Sherlock Holmes in Orbit Read online

  Mike Resnick (ed) & Martin H. Greenberg (ed) – Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

  Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

  Authorized by

  Dame Jean Conan Doyle

  Edited by

  Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg

  MJF BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  Published by MJF Books Fine Communications Two Lincoln Square 60 West 66th Street New York, NY 10023

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 96-78816 ISBN 1-56731-182-2

  Copyright © 1995 by Sirius, Inc. and Martin H. Greenberg This edition published by arrangement with DAW books

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  MJF Books and the MJF colophon are trademarks of Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  10 9 87654 32

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  Acknowledgments

  Introduction © 1995 by Mike Resnick.

  The Musgrave Version © 1995 by George Alec Effinger.

  The Case of the Detective’s Smile © 1995 by Mark Bourne.

  The Adventure of the Russian Grave © 1995 by William Barton and Michael Capobianco.

  The Adventure of the Field Theorems © 1995 by Vonda N. McIntyre.

  The Adventure of the Missing Coffin © 1995 by Laura Resnick.

  The Adventure of the Second Scarf © 1995 by Mark Aronson.

  The Phantom of the Barbary Coast © 1995 by Frank M. Robinson.

  Mouse and the Master © 1995 by Brian M. Thomsen.

  Two Roads, No Choices © 1995 by Dean Wesley Smith.

  The Richmond Enigma © 1995 by John DeChancie.

  A Study in Sussex © 1995 by Leah A. Zeldes.

  The Holmes Team Advantage © 1995 by Gary Alan Ruse.

  Alimentary, My Dear Watson © 1995 by Lawrence Schimel.

  The Future Engine © 1995 by Byron Tetrick.

  Holmes ex Machina © 1995 by Susan Casper.

  The Sherlock Solution © 1995 by Craig Shaw Gardner.

  The Fan Who Molded Himself © 1995 by David Gerrold.

  Second Fiddle © 1995 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

  Moriarty by Modem © 1995 by Jack Nimersheim.

  The Greatest Detective of All Time © 1995 by Ralph Roberts.

  The Case of the Purloined L’Isitek © 1995 by Josepha Sherman.

  The Adventure of the Illegal Alien © 1995 by Anthony R. Lewis.

  Dogs, Masques, Love, Death: Flowers © 1995 by Barry N. Malzberg.

  You See But You Do Not Observe © 1995 by Robert J. Sawyer.

  Illusions © 1995 by Janni Lee Simner.

  The Adventures of the Pearly Gate © 1995 by Mike Resnick.

  To Carol, as always,

  And to Isaac Asimov and Alfred Bester, pioneers of the science-fictional mystery story.

  Contents

  Mike Resnick (ed) & Martin H. Greenberg (ed) – Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

  Acknowledgments

  Contents

  Introduction: THE DETECTIVE WHO REFUSED TO DIE by Mike Resnick

  PART I: HOLMES IN THE PAST

  THE MUSGRAVE VERSION by George Alec Effinger

  THE CASE OF THE DETECTIVE’S SMILE by Mark Bourne

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE RUSSIAN GRAVE by William Barton and Michael Capobianco

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE FIELD THEOREMS by Vonda N. McIntyre

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING COFFIN by Laura Resnick

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND SCARF by Mark Aronson

  THE PHANTOM OF THE BARBARY COAST by Frank M. Robinson

  MOUSE AND THE MASTER by Brian M. Thomsen

  TWO ROADS, NO CHOICES by Dean Wesley Smith

  THE RICHMOND ENIGMA by John DeChancie

  A STUDY IN SUSSEX by Leah A. Zeldes

  THE HOLMES TEAM ADVANTAGE by Gary Alan Ruse

  ALIMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON by Lawrence Schimel

  THE FUTURE ENGINE by Byron Tetrick

  PART II: HOLMES IN THE PRESENT

  HOLMES EX MACHINA by Susan Casper

  THE SHERLOCK SOLUTION by Craig Shaw Gardner

  THE FAN WHO MOLDED HIMSELF by David Gerrold

  SECOND FIDDLE by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  PART III: HOLMES IN THE FUTURE

