“Sit down, Hobart,” Mercier said, indicating a chair opposite the desk at which he was seated.
“Thank you, sir.” Hobart lowered himself into the chair, noting as he did so that there was nobody else in attendance and that Mercier’s desk was almost completely clear, as if the captain had come to the room for no reason other than the present interview. Hobart gazed at Mercier, wondering if such a thing could be possible. The captain was a strongly built man of about fifty, with conservative good looks which, had he been an actor, would have typecast him as a judge or an insurance company president. He examined Hobart with frankly puzzled blue eyes and then, unexpectedly and uncharacteristically, gave a deep sigh.
Hobart shifted in his seat. “Sir?”
Mercier seemed to reach a decision. “I contacted you through the day executive, rather than the general address system, because there’s something going on here that I fail to understand, and I want to deal with it as discreetly as possible. Do you remember a junior technical officer called Craven? Wolf Craven?”
“Yes, sir.” Hobart suppressed his uneasiness. The sudden mention of Craven’s name had aroused feelings of guilt, but they were associated with a personal matter, one which could hardly concern his professional life. “I know him quite well.”
“Were you friendly with him?”
“I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that – we just happened to be in the same intake at Langer Centre and went through our pre-ops course at the same time.”
Mercier looked dissatisfied, the overhead light accentuating ridges in his forehead. “Have you ever been to any parties at Colonel Langer’s house?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was Craven at the same parties?”
“Yes, but…’ Hobart developed a conviction that somehow, against all the odds, the private degradation he had experienced with Wolf Craven on that last night on Earth was leading to unforeseen consequences. “Excuse me, sir – am I entitled to know what this is all about?”
“I never went to any functions at the Langer place,” Mercier said reflectively. “Made a point of staying away from that sort of thing. Even in the old days.”
Hobart was reminded of the fact that, as a veteran starman, Captain Mercier had a memory which reached far back into the previous century. It was an incomplete memory, a thinly dotted line composed of months-long periods on Earth interspersed with decades in the relativistic limbo of the space traveller, but the span was there and it made Mercier different. Although the captain had lived some fifty years of body time, little more than twice as much as Hobart, he had a trick – possibly cultivated – of occasionally appearing to commune with eternity. In spite of his growing sense of alarm, Hobart was constrained to withhold his questions.
“I believe there was a party the night before this voyage began,” Mercier said at length. “And that both you and Craven were present.”
“Yes, but lots of company personnel were there.” Hobart began to wonder if he was making a mistake in going on the defensive before any charge had been made against him, but he pressed on. “We were leaving the next day, and the Langer Rowan – that’s Wolf Craven’s ship – was going out the day after that. It was” – he sought a form of words that might impress the captain – “a fairly significant social occasion.”
“You didn’t speak to Craven at all?”
“Well, I’m bound to have spoken to him at some time, at some stage.” Hobart tried to fend off an intrusive memory of Craven’s dark and cleft-chinned face, the too-red lips lacquered with saliva, the eyes pleading and derisive at the same time. “Sir, I’d like to know what’s going on.”
“So would I, Hobart, so would I.” Mercier paused again, brooding. “We entered the Solar System near the top end of our speed envelope, which is why we had to resume deceleration so soon after the confirmation report. There was only a minute or so, less the allowance for distance lag, for verbal communication – and I could have used that time in more productive ways than talking to the police.”
“The police?” Hobart was both surprised and reassured, knowing there were no criminal activities on his conscience. He made a show of relaxing visibly.
“Yes – the police. This is a serious matter, Hobart.”
“I can’t think why the…”
“They seem to be of the opinion that Wolf Craven was murdered during your fairly significant social occasion.” Mercier paused again, giving Hobart’s own phrase time to rebound on him. “And, from what was said, you appear to be the chief suspect.”
Hobart suddenly became aware that the structure of the ship was alive, that stress patterns and subtle harmonics were coursing through the walls of the room, agitating the air which surrounded him. He could hear it whispering in his ears.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said forcibly, then secondary implications came to his mind. “Is Wolf Craven really dead?”
“I presume the police wouldn’t be talking about murder otherwise.”
“But I know nothing about it.”
“You’d better not,” Mercier said gravely. “You know my way of going by this time, Hobart – if you’re innocent I’ll back you all the way, and you’ll get the same support I’d give to the most senior member of my crew, but if it turns out that you really are involved you’ll find me a bigger enemy than the public prosecutor. The company can’t afford this sort of thing.”
“The company can’t afford it!” A lowering of the captain’s brow told Hobart he was failing to show proper deference, but such considerations no longer seemed important. “Look, I’m entitled to know exactly what was said.”
“I’ve already told you more than I should,” Mercier replied, eyeing Hobart with fresh appraisal, as though suspecting that insolence in a junior officer could point to a capacity for more serious faults.
Hobart shook his head. “Exactly what did the police say?”
“First they checked that you were still alive and on the ship’s roster, then they requested me to put you in detention until we go into parking orbit.”
“Detention?” The atmospheric whispering in Hobart’s ears grew louder and more malicious. “Are you going to do it?”
“I’m obliged to.” Mercier pressed a call button on his desk. “It will be done discreetly, of course. All I expect of you is that you will remain in your quarters until the parking manoeuvres are completed. I’m not proposing to put a guard on you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hobart said bitterly. “Will I be hand-cuffed to the shuttle?”
“You’ll no longer be my responsibility at that stage.” The puzzled look returned to Mercier’s eyes as he got to his feet, terminating the interview. “I don’t know what you’ve got yourself involved with, Hobart – but the police are going to the expense of sending up a transit vehicle just to take you off my hands.”
Investigator Charles Shimming was a medium-sized, fit-looking man with a long face and intelligent, worried eyes. During conversation he had a habit of lowering his chin on to his chest, as though suppressing a series of belches, but continuing to speak anyway. This had the effect of making every utterance sound weighty and deliberate, if somewhat disjointed. It also had the effect of irritating Hobart, who wanted his information delivered quickly and clearly.
“There are two ways we can handle this thing,” Shimming said in the privacy of Hobart’s room. “If you are reasonable and cooperative I won’t even have to place you under arrest, and we can walk – or should I say float? – out of here like two friends going off somewhere to have a couple of beers. I think that would be the best way to do it, but if you didn’t want to be reasonable and cooperative I could hit you with a spider, in which case…”