Xenopath (8 page)

"What
exactly was his job?"

"He was a
xeno-zoologist, latterly for the Scheering-Lassiter Corporation."

"He studied
alien wildlife?"

"That's
right. He was well respected in his field. We met on Cavafy, Vega
VI—the planet of a million moons. You can't get much more
romantic than that!"

"How long
ago was that?"

"Twenty
years ago. We were married the same year. We managed to mesh our
working lives pretty well, arranging it so that our field trips
coincided. We saw a lot of the inhabited worlds together." For
the first time, Vaughan detected a haze of sadness in her eyes.

He took a
mouthful of coffee, too on edge to fully appreciate its excellence.
"Are you aware of anything that might explain why someone wanted
your husband dead, Mrs Kormier?"

She stared into
her coffee. In a small voice, she said, "Robert was a good man,
a respected academic. He never made an enemy in his life."

But, he thought,
she was holding something back. He knew it from some almost
subliminal reading of her facial mannerisms, a slight tightening of
her lips, a sidewise shift of her eyes away from him as she spoke.

He said, gently,
"What is it?"

She looked up,
surprised. "I thought you weren't reading me?"

"I'm not.
That is, I'm not reading your thoughts." He shrugged. "Telepaths
become very aware of moods and nuances." He hesitated, then
said, "Maybe later, if it's okay?"

She nodded, a
slight frown pulling at her lips.

He went on,
"Something is worrying you, though. Something about your
husband. You didn't want to mention it, but..."

She manufactured
a brave smile, even a laugh, almost of relief. "You're very
astute, Mr Vaughan. Yes, there was something. I don't know if it's in
any way connected with what happened—"

"Let me be
the judge of that," he said.

"Very
well." She laid her cup aside and stared at her hands, as if
wondering where to begin. She looked up. "Earlier this year
Robert was posted to the colony world of Mallory, Eta Ophiuchi VII.
It's a Scheering-Lassiter world. They wanted him to look at some
aspect of population control of a native herbivore: he was
commissioned to produce an extensive bio-ecological report on local
conditions."

"And?"

She looked at
him, silent for a second. "When Robert returned from Mallory,
he'd changed. Something had happened out there—" She
stopped abruptly and made a production of pouring more coffee so as
to hide her distress.

Vaughan waited,
then said, "He didn't tell you what happened, though?"

She shook her
head. "It was obvious that something was wrong. He was quiet,
withdrawn. Irritable. Usually, he discussed every aspect of his work
with me—as I did my own work with him. But he said nothing and
wouldn't be drawn, even when I asked him about the report he was
working on. He denied that anything was wrong, Mr Vaughan. He was...
he seemed a different person."

"You've no
suspicions what might have happened, nothing at all?"

She forced a
laugh. "Of course I had—I
have—
my
suspicions. It occurred to me that he'd discovered something on
Mallory so... I don't know... so dreadful that he couldn't even share
it with me. But," she went on, "I also suspected something
far more prosaic, but perhaps more hurtful to me."

He knew what was
coming, and she obliged him by saying, "I suspect that he met
someone out there, Mr Vaughan. He was having an affair."

Vaughan nodded,
feeling for the widow who might never know, for certain, if her
husband had been unfaithful. "If you don't mind me asking, what
made you suspect this?"

She sighed. She
was close to tears. "Twice during the last couple of months he
went out late, without explanation, and came back in the early hours.
He refused to speak to me about where he'd been. We were not sleeping
together at this point, Mr Vaughan. We were leading separate lives."

"And of
course you have no idea where he went."

"No,"
she said, then went on, "My husband kept an extensive diary.
Handwritten. Had done so for almost twenty years."

"You have
it?"

"It's in
his study."

Vaughan lowered
his cup. "And you haven't been able to bring yourself to read
it, right?"

She almost
laughed, then. "You understand. Mr Vaughan. I had hoped you
would. You see... part of me wanted to know, but another part... I
don't want to hate my husband, Mr Vaughan. I want to remember all our
good times together."

