Watson

“Holmes,” said I when she had gone, “I don’t believe you’ve ever confounded me more.”

He smiled. “Yes, Watson, I can quite see that. I believe I have even surprised myself.”

“Before anything else, Holmes, let me say this. If you were not absolutely sincere in your offer, not absolutely prepared to follow through on it, you had better find that young woman right now and say so. If you let her down now, you may cause her some pain; if you let her down later, you will make it much worse.”

“I would have hoped you knew me better than that. I have many faults, I am sure, but if I am anything, I am a man of my word.”

“I’m sure… but considering what is at stake, I had to ask.” I gave him the most searching regard I could manage. “And you once told me I should never marry myself, did you not? You didn’t exactly give your word, but it seemed to me like a pretty conclusive declaration. And don’t give me any sophistry about offering partnership rather than marriage. Take it from a man who has done both, one is no more to be taken lightly than the other.”

“I assure you, Watson, in no way do I take this lightly.”

“Then all I can say is, you’ve changed your tune.”

“Perhaps I have,” said he thoughtfully. “But does it not occur to you that other things have changed too? In three centuries… when do you suppose mam’selle Lemieux was born?”

I knew the answer, within a year or so; she had told me her age. Nor did it fall under the aegis of doctor-patient confidentiality; she had not sought me out in my medical capacity but as Holmes’s friend. “Around the turn of the century, I should think.”

“Then very close to three centuries since the last of our… do you still call them memories, Watson?”

‘They are memories,” said I firmly. “The question of their origin does not change that.”

“Hm, perhaps. I cannot dismiss that question so lightly, but you, of course, have had much longer in which to come to terms with it.”

I felt like grinding my teeth, and not for the first time. No one was responsible for that missed opportunity but Holmes himself. I might have said something, but it was clear he was gathering his thoughts, sitting back again and steepling his fingers before his face.

“Consider Sherlock Holmes,” said he. “A man who exists in what I believe you call a superposition of states.”

“If you think I would use the word, you flatter me. When words like ‘superposition’ come up I know I am getting out of my depth. I’m surprised you’ve even heard it.”

“I have been endeavouring to educate myself.”

“Well, tell me what you mean by it.”

“Sherlock Holmes: a man who is detached from his original time by three hundred and thirty-four years. But also by a few months over eight years… and by no more than six weeks. These statements might appear mutually exclusive, yet all are demonstrably true. And any one, at different moments, may most closely reflect his own feeling about his situation; the two extremes more frequently than the intermediate. It often seems to him that it is but weeks since he walked the streets of London, or sat at home in Baker Street—the real Baker Street, where the fire consumes the coals, where a plate of devilled kidneys fills the stomach, where a pipe of black shag or your Arcadia mixture has true savour.”

I refrained, for now, from remarking on tobacco’s noxious effects. I had mentioned it before, and if he had truly been busy educating himself, he’d had ample opportunity to verify the fact. I was more intrigued by the way he referred to himself in the third person. I thought I saw what he was about: detaching himself from himself, so to speak, considering his own situation and character as grist to his investigative mill.

Sherlock Holmes… had become a case for Sherlock Holmes.

“Often, then,” he continued, “He feels himself very close to that time and place. A time in which he originated the profession of consulting detective, and developed it to a very high degree. Did not his chronicler, Dr Watson, once aver, ‘you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world’?

“Whether or not Watson’s prediction was correct may be held questionable; we shall consider that shortly, but what is not in doubt is that the time and place in which Sherlock Holmes now finds himself is most emphatically not London at the dawn of the Edwardian era. It is, as already noted, three hundred and thirty-four years distant in time… and also distant in space by the scarcely fathomable distance of twenty-four light years. That is correct, is it not?”

“Well, we are somewhere between now, but the two worlds are indeed twenty-four light years apart.”

“Yes. A very distant, and a very different, time and place. What are the prospects for a consulting detective in this milieu? Holmes was called in to investigate a murder—a case which proved to offer a few points of interest, but of which the best that can be said is that Holmes’s endeavours helped the local authorities to clear up the mystery a little sooner than they otherwise might have. In truth, the key point was that the crime actually took place on the planetary surface, not in the space-ship—and for that insight Holmes owes at least partial credit to Dr Watson.”

I waved my hand deprecatingly, and Holmes vouchsafed the slightest of nods. “In any event, that was the first death by violence to have occurred in the Trevallan system, and remains to this day the only one. One murder among fifteen hundred people in sixteen years is… well, numerically, it is a murder rate considerably higher than London of the Victorian period, more in line with mediaeval times, but the sample is simply too small to derive any credible conclusions. We cannot say, from the numbers, whether there might be ten murders in the next twelve months, or none at all for a century.

“In the absence of statistical foundation, one turns to other data, and it is immediately apparent that, on the Orbiter, at least, it is extremely difficult to commit a crime of any kind.” He paused momentarily. “No, that is a sloppy formulation; let me rephrase. It is extremely difficult to commit a crime and get away with it. The QuasI has cameras in every room, every corridor, every carriage on the transit tubes. It also receives data from the Agent which everyone carries within their heads.” He used words like ‘QuasI’ and ‘Agent’ almost as to the manner born, but I still knew him well enough to detect a faint inflection.

“The result is not that no crime occurs, but that almost invariably it is of the most boring kind. Boring to the detective, that is; it may be anything but as far as the protagonists are concerned. Drunken brawls and what the French call les crimes passionels; humans succumbing to their baser instincts. Unpremeditated and, invariably, intellectually trivial. One imagines that even in the absence of the all-seeing Quasi, such offences would pose no significant challenge to any detective, even the weaker representatives of Scotland Yard

“On the planet’s surface, there could be somewhat more scope for the ingenious criminal. Beyond the streets of the main settlements, surveillance is, as yet, somewhat patchy. There is observation from above, but only when the Orbiter is sufficiently above the horizon, which is rather less than half the time. The Orbiter’s view also fails to reach much beyond the polar circles, North or South, and is intermittent in the higher latitudes more generally. A fact, of course, which the killers of Hental Shemza hoped to exploit.

“A man like Sherlock Holmes, however, is bound to observe that even the level of surveillance existing in the populated zone of Trevallan Mainland is far in excess of anything that was operative in Victoria’s London. Anyone wishing to perpetrate any sort of crime against the person, in particular, would require to be highly ingenious to stand any real chance of getting away with it. In general the same can probably be said for crimes against property; I am not yet qualified to evaluate the possibilities for offences like fraud in the contemporary context.

“In any case, two points occur to a man like Sherlock Holmes. First, how many individuals, in so small a population, can reasonably be expected to be possessed of both the impulse toward crime and the inventive cunning required to carry it off successfully? In a quarter of a century, among all London’s millions, there arose but one Moriarty.

“Now we know that many a man—or woman—while by no means inclined toward a full-time career in crime, may on occasion be driven by some extraordinary circumstance. The jealous husband, the jilted bride, the worker exploited, the master embezzled… And there are motives such as simple poverty. Even a man of sound conscience may shed his scruples when faced with the choice between lifting a rich man’s wallet or seeing his children hungry. Where, however, are such motives to be found here? No one is hungry. All property beyond clothing and personal effects is held in common. In the Shemza case, it seems almost as much outrage was voiced over the attempt to secure a monopoly over the diamonds as over the murder itself.

“All in all, then, Trevallan today offers slender pickings for the consulting detective whose heart beats faster for a challenging case, and it seems highly probable that it will continue to do so. A conclusion borne out by the fact that at no time in eight years did you and Robin even seriously consider rousing Holmes from coldsleep.”

His eyes slid over my face and back into remoteness again. “No doubt the logic thus far is all too familiar to you already, and you may also be wondering exactly how all this relates to Holmes’s prospective renunciation of his oft-proclaimed, ah, celibacy… Let me liken the foregoing to the foundations of a house. We have all remarked, I’m sure, how the preparation of the ground, excavation, the laying of foundations, can seem to take inordinately long. Progress may appear almost non-existent; but when the walls do begin to appear above ground, the pace accelerates. Yet what is a house without proper foundations? It is in Matthew, I think, the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders…

“Well, Holmes concludes—on sound evidence, as we have just seen—that there is a poor future here for a detective of his stamp. He then concludes—rather more speculatively, it must be admitted—that prospects may be more promising on Earth. The temptation is to say ‘back on Earth’, perhaps ‘back in London’, because that is where all the fellow’s memories—in all of the superpositional states—place him. His friend Watson makes sterling efforts to disabuse him of any notion that the London he will find bears meaningful resemblance to the London he remembers. He cites, among other things, the dissolution of the United Kingdom, the diminishment of the monarchy, the disappearance of coal fires and hansom cabs. Holmes concedes the point but observes that their (then) current situation, on Trevallan, is in many respects even further removed. He adds that both men are Londoners at heart, and both admit to curiosity about the changes time has wrought on their city.

“Well, you remember all that. And surely you are here, on your way to Earth, in part at least, for that very reason: curiosity. However…” He paused there. His face was partly obscured by his hands, but I could see his eyes well enough, and it seemed to me I saw an expression which I had rarely seen on his face: uncertainty.

Soon enough, however, he gathered himself and went on. “Holmes, as already remarked, has been diligently addressing the—excessively large—deficiencies in his contemporary education. Indeed, it is in this pursuit that he has found opportunities to observe the admirable qualities of Mam’selle Manon Lemieux.”

“As part of said education, I’m sure you’re aware it would be more normal to refer to her as ‘Zen Lemieux. Or Sen, I think, in Europe.”

“I am aware of that. But she seems, if anything, amused by this quirk of mine…” He frowned a little, perhaps irked by being lured into referring to himself in the first person. My suspicion was swiftly confirmed as he resumed, placing definite emphasis on his name. “Holmes, as a man who always seeks to be honest with and about himself, is obliged to admit creeping doubts as to the yield of opportunity for the traditional detective, whether he—or she, or indeed ve—be freelance or part of the official apparatus. He may have entertained such doubts before; he manages to suppress them, but they recur as he pursues his education.

“He recalls Robin Francis saying something about a Golden Age of detective fiction. Some place its commencement with Poe and Collins and Doyle, others later; but opinions vary more widely on its end. Some set it as early as the middle of the twentieth century; others, significantly later, but still before the millennium. Robin did suggest to Holmes on one occasion that, while pervasive surveillance and the presence of QuasIs have effectively killed—veir word—the traditional detective in the cities and towns of Earth, there could be new openings elsewhere, both in the Home System and now beyond.”

“Did that not seem an argument for staying put?”

“Robin seemed to think so, but other factors, already adduced, led Holmes to a different conclusion. The population of Trevallan—Orbiter and planet together—is fifteen hundred; that of Mars is measured in the millions.”

“In any case,” said I, “The die is cast. We’re going to Earth. We have another mission there; one that will present its own challenges.”

“Indeed.” He glanced across at a timeread on the wall. He could have learned the time simply by quizzing his Agent, but I wasn’t surprised to see that he hadn’t yet got into the habit. It had taken me nearer six months than six weeks. And even for those who’d grown up with that ready source of information in their heads, looking at a clock was still equally easy. The fact that timereads were displayed at all was testament to that.

“Perhaps I should accelerate this recitation,” said he. “Mam’selle Lemieux did say an hour and a half, did she not?”

“You know, Holmes, if you’re seriously contemplating partnering with her, you might consider using her first name.”

“No doubt you are right. One must not cling too fixedly to habits rooted in another time. And indeed it is the passage of time I wish to consider now. I spoke of the superposition of states, and the one in which the relevant interval is eight years. It is generally felt, is it not, that in coldsleep the mind is entirely dormant? The interval seems to go by without any conscious awareness of time’s passing. It would be considered absurd to suggest that any form of mentation, let alone any profound thought, could be experienced during that time… You would concur?”

“That’s the general view, and it seems to be supported by the testimony of people who’ve undergone coldsleep.” I thought of Shinsuke and her accomplice, their chambers stowed in the cargo-hold like the crates of samples that were the main payload. An ignominious fate, however much one might think they deserved it.

“But it is somewhat at odds with the experience of Sherlock Holmes,” said he.

“Explain…”

“It is a strange thing, which is why I had not mentioned it before. I wanted time to think it over for myself, and also I made enquiries to see whether there was anyone else who had experience of prolonged coldsleep.” Had he finally give up on the third-person narrative? And if so, why now? “You, doctor, can at least confirm some aspects of my understanding. Coldsleep is akin to hibernation in the animal kingdom: dormancy, not death. Metabolism is vastly slowed but does not cease altogether, as evidenced by the need to maintain a slow supply of nutrients. Heart-rate may drop to below one beat per minute, but the heart does continue to beat. It is obvious that lower brain functions will—must—continue in order to regulate the metabolism.”

“True, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. Metabolism is largely controlled through the autonomic nervous system, mediated through the brain-stem; there’s minimal involvement of higher areas like the cerebellum or cerebrum.”

“Granted; but those areas are not completely inert, are they? Blood continues to circulate. The brain does not freeze. And even if activity is at a very low level… who can say what that might amount to over the span of eight years?”

I thought it unlikely that it would amount to anything of real significance, but I was not a neuroscientist, nor any kind of expert in coldsleep. If he thought he’d experienced some kind of ultra-slow epiphany during those eight years… I could not definitively refute him, though anything of that kind seemed much more probable in the liminal stages at the beginning or end of the period. Fascinating as it might be to explore these questions, however, I thought it was much more important now to know what had actually changed in his thinking—and I said so.

“There are two main elements,” said he. “First… Sherlock Holmes had a very wide circle of acquaintance.” Back to third-person, I thought, sighing within. “Most of the senior men of Scotland Yard, experts in a wide variety of fields, and a multiplicity of others from members of the nobility to a gaggle of street-urchins.”

“The Baker Street Irregulars.”

“Precisely. Sherlock Holmes knows—knew—who had the best tracker-dog in London, the fastest boat on the river… the number of his acquaintance would take a good deal of reckoning. But the number of his friends is another matter.” He paused a moment, and I could almost fancy him affected by emotion. “He hardly sees his own brother save when one of them has some need for the other’s capabilities. Such occasions make him a moderately frequent guest at the Diogenes Club, but he is not a member, nor is he affiliated to any other club or professional body. In a city of five million, there is but one man who can unequivocally be called his friend.”

We looked at each other. I was thinking of Mary’s words: I’m not the love of your life, he is. I was more certain than ever that this had never been true in the sense she had intended. There had been two great loves in my life, and both were called Mary. But the thought which had followed; who was the love of Holmes’s life?; that recurred to me now. I recalled, too, Manon’s blunt question: is he gay? I stood by the answer I had given her; there was not and never had been anything sexual in our relationship. But there was a relationship. Could it be called love? The Victorian John Watson would have bristled his moustache and laughed the idea out of court; the twenty-third-century John Watson was not so certain.

He was still looking at me; I realised he was expecting some kind of reply. In that moment I felt more Victorian than I had in years. “Holmes,” said I, “It’s a hardly a surprise to me that you say that, but I still take it as a very great compliment. And let me say at once I share your regard.” But that was just too stiltedly Victorian for twenty-third-century me. I was almost on the point of blurting out damn it, Holmes, I love you… but I remembered that he was not eight years out of the 19th century, not even eight weeks. It could all go horribly awry. But then what should I say? “It means a great deal to me. You—”

There was a chime from the door.

There was a change in Manon’s demeanour. Perhaps it was just the afterglow of exercise, the release of endorphins. Perhaps it was the associated relief of stress. Or perhaps it was exactly as she’d said: I think best when I run. She’d thought, and she’d come to some conclusion.

She settled on the bed, just as she’d been before, giving me a quick glance. It wasn’t exactly dismissive, but its import was clear: it was Holmes she wanted to speak to.

“Monsieur Holmes,” she began, with a small smile as if they shared a private joke. If he chose to call her Mam’selle, she could call him Monsieur. “Je vous remercie du fond du coeur.” I thank you from my heart. “Your offer touched me very deeply. And it astonished me—but then I think it astonished you just as much.

She sat back a little, but still with her hands on the edge of the bed. “I have thought for some time, as you might imagine, about having a child, about finding a donor-father. I had not thought in the same way about taking a partner—and neither had you, n’est-ce pas? Your offer seemed… impulsive; and I think you are not normally an impulsive man.

“Monsieur Holmes, I cannot accept your offer at this moment, but neither am I certain I would wish to decline. The simple truth is we hardly know each other; and that is no basis for a sound partnership. We have some weeks left on this ship, and then perhaps some time on Earth before I am due to return to Mars. Shall we try to use that time, as best we can under the circumstances, to become better acquainted? Then perhaps you can know if you really wish to repeat your offer and I can know if I wish to accept.”

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Watson

Holmes, it appeared, had an admirer.

I didn’t realise—didn’t prend, as Mary would say—until around ten days into the voyage. I’d already seen him talking with her a couple of times, but that was hardly noteworthy in itself. He was spending most of his time talking to whoever was available, and from what I heard he was assiduously filling in every possible gap in his knowledge of Earth. Naturally he would solicit personal experience to supplement what could be gathered from books.

The lady in question was Manon Lemieux. Dr Merhawi and I had enjoyed several interesting discussions with her, as her official role within the Rangitīkei mission had been to assess our population, both in terms of adaptation and of verifying that all compilations had indeed proceeded cleanly. Anything to do with compilation, I saw, held compelling interest for her.

I knew she’d had at least one meeting with Mary and Aurel. I didn’t know if she’d ever spoken to Holmes before we boarded the Rangitīkei, though it would be a surprise if she hadn’t. If not, she seemed to be making up for lost time now.

I’d gathered that her origins were in Québec, though at first glance I’d have guessed her to be Scottish or Irish. Her face was pale under a liberal strewing of freckles and her hair—which adorned only the rear half of her head, but there fell to a full length—was a handsome chestnut.

I had observed that in their conversations ‘Zen Lemieux gave Holmes her attention with absolute focus, but I’d supposed she was just being professional… until the day she came into the mess, looked around and found me alone at a table, it being between mealtimes. She hesitated briefly, then approached. “Do you mind if I join you, Dr Watson?” Her voice still carried hints of French, overlain with a particular lilt I took to be Québecois: a euphonious combination.

“By all means,” said I, “But, please, call me John. Unless this is a professional consultation?”

She gave a crooked flicker of a smile. “Call it a consultation if you like, but it’s not professional, not for me. And call me Manon.”

“Gladly. Please, sit. Would you like a drink, something to eat?” The offer meant nothing, really, when everything was spensed without charge, but it was a politesse I’d never shaken off.

“Just kahvi, thank you.”

I got the details—semilatte—tapped in the order. “So, Manon, what can I do for you?”

“Sherlock Holmes,” said she, gaze settling on me. “You know him better than anyone else does, I guess?”

With the possible exception of Robin Francis, I thought. That was an interesting debating point, but not one to belabour just now. Right now, on this ship, I was, indubitably, best qualified. “I’ve known him for over twenty years. Or well over three hundred, depending on how you look at it.”

She didn’t even blink at the final caveat, and that was when I began to suspect. Her next question, which came after a short pause, banished all doubt from my mind. “Is he gay?”

The Victorian Watson would not have understood what she meant by the question; he might have laughed at the absurdity of its apparent meaning. Holmes could, on occasion, be light-hearted, even whimsical, but gaiety was alien to his nature.

If and when he did grasp its meaning, that Watson would surely have been mightily offended on Holmes’s behalf. The twenty-third-century Watson knew at once what she meant, and was mildly startled by it, but not offended. I worked every day with people who embraced myriad flavours of sexuality. Between Dahab Merhawi and Mary Syrtis Mall’stang, short shrift had been given to any reflex judgements I might have voiced in my early days. Besides, live and learn had been my motto from the day of vival.

Even so, I was startled, and needed a moment to register what the question implied about her interest in Holmes. My hesitation prompted a slight frown. “Pardon, is that… I did wonder if you and he had ever…?”

“No,” said I, a little too quickly. The table alerted us that her drink was ready, and she was on her way to collect it before I could react.

“We were never lovers,” said I as she retook her seat. “There was never even a thought of that.” There were vestiges of the Victorian in me after all, a voice that wanted me to point out that I had been married for a period during my friendship with Holmes, that I had been the lover of a second Mary for almost the entirety of my Incarnate existence… but I doubted it would mean much to her, and in any case I wasn’t the one she was currently interested in.

“To be frank,” said I, “In all the time I’ve known him, Holmes never showed any interest of that kind in any woman. If he… if he had been attracted to men, I’m sure he would have kept it hidden from me. He knew—a man of his percipience, I’m sure, would have grasped very quickly—that my own proclivities did not run that way. And… you need to understand that in that era, homosexuality, as we called it then, was strictly against the law.”

“I guess I’d heard something about that,” said she. “I never understood why.”

“That deserves a fuller answer, but it’s Holmes himself you want to know about now, isn’t it?” She nodded. “Well, as I say, I never saw any hint that he was attracted to men. And even if he had been, I imagine he would have applied the same principle which he… well, I can tell you what he said to me. Women have seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my heart.”

“It sounds cold.”

“I suppose it does. And Holmes could—can—often seem cold, but I think in fact he’s a very passionate man. It’s just that he’s always directed his passion into the exercise of reason—true cold reason, he’s often called it—and the science of detection.”

“I guess I had a feeling…” she sighed. “And he really never…?”

“I suppose I did wonder, just a couple of times, if there might be a crack in his shell. He did express great admiration for a woman called Irene Adler… but that was purely intellectual admiration, because she was one of the very few, male or female, who ever outwitted him.”

“Intellectual admiration would be a start,” said she, trying to smile.

“And there was one other… I really thought that he might feel something for a woman called Violet Hunter—” I stopped abruptly. Phrases from my description of Violet cascaded through my mind: bright, intelligent face… freckled like a plover’s egg. And of course: she also had beautiful, luxuriant chestnut hair. As Manon had, albeit only on half of her head.

My sudden silence had drawn a curious look. “I beg your pardon. It suddenly struck me that you are actually rather like her.”

“And did he?”

“Feel for her? I really thought so, for a while… perhaps I should say ‘hoped’. He did seem quite taken with her, but as soon as the case was over…” I spread my hands in a shrug. “He showed no further interest.”

She sighed. “Merci, John.”

‘Wait,” said I, though she hadn’t yet moved, only lifted her mug as if to drink it off. “I don’t have to be a legendary detective to conclude that you feel… attracted to him?”

“He’s an attractive man.”

I’d never quite thought of Holmes in that light, but what could I say? “I suppose he is.”

She paused a moment, thinking, then appeared to reach a decision. “The thing is, John, I’m not some kid turning a cosy glow of attraction into the greatest love story ever told. But nor am I just interested in him for the sake of a casual fuck. There’s something else.”

“What?” said I, though a suspicion was gathering.

“I’m thirty-seven. You’re a doctor, you know the female body’s most fertile, and most ready to bear a child, a lot younger than that. And some time in the next ten years I’ll probably stop being able to conceive or carry altogether.” She held up a hand as I opened my mouth. “Yeah, I know, things you can do about that. But I’d like to be able to do it naturally if I can.”

“And you’d like Holmes to… be the donor?”

She grinned. “Au fond. But there are two ways that can happen, and one’s a lot more fun than the other. Do you really think there’s no chance he’d consider it? In a good cause?”

I thought about it. Then I thought about it some more. “No chance? I can’t say that. I do think it’s a slim chance… but I’m fairly sure of one thing.”

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

“He won’t be offended by your asking. Especially if we… prepare the ground a little first.”

She grinned again, wider. “Did you just say ‘we’?”

Two people could be private in tolerable comfort in a single cabin: three could not. The mess had space (relatively speaking) but not privacy, and what else was there? It seemed an impasse, until I thought of the medbay. As the only doctor on board, I knew full well there was no one in residence; in fact the facility had hardly been used since the start of the voyage. I had dispensed a few anti-nausea patches, treated a bruised elbow, and that was all.

Holmes and Manon settled facing each other, one on each of the beds. I took the attendant’s chair, between the beds, adjusting it to set myself at roughly the same height.

Holmes sat back against the bulkhead, folding his lean frame to fit beneath the lockers overhead, a pillow at his back. Manon was upright, even leaning forward a little, hands gripping the edge of the bed. When she began, her voice was a little tight and she spoke rapidly. “John gave me one piece of advice,” said she, giving me a brief glance. “Don’t beat about the bush. I think I’m gonna break it. I’m not sure I could say this straight out anyway, but mostly I need to give some background, context.

“First thing, Mister Holmes… you do prefer Mister, don’t you? Mary said she thought you did.” I smiled to myself, sure Mary would have said ‘thunk’ rather than ‘thought’.

“It’s not necessary,” said Holmes. “The merest whim on my part, really, clinging to forms of address so far out of date. Still, if you are happy to indulge me, I appreciate the consideration. Mister… or Monsieur… both are quite acceptable, but I am accustoming myself to ‘Zen. Really, mam’selle, ca ne fait rien. Pray continue…”

“D’accord… Well, we didn’t really speak to each other back on Trevallan, except when I interviewed you—and that was all standard questions, though your responses weren’t exactly standard. But I did see you in some of the review meetings, and… well, I was intrigued. And you never seemed to mind my endless questions about the compiled experience. I did think—hoped, I maybe should say—that you at least didn’t find my company unpleasant.”

