A Printer's Choice

by W. L. Patenaude

  Okayo explained the details—even the smallest orbital corrections—with an enthusiasm that McClellan might have shared had he understood what she was saying. In the end, she said that all he needed to know was this: if the security team wanted to return to New Athens without a week’s delay or without exceeding the safe yield of their own engines, they’d have to undock from Red Delta within three hours after they had arrived.

  McClellan was smiling at the memory when he looked up and saw Zhèng. The commissioner was hovering inside the cargo hold’s entrance and motioning behind him. “I hate to disturb you,” he said, “but you’d better join us. Our pilot is a bit of a daredevil and she wants you to have plenty of time on Red Delta. She’s not braking until she has to, which will make for some interesting approach maneuvers.”

  McClellan stowed his tablet in his thigh pocket, along with his rosary. He unbuckled the bench strapping and pushed himself over to Zhèng. “Do me a favor?” he said. “Radio Okayo and tell her to wait until I’m secure up there.”

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” Zhèng said, laughing. “Pilots outrank me during flight. Besides, it’s time you tried the weightless life. I could get used to having a chaplain around.”

  McClellan followed the commissioner, who moved quickly along the corridors leading to flight deck, which seated ten people comfortably and somewhat lavishly. The seating arced in a half circle and faced the open cockpit, which itself had wide, transparent sections of hull.

  Zhèng waited for his guest before securing himself in one of the overstuffed flight chairs. As McClellan did the same he could feel the main engines reverse their thrust. He gave a nod to Clarke, whom he could see in the copilot’s position. Okayo was hidden by the cockpit’s seating.

  One of Zhèng’s staffers, Agent Miriam Lopez, asked McClellan if he had read all the forensic reports.

  “What little there was,” he said, as he worked to buckle his straps.

  Lopez was from one of the lunar stations. Zhèng had called her to this case because of her expertise with biological and physical forensics. It was Lopez who had performed the first post-mortem on Father Tanglao, and, along with Clarke, the first inspections of the air lock where the priest had been found. She was the oldest of the agents, and the least interested in Security Guild pageantry and protocol. She had dark, aggressive eyes, and her brown hair was shaved almost to the scalp. In the few hours since McClellan had met her on New Athens, Lopez was curt and critical of his questions and contributions—and she made it known that she did not approve of public displays of faith.

  “I apologize if my forensic work disappoints you,” Lopez responded, her eyes narrowing. “As I stressed earlier, we have very little that’s out of the ordinary. I’ve seen space exposure hundreds of times. As for the printer damage—there is little precedent for that.”

  “My apologies,” McClellan said. “That was going to be my point. There isn’t much in the literature on printer damage—not these days, anyway. Their fail-safes are designed to prevent accidents like this, which, thank God, they seem to. All I meant, Agent Lopez, was that you did a remarkable job with what little you had to work with.”

  Lopez shifted uncomfortably. She gave a slight smile of appreciation that faded as McClellan continued.

  “Of course, I’ve seen plenty of these accidents in the wars,” he said. “But those were with the older printers. I’ve got some catching up to do. So I suppose that means that, between both of us working together, we may come up with something neither of us would have considered.”

  Lopez didn’t seem eager to discuss their working relationship. Her gaze again lingered on McClellan’s face, focusing on the scars over his eye and ear.

  “Might I ask you a personal question?” she asked. “Although I do so out of professional curiosity.”

  “Of course,” McClellan said.

  “Your head wounds, are they self-inflected?”

  McClellan’s expression asked for clarification.

  “Forgive me,” Lopez went on, “but I understand that many military programmers attempt to cut out their neural matrices—under severe stress, of course. Is there something we should know about? Something about your life in that undisciplined world down there that could affect this mission?”

  “Hardly self-inflicted,” he said, his posture stiffening. “These came from Raleigh. A Sal soldier thought that all he needed to be a programmer was whatever he could find in my skull. Fortunately, a colleague of mine was nearby. He put an L-21 slug into the Sal’s skull first.”

