Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson have traveled through space and time to arrive on the SS Oligarch. It's a big spaceship. How big, you may ask? Big enough to allow at least one charcoal grill to cook chicken thighs for Holmes, Watson, and a disparate group of docents and systems folk.
Below the Orange antimacassar, is a continuation of the story, including a set of lyrics (by me, jabney) meant to encourage spaceship children of the future to recycle, and a cameo appearance by Spot the unspotted dog.
Just a reminder, Holmes will have his memories of the future erased, but Dr Watson will be allowed to return to his original time with his memories of the future. And he must not alter the time line.
Other Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Sherlock Holmes in Space -- The Knower -- Chapter 18
a story by jabney based on (the now public domain) characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
...
By the time we reached the back-yard of Number One Baseline Road, everyone present had been introduced. Things went well enough, I suppose, but Jerome seemed to display a rather cold manner when I said, "Jerome, this is Dixie." Perhaps, it's because... But I stopped the speculation. One thing I learned on my own, long before I came to know Sherlock Holmes, merely because I happen to hold two people in cordial regard, there should be no expectation that they should feel similarly toward each other.
"Watson, lend me a hand, if you have a moment." Holmes was positioning a chair next to the chimney-side of the cooking device. "Please steady this chair for me." He then climbed up on the chair and, before Doxy could light the fire said, "Allow me to take care of some old smoke residue before you begin." Holmes took a guidebook and wiped the corner of a page on the inside lip of the chimney, then folded the corner as he had done at each of the carriage house doors at the scene of the fire the day before yesterday. But after that, unlike there, he used a sheet of a towel-like substance that he tore off a roll at a perforation in order to wipe the chimney lip quite a bit more vigorously. Holmes repeated this several times until the towel-like substance exited the chimney looking as white as it had when torn off the roll.
"Would you like me to put these away, Holmes?" I said, indicating the wiping residue.
"I believe I spotted several waste receptacles over by the fence."
"Here, let me help. In fact, gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the, "ReCycle Song."" No one would accuse Otis Ferg of having a trained voice, but he began with enthusiasm,
"There's a can over here
Where you toss in cans
There's a bin over there
For yesterday's papers
Another with a cover
For the stinky food
And the pirate skull
Means the stuff's no good
To leave around
Or pour on the ground
To live in this place
We have found
To keep it vital
We gotta recycle"
By this time, several of the guests had joined their voices to Otis's, and by the time the song had reached what was presumably the chorus, everybody except for Holmes and me was singing along,
"Recycle
Better than cash/Different from cash
What you use next week
May be last week's trash
Recycle!"
"Did I hear some disagreement when the backyard chorus reached the line about, "Cash"?"
"It's an old dispute, Mr Holmes," said Control. "Some say "Better than cash" while others say, "Different from cash."
Jerome said, "And others try to split the difference and say, "Different than cash."
Evan, who was just coming out of the back-door said, "Sounds like we made it in time for the cash-line debate. Yvonne and I learned that line as, "Turn it to cash." But then our school had a lot of Level 0 and Level 1 families. No way we were going to be conned into calling anything better than cash."
"Is the young lady with you?" said Doxy, as he looked up from a large tin can into which he was placing pieces of charcoal. The can sat on the ground and its side was pierced with holes.
"Yvonne, you mean? She's still out front, wants to make sure Spot, the unspotted dog, is functioning properly."
"Uh oh, I've disabled the entire ROADMASTER-homecoming routine for the remainder of the day. The grilled chicken thighs, you know."
"Not to worry, We're with systems. Yvonne'll have a backdoor she can use. We're handy that way. And if you need help lighting the charcoal, Jerome is a big advocate of real fire."
"In fact, Evan, I was just about to burn one. You made it in time for that, at least. Too bad, though, you missed the Michael Jackson on the Quad ESLs."
"Thriller, I suppose?"
"Nope, it was, "Off the Wall." The side with, "Don't Stop,"
"Damn, Jerome. Do not tell Yvonne..."
"Don't tell me what?" said the young woman who had just stepped into the backyard.
"That a song you like was played on some legendary speakers, Yvonne. And because it was vinyl, there is, of course, a 24 hour waiting period before the LP can be played again."
"So bring a copy up on the server, Evan. It's just a song. Who cares if it's on vinyl or not."
The gasping sound I heard in response to this presumably provocative statement came from more than one person. Doxy, definitely. Jerome, most likely. And Otis.
Control made a megaphone with her hands and speaking through them said, "Ding! This round of analog vs digital is coming to you live from the backyard arena at Number One Baseline House..."
"Pavilion! Please!" said Dixie with mock severity, "Our host has a standard to maintain, right dear Doxy?"
"The only standard I'm worried about maintaining at the moment, darling Dixie, is the standard of our main course. Which, in the absence of a means for lighting the charcoal, would be reduced to chicken-thighs tartar. Have you a lighter?"
"I believe one of our new arrivals alluded to Jerome having one. By the way, I'm Dixie," she said turning to Evan and Yvonne.
Introductions were made, as Doxy started to walk toward Jerome, who was standing with Otis under a tree in the very back of the yard. Holmes intercepted Doxy and whispered something to which Doxy replied, "No problem."
