BUG in code16/a word 0000 being added

[Gautham L]

Hi,

I think this is a bug in,
GNU assembler version 2.9.1 (i386-redhat-linux), using BFD version 2.9.1.0.24
gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)

I tried to assemble this program via
cc -c -S check.S 
---------------------------------------------------
.text
.code16
#define ABS(x) (((x)-_start)+0x7c00)
_start:
                mov $ABS(msg_gotthisfar),%si
                call func

func:
                ret
                
msg_gotthisfar: .asciz "HEY got this far ... COOOL"
----------------------------------------------------

then ld -o image check.o

i ran ndisasm (NASM suite) on image
-------------------------------------------
00000000  BE097C            mov si,0x7c09
00000003  0000              add [bx+si],al <<<<<<<--BUG--- WHat is this ?
00000005  E80000            call 0x8
00000008  C3                ret
00000009  48                dec ax
0000000A  45                inc bp
0000000B  59                pop cx
0000000C  20676F            and [bx+0x6f],ah
0000000F  7420              jz 0x31
00000011  7468              jz 0x7b
00000013  6973206661        imul si,[bp+di+0x20],0x6166
00000018  7220              jc 0x3a
0000001A  2E2E2E20434F      and [cs:bp+di+0x4f],al
00000020  4F                dec di
00000021  4F                dec di
00000022  4C                dec sp
00000023  00                db 0x00
---------------------------------------------

at address 3, a word of 0000 is there that should not be
there.