires rose from massive office blocks that had seemingly been integrated elsewhere and then laid down intact atop the high desert plateau. Not one of the buildings could properly be called old, every one of them having been erected within the last century. Patterned after the rugged buttes and monuments he’d seen from the air, the structures appeared a part of the landscape, as though escarpments and mesas had been hollowed out and overlaid with glass and plexan and composites. Climate-controlled pedways connected the major buildings above street level, soaring

  arteries of spun composite and metallic glass.

  Downtown, the tall buildings shut out the sun. New construction was going up everywhere. Moody was assaulted by advertisements in a dozen languages. He might as well have been in Manhattan. Only the buildings themselves hewed to a smaller scale.

  The peculiar squiggles and curves on many signs which he thought comprised some unknown Middle Eastern language were in fact, according to Ooljee, components of written Navaho.

  “Until the early part of the twentieth century there was no such thing as written Navaho.” The sergeant eased their truck around a slow delivery van. “It may look confusing, but writing it is nothing compared to trying to learn the grammar. And you should see what Hopi looks like!” He uttered a nasal melange of consonants and gutturals.

  “For something so difficult to write, it sounds beautiful. It is much like singing. The Chinese understand.”

  As he tried to make sense of his companion’s linguistic discourse, Moody studied the hovering, acrobatic laser ads. Downtown Ganado was a stroboscopic maze of holos and cold neon, of plasma sculptures that beckoned and danced and teased tired travelers. They alternately tickled and battered the senses not only in English, Hopi, Navaho, and Zuni, but also in Japanese, Mandarin, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Malay, Tagalog, and the inescapable Spanish of the South American community.

  “How much of this can you understand?” Moody inquired dazedly, more than a little overwhelmed by his unexpectedly cosmopolitan surroundings.