The video ended with an image of New Athens in its final stages of construction—a view looking into its cylindrical core through structures and radial supports that reminded McClellan of a vast rosette window. Then the image faded to black and the timing status showed that it had reached its end. But before it did, white letters briefly appeared, as they had in the version he’d memorized in boot camp: Part II: The Fate of the Builders.
But with an unceremonious cut, the video ended. No one in the Corps had ever found a second installment. That final caption was just one of the many unanswered questions about the most famous secret video in history.
McClellan was still mulling the ending over when he realized that someone was propelling herself into the cabin. The pilot, Agent Anne Okayo, was small but commanding—a young woman who had survived the famines and terrors of eastern Africa. Like McClellan, she had been raised by extended family, and was a veteran of her nation’s wars. She had served six decorated years in the Kenyan Navy before coming upside as an officer in the Security Guild, but her past and her authority did not weigh her down. When they had met that morning, she had been remarkably cheerful—as she was now.
McClellan composed himself and called up an innocuous file on his tablet. As Okayo approached, he looked up and again saw her eyes. He wasn’t quite sure if they were green or gray, or something else. Either way, they were fierce as she inspected her ship.
“Second class is roomier,” she said, braking at McClellan’s seat. “But I don’t blame you for wanting your distance. You have a lot to think about.” She nodded at the viewport. “It’s not every day our world falls away beneath us.”
McClellan settled on green for her eyes. “I don’t think that reality has hit me,” he said. “Although now that I’m on this case, I feel like I’m back in the Corps. So I’m not sure what world I’m in.”
Okayo said that she understood. She moved aft to examine a small cargo area, saying something about her first navy captain, and his insistence that pilots make personal inspections of their crafts and those aboard. Then she returned and looked down to his tablet. “I get goose bumps every time I watch that video,” she said. “Especially the New Year’s Day message.”
McClellan met her stare and matched her smile. “What struck me was just knowing I’d been sent the file. Scratch that. What struck me was realizing that I’ve met one of the original engineers, and she’s sleeping in first class.”
Okayo beamed. “Welcome to the new world, Father,” she said. “Of course, Commissioner Zhèng assumed you’d already seen the video in the Marine Corps, or reports like it. But he was eager to send it. I think it’s his way of saying you can trust him. And his sources.”
“I certainly have to thank him,” McClellan said. “It was a good refresher.”
Something caught Okayo’s attention. She pushed herself farther aft and tightened the straps on one of the shipping containers. “We’ll be accelerating again in about twenty minutes,” she said when she returned. “We’ll be using the big engines, so hold on. After that, things will be quieter. If I were you, Father, I’d use that time to get some sleep.”
He was disappointed to know that the conversation was over. But she may be right about sleep. There would be no time for it once they made their way into New Athens at ten thirty that night. After inspecting his office and quarters, a brief communication with Archbishop Bauer, and additional preparations, he would be off again to rendezvous with the Red Delta relay station, where Father Tanglao had been killed.
“I think I’ll sleep later,” McClellan said as he held up his tablet. “Something tells me that I have a lot to learn.”
“Yes, you do,” Okayo said. “But Commissioner Zhèng and I will help. As will everyone on this case.” She paused, assessed him, and her smile returned. “I do look forward to working with you, Father.”
Before McClellan could finish his thank you, Okayo pushed herself toward the cabin’s main exit. “I’ll send word before firing the engines,” she called back. “And later, for braking. But you’ll definitely want to be in first class for docking. You’ll get your best views of New Athens—your new home away from home.”
Okayo’s voice came over the comm system with the final notification for docking. McClellan stowed his tablet, pushed himself through the cabin—faster than he should, but he wanted the practice—and made a stop at the zero-g restroom before rejoining his hosts. As he buckled himself in, he gave Zhèng a nod, then a courteous smile to Jansen, who was rousing from her nap.
They were closing in on the cylindrical world, aglow in sunlight, as it was at most times because of its geostationary orbit. McClellan had been through several simulations, and while what he saw looked the same, he couldn’t forget the video with its classified images. He couldn’t forget the narrator’s voice asking why?
The world’s uniform gray skin concealed its scale. But as the Aesir approached, New Athens’s rotation and two defining features brought assurances about its size—twenty kilometers long, six in diameter. At its far end were the great mirrors that fed sunlight into the core. And there, in the central channel running along the circumference, were clusters of transparent hull plates. He looked hard, but at the Aesir’s distance and angle of approach, he could see nothing of the interior.
The shuttle’s thrusters fired, directing them to the central docking assemblies. McClellan had learned in his briefings, and now saw for himself, that because New Athens’s sidewalls did not rotate, ships could dock without maneuvering to match its spin. The design for two independently oriented sidewalls had been a feat of human engineering. Their redesign and construction demonstrated the prowess of the printers.
The braking engines roared. They were coming in nose first to the sidewall—its antennae, docking arrays, and traffic control decks drenched in sun and cut with shadow. The distant structures had been barely discernible, but soon they would tower over the ship. What had seemed like a small opening in the central docking assembly quickly grew in size. It was a kilometer in length and would easily swallow the Aesir.