  MORIARTY BY MODEM by Jack Nimersheim

  THE GREATEST DETECTIVE OF ALL TIME by Ralph Roberts

  THE CASE OF THE PURLOINED L’ISITEK by Josepha Sherman

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE ILLEGAL ALIEN by Anthony R. Lewis

  DOGS, MASQUES, LOVE, DEATH: FLOWERS by Barry N. Malzberg

  YOU SEE BUT YOU DO NOT OBSERVE by Robert J. Sawyer

  PART IV: HOLMES AFTER DEATH

  ILLUSIONS by Janni Lee Simner

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEARLY GATES by Mike Resnick

  End of Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

  Introduction: THE DETECTIVE WHO REFUSED TO DIE by Mike Resnick

  The downstate returns aren’t all in yet, but it looks as though the popular fiction character who will outlive all the others is Sherlock Holmes, the world’s most famous consulting detective. In fact, the only other character who’s still in the running is Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, who is about a quarter of a century younger and still going strong.

  But consider:

  While the original Tarzan stories are still popular with the masses, there has been only one Tarzan story not written by Burroughs—Fritz Leiber’s Tarzan and the Valley of Gold. Now go to your local bookstore and count the number of authors who have tried their hands at Sherlock Holmes stories.

  Trademark and copyright considerations? Of course. But there is also the fact that Tarzan exists in only one milieu— the African jungle—and there is precious little African jungle left. His particular feats of derring-do would have everyone from the World Wildlife Federation to Greenpeace on his case were he to perform them today.

  But when your prey is a master criminal rather than a lion or a bull elephant, the game is always afoot. True, to many readers Sherlock Holmes will always reside at 221B Baker Street, in “a romantic chamber of the heart, a nostalgic country of the mind, where it is always 1895.” But to others, he is too big to confine to a single era or a single country.

  Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill him off in the Falls at Reichenbach, and failed. The public simply would not allow Holmes to die. Doyle’s death itself should have spelled an end to Holmes, but again, the public had such a hunger for Holmes stories that, after a two-decade hiatus, they began to reappear. The first major book was The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Ellery Queen in 1944 and featuring Holmes pastiches and parodies by Mark Twain, Bret Harte, John Kendrick Bangs, and more than two dozen other admirers of the great detective.

  Doyle’s son, Adrian Conan Doyle, alone and in collaboration with John Dickson Carr, then wrote a dozen new Holmes stories which were collected as The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes.

  It wasn’t just Holmes himself who continued to appear in works of fiction, but even the fans of Sherlock Holmes. Anthony Boucher’s The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, published in 1940, is about a group of Holmes fanatics who get involved in a series of murders on the set of a Sherlock Holmes film.

  After the appearance of Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven Percent Solution, a Holmes novel that made the bestseller lists and became a successful big-budget movie, it became almost open season for authors wishing to write their Holmes stories. Among the better ones were Naked Is the Best Disguise, by Samuel Rosenberg; I, Sherlock Holm
es, by Michael Harrison; The Giant Rat of Sumatra, by Richard L. Boyer; The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, by Michael Dibdin; Ten Years Beyond Baker Street, by Cay Van Ash; The Return of Moriarty, by John Gardner; The Private Life of Doctor Watson and Sherlock Holmes: My Life and Crimes, by Michael Hardwick; and Good Night, Mr. Holmes, by Carole Nelson Douglas.

  August Derleth, who wrote a few Holmes stories himself, also created Solar Pons, a Holmes pastiche who survived through half a dozen books; and Robert L. Fish, himself a fine mystery writer, wrote some two dozen hilarious parodies featuring Sherlock Holmes, which were later collected in two books.

