Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

“I think I’d like to work with you again.”

Reese chuckled. “John, I don’t think this one is for me. These are probably my last hours. As I said, I’ll leave you the papers. Don’t expect anything more.”

“Then let me ask you this: How good is the Center for latropathic Disorders?”

“They’ve pulled me through before. Several times. I have to give them that.”

“I was just thinking that if it were necessary to place the resources of the Donnerjack Institute at your disposal I’d be happy to do it, whether you work with me or not.”

“You always were a generous guy, John, but I don’t know whether it would really be of much help.”

“You never know till you ask. Remember, my foundation did a lot of medical engineering work at one time. Let me find a way to interface my data with theirs and we’ll see what they have to say to each other. If they don’t, no harm done. If they do, who knows what might turn up?”

“All right. Let’s do it as soon as we can, then.”

“Done,” Donnerjack said, and he snapped his fingers.

A man in a tuxedo stepped from behind a boulder.

“You called, sir?”

“For someone with less formality.”

“Sorry, it’s been a long while.”

“It has and it was generally someone else seeking access, as I recall now.”

Suddenly, the man wore khakis and a long-sleeved sports shirt.

“Very good,” Donnerjack replied. “There is someone I would like you to meet on a medical matter.”

“It’s been a long while. Who is it?”

“The AI for the Center of latropathic Disorders.”

“Oh, Sid. I knew him when he was just getting running. He’s the one who started calling me Paracelsus.”

“You joke.”

“In my generation, joking by AIs was considered pretty much bad form—unless you were a professional in the area, of course.”

“You and A.I. Aisles must have been of a generation. What did you think of him?”

“What can I say about the first AI comedian? He was great. I knew him.”

“Why was he really canned?”

“The story was that he distracted the AIs from their work. They used to repeat his stuff over and over and over.”

“That can’t be right, considering how many things you can do at a time.”

“True—”

“Hello, gentlemen,” said a dapper, dark-suited individual with brown eyes and a short beard. “Dr. Jordan I know from the inside and Dr. Donnerjack by reputation. How’re you, Paracelsus?”

“Fine,” replied the other.

“It seems to me that you two worked together briefly in the past,” said Donnerjack. “Would you check and see how compatible you might be right now?”

“I don’t believe I’m authorized to execute such a procedure,” Sid said.

“Paracelsus, you have full permission to do so,” Donnerjack responded. “You get ready, and I’ll be in touch with Sid’s bosses in a few moments.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Reese said.

“Okay.”

Paracelsus and Sid sketched bows and vanished.

“Stay with me, John,” Reese added. “I feel it will be soon.”

“Of course.”

“You ever see the moire?”

“Yes.”

“Under what circumstances?’

“I saw it when the lady who was later to become my wife died.”

“‘Later to become your wife’?”

“Yes, we had a rather bizarre courtship—which led us to this place.”

“Time paradox?”

“Spatial.”

“How did you affect it?”

“I didn’t. I visited a place called Deep Fields, where I petitioned Death for her return.”

“You must be joking. There is no such—”

“There is. That’s how I got her back. But it entailed a weird route and a weirder outcome.”

“Tell me the story.”

“I will, while we wait.”

“Good idea,” said Reese.

Catching the falling notepad had not been a fluke. Arthur Eden tested his new ability for a week or so, discovering its limitations, its strengths, testing beyond what he needed to prove to himself (or anyone else) that the virt power was real, extending the testing even further while he mulled over what he should do. The wisest choice, he suspected, was to keep his virt power a secret. Telling his Elishite superiors that he had developed TK might cause them to focus their attention more closely on him—on Emmanuel Davis, attention he was not certain that his cover identity could withstand.

But even as he mulled over this, accepted what the reasonable choice would be, Arthur Eden knew he would not do this thing—he would make the less safe choice, tell his superiors, find out what they would do. He tried to justify his choice to himself as academic zeal—the desire to do his research as well as possible—but he knew there was another, less pristine, reason for his decision.

Reaching out with his mind, he levitated his notepad and brought it to him. He activated his personal journal, recited the date, spoke:

After the next meeting, I will request a conference with my superiors, demonstrate my new ability. From my observations, I know this will result in an immediate promotion—a merit badge of sorts. There have been a few others of these “Elect” in my initiates class. They are all unbearably smug and usually are promoted onto another track quickly. I cannot miss such an opportunity. As a gesture to prudence, I will add the planned levels of complexity to the Davis persona.

He paused, replayed the section, considered how honest he wanted to be, even with himself, continued:

I would like to say that my choice is motivated merely by academic zeal, but there is another reason, one I whisper to myself as I stir the wind chimes with a telekinetic breeze, then float my teacup into my out-stretched hand. Power. A hint of the personal divinity that most religions promise, that no other has been documented as providing. In Virtu, many play at being gods, but only the Elishites have found the means to make us gods in Verite. I must learn more before I take my leave of them.

He turned off the notepad without touching it, set it on the table, sat sipping his tea. Around him, the room darkened with the onset of evening. He did not notice, his mind alight with possibility.

Eden/Davis’ demonstration had gone very well. His initiates instructor—a short, plump Asian woman who called herself Ishtar’s Star—had taken him into a small room in Verite, where he had shown that he could lift a variety of small objects and manipulate them with coordination roughly equivalent to that of someone wearing thick gloves. Then she had taken him into an Elishite chapel in Virtu and told him to pray for guidance before exiting the locus in the form of a portly white dove.

The chapel was different from those that Arthur Eden had seen thus far in his study of the Church of Elish. For one, it lacked facilities for a large congregation. The sanctuary rose in a series of tiers, the lowest of which held polished benches of rare porphyry, the next which was padded on its inner ring for kneeling. A carved ivory rail served equally well as a place for the kneelers to rest their hands and as a means to separate the sanctuary from the main chapel.

Inside the rail the floor rose in a series of shallow steps ending in a round dais on which stood a statue celebrating Marduk’s conquest of Tiamat. One of Tiamat’s severed heads lay on its side a small distance from the rest of the statue where it could serve rather nicely as a ceremonial altar.

Wishing he had one of his recording proges with him, Eden abased himself before the altar. Then he knelt and began reciting the prayers he had learned in his earlier training. Uncertain who might be watching him, he did not want to seem too complacent (though, honestly, he felt extraordinarily smug). Taking care with his phrasing, he went through the litany twice and was beginning it a third time when he began to feel afraid.