A Printer's Choice

by W. L. Patenaude

  “I’ve got the whole Centerwell in lockdown,” he said to her. “I’m not very popular with the staff out there. And that’ll get worse when I get us through customs.” He turned and motioned to the docking bridge. “Shall we, everyone? The Wheel is waiting.”

  The three agents and a watchful McClellan caught up with Jansen. Zhèng began speaking into his collar’s comm badge, giving instructions to the ship’s robbers about retrieving the priest’s luggage—making sure to call them robotic assistants in front of Jansen.

  The docking gate’s deboarding area was bright, clean, and drab, save for occasional touches of neatly printed faux wood and marble. What were, by convention, the ceiling and the floor held ladder-like inserts that made for efficient movement in the Centerwell’s weightlessness. Other than a few maintenance workers and five more of Zhèng’s security agents gliding nearby, the vast area was empty.

  Just ahead, Jansen was growing restless waiting for the robotic assistants. When they finally came with the luggage, and when Zhèng was satisfied that all was in order, he gave a nod to Clarke, who waved everyone forward.

  The two robbers pushed off gracefully and followed the group at a distance. They looked much like their cousins on Earth—rugged limbs, long fingers and toes, and innards glowing either red or yellow, or green or blue, depending on their design functions. But these orbital robbers were sleeker. Aerodynamic. Their skin was smoother, more reflective, and punctured with the nozzles of directional thrusters.

  McClellan wondered how the machines spoke—their faces had no obvious mouth, only two sensory bands that circled their heads. He called to the one closer to him, giving a thank you for the help. The robber turned. Its sensory bands shifted, as if expressing surprise. Or scrutiny. Or maybe that’s how it said you’re welcome.

  “Up here, they don’t talk much,” Zhèng said. “Each time a new model gets printed, there’s less emphasis on verbal communication. Just as well. Most of us don’t have much to say to them.”

  As the party made its way into the Centerwell’s main concourse, Jansen brought herself alongside McClellan. “This is one of my joys,” she said. “Escorting first-timers into New Athens. I know you’ve been through simulations. But there’s nothing like the real thing.”

  “That’s what I hear,” McClellan said, noting her relaxed tone. “I couldn’t ask for a better guide.”

  Jansen’s eyes became thoughtful, and she spoke softly. “I apologize if my tone is sometimes harsh, Father—as it may have been when we were docking. You’d think at this stage of my life I’d be better at diplomacy. Please know that I don’t mean to offend.”

  “I wouldn’t be concerned, Elaina. There’s something to be said for getting to the point. And anyway, I’ll sound just as harsh at times—we all will. It’s going to take time to get to know each other. To better understand each other. But that alone would be a blessing.”

  “It would be a benefit, yes,” Jansen said after a pause.

  Behind them came the noise of a disagreement between Clarke, who had granted access to the robbers, and the customs clerk, who was not at all happy with the young agent.

  Jansen pretended not to notice. She brought herself close to McClellan and began a lecture on the Spin-Match Assembly Wall—what most people called the Wheel—which would soon be taking them from the weightless Centerwell to the rotating habitation levels, which circled around them three kilometers away. But McClellan was only half listening. As eager as he was to see the celebrated engineering marvel, his attention was on the Centerwell’s staff. They were mostly builders. Even at this late hour they were tending the boarding and deboarding facilities, which would soon be back in business.

  A few made eye contact. Some offered greetings, which McClellan returned. A nod of appreciation to the gentlemanly gate clerk who had been scolded by a superior; a smile to the maintenance technician wearing a frayed yellow jumpsuit, his eyes downcast after receiving a look of displeasure from Jansen; a wave to the young woman behind an information booth explaining something serious to a security agent, who kept the young lady company as they pondered the unlikely pairing of the priest and the engineer.

  Tapping McClellan’s arm, Jansen pointed ahead. It was dark beyond the rows of security gates they approached, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw a soft and bluish light rotating steadily.

  He looked at Jansen. “The Wheel?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes, indeed it is,” she said.