  “I see. Well, there are ways to have such scarring removed.”

  “Why would I do that? I consider them a blessing. They’re a reminder of the suffering the Sals inflicted on so many innocents and on themselves. I pray each day that God forgives them, and us all.”

  Zhèng stared disapprovingly at Lopez, who apologized with sincerity but not enthusiasm. At a pause in docking preparations, Clarke turned in his copilot’s seat to send McClellan a supportive nod.

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen,” Zhèng said as he stowed his tablet, “let’s focus. Thanks to Okayo, we’ll have almost twenty additional minutes aboard Red Delta. After we’re greeted by the station superintendent, I can send Clarke to the morgue with McClellan and Lopez. Two of the station’s robbers will help with the transport of the body. Okayo and I will remain with the superintendent to begin the commissioning transfer. Then we should have time for McClellan to get to know the remaining two crew members—Walter Hobart and Maximillian Tucker—and to inspect the place of the death.”

  As Zhèng was speaking, McClellan leaned into his seating straps. The waxing moon was gliding and rolling in the cockpit windows. He had never seen the moon so close—so large and clear—and he wondered how many people on Earth were admiring it at this very moment.

  “Remember, we have just over three hours,” Zhèng said, pulling on his seat straps, tightening them. “I’ve stretched this investigation as long as I can while keeping Red Delta idle. I’m under growing pressure to get her into a working orbit. So let’s get our jobs done, and done right.”

  Okayo was having a spirited conversation with Red Delta’s docking computer, something about approach rates and distance to docking rings. Braking engines roared unhappily as they opposed the ship’s direction of travel. This fulfilled Zhèng’s earlier promise for some interesting piloting maneuvers.

  McClellan spotted a point of light drifting along the lunar plains. It approached the Sea of Tranquillity, growing larger until its octagonal shape became discernible. McClellan knew the relay station spanned two kilometers, but from this distance it looked small and fragile.

  Clarke gave a thumbs-up, and followed with audible confirmation that, as expected, they had synced with Red Delta’s docking computer. Thrusters fired, and the cabin turned slightly around them. The relay’s sidewall, which had looked so thin from a distance, filled the cockpit’s windows. Robbers appeared along the docking ring to assist with positioning, and after a few quiet moments there came the deep and booming thud of a successful berthing.

  “Welcome to Red Delta,” Clarke said. “Next stop: its morgue.”

  Westphalia, Iowa

  August 28, 2069

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  Uncle Roger said I should write, and ask for your advice as if you were still alive. I guess it can’t hurt, even though it reminds me how much I miss you. Uncle said that it’s not bad to remember. He said the bad thing is forgetting the people we love.

  I wasn’t sure where to begin, so Aunt Betty said I should talk about anything new. So here goes. I’m going in ninth grade at Harlan Community High. There’s still not many teachers, but enough that they reopened most of the schools a few years back. Last week they held a big outdoor dance—Aunt Betty said it was the first in about ten years. People from the old classes came, so it was a reunion. I went with Erin and Jimmy—you don’t know them. Aunt Betty took them in for her cousin from New Jersey. In all they adopted twelve boys an
d nine girls from the government option. That’s a lot for one house, but we had help from neighbors and built a big addition, so it works out.

  I made junior varsity football, and I’m really good. I know you don’t like me playing football, but it’s fun. Coach Taylor says I’ll be a big asset when I get to varsity. He said the towns around here need good players because people need things to cheer.

  And don’t worry, I’m getting good grades. You’ll be proud with how I did last spring when some people came by and tested us for a new kind of math. The rumor is that it had to do with those new printers they’re using in space. Ms. Fuller said I got top in the county for my age. She said the military was asking about me. That made me proud.

