Analog SFF, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Why do you say that, Watson? I would call this a most satisfactory conclusion to this matter.”

  “Here you have a dog and you never got to say anything about the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.”

  “Nighttime? There was no nighttime.”

  “Wasn't that what was curious?”

  “Wasn't what—I don't quite see what you are driving at, Watson. I thought the curious incident was that the dog wasn't barking.”

  “Well, this dog wasn't barking. Didn't you find that curious?”

  “Not in the least.”

  He leaned back. “Not even a smidgen?”

  “Dear fellow, this Labradoodle is an amdroid imprinted by a human impersonating a very well-trained, well-behaved seeing-eye dog. Why would he bark?”

  “Well, I thought it curious.”

  “Really.”

  “Game's afoot and all that—”

  “I agree to the deal,” interrupted Frankie Statten. “Just so I don't have to listen to any more of this rubbish!”

  “Thank you.” I turned to Watson and smiled. “Well done, old fellow. Well done. So, while you clean up and Mr. Blake and Mr. Tompkins discreetly return the jewelry to their respective owners, Mr. Collier, Mr. Statten, and I shall repair to the cruiser and sort out a few final details.” I held out my hand toward the stairs. “Gentlemen.”

  As I followed Collier and the dog up the dungeon stairs, I heard the Labradoodle ask him confidentially, “This Holmes and Watson thing those two got going. An act, right? An act?”

  “I don't know,” answered Mr. Collier. “I simply don't know.”

  * * * *

  The cruiser rose from Powderham Castle in an arc that took us over the River Exe, giving us a good view of Lympstone's Bay Tower red in the afternoon sun. I could see Mama Bimbo's Cat House on The Strand being fitted out for some other kind of shop. A flight of gulls crossed below us and made wing for chips or fingerlings, whichever were more plentiful as the tide changed. Watson put us on autopilot and settled back in his couch.

  “Holmes, what about Frank Statten and Songbirds?” He pointed toward the mech chip in the envelope on the dash clip. “Are you simply going to let him go without even a day in court?”

  “I am going to take this chip to his stasis bed at Songbirds, update his natural, and leave, inquiry closed.”

  “Memories of every crime and crooked deal Statten ever pulled, everything he has in the works right now, is in his memory recall bank. I cannot believe you won't at least make a copy of that chip for the constabulary.”

  “I won't do it for two reasons, Watson. First, I gave him my word. Second, I don't think Statten will believe either that I won't copy his memory. Unless I'm terribly mistaken, every iron he has in the fire will be yanked out within hours of getting his engrams back into his nat. The deals he has going with any number of undesirable personages will be cancelled, and they will be after him to know why. Think he'll stick around to try and explain how he had to make a deal with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson?”

  Watson chuckled. “Not much to show on our records, though.”

  “Small price to pay for ending a one-man crime wave and doing a good cop a favor, don't you think? It should make absolute excrement of Frankie's criminal life and reputation, which will settle his account with Loretta nicely.”

  “I suppose.” We rode along silently for a while, then Watson said, “Holmes, what is going to happen to Clarice Penne's body—the one in stasis? Sooner or later the owner of the stasis bed is going to have to put the body up for payments due, correct?”

  “I'm surprised at you, Watson,” I said. “Surely you recall our visit to that fair seaside cultural center you insisted on pronouncing Limp-stone.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Of course I remember.”

  “Do you also remember the woman who constituted one hundred percent of the clientele of Mama Bimbo's Cat House?”

  He chuckled at that. “Yes. Petting Place. Absurd name. Maddie girl, she was. Madeleine Wallingford. She brought in the hapless jewel thief now inhabiting Timmy the Tortoise over at Powderham Castle. Our first catch and release. What of her?”

  “Remember the card Madeleine Wallingford had us place in the shop window? The one for the meeting of the Order of St. Trinians?”

  “Vaguely. Theater group, wasn't it?”

  “I'm shocked, Watson. Absolutely shaken to my very nucleus. An old movie buff such as yourself? You yourself remarked how Clarice Penne's natural body resembled actor Alistair Sim, he who in his heyday played the headmistress of St. Trinians girls’ school in The Belles of St. Trinians to such perfection—”

  “The Order of St. Trinians,” Shad interrupted. “That theater group does scripts based on the Ronald Searle cartoons!”

