Cyber Way

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Keep in mind that the Universe is affected by what is good, which in Navaho means that which is under control, and that which is evil, which is anything out of control. Right now it is Gaggii who is out of control, not the web, not something we have yet to put a name to. Perhaps you are righter than you think, my friend. Maybe we catch Gaggii, maybe we do restore hozho. Not to mention complying with contemporary criminal procedure. 1 don’t have any trouble with that.”

  “Hang on!” the pilot called out to them. “Might be a little choppy coming into Cameron. I’m starting down.”

  Moody had plenty of time to think as he checked his harness. The flight from Ganado had left him more uneasy and confused than he’d been before. His mind swarmed with unbidden images of strange craft inhabited by alien creatures, of refuse dumped just outside reality, waiting to be gathered up by a garbage truck that was a thousand years behind schedule.

  Someone had watched and waited while that garbage was being dumped, the way a cat waits for its chance. Or maybe that nameless Anasazi or Navaho had been instructed by a visitor with unknown motives on how to sift through the pile. By one means or another, the knowledge had been handed down and passed along for a thousand years, its purpose forgotten, until Yistin Gaggii had learned how to interpret the symbols, had rediscovered how to access that which had been left behind.

  Moody found that he was furious with the long departed visitors. Leaving behind something as awesome as the web without proper instructions or warnings was akin to dropping a pocket nuclear device in a schoolyard. If Ooljee’s traditions were to be believed, they might be blindly poking and prodding at something just as lethal.

  They might never know exactly what it was, he thought nervously, unless it went off.

  What if Gaggii banged on it hard enough, or shook it violently enough, or in some other way upset its hoihol He almost preferred to think of giant snakes wriggling their loathsome way out of attenuated starships. Were those sinuous shapes simple embellishments which had been added down through the centuries by imaginative hatathlis? Or did they somehow really relate to the sandpainting’s greater purpose?

  Snakes. What else was unto a serpent?

  If the web was equipped with a warning, how would they recognize it if they did encounter it? They might have missed it several times already. “This is what we have left behind and this is what it does—but don’t do it or it will remove your face.”

  If Gaggii was similarly concerned, he’d chosen not to say so to his visitors. That was another reason why they had to catch him before he could proceed with whatever it was he had planned: no fool is so dangerous as a fearless one.

  What bothered Moody more than anything else, he decided suddenly, was not whether the visitors had left the web behind on purpose or out of forgetfulness, but that they might have done so indifferently, not caring one way or the other how it might impact on a miserable bunch of primitive bipeds. The one thing Moody hated more than anything else was to be ignored.

  “It is funny to think of it now,” Ooljee murmured as the skycutter bounced through an airstream, “but the chants and sandpaintings described to us as children were always designed to deal with powers beyond human control. I never thought that one day I might have to consider that proposition literally.

  “We must not just think of this web as dangerous. The hatathlis like to say that what can harm a man can also cure him. Bad things can be controlled and put to good use, just as the good can be turned to evil.”

  “The precision of it appeals to me,” said Grayhills. “The idea of using specific sandpaintings and repeated chanting to achieve a desired result. But I still don’t see how chanting and touching the image allows one to access the web.”

  Moody was the first one out when the skycutter touched down. A small multiwheeled vehicle started toward them from the edge of the landing pad.

  Ooljee was right behind him. “Consider this,” he said to Grayhills. “A number of studies make the claim that sandpainting images are really interpsychic symbols. Some academics think that the reason sandpaintings allowed the old hatathlis to cure diseases was because they literally created a pattern in the patient’s psyche—whatever that means.”

  Moody didn’t try to understand what it meant, now that they were out of the skycutter and back on solid ground. He did find it interesting, though not surprising, that the entrance to the accelerator facility faced the east.

  Not only did the chief of campus security operations doubt anyone could break into the installation, he wondered why anyone would want to.

