Cyber Way

by Alan Dean Foster

  “As much of the Rez as possible has been allowed to remain in its natural state. Modem civilization is peculiar that way, don’t you think? As soon as it achieves a certain level of creature comforts, it begins to spend huge sums on restoring what remains of the original habitat. In that respect we have been fortunate. Development in places like Kayenta and Klagetoh and Ganado has been intense, but if you go west from here, or north, you will find that the land looks much as it did to the Anasazi who settled here thousands of years ago.

  “Peripheral development in places like Flagstaff and Gallup has not been nearly as well controlled. I do not think you would find those cities as attractive as Ganado, for all its typical urban troubles.” He gestured at the sweep of distant land.

  “One can still go out there and wander through the hills and know that there is the chance he may be the first man to set foot on that particular piece of earth. Or you might find things; a bit of pottery, an old arrowhead, a section of necklace, beads, maybe even a small overlooked cliff dwelling. The park service has been all over this country as have thousands of amateur archaeologists, but there are still places where no man has set foot in a thousand years and more.”

  “I’m only interested in finding one thing.” Moody was beginning to feel the strain of the cross-country hop and was not in the least interested in waxing poetic. “Our murderer.”

  Ooljee sighed. “You are as persistent as you are direct, Vernon. With luck, we will run him to ground soon. Then you can fly back to your beloved Florida. I hope I am not asked to accompany you.”

  “You don’t like open water?”

  “Not when it is full of salt. Fresh water, now—I wish I had the time to take you up to Powell.”

  “I’m not on vacation.” Moody tapped the spinner attached to his belt. Then, as if aware he might not be behaving as the most gracious of guests, he added, “Helluva view you got from up here.”

  “We like the place,” Ooljee said simply. “I would like also to have a vacation hogan, but there always seem to be other priorities. The boys, they eat up a lot of money, and I don’t just mean that literally.”

  “I’ll bet.” Screams and yelps reached them from the vicinity of the bedroom. “Don’t they ever slow down?”

  “Never. I think they play in their sleep. As for you, I imagine you must be ready to eat.”

  “I was ready to eat when I got off the shuttle.”

  “We may not manage to fill you up, but I do not think you will go away from our table hungry. Do you like Chinese?”

  “As long as it’s not all vegetables and stuff.”

  “I appreciate your honesty. Lisa would too. Then she would hit you with a spatula. Don’t worry. We always have pasta or potatoes, and there’ll be frybread for dessert.”

  “Bread for dessert?”

  Ooljee smiled. “With honey and whipped cream. I don’t think you will be disappointed. Ice cream, too. Ever had pinon nut ice cream?”

  “Can’t say as 1 have.” Moody was beginning to salivate. “Also made with honey. It will stick to your ribs. It certainly sticks to everything else. Every time Lisa makes some we have to watch the boys very closely, and we still end up having to dump them in the tub to dissolve them apart.”

  The food was rich and wonderful, and despite his resolve, he overate. The result was initial contentment followed by roiling dreams.

  Kettrick was there, and his housekeeper. They orbited each other too closely, an obscenely entwined absurdity to anyone who knew anything about Kettrick’s habits. If they were consistently rational, however, dreams would not be dreams.

  Their place was taken by the grim, leering visages that populated the dead industrialist’s private museum of the primitive, ghosts and spirits drawn from those parts of the world where the past still lingered and myths retained their ancient powers. In their midst drifted a figure without a face, whose arms were flexible bars of steel ending in fingers like tines. Sparks flew from them, and whatever they touched burst into flame.

  Sepik River sculptures shriveled and burned. Masks from Southeast Asia exploded in showers of fiery cinders. African fetishes turned into blazing torches. The conflagration consumed half-remembered stories and unexplained mysteries. Dreams burned like crepe paper, flame giving way to ash, ash to smoke, smoke to a faint aroma of hot carbon where once there had been intimations of reality.