  “Indeed, old fellow, indeed. Madeleine Wallingford is paying off the stasis estate agent and collecting the suit for Trinians new star performer as we speak. You know, possibly going without a proper hat has chilled your brain, depriving its cells of much needed oxygen, increasing your brain-bumble factor.” I reached back and took a round box from the hands of the large walking mech. “In return for our services, I received this from my friend Ian Collier.” I handed it to my partner.

  “I didn't know we were allowed to accept gifts, Holmes.”

  “Nothing of value. This is just an old hand-me-down of Ian's grandfather's. It ought to keep your brain toasty.”

  He lifted the lid from the box, placed it aside, opened the tissue paper, and took the gray homburg from it. “Why ... why this is quite thoughtful, Holmes.” He placed it on his head with both hands and faced me. “How do I look?”

  “Very handsome, Watson. Distinguished. The very picture of Dr. John H. Watson.”

  “You shouldn't have.”

  “Why not?”

  His face grew long and troubled. “Now, this makes me feel terrible.”

  “How so, Watson?”

  “Well, I've noticed, Holmes, that you seem to be enjoying our Holmes and Watson thing quite a bit more than I have.”

  “I'd noticed it myself. Now that I reflect upon it, I haven't felt this perceptive in decades. I feel as though I could untie the Gordian Knot one-handed, blindfolded, and play multiple games of championship chess with my toes at the same time.”

  “Feeling rather sharp, eh, Holmes?”

  “As a tack, dear fellow. Why?”

  “I have a confession to make. You know how I dislike reading instructions of any kind.”

  “Quite. As I recall DS Guy Shad's famous dictum: ‘If the damned program or machine isn't intuitive to operate, it's crap.'”

  Watson chuckled. “Yes. Very amusing.”

  “Come, Watson. What about it?” I prompted.

  “Brochure came with my Watson suit, you know, from Celebrity Look-alikes.” He reached into his side coat pocket with his left hand and pulled out a leaflet folded into thirds. “You were correct, Holmes, about what you called my bumble factor. There's one built in. Slows things down and fuzzes up thoughts while mixing them in with the vocabulary, vocal mannerisms, and so on of the Nigel Bruce Watson.” He waved the leaflet idly in my direction. “Something else, too.”

  “What's that?”

  “Bit of a cost-cutting measure, I fear. Makes sense if you look at it from their end. Celebrity Look-alikes, that is. You see?”

  “I'm afraid I don't see. What are you talking about, Watson? What cost-cutting measure?”

  “Oh. Well, usually both suits are rented at the same time: Holmes and Watson. You see? Symbiotic relationship.”

  “Ye-e-es,” I answered warily.

  “They had to have the Nigel Bruce as Watson suits made, you see. For the Basil Rathbone as Holmes suits, though, they simply used the same model fallen officer replacement suit that you have yourself.”

  “That makes perfectly good sense. Why reinvent the wheel?”

  “Exactly, Holmes. So you understand.”

  “Understand what?”

&
nbsp; “When my Watson suit came in close enough proximity to your model suit, my Nigel Bruce-Dr. Watson bio program asked permission to insert a wireless patch through your bio receiver. You must have seen it. You agreed to the terms.”

  “Ever since I went wireless I must get a half dozen of those things a day. I never read them—who has the time? What—well, what does it do?”

  Watson yawned, tipped the homburg over his eyes, and slid down in his seat. “Only some mannerisms, vocabulary choices, thought pattern adjustments. According to the brochure it should sharpen up your thinking a bit. Seems to have done just that. Gordian Knot and all. We can uninstall it, I suppose.”

  “Why would I want to?”

  “Perhaps I should. Don't quite seem to understand what's going on.”

  I picked up the brochure and gave it a quick scan. It had an address that would be useful in finding out if it would be possible to dial back Watson's bumble factor. Something else, too, that might be a problem:

  * * * *

  The Holmes and Watson duo are only for entertainment, guys! Silly us! So if you run into real emergency situations while occupying these bios, programming automatically calls the chaps who are the real professionals. For anything less than emergencies, programming restricts your problem solving strategies to those not involving arrests or otherwise burdening the police. Have fun! And please solve crime responsibly.

