The street outside was more crowded now as the city’s stores and offices began to close down for the day. Hobart walked one block south to the Lewis Hotel and checked into an expensive second-floor suite with a balcony overlooking colourful tulip beds. As soon as he was alone he went to the living room’s infomat and put a call through to police headquarters, praying that Shimming would still be on duty. He relaxed somewhat as the investigator’s long, serious face appeared on the screen.
“I’m glad I caught you,” he said.
Shimming nodded. “No panic. I’m usually patched into the system – even in bed.”
“Oh! I’m staying at the Lewis, by the way.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Dennis.” Shimming lowered his chin, conducting one of his silent battles against internal pressures, but his eyes remained fixed on Hobart’s. ’You decided against the Langer Centre?”
Hobart gave a rueful grimace. “How did you know they were going to dump me?”
“It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“Well, I’m not leaving it like that. I’d like the tape you promised me earlier.”
“You want it now?”
“Yes.” Hobart checked to make sure there was a cassette of lateral-imprinting tape in the console’s bulk information receiver and pressed the intake button. On the screen he saw Shimming looking down at his own terminal as he fired through an information bleep in which the entire interview was compressed into a signal lasting a fraction of a second. A green light appeared above the bulk receiver.
“Got it,” Hobart said. “Thanks.”
“This sort of thing never works,” Shimming commented. “Not in real life, anyway. Amateur investigators never turn up anything the police didn’t know about all along.”
“Is that a fact?” Hobart suppressed an impulse to issue some kind of enigmatic challenge. “You don’t mind if I go over the tape a few times, do you?”
“Be my guest,” Shimming said, fading himself out. Hobart took the cassette out of the receiver and dropped it into a playback slot, all at once convinced that Shimming was right, that he was only play-acting. The idea which had seemed so close to the surface of his mind in the bar had retreated to deep tiers of consciousness populated only by unremembered dreams. Voices suddenly pervaded the room, his own the strangest of the two, and he began pacing the floor to work off his tensions. In that mood he had no expectation of success and consequently he was surprised to find his attention instantly caught by a single fragment.
“… the two of you withdrew from the rest of the guests. Colonel Langer and other witnesses stated that you returned after approximately one…”
And the point was that Langer had not been around when Hobart returned to the party. Hobart was certain of his ground because, with Dorcie Langer’s perfume still in his nostrils, he had been supercharged with guilt, abnormally keyed up for the first encounter with the colonel. It had never occurred.
The fact was not very important in itself, but it could be used to prove to Shimming that Colonel Langer had lied when making his deposition – and if one part of his testimony was shown to be fake the remainder could perhaps be written off. Hobart strode to the infomat, but paused before making a call. As the matter stood, it was a case of his word against the sworn statement of a member of the city’s most influential family – and he had an idea Shimming was likely to be unimpressed. After a few moments of thought, Hobart asked the machine for a communications code and put a call through to Joe Armitage, a dentist who did much of the contract work for the training centre. He had become friendly with Hobart when they found themselves attending the same concerts, and as youngsters with like interests they had seen each other at least once a week throughout Hobart’s pre-ops course. The screen came to life almost immediately, showing a square-faced, ruddy-complexioned man in his forties against a background of antique books. Hobart stared at him in silence, filled with a curious timidity. I have travelled in space, and I have travelled in time…
This is Joe Armitage,” the stranger said. “My daughter isn’t at home right now, if that’s what…”
Hobart shook his head. “Joe! This is Denny. Denny Hobart.”
Armitage frowned, his eyes taking in details of Hobart’s tunic and service emblems. “I’m afraid I… Wait a minute – you went off on the Oak, didn’t you?”
“The Langer Willow.”
“That’s right! I heard a ship had just come in, but I wasn’t sure which one it was. I’m in private practice these days and I don’t have much to do with the Langer organization.”
“Neither do I,” Hobart said. “I was wondering…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you,” Armitage cut in. “I knew so many of the Langer boys in my old hell-raising days, and… It’s a funny thing, but when people look the same as they did eighteen or twenty years ago you can’t recognize them. I have no trouble with acquaintances who’ve been on Earth all along and who have changed. It’s as if the old brain keeps a model of them and updates it year by year, putting in the sags and bags and wrinkles and so forth, so that when I see them I know who they are, even if they don’t look much like they used to. Know what I mean?”
“I think so.” Hobart felt a pang of sadness at having been classed as an acquaintance rather than a friend, but he put it out of his mind. “Listen, Joe, I’m sorry about springing this on you, but I’m in a bit of trouble with the police and I need somebody to back up my statement to them.”
Armitage looked interested. “I’ll help you all I can.”
“Thanks. It’s about that party the night before I left. Colonel Langer walked out in the middle of it and didn’t come back, but he swore that he did. All I need is somebody to…’
“Hold on,” Armitage protested, smiling. “What party are you talking about? I don’t think I was even there.”
“You were,” Hobart said, shocked.
“Sorry – I think you’re wrong, Denny.”
“But…” Hobart searched his memory. “Remember you spent most of the night playing poker with Mexy Gomez.”
“Did I? Gomez? Was that the character with the blue chin and all the muscles?”
“Yes. Do you remember now?”
“I’m trying.” Armitage gazed back at Hobart, his eyes slowly clouding, then he shook his head. “I went to quite a few of the colonel’s parties in the old days, but they’ve all run together in my mind. That was nearly twenty years ago, Denny.”
“I know,” Hobart said, learning something about timeslip and the nature of loneliness. He spoke to Armitage for another minute, fending off questions about his problems, and ended the call after making an insincere promise to get in touch again. The room seemed abnormally quiet when the screen went dead. He brooded for a moment, then took a pen from his pocket and made a list of twelve other men and women who had been guests at Colonel Langer’s house on the crucial night. Seven of those were operations personnel and a series of enquiries revealed that they were all away on the Procyon run and would not be seen on Earth for another eight years or more. Of the remaining five, residents of Corona Falls, two had died of natural causes, and the others – far from being able to help – were unable even to remember knowing Hobart or having been in his company. After nearly an hour of awkwardness and embarrassment, he turned away from the infomat, went into the bedroom, and lay down.