“There is an AP named Milburn who resides in New York. He is in the employ of the Donnerjack Institute and part of his job description includes chauffeur and pilot.”
“That sounds promising.”
“Even more promising is that the listed owner of the Donnerjack Institute is one John D’Arcy Donnerjack. His place of residence is listed as a castle on an island off of the coast of Scotland.”
Link’s naturally active mind had been honed by her choice of profession. “The initials are similar—if one omits the ‘mac’—and Scotland is where Jay said he was from. Why does the name John D’Arcy Donnerjack ring a bell?”
“He is one of the great engineers of virtual reality design. You’ve probably visited his Inferno at some point.”
“I think I did. Didn’t like it much. Did you call the Donnerjack Institute?”
“Better, I called the castle directly. The robot who took the call said that the master was traveling. I asked him to identify himself and he said that his name was Dack.”
“That’s the place! But Jay couldn’t be this John D’Arcy Donnerjack, could he?”
“No, Donnerjack would be far older—older even than your mother— maybe even as old as me.”
Link missed the joke. “So, who is Jay?”
“I have a thought on that,” Drum said. He flipped a holo-album across his desk. “I got some pictures of Donnerjack—found some from when he was younger. See anything?”
“There certainly is a similarity, isn’t there? Not identical, but enough to make fairly clear that they’re related.”
“That was my thought as well. Not all fathers and sons look as much alike as you and your mother do, Alice. I would guess that if Jay isn’t Donnerjack’s son, he’s a nephew—maybe a young cousin.”
Link nodded, still studying the holograms. “Did you find a record of a wife?”
Drum shrugged. “None, but that’s hardly telling. I didn’t find any register of children, either, which puzzled me. I would have bet—given the address, the fact that Jay was being driven by someone from the Institute—that Jay was Donnerjack’s son. I didn’t find any record of Donnerjack having siblings either, so the nephew line is a bit tenuous.
Still, I think I’ve found your Jay. He’s a relation of the Donnerjack family and, at least part of the time, resides in a castle in Scotland.”
“Let’s call him!”
“I tried—used a different virt domino so Dack wouldn’t know the same person was calling. Not only didn’t I get Jay, Dack refused to acknowledge that there was such a person.”
“Huh?”
“And when I contacted Milburn, I got the same response. He was polite but said that I must have him confused with someone else. Thing is, I checked flight permits filed by the Donnerjack Institute for a couple of days before the Elshie celebration and I found that one had been taken out for Milburn. The destination wasn’t listed, but the turn-around time would have been just about right for a quick jaunt to Scotland.”
“Weird.”
“Very. If it wasn’t for the fact that he bled all over the front seat of my Spinner, I’d say that in Jay MacDougal you and I had suffered a consensual hallucination.”
“Don’t tease!”
“I’m not. I’m merely expressing a point, kid.”
“Yeah.”
Link looked so depressed that Drum reached across and patted her hand.
“This isn’t an end, kid, just a delay. In the meantime, I’ve heard from you-know-who. He wants to see us tonight.”
Link shook off her depression, squared her shoulders, shifted her posture and, somehow, indefinably, seemed more male than before. Drum was impressed.
“I could use the distraction,” Link said. “Want to get dinner before?”
“The Chinese place again?”
“Yeah, I want to try their garlic eggplant.”
“Yuck.”
Jay walked beneath the spreading green of the forest giants. Thick vines, flowered red and orange and yellow, interwove the boughs so that overhead Dubhe hardly need employ any energy in his progress from tree to tree. Mizar snapped at a flying beetle, its wings polished copper and aged bronze. Birds called from hidden roosts or screeched when Jay’s progress brought him too close to an egg-filled nest. All around them was life in form fantastical and impossible, yet to Jay the jungle felt strange and somehow empty.
“Mizar, have we come to the correct site?”
“It smells so…” A creaking as the hound raised its fearsome head. “Yes… this is… Nazrat’s locus.”
Jay glanced from side to side. “It seems wrong. Too quiet? That’s not quite right, but something is missing.”
Dubhe dropped to his shoulder. “I spotted the plains through a gap in the canopy, Jay.”
“Good,” Jay said, still distracted. “Mizar, when we reach the plain would you find the trail of the phants?”
“Which… phants?”
“Tranto’s herd, if you can. Any will do. They keep tabs on each other. Even a lone bull should be able to give us directions.”
Mizar wagged his cable tail in acknowledgment. When they left the green coolness for the sunlit grasslands, he dropped his nose to the ground and began casting about. Jay, seated on a hummock in the shade, watched, still trying to place the source of the strangeness he sensed. He was no closer when Mizar gave a low bay.
“I have… phant. Blood… as well. Be care… ful.”
The boy rose and fell briskly into step behind Mizar, not even pausing as Dubhe dropped from the branches and onto his shoulder.
“We will be, Mizar. Is the blood scent fresh?”
“Very. Phant also.”
“Maybe that’s why things seem so quiet,” Jay said, not convinced. “If there’s something out here that can wound a phant…”
“Tranto,” Mizar interrupted.
“Tranto?” Jay broke into a trot. “If there’s something out here that can wound Tranto, then maybe everything else has taken cover.”
“Hope it’s not still out here,” Dubhe said.
“Yeah.”
After a time, a handful of trees closely clustered together announced the presence of a watering hole ahead. Coasting on the winds above the trees were a dozen birds that might have been called vultures except that their feathers were brilliant yellow picked out in sapphire blue. Their heads and necks, however, were bare of feathers, the naked pink skin (when added to the yellow and blue) attiring the birds with gruesome festivity given the obvious purpose of their powerfully hooked beaks and horned talons.
“Whatever it is isn’t dead,” Jay said, “or those birds would be down there right now.”
“Tranto,” Mizar repeated patiently. “I smell Tranto.”
And it was Tranto they saw as they closed the remaining distance. The ancient phant lay collapsed on his side. His grey, wrinkled hide was scored with red and blood pooled around him. Only the defiant flapping of his trunk when one of the vultures dropped within range assured them that he still lived, but each time he drove them off they retreated less and the trunk moved more slowly.
Mizar bayed, a horrid sound like the static-laden feedback of a set of poorly wired amplifiers. The vultures flapped higher, warned, but not panicked. Jay ignored them, hurrying to the phant. Up close, things looked even worse, but one thing was clear, Tranto’s opponent had not gotten away without injury. The phant’s long curving tusks were reddened with gore.
“Tranto…” Jay said, his voice breaking.
Tranto’s eye was glazed with pain, dimmed with something like madness, but he still knew Jay. He flapped his upper ear in acknowledgment. Heedless of the blood that soaked the ground, Jay knelt and brought his head near the phant’s oddly delicate mouth.
“Who did this?”