by Eric Brown
The Moriarty therein was yet another mechanical copy.
We ducked down below the level of the window and stared at each other.
Holmes appeared pensive. “But if the Moriarty in there is yet another simulacrum,” he said, “where is the original, and what nefarious business might he be up to?”
“More importantly, Holmes, how the devil do we go about rescuing Miss Fairfield?”
“That is the question, for I’m sure that time is running out. I have no idea how long the duplication process might take, but he’s had her here for a full day or more. There cannot be long left to run. And,” he went on, his expression grim, “I am under no illusion as to the poor girl’s fate once Moriarty has completed the duplication. He will kill her as all the other ‘originals’ were killed.”
I fingered my revolver in the pocket of my jacket, and never had I been more eager to press the weapon into service.
Holmes examined the window and its embrasure. “Like the others,” he murmured, “it is barred.”
“Our only option is to brazen it out and enter the building through the front entrance,” said I.
“Are you game, Watson?”
“The stakes are high. I would never sleep again if we did nothing and Miss Fairfield perished at Moriarty’s hands.” I gripped my revolver, as if for reassurance. “I would rather die trying, Holmes, than do nothing.”
“Well said, my friend. Very well, then—”
He stopped and looked past me. My heart sank and a dread horripilation crawled over my scalp.
“Holmes?” I whispered.
“It would appear, Watson, that we have been discovered.”
Slowly, still crouching, I turned.
How the Martian had managed to creep up on us so silently over the gravel I could not fathom, but creep up he had. Now the terrible hideosity faced us at a distance of no more than three yards, staring with his great black eyes, his V-shaped mouth hanging open in what, if I were given to anthropomorphism, I would describe as gormless amazement. In his tentacles he gripped a weapon in the form of a golden tube, which he directed at us.
Holmes whispered, “Stand slowly, Watson, and raise your hands.”
I climbed to my feet, my joints creaking in protest, and lifted my arms above my head in the time-honoured gesture of capitulation.
I harboured the hope that if our capture could be kept from the Moriartys, then we stood a chance of talking our way to freedom.
I did not, however, like the look of the golden weapon pointed directly at us.
Then the Martian lowered the weapon and, with another tentacle, directed a small, silver device in our direction.
I recognised the object as a simulacrum detector.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A Fortunate Intervention
“Now,” I hissed at Holmes as the Martian pressed a stud on the side of the device, “we find out if our batteries work…”
I admitted that I was sweating as the Martian goggled at the device. He gripped it in the prehensile end of his slimy tentacle, and I was unable to make out whether the light thereon flashed blue or red.
“Fear not,” Holmes replied. “All will be well.”
“I wish I shared your confidence, Holmes,” said I.
I expected the Martian to cry out at any second, alerting his cohorts to our presence. I glanced right and left, desperately seeking a way of escape.
Then the Martian spoke.
His arrowhead mouth clacked like castanets in the hands of a madman, and a stream of grunts and gurgles poured forth – but it seemed, despite my fear, that he was not summoning assistance.
Holmes replied in kind.
The Martian responded. I watched his singular mouthpiece as it opened and closed, its thick parrot-like tongue moving up and down like a clapper, a stream of drool spooling from its lower mandible.
I wondered if it were too early to assume that our batteries had worked and we had successfully passed ourselves off as simulacra.
Holmes replied. Under the make-up that he had made me apply, and the layers of extra clothing, I was sweating.
At this point Holmes lowered his arms, and the Martian let the detection device drop.
Later, Holmes was to report what had passed between himself and the Martian.
Upon apprehending us, the Martian had said, “By all that is sacred, what in the name of Phobos do you think you’re doing?”
To which Holmes had replied, “We were merely passing, sir, and wished to witness the many wonders of your august institution.”
“Do you realise the danger you would be in, my friends, if you were to be caught spying like this?”
“Spying? We were merely curious.”