  A low and rolling hum came from all around, and Zhèng and Clarke ushered everyone through the checkpoint for Spin Match Cabin B, and then onward to the seating area.

  “As I promised,” Clarke said to Okayo, but loud enough for all to hear, “we made it here in plenty of time.”

  Clarke nodded to a large wall display that flashed the word DESCENT in tall red letters. Below it was a countdown in orange: two minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Fifty-seven seconds. Fifty-six.

  That was the time remaining before the great six-kilometer Wheel would stir—when it would gently begin to turn in the direction that New Athens rotated, and then turn gradually faster, with an almost imperceptible acceleration, until twenty minutes later it matched and maintained the spin of the station’s outer levels.

  Embedded in the Wheel and facing New Athens’s core were eight elevator cabins; each could seat five hundred people. As the Wheel began to turn, the cabins would begin their three-kilometer radial journey from the Centerwell to the habitat ring, where the rotation of the world mimicked the pull of gravity.

  McClellan joined the others as they made their way to the cabin’s plush seating. As with the Aesir, they had it to themselves. He sat alone to give his hosts, who were engaged in lively chatter, their privacy. But once they were under way, one or the other would turn to him—the first-timer—and smile at his reaction.

  The cabin’s walls were transparent. Before them was the whole vast cylindrical world—home to six hundred thousand people—with its farms and forests and its evenly spaced twelve cities, their domed skylights and towers reaching up to drifting clouds. What seemed like moonlight sparkled occasionally in the lakes and streams between the cities. The light’s source was the central Sun Crane, which released the sunlight captured in the great mirrors outside. But at just after eleven o’clock at night, the Sun Crane had dimmed to mimic the conditions of night, which were the conditions of the Atlantic Ocean, over which New Athens remained in its geostationary orbit.

  Jansen had been right. The simulations hadn’t prepared him for this, not for the reality of the cylindrical world that spun so gracefully around them—a motion that seemed to be slowing as the Wheel matched the outer rotation of New Athens, as McClellan, the security agents, and Jansen made their way to the outer floor of the world.

  As the cabin dropped through the edge of a small cloud, McClellan closed his eyes to say a prayer to St. Joseph, all the while becoming aware that his weight was returning. Soon the cabin gave a rumble as it passed through the inner shell of the core, which held the farms and the forests. Then, as they arrived at the outer level, came a deeper tremor as the Wheel matched the hull’s rotation and stopped.

  McClellan looked up. The cabin had opened its wide, transparent walls, allowing Clarke and Okayo to walk out and confer with waiting associates.

  “Welcome, officially, to New Athens,” Elaina Jansen said. “And welcome to the future of the human race.”

  With an all-clear from Clarke, Zhèng guided McClellan into the small village that served as one of the eight ground terminals for the cabins. The people here were young; some were Jansen’s age, but none seemed much older. Even at this hour they came and went out of small cafés and shops and queued up for the Wheel’s return trip. As they lined up along the gate, most strained to get a look at the new arrival. A few waved signs expressing their disdain for organized religion, or that there was no room in the orbits for men like him.

  “Feels like home,” McClellan quipped to Zhèng.

  The wall
s and terraces of the surrounding buildings—their facades of columns, porticos, and pediments—bowed to the semicircular shape of the great Wheel’s cabin. Like the other gate villages and the twelve cities, their high roofs connected with a sweeping cover of skylights and arched structural supports that sealed the main habitat level from the farms of the central core overhead.

  Through the skylights, McClellan had a good view of the Sun Crane. It was a comparatively thin structure, only about two hundred meters in diameter. But it extended from the far sidewall almost the entire twenty-kilometer length of the core, ending just before the Wheel. The gap allowed him to see the lights of the Wheel village directly opposite this one, which, in this cylindrical world, looked as if it was upside down far overhead—six kilometers away.

  Okayo performed a quick visual sweep, then came to McClellan’s side. “How are you, Father?” she said, joining his gaze upward.

  “I guess this takes some getting used to,” he said, taking a few draughts of the world’s crisp air. “It’s breathtaking.”