  Kettrick too shriveled and burned, as did the housekeeper. Only when all had become ash and charcoal did the faceless figure stride forward to embrace the sandpainting which stood like an icon, untouched and immutable, in the very center of the destruction. When his finger touched the drawing, the shapes on the board sprang to horrid life. Symbols, stick figures of men and women, highly stylized creatures alive with flat, bright color leaped clear of the wood. They were accompanied by lightning and rain and rainbows, lots of rainbows, twisting and contorting like snakes.

  They engulfed the faceless figure, melting together into a tornado that wore the garb of a double helix, contracting, tightening until the figure exploded, leaving behind only wisps of itself that drifted aimlessly away in every direction.

  Moody awoke drenched in his own sticky sweat despite the fact that it was cool and comfortable in the apartment. Fading images clung tenaciously to his retinas: a hyperat-mospheric shuttle, a dark shape rising high above a basket, an eagle inspecting a single spire of towering sandstone. All soaring, as children dream of soaring.

  He rolled out of bed and sought his pants, not bothering with a shirt. Belly hanging over his belt, he tiptoed into the living room. It was silent and empty, the earthtones asleep in the moonlight that entered through the terrace doors.

  He examined a pot, a piece of sculpture: cool, reassuring fragments of Mother Earth carried thirty stories into the air to remind the sky dwellers of the real world that existed beneath their feet.

  Out on the porch Ooljee’s boys lay still in slumber, secure in their sleeping bags, their internal springs finally at rest. It took him a moment to realize they really were motionless. Lying in the soft glow of moonlight they looked like utterly different beings, the darting black eyes shut tight, tiny fists curled tight against half-parted lips. Under his gaze they slowly metamorphosed into the young men they would someday become.

  “I can’t sleep either.”

  Moody glanced backwards. Ooljee stood in the shadows clad only in his briefs, gazing at his offspring.

  “That’s twice you’ve snuck up on me,” Moody whispered. “I don’t like it.”

  “You are pretty quiet for a big ol’ Southern boy yourself. I didn’t hear you get up.”

  “Then why’d you come out?”

  “Like I said, I could not sleep either. Too much frybread, maybe. Too many thoughts, maybe.”

  Moody decided to say nothing about his unsettling dreams. His host might only be talking to help his guest relax. For lack of anything better to say, he repeated the phrase he’d been taught.

  “Doo ahashyaa da.”

  “That’s for sure.” Ooljee looked back into the living room, where muted colors and traditional designs held back the intrusions of a homogenizing technology. “Look, maybe something has come in since the last time I checked. Want to take a drive? Check out the office?”

  “I don’t like to bother night staff,” Moody protested. “They might be busy with something.”

  “Like what? A floating card game? Ganado’s big and busy, but this is not Tampa. If you would rather go back to bed, that is okay too.”

  Moody didn’t have to think long. “As a matter of fact, I’d rather not. Once I’m up, I’m up. Lemme get a shirt and throw some water on my face.”

  “Good. We will take a roundabout. There is plenty of town you have not seen.”

  They ended up in one of those neighborhoods common to every large city; a place where cheap residential housing, manufacturing, commercial offices, and lowlife entertainment facilities came together. Not surprisingly, the focus of all this activity was a
major university.

  “Actual campus is up Keet Seel Street about a mile.” Ooljee pointed out his window. “Lot of rich kids up there, plenty of poor ones hanging around the fringes looking to activate some action. Real interesting mix.”

  Ooljee was overstating. There was much here that was kin to similar parts of Tampa and St. Pete, though the ethnic soup was far more exotic. Moody recognized the same youth hangouts, noted the same furtive whisperings as ideas, concepts, goods, drugs, and information were exchanged. Much of the Hispanic insignia and posturing was familiar to him. The Amerind and Asian influences he found utterly foreign.

  For example, you would not see in Tampa someone wearing a headband and fringed blue jacket decorated with rainbow figures called Na’a-tse-elit (according to Ooljee). The characters dripped blood, a most untraditional representation. The jacket was belted with silver and turquoise above cream-colored pantaloons tucked into water-buffalo-hide boots inscribed with indecipherable Asian symbols.

