Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

Again—and nearer now—that sound. Was it from the small room to the left or the little corridor beyond it? She slowed, glanced into the room as she came to it. Nothing. She stepped inside.

At her back, she heard a small sound. Turning, she beheld behind her in the hallway the shadowy figure of a small man in a ragged tunic and breeches, bearded, a chain about his ankle.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He paused in midmoan and turned his head, as if studying her.

“Who—are you?” she repeated.

He uttered something incomprehensible but vaguely familiar. She shook her head.

He repeated it. It sounded something like, “Dinna ken.”

“You don’t know who you are?”

“Nae.” Then there followed another sentence which almost slipped into place. She worked her analysis programs around his accent. The next time he spoke she was able to update and edit his words:

“Too long,” he said, “down memory’s dim path. Name’s forgotten, deeds unsung.”

“What were your deeds?”

“Crusader,” he replied. “Outremer. Many battles.”

“How did you end up—here?”

“Family feud. Mine lost. Prisoner, long time. Darkness.”

“Your enemies?”

“Gone. Gone. Different now, this place. Fell down, went away. But its spirit remains. Wandered the ghost castle, I did, still do. Me and others from days gone. It’s here, in the shell of the new one. Sometimes I see it, others I don’t. Fading, like me. Now, though, your brightness. Good. Used to be I’d wander and it would fade. High in the air then, me, and afraid of heights. Stay. Better wandering now. Your name, m’lady?”

“Ayradyss,” she replied.

“To you and your bairn-to-be well-met. There’s a banshee been watching you.”

“A banshee? What’s that?”

“Noisy spirit. Sees bad things coming and howls when she does.”

“I heard a howling last night.”

“Yes. She was about it again.”

“What will the bad thing be?”

He shrugged and his chain rattled.

“Banshees tend to be generalists rather than specialists when it comes to their announcements.”

“It doesn’t seem a very useful function then.”

“Banshees are more for atmosphere than utility.”

“I’ve only heard you occasionally, and this is the first time I’ve seen you. Where do ghosts go when they’re not haunting?”

“I’m nae sure. I guess it’s sort of like dreaming. Sort of. But it’s a place, places, pieces. Past jumbled together with new things. But then so is waking, often. We’re more awake when there are people around, like now.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. But I learn things while I’m away. Bits. Pieces. I come back knowing more than I knew. You are a very strange person.”

“I am not of the Verite. I am from Virtu.”

“I have never walked that land, but I know somewhat of it, in my fashion. I know, too, that you come here from an even stranger realm— one from which I never learned the path of return. You hae walked Deep Fields and come back. I dinna think it possible. You have, however, brought a wee bit of it with you. It is as if its dark dust clings to your shoes. Perhaps this is why I find it easier’t’ talk’t’ you than most warm ones: we share something.”

“Why do you wander, dragging a chain? The dead do not do that in Virtu.”

“It marks my suffering at the end of life.”

“But that was centuries ago. How long do you have to do it?”

“I was never clear on that.”

“Couldn’t you just stop?’

“Oh, I hae, many times. But I always wake up and find myself at it again. Bad habit, but I dinna ken how to break it.”

“There must be some form of therapy that would help you.”

“I wouldn’t know about such things, ma’am.”

He turned and began moving, rattling, up the hall. His outline grew faint.

“Must you go?” she asked.

“No choice. The dreaming’s calling.” He halted, as with great effort, and turned then. “It will be a boy,” he said, “and ‘twas for you the banshee wailed. Mostly you,” he added, turning away again. “Him, too, though, and your man.”

He gave a quick wail, and the sound fell off abruptly along with the rattling of his chains.

“Wait!” she cried. “Come back!”

But he faded with each step and was gone in moments. She shed her first tears in Verite.

Donnerjack looked up from the flow of equations on half of his screen, turning his attention back to the text he was composing on the other half.

“I am persuaded,” he said, “that there is indeed a fourth level of complexity within Virtu. Our own experience indicates it as well as certain other anomalies which have come to my attention. I’ve discussed the possibility with several colleagues, and they all say I’m heading up a blind trail. But they are wrong. I am certain it can be made to fit the general theory of the place. It is the only explanation that will unify the data. Look here!”

He froze the flow of figures, reversed it.

“John,” Ayradyss said, “I’m pregnant.”

“Impossible,” he answered. “We just don’t mix at that level.”

“It appears that we do.”

“How do you know?”

“The medic unit said so. So did the ghost.”

He froze the action on his screen and rose.

“I’d better check that machine over. Ghost, did you say?”

“Yes. I met him upstairs.”

“You mean as in specter, spook, haunt, disembodied manifestation?”

“Yes. That’s what he indicated he was.”

“This place is too new to have a ghost—if there were such things as ghosts. We haven’t had any violent deaths on the premises.”

“He says he’s a carryover from the old castle that used to occupy this site.”

“What’s his name?”

“He couldn’t recall.”

“Hm. A nameless horror, then. And he remarked that you’re pregnant?”

“Yes. He said it will be a boy.”

“Well, no way of checking on the ghost. Let’s have a look at the machine.”

A half-hour later, Donnerjack rose from the console, closed the unit, closed his tool kit, and rolled down his sleeves.

“All right,” he said. “Everything seems to be in good order. Interface with it, and let’s get some readings.”

She moved to do this, and he began a run-through on a standard series. When it reached the crucial point it responded, “…and you are still pregnant.”

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“What should we do?” she asked.

He scratched his head.

“I’ll order a med robot with OB/GYN and full pediatric programming,” he said, “while we think about it. These readings show it as fairly far along. Who’d’ve thought… ?”

“I meant…” she began. “I meant, what should we do about—the other?”

He met her gaze and stared.

“You promised him to the Lord of Deep Fields,” she said, “to secure my release.”

“It seemed a situation that would never occur.”

“But since it has, what are we to do?”

“We do have time to think about it. It might be negotiable.”

“I’ve got a feeling that it isn’t.”

“Well, it would still seem the first thing to try.”

“And the second?”

“I’ll be thinking.”

Pregnant.

Floating in a warm bath, Ayradyss contemplated the concept for some time. It wasn’t that she had never considered the possibility—self-replicating proges, both parthenogenetic and gender-related, were common in Virtu. They saved the genius loci from wasting all their energy on basic programming, made opportunity for art. But she had never seriously considered the possibility for herself—certainly not once she had given her heart to John, for while those of Virtu and Verite often made love, they never made babies.