Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [75]
Matthew was too taken aback by the change of conversational pace to reply, but Vince Solari wasn’t. “I’m not trying to make one of you into a murderer,” he said, quietly. “Whoever killed Bernal Delgado did that.”
“It wasn’t one of us,” Blackstone said. Matthew had rarely heard a sentence uttered with less conviction. The Australian hesitated again, almost as if he’d resolved as a child always to count to ten before losing his temper. “Personally,” he said, eventually, “I don’t mind either of you being here, as long as you don’t start making waves before you understand what’s what. But even I have to admit that Mr. Solari is an extra complication in a situation that already has a few too many. Can I show you to your bunks now? I have to get back to the shuttle—it’s going to take at least three trips to get all the cargo back here.”
“Fine,” said Matthew, although he felt in his heart of hearts that it was anything but.
EIGHTEEN
Matthew slept far longer than he intended to, and far longer than was comfortable, considering the quality of his dreams. Although the images fled as soon as he was shaken awake he was left with a bitter taste in his dry mouth and a fugitive memory of having struggled in vain to move out of harm’s way, while various no-longer-specifiable dangers threatened to wreak havoc with his lumpen and overly massive body.
The first thing he did when he opened his eyes was check out the other bunk, but it was empty. Vince Solari had been very enthusiastic to get on with the job. The room wasn’t empty for long, though; almost as soon as he moved the privacy curtain slid into its daybed and a woman he recognized as Dulcie Gherardesca appeared in the gap. She had brought him a mug of tea and a bowl of what looked like fortified rice-manna.
“It’s the fresh air that knocked you out,” she said, as he stretched his muscles and rubbed his eyes. “The weight isn’t so bad, but even when it’s filtered the air is flavored and perfumed with all manner of subliminal sensations. It’s a real jolt to the system.”
“Thanks,” he said, as he drained the mug. “I needed that. You’re right about the jolt. I never anticipated the subtle differences. The big ones, yes, but not the ones that hover just out of reach of direct perception. Blackstone seems to be oblivious to them, though—to him, this seems to be the outback painted purple. Or maybe Botany Bay.”
“Rand believes in taking bulls by the horns,” the anthropologist said. “And it wasn’t entirely kindness that brought me here. Your friend Vincent didn’t waste any time at all. I was the one who found the body, so I was the one he came after first. I needed an excuse to make a graceful exit. I guess that’ll make him all the keener to make me a suspect.”
“Vince is a bull-by-the-horns kind of guy himself,” Matthew told her. “But he seems pretty levelheaded to me. He’ll do his best to sort this business out properly, and he isn’t the type to be led astray by preconceptions. You’ve nothing to fear from him—unless, of course, you did it. I’m assuming you didn’t.”
“Nobody here wants to think that any of their friends and colleagues could do such a thing,” she told him, quietly. “Not just because they’d have to worry about being next on the list, but because nobody wants to think anybody else capable of doing that to a man like Bernal.”
“Whereas if it had been a man like Blackstone …” Matthew said, jokingly. He saw immediately that the joke had been ill-advised. Dulcie Gherardesca had been living with the fact of the murder for some time. She had not the slightest wish to consider the question of how much difference it would have made to her feelings and fears if someone else had been the victim. “Sorry,” he said. To cover his embarrassment