"You don't
mind if I take a look at the diary?"

"Of course
not. I'll show you to his study." She led him from the room,
across a gallery and into a study the mirror image of her own. The
library appeared identical, as did the selection of holo-cubes on
display.

A big timber
desk sat beside the viewscreen.

Hermione Kormier
stood at the door, as if reluctant to trespass on the territory of
her murdered husband. She indicated the desk. "In the top drawer
on the right. It's unlocked. I'll be in my study."

He watched her
withdraw, then crossed to the desk and sat down in an old-fashioned
timber chair, pulling open the drawer and lifting out a thick,
old-fashioned ledger.

It was marked
with the year's date. He turned the pages, admiring the dead man's
meticulous script. He scanned a few entries from earlier in the year,
before Kormier's posting to Mallory.

It was not what
he was expecting, abstruse musings from a world-leading
xeno-zoologist, but the endearing day-to-day observations and
jottings of a man very much in love with his wife. Indeed, Kormier
himself was less the subject of his entries than was Hermione.

17th January.
Dined with Hermione after writing. Discussed the parallax theory I've
been working on. H is so damned astute. It's been twenty years, and
Christ I love the woman more and more every day...

Vaughan stopped
reading, his throat constricted.

He flipped a
sheaf of pages, arriving at more recent entries.

They were mere
one-liners, and often cryptic. A week before his death:
Considering autumn, vague thoughts of home.

Two days after
that:
Sunsets on Mallory... will I ever see them again?

He turned back
to the dates that Kormier was on Mallory. There were entries for the
first couple of weeks, then nothing for weeks. He read all the
entries on Mallory, mainly technical reports he had no hope of
understanding, with no hint of anything untoward.

The very last
entry made on the colony world read:
Begin field trip tomorrow
with Travers. Looking into his pachyderm hypothesis. Should be
fascinating.

Then nothing
until two months later, two weeks ago, and his abstract jottings
about Mallory and sunsets. There were three more entries made over
the last fortnight. The first, ten days ago, reported:
Travers
called yesterday. See him today.

Three days
later: T—
meet him tonight.

Vaughan sat
back. Travers. He had to find Travers. Could it be that Travers was
the man he had arranged to meet at the amusement park?

There was no
entry for the day after his meetings with Travers, however.

He closed the
diary and examined the desk. Amid papers and com-pins, he noticed a
metallic pass-card. He picked it up, smiling. The card showed a pix
of Kormier, beneath the legend: Scheering-Lassiter Authorised Staff.

He slipped it
into his pocket. Kapinsky would ball him out when he produced this
little ace.

He lodged the
diary under his arm and left the study, pausing on the gallery
outside Hermione's room.

He hesitated,
tempted to spare himself the torture of scanning the woman.

Before he could
give in, he tapped in the access code and braced himself. He reached
out for the wall, held on, as the full force of her emotions assailed
him.

It was as if she
were consumed by an interior whirlwind of grief, a vast swirling
twister of guilt and regret and the raw emotion of knowing that her
husband was dead, that she would never again share her life with him.

And caught in
the typhoon, like debris sucked up and swirled, were fleeting
verbalised thoughts: >
>Miss him! The bastard! I love him...
(His last seconds... Pain? Suffering... I should have been with him!)

On another
level, in the calm dead centre of the storm, Vaughan caught
references to himself.

>>When
will the ingratiating bastard leave me alone? Police fascist! Happy
with his little Thai slut.
(Anger, jealousy...)

Deeper, he
probed rooted memories of her life with Robert Kormier, was hit by
images of them in bed, ecstatic in sexual abandon, and then arguing
fiercely, hurling abuse.

He quickly
killed his implant. What she had told him had been the truth. He had
no desire to pry further.

He stepped into
her study, telling himself that her mental anger at him was
justifiable. He smiled and held out Robert Kormier's diary.

She stood,
facing him, her tanned, lined face innocent of the emotions that
swirled deep within her psyche.

