A Printer's Choice

by W. L. Patenaude

  McClellan wasn’t amused. “And who would have believed that a week ago tonight I was leaving Earth on an Aesir. And here I am—and frankly, Ira, I am not seeing anything worth my time.”

  “Clean water is not worth your while?”

  “You know what I mean. We have three dead men on our hands, a terrified populace, and a builder population ready to blow. Not to mention a Sal lawyer docking as we speak—and once he steps out of the Wheel we can count on him to escalate tensions. I don’t have time for riddles. Am I being clear?”

  Wagner nodded solemnly, and his words became loud and cold.

  “Yes. You are clear. And for the record, I am familiar with such times. My boyhood home was the Czech Republic. I do not have to tell you what the Sals did there—what they did to my people. You say that three men are dead? When your count reaches three million, then you’ll get my attention.”

  Clarke’s smile disappeared. He stepped between Wagner and the priest, his hand moving inside his jacket over his belt holster.

  Wagner laughed. “You are a brave man, Clarke. But if I had wanted to kill McClellan, he’d have drowned in my basins. Calm yourself. I have seen enough of death for a thousand lifetimes. Come then, McClellan. You are right. Let us get to business. Let me show you my gift.”

  Wagner led the pair another twenty or so meters down the passageway. The sounds of machinery and roaring waters tapered off as they went. The air grew mustier and smelled occasionally of some putrid odor, or of chlorine, or electricity. McClellan could feel the rumbles of streetcars as they passed overhead, and realized that they must be beneath Troas City’s main boulevard.

  The trio went another few dozen meters—they weren’t far from his residences and chapel—where two plain, round bulkhead doors faced each other on opposing sides of the passageway. The doors were identical. They were as high as the passage, about four meters, but made of a darker material than the gray fireproofing finishes throughout the water reclamation systems.

  “Do you know what these are?” Wagner asked Clarke.

  Clarke nodded. “I do. So does McClellan. I had a feeling this is what you wanted us to know about.”

  “Wonderful!” Wagner said. “I am glad we are all thinking along the same lines.”

  Clarke took out his tablet and within moments had a small holographic diagram of New Athens rotating over it. As it had that morning at the briefing, the diagram grew with lines emanating from the locations of the station’s twelve cities, and then cross-connected with others, and soon created a tight grid that enveloped the holographic hull. Clarke enlarged a section of the grid within Troas City but did not find the bulkheads they stood between.

  Wagner watched and smiled. “These don’t appear on the maps. The printers made these passages themselves about four years ago, and for some reason the construction never appeared on the official records. I suppose I could have said something, but then it’s not my job to keep the engineers informed of such matters.”

  Clarke was running his free hand over one of the bulkheads. “Printers did this without authorization?” he said, looking back to his holodisplay. “Here, show me where these lead.”

  Wagner moved closer and examined the display. The two conferred about bulkhead connections and piping conduits and utility tunnels.

  “Okay, I see where we are,” Clarke said. “These access doors should be here and here on the maps.”

  “Yes,” Wagner said. “The printers do this occasionally. Without warning, they make improvements. These doors open to a tunnel segment that leads circumferentially along the hull, and to wider longitudinal utility tunnels. It does make my job easier that these water systems were tied into them—officially or not.”

  McClellan walked to one of the bulkheads. He looked up, assessed it, and said, “So the passage behind these bulkheads leads to the printers?”

  “They do,” Clarke said. “Utility tunnels are a transit system for printers throughout the station. The tunnels and their conduits are how the house printers connect to energy streams for printing. They don’t harvest matter from their surroundings. They plug into dedicated energy sources. So it looks like besides helping Wagner’s crew, the printers are making more access options for themselves.”

  Wagner was knocking the bulkhead near him and then listening. “I would add one detail to Brandon’s accurate assessment. Should you two decide to enter these tunnels, your focus should be the lead printer that oversaw the construction of your chapel. It’s in there somewhere.”

