Sergei Lukyanenko - The Genome

He was quiet for a second and then, a little more calmly, although the words’ significance would not in any way dispose anyone to be calm, he added:

“Zey-So is the Crown Princess of the Zzygou Swarm. Her death at the hands of a human is a just cause for war. As a matter of fact… I think the Zzygou warships are already on their way through the hyper-channels. Sey-Zo has a portable transceiver. Before calling me in, she had gotten in touch with her mother world.”

“Before we begin…” The man sitting across from Alex had finished filling his pipe and was lifting the flickering little flame of his lighter. “First of all… have you ever worked with a detective-spesh?”

“No, I can’t say that I have, Mr. Holmes,” replied Alex.

Sherlock Holmes puffed on his pipe and leaned back in his armchair, fixing Alex with a tenacious stare. They were sitting in Alex’s own cabin, but now he felt himself a guest… an uninvited and unwanted guest, at that.

“My real name is Peter C-the-Forty-Fourth Valke. My matrix, Peter Valke, has been dead for thirty-six years now, but our line has proved so successful that more of his clones are still being made.”

“A rare case,” Alex ventured. “They say… they say it is very hard for clones to be born posthumously.”

“Yes, Mister Romanov.” The clone nodded. “That’s right. But my whole line of detective-speshes, including me, is incapable of any human emotions, so we aren’t shocked that our matrix happens to be dead. Peter Valke was a great man, one of the first genetically modified detectives. He had personally offered to introduce the production of a line of his own clones and named them in honor of the most popular detective of all time.”

“Do you also like Sherlock Holmes, Mr. C-the-Forty-Fourth?”

“Of course. But I suggest you address me as Mr. Holmes in all our communication from now on.”

Alex nodded. That wouldn’t be hard. The detective-spesh’s entire appearance—from the lean, broad face, high cheekbones, and lanky figure to the formal tweed suit—brought to mind the immortal hero of Arthur Conan Doyle and his mad successor, Professor Hiroshi Moto. Moto had been a Japanese literature specialist who had superimposed the psychological profile of the long-dead British writer onto his own consciousness, completely losing his own personality. In his place appeared the twenty-first century writer named Moto Conan, and children all over the world still were engrossed by his books. The Rebirth of Sherlock Holmes , The Case of the Missing Gel-Crystal , Cyborg at Rest , The Four Contested Gigabytes , The Strange Story of a Dentist-Spesh … Without a doubt, Hiroshi Moto had really become a worthy successor of the ancient writer. Most probably, he had latently possessed a genuine talent—after all, not one of the many other attempts of this kind had ever led to success. Neither Count Lee Tolstoy, nor poet Anna Shelley, nor artist Mikola Rubens had ever managed to create anything decent.

“The image of my prototype, Sherlock Holmes,” continued the clone in the meantime, “is almost completely congruous with a detective-spesh. All remnants of emotions had to be removed, of course. But in general, I am a real Sherlock Holmes, Detective for Cases of Imperial Importance…”

Alex could not resist saying, “Holmes usually demonstrated his abilities to his distrustful clients.”

“You are not a client.” Holmes took the liberty to smile. “You are a witness and also, excuse me for saying this, a suspect in the case of the brutally murdered Zzygou. Although…”

The detective’s gaze became more piercing as he studied Alex closely.

“I have already committed your official and, I beg your pardon… your unofficial personal files to memory. So I will be asking you about things I couldn’t learn the ordinary way. The last alcoholic beverage you perused was dry red wine… em… Edemian Beaujolais… with some chemical stimulant unknown to me. During the last twenty-four hours, you had sexual contact with two women, apparently, first Kim and then Janet… and then there was an unfinished contact in a sex imitation program…”

As absurd as was the very thought of making ironical comments about a detective-spesh, Alex couldn’t help himself—the blocker was probably to blame….

“Yes, the real Sherlock Holmes would have benefited enormously from acquiring a dog’s sense of smell.”

The clone’s lean, wrinkled face remained unperturbed. He took a few puffs on his pipe and then gruffly said:

“The real Holmes is the offspring of a writer’s genius. I am the offspring of the genius of geneticists. That is why I am just as real and have the same right to this name. Well, Alex, since you’ve asked for it…”

He leaned forward across the little table separating them. And started to talk quickly, bluntly, as if hammering in every word:

“Your parents, Alex, were miserable losers. Your mother a natural, your father an accountant-spesh. He strained himself to the breaking point to pay for your elite specialization. He always worked overtime, and you got used to seeing him in his chair, with bundles of wires sticking out of his cheap neuro-port… so you grew to hate the very sight of it. The hostility you harbored since those days, you later transferred to everyone who used the old neuro-shunts, wrongly assuming that these people were cold, cruel, and indifferent toward others. Three years ago, this very attitude became the cause of problems on the space-liner Horizon because you cooked up a far-fetched excuse to relieve from duty a pilot-spesh with an older-model neuro-port. Your metamorphosis had been extremely painful, due to the peculiarities of your organism, and since then your mind has fixed upon the opinion of all naturals as a lower caste of humanity.”

“That’s not true!” cried Alex harshly.

“Yes, it is. You are convinced that the suffering you’ve endured gives you the right to consider yourself special, while in reality you simply have a weak reaction to analgesics. Ever since your metamorphosis, you’ve been feeling offended and tormented by the insignificant reduction of your emotions, although that is unavoidable for a pilot-spesh. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve been using some kind of emotional scanner to keep track of your own feelings. But this is all the result of common, ordinary shortcomings in the work of your parents and your child psychologist—they allowed you to experience too close an emotional contact during your pre-metamorphosis period…”

“I don’t know what personal files you’re using, Mr. Holmes…” Alex hissed. “I don’t know how you’ve found out about my poor parents! But it’s probably not worth digging through my past in order to solve a problem in the present!”

Holmes said nothing. He let out a cloud of heavy smoke, set aside his pipe, and continued in a softer tone of voice:

“All this isn’t in your personal files, Mr. Romanov. Trust me. This is a manifestation of the very capacity for induction and deduction characteristic of my literary prototype. In addition, I have unlimited access to information systems, enhanced sense organs, and modified morals. I am a servant of the law, Mr. Romanov. If the law says that a starving child who has stolen a piece of bread deserves to be hanged, I will send him to the gallows. And if the law says that a rapist and a murderer should be acquitted, I will let him go in peace. That is the foundation of my strength. The literary Holmes could allow himself to let a guilty person go, and leave justice to the Lord, if he felt the person truly deserved it. I cannot do that. My heart is only an organ for pumping blood, and I have no other god but the law. I will find the person who has killed Lady Zey-So and turn the criminal over to the punishing hands of justice. No one is capable of deceiving a detector-spesh, Alex. If you are innocent, however, if your hands aren’t stained with blood—I will become your defense and support.”