  * * * *

  That opened all kinds of possibilities. A few dozen Holmes and Watson duos on the streets could put the constabulary out of business for good.

  “Speaking of bumble,” said Watson, “I used to have a bumble dessert thing when I was with New England Wildlife. Quite tasty. Bumble brain pie.”

  “Doesn't sound very appetizing, old fellow.”

  “What? Sorry.” He chuckled. “Misspoke there. Bumble brain pie. Silly of me. Actually it was called bum berry pie.”

  “Bum berry pie? Are you certain?”

  “Yes. Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries. Delicious. A Maine favorite. Woman in Farmington used to make it up special for the officers in my station.”

  “Terribly sorry, Watson. Bum berry pie sounds even less appetizing than bumble brain pie.”

  “Bumble berry pie, Holmes,” corrected Watson. “Whatever are you going on about? I said bumble berry pie. Keep going on about bum berry pie and you'll make people wonder from where you got this great reputation.” He chuckled again and yawned. “Bum berry pie. You amaze me, Holmes. You absolutely amaze me. Oh, about the dog—”

  “Frankie Statten was caught going equipped, hence the equipment is forfeit.”

  “I see that. But since—how was that again?”

  “Since we are all agreed that the jewelry was misplaced and not stolen, there was no crime. Hence, no need to produce anything back at the office.”

  Watson grunted something.

  As the late afternoon countryside sped beneath us, I looked back over my thoughts of the past few days, thrilling at always having an answer almost as soon as a question arose. Such as, if I am heading east toward Exeter late in the afternoon, why is the setting sun not at my back but is, instead, perpendicular to the vector of motion and warming my left cheek? I looked at the GPS.

  “Watson, you have us heading north toward Exmoor. Watson?”

  I caught the sound of the old fellow gently snoring, took over the cruiser's controls, and entered the correct heading, wondering if the patch I had automatically accepted into my neural system included the ability to play the violin and an addiction to cocaine. Then I remembered my Holmes was a Basil Rathbone Hollywood Holmes whose strongest addiction was to whatever tobacco was stuffed into that huge meerschaum pipe of his. I needn't worry about smoking. Neither my lungs, my wife, nor the clean air regulations at Heavitree Tower could tolerate any of that nonsense.

  My partner was having a bit of bother about the Labradoodle. To wit: had we stolen it? I suppose a case could be made for it, and I would be happy to meet Frankie Statten in court any time he wished to settle the matter at law. Once I was on the proper heading for Exeter, I settled in and contemplated blowing bubbles from that meerschaum. It went very well with the image playing before my mind's eye of Ian Collier, his wife, and two boys at Powderham playing with their old golden retriever in his new Labradoodle suit.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Barry B. Longyear

  * * * *

  (EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier adventures of Jaggers and Shad include “The Good Kill” [November 2006], “The Hangingstone Rat” [October 2007], and “Murder in Parliament Street” [November 2007].)

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Reader's Department: THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

  by Tom Easton

  The Merchants’ War, Charles Stross, Tor, $24.95, 336 pp. (ISBN: 0-7653-1671-4).

  Patrimony, Alan Dean Foster, Del Rey, $23.95, 231 pp. (ISBN: 0-345-48507-6).

  Hurricane Moon, Alexis Glynn Latner, Pyr, $15.00, 403 pp. (ISBN: 978-1-59102-545-0).

  The Guardener's Tale, Bruce Boston, Sam's Dot Publishing, $19.95, 274 pp. (ISBN: 1-933556-78-1).

  The Dog Said Bow-Wow, Michael Swanwick, Tachyon Publications, $14.95, 295 + xiv pp. (ISBN: 978-1-892391-52-0).

  Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda-Setting in American and British Speculative Fiction, Charles E. Gannon, Rowman & Littlefield, $24.95, 311 pp. (ISBN: 0-85323-708-5).