Doxy returned, after a bit, with Otis and Jerome. All three wore an expression of intense interest. But I saw nothing particularly interesting between where they had been and where they were headed. What I did find interesting was what Holmes was doing. When Doxy turned the wheel on the lighting device, Holmes, presumably with the cooperation of Doxy, held a corner of one page of the guidebook above the flame, waited until the paper threatened to start smoldering, then folded the corner quickly after scribbling a short note. Holmes repeated the process at several points during Doxy's fire-starting routine: wadded up scraps of paper ignited at the bottom of the fire-starting chimney, three different stages of the coals as they first reddened then blackened slightly as they acquired a dusting of ash, then at the transfer of the now-ready coals to the bottom grate of the large, flat-black grill.
"I don't understand what Mr Holmes is doing, or is that supposed to be your line, Dr Watson?"
"One would think so, Doxy, judging from Watson's well-honed skill at asking questions," said Holmes, "But in this case, it may turn out to be my line as well. I am hoping that the smoke produced at each stage during the progression of a fire will be sufficiently different from its fellows as to allow me some insight into how the fire at your neighboring pavilion developed, and..."
"If you mean foxtail house, why don't you watch Parrish's damned surveillance footage. He knows all you could ever need to know. About everything. Just ask the son of a..."
"We have non-docents here today Dax," Dixie said to a new arrival who appeared to be both bitter and inebriated. "Forgive Dax but he's a little on edge. It was his pavilion that had the fire."
"Which Director Parrish has already pinned on the Destinarians. Convenient, don't you think?"
"I was not aware that the Director had named a specific suspect. I'm Sherlock Holmes, by the way, or at least I was when I left London."
"Dax here. I'm drunk, a fact the determination of which your fabled powers of deduction are hardly needed for. Or something like that. Only not ending with a preposition."
"I don't blame you if what you say is true Dax, wherever you choose to place the preposition. If something central to my life were destroyed I should certainly object if an innocent party were blamed. But why do you assume the group in question was not responsible?"
"Mr Holmes I do not pretend the Destinarians are as pure as... well, as whatever passed for pure in your time. But blaming almost all of the ship's problems almost every time on one group strikes me as intellectually lazy."
Otis had been listening to this exchange and said, "Director Parrish wouldn't need to say a group's name in order to cast very specific suspicion, Mr Holmes. He plays first chair Dog Whistle in the SS Oligarch propaganda symphony. And like any good symphony orchestra the words themselves would have been written by unseen composers. This season, the good Director is speaking what Admiral Helen and the S.I.T. tell him to speak."
"Dog whistle?" I said.
"A coded appeal to one group that works by invoking negative stereotypes associated with another group, without the group ever having to be named. Say, for example, a reference to a fondness for fried chicken, watermelon and potato salad."
"Potato salad Jerome? I'm willing to grant you watermelon and fried chicken as coded references to those with more recent African roots, but potato salad! It's not fair to put all my favorite comfort foods in the 'forbidden for mixed race hospitality' category. Besides, if anybody should get tagged with potato salad it would be those of us descended from pasty white mid-westerners."
"I wouldn't know about that, Otis," said Doxy, "I have some diner experience in my background and the potato salad is one of the two things my dad told he always judged a New Jersey diner on."
"And the other?" said Control.
Learning what was Doxy's Father's other criterion for the judging of New Jersey diners would have to wait, because at that moment Spot, the unspotted mechanical dog, raced into the backyard being chased by Sparky, the very real, and very agitated dog from The Sir Alec Guinness.
"Yvonne you didn't tell us you brought Sparky."
"I didn't bring him, Jerome. Sparky must have figured out a way to distract both Owsley and Chalfont long enough to slip through the doors before they could secure them."
"Oh Fred he's so good with the servants," said a falsetto voice.
"Ooh, a Firesign Theater reference. Very good, Evan."
"Thanks Control. I had time on the way here to refresh my mind about all sorts of trivia, considering the stately pace Yvonne insisted upon."
"It wasn't that slow, Evan. Besides, for all the many different breeds in his family tree, I don't think Sparky has any greyhound blood. Could you imagine if he had tried to chase after Otis."
"I'm not that fast, Yvonne. I just like to get where I'm going. You, on the other hand, are the eternal tourist. She who sees sights. That's part of why you are good at human-machine interaction."
Holmes, who had been observing from the side, gestured for me to join him as he began walking toward the back of the backyard. "Otis said that Jerome had left his pipe and a lighter at the base of the sycamore tree. He also said that it was a stronger experience than the use of a vaporizer. So you may want to pass if you plan on driving this evening."
"How else would we get back to the flat, Holmes? Take a cab?"
"No need, Watson. Doxy said each of us was welcome to use one of several hundred bedrooms. One of the perks of being a docent."
"They do seem to bond quite well Holmes. The docents I mean."
"As do the systems people, Watson. I have observed..." here Holmes turned the wheel on the lighting device, lit the contents of the bowl, inhaled and began coughing sharply. "Careful Watson, it's strong." Holmes offered me the pipe, I hesitated for a moment but decided to join in. It was strong.
"You were saying, Holmes?"
"I was saying something, Watson. Oh yes, I have observed that people here seem to affiliate around common interests. To the point of overlooking other factors which one might think would divide them."
"Not a bad thing, I would think."
"Not a bad thing at all, Watson, save for the problem it creates for us in solving... Wait a minute, we may have part of the solution in front of our noses. Back to the grill!"