  “Even if they could sneak inside,” he explained as he parked outside the three-story structure, “they could not do anything. You do not operate a particle accelerator by pushing an ‘On’ button. It takes the skills of a number of highly trained technicians just to set up an experiment, much less run one.”

  “We’re not arguing with you.” Grayhills exited the little electric bus. “We just want you to understand that we’re dealing with someone who is responsible for a number of unexplainable incidents, and we don’t want him doing unexplainable things to your accelerator. ”

  That got his attention. “The only other Moebial toroid accelerator in the country is at North Carolina,” he announced importantly. “We don’t want anybody monkeying with ours any more than you do. And you claim that your suspect is not a mental case.”

  “Not insofar as we have been able to determine.” Ooljee flanked the security chief as they walked toward the entrance. “He may not be able to make use of your facilities here, but we want to make sure he doesn’t do any damage, either.”

  “Don’t worry. There aren’t many entrances, our alarm system is as up to date as the accelerator itself, I’ve put extra people on because of your warning, and most of the really sensitive machinery is located below ground level anyway. Every access point not personally supervised by one of my people is scanned by closed-circuit vid.” He smiled confidently.

  “Every once in a while we have to deal with students who think slipping inside and draping toilet paper or something over the equipment is outrageously funny. They always get caught, and we have some clever students at this outpost. Our security approaches military specifications. I think that if your Mr. Gaggii comes anywhere near our installation, not only will we be able to detect his presence, we will be able to catch and hold him for you.”

  Moody wished he could be as confident as the security chief. But then, he reminded himself, the man had not seen what Yistin Gaggii could do with the alien web.

  The above-ground portion of the facility housed administrative offices, labs, supply rooms, and monitoring equipment. The inwardly sloping spraystone walls were painted brownish-pink to blend in with the surrounding terrain, while the windows were copper-tinted glass. As they’d been told, there were few entrances.

  Moody was gratified to observe that the one they used was covered by both monitoring vids and live security personnel. Everything was calm and normal, as they’d requested. Obvious precautions like partial evacuation of the campus, for example, might frighten off their man.

  Administrators, graduate students, and techies were coming and going, actively discussing subjects incomprehensible to the detective. Navaho, Hopi, Apache, Hualapai, Havasupai; Anglo and Asian; Hispanic and Black, none of them aware of the existence of the alien web all around them, through which they passed as smoothly as sharks through saltwater.

  Once the right people had time to study it properly, he mused, the existence of the web might explain a lot of things. Ghosts and poltergeists, all sorts of supernatural phenomena might be related to accidental or partial accessing of the webwork.

  The ghosts in the machine. He tried to remember where he’d encountered the phrase. What might they not find when they went fishing in those warm alien depths?

  As Gaggii was doing, he reminded himself. What was their murderer after? What did he hope to find there? He’d told them he had something specific in mind, but had neglec
ted to fill in the blank. Did he want to shake hands with a ghost? Or was he after a discovery that would make him rich?

  Any of those ends could be gained by working out in the open, without the need for secrecy and murder.

  He knows more than he told us, Moody decided. Twenty years of police mollywork insisted on it. We should have pressed him on his goals when we had him, should have demanded to know what he was after. More than just knowledge, surely. Knowledge is an abstraction, and people no longer kill for abstractions. Only nations do that.

  His partner’s tales of Holy People and gods kept creeping into his thoughts. Could Gaggii be doing the bidding of something inside the web?

  Abruptly aware that he was letting his imagination run riot, he forced himself to admire the spacious lobby, with its impressively realistic artificial rain forest and soapstone sculptures of relevant fauna. He was quite content to let his partner do the talking to the cluster of security people and NDPS uniforms who were waiting to greet them. The latter would patrol a designated perimeter, while the locals would see to the security of the facility itself.

  The accelerator occupied a circular tunnel large enough to also include a narrow underground roadway. Electric carts transported scientists and security personnel along the same path down which the accelerator propelled selected bits of matter, allowing quick and easy access to every part of the machine. There was no reason to post people in the tunnel, the security chief explained, because the above-ground access ports were tightly locked and watched over by CC vid.