“Not at all, mam’selle.”

“I saw something else too. You’re very good at what you do. That’s what the stories say, of course, but I’ve been seeing you too, in the meetings on Trevallan and in our talks here. Things you say, questions you ask. It’s extraordinary how much you’ve picked up in what is, subjectively, only a few weeks. Yes, I’m very impressed.”

“It’s very gratifying to hear you say so, mam’selle, but I’m sure you didn’t ask me here just to flatter me.”

“No, I didn’t.” She leaned forward even further, almost to the point where I’d begin to fear for her balance. “But this is part of what I’m… what I’m feeling.” She turned toward me, her look almost despairing. “Don’t beat about the bush, you said, but it’s so hard to come right out and say it.”

“I’m sure. But sooner or later….”

“Oui, bien sur.“ She drew a deep, shaky breath, another. “Monsieur Holmes… Sherlock. I find you very impressive. I also find you very… attractive. Attirant; même… séduisant. I would very much like…” There was another short hesitation, then the final words came in a headlong spate. “I would like to invite you to be the father of my child.”

I had to work to keep my face straight as Holmes digested this. I had so rarely seen him taken aback. Yes, he was vraily abacked, as Mary might say. She’d love this moment, I thought, though the medbay would be even more crowded.

Holmes sat up, almost catching his head on the edge of the locker above; a sure sign that his usual composure had been derailed. “Mam’selle, let me say first that I take this as the highest of compliments. But…” Manon’s face fell; she must have thought, as did I, that he was about to decline.

Instead, though, he said. “Let me be quite clear what it is you are asking. I believe it is quite common for a woman to conceive through… donation. Sometimes this is from an anonymous donor—one who meets certain criteria—sometimes the man is chosen in person, as you are… as you hope to do.”

“Yes,” said she.

She might have said more, but Holmes had turned his gaze on me. “Tell me, Watson, does this vessel… this, ah, medbay is the word, isn’t it? Does it have the facilities required to expedite this?” I supposed that I was now discovering why Manon had requested I be present for what otherwise should surely have been a tête-à-tête.

“I’m not sure. It’s not a question that’s come up before. Give me a moment.” I linked in to the QuasI to make the query. “I’m afraid not. I suppose there might be ways around that, improvised methods… but it would also be a very simple matter once we reach Earth.”

“There is another way,” said Manon. Holmes flinched, almost as if he’d received an electric shock. Her gaze was steady now, steady on him, almost commanding him to meet her eyes. “Monsieur Holmes… Sherlock. I said I find you attractive. Dare I hope you at least don’t find me… repoussant?”

“Not in the least, mam’selle.”

“Puis… écoutez-moi. We’re on this ship for just a few weeks. And there’s not a lot to do. We could… we could… all I’m talking about is some friendly bundling, tout aimable. No strings. End of the voyage, we go our separate ways. If you want, I can promise you’ll never hear from me again. If you—”

Holmes held up a hand and she stopped all at once. This time, I was sure, he was going to turn her down. It looked as if she was thinking the same.

“Mam’selle, I thank you again for your… invitation. Which, I repeat, I regard as the highest of compliments… As you observed, I have had only a few conscious weeks in which to acclimatise myself to this century. And it is easier to grasp how machines and systems work, even how other people think and feel, than to change one’s own mores, one’s ways of thinking. My friend Dr Watson—” He gave me a fleeting glance, the merest hint of a smile teasing his lips. “—Feels that I have wasted the opportunity of eight years by spending most of it in coldsleep; and I cannot now, in good conscience, declare him wrong. Well… be that as it may, I am not so much A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court as one of Arthur’s knights thrust into the nineteenth century. I am a Victorian man, and with all due respect for my good friend Watson, I am not sure eight years, or eighteen, or even eighty—not that I expect, even in this era, to live quite that long—will change my feelings on some matters.” So far, there was nothing to suggest he intended anything other than a polite refusal; but what came next astonished us both. “You said no strings, madam; you said After the voyage, we go our separate ways. It is that element of your suggestion to which I cannot reconcile myself.”

We were both staring at him now; and in the extremity of the moment Manon’s English seemed to desert her altogether. “Alors, qu’est-ce que vous dites?” I fumbled a rough translation in my head, though no doubt the QuasI could have done better: so what are you saying?

“Madam,” said he plainly. “If there is even a chance that you might find yourself carrying a child by me, I intend to take full responsibility. I will be a father in every sense, or not at all.”

“I didn’t expect… I really wasn’t asking…” She was almost beyond speech, in English or in French.

“Holmes,” said I, hoping my intervention might at least give her a little time to compose herself. “Are you saying… well, I won’t say ‘marry’, people don’t really do that except in some religious communities. Are you saying you want to form a partnership?”

His gaze seemed to be directed somewhere between Manon and myself, but I thought really he was looking into some lost distance, perhaps even the unfathomable absence that was T-space. Or at least T-space as far as humans could perceive it. “It would appear that way,” said he finally, and I saw that he had astonished himself, perhaps every bit as much as he had me.

Manon stood with a sudden, decisive, motion. “I need to think. I mean, thank you for your offer, Monsieur Holmes. Merci… du fond de mon cœur. But… I need to think about it. And I think best when I run. An hour on the treadmill, and then time to stretch and shower… can I see you back here in an hour and a half?”

Proceed Forthwith to the Next Chapter…

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Part Three

Rangitīkei

Further Reminiscences of John Watson, M.D.,

and of Commander Mary Syrtis Mall’stang.

Watson

The accommodation on the Rangitīkei was anything but spacious. My cabin’s floor space was minimal, not much bigger than the shower-cubicle in our apt. I’d be able to get dressed and undressed without banging my elbows, but only with care. The only way for two people to have a private conversation in a cabin like this, without feeling unduly intimate, would be for one to sit on the chair, which folded down from one wall when needed, and the other to lie on the bed.

I was surprised at first, given how roomy Trevallan’s two shuttles, and even the skiffs, seemed in comparison, but the steward, Naivalu, gave me a different perspective. “In the future, we might be doing runs to systems fifty or a hundred light years out. Doubling the distance doesn’t double the overall time, because so much of it’s still outrun and inrun, but the Tangent Drive isn’t instantaneous. The Steps mount up. And we might take in more than one system in one voyage, and then you get multiple in-and-outs. These ships are still new, we’re still gaining experience with them and with the Drive, but we might be building up to trips of a year, or even more.

“How do you feed a crew for that length of time? Recycle everything you can, but recycling’s never hundred-per efficient. We can pretty well rely on being able to compile basics like reaction mass, and we can always lay our hands on the six key elements of organic chemistry…” Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, I reminded myself. “…But human life isn’t sustainable without a whole raft of other elements. There’s no guarantee of being able to find all of those in a new system, not within a reasonable timeframe. So you have to carry feedstock reserves. Plus compilers themselves add a fair chunk of mass and take up space…

“You know, they’re saying now the efficient way to ship passengers for long-haul would be in induced coma. Minimises space requirements as well as nutrition needs.” Ve looked at me with a lopsided grin. “Sounds grim? Tell me at the end of this trip whether you still feel that way.”

I thought about that as I inspected my cabin. My cabin, alas, not ours. The Rangitīkei simply wasn’t set up to allow sharing. The bed… I tried not to think of it as coffin-like, to think instead of the box-beds that had been a feature of country dwellings even into Victorian times. Mine was set low, its mattress below knee-height, and the only storage space was a locker beneath, no bigger than a medium-sized suitcase.

One blessing was that everything on the ship was scaled to allow for Martians. Mary would still have to duck when passing through doors, but she could walk the corridors or stand in a cabin without risk to her head. And the bed itself was generous enough in length, so that she could stretch out—though she, generally a curled-up sleeper, would have preferred more width instead. It was possible, as we established through experimentation, to get two people in, but a good night’s sleep would have been unlikely.

I thought about this as I tried to settle for my first night. The ship was accelerating at well over 1g for the outrun, but ‘spurious g’ compensators meant we felt normal weight. I thought about what it must have been like for Mary, Aurel, and the many other Martians in the Service, having grown up in not much over a third of Earth’s gravity. They had to acclimatise not only to 1g for spells on Earth, where the bulk of their training was based, but to the higher forces experienced sporadically on board ship. Smaller or more basic ships often lacked the refinement of spurious g., and even when present it could only compensate within limits.

I thought more about Mary herself; how much I missed her nocturnal presence. We had been together for over eight years now: close on three thousand nights. In all that time occasional night duty or trips off-station might take her away for perhaps two do’Zen nights a year: nocturnal callouts for me were fewer still. I had never grown reconciled to those separations. And this felt worse, perhaps because everything on the Rangitīkei was new and strange…

I had to smile at myself, then. New and strange. Would the Victorian John Watson have seen such a sharp difference between the strangeness of a spaceship and that of a space station? It had all been strange at first—but from the first day Mary had been there to help me through it.

Mary was, in fact, close enough to touch; if I could reach through the bulkheads, I wouldn’t even need to fully extend my arm. Her cabin adjoined mine, and her bunk extended above mine just as mine slotted in beneath hers. Sometimes in our own bed we found ourselves further apart than that; but always we only needed to reach out. If I wakened in the night, slave to the ageing bladder, as often as not there’d be a long cool foot gently resting against my thigh or buttock.

Here she was just as close, and yet quite out of reach. And we’d already established that no sound penetrated the bulkhead, neither voice nor the thump of a fist.

Of course we could still talk through our Agents. Some people seemed to find that just as satisfactory; some, perhaps, felt it even more intimate. For me, the opposite was true, and either Mary felt the same or she was happy to humour my atavistic quirk. Right now, our brief ‘goodnight’ exchange had served only to accentuate the separation.

Never had so near and yet so far seemed more poignant

In general, the Rangitīkei would accelerate and decelerate at 1g, which provided a sensation of gravity most of her complement would consider normal. Higher acceleration (beyond the scope of the spurious g compensators) was only to be expected in a few scenarios: undertaking a ‘slingshot’ manoeuvre; in the immediate run-up to ‘T-space Ingress’; and the (unspecified) ‘in case of emergency’.

The advice to those of us who weren’t trained Spacers had been delivered in serious tones during our briefing, and was reinforced by being printed on the back of every cabin door, confronting me every time I ventured out. 1—1.5 g.: move around with care; use grab-rails if needed. 1.5—2g.: move around only when essential; exercise extreme care; use grab-rails at all times. 2—3g.: do not attempt to move around unless absolutely necessary: remain in g-seat or bunk. The briefing officer had added, “Needing the bathroom does not count as ‘absolutely necessary’.” 3g and above: do not leave g-seat or bunk for any reason. If injured or unwell, call for assistance. Under these forces even trained crew did not move around without a powered armature called an exoskeleton.

The fold-down chair in my cabin was extremely comfortable, because it was designed to function as a g-seat. Similar seats were dotted around through all the communal spaces, to be readily accessible if a high-g warning occurred at short notice.

For further comfort when high-g was anticipated, we were advised to wear shipsuits at all times. These were form-fitting one-piece outfits, a sleeker version of the loose coveralls the Spacers wore on duty elsewhere. The lingering Victorian in me saw them as unduly revealing, but there was a sound practical reason why there clung so closely. Think how irritating a wrinkle or seam in the wrong place can become even under normal gravity. Now imagine your weight doubled or trebled or worse… Shipsuits were specifically configured to eliminate wrinkles. Those for civilians were green, though the bald heads would have been sufficient to set the Spacers apart.

Holmes had not yet taken to coveralls, let alone a shipsuit; he was still in his tweeds. I reflected, again, that he was still, as far as his consciousness was concerned, only a few weeks away from 1902.

The flight-crew of the Rangitīkei numbered eighteen, though she’d carried more Spacers on the outward voyage and several of them were now returning to report back. The flight-crew were split into three watches of six. The rest of us were not on such strict schedules, but we had all been assigned to sleep-cycles and strongly advised to keep to them. This was mostly to keep the galley and other common areas from becoming overcrowded.

Space was at a premium here too. The galley, for instance, had a nominal seating capacity of twenty, but I could see that the tables would have been crowded to the point of constantly jostling elbows if all had been in use. In fact only half were set out, the rest being folded and stacked in a niche. It meant that even those on a given watch/sleep-cycle could not all eat at once.

It seemed likely that this voyage would take a little less time than my travels to and from India in the 1870s. All things considered, however, I wondered whether it might feel longer.

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Watson

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. The year is 1902.” The camera panned as he continued, “Look around me and you see the sitting-room of Number 221B Baker Street, London, as it was in the early spring of that year.”

He smiled, that familiar thin-lipped half-smile. “Of course this is a simulation. We are not in London at all; we are in fact on an Orbiter above the planet Trevallan, twenty-four light years from Earth. And I am equally aware that the year is not 1902 but 2236. Nonetheless, you see me, and this room, as they were then, and if you move to the window you may see a glimpse of Baker Street and the life of London.” The camera obeyed his bidding and presented the same street view I’d seen so soon after my first rousal.

A little too similar, in fact. It might be eight years ago—and that, at least, was real time—but my memories of that moment were clear. Surely that was the same scurrying messenger-boy, the same lady in the same blue velveteen walking-suit. Ah well, I sighed to myself, This time you know it isn’t real.

It was unreal, to be sure, but it was as clear and vivid as could be. Something in that view tugged at me. Something about it still said Home.

I was glad when the camera swung back to Holmes, and he picked up his cue like a trained actor. “Everything you see around me is a simulation, yes, but I am not. There will, I know, be differing opinions on how best to describe what I am, but this much, at least, is clear: I am a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood individual. And my name is Sherlock Holmes.”

He paused there, as the script required. A linking segment would be inserted in editing, allowing viewers to choose from several options. One would be to take a tour of 221B and a walk down Baker Street with Holmes as guide. Another would be to switch to the interview which would be recorded later.

Mary and I looked at each other, both nodding. “That was fine, Sherlock,” said she. “You dory to go straight on with the room tour?”

“By all means, madam.” He didn’t blink at ‘dory’; even on the first day he’d shown facility in deducing the meaning of her Redder expressions.

“I’ll count you in. Three… two… one…”

We’d had considerable discussion about who should conduct the interview and where it should be set. Using the Baker Street simula had been one obvious option, but we’d thought it might be too much ‘home turf’ for him, too alien for anyone else. A contemporary station setting might have veered too far the other way. Neutral ground meant somewhere that neither would feel entirely at home. Splitting the difference in time suggested 2069, but it turned out interior design of that time had been dominated by ‘biomimetic’ styles, creating wildly organic forms and surfaces that felt more like a fantasy forest glade than a comfortable interior.

It had been Aurel who said, “The blander, the better, vrai? You don’t wanna distract. Directorware’ll prob’ly shoot mostly tight heads anyway.” With that thought, and the need for both interlocutor and interviewee to feel comfortable, we’d agreed on simple armchairs that probably wouldn’t have looked out of place in any century from the 20th onward, and a backdrop that graduated from green to blue in an unfocused nod to Terran land and sky.

Surprisingly, the question of who the interviewer should be proved be easier to solve. It couldn’t be Robin, who was due to face a similar interview vemself, and it couldn’t be me. Self-evidently, we were far too close, each in our own way, to represent the curiosity and scepticism that would be the dominant feelings among audiences on Earth, Mars and elsewhere. In fact, we swiftly agreed that it should not be anyone who’d had significant dealings with Holmes at any time during his still-brief spells of Incarnate life.

“What about Eri?” said I at that point. Mary’s response was immediate and enthusiastic. I knew she rated her deputy’s intelligence highly. Robin thought just a moment before saying, “Yes, why not? She’s never met him, has she?”

It was only when the two were seated facing each other that I began to entertain a few doubts. We’d tried to create a setting in which both would feel comfortable. I hadn’t really stopped to consider whether Holmes would feel comfortable with Eri. I suddenly recalled my first encounter with her, a week or so into my time on Trevallan. By then I had begun to grow accustomed to women wearing what I’d initially seen as male clothing, to bald women. All those things, and more, had begun to seem almost normal. And there were other people with tattoos about, including some with facial markings. But Eri’s, densely covering both face and scalp, were something else again. At our first encounter, it had taken all my self-control not to stare—or maybe, if I am entirely honest, not to stare too blatantly. It was a measure of how much had changed in eight years that I barely noticed them now, could see past them to her vivid range of expression.

It was different for Holmes, not least because it hadn’t been eight years for him. Subjectively it was still only a few weeks. Still, at the moment, he didn’t seem too disconcerted. I hoped that meant he was focusing on the substance of her questions.

She began by introducing herself for the camera. “Kia Ora. My name is Erenora Katu. I’m Deputy Head of Operations on Trevallan Orbiter and I’m here today talking to… well, would you like to introduce yourself?”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes,” said he with that same half-smile.

“Well, that’s kind of the question we’re here to discuss. Let me put it like this: are you the real Sherlock Holmes?”

“I am real. I’m not a simula or hologram or projection or whatever else you call such things. You can verify for yourself that I am a solid, living, breathing, man.”

“Let’s take that as read, shall we? Plenty of people here have vouched for you being real.”

“As you wish, madam.” I had to smile to myself, first at his addressing Eri as ‘madam’, then at the way she blinked before hastily composing herself. “I am real, and my name is Sherlock Holmes. Is that a sufficient answer to your original question?” I could not have said how his face changed, so minute was the alteration, yet I could see the irony. Doubtless only one who knew him as well as I did—or had—would be aware of it.

“It’s a perfectly accurate answer,” said Eri, “But I don’t know about ‘sufficient’.”

“Well,” said Holmes, “The word you stressed in your question was ‘real’. That word can be used in many different senses. Perhaps I should ask you which you had in mind?”

Eri, unruffled, nodded slightly. “I think at this point… I’m sure everyone taking this ‘cast is familiar with compiling. But whole-body human compiling has been proscribed for half a century, everywhere in the Home System except possibly Callisto. I’m guessing a lot of people don’t know ‘xactly how it works.

She ran through a brief account of the background, finishing with, “Myself, I was vived thirteen years ago. At that moment, I was identical, to the molecular level, with my original back on Earth.”

Just for a moment, she faltered, glanced over at us. At Mary, I thought. It wasn’t my approval she was seeking. Mary gave her a swift thumbs-up. “She’s frettin’ she’s goin on too long,” she whispered to me. “But it all needs sayin. Might reshuffle some of it, but…”

I’d missed Eri’s resumption, but it was easy enough to interpolate. “…was sixty-four years ago. My original back on Earth is ninety-six years old now. I didn’t even know if she was still alive until the Rangitīkei got here. And if she’s watching this now… it’s probably even weirder for her than it is for me thinking about it.

“Well, the point of all this is: I am Erenora Katu, born in 2138 in Taupō, Aotearoa, also called New Zealand. But so is my original. For thirty-two years we were one person. Since then, she’s had another sixty-four years of life. I’ve only had thirteen, but in very different circumstances. We’re no longer the same person, but we still share the same name, date of birth, same genome. So here’s a question for you, Sherlock Holmes, and for everyone else following: which is the real Erenora Katu?”

Holmes sat back a little, folding his arms. “A fascinating question. Quite different from the one you asked me, but it may shed some light.”

“And how would you answer it?”

He pressed his lips together; already thin, they all but disappeared entirely. “You are,” said he. He paused a moment, indulging his theatrical streak, before adding, “And so is she. There may be some, perhaps particularly those who argue from a religious perspective, who might maintain that only the original is ‘real’, but from my standpoint—which I might, for clarity, describe as Anglican-agnostic—such arguments are pure sophistry.”

I glanced at Mary, and knew she was wondering the same as me: what would Captain El Khatib think of this? He, like everyone else, would have the chance to see the complete recording as soon as essential edits had been completed.

“Thank you,” said Eri, smiling for the first time. “Well, so much for me. And the same goes for everyone else whose dataset was brought on the seedship. But not for you… would you like to explain it, or should I?”

“I’m sure you are much better equipped to do so.”

Eri gave a concise and accurate recapitulation of how Holmes (and I) had come to be. “So,” said she finally. “You are a recreation of a fictional character. Is that a fair summary?”

“It is fair as far as it goes,” said Holmes. “But… whatever else I may be, I am not a fictional character. As we have already established, I am quite real. And, that being so, may we lay to rest your opening question? You asked: are you the real Sherlock Holmes? I submit there can only be one answer.”

“Yeah, nah.” I’d known Eri long enough to know that indicated acknowledgement of what he’d said, not necessarily agreement. Mary, catching my look, smiled, gave a slight shrug. Eri was not a professional at this; no one on Trevallan was. If a little Aotearoan vernacular perfused her speech now and then, it was, as Mary would say, nil fret.

“So, tell us, then… who is Sherlock Holmes?”

“Salient points? Anyone who wishes to know more is free to peruse any or all of the stories generally attributed to one Arthur Conan Doyle, although in my frame of reference, as I believe you call it, they were written by my good friend and companion in many escapades, Doctor John Watson.” Holmes gave the briefest glance in my direction. “Who is sitting there, just a few yards—metres, I beg your pardon—away.”

Damn you, Holmes. I’d hoped to stay out of this, but at least one camera would be seeking me out now. I tried to keep my face decently unruffled, knowing better than to attempt a smile. Forced smiles only ever look one way: forced. A discreet squeeze of the hand from Mary was some comfort.

Meanwhile Eri was agreeing that, yes, salient points would be fine. “Very well,” said Holmes. “I was born in the year 1854. For context, 1854 is seventeen years into the reign of Queen Victoria—Victoria the First, as I believe she is now known—and virtually all of my career lay within the Victorian era.”

He paused a moment, pensive. “I believe I must qualify that statement somewhat. Virtually all of my career that I remember lay within Victoria’s reign. She died in 1901; my memories end in 1902. It occurs to me, just now, that there is a parallel, of sorts, with your own situation, and that of, I suppose, everyone else here. You mentioned, I recall, that after deepscanning, your original has enjoyed—let us hope that ‘enjoyed’ is appropriate here—another sixty-four years of life. Whereas you yourself have lived only another thirteen, and, as you say, under very different circumstances.”

“Achcha,” said Eri. Not ‘Kiwi’ slang, still less authentic Māori; the word was Hindi—and, I recalled, also Urdu. I’d used it myself often enough, during my time in India and beyond the North-West Frontier—or so my memories told me.

“There are a few Sherlock Holmes stories dated after 1902. The latest of them dates to 1914. So there is a sense in which there is a version of me with a divergent… I believe timeline is the word?”

“Sureas.”

“Just as you and your original have occupied different timelines since a certain moment in 2269… Well, the parallel is inexact, so I shall not labour it.”

He smiled. “I believe this digression began when I spoke about my career overlapping with Victoria’s reign. And the salient points you were seeking from me really concern that same career. I was studying the art of detection from an early age, and began attempting to refine it even as I took on my first cases as an amateur. The earliest for which there is any sort of record would be when I was twenty or twenty-one, the record being from my retelling of it to Watson some years later. My first meeting with the good doctor did not come until 1881. By that time I was beginning to establish myself as a consulting detective—the world’s first, to the best of my knowledge.

“A few years later Watson published his account of that meeting, and the first case in which he accompanied me. For a number of years after that we shared rooms in Baker Street; I have already helped to record what I believe is called a virtual tour of those rooms, which have been recreated in the simula studio here. Recreated with remarkable fidelity, if I may say so.”

“Though aren’t you saying there… the rooms match your memories, but then weren’t they created from the same source material as your memories?”

Holmes waved a thin hand. “I suggest you ask Robin Francis about that… I’d like to say a little more about John Watson, if I may.”

“Achcha.”

“I fear I have rebuked him many times for focusing on the more sensational cases, or sensational aspects of cases, rather than what always fascinated me: solving the intellectual puzzle. I think I said to him once, In general the more bizarre a case appears, the less mysterious it proves to be. It is the commonplace, featureless crimes which are truly puzzling. Or words very much to that effect. I was inclined, too often, to mock, or at least to belittle, his literary efforts. I must, however, acknowledge that he was, beyond doubt, a better judge than I of what would attract and retain readers; and that the stories did much to spread my name and reputation, and therefore to attract to me a greater number and wider variety of cases than I would otherwise have enjoyed.”

I stretched up to whisper in Mary’s ear. “What the deuce?”

“Seems cheery to me.”

“But why now?”

I didn’t have time to ponder the question, as Eri was saying, “…going to ask if you’d read any of the stories, but I guess you just answered that.” Holmes inclined his head. “But have you read any of the ones from after 1902?”

“I think that would feel highly… uncomfortable. You must face somewhat similar tension when receiving news of your counterparts… your originals, I should say.”

“Achcha.” She shrugged. “I guess all of us have had the conversation some time: would we ever want to meet our originals, or even get direct missives from them? Lot of us are having them all over again, now it’s no longer purely hypothetical.”

“And I suppose there is nothing to stop an original travelling here…”

Eri looked startled. “I guess not… We’ve always talked in terms of going back to the Home System… But we’re meant to be talking about you. You said you were the world’s first ‘consulting detective’.”

“To the best of my knowledge, yes.”

