Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

Were they checking his identity? Had they uncovered a flaw in the Davis persona? His body in the transfer facility was so very vulnerable. He recalled with unusual clarity the waiver of culpability forms he had signed upon joining the Church of Elish, the even stricter waivers he had signed on becoming an initiate into the priesthood. They could murder him, disguise it to look like a transfer effect (former athletes often had sudden heart attacks when they didn’t keep in shape, didn’t they?), and pay no penalty.

His voice faltered. He struggled to recall the words to the basic prayers he had learned as a neophyte, his mind clouded with fear. He surged up from his knees to his feet. He would hit the emergency recall sequence… He would explain…

“Revelation, Brother Davis?”

The voice broke into his panic like a bucket of water splashed in his face. It was male, strong, deep, with something of laughter in the undertones. Eden wavered, uncertain whether to fall back to his knees or to finish standing. He managed neither, his feet slipping on the slick marble floor. He would have landed rather solidly on his tailbone had not his interrogator caught him.

Eden found himself staring directly into the face of a large, red-haired man—perhaps in his midthirties, although since this was a virt form he could be any age. Freckles splashed the bridge of his pug nose; his pale blue eyes were surrounded with a network of lines that bespoke much time spent out of doors. He wore a simple black cotton robe, not unlike a Japanese hakama .

“I… uh… Thanks…” Eden managed.

“You’re welcome. I’m Randall Kelsey. Come, take a seat on one of these benches.”

Eden did so. Kelsey seated himself with easy familiarity on one of the steps leading to the sanctuary and leaned back against the altar rail.

“You looked as if one of the gods had spoken to you, Brother Davis,” Kelsey said after a moment.

“I…” Eden caught himself before he could start confessing the real reason for his weakness. “I suddenly realized the enormity of what has happened. Until Sister Ishtar’s Star left me alone to pray, I had been more concerned with passing the test, with the fear that the gift would desert me. Then it was all over and I realized…”

Deliberately, he let the words trail off.

“You realized that you have been touched by the divine and that divinity has shaped you into something that you were not.”

Randall Kelsey fell silent for so long that Eden wondered if he was expected to say something, but if so, the moment for those words had come and gone. He waited and a trio of tiny gossamer-winged serpents flew into the chapel and fluttered in front of Kelsey, who spoke to them words that Eden did not understand, his tones measured.

Each serpent was no larger than the earthworms Eden had dug up in his mother’s vegetable garden as a boy and used to bait his fishhooks. Had he ever caught anything? He tried to remember and all he recalled was the bloated pink worms, unnaturally clean from their immersion in the stream, twisted onto his hook.

“Do you believe in the gods, Emmanuel Davis?”

Eden jumped as the words brought him from his reverie. Had he dozed off for a moment? The serpents were now hovering in front of his face—their scales glittering like pulverized gemstones. For a strange moment, he thought that one of them had asked the question.

“Do you believe in the gods, Emmanuel Davis?” Kelsey repeated.

“More than ever before.”

“More than nothing can still be almost nothing.”

“True. Very well.” Eden decided an urbane honesty would suit him best here. He was already known by his teachers as a questioner. “If you are asking me do I believe specifically in Enlil, Enki, Ishtar, and all the rest I would have to say that I believe there are divinities who find those names and their attendant forms as convenient as any other, but if I was asked to say whether I believed that these were identical to the deities who were worshiped in the dawn of recorded history in the Fertile Crescent I would be forced to say ‘no.’ “

“I see. Heresy?”

“I would prefer to call it metaphysical conjecture. In any case, my belief is not out of line with the teachings of the Church. Even in the earliest lessons, we are taught that form and name are metaphors for something more primal.”

“True, but what about faith?”

“Faith is something that is given—it cannot be learned. At least so I have always felt. I offer instead my worship.”

“Your experience with the development of a virt power did not change your mind about the divinity of those worshiped by the Church of Elish?”

“I never said I doubted the divinity, sir, only that I doubted the equivalency of the divinities we worship here and those from ancient times.”

“Yes, I see.”

Kelsey scratched behind one ear. His slouch against the altar rail irresistibly reminded Eden of a farmhand relaxing at the edge of a field. All he needed was a corncob pipe and a straw hat. Yet his casual posture did not diminish the grandeur of the chapel or the unearthliness of the watching serpents. If anything, his very normalcy enhanced the rest.

Eden knew instinctively that despite the lack of gold tiered crowns or jeweled miters that he was in the presence of someone of great authority, someone who could order the plug pulled on his transfer couch, and he resolved to be very, very careful how he answered.

“Mr. Kelsey, what are the serpents?”

“I wondered if you would ask that.”

“I will withdraw the question if you so desire.”

“No, that’s all right. They’re recording proges—among other things.” Kelsey gestured and the serpents darted away from Eden and resumed their watchful fluttering a few feet overhead. “Tell me, Brother Davis, what is divinity?”

“A type of fudge?”

Kelsey grinned. “I’m glad that you had the balls to say that, Davis. You looked pretty washed-out when I came in here—figuratively speaking. Now, what is divinity?”

Eden paused, considering what not to answer. Emmanuel Davis was supposed to be a research librarian, so his answer should have some sophistication. On the other hand, it should not be so sophisticated as to indicate undue knowledge in the area of theology or anthropology.

“I have been considering that question since soon after I became a neophyte, sir. You must understand, I first came to the Church of Elish as a tourist.”

“Most do,” Kelsey said mildly.

“I came back, though, because it seemed to me that there was something in the temple when we were told that a deity was present, that I could feel the presence even before the announcement was made.”

“Interesting.”

“And after a time I became convinced that what I felt was the emanations of the divine aura—an aura that I had felt nowhere else in Virtu or Verite.”

“Were you a church shopper, Davis?”

“A little.” This answer had been carefully worked out in advance. “I was raised Baptist. Dropped out. Tried a few other religions—though I guess not all of them qualified for tax exemption; they were more like philosophical traditions. Eventually, I decided that there weren’t any ultimate answers and mucked along, making do.”

“What brought you to our church?”

“A girl from my office wanted to go, didn’t want to go alone.”

“Is she with us?”

“No. It didn’t really appeal to her. She said it didn’t have enough affirmation of the female.”

“Ishtar will be so hurt.”

“She didn’t like her much, to be honest. Said it was the classic bitch pattern all over again.”

“Well, it did have to come from somewhere, didn’t it?”