by Eric Brown
“And while all humanity cowered under their merciless jackboots,” Holmes said, “when every civilised man and woman would have opposed the invaders had they possessed the wherewithal to do so, you saw not tragedy in what had occurred, but an opportunity to further your own ends.”
“You state the truth with admirable pithiness, my friend. Why mourn the inevitable, why cry at the fate of pitiful mankind at the hands of those stronger, and fitter, and more intellectually able? I looked upon the defeat of my kind and laughed – and schemed to make myself invaluable to the mighty invaders.”
“You sicken me, Moriarty!” I said.
The professor ignored my outburst. “A Martian cylinder had come to Earth a few miles from the schloss where I then resided. While the residents of the nearby village fled for their lives, having heard of how England had been ravaged and its citizens put to death, I approached the pilots of the cylinder. The first wave of invaders were equipped, if you recall, with translation devices, and thus I claimed that I could assist their cause.”
“And yet this was when you had seen the terror, the death and destruction, they had wrought on our planet?” Holmes said. “You knew of their evil deeds, and yet you were happy to assist them – but for what reward, Moriarty?”
The professor was silent for a time, contemplating his next words – thinking back, perhaps, to that terrible time almost twenty years ago. At last he went on, “What reward, Holmes? What reward? Why, think about it! I have only ever wanted one thing, my friend: knowledge. Knowledge, and the power that that affords over one’s fellow man. Manifest in the Martians’ presence on our planet was the fact that they possessed wisdom in every field, and I wanted to partake of this cornucopia!”
He twitched his lips in another unsuccessful smile. “So I approached them with my offer of assistance, and they imprisoned me – and then one of their number fell ill, and another… I convinced their commander that I might be able to treat his comrades.”
“You?” I scoffed. “I was unaware that you were a doctor of medicine—”
“But the Martians did not know that,” said Moriarty. “When word came in from other Martians all across the globe that they were falling victim to earthly pathogens, I suggested a retreat – a return to Mars to better study the bacteria and viruses of Earth, so that a second, and better equipped and resourced, invasion might take place. In this, I said, I would be more than willing to lend assistance.”
“You fiend!” I began.
“They saw the wisdom in my words and prepared to return – building an interplanetary ship with their incredible Handling-Machines. We returned to Mars in due course, and while my erstwhile Martian travelling companions were quarantined and duly died, I made contacts amongst the Martian hierarchy. I state in all modesty that some amongst the Martians recognised my genius, and were convinced that my knowledge of the human race would be more than useful, and so I began the work of plotting the second Martian invasion.”
“You!” I said. “If not for you…” I spluttered into silence, words beyond me.
Holmes closed his eyes for a time, his expression one of despair.
“You assisted the Martians,” he said at last, “you colluded in what you hoped would be the massacre of mankind.”
“I came to sympathise with the mighty Martians, Holmes. You see, for all their genius, for all their scientific and technological prowess, they are a dying race – or rather, their planet is slowly dying as it moves gradually away from the primary and its breathable atmosphere dissipates into space. Nothing they do can prolong their existence on Mars beyond a few centuries – a millennium at most – but across the gulf of space is a pristine planet ripe for the taking. Only ill-fortune had prevented the success of their initial invasion.”
“And you were determined to ensure that their second invasion succeeded,” I said.
Moriarty scowled. “Don’t assume such high-minded virtue, Doctor! But for my intervention, a second wave of Martians would have overrun our planet and immediately killed every last man, woman and child! It was I, Professor James Moriarty, who suggested to their military leaders another, more efficient way. Why kill the human race, I reasoned, when it might prove useful to the Martians’ aims? The invaders would need workers to assist in the building of our new cities and infrastructure. I suggested what came to pass – the story that the first invasion was a race of inferior, bellicose Martians, and that the second wave was more compassionate, and could work in harmony with the human race… Until such time as the Martians came to use them for their own ends.”
“So you quite willingly betrayed mankind for the price of your own self-aggrandisement?” I said.
“Not so much self-aggrandisement, Doctor, as knowledge and power. I asked the Martians for a dwelling in equatorial Mars, with a laboratory equipped with the latest apparatus so that I might extend my studies of their sciences. Also, I requested that when the rout of Earth was complete and the populace quelled, and culled, the Martian military leaders should spare the finest human minds so that they might form a small country of their own, a technocracy that would devote itself wholly to the pursuit of knowledge.”
“Let me guess, Moriarty,” Holmes put in at this point. “You would appoint yourself as their ruler – am I correct?”
“You know me well, Holmes. But then who else might have been in a better position to lead them? Who amongst the human race knew the Martians better than I did? I alone was supremely positioned to pass on the fruits of the Martians’ knowledge to our finest minds. I foresaw a sizeable domain – one of the larger Mediterranean islands, perhaps – populated by brilliant minds with myself as their overseer. I would divide my time between Earth and Mars, lauded by the few remaining humans and respected by the Martians.”
Holmes stared up at the shrivelled, shrunken homunculus hanging before us, and asked, “But you did not gain that, Moriarty. The Martians did not grant you the knowledge and power you so craved.”