  But at the same time all this was going on, an interesting phenomenon was taking place: Some Holmes authors decided to allow the great detective to interact with other characters, both real and fictional, many of which had a fantasy element to them. There must be more than a dozen stories in which Holmes hunts down Jack the Ripper, the best of which is Ellery Queen’s A Study in Terror. But he also teams up with a young Teddy Roosevelt in The Adventure of the Stalwart Companions, by H. Paul Jeffers. As for his more fantastic companions and foes, there was 1974’s The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, by Philip Jose Farmer, in which Holmes meets Tarzan; there was Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula, written by Loren D. Estleman in 1978; and Pulptime, the 1984 novel by P. H. Cannon in which Holmes and H. P. Lovecraft discover some horrors beneath the sewers of New York.

  The interesting thing is that Holmes worked just as well in these settings as he did in Baker Street. Even the movies, which have long been in love with Holmes, found a way to produce a gentle fantasy about him in James Goldman’s brilliant They Might Be Giants, starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward.

  Science fiction had been slow to get into the act, but by 1960 there were enough fantastic Holmes stories to produce a limited-edition book that is now a collector’s item: The Science-Fictional Sherlock Holmes, edited by Robert C. Peterson and produced in Denver by a publishing company known as The Council of Four. The stories were all reprints.

  There was a gap of 24 years before the next fantastic Holmes anthology, Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space, edited by Martin Greenberg and published by Bluejay Books. It, too, contained nothing but reprints.

  Another decade has passed and Holmes is more popular than ever. The Doyle books are constantly being brought out in new editions, Jeremy Brett is introducing an entire generation of television viewers to Sherlock Holmes, new novels featuring the great detective are appearing all the time—and it seemed that the time was ripe for another science-fictional Holmes anthology, but this time featuring all-original stories written exclusively for this book. For just as Holmes has never been more popular, the same can be said for science fiction: rarely does a month go by without a science fiction or fantasy novel appearing on the bestseller lists, the field is publishing ten times as many books as it did as recently as two decades ago, and a list of the all-time top-grossing movies reads like a science fiction fan’s Christmas list.

  When these stories were assigned, the authors were told that they could place Holmes in any era or any setting they chose, as long as each story had a science fiction or fantasy element and Holmes remained recognizably Holmes. They took me at my word, and hence the stories are divided into four main groups: Holmes in the Past (his own era), Holmes in the Present, Holmes in the Future, and even a couple of stories about Holmes After Death.

  In Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, you’ll see the world’s greatest consulting detective lock horns with the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu; you’ll learn the secret embedded in Professor Moriarty’s “The Dynamics of an Asteroid”; you’ll find out what happened after Holmes fell to his death over the Falls at Reichenbach; you’ll see him accept a commission from a vampire; you’ll even encounter him as a computer program.

  Sherlock Holmes will never die. But thanks to the men and women who write imaginative literature, who go to work each day asking “What if... ?” he has just been given 26 new worlds to conquer.

  —Mike Resnick

  PART I: HOLMES IN THE PAST

  THE MUSGRAVE VERSION by George Alec Effinger

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  Most of those who have read and thrilled to the accounts of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes will be familiar with Reginald Musgrave. He attended Cambridge University at the same time that Holmes was an undergraduate there, and the two men developed a friendship based on mutual respect and a common interest in the natural sciences. It was because of this friendship—and Holmes’s practice of using another person as a sounding board for his thoughts concerning whatever problem he was working on (a function later filled so admirably by Dr. John H. Watson)—that Holmes brought Musgrave along on that fateful visit to the rooms of Ch’ing Chuan-Fu. It was four years later that Musgrave and Holmes came together again to solve the puzzle recorded by Watson as “The Musgrave Ritual.”

  This incident is only the first part of a much longer work. It is presented here so that perhaps it may explain some of Holmes’s qualities that have troubled and intrigued historians. The twenty-one-year-old Sherlock Holmes whom Musgrave knew was not the same man who shared the flat on Baker Street with Dr. Watson. Musgrave’s memories of the young man may conflict with the more familiar picture of Holmes, but there is no doubt that Holmes’s meeting with Ch’ing Chuan-Fu—who in due time would rock the entire globe under his nom de guerre of Dr. Fu Manchu—was a major milestone along the road from the brash, somewhat naive Sherlock Holmes to the masterful and self-possessed consulting detective the entire world has admired and loved for decades.