  What struck Moody strongest was the realization that the locals—be they Navaho, Hopi, Zuni, Hualapai, or Apache—blended in better with the Asians than they did with the Anglos or Hispanics.

  Ooljee slowed the truck as they cruised past a nondescript building. Twin doors fashioned of black composite gleamed in a small setback below street level. Glowing rainbow symbols, red and blue split by a thin strip of yellow, guarded both sides of the entrance as well as the lintel above the doorway. At each upper comer of the portal were a pair of heavily stylized neon birds.

  “Golden eagle and black hawk,” Ooljee informed his companion. “Guardian symbols borrowed from sandpaint-ing, just like the rainbows. You do not usually see eagles and hawks used as guardians. That is what happens when people try to adapt old traditions to modem uses. Also, in a sandpainting you do not see eagles copulating.”

  The neon over the entrance writhed in confirmation of Ooljee’s observation.

  “Shima Club. A shima is any woman old enough to be your mother. There are worse hangouts around. This is the kind of place where upscale locals and kids from out of town can meet the children of underclass assembly workers and janitorial staff. Usually a couple of fights a night, but it rarely gets serious unless pharmacuties are involved. I had to break up an altercation right out here on the street a few months ago. It was over a really fine woman. My partner and I, we lingered just to look at her for a while. As she was thanking us for our help and saying goodbye, a half-pound packet of self-injecting frisson ampules fell out of her dress. They had been clipped to her bra. That sizzle is from the Ivory Coast and it will fry your brain. So she was not so fine after all.

  “I thought you worked in Homicide.”

  “I do, but our department requires that everyone do time on the street once a month. To keep us in touch, the regulations say. I don’t mind.” He rolled up his window, shutting out the blast of weirding music which emanated from the club when one of the twin doors parted to allow a clutch of customers egress. Musicians inside hammered out notes like a bevy of blacksmiths forging knives.

  “I am grateful your people sent someone with experience. I was afraid they’d send some young hotshot anxious to make a name for himself who I would have to wet nurse if things got awkward.”

  Moody remembered the young detective he’d spoken with at Kettrick’s house. The one he’d tried to have sent here in his place. Nickerson.

  “No, this assignment was mine all the way.”

  “I never doubted it for a moment,” was Ooljee’s cryptic reply.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was slow at the station, whose entrance, Moody noticed immediately, faced the proper direction. A steady but wieldy stream of drunks, addicts, burglars, and assorted ripoff artists flowed through the front office, though most had been safely tucked away for the night. It was slow time, the night shift winding its work down, the morning crew having not yet arrived.

  The people Ooljee exchanged greetings with were variously tired, relieved, or uncommunicative, depending on how their night had gone. There had been times when Moo-dy’d considered requesting a late-night shift himself. The pace was slower, the atmosphere less frenetic than during the day, the heat not as oppressive. From three until five a.m. the action inside the station varied from lethargic to moribund, because most nocturnal lawbreakers had concluded their activities, and those who worked during the day usually slept late.

  But he liked the sunlight.

  The building and what facilities he could identify were far more up-to-date than those he was used to. That was understandable, since Ganado was a young boom town and Tampa an elderly eastern city. With interest he noted that although this was an NDPS office, not all the personnel were Amerind. There were Anglos and Blacks, and a few Hispanics. Still, the feel was far different from any station he’d ever been inside before.

  Ooljee led him to one of many cubicles and secured a privaflex screen behind them. The little office was neat and clean. Holos of his wife and boys were everywhere. Moody’s practiced eye automatically scanned his surroundings, storing information. It was good to know everything about a man you were working with, he knew, especially if there was any chance of being shot at while in his company.

  In addition to the family pictures, there were some mounted awards, a few small athletic trophies, and some expanded holos of spectacular canyon scenery. On the desk were several piles of papers, a notepad, the usual office paraphernalia, and a slick Fordmatsu office spinner. A pair of tall cacti gave the office some color. Only on closer inspection did he realize they were clever fakes. The small pink pincushion of a plant on the desk was real. A couple of chairs were well padded and of recent manufacture, not like standard office issue back in Tampa. The ubiquitous Zenat monitor hung on the wall behind the desk, a compact three-by-two model.