“What’s special about you that you could do that?”

Holmes shrugged. “In many ways, simply the fact that I was the first. Which means that I originated the notion and developed the practice. Or, in another frame of reference, that Arthur Conan Doyle did. But if I may speak from my own frame of reference…?”

“I think that’s what we’re here for.”

“Thank you. In that case, then, the qualities which I think enabled me to achieve some measure of success in my profession… I think in fact it would be fair to call it a vocation; the primary qualities I needed were a highly developed faculty of analytical reasoning, and the ability to close one’s mind to all distractions. As I once said, ‘It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which are vital.’ To these essentials are added the more mundane yet still invaluable qualities such as the ability to recognise a broad range of, for example, soil types or varieties of tobacco ash, both of which furnished significant clues on several occasions.” He smiled briefly. “Though I understand that tobacco ash, at least, would now be a very rare thing to encounter. Alas.”

Eri looked a little startled at the ‘alas’, but went on quickly, “Anything else?”

“Perhaps the facility for disguising my appearance so that I might pass unremarked in almost any milieu. Again, I am not yet sure how such an ability might translate into the present century. But above all I believe what set me apart and gave me a distinct advantage over the general run of police-detectives—I speak here only of the police-detectives of the Victorian era, I hasten to add—was my conviction that detection is an exact science.”

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Watson

“Course I hafta go. It’s brave of John to offer, but it hasta be one of the Tri.”

I looked at her. I hardly needed to think; I knew she was right. Her speech at the settlement had been acclaimed by almost everyone; she’d laid out the arguments any ‘ambassador’ would need to deploy. There was nothing for me to say except, “Then we’re both going.”

“You sure? Doctor’s harder to replace’n head of Ops. Eri can step into my shoes, and Aurel can do her job.”

“I’m sure.” I smiled. “Rocksure.”

“What does Dahab say?”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

#

I could see that Dahab Merhawi was dismayed, but, being the woman she was, she merely took a moment to compose herself and then said, “I see.”

Her quiet acquiescence made me doubt my resolve more than any amount of protest or argument would have. At once I felt I had to explain myself. “I think I have to, Dahab. Mary’s taking a huge weight on her shoulders. You know what’s at stake.” The whole future of our world.

“I understand,” said she; still, there was a ‘but’ in her tone; and I knew well enough what it implied: but what about your patients?

I could not ignore that. I was a doctor; I’d taken medical oaths twice, three and a half centuries apart. But I’d taken another kind of oath twice, too; one might be called ‘marriage vows’ and the other ‘partnership pledges’, but they stood equal in my mind.

Some people might have tried to weigh the greatest good of the greatest number, but I had already dismissed that. Some people on Trevallan might suffer, in the short term, if the number of qualified practitioners available were halved. It was even possible that someone might die; and if that did happen I knew it would haunt me for the rest of my days. But it was equally true that the prosperity, well-being and happiness of everyone, in the longer term, would be very much affected by the results of Mary’s mission to Earth; and all of those things were well-known to have impacts on health. How was I supposed to weigh a short-term deficit in curative treatment against long-term prevention? Impossible. There were too many unknowns, too many factors which resisted easy quantification. Even the QuasI would—probably—be foxed.

Hadn’t this, I wondered, always been the fundamental problem with utilitarianism? The idea was entirely sound in principle, but, even at the scale of our tiny ‘nation’, how could you ever have certainty about what truly constituted the greatest good for the greatest number? Two people, both with the very best of intentions, could still reach entirely different conclusions. That was, in fact, exactly what was happening with Dahab and me.

It grieved me deeply to be at odds with Dahab. After Mary, she was the person who had done most to give me a place in this time, in this community. She had never grudged the time and energy, in an already busy life, to further my retraining.

I knew that if I voiced any of this to Mary she would unhesitatingly tell me to stay; so I kept it from her. I didn’t like having secrets; indeed it felt a little like an offence against my partnership pledge; but it also felt like the lesser of the two evils. (Bringing us back to ‘greatest good’, on a much smaller scale).

Perhaps the question boiled down to: if the two were truly in conflict, which oath had precedence? Medical or partnership?

But I had no answer to that either, or nothing better than what my heart (or my intuition) told me.

I could not burden Mary, and my failure to see eye to eye with Dahab was the root of the problem, so I took the question to the next most likely person I could think of.

“Of course you want to support Mary,” said Robin with barely a second’s thought. “And I’m sure it’s the right thing for everyone in the long term.” Clearly ve had fewer scruples than I about picking a solution to the utilitarian conundrum.

“I dare say you’re right; but it still feels perilously close to shirking my responsibility as a doctor. My sworn responsibility.”

“Didya ne’er have a holiday afore?” asked Aurel.

“Yes, but I was always available for emergencies.”

“Was your medical oath any less rigorous in the nineteenth century?” asked Robin.

“Not materially.”

“I know for a fact you took time away from your practice on a number of occasions.” Ve smiled; I’d said more than once, as a somewhat barbed jest, that ve probably knew my first life better than I did.

“But I always arranged a locum, or for a neighbouring practitioner to cover.”

“Though your absence in The Final Problem was longer than planned or provided for.… But anyway, let’s see what we can do to give you some cover. I know I’ve heard you say Gabrem could handle three-quarters of what you do day-to-day.” Gabrem was our clinic nurse, and an excellent one; far more competent in almost every respect than I had been eight, perhaps even four, years ago. “And how much of what Gabrem does could I do, with a bit of guidance?”

Less than half, I thought; but maybe not too much less. However… “You already have a job, Robin.”

Ve shrugged. “It’s a lot less interesting than it used to be, when we were still compiling people—and less time-consuming. And you know police work really doesn’t take up much of my time.”

“I have field medic trainin,” said Aurel. “If I can follow a QuasI’s instructions to set a broken arm on a ship, I can do it in your clinic.”

“But you’re taking Mary’s place at Ops.”

Ve shrugged. “Not twenty-four/seven. And I can think of a coupla others…”

I looked at the two of them. “I’m more grateful than I can say. We’ll have to talk to Dahab, of course—and Gabrem—but you’ve considerably relieved my conscience.”

I squeezed Aurel’s hand, then Robin’s.

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Mary

“Don’t think your offer isn’t appreciated, ‘Zen Holmes,” Kenji said. “I must ask, however; how much does your knowledge of the diamond trade count for when it is over three hundred years out of date?”

Sherlock di’nt look vexed by the question. “I entirely understand your concerns, Commander. I am aware, too, that unlike my friend Doctor Watson I have not availed myself of the opportunity of eight years familiarisation with the ways and mores of this century.” I di’nt look at John, sittin tward the back of the room; I knew how vexy this made him. “However, dare I set against these admitted deficiencies the fact that everyone in this community is the best part of seventy years behind the times—the times of Earth, I mean? And, to the best of my knowledge, no one else has claimed any prior acquaintance of said trade. On the one hand, therefore, we have a man with some prior knowledge, admittedly greatly out of date: on the other hand, any other potential emissary would have no prior knowledge, while their general familiarity with Earth is also significantly behindhand.”

He looked at Kenji, at Kaivai, at me. “I offer two further points in favour of my suitability for this mission. First, I am already committed to the voyage, having booked passage upon the Rangitīkei at an early opportunity. I am aware that another person or persons will be sent to represent the wider interests of Trevallan, but they will have much else to occupy their time. I have no other pressing business awaiting me and would be both able and willing to devote my endeavours fully to the matter of the diamonds.” He waved a hand at the stones lyin on the table. To me they still looked no more’n a coupla fistfuls of quartzy pebbles.

“Second, I have devoted most of the last two days to gleaning every scrap of information I can on the contemporary diamond trade. The quantity of information at one’s disposal I found, quite frankly, staggering; the skill, clearly, lies in isolating the information one really needs. This at least is not far removed from the conduct of my profession; I believe I am recorded as saying that my method is based on the observation of trifles.” Now I did look at John, and saw him give a lil nod. I guessed he ‘membered writin those words.

“It is true,” Sherlock said, “That your primary database is also obsolescent by the aforesaid sixty-eight years, but the Rangitīkei did carry significant, if not comprehensive, updates. Taking these into account, it seems that in several respects the diamond trade has changed remarkably little in those centuries. One might imagine that the cutting of the stones would now be done by lasers or some such device, perhaps in the control of a QuasI, and this indeed seems to be true for industrial diamonds; but when it comes to gem-stones great value is placed upon traditional methods. It is felt, I believe with justification, that the stone-cutter’s art is… well, that it is exactly that; an art, a creative process. I gather that art, at least, is still generally felt to be the rightful province of the human mind, rather than the machine.

“It had also crossed my mind that the process of compilation has the potential to create an effectively limitless supply of diamonds. Unlike, say, gold, the raw material is plentiful, diamonds being essentially pure carbon. However, the value of diamonds as gemstones relies heavily on the perception that each stone is unique, as well as on the aforementioned art/craft tradition.

“In keeping with this stress on tradition, other aspects of the organisation of the trade are also strikingly unchanged between the nineteenth century and the twenty-third. Antwerp was a key centre then; now it is even more the centre of gravity of the whole business is. And, just as much now as it was then, diamond-brokers stand and fall by their reputation for honest dealing… and for discretion. Two qualities which, I hardly need tell you, are exactly what we would hope for.

“Taking all this into consideration, I feel confident that, should you choose to repose your trust in me, I shall be able to justify it.”

“Thank you very much, ‘Zen Holmes,” Kenji said. He looked around the rest of the Council. “Does anyone have any additional questions…? Then shall we vote? The proposal is to appoint ‘Zen Sher—yes, ‘Zen Holmes?”

Sherlock had raised his hand. “I have a question, which might be better considered before you vote. A question, and an observation.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“If I may make the observation first… or perhaps I should call it a warning. I have examined these stones as closely as I have been able. While you have some remarkable devices for analysing their structure, interpreting the results requires a skill I do not claim. To make direct comparison with those diamonds which have previously passed through my hands, I have been reliant solely on my naked eyes and a range of magnifying lenses. Using which, I find myself moderately confident that the majority of these stones, though perhaps not all, will be deemed to be of suitable quality for gems. This is of tremendous significance for their monetary value. As I have intimated, industrial diamonds are produced partly by automated cutting from stones deemed insufficiently fine for gems, and partly by compiling, and the value of such second-grade stones is at least two orders of magnitude less than those of gem-quality. Stones of exceptional clarity, or unusual colour, or lacking in flaws, may command a further premium.

“As I say, I am confident that most of the Trevallan diamonds will be of gem quality—but I cannot say for certain. And, even if they do pass that threshold, they may be of inferior colour, or not as flawless as we might hope. It is, conversely, equally possible, that their… ah… exotic origin might result in them commanding a significant premium. My investigations so far have yielded no reference to diamonds of extraterrestrial origin. By the by, with this in mind, may I suggest, whether or not you do agree to appoint me as your representative in this matter, that steps are taken to certify the provenance of these stones beyond all possible doubt?”

“I’m sure the QuasI can supply us with the proof,” Kaivai said. He saw Sherlock lookin a bit b’mused and added, “QuasIs are considered the most reliable of witnesses.”

“They are deemed incorruptible?”

“Absolutely… but you said you had a question, too?”

“I did, and it follows logically from this discussion of value. As I have just intimated, I am hopeful that the stones will prove to be of very significant worth, but I must make it clear… one might almost say crystal-clear… that I can make no promises.” John looked s’prised; I thunk I grokked: Sherlock had just made a joke He di’nt oft do that, and I di’nt think I’d heard him make a pun afore. “However, if our hopes are fulfilled… would you wish me to realise the value of the stones immediately, or merely to relay that information to you in as timely a manner as I am able?”

I hoisted a finger, caught Kenji’s eye, got the nod. “That’s somethin we’re gonna hafta think ‘bout afore the Rangitīkei departs… but we dunno what we—I mean, whoe’er we send—are gonna be facin. I mean, rocksure, we’re gonna have some ‘xpenses while we’re there. Subsistence, gettin about, and we’re surely gonna need a good lawyer. And I dunno where we get that from.”

I saw several faces betrayin I ne’er thunk of that. “And I dunno ‘bout anybody else, but I ha’nt gotta bundle of Ares or Euros lyin around in the apt. I had money in the bank back on Mars—only I di’nt, because that was my original’s account, and I guess it went to Zuri. Aurel’s offered me veir account—if…“ I stopped. I’d prob’ly showed my hand, but I di’nt want to say it aloud just yet. “Ve says she herited a chunk from my original so why should’n I have it, but I dunno if I’m comftable with that. Ve’s only been here a coupla weeks; ve says ve wants to stay, but ve might change veir mind.” I gave ‘em a big grin. “Tellya, there’s been a coupla times in the last fifteen years I’d’a taken a fast ship out if I coulda got one.

“So I’m thinkin I’d take veir money as a loan for our subsistence on Earth, but if we could get somethin from the stones instead, we should. I dunno, I’m guessin if they’re prop’ly valu’ble that’d mayhaps only mean sellin one or two; we could hang on to the rest. But you—the Council—would hafta leave that to the discretion of… let’s say ‘Zen Holmes, plus whoe’er you agree should go as the main emissary.”

Kenji gave me a perspicious look. “It sounds to me, Commander, very much as if you’re volunteering for that position.”

Yem, I thunk, showed my hand. Oh, well. “I might be p’suaded, put it thusly.”

“Well, let’s get to that very soon… but we still need to vote on ‘Zen Holmes’s offer. How do we feel now?”

“He talks a lot of sense, seems to me,” Belkis Varian said. Sev’ral voices murmured agreeal; others nodded.

“Shall we vote, then?”

I told my Agent to vote Agree and within a minim all the lights were green.

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Mary

“I dunno if that’s a vrai good idea,” said Aurel when I told vem ‘bout the plan of shippin Shinsuke and Cattrill back to Earth.

“Why not?”

“You’re sayin you want Trevallan to go on runnin its own affairs, right? ‘Kay, I prend, I’m hunky wi’ that. But then, you get one problem, one real crime, you wanna ship your baduns back to Earth. See how that looks? We wanna be be big and stand on our own two feet… but soonas things get vexy we’re gonna run back to Madda.”

Kak, I thunk, Ve’s right. Afore I could say anythin, ve went on, “There’s someone I reck you should meet.”

She was called Manon Lemieux. Doin some easygab afore we got serious, she told me she’d started as a physiologist spesh’lising in adaptation to extraterrestrial environments, but in her postdoc career she’d got vrai int’rested in the compiled experience. I din’t need tellin that was why she was here and quizzin everyone she could.

It turned out she’d done her doct’rate on reverse adaptation. “Like Marsies adaptin to Earth g?” I asked.

She nodded, bunched hair shakin behind her head. She had a frontal partibald, with a sheen they called a glaze, a look I’d seen on a couple other Rangitīkei civs. “Similar, but my main focus was people from Ganymede adapting to Mars. It’s a three-fold increase in g, like you going to Earth, but even harder from such a low base. We were trying to establish whether people born and raised on Ganymede could ever fully adapt to Martian g. It would inform the debate about whether it was ethical to have children there at all.”

I mulled a minim. “People were askin the same question ‘bout Mars, backwhen. But, you know, people want to put down roots… didya come to a conclusion?”

She shrugged. “Fortunately, I didn’t have to make a final pronouncement on the ethical issue; I was there to build the evidence-base. Privately, I… I’d advise against it, at least until there are significant advances in genemods.”

“No such worries here, though.”

“Not that I can see,” she said, cautious the way scientists are. “Not in the planetary environment, anyway. I suppose some might question having kids before you were back in contact with Earth…”

“If we’d waited till we knew rocksure there was a viable Tangent Drive, we’d still be waitin. For all we knew we’d still be waitin till everyone was too old to have kids at all. S’pose the Drive ne’er had panned out, or somethin else happed and we never got another ship. What were we gonna do then? People gabbed ‘bout it, copiously. But you know, it’d be a straight bin’ry: another round of compilin, or extinction.”

Manon nodded. “Compris. But, please, I only said, some might question, not that I would.” She drained her kahvi, set it down firmly. “I’d love to talk more about this, but it’s not what you wanted me for, is it? Alors, dites-moi, s’il vous plait,”

Aurel had said she was French-Canadian, but that di’nt help me. I had to quiz my Agent for a translation: so, tell me, please.

Four words to say ‘please’? I thunk. C’mon…

I di’nt say that, I just xplained what we were thinkin. She listened caref’ly. “Eh bien… Obviously this is partly a legal question and partly a public relations one. And I’m neither a lawyer nor a PR person…”

“We gotta lawyer here, but we’re kinda scant on PR types.”

“Understandable.”

“And our lawyer’s vrai part-time—same as our cop, factly. That’s part of the problem; Cautley Alakuyak can’t be counsel for prosecution and defence.”

She nodded, “True, I’m sure. Well, I may not be in PR, but I am a member of the public, not part of the Service, not connected with any of the corporations in the Tycho consortium. I might be as close as you’ll get to an independent opinion.”

“I reck that’s what Aurel thunk.”

“With those caveats, then, I have to say you need to think about this. It doesn’t look convincing, palming your first real criminals off on Earth at the same time you’re trying to build your case for independence, or autonomy, whatever you wish to call it.”

“We’re sayin autonomy.”

“Eh bien, autonomy… I’m sure people are going to think, if you can’t handle something like this for yourselves, what can you handle? And you must see… there’s a lot of interest in the Home System, in everything to do with the Seed-Worlds. A murder trial is absolutely going to catch a mass following.”

“Is it worth pointin out this is one incident? ‘Fore and since, we ha’nt had any serious crime.”

“Yes, but you know what they say: first impressions count.”

I mulled on this a minim, grumpin. “E’en though it was eight years ago?”

“The headline’s still ‘murder on Trevallan’. But…” She chewed her bottom lip. “If you were to say, ‘eight years ago we didn’t feel competent to try the case; now we do’; I guess that would look a lot better. And I’m sure reports of a trial here aren’t going to attract attention like a live trial in Chennai or wherever.”

I sighed. “I’m gonna hafta talk to some people.”

They pled guilty; saved us the hassle of finding jurors who ha’nt already made up their mind. Hental Shemza had been well liked; Shinsuke’n’Cattrill’d been semi-recluses down on the mainland for a long time; well, we knew why.

We coulda found jurors among the Rangitīkei people, but when we thunk about it, that’d still look a bit like relyin on Earth when things got sticky. I would’n say we were grateful to Shinsuke’n’Cattrill—did they vraily have a choice?—but we knew it coulda been awkward.

We still had to take evidence to inform sentencin. Bein a key witness, I’d recused myself from the tribunal and the others decided it wouldn’t look too feeble to invite a senior officer from the Rangitīkei. El Khatib suggested his XO, Khaliun Sarantsatsral. Bit of a mouthful, I thunk, but factly twas only one syllable more’n Mary Syrtis Mall’stang. Anyvent, she told us rightway, ‘call me Saran’.

For me, John, and Robin, we were all tryin to ‘member what we’d seen eight years ago. Some things were crystal; I recked I’d never forget steppin out in front of their hideout, still less the moment when they fired a laser right in front of me and John. Tryin to recall what we’d seen on the ground where Shemza’d been killed wa’nt so easy. It’d just been a mess of tracks and scuffs in the regolith anyvent, I thunk.

It was eight years ago for the three of us, but Sherlock was a mite diff’rent. First question gave him a lead to say it himself. “I remember it very well. Firstly, because it has always been part of my practice to observe closely and to commit every detail firmly to memory; secondly, because for me it is only a matter of a few weeks ago.”

Saran was obviously primed for this; but she requested an explication for the record afore trackin on, quzzzin him ‘bout what he’d seen. They got a lotta detail but it boiled down to this: Shemza had been at the site, preppin to root one of his sponders, when the other two s’prised him. Shinsuke’s tracks overlaid his at a coupla points. There’d been a conversation, or confrontation, all three standin more or less in one place for a minim; then a scuffle; then Shemza had fallen, and they’d carried him back to his ship.

“Are you able to say with certainty that he died at the scene?” asked Kenji Masuda.

“I would say with very high confidence that the fatal blow was struck there,” said Sherlock. “But whether death was instantaneous, or occurred later, I cannot be entirely sure. I suspect from the pattern of lividity, and specifically the contusions on the heels, that the heart did not finally cease to beat until Shemza was inside his ship, but it would require a forensic pathologist to deliver a definitive verdict. And neither Doctor Merhawi nor Doctor Watson, estimable practitioners though they undoubtedly are, are qualified in that specialty.”

There was silence for a moment. I was thinkin—I suspected we all were—’bout the special coldness it musta taken to drag a dyin man cross a hundred metres of rough ground, dump him in his ship, and then set to work spoofin the systems to make it look like he’d died after launch. I recked that hadta be a factor in sentencin.

Then Njeri Cattrill decided to plead mitigation. It was a ramblin speech but boiled down to sayin she’d been browbeaten into everythin’ by the older Shinsuke. I thunk ‘bout this then quizzed my Agent. Yem, Shinsuke was a few years older… but then I noticed somethin else. I raised my hand, caught Kaivai Tupou’s eye.

“Yes, Commander?”

“What she’s not tellin you is she was vived first. Factly, she was ‘xplorin that part of the Mainland at least a year afore they hooked up together.” I di’nt know whether Cattrill had already discovered the lode of diamonds, and neither of ‘em seemed to fancy tellin us that.

XO Saran looked at them, asked if they had any other evidence to offer in mitigation. Cattrill studied her own feet, Shinsuke stared o’er the heads of the tribunal. They di’nt once look at each other.

“Very well,” Saran said, glancin left and right. “Before we consider a sentence, are we agreed on the central facts? The killing itself may not have been premeditated; it may have been an impulsive act; but there is no realistic case for self-defence or provocation. What followed, the attempt to cover up the crime, was a cold, considered, conspiracy.” She sideglanced again; Kenji’n’Kaivai both nodded.

“We have also an additional offence, namely assault with a deadly weapon against Commander Mall’stang and Doctor Watson.”

“It was just a warning shot!” Shinsuke protested.

“Mining lasers aren’t intended for handheld use,” Kaivai said. “They’re notoriously difficult to handle without a proper mounting. Even if you intended it as a warning shot, your targeting could only be approximate.”

“If you had hit one of them,” Saran said, “You would be facing additional charges of manslaughter at the very least.”

Shinsuke shut up. I thunk ‘bout pressin another charge: criminal damage to my hat. Had to bite my lip to keep from gigglin.

“In considering an appropriate sentence,” said Saran, “We do have to reckon in the fact that the two accused have been in involuntary coldsleep for eight years—” She stopped. Holmes had raised his hand.

“If I may address the court?” he said. “I believe it is pertinent.”

She gestured for him to proceed; he stood. “Thank you. I would like to offer a perspective on this which I believe to be unique, both among the inhabitants of Trevallan and the complement of the Rangitīkei; just like the accused, I have been in coldsleep for eight years. The only difference is that I was in the position voluntarily.

“As already noted, my recollection of the events around the death of Hental Shemza feels fresh to me. From my conscious point of view, no time passed between entering the coldsleep state and being revived just a couple of weeks ago. I’m told that my body did continue to age, but slowly, the equivalent of probably no more than three months. The only evidence of this slight ageing that I have been able to detect in myself was the need to trim my hair and nails after revival.

“There is an indubitable difference between entering coldsleep voluntarily and under compulsion, but, even taking that into account, I cannot see that anyone can equate coldsleep with incarceration. It might be argued that both represent the withdrawal of liberty, but in coldsleep, with no real sense of the passage of time, the loss of liberty goes unfelt. In prison, as anyone who has even visited such a place must be acutely aware, deprivation of liberty is felt every minute, every hour, every day. That difference, it seems to me, is profound.”

In the pause that followed, the slight sounds of him retakin his seat seemed almost shockin’ly loud.

Saran looked again at Kenji’n’Kaivai. Either she saw what she needed in their eyes, or they were commin through their Agents. “Thank you for that, ‘Zen Holmes. This tribunal will recess to consider our decision on sentencing.”

They filed out and Robin got up to return Shinsuke’n’Cattrill to the police cell, leavin me, John, and Sherlock in the witness seats. The spectators were already headin out, prob’ly to the nearest spensary.

John sighed. “It’s not like any court I ever witnessed. Do you think justice was served here today?”

“They pled guilty,” I said.

“Justice for whom?” Sherlock said. “For Shinsuke and Cattrill—or for Hental Shemza?”

“Justice is blind,” John said.

“Not Lady Justice atop the Old Bailey,” Sherlock said, which not only baffled me but my Agent too.

“In reaching a decision,” Saran said, “We’ve had to reconsider which legal code to follow. We are aware that this is a civilian matter; still, we cannot but be informed by our experience as Service officers; and the default code under which the Service operates is that of the South Asian Concord. The South Asian code also forms the basis of the legal systems of both Mars and Luna, as it is here too, albeit informally. But we cannot be informal in a case of murder.

“The South Asian framework lays down four main considerations when setting a sentence.

“First, the degree of criminal responsibility. It’s our assessment that both defendants show no evidence of diminished capacity, either at the time of the offence or now. The fatal blow may have been struck on impulse, but the disposal of the body—indeed, the handling of a victim who was probably still alive for some time after—and the attempt to cover up the crime both speak to a ruthless and calculated attitude.