Then the alien had astounded Holmes by saying, “She said you would be venturing this way, one as thin as a rake, the other spherical.”
“Who said we would be venturing this way?”
“Why,” replied the Martian, “Miss Hamilton-Bell, who was fearful for your safety. She contacted me an hour ago. Since then I have been on the lookout, and it’s fortunate indeed that I came across you before the guards caught you spying, though I must say I’m impressed that you can successfully pose as simulacra.”
It was at this point that Holmes had lowered his hands to his side.
I, however, oblivious of the import of their little tête-à-tête, still thought that our safety was in the balance.
I glanced up and down the length of the building, expecting the Martian to be joined at any second by his compatriots – and then the game would surely be up.
Holmes’s brief aside to me, however, dispelled my apprehension.
“All is well, Watson. Baro-Sinartha-Gree here is sympathetic to the Korshana cause, and is in contact with Miss Hamilton-Bell. Earlier she informed him of our journey to Woking.”
I very nearly slipped to the ground in my relief.
He turned to Baro-Sinartha-Gree and said, “Do you speak English?”
“Badly,” the Martian replied.
“We are in danger here, out in the open. Is there anywhere we can converse in private – our ultimate aim is to enter the building and free Miss Fairfield.”
“Miss Fairfield?” Baro-Sinartha-Gree replied in confusion.
“You’re not aware of Moriarty’s kidnapping of the young woman?”
“I am a lowly mechanic working in tripod manufactory,” he said.
I said to Holmes, “This is all very well, but why did Baro-Sinartha-Gree apprehend us with his fearful-looking weapon?”
Holmes relayed my query, and Baro-Sinartha-Gree clucked the equivalent of a Martian laugh and replied in broken English, hoisting the golden cylinder. “This is not weapon. This is pinion of tripod gyroscope.”
“Perhaps,” Holmes intervened, “we might continue this fascinating conversation in private?”
“This way,” said Baro-Sinartha-Gree.
He leaned the pinion against the wall of the building and took off, dancing nimbly on his tentacles across the gravel and around the back of the institute. I expected to be seen at any second by Martians less favourable to our cause. Baro-Sinartha-Gree led the way along the rear of the building and approached a door. We slipped inside after him and found ourselves in a stone-flagged corridor with not a Martian in sight. He opened a door to the right and ushered us into a storeroom equipped with shelves of stationery and office appurtenances.
Only when the door closed behind us did I allow myself to breathe a little easier.
At this juncture Baro-Sinartha-Gree explained to Holmes how he had come to throw in his lot with the Resistance movement. “I am an Arkanan, but in my veins throbs proud Korshana blood, thanks to my great-great-hive-father, who was Korshanan. When the Arkana invaded Earth, I vowed to do all within my powers to avenge the great wrong done by my people.”
Holmes relayed this to me in precis, then proceeded to tell Baro-Sinartha-Gree about Moriarty’s kidnapping of Miss Fairfield and how we hoped to win her free
dom.
“He is alone with her in one of the rooms along the eastern side of the building where you found us,” said Holmes. “If we can make our way there, without being observed, and overcome Moriarty…”
“Ah,” said the Martian in his fractured English. “I have heard of this Moriarty.”
“Do you know how many copies of him your people have made?” Holmes asked.
“Many simulacra,” he said. “Maybe one hundred. Maybe more.”
“That makes sense,” Holmes said. “Why limit oneself to possessing one brilliant mind when you have the wherewithal to have dozens, hundreds even, at one’s disposal? But think of the havoc he could wreak! Good God, one Moriarty was bad enough, but a hundred?”
He paused, then asked Baro-Sinartha-Gree, “And the original, the human Moriarty? Do you happen to know his whereabouts?”
The Martian lifted a tentacle. “I know only his simulacra are here, at institute.”
Holmes nodded. “Very well. The time has come. We must confront the fiend’s simulacrum and save Miss Fairfield. You have your electrical gun to hand, Watson?”