He wanted to hug
her, tell her that her husband loved her. Instead, he passed her the
diary and said: "Read it. You have nothing to fear."

Her face,
fleetingly, showed hope.

He said, "Your
husband was meeting a fellow scientist called Travers. It's important
that I trace him."

"Sam
Travers? He was a colleague of Robert's. He lives on the southside,
Lohng Kla, Level One. Seventeen Khaosan Road."

"Were they
friends?"

"They'd
known each other since university. But Sam was away so much of the
time that Robert hardly saw him. They made sure they met at least
once a year, though."

"Did
Travers work for Scheering-Lassiter?"

"No, he was
employed by the Station University."

"But
Travers was working on Mallory earlier this year?"

"That's
right. He was on research leave from his department."

"Did you
know him?"

She shook her
head. "I met him once or twice. He wasn't my type.
Overambitious, overconfident. Full of himself. But he and Robert got
on."

He hesitated,
then said, "Your husband and Travers never had reason to
disagree on anything, professional arguments?"

"Absolutely
not. They shared many of the same views and ideals. They worked
together on many conservation schemes."

Vaughan made to
leave. "I'm sorry for intruding. I want to find who did this. I
hope you understand?"

Wordlessly, she
nodded. She hesitated, then said, "I thought you were going to
read me, Mr Vaughan?"

He looked at
her, then shook his head. "That won't be necessary," he
lied. "I'll show myself out."

He hurried down
the helical staircase and stepped out into the merciless afternoon
sunlight.

TRADERS

Lohng Kla was a
prosperous district on the south side of the Station, away from the
noise and bustle of the spaceport to the north-west. Parks and
gardens alternated with neat suburbs, the residences of university
workers and affluent students.

Khaosan Road
paralleled the edge of the station, and a terrace of black polycarbon
dwellings, like beetles on a starting line, overlooked the sea.

Vaughan found
number seventeen, set back in a lawned garden. It was a surprisingly
small dwelling for the area, just one storey high. He was about to
push the doorbell when he noticed that the door was open an inch. He
pushed it further open and called out, "Hello? Travers?"

There was no
reply. Cautiously he stepped into a narrow hallway, relieved now that
Kapinsky had insisted on his carrying a weapon.

He stopped,
activated his implant and scanned.

Mind-noise
rushed him from every direction. There were people in the houses to
either side, and on the level below. He caught stray strands of
verbalised thought and heightened emotion.

Now he saw why
the building appeared small from the street: a staircase descended
through the deck. He followed the stairs, scanning as he went. It was
impossible to tell whether the mind-noise below emanated from this
dwelling or others beyond. He deactivated his implant as he arrived
at the foot of the stairs, which opened out onto a gallery
overlooking a lounge with a vast viewscreen giving onto the ocean.

He paused at the
edge of the gallery, looking down. He fingered the bulk of the pistol
beneath his jacket. Despite what Hermione Kormier thought, he knew
enough not to dismiss the possibility that Travers had killed
Kormier. They had met a couple of times over the past two weeks, and
had been together on a field trip on Mallory. Vaughan was willing to
gamble that, if Travers was not directly responsible for Kormier's
death, then he had information that might help the investigation.

He thought about
calling out again, but remained silent. He slipped his hand beneath
the flap of his jacket and closed his fingers around the butt of the
pistol, pacing along the length of the gallery and taking another
flight of steps down into the vast lounge. The viewscreen here was
opaqued, giving the long room the dim, still atmosphere of an
aquarium.

He looked
around, his heartbeat loud. The place was still silent. He accessed
his implant again. Three people were dining to his left, perhaps
thirty metres away in the neighbouring apartment. None of them was
Sam Travers. A sea of mind-noise surged below him, from Level Three.
This apartment seemed to be empty.

So was this
neighbourhood so safe that Travers left his front door open when he
went out?

Uneasy, Vaughan
moved from the lounge. He checked the adjacent bedroom and bathroom
but found nothing, then re-crossed the lounge to another room.