Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

He placed cups, cream, lemon, and sugar before them.

“What might we be callin’ you?” asked Duncan. “You bein’ so hospitable and all?”

He poured their tea and found bread, butter, and biscuits.

“Call me Dack,” he said. “Tell me before I trouble the master, what are your skills?”

“He could count on us for anything involving boats,” said Angus with a laugh. “Either of us will plaster or paint, though Duncan’s better than I am at that. He does some masonry, too, and we’ll both mess with mechanical things up to the point where we have the sense to tell him to get someone better.”

The robot made a chuckling sound. They tasted their tea.

“Good tea,” said Duncan.

“Yes,” said Angus, “and the bread and butter, too. Uh, will you be checkin’ now with the laird?”

Dack chuckled again. “Forgive me my little joke, gentlemen,” he said. “I am John D’Arcy Donnerjack. Dack reported your visit and I took over his sensory apparatus to conduct the interview. I like your qualifications. Do any of you do groundskeeping work as well?”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“I will turn this body back to Dack then, when I have given Dack a list of indoor and outdoor work for you. I’ll be hiring you. You can discuss wages with Dack. I’ll confirm what’s finally been settled on afterwards. Can you start tomorrow?”

“Why, yes,” said Duncan.

“Certainly.”

“Then I’ll be back to my work now.”

“Not before we congratulate you, sir, hoping the missus is all right.”

“Why, thank you. Dack will have plenty for you to do; you may never even see me about. He will also forward any messages you have for me.”

“Very good, sir,” said Angus. “What time tomorrow would you like?”

“Say eight. Well make it eight to five. Three weeks off with pay, however you’d have them.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Indeed.”

“One question, if I may,” said Duncan, sipping.

“And what is that?”

“Is the place really haunted? I’ve heard stories…”

“Yes, Duncan. It is.”

Donnerjack did not elaborate.

“Well, uh—guess we should be going,” Duncan said, standing.

Angus finished his tea and rose, also.

“Very well. I will see you gentlemen around, though you will probably not see me.”

Dack dealt with them on small matters such as wages and equipment, then saw them to the door and out, with a pleasant, “Good morning, gentlemen,” thus beginning a long and rewarding relationship for all parties concerned.

The following night Donnerjack was awakened sometime during the small hours by the sound of a banshee wail. Quietly, he rose, donning robe and slippers, and went to investigate. It seemed to be coming from the third floor, west wing. As he moved in that direction, the wailing seemed to increase in volume.

“A howl isn’t enough!” he cried. “I want the full message! What’s coming?”

The howling ceased and a dark form fluttered by him.

“God damn it!” he cried. “Don’t you ever stop and chat?”

“‘Tis not in the nature of their kind,” came a croaking voice from the left.

Casting his gaze in that direction, Donnerjack saw a wavering, glowing outline and heard a gentle rattling of chains.

“Ghost! Can you help me?” he asked. “Do you understand what the wailing is all about?”

“I think you’ve been diverted, mlaird,” it replied. “I’d say to go back—immediately.”

“Why?”

“It is unseemly, sir,” it said, “to question supernatural manifestations as you do,” and it winked out.

“Shit!” Donnerjack stated, and he turned and hurried back.

He entered the master bedroom. Nothing seemed to have changed. Could the ghost have meant for him to check the nursery? He placed his hand on Ayradyss’s shoulder, pressing gently.

“Darling,” he said. “We’ve had another of those ghostly visita—”

Her skin felt cold and as he shook her he realized that it was not living flesh that he nudged.

“Damn you, Death!” he screamed. “God damn you!”

He raised her, drew her to him, embraced her.

He held her for a long while and his eyes grew moist. Then, slowly, he lowered her.

“You have cheated me, Death,” he said softly. “You gave her back long enough to bear the child you wanted. Then you snatch her away again. You shouldn’t have done that.”

Then he stood.

“I keep my bargains, too,” he said.

Turning, he rose and crossed to the cradle that rested near to Ayra’s hand so that she might nurse the baby without needing to rise. The baby slept deeply and well, unaware of his loss.

Gingerly, Donnerjack raised the child in his arms and bore him with him to his study/workshop. There he deposited him in a portable crib he had recently installed in the place. Soon he was performing electronic measurements on his sleeping son’s body and brain. He did not yet have everything that he wanted in the way of information, but this might do for now.

He seated himself then at his design module, and he began to fashion a tiny bracelet that would hold his work. When the design was finished and checked, he fed it into a fabricator. While the bracelet was being made, he reviewed the deadly code for something else as he waited.

The baby sniffed a few times and he passed it a pacifier. A little later he realized that only a bottle of formula would do. He called for Dack to bring one and continued his work.

Perhaps five minutes later Dack appeared with the beverage. “It is in a nippled bottle,” he explained. “You did want it for the baby, did you not?”

“Yes,” said Donnerjack, “though now I see it I wouldn’t mind something cold for myself. A grape juice would be nice.”

Immediately, on Back’s departure, Donnerjack lowered his head to his arms and sobbed once. When the robot returned later, he was working again.

“Thank you, Dack,” he said. “Please cancel all of my appointments for the next week. I won’t be taking any calls during that time either— with a small list of exceptions which I will furnish shortly.”

“Yes, sir. It will be done.”

“…And stay out of the master bedroom for now.”

“As you would, sir.”

John D’Arcy Donnerjack located the ideal area just outside the south wall, shielded from the sun. He had the robots fence it as they constructed her coffin. He laid her to rest there, holding his infant son in his arms as the robots did the burying. Their hair stood on end, for the black box was strapped beneath his jacket and the new bracelet on his son’s tiny wrist. He did not notify any authorities of her death, for they had no record of her life, lady of Virtu.

In neither reality had there ever been such a machine as the Brass Babboon. Donnerjack assembled it carefully in Virtu—a great, sleek, long, low engine with a peculiar caboose, it shone like sunlight on the China Sea before a typhoon, had a whistle like the final shriek of a damned soul, and spouted fireworks rather than smoke and cinders. It cannibalized realities, broke the bounds of virtual domains, and tore like a meteor through anything, spewing gleaming tracks before it as it went, leaving a horde of irate genü loci to adjust to its passage. It was faced with the visage of a great grinning baboon. It was designed to be virtually unstoppable as well as intimidating.

Donnerjack calculated an existence theorem that worked out the necessary coordinates for the hidden valley where strange attractors grew on trees, proceeded to this point, then distributed many of these in a variety of ways in both the engine and caboose.

As he passed before the chugging engine’s cab, the baboon face blew a smoke ring, grinned more widely, and said, “Ready whenever you are, J. D.”