by Eric Brown
I smiled. I wished I could be as confident as my friend about surviving our imminent encounter with Moriarty, but of one thing I was certain: I would not succumb without a fight.
We heard a key turning in the lock. The door swung open, and I turned to face a Martian on the threshold. He was one of three, and I noticed immediately that not one of them was armed.
It occurred to me that we could always sprint from the room and take our chances at freedom, limited though they were aboard a Martian ship about to land on the soil of our enemy.
One of the aliens spoke, and then all three backed off to allow us to step into the corridor. Holmes said, “They have invited us to the observation lounge. After you, my friend.”
As I stepped into the corridor and followed the leading Martian, I murmured over my shoulder, “Have you noticed that they’re not armed, Holmes? D’you think they’re the same guards as earlier?”
“The guards of earlier were members of an infantry battalion – that much I gleaned from insignia on their bandoliers. These characters, it seems to me, are civilians: not only are they not armed, but they bear no military sigils or the like.”
“Rum,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“That I have yet to work out, Watson. Also, I detect in their tone of voice none of the resentment or hostility that was present in the brief words of the previous guards.”
I grunted. “Perhaps they know of the fate that lies in store for us,” I said, “and pity us.”
“I think not, my friend.” He spoke in Martian to the pair bringing up the rear, and they responded in kind. The exchange lasted for a minute, during which time we turned along another corridor, and then all five of us took our places on an elevator plate and descended.
“It would appear,” Holmes said at last, as we stepped from the plate and followed the leading Martian along a short corridor to the observation deck, “that we are no longer under the jurisdiction of the militia, and are welcome guests of the Arkana governing council.”
“Softening us up for the kill,” I muttered to myself.
A great oval viewscreen occupied one end of the chamber, which was strewn with rugs and piles of cushions on which a dozen Martians disported themselves. Straps hung from the ceiling beside the viewscreen, and Holmes and I gripped these and stared out as we descended.
We were sailing over the equatorial desert towards the metropolis of Glench-Arkana. Far ahead lay the city itself, a grey smudge in the red, sandy wastes, and from it radiated a multitude of spokes, these being the system of transportation links I recalled observing on our first voyage here: arrow-straight canals and the more tenuous vectors of the monorails that spread to all points of the compass.
Despite the fact that the metropolis, and all that we could see, was the work of our mortal enemies, I could not help but be impressed: the sight of such technological wonders triggered in me a primal excitement, as if I were a little boy again, dazzled by his first sight of mighty steam locomotives.
Holmes touched my sleeve and murmured, “Observe, Watson. There, to the north.”
I followed the direction of his gaze and saw, on the shimmering desert horizon, several plumes of bilious black smoke. I raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“I wonder if the Korshana assault on Glench-Arkana has begun already,” he whispered, “and these are the preliminary skirmishes?”
“You never know, Holmes, they might provide the diversion we need to make good our escape.”
“We can live in hope,” said he.
I judged that the city was still some ten miles distant, and below us was the curious grey metal dome that Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran had described as the nerve centre of the planet, Hakoah-Malan. I pointed this out to Holmes, adding, “With luck, the Korshana forces might make that their target and disable all Glench-Arkana!”
“Your optimism knows no bounds, Watson.”
To the north, the roiling columns of smoke thickened and billowed skywards. I imagined opposing ironclads joined in terrible battle, the Korshana desperate to avenge the depredations visited on their northern cities by the Arkana during the last planetary conflict.
A Martian joined us and reached for a strap, swaying with the motion of the vessel. Holmes pointed out the rising smoke and spoke in Martian.
The alien blinked its huge saucer-like optics at the far horizon, then replied.
Smiling, Holmes relayed what he had said: “Apparently the smoke is the burn-off from oil refineries – which I know to be nonsense, as the Martian oilfields are situated at the southern pole of the planet.”
Holmes spoke again, and said in a murmured aside to me, “I asked where we were being taken.”
The alien clacked its V-shaped beak, its reply gurgled. I was more than a little curious as to its response.
“Well?” I asked Holmes when the alien had at last fallen silent.
“Curious and curiouser,” Holmes replied. “The fellow said that we are to be taken to Hakoah-Malan.”
“Well I never,” said I. “And did he say why we were being taken there?”
“He did not, and he was evasive about the reason. But I can only assume that Hakoah-Malan is where Professor Moriarty might be found.”
“And not in the sunny equatorial uplands?” I jested.
The alien spoke again, and indicated something through the viewscreen with a tentacle. Below, the outer suburbs of Glench-Arkana hove into view, and within a minute we were decelerating towards the very centre of the city and the docking station.
We hung on, swaying, as the great ship turned about and came down on a docking ring.
The ship made landfall with a clanging din of metal on metal, and the sound of the engines slowly died away. Soon all was silence save for the ticking of the vessel around us as its superstructure cooled in the aftermath of the landing.
The Martian bade us follow him and, along with the others, we mounted the elevator plate and descended once again. We entered the hold, a cavernous chamber of girdered arches, and a great door rolled open to admit the dazzling Martian sunlight.
A reception committee awaited us.