  “And on the five-trillionth day,” Jansen said, joining the conversation, “the engineers made New Athens, and they saw that it was very good.”

  McClellan said another quiet prayer to St. Joseph, this time for restraint, but chuckled when he heard Clarke’s voice. “That would be the printers, Madame Engineer. They built this.”

  Jansen stepped away, containing her displeasure. Clarke went back to dealing with the robbers, ordering them to take McClellan’s luggage to a waiting streetcar.

  McClellan turned to Okayo. “I have a question. If I may?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Evacuating New Athens is . . .”

  “Possible. But not if you’re in a hurry.”

  McClellan did the math. If time were a factor, moving six hundred thousand people out through the Wheel was unworkable. There was a similar arrival and departure system on the other sidewall, which held the base of the Sun Crane. But its radial elevators were not as elaborate as the Wheel and could carry fewer people—and right now it was undergoing repairs.

  As Okayo ushered McClellan to the streetcar, she gave a review of the emergency shelter-in-place plans, which he had read about on Earth. Then she paused and looked upward, as if seeing New Athens for the first time. “If I were an engineer,” she said, “I’d put an engine on a world like this. Can you imagine piloting one of these?”

  The streetcar was empty, other than the robber driving it and the two ferrying his luggage. Its tracks led away from the Wheel’s access square, disappearing farther along into a brightly lit tunnel. With the clang of a bell, the streetcar moved along, slipped into the tunnel, and picked up speed. Zhèng and Jansen were silent. Okayo sat next to Clarke, and the pair talked quietly and cheerfully about piloting the Aesir.

  A map across from McClellan showed their location. They were on one of the thirty-two main boulevards that ran the length of the world. There were also thirty perpendicular avenues that circled New Athens’s core, as well as a series of utility corridors below street level. In all, the boulevards, avenues, and lower corridors were the only routes into and out of New Athens’s twelve cities, which included Troas City, a community not far from the Wheel, where McClellan would be based, and where the streetcar headed.

  The tunnel opened to one of the outer neighborhoods. The transport slowed as it mingled among pedestrians and workers going about their business. This was a city of builders. Even at night it was active with the operations and maintenance of New Athens.

  The streetcar stopped with a lurch. The conductor made an unhappy sound—the first McClellan had heard from a robber—as a lanky teenager ran across the tracks. The robber inched the streetcar farther along, then braked not far from a small crowd of waiting men and women in various colored jumpsuits. Several children were with them, pointing with excitement at the arriving party. Okayo gave McClellan a smile and said, “Welcome to Troas City.” She stepped out to the boulevard and surveyed the area.

  “I’ll be staying on to Corinthia,” Elaina Jansen said, coming over to shake McClellan’s hand and ignoring Agent Clarke, who stood next to him. “I’m ready for a real night’s sleep. Oh, and Father McClellan, I almost forgot, you will have to join me for dinner when you return from your investigation of Red Delta. I should introduce you to some of the other engineers.”

  “Thank you,” McClellan said. “I’d like that.”

  “It truly was a pleasure to meet you,” Jansen said, smiling at his acceptance. “I know you’re eager to get to work, and I trust that you know you are in good hands. But please, Father, remember the agreement. You may worship your god in the chapel. We promised you that. But don’t send out invitations.”

  “Got it. And if people come on their own?”

  “Well, that should not be happening.”

  “How about you? And the other engineers? I feel I should return the hospitality.”

  Jansen gave the priest a steady look and a handshake to match, and then went to her seat up front, adjusting her jacket and her hair before the short ride to Corinthia.

  McClellan watched as the streetcar continued on its way. Its conductor issued a few warning beeps to the gathering up ahead, then disappeared into the bustle of Troas City.

  He looked down the boulevard. In place of cafés or provisions shops were utilitarian entrances and transparent doors. The signs over the entrances were uniformly green with wide white letters: Water Reclamation; Solar Electrical Relays 12 & 13; Altitude and Station Keeping 4. Just ahead was a sign made of tattered wood—or what looked like wood—with a long painted arrow. SPINSIDE BAR AND GRILL, the sign proclaimed. ONLY 50 METERS AWAY!