“Second, the need to protect the public from possible further offending. We feel that this risk, in this case, is significant. This is underlined by the discharge of a lethal laser in dangerous proximity to Commander Mall’stang and Doctor Watson; this is an act of violence that cannot be explained away by a moment of panic or other hasty impulse.

“Third, the requirement to demonstrate society’s abhorrence of criminal acts, especially those of great violence. In simple terms, the need for punishment. The offences under consideration today are very serious ones and merit a strong expression of societal disgust.

“Fourth, the prospects for rehabilitation, normally provided for by sentencing with provision for review, rather than a mandatory fixed term.

“Taking all these considerations into account, we have reached a decision. Avana Shinsuke, Njeri Cattrill, please stand.” They stood, still not lookin at each other.

“Avana Shinsuke, you are sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment, with one year remitted in consideration of time spent in involuntary cryogenic suspension. You have the right to appeal this sentence to a higher court, but will be held in a secure location without possibility of bail until any appeal is heard. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Her voice sounded sullen, but clear.

Cattrill got the same, word for word, but her response was barely audible.

“There remains the question of where these sentences are to be served. Here it is necessary to consider the rights of the prisoner, including protection from the possibility of extra-judicial reprisals. We understand that the murder of ‘Zen Shemza, as well as the attempt to secure a valuable resource for yourselves in defiance of a strong community ethos, have triggered great outrage on Trevallan.

“We also feel that the prospects for rehabilitation and the ongoing assessment which accompanies it, would be limited in the present state of development of this settlement.

“Therefore it is our determination that these sentences shall be served on Earth, the precise location to be determined by judicial authorities there. Any time in confinement, on this Orbiter or subsequently, will be fully counted towards the term. Excluding time passed in coldsleep”

Again she asked if they understood, and they agreed. “Inspector, please return the prisoners to the cells.” A chill went down my spine. I knew what they did was dire, and I thunk the decision seemed fair, but the word, ‘prisoners’, still brung it home to me that what we’d been about today was prop’ly serious business.

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Watson

Holmes’s attitude to women had oft snagged my attention. This was a man who could say, quite without irony, Woman’s heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the male, or Women are never to be entirely trusted—not the best of them. A man who had also once said to me, with no evident regret, I have never loved. At the same time, unless a woman was his direct adversary, he was unfailingly courteous, even chivalrous, toward what he, like most gentlemen of his time, was wont to call the fair sex.

I had heard him state that whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things, but that smacked of self-justification. His passion for music was not, could not be, a matter of true cold reason alone. And I did not think I flattered myself in believing that his regard for me was not without emotional weight. Let him say what he liked about not clouding his reasoning faculties; there was something else behind his… call it misogyny, for want of a better word.

With any other man one might look for explanations in childhood: an absent mother, perhaps, or one who’d been felt to have neglected her child; or one present but difficult in some way. With Holmes there was no such place to look. The text, as Robin had said, was paramount: but the text, through four novels and over fifty shorter stories, said precisely nothing about Holmes’s childhood, and next to nothing about his family (brother Mycroft apart) or education. There is no indication what school, if any, he attended, or whether he attended university. There are hints that he did not pursue one course systematically, and no mention of him actually gaining a degree. Of course, if he did attend school, it would probably have been a public school, and undoubtedly a single-sex one.

It’s possible women were present at lectures, especially if he attended the University of London, which in 1878 became the first in the UK, if not the world, to award degrees to women. If Cambridge, women were present since the founding of Girton College in 1869, but were not allowed to receive University degrees until long after ‘our’ time.

Of course, Robin and the QuasI had been obliged to concoct some kind of biography for us, give us memories of home and school, but Holmes had never spoken of his. Robin would regard it as confidential, and the QuasI would hold it in sequestered memory.

It did not escape me that what I said about Holmes’s early life, as recounted (or, rather, not) in the text might almost equally be said of John Watson. There is no mention of my family, birthplace, or schooling. There is, however, at least an outline of my early adulthood before meeting Holmes; nowhere in the entire canon are there ever anything beyond tantalising hints for Holmes himself. In this sense, at least, Watson is a distinctly more rounded character than Holmes.

I’d spoken of this to Mary more than once and she’d responded in her usual forthright way. “Some people hate their parents. Are you better or worse off’n them?” Another time, she’d said, more gently, “How much time d’you reck I spend thinkin’ ‘bout my childhood? It’s more’n a hundred years ago, y’know.” Grinning, she added, “I ain’t hung up on it. I reck that means it was OK. I reck yours was too.”

“Even if it never happened?” was my inevitable rejoinder.

“E’en so… You ain’t too fucked up, so I reck it musta been OK.”

Her point, I think, was that most people didn’t dwell overmuch on the past. Maybe that was particularly true on Trevallan, where the population had been very much self-selected, or selected by their originals, to be cut adrift from their past, from family ties. Mary had woken on Trevallan Orbiter to the knowledge that she would, for the foreseeable future, receive nothing but the barest bones of news about her family, and even that a quarter of a century in arrears.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that there is no certain explanation for Holmes’s misogyny, but it should also be noted that it was by no means extreme among men of his time and his class.

In the first couple of days after vival, when we were investigating the murder of Hental Shemza, Holmes had responded to Mary in a business-like manner, indistinguishable from the way he’d treat a male colleague, save that he punctiliously called her ‘madam’. Of course, not only was she tall and bald, she’d been dressed in the impeccably neutral blue coveralls of the Space Service. It was almost as if Holmes had grasped, without being told, the contemporary distinction between sex, gender, and guise. Holmes seemed more comfortable, more natural, with her when she was in neutral guise, as everyone is when on duty. It was different when he came to our apt and found her off duty.

The definition of fem, neut, or masc guises is nebulous; after eight years I would still have struggled to offer a concise explanation of distinguishing characteristics. It’s more about an overall impression, a gestalt, than any specific marker in dress, hair, cosmetics or other adornments. It’s certainly not as simple, as binary, as the way a Victorian would have seen it—as one specific Victorian, Sherlock Holmes, probably still did see it. Not binary: not even, in any simplistic way, trinary.

Off duty, Mary often wore skirts, but she did not automatically equate this with guising femm. I knew, however, that Holmes most definitely would see a skirt as a marker of femininity. He had not my childhood familiarity with the kilt, nor had he spent time as I had in India, where lungi or dhoti were common garments among men whose masculinity was not in question.

There was no doubting it; one did not need Holmesian powers of observation to see that his demeanour around Mary changed when—as now—she wore a skirt or dabbed a touch of colour on eyes or lips.

He was, as always, unfailingly polite, but the stiffness in his bearing and his words was unmistakable to me. I was pretty sure it was clear to everyone else in the room too, and certainly to Robin, who was facing a somewhat similar reaction of veir own.

Robin’s guise when we first met vem had been more-or-less neutral. Those first encounters had been during veir working hours, but veir off-duty guise wasn’t vastly different. Eight years on, it had shifted more decisively toward femm. Holmes, who had been amiably engaged with vem in those early days, had woken from his long sleep to a subtly but distinctly different version of Robin, and he was—to put it kindly—still coming to terms with it. Which, I thought, bothered Robin a lot more than his chilly punctilio bothered Mary.

Or so I had been thinking, but I saw at dinner that perhaps she had been more provoked than I realised. Something had clearly nettled her. “Mister Sherlock Holmes,” said she. “You do prefer ‘Mister’, doncha? I ain’t maxly fretty ‘bout what you do, but I got two people here I do care about. And they do mind whether you stay or go. And I’m kinda wond’rin’ whether that’s a factor in your thinkin’… at all.”

He looked at her. If there was a flicker of irritation in his eyes, it was masked before I could be sure. “Be assured, madam, that I make no decision without reckoning all considerations that may be relevant.”

He seemed to think that would suffice. I doubted Mary would see it that way.

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Mary

I di’nt have to ask. I knew John, and I could see he was frettin, and I could make a fair guess why he was frettin. I only needed to ask, “How was he?” and the story began spillin out.

“Still waters run deep,” he said, “Or maybe you don’t have that saying on Mars?”

“Nen, but I ha’nt spent my whole life on Mars. I know what you mean.”

“And you know who I mean. He has always portrayed himself—or been portrayed—as a rational, calculating man, not an emotional one. I have long suspected, of course, that there are strong currents beneath that cool surface. I sometimes wondered if there was some deep pain in his past; perhaps connected with a woman.” He stopped abruptly, made a spasmy gesture, as if pullin at the moustache he ha’nt had since the first few months. “But that’s all the emptiest of speculation. He has no recorded past before I knew him, save a couple of brief accounts of earlier cases. And he knows it as well—better than I do.”

I got him sat down at the kitchen table, poured him a beer. It’d give him somethin to do with his hands if nothin else, better than feelin for somethin that wa’nt there. Poured myself one to keep him comp’ny. “Yes,” he said, staring at the glass, rotatin it tween his palms but not liftin it to his lips, “Deep currents. Holmes, of course, is claiming that he really does have no feelings—and blaming me for it because I never wrote him any.”

“That’s freakous. If he’s goin that route he can’t blame you. You’re in the same pickle. If you hafta blame someone, it’s gotta be that cove Doyle. Nothin else makes sense.”

“No, and he knows it, but… it worries me when Sherlock Holmes falls prey to illogic. Anyway, whoever’s to blame, they gave John Watson a lot more of a past than they ever gave Sherlock Holmes. He said it himself, there’s more about my previous life in the opening of A Study in Scarlet than there is of his in the entire corpus. Way too much of it, of my past, you might say, if you’re wanting to get on with the story.

“Anyway, I was hoping to win him round to staying here, the idea that he could have a future. His argument is that there’s far too little here to interest him, to challenge a consulting detective.” He shrugged, still gazin into the beer. “And when I tried to suggest he could do something else, he just says there’s nothing else he can do… because I, or Doyle, whoever, made him one-dimensional.” Finally he raised the glass to his lips, threw a third of it down in one gulp.

It wa’nt that I di’nt care about Sherlock. But my main care was John, and if Holmes was goin all Ras Thavas, I di’nt want John dragged down too. As he put the glass down, I lifted his chin with a finger, nearas forcin him to look into my eyes. “John. Heed. I’ve been your partner for eight years. You ain’t one-dimensional. Truetell, I could say that ‘bout a few nat’ral-born guys, but not you. And if not you, why does he have to be?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. When Holmes gets an idea in his head it can be awfully hard to shift.”

“I thought he was all about the evidence?”

“I make a point of never having any prejudices, and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me,” he said.

“You quotin?”

“I’m quoting,” he said with a trace of a smile. It wa’nt much, but it cheeried me. But then he sighed again, his face gettin that downsome look. It’d been worse when he had the moustache, but it was still dolorous enough. “He said something else.”

“What?”

“He said I was the only real friend he’d ever had… but for a man who’d just been saying he had no past, what difference does that make?”

“There’s something I don’t quite understand,” John said. “On the one hand we have corprates claiming we owe them a lot of money. On the other hand we have a substantial haul of uncut diamonds. Is the latter not a possible solution to the former?”

“We thunk of them, ‘course,” I said. “But it ain’t that simple. One, we just don’t know how much they’re worth.”

“It’s never possible to gauge a true value for any stone until the cutter is at least partway through the process,” Sherlock said. “Flaws may reveal themselves, which certainly reduce the value markedly, though they need not render a stone worthless.”

“There’s that,” I nodded, “And there’s… we’ve done enough analysis to know that these stones don’t match t’restrial diamonds, isotopically. We dunno how that affects their value.”

“It seems possible that their… exotic origin may well add glamour,” Holmes said. I wondered if he grokked ‘isotopically’. Had anyone grokked isotopes in 1902?

“Poss. But if the colour’s not so pure… we dunno.”

“Forgive my ignorance. But how certain is it that there are no more?”

“Pretty certain. We’ve had a good look round the site. It’s anomalous in lotsa ways: isotope signatures, background radiation, blahblah. The geologists are pretty cert it’s an ancient impact site, so one theory is the diamonds were actually formed in the impact event, the other that the impactor was a chip off one of the other planets in the system.”

“Again, kindly indulge my ignorance. You seem to be saying that a piece of another planet could be found here. How is that possible?”

“It’s poss, sureas. There’s been hundreds of Martian meteorites identified on Earth. Less’n half per cent of all meteorites, but it’s still a lot. How’s it happ? Start with an impact event on Mars—or, in this system, most likely Elinzu.” He looked blank. “The next planet out. We don’t know near enough about the geology there yet to be sure, though. Anyvent, in a high-energy impact, fragments can get ejected into space. Mars escape velocity’s less’n half Earth, one reason it’s the main source of extraterran meteorites. Once the fragments are out there, they can wind up anywhere, cludin Earth—or here.”

“Fascinating,” he said. He might justa been bein polite, but I gave him benefit of the doubt. “You said, I believe, that uncertainty of the value of the stones was your first point. That would imply that there is a second.”

“Vrai. We still ha’nt settled whether we even accept that we owe this debt. Sureas-Olympus, we ain’t meekly acceptin their valuation of it.”

“A significant proportion of the alleged debt represents a retrospective redefinition of monies originally freely donated,” John added, in case Holmes hadn’t been followin the public meetings. He got a vexy look; he had, and he din’t preciate the doubt.

“And for the rest,” I said, “They wanna apply compound interest over sixty-seven years. The contract my original signed di’nt mention that. They’re claimin it’s natural justice; I say that’s bullkak. We han’t had sixty-seven years, we’ve had sixteen—and that’s only for the first few vived. We’ve spent most of that time buildin infrastructure, not generatin income.”

I had to fight off a yawn. Since the big speech, there’d been a lotta gabbin fitted in round my reg’lar duties, late at night or early in the morning. “Well,” I said. “One, we dunno what the stones are worth, and two, we dunno how much we’ll ventually have to find to keep the corprate vultures off our necks.” Did I mean vultures or vampires? Kak, I was tired. “So, basicly, we have nil clue whether the diamonds are gonna be a real help or not.”

Holmes nodded. He sat back, steeplin his fingers under his sharp nose. “It seems to me that securing at least a provisional value for the stones would remove one of those elements of uncertainty. However, if that were possible here, it would already have been done during the last eight years.” I gave him a nod, confirmin. “The Rangitīkei did not happen to carry a skilled diamond-cutter or valuer, and nor are future ships likely to do so unless specifically requested by someone here. And issuing such a request now would be tantamount to a public announcement.”

“Look, everybody, we have diamonds on Trevallan,” John said.

“With the probable consequence of an inrush of prospectors, akin to what happened around Kimberley after 1871. Analogous also to the far more numerous ‘gold rush’ phenomena observed on at least four continents. An outcome I imagine you and your colleagues would be anxious to avoid, madam.”

“Rocksure,” I said. “Last thing we need is a bunch of fortune hunters showin up. Maybe not a lot—you heard what El K said about numbers—but e’en one’d be vexious.”

“In any case, the only acceptable way to establish a value for the stones would be for someone—some trusted individual—to take them to Earth and discreetly obtain a valuation there.”

“Discreet would have to be the watchword,” John said.

“My knowledge of the diamond trade is of course centuries out of date, but it was certainly the case that reputable brokers operated on a basis of absolute discretion. It would be necessary to make further enquiries, but I see no a priori reason to think that this would not still obtain.”

“S’posin that is true,” I said, “Are you off’rin?”

“If you would repose your trust in me, I would be honoured.”

“I’d hafta talk to the Council…”

“Before you do,” John said. “Holmes, let’s just think this through. You must be aware you are likely to attract considerable interest on Earth. As an avatar of a famous literary figure, and as a near-unique example of virgin compilation. Something which is outlawed on most inhabited worlds. Slipping away for discreet visits to diamond-cutters or brokers won’t be easy.”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “But passing overlooked is something of a specialism of mine.”

I musta looked sceptical, cos John sprang to his defence. “I myself have been fooled by Holmes’s disguises on many occasions. By some means I could never quite grasp he even seemed to be able to shrink in height. But Victorian London did not have cameras monitoring one’s every move.”

“That’s not the problem,” I said. “It’s same as here. There are cameras everywhere, vrai, but they feed to a QuasI and the QuasI stores the data in sequestered memory. E’en the Quasi itself can’t access without due cause. Ask Robin ‘bout it sometime. Gettin a QuasI to yield up footage ain’t a stroll.”

“Now you mention, I believe I have heard vem say something about it.”

“That’s not the prob,” I said again. “Prob is the newsnets, their people and their drones. Prop’ly they’re s’posed to leave you alone in private spaces—which would include anywhere in a hotel bar mayhaps the lobby—but some of ‘em like to push the bound’ries when they sniff a story. And the really unscrup’lous ones ain’t above hackin their drones to track you by your Agent. Which you can’t disguise nohow.”

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Watson

“Holmes,” said I, “I should like to make one more attempt to persuade you to stay here. On this Orbiter or on the surface.”

He smiled. “Have at it, Doctor. But I shall claim equal entitlement to seek to prevail upon you to come to Earth with me.”

“That’s fair enough, I suppose. But I warn you not to hold out much hope of changing my mind.”

“No more should you hope to change mine. But provided we understand each other, then by all means make the attempt.”

“I hope at least I’ll understand you better. But I’d like to start with a question. What do you expect to do when you reach Earth?”

He shrugged those angular shoulders. “I can hardly say ‘expect’. I hope to find some use for my particular talents.”

“You do know, don’t you, that the science of crime and detection has moved on vastly since… since what I may as well call ‘our era’? The use of fingerprints was still novel.”

”Indeed. Scotland Yard had only just begun using them systematically, and juries were sometimes still inclined to look askance at such evidence.”

“And I seem to remember you talking about the disadvantage under which it placed the freelance detective, since you would not have access to the database.”

“I do not believe I would have used the word ‘database’,” said he with a thin smile.

“But you know what it means?”

“I do now.”

“Well, that’s rather my point. The word ‘database’ may not have existed in our day, but the thing itself did, in a manner of speaking; you yourself had your files and card-indexes. But they scarcely bear comparison with the volume of information that a QuasI can hold, and which it can sift through in mere fractions of a second. And databases are but one example. I believe fingerprints are still used in detection, but there are many other techniques which have come in over the centuries—and remember, Holmes, we are speaking of centuries here. I have some sense of some of them from my own medical learning—you know, Holmes, I think it would interest you to see something of the techniques and remedies we have at our disposal, even in our humble clinic.”

“No doubt it would,” said he, though his tone suggested politeness rather than enthusiasm.

“You know it’s taken me a good part of the last eight years to bring myself up to date with modern medicine, with the anatomy and physiology and pharmacology that underpins it. I’ve had to gain a grounding in disciplines that barely existed in our day, like genetics and genomics. Which also, by the way, play a considerable part in modern police work.” I looked into his eyes. “All of which makes me wonder again, Holmes, why you chose to hide yourself in coldsleep for eight years instead of attending to your contemporary education.”

“I could not have known that it would be eight years,” said he. “It might have been eight months: for all we knew then, it could have been twenty years or more.”

“I don’t see that answers anything.”

He regarded me a moment, lids half drawn down over his eyes. “I believe I said to you once, or you reported me as saying… it’s the same thing, in fact, is it not? Or should I say, that fellow Doyle had you report me as saying it?”

“There’s no future in rehashing these arguments.”

“Perhaps not. But my question is, what about the past?”

“Well, what about it? What is this thing you said to me, in whatever sense you choose to take it?”

“I believe I can recall the exact words, or very nearly: I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?”

“There is plenty of brain-work to be done here. As I said, I have spent much of my time learning great swathes of new science.”

“In the service of your particular kind of brain-work. The tree of knowledge has many branches and we are not all drawn to the same one.”

“You really think there would be no other field in which your undoubted talents could find expression?”

He gave me a long solemn look. “I think you forget, Doctor, what we are. Or, to avoid presumption, what I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“What were we saying, not even a minute ago? The arguments of which you said there is no future in them? I said to you, or you reported me as saying, or Doyle had you report me as saying?”

“All right, what about them?”

“We heard it all from Inspector Francis a few nights ago. How our files were assembled. How the text was paramount—remember that? And what text was ve referring to, Doctor?”

“The novels and short stories.”

“As we discussed before. To me, it is less than a week ago, but I recognise that for you it is eight years… but perhaps you recall the conclusion I arrived at then, namely that I am a counterfeit.”

“Holmes!”

“You sound shocked, Watson. But can you honestly say you have never entertained such thoughts?”

“Oh, in the early days, perhaps. But I’ve lived a real life for eight years. You could have too.”

“As you told me once before.”

“Yes, but I did it badly, and I’m sorry. But, Holmes… you were there when I gave my answer to Captain El Khatib. You’d already dispensed with his question about our human rights. You did it with logic and I came at it from an emotional standpoint. What was it I said? I didn’t make those memories. Those memories made me. Mary said it with perfect clarity years ago: Everyone here is made of memories. I took that to heart then, and I’ve cleaved to it ever since. People remember some things and forget others. Didn’t you say to me once—“

“—Did I ever say anything to you?” he intruded sardonically.

“Don’t start with that again. You said a man’s memory had finite capacity. I think I can come close to your exact words: a man’s brain is like an empty attic, and you must stock it with such furniture as you choose. Doesn’t everyone do that to some extent, if not so systematically?”

“Your point being?”

“My point being… when I said Everyone here is made of memories, I could have trimmed it even further. I could just have said, Everyone is made of memories.”

“Perhaps that is so,” said he thoughtfully. “It does not, to me, prove that inserted memories from a fictional existence should carry the same weight as genuine memories of a real life… Answer me this, Doctor. Suppose there were a method—perhaps there is, in this era, for all I know—a technique whereby a person’s memories could be erased and new ones inserted to replace them. What would you say? Would that be ethically acceptable?”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, of course. Ethically… I would rather not jump to conclusions, but I admit my first reaction is that it would be quite unconscionable… but then I find myself beginning to think there might be certain circumstances in which, at least, one might consider making an exception: cases of amnesia, for example. It’s rare, but even now there are occasional cases of permanent retrograde amnesia following a brain injury. It’s usually partial, but in some cases long periods can be be completely absent from memory. It’s usually treatable, but I wonder if the implantation of new memories might be helpful in a few cases.”

“Though presumably you would aim for these to be as close to the subject’s real life history as possible.”

“Yes, naturally. But there is something called dissociative fugue, in which people essentially lose their entire identity and create a new one for themselves. They can make their own memories, and they may bear scant relation to their previous life. Often it’s because of some deep trauma in that previous life—and again, I wonder whether this idea of replacing memories might help those suffering with severe trauma. But it would be done selectively, not globally, I’m sure… You’ll have to forgive me, Holmes. I started as a surgeon, then became a general practitioner. I’ve never had extensive training in psychiatry or psychology. Practically none, in the Victorian era, and not very much in this.”

“Selectively, not globally.” He repeated my own words. “For you and me, Watson, it was global. Every memory we have was fabricated.”

“Every memory we had,” said I firmly. “If you insist on taking this line at all, every memory we had at the time of coming to consciousness.”

“Ah, yes, consciousness,” said he, almost smiling. “I believe the philosophers have argued for centuries about the nature of consciousness, without ever reaching a consensus.”

“Mary says if philosophers ever agreed on anything they’d put themselves out of work.”

He actually chuckled. “She may well be right. So, let us not follow them into their Ouroboros maze of disputation. Let us, as laymen, concede that we possess consciousness. I believe that is my great concern. Not only that my consciousness is fabricated, but that the original source material, that text which is so paramount, was itself created for one specific purpose: to pose and then solve criminal puzzles. You have remarked on it yourself many times, in your role as narrator.” So I’m the narrator now, I noted, not Doyle. “My lack of interest in the orbits of the sun and planets, for example, or in any other subjects which bear no relevance to criminal detection. And you have remarked, too, on my apparent lack of interest in the fairer sex. He never spoke of the softer passions save with a gibe and a sneer, you say somewhere. You go on, I think, to say that admitting any such intrusion into my own temperament was to introduce a distracting factor.

“You see what you have done, Watson? You, or Arthur Conan Doyle. Aside from the unique case of Irene Adler, I believe you only once even entertained the notion that I might be personally… drawn to a woman.”

“Miss Violet Hunter.”

“The same. An admirable woman, to be sure, but to your chagrin I took no further interest in her once the case she’d set us had been disposed of.”

“What are you saying, Holmes? Do you wish you had? Taken a further interest, I mean?”

“Do I wish I had? That’s not really the question, when you think about it. Do I have the capacity to wish I had? Do I have the capacity to take an interest? Those are the questions you should be asking.”

“Since you’ve clearly been asking yourself these questions for a while, perhaps you would circumvent the slowness of my mental processes and go straight to your answer.”

“Let me refer you to another of your published encomia. You called me an automaton, a calculating-machine, adding that there was something positively inhuman in me. I do not quote verbatim, but those were the crucial words. Recalling that this verdict is enshrined in the paramount text—“

“—I am really beginning to wish Robin had not shared veir tale quite so fulsomely,” I interjected.