  Clarke shut down his tablet’s holodisplay and shook his head with an emphatic no. “I checked on that, Wagner. The engineers made it clear that the clamshell was taken off-station for work at Progress. I confirmed that three times.”

  “Then you were lied to three times,” Wagner said. “My sources tell me that the house printer that led the chapel buildout is still part of the maintenance population here on New Athens. Perhaps it is under observation. I wouldn’t know. But I trust my sources.” Wagner turned to McClellan. “And I believe it has something to tell you—to tell all of us—something that will benefit not just Max Tucker but also all the people of New Athens and in the orbits.”

  McClellan stepped closer to the older man. “Why do you think that? Are you a programmer? It’s beginning to seem as though everyone is.”

  Wagner laughed. “Hardly. I am a simple wastewater operator, and a seeker of the justice and truth that you preached about this morning. Although I do not seek mercy. I will leave that to men like you.”

  McClellan’s expression reiterated his impatience.

  “Very well,” Wagner said. “I will explain this as clearly as possible, although I do not pretend to understand. Let me begin by saying that I know the sounds of machines. Especially the smart ones, like the robbers and, of course, the printers.”

  “Keep going,” McClellan said.

  “Ah, but here is what I find difficult to express. The printers that were crafting your chapel were . . . abnormally expressive. I could hear it all through these tunnels, up and down for many meters. Some would call it noise, but as I said, I know the sounds of machines.”

  McClellan and Clarke were quiet, their eyes fixed on the old builder.

  “At first I thought nothing of it. I was here, where we stand, with one of my operators, discussing the never-ending repairs of a pumping chamber just a few meters away. This was not quite a month ago, when the printers were working on your chapel—although no one was kind enough to tell me exactly when the chapel was being built and when it would be tied into my sewers. But I am accustomed to being consulted last.”

  McClellan kept his rigid stare. Wagner saw it and continued.

  “Quite simply, the house printers were making sounds that were unfamiliar to me. At least the lead printer was. It sounded, well, how can I say it? It sounded . . . angry. And bossy. I know that seems odd, but that’s how I would describe it.”

  “I’ve heard crazier,” McClellan said. “Especially from nonprogrammers. Clarke? What do you think? They teach you that in programming basics?”

  “Yes,” Clarke said, turning to Wagner. “Printers use physical vibratory communications as a backup, which makes for something like audio in an atmospheric environment. The new generations still have it, and they can make a lot of noise. It’s not meant for humans, but the printers understand each other if they need to, especially when their emitters are sending out all kinds of interference.”

  “Ah, see?” Wagner said. “Then I did hear communications.”

  “What do you suppose it meant?” McClellan asked the builder.

  “How should I know? Perhaps you should ask the printer. If you can find it. And if you can, these doors are your access. And I will help you get in. To access these bulkheads one needs a builder’s key, which, of course, I have.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Clarke said. “But we’ll need more than the key to these doors. We’ll need a programmer’s key and coupler to access a printer. And McClellan doe
sn’t have either of his anymore.” Clarke paused, thinking things through as he looked down to a small puddle of algae at his feet. “I suppose I could get Tanglao’s key out of the evidence hold, but we’d still need his coupler.”

  “There’s another option,” McClellan said. “You have your own key and coupler.”

  “Yes, but they’re for a programmer in training. I can’t promise what kind of access I’d get.”

  “They’ll work,” McClellan said. “If you can get in with me coupled to you then between the two of us we can get inside any printer—maybe not full access, but enough to learn more than we know.”

  If McClellan had trusted Wagner more, he would have added that accessing the house printer would help him train for the real prize: the clamshell from outside Red Delta. The programmer and the programmer in training stood together, each assessing his next move, each facing the dark bulkhead doors, as if the silence would offer some assurances of what lay beyond.

