Free Xenopath by Eric Brown Page A

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.
    Sunlight falling
through the un-opaqued viewscreen to his left dazzled him for a
second, before his eyes adjusted and he made out what was obviously a
study. Books lined three walls, and overspill piles tottered on the
carpet, alternating with holo-cubes showing various specimens of
alien fauna.
    He stopped on
the threshold, staring at the messy remains that filled the chair
before the desk. He glanced at the coagulated blood that covered the
carpet. Evidently Travers had been dead for hours.
    He moved back
into the lounge and got through Kapinsky's answering service, gave
Travers's address and told her to get here fast. Then he called K.J.
Kulpa and reported a second slaying.
    He knew he had
to go back into the study, but something stopped him. He lifted his
handset again, and before he realised what he was doing he had tapped
out Sukara's code.
    Her smiling face
filled the screen, dazzling him with relief. "Su, you don't know
how good it is to see you."
    "Jeff, you
okay? You look white as a ghost!"
    He smiled. "I'm
fine. I thought I'd call, see how you are."
    "Oh, I'm
okay. Tired. You know. Oh—she just kicked!" She laughed,
and her delight filled Vaughan with joy. "It's so strange, Jeff,
having someone inside you."
    "What have
you got planned for this afternoon?"
    She gave a
guilty smile. "I'm meeting Lara for coffee. What have you been
doing?"
    "I'll tell
you all about it tonight," he said. "I love you, Su,"
    "Love you,
too," she echoed. He cut the connection and stood in silence,
his heartbeat loud, wanting to be far away from this place, drinking
coffee at some quiet, shaded cafe in the Park.
    He moved to the
study door and leaned against the woodwork. The killer must have
stood right here, he judged, said something to attract Travers's
attention: Travers swivels in his seat, and the killer fires his
laser, sweeping it in his or her signature loop, causing maximum
injury with minimum effort.
    The result was
that Travers's head and arms lay on the carpet. His torso sat on the
charred swivel chair, feet planted incongruously on the floor.
    Vaughan returned
to the lounge. He de-opaqued the viewscreen and sat in the sunlight,
dictating into his handset a report of that morning's interview with
Hermione Kormier and the latest discovery.
    Kapinsky arrived
ten minutes later, closely followed by Kulpa and the SoC team.
    He gave Kulpa
the pin detailing his investigations, as protocol dictated, and
waited until Kapinsky emerged from the study. She crossed the lounge
as if breezing down a fashion catwalk and sprawled in a deep armchair
across from him, arms and legs spread.
    He told her
about his meeting with Hermione Kormier.
    She watched him,
her expression blank.
    "You've
been busy for a new boy," she said when he'd finished. "Any
thoughts?"
    He stared at
her. He could live with his new job, the intrusive mind-reading and
butchered bodies, but it was hard to take the fact that he was
employed by someone he didn't particularly like.
    "Where to
begin?" he said. "The common link is Mallory, of course.
They came across something there, saw something, heard something... I
don't know. Kormier's wife said he was a different person when he got
back, a month ago. He had a couple of meetings with Travers, and they
both end up dead."
    Kulpa emerged
from the study