I tracked my problem down to, apparently, the fb_lock_mgr and the
semaphores.

If I disable the CGI script that uses the embedded library and reboot
and then run an isql query on the database that the CGI script uses,
fb_lock_mgr is launched and the semaphores are owned by root.

If I don't disable the CGI script, then the semaphores are owned by
apache and the CGI scripts hang until I kill them, just like isql
does when the semaphores are owned by apache.

The fb_lock_mgr is owned by firebird and has the setuid bit set.

I'm doing something wrong... any configuration help would be
appreciated...