  McClellan looked away and breathed deeply. He allowed himself a quick review of the events of the day, and of the week, and he found himself back in his days in the Marine Corps—days of training and fighting and combat programming, and Raleigh.

  “Do not look so gloomy, gentlemen,” Wagner said. “I will help you find this printer of yours, myself and my associates. We in this trade have unprecedented access throughout New Athens. McClellan, know that I and others wish to see Tucker exonerated, and we wish to know what happened this morning in Heraclea—to say nothing of our disgust with the leaders of the Builders Guild, who lead us to horrors with this man Draeger.”

  McClellan said a brief prayer that the honesty in Wagner’s voice was sincere.

  Wagner took a few steps backward to return to the stairwell. “There is something else you should see,” he said. “Something that your words this morning during the funeral have had me thinking about. May I ask how you are with heights?”

  “Love ’em,” McClellan said. “They help with the big picture.”

  Wagner led them back up the stairwell and past the main levels that would take them to the boulevard. They continued up between the placid waters of primary clarification and the frothing aeration basins. The stairwell became an open structure, rising over the catwalks and control rooms that oversaw the tanks and the machinery below. Still upward they went, following large pipes that ran vertically alongside the stairs. They came to the arched ceiling and its web of walkways and piping and illuminating rows of orange safety lights.

  The stairwell ended above the ceiling at a landing in a small white control room. Desks on two sides held a small laboratory with vials of chemicals and sample bottles. Above a row of schematic displays, two windows overlooked pine trees lit by the sunlight of early evening.

  “You spoke this morning of the beauty of the inner core,” Wagner said. “You said beauty helps us understand truth. Have you ever seen the core, McClellan? Not merely from the Wheel but also from inside the core itself? You should. Come.”

  The door of the control room slid open. Wagner held back Clarke to let McClellan go first.

  The air was comfortable and warm—moist, but not like the tunnels. It smelled of pine and honeyed grass. McClellan thought of Iowa and the native prairie that he had helped his uncle and aunt replant. He smiled at the memory and dug his black shoes into the grass.

  The Sun Crane was dimming. The twilight was soft, but still bright enough to see the landscape of the inner core—the farms and the fields and the fair-weather clouds and the twelve cities lighting up in preparation for night.

  He walked a few meters from the shed to get a better view. Before him the land tumbled gently to a wide valley that held a long, narrow lake, and then rose again and eventually followed the immense cylindrical shape of New Athens. The fields and farms and cities beyond the valley gradually arced up, and then overhead, looking down from the opposite side of the waning light of the Sun Crane, and then around again, now lowering and curving steadily back to the skylighting and towers of Troas City, and over to the other side of the hill that held the shed that housed the control room out of which they had come.

  McClellan thought of the people in the cities and in the little farming villages—the engineers, the builders, and everyone else in their brightly lit homes and restaurants and streetcars in this closed-in world. He looked overhead to Heraclea, where this morning Sasaki and Walker worked alongside each other until some trouble arose. Behind him, in the City of Philippi, was the isolated Max Tucker. He wondered about the young builder and what he was thinking as evening came—as a day ended that had brought the first news of its kind to this world, the kind that historians will say changed everything, for on Thursday, March 4, 2088, New Athens itself experienced murder, and no day would ever come without wondering if such an act would happen again.

  Water surged from the ground near the shed, and McClellan watched it swirl and play as it washed along a wide and rocky streambed. The water was clean, and it dove and splashed down the bank, eventually coming to the long lake below that was surrounded by waving mounds of grasses, iris, and daisies in the breezy twilight.

  The white-haired builder smiled at the water. “This is where my work ends,” he said, motioning to the creek and the lake. “From there it is the job of the water supply staff to provide drinking water to the people of this region of New Athens. But my crew and I must first make it clean after its use, and then return it to its natural home. We are very good at what we do.”

  “No arguments here,” McClellan said, breathing in the air. “This is beautiful. Thank you, Ira.”

