“Don’t you try to play on my curiosity, Alex!” replied Holmes harshly. “Don’t! It’s the only human trait I have left!”
“No, C-the-Forty-Fourth! It isn’t! You also have your longing for truth. And truth is not something that is stuffed into your brain by peptide chains! Not at all! Truth is what you really, truly are!”
For a brief moment, Alex felt that Holmes would now take out a pair of handcuffs and utter the standard arrest formula.
But Holmes lowered his eyes.
And so he sat there for a few seconds, downcast, peering at the floor, turning the vial between his fingers. Then, with a brisk movement, he hid it in his pocket.
“I will take every precaution, Alex Romanov,” he said quietly. “Keep that in mind. And if you have lied… even unintentionally… if the drug forces me to behave in ways unnatural to me…”
He didn’t finish his warning. Just got up and left the recreation lounge.
Report writing was an activity speshes were quite accustomed to. At times Alex even wondered why it wasn’t included in the specialization. Or maybe it was included, but considered so insignificant that it wasn’t worth mentioning.
He decided not to use the neuro-terminal. Writing a text with “thoughts” demanded too much control over one’s consciousness. Alex unfolded a virtual keyboard and, for almost an entire hour, sat drumming his fingers in the air, arranging words in the most grammatical, beautiful… and least dangerous order.
He even managed to mention the machination that had helped bring Kim O’Hara aboard the ship. No one could say that Alex had tampered with the truth in any way.
There was, of course, no mention whatsoever of the gel-crystal, of Edward Garlitsky, or of the emotions blocker.
His fingers were dancing in the air, lightly touching the holographic letters. Blue sparks flashed with every tap on the invisible keys. An illusory sheet of paper slowly scrolled upwards, taking within it the whole story of the first and only tourist flight of the spaceship Mirror and its unusual crew.
Alex re-read what he had just written. Thought for a moment, shrugged.
It was hard to say what the outcome of it all would be. There was still a chance that the union would consider him liable for what had happened, and then a pilot’s worst fate would befall Alex—he would be forbidden to fly.
But somehow, even that didn’t really frighten him now.
He gave the computer the command to create a hard copy of the report, got up from behind the desk, and opened the processor panel. Carefully extracted the gel-crystal that contained the mind of Edward Garlitsky and his entire strange little world.
How weird. How absurd. A scientific genius, the person who had uncovered all the mysteries of genetic code—who had, for many years now, been dwelling in a chunk of crystallized liquid. Mad with rage, bored, lonesome… rearranging other people’s genes over and over… constructing virtual worlds and fighting virtual wars… and the whole time, endlessly devising plan after plan after plan to break free.
Even if, in the meantime, he kept trampling over someone else’s freedom over and over again…
Alex looked at the small hatch of the little microwave built into the cabin wall. An illusion of all the comforts of home. To warm up a sandwich, or fry up a steak on the infrared grill.
Or to incinerate a whole world with its only inhabitant…
Alex took out the neuro-shunt, inserted the crystal into the contact surface, and tied the headband around his head.
There were no rivers or forests, no castles or dragons. There were no guards with swords or seductive maidens in transparent garments.
There was a gray, sandy field and a low gray sky. On a simple wooden chair, half-buried in sand, sat a middle-aged man dressed in an old-fashioned suit with a tie around his neck—that archaic ritual noose, if you believed all the films about ancient life.
Alex walked up to the geneticist Edward Garlitsky, stopped, studying his face.
Strange.
He wasn’t a copy of the spesh who had disguised himself as Paul Lourier. But the resemblance seemed undeniable. It wasn’t in his features, or his gestures, or his age… It was an elusive likeness—as though you were ripping away everything false and trivial to reveal a common essence.
“Have you rendered the agent harmless?” the man asked. Alex nodded.
“Kim?” Garlitsky inquired.
“Yes. How did you ever get such an idea?”
He seemed not to notice the tone of the question.
“Too much time on my hands, Alex. You read old myths and can’t help trying to fit the abilities of fairy-tale characters to real life. What can be created and what can’t. What’s useful, and what’s not—”
Garlitsky stopped short.
“God will be your judge.” Alex sat down nearby, right on the sand. Edward hadn’t bothered creating another chair. “So you knew all about the plot?”
“It is impossible to know all, young man. Only in fairy tales does the hero gain omniscience and omnipotence.” The geneticist smiled. “And there isn’t anything good about that. For in much wisdom is much grief.”
“I want to grieve.”
Garlitsky sighed.
“Believe me, Alex Romanov, I had no part in that complexly planned provocation. But I did have some information about it. Not much…”
“Did Kim run into me by chance?”
“Of course.”
“Did you know from the get-go that there was an agent aboard?”
“The thought did cross my mind. After the murder, I had no more doubts.”
Alex shook his head.
“Still, it seems to me that you are lying.”
“Why is that?” asked the geneticist with lively interest.
“Your reaction to the events was way too calm. You… it was like you knew everything in advance. Our every move.”
“Young man, endure at least a couple decades as an incorporeal but fully conscious shadow,” said Garlitsky ironically. “You’ll see how your idea of danger changes, and your reaction to it, as well. I got used to the thought that I might die at any moment—and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. These last few weeks, I’ve had the least worry ever about my survival.”
“You are that sure of Kim’s abilities?” Alex posed Sherlock Holmes’s question.
“But of course I am!” Edward emphatically spread out his arms. “Is an architect-spesh sure of the house he built? Is a surgeon-spesh sure of his incision? Is a fighter-spesh sure of his marksmanship?”
“Kim isn’t some brick in a wall. And you aren’t a spesh. You’re a spesh-creator.”
“So what?” Garlitsky looked at him, uncomprehending. “There have always, in any era, existed people who became speshes. Breaking their own bodies, reining in their spirit. Getting rid of one thing, adding another. Pity? Subtract pity. Intellect? Add intellect. Plus family—minus family. Plus friends—minus friends. Plus motherland—minus motherland! The entire life of a human is a continuous struggle for these pluses and minuses. People have spent decades of their short lives dashing this way and that, poisoning the existence of those around them, all to find their own combination of pluses and minuses. I removed these torments. From the cradle to the grave—all speshes are happy.”
“Because you have forbidden them to add and subtract.”
Edward laughed.
“Alex… Alex. I gave you an opportunity to decide everything anew. And? Are you happier?”
Alex was silent.