Free Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02] by Eric Brown Page A

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.
     
    * * * *
     
    SIX

     
    TRAVERS
     
     
    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