“I did wonder,” Holmes commented as he took in the waiting Martians, “how long our convivial reception might last.”
The Martians before us numbered a dozen. They all wore the bandoliers of the military and were armed with electrical guns and rifles. Their commander spoke with our guide, and Holmes relayed the gist of their exchange.
“The military are taking us into custody. Our guides are welcome to accompany us. It would seem, Watson, that security will be somewhat more stringent from now on.”
One of our guides gestured for us to proceed, and as we stepped onto the ramp and walked from the hold, the dozen military personnel escorted us from the ship. We were marched at speed into a deserted underground precinct and then towards a shining monorail from which depended a bullet-like carriage. This we boarded with our escort of fifteen Martians, and no sooner had Holmes and I taken our seats than the vehicle slid off without a sound, shot from the underground station, and emerged into daylight.
I looked out at the passing streets of the capital city, at the bustling multitude of Martians that thronged every boulevard and thoroughfare, and recalled the last occasion I had been abroad on these very streets, when I had seen Miss Freya Hamilton-Bell – or rather, her simulacrum – succumb to a Martian assault.
That thought plunged me into a mood of melancholy as I considered our situation and the fact that soon we would be face to face with none other than Professor James Moriarty.
I was cheered, slightly, when it came to me that Miss Hamilton-Bell was in this very city, arranging for the transportation of the ancient alien menhir – and along with it the electromagnetic pulse generator. Then the unbidden notion that she might not succeed pressed like a terrible weight on my mind. In this manner, my thoughts veered from sanguine to despair in short order.
Ahead, the silver thread of the monorail left the outer environs o
f the city and curved across the dazzling desert. The carriage leaned into the bend, and we all tipped with the motion as the train gained speed and shot towards our destination.
“Observe,” said Holmes, pointing.
Ahead, Hakoah-Malan came into view.
Chapter Thirty-Two
An Audience with Professor Moriarty
Imagine if you can a great grey, low-slung dome like the glass of a pocket watch straddling the red sands of the horizon, a mile from end to end, and you will have some notion of how Hakoah-Malan appeared to us. The construct grew ever larger as we approached, so that when our train drew into the plinth surrounding the structure, the dome rose above us and fully occluded a third of the sky.
Our guide indicated that we should alight, and flanked by the armed guards we did so, staring up at the great curving parabola of the dome with the wind of the desert blowing in our faces. A moving staircase rose to the wall of the structure, and six guards scurried ahead, followed by Holmes and myself and our three guides, with the remaining six guards bringing up the rear. We rose steadily, drawing ever closer to an arched portal in the curve of the dome. It is strange to relate that my feelings were mixed at this point: while I naturally feared what might lie ahead, regarding Moriarty’s expressed intentions towards us, yet I was taken with wonder not only at the architectural magnificence of the nerve centre but also at the thought of the technological marvels we would no doubt find within.
We stepped from the moving staircase and paused before the arched portal. One of the guards spoke into a grille, and presently the door slid open. At a gesture from the same officer, Holmes and I entered the dome, surrounded by the guards.
Here we boarded yet another elevator, and rose for a long minute until we came to a gallery which curved away dizzyingly around the inner curve of the dome on either side. From this gallery stretched a narrow rising ramp, at the end of which was yet another arched portal, this one silver and three times the height of the first. Through this portal I made out a structure like a ball, a great silver sphere suspended beneath the apex of the dome in a nexus of filigree silver girders.
Holmes touched my sleeve and nodded ahead minimally, and I saw what had caught his attention. Before the arched portal, far ahead, stood a dark figure.
I took this to be Moriarty at first, until my vision adjusted to the distance and I saw that it was not a human figure at all, but a Martian.
Again an officer led the way, and we followed him along a walkway.
When we arrived at the rearing silver arch, it was clear that the waiting figure was a sorry specimen of Martianhood indeed. He seemed unsteady on his many limbs; his brown integument was faded in patches almost to ochre, and his huge eyes were filled with viscous fluid so that they resembled bowls of mushroom soup. I was to learn later that he was of great age – almost two hundred Terran years old, in fact.
He spoke in whispery tones to the military leader, and then to the head guide.
The military leader interrupted, addressing the old Martian at length while truculently waving a tentacle. The elder replied in a hushed voice. His response drew a reaction from the armed Martians: they took a step towards the old Martian, lifting their weapons…
Holmes spoke to me in a whispered aside. “There seems to be some uncertainty as to who is allowed through the portal. The old fellow claims that only he, and his ‘guests’, can have admittance: the military and our guides are excluded.”
The elder spoke again, and the military leader barked his reply.
The atmosphere was charged. I noticed that one or two of the guards had lifted their weapons and were aiming them at the ancient Martian’s head-torso.
The altercation rose in volume – interrupted, suddenly, by a booming voice issuing from a speaker above the portal.
Martian words rang around the gallery, and had the effect of silencing the argument. The guards backed away from the elder and lowered their weapons.
Holmes had his head cocked to one side, frowning as he listened.
“What does it mean, Holmes?” I asked.
“The voice proclaims that only the venerable Martian and ourselves are allowed access to the inner sanctum.”
