‘Oh, and you’re willing to risk four thousand lives to put that little bit of schoolboy speculation to the test, are you?’
‘It’s not my job to take such a decision, sir. I’m just saying I don’t envy you the responsibility.’
‘And what would you know about responsibility anyway, you insolent little prick?’
Little now, Sky thought. But one day… perhaps one day not too far from this one, all that might change. Thinking it best not to reply, he flew the taxi on in silence, broken only by the old man’s cardiovascular labours.
But he thought deeply. It was something that Balcazar had said; that remark about it being better to bury the dead in space, rather than carry them to the destination world. It made a kind of sense, when he thought about it.
Every kilogramme that the ship carried was another kilogramme that had to be decelerated down from interstellar cruise speed. The ships massed close on a million tonnes — ten million times the mass of a man, as Balcazar had said. The simple laws of Newtonian physics told Sky that decreasing the mass of a ship by that amount would bring a proportional increase in the rate at which the ship could decelerate, assuming the same engine efficiency.
An improvement of one part in ten million was hardly spectacular… but who said you had to make do with the mass of just one man?
Sky thought about all the dead passengers the Santiago was carrying: the sleepers who were medically beyond any kind of revival. Only human sentimentality would argue that they needed to be brought to Journey’s End. And for that matter, the huge and heavy machinery that supported them could be ditched as well. He thought about it some more, and began to think that it would not be impossible to shave off tonnes from the ship’s mass. Put like that, it almost sounded compelling. The improvement would still be much less than one part in a thousand. Still — who was to say more sleepers would not be lost in the years to come? A thousand things could go wrong.
It was a risky business, being frozen.
‘Maybe we should all just wait and see, Titus,’ the Captain said, jolting him from his thoughts. ‘That wouldn’t be such a bad approach to take, would it?’
‘Wait and see, sir?’
‘Yes.’ There was a cold clarity to the Captain now, but Sky knew that it could go as easily as it came. ‘Wait and see what they do about it, I mean. They’ll have received the message as well, you realise. They’ll have debated what to do about it as well, of course — but they won’t have been able to talk it over with any of us.’
The Captain sounded lucid enough, but Sky was having trouble following him. Doing his best to conceal the fact, he said, ‘It’s a long time since you’ve mentioned them, isn’t it?’
‘Of course. One doesn’t go around blabbing, Titus — you of all people would know that. Loose lips sink ships, that sort of thing. Or get them discovered.’
‘Discovered, sir?’
‘Well, we know damn well that our friends on the other three don’t even seem to know about them. We’ve had spies penetrate right to the highest echelons on the other ships, and there’s been no word about them at all.’
‘Could we know for sure, though, sir?’
‘Oh, I think so, Titus.’
‘You do, sir?’
‘Of course. You keep your ear to the ground on the Santiago, don’t you? You know that the crew are at least familiar with the rumour of the sixth ship, even if most of them don’t give it any credence.’
Sky masked his surprise as well as he was able. ‘The sixth ship’s just a myth to most of them, sir.’
‘And that’s the way we’ll keep it. We, on the other hand, know better.’
Sky thought to himself: so it’s real. After all this time, the damned thing really exists. At the very least in Balcazar’s mind. But the Captain also seemed to be talking as if Titus had been in on the secret himself. Since the sixth ship constituted a possible security issue — no matter how little might have been known about that — it was entirely possible that he had been. And Titus had died before he could pass that particular item of knowledge to his successor.
Sky thought of Norquinco, his friend from the time when he had ridden the trains. He remembered well how Norquinco had been utterly convinced of the reality of the sixth ship. Gomez, too, had needed little convincing. It had been a year or so since he had spoken to either, but Sky imagined the two of them here now, nodding silently, enjoying the way he was forced to calmly accept this truth; this thing that he had so vehemently argued against. He had hardly given the matter any thought since that conversation on the train, but now he racked his brains, trying to remember what Norquino had told them.
‘Most of the crew who buy into the rumour at all,’ he said, ‘assume that the sixth ship is dead; just drifting behind us.’
‘Which only shows that there’s a grain of truth underlying the rumour. She’s dark, of course — no lights, no strong evidence of human presence at all — but all of that could be subterfuge. Her crew could still be alive, running her quietly. We can’t guess their pyschology, of course, and we still don’t know what really happened. ’
‘It would be good to know. Especially now.’ Sky paused and took what he knew to be a major risk. ‘Given the current gravity of the situation, with this technical message from back home, is there anything else I need to know about the sixth ship — anything which might help us make the right choice?’
To his relief, the Captain shook his head without rancour.
‘You’ve seen all that I have, Titus. We really don’t know anything more. I’m afraid those rumours encapsulate as much knowledge as we really have.’
‘An expedition would settle the matter.’
‘As you never tire of telling me. But consider the risks: yes, she’s just within range of one our shuttles. About half a light-second behind us the last time we took an accurate radar fix, although she must have been a lot closer once. It would be simpler still if we could refuel when we got there. But what if they don’t want visitors? They’ve maintained the illusion of non-existence for more than a generation. They might not be willing to give that up without a fight.’
‘Unless they’re dead. Some of the crew think we attacked them, and then erased them from the historical record.’
The Captain shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s what happened. If you could erase a crime like that, you would, wouldn’t you? Some of them might have survived, though, and chosen to lie low, so they can spring a surprise on us later in the voyage.’
‘You think this message from back home might be enough to make them break their cover?’
‘Perhaps. If it encourages them to fiddle with their antimatter engine, and the message really is a trap…’
‘They’ll light up half the sky.’
The Captain chuckled, a wet cruel sound, and that seemed to be the cue for him to doze off properly. The rest of the journey passed without incident, but Sky’s mind was racing anyway, trying to digest what he had learned. Every time he said the words they were like a casual slap against his cheek; punishment for his own presumption in doubting Norquinco and the other believers. The sixth ship existed. The sixth damned ship existed…
And that, potentially, could change anything.
EIGHTEEN
They took me down to the Mulch again. I woke up in the cable-car as it was descending through night, rain hammering against the craft’s windows. For a moment I thought I was with Captain Balcazar, escorting him across space to the meeting aboard the other Flotilla ship. The dreams seemed to be getting more insistent, pushing me ever deeper into Sky’s thoughts, so that they were harder to shake off when I came around. But it was just me and Waverly in the cable-car’s compartment.