The transit vehicle was moving clear of the immense bulk of the Langer Willow now, and the sunlit Earth came into view, looking huge and mysterious as it curved away on all sides, comprising almost half of the visible universe. Powerful jets began to hammer up front, reducing the transit’s orbital speed and putting it into a controlled fall. Hobart watched the milky blue immensities tilt and turn, dismayed at the contrast between actuality and his imagined homecoming at the end of his first voyage. The only crumb of comfort he could find was that Shimming was too overawed and wrapped up in space tyro’s misgivings to continue the interrogation for the present. He had time to get his thoughts in order…
Colonel Langer’s age and failing health had forced him to give up active participation in space flight, but he had liked the company of junior officers who, because of their lowly positions, made an ideal captive audience for his reminiscing. For the most part he had kept himself occupied with his menagerie of frost animals, but there had been days when that pursuit had proved too passive and he had turned to other pastimes. One of them had been going into the strip of rough terrain at the rear of his estate to blast at snakes with antique firearms. Hobart, who had listed shooting as one of his interests, had been brought along mainly as gun-bearer on a number of the mini-expeditions.
The farewell party at the Langer house had been a rambling, multicentred affair which he had attended for a number of ill-defined reasons. He had been flattered at receiving the invitation from Colonel Langer, and inexperienced enough to entertain hopes that it could bode well for his future in the company; he had been lonely and scared on the eve of the departure for Sirius; and, underlying and colouring all other considerations, had been the possibility of sexual adventure.
The fables about Dorcie Langer had inflamed Hobart’s imagination, filling him with a curious blend of contempt and yearning. He had scarcely dared meet her gaze during his previous visits to the house, and yet he had nourished a conviction – one he would not have voiced – that she had been specially aware of him, that she had singled him out as a prospect. For an unworldly and slightly repressed youngster of twenty-two, those ambiguous glances had been sufficient to trigger off lurid fantasies – none of which had correctly anticipated the event. Even after a lapse of thirteen months, he could remember the exact words with which Wolf Craven had greeted him in an upstairs corridor at the rear of the house.
“I don’t know how you did it, young Denny, but you’ve connected with our good lady – she sent me to get you.”
The peremptory nature of the summons had shaken Hobart, as had the use of Craven as a messenger, but his initial shock had been swamped by the discovery of what Dorcie Langer had in mind for him.
“Come on, Denny,” Craven had pleaded, sinking his fingers into each of Hobart’s biceps. “I’m not going to let you blow this out on me, not after I’ve worked on her for weeks. What does it matter if she wants both of us at once? Don’t be such a kid, for Christ’s sake – it all adds to the fun.”
“Fun,” Hobart heard himself muttering as the shuttle began to sway, to come alive as it dipped into the tenuous upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Shimming leaned closer. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Hobart said, shaking his head, wresting his mind away from the recurrent vision of three bodies twined together, straining, sweating, labouring; of the languorous opening and closing of the woman’s mouth; of Craven’s eyes, watchful and derisive. The subsequent events were what he had to think about and try to understand, because in them lay the source of his present danger. Hobart reviewed the rest of the fateful night and found he had nothing to work on, no memories of incidents which through hindsight had acquired new significance. The trouble was that he simply did not have enough information – while appearing to be friendly and communicative Investigator Shimming had, in fact, told him very little.
For the remainder of the brief flight Hobart forced himself to relax into his seat, trying to synthesize the feelings of pleasure and nostalgia he should have experienced on seeing familiar green horizons arise to enfold him.
It was early in the afternoon when the shuttle dropped solidly on to a runway at Langer Field. Instead of rolling the vehicle into one of the company’s operations bays, the pilot swung south and taxied into the section which the city of Corona Falls rented for use as an airport. They came to a halt beside a police car which was parked at a discreet distance from the passenger terminal and the doors swung open even before the turbines had growled into silence. Hobart had time for one glimpse of sharply etched snowy peaks far beyond a line of curved hangar roofs, then he was in the rear seat of the car beside Shimming, and the airport gates were looming ahead. The uniformed driver, without speaking or being spoken to, accelerated towards the city and in a few minutes they were entering the suburbs.
Hobart studied the procession of store fronts and small business premises, backed here and there by dwellings and tree-shaded streets, looking for signs of change. He had only a sketchy knowledge of Corona Falls, acquired during his period of training at the Langer Centre, and to him the lapse of eighteen years had created no striking differences in the place. Even the automobiles seemed very much as he remembered them, the designers having long ago surrendered to the dictates of aerodynamic efficiency. He strove to reorient himself as they neared the city centre, but the car abruptly swerved down a ramp and stopped in an underground parking area. Shimming escorted him from the car to an elevator, through a warren of corridors, and suddenly the two men were alone in a windowless office whose walls were painted the indeterminate green favoured by bureaucrats everywhere. The furniture consisted of a desk and four upright chairs. Hobart felt as though he had been cornered and driven into a pen.
“You’ll have to advise me what to do next,” he said firmly. “How do I contact a lawyer?”
Shimming sat down at the desk. “I told you there’s no need for that, Dennis. You’re not under arrest.”
“It feels like it.”
“I hustled you down here in case there’d be any embarrassment with reporters.”
“Reporters?” Hobart selected a chair and sat down. “I didn’t think there’d be…”
“Local TV, radio, and the Corona Falls Chronicle,” Shimming said. “The Langers have controlling interests in the lot. Old man Langer died about four years ago, but this is still very much his show.”
“But why did he start gunning for me?” Hobart examined his hands as he spoke, knowing the answer to his own question.
“That’s what I want to find out. I’ve just had this case dumped in my lap, long after the whole thing has gone cold, but I’ll sort it out even if I have to read microrecords in bed.” Shimming continued ducking his chin, suppressing belches.
“The Langer Line is the principal employer in this area, and the city couldn’t get on very well without it, but I’m damned if I’m going to be used as an instrument for settling any of the Langers’ personal grievances. Now, if it turned out that Dorcie Langer had given you a grapple or two… and that the colonel had found out… that would incline me to suspect his motives… and it would incline me to backpedal on this investigation.”
“There was nothing like that,” Hobart said heatedly. “I hardly knew either of them.”
Shimming’s lips twitched. “At least we’re getting that much straight. Eh, Dennis?”