I patted my pocket. “And my Webley, too.”
“I escort you along corridor,” Baro-Sinartha-Gree said. “If anyone ask, I say you honoured guests, taking tour.”
I slipped a hand into my pocket and gripped the butt of the electrical gun.
Baro-Sinartha-Gree opened the door, ensured that the way was clear, then led us from the storeroom.
We hurried down the stone-flagged corridor, my heart thumping, and came to another door. Through a square window-panel inset into the door I made out a corridor diminishing into the distance, with doors leading off on either side. The lecture rooms wherein we had seen the Moriartys were to the left. The second door along would give access to the room in which Miss Fairfield was incarcerated.
Baro-Sinartha-Gree pushed open the door and we followed, and to my great relief there were no Martians in the corridor.
We came to the second door on our left, and Holmes cautiously peered through the window-panel. He withdrew and nodded to me. “This is the room, Watson.”
Baro-Sinartha-Gree murmured, “I wait here. Anyone come, I warn you.”
“And when we have the girl?” I asked.
“You come with me, then. I take you from here.”
“Take us? How?”
Holmes laid a hand on my arm. “This is not the time to quibble over details, Watson. Ready yourself. On the count of three, follow me.”
I drew the electrical gun. Holmes said, “Now!” and pushed open the door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Saving Miss Fairfield
The expression on Professor Moriarty’s ugly visage as we burst into the room brandishing our weapons was the epitome of surprise.
As he stared at us, his shock turned to disdain. “Why, if it isn’t Mr Sherlock Holmes – with his faithful lapdog in tow. As disguises go, it’s adequate enough to fool the unwitting. But as you know, Holmes, I am far from unwitting.”
It was hard to credit that the criminal mastermind before us was not indeed the flesh-and-blood Moriarty. I had to remind myself that, in essence, this was Holmes’s archenemy: just as his outer shell was a faithful reproduction of the original professor, so the mentation that resided in that ludicrously domed cranium was an exact copy of Moriarty’s evil mind.
“Step away from the console, Moriarty,” Holmes said, his electrical gun aiming directly at the professor’s large head.
Moriarty’s thin lips stretched in what could never be described as a smile; it resembled more a sneer. “If you take so much as one more step towards me, either of you, the girl dies. My hand is poised above the control that, at the merest touch, will terminate the duplication process and result in Miss Fairfield’s immediate extinction. Likewise, if the process is interrupted before its completion, the result will be the same – the death of the girl.”
“You foul specimen!” I spat, and looked to my left at the girl braced in the chromium frame.
She was unconscious, her head leaning to one side. At least she was spared the knowledge of the drama being enacted before her. To her right, the naked simulacrum was likewise inanimate.
Now that we were in the room, I was aware of the noise emitted by the process of duplication: a throbbing electrical hum issued from the cables that connected the original Miss Fairfield’s head to her copy, a thrumming almost below the threshold of audibility that one felt as a pressure in one’s diaphragm.
“I am prepared to do a deal,” Holmes said. “I will allow you to finish the duplication, whereupon you will have your copy of Miss Fairfield. In return, we will take the original.”
I knew that Holmes had no intention of letting Moriarty off so easily. I could tell by the calculating expression in his eyes that he was rapidly assessing the situation in order to buy himself a little time.
Moriarty gave a laugh that more closely resembled a cackle. “Oh, you poor fool! You cannot win, no matter what you do. The odds are stacked against you, Holmes.”
“It would appear, Moriarty, that the odds are stacked against you. Once the process is finished, I will simply eliminate you and free Miss Fairfield.”
Moriarty shook his misshapen head. “Oh, Holmes, I had more faith in your intellect than that. Apply the grey matter. The simple fact is that you can kill me – but so what? Do you think that I, a mere copy of the great man, am concerned about my own individual existence when I know that I will live on, not only in my original, but in the hundreds of copies that have been made?” He moved his left hand, indicating Holmes’s electrical gun. “So you can brandish that silly weapon all you like, Holmes, and kill me with it if you so wish.”
