Ok - update since last reply.
a) of course AIX has the binary qna - my apologies for not making it clearer that I have been working from that from the start.
b) I got WebUI ‘query’ working. Thanks for the assistence. However, all that seems to do is do distrubuted calls to the qna tool. I had been hoping for queries to the BESClient.
So, back again - and I hope a bit more structured in my question:
Q: (usr part of (fileset with name "aixtools.gnu.bash.rte" of object repository))
E: The operator "string" is not defined.
From Common Relevance Error Messages I found that the issue here is: The is a very common error message that indicates you are trying to return an object that has no default return value. In order to fix it you just need to query a property of that object. So:
Q: exists (usr part of (fileset with name "aixtools.gnu.bash.rte" of object repository))
A: True
T: 2026
I assume I have a string - and I so wished that strings would just print themselves 
- almost do -:
Q: "abcd"
A: abcd
T: 88
and
Q: code of "abcd"
A: <code>abcd</code>
T: 54855
I had hoped that “having a string” as the error message seems to indicate, even if null string, that “code of …” would give me something to look at.
Again:
Q: (usr part of (fileset with name "aixtools.gnu.bash.rte" of object repository))
E: The operator "string" is not defined.
Q: exists (usr part of (fileset with name "aixtools.gnu.bash.rte" of object repository))
A: True
T: 1933
Q: exists (root part of (fileset with name "aixtools.gnu.bash.rte" of object repository))
A: False
T: 1915
Q: code of (usr part of (fileset with name "aixtools.gnu.bash.rte" of object repository))
E: The operator "code" is not defined.
I assume I am not understanding something quite basic, sigh!
p.s. while I am struggleing here with AIX things the issue I face is not limited to AIX. For me it is how to get farther than to know more than a ‘type’, e.g., a string, exists or does not exist.
Thanks for your time (even reading this!)