“But ve did, and I am sure you would not dispute the facts.”

“Facts, no, but what is your conclusion?”

“My failure, as you would no doubt call it, to pursue a connection with Miss Violet Hunter, is not a matter of regret to me. In the way that I have observed so many others, when I turn my lens upon myself I find, not merely no regret, but scant evidence of a capacity for regret; scant evidence, too, of any indication that I ever would take that kind of interest in her or any other woman.”

For a few moments he was silent, very still, gazing at me with watchful eyes. “And if I find little evidence of the capacity for romantic feelings, I find scarcely more of the capacity for friendship. In fact, across the entire course of my adult life—my documented life, I might say, though in truth they are really the same thing—I observe but one association which might reasonably bear that designation.”

I found it suddenly hard to meet his gaze. Damn you, Holmes, I thought, must you really load it all upon me?

It took me a moment to find any kind of answer. “I understand that you have suppressed your emotional side in the pursuit of reason. That does not mean you have no emotions. Indeed, I suspect there are strong currents beneath the apparently placid surface. What you have just said—which I take as a compliment of the highest order, by the way—demonstrates pretty effectively that you are no automaton. And if I ever described you as ‘inhuman’, I did you a great disservice.”

He only looked at me in silence.

“We know something about automata in this century,” said I, perhaps just for the want of anything else to fill the silence. “There is one here. You have spoken with it; you could do so again right now if you wish… They say that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, requiring a certain level of complexity. But a QuasI such as the one which runs this Orbiter has more synaptic connections than the human brain by at least two orders of magnitude. It is almost incomprehensibly smarter than we are, but as far as anyone can tell it does not feel anything we would recognise as emotion. Indeed, its fundamentals—its system architecture—are specifically configured to obviate the possibility.

“You, my friend, on the other hand… you may suppress emotion, you may deny you feel any, but you most certainly do.”

He still said nothing. I began to wonder if his silence was in fact due to an unaccustomed welling of emotion.

I thought of something Mary had once said: I’m not the love of your life, he is. I hadn’t accepted it at the time, but she might have been nearer the truth than I cared to admit. Eight years later, I was certain it was no longer true.

But what of Holmes? Who was the love of his life? If not me, then who?

A rhetorical question, I thought. And then…

Perhaps he hasn’t met her yet. A moment later, being a good twenty-third century fellow, I added, Or him, or vem.

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Mary

Spose I’d thunk that was kinda that. Shoulda known better. El Khatib had said the right things, but he di’nt look satisfied, and next time I countered him he was still lookin a mote vexious.

Since we were ‘bout ten strides (ten of mine, anyvent) from a spensary, I steered him tward it and nosied his taste in kahvi. When we were sat, and after a quick gab ‘bout routine stuff, I came right out with it. “Somethin still both’rin you after yesterday?”

He looked at me. Then, like he might get a better answer there, he gazed into his kahvi. Finally he straightgazed me again. “Are you a woman of faith, Commander?”

I thunk about that a sec. “I b’lieve in lotsa things. But I guess that’s not what you mean.”

“Perhaps that makes your life simpler… Or perhaps not. You ask if something still bothers me. And, speaking as a Service officer, I have to say that ‘Zen Holmes and Dr Watson between them have set my concerns at rest. But when I look at the matter, not in that light, but from the perspective of my faith, I find I am still troubled. I feel we have taken a step, a long stride, toward the creation of human life—which, as a Muslim, I feel should be reserved to God.” He sighed. “I am particularly troubled when I think about something Dr Watson said yesterday. He said that the first fifty years of his memories didn’t come from life but from somewhere else, yet they still feel real, they feel like part of him. In a situation like this I find myself facing a question I cannot answer: where does this man’s soul come from? The nafs, as we say in Arabic.”

“You musta known afore you took this mission you’d be dealin with compiled people.”

“Of course, but ‘Zens Holmes and Watson are different from you and the others.”

“Tell me how,” I said, not cause I di’nt know what he meant but cause I thunk there was somethin he wa’nt seein.

“Because you are naturally born,” he began, and then stopped, mouth droppin open.

“That’s the question, ain’t it? Am I? My original was, sureas, but I’m a copy. So if you’re talkin about souls—what was your word? Nafs? Did that get copied when everythin’ else was?” I sniffed at my kahvi, sipped quickly. “See, that don’t fret me, ‘cause ‘soul’ ain’t a concept I spend much time on. You wanna talk ‘bout consciousness, I’m all yours. But we know pretty clearly consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. We ain’t the only conscious entities. QuasIs have consciousness; it’s maxly diff’rent from ours, but it’s real. Same for dolphins. Other creatures too, dependin how you define it. But I don’t know if you’d say any of them have souls?” He waved his hands vaguely; either he di’nt have an answer, or di’nt want to get into it now.

“For me,” I said, “Cause I’m thinkin ‘bout consciousness, I don’t have the problem you seem to be grapplin with. Emergent property of the brain. Replicate the brain, you’re gonna get the same consciousness. And let me tell you, that’s xactly how it looks from inside—far as I can tell, anyvent. When I came outa fugue here, fifteen-and years ago, I di’nt feel any different from the way I memorated feelin when I lay down in the deepscan suite. Fifty-and years afore, but it felt like five minutes, jus’ felt like I’d dozed off for a moment. Far as I could tell, twas a seamless translation from my original to this-me.”

He steadigazed me. Under the luxy beard he was chewin on his bottom lip. I savoured my kahvi and gave him time. Finally he said, “Thank you for sharing that, Commander. I must think more about this—think and pray. But I want to be very clear about something. I said at the start that as an officer, as representative of the Service, my concerns had been set to rest. The oath I swore when I graduated is, I think, substantially the same as the one you took—when was it?”

“2149. Even in subjective time, it’s a long time back. I’d served twenty afore I was deepscanned, fifteen-and since I woke here.”

He was noddin vigrously. “Yes, a long and distinguished record.” I di’nt know ‘bout distinguished, but I’d ne’er seriously smirched. “But the point I’m making is that you and I swore essentially the same oath. So you know that as an officer your lodestar is human rights, drawing heavily on the Universal Declaration. And you know that you are required to follow these principles at all times. If at any time your duty as an officer seems to clash with personal principles, including religious beliefs, you must either set those beliefs aside or recuse yourself from the problematic situation. Which—“ He smiled kinda ruef’ly. “—Can be hard when you’re twenty-four lightyears out and the first vessel to arrive here since the seedship.”

“I prend where you’re comin from.”

“May I speak completely frankly?” he asked. “And in complete confidence.”

“Sounds like we might need more kahvi.”

A minim later two fresh steamin mugs were afore us and I was resettlin comftable. He was chewin his lip behind his beard again: a pantomime of man thinkin.

“Yes,” he said, “My concern as an officer ended when I concluded there was no human rights issue here. The concern which remained was a purely personal one. And I’m grateful that you’ve spared me the time to give it an airing…”

Thanks, I thunk, But I ain’t got all day.

“I’m hoping that your experience as an officer gives you some perspective. My XO on the Rangitīkei is excellent, but she’s still very young. It’s a young crew altogether. And I hope also–“ He stopped, reset. “Your relationship with Dr Watson.”

“What ‘bout it?”

“First impressions and all that, but it seems to me to reflect well on him. And the things he said reflect well on you. No, my observation of him would be very hard to reconcile with any conception of a soulless creature.”

“Pity you said ‘in complete confidence’. I’d love to tell him you said that.”

He managed a smile, but it was all front. “I wish I could say the same for ‘Zen Holmes.”

“Ah…”

“You understand what I’m alluding to?”

“I prend pretty well, I reck.” I took a first sip of the fresh kahvi, mullin. “Yem, Sherlock Holmes is an oddun, sureas. Mind, I don’t know him that well. You know he was only with us inside of four days afore he asked to be placed in coldsleep?”

“I knew he’d been revived after we got here. I hadn’t realised he’d been under quite that long.”

“Yem. You’d have to talk to John.” I realised what I was sayin. “’Course, John only ‘knew’ him afore in a vrai particlar sense. Anyvent, if you’re askin me, I can only go on what I’ve seen in those few days afore he went cold, and the coupla days since.

“He’s an oddun, Sherlock Holmes, no slip. First time’r’two you see him, yes, you’d reck he’s all analytical reasonin and no emotion. I prend that, sureas. And I reck he is quite a Kaldane, as we’d say on Mars—but deep down he’s not quite the pure cold intellect he’d like us to think. He’s pretty good at hidin his feelins, but I can see there’s emotions simmerin away underneath.” I snickered. “He’d prob’ly call that woman’s intuition.”

“Thank you, Commander. Now… there is another matter I need to raise with you and your co-Commanders. I’ve held off on it for a few days while I’ve been getting the lie of the land here, but it’s time we had a conversation about ownership.”

I’d thunk quite a bit ‘bout how to gab for this. ‘Cause I’d be talkin partwise to El Khatib and his passengers and crew, and ‘cause a recordin’d sureas get back to the Home System, I thunk mayhaps I should be gabbin Standard English. But I dunno xactly what Standard English is any more; useta be most folks recked it was basic’ly American, but Service English has that Indian inflection, and a smattrin of words from Hindi/Urdu, Tamil, and other lings too. And there was the Pacific flavour, stirred up round the seaways, from Hong Kong to Auckland to Vancouver.

John said I should’n try any of ‘em, just be myself. “You need to be thinking about what you’re actually saying, not worrying about how you say it.” He smiled. “First time I met you, I never had trouble understanding you, and my ideas of English predated the Ark. Be yourself, that’s the main thing.” Voice of common sense.

When I actually stood up in that natural bowl on the edge of Longscarp village, and looked out at hundreds of faces, I knew he was right. It looked like mosta the Mainland population was there. Mayhaps it wa’nt so, just my mind xaggeratin, but it was scary enough; and the rest, Downers and Uppers, were prob’ly on a screen or holo or in a simula. I couldn’ta got through tryin to gab any way but what came natrally.

“I guess everyone knows me, but just in case… I’m Mary Syrtis Mall’stang. I’m Head of Operations based Up on the Orbiter. I’ve been Incarnate fifteen-and years, and if you’re wondrin how that’s relevant, stick around.

“I wanna start by sayin it’s goona look like I’m arguin gainst Captain El Khatib, but it’s nothin personal. Y’know, don’t shoot the messenger… He’s a good man, I reck. It’s people back on Earth who’re the prob. People who know nil ‘bout what we’ve been doin here, what we’ve built in these fifteen, sixteen years. Our fight —sposin it is a fight—is with them, not anyone from the Rangitīkei.

“Time… I’m gonna talk about time quite a lot; fact, it’s a big chunk of my argument. So lemme start with a few dates. I was born in 2125. Makes me one hundred and eleven… I was deepscanned in 2169, like we all were. Same year we—meanin our compiler files, long with a QuasI and a few tonnes of matériel—embarked on the seedship.

“We reached this system in mid-2220, and Doc Merhawi was Incarnated a coupla months later, once the first hab was ready. I came along somewhere in early ‘21 and the rest of us over the next five-six years. Once they got into the swing, the compiler team were pretty much Incarnating one person every other day.

“Coupla things ‘bout that. Bein Incarnated in ‘21 means that in life-elapsed time I’m fifty-nine, not a hundred and eleven. Feel free to tell me I don’t look like knockin on the door of sixty, but it’s a lot closer to feelin like my real age. But that’s how ‘tis for us; time gets slippery.

“The other thing… you know how QuasIs are ‘bout persnal info, but I did persuade it to confirm that the youngest of us Incarnate is now thirty-five; there’s only a few dozen under forty.

“’Course, we have some kids now, and ain’t that a delight?” Right on cue, a babe somewhere in the crowd squawked, and everyone laughed. If their parent had pinched vem to make vem do it, they couldna timed it riper. I let the ripple die, a coupla secs. “But the oldest is barely five. Gives us a pretty stonkin demographic gap. And not very many of us are still of childbearin age, and every year that passes there’s fewer.

“I mention this now cause bein back in contact with the Home System means we’re likely gonna be gettin new people comin in. And we need to mull what sorta people we want. If we wanna do somethin ‘bout that demographic gap, we need younger people. I guess Earth won’t be sendin us teeners, but twenties, thirties… people who might be int’rested in havin kids here.” I turned toward El Khatib. “Captain, I think you reck a ship like the Rangitīkei can carry max thirty passengers?”

“We could carry more if we converted the cargo module, but that’s a major undertaking, and it would mean we’d lose most of our capacity for other matériel you might need.”

We’ve done pretty well with what we’ve got for sixteen years, I thunk. But that wa’nt the point now. “And every trip’s six weeks each way?” He nodded. “So with turnarounds you’d manage max four a year?”

“Realistically not even that,” he said. “You know about long-duration missions, Commander. Tangent Drive ships are still very new; they’re going to get extra-deep dry-dock checks after every trip. Besides, crews need R&R. We have limited personnel trained on these ships, so we can’t just draft in a new crew straight away.

“Plus, there aren’t that many of these ships to go around. We haven’t even reached all of the other seed-worlds yet. What if another of those needs major assistance, even—la samah Allah—an evacuation?”

He scratched in his beard. “So you’ll understand, I can’t give you any kind of guarantee. All I can give you is a best guess. Assuming no major problems elsewhere, inshallah, then realistically you might be looking at two visits a year. Maybe five years from now there’ll be more, but I make no promises. The powers that be will be evaluating these prototype ships a while longer before they even greenlight a full design process for the next phase. And…” He looked straight at me. “I’d be very surprised if they aren’t also evaluating the returns on investment. And I don’t just mean investment in the ships. I’m talking about the long-term investment that there’s been in the seed-worlds.”

I dunno if he’d intended it, but he couldna given me a better cue. “Thank you, Captain. I preciate your candour…” I took a breath. “Return on investment. That’s xactly what I was leadin up to.

“We all know this di’nt come cheap. Some of us—our originals—were involved in the development process, and I reck all of us took time to prend it afore signin up for deepscan. Cause we all knew, yes, we’d get up and walk out of that scannin suite at the end of the day… but we all knew we’d also, providin all went well, wake up here. You’d hafta be a fool to commit to that without knowin somethin ‘bout what you’re gettin into.

“Sure, we know the seedships were based on converted ast’roid haulers. But stickin a QuasI in one of those ain’t a triv job, and ninecore QuasIs sureas don’t grow on trees. Then you got the costs of deepscannin fifteen hundred people, a bunch of compilers, and a pile of other stuff just for a kickstart when the ship got here. It’s fullon costy. We know that. Anyone, any organisation, investin in these missions ha’nt a cat in a dust-storm’s chance of seein’ a return inside half a century.

“And that’s kinda my point, because who invests in anythin that long-term? Not your reglar venture capitalists, nilway. Way I memorate it, a lot of ‘em were philanthropists. Mayhaps they thunk they might—or their heirs might—get a return one day, but was that really the main motivation? Sides, I know for sure that a chunk of the capital was crowdfunded: I helped org’nise some of that. And I sunk some of my own savings… who else did that?” More’n half the crowd raised their hands.

“So, it’s not just corprate investors who have a stake. And I sureas ain’t gonna smile and roll over for some spoiled legacy kid who wants to cash in on what their grand-begetter gave, no strings, fifty years afore. Or some corp that’s floggin the same line. You can’t take back a gift, specially not two generations down the line.

“Now, I’ve heard someun say we’re bound by agreements we signed before we were deepscanned. Well, you might think, fair enough, a contract’s a contract. And, you know, I have a memory. It’s fifteen years back, subjective; sixty-seven calendar. I memorate readin that contract. Read the small print, like they say, nesspar? But who really signed? And who, really, is bound by it?

“I memorate signin, sureas. I reck we all do. Proper old-school, wa’n’t it? Paper and ink. Paper that verifies your DNA, sureas, but still, paper. I wa’n’t much used to handscreedin, got a mote of ink on my finger. But did I still have ink on my finger when I first met consciousness on Trevallan Orbiter?

“Point, simple-as, best I can say it: when there’s two where there used to be one: which one’s liable for a debt? Which one’s bound by a promise? I di’nt wake up here with ink on my finger. Mayhaps she did, when she walked outta that suite that same day. Walked out and went on with her life. Now I know she died three years back. Did she e’er pay back any of the so-called debt? Did she leave it on to her daughter or her grandkid? Why not? She was right there, on Mars mostly, for sixty-four years.” I stopped a sec, flabbered by the span of time. I said it again, almost in wonder. “Sixty-four years. Did anyone e’er come after her to pay anythin back?”

I left that line of argument there; I figged anyun e’en half clined to agree would have got there by now. I had other stuff to say, and I di’nt want to devour too much of everyun’s time. “Plus, while we’re talkin ‘bout investment… how ‘bout what we’ve invested? I don’t mean money, e’en tho, like I already said, a lot of us did. I mean everythin else. Our lives. I ain’t been vived quite as long as Doctor Merhawi or Kenji Masuda, but longer’n most; fifteen-and years.

“When I roused back then, I had no clue whether we’d be out here on our own for five years, or fifteen, or fifty. For all we knew we were never gonna see anyun from Outside e’er again. What did we do? We got on with it. We built what we’ve built. We invested our work, our heart and soul, everythin. That’s gotta count for somethin.

“Just one more thing. I said at the beginnin I’ve nothin gainst Captain El Khatib, nor any of the others who came on the Rangitīkei. Don’t want a quarrel with any of them. But… but it dun’t help when someun says we’ve brought some experts to help you. Wait a fraggin minim. We’re the experts on this system. We started out good people, lot of us were already experts, and we’ve had years of experience in this environment. Makin this environment, somewise. So, yes, all help gratefully received, and a fresh pair of eyes can be just what’s needed on a tricky prob… but sendin people from Earth to tell us how to do things here? We don’t need that.”

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Watson

“Thank you for coming, Dr Watson, ‘Zen Holmes,” said Captain El Khatib. He only nodded at Mary and Robin, as if he’d rather they weren’t there. “I think you know what I would like to discuss with you.”

“Human rights,” said Holmes. “As a phrase, not common currency in the Victorian era, but of course Thomas Paine wrote Rights of Man long before then, and the Americans had their Bill of Rights. However, as I now understand it, the term really gained currency in the twentieth century, leading to the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Versions of this have been in circulation ever since, and form the basis of the constitutions of many polities, including, I believe, Mars.” He offered Mary a small polite bow. “And also of the Common Principles now being promulgated as a basis for the wider community of human settlements across an ever-growing number of worlds.”

He paused, drawing a deeper breath. His hands twitched slightly and I imagined he was wishing for a pipe. “Well, that is all preamble, and doubtless well known to all of you. In my situation, however, I have been obliged to educate myself in short order.” Overnight, in fact; he had sacrificed sleep for study. “Your concern, if I understand correctly, Captain, is that the good doctor and I have somehow suffered an infringement of our rights by being called into existence in what, I can see, might appear to be an arbitrary or capricious way.”

El Khatib gave him a cautious nod and he continued. “I freely admit I am far from understanding the technical aspects of the process by which we have been Incarnated. I suspect it would take me months of study even to lay the foundations for such an understanding. However, for present purposes, I don’t think it’s necessary for me to understand how compiling works, except in the very broadest sense.

“The essence of it is—and please correct me it I misrepresent anything—that anything from a handkerchief to a steam locomotive, or whatever a contemporary equivalent may be, can be assembled from what I, in my ignorance, call a ‘recipe’. If you have all the requisite information—and it is a vast quantity of… data… then you can also compile a human being. The usual practice is that this information is acquired by deepscanning a person—again, something which I do not claim to understand, except in crudest outlines; but Inspector Francis and Commander Mall’stang are here as living examples. The difference between these two, and Watson and myself, is that the information required to compile us was not acquired by deepscanning, but assembled over a lengthy period. A variety of sources was drawn from, but principally the novels and short stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.” He looked around, his keen gaze fixing each of us in turn for an instant. “Have I stated matters accurately thus far?”

All having agreed that he had, he continued, “Thus the uniqueness of Watson and myself is that, while Inspector Francis and Commander Mall’stang not only consented but volunteered, we have not been compiled from scans and therefore at no stage could we have given our consent—would you concur? Thank you. Of course this is manifestly true; however, to extrapolate from this to saying our rights were violated seems to me highly questionable, on multiple grounds.

“First, and obviously, this argument also extends to every child born naturally; at least, I fail to see a logical distinction between the two. A new-born infant can hardly be said to have given its consent, or expressed a preference for being born to particular parents in a particular place at a particular time.”

Mary was smiling. “I reck every parent’s had their kid say, ‘I di’nt ask to be born’.”

“I defer to your experience, madam,” said Holmes with a dip of his head. One of his most sardonic smiles stirred his features. “Perhaps we should be pursuing the argument that everyone in the future should be not born but compiled—from consenting originals, of course.”

“Are you really suggesting a future without children, ‘Zen Holmes?” asked El Khatib.

Holmes smiled. “I would not be so presumptuous, particularly given that—as Dr Watson reminded me recently—I have scant experience of how society functions in this epoch. I merely note that this is where the logic of your contention about human rights seems to lead us.”

El Khatib shook his head. He looked unconvinced, even perturbed, by Holmes’s reasoning, but if he had a refutation to hand he chose to withhold it.

“There is a second objection,” said Holmes. “And it springs from what seems to me to be a fundamental point: one cannot have rights if one does not exist. If I recall correctly, the Declaration of Independence says We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. Leave aside the objection, which I am sure is widely felt now, that it mentions only ‘men’; leave aside also the question of what we may mean by a Creator. These are weighty matters; I set them aside only because I do not believe they are relevant to my present point.

“Well, if men—let us say ‘men’, because Watson and I are both men—if men are endowed with rights by their creator, at what moment does this endowment take effect? I am aware that there are enduring and intractable arguments about the rights of the unborn child. I am much relieved that I am not required to address those. Also, compilation takes a very much shorter time than natural gestation. Still, the question is: at what moment does the endowment of rights take effect? The right to life, or liberty, can hardly be partial, it cannot accrue by degrees.

“Again, I am relieved to find that I do not need to delve too deeply into this. I leave it to the professional philosophers to determine—or, as seems more likely, to engage in never-ending wrangles about—the point at which rights first apply. I only stipulate that this must be somewhere in the span between the initiation of the compilation process, and the point at which the subject becomes conscious and aware of himself.” I thought about that moment, my first memory of Incarnate existence, finding myself standing—standing?—in the sitting-room of 221B Baker Street.

“I must have been alive, and ambulatory, before that. I was not ‘born’ in the simula-studio but half a circumference away in the compiler lab. Unless I’d been sedated and conveyed to the Baker Street simula, I had got there by Tube and by walking. But I had no memory before that moment in the simulated sitting-room. A perfect exemplar of the dissociative state called fugue.”

Holmes’s glance roamed over the faces of his small audience. “As I observed a few minutes ago, Watson and I were created from compiler files—what I facetiously called a recipe—produced not by deepscanning but—how shall I put it?—from scratch. As I understand it those files were complete and ready for use at least a year before we were actually called into existence. The files from which Commander Mall’stang and Inspector Francis were created were of course maintained unused for far longer; over half a century, I understand. But are we going to say that their rights, or ours, were infringed by such delays? To my mind that would be absurd. The ‘recipe’ has no rights; only the person created from it does.”

The recipe has no rights; only the pie does, I thought, barely quelling the laughter that bubbled up inside me.

“Let me draw my argument together,” said Holmes. “I have laid out the steps so that you might, if you wished, pull me up on a false premise or error of fact. The conclusion, however, is a simple one. Bringing us into existence cannot be an infringement of our rights, since no such rights existed until we did.” He glanced around again. “Whether any rights have been infringed subsequently is an entirely different question. As to an answer, I can only speak for myself. Nothing that has befallen me seems like an infringement of my rights. However, as my experience—my conscious experience—of this time and place only amounts to a few days, I should perhaps defer to Dr Watson.”

All eyes turned my way. I forced down all thoughts of recipes and pies. “Yes, Doctor,” said El Khatib, “I would like to hear your thoughts, both on what ‘Zen Holmes has said so far, and on the question he has just posed.”

“I think Holmes has dealt with the original question very well,” said I. But that was faint praise: even by his standards it had been a bravura performance. “Remarkably well. I congratulate you, Holmes. It strikes me you have familiarised yourself with the history of human rights in a very short time.”

He was not a notably modest man, but he made a modest gesture now. “It is, I estimate, seventeen hours since I was made aware of Captain El Khatib’s wish to discuss this matter. A determined man can get through a great deal in seventeen hours.”

And you must have had to start by learning how to access all that information, I thought. I wondered if he had slept at all, how much he had eaten or drunk; when the mood was on him, these were not needs but mere distractions.

After this we must get some food and drink into him.

“Well,” said I, “I really have nothing to add to your… exposition. I never could match you for analytical reasoning. However, I do want to say something, but from a different perspective. You mentioned experience. I’ve lived eight years now… It’s strange, I know, saying that, when I look and feel like a man in middle age. Somatically, I am not far off my sixtieth year. I can say, as a doctor, I am in better health and have a much better life expectancy than almost any man of similar age in the Victorian age.