  “It is my pleasure, John McClellan,” Wagner said, his hair ruffling.

  Flashes to their right brought McClellan’s attention to the sidewall and to the great turning Wheel that presided over the inner core. Its outer warning lights were blinking in the humid air, quicker, until they became a steady glow. It seemed unlikely that at this distance he’d feel the slight vibration as the Wheel locked its cabin doors. From the core, it would look like the Wheel would be slowing as it matched the hull’s rotation. From the perspective of the people in the Wheel, it would be the core that spun and slowed to a stop. But no matter the perspective, the Wheel was bringing the passengers from that last Aesir transport—the last to arrive from Earth, now that all shipping traffic had been canceled.

  Wagner came alongside the priest. “You are prepared for Draeger?”

  “I’ve dealt with his kind before,” McClellan said.

  “But are you afraid?”

  “I don’t lose my nerve, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Ah, the confidence of a warrior. We do need that quality among us.”

  McClellan watched the Wheel slowing, its cabins moving slowly outward—or up or down, depending on where they were along the Wheel.

  “This isn’t just about me,” he said. “Yes, I’m confident in my own abilities. But I’m also confident in Commissioner Zhèng, and Clarke and Okayo, and the rest. And in Tucker, and in Molly Rose. And even in you, Ira.”

  Wagner laughed. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. And all the builders like you who won’t let Draeger get a foothold in the new world, or at least not very easily.”

  “And what if I support the Sals and am just lying?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time that I was duped. But you’re not lying.”

  Wagner said nothing, but he took a deep breath and seemed to relax.

  McClellan looked over to Clarke, motioned to the shed, and said, “Okay, let’s get back down. It’s beautiful up here, and peaceful, but you and I better brief Zhèng. And Wagner, you need to get busy, too. You need to find us that printer.”

  MCCLELLAN BROUGHT HIS BREVIARY into the chapel to pray the prayers of the night. The air still held the sweet scent of the incense used that morning at Tanglao’s funeral—which seemed so long ago. It was dark, save for what little light was given off by the dim architectural lighting that shone on Michelangelo’s frescoes, the
tabernacle, and the crucifix—enough brightness for navigation but little else.

  He passed the tabernacle, genuflected, and sat in the front pew. All that moved was the flickering candle of the sanctuary lamp in its holder of red glass.

  He looked over at the coffin, still on its stand near the far corner, waiting for its transfer back to the morgue whenever Zhèng could supply the staff. With the Security Guild dedicated to two murder investigations and station safety, Father Tanglao’s casket, holding his embalmed body, would stay in the chapel for the time being.

  McClellan had showered after his trip to the water reclamation systems, and then the long night briefing with Zhèng. Barefoot and comfortable in sweatpants and his Marine Corps T-shirt, he was looking forward to the quiet—to saying his night prayers, thinking everything through, and getting some sleep.

  The noise of agents changing shifts came from the foyer behind him—doors closing and greetings, footsteps and best wishes—but that soon lessened, leaving only the gentle trickle of the baptismal font.

  Then, from behind him, came another set of footsteps. Lighter ones. After a pause, Okayo’s soft voice echoed across the chapel. She was calling for McClellan. He turned and saw her in the light of the main entrance. She was wearing her flight suit, which accentuated both her slightness and her strength.

  “Father McClellan, are you here? May I speak with you?”

  McClellan quickly gave his assent, and they met midway up the main aisle, where the crucified St. Peter stares out from one fresco and the dazed St. Paul from the other.

  “I was hoping I’d see you before you left,” McClellan said. “Zhèng told us that you sped up the mission timing. I was glad he authorized that. It’s looking like Tanglao’s coupler isn’t on Red Delta.”

  “That would be too easy,” Okayo said.

  “So you know where to look?”

  “Generally, yes. There are many variables, many possibilities. But the laws of nature are fixed, so we have that going for us.”