McClellan let out his breath. “You do have quite the station there,” he said to Jansen.
“Yes,” she said. “We built a remarkable world.” Then she added softly, “It’s unfortunate that I don’t often see it from out here. Not with my actual eyes, anyway. I should get out more, don’t you think, Commissioner Zhèng?”
Joseph Zhèng had been staring absently at his tablet. He spoke only when Jansen leaned in and repeated the question.
“Yes, Elaina. I’ve told you that often. You really should travel more.”
That answer was curt, and while McClellan had only known Zhèng for a matter of hours, the tone seemed unusual.
Joseph Zhèng was thirty-nine years old. His black hair was cut short and faded like McClellan’s, although he had no military background. He was tall, with a lean but powerful build. When they had met, McClellan told Zhèng that anyone with his physique should play basketball. Zhèng said that he had played as a young man in Hong Kong, and occasionally on New Athens—and that the Air Force base being used for McClellan’s preparation had available courts.
After three grueling one-on-one matches, McClellan conceded that he couldn’t remember ever losing so badly.
Despite the humiliation and a few cheap shots, McClellan had grown to like Zhèng. The commissioner had been attentive during the preflight trainings, and even if Zhèng could say nothing about the case, he was eager to talk about most anything else. But since they’d boarded the Aesir, Zhèng was withdrawn. Uneasy.
Having just reviewed the preliminary case files, McClellan suspected why.
“So, what do you think?” Zhèng asked, motioning to McClellan’s tablet.
“Some good information. A few pleasant surprises. But I have a lot of questions.”
Zhèng smiled. “You’re being charitable, Father. The truth is, there’s not as much as you hoped for. And much of the evidence would be thrown out if we were up
against a good lawyer. I’ll admit that it’s a little embarrassing.”
McClellan saw Jansen’s eyes shift away from the viewport.
“I’ve begun cases with less,” he said to Zhèng. “Besides, there are unique circumstances—certainly for me. The murder took place in an uncertified air lock, in a relay that was undergoing final construction in a lunar orbit—quite a distance from New Athens—and at the far side of the moon at the time of Tanglao’s death. Not the best conditions to gather evidence.”
Zhèng’s eyes met McClellan’s. “I’ve read quite a bit about you, Father. All impressive. And I’ve checked with several of your commanders. They spoke highly of you—all of them. They also mentioned your impatience with obstacles. So tell me, what obstacles do you see? What will prevent you—prevent my team—from getting to the truth? And how can I remove these obstacles?”
Zhèng may have been in over his head, but he knew enough to admit it. “Well, since you asked . . .” McClellan said, holding up his tablet. “I’ll need wide latitude. Unrestricted access—everywhere, and to anyone.”
Zhèng gave an inquisitive look, then he saw the tablet’s holodata. “The schedule for retrieving the body,” he said. “You’re not happy with it.”
“Not at all,” McClellan said. “I’ll need free rein when we get to Red Delta. I’ll need to exam the body, inspect the site for myself, interview suspects—the works.”
“I understand,” Zhèng said, leaning back. “That itinerary is a work in progress. I wrote it weeks before I knew the name John McClellan. Trust me, I’m looking forward to your insights, however you come to them.”
“Within reason,” Jansen said theatrically. “I’m sure that’s what you mean, Commissioner—not that security is within my direct purview. But as you know, Father, one of the reasons that I agreed to your presence—why the Engineering Council agreed—is for your thorough evaluation of any unorthodox religious beliefs that Raphael Tanglao may have held. Beyond the usual, I mean.”
McClellan had been waiting for this. He gave a sincere Michigan farm boy smile and thanked her for the reminder. “I understand. But you should know that I have read up on Raphael Tanglao. At the moment, I can’t even say why a brother priest was up here, let alone why he was murdered. You realize that his death may have nothing to do with his being a priest.”
“Perhaps,” Jansen said, leaning forward with an assertion of authority. “But do you know, Father McClellan, that the rejection of superstition was one of the new world’s founding principles? We believe it to be a danger to civilization—as history has well recorded. I do not see how this cannot be a factor in Father Tanglao’s death.”
Jansen watched for some response, as did Zhèng. “Trust me,” McClellan finally said, “I don’t discount anything, or anyone, when it comes to murder.”
“Then what are your thoughts on the printer?” Zhèng said.
Jansen turned fiercely to address the commissioner, but Zhèng spoke first.
“An active printer was responsible for Tanglao’s death, Elaina. We can’t disregard that fact.”
Zhèng was right. A printer was outside the air lock that Tanglao—working under an alias as a builder—was repairing when the air lock’s outer door was opened. It was unknown whom, or what, had opened the door. But it was the printer’s emissions that had killed Tanglao.
“About the printer,” McClellan said, “I assume you checked it.”
“We did,” Zhèng said. “It came up clean. No recorded deviations from its pre-programmed repairs.”
“May I ask who determined that?”
“A member of the team, Agent Brandon Clarke. You’ll meet him when we dock. He’s a programmer in training, so he knows printers.”
“Did he physically scan it? Or was it a neural link?”