  Anyone talented and stupid enough to actually make their way inside would find themselves trapped underground.

  All duty personnel had been provided with holomages of the suspect. There was no way he could hope to approach the facility unchallenged, much less get inside. The security chief was very positive. Ooljee and Moody allowed themselves to feel hopeful, if not assured.

  Building Security became their base of operations. One entire wall of the room was lined with monitors, one for each vid installed in the facility. Moody alternated his attention between the multiple screens and the nearby snack vending room, while Ooljee hovered nearGrayhills and tried to pick up a few orber’s tricks as she wove with her elaborate Noronco spinner.

  Nightfall found them tired and irritable. Of Gaggii there was no sign. Moody wondered if he had fooled them utterly by instructing the web to respond with false information to any inquiries concerning his whereabouts. In which case he might be halfway to Salt Lake City or Denver by now, while they squatted here relying for information on a mendacious alien vocomposite. It was possible. Gaggii was far more familiar with the web than they and had demonstrated that he could make use of it. What kind of relationship had he established by now with that mysterious melange of mutating Mandlebrot patterns and rainbow threads and incorporeal coronas?

  And who was Vernon Moody, late of Pushkatawny, Mississippi, that it should fall to him to have to try and figure it all out? How did a good cop stake out the impossible?

  They waited and watched and grumbled until the clock came round to the cold black dawn of early tomorrow, and still there was no sign of their suspect.

  He should’ve shown by now, Moody knew. Unless he’s stalled somewhere out in the mesas, or had a breakdown, or changed his mind, or been laughing at us all along, while he went east, or north, or south instead of this way.

  Initial anticipation had been dissipated by the uneventful night. Day staff had made way for the night-watchers, who had already passed enough time in front of their multitudinous monitors to grow bored.

  The visitors from Ganado did not allow themselves that luxury. They hung around Building Security, making themselves obnoxious by their continuing presence while sustaining a wary consciousness with coffee by the liter.

  “We blew it.” Moody gazed bleary-eyed at his friend and colleague. Nearby chairs displayed the debris of late-night snacks. Security personnel sat at their stations, ignoring the suspect visitors in their midst. Grayhills napped on one of several cots which had been set up against the back wall.

  “Not necessarily.” Ooljee rubbed his face. “It might be a matter of timing.”

  “What kind of timing?”

  The sergeant scrutinized the flotsam on the chair next to his, extracted something yellowish from the center of the pile, and began to munch on it.

  “A chant is usually performed in two parts over a period of two, five, or nine nights. The first part involves purification and the exorcism of evil. In the second, supernatural powers are attracted and hozho is restored.”

  “Or disrupted,” said Moody.

  His friend nodded. “The final night’s vigil lasts from ten o’clock until the dawn of the concluding day.”

  “What happens then?”

  “The one who is being treated supposedly breathes in the dawn, at which point he or she becomes one with the gods and shares their power.”

  “I get it. What happens if the god doesn’t feel like showing up?”

  “They have no choice. If the chant and sandpainting are done right, the deity is compelled to attend.”

  A sleepy feminine voice chimed in. “You don’t really believe that timing has anything to do with accessing the alien web?”

  “I do not know what to really believe anymore.” Ooljee stuffed the rest of the yellow mass into his mouth, chewed reflectively. “Until this, I thought I knew what police work consisted of. I thought I knew what a computer web did and how a database was structured. I thought I had a pretty good idea of the world and my place in it.

  “Now I am no longer sure of much of anything. Nor do I understand how either of you can be otherwise. These past several days we have seen things to give a man pause. So who is to say whether timing is or is not important in these matters?”

  His partner was not only tired, Moody decided; he was clearly on edge. Sandpaintings and hatathlis and chants were part of his heritage, his environment. He’d grown up with them. Now the world of his childhood was being turned inside-out in front of his eyes.

