Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

Sayjak showed his teeth.

“You think they will stop with the head of Sayjak and the heads of his people?” he asked. “If they can do it to Sayjak, they can do it to Bilgad. When I am gone they will come for Otlag, then you. By your-selves, none of you will stand against a massing of bounties such as this. Together, though, with me to show you how to do it, we will kill them all—tonight! Leave them with their heads in their laps! No longer will they think the People are easy to kill. They will be afraid and stay away. It will be a long time before they come back, if they ever do.”

Dortak drew himself erect, then spoke into the silence that followed Sayjak’s statement:

“This may be, and it may not be,” he said. “I believe you when you say that you have learned good ways to kill bounties. What I do not know is whether killing them all will keep more from coming, or will bring even more later after our heads.”

Sayjak started to respond, but Dortak said, “But I will go along with you, for now all of the People need your knowledge of bounty killing. This is how we will learn it. But if we are successful, if we kill them all, the clan of Dortak will move to a different place. This is because I feel that the bounties and the eeksies will mark this place in some way, as a trouble spot, and it will no longer be safe to live here. You may be right. They may not come back for a long time. But I believe that they will come back one day, and I do not want my clan here when they do.”

Sayjak showed his teeth again. He had been about to bluster, to say that he would kill all of the later bounties, too. Then it occurred to him that he might one day have to run, and it would not do to make it look too bad a thing. In fact— He realized that it might not be a bad idea to get the hell out after this battle. The jungle was big. Even if the bounties found the clans again later they would have no way of knowing whether they were the ones who had been behind this night’s work.

“Dortak is wise,” Sayjak said. “We cannot say for certain what the bounties will do. Yes, I think we should all move to new places after we have done here. Not come back for a long time.”

He made a mental note then to either kill Dortak one day or to become friends with him, for he saw that he could be either dangerous or useful. He would have to think about it.

Ayradyss fell in love with the bed frame as soon as she spotted its canopy towering over the jumble and detritus of the Massachusetts antique dealer’s shop. Headboard and footboard were shaped from twisting vines of wrought bronze that had been permitted to verdigris to a soft green. Almost hidden within the vines were tiny morning glories: floral jewels in royal purple, shining pink, pastel-kissed white, and an odd, almost translucent, blue. At each corner, the vines coiled up slender polished wooden posts, rioting upward to intertwine and form a canopy from which fabric could be hung, or which could be left bare.

“Oh, Dack, don’t you just love it?” she asked, hurrying across the shop to examine her treasure more closely.

Dack, the robot who would be the majordomo of Castle Donnerjack when the ongoing construction was completed, turned from where he had been reviewing (and recording) samples of antique silver patterns. His tall, lean frame hid surprising strength; his features were an art deco rendering of Clark Gable done in silver and bronze.

When Ayradyss waved him over, he hummed on his air cushion to attend her, moving skillfully around the shop’s clutter: dodging chipped Fiesta ware, battered teddy bears, vinyl records, paperback books, and a mannequin wearing bell-bottom jeans and a matching, hand-embroidered denim vest.

“If by ‘love’ you mean, ‘Do I find it attractive,’ ” the robot responded, when he was close enough that the shopkeeper could not overhear their conversation, “yes, I do. It is a pleasing construct. Do you wish me to contact Master Donnerjack so that he can also view it?”

Ayradyss thought of John, busy with his portable computer back in their latest honeymoon retreat (this one a beach-front, weather-beaten cottage on Cape Cod) and some of her pleasure faded. She had so wished him to come out with her, to hold hands as they walked the beaches, to giggle at the funny little purple-and-blue crabs with their oversized right claws, to wander into shops. In the polished chrome of Back’s front panel, she saw herself pouting and shook the expression away with an angry toss of her ebony tresses.

“No, Dack,” she said. “Let’s leave John to his work. The sooner he finishes, the sooner he can come out and enjoy himself.”

She looked back at the bed frame’s tangling vines, thought of the fairy-tale Virtu realm in which she and John had courted, and a warm, loving smile rose to banish the remnants of the pout.

“John will be enchanted, I suspect,” she said happily. “Dack, let’s pay for it and have the shopkeeper ship it directly to Scotland.”

Dack nodded, but when he scanned the price ticket, his fiscal programming insisted that he question her decision.

“Madam,” he said softly, “the cost of this one piece is so high that I believe we could have an entire bedroom suite in this idiom fabricated for the same price. The reproduction would be indistinguishable from the antique…”

Ayradyss shook her head, dark hair cascading like water taking color from an obsidian cliff face. “No, Dack. It has to be this one—not a reproduction. A reproduction wouldn’t have the same feeling—it wouldn’t be real. Do you understand?”

“No, madam,” Dack said honestly. “But I suspect that Master Donnerjack would. I shall endeavor to negotiate with the shopkeeper. Perhaps we can reach a more equitable price.”

Ayradyss patted his shoulder. “Do as you will, Dack. I acknowledge that you are my better in this.”

She wandered out of the shop to give Dack more freedom, content to know that the bed frame would soon be on its way to embellish the master bedroom in Castle Donnerjack. The sunlight was bright, glinting stars off of the waves. Unable to ask the genius loci to redirect the intensity, she slipped her sunglasses down from their perch on the top of her head and, kicking off her sandals, wandered down to the water.

Wading through the surf, she bent to pick up a broken conch shell no bigger than her hand. It was a poor thing compared to the fantastical creations of the ocean she had known in Virtu, but there was a beauty here, a wonder that touched her. She lost herself in contemplation of its rough exterior, stroking first the tiny pinprick holes made by some ocean parasite, then the smooth inner core (ivory just blushed with the faintest pink) where the shellfish had lived.

“What do you think happened to it?” she asked Dack, hearing the robot’s approach, feeling the slight sting of the sand stirred up by its air cushion against her bare skin.

“I wouldn’t really know, ma’am.”

“A bird, perhaps, one of those gulls out there,” Ayradyss said, seeing in her mind’s eye the strong curving beak probing inside the shell, pulling out the soft creature within, now no longer a creature, just sweet flesh for a seabird’s meal.

“Quite possibly.”

“Or possibly a sea otter,” Ayradyss said, recalling a holovid she had seen of the clever, thick-furred, aquatic mammals. “They use flat rocks to break open shellfish; this conch’s shell could have been broken that way.”

“It does seem a viable alternative.”

“Perhaps it was a whale or even a freak storm or a fishing boat. We had conch chowder for an appetizer at the inn last night. It was quite good.”

“I am pleased to hear so, ma’am.”

“There are so many ways to die,” Ayradyss said, looking into the broken heart of the shell, “so many even for a conch. More for humans. Proges just wear out. Some last for human generations, like that great phant John and I saw, some last for barely a human lifetime. Do you know how old I am, Dack?”