“Neither,” Zhèng said uncomfortably. “The information came through telemetry.”
Zhèng saw McClellan’s expression and responded to the obvious question. “At the time, the list of suspects included only the three remaining crew members of Red Delta. We were operating under the assumption that one of them had hacked the air lock door—or that the hack came from someone off station. But when our team arrived at the relay, checked the air lock’s systems, and interviewed the crew, we didn’t find evidence of either. Although, of course, we haven’t ruled them out.”
“So, why wasn’t the printer checked then?”
Zhèng’s discomfort had become humiliation. “By the time we realized the possibility that the printer’s telemetry may have been incomplete—or had been altered—the unit had sent itself to be bundled and preprogrammed for its next task.”
“But you can track it?” McClellan said.
“Not easily.”
“Father McClellan,” Jansen said, “orbital printers are designed to move in stealth—and to do so swiftly. This protects them from hacking attempts, even from us, and especially from the lower world. This happens every time they decommission themselves. We’d only be notified if there was an attempt at an unauthorized access.”
McClellan had more questions, including why basic investigatory expectations had not been met. But he thought it best to ask only what they were doing to find the printer.
Zhèng was considering how to answer when Jansen took advantage of his delay.
“I am sure the commissioner is doing his best. But whether or not you secure it, I must be clear that the Engineering Guild would prefer not to share our programming with anyone. In fact, we won’t. It’s too risky. Besides, it’s impossible that a printer could be involved by choice. Their safeties are foolproof. You of all people should appreciate that, Father McClellan. As a soldier, and a priest, and a programmer, you understand the benefits of restricting one’s freedom, no?”
McClellan saw no contempt in Jansen’s eyes. When she was about to answer her own question, he said, “It was the Marines Corps that taught me how to follow orders, if that’s what you’re asking. My faith actually champions free will, even as it urges us to make good choices—for those around us and for ourselves. As for the printer”—memories tugged for his attention, but he kept his focus on the present—“I don’t see how it would hurt for me to check the unit myself.”
“I agree,” Zhèng said over complaints from the braking engines. “But as Elaina has explained, finding it will be difficult.”
Jansen nodded. “And since the builders control equipment transportation in the orbits—well, we had to give them something to do—it will be impossible for the Engineering Guild to provide further assistance. You’ll have to ask them.”
Zhèng and Jansen began debating the nuances of the engineers’ treaty with the Builders Guild, and about the tracking of engineering property.
McClellan said nothing. He was too interested in what appeared to be a growing, but still respectful, feud. He was learning more in these moments about his hosts than he had from days of reading about them.
The debate subsided with the copilot’s final notice on docking, followed by a series of loud thruster bursts. McClellan felt his body push into his restraining belts. He held on firmly and turned to watch the approaching docking assemblies and, far beyond, the light and shadow of the vast Centerwell. Then, after a low rumble, word arrived. The Aesir had docked with New Athens—the world that had been built at the whim of the printers.
“MCCLELLAN! YOU’RE UP!”
It was their third day of drills, of pushing through the scrub and stone of New Mexico’s old Rockhound State Park, a day of hustling because the planners test everyone by changing the plan. First came the combatants that were supposed to be somewhere else, but now they’re advancing over a hill in a line of dust that shades the horizon and stings your flesh. Then another programmer was supposed to take a printer because he’s certified to print the new ammo, but you’re the programmer that gets the call.
It had been a day of waiting an hour or two in the shadow of an ATV, your back resting on a tire, then hustling because a printer
gets choppered in, or one is secured by advance teams a quarter mile from where it says on the map. The printer’s casing is hot from the sun but you don’t care. You go for your coupler and your programmer’s key and you engage the machine. You don’t think about the heat or about the rattlesnake rolled up in the shade of a boulder not far from your feet, except to envy it for the shade.
A firefight thunders and echoes nearby, and there’s the rising scream of the air support, and there’s the dust. But you focus. You know everyone expects you to focus.
You wonder if you’ll be getting one of the new printers—the ones that can print anything, the ones with Deep Intellect, like the ones building that damn orbital station, the ones they’ve been training you on for three weeks. But the printer you get is standard issue, and its casing is hot, hotter than the rock you stand on. These printers are good for most needs, especially ammo, weapons, and a few medical supplies, but you can’t print everything. You can’t print good rations.
Damn, if you had one of the new printers . . . but you put that out of your head. You focus. You’re being watched by your squad, and you’re being graded by observing engineers in some air-conditioned bunker, or in some office on the other side of the country, or in orbit, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s your team that found the printer—it was your unit that secured it before the bad guys, otherwise it would be the bad guys printing the ammo and the ordnances and the drones that could take the lives of the Marines you swore to protect.
Recruit John Francis McClellan turned when he heard his name called.
It was dusk and they had been returning to base for about an hour when Staff Sergeant Mariano gave the word to stop. They’d just gotten to the old road, and its flat surface felt good. The desert threw off the day’s heat, as the red sky darkened until the stars of August glared down indifferently. The smell of grilled beef—a gift from local ranchers—drifted from the base’s big mess halls half a mile away.
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