Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

“If you remember your name or some big event, will it carry you off like that?”

“I dinna ken. Hard to tell.”

“Maybe it would warrant a little research.”

“No, don’t go doin’ nothin’ like that, me laird. You can ne’er tell what you may set loose. I’d rather find out in my own good time.”

“But—”

“Best not to interfere in the natural development of things. Trust me.”

He went out like a blown candle.

Donnerjack snorted. “Fatalistic poppycock!” he observed. “Sometimes the only thing to do is interfere.”

Donnerjack walked the battlements and felt the cold winds blow about him with a few small drops of rain. Soft weather. He thought of Death and of Ayradyss and of their son-to-be. It just wasn’t fair. He was giving the Lord of Deep Fields a palace like no other that had ever been. It was wrong that he should have to supply him with the fruit of his body as well as that of his genius.

There ought to be some sort of defense. Could he devise a way to Death-proof Castle Donnerjack? He laughed. Bad choice of words. Nothing could really be insulated against Death. Yet the thought gave rise to other trains of speculation. The Lord of Deep Fields did not want the boy dead, he was sure of that. It was a live babe that he wished to conduct to the nursery in his dark palace. Why?

He paced the battlements, hair stirred by a damp wind with a few small drops of rain. And he pondered the matter he had once dismissed. To what use could such a child be put? Some sort of agent or emissary? But surely Death could command messengers when he needed them. No, it had to be something else. Was it simply that it would amuse him to have a live page in his new domicile? Perhaps. He might find the contrast esthetically pleasing. It was hard to conjecture concerning a being of such unknown character. Lightning flashed beyond the hills, and a moment later thunder boomed. Better not to waste thinking time on guesswork if the information were not really essential.

The first real problems to consider were how Death had worked his tricks—the returning of Ayradyss to Verite rather than Virtu, and the matter of their mutual fertility. Both feats were theoretically impossible. He worked his way back to his notion of higher spaces within Virtu. If his hypothetical Stage IV existed a part of the answer could lie there. The journey back… Had it masked a subtle Stage IV manipulation at some point?

Another flash and another blast were followed by a real rainfall and he retreated within. Pacing the upper halls, he continued his musing. Supposing he were to unify Virtu theory to include the Stage IV presumption? If it could be made to work it might explain all of the place’s anomalies—from the Creation shuffle to the backward temporal expansion hypothesis to the incorporation of data to which the place had not had obvious access. If he could do that he was certain he could then attack it at a more practical level.

In the days—and, ofttimes, nights—that followed, he devoted himself to the problem whenever he could get away from the matter of Death’s palace. He tried to work without the machines, using pads, pencils, and old-fashioned hand-held calculators whenever he could. When he did need large-scale computing power or the use of his corner of Virtu for a Gedankenexperiment , he transferred the results to his notebooks immediately afterwards and did his best to wipe away every trace of his work from that other world.

He felt that the answer might lie in the Genesis Scramble. He worked his way back to Day One, but even then things were too complete. He was able to push it back nearly to the first hour then, but could not locate the conditions to rectify his formulations. Beyond that, Virtu seemed unable to produce a history of itself. Attempts at simulations gave different results at different times. He gnawed his lip, leaned back, and stared at the wall. For the first time in over a decade, he thought of Reese Jordan and Warren Bansa.

A retired mathematician and information specialist, Reese Jordan was the oldest man Donnerjack had ever known. Even as a resident of the Baltimore Center for latropathic Disorders, Reese had held the record among the superannuated. As more and more means of prolonging life were introduced, the trails these therapies left within the body became progressively convoluted. Every resident of the Center was an advanced centenarian. Donnerjack did a quick calculation. If he were still around, Reese would be about 150 now. All of the residents had unique medical problems brought on by the medical practices which had preserved them. A veritable museum of life-prolongation techniques was represented in the bodies of the Center’s inhabitants. They could not be cared for like normal citizens; on the other hand, their study value far exceeded the cost of their keep. Each time one of them faced a crisis, a therapy had to be developed de novo to fit the particular case.

Now Reese Jordan—if his mind were still intact—might prove an interesting consultant. He had been present and working a data-net the day the final straw had been added, and the world’s full, linked system had crashed. An hour later, when things came together again, Virtu had been formed. He had written a number of papers both popular and technical on the phenomenon. He had been in demand as a lecturer for years afterwards. Some of his early ideas were merely considered “curious” now, but he was undoubtedly one of the main authorities on the world’s electronic shadow.

Donnerjack moved to a terminal, requested the number for the Center. A few moments later he had placed the call. An idealized male security face responded almost instantly, a proge, of course. “Center for latropathic Disorders,” it stated. “How may I help you?”

“Is Reese Jordan still a resident there?” Donnerjack asked.

“Yes, he is.”

“May I speak with him?”

“I’m afraid he is not available right now.”

“Is he—all right?”

“I am not permitted to discuss the residents’ conditions.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. What I mean is, would he be able to converse rationally with me if he were available?”

“Oh, yes. But, of course, he is not available.”

“Do you know when he will be?”

“No.”

“Are you just telling me that he is asleep—or in a therapy session— or that he is not physically present in the Center at the moment?”

“He is physically present and he is not asleep, but he is occupied elsewhere.”

Donnerjack nodded then.

“You’re saying that he is in Virtu.”

“Yes, he is.”

“May I have his coordinates there?”

“I’m sorry, but that information is confidential.”

“Well, presumably you can reach him there. Can you give him a message from me?”

“We can leave one at his number. Can’t say when he’ll decide to check messages, though.”

“I understand. The name is John D’Arcy Donnerjack. I worked with him years ago. Just tell him there’s something I’d like to discuss.”

“Very well.”

Donnerjack left his number and returned to his musings. Virtu. It seemed natural that Reese should return to it in his final days. He’d spent much of his life studying it. He was an avowed fan of its countless novelties, apart from his technical interest in it. Donnerjack picked up a pencil, scrawled an equation on a nearby pad. He studied it for a long while. Then he revised it.

Hours later, he had exhausted the pad and found another. He felt that his work was wrong, but he also felt that he was weaving a net. Right now, it seemed more important to surround the problems with mere conjecture than to hope for precision.

Later, Ayradyss joined him for lunch at the small table by the window.