  It is always hard when reality intrudes on belief.

  Nevertheless he couldn’t keep himself from asking, “Paul, you don’t think this guy’s trying to call up some kind of alien deity or something?”

  Ooljee was silent for a long time. When he replied it was slowly and carefully. “Be they purposeful, careless, or indifferent, it seems to me possible if not likely that there are others besides humans involved in this business. Whoever created the web and left it here, whether for reasons unknown or for no reason at all. Whether we choose to call them deities or aliens or yeis or Martians or whatever, they existed. We know they existed because the sandpainting exists, because the web exists. They were here a thousand years ago. We know that they were. We do not know if they are.

  “What Gaggii works with the web I do not know.”

  “A long time to wait between calls.” Grayhills sipped hot tea. She did not drink coffee, Moody had noted. No basis for a relationship there. He was startled to discover that he had been contemplating one.

  “Truly,” the sergeant agreed. “Yet the web has endured all that time, waiting for someone to rediscover the secrets of the sandpainting, waiting for someone to again use the right Way. It is still active and functioning. Why should we assume those who created it are not also active and functioning somewhere?”

  “If it’s garbage it won’t be much good for making long distance calls,” Moody pointed out tiredly. “You know, if Gaggii hadn’t killed two people I wouldn’t give a frog fart what he does with the web. Maybe he’s just after some peer-group recognition. Wants to win the Nobel.”

  “I do not know what he wants, my friend. Like anyone else, I can only guess. All I know is that the more I contemplate my own mythology, the more frightened I become.”

  Dawn brought light but no sign of Yistin Gaggii. The rest of the long day was equally unrevealing. Evening found Ooljee and Moody swapping catnaps while Samantha Grayhills stuck to her
routine of alternating sleep with periods of observation and study.

  Their suspect had effectively vanished.

  Moody suggested to Ooljee that they query the web again as to their quarry’s whereabouts. Ooljee declined, pleading exhaustion. Tomorrow. He would try again tomorrow. Maybe Gaggii would show before then, or perhaps an NDPS patrol would stumble into him and save them the trouble.

  As the second night spent in the accelerator facility ticked away uneventfully, both men retired early in hopes of soaking up some extended sleep. The cot Moody had been allotted was barely wide enough to accommodate his bulk. He tossed and turned fitfully, conscious of the fact that his partner was resting soundly nearby. Conscious of that, and something the sergeant had mentioned earlier.

  Consider sandpainting drawings as intrapsychic symbols.

  Lighting up inside a person’s mind. if that were true a trained patient could just as easily visualize the necessary symbology as a trained hatathli. Do away with the painting altogether. Do away with the chant. Do away even with a spinner.

  Think it. Visualize it. Activate the web by though! alone Was that how its makers did it? If the web offered a possible explanation for sightings of ghosts and poltergeists, then why not for other fractures of the mind as well? What about certain kinds of mental illness? Had those sufferers unknowingly and accidentally accessed the web? Wouldn’t finding oneself confronted by, or perhaps even immersed in, an endless void inhabited by only twisting, writhing shapes and forms be enough to drive anyone mad?

  True that such accidental accession was unlikely. But impossible? Was anything impossible anymore? As any country kid knew, there were all kinds of ways to get into a garbage dump. Even dumps that were posted and guarded. If the web was everywhere, then it stood to reason it could be accessed from any place.

  His thoughts raced onward, out of control.

  What if we’re all, billions and billions of us—man, woman, and child—just tiny bits of walking, talking, thinking RAM? Components of the web. We’re not accessing something separate and distinct; we’re accessing ourselves. All you needed was the proper pattern, the right timbre in your voice. Call it metaorganic parallel processing: human and web, web and human. Side by side, working together. I, the Web. For what? The same questions applied to man that applied to the web. Was there a purpose involved, or was it all just garbage?