Read Online Doyle After Death by John Shirley - Free Book Online

account in the Old Journals, in the mayor’s office. The method could be used to formulate any manner of . . . semblance. And any semblance might leave the same traces.”
    â€œAh,” I said. Not sounding wise. I was already out of my depth as a detective here. And I was showing my ignorance in front of the creator of history’s most famous fictional detective.
    â€œAre there other famous dead—­ah, aftered authors in town?” I asked impulsively.
    The three men looked at me the way adults look at a child digressing into irrelevance. “Not at the moment,” Brummigen said grudgingly. “Just as well. Most literary types give me a pain. I like a military history, a good technical manual, that’s about it . . . Julius Caesar’s Commentaries . . . but there was a science-­fiction writer, American . . . used to read him myself. He came through. Philip Jose Farmer.” Brummigen smiled wryly, just for a moment. “He kept asking if we were sure this place wasn’t created artificially by a race of super-­beings ! Took me a long time to convince him this was truly life after death. Be he eventually realized it was so. He moved on, trying to find Heinlein, and some other fellows. I’ve heard they’re all far to the west, in the City of Phantasmic Devices.”
    â€œI didn’t have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Farmer,” Doyle said. “I did encounter my friend Kipling here, briefly. And Bernard Shaw was around for a long time—­beard and all! Finally moved on somewhere.”
    â€œShaw? Really? What’d he say about finding out there was an afterlife?”
    Doyle chuckled. “I asked him what he thought of it. ‘Why it’s a sharp kick in the trousers,’ says he. ‘I was reckoning on a few billion years of peace and quiet. I’ve never been more disappointed.’ ” Doyle grinned. “I quite liked Shaw, when I got to know him here, despite some philosophical disagreements.” Doyle shook his head, suddenly frowning. “I wish I could find the self-­righ­teous Mr. Harry Houdini. I’ve some things to say to him .” He looked back at his fingers, holding them once more to the lamplight. The snail-­track substance glistened. “This material could be remnants of a formulated semblance . . .”
    I was feeling tired, all of a sudden, and shivery. “Someone want to tell me what a ‘formulated semblance’ is?”
    â€œHmph,” said Brummigen. “We should show you what formulation itself is, around here, first. Let’s go back to town. You and Doyle can confer on this later . . .”
    â€œWhat do we do with the remains?” I asked, looking at the bent, blackened man-­shape on the ground. “Burial?”
    The Lamplighter shook his head. “Now that the spark is gone, it will erode in the rain and crumble into the underlying substance, from which all things arise and fall back. Look, even now . . .”
    I saw what he meant—­the man-­shaped framework was looking pitted, rusty, its gaps widening.
    I looked at Doyle. “When you came into Brummigen’s place you said there’d been another murder—­this is the second one?”
    â€œSo it now seems. I wasn’t sure, with the one we found on the beach. A vagabond chap. Half mad, homeless back in the Before . . . back on Earth. Here he wandered in some confusion, but if he’d had time, his mind would have knit back together. Lunatics find their way here, if they wish to, and they heal. Fiona had gotten to know him a little, but I met him only briefly. He simply wouldn’t leave the strand . . .” He gestured in the direction of the sea. “Then we found some of his clothing and nearby . . . remains much like this one. Do you know, we never learned his name, except for ‘Ron.’ Almost no life