  Zhèng came alongside McClellan and nodded to the gathering ahead. “You’ll find the reception here a little warmer. But we can’t spend much time with the locals. Not yet. We’re on a tight schedule.”

  Clarke and Okayo joined three junior agents standing between McClellan’s new home and the assembly waiting outside. Above the entrance was something McClellan hadn’t expected—not after Jansen’s lectures. At about the same height as the plain green and white signs of the other entrances was a yellow and white flag with the Vatican coat of arms.

  A papal flag? Couldn’t be. But yes, that’s what it was. Nice touch, he thought, as he looked up and rubbed the back of his neck.

  The junior agents gave concerned looks as McClellan, Zhèng, and the robbers approached the crowd of about a dozen builders and their tired but grinning children. But the builders smiled and welcomed the priest. One of their children—a girl with warm brown skin, intricately braided black hair, and a bright yellow dress—took two steps forward and offered a handful of daisies.

  “Thank you very much,” McClellan said, delighted. He went down on one knee to meet the girl’s eyes. “And what is your name?”

  The girl smiled widely, prompting other children to do the same. “Veronica,” she said. “Veronica Parker.”

  “Veronica is a beautiful name.”

  “Thank you,” the girl said, looking at her father and mother to be certain they had heard the compliment. “You have pretty blue eyes, mister.”

  “Why, thank you again, Veronica. And why are all of you up this time of night? I hope it’s not just to greet me.”

  The girl nodded earnestly, and said that very few important people ever come to Troas City. Her parents and a few other builders concurred, and McClellan, now standing, felt a sudden affection for them all—for the men and women and families who reminded him of his parishioners in Boston. Even with all the simulations and briefings, he hadn’t expected this. Tired as he was, he found the words to thank them. And, he added, if there was ever anything he could do for them, they need only ask.

  Zhèng gave a look to his agents, who began dispersing the crowd. The children waved with their free hands as their parents tugged them away. McClellan returned the gestures, holding Veronica’s daisies high.

  Off to the side, a builder who h
ad been watching still stood with his hands behind his back, oblivious to the children moving past him. He was an older man, uncharacteristically paunchy for the people of New Athens, and he wore a blue jumpsuit and black boots. The pockets of the jumpsuit were filled with small instruments for writing and measuring, and who knew what else. His white hair was thinning and long. His face was expressionless, but he nodded at McClellan. Both men looked steadily at each other as McClellan returned the nod. Then the man turned and walked away.

  “Mind if I ask who that was?” McClellan said to Zhèng, motioning to where the man had stood.

  “In time,” Zhèng said with a return to the cool, agitated tone he had used on the Aesir. “I’m sure he’ll introduce himself. For now, let’s keep going.”

  The entrance under the papal flag was plain and made of a hard, opaque material that McClellan had seen throughout New Athens. Zhèng touched the doors, which unlocked and slid aside. The room beyond was white, about four meters square, with elaborate moldings around the inner doors. McClellan guessed it to be one of the air-lock-rated foyers for the shelter-in-place plans. One of the walls displayed a large badge-and-star symbol of the Security Guild. The opposite held the papal seal. Overhead was an arched ceiling with an array of what appeared to be yellow and white translucent material—the colors of Veronica’s daisies. The structure filtered the dim light of the Sun Crane through sweeping patterns of stars and planets and, in the center, a depiction of Jesus Christ holding a book of the gospels.

  “Please,” Zhèng said. “This way.”

  The commissioner waited by the inner double doors. These were taller than the first, and had been printed to appear bronze. They were surrounded with more elaborate moldings, covered with celestial decorations, as well as wheat and grapes, chalices and ciboria. Zhèng pushed the doors open and stepped inside. He motioned for McClellan to enter, but McClellan didn’t move—something the robbers hadn’t expected. They took a step forward, stopped awkwardly, and took a moment to rebalance their loads.