The professor was silent for a time, and then stunned me by saying, “No, Holmes. No, they did not. The Martians betrayed me.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
A Deal with the Devil
“Shortly after my arrival on Mars in ’94,” Moriarty went on before we had time to react, “I was installed in a dwelling on the outskirts of Glench-Arkana, and one day I was approached by a Martian technician who told me about the science of the simulacra and the equally arcane field of cognitive duplication. Their scientists had recently made great headway on both fronts, and now the time had come to roll out the process for the benefit of Martiankind. As I was proving myself so useful in their understanding of all things human, my contact said, they would do me the signal honour of selecting me to be the first subject of the duplication process.” Moriarty paused, his expression reflective. “I must admit that my vanity was flattered. My mind and body would be duplicated, once, twice, thrice… many times! But then I began to think through the ramifications of the process, and I asked the technician for a little time in which to consider his kind offer.”
“Your vanity might have been flattered,” said Holmes, “but it was that very vanity which gave you second thoughts. As things stood, you were unique – what might be the consequences to your ego of having to contend with more than one Moriarty on the planet?”
Moriarty laughed, though the sound more resembled a cackle. “I admit that this might have been one consideration, Holmes – but the other was of a more practical nature: the Martians relied on me as the sole font of knowledge concerning many aspects of Earth. By agreeing to duplicate myself, might I not be diluting the strength of the power I possessed? After a long day of deliberation, I contacted the technician and thanked him, but declined to undergo the process.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Can’t you guess? A week later, a delegation of Martians arrived at my dwelling in the capital city. I thought it merely the regular committee that met with me from time to time to discuss matters concern
ing Earth and the second invasion – but this time they were accompanied by members of the militia. I was arrested and imprisoned. The following day I was transported across the desert, and not one of the militia deigned to answer my questions. Why was I being held? Where were they taking me? Did the ruling Martians know what was happening? I was brought here, the great edifice that was the nerve centre of the planet, and while in a cell in the bowels of the dome I was drugged…
“When I came to my senses, I found myself shackled to this infernal frame, manacled by hand and foot, my head braced in the apparatus of the duplication process, with tubes inserted into my body… I was told that already a dozen copies of me had been made and would in time be despatched to Earth to serve the Martian invasion. In the days and weeks and months that followed, ever more duplicates were made. These possessed my intelligence, but there was one very significant difference between myself – the original – and the simulacra. The latter did not possess true autonomy, they could be controlled by Martian programmers. This was the final indignity: to know that there were brilliant copies of me out there which were no more than obedient puppets dancing to their masters’ whims.”
“And this was eighteen years ago?” Holmes said.
“For that long I have been imprisoned here, kept alive by nutrient fluids, my body wasting away while my mind is as active as ever…”
Holmes was nodding to himself, and finally reflected, “An impartial observer, Moriarty, might opine that you had reaped the just reward for your perfidy: you elected to throw in your lot with a merciless regime, and in turn they were… merciless.”
“Perhaps I should have anticipated their treachery,” Moriarty conceded, “but, you see, I considered myself indispensable. What irony – I was indispensable, so they made copies of me!”
“And you were powerless to resist,” I said, and despite my better judgement felt the first stirrings of pity for the man hanging before us.
Moriarty regarded me. “Oh, I was far from powerless, Doctor. I had the means at my disposal to resist, and resist well!”
I was about to comment that his current predicament, imprisoned here like a helpless animal, suggested that his resistance had been futile – but Holmes said, “And the form of that resistance, Moriarty?”
The professor was silent for a time, staring down on us as he considered his words. “The Martians had thwarted my plans,” he said quietly. “The only agency in the past that had been of sufficient wit to successfully oppose me, Holmes, had been your good self – and for this I reviled you more than any other man on Earth. But now… now an even more worthy candidate for my hatred had supplanted you. The Martians, after promising me so much, had given me nothing – even worse, they have made my life a living hell, lashed impotently to this frame year after year. But I used the time, and my considerable intellect, to plot and scheme and plan my revenge. I would play the execrable creatures at their own game, and defeat them!”
I shook my head. “But how? I mean, what could you do, imprisoned here like this?”
Moriarty’s gaze shifted from Holmes and myself and settled on the Martian, Karan-Arana-Lall, huddled to one side, his great eyes closed. “I was given a Keeper,” Moriarty said quietly, “the loyal Karan-Arana-Lall, old when he began the job of monitoring me and keeping me alive, and even older now.”
At that point, Moriarty spoke in Martian to Karan-Arana-Lall, who rose to his full height and moved off down the ramp. When I next looked, the Martian had settled before the arched portal a hundred yards away, staring back at us with his eldritch eyes.
Moriarty went on, “I came to know Karan-Arana-Lall well, over the years, and came to understand that he was a creature of great wisdom and compassion. He was a doctor who had given his life to serving others and saving lives, not taking them. And I saw my chance. Little by little I made him aware of what his people were doing to my race; that, although the Earth was big enough to contain humans and Martians side by side, the latter had embarked on a course of incremental genocide that would end in the extinction of the human race.
