Need to read SE & Online from 4gl sequentially

One of our developers has a requirement to read reference files from a c-isam database overlaid with SE while within a 4gl application running against Online. We are told that this is not possible which has left us with a number of kludgey options mostly involving unloads/loads of ascii data. Triggers on the SE database are not possible as it is maintained directly in c-isam via our legacy but still extremely important cobol apps. Any fresh ideas on this would be most appreaciated TIA Peter Tashkoff Auckland, NZ