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be terminated the same way. The chant you used, the hand trembling? Aural and visual stimuli. Nothing
mystical about that. There are plenty of contemporary programs that rely on those for activation." He
concentrated on the zenat and on what he knew of suggestion-intensive webwork, refusing to think about
Holy People or old gods.
"Forget for now how the template originated, how old it is or how it came to be. Let's deal with what we
have. You say this hand-trembling ritual of yours is designed to help search for something without
looking. Well, we've found something. You thought it might be some kind of database. Maybe it is. It just
has a little more depth than what we're used to.
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"If you don't find what you're looking for, you're supposed to hear this Gila Monster's voice. Okay. Ask
it something. Try accessing verbally. If it was set up in Navaho, then I imagine that's what it'll respond to."
Ooljee hesitated, showing mat he had yet to contemplate this line of thinking. "How do I know what to
ask it?"
"Ask it anything. Say hello, curse it, insult its origins. Either nothing will happen or something will."
"Sure. It responded to the chant, didn't it?"
The chant he'd borrowed from the library, via a child's spinner. It would be all right, he was sure. He had
to be sure or he couldn't do it. What did they have to lose, so long as he didn't put his arm back through
the painting? Though the sensation had not been unpleasant. It had almost been...
Moody's tone was sharp. "You're drifting, my friend."
Ooljee started to argue, then nodded slowly. He stared at the hole in die wall, the hole into elsewhere.
The detective was right. It was a physical manifestation of the real world. It had to be, else he would not
have been able to interact with it.
Knowing that, he could deal with it.
He addressed it in the language of his grandparents, the difficult rasps and gutturals as natural to him as
English. A peculiar language, Navaho. Devoid of many words for specific things, but rich in suggestion. A
difficult language in which to do science. It had evolved to serve other needs.
He did not know what to expect, but somehow he was not shocked when a voice responded from the
speaker set in the base of the zenat. The Navaho was heavily accented and it was a struggle to grasp the
meaning of each phrase. But he understood.
Moody heard too. "That's no reptile. That's an electronic vocomposite if I've ever heard one."
"Don't jump to conclusions," Ooljee warned him. "Spoken Navaho is not like spoken Shakespeare."
"I don't care if it's kin to street slang. That's a synthesized voice. What'd it say, anyhow?"
Ooljee was a little surprised at how calm he was. "It said that it was functional."
"Good." Moody was feeling much better. "I like programs that aren't evasive." He wondered what
would happen if he picked up the cleaver and flung it at the monitor. Would it freeze in midair, reverse
course, or sail on forever? Better to keep asking questions instead of thinking such thoughts.
"The trouble is we don't know what it means by that. Whatthehell, ask it what the score of last week's
Steelers-Wasps game was."
"Wasps I can manage, but Steelers is not directly translatable into Navaho."
"Improvise. Go on, try it. Let's see if me damn boojum's as smart as it is pretty."
Ooljee spoke, listened to the reply, turned to his partner. "Steelers forty-two, Wasps thirty. Is that
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right?"
"How the hell should I know? I'm a cop, not a bookie. What matters is that you asked, and it
answered." He approached the monitor, squinting into the crystalline clear light that emanated from
beyond. He discovered that he could turn his head and look up, down, or sideways into the screen
without experiencing any diminution of scale,without seeing any suggestion of a border or horizon.
Writhing threads of rainbow swam like lambent worms through a sea of electrified blackness, avoiding
fluorescent geometric shapes and unpredictable small explosions of gold and silver.
Before Ooljee could do or say anything, the detective extended his own hand toward the hard, flat
surface of the zenat. It passed through, penetrating an unresisting yei figure clutching unidentifiable
symbols.
His hand and forearm floated unrestrained, free to drift among the rainbows and silent explosions. He
twisted it to the left, then to the right, wiggling his fingers, feeling the light tingling sensation Ooljee had
described, experiencing the same gentle warmth. With the latter came a slight dizziness. He sensed
himself starting to falllll....
He jerked his hand clear, glanced down at it. There were no visible changes, no marks, nothing to
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