“And when I have killed you, Moriarty, and the scanning process is finished, then the girl is ours.”
“And now I play my trump card,” Moriarty said with a casual arrogance I found obnoxious in the extreme. “You see, in this instance I have adjusted the process so that Miss Fairfield will die at the very second the duplication is achieved. Why allow the original to live, when I have a copy identical in every detail to the original?”
Holmes flicked a glance at me and whispered, “He’s bluffing, Watson. As soon as the process ceases, free the girl.”
I gave a minimal nod, hoping that my friend was indeed right.
Playing for time, Holmes said to Moriarty, “But why do you want to copy the girl? What is she to you? Don’t tell me,” he sneered, “that your life-long cynicism has finally eroded and, in your old age, you have found… love?”
“Love?” Moriarty cried. “You should know me better than that, Holmes!”
“Then why do you want her?”
“Posterity,” said the professor, surprising me. “Miss Fairfield is, you will agree, not only a first-rate intellect but a fine writer.”
“So I have heard said,” Holmes agreed. “But don’t tell me, Moriarty, that you require an amanuensis?”
The professor laughed at this. “Not at all – I need someone with intellect and insight who might, at the end of my days, set down with truth and dispassion the momentous events and achievements of my life. I want the record set straight in order to counter the lies and vile calumny that you and others like you have peddled down the years.”
“You’re insane,” I said. “As if a girl like Miss Fairfield would accede to record such a life of infamy.”
“I want my true achievements, my genius, to be known by the word at large!”
Holmes interrupted the man’s megalomaniacal oratory, gesturing towards the neighbouring room. “And the original Professor Moriarty himself? I see he has set his miserable copies to various tasks, while he skulks somewhere well away from danger.”
“If you think you’ll worm his whereabouts from me so easily, think again. As if I’d vouchsafe that priceless knowledge!”
I noticed Moriarty’s glance flick quickly to his right. There, a wall clock indicated that the time was a few minutes to tw
o o’clock.
I pondered the significance of his surreptitious sliding glance: did the duplication process cease upon the hour? Or was he expecting some interruption or other?
I wondered if Holmes had noticed Moriarty’s interest in the clock.
The electrical gun was slick in my sweat-soaked palm. I had to resist the urge to lift the weapon and fire at the considerable target of Moriarty’s head.
“I am curious,” Holmes said. “When did the great man, as you call your original, offer his services to the Martians?”
Moriarty laughed. “Oh, you don’t know the pleasure it gives me to deny the exalted Sherlock Holmes that knowledge! But I will say,” he went on, “that it will be only a matter of time before you too are working for the Martians.”
“As if my services could be bought!” Holmes laughed.
“Not bought,” said the professor, “but taken. When you are captured, then the Martians will doubtless see you for the valuable commodity you are, and make multiple copies of you so that the famous Sherlock Holmes will be complicit in the ultimate victory of our alien overlords. Oh, the irony!”
“I’ll have you know, Moriarty,” Holmes said with not a little pride in his tone, “that we have already had our identities copied – and we not only effected our escape, but destroyed the copies into the bargain. Though,” he went on ruminatively, “I presume that the vile Arkana, when they copied our identities, made backups so that they could easily manufacture a multiplicity of Watsons and myself.”
“Would that were so,” Moriarty said. “But simulacra can be made only from the original: copies made from copies were found to be prone to corruption—”
“Which is good to know,” said Holmes, “but I assure you that the Martians will never capture us.”
Moriarty glanced at the clock once again. It was two o’clock.
Seconds later, three things happened almost simultaneously.
The electrical thrumming suddenly ceased and a profound silence filled the room.
Holmes fired his gun and the electrical charge flashed across the room, hitting Moriarty in the head and knocking him from his feet. He fell to the floor and spasmed horribly, the flesh of his skull blackened and bubbling.