Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

“You’ve been working very hard lately,” she said.

“Lots of problems to solve.”

“More than usual, it seems.”

“Yes.”

“That palace?”

“That, and other things.”

“Oh? Our problem?”

He glanced at one of the terminals and nodded. She did the same.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine now.”

“Good. Any more haunts?”

“Do you really think you can do it? Prevent—”

He shrugged.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “Even if I solve my theoretical problems there’s the matter of figuring a way to put what I learn into effect.”

She nodded.

“I understand. Let me know how it goes.”

He reached out and squeezed her hand. She rose, smiled, kissed him, and parted. “Later,” she said.

“Later,” he agreed, and he returned to his work.

How long he labored he did not know. He tended to lose track of time when his concentration grew heavy.

Sometime later, he heard his name called.

“Donnerjack!”

The voice was familiar, though he could not place it immediately.

He raised his head, looked about.

“Yes?”

“Over in your staging area.”

Donnerjack rose to his feet.

“Reese!” he said.

“Right. Since I had your number I thought I’d come by rather than just call. It’s been a long time.”

“It has indeed.” Donnerjack moved to the Stage’s missing wall, to his left. “Oh, my!”

A tall man with an unruly shock of dark brown hair stood grinning at him. He wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a green sports shirt. He appeared to be somewhere in his thirties.

“You’re looking—”

“Don’t I wish,” Reese said. “It’s a persona. The real me is in a quiet coma looking vaguely moribund. The med AI’s working overtime again exploring more branches than a family of monkeys, putting together another tailored treatment. Time to make some more medical history or call it quits.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve had more of life than most, and I’m still enjoying it. I’ve been everywhere, done damn near everything, read some great books, loved some fine ladies, and collaborated as an equal with John D’Arcy Donnerjack and Warren Bansa.”

Donnerjack looked away.

“You’ve been around, all right,” he finally said. “They ever find out what happened to Warren?”

Reese shook his head.

“Never found the body, or anything associated with it. Only person I ever knew to go skydiving and never reach the ground. Too bad he was such a good magician—escape artist, at that. Just went to complicate things, add to the publicity, and muddy the waters. When the journalists were done everything was cold as well as distorted. And that damned note! Saying he was going to pull his greatest stunt that day!”

Donnerjack nodded.

“They never found any later notes, or a diary, or letters?” he asked.

“Nope. And of everybody I’ve known, he’s one of the few I miss. I wonder if he was working on anything there at the end?”

“A paper on the natural geometries of Virtu.”

“Really? I never saw it. Was it published?”

“No. He’d given me a draft to check over. Died before I could get back to him on it.”

“Interesting?”

“Very sketchy. Still needed a lot of work. But, yes, now that I think of it, it was interesting. Odd. Haven’t thought about it in years. Now that I do, I see it bears somewhat on what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You still have it? I’d like to see it.”

“I don’t know. Wouldn’t know where to begin looking for it.”

“Well, what was it you wanted to discuss?”

“Wait a minute.” Donnerjack went to his desk and fetched his pads. Returning, he entered the Great Stage. “I’ve been working with some stuff I’d like your opinion on.”

Reese glanced at the pads.

“Looks like a lot of material there,” he observed.

“Well—I guess so.”

“Then I’m going to request that you enter Virtu and return with me to the place I just came from. You can have the data scanned and transmitted there.”

Donnerjack rubbed his nose.

“I don’t like the idea of transmitting it anywhere,” he said. “What’s so special about your address in Virtu?”

“The differential time flow I worked out for it. A few minutes of real time become a few hours there. At a time like this, there’s no place else I’d rather be.”

“I quite understand,” Donnerjack said. “If I may have the numbers for that place I’ll meet you there in just a little while.”

Reese nodded and recited them. Then he turned and walked away, quickly reaching a vanishing point and passing into it.

Donnerjack moved to another section of the large work area, where he entered a chamber and made the necessary adjustments. He ordered the coordinates, then lay back and relaxed.

Later, he rose, clad in khakis and a light shirt. He stood in the shade of numerous trees and the sound of falling water came to him. Moving in the direction of the splashing, he came into a small, grassy clearing. Wildflowers were abundant, and at the clearing’s far end a vine-covered cliff face rose perhaps sixty feet against a clear blue sky. Several large boulders lay at the cliffs base and across the clearing, seeming almost intentionally positioned for effect. To his left, the waterfall plunged into a stream about fifty feet across. Higher up, along the face of the cascade, a rainbow winked into and out of existence.

On one of the smaller boulders at the cliffs base Reese sat, arms around his legs, chin resting on his knees. He smiled as Donnerjack entered the clearing.

“Welcome to my secret place,” he said. “Won’t you have a seat?” He reached out and patted an adjacent boulder.

“Your design?” Donnerjack asked. “Time trick and all?”

Reese nodded. “With the help of the genius loci AI who manages it,” he added.

Donnerjack moved forward and seated himself.

“Would you care to meet her?” Reese asked.

“Perhaps later, though time is one of things I have to include in my field theory.”

“Dear old time, my lifelong nemesis and friend,” Reese said with a sigh. ” The image of eternity,’ David Park called it in a book of that title. He posited a Time I, which works out determinate, and a Time II, which doesn’t. Time I is the time of thermodynamics, Time II subjective human time. He wrote it right before Chaos Theory was developed. It would have been a different book if he’d done it a few years later. Still fascinating, however. The man was a philosopher as well as a physicist, for he’s as right as anybody has been, for as far as he goes.”

“You’re saying he doesn’t go far enough?”

“He didn’t have Virtu to play with, the way we do.”

“But the physics of Virtu seem to be circumstantial.”

“Because of its seeming artificial character Virtu lends itself to the creation of anomalies.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, considering Verkor’s work on perfect fluidity.”

Reese arched a brow. “Verkor is wrong. Had I the time and inclination I’d disprove him in print. There are universal principles in Virtu. I doubt I’ll have the time to point the way, however.”

“You have been working all these years?”

“Never stopped working. Just stopped publishing. You can have my notes if I don’t make it this time around. I’ll leave instructions.”

“Very good. But I’d rather you made it. I didn’t realize you’d stayed in such good shape, but since you have—”

“You can’t tell by looking.”

“I meant mentally. Any idea how you’ll come through?”

“I’m not going to make a bet with you and jinx myself,” Reese said. “That is the way of the statistician. What do you want to know for, anyhow?”