Sergei Lukyanenko - The Genome

Sherlock Holmes, of course, reacted faster. When Alex leaped toward the agent, who was twitching convulsively on top of the half-undressed Kim, the detective’s ‘Bulldog’ was already pressed to the rapist’s temple. Holmes’s other hand had dug into the agent’s neck with the strength of steel pincers.

“Get up!” snarled Holmes.

The agent didn’t seem to hear him. Or perhaps he thought both the pistol and the vertebrae-crushing hand a meaningless trifle, next to what he was experiencing at that moment.

“Release him, Kim,” said Alex, catching the girl’s glance—the self-composed, harsh, willful look of an agent-spesh. “It’s all right, Kim. You did great.”

Kim hesitated for a moment. Then shoved the agent off with one abrupt push. Holmes didn’t let him fall over again, but hoisted him up—the way the agent had himself just recently held the Zzygou. The detective’s fingers were still gripping the agent’s vertebrae, and the skin ripped by his nails oozed blood. The gun seemed to have grown into his temple.

“Janet!” cried Alex. “Attend to Sey-Zo, she’s bleeding to death!”

C-the-Third didn’t have to be ordered, he was already bustling over the Zzygou’s body. The black woman asked:

“Why me?”

“Because you’re trained in it! You’re an executioner-spesh, and you know the Zzygou anatomy!”

After a moment’s wavering, Janet Ruello joined the clone’s efforts. Alex helped Kim get up and pull on her torn-up slacks. He said quietly:

“Forgive me, baby. I couldn’t interfere earlier.”

Kim looked at him seriously, nodded.

“I know. He’s too strong… he would’ve killed everybody, even if we’d all attacked at once.”

Dr. Watson, in the meantime, was fixing the force field handcuffs onto the agent’s hands. As soon as they snapped closed, the metal bracelets reached for each other with enormous force, twisting the arms that, up until that moment, had been pressed to the agent’s groin. He was still whimpering quietly, twisting this way and that, trying to see his bloodstained groin.

“What… what did you do to him?” Generalov’s countenance had changed. What he had just seen seemed to have frightened him more than anything else in his whole life. Kim didn’t answer. Wincing, she was feeling her body all over.

“Do you need help?” asked Dr. Watson, businesslike. “Kim?”

The girl shook her head. Answered with a hint of irony:

“No, probably not. I’m tough. All I need is a shower…”

She looked at Alex again. And asked, “How did you know about this specification of mine? It isn’t documented anywhere.”

“A virtual acquaintance of yours gave me a hint.”

Kim’s eyes narrowed. She nodded, with a slight hesitation.

Alex soothingly patted her shoulder. Went over to the Zzygou.

She was alive and conscious. And that, however cynical it might sound, was the most important thing.

“Lady Sey-Zo,” said Alex, softly pushing aside C-the-Third, who was bandaging the alien’s elbows. “Muster your strength, Lady Sey-Zo. The future of our races now depends on the strength of your will.”

Dim with pain, split into hundreds of facets, the Zzygou’s eyes looked at him. The alien nodded.

“Have you been convinced that your companion’s murderer is the man who’s been disguised as our engineer?”

She nodded again.

“Lady Sey-Zo… everything is now in your power. If we leave him alive, then the investigation could possibly lead us to the other members of this plot. To the Ebenian agents entrenched in Imperial Security, to the corrupt politicians who have dealings with them, to the heads of weaponry-producing corporations… to all those who were interested in a bloodbath.”

The Zzygou shook her head.

“She’s right,” said Sherlock Holmes from behind Alex’s back. “We won’t be able to punish those who rule the planetary administrations and are members of the Imperial Council… What we’ll get, at most, is a series of unfortunate accidents… involving us.”

“And what about ‘Let the world perish, so long as justice prevails’?” asked Alex without turning.

“Captain, I’m only a clone, deprived of the sense of fear, compassion, and love. But I’m not a fool. And Sey-Zo understands as well as we do that it is impossible to root out evil completely.”

“Do you want to execute him, Sey-Zo?” Alex asked. “To do it personally? Is it necessary to stop the war?”

The Zzygou nodded.

“A few planets,” said Peter C-the-Forty-Fourth Valke, a.k.a the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes, “have banned this method of capital punishment as inhumane.”

The device in his hand didn’t really seem all that menacing. An oval case with a little indicator window and three buttons—not sensors, but primitive mechanical buttons, probably to rule out an accidental release.

“But considering the gravity of the crime, and its implications for the fate of the galaxy, as well as other crimes of which we do not know, but which doubtlessly have also been committed…”

The agent lay on the operating table. His hands were still fettered with handcuffs. His feet and his head were held in place by the table’s stationary brackets—Alex could only guess their actual purpose. The agent was silent, looking at his executioners, and even now, his eyes expressed absolutely nothing.

Professionals know how to die with dignity, though not even they have an opportunity to practice dying.

“In the name of his Imperial Majesty, in the name of Imperial Justice, in the name of the Free Republic of Zodiac, in the name of all humanity, I, detective-spesh, accuse you…”

Sey-Zo lay in an intensive care pod. A few programs about treating the Zzygou had been found in the gel-crystal of the medical module. She couldn’t speak, of course, but her lower pair of arms retained mobility, and now her hands lay on the control panel of a communications device. She listened closely to Holmes, who now began to read out the sentence:

“Murder, committed under especially aggravated circumstances. Sadism, not sanctioned by the victim. High treason, for on the Empire’s territory, Zey-So was considered the personal guest of the Emperor. And that’s not a full list of your heinous deeds! Considering the special circumstances of the crime, the sentence cannot be appealed and will be carried out immediately.”

Sherlock Holmes nodded to Dr. Watson. The woman came up to the agent and clicked shut a flat metal hoop around his head.

“Does the accused have any last words?” asked C-the-Forty-Fourth coldly.

The agent licked his lips. He realized what was going to happen next, but perhaps the collapse of the whole conspiracy was what he feared most.

“I will be avenged,” he said, “you can be sure of that.”

Holmes shrugged and looked at Alex, who then stepped forward. He had to say something now.

“You violated all the rules of the space fleet,” he said. “You went against your captain and your crew. You have committed the most terrible crime an astronaut-spesh can commit—you brought harm to your passengers. You shall die.”

He stepped back. And immediately after that, without asking anyone, Kim O’Hara stepped forward. She cried out sharply:

“You killed a good friend of mine. You mutilated another. You made an attempt to commit the most despicable act imaginable—sexual violence against a helpless woman. You shall die.”

Moving Kim aside, Janet Ruello approached the agent.

“You blasphemed against the Angry Christ and His Holy Church. You called your comrades in arms and your compatriots ‘cannon fodder.’ You brought dishonor to the very idea of the human race’s superiority! You shall die.”