Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

“Always analyzing, Davis! It’s an illusion. The glass ceiling is there, but the ‘sky’ you’re seeing is a projection. It’s a neat bit of work, actually, since it can be set—like it is now—to show the actual sky outside or, on nasty days, to play something more attractive. Now, come into my office and have a drink. You still haven’t answered my question.”

Eden followed Kelsey into a large, well-lit room furnished with minimalistic but surprisingly comfortable furniture. Kelsey gestured him to a chair, found out his preferences, and served him from the bar. Then he slouched in a chair across from the one Eden had taken, put his feet on the low table between them, sipped from his stein of beer, and sighed happily.

“So, Davis, are you content with your progress?”

The magic question. Say “no” and you’re too ambitious. Say “yes” and you’re not driven enough. Eden tasted his own drink—a light rice wine—and framed his answer.

“I enjoy my work and I feel I am making a valid contribution to the advancement of the Church. I would, however, be willing to embrace a new challenge.”

“Very good.” Kelsey took another swallow from his beer. “Very good, indeed. You present me with a difficult situation, Davis.”

Eden felt his heart thud harder. Had he been discovered? He didn’t think it was possible. When he had accepted the full-time job as a researcher for the Church, he had moved completely into the Davis persona. Arthur Eden was on a half-pay leave of absence from his teaching job (a thing his university had welcomed in the current budget crunch), and the mortgage for his unused dwelling and sundry other expenses were paid directly by the university bursar. Eden lived off of what Davis earned as an employee of the Church, and somewhat frugally at that. But Kelsey was speaking…

“You have manifested your virt power strongly, reliably. Training has granted you steady improvement. You can recite litanies as well as priests with years of seniority and you conduct yourself with appropriate enthusiasm during all ritual events. Yet… yet…”

“Sir?”

“I still suspect that you remain something of a skeptic despite all of this.”

Wisely, Eden remained silent. Kelsey fixed him with his pale blue gaze.

“At a recent meeting of Church Elders, your name came up as a possible candidate for a singular honor. As your supervisor, I was asked if I could second that recommendation.”

“Honor, sir?”

“See? That questioning again! Most of our acolytes when presented with such an opportunity would fling themselves to the carpet to praise the gods that they were even considered. A few would ask if they were truly worthy. You—you and a small group of others—question. Yet, if I nominate you for this honor, you will be elevated to a position that few others in the Church will ever hold.”

“Sir?”

Kelsey grinned, his usual relaxed humor restored by the grin on Eden/Davis’s dark face.

“The position is religious not administrative. It involves becoming an intimate of one of the deities—becoming that being’s most personal servant.”

“God!”

“Precisely. I’m not certain that a skeptic—no matter how well-meaning—should be considered for such a position. Some of the deities are rather short-tempered. They might find a lack of faith unforgivable. Terminal.”

“I understand.”

“We can die in Virtu, Davis. It is something that is often played down, but we can die in Virtu, especially when we venture away from the modern design settings and into the primal areas. Needless to say, our deities belong to that primal force. As the teachings of the Church uphold, they merely use Virtu as a means of manifesting truths that predate human history.”

Kelsey frowned. “That is why I am speaking with you—perhaps imprudently. I do not wish to nominate a candidate who will bring shame to himself or to my department. Nor do I wish you to be ruined for further service. Your abilities have been valuable. Do you have an answer for me?”

“May I pray on it, sir?”

“Yes. That would be wise. You are excused from your immediate duties until this time tomorrow. Then report to me here with the results of your meditation. The decision is still mine to make—not yours—but I will accept your input.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Kelsey.”

“If you wish, you may be excused.”

“Thank you. I believe I will go and shut down my work and then head to a temple to pray.”

“Very good. May the gods speak to you clearly.”

“I hope they will, sir.”

Arthur Eden left Kelsey’s office, aware of the man’s critical gaze on his retreating back. In the elevator, he let his hands run through a prayer mudra that the Church had adapted from Buddhism. He walked to his office, did things with the computers there, and then left the building. In case anyone was watching, he went to one of the Church’s transfer facilities and found a private virt chapel in which he could pray—and collect his thoughts.

He stayed there several hours. When he departed, he mentioned something to the attendant about needing dinner. When he finished his meal at his favorite Afghanistan! restaurant, he returned to Davis’s home, set a few contained incendiaries that would make it appear that the house had been destroyed by a freak electrical fire. (The wiring, when the arson investigators checked, would be found to have been below code for the amount of computer equipment and related electronic hardware he had kept there.) If all went well, the Church would believe that he had been killed.

Then he walked out via a service alley and descended into a subway tunnel. Davis’s usefulness had ended, for his deception could not survive more intimate contact with the entities the Church served. While Eden was still not convinced of their divinity, his years in the Elishites’ service had convinced him of their power and resources.

Now he would return to being Arthur Eden and work on a tertian’ identity to serve him once the book came out. He would publish it under Arthur Eden’s name, but he already knew that after it appeared he would never live publicly as Eden again, for when the book came out, Eden would be under a sentence of death.

A few years passed. John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Junior grew well and his health remained sound. Dack taught him to read and tamed his childish scrawls into printing and script. He also taught him basic mathematics. All of this before he let him know computers more than socially. He wanted the son of John D’Arcy Donnerjack to possess the sometimes

“M

forgotten basic basics before he introduced him to the commonplace basics. Although he had not been ordered or requested to do it this way, he had noticed that Donnerjack, Senior had known these things, and he considered him a great man. In that he hoped Donnerjack, Junior might one day be a great man, also, Dack attempted to emulate what he had known of the father’s earliest education. So the boy studied German, French. Japanese, cartography, and calligraphy as had his father before him.

There were no other children at Castle Donnerjack. The boy occasionally glimpsed Duncan or Angus from window or balcony, but Dack managed to keep him apart from them, wishing to protect the very idea of his existence. So the only individuals he met besides the household robots were the inhabitants of Virtu—human and otherwise—whom he encountered on his daily rambles on and off Stage.

One day he and Mizar ran far afield—so far that there was a shifting or two before they could return. They came to a small rocky valley with a stream running through it. Following this, they came to a bright, burbling waterfall. Young Donnerjack, clad in tan shorts, seated himself on a rock at the water’s edge and tossed pebbles into the stream. A watery, humanoid figure burst from the flow then and regarded him. Donnerjack started to his feet and took a step backward. Mizar interposed his body between the boy and the dripping figure. He opened his mouth to show the spikes with which it was furnished.