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

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.
     
    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,