“My influencing of Karan-Arana-Lall was a slow, gradual process of propaganda, but I knew that I was on the road to success when one day he came to me and said that he had met certain Martians in Glench-Arkana, both Arkana and Korshana, who were opposed to what their fellows were doing on Earth. Little by little, through him, I built up a network of contacts among the Martians, and then spread these contacts to Earth, so that in time members of my own people came to realise the true motives and aims of their Martian overlords.”
At this point, Holmes interrupted. “All,” he said, “brought about not by any late-blooming realisation that what the Martians were doing was morally wrong, but as a means of revenging what they had done to you! You amaze me, Moriarty – never have I come upon such a base and twisted rationale for doing what is right!”
Moriarty smiled. “There is an old phrase, Holmes: the end justifies the means. And certainly in this case it is true.”
My heart had set up a laboured pounding as I considered his motives in bringing us to Mars. “Aboard the interplanetary vessel,” I said, “one of your simulacra said that you planned to kill us.”
Moriarty laughed at this, and said almost aggressively, “Look at me! Do you see a weapon about my person? Do you think I can climb down from this hellish contraption and strike you dead? It is all I can do to frighten the guards when I speak through the microphone!”
“Then you will instruct Karan-Arana-Lall to do the deed,” I said.
Moriarty licked his bloodless lips and said, almost tiredly, “No, Dr Watson, I will not. In a short while, though, Karan-Arana-Lall will do my bidding. He will leave here in a covered vehicle and drive directly to Glench-Arkana. There he will halt at the Museum of Natural History where he will rendezvous with your acquaintance, Miss Hamilton-Bell, and pick up the menhir. In his vehicle he will have stowed the electromagnetic pulse generator—”
“You know of the plan!” I cried.
Moriarty smiled. “My dear Dr Watson,” said he, “it was I who was instrumental in its inception. It was I who contacted Korshanan scientists, via Karan-Arana-Lall, and helped them develop the generator. It was I who set up the scheme to have it delivered with the menhir, and it was I who suggested to the Korshanan people that they should attack Glench-Arkana on this day. Also,” he went on, “I had sympathetic technicians make simulacra of me which were beholden to me and to me only, not to the Arkana. The copy who effected your rescue in London and brought you here was one such.”
“Your actions might save mankind,” Holmes said, “but this is of no concern to you, is it? You act merely to gain revenge and see the Martians defeated and driven from Earth.”
A lengthy silence greeted his words, and at last Moriarty replied.
“I have had a long time to do nothing over the years but think, to think and dwell upon existence and its meaning, and in this time I have come to one overriding and abiding conclusion, and it is this: existence is ultimately meaningless. The only thing that invests life with any meaning at all is the diktat of one’s own egotistical will. That is all, nothing more. A selfish stratagem, I agree. I care nothing at all about the human race and its survival or destruction. I do care, however, about what the Martians have done to me – destroyed my life, used me, and left me a pathetic, powerless shell of my former self. Or almost powerless. I shall have my revenge when the Arkana are destroyed, and I will have the ultimate satisfaction of their knowing that it was I who brought them to their knees.”
“And how will they learn of that?” I asked.
“Because with Karan-Arana-Lall’s assistance I have drafted a missive, informing the authorities of my actions.”
“And then you will have Karan-Arana-Lall help you escape from here?” Holmes asked. “But surely he could have gained your freedom before now?”
A terrible light burned in Moriarty’s eyes as he stared down at my friend. “Oh, there is no escape for me, Holm
es. I have become so weakened over the years that I rely upon this infernal contraption to sustain me…”
“Then…?”
Moriarty licked his thin lips, clearly relishing what he was about to say. “Why do you think you and Watson survived the copying process in the museum? Why do you think the Arkana did not simply kill you then, and have your simulacra take your place?”
“I must admit that that question has tasked me for some time,” said Holmes.
Moriarty cackled. “Or perhaps the correct question is: who do you think was responsible for your salvation?”
Holmes stared at the professor, shock informing his aquiline features. “You…?” he said.
Moriarty nodded in satisfaction. “Me!” he cried. “I had sympathetic Arkana infiltrate the museum and transport you to the desert, knowing full well that the resourceful Miss Hamilton-Bell would effect your rescue.”
“You saved our lives…” Holmes said, a light of terrible understanding dawning in his eyes.
“So that, eventually, you would stand here before me and we could do a deal…”
“I begin to see…” Holmes said.
“I can effect your escape from here,” said Moriarty. “Karan-Arana-Lall will take you, via an elevator, to an underground chamber where his vehicle is waiting. In one hour you will be in Glench-Arkana. There you will rendezvous with Miss Hamilton-Bell, who will be at the museum taking receipt of the Keld-Chenki menhir. You will then proceed to the spaceport and leave the planet. Soon after that, the first Korshana bombs will rain down on the city.”
“And in return for our freedom, I must…?”
A silence filled the chamber then, and I was aware of my pounding pulse.
“Kill me,” Moriarty said.