The booming voice fell silent, and I cast an eye around the cowed guards.
Our guide whispered, “The Great One has spoken.”
The upshot of this was that the guards, and our erstwhile guides, moved back along the ramp, leaving only Holmes and myself standing before the elder Martian.
He regarded us with his great glaucous eyes, then said in creaking English, “It is an honour indeed to meet you, at last. Professor Moriarty has told me much about you, Mr Holmes. Please, if you would care to come this way.”
The Martian led us through the open arch, and a door slid shut behind us.
“Welcome to the inner sanctum of Hakoah-Malan,” he said. “I am Keeper Karan-Arana-Lall.”
I stared about me in wonder. We were in a huge dome – the upper hemisphere of the central hanging sphere, no less – surrounded by banks of humming machinery like silver vials and retorts made gargantuan, and all illuminated brightly from within like outsize electric lights. Before us stretched another ramp, and I saw that Holmes’s attention was on this – or rather, on what stood at the distant terminus of the inclined approach. I tried to discern the expression on my friend’s face: an admixture of wonder, bafflement and, I think, pity.
For at the far end of the long ramp, reduced to the size of a penny piece, was a circular apparatus of chromium bars and struts, and pinioned in place at the centre of this nexus was a human figure for all the world resembling a spider at the centre of its web. Though perhaps the analogy was erroneous, for a spider in its web is in control, and the distinct impression I received on seeing the figure caught within this mesh of bars and spars was that he was not so much in control as… controlled.
Karan-Arana-Lall gestured with a palsied tentacle. The ramp was wide enough for us to proceed three abreast, and like this, with Holmes in the middle, we made our way towards the human figure suspended in the chromium web.
At last we paused before the great circular apparatus and stared up in wonder at what Professor Moriarty had become.
How to describe the figure that hung before us, so at odds with the authoritarian edict that had boomed out just minutes earlier?
His limbs had become withered and atrophied through lack of use; he hung, splayed like an etiolated caricature of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, his flesh maggot white, his arms and legs mere dangling, useless stalks. The great bulging dome of his skull emphasised the shrunken state of his limbs and emaciated torso, and the passage of time had etched lines and wrinkles in the flesh of his face and swollen brow. Attached to his head, like a tiara or a crown of thorns, was a metal belt connected by wires to the chromium outer struts of the circular apparatus that contained him. Other leads were plugged into his body by way of catheters, one jacked straight into his jugular, while another was plumbed into his flank beneath his jutting ribcage.
At the sight of him, my erstwhile fear at my probable fate was suddenly overtaken by revulsion.
I glanced at Holmes. His face was a graven image of shock and wonderment.
Karan-Arana-Lall sank to the floor as if in reverence.
Moriarty regarded us with his sunken eyes. His lips moved, minimally, yet his words reached us.
“Behold the man,” he croaked.
At last, Holmes found his voice. He reached out, gesturing to Moriarty. “What happened?” he asked in barely a whisper.
“What happened?” Moriarty repeated, a note of humour in his tone. “What happened is that I was rewarded for my work, for my loyalty.”
“But,” said my friend, almost lost for words as he gestured at the chromium frame and the vast array of machinery crowding around, “all this…?”
“All this,” Moriarty said, “is processing my thoughts, distilling my wisdom – taking everything I have ever known and experienced in my lon
g and eventful lifetime and using it to come to some understanding of what it is to be… Man. It is the Martians’ way of learning everything about those they wish to crush.”
“And you colluded in this?” Holmes said with barely suppressed rage.
“Colluded?” Moriarty repeated. “You could say that. It was in 1894 that I formed an alliance with the Martians – and in so doing sealed not only my own fate, but that too of the human race.”
Holmes appeared uncharacteristically mystified. “But how could this be? In 1894 the first wave perished in little under a month, slain by terrestrial pathogens—”
“But not before I contacted them, Holmes, and offered to assist these terrible beings that had achieved what mankind had not and could not – the conquest of space and travel to another world!”
“Insane!” I said.
Moriarty’s tiny, sunken eyes swivelled to regard me as if I were no more than an insect. “Insane? Yes, Doctor, you might say that.” He switched his attention back to Holmes. “But look at it from my perspective, if you can. The year is 1894, and I have retreated to a fastness far from civilisation. I had only ever failed at one endeavour in my existence until then, and that was to rid the world of you, Holmes. Imagine my rage when I discovered that you, like me, had survived the plunge that fateful afternoon! And not only that, but you had succeeded, while I crawled from the gorge and retreated so that my broken body might mend itself, in dismantling the very web of crime I had spun across the length and breadth of Europe, causing the arrest of my associates and minions.”
“It was,” said Holmes, “more than a little satisfying, along with the knowledge that you were dead and no longer able to torment the civilised world. Little did I know, Moriarty!”
“So I retreated,” the professor went on, “licking my wounds, you might say. I lodged myself in a remote Austrian village, slowly regained my strength, and plotted my revenge. Oh, how I dreamed of one day carrying through what I had signally failed to achieve at the Falls – the death of Sherlock Holmes! And then the Martians came.”