“I have the memories of almost fifty-eight years, too. This is not something I like to think about often. I neither find, nor seek, consolation in philosophy. I think throughout my adult life my attitude has always been… I believe in common sense, and, well, just getting on with things. Still, sometimes one does have to think about it, to remember that the first fifty years of those memories didn’t come from real experience of life. In fact… you might say, I didn’t make those memories. Those memories made me.

“Whatever you make of that. I don’t know, how important is it? I said something to Mary very early on: all I have is memories. Her answer’s stayed with me ever since: isn’t that all anyone has?”

I sighed. “As I said, I’m a straightforward kind of fellow and all this philosophising rapidly gets above me. But I can speak about the last eight years. Nobody can say they weren’t real. And what I feel about this time… it’s more precious to me than my clumsy words can ever hope to express. I have a life; a good life. I have work that I love, and in which I can genuinely do something good for people. I have friends, a comfortable home. I’ve never had to go hungry, or shiver through a dark lonely night. Above all, I share my life with a truly remarkable woman, for whom I feel far more than I can ever say.

“It’s a good life, a wonderful life. Literally, because there is much in it that still fills me with a sense of wonder.” I looked at Mary, let my eyes say: you most of all. “And therefore, Captain, and with all due respect, I find your notion that my human rights might have been infringed… I find it absurd. I haven’t studied the Universal Declaration of Human Rights like Holmes has, but I do know at least the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, and I know that the very first right named there is the right to life.” I wanted to keep on looking into Mary’s eyes, but it was to Robin I primarily owed my existence. I switched my gaze to vem as I said, “Maybe life came to me in a different way, but I don’t care about that. I care about the life I have, and I am simply immeasurably grateful to have been given it.”

Veir eyes were suspiciously bright and it seemed as if ve could not speak, but ve gave me a small nod. It was enough.

I turned back to El Khatib. “Captain, if you have any lingering concerns about my human rights, I beg you, put them away now. My life, the fact that I am alive… is nothing but a gift.”

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Watson

Locating Holmes was merely a matter of asking my Agent. It wasn’t always that simple, but Holmes evidently hadn’t yet got to grips with privacy settings—or, if he had, he had granted me access.

<<Sherlock Holmes is in simula-studio 2>> said the QuasI.

It was no surprise to find the studio once again replicating the sitting-room of 221B Baker Street. At least this time Holmes wasn’t exhibiting the symptoms of withdrawn catatonia. Instead, as had been clear even before I entered, he was scraping away at his violin. The studio had simulated his Stradivarius accurately, I thought; the sound was a good match for my memories. Well, of course it is…

Holmes had acquired the instrument for fifty-five shillings, but his estimate even then was that it was worth ‘at least five hundred guineas’. Today, a genuine instrument made by Antonio Stradivari, Amati, or Guarneri would be worth tens of millions of Euros or Ares. But what did that truly signify in a world where a violin could be deepscanned and precisely replicated? A violin is vastly less complex than a human being. The experience of playing, or hearing, the compiled instrument would be indistinguishable. In theory it was possible for every player to own a Stradivarius. Compiling was not free, of course: it demanded time, skill, energy, substantial processing power, but the cost would be much closer to that of a mass-manufactured modern violin.

I thrust the thought aside as Holmes registered my presence. I had often found him lolling in his arm-chair, eyes closed, fiddling away with the instrument on his knee. Sometimes these improvisations sounded plausibly like real music; at others they could give the impression that an ill-fated feline was being gutted. (More than once, on hearing certain varieties of twenty-third-century music, I had thought that Holmes had merely been several centuries ahead of his time.)

Today, I was glad to see, he was standing, and holding the violin in regulation fashion. There was no music stand, and I heard no hint of familiar melody, but the sound wasn’t entirely inharmonious. In fact its droning harmonics gave the distinct impression he was trying to emulate the sound of the bagpipes. A pibroch of the lamenting class, perhaps, melancholic but not discordant.

There are those who affect to despise the skirl of the pipes, but I am not one of them. This does not automatically follow from the fact of my Scottish descent: even nineteenth-century science might have hesitated to claim that musical tastes were heritable, and modern genetics would scoff at any such notion.

I like the pipes, at least when played well, and provided the most cloyingly sentimental part of the repertoire is avoided. I was intrigued by the sound Holmes was currently producing.

Though he’d barely glanced at me, I knew he was aware of my presence. He drew his undomesticated music to a plaintive ending, more of a fading sigh than a coda, lifted the fiddle from his shoulder and began to stow it carefully in its case. Suddenly he stopped. I realised after a moment that he was laughing, that curious silent yet hearty laugh that was unique to him. “What’s funny, Holmes?”

“Here am I, yet again restoring my precious Stradivari to its case… do you recall the conversation, Watson? As you have pointed out, it feels recent to me, but it’s eight years ago for you.”

“It is, but I do recall. Yes, as soon as we leave here, violin and case will both cease to exist—but we will not.”

He considered briefly, then finished stowing the violin and the bow. He closed the case and snapped the catches, then finally turned to face me.

A compliment would not hurt, I thought. “I rather liked what you were playing.”

“Thank you, Watson. However, I doubt you came here merely to listen to my extemporising.”

“No, I didn’t… I’d like to talk to you, Holmes, if I may. But I have a thirst, and I’m starting to feel hungry. Would you mind if we went somewhere else?”

“I can have Mrs Hudson make us some coffee and sandwiches.”

Giving our domestic system the name of our former housekeeper was one thing, but the thought of encountering her in simula was, as Mary might say, a creepout. A simula, however faithful in the physical sense, is a soulless thing. Whereas, I absolutely had to believe, compiled humans were not.

Fortunately I had another excuse, and a solid one, ready to hand. “Holmes, you know that simulated food and drink has little taste, and certainly gives no real sustenance.”

He shook his head. “No, I confess I had not considered that. Though now you mention it I do recall that the smoke of my pipe lacked any real savour.”

“And you haven’t been allowed to poison yourself with the real thing,” I couldn’t resist saying.

“I seem to remember you being just as enthusiastic a smoker as I. Indeed, I seem to recall you recommending tobacco to me, and to others, for relaxation and the relief of pain.”

“The dangers were not well understood until the later 20th century. But by the Millennium, tobacco-smoking was generally considered to be among the most significant avoidable causes of death.”

“And yet death remains inevitable for all…” said he in a light, musing tone. “Unless the miracles of this age extend even further than I have heard.”

“No, and there is sound medical reason for believing that true immortality is unattainable… but shall we go?”

“As you wish,” said he amiably, gesturing to me to precede him to the door. As we left I saw him looking at his ulster on the coat-rack. “You won’t need that,” said I. In fact, being part of the sim, it wouldn’t survive anyway.

“Ah… looking out, I had judged the temperature to be between thirty-five and forty degrees, but… it is easy to forget, is it not?”

We descended the stairs and stepped out into the corridor. I guided Holmes toward the left and as we began to walk he said, “You were speaking of life-expectancy.”

“Yes. We learned recently that Mary’s original—you understand the concept, don’t you?” He nodded. “Her original, born in 2125, died in 2233, at the age of one hundred and eight. You know how exceptional that would have been in Victorian days, but now it’s by no means unusual, especially on Mars.”

“Why on Mars particularly?”

“Partly because of the lighter gravity.” I decided to spare him discussion of the mixed blessings of the lower g. for those who failed to maintain a rigorous exercise régime. “Partly because the environment is generally clean, whereas Earth remains blighted by residual pollution.”

“If lower gravity is beneficial,” he asked, “Why is gravity here not lower? I am right in thinking it is a matter of choice, am I not?”

“You are.” I was a little surprised. He seemed to have absorbed more in a few conscious days than I had expected. This is Sherlock Holmes, I reminded myself. “It’s determined by the rate of rotation. There are levels—deeper into the rock—where you can experience the equivalent of Martian gravity. But the gravity on this level matches the mainl—planet below.”

“I am aware that ‘mainland’ is a vernacular expression for the world below us,” said he, half amused, half reproving.

We reached the spensary. As I’d hoped, it was quiet, only two other tables occupied. This was never the most popular location, and it was past the lunchtime peak. I was reminded once more that I was hungry. “What would you like, Holmes?”

“What would you recommend?”

“Would you prefer something familiar, or are you open to new sensations?”

“One does not have to be an exceptional reasoner to deduce that there was something particular you wished to say to me, and something of substance at that. I think if you can deliver something reasonably familiar I shall be better placed to give you my full attention.”

“Would a ham sandwich suit you, then?” I did not add that the ‘ham’ had never been within fifty lightyears of a pig. I’d never been able to detect a difference between it and the ‘real’ ham that I found in my memories. “English mustard, or Dijon?”

“I’ll take Dijon with Cheddar cheese, or better still Red Leicester; but with ham, English, every time.”

“And kahvi?”

“Do you mean coffee?”

I gave the table our order for food, fetched the drinks from the spense, and gave an explanation of why we said ‘kahvi’ rather than ‘coffee’. A small interlude of inconsequential chat before the serious business.

With Holmes eyeing me expectantly, I took a quick sip, but the kahvi was too hot for comfort. “I’m very glad we’ve been able to talk amiably this past half-hour. After our previous conversation I was very much afraid I had given lasting offence. I was angry, and I will maintain that I had every right to be, but still I should not have said some of the things I did say. And for that I apologise.”

He inclined his head. “It generally takes more true manliness to apologise than it does to give offence in the first place.”

“Thank you, Holmes. I should have been very sorry if… We’ve been through far too much together, over more than twenty years, to let our friendship founder. Even if—especially if—you are set on going to Earth.” I didn’t need to add what was in my mind; it was surely in his too: because then we may never see each other again.

He blew on his kahvi, stirring ripples, then took a first taste. “Passable. More than passable, in fact. Italian?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” He held the cup in front of him, close below his chiselled jawline. “If I recall correctly, Watson, you said—it was a very clear implication, at any rate—that I had really only lived three days. Which, I don’t deny, was hurtful. Now, however, you say you wouldn’t want to lose my friendship because We’ve been through far too much together, over more than twenty years… and yet just yesterday you described those two decades as a past that never happened. It seems to me you contradict yourself.”

“I’m sure I do. As Mary pointed out to me last night.”

“Your wife seems to be an exceptionally clear thinker for—“

“—If you’re going to say ‘for a woman’, Holmes, restrain yourself, or we shall fall out all over again. And while we’re about it let me remind you that she is not my wife, she’s my partner.”

“I shall endeavour to remember. And please do not think I meany any disrespect to your partner, or to womankind more generally. I would never suggest that their endowments are less than men’s, only that they are qualitatively different.”

“Men being more analytical, women more emotional, I suppose?”

“Since we are speaking specifically of the cognitive processes, I would rather say ‘intuitive’ than ‘emotional’. And I would by no means discount the value of intuition, though it carries little weight in a court of law.”

I thought about that for a moment. I had seen a few cases tried, back in the 19th century. Judges and barristers might seem, at least on the face of it, to be analytical and dispassionate; but jurors were another matter, and any good barrister would happily exploit that fact.

Another thought shouldered to the fore. “I would have wholeheartedly concurred, once, but I’ve shared my life, or significant periods of it, with two women. Both named Mary. And both have taught me a great deal; about many things, but specifically about the true capabilities of their sex. My wife, the first Mary… once we’d been together some time, once she truly trusted me, she revealed a much stronger capacity for reason and analysis than had been apparent at first. It became clear to me that she, and women in general, were often obliged to downplay their analytical capacities, or present deductive conclusions as flashes of intuition, else they risked being called ‘unfeminine’. Added to which, women at that time almost invariably received less education than men, education of a different scope, and, generally, of a lesser quality. It’s hardly surprising if they did not, as a rule, reach the same levels of attainment. It’s surely more of a wonder that some of them did.”

The tabletop informed me that our food was ready, and we rose to collect it. As we settled back into our seats, I picked up the thread. “I seem to recall that the shelves in 221B held several volumes of George Eliot—yet another Mary, by her given name. Consider her attainments, without benefit of a University education. Or consider…” I hesitated just a second. “Irene Adler.”

He swallowed a mouthful of bread and ham. “I thought you might mention her.”

“I could hardly not.”

“Yes, of the few—the very few—who ever bested me at my own game, she is the only woman.”

“You even suggested to me once that she was the only one to have directly had the better of you in a pure battle of wits.”

“Perhaps. But then perhaps Moriarty…” He paused, took a reflective sip. “No, I shall not sully her memory by the comparison… but Watson, however fascinating discussion of the intellectual capabilities of the female may be, we have strayed too long from our original subject. As the word ‘memory’ reminds me.” He bit into his sandwich again.

I tried to remember exactly where we had got to with the ‘original subject’. “I was about to say what Mary told me, wasn’t I?” Mouth full, he merely nodded. “I said something about still being mad at you for leaving me in the dark for three years after Reichenbach.”

“You said so, very clearly.”

“I daresay I did… And Mary said, you can’t tell Sherlock he’s only existed for three days and none of the rest is real… but still be mad at him for something he did in the existence you just denied. That’s near enough verbatim, apart from paraphrasing a couple of Marsie expressions. And she was right, of course. Can’t have it both ways.”

“And yet, I have lived but a few days, but you have known me for twenty years.”

“Or three hundred and fifty, by another reckoning. Yes, it’s all damnably confusing… I suppose, Holmes, what I’m really trying to say, or what I should be saying, is this: I’ve lived with this confusion, these paradoxes, a lot longer than you.”

“That, at least, is irrefutable.”

“Yes. And the only way I’ve been able to reconcile it all… Here’s something that wasn’t known in the Victorian era. Around ninety-eight per cent of the atoms in your body are replaced every year. In that sense, I’m not even the same person I was twelve months ago. Does that worry anyone? Not that I ever heard.” I sipped my kahvi, found it had cooled too far, pressed the button on the base of the cup to rewarm it. “So where do we find continuity? In memories; that’s my answer, Holmes. In memories… but not just the old ones. Living is about forging new memories too.”

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Watson

“Holmes, will you not reconsider your intent to leave? Please understand how much you have meant to me, how much I will miss you.”

Holmes stared at me for long moments. He was often inscrutable but now I could see that something had shaken him. “But you’ll be…” he began finally, and then stopped. “No, you’re not intending to come with me, are you?”

“I never did.”

“But I booked passage for both of us.”

“You did what?”

“I’m sure you heard me.”

“Doctor Merhawi says my hearing is fine, but just at this moment I can’t believe my ears. So kindly humour me, Holmes, and tell me again.”

“I booked passage for two, back to Earth.”

“Back to Earth? Back to Earth? Holmes, there is no ‘back’. To Earth as it is now, there is no ‘back’ in any sense.”

He said nothing, which only fanned my ire. “Holmes, go to Earth. Go to the devil for all I care. But don’t you dare assume I’m going with you.” I turned on my heel, ready to march from the room, then swung back. There was one more thing I had to say. “You’ve taken me for granted once too often.”

I would have left then, but something in his eyes held me, something I had never before seen in the face of Sherlock Holmes: vulnerability.

It didn’t fully defuse my anger, but it did keep me there, gave me the urge to explain myself. “Have you truly grasped, even now, that it’s been eight years? I know, to you it hardly feels more than an afternoon nap. But not to me. Eight years, plus a couple of months. Have you considered for one moment what I’ve been doing all that time?

“I said to Robin once, back in the first days, I was angry at you for leaving me in the dark for three years after Reichenbach. And they were dark, those years… but they’re only memories, and memories of things that never truly happened at that.

“All those events, those people, Mary Morstan, Mycroft Holmes, Irene Adler; they may exist in your head and mine, but for the rest of the universe, they’re just stories. And in the rest of the universe, I didn’t write those stories, it was that damn fellow Arthur Conan Doyle.

“I don’t like it, Holmes, I go months without thinking about it, but I can face it when I have to. Because I’m not the man I was when I first came to my senses in the Baker Street simula. That was eight years ago, and I’ve spent that time building a life. Learning how to be a doctor all over again. Learning how to be a partner, not a Victorian husband. Building real memories. I’ve spent the time living, Holmes. Living.”

I stopped, looked into his face. Doubtless I should have left it there, but something made me twist the knife. “I still have all those other memories, but I don’t dwell in a past that never happened. I know I have the body of a man in his fifties but I’ve only lived eight years in real life. But you, Holmes, you had three days and then you ran off and hid yourself in coldsleep. What have you done, in real life, as a conscious Incarnate human?”

I couldn’t bear his gaze any longer. I spun on my heel again and this time neither stopped nor looked back.

‘“Can’t sleep?”

I grunted as if only half awake, but Mary wasn’t fooled. “It’s Sherlock, ain’t it?”

“You know me too well.”

She shifted about, found my hand, guided it to her head, the smooth cool skin of her scalp. A small murmur of satisfaction told me she liked the touch too. We lay like that, in the dark, for a moment, then she said. “I knew something wa’nt right soonas you came in this evening. It di’nt seem like you wanted to talk ‘bout it, tho.”

“The stiff upper lip. Very Victorian of me.”

“Hakuna matata.”

“What’s that?”

“Swahili, I think. Means ‘nil worries’… but you are worried, ain’t ya? And it might be prop’ly Victorian to bottle it all up, but—hate to break it to ya, John, but you’re a vrai long way from Victorian London. Time and space.”

I sighed. “You’re right. You’re always right.”

She chuckled. “I’d ne’er say that.”

“About me, I meant. I sometimes think you know me better than I know myself.”

“Mayhaps. But I dunno what happed ‘tween you and Sherlock.”

“I don’t know what’s worse,” said I, “What he did, or what I said.”

“Start at the beginnin’.”

I told her what Holmes had done. “The cullion!” she exclaimed, sitting up. “What right…?”

After a moment she laid back down, nestled her head against my hand again; settling in for a long haul.

“Taking me for granted,” said I. “Again. Just like after Reichenbach.”

“Yem, ‘kay. So you waxed rageous; reck I woulda too. Then what?”

“Well, I gave him a piece of my mind about having no right.”

“Takin’ you for granted.”

“Yes, all of that. But it wasn’t just that that got me rileous.”

I could have sworn I felt her smile, as if some trace of the movement reached all the way to the back of her head, like the little creases that appeared when she tilted her head back. I didn’t need to ask why she was smiling. I’m deeply familiar with her Redder Ling now, but rarely essay it myself. She always smiles when I do—which is sufficient reason not to overdo it.

‘What else, then?” she asked.

“He talks about going back to Earth, but the fact is he’s never been there.”

“Not as an Incarnate.”

“Exactly. As an Incarnate his entire existence has been here. And if you don’t count coldsleep, the sum total of his existence is only a few days. But… well, that’s the thing I did. I reminded him of that fact. Rubbed his nose in it.”

“No fair, with that nose.”

I laughed, but briefly. “Seriously, though, I told him he’d never had a real life, beyond those days.”

“What’d he say?”

“Nothing. Not a word. He just… looked at me. A look like I’ve never seen on his face before.”

She was silent for a couple of breaths, thinking. Then: “John, when you said A look like I’ve never seen on his face before… Was that ‘never in those few days’, or was it, ‘never in the twenty-whate’er years I’ve known him’?”

It was my turn to be silent. Silenced. Finally I managed, “Told you you know me better than I know myself.”

“Minds me of a time, vrai early on. Mighta been first day I knew you. You said you grieved for your wife.”

“That was our first night, if I recall aright.”

“And I said it was a real feeling. Real as anythin’ anyone feels. Real as your anger ‘bout… him lettin’ you think for three years he was dead. But you gotta mull, John; if you can feel rileous ‘bout somethin’ that happed… when?”

“1894.”

“Somethin’ that happed in 1894, only it din’t. It was just in a story that you wrote. ‘Cept that you didn’t; it was that cullion Doyle.”

“I call him names too, but he was just a man making up stories.”

“Makin’ up stories, yem. But… d’you prend yet, John? You can’t tell Sherlock he’s only ‘xisted for three days and none of the rest is real… and yet still be ragin’ at him for somethin’ he did in the ‘xistence you just negged.”

I looked up at the ceiling. There was the merest hint of light there, no texture, nothing to tell the eye whether it was a metre away or ten thousand lightyears. I turned to look at her, her profile just discernible, dark on dark. Then the profile shifted as she turned toward my gaze, one eye yielding a faint glitter for an ephemeral instant. My hand now cradled the side of her neck.

“By damn,” said I, “You’re right. You are such a smart woman.”

‘Dunno ‘bout that,” said she with a shrug. “Sometimes, for any of us, it’s just easier for someone else to see what we can’t.”

“I think I owe Holmes an apology.”

“Yem, but he owes you one too.”

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Mary

Next mornin I was at dockin level bright ’n’early, or at least early. I was preflightin the skiff’s systems when I heard a rapid tattoo on the bulkhead. Three’n’two: Service rhythm. I turned and saw Aurel stoopin in the portal, shipsuited.

“Mornin, Commander,” ve said. “Permission to come aboard? Thought you could use a cope.”

I din’t xactly need a co-pilot on such a routine run, but it ne’er hurts, and it’d give us fulsome time to gab. “Welcome aboard, L-Com. You flown this class before, or is it obsolete now?” Ve hesitated, but veir face blew the game. “Dun’t fret it. Be a sprise if they weren’t.”

The craft might be an antique, but the principles of orbital mechanics don’t change. Ve was a fully qualled pilot, I could see from the red margin to her L-Com stripes, so I recked all ve needed was a quick tiki round the controls and we’d be hunky. By the time this was done the passengers were boarding, and it’s the cope’s job to check ‘em in and get ‘em settled. I listened with half an ear and it was clear Aurel had done it all before. I just leaned my head out for a quick meet-greet when they were all seated.

There were bulkheads behind our seats, to give mountings for supplementry instrumentation, and on the aft side screens for passenger info; but there was nil door tween ‘em. Our conversation wasn’t gonna be hundred-per private. But I’d roundgazed the cabin and there were nil other Marsies on board. Aurel was the only Redder on the Rangitīkei’s complement; one outa forty-four’s prob’ly a fair match for the ratio in the Service, and well better than the general population of the Solar System—the Home System, as they were callin it now.

Bein the only two Marsies on board gave me an idea, but I let it huddle while we got the skiff clear of the Orbiter and into the ballistic phase of the descent. Then I turned aface vem.

I rarely gab fullon Redder Ling on Trev. I was a mote fretty I’d be outa practice, or Ling itself coulda morphed; we’d see. “Nos gotta brace a hours avans atmos. Ripe for some sapid gab, jo reck: tu?”

Ve blinked twice, then smiled. Sense dubte, ve grokked what I was hintin. “Absolutament. Jo bin avid for vrai tetatet des de que adventin.”

“Achcha.” Service-Hinglish there, not Redder, but I’m flexy.

And I reck that much more of the fullon gab ain’t gallant tward readers, so I’m modratin it but tryin to preserve the flavour.

“It’s not fortuit you’re my cope today, I reck,” I said.

“Nen, I volunteered. Figged it for best chance.”

“Happydays. So… you wanna jump the dune, or shall I?”

Ve shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Choice. Well, I bin wondrin. I know we gabbed ‘bout why you came… diff query, but cognate. Whatya reck might happ, whatya might do, if ya stay?”

Veir face waxed troublous. “I dunno yet, really. Dunno enough ‘bout what’s down there. Today’s just the start.”

“Fairnuff. ‘Kay, ask you another way. What didya like best at school?”

“Maths, I reck. Science gen’rally. I—“ Ve grimfaced. “Soz. I was gonna say I mighta got that from you. Helpin me with homework when I was a midge. But that weren’t you…”

I shrugged. Ve was startin to prend that I wa’nt veir Granmadda; I di’nt need to headbeat vem o’er it. “If maths and science are in the genes, then mayhaps you sorta did. But helpin you with homework, nen, that ain’t parta my memories.” I glanced over again: veir face was pensive in the multichroma lumina of the panels. “Sounds choice, tho.”

“It was.” Ve turned to straightgaze me: “Can I share another mem’ry? Another you-not-you mem’ry?”

“Sureas.”

“It was y—she took me Out, first times I ‘member. I musta been six, ish. Soonas I was big enough for a suit and smart enough to heed protocol. Daytimes, first, for trainin, but soon we were goin out nights too. Ayond the mesa, outa the lightspill. Just bare-eye observin at first. The Milky Way, the planets. And watchin the moons, ‘course. Explainin why Phobos rises in the West and Deimos in the East. Once I grokked that, I loved it.” A flashquick smile. “Mayhaps what I loved was feelin I’m smart enough to prend it. But I ne’er stopped likin to watch the moons.”

“Me neither.”

“Well, ‘course, you—I’m doin it again, ain’t I?”

“Me-not-me,” I said, firm but not fierce. “Heed, night afore I left, I took a full backpack, long hike, ended up toppa Nili Tholus. I knew there was a moonpass due… you know, when I was a litlun I used to wonder why they’d ne’er collided. Anyvent, I wanted that memory.”

