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"Except it didn't sink." Moody muttered aloud. "It went someplace else. Now it's here, outside. In the
high desert."
Grayhills turned to Ooljee. "What is he talking about?"
"Out past the parking lot." The sergeant nodded eastward. "A Japanese destroyer from the Second
World War. At least some of the crew is still aboard, no doubt wondering what has happened to mem. I
imagine the majority of survivors are huddled below, praying to whatever gods they prayed to in those
times."
"That's crazy."
"I have no intention of disputing you." His expression narrowed. "The codetalkers."
Moody blinked, looked at his partner. "What?"
' 'Navaho codetalkers. An important part of tribal history. We all learn about them in school. During the
second great war, before mollys, all the governments looked for ways to transmit messages that the
enemy would not be able to understand. When Navahos joined the American forces, someone thought to
station one at each important position. The codetalkers concocted a goofy, personal version of our
language. Strange as it seems, the enemy was the Japanese. They never could figure out what kind of
code the Americans were using. It wasn't a real code; just mixed-up Navaho."
"I don't see how that explains that ship outside."
"The alien web. Some codetalkers must have hit on the right phrasing. Momentarily and accidentally, but
enough to access something in the web. Or maybe," he added, his voice dropping,' 'Great-grandfather
Laughter decided to try and make use of his sandpainting knowledge, and this ship ran into some real
hatathli magic which yanked it right out of the Pacific and into..."
"Strange seas and shores," Moody finished for him, "until our friend Gaggii started playing with the web.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Now they're back home sort of. Wish I spoke Japanese."
"It can't have been deliberate on his part," Ooljee observed. "He is just stumbling around in search of his
own ends."
Moody eyed his partner. "You're gonna have to use the template again, ask the web where he is."
The sergeant was dubious. "I'd rather not. Each time we access I get the feeling I am going to do
something wrong, or that Gaggii will finally have figured out how to insert a safeguard to cover his tracks
and we wilt all end up like die men on that ship. Or the building we are in will materialize someplace else,
or maybe the state of Arizona. I do not want to have to wait on someone to 'accidentally* bring us back
a hundred years from now."
It was an image impossible to avoid: the whole state, with all its rivers and cities and mountains and
people, suddenly extracted from reality as neatly as a child would cut out a piece of map. And why just
Arizona? Moody thought. Why not all of North America, or if Gaggii wasn't careful with his parameters,
the entire planet? Earth shunted to an obscure comer of an alien database, just another insignificant byte
of data in a web large enough to include ...
What? How vast was this web they'd stumbled upon?
Maybe that's all it was. Just a big database devised by whoever they were. He could feel himself
beginning to lose it, and Vernon Moody, Detective First, TPD, never lost it. But the scale, the immensity,
the apocalyptic indifference of it all, was starting to get to him.
He could see it clearly: galaxies as directories, subdirectories of individual solar systems. Within one
subdirectory, little files. One of a place called Earth, or however it was labeled. Tiny subfiles for plants
and animals and human beings. Subfile for individuals: Vernon Moody, Paul Ooljee, Samantha Gray hills,
Yistin Gaggii. Infinitesimally minuscule bytes easily accessed by anyone who knew how to use the web.
Garbage files.
What was Gaggii after? Surely not something as inconsequential as a means for protecting or enriching
himself? No, Gaggii would want to know how to run the subfile labeled "mankind." Or perhaps his vision
was grander. Perhaps he hoped to discover how to access an entire file. Press ENTER here and shift the
planet a little nearer the sun (maybe Gaggii was easily chilled). Or move it next to another sun, for a
change of pace. Gravity, the speed of light:
suddenly these little constants no longer meant anything. Not when you could access the web and braid
yourself a custom Julia pattern here, a Mandlebrot there, and shift yourself into the subdirectory coded
Alpha Centauri.
Moody shivered. How could you go on, with the foundations of your reality become as insubstantial as
gossamer? Time, space, speed: meaningless. Qualitatively irrelevant. Who punched in the entries up
there? God? The aliens? Navaho Holy People with unpronounceable names?
Pain flicked across his face. He blinked at a worried-looking Samantha Gray hills. It took him a moment
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