  I know you’re not happy with me thinking about the military, but all my friends are planning on signing up. Things with the Sals are worse. The fighting isn’t too far from us—Texas and Oklahoma mostly. And they’ve been advancing toward the East Coast. The Sal leader says that they’ll be taking over North America as easily as they did the South. He says that if the government can’t help people, he will. He says that if the Global Union won’t protect us from the Islamic African Nations, he will. Ms. Fuller said the Sals are even trying to get into space. So who knows where I’d have to fight? Maybe another country, maybe even in the orbits, or on the moon.

  Given everything going on, I know I have it good. The farm is strong this year, and the past two winters were calm. Uncle Roger and Aunt Betty are up at Iowa State most of the time working with other farmers. The Global Union’s people keep coming by and arguing with our results on natural farming, but you can’t argue with our crop yield—and I guess that gets me to my why I’m writing.

  Remember the Mitchells back home? They offered to let me stay with them. Mr. Mitchell said he needs farmers. He said that the Michigan Land Bureau granted him the rights around Union City—even as far as Burlington and Athens, too. The high school is still open, and Mr. Mitchell said he talked to the athletic director, and that I’d be welcome on the football team. That would mean I’d be a Charger, like I always wanted. Remember when you’d take me to the games with the Wilsons next door? Those were good times.

  So my question is, should I go? I wish you could tell me, because I don’t know what to do. I guess what’s worse than losing what I have here is that being back in Michigan would make me miss you both more than I already do.

  Uncle Roger has mixed feelings, but he says it’s something I should consider. He says I should pray about it, too. He’s always trying to get me to St. Boniface for that, but I don’t go. Like you used to tell me, I don’t know what kind of god can let so much suffering happen and let billions of people die like they did and still die every day. If there is a god, he’s a criminal—like his followers. Like the Sals. That’s what I tell Uncle Roger and Aunt Betty. I know it hurts them, but it’s how I feel.

  So Uncle said if I don’t want to pray, then I should ask you two. So I’m hoping that if you are somewhere, like people say happens after you die, that you might hear this and be there for me. Maybe not for real, but maybe you can tell me what you think.

  I miss you both so much and even though everyone’s so good to me, it’s not the same.

  I really hate the Global Union for what they did to you—and to all the parents of the others kids here and all over. Everyone hates what they did, even if people say it seemed like the only option back then. Uncle Roger says it was genocide, and Mr. Mitchell said that Union City may vote to change its name so that nobody confuses it with the Global Union.

  But that would be wrong. Union City is home—they shouldn’t change a name because of the GU.

  Hey, maybe I answered my question. Union City is home. I like Westphalia and Harlan and all, but it would be good to go back. Uncle Roger has connections with the engineering teams, so maybe I can get permission to visit at first, then relocate. Maybe that’s my plan.

  Anyway, I love you guys, and I miss you. So here’s a hug from me to you, and I’ll keep you posted about whatever I do—especially if I ever get to the moon.

  With all my love, your son,

  Johnny

  MCCLELLAN GRIPPED A HANDHOLD on Red Delta’s inner docking hatch. In a moment of weightless disorientation, the station’s entryway looked like a shaft dropping far below him. The sense of falling was strong and sudden, and he did not find comfort in the fact that he was not moving. He waited for Zhèng and the others to glide past him, their relaxed motion calibrating his senses—helping his mind understand that what he was seeing was not below or above, but simply away.

  Zhèng paused and put a hand on McClellan’s shoulder. “Remember,” he said, pointing ahead, “flat floor, circular sky.”

  The round passageway was one hundred meters long. It had a silver finish broken every few meters by rings of lighting. Orange signs and arrows directed traffic and instructed newcomers, but even more helpful was the two-meter-long flattened section that ran through the corridor’s length—the “flat floor” that Zhèng referred to—which helped anchor perceptions with a common orientation.

  “Got it,” McClellan said. “I guess this can take some getting used to.”

  “Happens to everyone,” Zhèng said. “You’ll adapt. We all did.” Zhèng turned to face inward, and then he nodded ahead. “Although you may not adapt as easily to Molly Rose. Here she comes, our host, the superintendent of Red Delta.”