Mouth suddenly dry, I sucked on the hydratube in my suit. “That’s nigh the last memory I shared with your Granmadda. Dunno if she e’er said anythin ‘bout this, but… when you get deepscanned, you’re…” I stopped, thinkin hard. “It’s kinda vexy thinkin how to xplain this. And mayhaps some people don’t think too much bout it, but me… I/she knew I/she was goin into that suite, but I/she knew after a few hours I/she’d get up and walk out again; life’d go on. And it did: she raised my/her kid, and ventually she had a kid of her own, and she helped raise vem too. But I—this-I—only knew that cause we got the tight-bursts from Earth, and last I heard that way you were fourteen years old. Seven and a half, M-years.

“Am I makin any sense? It’s hard to mull, this. Cause I went in knowin I’d come out and be her and live her life—an if I wanted I could forget I e’er e’en got deepscanned. Cept I also knew that, if all went well, I’d wake up here, Trevallan system. It’d be fifty-and years in the future, but for me it’d just be like I’d slept a night, only woken up somewhere different. Like getting the sleeper from Nili Patera to Tyrrhenus Mons.”

“Only a mote further,” ve said.

“Sureas, but it din’t feel like it. Anyvent, I’m makin a short story into a longun. Point, I knew there’d be two Mary Syrtis Mall’stang, two timelines, two lives. And maybe they’d never meet, maybe they’d never even know anythin ‘bout what happed to the other—”

“—Vrai, Granmadda never knew anythin ‘bout what happed to you.”

I nodded. “’Course. None of you did, didya? None of you could know, when you loaded on the Rangitīkei, what you’d find here. Musta been kinda scary.”

“Kinda,” ve agreed, lookin at the panels, a blue glim flectin in veir eye.

“But you still came hopin to settle.”

“Yem… but afore I gab ‘bout that, had you finished what you were sayin?”

‘Mostwise. Just… that night up on Tholus, watchin the moonpass, was one time I really thunk about bein two people. Mosta my life, ‘course, it wa’nt even bein considered. A few months afore the launch I saw the appeal for volunteers. Mulled on it and I guess I just thunk why not? It’s gonna cost me half a day and then life goes on. Cause prob’ly everyone does think, mostwise, as the person who’s gonna get up outa that scanner and go back to their life. But if you do any introspectin at all you’re gonna think about the other as well. Only… that un’s future is maxly unpredictable, so how do you visage it? One future, one self, feels a lot more real, more certain, than the other. But up on Tholus I really thunk ‘bout both; both of me. And I wanted a memory that would mean somethin to both.” Ve was back straightgazin me now. “I dunno if your Granmadda e’er said anythin ‘bout it.”

Ve got a mully look afore speakin. “Not specificly; least, not to me. But she did like watchin the moons, and she’d always go Out for a close pass or eclipse if she could. And sometimes… Yem, sometimes she’d go very quiet, watchin. I think sometimes she’d sigh.”

I felt a strong impulse to reach for veir hand. I woulda, cept I knew it would be visible to half the passengers. We just gazed each other a minim, and then I coughed and unclipped. “I’m gonna spense some kahvi. You favour anythin?”

“The spense got demicaf?”

“Know it. I made sureas it did.”

Ve smiled. “Mighta guessed. Granmadda always opted demi, cept in the last few years she went full deke. Spose I picked it up from her.”

“Black, without?”

“One hundred-per unadult’rated.”

“Now I prend we’re kin.”

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Watson

“I was a key tech on the Incarnation programme almost from the beginning,” said Robin. “And even before that, during my training, I’d started wondering… You know, Incarnation normally means replicating the complete bioprofile of a living person. And that’s a lot of data, yottabytes. A hundred trillion cells in the average human body, a hundred trillion atoms in each cell; ten to the power twenty-eight atoms.” Ve shrugged. “Your genome’s less than a gigabyte, which is why cloning is way more trivial than compiling. But cloning doesn’t recreate an adult, it creates a zygote. It then takes twenty years to produce an adult, and since you can never completely replicate nurture, the end result isn’t the same person anyway.”

I looked at Holmes, sitting in his compiled Victorian clothes, listening attentively. Brilliant as he undoubtedly was, how far could he follow what Robin was saying? Eight years ago, I had known considerably more than he about the inner workings of the human body, and eight years ago I would have understood very little.

Well, I thought, if he wants to know, he can ask.

Robin tasted veir drink and pushed veir hair back. “We’d all talked about it, in training. They’d set us an essay under our ethics module: basically if you could, should you?, but of course it starts you thinking: could you? And: Has anyone tried? And that thought stayed with me.

“Then I signed up and got deepscanned and this-I woke up here. I had that memory—and now I was living in a world where every single one of us was an Incarnate. I’ve come to think that… you know, you might be exactly the same person, down to your fingerprints, your microbiome, your every last memory, but as soon as you come to consciousness as an Incarnate… I think, right from that moment, it changes you. It’s a shift of perspective. A different frame of reference. You might have the same systems but they’re working with new data.”

Ve sipped veir drink again: a compiled claret. There wasn’t a vast choice of wine, but all of it was good. There would have been very little point, all things considered, in skimping on the cost of a few bottles for scanning. “Anyway, I think my perspective changed. The idea of compiling someone from scratch had never been more than a tantalising thought-experiment before. Now… well, I guess it became a bit of an obsession. And of course I had access to a system that was easily capable of handling yottabytes, did it every time we loaded another datapearl and… well, you know. Any QuasI can juggle yottabytes and hellabytes while standing on one leg and singing every aria from Adebayo’s operas simultaneously—and they’d given us one that could run Luna. Future-proofing, I guess. Asking it to model a compilation wouldn’t even begin to stretch it. I could have a clear conscience about that, at least.”

Robin shook veir hair back, looked at Holmes. “I’m sorry, Mr Holmes. Is this too much detail, or not enough? Is this what you wanted?”

Holmes gave vem a brief smile. It wasn’t much, but he’d never been lavish with his smiles. “I cannot pretend to grasp all the details, but I think I see the broader picture. Might I, however, ask one question?”

“Of course.”

“I gather that the literary exploits of Holmes—and Watson—extend beyond 1902, but you chose to… how shall I say…? extract us at that point. I am bound to wonder why.”

“That’s a good question,” said Robin. “I’m not sure I can give you a totally rational answer. There are only a few stories set after 1902, and… well, I don’t fund them quite so compelling, so partly it’s just my personal taste. But also I thought if we were going to Incarnate Sherlock Holmes, we should see him—you—full of experience but still in your prime. If we’d gone all the way up to His Last Bow you’d both have been twelve years older.”

Holmes smiled. “Then I must thank you.”

Mary leaned close, addressed me privately. “Dory for me. I always liked bein’ older’n you.”

“Pray continue.,” said Holmes. “This is fascinating.”

Robin beamed, and I was reminded again that Holmes had been a hero-figure for vem; and even though this Holmes was in many ways veir own creation, the admiration remained. “Thank you. You must have worked out I’m not a real cop. Perhaps it was an oversight, but nobody on our complement had law enforcement training. The Spacers can enforce Service discipline, but as soon as the Triumvirate was formed they agreed there should be some civilian enforcement too. I guess I volunteered because of my amateur interest.”

I glanced at Mary. It had been a few weeks before she’d told me she wasn’t just an operations officer, she was head of the department; weeks more before she confirmed she was one of the Triumvirate. Perhaps she’d assumed I could work it out for myself, but I’d still been spending most of my time feeling like a fish out of water—a feeling which occasionally bedevilled me even now.

The Triumvirate originated because there were three Incarnates with the rank of Commander (and none above). The protocols they’d inherited dictated that the officer with the longest experience at that rank should assume overall command, but Kenji Masuda, who held that distinction, felt that imposing a quasi-military structure on a population that was sixty per cent civilian was likely to lead to tension. My impression was that, even among the Spacers specifically, discipline was more often by consensus than command. And on wider matters, though the Triumvirate sat together on the Council, they didn’t invariably speak or vote as one.

Robin took a little more wine and resumed. “Even with the QuasI doing the modelling, it took nearly six years. That’s mostly because I didn’t have that much time to devote to the project. Between running the compilers and the occasional police work, I was lucky if I could manage three hours a week.

“It wasn’t the physical side that was difficult. We had the text, which doesn’t actually say masses about Holmes’s physical appearance, and even less about Watson’s; and we had a selection of the original Paget illustrations. We know Arthur Conan Doyle gave them his seal of approval, but occasionally they seem to be at odds with the text. In those cases, the text is always paramount.” I shifted uneasily and Mary gave my hand a discreet squeeze. She well knew—she grokked—that mention of Doyle, of our fictional origins, still made me uncomfortable. Eight years on, I’d managed to put it largely out of my mind, until now.

“Still,” continued Robin, “We didn’t have much to go on. We took what we could, stirred in the Paget engravings, but there’s still a lot that we had to… extrapolate.”

I had heard this before, and it hadn’t pleased me then; but Mary had been at pains to assure me that whatever cocktail of influences had determined my physical nature, she was happy enough with the end result. Nor were her reassurances confined to the verbal…

To Holmes, however, all this was new, unless there had been some private conversation between him and Robin of which I knew nothing. I thought this unlikely, because if there had been Robin would hardly need to relate the whole story now. I wondered what Holmes was thinking, but he was in his most sphinx-like guise, eyes half-closed. Some might have assumed he was drowsing, but I knew he could observe far more through nearly-shuttered lids than most people would with eyes wide open. I had no doubt that his attention was entirely focused on Robin and his stillness merely reflected his belief that extraneous movement was a waste of energy. I had seen meditating sādhus in India who fidgeted more than Holmes.

This preternatural immobility may have been an asset to him as a detective, but it was frustrating for anyone who wished to divine the tenor of his thoughts. There was simply no way to tell how he felt. It did not mean, I reminded myself, that he was feeling nothing.

Robin moved on. “In some ways character and personality were easier, because we had a lot more to work with. Taking all the novels and stories, up to 1902, gives us well over six hundred thousand words, and most of those tell us something, directly or indirectly, about the character of one or both men. But if we had more material to work with, it also had a lot more work to do. There’s simply no way it would have been possible without the QuasI to do the heavy lifting… and it still took us six years.

“Along the way, I’m sure our QuasI significantly extended its own theory of mind—which is probably good news for every one of us, on the Orbiter and on the mainland. I’ve talked to Dr Merhawi about this, maybe one day writing a paper together. Suggesting QuasIs need to read more novels… In fact…” Ve turned toward me, hair falling across one eye. “Perhaps Dr Watson would be interested too? I think you must have a unique perspective.”

“If you think I would have something to contribute… Would you consider asking Holmes as well?”

“Of course, but… well, you’ve had eight years experience of Incarnate existence. “

“Whereas I have only a few days on which to reflect,” said Holmes.

“Yes,” said I, “But wouldn’t it be valuable to have both perspectives? The one who’s, in effect, freshly vived, still coming to terms with it all, as well as the one who’s lived with it for years; who barely remembers, most of the time, how unusual his creation actually was?”

“Of course,” said Robin. “I know, Mr Holmes, you’re thinking of leaving us when the Rangitīkei goes… d’you think you could find some time before then to talk with me, and with Doctor Merhawi? If we can find a time that suits us all.”

Holmes gave a thin smile. “I am at your disposal, Inspector. With the one proviso, of course, that both you and I might be otherwise engaged if an interesting criminal case should arise.”

That might have been meant as a joke, I thought. It was often hard to tell, with Holmes. It had taken me years to assure myself that he did possess a sense of humour, albeit one dryer than the surface of Mars.

Robin, who appreciated the unlikeliness of that eventuality, smiled. “Thank you. I’ll speak to Doctor Merhawi, see if we can come up with a time.” Ve pushed veir hair back again. Though nearly always braided or coiled up, it was stubbornly given to escaping its bonds. “On the subject of crime, I said before I’m not a real cop.”

“I reck you’re bein unfair on yourself,” said Aurel, who’d been silently attentive. “You can be real ‘thout bein full-time.”

Robin gave vem a warm smile. I don’t know exactly what’s going on between those two, thought I, but there’s certainly something. “I’m part-time, and most of my training’s come from books… I don’t just mean the Sherlock Holmes canon,” ve added with a sly little grin. Having pegged vem as a young man at first, I was now more inclined to see vem as a woman. What I still found hard was to truly see vem as neither. I’d said to vem once, a propos of just this, ’If I disappoint you, Robin, I can but plead that you made me too thoroughly Victorian, and thus have only yourself to blame.’

“I’m a compiler tech with a sideline in police work,” ve said now. “And Inspector is very much a courtesy title. Which might be why the Council agreed that if there ever was a murder, they’d let me implement my crazy plan. I guess they reckoned I’d need all the help I could get.”

Holmes stirred in his seat. “As I’ve said before, Inspector, I have no doubt you would have apprehended the miscreants in the Hental Shemza case. I am happy to accept credit for helping you bring the matter to a timely conclusion, but no more than that. After all, as I’ve said to Watson on numerous occasions, you know my methods, all you have to do is apply them. And it’s clear that you are thoroughly cognisant of my methods.”

“Thank you, Mr Holmes. So the credit still belongs to you, just indirectly.” Holmes waved one thin hand. “There’s another explanation. Maybe the Council just got sick of me applying for clearance. Fair enough, it was a bit of an obsession.” More than a bit, I thought, as would be apparent to anyone who’d been listening.

Mary sat up a little. “In case anyone dun’t know, I’m on the Council. And I was there that day. You can say ‘obsession’, Robin, but don’t assume we were sick of you.”

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I should say that, having read the book years ago, this time I absorbed it as an audiobook, read by Stephen Fry. Fry has a voice well-suited to the period, and ably recreates some of the inflections now mostly known only through old movies and newsreels (TV recordings from that time being rare). Still, though I have great admiration for Stephen Fry in many ways, I must admit to being a fraction underwhelmed with his reading here, which at times could feel just a little ponderous. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who for me is the new gold standard1, especially in the reading of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series—a rare case for me where book are actually better in audio than on the page.

Moving on…

The Midwich Cuckoos harks back to ancient legends of changelings, ‘fairy children’ and so on, and is also almost precisely contemporaneous with the iconic movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), with which it shares many themes (itself based on a 1954 novel by Jack Finney). Similar ideas recur again and again in movies like the rather more upbeat Cocoon (1985).

The book opens with a mysterious event, later called ‘the day out’, affecting the quiet English village of Midwich. Every human and animal in a zone extending 2 miles around the village is rendered unconscious for a day; aerial photos show a silvery object at the centre. This vanishes and everyone wakes with no memory of the interval and no visible ill-effects.

However, some months later, it becomes clear that every woman of child-bearing age has fallen pregnant. For me the chapters dealing with the initial reactions to this are some of the strongest in the book; 1950s morality to the fore as innocent teenagers and married women whose husbands were absent around the crucial time fall under suspicion of ‘immorality’ while a—more mature—’maiden lady’ protests the vile implications in the strongest terms… until her equally virginal companion reveals that she is in the same situation.

To avert a wider scandal, Midwich retreats into isolation, aided by Government agencies and a local research establishment, ‘the Grange’. As the Children (soon labelled with the capital C) arrive, it becomes clear that they are, at least, unusual, being similar in appearance with striking golden eyes. Over time it becomes clear that even as babies they possess unusual mental powers, being able to influence their mothers from leaving them for any length of time.

In Part 2, the Children—no lonegr resident with their birth families but at the Grange—have reached the age of nine, but look more like sixteen-year-olds. It has become clear that they are also linked in some way—telepathy or something similar—with each other. There are, in fact, two collective consciousnesses or partial hive-minds—and this is very 1950s: one composed of the boys, one of the girls. If one of the boys reads a book, for example, all the boys know what’s in it—but not the girls. Alien they may be (as almost everyone by now recognises) but they aren’t immune to gender stereotypes.

Still more alarmingly, their mind control abilities have advanced. When a local youth accidentally injures one of the Children with his car, their reaction forces him to accelerate into a wall, killing himself. When enraged locals march on the Grange, seeking some sort of retribution, they are made to turn on each other instead, with several more deaths.

When challenged by characters such as Bernard Westcott (linked in some way to military intelligence) and the resident intellectual Gordon Zellaby, the Children are quite open about their superiority and the inevitability of their future dominance.

While the main narrator is Richard Gayford, Zellaby is the real key character, albeit prone to lengthy philosophical monologues—and these are an element which will undoubtedly irritate many modern readers. Zellaby discourses on femininity and the ‘nature of Woman’ in a way that would surely have raised eyebrows among many even at the time (and before, if the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft could have seen it); but never does he, ostensibly the voice of reason, question that ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ will manifest in the same way in the Children, even though they are—as he well knows—not human.

There’s another monologue a little later, where he challenges the understanding of humans as a product of terrestrial evolution. Not, we should add, from a religiously-based creationist perspective, but to raise the idea that humans themselves might descend from or have been ‘elevated’ by some previous alien incursion—also a theme explored widely in SF, not least by Arthur C Clarke2.

This is all very well, but much of Zellaby’s argument rests on racial theories which were already under challenge at the time of writing. If we are to take Zellaby as a proxy for Wyndham himself—which the repeated indulgence in monologues might suggest—it’s disconcerting to say the least. Phrases such as ‘fixed and distinctive characteristics of race’ now strike the reader as both obnoxious and thoroughly debunked.

This is all the more a pity because Zellaby is so much the moral centre of the book; and it’s he who takes the decisive action at the dénoument. There are no further spoilers coming, I promise; let’s just say that he takes a clear position on a fundamental existential question when everyone else is still dithering. Which is all very well, but it is harder to take when some of Zellaby’s attitudes are so unpalatable.

Of course, if you read classic literature, whether it’s from the 1950s, 1850s or even earlier, you have to confront problematic attitudes. One of the greatest of them all, Jane Austen, directs her exceptionally clear gaze on the difficulties and limitations of being female more than 200 years ago, but there’s no suggestion that she, or any of her characters, are advocating even for the kind of feminism that Mary Wollstonecraft was propounding when Austen was still in her teens.

What I find alluring about The Midwich Cuckoos is mainly its intense Englishness. In some ways it harks back to an image of England that was already on the wane, but still lingered in places as the Swinging Sixties and the ‘white heat of the technological revolution’ gathered pace. And—reminding you that it was published in the year of my birth—an image that I recognise from life as well as from Miss Marple and Midsomer Murders.

There have been and still are many fine English and British science fiction writers. There are fewer, however, who’ve written books that feel so intensely located here. Pre-eminently, there’s H G Wells (at a couple of points in The Midwich Cuckoos Wyndham explicitly references The War of the Worlds); an interesting example, not just because he’s a far greater writer but because he often seems, even writing sixty years earlier, to embody a more progressive world-view. Among more modern writers I’d make a case for M John Harrison; and there is, of course, Terry Pratchett. Yes, Discworld is fantasy, and fantasy is much more deeply rooted in British and European traditions, but Pratchett wrote SF too, most notably in collaboration with Stephen Baxter3.

Final thoughts? Provided you can negotiate the problematic elements The Midwich Cuckoos is a fine novel, though not, perhaps a truly great one, and well worth reading for its place in the history of the genre. Approach it forewarned, and you’ll find plenty to chew on even if you have to spit a few bits out.

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Watson

“What the deuce!” said Holmes, “By thunder, Watson, have you taken up my penchant for disguise?”

“Not exactly.”

I hadn’t given special consideration to my attire that morning. For me, eight years had passed, and my notions of ‘normal’ had shifted. What I had once accepted uncritically as markers of gender, in dress and other aspects of appearance, were of little or no significance to those around me. I hadn’t gone all the way in emulation; as Mary said, why get vexy, just be comf’table.

Holmes might have looked even more askance at a different time, but I’d come straight from the clinic, and I’d long honoured the the convention that professionals were deemed neutral when at work. Accordingly I’d started the day in teal culottes and navy rollneck.

My hair was longer, but this morning it was simply brushed back off my face. I occasionally flattered myself I bore some resemblance to the famous Stieler portrait of Beethoven. I may have defied the march of time in some respects, I am certainly thinner and fitter, but eight years had undeniably added grey to my hair.

At least Holmes had the kindness not to remark on the fact that I was now, somatically, a full ten years older than he was.

I looked down into his face. “Holmes. What do you remember? Your last memory.”

It took him a moment. “The… cryogenic suspension chamber.” He attempted to sit up.

“Take your time, Holmes. You’ve been under for a long time.”

‘How long, pray?”

“Eight years.” He absorbed that in silence. I waited, watching, wondering how he would take it. One reaction that I hadn’t anticipated was a peal of laughter. “What’s so funny, Holmes?”

“Eight years,” said he. “Eight years, and not one case worthy of reviving me? Were you ever even tempted, Watson?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. The truth was, there was virtually no crime on the Orbiter itself, one reason being that—as he himself had observed in our early days—the QuasI had eyes and ears everywhere. Though evidently effective, this had initially struck me as highly intrusive, but I soon learned that all its observations were consigned to something called sequestered memory: not only did no human have access to any of the records, they were hidden even from the QuasI’s own core consciousness. Only activity flagged by autonomous sub-routines—criminal behaviour or medical emergency, for instance—would be released to wider awareness.

Surveillance on the surface, however, was mostly localised in the few nucleated settlements which were beginning to develop, though so far confined to one region of the Northern temperate zone. For those with a mind to flout a law or two, there was far more scope down on the mainland. Perhaps, however, the speedy apprehension of the diamond-digging murderers, Shinsuke and Cattrill, had deterred others. Or perhaps, as I’d once suggested to Robin after a few drinks, potential criminals on Trevallan simply lacked imagination. Mary had almost choked on her wine in mirth, but she hadn’t been able to refute me.

There was, however, another reason why I was slow to answer Holmes’s question: a nagging guilt. For seven years, my memories told me, I’d visited my wife’s grave at least every few weeks. In eight years, I’d visited the coldsleep suite precisely twice. There had been something about the dead-but-not-dead figure, stretched unmoving in his coffin-like resting-place, that made me feel like I, too, was being chilled beyond any normal limit of survival.

After the second visit, I’d tried to explain myself to Mary. At once she’d said, “I prend ‘xactly. Mega-creepout. And it ain’t doin’ him any good: why drag yourself?”

I’d been silent too long. Holmes made another essay at sitting up, this time a little more convincing. I moved to help him. He settled his back against the raised end of the chamber. “Curious,” said he reflectively, “I’d thought I would feel cold.”

“They keep you sedated until your body temperature’s normalised,” I explained. Unlike first vival after compilation, fugue was rare on revival from coldsleep, but not unknown; I would monitor him carefully.

He nodded. “Well, Watson, one hardly needs to eliminate the impossible to conclude that there has been, in eight years, no case which approached the criterion I set. But dare I hope that one has now arisen?”

“No, it’s your other condition which has been met.”

“Ah.” He tilted his head, remembering. “If a ship should arrive from Earth, by means effectively faster than light, and offering the possibility of similarly rapid travel back to Earth.” It was hardly a superhuman feat of recollection. In his own subjective time, he had penned those words, at most, forty-eight hours ago. “Eight years, Watson. It would seem to vindicate my choice.”

“Only you can say whether you feel vindicated.” His complacent regard stirred a small tendril of irritation. “For myself, I feel completely vindicated in my choice to remain awake. To live.”

‘I am glad for you.” I could not tell if he was sincere, but elected to accept the comment at face value.

“And now,” said he, “The implication of your words, and your presence here, is that just such a ship has arrived—or is at least in the offing?”

“Arrived two days ago,” I told him. He arched a brow and I hastily added, “We needed to confirm they would be able and willing to carry passengers back to Earth before initiating your revival.”

“I see.”

“But their capacity is limited and there may be others who wish to do the same, so if that is still what you want, you would be advised to get your name on the list as soon as you are able.”

“I shall make it my first business when I am able to move… tell me, Doctor, how long might that be?”

“I’ve never revived anyone from coldsleep before, but I would hope you’ll be able to walk—carefully—within the hour. Muscles don’t exactly atrophy in coldsleep, but it may take a little time to get everything moving again… and to make sure your system is properly fuelled.” With that in mind, I handed him a flask with a drinking tube. “Mostly glucose, some electrolytes.”

I wondered if he would understand ‘electrolytes’. I can’t always remember which bits of medical science I learned in the nineteenth century and which in the twenty-third. However, Holmes, though no doctor, had been an accomplished analytical chemist. He didn’t question the word, only nodding at my advice to take small sips rather than guzzling the whole immediately.

“How long does the voyage take?” he asked.

“Six or seven weeks, they said.”

“Less time than sailing to Australia,” he mused. “Though long enough… still, Watson, a few weeks, and then… London.”

“Indeed, London. But think about this, Holmes. A few months from now, you can indeed find your way to London, but it will not be the London you remember… I suppose it seems to you like you were there only a few days ago.”

He nodded, sipped again. His voice was already stronger. “It is not quite as clear as that, but it does feel very recent. This interval here feels almost like a dream.”

“I understand, but you must understand that it is not.” It’s the only part of your life that isn’t, I thought. “Holmes, remember that for me it’s eight years since we were Incarnated.” I paused, but he said nothing. “I urge you to consider carefully. You can go to London, but will you recognise it when you get there? It may only feel like a few days to you, a few years to me, but in London well over three centuries have passed since the era lodged in our memory. I’ve looked into it a little, though all our information was at least twenty-four years out of date, until just now.”

“Still, you know something of the London of the twenty-third century.”

