“What about the information I’ve just given you?” Hobart demanded. “Aren’t you even going to… ?” He broke off as someone knocked heavily on the door leading out to the corridor.
“That’ll be my men,” Shimming said. “The way the situation has developed, I have to bring you in. I’m sorry about this.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Hobart allowed his shoulders to droop as the pounding on the door grew more insistent. “I’ll let them in.” He left the infomat, walked straight out to the balcony and – praying the flower beds were no further down than he remembered – vaulted over the railing.
It was growing dark when Hobart left the cover of the timber plantation and approached Silverstream Heights from the west, picking his way through the swathe of gullies and sheared ground that helped protect the big houses against intruders.
His main concern throughout the day had been that of keeping well away from store entrance scanners and any other devices which could read the signals from his citizenship tag. He might have thrown the tag away altogether, but many commercial security systems could sense the nearness of a human body and when it was not accompanied by appropriately coded radiation they tended to react loudly. Less embarrassing, but more dangerous from his point of view, was the type that remained silent and sent a microwave call to the nearest police station. Hobart’s strategy had been to leave the city on foot and go into hiding at the first good opportunity, and although his day-long wait in the sanctuary of the trees had been uncomfortable and boring he had successfully retained his freedom.
He followed a track up to the fence which marked the western edge of the Langer estate and, his progress now hampered by darkness, located the gate the colonel had installed to facilitate his snake hunts. Its rails were covered with spirals of barbed wire and, predictably, it was locked. Hobart took off his tunic, wrapped it around the top bar and managed to climb over without incurring any injury. He began to retrieve the garment and then, recalling that he might need to make a rapid exit, changed his mind and knotted the jacket in place by the sleeves. An ivory-coloured moon, horizontally striped with cloud, was lifting clear of the distant hills, but its luminance was weak and Hobart had to move cautiously as he went towards the house. After five minutes the exterior lamps came into view, interfering with his night vision and creating the illusion that he was nearing the edge of a black and dangerous pit. He continued to feel his way forward and it was with a considerable sense of gratitude that he reached the smooth turf of the gardens and was able to pick out the sloping roof of the freezer house and workshop. A blue glow from the square high-set windows told him the environment necessary for the survival of the frost animals was still being maintained.
Hobart felt strangely uneasy and uncertain as he approached the freezer house door. The notion of taking direct action to solve a murder mystery had seemed both logical and attractive during the day, but the reality-involving illegal night entry and, for all he knew, a risk of getting himself shot – was a different matter. He looked up at the dark bulk of the house, wondering if Dorcie Langer was in it at that very moment, and he was gripped by a desire to complete his mission as quickly as possible and slip away before his situation deteriorated in some unforeseen manner. Moving with self-conscious stealth, he opened the door, stepped inside, and stood for a moment in the small, square lobby. On his left was the insulated door of the refrigerated area, with its single viewing aperture; on the right was the workshop, with a cone of yellow light illuminating one of the workbenches. Did that mean he had been unlucky and that a maintenance engineer was actually on the premises?
He cleared his throat loudly and strode into the workshop, his mind working on a passable cover story, and found it deserted. Aware of the need for haste, he gathered up several types of screwdrivers and a hammer and carried them out to the lobby. He slid back the bolt on the insulated door and went through it into the menagerie itself. The door closed behind him with a pneumatic sigh. For a brief moment, while his clothing retained a protective layer of air, he had the impression the temperature in the room was quite moderate – then the coldness closed with him, grappling and clawing like an invisible enemy. Pain flared in his nostrils and throat.
Hobart looked around, breathing in shallow gasps, and saw one of the captive animals on the wall at his side. It resembled a beautifully symmetrical array of frost ferns, almost a metre in diameter. As he watched, its crystalline patterns began to alter – a seething of diamonds – and the flower shape grew smaller. In the space of a few seconds the creature had vanished altogether. Hobart turned nervously and saw that the alien had reformed on the wall behind him. At the edge of his vision he saw others blossoming or shrinking on every flat surface, like glassy lichens.
Reminding himself that the frost creatures had never been known to settle on a human, he went further into the room, past the refrigerator housing, and immediately saw the fabricated unit of which Shimming had spoken. Basically, it was a squat pyramid fringed with silver laminate-covered shelves on which sat trays of the mineral salts commonly found in the deserts of Sirius VII. The structure was screwed to the floor, and Hobart’s pulse quickened as he noted that the central pyramid was large enough to contain two or three bodies if required. Wishing he had retained his tunic to help ward off the cold, he began lifting the wide trays from the shelves and placing them on the floor. It seemed to him as he did so that the migratory activity of the frost animals increased slightly, but he dismissed the idea. Xenologists had been studying the creatures for some years and still had not managed to classify them or produce any behavioural responses, so it would have been fanciful for him to suppose they were reacting to his presence.
When he had disposed of the trays he lifted the heavy shelves off their brackets, stood them against a wall, and began taking up the screws which secured the pyramid to the floor. By this time he was shivering so violently that he had to use both hands to guide the screwdriver into the slots, and he realized he could remain in sub-zero environment for only a few more minutes. He removed the last screw with trembling hands, slid the screwdriver under the base of the pyramid, and tilted the structure on to its side.
The interior was completely empty.
Unable to accept the evidence of his eyes, Hobart sank to his knees and tapped the laminated boards, looking for dimensional or angular discrepancies which would have betrayed a hidden compartment. Cracks of light glimmering between the boards told him the quest was hopeless – even a master magician would have found it impossible to conceal a rabbit within the simple structure. Hobart, sick with disappointment, sank back on to his heels and pressed a hand to his jaw to dampen its vibrations. He looked around the featureless walls of the room, heedless now of the transient flat rosettes of the frost animals, and cursed himself for the senseless egotism that had led him to go against a professional like Shimming. The best thing he could do now was to put things back as he had found them, in the hope his trespass would remain undetected, then go back into the city and give himself up to the police.
He got to his feet and was trying for a good grip on the toppled pyramid when there was a sharp metallic sound from the direction of the door.
Hobart froze in the act of lifting, certain he was about to be apprehended. He remained in the same attitude for a few seconds – then a more disquieting idea entered his mind.
Letting the pyramid fall, he ran to the door – seeing a pale face flicker and vanish in the dark rectangle of the viewing aperture – and tugged on the handle. As his premonition had told him it would, the metal-sheathed door refused to move.