And it had served me powerfully. The dead and the living were now quite separated. One whole row of sleeper rings — sixteen of them, holding one hundred and sixty caskets — was now occupied solely by the demised. Half of another row; another eighty-six dead. A quarter of the sleepers were gone now.
I tapped the sequence of commands which I had long ago committed to memory. Norquinco had given me that sequence, after years of covert work. It had been a stroke of genius, recruiting him to the cause. According to all the technical manuals, and the best expert advice, what I was about to do should not have been possible, prevented by a slew of safety interlocks. Over the years, as he had slowly worked his way through the hierarchy of the audit team, Norquinco had found ways around every supposedly watertight failsafe, concealing his labours by stealth and cunning.
And with the work Norquinco had grown in confidence. At first, I had been surprised by this transformation, until I realised that it had always been inevitable, once the man had been ensconced into the audit team. Norquinco had been forced to go through the motions of functioning in a normal human environment, rather than his usual studied isolation. As he had risen to a position of seniority in the team, Norquinco had moulded himself to the role with worrying adaptability. There came a point when I no longer had to intervene in Norquinco’s promotions.
But I’d never really forgiven him for his betrayal aboard the Caleuche.
We met only periodically; each time I noticed an incremental increase in Norquinco’s cockiness. At first, it had been easy to dismiss. The work was proceeding apace, Norquinco’s reports detailing each layer of safeguards which he had breached. I had demanded demonstrations to show that the work had really been done, and Norquinco had obliged. I had had no doubt that the task would be completed to my satisfaction by the time I needed it.
But there had been a glitch.
Four months earlier, after the last layer of safeguard machinery had been bypassed, the work, to all intents and purposes, was complete. And suddenly I understood why Norquinco had been so obliging.
‘The technical term for the arrangement I am about to propose,’ Norquinco said, ‘is, I believe, blackmail.’
‘You’re not serious.’
We had met alone along the spine corridor, near node seven, during one of our inspection tours. ‘Oh, I’m very serious, Sky. You realise that now, don’t you?’
‘I’m getting the picture.’ I looked along the corridor. I thought I could see a pulsing orange glow somewhere down it. ‘What exactly is it you want, Norquinco?’
‘Influence, Sky. The audit squad isn’t enough now. It’s a dead-end job for computer geeks. Technical work just doesn’t interest me any more. I’ve been aboard an alien spacecraft. That changes one’s expectations. I want something more challenging. You promised me glories when we were aboard the Caleuche; I haven’t forgotten. Now I want some of that power and responsibility.’
I chose my words carefully. ‘There’s a world of difference between hacking some software and running a ship, Norquinco.’
‘Oh, don’t patronise me. I do realise that, you arrogant bastard. That’s what I said about wanting a challenge. And don’t think I want your job either — not yet, anyway. I’ll let the law of natural succession work for me there. No; I want a senior officer’s position — one echelon below you will do nicely. A cushy position with excellent prospects for when we make landfall. I’ll carve up a little fiefdom for myself on Journey’s End, I think.’
‘I think you’re reaching, Norquinco.’
‘Reaching? Yes, of course I’m reaching. Otherwise blackmail wouldn’t have to come into it.’
The orange glow down the corridor had grown closer, accompanied by a faint rumbling. ‘Getting you onto the audit team was one thing, Norquinco. You at least had the right background. But there’s no way I can get you into any officer’s position — no matter how many strings I pull.’
‘That’s not my problem. You’re always telling me how clever you are, Sky. Now all you have to do is use some of that cleverness; use your skill and judgement to find a way to get me into an officer’s uniform.’
‘Some things just aren’t possible.’
‘Not for you, Sky. Not for you. Or are you going to disappoint me?’
‘If I can’t find a way…’
‘Then everyone else will find out about your little plan for the sleepers. Not to mention what happened with Ramirez. Or Balcazar, for that matter. And I haven’t even mentioned the grub.’
‘You’ll be implicated too.’
‘I’ll say I was only following orders. It was only recently that I realised what you had in mind.’
‘You knew all along.’
‘But no one will know that, will they?’
I was about to answer, but the noise of the approaching freight transport would have forced me to raise my voice. The string of pods was rumbling towards us along its rail, returning from the engine section. Wordlessly, the two of us walked backwards until we had reached one of the recesses which allowed us to stand aside as the train slid by. The trains, like much else on the Santiago, were old and not particularly well cared-for. They functioned, but much non-essential equipment had been removed from them for use elsewhere, or not fixed when it malfunctioned.
We stood silently shoulder to shoulder as the train neared us, filling the corridor completely except for a narrow gap either side of its blunt body. I wondered what was going through Norquinco’s mind at that exact moment. Did he seriously imagine that I would take his blackmail proposal seriously?
When the rumbling string of pods was only three or four metres away, I pushed Norquinco forward, so that he went sprawling onto the rail.
I saw the man’s body get pushed violently forward until I could no longer see it. The train continued for a few moments and then slowed down, but not with any great urgency. By rights the transport should have stopped the instant it detected an obstacle in its path, but that was undoubtedly one of the functions which had stopped working years ago.
There was a hum of labouring motors and the smell of ozone.
I squeezed out of the recess. It was difficult, and would have been impossible had the train been in motion, but there was just enough room for me to push past the string of pods until I reached the front. I hoped that my actions would not dislodge something and allow the train to continue, or I would certainly be crushed.
I reached the front, expecting to see Norquinco’s mangled remains squashed between the train and its rail.
But Norquinco was lying beside the rail. His toolkit lay crumpled under the front of the train.
I knelt down to examine the man. He had received a glancing impact to the head which had broken the skin, blood pouring out copiously, but the skull did not seem to be fractured. He was still breathing, though unconscious.
I had an idea. Norquinco was now inconvenient to me, and would have to die at some point — probably sooner rather than later — but what I had just thought of was too tempting, too poetic, to ignore. It would be dangerous, however, and I would need not to be disturbed for some time — at least thirty minutes, I judged. By then the lateness of the shipment would be all too obvious. But would anyone do anything about it immediately? I doubted it; from what I had gathered, the trains were no longer very reliable at the best of times. It made me smile. I had become emperor of this miniature state, but the one thing I had not done was make the trains run on time.
Ensuring that the toolkit was still blocking the train, I picked up Norquinco and carried him upship towards node six. It was hard work, but at sixty I had the physique of a thirty-year-old man and Norquinco had lost much of his youthful weight.