  Here now is Reginald Musgrave’s remarkable story.

  *

  After reading the opening pages of this memoir, my son Miles said, ‘The Sherlock Holmes in your book is quite different from the one I’ve always imagined.” There is good reason for that, and his name is John H. Watson. I suppose this is as good a time as any to stress an important though unpleasant truth. Dr. Watson—courageous, generous, sympathetic, by his own accounts—did have one or two human failings or, rather, weaknesses. One of these, sad to say, was a kind of jealousy or possessiveness when it came to sharing the friendship of Sherlock Holmes. Since the publication of Dr. Watson’s accounts of Holmes’s exploits, many students have pointed out errors, discrepancies, evasions, and some rather baldly obvious attempts to hoodwink the reader.

  Why would the honorable doctor resort to such things? It is my informed contention that he did not like to think that anyone but he had had such a close working relationship with Holmes, and he guarded his own connection by removing from his stories all mention of others who might be considered “competition.” I am the first to admit that this seems petty and a bit adolescent, all out of character for the Dr. Watson we have come to know. Still, I submit that “Dr. Watson,” the actor in the dramas rather than the recorder of them, is a piece of fiction.

  John H. Watson, Holmes’s Boswell, created his own image and left it to posterity. The genuine Watson was less noble and more human. He is no less likable, to be sure; but it is simpler to understand the dissonances of fact that occur in the published adventures if we see how Watson disguised and altered his portrait of myself.

  This is Watson’s “Holmes” describing me in “The Musgrave Ritual”:

  “Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and I had some slight acquaintance with him.

  He was not generally popular among the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence. In appearance he was a man of an exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid yet courtly manners. He was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families in the kingdom, though his branch was a cadet one which had separated from the Northern Musgraves some time in the sixteenth century, and had established itself in Western Sussex, where the manor house of Hurlstone is perhaps the oldest inhabited building in the county. Something of his birthplace seemed to cling to the ma
n, and I never looked at his pale, keen face, or the poise of his head, without associating him with gray archways and mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep.”

  “Some slight acquaintance,” indeed! “Languid, yet courtly manners.” In this tone, are not those words more than mildly disparaging? “All the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep.” Beware! This is not Sherlock Holmes speaking, even though in Watson’s story those words issue from my old friend’s mouth. No, it is the good doctor himself, giving voice to his own hopelessly middle-class prejudice and invidiousness.

  I charge that these are the words of a man who wished that he had attended Oxford or Cambridge, who wished that his practice were in Harley Street, who wished that his talents and abilities fitted him for more than the role of observer and confidant. He was Patroclus to Holmes’s Achilles, and though he dare not don his friend’s armor in battle, he could make certain that no one would mistake his part in Holmes adventures.

  “Some slight acquaintance!” From that day in July, 1875, when Holmes and I were first swept up into the world of the Chinese devil, until the glad day more than a year and a half later when we returned at last to English shores, Holmes and I grew ever stronger in our friendship. We endured such trials together as bind men for a lifetime in mutual respect and comradeship. Except for the story of the Ritual, however, my name is never mentioned again in Watson’s accounts. I

  should like to set the record straight; I intend to write the true account of the so-called “Musgrave Ritual,” though I am sure that the legion of Holmes’s admirers will put little credence in my new version. Yet I am not envious or resentful. It is too late for that.

  If I were to follow the example of Dr. Watson, I should call this history “The Adventure of the Five Snows,” or something of that sort. Dr. Watson was a practical man with a strong romantic streak in him, I suppose. I know from some of the wry remarks Holmes made in his letters that Watson had a certain talent for putting words in everyone’s mouth after the fact, and for editing and rearranging the smaller details of a case to suit his more literary requirements.