The customary list of previous 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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
And the greening leaves outside go surprisingly well with the orange antimacassar, below which is the next chapter.
Sherlock Holmes in Space -- The Knower -- Chapter 40
a story by jabney based on (the now public domain) characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
...
"It all began," said the disembodied voice, "At what we called "The end," although by your calculations it spanned a few thousands of your years. Our Reigning Scientist determined that our sun would become dangerously unstable. Of course all suns do, mind you, some more spectacularly than others, but we had a date. A date accurate to within five years. And knowing that, our safe-keepers gave us a choice. We could choose to die with the planet, or we could choose to send a representative sampling of colonists to search for nearby habitable planets."
Sherlock Holmes said, "And of course you chose..."
"Neither, Mr Holmes, neither. Instead, we began to have what you might call, "Citizens' safety meetings" to which the official safe-keepers were invited. Provided they did not speak."
"Sounds sort of like Mao's cultural revolution," said Evan.
"Don't be rude Evan," said Otis, "Our new friend here could hardly be expected to be familiar with 20th century Earth history."
"Actually I am... ... ...now," said the voice, "And the safety meetings were nothing like the fiasco that the gang of four unleashed on that unfortunate country. You see, unlike China, our young people had no desire to destroy our history. Nor to kill or, at the very least, to humiliate and degrade their teachers. But then we do have, or should I say, did have the advantage of very strong empathy."
"Aha!" said Holmes, "That would explain the rather disconcerting mind-sharing that seems to be almost ubiquitous down here. If, indeed, directions have a meaning in this context."
The overhead loudspeaker seemed to echo with laughter, not one laugh, but many, then the voice said, "You do have keen powers of observation, Mr Holmes. You will not, of course, be familiar with the concept of a singularity. And to understand what happened next in our saga, you will need to be. Evan, you are the new Knower, so would you please give Mr Holmes and Dr Watson a complete, yet concise, introduction."
The next few minutes, as the train passed through gloomy block after gloomy block, (was twilight approaching?), Evan told us the most bizarre tale. Enormous stars collapsing and then eating other stars and planets. Light unable to escape because these collapsed stars, though they were preposterously small had almost unimaginable mass. The ultimate triumph of gravity. An unlucky planet or star that got too close to one of these tiny monsters would be pulled in, never to come out. Yet somehow, information was theoretically capable of being transmitted to and from them. Though they were physical objects or some such. All very confusing to me. But Sherlock Holmes seemed to take it all in stride. "Holmes," I said, "I thought you prided yourself on not knowing about planetary motions and such?"
"Such knowledge was not useful to me at the time, Watson, now it is. Though I assure you I shall determine to promptly banish these concepts from my mind once they are no longer needed."
"You are a man of focus and a gentleman as well Mr Holmes. Especially considering the reverence the passengers of the Oligarch pay to the integrity of the time-line," said the voice, "Over-thinking the situation I think. Let's see, they had you agree to have your memory of your time aboard the Ollie erased when you get back to London, right Sherlock Holmes?"
"They did and I agreed."
"Rather pointless. Consider that an alteration in volume of the very air you breathe or don't breathe affects the general reality of where you happen to be or not be as the case may be. You didn't laugh. There are parts of our culture that find that sort of riposte uproarious. Three "Bes" in such close juxtaposition... No? A rock and roll classic keyboard pun, perhaps?"
Otis spoke sharply, "We don't have time to laugh at funny jokes, much less..."
"Forgive Otis," said Evan, "But the sun effect will be fading soon and the what? city? has as much as told us that Hell is a sunset town for us. Or else!"
"Don't you let Jerome hear you say that, Evan," said Otis, "You know how he gets when you use a phrase associated with black history."
Evan said, "It was white people that put up the damned billboards in the first. So why not use it. Anyhow, if we went to have any hope of asking Jerome for his opinion, or anybody else up on deck for that matter we've got to get to those stairs. Soon!"
Holmes said, "I am confident that the train shall reach the stairs on time. Our problem shall be to recognize the correct stop." Here Holmes elevated his head slightly in the direction of the loudspeaker, "Am I correct?"
"Yes."
Holmes said, "Then it is time for the safety meeting, please continue with your narrative. We left off at the concept of a singularity, I believe."
"Yes. Oh, good job on the explanation, Evan."
"Thanks."
The voice from the loudspeaker went on, "We decided to pursue two different plans. Plans that would benefit all the people, if one of the plans worked. Since both plans were highly unlikely to work, imagine our amazement, when both plans worked."
I said, "And the plans were?"
"Tell him Mr Holmes."
Holmes said, "Based on you having to leave your planet, and that all the people would benefit from either plan, and that we are on a vessel that resulted from the execution of one of the plans, I would surmise that one plan involved the construction of an almost unimaginably large number of vessels such as the SS Oligarch."
"Correct."
"And that you chose the name SS Oligarch when you found that you had ships to spare."
"Yes, we call it the Ollie. The vessel for England, by the way, is the SS Stanley. We call it the Stan."
Otis and Evan in unison said, "Stan and Ollie," then chuckled in amusement. The semi-melded mind of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson failed to see the humor in the phrase, but since the chuckle had not evolved into an outright laugh, we did not find the the origin worth pursuing.
("What is going on with this, "We" business, Holmes?"
"Not now, Watson.")
Holmes spoke aloud, "The other plan involved entering a singularity of some sort. Am I correct?"
"Essentially correct Mr Holmes."
"And your citizens were allowed to choose. Right?"
"Essentially. The frail in body were of course steered to the singularity, while the frail in mind were steered to the physical vessels. But the final choice was each citizen's."
"And these two vastly different, yet equally audacious plans were to be sundered, of course?" said Holmes.
The voice from the loudspeaker faltered... "That was the plan."
"And what did happen?"
"That is what you and Dr Watson were brought here to find out. If you are able to."