“I’m not so keen on going down there,” said Generalov. He looked around, as if hoping the others would support him. The whole crew had already gathered in the recreation lounge, but no one shared the navigator’s pessimism.
“Two hundred million people live down there,” said Morrison. “I’ve been there, though not in the hot season. It’s a very beautiful world.”
“I wanna go there,” Kim interjected quickly. And smiled at Alex.
Alex felt he really was looking at Kim differently. The girl hadn’t become more sexually appealing… and he still felt affection for her. But something had changed—something Alex had no words for.
Would it always be like this?
“Our venerable passengers are sure taking their sweet time,” said Janet with a smirk. She was standing right next to the screen, now showing views of Zodiac set to pleasant music. Really beautiful views. Zodiac’s nature was not Earth-like, but strangely enough, it looked very agreeable. There were lakes of dark-blue water, as if tinged with artificial color. Lush crowns of trees—every leaf green on one side and white on the other. Agile, cute little animals, scurrying in the grass like orange fur-balls.
“The Zzygou must not need an orientation,” remarked Paul. He yawned. “Captain, do we wait for them or just go in for landing?”
This jolted Alex out of his contemplation of Kim.
“Yes, please. Paul, go call them in to the recreation lounge. But be sure to ask Zey-So first, she is the senior one of the couple….”
The engineer nodded and was just about to step out of the lounge when there was a sound of hurrying feet.
“Finally!” snorted Kim. “Should we hit replay?”
C-the-Third appeared in the recreation lounge.
The air went still with an oppressive silence. The clone’s face was covered with red blotches, and beads of sweat ran down his forehead. His eyes were glassy.
“What happened?” Alex stepped forward. This could very well be the way a pilot would look after seeing the stern of his own ship in the hyper-channel.
“Captain…” The clone’s voice was barely audible. He swallowed spasmodically, and stretched out his arm, grabbing Alex by the shoulder. “Come with me! N-now!”
Alex turned around, glancing at his crew. They all looked on in bafflement.
“Everyone, stay here,” he said, just in case. “We’ll leave the landing till the next circuit.”
The clone nodded vehemently, as though Alex had given voice to his own thoughts, and then dragged the captain off.
“What’s going on?” said Alex softly, as soon as they were out in the hallway. “C-the-Third?”
“Sh-sh-sh!”
Now that they were alone, C-the-Third’s face expressed such desperation and panic that the grimace that had frightened everyone back in the lounge seemed good-natured and happy by comparison.
“Stop it, C-the-Third!”
“It’s… all over…” the clone forced out. Laughed hoarsely. “No. I lie. It’s all just about to begin…”
Having lost any hope of getting a coherent answer out of him, Alex quickened his pace. Ten seconds later, they were standing at the door of one of the cabins.
“You aren’t faint of heart?” the clone’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Not really.”
C-the-Third flung open the cabin door.
First, Alex saw one of the Zzygou, maybe Zey-So, maybe Sey-Zo, obeisantly kneeling beside the bed. The cabin, it seemed, had been decorated for a carnival—bright spots of red paint all over the walls. Odd, shapeless garlands hung from the ceiling. The odor, disgusting, almost intolerable to the human sense of smell, made him hold his breath.
And then it was as if a dam burst—his mind made the leap, and Alex realized all that had happened.
“No!” he shouted.
The Zzygou, frozen in a kneeling position near the mutilated, cut-up body of her partner, didn’t even stir.
“Let’s go, Alex. Let’s go. There is nothing we can do to help now.” C-the-Third dragged him out into the hallway, quietly closing the door of the cabin. He swallowed. Then shook his head. “It’s monstrous… monstrous.”
“Why did she do this?” Alex looked closely at the clone, who was, after all, a specialist in the Others. “They aren’t Bronins. They don’t have ritual murder!”
The clone tittered, quietly, hysterically:
“Alex… No! Zzygou partners are incapable of killing one another!”
“A suicide…” Alex began, and stopped himself. No living creature could smear its own blood all over the walls, festoon the ceiling with its own entrails, and then peacefully lie down on the bed.
“Zey-So has been murdered.” An anxious rattling note appeared in C-the-Third’s voice. “She has been murdered by someone in your crew, Alex! By a human—by one of us!”
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.”
Operon III,
Dominant.
The Naturals.
Chapter 1
“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.