Free Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02] by Eric Brown

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 xenozoologist, 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,