Roger Zelazny - Donnerjack

They were met at the door by a couple of confused-looking orderlies with a gurney and a tall brunette woman whose aura of professional competence could not disguise her worry. Despite her maturity and the wealth of brown hair she wore piled up on her head, the resemblance to Link was unmistakable—almost frighteningly so.

Jay thought about what his fingers had learned and realized that, looking at Dr. Hazzard, he had a pretty good idea of what Link would look like when he—she—reached the same age.

“Marco, Tom,” Dr. Hazzard ordered, “help me slide the young man out of the back seat onto the gurney.”

She spared Jay and Drum a glance and a tight smile.

“Are you both ambulatory?”

“Pretty much, ma’am,” Drum answered. “Link’s the one who is hurt bad.”

“Follow us in. I’ll assign someone to each of you right away.”

They followed her through the double glass doors past a curved counter behind which a receptionist processed incoming patients. Beyond the counter was a large waiting room, its collection of waiting patients distracted at least temporarily from their pains, aches, and sniffles by the sight of three men, all blood-stained and battered, being rushed through the room and into the sanctum sanctorum where the doctors actually saw patients.

It was some measure of how bad all three looked that nobody protested that their own treatment would be delayed.

Dr. Hazzard vanished with Link into the first examining room they reached, issuing orders for various equipment, someone named Gwen, and a sterile operating room. Marco emerged moments later and directed Drum to one examining room, Jay to another, and shut the doors firmly after them as if the chaos they had brought with them might escape.

Jay looked around the examining room—another first, since Castle Donnerjack had a med-unit and Dack personally treated all the bumps and scrapes the med-unit could not. It was small but comfortable, painted a pale yellow that managed to make the light seem brighter but softer, and furnished with an examination table, a chair, and a shelf of medical tools. He was trying to guess what the various tools did, moving slowly lest he reopen any of the wounds that had started crusting over, when the door opened.

To his surprise, Dr. Hazzard herself stood there. The tension on her face had eased and she answered his unspoken question.

“Link is not in any danger. The bullet passed clear through, slicing some muscle, but nothing that won’t heal. There is some nasty gravel imbedded in the skin—probably from when he fell—and a lot of blood loss.”

“I’m glad.”

“Strip and let me take a look at you. I’ll help with the shirt.”

While Jay removed his trousers, retaining his shorts, she punched a tab and the examining table lowered so that he could get onto it without strain, then raised again. She touched his head, tilting it so that she could look into his eyes. Jay blushed, realizing that this was the first real woman since his mother to touch him.

Dr. Hazzard didn’t appear to see the blush, or if she did she almost certainly dismissed it as the result of her removing his ruined shirt with a pair of scissors. She tut-tutted at the slash the tire iron had left.

“Lovely, lovely job, Jay. That’s your name, right?”

“That’s it.”

“You’ve been hit in the head. You’ll need stitches in your back and on your forehead. And you have contusions and minor abrasions everywhere. I’m going to give you a tetanus booster, just in case. You’ll live, but you’ll hurt.”

She did things with various sprays and ointments to numb the skin and repaired him with quiet efficiency. Jay found himself liking her a great deal.

“Doctor, is Link your kid?”

“Noticed the resemblance, did you? Yes, Link’s mine, my one and only.”

“I’d like to see him. Is he awake?”

“Awake and insisting on seeing you . When you’re patched up, I’ll show you where to go. I can’t let you chat for too long.”

“And Drum. Is he okay?”

“A concussion. Since he lives alone, I’ve convinced him to accept a room overnight while we make certain that there’s nothing serious. He has agreed with remarkable grace. He should be sleeping now. The pain medication we gave him will make him dopey.”

“I like him.”

“So does Link. So, I suppose, do I, though I wish he wouldn’t encourage Link to do such dangerous things.”

“Dangerous? A church service is hardly dangerous, ma’am.”

Dr. Hazzard smiled at him. It was a nice smile and her eyes were amazingly green.

“Enough on that. I have a waiting room of ‘impatients’ to deal with. Marco will bring you a new shirt—we keep a few spares. Once you’ve changed, walk slowly. You’ll find Link in room A-23.”

Jay obeyed and found Link’s room easily. The orderly Tom was leaving as he approached the door and Link, seeing Jay, waved him in.

“Thanks for coming,” Link said, taking a deep breath, “and thanks for saving my life.”

“And the same,” Jay said, grinning. “I would have been flattened if you hadn’t come out just then.”

“I think the store owner was in league with them. He kept finding excuses to delay. Finally, I gave up and punched my eft stick into a vending machine—and when I came out…”

“I couldn’t let them take the Spinner,” Jay said awkwardly, wondering if he had violated some Veritean rule, “or should I have?”

“No, I’m glad you didn’t, but you against the six of them…”

They stared awkwardly at each other. Shorn of hat, loose shirt, and sunglasses, sitting up in bed in a hospital gown, Link was still androgynous, but also more obviously female—especially if one knew to look for the signs. There was a fullness to the lip, a length of lash, a fineness of bone. Jay realized that he was staring and blushed again.

“You—felt,” Link said.

“Yeah,” Jay said, turning even darker red.

“My real name is Alice Hazzard. My family is rich and well-known. I wanted to establish myself as a reporter without having people cater to me on that point. It’s easy enough to do in Virtu, but in Verite I kept being dismissed as a rich brat.”

“So you gave yourself a virt persona, except in Verite!” Jay grinned, thinking how odd that both of them were effectively doing the same thing—him as Jason MacDougal, Alice as Link Crain.

“Drum doesn’t know. At least, I don’t think he does. I met him professionally and he’d only researched as far as those credentials. I think. Sometimes, I’m not sure.”

“Your mom?”

“Knows. Appreciates it. She’s doubly wealthy—family money and then some annuities dating back to an accident she had before I was born. She knows how hard it can be to get people to take you seriously.”

“You look a lot like her. Don’t people guess?”

“I don’t come here often. When we’re out together, I’m Alice. Link is just for work.”

They chatted for a while more, then Tom returned.

“I have been told that the patient is to rest. Jay, you may stay in the clinic or leave, as you wish.”

“I’ll call for my ride.”

Jay and Alice looked at each other, suddenly sixteen and awkward.

“Thanks again.”

“Right. Bye.”

Jay left. He called Milburn. The android, seeing that he was very thoughtful, did not bother him with idle chatter.

Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack heard the banshee howl.

When he had returned from the Verite to the castle in Scotland some days before, it had seemed to all those who anxiously (though covertly) watched him, that the experience had not changed him in any detrimental fashion.

Dr. Hazzard’s expertise had tended to his wounds so skillfully that when the stitches and bandaging were absorbed there would not even be a scar. (Something about which Jay, himself, had mixed feelings.) He had told of his adventures with the proper mixture of awe and braggadocio, recounted the wonders that he had seen, and returned to his studies and virtventures.