  Molly Rose was propelling fast and sure through the passage, aiming for a rendezvous with the security team closer to the docking ring than to the main galley entrance. She did little to hide her irritation as she approached.

  “It’s about time,” she said to Zhèng with a sudden grasp of a handhold, her momentum swinging her feet forward, toward her guests.

  “Yes, yes,” Zhèng said. “It is indeed. But then, we don’t control the orbits.”

  “Nobody does,” the superintendent said, “but you could plan for them.”

  Molly Rose was forty years old, but McClellan would have guessed a decade younger. She had a lean, strong build with long legs and arms. Her skin had only a little of the pockmarking that comes from working in the vacuum and radiation of space, and her brown hair was braided and bundled inside a netting that matched her red builder’s jumpsuit. As she continued her back-and-forth with the commissioner—a form of dialogue Molly Rose seemed quite familiar with—her expressions were nevertheless youthful and honest.

  Zhèng ignored the superintendent’s tone and introduced his team. Molly Rose knew Clarke from this case and an earlier one. She’d met Lopez only once, the day after Tanglao was discovered. The superintendent had never met Okayo, and offered her a pleasant welcome. She was less pleasant to McClellan. Her smile dimmed, and she assessed him, not with the probing analysis of Lopez but with the quick evaluations of those accustomed to taking in data quickly and making decisions fast.

  “So,” Molly Rose said, “you’re the one we had to wait for? The soldier priest who’s going to fix everything?”

  “Something like that,” McClellan said, watching her eyes fluctuate between curiosity and frustration. “It is a pleasure to meet you. And my apologies, if delays in my coming upside interfered with your work. But I hear you’re one of the best in the relay orbits. I’m sure you’ll make up for lost time.”

  “I’m not one of the best,” Molly Rose said, connecting with his extended hand. “I am the best. But good of you to say so. All right, everyone, let’s get moving. I’ve got orbital maneuvers programmed to begin in one hour, forty-five minutes, and then the big burn in three hours, five. Tell me what you need, Commissioner. And tell me fast.”

  Zhèng and Okayo accompanied Molly Rose to the station’s customs office. The plan was to again question the superintendent under the polite guise of processing the memorandum of commissioning, which would grant engine control to the Builders Guild.

  Clarke and Lopez chatted as they led McClellan deeper into the station, toward the morgue. He’d been waiting to ge
t the feel of the station—to imagine the crew on the morning of Father Tanglao’s death.

  The air was cool and slightly stale. The passageways were unblemished, but the lighting became dim as they traveled into the secondary corridors. The other two crew members, Walter Hobart and Maximillian Tucker, had been ordered to remain in their quarters until contacted. This made Clarke, Lopez, and McClellan the only three people traveling into the vast station—into what should have been a bustling transport nexus between Earth and the buildout of Progress.

  “Welcome to life in a relay,” Clarke called back to McClellan. “Boring as all hell. Even when it’s busy.”

  After turns and more flat-floored corridors—some wide for moving equipment, and some narrow for access only to humans and robbers—they came to a station transport car, much like the streetcars on New Athens, but not as elaborate. Clarke entered his security codes to unseal the transport from quarantine, and they moved forward through two more sections. They stopped at a wide landing that serviced one of the relay’s main cargo holds, which was immense and empty. It was lit by only four green floodlights on its distant outer bulkhead doors as well as lighting that strayed from the semicircular personnel travel lanes set within the walls. As the trio went along, McClellan peered into the darkness at a long row of robbers lining the opposite wall. They were aligned uniformly in their idle and charging position—chin up, head back.

  The party was halfway across the hold when two of the robbers lowered their heads and disconnected from their charging stations. Their innards glowed and they gave off a series of thruster blasts to push them toward the trio, then positioned themselves behind McClellan, who was behind Clarke and Lopez. These were the robbers that would carry Tanglao’s body back to the transport, and they made no sound other than from their maneuvering thrusters, and from the synthetic fingers and feet that guided them along.