Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

“But then there is simply ‘Jay.’ It is a name with great possibilities.

It recalls your given name quite nicely and it invokes a number of rather tidy totemic images.”

“Totemic images?” young Donnerjack repeated, entranced.

“Why, yes. There is the letter itself—a clean simple curve like a fishhook in print, a double curve like an infinity symbol slightly askew in cursive. There is also a class of birds called ‘jays.’ Blue, more commonly than not, scavengers and thieves, some say, but with an eye for things of value as well. They warn other animals of predators and do not hesitate to band together against their enemies. They are related to ravens and crows. ‘Jay.’ What do you think?”

“I like it,” said John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Junior.

“Then it shall be so,” said Reese Jordan, and with a fine sense of ceremony, he cupped a handful of water from Caltrice’s pool and baptized the boy with his new name.

Lounging on the bank, the dog Mizar, who recalled neither his making nor his naming, beat his tail on the grass in applause. He did not realize that this same tail had once had another cable, a thick one of dark red. Nor would he have cared to know of his earlier self. Alone of those from Death’s realm who watched over and played with the boy, he knew nothing of his first master and, knowing nothing, neither did he care.

“Jay,” said the boy aloud and oddly happy. “Jay.”

Then he was overwhelmed by emotions far too complex and too confusing to bear. With a whoop and a leap, he jumped into the pool, splashing Reese thoroughly and almost, almost succeeding in grabbing Caltrice by a trailing strand of her seaweed hair.

And on days when Reese was not available, Jay Donnerjack would slip off with Phecda, Mizar, Dubhe, or Alioth to explore the multilevel world of Virtu. Ruined cities, empty cities, vacated boardrooms, gymnasiums, brothels—they could feel their way into the downsides of things not being used. And jungles, mountains, beaches, Escherscapes, deserts, and the undersides of seas were all places they viewed and explored.

“You must remember,” Reese cautioned him one day, on a beach, “that for you both worlds are real. If you have slipped through to Virtu you can die in a virtual avalanche. When you’re back in Verite you could break your neck falling down a flight of stairs.”

“What does Virtu mean, anyway?” Jay asked.

“It is an eighteenth-century term for an object of art. After all, it is the greatest object of art the human race has produced.”

“I guess you’re right. And Verite is our starting-place reality.”

“Right.”

“And physics and chemistry—all the laws of motion and thermodynamics—they don’t really work the same way in Virtu as they do in Verite, but they simulate it in Virtu—”

“Correct.”

“—because there have to be enough similarities to rely on in use— and enough differences to make the place useful.”

“That’s right. Especially since it’s used for recreation as much as for business and problem-solving.”

“What is the big problem you’ve been working on, this unified theory?”

“When Virtu created itself following Bansa’s accidental chain reaction crashing of part of the field, the place didn’t exactly spell out all its rules for us. They had to be learned—trial and error—as we tried to install some of our own. Virtu was stronger as to basics, though it will take programming and the creation of new spaces. What we’ve never really been able to determine is whether its physical laws are localized, distorted by occasion, special instances of more general laws—or whether, ultimately, there are really no general laws, whether it might all be expedience and emulation riding atop a sea of chaos.”

“Does it really matter,” the boy asked, “if the results are the same?”

Reese laughed.

“You talk a lot like your father in one of his more pragmatic moods. Sure it matters. Everything matters, ultimately—how, I can’t say, but I shall always believe that it does. A difference between a theoretician and an engineer, I suppose. We care about beginnings and endings, and when a boundary is really boundary. Someone else might say, Tour time would be better spent learning more ways to work with it. That’s where your theories are going to come from and find backbone.’ They’re right, too. But I incline toward the former approach and your dad toward the latter.”

“But you both think of the place as Virtu, an object of art?”

“Yep.”

“I’m glad things are not too simple, in life or in mind,” said Jay, picking up an exotic peach-colored seashell between his toes and casting it back into the water.

“It’s like the joy of solving a good crossword puzzle,” said Reese.

“What’s a crossword puzzle?”

“Oh, my! We’ve been neglecting your education again. I’ll bring some next time we visit. I think you’ll enjoy them.”

Arthur Eden’s Origin and Growth of a Popular Religion caused a tremendous sensation. Eden had the gift of prose granted to only a handful of happy essayists, yet his contentions were firmly rooted in the academic traditions of anthropological research and elegantly documented.

Eden’s treatment of his subject matter was ethical in the extreme. As he had privately promised himself at the beginning of the project, he revealed no rituals, gave away no secrets, broke no vows.

But he did show that despite its claims of being based upon ancient truths, the Church of Elish was a religion in active evolution. Revealing himself to have been member of the Church under the name of Emmanuel Davis, Eden reported how his research was used to design everything from vestments to prayer services. His discussion of the lavish interiors of private buildings and offices, the lifestyles of the most senior members of the hierarchy, implied—without ever bluntly stating so— that the donations gathered during the Collect were not always used for the aggrandizement of the deities.

Origin and Growth of a Popular Religion was abridged (mostly by omitting the footnotes) in an edition illustrated with pictures taken from a variety of sources—including the ancient media tradition of reenactment. It became a stage play entitled Undercover Cleric; a trideo with the same title (but here Eden/Davis was supplied with a sexy but tough assistant who spent much of her time interrogating members of the Church’s hierarchy during carnal congress), and an interactive virt adventure. This last had a surprising tendency to malfunction; five lives were lost and dozens of other participants were injured before it was shut down. This only added to the general belief that the Elishites had more to hide than Eden had implied.

Other works came out in imitation: Ishtar’s Slave, Entering the Elshies, Winged Lie , others with even more lurid titles. None sold as well as Eden’s books, for none had his unique mixture of anthropological expertise and personal insight. Arthur Eden, himself, could be assumed to have become a very, very wealthy man. His agent, when interviewed, refused to comment but looked quite smug. It was noted that he was building a new house in Paris.

But Arthur Eden, himself, could not be found for interviews. After a single massive gala launch for his book—a party that was well-attended despite (or perhaps because of) the immense amount of secrecy surrounding what it was meant to launch—he simply vanished from the public eye. For a few months after the release of the book he responded to hard copy interviews. Then, pleading a need to keep himself safe in the face of numerous death threats (none, he was careful to note, from the Church authorities, always from irate worshipers), he retired from sight.