“Something.” I wondered where to start. “You’ll remember, as I do, the funeral of Queen Victoria.”

“Of course.”

“And the coronation of Edward VII, though we did not attend in person.”

“A splendid occasion, by all accounts.”

“Now, Holmes, consider this. Edward was crowned Emperor of India as well as King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions. Half a century later, the Empire had essentially gone. India gained independence in, I think, 1947, and is now accounted one of the great powers, unlike the… well, there is no United Kingdom any longer. Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are all independent nations within a European federation, on equal footing with England… and England has no remaining dominions beyond a few scraps like St Helena and South Georgia. The United States, by the way, has also undergone a schism.”

Holmes’s expression betrayed nothing more than mild surprise, but this news had to have made an impact; eight years ago it had shocked me speechless. “These are profound changes, and they are only a small sample. Even in the few days you were conscious you’ve seen some indications of that. Naturally, some things are different here, on a remote outpost, but you cannot imagine that London in 2236 is as it was in 1902.

“If you go to London today, you won’t see coal fires. You won’t see hansom cabs or private automobiles in the streets. You won’t… well, I could go on and on. Imagine for a moment how an ancestor of yours from the London of… what would it be? 1568. Imagine how your Elizabethan forbear might feel, pitched forward to London in 1902.”

“What is your purpose in this, Watson?” he asked quietly. “To persuade me it would be better to remain here? This, also, is not the London of 1902. Perhaps this is even more profoundly different.”

“Perhaps. But here there are people who know you, and care for you. I don’t just speak of myself. Remember that without Robin, without…” l checked myself. “But you may not realise. Our reIncarnation was the culmination of a six-year endeavour on veir part. Ask vem about it some time. In fact… come to our apt tonight.”

“Vem…” he repeated thoughtfully. “Yes, we learned that, but you say it so casually now. Have no fear, Watson, I do understand that many things have changed. But still… in the end, Watson, I am a Londoner, and so are you. Are you not keen to see what three centuries have made of our great city?”

“I would not be human if I did not feel some curiosity.” Yes, a good helping of curiosity, in fact. For the first time, it occurred to me that the advent of the Tangent Drive might mean that it was possible. I could go to Earth, to London. But if I ever did, it would be for a visit, not a permanent return. And even that would be a big step. It was hardly possible for it to take less than six months out of my life, even if ships were going to be plying the route regularly; and, as yet, none of us knew how frequent such journeys might be.

Holmes was almost right: I had been a Londoner. Not born and bred, but I’d called the city home for the best part of three decades. No longer, however. Home, to me, was where I had found work that I could do; good, meaningful, valuable, work. And above even that, home was where Mary was.

His voice broke into my reflections. “You have not answered my question.”

“Which question?”

“Your purpose?”

“I think I have, Holmes. I said you should act quickly if you want to assure yourself of passage on the ship. But, as your friend, I must counsel you also to think very carefully before committing yourself. Have your second thoughts first.”

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Mary

All seemed routine at first, just Captain El Khatib givin it lotsa flattergab ‘bout how well we’d done. He focused on the Orbiter, leavin the mainland till he and his speshlists could get down for a tour. We updated our plans for that, too. All proper cosy and collegiate. Then…

Then he tugged at his beard like a picture of deepthinkin, sucked breath through his teeth. “There is one matter I’m… curious about. There are two names on station records that don’t appear on the original seedship manifests. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. I think we can rule out stowaways…” Twas a joke, I surmised. The seedship’s ambient had been kinda like the Martian Out. Humans might survive fifty seconds, not fifty years.

I smiled, showin I grokked his humour. “That’s easy to explain. They weren’t compiled from deepscan-files.”

“Then how…?”

“One of our techs and the QuasI put the files together. Modelled them exhaustively. Took ‘em years.”

El Khatib folded his arms. “You’re familiar with the case, then.”

Case? I thunk. When did it become a case? “Yem. If we’re talkin ‘bout this, I hafta declare an interest. John Watson is my partner.”

He nodded slightly. He already knew, I realised. “Thank you for your frankness. I wonder if you should recuse yourself from this discussion.”

I bristled. Kenji knew the signs, flashed me a look. “If you wish to discuss this matter, Commander Mall’stang is uniquely knowledgeable.”

“I’m sure your QuasI can provide all the information we might need. And as ranking officer—”

“What did you say?” I said. Kenji gave me another look—nen, this was A Look. I knew what it meant: Stay cool, stay sly. Easier said’n done, but I zipped.

“You remind me, Captain, of an addendum I wish to make to the agenda,” said Kenji.

“Oh?”

“Yes, the question of rank and precedence.” He was better at hidin it, but he was as roughed as I was by El Khatib’s hint at pullin rank.

“We can add that at the end by all means,” said El Khatib.

“With respect,” said Kenji, “I submit it would be better to consider this before we address any substantive issues.”

El Khatib looked like he was ‘bout to harsh that, then shrugged. “Very well, though I’m not sure what there is to discuss. You all hold the rank of Commander; I’m a Captain.”

Kenji gave me the nod, cause he knew what I knew. He di’nt need to retell me to stay calm.

“How old are you, Captain?” I asked.

He looked a mote plexed, but answered readily, “Forty-seven.”

“I was promoted to Commander afore you were born.” I nodded to Kenji Masuda, Kaivai Tupou. “We all were. ‘Course, we ain’t been Incarnate that long, but… I was promoted three-and years afore deepscan. Served fifteen-and years here since bein compiled. Call it nineteen round. And both these guys got more years’n I at rank.

“I know now, my original, back on Mars, she was made Captain ‘bout four years post deepscan. Commodore seven-eight years post that. Dunno, your QuasI may have the records for these guys?”

It did. Kenji’s orig had made Rear Admiral, which di’nt surprise me a mote; Kaivai’s had made Commodore, same as mine, both when younger than we were now.

“I know you can’t stric’ly compare two careers,” I said, “But you’ve been tellin us how well we’ve been doin. How the Service would wish to honour us. Are you really sayin we ain’t worth a stripe or two in fifteen-sixteen years?”

“In theory,” added Kaivai in that bass voice that so matched his broad brown face, “We could, with the QuasI’s concurrence, have awarded ourselves the promotions. Regulations do allow it, in exceptional circumstances.”

“I reck our circs are nearnuff exceptional,” I said. “We conjected it more’n once, but seemed too much like givin ourselves the prizes. But it’s given us a growin problem. We got a lotta good people, been serving ten, twelve, fifteen years. Like my Number Two, L-Comm Parata. She deserves a promo, but what do we do? End up up with fifty, a hundred Commanders?”

“I see your problem,” said El Khatib. “And I admit I may have been over-influenced by… I studied your service records, and your fellow-officers’, during the voyage, but perhaps didn’t take enough account of the time that has passed since.”

“I was forty-four when I was deepscanned,” I said. “I’m closin on sixty now.”

El Khatib nodded. “And I do see that field promotions would be one way for the Service to mark your dedication and your achievements… I have a suggestion. Let both QuasIs consider the matter, taking account of regulations, in conjunction with… do you have any experts in Service law?”

We three looked at each other. “Cautley Alakuyak’s a fine lawyer,” said Kaivai. “Not a Service law specialist, though.”

“Since when’ve we been pedantous ‘bout Service/civ distinctions here?” I said. “Ve’s no stranger to the regs. Can’t think of anyone better.”

“I’ll ping vem,” said Kaivai. “Get things moving.”

“Good,” said El Khatib. “And let me assure you, in the interim, I have no intention of pulling rank. With the usual proviso regarding chain of command in exigent circumstances, but we all hope that won’t happen, inshallah.’

We three crossgazed each other again. Sureas, we were all thinkin pullin rank was xactly what he’d been fixin to do. Maybe we’d made him think again. But who knows?

One thing sureas, he ha’nt finished with Sherlock and John. Soony he was askin ‘bout them again. “It seems to me,” he said, rubbin his beard, “That these Incarnations are a clear breach of the All-System Accords on Compilation.”

“Captain El Khatib,” I said. I’d thunk I’d kept my voice tranq, but Kenji gave me another of his Looks. Gentle as poss, I went on. “I ne’er saw a Spacer with a beard afore. I thunk that was against regs.”

“Regulations change.”

“’Course they do. We have a sayin here: Rules change in far reaches. Rules don’t visage everythin’ we scry here… But that’s my question: when did these Accords pass? Cause I ne’er heard of them, sureas.”

He blinked out a moment, consultin. “2186.”

“Se’nteen years after our seedship launched. And I don’t cred we e’er got word of these Accords in any updates from Earth.” Rather than blink out in my turn, I outlouded the Quasi: “System, did updates from Earth e’er clude anythin ‘bout the All-System Accords on Compilation?”

<<Yes>>

My heart sunk, but I wasn’t done. “When?”

<<Five days ago>>

I allbut bust out laughin. “So eight years ago, when John and Sherlock were Incarnated, there was no possible way anyone here coulda known ‘bout these Accords. Confirm.”

<<Confirmed>>

I looked at El Khatib. “So, what, we’re just supposed to know?”

“Ignorance of the law is no defence,” he said.

“I think it might be,” said Kaivai. “When there’s no conceivable way we could have known about a change in the law. Our people worked within the rules they knew and understood. Would any court really convict in that situation?”

“I think you need to understand the context,” said El Khatib. “The Accords brought in a strict licensing system. Previously, especially on Earth, there were already local restrictions, but you know how easy they are to circumvent—for the privileged, anyway. In ’86, every significant hab except Callisto signed up. The new system introduced a moratorium on whole-body compilation. The only real exception was for situations like yours. You can imagine the scenarios that were looming as the tech became more widespread. People would be clamouring for reprints of loved ones who died suddenly. And what if some zillionaire decided to make fifty copies of vemself?”

I laughed. “Monster ego times fifty? All wantin to be no. 1? It’d be a bloodbath.”

“Perhaps,” he said, not crackin a smile. “The Accords should mean we never have to find out.”

“But you just said there’s an exception,” said Kaivai, “So what’s the problem?”

“The Accords have other provisions. Including a ban on virgin compilation. And there are no exemptions for that.”

Again it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. Virgin compilation. I was thinkin about my first days with John: virgin? Nilway. Under the table I pinched myself, hard, to keep straightfaced.

“I have another question, Captain,” said Kenji. “Perhaps several. Let us suppose you wish to pursue this. The offence, if it was an offence, took place over seven years ago.”

“Eight,” I said.

He nodded, accepting the correction. “Over eight years ago. First, then, one must ask whether a statute of limitations is in place. Second, one must ask, in whose jurisdiction does this fall?” I saw El Khatib’s eyes narrow and knew the point had struck home. It did for me too. Jurisdictions… could be massive. Mayhaps, but Kenji di’nt leave time for anyone to mull it thenthere. “Third, and I think perhaps the most important—because this is where abstract discussion on points of law collides with real people—who would you plan on prosecuting?”

“Not Sherlock and John,” I said instanto. “They’re the two people—mayhaps the only two—you can sureas hold blameless.”

“Of course,” said El Khatib. “In fact that relates directly to one of the main arguments for the proscription on virgin compilation. Everyone else here signed up to be deepscanned. You gave your informed consent. For much the same reason there is a ban on deepscan and compilation of minors, though the age of informed consent is left to individual jurisdictions.”

You’re stallin, I thunk. Anyvent, it wa’nt relevant. There were few kids on Trev yet, all on the mainland, and none past the age of five.

He yanked at his beard. I marvelled there was any of it left. “To create a human being from scratch, which is what virgin compilation means, clearly robs that individual of any right to consent, or to veto the procedure.”

“Ain’t that a slippery argument?” I said. “I don’t recall anyone asking my consent—not to this Incarnation, to bein born.”

“Accepted. But natural conception, gestation, upbringing, are a very different proposition to creating an adult human out of nothing. Doing that, of necessity, involves creating a past, fabricating memories. Don’t you think that’s too close to playing God?”

Playin god. I thunk about that, togethered it with a few other clues. The beard, sayin inshallah. If he was a religious man…

“This sounds like a question for the philosophers,” said Kenji, “Not for—“

I bust in. “Nen, nen, it’s a question for John Watson. Did we violate his human rights? Don’t ask a philosopher, ask him. He’s in clinic this afto, it’s five minims walk.” I was sureas thinkin of John’s words last night. I’m grateful for the chance, and I’m grateful for every day since.

“I’ll be very interested to talk to your ‘Zen Watson,” said El K, bland smile splittin his beard, not slippin when I pointed out it was Doctor Watson; he had bigger tilapia to frizzle. “But there’s another… subject in this case, isn’t there? ‘Zen Sherlock Holmes. It’s my understanding he’s been in coldsleep almost throughout the—you said eight years, didn’t you?—since his Incarnation. By his own choice, no? That hardly suggests a man entirely happy with his condition.”

“He had his reasons.” It sounded weak, e’en to me. “But you’ll be able to ask him yourself soon.”

“Oh?”

“He left instructions, conditions for wakin him. One was… John could give you the xact words, but somethin like if there is a ship, effectively faster than light, that can take me back to Earth. I think he said ‘back’. Seems like Earth’s where he thinks he belongs.”

Proceed to the Next Chapter…

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Mary

I was rootin in the fridge and concludin I di’nt have four matchin portions of anythin. Just hafta be a pot luck, I thunk, when the door chimed. It was Aurel, like I’d hoped. I’d couraged vem to get to our apt afore the others were back, so’s to grab few minims gabbin tetatet.

Ve came in wearin soft charcoal culottes and a fuchsia knit top, snug on veir body. Big hoop earrins brushin veir clavicles, kinda like the ones I had on. We smiled ‘bout that and I praised the colour of veir top with veir honey skin. I splained ‘bout the minor prob with food, how I di’nt want to be wastin time traipsin to a spensary.

“So it’s a mixmash,” ve said, shruggin. “It’s spendin time with you that matters, Granmadda.”

I thunk about that a sec. I di’nt want to harsh veir happydaze, not so soon… but I was goin to hafta sometime. I wasn’t veir Granmadda, not vraily, and never gonna be.

I chickened it for now; I had other things to say, di’nt need to launch on a sour note. I ushered vem to the sittin area, asked if ve wanted wine or beer, red/white, small/full.

“Whatever you’re havin,” ve said.

“I opened the red to let it breathe but I reck we could make a start.” Ve smiled. “What?”

“I coulda guessed red.”

So your Granmadda shares my prefs in booze, I thunk. Hardly astoundin. I poured two midsize glasses, sat down facin vem. “Dunno how long we got afore John and Robin get back; might be a half-hour, might be five minims. So I’m just gonna jump in the sand.” I straightgazed vem a sec. “Aurel, why’re you here?”

Ve gazed me back. Pulled at an earlobe, lotlike I do. Nature or nurture, I thunk, could be either. “Cause you’re here,” ve said. “But mayhaps not the way you might be thinkin.”

Ve lifted the glass, looked at the wine, sniffed, took a sip. “Compiled?”

“Yem. They’re tryin grapes on the mainland, but only for white wine yet.”

“It’s nice. Xpect it was proper costy, the original.”

“I reck.” I tried not to show my impatience, but ve gave me a knowin look.

“I’m just mullin it out,” ve said. “I always knew, from a tiny, there were two of you. For a few years I thunk you were twins. I’d ne’er seen twins, cept in stories, but you were kinda story-stuff too. But I got older, started to prend, and I started thinkin ‘bout what you were doin. ‘Course, I ne’er really knew, no one did, but we had images of Trevallan. Only like lookin at Earth through a handscope, but better’n nothin. Compared to that, shuttlin between Syrtis and Phobos, followin Madda, started seemin vraily humdrum.”

I smiled, thinkin how John had reacted on his first shuttle flight. E’en now I di’nt reck he’d call it ‘humdrum’.

“For a few years, round then, I thunk ‘bout doin somethin different, not goin into the Service, but I reck I always knew deep down I’d come back to it. You were in it—both of you—and Madda. It was in my blood. But it was what you were doin, out on the Frontier, that got me proper ‘cited. So…” Ve sipped again, thinkin. “So when they nounced this mission, there were two things made me avid t’be on it. Seein you again, ‘course, but also bein out here. And I dunno, really, which was bigger.”

I wanted to say you ain’t seein me again. You never saw me afore, not this-me. But I hesitated, chickened again. Mayhaps it was too soon. Given a lil time, mayhaps ve’d see for veirself: I wasn’t veir Granmadda.

And then John and Robin came in and I lost the moment anyvent.

Watson

Table-talk was innocuous at first. Aurel, naturally, was brimming with questions about our lives, and about the mainland ve had yet to visit. There were simple questions that even I could answer: how much of our food was compiled, how much fresh-grown; how much produced on-station rather than planetside? Everyday stuff for us three residents, but all new for vem.

Ve had more technical questions about the compilers, which naturally fell to Robin: how reliable were they, after sixteen years of intensive use? There were exchanges about things like error-correction algorithms, self-diagnostic routines, trace-element sourcing, which I could only partially follow.

Mary, watching me, smiled, and poured more wine. I smiled back, thinking: they seem to be getting on well. She gave a tiny nod, and I thought she probably knew exactly what my thought had been. It’s hardly mind-reading: any two people who’ve lived together, shared many experiences, for eight years, will grow to anticipate at least some of each other’s cogitations. I’d noticed a little of that with Holmes, too.

I wondered if Robin was enjoying the company of another neutral. There were only a few dozen neutrals among the population of Trevallan, and for some reason most of them had gravitated—I smiled at the unconscious pun—to the mainland.

Like calls to like—or was that a terribly Victorian notion? There was no counterpart here for the gentlemen’s clubs which had been seemingly essential for so many in those days, including the unassuming Diogenes Club, of which Mycroft Holmes was co-founder and his brother a sporadic visitor. Women’s clubs, too, had arisen as professional women became more numerous: the University Women’s, the Somerville, the Writers’ Club. It had seemed perfectly natural that like-minded individuals would seek each other’s company and fellowship. Perhaps that was still true, but it no longer seemed axiomatic that one would look for like minds solely among those of one’s own sex.

Even as these thoughts simmered at the back of my mind, I realised that Robin was asking Aurel a more personal question, one that only another neutral would ask, outwith clinical exigency. Even as a fellow-neutral, ve broached the matter delicately, but it boiled down to this: Permanent or Abeyant?

The existence of neutrals, of persons without sex, had been quite enough for my Victorian mind to assimilate at first, standing forth even amid the near-overwhelming torrent of new impressions and experiences. Still, with so much else to absorb, it was some weeks before I delved more deeply into the matter.

Abeyance, normally entered before puberty, involves only the most trivial of surgery; it is mostly a matter of regulating hormones. To oversimplify hugely, it defers the onset of puberty. Many young people found it helped them to concentrate on their education, and many parents seemed to encourage it for similar reasons. Many would choose to reverse the process later, in order to enjoy a fuller sexual life, or to have a child, or both. Early in my second career, I had observed and assisted at one such reversal, and the patient—neutral since well before deepscan—was now a mother.

I was not clear what the ratio was between those who opted for reversal, those who remained Abeyant throughout their lives, and those who, having reached the age of majority, opted to undergo further procedures, including more extensive surgery, to become Permanent.

The term ‘permanent’ was somewhat misleading, as with ‘permabald’. The process was reversible, but not easily or quickly; probably not at all with the resources currently at our command on Trevallan, but we had never been asked.

To Robin’s question, Aurel responded readily that ve was Abeyant, and had been since the age of five. This seemed unusually young, until I realised that ve was speaking of Martian years. Even so, given that ve was now thirty-eight, about twenty M-years, ve had spent close on three-quarters of veir life as a neutral. Robin seemed to be thinking along the same lines: “I guess you’re not thinking of Reversal?”

Aurel shrugged, an expansive gesture made more so by the span of veir long arms. It reminded me of Mary, but it wasn’t a genetic trait: all the Martians I’d met did it. “Ne’er say ne’er, I guess. But what’s it they say? You don’t miss what you ne’er had.” Robin’s smile suggested ve grokked this very well.

“I guess you wanna be gettin’ ready for bed,” said Aurel.

“Yem,” said Mary with a grin. “You young ‘uns can gala all night, us old folks need least nine hours sleep or our heads fall off.”

She didn’t look old, I thought, not at all. Two metres tall, and close on sixty, elapsed-life years, and she could still contrive to look like a cheeky schoolgirl.

Maybe the bald helped. There’d been grey in my hair when we first met, and there was more now. Mary had suggested colouring it, not in denial of ageing but simply because it would be, in her Martian word, catcheye. I hadn’t taken up the suggestion, but now I considered it again. My Victorian self would never have entertained it, but I hoped I had moved on.

When the ‘young ‘uns’ had left, we cleared away the remnants of the meal but made no move toward bed. There was a little of the Brunello di Montalcino left, a scant half-glass each, but it was worth savouring. We settled together on the sofa, Mary stretching her legs over mine in a long diagonal. “Proper costy, this. Someone—mighta been Robin—told me the original bottle was like two thousand Ares.”

We didn’t use money as such on Trevallan. Still, I knew that the Ares was the Martian currency; and two thousand was a substantial sum.

Every individual got an allowance of spensary credits, another for items from the compilers, like new clothes. It was almost a kind of communism, I thought. I wondered how a certain German philosopher interred at Highgate would look upon our arrangements.

“Cent for ‘em,” said Mary.

I related quickly how I’d arrived at Karl Marx, but my thoughts were already moving on. “If Robin can recreate Holmes and myself… people must have thought about Incarnating other historical figures?” Real historical figures, I added silently.

“Oh, sureas. But… Karl Marx? Hitler? Lesedi Mohale? Like… what could poss’ly go wrong?”

I knew enough history at least to recognise all three names. Strange, still, to be thinking ‘history’ about events that happened a century, or two, after my birth.

I sighed. “It’s an odd existence, this.”

She chuckled, deep in her throat, drained her glass, then slid her legs from over mine. I was disappointed, but only for a moment, as she twisted to fetch up against me, one arm burrowing under my back, head nestled on my shoulder, scalp smooth and cool against neck and jaw. “Mayhaps ’tis strange. And mayhaps people’ve been sayin’ that since the Palaeolithic. Gotta give the philosophers somethin’ to wrangle ‘bout. But… odd dun’t nessarily mean bad, right?”

I stroked the back of her head, the occipital hollow, felt her give a tiny shiver of pleasure. “Not bad at all. No, I’m grateful every day.”

“To Robin…”

“I’m grateful to Robin for the chance, of course, the beginning. But most of all I’m grateful to you, for every day since.”

She shifted to standard English. “Well, sir, any ideas how you might like to express your gratitude?”

I woke to find Mary’s arm across my chest. It would have been nice to stay like that, but what had awakened me was an urgent need to relieve myself. As I slid out, trying not to disturb her, I checked the time, saw that we’d have to be moving soon anyway. I instructed the system to brighten the bedside lamps to fifty per cent over five minutes, visited the bathroom, then shambled to the kitchen.

My heart craved kahvi but my (gently throbbing) head told me to start with something more thirst-quenching. Peppermint tea doesn’t make my heart sing, but it does get a certain job done.

Mary hadn’t moved, except to bury her face away from the light. She was still sprawled across the bed—and when Mary sprawls, she really sprawls. I set her mug beside her bed, returned to my own side, tried to slither back in under her outflung arm.

She mumbled something, words muffled but protesting tone obvious enough.

“Sorry,” said I, “But you did say you were setting your wakeup for six-forty.”

“Wha’ time’s it now?”

“Six thirty-eight.”

“Cullion. You stole two minutes.”

Groaning for my benefit, she gathered her limbs and sat up. She made no attempt to pull the covers up around herself. It wasn’t display, just a lack of self-consciousness. It made me think of my other Mary, who would have had to be in a very particular mood to expose herself like that, though on occasions, Godiva-like, her modesty had relied on nothing more than her cloud of fair hair. Not an option that this Mary could call upon. I had loved that Mary’s hair, the thought that only I ever saw it let loose, but I loved this Mary’s baldness just as much. In so many ways they were utterly unalike, and yet I believed that in some deep place that I had never quite been able to pin down, they were kindred spirits.

And now twenty-third century Mary, my bald black Martian Mary, was looking at me over the rim of her mug with a smile I knew very well. “Off with the sandsprites again,” said she. Sandsprites are entirely mythical Martian creatures, originating in some holodrama from her childhood.

“Thinking deep thoughts,” I countered, settling back against the headboard.

“First time for everythin’, I spose.”

I sipped the herby brew. “So you’re going down to the mainland with the new people today…”

“Nen, change of plans. Cap’n El Khatib wants a gab with the Triumvirate. I thunk we coulda gabbed on the way down, but it’s a bit cosy in a skiff, and I dunno if he’s as ‘laxed as we are ‘bout who hears. So Eri’s takin’ a bunch of the others today.”

“Is Aurel going?”

She shrugged, which was dangerously distracting. “Dunno, not up to me.” She blinked, timechecking. “Kak, hafta be shiftin’. Gotta get some scran afore I go. What’s your sked?”

“Clinic starts at eight. I brought some stuff forward to free up time this afternoon.”

“For Sherlock?”

“Yes, for Sherlock.”

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