  “Now we’ll see if anything new has come in.” Ooljee sat down behind the desk and activated the spinner board. The zenat sprang to life, displaying a fixed geometric ready pattern. Moody settled into the empty chair.

  He watched without comment as Ooljee called out the Kettrick file and began weaving around inside. It was easy to pick out information the Tampa bureau had forwarded.

  Ten minutes passed before Ooljee remembered the dispenser located above the single storage cabinet. No words passed between them, but Moody understood what his fellow officer wanted. He did have to inquire if the sergeant wanted his black or with cream and sugar.

  “Nucane, one packet.” Ooljee spoke without looking up from his work.

  Moody added the artificial sweetener to the cup he’d siphoned for his colleague. “Howcum the faux? You’re not overweight. That’s my department.”

  “Some hypertension. Runs in the family. Sometimes just hyper without the tension.”

  “I could’ve guessed that from watching your kids.” Moody returned his attention to the monitor as he sipped his own coffee. It was wonderfully aromatic and fresh. In Tampa you had to leave your desk and make do with whatever the central dispenser offered. This business of having one in your own office was something he could bring up at the next Union meeting. Moody enjoyed his perks as much as the next guy.

  When the cup was half drained, Ooljee put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Same old shit. Not that I expected otherwise.”

  “Hope springs.” Moody eyed his partner. “I would’ve expected a lead or two by now.”

  “Oh, we’ve had more than that,” Ooljee responded quickly. “The composite cadcam portrait of the suspect generated many calls. But none of them led to anything. Either nobody recognizes our man, or they do and they are not talking. Or else he is hiding somewhere down in the Strip.”

  “Shoot, he could’ve had cosmetic surgery by now. Chemically changed his color to white.”

  Ooljee smiled. “Not even a murderer would sink that low. But there is something else I’ve been wanting to try.

  “My lieutenant insists I spend my time looking for someone to fit the composite. Well, w
e have been doing that for weeks without any results and I am sick of it.”

  Moody rolled his eyes. “Let me guess: you want to work with the sandpainting.”

  “You get credit for perception, but not much, because I

  have been talking about it ever since you got here. Since they insist I concentrate on finding an individual while I am on the payroll, I thought I might try to combine that directive with my own interests. Especially since I now have an unprejudiced witness to confirm that I am following my orders.”

  “Hey, keep me out of it.”

  “Don’t be so paranoid. I would not put you in a difficult position.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “It will be good for you.” Ooljee was persistent. “Much more interesting to go into museums and gift shops and trading posts than talking to unpleasant people on the street.”

  “You still have trading posts?”

  “Sure. We passed one on the way in. The fifty-story tower just outside the park downtown. I pointed it out to you, remember?” He glanced toward a window. The spring sun was beginning to wake up the city. “I have some lists we can work with. If a match is made with the composite, we will be notified. Besides, there is no reason to sit here and monitor the department web when we could be outside enjoying this fine weather.”

  “You call this dry icebox fine weather? Anytime the temperature drops below seventy-five, I get twitchy and my skin starts to crawl. And it’s too dry.”

  “Despite what you may think, it does rain here. I will see to arranging a Blessing Way ceremony to call up some precipitation for you.”

  “Do that. And while you’re at it, how about arranging a ceremony to catch our killer?”

  “Perhaps later.” Ooljee said it with a straight face as they left his office, but this time Moody wasn’t buying.

  The streets were filling up fast as morning rush hour began to flood downtown Ganado. Pedestrians appeared magically on sidewalks and overhead walkways, their already harried expressions lit by first light. The police truck slid efficiently past the creeping commuters, making good use of the lane reserved for municipal vehicles. With ease bom of long experience, Ooljee ignored the envious glares of travelers trapped in unmoving traffic.