We're almost there. After reading 43, it might behoove one to skim over the 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
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
And, as is customary, here we have the orange antimacassar (to be followed by the next chapter).
Sherlock Holmes in Space -- The Knower -- Chapter 43
a story by jabney based on (the now public domain) characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
...
Exiting the train car proved somewhat easier than I had feared. Instead of hard pavement, the surface was akin to a cool sandy beach right after the tide had gone out.. Perhaps this Hell is not as perfidious as I had feared. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than Holmes spoke, in a flat tone that sounded all the more ominous due to its lack of inflection, "Gentlemen, we need to put our shoes on now."
"But Holmes, there's a bench a mere hundred feet away, can't we do it there?"
"I would strongly advise against it Watson. Your feet may have gained callouses thanks to the hours you spent standing in the surgery, but my feet tell me that this sand is heating up. Rapidly."
"I think Mr Holmes has a point, Dr Watson," said Otis, who was rapidly donning a pair of canvas sneakers, as I believe they are called. Evan was doing likewise. Sherlock Holmes, slipped on his lace-up two-toned spectators and took only slightly longer than the two younger men. I, though, had a good sturdy pair of new boots with very heavy laces and very small eyelets. I felt every grain of sand as I wrestled them on to one foot, and then felt the grains all the more as I stood on one shod foot to don the other.
"Do hurry, Watson," said Holmes who was still standing there. I was touched by his loyalty, until I recalled the pain caused by being separated from the other part of a shared mind.
Evan said, "Hold on to the remaining shoe, Doctor, and don't squirm. Otis, you take the other side." The two then picked me up and, showing more than a little exertion, soon had me to the relative safety of the bench. I felt grateful, old and fat.
"Now, to get the sand out of these shoes and..."
"No time, Watson, twilight is nearly here," said Holmes, "And it looks as if the game has changed." A giant card stood in our path, and there was a steep drop-off that somehow appeared on either side, preventing us from going around.
"It looks as if it's a mystery to solve," Otis said, "But I don't have the slightest idea of what it's about. Have you Mr Holmes?"
Holmes said, "I imagine that any plausible answer will do, if spoken with sufficient conviction and in the proper format. But what that format is..."
"I've got this one," said Evan, "It was Colonel Mustard, in the billiards room, with a candlestick!" The card dissolved into a series of wooden squares, each of which bore a single large letter of the alphabet, and a smaller numeral.
"Obviously," said Holmes, "We are to spell something, but what? There is no "A" so it wouldn't be "Stairs," let me think for a moment."
"Perhaps, Holmes," I started to say, but Holmes put his finger to his mouth.
"Watson, I need to concentrate. Why don't you ask young Evan here how he managed to come to his answer so quickly. And then you can tell me, after we get out."
The three of us huddled out of the way of Sherlock Holmes as he concentrated, and Evan said, "It was pretty simple. As a boy, my friends and I went through a phase of making up rude lyrics to famous songs. My fifth grade triumph was a parody of a Beatles' song:
Mean Colonel Mustard kills in the dark
Tears up the cloth trying to play billiards
Lights up a big candlestick...
...well, you get the idea. It was grade school humor, after all."
Evan was blushing, but our attention turned almost immediately to Holmes who said, "Step or Steps, but probably not Steppes, as in Russia. Which shall it be. I presume the numerical value has meaning."
Otis said, "I know something of theology, Mr Holmes, and Steps, which has a score of seven, would be considered a more celestial result than would Step, which has a score of six."
"Steps, then it shall be," Holmes said as he picked up a giant S and placed it on an appropriately sized square. I then put down a T, Evan an E, Otis a P and then Sherlock Holmes placed the final S. A stairway appeared. But instead of rising toward the deck of the SS Oligarch, the steps were descending. And the rapidly dimming light suggested that, had there been a sun in these Stygian depths, it too would have been going down.
"Another choice, my friends," said Sherlock Holmes, "What say all of you?"