  Science Fiction and Empire, Patricia Kerslake, University of Liverpool Press

  * * * *

  Charles Stross's The Merchants’ War—fourth volume in the Merchant Princes series that began with The Family Trade (reviewed here in April 2005)—ends far too soon. After a long build-up, with great events and enormous kerfuffles thoroughly foreshadowed, it settles one small problem and leaves the reader panting for the next volume. Good marketing, I suppose, but annoying.

  It all began when ace investigative reporter Miriam Beckwith discovered that she was the heiress to a clan of folks with the unique—they think—ability to step from one world (ours) to another (the medievaloid Gruinmarkt). This clan has grown wealthy by running drugs around borders in our world and providing rapid communications in the other. Miriam is a woman of modern Western culture. She is tough-minded, independent, and competent, and when she sees an opportunity to revamp an economically unstable enterprise (drug-running collapses if anyone wises up enough to put drugs on a legal prescription basis) by importing modern inventions (such as brake pads) into a third world, she grabs it. But the Clan is very hierarchical, part of a traditional culture where women just aren't independent beings. She must be brought to heel, married off, and set to making Clan babies. She was working around all that when the Clan turned out to have factions, both overt and covert. Not only that, but the non-Clan nobility of the Gruinmarkt had its own politics. Miriam discovered a scheme to enlarge the Clan with the help of a fertility clinic and was clapped in solitary (and visited by a Clan doctor) until she could be betrothed to the idiot prince who was the heir to the throne. The betrothal was under way when the prince's brother Egon, known as the Pervert, staged a murderous coup.

  Meanwhile, Matthias, a highly placed aide who had been conniving with an estranged branch of the Clan, decamped to our world, planted a suitcase nuke in Boston, and started talking to cops, who promptly started raiding Clan depots and catching drug-runners. Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, NSA, et al., promptly jumped in and mounted a raid on the Gruinmarkt (using captive world-walkers as porters) just in time to be on hand for the coup.

  The Merchant's War begins in the immediate aftermath of the coup. Egon is mounting a war of extermination against the Clan and its supporters. Miriam is fleeing to her world three and trying to reestablish contact with allies despite efforts of the local secret police and unknown pursuers, presumably Clan members eager to return her to captivity. The Clan is discussing how to deal with the crisis and who to put on the throne once they have Egon out of the way (don't forget the doctor who visited Miriam in solita
ry). US security forces are hunting for a bomb, staking out Miriam's old haunts, and setting the quantum-physicists to finding a technological work-alike for the Clan's biological talent. The Clan is also setting one of its bright young men (from MIT, yet) to investigating the knotwork design that world-walkers must focus on to do their magic. Different designs lead to different worlds, and the Clan now wants to know if there is a system to the design and its variations. Before long, bright-boy discovers a world in the grip of an ice age with old ruins that speak of technology more advanced than our own. There is also a closed door just waiting for some idiot to open it. (Remember the hunt for a technological work-alike—of course there will be one.)

  Meanwhile Egon is setting a trap for world-walkers. The Clan is preparing to step into the trap. Homeland Security et al. have tracked the Clan to its staging ground in our world and are standing outside demanding surrender. Miriam is discovering that she is in a biological bind, and her mother's emissaries are trying to set up lines of communication with the US government.

  In other words, Stross has spent three volumes carefully filling his hat with assorted paraphernalia. Now he has tossed everything into the air. Some trajectories seem predictable, but the reader has to trust Stross to catch and juggle and finally set everything down safely in the next volume. Or the one(s) after that. There's no telling how long he can keep the juggling going!

  I'm hooked. If you've been buying these books, you must be too. I just hope he'll get the next volume to us soon!

  * * * *

  Alan Dean Foster has set his long-running (since 1972!) hero Flinx a cosmic task. There is a wave of evil appetite heading toward our Galaxy, intent on devouring everything, and Flinx must find the ancient Tar-Aiym Krang weapons system, which alone may win the day. Everything, but everything, is up to Flinx. But Flinx has issues: he is the product of a banned gengineering experiment. The experimenters have long since been hunted down and killed. The records are missing. He thinks he knows who his mother was, but his father is a mystery. However, a dying man's last words tell him his father exists and points toward the world of Gestalt.